Blogging: Weekly Summary (January 19-25, 2026)

There was a neat mix of threads on blogging this week. Some posts felt like people tinkering in the garage, fixing a stubborn radio. Others felt like someone holding a yard sale of ideas, pulling out old pieces that still work and selling them cheap. I would describe them as curious, a bit stubborn, and quietly hopeful. To me, it feels like the blog world is reminding itself who it is — and in doing so, poking at the edges of what publishing might look like next.

Linking, the indieweb, and the small renaissance of RSS

A few posts this week keep circling back to the same idea: links and feeds still matter. Nicolas Magand collected a stack of links and reflections that nudges at algorithms and conformity. He points to a new blog design, muses about streaming services, and takes a swipe at how social media flattens meaningful publishing. It's the kind of post that makes you want to click everything and get lost for an afternoon.

That impulse to click and follow is taken a step further by John Lampard with his post on making RSS easy again. He talks about a one-click subscription tool called Blogs are Back. To me, it feels like getting a key to a neighborhood where the shops still let you window-shop without a login. It’s handy, and I’d say it comes at the right time — because nostalgia alone won’t keep blogs alive, but removing friction might.

Related: Micah R Ledbetter started a Links section on his site and wrote about linkblogging. He treats linkblogs like a neighborhood bulletin board. That image stuck: people pinning up notes, recommending articles, passing on a find. The post hints at how important small acts of pointing-to-other-work are. It’s the opposite of screaming for attention. It’s the gentle tap on the shoulder that says, hey, look at this.

These posts hang together. They argue, quietly, that discovery on the web still needs human hands. It’s not flashy. It’s more like poring over a stack of postcards from a friend who knows your taste.

Excavating Blogger and the indieweb's scope

This day's portion wrote an interesting piece called Excavating Blogger. The gist: the indieweb idea should be wider. Not just personal miscellany. Bring in journalists, academics, anyone who writes long-form or useful stuff. The post urges folks to dig into platforms that seem dead or uncool — like Blogger — and find gems there.

I’d say this is a valuable nudge. It’s like telling people not to toss out the family photo album because the cover is scuffed. Sometimes the best writing is imperfectly archived. The piece pushes on linking and subscribing as basic civic skills of the web. That strand echoes what Lampard and Micah are doing — rebuilding discovery from small acts, not from a single gatekeeper.

Workflows and the small joys of tooling

A lot of these posts are practical. Not just philosophy. Folks are tinkering with workflows and posting notes about how they actually get things done.

Chris Wiegman published a neat walkthrough on automating draft post creation in Hugo. He shares scripts, VS Code tasks, GitHub Actions — the usual suspects for someone who wants their tooling to be invisible. It’s the kind of write-up that saves time for anyone who has cursed at the default behavior of a static site generator. To me, it reads like a mechanic showing you a trick to make your car door close without jiggling it three times.

On the same theme, Jack Baty talks about blogging with org-mode and ox-hugo, and why he switched back to writing in Markdown. It’s small, but it matters. These posts are less about flashy features and more about comfort and habit. They’re essentially saying: find a workflow that reduces the friction between thought and publish.

rz01.org took a different route: abandoning Hugo for hand-written HTML. That sounded a little extreme at first, but the post is honest about why. Dark mode, a horizontal menu, Server Side Includes for easier updates — it’s all part of a desire to own the experience at a granular level. I’d say it feels like someone deciding to grow their own vegetables. It takes effort, but you control what goes into the soil.

There’s a pattern here. Writers are rediscovering the delight of small tools and handcrafted workflows. Like an old woodworker choosing chisels again, these folks are choosing control and clarity over convenience.

Stream layouts, short notes, and the urge to post more often

A few bloggers are experimenting with how they present content. I am BARRY HESS muses about moving from a list-of-posts site to a stream layout. He wants to write shorter, untitled posts and let the blog feel more like a river. To me, that’s appealing. It’s like switching from formal dinner to a potluck — less fuss, more variety.

Then there’s Manu, who writes about Ryan, a long-time web developer and genealogist, and the joys of keeping things simple. Ryan’s been blogging since 1994. That’s a kind of endurance. His approach is low-ceremony: write about what matters, don’t over-engineer things. This ties to Barry’s notion. Shorter posts, simpler interfaces, less pressure to make every piece a novel.

You can almost hear them saying the same thing in different accents: stop polishing every sentence until it disappears. Post more. Share more. The stream layout is an invitation to that habit.

Old tech and small communities

Chris Aldrich wrote about receiving an Olympia Monica electric typewriter and recommended ribbons. It’s charming. He mentions the typosphere, a small corner of people who care about typewriters. Reading it felt like a detour through an antique shop, stopping to admire a machine that still makes a satisfying clack.

There’s a subtle argument in such posts. Some people are reintroducing tactile things into a digital life. Typewriters, handcrafted HTML, locally run feeds. These are small rebellions against the seamlessness of modern platforms. They’re less about nostalgia and more about the pleasure of doing a thing the old-fashioned way.

Money, side hustles, and the economics of small sites

Joseph Hendrix put up a 2025 side income report. It’s detailed and very practical. He lists income streams: credit card rewards, print-on-demand, blogging, class action settlements, and more. The total — over thirty-six thousand dollars — is a reminder that small online projects can add up.

I’d say his post reads like a kitchen-table accounting session. It’s granular, sometimes mundane, but it shows that blogging can mix with other small ventures to make a real dent in the ledger. For people who think blogs are purely hobby, this is a good wake-up. You don’t need venture capital to make online work useful to you. You need patience and a few good choices.

