In a bid to be more reflective and responsive with my indie-web usage, I've decided to join JulyReply 2026.
I'll be keeping everything in this single page and updating it every now and then.
Addendum: It's August and JulyReply is over, but I kinda enjoyed doing this so I'll keep updating this page with more replies. The last update was 1 week, 1 day ago.
Replying to Let's call doomscrolling what it is
Nobody building GeoCities pages in 1999 sat around asking, "How do we improve session duration by 18%?" They were asking, "How do I make this cursor sparkle?" or "Why is guestbook not using the scrollbar hex I just put there?" 😄
I never had a "geocities" phase. Philippines was a bit behind on social sites and what boomed on our end was friendster. I remember having a myspace account, but that was made as the website itself was already on its last legs of popularity.
I completely agree with this post's point of how the language of interacting with the internet has changed post-pandemic and how this new syntax has had a generally negative impact on the population.
As someone having problems with my own internet "addiction" and is on the road to rehabilitation, this post serves as another reminder that I am not alone in this experience. A lot of us have lost control with how we use the internet and I'm glad there are those trying to return to the days where the internet worked FOR US, not against us.
And lastly, yes. Boredom good.
Replying to are "no AI" disclaimers really necessary?
I only disagree with one paragraph here.
If someone thinks my work is LLM-generated, then my work is probably shit and doesn't have a distinct voice. It's boring. And it might as well be AI because the difference doesn't really matter at the end of the day.
This is a take only someone who is confident with their writing can say. I believe it matters at the end of the day. A shitty attempt at writing by a human is still better than whatever an AI churns out.
For the rest of us still finding their style or trying out new things, saying that what we're creating "might as well be AI" is low-key insulting.
Anyway, the post motivates the reader to hone their skills to a point that their work is not misidentified as AI, but that is completely subjective. I'd argue that even well-composed posts can be misconstrued as AI precisely because it is well composed and there's a few em-dashes in it.
You don't need to have established your voice and style in order to post. In an exaggeration, I say that reading human stupidity is much better than whatever slop Artificial Intelligence comes up with. So be honest with your writing, polished or not, and keep posting.
Replying to Japan design details
Oh my god. I thought this would just be a post strictly along the lines of the title. The topic of Japanese design details already interested me, but it turns out it's an in-depth look at 90% of the things I love about the country.
Reading this post (which is actually a thread of tweets), made me miss my favorite country to visit.
These two weeks in Japan made me wide-eyed, and happy, and amazed, and lost, and overwhelmed. But one thing that surprised me most: it also made me kinder.
At some point, I started going above and beyond to come back and say “thank you,” or to fix the shoes facing the wrong way, or to do whatever little I could to make things better in this culture I still understand so poorly.
Japan had a similar effect on me. My daily life is far from ideal, but I make do with trying to remember how I felt when I was in Japan and that gives me a bit more energy to keep going.
Replying to TITLES ARE NOT POSTS
No additional words, no explanation, no other thought, no verbiage, nothing.
A statement given in the title is repeated as the post content. That’s it.
I totally agree with Gordon. It's not uncommon for me to get blue-balled by clicking on an interesting title only to see nothing else on the blog post itself.
A little more context would be nice. Though there are also some titles that go on for so long, it's immediately clear that the author already poured everything out and has nothing more to say.
It's not a day-ruining situation, but I'd love to hear more yapping. After all, it's the reason why I'm here and not on twitter (currently called x).
Replying to How to Set Up Windows 11 Without a Microsoft Account in 2026
Thanks, James. My Windows 10 PC is about to lose all support by October so I'm about to cross the updating bridge (though I don't really want to).
I'll try this out and see if it works. Hopefully it's not patched out by then.
Replying to Bye, bye, Bear Blog!
I thoroughly enjoyed researching and writing my posts (I put a lot of effort into them), but seeing how little traction my writings got was usually disappointing.
As I wrote, I enjoyed the researching and writing, but if the enjoyment I get from those is the entire return, I might as well store my writings in an Obsidian vault and save myself the yearly 58 euro (incl. VAT) subscription to Bear Blog. 😉
The diversity in the posts I've discovered here in Bear Blog are amazing. So many people have their own reasons for creating a blog and I've learned so much about different people in the last two months of perusing the "indie web".
Which is why I mean this in the kindest way, but I hope I never reach the point where I'm discouraged from blogging just because my writing doesn't get the reach I expect. Unless you're a professional writer, I couldn't even fathom writing a blog post with target metrics already in mind.
I'm sorry things didn't go the way they wanted, but thanks for the reminder that this kind of thinking is what I wish to stay away from. (Bear Blog can be free, btw, I know because I'm using it without having spent a peso)
Replying to A computer can never be held accountable
This was something that I’ve kept coming back to to reflect on. I’ve otherwise taken a lot of pride in my work, and there I was, pushing both credit and blame on the computer for actions that I took.
And they are our actions. When you prompt the agent and share the output, that's you doing it. You use the tool and you produce something that you share. You’re the only person involved. You’re the only one accountable for your actions. Not the computer.
These are the same thoughts I've been having for work and why I'm still a bit on the fence with using AI for work despite our boss telling us to do it.
I think that at the end of the day, I still do not trust AI. Even if it's finished a task and it spits out a result, I still feel the urge to double-check (which defeats the purpose of using the AI in the first place, because then I'd be still be doing the actual work). This feeling stems from the knowledge that if something goes wrong, I cannot blame the AI.
My boss isn't going to accept "The AI did it!" as an excuse. I am still going to be responsible for any mistake, so I'll feel better knowing that it's actually my fault. I'm not going to take the blame for an AI's mistake.
This is still an ongoing debate in my mind but I'm now comfortable with delegating some fool-proof tasks to AI. My company paid for a ChatGPT subscription instead of increasing my salary, so I might as well lighten my load using it.
Replying to What happens to our blogs when we die?
But a book on a shelf doesn't need a domain, a host, a password, or an internet connection. Nobody has to remember a URL. It just sits there being a book until somebody picks it up.
I've been thinking about a project like this for a while, as well. I wanna turn my blog into a book, but not because I want people to read it when I die, but because I want something tangible to read and flip through that I made myself.
Yes preservation is also a side effect, but I've been wanting a physical archive of my blog for a while now.
Thank you, Michael, for the inspiration. I'll start collecting my posts into an Epub file soon and some day have them printed and bound. I love your idea. Thanks for getting the ball rolling.