V.H. Belvadi

Venkatram Harish Belvadi

Pronouns: He/Him

Writer and photographer studying the history and philosophy of science.

Chat Nickname: vhbelvadi

Contact: hello@vhbelvadi.com

V.H. Belvadi studies the history and philosophy of science and the interconnections between science, technology and society. He has been running his personal website VHBelvadi.com since 2007.

His sparkline—which looks like this: V.H. Belvadi—on IndieWeb camp is {{vhbelvadi}}.

Websites

He used to run a multi-site set-up split by content but since 2024 has combined everything into his main website. The website is powered by Statamic and includes the following:

Essays
Book reviews (with a separate Reading list)
Photography
Marginalia
Short films

Newsletter

First edition

Since 2009 to 2022 he ran his newsletter, untitled, which recommended interesting things to read, listen to and watch every week. It grew pretty popular and had no niche but by 2023 he retired it in favour of curating a new newsletter based on a different concept and a well-defined niche. This old newsletter used to run on MailChimp.

Second edition: Confluence

Briefly known as Dispatch from Rhûn, Confluence focuses on his primary interests, allowing him to be more productive with his writing each issue and benefitting readers in multiple ways supported by his primary job studying the history and philosophy of science.

Confluence focusses on the interconnections between science, technology and society drawing from historic and philosophical perspectives while also addressing current and developing issues in our everyday use of science and technology—the same issues that form the focus of his essays.

Since the two editions of the newsletter have varied themes, the readership of the first edition was not carried forward and subscribers were given the opportunity to remain subscribed if they chose to, respecting their time and allowing them to reconsider their subscription under newer terms. This new newsletter first ran on Buttondown and currently runs on Kit.

IndieWeb manifesto

Ever since he first came across the IndieWeb movement he has wanted to be convinced of it first and implement it thereafter. In an attempt to fully appreciate what the IndieWeb is all about and to ensure he understands it well, he maintains a manifesto on his website which serves as a work-in-progress exposition of his beliefs and principles as someone who runs their personal website.

The manifesto reflects how he is mostly convinced by the IndieWeb movement and the direction in which it is currently headed. And it builds on top of this by outlining his own beliefs and practices seen across his website and, for example, his interactions on social media.

Works in progress

He has been trying to “IndieWebify” his site since over a year now. While progress has been slow, at least it has been steady. Rel=me links exist, web sign-in exists through Rel=me as well as PGP. Also, valid h-card and h-entry micro-formats exist.

Webmentions also work on the site. To accomplish this he took over development of the webmentions plugin for Statamic originally built by Matt Rothenberg. He currently maintains the plugin himself. However, he continues to believe webmentions need to be simplified to achieve their enormous potential and be more widely used by people who might not be technically savvy.