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How to Build a Low-Tech Website

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#141

Post by strig »

ryanianian wrote: post #7

The dithering on images is actually kinda nice. Less visual over-stimulation. But whatever this site is doing with the fixed-scroll yellow block is super weird. There's a "95%" thing next to a sun - is it somehow related to the solar battery powering the server? Rather than focusing on the content, the design focuses on the infrastructure at the expense of the content. Maybe that's the point, but this particular elem…

Yeah I thought that yellow block was an ad overlay or something at first. They should move it to the side so it doesn't affect reading the content.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#142

Post by qwerty456127 »

> Default typeface

I adore this for whatever low or high tech. As for me all this web-font stuff seems a huge piece of BS (except for rare cases when a website is meant to be more of a piece of art than serving a practical function or when you need to use an exotic language letters of which are rare to be found in the standard fonts on clients' computers) and I just block external fonts all the time.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#143

Post by jethro_tell »

emodendroket wrote: post #131
rossdavidh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could well not happen, but the most likely driver of slimmed down websites, anyway, would be a desire to make them load better in India, Africa, parts of Latin America and eastern Asia that have low connection speeds. Not saying that's how it will go, but it's feasible that to get to the second and third billion internet users, you need to be slimmer.

Smaller Web pages would be nice on my phone in Massachusetts when I've got spotty service, honestly.

But how are they going to sell you the product AND sell you as a product at the same time? WE NEED DATA!

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#144

Post by jethro_tell »

uneekname wrote: post #41
tw1010 wrote: post #33

Small sub-cultures, like this one, do experiments all the time in their little corner of the web. Some of the cultures die after a while, and some grow into something else, something bigger, something that starts to percolate on the mainstream surface, albeit possibly only tangental to how it started. I'm not sure I'd predict this movement will grow into something that reaches mainstream tech, but let's say I'm wrong…

While unlikely, I could see more wide-spread adoption of this concept if a large online company began using the approach. If Twitter for example decided to cut out all their bloat, simplify served graphics and assets, and invest in sustainable energy, I could see other high-profile internet companies following their lead. Just my 2¢

They would be getting rid of their product, which is to analyze and selling their users.

I can see more wide spread adoption when people pay 2/mo for twitter and 3/mo for facebook.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#145

Post by strken »

l_t wrote: post #106
tw1010 wrote: post #33

Small sub-cultures, like this one, do experiments all the time in their little corner of the web. Some of the cultures die after a while, and some grow into something else, something bigger, something that starts to percolate on the mainstream surface, albeit possibly only tangental to how it started. I'm not sure I'd predict this movement will grow into something that reaches mainstream tech, but let's say I'm wrong…

I think the article hits on the key problem: "Less than 100% reliability is essential for the sustainability of an off-the-grid solar system." IMO, this can only become mainstream once there is no longer an expectation of "100%" uptime for websites in general. It's far-fetched, but I can imagine it becoming mainstream if mesh networking becomes popular, or if the Internet were to become a widely self-hosted platform…

You'd be able to get to normal levels of uptime by putting backup solar servers in e.g. the Sahara and northern Australia, then taking them out of your DNS rotation when they dropped below 5% battery, surely.

Though transmitting data that far might be against the point of the art project.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#146

Post by bondant »

Does someone has already tried to code on an AlphaSmart? I suppose it's a little like using ed.

I would be happy to have a distraction-free device to focus on my code. But I am not sure the screen is large enough to really work on it.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#147

Post by coldtea »

acheron wrote: post #116
seddin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trillion npm packages will for sure add a couple seconds of delay to your website loading speed.

Hey, when you need to pad a string, what else are you supposed to do?

Yeah, pad it ourselves? What are we, savages?

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#148

Post by coldtea »

l_t wrote: post #106
tw1010 wrote: post #33

Small sub-cultures, like this one, do experiments all the time in their little corner of the web. Some of the cultures die after a while, and some grow into something else, something bigger, something that starts to percolate on the mainstream surface, albeit possibly only tangental to how it started. I'm not sure I'd predict this movement will grow into something that reaches mainstream tech, but let's say I'm wrong…

I think the article hits on the key problem: "Less than 100% reliability is essential for the sustainability of an off-the-grid solar system." IMO, this can only become mainstream once there is no longer an expectation of "100%" uptime for websites in general. It's far-fetched, but I can imagine it becoming mainstream if mesh networking becomes popular, or if the Internet were to become a widely self-hosted platform…

>IMO, this can only become mainstream once there is no longer an expectation of "100%" uptime for websites in general.

I welcome that day.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#149

Post by tootahe45 »

pmlnr wrote: post #121
romaniv wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what modern website are doing when they generate pages. I've had highly dynamic PHP/MySQL websites running on crap hardware, and it was trivial to attain .03 second page generation time. Didn't even need fancy caching, just some common-sense SQL optimizations.

It's crappy wordpress themes. Before going static as well I made a WP theme with Twig, removing most from there. It was fast, way faster, than the usual WP themes. Obviously nowhere close to a static HTML.

I find its the bigger sites that have been introducing the slowest/most clunky front-ends. Thinking new Reddit, Tumblr, etc.

Re: How to Build a Low-Tech Website

#150

Post by marci »

woah wrote: post #137
l_t wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article hits on the key problem: "Less than 100% reliability is essential for the sustainability of an off-the-grid solar system." IMO, this can only become mainstream once there is no longer an expectation of "100%" uptime for websites in general. It's far-fetched, but I can imagine it becoming mainstream if mesh networking becomes popular, or if the Internet were to become a widely self-hosted platform…

Having been in the “mesh” space for years, there’s a ton of this techno-primitivism fantasy floating around. The reality is that people want to access the internet and they want it to work well. This article is a perfect example. This solar powered server which does not have 100% uptime for artistic reasons is probably sitting in someone’s kitchen next to a refrigerator which uses many times as much power and definit…

They seem to be working on that as well: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-go-off-grid...

The solar webserver is another step towards that goal.

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