8r4d I have spent a good chunk of my day writing #code here. You may or may not realize this, but the code running this little website upon which you are reading these words (at least at the time of posting them) is a little applet I created from scratch to organize and share pictures, words and other media bits in a way that was intended to be similar to some other #socialmedia platforms you may be familiar with already.

Usually, I don’t put much work into the back end until there is something that comes loose and needs to be fixed. Bugs pop up occasionally, particularly when I try something that I haven’t tried in a while.

Sometimes those are tiny tweaks. But then… sometimes I find myself adding big new features. I think that the last “big” thing I added was the ability to attach a little sound clip to any post. It’s a small idea, but the impact of having a few pictures with a bit of recorded sound playing alongside makes for some interesting posts, I think. Check out some of the Disneyland stuff I posted in June 2024 where I used this to interesting effect, capturing 30-60 second sound bites in ride queues or around the park and then posted them with related pics.

The problem is that I usually don’t have many new big brainy ideas to implement and also, every knew idea means that I add a bit of complication to the application, so just throwing everything into the soup tends to make for a crappy experience.

I spent some time today on little ideas.

I improved the tag system. I’ve had tags for a long time, but I’m trying to make it easier to manage them so that they become meaningful ways to sort and navigate through the site rather than just a kooky add-on.

I gave myself some new formatting features, for example I can now add code-free consistent line breaks to big paragraphs of text to improve readability. I am hoping this allows me to post a bit more broadly and share some of the short fiction I’ve been writing. Simpler formatting means I can manage all this from my phone, too.

And then once again I honed some security stuff and added some small formatting fixes to improve the consistency across browsers. All in all it’s really starting to mature into a miniature content management system that I am starting to use with frequency and depth. I’ve got nearly 800 posts on this site already (tho most of them are just simple photos!)

The biggest thing you might ask is why do you do it this way and not just post on Facebook or Insta like everyone else. And my answer is a long complex one dipping into he realm of personal agency and control, the general toxicity of social platforms, and generally that I just like to make stuff and see it working. The point, ultimately will have little to do with likes or comments, and I do not track visits, require accounts or keep any data. It’s just an old-school type website meant to share some personal thoughts, quirky projects and be creative like before there were platforms and engagement and influencers and SEO. It just is. I hope you’re enjoying it.