I am extremely happy with the decision to publish my website as a static site. I run other websites based on Wordpress and maintenance is a constant struggle. This site will always work even when I do not any have time to spend on it.

To make the process of publishing static HTML pages easier without having to write raw HTML, there exist a plethora of tools called “static site generators”. I have tried a few of them over the years. The website started on pelican, a static site generator written in Python. I remember even contributing a pull request (my first, I believe) to extend the software (which got rejected by the author). Pelican was actively in use for 2 years (since I did not publish any posts in 2014–2018). I do not remember what made me switch, maybe it was the python 2 → python 3 disaster (timeline would match). In 2018 I switched over to hugo, written in Go. Hugo makes claims to be one of the fastest site generators out there. However, back in 2018 the software was still in early stages with a high release cadence and introducing backward incompatible changes. This created some friction for me as I had to update my theme to go with theses changes. I stuck with hugo until 2024 when I migrated once more to org-publish. I posted about last year’s migration and it’s pros and cons in detail.

This flexibility in the choice of my tools shows another advantage of static site generators: they are quite easy to migrate because they usually consist of plain text files, one for each post, usually written in a lightweight markup language such as markdown, and template files that define the layout and design of the site. The great thing about hugo was the huge availability of themes. During each migration, I took great care not to create any broken links. Nothing is more frustrating than to follow a link online that ends nowhere (404 - Page not found).

My front page was always quite picture heavy until I started embracing the simplicity of text.

I wanted to use the Internet Archive Wayback machine to showcase the different designs of my front page, however, it seems it did not cache the right images. Here are the only 2 image I could find:

And here is another one from 2024:

The visit to the wayback machine also showed me that the domain was previously owned by the SAM&D group, out of Nashville Tenessee. It seems that they bought and dropped the domain in 2001. Here is what it said on the front page:

Strategic Alliance Ministries & Development

Facilitating, training, and developing “Kingdom Visionaries” for further preparation in Godliness

Coming Fall ’2001

To contact the ministry, e-mail us at: ministry@sam-d.com

This was quite a surprising discovery. I had never thought to reflect on previous ownership when I bought the domain back then. I am happy the domain was not owned for very long and hope it is not associated to any wrong doings.

I started writing in German but then switched to English in 2013 and kept writing all content in English from then on. English is not my native language but after using it professionally (including in scientific publications) I write quite fluently. The file system layout in pelican and hugo reflected the original idea to have more posts in different languages with some posts including de and en in their path on the filesystem as well. I changed this in the last migration. English will ensure access to a broader audience.

Speaking of audience: I do not track my visitors, nor have I looked into the server logs and will not do so even for this anniversary post. This is not what is motivating me. I do rather write for myself and as a way of leaving a legacy. I also do not provide the possibility to comment under my posts, though readers are welcome to write me an email (and some have done so in the past, including recently to point out a misconfiguration that made the posts inaccessible).

I still write every post myself without the use of any LLMs. One reason I write is to leave notes for myself, usually in the form of short TIL (today I learned) posts as well as to document and showcase completed projects. I remember at least one time where I referred back to my blog on how to solve an issue I knew having encountered in the past. Good thing I documented the solution on my blog!

I really enjoy reading other people’s blogs as well. In fact whenever I meet someone with an email adress from a custom domain, I will go an look it up. Whenever I visit a blog linked from social media, I will click on the homepage is see what other topics that person has written about. I hope people enjoy reading my blog too.

This year, I have set up a reminder for myself to publish a post every month, in an effort to consistently write about my interests. I plan to continue leaving political opinions and private matters out of this space. Though I did start advertising my consulting services, as I trade under my own name. Here is some data about my consistency in blogging:

2012	2013	2014 – 2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	Average
6	3	0	5	8	5	7	1	7	5	4.7

We see that I average 5 posts per year. If I can stick to my goal of 1 post per month, this year I should be able to set a new record with 12 posts. You, dear reader, will be along for the journey.

I hope to continue writing about my hobbies and interests and documenting my projects on this website. I will not pressure myself into writing more often unless I want to. I will try to periodically update my Now page to reflect my current priorities.