Other writing: January 2025

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

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Blog Question Challenge 2025

Chris O’Donnell didn’t tag me in his post on this topic, but I liked the idea and I want to write more in general, so I figured I’d do it anyway.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

Let’s ask 2008 Ben:

I’ve started this blog as a platform to discuss the more technical side of my life. Let’s face it: the people who read my Live Journal aren’t very likely to care about Linux discoveries and web design. People who care about Linux and web design aren’t very likely to care about my personal life. Now I have an outlet for both.

So that explains the start of this particular blog, now nearly 17 years ago. But clearly I was already posting on Live Journal at that point. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and blogging offered an opportunity to do that in a way that I could inflict share my thoughts with others.

What platform are you using to manage your blog, and why do you use it?

I use WordPress because my hosting provider at the time offered a one-click install. I’ve stayed with it because it works well enough for my purposes and I don’t feel like going through the effort to migrate to something else.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I used Live Journal in the aughts. Some of my early Facebook statuses were somewhat blog-like. (And of course, there are “microblog” platforms like Twitter, App.net, Mastodon, and Bluesky.) I’ve also used Webflow and Hugo for work blogs.

How do you write your posts?

Typically I sit down in WordPress, bang out some words, and then I’m done. Occasionally I’ll plan ahead and write an outline or something. Mostly, though, it’s words-until-I-run-out.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

When I have the least amount of time to actually do it? A lot of my posts are reactive, so the motivation comes when I have a strong opinion to share about something. I do have a huge backlog of other ideas, so sometimes I’ll find myself with a bit of time and I’ll get some writing done then if I can.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

I typically schedule posts to publish in the morning. Usually I aim for a Monday or Friday since I publish Duck Alignment Academy posts on Wednesday and I want to not overwhelm people. Since I’ll sometimes write several posts in a burst, I want to keep them well-spaced. But typically, once I’ve scheduled the post, I don’t come back to it. It’s in the CMS, so it’s out of my mind.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I’ve published just over a thousand posts here. That’s a lot. I don’t remember most of them. But there are a few posts that have helped total strangers solve problems, and I love when that happens. Since I enabled Jetpack stats in 2015, the top posts are:

As you can see, most of those were of the “I solved a problem I had and here’s how I did it.” They didn’t make the top posts, but I’m also particularly proud of “When your HP PSC 1200 all-in-one won’t print” and “Building GEMPAK on Fedora” in that vein.

Any future plans for the blog?

Nothing huge. I want to keep writing — and maybe even write some more — as I grow weary of major social media sites being shitty. If Matt Mullenweg’s temper tantrum causes long term sustainability problems for WordPress, I’ll look at switching to another platform (but I really don’t want to do that).

Who will participate next?

I’m not going to tag anyone. Do this if you want. Or not. But if you do, please let me know!

FunnelFiasco: now on Bluesky

TL;DR: You can now follow @funnelfiasco.bsky.social on Bluesky.

This morning, the admins of Hachyderm defederated from Threads. This was a result of recent changes that Threads parent Meta made to moderation policies. It’s now totally cool with Mark Zuckerberg if you say someone’s gender or sexual identity, for example, is a mental illness. The Hachyderm admins rightfully said “fuck that noise” and, since protecting Hachyderm users from this garbage would greatly increase the moderation load, they took the only other option available: defederation.

I understand and support this decision, but it put me in kind of a bind. My social network on Mastodon is way smaller than what it had been on Twitter. This isn’t just ego starvation, but it means that people I enjoyed interacting with are beyond my reach. Some of them started using Threads, but now I’m cut off from them again. Bluesky seems to have really caught on with both my tech- and normal-people circles lately, so I’ve finally gotten around to creating an account there: @funnelfiasco.bsky.social.

I’ve started following some people haphazardly, mostly from people I have seen post elsewhere about being on Bluesky and also the people followed by I’ve started following. So the list is still small, but hopefully I’ll be able to build it up quickly. I don’t know yet how I’ll route my posts to either Mastodon or Bluesky. I’m opposed to the idea of crossposting all the things, so I won’t do that. I’ll probably settle into some kind of pattern eventually. I have time to figure this out.

On a related note, I’m trying to reduce my use of Meta properties in general, although the network effect will probably keep me on Facebook for a long time. But in order to promote the web I want to see, I’m going to try to start writing here more. Wish me luck!

New Forecast Discussion Hall of Fame entry

Last week, WYMT meteorologist and fellow 812 native Erik Dean shared a great forecast discussion from the Riverton, Wyoming office. As Erik said “come for the forecast, leave hungry!” I’m hungry after reading it and I just ate lunch an hour ago. It’s now the newest entry in the world-famous Funnel Fiasco Forecast Discussion Hall of Fame.

When I got to the end, I said “of course it’s Chris Hattings.” Chris has several entries already, so it’s good to see he hasn’t lost his touch.

Other writing: December 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

DevOps Digest

Kusari

GUAC

Other writing: November 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

GUAC

Other writing: September 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Security Boulevard

Duck Alignment Academy

GUAC

Kusari

Other writing: August 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

  • “Helping” versus being helpful — Every situation is different, so ask “would it be helpful if I _?” When you get agreement on your help, your work will be helpful.
  • Volunteers can’t be blockers — Figure out the truly critical processes and accept that non-critical ones may get missed. Give critical processes to paid contributors.
  • Companies: make sustainable contributions — We learned over the past year or two that corporate participation in an open source project is not guaranteed. The contributions a company makes need to be sustainable long after the company stops participating.
  • Strategic use of bikeshedding — Painting a bike shed can be an excellent icebreaker when getting a group to review a document draft.

GUAC

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Other writing: July 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

Kusari

GUAC

Other writing: June 2024

What have I been writing when I haven’t been writing here?

Duck Alignment Academy

Kusari