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Manuel Moreale. Freelance developer and designer since late 2011. Born and raised in Italy since 1989.
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Barry Hess

2026-06-05 19:00:00

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Barry Hess, whose blog can be found at bjhess.com.

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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

I’m a programmer-type from rural Minnesota. I grew up on a farm near a small town. Now I live in a bustling city of 27,000 people…surrounded by farmland. In other words, I’m still in rural Minnesota.

I studied computer science at a small private college, which led to my 26-year career programming computers. First it was at an insurance company, then it was at a SaaS startup, and now it’s for myself at a little company I run with my business partner.

My hobbies are mostly typical: reading, watching movies, and the occasional video game (meaning Fortnite). My favorite sport is baseball, though I’ll watch the occasional other sport. I also try to do a little woodworking, cooking, and, well, blogging. Blogging is a hobby, yes?

What's the story behind your blog?

I decided to start a blog in 2004. Personal blogs were popping up all over, and I was enjoying meeting new people through the comments section in these blogs. I also have a couple non-blogging friends that were doing their thing on Xanga. The blogs I followed were either friends, friends of friends, about the Minnesota Twins (baseball), or about U.S. news and politics.

Online I generally use the handle bjhess. That was what my college gave me for my first ever user account. Toward the end of college I was looking for a domain name, and unfortunately there was already a techy person with my first and last name who grabbed that obvious option. (They still have the domain to this day!) So bjhess.com it was, and the name stuck.

I blogged via b2evolution and WordPress in the early days, probably at Dreamhost. In the early 2010s I switched over to a self-hosted and customized install of Scanty, and I ran that for a long time. In 2022 I switched to an HTML-only site. That lasted about a year before I and my colleagues built Pika.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

I don’t have a system or process for blogging. My inspiration is generally from interesting things happening in my life. That can be a vacation, a recent discovery, an experiment that I’m trying, or a feeling that I’m feeling.

Most of my posts are written in a single session, with a couple rounds of editing for grammar, tone, and flow. There’s only been one occasion where I asked others to read my writing before posting. I’ve recently tried the “weekly update” format of posts, which to this point has been me adding links and notes to a draft leading up to finalizing the post on Friday or Saturday. I’m toying with updating the draft post daily throughout the week before publishing, but then if I’m doing that I wonder if I should…just post those daily updates daily?

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

Inspiration comes and goes, but I generally prefer to have quiet while writing, whether that’s natural or simulated via headphones.

Aside from that basic need, I don’t strongly believe that physical spaces influence my creativity. However, I’ve been noticing that my office is in a state of constant clutter…and I’m starting to believe. Now the question is whether that clutter impacts the mind or whether the cluttered mind leads to a physical manifestation? A little of both, I think.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

Today, and for the rest of my life, my blog is hosted at Pika. I write my posts directly in the web editor.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I would start my blog on Pika, naturally!

I believe pretty strongly that most bloggers probably would be better off not rolling their own static site generators or CMS installations. For those that want to play in that world, though, there’s nothing like it. For the rest of us there are a number of small, independent blogging platforms that make things quite a bit easier. They all tend to play nice together, offering exporting and importing options if you ever find a different platform to be a better fit for your style.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

If I were paying for my Pika account, it would be $60 per year, and my domain is $13 per year. Not bad for a favorite hobby! I pay $9/month for Plausible analytics, though I’m not entirely sure why. As a programmer, I think it’s mainly that I want a place to look to see any weird happenings to make sure nothing is amiss. If traffic to my blog disappeared, I’d be curious if I did something wrong technically to cause it.

All’s fair for monetizing. I don’t do it, but I know affiliate links and such make sense in some contexts.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Let me dial up my feed reader here. Okay, for a selection…

I’m not sure how Chris Glass keeps his daily photo journal going, but it’s great. Rafał Pastuszak does fascinating things at Untested. Adam Keys is usually thinking. Since Luke moved away from my area, I like to read what’s going through his mind on recursion. I travel vicariously through MacPsych. Maique gives me all the photo inspiration. Holy cats, Jamie Todd Rubin is an avid reader. Brendon Bigley provides cool video game news. Annie lends me insight. Davey and Jamie share lives well lived. I also like to keep up with Derek Sivers, Hugh Howey, Craig Mod, and Cabel Sasser (I still need to read the 2025 snacks rundown). Oh, and, boy howdy, Mike Monteiro.

Any of the above who haven’t been interviewed would be a great option to interview next!

