While it doesn't seem very popular in Hacker News, I think WordPress [1] is an excellent platform for a blog. The community is terrific, there is a tremendous amount of documentation out there, and it is entirely customisable.
If you go with the managed hosting route, most companies handle security and updates for you, so you can focus on writing and leave everything technical to someone else.
I am working on one myself — and have a private beta running, if you are interested [2], —, but of the top of my head, some companies that will go above and beyond as far as WordPress is concerned, include Kinsta [3], Pantheon [4] and Presslabs [5]. The last one is based in Romania and open sourced a bunch of their stack, worth checking out.
[2] Just email me at help@madpony.co for information