Contributors, collaboration, and the headache of other people

John Lampard also wrote about the headaches of contributor-dependent sites. He used his OnVoiceOver project as an example. Long-form projects that depend on others can stall because people are late, change their minds, or disappear. Lampard’s experience is candid: being dependent on contributors is a different kind of work, and sometimes the best move is to rely on yourself.

It’s a down-to-earth take. He’s not blaming anyone. He’s saying the truth: coordinating humans is its own job. That resonates with the other human-centered posts this week — the ones that are less about tech and more about patience, follow-up emails, and the smell of stale coffee in a shared workspace.

Creative struggle, comparison, and stepping back

A couple of pieces get personal in a heavy way. Tracy Durnell writes about the hard work of writing a novel and the draining loops of self-doubt. It’s raw. She wonders whether to keep pushing or to step back. It reads like someone holding a book up to the light and considering whether the spine will ever repair.

That worry connects to chronosaur.us who posted twice this week. First, a gentle note about writing, photography, and an upcoming Lunar New Year. Later, a short essay called comparison is the thief of joy. The second one is blunt: comparing your site to others steals energy. You could get lost in other people’s shine and forget why you started. The two pieces together feel like a small therapy session for creative folks: stop comparing, and maybe give yourself permission to slow down.

Then there’s andrei.xyz with Quickie: Don’t Let The Monkeys Bully You Around. He talks about online spaces that have become toxic or overly policed. He pines for a vanished cat site and ultimately says: walk away from the noise. It’s simple advice, and it lands hard. These posts share a theme: creative work is fragile. It needs shelter — sometimes literal, sometimes a simple rule like, don’t look at the comments.

AI, art, and the inevitable comparisons

Jenneral HQ wrote Five Theses on AI Art, and it felt like a calm, slightly skeptical map. The post compares AI art’s early days to the early days of cinema. There’s a pattern: new tools upset old habits, people panic, but then things settle and new forms appear.

I would describe the post as hopeful and practical. It doesn’t gaslight the fears about displacement. Instead it suggests that AI might democratize certain practices while pushing traditional mediums to innovate. To me, it feels like watching a small town get a new bakery. People grumble at first, but they also get croissants they couldn’t buy before.

There was an echo of this in Nicolas Magand where a critique of AI chatbot responses made the rounds in his link blend. The energy this week seems to be: don’t panic, learn the tool, and remember that creativity is stubborn.

Design, look-and-feel, and the pleasure of small choices

Design came up more than once. Nicolas Magand points out a new blog design by Robin Rendle. rz01.org described switching to custom HTML and adding dark mode. These are small things, but they matter. A good design is like a clean kitchen counter. It makes the rest of the work easier.

There’s also a tension: does a new look actually change what you write? Not necessarily. But a small redesign can be like a haircut after a long winter. You feel different and you sometimes act differently.

Nostalgia, archival impulse, and the thrift-store aesthetic

Several posts this week had a faint nostalgia thread. This day's portion asked us to rummage through Blogger and find treasures. Chris Aldrich loved a typewriter. Manu celebrated long, steady blogging. It’s not wistful in a cloying way. It’s more like someone sifting through crates at a flea market and pulling out a vinyl that still plays.

There’s a useful point in that. Old platforms and old habits hold value that slick new platforms sometimes discard. People are starting to look back not to live there, but to borrow tools and ideas.

A scattershot of practical posts worth bookmarking

If you want shortcuts or tools, a few posts this week are small time-savers:

• Chris Wiegman on automating drafts in Hugo. He gives scripts and steps. If you use Hugo, this is the kind of post you’ll copy and tweak.
• Jack Baty on org-mode and Markdown transitions. Good for Emacs users who are deciding how much to automate.
• Nicolas Magand for a curated set of links. His post is a rabbit hole, in a good way.
• Joseph Hendrix for number people. His spreadsheet mind is oddly comforting.

These are quick wins. Bookmark them like a recipe card.

Recurring themes and small disagreements

A few ideas kept popping up:

• Control vs convenience. A lot of writers are choosing control again. Hand-coded HTML, org-mode, typewriters. It’s less shiny but more durable.
• Discovery matters. Linkblogs, RSS, and one-click subscriptions keep coming back because the discovery problem hasn’t gone away.
• People matter. The frustration with contributor projects, the solace of small communities like the typosphere, the pain of public criticism — these are all about humans, not software.

There’s mild disagreement on scale. Some writers make a living or near-living from side income and think scaling up a little is worthwhile. Others prefer a tiny garden. Both positions have merit. It’s like arguing whether to keep a backyard plot or a rooftop herb box. You get different yields and different headaches.

Little digressions worth a second look

• Lunar New Year shows up unexpectedly in chronosaur.us notes. It’s a small, human detail that makes the writing feel lived-in. These cultural anchors are helpful. They remind you that blogging is tied to time and rituals.
• The cat site that andrei.xyz misses is a reminder: small, personal corners of the web are easy to lose. That loss hurts.

These are small detours, but they connect back to the main story: blogs are personal, and that personalness is worth protecting.

If you want to follow up, the posts this week reward clicking. They’re practical where you want them to be and personal where you need them to be. Read the workflow posts if you want to save time. Read the essays if you need company. Read the income report if you want to argue about spreadsheets at Thanksgiving.

There’s a quiet energy in these pieces. Folks are fixing things, trying new formats, and reminding each other that discovery and small communities matter. I’d say the web feels less like a shiny mall and more like a market where people shout about their wares and one person hands you a free sample. It’s imperfect. It’s real. It’s worth poking around.

If any of these notes nag at you, go read the original posts. There’s more detail — the scripts, the menus, the personal accounts — that I left as hints. Think of this as a map with a few marked trails. The rest is a walk.