Blogging: Weekly Summary (January 26 - February 01, 2026)

There was a funny little hum in the blogosphere this week. Feels like people are doing the same dance again — moving platforms, fiddling with workflows, reminding each other why long-form still matters — but each writer brings their own messy, human version of it. I would describe them as a mix of toolbox notes, gratitude journals, and a whisper campaign for RSS. To me, it feels like catching up with neighbors over a fence: you hear the same news, but everyone says it in their own accent and with slightly different details.

The platform shuffle: moving houses and fixing leaky roofs

A lot of the posts this week are about where to live online. Not glamorous stuff, mostly plumbing. Chris Wiegman writes about switching to Hugo and calls it “the right move.” Short sentence, solid point. He likes the speed and the privacy. He says it made writing fun again. That’s the kind of thing that sounds small but matters — like swapping a noisy kettle for a quiet one and suddenly tea is enjoyable.

Then there’s Software for Days moving off Medium to a self-managed site. The tone is different — more about control than speed. Medium, in their telling, was useful until it wasn’t. So they rebuilt, borrowing design bits they liked and stitching them together. I’d say this is the recurring theme: people want control, but control costs time. Like building your own bookshelf instead of buying one; it takes longer, but the shelves fit the room.

Across the same week, bookofjoe writes about a move to Blogger after Typepad closed. This one reads weary and practical. Format glitches, extra editing, adjusting to new quirks. You can almost hear the shrug: adapt, or lose the archive. The practical lesson is plain — legacy content pushes people into migration even if they don’t want to.

And then Leon Mika offers a smaller, elegant tweak: two timestamps. One for when you write, one for when the thing happened. It’s the sort of detail that makes a blog feel like an honest diary, not a news ticker. Feels like adding a handwritten date to a photograph. Small, but it helps memory.

Tooling and workflows: the private joy of making writing easier

Several folks dove into workflow improvements like they were tuning a beloved old truck. Terracrypt is tinkering in two related posts: one making tags actually visible and adding tag RSS feeds, and another hacking Emacs org-capture templates to speed up publishing. Visible tags — that’s a nice, tangible upgrade. It’s like putting labels on jars; suddenly things are findable.

And then there’s Hugo talk again; Chris’s happiness with his static site generator resonates with Terracrypt and the Emacs crowd. The shared mood: fewer surprises, more reproducible builds, less server drama. The emotional payoff is clear — less fiddling, more writing.

On the more idiosyncratic side, micro maique had a small renaissance with the Tiny Theme in Drafts. They were frustrated, patched something, and then the joy came back. It’s worth noting how often a tiny UX change can flip the whole day. That reminds me of fixing a garden hose nozzle; the patch is tiny but then water flows just right.

Becky pops up twice with workflow pieces: one on suddenly massive traffic (more about that below), and one describing her daily blogging routine. Her notes feel lived-in: spontaneity, favorite apps, and the familiar problem of titles and tags. It reads like someone mapping a route they take every morning. The recurring note is comfort — people are building setups that let them write with less friction.

Friction vs. reach — the tug-of-war

Colin Devroe’s piece, “More friction, less reach,” frames a debate that keeps returning: where do you want your words? He lays out the obvious trade-off — social networks give reach, personal sites give ownership. The interesting part is how he talks about friction as a feature, not a bug. Friction stops the impulse posts that later feel embarrassing. But, he notes, it also limits conversation. So it’s not a clean choice. I’d describe it as choosing between a busy market and a quiet living room. Both have value.

This idea appears again in the Bear community tension that Becky touches on in “Just Breathe and Let It Go.” People on quiet blogging platforms sometimes discover that even small communities can get loud and anxious. The social pressure is real, even when the audience is tiny. It’s a reminder that platform choice alone can’t solve people problems.

