31–40 of 140 posts
I don't have a personal site yet. But when I do, I plan to make it with HTML+CSS+JS/JQ only Maybe apache or nginx as webservers host it on shared stuff or AWS free tier I just need to figure out how to center a div, and then I'll be in the business.
And it's also ugly :)
This article reminded of the days when building anything wasn't driven by neither the fear of being judged or the need to impress a future employer, but because I just felt like it. I think there's a lack of kind of approach in general. There's a time and place when you build because the end goal is your client or boss, but it's ultimately the inner itch of experimentation that shapes your skillset and taste.
Those days are now! There are still plenty of us who create websites and small projects purely for the fun of it. I still maintain a personal wesite that began as a university dorm room intranet portal, and I do it for myself. I have a blog with a small audience, but I also have quirky, obscure pages that exist purely for my own amusement. If someone else happens to stumble upon them and enjoy them, that's just a bonus!
I know there are plenty of others who do the same. I often come across such websites and projects right here on this forum!
The mainstream web these days is full of walled gardens and loud and chaotic social media platforms, so this kind of quirky, creative web might seem like a small fraction by comparison. But it's still out there, and it's very much alive.
The pic of the ugly site looks like it's full of blog posts, but this post is on a different site for some reason. I would've rather been sent to the ugly site if it doesn't have marketing cookies and a membership popup.
If you look at the screencap you see a mail to hello@taylor.town. My first instinct was the same as yours so hf visiting https://taylor.town/ Edit: after posting this the taylor.town site became much slower - so maybe that's the hn hug of death gripping again
I guess that's just a landing page with links to articles he wrote, but doesn't host himself? Strange.
And it really is ugly right now with the spotted background and slightly rotated links.
Is he aiming for the "I just discovered a new feature and so need to use it" vibe? Like when someone makes a PowerPoint presentation and now uses the completely over the top transitions across slides?
But design is subjective, and if you're doing something in your free time, you better enjoy it! So if he has fun making that ugly thing, great ( • ‿ • )
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at the screencap you see a mail to hello@taylor.town. My first instinct was the same as yours so hf visiting https://taylor.town/ Edit: after posting this the taylor.town site became much slower - so maybe that's the hn hug of death gripping again
Clicking on the article on that site gets me back to the HN link. I guess that's just a landing page with links to articles he wrote, but doesn't host himself? Strange. And it really is ugly right now with the spotted background and slightly rotated links. Is he aiming for the "I just discovered a new feature and so need to use it" vibe? Like when someone makes a PowerPoint presentation and now uses the completely ov…
Hah, yes! Whereas most of my developer friends have long ago moved to off-the-shelf Hugo or Jekyll templates for their personal sites, I stubbornly maintain my blog with entirely bespoke css and a backend only a parent could love. For me, the joy is not in having a website, the joy is in building the website. Why would I want to hand off the joyful part? It's like maintaining a classic car. You can buy a reliable dec…
At the same time, I know that it limits me in other ways (for example, I'd love to have a way to post to my blog in one section and federate to bluesky and mastodon, and I know it's possible, but I would have to build it. So I'll eventually move from Jekyll.)
Hah, yes! Whereas most of my developer friends have long ago moved to off-the-shelf Hugo or Jekyll templates for their personal sites, I stubbornly maintain my blog with entirely bespoke css and a backend only a parent could love. For me, the joy is not in having a website, the joy is in building the website. Why would I want to hand off the joyful part? It's like maintaining a classic car. You can buy a reliable dec…
It's fun and I almost end up revamping something every year.
Everything handcrafted:
- the matrix js code on home page. https://oxal.org click on the matrix for a surprise!
- it's built using my own Static Site Generator: https://github.com/oxalorg/genox
- my website uses a css theme, again handcrafted: https://github.com/oxalorg/sakura/
- if you go to https://oxal.org/blog/ you will see a small cyborg following you (started with a base image generated by chatgpt and then edited and added animations manually in Piskel sprite editor)
- it's deployed on a VPS manually, just run `make` (I've experimented with serving it via a handwritten C http server, but I haven't finished this toy project yet)
- i have several shell scripts which uploads things to my websites in private locations (think gists, quick share videos, screenshots etc.).
- the favicon is also pixel art, made when I was still in college! https://oxal.org/favicon-32x32.png
- I even tried designing my own funky font but gave up and used a Naruto inspired font
- and as a bonus, try to `view-page-source` on the home page
I see my website and feel extremely proud of my journey as a software engineer, and I cherish this simple thing oh so dearly!
It's ugly because an "accept cookies" pop-up obscures half of the page.
I'm not sure why the author hosts their blog posts on this platform and not their own website though
The pic of the ugly site looks like it's full of blog posts, but this post is on a different site for some reason. I would've rather been sent to the ugly site if it doesn't have marketing cookies and a membership popup.
https://taylor.town/wealth-000
I made my website myself too and it isn't ugly. This guy's website is ugly because he decided to make it ugly out of some misguided sense of self-importance.
