Hello, my name is Lorem Ipsum. I'm a graphic designer by degree, 3D artist by profession and lifelong nerd by passion. I love my job, but after almost 20 years of doing it, I'm looking for something else to complement my routine. Also, money has been tight over the last 3 years or so and I've been wanting to have an extra source of income while creating something of value to... well... the world. Hopefully.

Being such a nerd, I've gathered a fair amount of knowledge about a broad range of technical subjects; especially since 2014, when I moved from Windows to Linux. That move changed my life! I went down the rabbit hole penguin slide and became a passionate open source and privacy advocate.

In this blog I want to write about topics like: Linux (of course); privacy tools; graphic design software; image, video and audio compression; ffmpeg tips and tricks; cryptocurrencies; digital security practices; gaming; Android and phone tools; open source alternatives to popular commercial software, science, technology... and pretty much anything else that I find worthy of writing about.

A bit of necessary background.

I live in a country that is going through a rather disastrous situation: 3-digit annual inflation (and for a time, 4 digits); corruption that comes from the very top of the government down to everywhere in the streets; malnutrition in about ¼ of the population, hunger, violence, death...

I'm actually among the “lucky” few that has a relatively decent standard of living; and still, 3 years ago me and my family couldn't afford to eat more than twice a day for several months. Some people didn't have that privilege and had to endure days without food. 2019 was the worst year of my life and I don't want to go through that ever again.

These days things are definitely better, but there's plenty of things that can still improve. I need to keep saving money for me and my family and I think I have enough skills and knowledge to earn some extra money sharing what I know.

I was a teacher/instructor; my students seemed to really enjoy my classes, so I know I'm good at explaining things. English is not my first language, but I'm confident I can engage in complex topics without much trouble. I can write good tutorials, tips and tricks articles and software reviews in a way that brings something new to the table.

Something new, you say?

This blog will be different from the norm in several aspects.

• I'll use free and open source tools and platforms to generate, write and post all the content. I'll probably write articles about this process as well.

• Everything I write will be under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Feel free to copy all the content I post, feel free to even post it in your own blog/site, just give me proper credit and a link to my blog post as the original source, please.

• All the articles I write, will be downloadable in PDF format so you can have a local copy for future references or in case this blog disappears.

• I need to make money with this blog to be able to continue, but I don't want to do sponsored content, show adds or hide stuff behind a paywall or Patreon subscription.

Regarding monetization.

I could have gone the “writing for an existing site/blog” route before trying to create yet another blog by myself... That was actually my first plan; but the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I don't want to deal with deadlines, a “writing style”, “site policies” and those kind of things that make me feel restrained about what I write. So I'll try this “having my own blog” route first.

Being a privacy advocate, I hate adds and trackers; especially the new, evil breed of targeted adds. I'll actually post ways of blocking them, so the idea of working for a site that has them as their way of generating revenue makes me feel like a giant hypocrite. Not to mention that they wouldn't approve of me writing those specific articles.

So the way of supporting me (if you want to) will be through cryptocurrencies.

Back in 2019 I was able to bring food to the table and help people around me because of cryptocurrencies. I had a fantastic human being of a client who accepted to pay for my work in crypto (doing 3D modeling and animation for a project)... Popular and mainstream ways of payment are absent in my country. If you really want to use them, you have to jump through an absurd amount of semi-legal hoops that I just refuse to do. It's a common occurrence to have your funds temporarily (and in some cases permanently) frozen in those services with no way to appeal. Not to mention the transaction fees involved cut a significant percentage of my already limited income. When I barely had enough to eat back in 2019, the money I saved in fees made all the difference.

Those difficulties made me vow to never use services like PayPal for the rest of my life. I owe that commitment to this forgotten part of the world where all those mainstream, centralized, privileged services treat us like garbage.

If you like cryptocurrencies and like my content, cool. I'll leave at the end of every article addresses and ways of sending a few bucks, cents or sats. If you hate them but still like the content I post, enjoy it! Everybody will have unrestricted access to all the content I write regardless of their opinion about cryptocurrencies or contribution.

Conclusion.

I still hope to generate enough revenue here to make it a secondary source of income for me. The longevity of this blog depends on it. So I really hope you find the articles in this blog valuable and consider sending a few bucks to help me continue.

I have a few articles already finished. They will be published over the coming days and weeks. I don't have a regular schedule for writing content. It could be days before a new article comes out or it could be weeks. I will always put quality over quantity.

This endeavor might fail... The odds are not precisely in my favor, but I still want to give it a shot. In the words of a wise man:

“I can live without being a success… but I couldn't live without trying.” – David Brent

Anyway, that's it for now...

I'll see you in the next article!

#new #blog #technology #Linux #opensource #foss