commit 1d51e665e498a78bd44e90a07de4dc8576d23ece
parent f153f4f8794901853b67ccba6748b7befc43678a
Author: Eamon Caddigan <eamon.caddigan@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2023 19:59:58 -0700
New post
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+---
+title: "Website Update"
+date: 2023-07-29T15:53:06-07:00
+draft: false
+categories:
+- Meta
+---
+
+[Google is getting
+worse](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-google-getting-worse/)[^google].
+Twitter is imploding[^twitter].
+[Reddit is at war with its volunteer
+moderators](https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-landed-gentry-18237821.php).
+Facebook is doing... [whatever Facebook is
+doing](https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-dead-obituary-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tech-fad-ai-chatgpt-2023-5?op=1).
+It feels like the major hubs for "internet culture", if such a thing can be
+said to exist, are reaching the later stages of
+"[enshittification](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys)"
+at the same time.
+
+In my corner of the internet, the reaction to this apparent trend has been a
+call to go back to the old ways---or at least our rosiest memories of what
+the internet was like before it was like _this_. Often at the heart of these
+calls is the notion that people should be making our own websites again. In
+this spirit, I've shuffled a few things around on my neglected personal
+site, and naturally I'm blogging about it.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+First I put some effort into taxonomizing my posts. This has been a _de
+facto_ data science blog for several years, and I'm not sure whether I'll
+stick with that or branch out. Now, anybody who might want to hear what I
+say about about data science---but not other things---can head to the [web
+page]({{< ref "/categories/data-science" >}}) or [RSS feed]({{< ref
+path="/categories/data-science" outputFormat="rss"
+>}}) for that category and ignore everything else. If I start writing about
+home improvement projects, ham radio[^radio], baseball, or whatever, I don't
+have to feel like I'm letting anybody down. Next, I changed URIs so that
+they don't contain date strings, and I tweaked the theme so that it would
+display things by update-order. I like writing how-tos (I do it often for
+work and personal projects) and I hope to share more of them here. But
+how-tos can quickly become stale, so I want to make it obvious which ones
+are and are not out-of-date and encourage myself to fix the former.
+
+{{< aside >}}
+Both of the above changes are partially inspired by the notion of a
+[digital garden](https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners).
+I don't think this webpage counts as one, really, but it's a neat idea.
+
+Other things that nudged me to do this:
+
+* [Publish your drafts](https://www.maxcountryman.com/articles/publish-your-drafts)
+* [Some blogging myths](https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/06/05/some-blogging-myths/)
+{{< / aside >}}
+
+As web search feels less reliable, I'm using browser bookmarks more often.
+This reminded me to take the time to set up HTTP redirects for everything I
+moved, in the off chance that anybody does bookmark anything here. The RSS
+feeds[^rss] also carry full posts, so folks don't have to leave their reader
+if they don't care to.
+
+Finally, I updated the look. I'm using a [slightly modified
+version](https://git.eamoncaddigan.net/hugo-theme-readable/log.html) of [the
+readable theme for Hugo](https://github.com/cjtheham/hugo-theme-readable),
+which is itself built around the
+[readable.css](https://readable-css.freedomtowrite.org/) CSS framework. I
+appreciate the philosophy of the project, and I think it looks nice too. I'm
+grateful to [CJ](https://ww0cj.radio/) and
+[Benjamin](https://benjaminhollon.com/) for their efforts in leading these
+projects, and all the contributors for helping improve them.
+
+Some of the above probably makes me sound like a curmudgeon, but the thing
+is: I still like the internet. A lot! The tradition of building personal
+websites where people can share their interests (and obsessions) has been
+one of the most charming and useful phenomena on the internet since its
+inception. I realize that I'll never really be "a blogger", and that's fine.
+I don't have to post regularly or "develop an audience" in order to
+participate in this tradition.
+
+[^twitter]: No citation needed.
+
+[^google]: I'm not a Freakonomics listener, but I'm linking to them here
+because it's validating when folks with a worldview slightly different than
+your own acknowledge a social phenomenon you've experienced. I do think they
+missed an important point in this episode however: Google's conflict of
+interest not only lies with the ads they show in search results, but also in
+the ads they display on other people's websites (according to Google, 35
+_million_ websites comprise the "Google Display Network"). Most of the
+spammy pages on the internet exist to show people ads (a problem likely to
+become worse as [LLMs](https://ucsd.libguides.com/AI) produce more
+human-like text), and down-ranking pages that are full of ads would be a
+sensible approach to curbing this problem. But Google can't do that, because
+they would lose money if they did.
+
+[^radio]: I skipped the Technician and picked up my General class license
+last year. So far I've participated in some local nets and helped provide
+radio support for an event, but I haven't gotten on HF yet.
+
+[^rss]: In addition to the
+[feed for all posts]({{< ref path="/posts" outputFormat="rss" >}}),
+there are feeds for each
+[category]({{< ref "/categories" >}}) and [tag]({{< ref "/tags" >}})