Resurgence of blogs and the RSS evangelists

Mike McBride writes the simplest, most persuasive appeal for going back to RSS and blogs: follow people you like without algorithmic noise. He’s enthusiastic about Feedly Pro and treats it like a morning radio dial you control. There’s a nostalgia to it, but also practical sense — RSS is the lawn where blogs can breathe.

There’s a similar vibe in a few other posts that aren’t explicitly about RSS. When people talk about making tags visible, or adding readable timestamps, or curating a corner of the internet, they are quietly rebuilding the infrastructure that RSS needs to sing. It’s like preparing soil before planting. You won’t see the sprouts immediately, but they’ll grow better.

Traffic spikes and the old Hacker News magic

Becky’s “Well That Was Crazy!” is the week’s popcorn. A post about Apple software caught fire on Hacker News and sent traffic into orbit. She even mentions being reminded of a 2007 spike — the internet hasn’t lost that particular ability to surprise. Same author also mentions a post gaining traction in her “Friday Five.” These moments feel theatrical: one link, one referrer, and your quiet home becomes a stadium.

There’s good and bad. The good is attention. The bad is how quickly everything else stops working when the crowd arrives: bandwidth, comments, your ability to respond. Becky’s experience is practical theatre. If you’re considering a big open technical rant, plan for the audience — and maybe keep a panic list handy.

Personal pacing: slow returns, daily projects, and small creative rhythms

Some posts are quieter, more domestic. Lee Peterson’s “Slowly blogging again” reads like a slow exhale after being away. He’s returning because blogging still helps him think. That’s an important theme: blogs as practice, not just performance.

Dom Corriveau writes a day-note that mixes family stuff, AI experiments, and weather. It’s the sort of slice-of-life entry that makes a blog feel like your kitchen table. Chuck Grimmett describes January as snow and cozy movies and blogging daily. Those posts are small pacesetters. They suggest a quiet discipline: show up. Even if it’s short, it builds a habit.

And CogDogBlog returning to daily photography adds another layer — the blog-as-archive idea. Photo-a-day projects produce rhythm and a visible record. That’s the same urge that makes someone keep a blog for 15 years, which Nolan Lawson talks about.

Longevity, heirs, and legacy

Nolan Lawson’s “15 years of blogging” and Kev Quirk’s “Will They Inherit Our Blogs?” are in conversation without naming each other. Nolan admits that the blog changed with him, and that writing often mattered more than chasing readers. Kev wonders about handing the blog down to his sons. It’s a tender idea: a blog as family heirloom, like a shoebox of letters.

This week’s posts keep circling back to the same worry: what happens to your words when you die or lose access to a platform? Some go the practical route — migrate to Blogger, use static site generators, add RSS feeds — others think about storytelling for descendants. Both are ways to keep the narrative alive.

Community, critique, and the etiquette of small platforms

Becky’s “Just Breathe and Let It Go” and vérnique’s note on curating their corner of the internet both touch on the social side of blogging. The mood isn’t hostile, but it’s watchful. People want kindness and space. They also want discovery without algorithmic screaming.

There’s also a productive friction: the open thread from Scott Alexander. It’s more of a community hub. It mentions the ACX community, a blogging residency called Inkhaven, and even a giveaway for far-UVC lamps. That post reads like a town bulletin — events, opportunities, and a bit of fun. These open threads matter because they let neighbors share tools and notices. They’re the difference between strangers and a neighborhood.

Small UX details that matter: tags, themes, embeds

A handful of posts focus on tiny technicalities that make blogs feel better to use. Victor Kropp talks about replacing Twitter embeds with archived pre-rendered tweets to keep old posts working. That’s a slow, careful job but it pays off when your old posts still make sense. It’s like saving old receipts in an envelope instead of throwing them in a drawer.

Terracrypt making tags visible, and planning human-readable tag pages, is another detail with outsized returns. People can follow themes, and those tags act like breadcrumbs. Similarly, Tiny Theme fixes, and tweaking Drafts, are small comforts that help writing flow. These are the tweaks that make a place feel like home.

