Why Revive A Website 4 Years Later?

I’ve had a website for a while, about 2021ish. It was an “I’m bored” pandemic project meant to showcase my work. I always wanted a website, but making one still requires deciding on a framework, getting a theme that fits you, and then debugging all of the tiny little problems. Overall, it’s not hard but it’s not exactly common. More and more I’m convinced that personal websites need to make a comeback. Here’s a few thoughts on why I’m devoting more time to writing posts on my personal website.

Personal Websites are Contained Ecosystems

I’ve been on the internet for a long time and grew up in a strong stranger danger environment. I don’t have any hard data on how often this actually happened, but we were often given presentations from police officers at school about the dangers of online chatrooms. This eventually merged into anti-bullying campaigns. They even made a movie about it on ABC Family! Being an unlikable middle schooler, none of this really impacted me at the time. But I do think a strong message percolated into my brain: anonymity online is important. If you’re anonymous, it’s a lot harder to get bullied. And if you stay anonymous, it’s a lot harder for someone to keep tabs on what you say or target you.

Unfortunately, I can’t stay anonymous forever. A personal website is good for sharing online thought because it’s a centralized object that I control. I don’t have to have a comment section. I can add or remove things at my will, not someone else’s, and if I want to blow it all up one day, I will. This breaks my anonymity rule but gives me enough control for my own liking.

My Old Website Sucked

I built my old website using the first tutorial I found with Jekyll, and I hated it. Generally, I don’t like using tools that I don’t fully understand. So running random commands and troubleshooting bundler and Ruby gems was really frustrating for me. Eventually, I couldn’t even update the site and sort of gave up on it.

Revisiting this, I first thought about using Python because I know it fairly well. I’ve made websites with Flask in the past and thought it wouldn’t be too hard. I first made a site with Pelican but did not really love any of the themes. I was inspired to really strong-arm the CSS into something I liked but decided that would take too long. I ultimately landed on Hugo because it had good documentation and much better themes. While not Python-based, Hugo had very customizable websites with landing pages, blog style posts, and much more.

I’m Too Opinionated

As a scientist, I’m pretty opinionated, but I struggle to share these opinions with others. Online, I don’t really love commenting on someone’s post. Even if they’re saying something completely incorrect, it’s a lot more peaceful to move on to the next post. But I’ve noticed that generally the bioinformatics/computational biology space is dominated by a handful of people online. Outside of these people, it’s a whole lot of AI-generated content. We really should be better than this, even if we aren’t. Too many people are frightened of the command line, are absolutely convinced that AI will replace scientists/artists/union pipe fitters, or utterly unconcerned about responsible computing. I want to put my thoughts into the world so there’s at least some pushback.

Endeavoring to Create Content

Making content of any kind is hard. It was difficult just getting this site going. But ultimately I have some unique insights into computing and biology that not a lot of people have. If you’re reading this, my promise is that I will make content. I can’t promise that it will be interesting, but I can promise that it’ll be written by me and it’ll be something I wish I didn’t have to figure out on my own. I can’t wait to share my thoughts about science, communication, technology, and my own personal projects that I haven’t really been able to showcase!