About this site

What is this?

This is my attempt to make a personal website again.

Maybe it'll mean I don't hate the internet quite so much!

Why do you hate the internet?

Probably for the same reasons as everyone else.

I used to make websites for fun all the time when I was a kid. Then I grew up and got a job making websites. Woohoo, living the dream!

Unfortunately after 10+ years of that, the dream is well and truly dead. I code so little for fun now that when I started setting this website up, I had to install Homebrew on my laptop. And I've had this laptop for well over a year. RIP.

However I love the idea of the indie web, and maybe this can go some way towards recapturing that childlike joy I once felt at making my own website.

Why "Ratlands"?

I had to pick a name and it sounded cool. "Rat" is a great word. Satisfying.

What's this website made with?

I'm running Eleventy, which is a JavaScript-based static site generator. I have only ever used JavaScript for the tedium of work and honestly, we do not get on. Maybe doing something fun with it will mean I learn to love it! (Or we'll want to murder each other and I'll eventually switch frameworks.)

Got anything else to share?

Sure! In 1997, two artists and a composer/neuroscientist analysed survey data about which elements of songs people hated the most, and then made a song containing all of them. "The Most Unwanted Song" is 22 minutes long and includes a variety of exciting instruments, an opera singer rapping about cowboy life, and a group of children singing about holidays and urging you to "do all your shopping at Walmart". It's great! Listen to "The Most Unwanted Song" on YouTube.

TODO

Animated cartoon armadillo wearing shoes

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