Nine years! It has been that long since I posted. Personal life and work-priorities both conspired to the silence in /usr land, which I finally hope to correct.
A lot has happened in the world in the last decade. Technology has moved on (and continues to accelerate), two presidencies have come and gone, climate change is real, and computers might soon become sentient [1]. And the topics I usually posted about: Emacs, the Mac, *Nix, Open Source, and programming, have all made great strides (not always for the better, I’m looking at you: macOS). And while I have been immersed in these transformations, and have things to say, I just never got around to actually writing. And with each passing year, procrastinating slowly changed into a nagging fear: is blogging still relevant these days? And with the overwhelming rise of social media, does the voice of a blogger even matter?
Yes.
The reason I have finally decided to write again is simple and in hindsight obvious—it matters to me. Having an unrestricted platform to express my ideas, views, and rants—even if the audience is a null set—is cathartic. And maybe, just maybe, a community exists out there, who might find /usr useful, or at least entertaining.
In any case, /usr is back.
[1]: Well, not there yet, but ChatGPT, generative models, and their ilk might be the four horsemen of the AI apocalypse