Who I am
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.
I have spent about 8 years in the tech industry in various verticals, and have worn quite a few hats. I’m technically capable but I probably can’t solve a Leetcode Medium anytime soon. My name is Hanzo Moran.
Obviously, that’s a fake name. But I’m assuredly a fairly real person who has spent some time doing stuff with a keyboard. I don’t really have a reason for using a pseudonym instead of my real name, but the anonymity will probably spare me from the shame of my past teachers if I mispell a word or two.
Anyhow, who I am is of no import, but I do hope that the things I have to say can spark some thought.
The tread
Now, for this venture, I’d need some tech stuff:
What I needed was a custom domain, cheap hosting, and a way to write in Markdown.
What I wanted was the ability to add demos, the ability to customize, and the freedom to expand.
As a (fairly) technically inclined person, my second thought after thinking to collect all of my other thoughts from the void was to create my own solution. With blackjack and possibly webhooks.
My third thought was that my second thought seemed like too much work.
I am not a fan of doing additional work outside of working hours.
Tire shop
Here is a list of software or services I considered and why I ultimately did not use any of them.
- Blogger/Blogspot - too old, and who still uses this? Google also doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to keeping products alive, not sure how or why Blogger has been escaping its fate…
- Medium - free, but then paid. My ego thinks I’ll eventually need to pay, and I’m cheap.
- Substack - see Medium.
- Ghost - paid, also shows too many statistics. My ego won’t be able to handle knowing I have no readers.
- Wordpress - too much drama.
- Completely custom site - too much work.
Using my project management skills, I figured that what I actually needed was simply a low friction way for me to write and publish, in an ecosystem I was already familiar with.
The wheel deal
Therefore, the tech stack for hanzo-moran.com is quite simple:
- VS Code - I write in Markdown with the help of the Markdown all in one extension
- Github - version control
- Cloudflare Pages - hosting
Setup was minimal and I use a customized version of the Astro Paper template
Roll out
Though I initially considered narrating my own triumphs in the third-person, I figured that would be a pretty annoying gimmick, both as the writer and as a reader. So this will be a pretty run-of-the-mill blog/journal.
And that’s it for the first post. Hello world!