The Geekorium

Hi folks! It’s been a long time since I last posted, and a lot has happened. No more than has happened to anyone else over the same time and none of it is newsworthy, but the passage of time seemed like something that that should be at least acknowledged. Which seems redundant now that I type it out loud.

One of the things keeping me from posting is just the sheer insanity of life. Things don’t so much get in the way as they make posting seem inadequate. How do you put mundanity mixed with chaos and frustration into words without boring people? How do you tease out the parts that made you happy without looking like you’re trying too hard.

And then there’s the site itself. Writing up Markdown and finding images and putting it all together in Hugo was never a fun way to write. I was tied to my desktop and although I tried to have a “workflow” the way Hugo changed from month to month meant every time I uploaded I had up to a half-dozen broken steps I’d need to work through to get it re-built.

So I ended up putting it off more and more, even though my drafts folder was growing (slowly - but growing), and now we’re here more than a year later and no updates.

This time I determined to build the website my way. It’s taken a minute but I now have a way to generate my site that’s built on technologies I understand and my own sweat and tears. More of that when I write up how it works and how and why you might want to try it, but for now - I welcome you to the new and improved The Geekorium!

I’m still dogfooding it as I go, and there are a couple of things I still know I need to do, as well as a few bugs I’m not aware of, but if I put it off until it’s perfect I’ll never release it.

You might see some items that look like this: {{< youtube xyzabc123 >}} or some links that still look like Markdown. Those are unfinished until I can port over the plugins I need to translate the Hugo exclusive tags. I have figures working, and my next goal is the youtube tags, but please be patient while I get them going.

You might also get old sites in your feed reader (if you’re still subscribed). I rewrote the Atom feed and it may not even work, so sorry if it makes your reader grumpy.

In the meantime I welcome feedback. I reached out to Georgie of Hey Georgie for design help and she graciously gave me some ways to make the site look better, but all bad decisions are my own. If you have any ideas for improvements I’m all ears, because I don’t really have an eye for design. You can get in touch via email at josh @ this.domain.au or on the fediverse at https://social.chinwag.org/@josh and if you notice any jank please let me know.

November will be this this site’s 20th anniversary. I hope this new format will make me more likely to keep it up-to-date. So here’s to 2025 and the new online me!