Internet Life Archives

Stack Shaggers

What’s with all the folks online tearing down other people’s stack?

I’ve read many a post in the past few weeks where people have been complaining about WordPress. There are justifiable complaints, obviously. However I feel like some developers and designers have made their entire existence about hating WordPress. Celebrating people moving off the platform. There are folks who post 2,000 word articles about how they hate Wapuu’s, sharing it as critiques on the community at the whole. But if you read the article fully, they simply hate Wapuu.

I mean, look at him. People hate him¹.

Like…mate…who hurt you?

Obviously, everybody is entitled to their opinion. But I find it a bit strange. Making your entire personality on hating anything is weird, but especially for hating something as benign as a tech stack. Mate, Node.js won’t sleep with you. I also think it’s strange that people openly post on company blogs this. At least I try and keep it a bit separate. It’s woefully unprofessional and I can’t imagine it gets many customers.

Of course WordPress has problems. The block editor is a bit clunky still, and I am cheering on Fair to succeed. But nothing else is perfect. Shopify has problems², Next.js has problems³, Webflow has problems. Different tools have positives and negatives. Being wedded to one system is always limiting. Be curious of other things⁴, explore the bubble outside, recognise which tools are best for the job, and go with them.

Never one of the Cool Kids

For me, I find the tool the most comforting to be WordPress. It’s creaky and clunky at time, but the sites rank well enough and do okay, plus I can make changes easily. There’s a reason why it’s been popular for so long. Same way COBOL has been around for so long. WordPress doesn’t attract the cool kids, but do you want your bank account to be cool⁵? Or traffic light systems to be cool? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather they work. I think WordPress is in the same place.

I find it similar to a patriotism. Usually the ones who I deem to be the most patriotic I find the ones who don’t bang on about it and recognise there are problems along the way. Whereas the folks who make their whole personality around a flag or a leader just a bit weird. Like they have nothing else to offer bar a piece of fabric from a flagpole. Because their piece of fabric is in their mind is better than your piece of fabric. And they want you to know about it.

I think developers who make their whole personality of “Hating on WordPress” similar. It’s text in a file that you open on a computer. We don’t have to be so emotional about it.

Finally – I’d like to draw your attention to the heading of the post. Do you know how difficult to find a roundabout that hasn’t been defaced in the UK in the year of our Lord 2025? To use as a base for my top image? Surely that’s worth a share just for that.

I may have assumed the gender of Wapuu. In which case, I apologise. ↩︎
Shopify is a nightmare for redirects. Like really bad. I had to use my friend Shane’s approach to redirects with it. As redirects in Shopify is completely unusuable. ↩︎
Have you ever tried to use Next.js to put anything in the header – like JSON+LD? And for it to work? Impossible. ↩︎
For what it’s worth in my limited free time I’m exploring Astro, Eleventy and Laravel ↩︎
Every single challenger bank in the UK I know have had problems – particularly when things go wrong. Whereas I’m very happy with my Lloyds account. ↩︎

Whimsical Website, Grumpy Webmaster

If you visited the site on the last post, you’ll notice that the site has had a bit of a makeover. Or a makedown.

I’ve talked about Ana Rodrigues’ talk at Loopconf before, on how personal websites should make a comeback. It was inspiring. So inspiring that I spent a good 20 hours wrestling with Twenty Fifteeen to make it a bit more modern behind the scenes. I think I’ve succeeded, and it plays well with the block editor. Were nearly there. Gaps still don’t work, for example. And there’s a bug list.

The joy of web crafting

Could I have done it faster? Sure. but here’s the thing, I had fun. Every evening for a few hours I listened to BBC Radio 3 Unwind with a Bird and Blend tea and crafted. Crafting is fun. Doing pixel art with Aseprite is fun. Building and creating is fun, and this was a fun project that I dedicated my evenings to for a couple of weeks. My blood pressure dropped. I relaxed. I zoned out. And I created this.

Sure it’s a bit creaky, the same way the bathroom lock I installed wiggles a bit. It is dated, but so are my curtains. This site is my home on the internet. I want to make it homely. Sure it’s not the nicest, or the one that sells my skills the best. But the displays in Ikea are designed to sell the product, not live in. This is my home. It is mine. It is unique¹. I also wasn’t wrestling with AI prompts² and getting angry at creating something soulless.

Go Explore!

I also recently ticked off another 50 of my 50 list – I went to The Cave. One of the things that does so well is that you’re encouraged to explore, pick up, interact, read, play, and just discover things. I want a similar experience to that here. I am fighting with attention with everything else on the internet. I want to make this website a joyful experience that makes you smile. To encourage discovery of the whimsical web. My Trello board is bursting with idea. When will they get implemented? I dunno, but there’s a few here already. Go and explore! Things may appear in the upcoming weeks! Come back!

