Hello World

All first ventures should start with hello world, right?

I like following blogs, I like reading blogs. I don’t really read “the news”, or read long forms of prose any more (not that I don’t want to, of course, if I just had the time…). I’m subscribed to roughly 100 different RSS feeds, spread across a huge range of posting schedules and topics. I’ve roughly divided these into “Comics”, “News”, “Course 2” (mechanical engineering for you non-MIT folk), “Photography”, and “Art”, plus a special one - “Blogs”. Comics includes some standards like xkcd, SMBC, and FoxTrot. I read most of the things from this category pretty religiously, but they also usually take less than a minute to read. News is just Engadget and Popsci - I scan the headlines of these, and every now and then click through into an article. Most of the time, I’ve already seen anything particularly interesting on Reddit. Course 2 is basically just Hackaday - I also read the headlines, but am much more likely to actually open up an article and give it a read. Every now and then my friends have projects featured, which is exciting. Photography could probably use a bit more organization - I have both photo sites, like 500px, and photography news sites, like Nikon Rumors. I think my favorite from this section is the LensRentals blog, which is by far the best source of actual technical data on lenses. Art is a few particular art blogs, most of which don’t post frequently (maybe a couple times a year).

Finally, there’s Blogs. I have by far the biggest set of subscriptions, and the biggest variety.

I have a confession to make - if I know you, and if you’ve ever posted a link to your blog on Facebook, I probably subscribed, and probably put it in this folder. I read most of the articles here, though if they’re clearly more private/personal, I’m respectful of that. I have a lot of friends that do a lot of awesome things, and I’ve found blogs to be the best way to keep track of them all. To highlight a few that I think are intended for a more public audience:


There’s also dozens more blogs that are less active, or less public and more personal, and to each of those authors that I know, thank you for writing. I may not be the intended audience for many of you, but I appreciate the glimpse into your many vibrant lives.

What do I hope to accomplish with this blog? I’m not quite sure. I take a lot of photos, which can be interesting to write about, and I really like cameras - I have more than I know what to do with. I also have a lot of thoughts on more technical aspects of photography. I started cooking more recently now that I’ve had free time, so Lauren said I should make a cooking blog.  Every now and then I like to make videos, and I’ve even thought about making a Youtube channel, but editing videos is a lot of work. Editing blog posts is a lot less work. Let’s try dipping our toes in before making the plunge. I have lots of thoughts about 2.009 (and then later TA’ing it), lots of other MIT classes, and MIT in general. I also like consuming other media - movies, anime, a few TV shows, short films, blog posts, Reddit, Youtube - I wouldn’t mind reviewing them or compiling them on occasion. Every now and then I travel, which seems to be popular for bloggers. I also have an endless list of personal projects that I’m planning or working on. Right now I’m waiting on parts for a custom glasses case I designed.

Most likely, this blog will be a wide sampling of my interests, and each post will be a snapshot of my thoughts or progress on them. You’re welcome to follow along :)

Tags: #thoughts #meta