I feel like I have isolated myself long enough. The truth is I've suffered from #depression for most of my young life and everything drains me like crazy and it's gotten worse since the pandemic. This isolation from the world both irl and online hasn't made any of that easier. It feels like everything has gotten tougher but I have also noticed that there are plenty of reasons to have hope and positivity in my life. So I'm going to start putting myself out there again at least online and try to at least make a habit of #writing and sharing my thoughts with the world. I hope I can follow through this time but as with everything in life, all we can do is try the best that we can.
Things Giving Me Hope
One of the biggest things for me in the world of #technology is the growth of #ActivityPub, especially since #Ghost is working on joining the #Fediverse. I've subscribed to their newsletter and I am very impressed with their commitment to bringing the old #web back with this exciting new protocol. The web has been such a shithole for so long so I'm feeling inspired to do what I can to help de-enshitfy things. I can code but I'm not very good at it yet so blogging here on Write.as and adding content to the Fediverse and spreading the word about it is the next best thing. I really want to see the web full of personal blogs and non-corporate stuff again. My stance is that it's okay to do commerce online but it shouldn't be all the web is about. People should be free to make content online without being forced to monetize it in some way (especially when people don't get jack shit from their labor).
I could mention more things but this is the crux of why I'm trying to blog again. I might talk about more things giving me hope in a future blog post.
Things I'm Changing
So in order to stop isolating myself I'm going to start posting to this blog more and link it to my new #Mastodon account @revkellyn@hachyderm.io where you can also follow me as well if you are so inclined. I'm doing a lot of #SelfHosting lately too so I might setup my own Ghost or #WriteFreely instance to stay independent later on down the road. I'm going to keep blogging here on #WriteAs due to the built in audience that it provides. I'm going to try doing the #POSSE (Post On your own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) method to try to share my thoughts on my existing social profiles as well. I might join Tumblr since they are hopefully adding ActivityPub support in the near future and I can publish from WriteAs as well.
That's just the beginning though. I have a few things I'm working on that I'm pretty excited about that some of you might be interested in in the near future so look forward to that. If you want to keep up with what I'm doing, feel free to subscribe to this blog by email, RSS, or the Fediverse. My handle is @revkellyn@write.as for this blog. Talk to you all again soon!
Hi! Okay I guess I fell off the wagon with blogging again. 🤣 Life of course always gets in the way of stuff we want to do but I think it's time I made time for blogging this year. Why? Because I've been noticing a major shift in the forces of the Internet as of late. With Elon Musk basically destroying Twitter, Mastodon and the Fediverse at large getting more popular, and the destruction of search as we know it at the hands of AI, I believe a battle is brewing between the corporate web and the smol and people centered web. The truth is Capitalism (as Capitalism does) has been wrecking the Internet ever since Web 2.0 became a thing. While it's true that Web 2.0 has brought a lot of helpful innovations such as Blogging, Podcasting (both powered by RSS of course), and even the Fediverse, the vast majority of the Internet (especially the web) has been corrupted by greedy Capitalists who want to use our unpaid labor (in the form of data and information) just to make a buck. We all want to make a living doing what we love to do and create value online but we can't do that if rich people keep using the value we create to make more wealth for themselves and not giving us anything in return. And lets face it, despite the fact that technology has given us was more amazing capabilities to do more of what we love, we haven't really been able to use much of any of it to our own benefit. And those services that do provide benefits for us can be totally ruined by idiots who have never did any of the work to build those services themselves on a whim. So I've decided to join the fray and commit myself to doing my part to resist what corporations are doing to the web and hopefully having fun and helping others in the process. To that end, I will dedicate this post to outlining my plans for publishing and sharing my knowledge to provide value and make a living for myself here on the open web.
A quick note before I start: This post is primarily a brain dump but I definitely want to start driving traffic to this blog for my real life friends to keep up with me as I go on this journey. Of course, anyone who finds what I am doing resonates with them are welcome to follow me as well.
