Welcome!

Welcome to my website! It's still "under construction", as you might say. I'm actually starting to think that it will never be out of construction -- isn't that point of dynamically created websites?

Currently the most active and useful place is blog -- projects is still under development, although getting there. This home page is likely to become a bulletin board of sorts, where I post information about upcoming notes of interest, as well as various musings and news items. Like a blog, but less forever...

Message of the Day/Week:

Careful when you pour your coffee.

~~~

News:

• My second photo series is up! And more to come soon. Check out the downloads page...
• Check out the first of my photo series project on the downloads page! And also check out this post to learn more about what it's all about.
• The groundhog saw his shadow, looks like we're getting six more weeks of winter. Makes sense. Did you know that Groundhog Day is actually the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox? It is sometimes also called Imbolc or Saint Brigid's Day. Read more here (update: we are getting so much ice soon)
• This article in the Atlantic has caused a bit of a stir. I think she's a little premature but maybe not entirely off the mark.
• Check out this video for some good old Russian blacksmithing.
• I am working on implementing a news archive system, so that you can see what the news was before.
• Want more hot takes? Send me an email please. Link in the sidebar, as always.

About/Mission:

Without getting too technical, the main goal of this website is to create a website that is as lightweight and portable as possible while still delivering features that feel useable. I plan to use as much pure HTML, PHP, and CSS formatting as possible, while avoiding clunky JavaScript, flash, or other scripting services. I find myself increasingly annoyed with the way that every website has been optimized to look like an app, which purports to make browsing on mobile easier or more "natural", but instead slows browsing down to a crawl even on the newest phones using high speed data. Of course, me making one website is not going to fix that, but it makes me feel a little better. At the very least, it's a proof of concept that websites don't need to work/look the way they do to be functional in 2021. And, it's a fun learning project -- this server is a LAP (no MySQL for me...) stack running on a Raspberry pi 1 model B. Not exactly a heavy lifter, so expect some outages. Update Oct 2021 -- Raspberry pi has died, this server is now runnning on a lenovo thinkcentre desktop, hopefully might run a little more reliably.

Everything has been designed from scratch, no wordpress or CMS here. And certainly no node.js or react... Some credit has to be given to Drew Devaugh's blog, linked in the sidebar, for inspiration of the design of this website.

Speaking of contemporary functionalities, check out my website dark mode! If you are using a browser/operating system/phone that supports dark mode (which most do at this point), when your dark mode is enabled the site should change to match. I'm working on implementing a dark mode switch, although that may require Java. Stay tuned.