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I won’t be shy–I’m working on Pika and I would greatly appreciate it if you gave Pika a look. Our biggest project at the moment is The Pika Pulse, which will be a great help to discover Pika blogs. I think that’s a good thing for the readers of People and Blogs!

Mostly, though, I’d like more people to blog. I want people of all ages and backgrounds sharing their experiences at their own domain online. Whether you do that via Pika or any other setup or service (yes, even WordPress), I’ll be excited! See you online!


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A moment with chemicals

2026-06-04 19:00:00

It’s amazing how much life can improve with the help of 20 milligrams of chemicals a day.


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17 down, 27 more to go

2026-05-31 21:35:00

Here we go again. Afternoon walk this time around. It’s almost 2pm, and I’m standing in the same parking spot where I got picked up last week. No breakfast in me, but I did have lunch before heading out. Compared to last week’s hike, this one’s gonna be way easier. We have a bit more than 20kms to walk, with roughly 650 meters of ascent and 1300 of descent. Gonna be fun.

Before we begin, I’ll have to apologise for the terrible photos I took, especially of the churches. Been a weird walk, and there was also non-ideal lighting most of the day and, I don’t know, I guess I was not very inspired today? I’ll hopefully do better next time around. Ok, down the mountain we go.

Compared to last week, today’s a lot cooler, and there’s a gentle breeze. Perfect conditions to walk down a mountain and into the forest.

The first part is a lot steeper than I thought. I did consider walking the whole loop in reverse, and this part would not be fun. I’m having a hard time going down, I can’t imagine going up from here, especially after a long walk.

Thankfully, the trail becomes a lot easier to walk after that initial steep part, and I’m now enjoying my time in the woods. There’s gonna be a lot of going in and out of the woods on this hike.

Down a few steps and I’m about to emerge next to Montemaggiore, the last town you encounter on your way up to Mount Matajur. I saw these concrete stairs many times before, while driving up this road. Always wanted to walk this trail, and I’m glad I’m finally doing it.

The trail goes through the buildings, neat! So many old and abandoned buildings. Makes me kinda sad. But I get it, life up here ain’t exactly easy, or practical.

And on the other side? A big, and frankly quite ugly, Jesus. This is relatively modern, and I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan.

The trail continues in and around the town, down a few sets of stairs, and through some overgrown grass. So far, this one’s the worst-maintained trail I have walked. But I can imagine that doing maintenance is not exactly easy over here. So kudos to everyone who does it.

I’m now back on one of those service roads, and it’s a very enjoyable walk. We’re slowly going down, the weather is lovely, and I’m very much enjoying my time outside. It’s not an incredibly varied walk so far, the scenery is mostly the same, but still, this is not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

This small football field made me smile. I have no idea who comes up here to use it, but it’s fun to see it’s still there. I’d have loved to have something like this available to me as a kid. But now there’s nobody around, these valleys are slowly getting abandoned, which is sad but also understandable.

Time to take a left turn, leave the service road behind me and go up into the woods again. I’m not too distant from the first of the three churches I’ll visit today.

Was not expecting to find myself in this open area with a view of the valley underneath. This is a lovely spot, and there’s also a cabin nearby. Probably used by the hunters, like most of the cabins scattered around the valleys.

Into the woods again, and I now need to leave the trail behind me because the first church is some 100 or so meters off the path. So down I go and to reach the church of Sant’Ulderico in Monte (15/44).

The area around the church is quite neglected, and the overall scenery is really not the best. The only good thing about this one is that one of the windows was open, and I finally managed to take a decent picture of the inside of one of the churches. It’s very barebones, but the altar is nice. I still think it’s sad that these are all locked; they could become awesome shelters for the night. I should probably learn lock picking…

Time to hike back up to where I left the trail earlier and keep moving on through the woods. Next stop is gonna be where the trail splits and the variant starts. I hate these variants. They make no sense, and this one in particular is almost as long as the main path, only to touch one more church, one that is not even all that nice or unique. But I guess there’s no point in complaining; nobody is forcing me to walk these trails after all.

After another hour of uneventful walking into the woods, we have finally reached the location of the church of Santi Primo e Feliciano
(16/44), which I didn’t even bother visit closely and only took this photo of it.

The only nice thing about this church is the location, since it has a great view, but the building itself is incredibly uninspiring, especially because it has probably been restructured in modern times. There are a couple of pictures on the link above if you want to see more of it. That said, though, there are a couple of way more interesting things to see around here. Starting from this throwback sign.

