Colophon

How this thing is put together, why it's a little bit weird, and what it doesn't do, even though it could.

What’s here

Posts: 628; since 2003
Topic Tag stories: 52; reader-suggested
Projects: 20; stories and experiments
Characters: 19; in the Commons

How it’s built

I use Astro to manage my site. I do this locally (with some fancy-schmancy time-travel additions) generating static HTML and then hosting via Cloudflare. The pages are basically all markdown, pulled and assembled from a custom-rolled knowledgebase by an LLM, with some little scripts to keep numbers current without my having to remember to, you know, code. There’s no CMS, no database, and all the content is in object storage, as it should be.

The site works with Javascript turned off, even though it is the 21st century, and I don’t know how you even arrived here without some JS in your life. Good grief.

Typographically speaking

The font I’m using is Literata, by TypeTogether. It’s good for reading a bunch of text onscreen, which is basically all I do.

The font is served from this domain, not from a third-party CDN, because that would defy my privacy policy. The files are openly licensed, in case you’re wondering. I eat where I poop. Wait, no, that’s not right…

What’s missing

This site doesn’t have all the usual site goodies lurking in the shadows. Here’s what I don’t do…

No audience analytics. No analytics service, ad tracker, unique-visitor counter or reader profile. Cloudflare tracks some abastract things on its end — I can’t change it — but those are not used to follow readers or measure engagement. The privacy page has more detail if you want to feel sleepy.
No comments. I don’t solicit comments from the public. I used to be very happy about conversing with people, but then the world got toxic, comment systems started tracking everyone, and also I’m too lazy to reply anymore. Email works, though, if you’re interested.
No view counts, likes or shares. I genuinely don’t know how many people have seen this page. Probably two. And both were me.
No recommendations. No “related posts”, no infinite scroll, no next-thing-autoplaying. That’s a lot of analytical nonsense right. Engage with the content or don’t. I won’t force you. Yet.
No site accounts. User accounts are the most stressful thing in the world for me. I don’t know to know your email address, or help you reset a password! Keep it to yourself!
No money. For you or me. No upsells, no special programs, subscriptions, or mail-order asparagus.
No newsletter gate. You can subscribe to get posts by email — see, kids, it’s like Substack without the Substack — but I don’t want to have to churn out content for you on a regular basis. I mean I probably will, but I don’t want to feel like you’re sitting at the window, staring in at me, whispering softly: “Please, sir, I want some more…”

The permanence pledge

These URLs will not change.

Posts from 2003 are still sitting at the exact addresses they were born with. This site has moved house twice lately, because I am constitutionally incapable of leaving things alone, and every single old link got a redirect instead of a shrug. Even the ugly numbered permalinks from the first design. Especially those. They are older than most of the websites that used to link to them, and frankly they have earned a little dignity in their old age.

Here is the entire difference between a website and a platform: a platform reorganises itself the moment that’s convenient for the platform, and your link becomes roadkill. This is a website. If you link to something here, that link is meant to outlive me getting bored, me switching frameworks for the ninth time, and — look, let’s just say it — me. Actual me. The dying kind.

If one breaks anyway, tell me. A pledge nobody ever checks is just a slogan with better posture.

Licence

Everything I own here is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Take it, remix it, build on it — see how to steal this. Machines are welcome too, on the same stated terms.

Feeds

Blog — Posts from mcm.1889.ca — writing, publishing, open culture, and asides.
Topic Tag Tuesday — A reader suggests a topic. I write the story.
Soundtracks — The music written alongside the writing, subscribable in any podcast app.

If you’ve never used an RSS reader: you know how you have, like, a feed in your Insta or TikTok and stuff? And how they give you stuff to interact with, based on a complex algorithm that measures your pupilary distance and the blood pressure of your left index finger relative to the phase of the moon? Yeah, so it’s like that, except without the algorithm, so it just shows you what’s most recent. It was invented by Benjamin Franklin during the first Ming Dynasty’s dotcom bubble. Ask your teacher, they’ll know.