Also, I use AI quite a bit to help me with coding problems, although I can’t remember if I’ve done this for Newsonaut. Let’s just say it’s possible.

I definitely used it to help me create a WordPress theme from scratch for my wife’s blog, The Animal Reporter. It used to be the common wisdom was to take someone else’s theme and tweak it. I always hated this because it took away my creative freedom.

I initially thought of using WordPress for Newsonaut back in 2010 when it started up, but could not get my head around it. I settled on Textpattern for this reason, and have been happy with it ever since. It makes me glad there was no AI back then because I believe to this day that Textpattern is the better choice.

Still, AI has opened up new worlds for me beyond WordPress templates. For example, it has helped me deploy a website based on a static site generator and create a PHP-based guestbook, among other things.

The many hours I used to spend in Stack Overflow have been replaced by as little as a few minutes in Lumo or Le Chat.

So there you have it — full disclosure.

Thinking back on it, what would I have done for my April Fools Day graphic in the days before AI? I guess I could have made a crude approximation and tried to pass it off as a mockup. Maybe that would have been funnier. It’s something to keep in mind for next time.

Step 1: Make it all one paragraph, the longer the better.

Step 2: Don’t put in any subheadings. If you’ve followed step 1, you won’t be able to do this anyway.

Step 3: Resist the urge to reformat some sentences as bulleted lists. Keep those sentences nice and long.

Step 4: Most importantly, make everything lower case. This includes the starts of sentences, the word “I” and any proper nouns.

This final step ensures that readers will balk at even attempting to read your post. Seeing a formless blob of grey, they will move on to something more appealing.

Good job. You’ve accomplished your goal.

What’s that you say? All lower-case is more conversational and authentic? Maybe so, but it's still hard to read.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed something different about his reviews. They seem to flow a little better, the sentences are a little less awkward, the rough edges have been sanded off. Has he suddenly become a better writer? I would like to think so, but more likely he’s taken to running his reviews through AI.

What a shame.

Before, he had a voice, a personality that I could imagine with a passion he enjoyed writing about. Now, he’s . . . I don’t know what to call it. Some words on the internet?

If you really want to improve your writing, there are some great books to help you do that. A good start is On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which is itself well written and thus an easy read.

Here’s what he wrote in the book’s introduction in 2001:

Ultimately, however, good writing rests on craft and always will. I don't know what still newer electronic marvels are just around the corner to make writing twice as easy and twice as fast in the next 25 years. But I do know they won't make writing twice as good. That will still require plain old hard work — clear thinking — and the plain old tools of the English language.

Whatever you do, keep your own voice, even if it is unvarnished. It’s part of who you are, and we appreciate it.

I wrote about an early attempt in 2024 when I discovered that you can get a random RSS feed from indieblog.page. To this day, I continue to get 10 random posts every day in my feed reader.

The problem, though, is that those posts are rarely of any interest. They tend to be extremely niche. Typically, they are about a technology I don’t understand or something personal suitable mainly for friends and relatives.

I haven’t given up, though.

Kagi Small Web is another way to randomly find indie web posts. I find that it’s good for filling in a few minutes of boredom, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found only a few articles that I enjoyed reading.

There is a more recent effort called Blogosphere, where you can go through the latest posts of indie sites chosen by the developer. With a fair bit of scrolling, I can find one or two articles worth reading — so it's not bad. You can also sign up and follow your favourites, but why not do that with your feed reader?

The latest I’ve come across is Bubbles, which came out about a month ago. It allows for up-voting and comments, both of which help surface articles worthy of your attention. It’s like getting recommendations from like-minded people. There is also a daily briefing for the top posts, and a hall of fame for the top blogs.

It might seem a little too close for comfort to the corporate world of Reddit, but I’m willing to live with that. If the indie world is going to flourish, it needs a way to make itself known. Bubbles might not be the best way to do this, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.