blog: Add "dusting off the blog"

1 files changed, 83 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/content/post/dusting-off-the-blog.md b/content/post/dusting-off-the-blog.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..311775a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/post/dusting-off-the-blog.md
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+---
+title: "Dusting off the blog"
+date: 2024-05-04
+---
+# Dusting off the blog
+_Rasmus Dahlberg, 2024-05-04._
+
+The other week I talked to my friend MC about maybe starting to blog again.  I
+know, "starting to blog again" is a bit of a stretch for someone that didn't
+post a lot to begin with.  Nevertheless, today I woke up and wanted to see if I
+can get this thing going again.  I think it requires lowering the bar for what
+needs to go into a blog post.  Somewhere deep inside of me, I still hear the
+echo of my old advisor saying "a good thesis is a done thesis".  The same is
+probably true for blog posts, and partly why I'm inspired by MC who somehow
+[finds the time to write][] consistently about anything and everything.  I will
+try to follow suit; not overthinking and just write about _what I want to_.  Who
+knows, every now and then I might just post a picture and the recipe of
+something really yummy?  I used to like doing that on Instagram, but I no longer
+use any social media.
+
+[finds the time to write]: https://hack.org/mc/blog/
+
+Anyway, dusting of the blog started with me migrating my [Hugo][] project (the
+website's source) from a private GitHub repository to my self-hosted
+[gitolite][] server at `git.rgdd.se`.  In the future, you should be able to
+clone it like this:
+
+    $ git clone https://git.rgdd.se/www
+    $ git clone https://git.rgdd.se/www-theme
+
+[Hugo]: https://gohugo.io/
+[gitolite]: https://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html
+
+For now it only works with SSH authentication.  I can configure your public key
+if you'd like, in which case something like this should work to get the site's
+source:
+
+    $ git clone git@git.rgdd.se:www.git
+    $ git clone git@git.rgdd.se:www-theme.git
+
+What's quite high up on my TODO list is to configure a web frontend using
+[cgit][].  All my public git repositories would then be shown with a user
+interface similar to the [Linux kernel][], [Wireguard][], and the many other
+projects that all of us like.
+
+Other than having full control of my git repositories at `git.rgdd.se` (which is
+really great as I use git for my password manager [pass][] and various notes), I
+plan to mirror repositories that I contribute to on other platforms.  This will
+make it easier to get an overview of the things I'm hacking on, how nice right?
+
+[pass]: https://www.passwordstore.org/
+
+Back to me dusting of the blog.  What I realized is that I didn't have a clean
+separation between my Hugo project and the (somewhat forked) theme I was using.
+So, I spent a few hours cleaning this up in two separate repositories now:
+
+  - `www`: where my website's landing page and blog content is.
+  - `www-theme`: a fork of [hugo-researcher][] that basically removes unwanted
+    CDN trackers, updates fonts and colors, and re-styles the landing page
+    avatar.
+
+I find it fascinating how a site's appearance can change by fonts and colors
+alone.  It's quite different from the [hugo-researcher screenshot][], isn't it?
+
+[hugo-researcher]: https://github.com/ojroques/hugo-researcher
+[hugo-researcher screenshot]: https://github.com/ojroques/hugo-researcher?tab=readme-ov-file#screenshot
+
+If you ever get curious about which font a site is using, I can recommend the
+[Fontanello add-on][] by Fred Bergman and Lars Wästfelt.  Lars developed
+[Sigsum's brand assets][].  Since then I've paid a little bit more attention to
+fonts and colors.
+
+[Fontanello add-on]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fontanello/
+[Sigsum's brand assets]: https://git.glasklar.is/sigsum/project/documentation/-/tree/main/assets
+
+That's about it for this time.  It was fun cleaning up my site as `www` and
+`www-theme`.  And to _actually dust off the blog_ afterwards, thus breaking the
+silence.  Hopefully it doesn't take me another year or two before I write here
+again.
+
+[cgit]: https://git.zx2c4.com/cgit/
+[Linux kernel]: https://git.kernel.org/
+[WireGuard]: https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-monolithic-historical/