# Les Orchard's Blog

> Personal blog by Les Orchard (@lmorchard), a self-described serial enthusiast writing about web development, RSS feeds, IndieWeb practices, tinkering with technology, and the philosophy of blogging as "a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people."

For comprehensive background, projects, and work history, see [lmorchard.com](https://lmorchard.com) and [lmorchard.com/llms.txt](https://lmorchard.com/llms.txt).

## About This Blog

I've been blogging since the early 2000s. This blog is my space for writing about building tools for myself, experimenting with web technologies, and trying to maintain a sustainable relationship with creating and sharing on the internet.

## Publications

I authored technical books in the 2000s on the topics I still explore today:

- **Author**, *Hacking RSS and Atom* (Wiley, 2005) - ISBN: 978-0764597589
- **Author**, *Hacking del.icio.us* (Wiley, 2006) - ISBN: 978-0470037850

These books establish long-term expertise in RSS feeds, web syndication, and social bookmarking - themes that continue in my current projects like feedspool-go and in my writing about feed readers, bookmarking, and the IndieWeb.

For a complete list of publications, see [lmorchard.com/llms.txt](https://lmorchard.com/llms.txt).

## Key Concepts

Key concepts I return to:

- **Serial Enthusiasm**: My ADHD brain leads to bursts of intense focus on projects, then moving on to the next shiny thing. I've started many iterations of the same ideas across different languages and frameworks.
- **Pebbling**: The practice of finding interesting things on the web and sharing them with others, like penguins presenting shiny pebbles. Being a "human repeater" for interesting content.
- **River of News**: Preferring feed readers that show a flowing stream of content without read/unread flags or inbox anxiety, inspired by Dave Winer's philosophy.
- **PESOS**: Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate (to your) Own Site - posting to social media but collecting and reshaping it on my own blog.

## Key Posts

- [My 2025 in Blogging](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2026/01/08/2025-blog-retro/): Reflections on blogging habits, PESOS workflows, and building tooling to sustain creative output.
- [feedspool-go v0.2.0](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2026/01/26/feedspool-go-v0-2-0/): Technical deep-dive on progressive loading with web components for a static RSS reader.
- [Confessions of a Serial Enthusiast](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2006/05/26/confessions-of-a-serial-enthusiast/): Classic post defining my relationship with projects and interests.
- [Building a New Creative Writing Habit](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2022/04/20/building-a-new-creative-writing-habit/): On struggles with consistency and neurodivergent approaches to habits.

## Topics

- [RSS & Feed Readers](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/rss/): Building feed reading tools, river of news philosophy, and alternatives to algorithmic feeds.
- [IndieWeb & PESOS](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/indieweb/): Own your content, syndication strategies, and decentralized web practices.
- [Weeknotes](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/weeknotes/): Weekly aggregations of bookmarks, toots, and activities - an experiment in sustained habit formation.
- [Web Development](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/webdev/): Web components, static site generation, progressive enhancement, and JavaScript projects.
- [Metablogging](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/metablogging/): Writing about writing, blogging systems, and maintaining creative practices.
- [Retrocomputing](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/retrocomputing/): Commodore 64, BBS systems, and vintage computing projects.
- [Homelab](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tag/homelab/): Self-hosted services, networking, and infrastructure tinkering.

## Philosophy

My blogging philosophy centers on the idea that **a blog post is a search query to find fascinating people**. Rather than treating the web as a publishing platform or marketing channel, I view it as a way to cast signals into the void and see who responds.

I prefer tools and workflows that:
- Reduce friction to publishing
- Avoid creating obligation or inbox anxiety
- Allow for inconsistent bursts of enthusiasm
- Preserve autonomy and ownership of content
- Support discovery without algorithmic manipulation

## Contact & Elsewhere

- Main site: [lmorchard.com](https://lmorchard.com) - Links to all platforms and contact info
- Mastodon: [@lmorchard@masto.hackers.town](https://masto.hackers.town/@lmorchard)
- GitHub: [lmorchard](https://github.com/lmorchard)
- Blog RSS: [https://blog.lmorchard.com/index.rss](https://blog.lmorchard.com/index.rss)

## Optional

- [All Posts](https://blog.lmorchard.com/archives/): Complete archive dating back to early 2000s
- [Tags](https://blog.lmorchard.com/tags/): Full list of content categories
- [Work history & projects](https://lmorchard.com/llms.txt): See main site for comprehensive background
- Blog source code: [github.com/lmorchard/blog.lmorchard.com](https://github.com/lmorchard/blog.lmorchard.com)