What a blast from the past. Do you even remember the time when not everyone had a phone, and you could use phones in public places to make phone calls? What a time!

The other unusual sight is a Thai temple?!? That was very unexpected. I was aware that there’s a Buddhist one in the area (that I might actually see during a future walk), but knew nothing about this one. Neat!

And right in front of it? A small chapel to remember the people who have died during the two World Wars. I told you these things are everywhere and that it’s impossible to forget what happened during those times if you live here.

I’m about to start going back up, and my watch vibrates to alert me that there’s a “severe weather storm alert” which is always great to see when you’re half way through a long walk, and you’re in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hours from your car. I was contemplating stopping for a quick break, but the opposite happened: I started going! As a result, I took very few pictures of the next chunk of the walk but was mostly the same, going in and out of the woods.

An hour later, I connected back with the main path and was close to the third and final church of this walk, the church of San Michele Arcangelo (17/44), which is by far the best one of the three I visited today.

Very small and in an elevated position with a nice view of the valley. Like many others, it was reconstructed after the quakes of the sixteenth century, and you can clearly see that there are parts missing in the front. Still, I much prefer to see churches in this condition; at least they feel like they have a history behind them.

Almost 4 hours in, still 7 kms left to walk, which means there’s no time to waste. I leave the church behind me, go through the small village, into the woods, and some 20 or so minutes later, I’m back on a paved road.

My legs would love to go right and downhill, but I need to go left and uphill, the direction our grandparents used to take to go to school back in the day. But I’m quite happy for this because I get the chance to see a church I've always wanted to visit.

That’s the church of Sant'Andrea Apostolo and every time I drive up to Mount Matajur, I can see it from my car. Has this very characteristic twisty road going up to it from the small village underneath and I always wanted to drive there.

And I have to say, the location is very nice. Living up here must be a nightmare because there’s only one way down, and the road is very narrow. Plus, the closest anything must be 30 to 40 minutes away by car. But if you’re looking for peace and quiet, this is the place for you.

Another point scored by team Mary on my way out of the town.

There’s less than 5kms left now, I’m starting to feel a bit tired, my feet hurt, I need better shoes, I want to take a quick break, but I also don’t want to stop because I know I’m only an hour or so from my car. And stopping at this point makes no sense. So into the forest I go again for the final stretch of this walk.

Found a bunch of sheep chilling in the forest right at the end of the walk. These animals are so fun. If I had the space, I’d totally get a few, just to see them play with the crazy dog I have. I wonder what he would do. Maybe one day I’ll find out.

Final descent into the forest, couple of turns, and here we are, back at the parking spot where I left my car some 5 hours ago. Thankfully, it’s still there because walking home from here would not be fun. Doable, sure. But not fun.

So far, my least favourite walk and the churches were mostly uninspiring, but hey, that’s part of the fun. Next up, we have another long descent, but I very much look forward to doing the walk after that, number 6, since that has the potential to be the most tiring yet fun and interesting walk of the entire series. I’ll definitely need to buy a better pair of shoes by then. There's a new folder on the shared Drive folder with all the pictures I took on the walk. And yes, I have moved from iCloud to Drive because apparently iCloud doesn't like huge albums. And there's also the link to the data recorded by my watch, if you want to get more info on the hike itself.


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AI blog question challenge

2026-05-30 15:10:00

Rishabh emailed me the other day, asking me to answer the 7 questions of his new blog challenge, and who am I to say no to such a request? So here we go.

How was your first experience with AI models?

I assume by AI models we mean the current crop of LLMs, and not AI models in general, because I’m old enough to remember when “Machine Learning” was a thing. What even is AI anyway at this point, since everything is lumped together into one useless definition? Anyway, I believe my first experience was trying out chagpt back when it first came out. I don’t think I spent more than 10 or 15 minutes using it at the time. It was impressive tech, but was also completely useless for me at the time, and that’s why I didn’t bother spending more time using it.

Do you use AI or are you completely against using it?

This is an interesting question. Do I use AI? Well, I guess the answer is yes since it’s almost impossible to avoid using it if you use the web at this point. Pretty much all tools and services are integrating some sort of AI-powered functionalities, and it’s become harder and harder not to use them. If, instead, the question is do I use one of the various LLMs directly to do stuff, then the answer is still yes, but the amount of usage is so low that some people might consider that to be the same as not using them at all.

