There is an increasing amount of people that complain about people not having personal websites anymore. Social media make it easier for people to voice their thoughts there, and there are a lot of reasons not to trust them. Even in spite of that, I really like the indie personal websites and blogs of people. Especially the informational ones, which seem to have faded away completely.
Here are a couple from the old times:
- https://www.kenrockwell.com/ – Invaluable resource for photographers.
- https://www.sheldonbrown.com/ – Invaluable resource for bicyclists and especially fixed gear.
As for personal blogs, here are three favourite of the current era, with very interesting essays on various topics:
On the same note, I recently read this article by Laura Kalbag. The part about no tracking sparked the idea of stating the philosophy of this site too. It follows below.
No tracking
Zero tracking, no analytics. Eliminating both ad distributors and reading vanity metrics. Even when it becomes tempting to learn whether this sentence has been read by anybody at all!
Fast loading
All pages are smaller than 100KB, putting this at the top 1% of all websites in terms of loading speed. It was too easy to make a website this fast, and this highlights one of the problems of today's web.
Minimalistic design
This design started from copying patrickcollison.com. It was notably easy to read, and I realized small fonts, no stylistic distractions, and the presentation of raw content were key ideas.
No fancy features
Zero JavaScript was a principle in the beginning too, but decided not to be dogmatic and embrace a couple of dozens KB for easily adding comments with all the nice features, such as completely anonymous posting and optional eponymity.
Public domain
A free culture license. All content on this website is dedicated to the public domain, under the CC0 license.