It’s barren these days — I got self conscious about writing for some reason, and removed most of what I’d written — but I’ve recently gotten back to it. I have a lot ready to go, just need to build that confidence and hit publish again.

I write for myself more than anything, which makes the hesitation that much stranger.

It's a continuation of my earlier blog, but I wanted something more minimal. It's not something I'd read if someone else wrote it. Sometimes I like to write. I put professional content on my website.

I post with a few years in between but here it is.

There is a wide variety of random content on my site. This is my blog. I tend to write more often about gaming and life in general, and tech only sporadically.

https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/

I do a monthly post with very short reviews of [audio]books I've read. Occassional other posts about tech, transport and random stuff. Trying to get out some more shorter tech posts.

Some posts:

https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/2020/08/sidewalk-delivery-robot... - Sidewalk Delivery Robots: An Introduction to Technology and Vendors

https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/2022/07/a-minimal-viable-light-... - A minimal viable Light Rail for Auckland

https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/2023/06/prometheus-node_exporte... - Prometheus node_exporter crashed my server

Its closer to a personal diary of the things I do technology wise, and where I put anything I have written together so I have a record of it.

Started in 2012, some of blog posts featured on HN, sorted by more popular first:

HN points, Title, URL, HN discussion

346 points, "Worst CAPTCHA Ever", https://svedic.org/programming/worst-captcha-ever, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5465716

184 points, "Web Bloat Score Calculator", https://www.webbloatscore.com/, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12783898

124 points, "I was kicked out from TEDx event for saying water-fuelled car is a scam", https://svedic.org/skepticism/i-was-kicked-out-from-tedx-eve..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6409062

61 points, "34 little POS machines", https://svedic.org/philosophy/34-little-pos-machines, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001819

58 points, "Daddy, did you really need to buy an electric car?", https://svedic.org/tech/daddy-did-you-really-need-electric-c..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24342495

43 points, "Screwed by Lufthansa and the German Government, Saved by PayPal", https://svedic.org/travel/screwed-by-lufthansa-german-govern..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23898423

Most of my writing was on web best practices which got migrated to my project here:

https://www.checkbot.io/guide/

Sharing a few posts that have resonated at hn, and highlighting the discussion (which I've found just as interesting—if not more so—as writing the post):

https://herbertlui.net/dont-think-to-write-write-to-think/ hn thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32628196

https://herbertlui.net/bill-watterson-picasso-and-hn-on-self... hn thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32124964

https://herbertlui.net/for-productivity-geeks-futility-is-a-... hn thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31941472

https://herbertlui.net/conference-talk-blog-post-transcribe/ hn thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31914395

https://herbertlui.net/quitting-art-careers/ hn thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34857488

I post occasionally, usually with mathy or low-level optimization content.

Not updated nearly often enough, but it is not entirely abandoned.

A lot of it is around engineering management best practices but there are some more philosophical and personal bits sprinkled here and there.

It has hit HN a few times but I’ll admit I have no analytics on it so I don’t really know how many readers I have beyond my newsletter subscribers.