Hello World!
Or, for a more regional greeting: G’day.1
I’ve been thinking of starting a blog for a while now. I love to write, and I’ve kept a digital journal for over 13 years, but I’ve never really published any long-form writing on the open web. Beyond some long-winded reddit comments and ancient Facebook posts, anyway.
There are a few reasons why I’ve decided to start this blog now. Lately, I’ve been inspired by Kagi’s Small Web initiative, which has surfaced many pieces of high-quality writing over the past few months. I’ve set it as my home page in Safari, and if you’d like to be exposed to fantastic independent writing on a daily basis, I recommend you do the same. I’ve also been a reader of Daring Fireball for many years. John Gruber’s insightful takes on all things Apple have made me think more deeply about software development, journalism, and the tech industry at large. I tend to reflect a lot on the products and services that I use, and I’d like this site to be a place where I can express some of those thoughts. I recently returned from an overseas holiday, during which I had the time to examine some of these things through a critical lens. For example: in-flight Wi-Fi, eSIMs, flight tracking apps, and AirPods. Some of the first pieces of writing I have planned for this blog will be reviews of these things. With that said, I’m not trying to sell you anything — I will never include advertisements, referral links, or discount codes. I just find them interesting to discuss within the wider context of their respective product categories. Lastly, having reread some of my years-old journal entries … I’m astounded by how well I used to write! Even when I knew that the only person who would ever read those words would be me, when I could’ve given myself full permission to be as lazy as possible. I would like to maintain that level of prose going forward, and this blog will help me achieve that goal.
I also want a place online that is free from the reaches of big tech, one that represents the best of the web and its underlying technologies. To that end, I’m starting this website on Bear. It seems like the service with the features I’m looking for — no social networks, no tracking, no BS. You can even access it with JavaScript disabled, which is a topic for a future post.
I’ll also be linking to interesting things I find online, be they news articles, other blog posts, aeromedical reports, or even just a good YouTube video. Stuff that doesn’t require a ton of exposition, but is still worth sharing. Speaking of which, I’ve needed a place online to talk about Bytes, my first iOS app. Bytes is a free data usage monitor, one that was built with great design and privacy in mind. It has been downloaded over 34,000 times, for which I am eternally grateful. It is also very old, and in need of an update. The good news is that I’m already working on that update. All of the logic has been rewritten in Swift, and I’m currently getting to grips with SwiftUI. The bad news is that these things take time, and I don’t have as much spare time as I did 12 years ago. Still, an update will eventually be released, and I look forward to writing all about it right here.
Finally, given the current state of technology, it feels appropriate to include this statement: my words are entirely my own, and they will never be written by generative AI. Neither will my em dashes.
I suppose April Fools’ Day is as good as any to start this blog.