I don’t directly pay for any of the models, but my work email has been powered by Google for more than a decade, and so I do get access to Gemini Pro. Workspace has usage data for everything, and I just looked it up: In the last 90 days, the only AI-related feature I used was the Gemini App (that’s not surprising considering I turned off everything else), and I have apparently used it 62 times.

I’m now looking at the history of those chats, and pretty much all of them are single-question queries related to something web dev I was doing. Things like how to do a specific thing inside Kirby, or how to achieve something using a particular JS library. This is stuff one should be able to find inside documentation websites, but the search there is often awful and so after a google search, I try my luck with AI.

And as I wrote somewhere else, I never copy-paste. I ask very narrow questions so that I can be pointed towards the correct answer. And once I have that, I do the coding and I re-implement everything myself.

Am I against using AI? As a generative tool, yes. I refuse to ask AI to do something for me or to generate content from scratch. As a tech in general? I think it has some potentially useful applications in narrow contexts. As always, the answer is not cut-and-dry, and it can be yes or no depending on the framing and the scope.

Do you have any preference among different models, for example Claude vs ChatGPT? If yes, how do you choose?

Nope.

What aspect of AI models do you like and what do you not like?

The only aspect I appreciate is the ability to ask questions in natural language. Because sometimes you have a problem or an answer you’re looking for that can’t be described in a more structured way.

As for what I don’t like, how anthropomorphised these stupid tools are is definitely high on my list. I don’t want my computer to talk back or to make jokes or to say «I’m sorry». If I input a question, I want an answer back, and that’s it. I don’t want follow up questions, I don’t want some pointless preamble. I get why this happens, but I fucking hate it. This is software. I don't want my software to have a personality. I want it to perform a task and get out of my way.

I also don’t like the lying, the gaslighting, and all the other crap, and I also don’t like what the AI industry is doing as a whole, but that’s a separate issue.

How do you feel about AI generated images? Does it annoy you if someone use them in a blog post?

Again, another question that has different answers depending on the scope. The idea of being able to generate images, in general, is neutral to me. It all comes down to what you use it for. There are some potential use cases that are totally fine, others are completely insane. As a whole, I think the ability to generate slop is bad, but that’s because humanity can’t be trusted to do anything the right way.

As for their use in blog posts, I think stock images were useless, and I don’t see images generated with AI to be any different. Unless you have generated an image as part of the content to explain or visualise something. That’s fine, label it as a generated image and move on. That’s no different than including a render, or a sketch on paper, from a content perspective.

Internet is flooded with AI slop now, full of generated text, images, audio and videos. How do you filter it from authentic human creation? Do you have a strategy?

My consumption of online content these days is so limited that I don’t have this issue. I read very few blogs, and I know they are not AI generated because I emailed the people behind them more than once, and I know what their stance is. I watch almost no YouTube, and I only read a few news sites. My strategy is to simply stay away from the digital world as much as possible, and I’m at the point where I’m considering dropping my digital consumption down to zero and quit the internet as a place for content.

Are you hopeful for a better future with A.I. or a dystopian one?

I have zero hope. And that is because I have zero hope in anything that’s in the hands of mega corporations. The incentives are totally skewed, and they’d do everything they can in order to keep the line go up. I don’t see people with strong morals in positions of power and so unless we decide to go full French Revolution, I see no reason for things to improve.


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fLaMEd 🔥

2026-05-29 19:00:00

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with fLaMEd 🔥, whose blog can be found at flamedfury.com.

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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

What's going on, Internet? Kia ora, I'm fLaMEd 🔥. I'm originally from Te Awa Kairangi (Lower Hutt), now living in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa, New Zealand with my wife and two kids.

I get up every morning at 4:30 am to get to the gym before the kids get up and the day begins. I've recently picked up golf again, but find less time for that than I do for website work.

You can get a better idea of what I’m into over at my website, Flamed Fury

I'm not a developer, not a designer, just a guy who loves the web.

What's the story behind your blog?

Flamed Fury started in 1999. It's been through more versions than I can properly count, but the rough timeline: 5 versions before it became a personal blog, a few side quests at different domains inbetween, and finally 4 versions in the 2020 era when I landed back at flamedfury.com where I started.

