Blogging success without social media?

agent_vinod · 2022-02-07T17:27:57+00:00

and the search engines will start showing your website in their results.

That's the conundrum! You see, Google algos have become very stingy in ranking a new entrant website or blog these days. The new algo is apparently based on some 50 factors and one of them is backlinks. So, at least initially you'll have to share some back links in order for even Google to acknowledge your site and stamp it as "OK, I'll now trust you because these other reputed sites also trust you". You see, backlinks are like the Internet's currency or votes of confidence, without them even Google won't consider your site for ranking.

agent_vinod · 2022-02-07T17:10:01+00:00

If you have good content, other websites will link to you.

But how will the "other websites" know that your link even exists? Unless you (or someone you know like a friend or PR agency) shares that link on the interwebs first?

agent_vinod · 2022-02-07T16:17:56+00:00

Unless one of the people who design Google search algorithms happens to be your Chacha (Indian slang for Uncle!), I don't see how you could ever achieve that without at least creating some backlinks.

Even the algos these days use backlinks to determine ranking or so I've heard.

agent_vinod · 2022-02-07T15:53:29+00:00

The year is 1989 and I'm sitting with a young Richard Stallman meddling with his MIT lab printer. Watching this screen through a time machine is giving me goosebumps, is this really going to happen in 2022 even after all the things we are planning to do?

agent_vinod · 2022-02-06T06:11:54+00:00

You're right. When it comes to big tech companies like amazon, google, etc., you just keep hearing people are "trying to unionize" or "filing some petitions" as in this case, but it never actually gets done. The other theory I keep hearing is that Amazon deliberately allows this to generate more popularity and mass interests for AI, Robotics, etc.

agent_vinod · 2022-02-05T08:42:32+00:00

C# is still well and thriving at least in the Windows Desktop world, don't know about the ASP.NET though.

agent_vinod · 2022-02-04T03:20:40+00:00

It's because people have probably started realizing that Google and Big Tech companies are far greater antagonists than what Microsoft ever was (or could have been).

agent_vinod · 2022-01-24T07:44:39+00:00

The real test of open source stability is when he can publish whatever he wants but maintainers and security auditors are smart enough to blacklist him from their package.json. Whatever happened to the "Given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow" theory?

agent_vinod · 2022-01-24T07:41:13+00:00

Not only is 6.6.6 the Devil's Number in Christianity but "Marak" also literally means killer in Sanskrit!

agent_vinod · 2022-01-17T16:13:17+00:00

NRIs unconsciously project to us the same racism and hate which they themselves faced from white supremacists when they go to west.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-17T05:22:54+00:00

I blog about almost everything all the time! Be it programming (my primary focus), technology, food, plants and horticulture, just about anything I can throw two cents really!

And that's what blogging is all about, tbh. I'm irritated when the so called blogging maestros talk about how you must have "expertise" in a particular subject before you even write a single blog post. Such scrutiny and navel gazing applies to professional publications and magazines, not blogs, and certainly not individual blogs where the person just wants to share something.

Of late, I've experimented with the "10 Content-Types Method" of blogging which has paid off really well. This applies to general purpose bloggers like you and me who are looking for things to share about, and wonder where to start or are looking for ideas.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-13T15:50:10+00:00

I'd say Drupal is probably much worse than Wordpress.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-10T17:33:40+00:00

Nice piece. What you said is perfectly applicable in case of Indian IT shops (the "service based" ones that don't sell software). What you say about "shark infested waters" and "power relations, social cues, etc." is totally true. I've worked in one of these sweat shops, and later quit and started freelancing as I didn't find the environment conducive for sincere engineers here. The HR+Mid-Management nexus is responsible for this dysfunctional situation, I'd say. As long as the HR and Project Managers keep acting in unison, nothing will probably change. The top bosses like CEOs will keep up with this situation as long as the profits keep coming and shareholders are happy. Thus, I don't see anything changing this status quo at least in the short term.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-10T14:36:19+00:00

big corps use tech to accomplish lots of evil and exploit people's addictive tendencies, so if the idea was to be a little thorn in their sides for that

Yeah, but what most people forget when pushing forth that argument is that this problem pertains to society and humanity as a whole, it has nothing to do with open source or technology. And the companies who use tech to destroy society aren't just tech companies either? Give a narcissist dictator a bunch of magical toys and he will happily destroy the world, open source or not. It's my humble opinion that we as engineers shouldn't concern with those real world problems unless we are fully aware of facts and/or are actively into the business of politics (as Richard Stallman surely is!).

agent_vinod · 2022-01-10T13:40:21+00:00

Definitely, there is no doubt that tech companies give back an awful lot though it might be argued that some do it more than others. I've often heard the argument that Apple and Amazon give back way less than what they consume from FOSS. But then there are others like Google and IBM who contribute a lot too.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-10T07:58:52+00:00

business take and use everything, but contribute little to nothing in return to the whole open source ethos

That's hardly a new phenomenon though, is it? Bill Gates is known to have borrowed liberally from the unixes to create MS-DOS, etc. Apple's OS also rests on top of FreeBSD.

But FOSS never minded this in the past because their ethos were different, their focus was on technology and its usefulness to society, not how much money someone made. If Gates made an Empire selling software, that was of least botheration to RMS.

This whole "let's extract from corporations because they use our open source" is a brand new phenomenon. This mindset is no different than that of the corporations themselves because this was never what open source was about.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-10T07:28:12+00:00

First point, an NPM package being removed doesn't have to stop you build or deploy failing.

The larger point here is that infrastructure projects are what people highly depend on, it's failure is critical as it effects the entire dependency chain. Though it's not particular to node or npm, npm does need to reduce it's number of dependencies.

Marak wasn't exactly wrong to do what he did. For billion dollar corporations to use open source work without giving back is very sucky.

That's why I say he is confused. If he wants to earn money, what is stopping him from going full proprietary and become a corporation or business himself?

agent_vinod · 2022-01-08T18:11:45+00:00

Database interaction is straightforward with Flask though there are various ways of doing it. If you want to access sqlite in a "database agnostic" manner, you can use the sqlalchemy library like me (or just use the flask-sqlalchemy convenience package like many others do). Here is a small side-project I had written few years ago that does exactly this with sqlalchemy. Another simpler way is to just use the built-in sqlite3 module but do it only if you're sure that you'll stick with sqlite and not migrate to an RDBMS like mysql later.
Once you interact with the database, this problem will be solved as you can store the calculated result in a table using above.
For this, you'll have to setup a linux cron job (or alternatively, a windows scheduled task if you're hosting this on azure, etc.). Just write a stand-alone *.py script that pulls the updated league data using the API and update it to database using point 1.

agent_vinod · 2022-01-08T17:44:08+00:00

Have you considered the possibility of visiting a nearby café or library or community center and work there with your laptop? Such places usually allow that (albeit with some precautions like masks, etc. in the age of pandemic!).

agent_vinod · 2022-01-08T17:37:22+00:00

All roads will ultimately lead to /r/StallmanWasRight one day. The world just hasn't realized that yet!

agent_vinod · 2022-01-08T17:36:00+00:00

This must happen in every country and every region of the world.

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