This article was created on January 20, 2024. Original article: https://blog.imgradeone.com/posts/blog-reborn/
The following content introduces my personal blog, built using Hugo.
Hello, I am imgradeone / Self-claimer One, a cyber life form that often digs holes but doesn't like to fill them. Welcome (maybe again) to my brand new blog (although what you are currently viewing is my xLog). Of course, at present, it is still in the experimental prototype stage.
The last completed article was the newcomer's report on the Minority Report, and most of my recent written output is stored in my personal Obsidian repository (although it is not yet well-formed). Also, this blog site has been the result of countless attempts to start over—I have actually tried many times to have a blog, starting from when my ideas were not yet mature. The earliest opportunity was in elementary school information technology class, when the teacher forced us to register a Netease account and create a Netease blog; at that time, Sina blog also had a place. Later, I came across the WordPress.com platform and created a blog full of dark history (now archived and no longer public). Then there was Gridea and Jekyll (using the elementary OS blog template), but they all ended up being abandoned, archived, and sealed (except for the short-lived Jekyll blog, which can still be viewed directly at blog-cocomilk.imgradeone.com). (Apart from xLog, which is here, there is still hope for more updates; and although it is not a blog, there is also the opportunity to expand the audience through my idle WeChat public account)
Regarding this blog reboot. I later realized that I must have a place to express my thoughts and speak freely, a place that is not influenced by the outside world, where I can say what I want to say, and it must be able to last a little longer. Recently, I haven't been feeling very good about Bilibili; if you want me to evaluate it, I can only give two extreme evaluations at the same time: it is doing well, but it is also doing poorly. Fortunately, there are some excellent creators and content, but the community atmosphere is becoming increasingly aggressive and the community review mechanism is deteriorating. At the same time, I am really tired of certain phenomena in the Bilibili community, although I can only bear with it for now. (A little preview, I may consider migrating to another platform. Of course, considering that this person digs holes and doesn't fill them, it is recommended to question it first)
By the way, one more thing. I saw that Team Salvato migrated to Hexo and wrote their own theme, and I was envious, so I wanted to create a simple personal blog for myself.
Building#
After a long decision-making process, my brand new personal blog has chosen to use the Hugo + Cloudflare Pages solution, and has used the minimalist PaperMod theme, supplemented with some simple CSS color modifications (although it is very Material You; I may try different color schemes in the future. Like copying Rosé Pine).
When choosing a blogging tool, I prioritize those that are generated based on Markdown, are relatively easy to use, provide as much customization freedom as possible, are not too heavy, and are as serverless as possible. Therefore, I apologize to WordPress, Typecho, and Ghost. At first, the first options that came to mind were Jekyll, Hexo, and Hugo, because these three tools can easily render Markdown text into elegant web pages, and they are relatively lightweight (as for VuePress... it's a bit troublesome, and it's too heavy); I have actually used Jekyll before, although it was a modified version of the elementary blog template.
In the end, I chose Hugo because it generates web pages quickly (just as cool as Vite), and it has the PaperMod theme, which doesn't look too heavy, and it also provides relatively easy skin modification methods; most importantly, Hugo has precompiled binary executables, so there is no need to mess around with the runtime environment (unlike Hexo and VuePress, which require Node.js and involve pnpm). In short, it's very comfortable.
And this time I didn't use Vercel, mainly because Vercel doesn't seem to want to play nicely with this theme; I don't know which version of Hugo Vercel is using, but it just can't generate pages properly.
Appearance and Functionality#
For the appearance of the new blog, I do hope it is as simple as possible and minimizes the use of animation effects; I roughly refer to the style of PlatyHsu's neverland blog and the default appearance of the new version of Gridea (Web), combined with my own personal ideas. I don't want my blog to look heavy or fancy; it's best to present a focus on content.
After careful consideration, I feel that the PaperMod theme for Hugo is very suitable as a starting point. The layout is relatively simple, with few animation elements, but it is just enough for my blog concept, and the default configuration options are also acceptable. At least for now, I am very satisfied with this configuration, and I have only made some additional CSS modifications. If it doesn't work, I'll modify it myself
Also, corresponding to this, this blog will no longer have any comment section functionality. Whether it's Waline, Disqus, or others, they will not be added. I am already tired of comments. Even the experimental "external platform comments" on my previous Jekyll English blog, I will not do it again. By the way, do you want to guess why I closed the comment section for certain videos posted on Bilibili? (Don't guess, I posted it on Mastodon, original text attached)
Original text: Closing the comment section and bullet screen area is also my way of expressing myself: I just want to cut off certain things.
On Bilibili, I have tried this operation in videos related to television, software applications (and temporarily added Da Yu/Softstar's "Richman" game video to prevent certain meaningless questions), as well as some videos with special characteristics (sometimes selected comments). At least I don't have to endure the nonsense of certain things anymore.
I may consider implementing similar measures in videos of the type "Duolingo" (one of the reasons is that some advertising bots respond to the keyword "Duolingo" and post ads for the Duolingo English Test (DET) in the comments section, but the bots not only pretend to post normal comments, but also post these small ads in places unrelated to Duolingo or DET).
In short, this is part of the cut. Those who are cut off should not rush to identify themselves.
I firmly believe that a personal blog is a place to express my personal thoughts. I'm sorry, but I really don't welcome comments. If you can't help it, it's better to comment quietly without me noticing.
It doesn't affect xLog. I will still allow comments on xLog.
As for the share button, this theme has it built-in, but I don't really want it. You can consider manually copying the link.
By the way, this blog will not make the source files public. I have realized the consequences of inappropriate open source, so I made this decision to protect the original work.
In short, "it just works".
Content#
Regarding the content that the blog will carry in the future, I actually don't have a clear plan yet because, jokingly, I don't like planning. However, based on my new Chinese nickname "Self-claimer One," which has been brewing for a long time, I can only say that what you see here will be my writing as I please. The content may be trivial. Maybe I will start scolding people again (I will try to avoid it as much as possible, after all, this is a public blog)
In addition, my operating strategy on various platforms will shift towards "differentiation," which means that what you see from me on different platforms may provide different types of content (and may not even be the same ID. Those little kids who try to track, block, and peep at me across platforms by directly searching for imgradeone should be aware of their taste)
As for the types of content, I can only say that they will be diverse and difficult to determine specifically. In addition to the holes I dug on Minority Report, I may write about digital topics, or miscellaneous topics, or records of wandering in the cyber universe, or life logs, or performance art, or just practice writing, or maybe even create a Newsletter (?), or maybe turn it into something like "Secret Garden" (I feel like I can't do it)? I don't know, really don't know. Let's talk about it later. What can be confirmed is that it will be diverse and pure (at least for a long time, unless I go bad first).
And there will be no paywall here (although there may be some on other platforms).
Finally#
Although I dare not guarantee that I still have the motivation to write blog posts, having such a personal space is always good.
Thank you for coming to the "Multiverse of Self-claimer," and I look forward to meeting you in the future.