Serious thoughts about medium and message

Terracrypt’s essay on “Meditating on the medium and the message” leans toward the philosophical. He argues that short-form social media fragments conversation and that long-form blogging gives context and patience back to discourse. This feels like the core, slightly idealistic heartbeat of the week: blogs let you expand context. They slow you down. They let you be boring in a good way — detailed and thoughtful.

That’s not the same as saying people should stop tweeting. It’s more like saying: don’t confuse a bumper sticker for an essay.

Small joys and daily routines: sketches, photos, family notes

There’s a cozy strand of content that’s almost purely personal. Vérnique’s morning sketches, CogDogBlog’s daily photos, and the family notes in Chuck Grimmett’s month update. These are the posts that make blogs pleasurable in an immediate, human way. You don’t open them to learn a new tool; you open them to share a moment.

It’s also attention to small things that adds up — the dog in a photo, the way daylight hits a kitchen counter, a child’s story from a school trip. Those moments are the reason many people keep a blog after the metrics stop mattering.

Tensions and contradictions: freedom vs. performance

Several posts touch that tug: freedom of owning your words versus the performative pressure of audiences. The Hacker News spike shows how quickly a quiet corner can become performance anxiety. The migrations show how control costs time. The slow returns show that the joy of writing can be personal and private. It’s a split personality week.

You see agreement about some things: static sites and RSS get a lot of love. Tags and timestamps are practical improvements that many people want. But there’s disagreement about how much to chase reach. Some lean into networks for conversation. Others prefer a quiet site with fewer readers but more control. It’s less a debate and more a series of tiny hedges people are planting around their houses.

Practical takeaways people kept circling back to

• Keep an archive. Victor Kropp’s tweet-preservation work and the widespread talk of migrations all point to this. Don’t assume platforms will last.
• Fix small UX issues. Tags, timestamps, themes, tiny drafts fixes — these matter more than you’d think. They are the low-hanging fruit for better reading and writing.
• Pick a workflow that doesn’t kill your desire to write. Emacs templates, Hugo builds, or Drafts themes — use what gets you to the page.
• Decide on friction intentionally. Want reach? Use platforms. Want control and calm? Self-host and give yourself fewer dings.

These aren’t radical. They’re practical, like weatherproofing your porch. Not glamorous, but you’ll be glad you did when a rainstorm hits.

Little quirks and detours worth a mention

• Terracrypt is basically running a side project in public: tags and org-capture templates. It’s nerdy and useful. If you like technical diaries, his week will read like a recipe.
• Hari mixes coding progress with powerlifting notes, which is such a nice human collage. It reminds you that blogs often hold many selves — coder, parent, lifter — at once.
• Leon Mika and those timestamp thoughts are a solid nudge for archivists and storytellers. A two-date system could make posts feel more honest.
• The ACX/Inkhaven notes in Scott Alexander’s open thread are the sort of community-building crumbs that sometimes turn into bigger things. Keep an eye if you like community projects.

If you’re curious to dive deeper, each post is short enough to scan in ten minutes, and they often hide a practical trick or a frank sentence you’ll remember.

I would describe this week as quietly productive. Not fireworks — more like people sweeping their porches and repainting a railing. It’s less about grand manifestos and more about doing the small stuff that makes blogging sustainable. That’s the tone across a dozen voices: a bit tired, a bit hopeful, and leaning toward privacy and craft.

There’s energy, too. The Hacker News moments remind you that anyone’s quiet corner can become a stage for a day. The migrations remind you that the web is still fragile. The daily projects remind you why blogs started in the first place: to keep a record, share a small creative habit, and talk to someone who will listen.

If you want to wander down any of these lanes, follow tags, try the tiny UX fixes, or read the longer meditations on the medium versus the message. There’s a good batch of practical how-tos and a handful of warm, human pieces. They pair well with coffee, or a late-night browser window, or shouting across the backyard to a neighbor who’s also moving a bookshelf.