Future plans

Hello! If you’re here reading this, maybe you’ve visited the website more than once in the past. If that’s the case, thank you for your viewership. It means a lot to me 🙂

A lot has changed for me since I first started this blog. While I still love writing and I am still passionate about the scope of topics covered, there are certain changes I would like to make to the format and design of the blog. As such, I’d like to chart out the future updates to this blog as we move forward.

Technical

One of the biggest changes to this blog lies on a more technical side. Currently, I’m hosting this blog for free on WordPress. While it’s convenient to use and manage, the website is hosted on a private server, and files are being served up via a database content management system. This means that it’s difficult for me to monitor and manage the overall energy consumption of the website. This might seem trivial, but it is arguably one of the most overlooked factors when it comes to our use of digital technology. The Internet consumes a huge amount of energy, and that number is only increasing as more and more businesses and organizations hop on the bandwagon of digital technology. The simple fact that it runs on electricity does not make it green; all that electricity has to come from certain sources. While there are sources of renewable and carbon-neutral energy with which we can generate electricity, their combined energy output is still not enough to meet the overall needs of the Internet, much less society at large. Because of this, I want be more mindful about the way in which I use technology – and the best way to do so is to practice what I preach.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to migrate my blog to a locally run web server, in the form of a Raspberry Pi, using port forwarding with my home internet connection.

This will enable me to monitor and record the energy consumption associated with running my website, and implement my own configurations to minimize energy use further. It also enables me to do cool things like power my website using a solar panel instead.

Of course, all this will take some time, as I figure out how to get everything working properly. I’m still learning how all of this works as I go, so it might take a few months until things come together. In the meantime, I will continue to post updates on this blog

Content

There are certainly many more topics that I want to write about, but I’ve come to value depth and quality of content over quantity. In many ways, I feel that many pertinent issues really boil down to a few core narratives, or are an expression of certain beliefs and values. I want to make my writing intentional and focused, so that I can distill these foundations and make them understandable. In the context of this blog, that might mean longer articles delving into certain topics, drawing on various examples. At the same time, there will still be short pieces. Those that center around values, beliefs and behaviors will still be primarily anecdotal, and I will strive to make them as simple and impactful as possible.

Broadly speaking, my articles will fall into a few categories:

• Philosophy and personal values
• Science, technology and global issues
• Book reviews
• Habit formation

I’m excited to realise these changes and share them with you in time to come. Until then, take care!