Server daemons (such as PostgreSQL or Nginx) and applications (such as a Rails or Django app) sometimes offer a configuration parameter for a path to the program’s logfile. This can lead us to think of logs as files.

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Reading email is fun, but responding to email is work. Each new email that appears in one’s inbox carries with it conflicting feelings of excitement (breaking news!) and dread (obligation to respond).

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Rolling your own blogging software is the way to go for hackers, so I’ve ported this blog from SimpleLog to my own custom creation. 4 hours of work and 200 lines of Ruby code = a blog that does everything I need and no more. I call it Scanty.

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I started blogging in 2005, using a self-hosted copy of Wordpress 1.0. Wordpress was a shining example of open source web apps done right: easy to install, came with (or had plugins for) all the features I wanted, and had very low barriers to editing the code if I wanted further customization. I’m still using it today for my personal blog; and despite it showing a bit of age, I’ve basically been happy with it this entire time.

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