I have a blog now (again)
I've started a blog, partly because sometimes I want to write blog-like stuff and partly because I wanted to figure out some more Eleventy magic with collections and templates.
So. Hello world!
I set this site up a few weeks ago. I haven't really showed it to anyone, so I doubt anyone's bothering to read, but I am enjoying playing around with it. Getting to grips with Eleventy is satisfying, and so is making a hideous but joyful layout. It's fun to break some design rules (while also still trying to keep accessibility in mind).
I have started migrating a few things over here from other sources, particularly some of the lists I used to keep on Notion (a site I've found useful in the past but is rapidly descending into AI dogshit). This is why the list section keeps growing and growing. I suspect a lot of these won't be interesting for anyone else but they're a useful reference for me.
This all ties into a long, slow attempt to get rid of some of the shite from my digital life. I guess we're all trying to live more virtuously one way or another, and in that case that means stuff like:
- avoid algorithmic social media and doomscrolling
- build my own stuff instead of relying on external services
- cut reliance on large evil corporations in general
- less streaming and more purchasing media from artists
- make the most of free, open source and public domain works
I am chipping away at all this, but as always it's a case of pacing myself in the face of the general feeling of AAAAHHHHHHH of everything. But I've done several things in the past for ethical reasons that seemed wildly inconvenient at first, and then as I eased into it, it eventually became second nature. Veganism, for example. If I can ditch cheese then I can ditch Spotify.
As far as this website goes, the most puritanical thing to do would be hosting on a solar-powered Linux box in the corner of my room, but NeoCities seems decent enough. Also I can't be bothered to completely hardcode absolutely everything, as respectably old school as that is. Eleventy feels like a good compromise, and as a static site generator, it does still give me the raw HTML I need if I ever want to go down that route.
I am still not sure what I'll do with this blog. I like the idea of doing some kind of weekly roundup but I don't want to constrain myself too much. Maybe I'll just see how it goes.
Oh, and the "Listening to" metadata... totally a nod to LiveJournal. Couldn't resist.
⬅️ Back