I want this website to do that as a love letter to internet culture. I also will try and blog more. I have enjoyed it. Though I’ve found myself becoming more grumpy at the state of the internet, with AI, and enshittification. I am reminded how things were. Were things perfect? No. But they were better. I want a place where I can be grumpy online. After all, I am a white middle aged man on the internet. Of course I have opinions. I want to share them with the world. So whilst the site may be whimsical, the posts may be a bit grumpy.

So this the new layout of my site, hopefully for the next wee while. Where I’m probably going to post a lot of grumpy posts. Hope you like it!

As much as a Twenty Fifteen child theme can be, obviously. ↩︎
For full disclosure I used one piece of AI on the site – I wireframed the structure of me stealing a traffic cone, because I struggle with drawing humans that look somewhat realistic. The colouring and shading was done by me – this video is a great guide to get into pixel art, by the way. ↩︎

Wake Me Up When September Ends

I see that AOL has ended it’s dial-up service after 30 years with barely a whimper. I think the first times I explored the internet was on AOL sometimes in the early 2000s, usually playing Slingo or downloading Quake Maps off a friends internet connection.

It was also the first time I experienced some form of gatekeeping. With AOL being ubiquitous with early internet with it’s easy setup, and the fact it was incompatible with Netscape Navigator, meant that it was always for those who weren’t the most technically literate. Something I – sadly – participated in.

This gatekeeping was reinforced when, during University in 2002, the “Social and Technical Internet” module I studied in my degree included a fascinating few lessons on early internet culture, and things like Eternal September. Further studies meant I really wanted to go back to that time.

Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that the cause of Eternal September died on 1st October.

God speed, AOL Dial-up Internet.

Congratulations to 25 years of homestarrunner.com

I was happy to see that Homestar Runner, a web toon, celebrated their 25th anniversary of their website going live in their usual style that resonated in the same way it did when I was a student. Surrealist humour with enough satirical nostalgia touchpoints to make a bearded Welshman with high blood pressure smile.

Their content is syndicated on YouTube now, rather than Flash cartoons, but the website is still present, and although it’s output is a lot slower nowadays (cartoons are now at best quarterly), they’re still must watch.

I got into Homestar Runner during university, I’d say my third year – when Yahoo! Music would be my Spotify, and I’d use the University T3 connection to browse the internet, read blogs, moderating the forum of the university’s ten pin bowling team and dip my toes into website building. Wednesday mornings were dedicated to consuming the latest Strong Bad Email. My girlfriend at the time for my 21st birthday got me a Homestar Runner T-shirt. I probably still know all the words to “The Ballad of the Sneak”.

It is a majestic website. Or I’d say it was a majestic website, but it wouldn’t know majesty if it came along and bit it in the face.

Happy 25 years!

X-Odus: 90% Complete

This is a short post as I have updated where I am active on social media.

I have removed Twitter. From both a moralistic standpoint and a traffic standpoint I get zero value from the network. The account is still live but I have replaced it to a link to this post as the pinned post. I may just use it to retweet or spam my blog posts or when I go live on Twitch, but I’m unlikely to dedicate any more time on it.

In it’s place is Bluesky. I am really enjoying the conversation there and the connections. I have seemed to find myself into WordPress, SEO and (surprisingly) Game Dev lists so I get a lot of value here for the moment. Hopefully it continues. The plan is to setup accounts to Dwi’n Rhys and Retro Garden there. It’s verification method is pretty good and clever. Much more than paying a Space Karen for it.

I am about 5 accounts from almost removing Twitter completely. If Colwyn Bay FC, ThatsSoVillage, Heather Burns, National Rail Enquries and a few Pro Wrestling and Retro Asylum accounts I follow make their way onto BleSky, then we will be done.

I am still active on Mastodon. I like the conversations there and enjoy the slightly smaller but more techy group of folks there. So will pop in there still as it is cosy and has better conversations.

Threads I am not enjoying. It’s experience seems to be similar to the “I’m Helping!” Ralph Wiggum GIF that doesn’t seem to exist on the other networks. Seriously: I had an issue with something I felt when it came to DNS servers, Chris replied pretty quickly, the problem was solved (thank you Chris), but yet the answers kept coming. I think I was getting answers after my super slow nameserver was done propagating.

Plus my mum’s on there.

But I’ll still post there, and I’m using Openvibe I am able to update all three, it’s ace.

I am also keen on adding more itch.io followers. I am making more games and want to connect with more Indie developers. So if you have an account on there, please consider giving me a follow, particularly if you like retro or retro styled games. Thank you.

For long form stuff I am here and I am still on the same theme. Until the Social Media block allows you to add custom networks or I don’t have to hard code half the networks I am on, I can’t see things changing.

Anyway: that is basically it. Where are you active?