Agreed. The more I write for a public audience, the more I realize that keeping people's attention is hard

Humor sounds like a great tool to keep people reading

God yes. Good humor is so hard to do when writing about technical things. I try to get a good balance by judicious application of surrealism, but a lot of the time your jokes won't land, and your references are both too old and too young for your coworkers simultaneously.

I try regardless, but it's very hard to avoid accidentally irking coworkers.