(This article is also available via the short link tomrei.ch/why-content)
Several years ago I decided to replace my personal website with a landing page. My thought process at the time was that my previous site, which included much of the same content I plan to include on this new iteration, had grown stale. I also had a feeling that the web has moved on from the "homepage" -- it felt like something very Web 1.0 in a Web 3.0 world. Everyone is expressing themselves on the internet now, but instead of using personal sites, they've moved on to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Finally, I'd also fallen into the habit of redesigning everything every few years in an attempt to follow web design trends, and this became exhausting. I plan to address this more in a follow-up article.
While I've been mostly content living my life without much of a web presence, I still have the desire to share something with the world every now and then. I don't have any illusions that anything I write or produce here will see much of an audience (it feels a lot more like shouting into the void) but there's still some satisfaction in knowing that I'm putting something more out there than the occasional 280-character anecdote.
So, after giving it some thought, I've decided to bring some content back. Mainly I have two goals. First, I want to have some space to share some of my projects and creations. I spend a lot of time making things that others might enjoy or find useful, so I'd like to take the opportunity to put these things out there. Second, I want a place to occasionally place articles on things I've done or find interesting, or thoughts I have related to programming, computing, or my other various hobbies. I intentionally chose the word "articles" over "blog" or "journal" because my intent is not to share random thoughts about life. Nobody cares what I think about the state of the world, politics, the sandwich I just ate, or my recent trip to Easter Island, nor should they. The internet is flooded with this. Instead I hope to share discoveries and things I find interesting that aren't fit for social media.
I don't have any specific goals for frequency of updates. I expect things to be fairly sporadic. Fortunately I have a few ideas in mind to get me started.