Started in summer 1999 on one of the free hosts, I don't remember (probably cjb.net). Moved to sweeetnet.com in 2000 through hanging out in the #sweeet IRC channel. A guy called kertiz from #sweeet took pity on my design skills and gave me a proper redesign, then stuck around contributing. Another guy fitty-two joined in. We iterated every couple of years until the dot-com bubble burst, advertising money dried up and the IRC crew drifted apart. I tried to keep it going by myself with a 2002 layout that wasn't great. But "blog" isn't really the word for any of this. The 1999–2003 version was effectively microblogging before microblogging was a thing, built around a niche (lifestyle magazine style, lol) before niche blogging was a thing either. We just didn't have the vocabulary yet.

November 2003 was when Flamed Fury became a blog in the way I'd recognise the format today. Posts about polytech, nights out, whatever was going on. That lasted until 2005, then I parked it and tried being "more adult" at another domain through 2006–2008. Took a break as MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and Twitter took over. Came back in 2012 with a niche barbeque blog and carried on with it for six years before archiving the whole thing in 2018, once I realised how much I absolutely loathed niche recipe blogging.

Revived the fLaMEd persona in 2019 on a new domain (Hugo + Netlify). In 2021 I settled back on flamedfury.com with Eleventy on Neocities. Two redesigns later and a move to a local VPS, here we are.

Every version of this site, going back to 1999, has been the same instinct: a personal site as a place to be yourself on the web. The 1999 version was more of a microblogging website with three friends collaborating around celebrity magazine scans, that's where the era pointed. The 2026 version is the opposite. Everything and nothing, no algorithm to satisfy, no brand. Different tools, same instinct.

There's a longer version of this story I'll get round to writing on the site soon. It's in draft, I promise. Hit me up if you want to see me finish it.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Inspiration for what I put and write on my website comes from across the web and life experiences. A gig, a new record, a beer, a trip with the family, or any number of posts I find across the web gets me thinking. Storytelling, sharing my experiences and interests.

I love monthly recaps to populate my now page, reflections of last night's gig, new (usually local) music finds, a fun time out with my friends or family.

Drafts begin as a note on my phone, my notebook before I find myself with a spare opportunity at my computer.

I'll begin with these rough notes and begin fleshing them out. I'll have a couple of tabs open to grab details and links of what I'm talking about to sprinkle through the post.

Sometimes I'll start a draft and they'll sit there for days, weeks, and sometimes months in an untracked markdown file in Codium.

Depending on what I'm writing about I won't have any proof reading. If I'm writing about something topical about the web I'll often have xandra or one of the other 32-Bit Cafe crew read over it and give me some pointers or a thumbs up.

Then after sitting on it for a minute, an hour or a day, I'll publish it.

Other pages on the website will get worked on and usually published in unfinished states and I'll continue to work on these over time - nothing is ever really finished is it?

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

My ideal creative environment is in my home office, at my desk or couch in silence. I might listen to a few songs or watch a couple music videos to get me in the zone, but when it comes to focus time, all noise off and I work in silence, often talking to myself.

If I'm away from home and I get a moment to myself, it's either at a table, kitchen bench or an arm chair. Hopefully with silence, but usually with the chaos of family life going on around me.

Our kids are young, they're busy, noisy and need lots of attention so focus time these days is few and far between :)

Do I believe the physical space influences my creativity? Heck yeah, if I'm not in the office, then a walk around the block or through the village listening to music will help me get creative - as long as I get those thoughts out of my head before they dissapear. If I'm travelling, then any beautiful location might inspire some spark.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

I use Eleventy for building my website. I originally started with Eleventy Excellent by Lene Saile, but it's evolved beyond that over the years. I often check in with her when she releases new versions to make sure I take in any key updates, but also find some changes I've made find their way back into the starter template :)

These days flamedfury.com runs on an NZ-based VPS to keep the site close to home. I use a local domain registrar for my domains.

Deployment is a simple npm run build then rsync directly to the VPS.

To participate in the web, I've implemented a bunch of IndieWeb features, Webmentions, h-cards, h-entries and of course provide a number of Atom/RSS/JSON feeds which are syndicated to Mastodon through EchoFeed to meet people where they are.

My Bookmarks are backed by the 32-Bit Cafe's instance of Linkding and pulled into my website at build time and shared via Atom/RSS/JSON and EchoFeed.

I run an instance of Forgejo on my homeserver and commit the project there multiple times a day.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I don't think so. If anything I would have tried to preserve everything rather than ditching things over the years. I've managed to recover a lot of the old stuff through old CD-Roms where I'd burnt old versions of the website or from the Wayback Machine.

I would have definitely tried to keep in contact with a lot of the old crew from IRC. We drifted apart before it was easy to keep in contact with each other. I do regret losing those early relationships.

