About

Hi, I’m Nigel and I write functionallymad. This was the name of my first blog which I started way back in 2014 which feels like eons ago now that I’m in 2023. I’ve been a sporadic blogger and writer. In some ways I love the format and in others I hate it. That being said, here is another crack at the apple. Over the years I’ve blogged at a python powered site (the original FunctionallyMad), a wordpress site under the same name, a Hugo site under SlowLivingRevolution which I then renamed to FunctionallyMad before taking down. At Substack under StartStopContinue and finally I’m back here now.

Overall, my intention here is to shift my focus away from writing a blog to instead crafting a personal website. In this way, I’m harking back to some of the olden times of the internet before everything became so commercialised. I’m particularly inspired by sites such as Gwern, Venkatesh Rao at Ribbonfarm, Lyn Alden’s indepth guides, Scott Alexander at SlateStarCodex and AstralCodexTen. If I could generate even half as much original content then I would feel lucky indeed.

I like to write because I find the action of putting something down on paper to help me crystalise my thoughts on a particular topic. This includes reviewing information that I’ve recently taken in as well as putting down my thoughts.

The blog is generated using Hugo. The main photo is by Matt Hatchett from Pexels. I am currently using the Ananke Gohugo Theme along with some minor modifications to the formatting to make it more to my liking.