Simplicity.
I like simplicity. You may have noticed. I prefer simplicity in my computing experience, simplicity in my living arrangement, and simplicity in my website.
I use DWM as my OS, using Alpine Linux as a base, then sticking as closely as I can to suckless software as a choice to simplify my life. You will likely find that I may talk about my computing life in this web log, partially, just to share, but also so that I can go back and reference how I did a thing... like... getting DWM installed in the first place on my Alpine laptop. It wasn't as straight-forward as you may think.
You may not think it is simple, but my living arrangement simplifies my life. Off-the-grid. It is a meme to most, but reality to me. I live in a building that some might call a cabin, others a house, but regardless, it is off-the-grid, for the most part.
All of my power comes from the Sun. All of my water from the sky. The only tie-in to the grid that I have is my Starlink connection. If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't even have that. The internet is dead, long live the internet! I hate the internet, for the most part. I very much dislike going on the web and being assaulted by the plethora of ads, javascript, massive bits of code for no reason, and tracking schemes. I miss the internet that was full of web logs, wikis, and forums. While I understand Gopher and Gemini exist, they are bare, regardless of what someone might tell you. I hand-write every element of this website, and have no interest in re-writing it for either Gopher or Gemini. I like simplicity, thus my life in the countryside is simple. I spend more time reading than watching television or sitting on my computer.
Part of my living arrangement is a new development of habits and the breaking of old habits. When I first entered university, Facebook had just been born. If memory serves, Twitter started shortly after as some sort of SMS service? Either way, I joined Facebook because a pretty girl wanted to keep in touch after a Summer Honor's Symposium at the University that I would attend. I did not know the amount of time that I would waste on that website. The next 4-5 years I spent countless hours just wasting time on "the Facebook". Then came Google+. I transitioned to that, bought in hook, line, and sinker to the Google ecosystem. I even became a Google tester for the Cr-48 project. It was the first Chromebook ever. I was convinced that the future was bright and beautiful with Google as my master and overlord. Needless to say, I was wrong. Years later, I am where I am now. A Free Software extremist living in the woods away from society, running only Free Software on my Lenovo X220, not subscribing to Big Energy or Big Water... as funny as that may sound..
While I have some styling elements to this website, I am a huge fan of simplicity on the web, as I mentioned before. That is why this website is static. That is why this website is structured with an extremist view on simplicity. I have an RSS Feed that features full articles. While I do understand that people on the web [I use the term 'people' very loosely here] want to drive eyeballs to their actual website for some profit making ventures or whatever, so they only give you snippets of articles in an RSS feed, I refuse to subscribe to such feeds because they are pointless. I have no interest in loading up a web browser, then letting all of the javascript to load, breaking my focus on my feed reader of choice, Newsraft. That's right, I choose to live in the commandline as often as possible, so leaving that so that I can read a poorly written article about this or that does not interest me. [no, I am not suggesting that my own articles/essays/rants are well written].
I have no interest in making money from this site. It is a project of information sharing and self-aggrandizement. I have no use for javascript. I have no use for trackers. The only cookies that I like are snickerdoodle cookies, specifically my great grandma's recipe. I write this site entirely by hand, every bit of html or css or xml is written by me. You are entitled to your own opinions about that, but I'd rather not hear your protests. It is an act of meditation for me to write it all out by hand.
I have had multiple sites in the past. Some were highly stylized, while others didn't even have a style sheet, and extremely minimal inline styling. I have been known online as PoetGrant, h4ck3r9, herag, and probably a few other nicks that I am forgetting. This website will be my permanent installation on the interwebs.
Every article needs a conclusion, I suppose. Here it is.
fin.