I'm really happy with how I've managed to salvage a lot of the old stuff and merge it into what the website is today. It really is a labour of love.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

All in NZD. The domain is $39/year and my VPS is $82/year. All the other infrastructure on my home network is sunk cost over the years and I'm not sure how I'd put a $ value against that.

I haven't made money from my website since 2001 along with the original internet advertising bubble burst. I did have a go with ads and affiliate marketing with the barbeque blog, but that left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm a fan of services like ko-fi and the like but haven't looked into setting it up for myself - not sure if anyone would be interested in supporting me.

I throw money at the 32-Bit Cafe's ko-fi and contribute to infrastructure costs there as well as my time to help moderate and run the forums and will throw other bloggers tips here and there through their ko-fis, and will buy sticker packs wherever I see them being sold in the wider hobby web community.

When I need some new graphics for the website I'm always on the look out for a commission and will happily pay for talented graphic designers services.

I support a few independent journalists through their newsletters that I enjoy reading and support a local independent news/media website to help keep the lights on there as I enjoy their local content. A great way to keep up with what's going on in the country and the world without the doom-and-gloom.

What's my position on people monetising personal blogs? Go for it as long as it's not intrusive or full of dark patterns. Keep it personal and creative. I love the sticker packs or graphic commissions.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

So many to mention!

  • Chris Burnell — we've become great friends over the years. I love to bounce ideas with; dev, IndieWeb, beer, music.
  • Xandra — xandra is my small web bestie and I've got to know her pretty well over the years through the Cafe.
  • yequari — another of the Cafe barista team. The driving force behind our infrastructure endeavours. His new project https://webweav.ing/ recently launched a guestbook service that I'm using on Flamed Fury.
  • jay, fyr, key, and rodrick - all my fellow 32-Bit Cafe baristas who help running and making the Cafe an awesome place to hangout.
  • Cory Dransfeldt — another I've chatted to heaps with over the past few years. We have heaps of the same interests. His media collection and the direction he's taken his website is "beyond amazing".
  • Robb Knight — Robb always has a new and interesting project to check out. I'm always picking up neat things to add to my website from his.
  • america's decline - not often seen outside of the Neocities circles, but one of my favourites on Neocities. A throwback to my favourite era of the web, music, celeb, pop culture, and fantastic graphics.
  • shellsharks - an indie web powerhouse and curator of the fantastic scrolls weekly.
  • James - another indie web powerhouse. James's blog is full of thoughtful and insightful posts about the web and has recently launched a new podcast centered around the independent web, Wonders of Web Weaving.

More at my blogroll and links pages.

Who do I think you should be interviewing next? Hit up Chris Burnell if you have time before wrapping the project up :)

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

If you're into making websites, or you want to start you should most definitely come and check out the 32-Bit Cafe - our small community of the web where we welcome hobby web developers of all skill levels and help each other out building our websites. We have monthly web weaving workshops, discussion forums, and other fantastic services offered free for the community and join in on the discussion at our forums.

Plugging my own stuff, check out my record collection, and my ever growing list of bookmarks

And for all the readers out there, keep building the web you want to be part of. There's so much great stuff going on out here. Laterz 🤙


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Enhanced games

2026-05-29 00:10:00

The other day that stupid thing called the Enhanced Games took place. As you might have guessed by the name, this is basically the Olympics on steroids, quite literally. The event itself is not even worth commenting on. I remember hearing about this concept ages ago and forgot about it, and only skimmed through a few headlines the day after the event. But reading about it got me thinking about what I’d love to see if we were to organise an Olympics spin-off.

There are two concepts I’d be genuinely excited to see, and they go in opposite directions. The first concept is to let tech and engineers go wild. A lot of modern sports are infused with technology of all kinds: from running shoes materials, to laser stitched swimsuits, to tracks that are incredibly bouncy, the list goes on and on and on. I remember, almost a decade ago, Nike trying to break the 2 hours barrier for the marathon, and thought it was an interesting experiment. I’d love to see what kind of barriers we can break by letting the best athletes and the best minds join forces, but without doing silly things, like strapping rockets to someone’s feet.

The other idea is the exact opposite. Remove all tech. Like all of it. No shoes, no fancy materials, no special equipment, no stadiums, nothing. We go back to ancient times, and we see how much just human bodies alone can achieve, with as little external help as possible. I’d very much enjoy seeing both of those events.


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