I spend hours whittling away at this ‘blog’. This extremely low-fi whole brain emulation. I transfer little essays up to it as I learn. It helps me figure stuff out, and more importantly it helps me understand what I don’t have figured.
So writing this stuff is helpful and I share it on the off-chance that it might help others as well. But if I’m honest, it is more than that. If you land on a page here, I consider you all guests and many of you my friends. I love it when you stop and say something in the comments. Sometimes asking for help, while some correct mistakes and others offer new ideas.
I had half-arsed the comment section for way to long. I just went with the easiest, and lowest effort system I could find. Long ago, I dropped a free version of Disqus down. It was free and easy to install. It sorta worked. Then they started rolling ads (hey, how could I complain - the service was free). Then came all the trackers, social media, advertising. Like 14 of the bloody things. This ‘free’ commenting system had become a Trojan horse for everything I despise on the Internet.
It had gotten way out of hand. Depending on what ads got sucked in, one of my pages would balloon to a fully loaded time of 7.1s, 585KB and 113 requests. I got mad and lost it.
I mean, you are my bloody guests. If you came and visited me in person, I wouldn’t make you wait at my door for 30 minutes. You know, made you wait while I rang the Zuck and let him know you were here. Rang twitter and a bunch of advertising companies. Then looked you in the eye while I held up a bunch of ads about the other places you visited before getting here.
The whole point of this customisable place is the freedom to strip away as much cruft as I can. On a page, I just want a thought nugget. So why not the comments as well? In a fit of rage, I ripped all that Disqus crap out and rolled my own instance of Discourse .
The performance results for that page Disqus had slowed down to 7.1 seconds? Discourse dropped that to 1.1s, 92.6KB and 16 requests. You knock the door, I open it and we start a discussion.
Hi! Subconsciously you already know this, but let's make it obvious. Hopefully this article was helpful. You might also find yourself following a link to Amazon to learn more about parts or equipment. If you end up placing an order, I make a couple of dollarydoos. We aren't talking a rapper lifestyle of supercars and yachts, but it does help pay for the stuff you see here. So to everyone that supports this place - thank you.