📲 Social Media
To be honest, I never really liked social media. It always seemed rather antisocial in my opinion and it's not hard to see why. The idea of social media was always supposed to be that it was an easy way to get in touch with friends and loved ones, especially if they are far away. Sure, it still serves that purpose for a lot of people and I also think it's a great way for businesses to share information with customers and clients. Sadly though, it has mostly been an unending cesspool of endless targeted advertising and algorithmic fuckery boosting banal bullshit and hate speech to the point where nobody really wants to be on these platforms anymore but feel they have no choice. My aim is to change that by doing what I can to remove myself from these toxic cyberspaces and help the people I care about do the same. Here's a quick rundown of my plans for this space:
I currently have my own Mastodon server that is just for my friends using guidance from the awesome Darius Kasumi's RunYourOwn.Social. I already have a couple people on there besides myself and I plan to reach out to more friends to see if they want to join. I really want to have my own community there for my friends online and offline and I think this is a great first step in making my own life better and the lives of my friends better. Any friends reading this should get in touch with me if they want an account but you can follow me here: @kellyn@friendo.space
I don't want to live entirely in Mastodon though as there are other places in the Fediverse that is awesome too. Like this blog for instance, it is part of the Fediverse too thanks to the amazing Write.As software to run my blog. If you want to follow this blog on Mastodon or elsewhere in the Fediverse just copy this address and paste it in the search box for your client: @blog@kellyndelgado.com I actually want to write 2 blogs this one and a new blog about Chromebooks that I'm working on. I'll post about that later when I get my first posts up there. I might want to do a separate blog on Dudeism as well but I'll start blogging about it here first and see if it warrants it's own blog.
I'm going to be exploring other Fediverse software that I can use (hosted or self-hosted) to bring value to friends and strangers all over the Internet.
I want to eventually delete my Facebook account because I feel isolated from friends there and I want to reconnect with them in new ways such as Mastodon and this blog and even good old fashioned email.
I'm sure I'll want to do more in the future but already starting my own Mastodon server and 2 blogs is already a huge project for me. I'm just going to see what happens with this and go from there.
To be continued?
Wow, that was a lot just on one subject and I think I want to add more to this but I wanted to get something out there now and see if I can gain some momentum. Stay tuned for more posts and updates to come. Thanks for reading!
So in an effort to express myself more online and try to at least create a non-zero amount of content rather than just consuming everything online, I have decided to join the 100 Days To Offload Challenge. At the very least, I want to just try and get in the habit of writing more and I figure this is the best and most accountable way to do it. I haven't fully decided what topic I want to post on here going forward yet but if I can get 100 days of content out, I can think about that stuff later.
Here are some topics I'll probably cover:
Chromebooks
Linux
Information Technology in general
Video Games (Mainly Nintendo and Stadia stuff with some open source games thrown in)
Rants about tech, life, and weird stuff
Building an Ethical Business (Non-Capitalist, Single Person Businesses)
US Politics (will have content warning)
Post-Grunge and Classic Rock Music
Web Technologies
Social Media
And probably many others I haven't thought of yet.
I hope you enjoy these ramblings that I am throwing out into the ether. Feel free to contact me on the Fediverse @revkellyn@social.gattai.net with any comments you might have. Looking forward to writing more soon.
My day job is currently doing device support for teachers and students at two elementary school buildings in my local school district.
Currently I'm trying to sort out my life by blogging more, re-connecting with old friends, and working on building a second brain. More details to come once I get stuff figured out.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Lao Tzu
I'm just going to come out and say this from the outset, I am a mess. Does that make me special? Hardly. I think we all are complete messes. The idea that anyone isn't a mess is just a fantasy created by (ugh) Facebook et el. Being a mess, I find it difficult to get started on new projects. I mean, it's not impossible for me but it's certainly not easy. There are so many things I want to be able to do that I can't seem to get a jump start on for one reason or another. Maybe it's because there's no real way to make money from it (Damn you Capitalism! Look what you reduced me to!) or maybe I'm a perfectionist who wants everything to look as good as possible. Perhaps I think the words that come out of my mouth (or in this case the keyboard) are going to be stupid? I feel like I'm alone in this but I have to keep reminding myself that I couldn't possibly be the only one with these dilemmas. After all, it is quite logical that you dear reader might find these words resonating with you somehow.
The thing is, we as humans all have the need and desire to create and not just consume as the rich perverts would have you believe. It's perfectly fine to want to start a project and make something cool. Is it going to be cool to everyone? No. Is it going to make money? Probably not. Is it going change the world? Hell no. But will it be fulfilling? I would guess that if it involves something you're passionate about, it most likely will. We all need hobbies, something to make that gives value to someone else or maybe just you. In this day and age we have too many thoughts in our heads and we just have to let them out into the void. Maybe someone will listen or maybe not. But the important thing is that you are doing what humans do best. Share. Create. Express yourself. This is why I am making this personal blog. And even though it took me several months to finally getting around to writing a new post on it, at least I took a step in expressing myself for once. I keep a lot of things bottled up inside and that can create pressure which can lead to pain. The pain leads to sadness, anger, and resentment. It's not pretty. It doesn't have to be useful to everyone, it just needs to be you and it will resonate with someone.
So long story short, just start. Whether it's writing a blog like this one, starting a podcast, creating a video or a new business venture, the first step is usually the most powerful step you can make. I don't think I'd be where I am today if it wasn't for me at least taking one step forward. Once to you take that step, take another one after that. And keep taking steps. Eventually, you'll find that the journey is more interesting than your apparent destination.