January was a month of paradoxes. Some numbers soared, others took a nosedive, and through it all, we laughed, we learned, and we probably ate too much spicy food. Let’s break it all down before diving into what February has in store. And, of course, we’ll cap things off with a random thought that may or may not change your life.
Medium Blog: A Study in Contrasts
- Views? Down 1% (basically, a rounding error, right?)
- Reads? Up 22% — because clearly, people are actually reading!
- Followers? Up 40% — new people, welcome to the club.
- The reigning champion of views and reads: 10 Politically Incorrect Jokes That Will Make You Laugh (comedy reigns supreme!)
- The second-most viewed post: My Comical Quest for a Celebrity Group Hug Image with Grok
- The second-most read post: The Magic of Prompts: Exploring NightCafe’s Prompt Magic Feature
LumAIere.com & Blog Growth — Now That’s More Like It!
- Page views? Up 45% — someone’s clicking.
- Blog views? Up 30% — someone’s reading.
- Users? Up 8% — welcome, new faces.
- Most viewed post? The Art of Saying Sorry: History’s Best Apologies and What We Can Learn From Them (apparently, everyone’s trying to be better at apologies in 2024 — good luck out there!)
- Second most viewed post? The Most Iconic X Posts of All Time
X.com (Twitter for the Sentimental)
- Impressions? Down 9% — meh.
- Likes? Up 163% — so engagement when it does happen is STRONG.
- Engagements? Down 3% — not catastrophic, just a minor dip.
- New follows? Down 67% — ouch, what did we do?!
- Top post: This one.
- Runner-up post: This one too.
Topics We Covered in January (A Wild Ride)
- Comedy & Humor (laughing at weekends and jokes)
- Spicy food (burning our mouths on purpose)
- Stargazing (looking up so we don’t have to deal with reality)
- Pickleball (the fastest-growing sport of retirees and surprisingly agile 30-somethings)
- Blogging failures (because not every post is a masterpiece)
- Career growth & finance (getting that money!)
- Web development (Vite vs. Webpack)
- JavaScript frameworks (SolidJS vs. Backbone.js)
What’s Coming in February? (Tech Overload, Incoming!)
- Apache Kafka
- RabbitMQ
- Protobufs
- GraphQL
- Django REST Framework & Tornado
- Pydantic
- Flask
- Debugging web apps
- Bolt, Replit Agent, Vercel V0
- Qodo.ai
- Generative AI with agentic workflows
If January was about finding humor in everyday life and experimenting with spicy food, February is going to be a deep dive into hardcore tech. If you don’t know what RabbitMQ is now, you will by the end of the month.
Random Thought of the Day
If humanity spent as much time debating the best JavaScript framework as we do picking the perfect ripe avocado, we might have solved world peace by now.
AI Art Prompt of the Month
A vibrant Impressionist painting capturing the quiet solitude of a foggy morning in a Parisian park. A lone figure sits on a wrought-iron bench, lost in thought, as bare trees stretch toward the misty sky. The scene is serene, poetic, and rich with textured brushstrokes, evoking the quiet introspection of a winter’s day.
Final Thoughts — Let’s Keep This Going
If you enjoy these monthly recaps, follow along for more! Drop a comment with your favorite January post, your thoughts on February’s topics, or just to say hello. Let’s keep the momentum going!