Hyde Stevenson
This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Hyde Stevenson, whose blog can be found at lazybea.rs.
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Become a supporterLet's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
Hyde Stevenson is a nickname I've been using online for years. It's a mix from Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and its author Robert Louis Stevenson. Privacy is important to me, so I generally avoid using my real name.
My parents are from Serbia, but I was born in Paris. I lived in London, and, now, I live in southern Europe. More vitamin D was needed in my life.
I had two passions as a kid: sport, and computers.
Sport has always been a big part of my life.
When I was a kid, all my friends played football, but I was always more into basketball. I don't mind watching a good football game, but that's where it ends.
But, basketball is another thing. I'm a big Nikola Jokic fan, and I haven't missed a Denver game for the last four years.
When we were kids, we all dreamt about the NBA. There weren't many games available to watch. We had one guy who ordered games on tape direct from the US. Then, we shared, and copied them. Basketball was our life. We played at school, after the school, the weekends. We were chasing the best playgrounds to compete with other players. It was great.
It was the end of the 80s. Bird, Magic, Jordan, the Pistons Bad Boys, and also Yugoslavian players like Vlade Divac and Dražen Petrovic. The Dream Team too, the real one. I'll always wonder what might've happened if the war in the Balkans hadn't happened and the USA and Yugoslavia had played each other in the Olympics final.
That love for the game made me play at a semi-pro level. But, a bad coach put me off the courts. I was young and didn't understand why I couldn't play more when I knew I had the level. I remember one shooting training where I got 46/50 on 3pts, and the guy behind me got 36/50. Did the coach say something to me? Nope.
That was enough, and I took a break from the game for a few years to pursue another passion: boxing.
My love of boxing probably stems from those nights when my father would wake me up at 4am to watch Mike Tyson's fights.
I've always loved boxing. My father's mate's nephew was a boxer. He invited me to train at his gym. And I got hooked. Sad story about this young man. He went pro, but after a bar fight, I heard he was murdered out for revenge by someone involved in that brawl.
I also had a great group of friends, and we trained grappling, and MMA for four or five years. A good friend trained us grappling. Today, he trains fighters who fought in the UFC, and got lucky to meet many MMA fighters like Jon Jones. Another one, Guillaume Kerner trained us Thai boxing.
Guillaume was one of the first western European Thai boxer who won a World Title in Thailand. You can check some highlights of his career.
That was before I moved to London. When I got back in France, I was training exclusively in boxing until 2021, when I moved abroad. Since I relocated, I've really missed the camaraderie of the boxing club. I'm lucky enough to have a garage where I've hung a punching bag and can keep training.
For those interested, I started last year a #50kPushUps challenge. The goal is to make 50,000 push-ups in one year.
I could write many anecdotes about people I met, but I want also to share my other passion: computers.
When I meet people, the first thing they say to me is that I don't look like a computer guy. Stereotypes... 🤷
My passion probably started when one night my father brought home the VCS, the Video Computer System, later renamed the Atari 2600. It's not a computer, but that's where it all started.
Later, I asked if I could have a computer, and they offered me the Amstrad CPC464 with its 64Kb RAM, and cassette deck.
Later, my grandmother offered me the updated version the CPC6128 with the same RAM, but with a 3-inch floppy disk.
After that I had many other ones. I started to build them. I tried my first Linux distro in 1995. It was a Debian. Today, my main distribution is still Debian, even if I tried, and used many others.
I've tried probably many window managers over the years. But, for the last 15 years more or less, I've been using only awesomewm, a tiling window manager, light, and customizable if you know Lua a bit.
I could write a lot about Linux, but I don't think it'd be of much interest to our readers. What I can say is that my love for computers is what got me to where I am today in my career.
What's the story behind your blog?
My first blog was about Debian, the GNU/Linux distribution. It was in 2001, and it was called debianworld.org. I used to write how-tos, and articles about Linux. I used the blog to post English to French translation of the Debian Weekly News, but also the Securing Debian Manual, and some part of the Advanced Bash scripting guide. Then in 2014, after a long summer, I found out I got cyber squatted. And, just like this it was gone.
Then, for five years, I didn't set up anything online until 2019. I met a colleague that asked me if I participated in any conferences, or if I had a blog. That's when I wanted to have a personal place online again.
I love bears, that's why I chose that domain name. And, lazy, because I am sometimes.
About the theme, it took me some time to create it, and be happy with the final result. But, then, it didn't really change.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
It depends. First, I need a topic, or an idea.
Sometimes a blog post, a news, a new tool, or basically anything can inspire me to write directly a post.
But, often, I like to go through my Zettelkasten.
Every morning, I use this keybinding
English not being my mother tongue, I read the different parts multiple times to be sure to make sense. My goal is to make simple sentences, but that connect with everyone.
Once done, I check if some grammar hasn't been forgotten by my LSP.
Then, a script will sync the content to my blog, and post it also on Mastodon.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I don't. I just need my laptop, a terminal, and a coffee. That's all.
Maybe the physical space could help some people. Maybe if I had a seaside view, it could impact my creativity 😅.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
Previously, for other projects, I used Drupal, then Wordpress. But, for this one, I wanted something easily to maintain. No database, or plugins updates. Something simple. That's why I went for a SSG, a Static Site Generator.
I chose Hugo, and I've been happy with it for years.
There is some JavaScript from Carl Schwan's post to add Mastodon's comment on the blog. So far it works well. Everything is hosted on a dedicated server.
All post have been written in Neovim, my go-to editor, on a Tuxedo laptop. My local repository has a backup on a Synology DS1812+ NAS, which also had a remote backup. That repository is pushed on a private Codeberg repository too.
Domain name was purchase at Unlimited.rs, a registar in Serbia. Originally, the name of the blog was lazybear.io, but since the announcement that it will disappear in the future, that's when I switched to a Serbian one. For other projects, I use also Porkbun that I love.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
I don't think so.
A few of my friends suggested that I should specialize and monetize it, but that was never its goal.
It's my little corner on the web where I can do whatever I want. I can tweak it as I want, try new things, post photos the way I want, without having to follow a specific format.
It was always meant to be my place to experiment.
I don't track visitors, I don't care about numbers.
Now, and then, I get some emails, and I like the discussions I get there. Keep them coming 🙌
Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?
The domain name is around €24 per year. The dedicated server around €30 per month, but I use it for other things too.
It doesn't generate any money. I could add a Ko-fi account, and maybe I will... just in case. 😇
If people want to monetize it, I don't see any issue with that. Everyone is free to do whatever they want.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
Ok, I have a couple of them!
And, two French photographers:
I also have a list of blogs I enjoy, and follow.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
Yeah start a blog, value your privacy, and send an email to Manuel so we can find more about you.