On A Long Way Elsewhere

I haven’t exactly been active here recently—and this is a mere “personal site,” so what _have_ I been doing? The days feel busy, but they are so empty. I am not sure what I have been up to these months of 2021. January was moments ago, and even though the U.S. is re-opening (for those places that even closed) with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, life seems repetitive.

And, just to be wholly transparent, the title of this post is a lot more beautiful than it’s content. It’s mainly about changing the backend on this website. A tech article, then.

Moving

It is my intention, stated now with no promise of follow-through, to migrate this site to a vastly different design and CMS (content management system). I am not unhappy with OctoberCMS, but find myself wanting a more flexible backend that is less…how to say…PHP-based. I have learned to both loathe and fear PHP, with little to show for my struggles except for occasionally breaking this site.

I’m trying not to go back to WordPress, but that may well prove the end result. There is literally nothing about WordPress that I don’t like other than it is popular. Which is a petty, shitty reason. But those are often the ones we defend the most. Who argues about whether Habermas’ theory of democratic rationality is compatible with decolonization and the destruction of indigenous languages? Specialists with training. Who argues over which random product A is vastly superior to [objectively] similar product B? Specialists without training.

So the one form of argumentation, we can see, is merely more accessible.

Plus, I run Linux on the desktop: I like a little technical challenge, something of a “refined l33t” sensibility.

Me on a daily basis. I have picked up the alarming habit of loudly and violently cursing tech when it does not work or do what I wanted (which is not always what I told it to do). Usually the anger is reserved for Windows. Almost always it’s Windows.

Timeline

As I stated above, there is no guarantee that this will happen soon. I may well continue (re-start?) writing here for a few months before anything happens. Or I could nuke the site from orbit tomorrow and replace it with a fancy site WP-themed to the nines by Saturday.

It’s all in the hands of FutureMe^TM, who handles everything I don’t want to.

If anyone feels strongly about one CMS/framework, please reach out. I’m tired of highly SEO’d sites recommend I use Wix or Square. I pay for hosting, I’m not paying for the damn HTML! If I can’t find anyone to pay me for the decade and a half of Mandarin I have, why would I pay for a language thousands of times simpler?

You can send recommendations (or forewarnings) to my email here.