What a time to start a blog

2026-08-28T00:00:00Z

It is often cited that over half of all internet traffic is bots, an assertion that predates the proliferation of GenAI agents. On top of that, there is a growing distrust of the content posted online. Suspicion of AI slop is contributing to a climate of guilty-until-proven-innocent. Further, criticism is the default language of online communication; any public utterance an invitation for scrutiny.

So it seems like a pretty crappy time to start posting stuff on the web, and my experience with self-expression on the internet has always been like shouting into the void. Even so, I've had a nagging feeling for a while that I have things I would like to say, as inconsequential as they are, and a blog provides some scaffolding for that process.

As a teenager, I created many personal websites for fun as a way to learn HTML and JavaScript, my first foray into programming. I enjoyed creating small explorations of my hobbies and interests at the time: a Pokedex, the Metal Gear Solid Codec, a gallery of Dragon Ball Z images. Most of those are lost to time, though I did find a copy of my old webpage I hosted on my college filebox servers on the Wayback Machine.

My old Virginia Tech filebox homepage.

Even then I had a vague sense that having a place to post my thoughts was a good idea, but lacked the momentum to keep it up. Well, we'll see if this time is any different.

As far as the kinds of things I'll post, I have a list of half-baked ideas, many coming from my background as a former software engineer at Google, an indie developer, a self-published children's book author, a sometimes artist, and a dad.

This time I'll shout a little louder.

Joel Riley

What a time to start a blog