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+<?php
+$title = "How to Make Your Website Boring and Why!";
+if (isset($early) && $early) {
+	return;
+}
+include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/includes/head.php');
+?>
+
+<p class="description">
+	I took the time last year to make my website more boring. Here's how you
+	can do the same and why you'd want to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	Up until recently I was using a static site generator
+	<a>(cobalt-rs)</a> and a fancy CSS framework/library <a>(Bulma)</a> to
+	build my website. I also had one or two scripts to do various fiddly
+	things in the browser. I took the time to gut it and now I have a much
+	more boring website. I don't use anything but HTML to write all of the
+	posts and pages. This eliminated the need for a static generator or
+	script to turn something like Markdown into HTML for me. I also scrapped
+	all of the customized CSS framework style sheets that I had been using
+	for a very small (145 lines including whitespace and braces) single-file
+	stylesheet. I also dropped all of the fancy links, banners, most of the
+	icons, and any JavaScript that I had originally. Now, my site is much
+	more boring. And it's so much better.
+</p>
+
+<h2>How does one make their website boring?</h2>
+
+<p>
+	Typically, ask yourself whether you need something. If the answer is
+	"no", you can safely remove it and you won't need it again. Your website
+	will become more boring (read: simpler). Here are some of the things I
+	evaluated:
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+	<li>
+		How many 3rd-party assets, templates, CSS libraries am I using? How
+		big are they? Are they slowing down rendering or annoying to
+		maintain/upgrade?
+	</li>
+	<li>Do I need a Sass interpreter to "build" my styles?</li>
+	<li>
+		Am I using a static site generator? Does it make my life easier or
+		more difficult?
+	</li>
+	<li>
+		Am I using a bunch of JavaScript? What does it do and does it really
+		need to do it to make my site work better?
+	</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>
+	Do you use a lot of third-party assets, templates, or CSS for your site?
+	Do you have to run a SASS tool to generate your stylesheets? Are your
+	stylesheets really big (> 1000 lines I think anyone would consider on
+	the bigger side)? Consider whether or not you really need them.
+	Oftentimes, with CSS, less is more. Especially if your site is just a
+	collection of pages of text with links to other pages of text. You can
+	make your site attractive and compatible with 100% of browsers by
+	keeping things simple. And then you don't have to worry about rebuilding
+	your output stylesheets or keeping up with libraries and frameworks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	Do you have a lot of dynamically-generated content on your site? Does
+	the document need to change based on user input? Do you have a large
+	number of script tags importing minified files from third-party CDNs?
+	Odds are you don't need those either and you can completely get rid of
+	them. Now you don't have to worry about making sure all browsers can run
+	those scripts, or whether or not the CDNs are online, or you're
+	requesting the latest version.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	Do you use a static site generator to build your site? Is your content
+	complicated enough to write that you can't write it in plain HTML? Is
+	Markdown really easier or more powerful? Odds are, it's easier to write
+	directly in HTML without having to tell your generator what to do with
+	your tags. And for the oddball tag that Markdown doesn't directly
+	support, you might often end up writing HTML into your Markdown files
+	anyways. And, you can better control what the output formatting looks
+	like, making your site's code more readable. Furthermore, you won't have
+	two acting copies of your site, a pre- and post-generator one. For me,
+	it was annoying having "source code" for my web site that was different
+	from what I was actually hosting. It's so much nicer to have a 1:1
+	mapping between what I write, test, and deploy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	Still not convinced? Still need to automate some part of building your
+	site, like generating an RSS feed? Is there any chance you can write a
+	quick Makefile to do that for you? I was able to do just that, and it
+	was way nicer not having to install and learn how a generator worked to
+	automate assembling my site.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	If you answered "no" to any of the above "do you need"-s, you just found
+	a way to make your site more boring. Boring equates with simplicity.
+	Simplicity is a good thing.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Why should you make your website <s>boring</s> simple?</h2>
+
+<p>
+	Not relying on a bunch of libraries and assets is a good thing. It
+	seemed like every time I wanted to add a quick post, I would notice
+	there was an update for some library I was using and I was spending time
+	upgrading and learning about it. You know, that thing that computer
+	programmers enjoy doing and are good at but often doesn't actually help
+	them accomplish anything: fiddling with shiny new stuff that doesn't
+	solve a problem. Now I get to just focus on adding things to my site and
+	I'm never worried about whether it looks broken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	I also didn't like having a pre- and post-build site. If I wanted to fix
+	one typo I couldn't remote into my live site, fix it, and then leave it
+	there. I had to do something like fix the typo in my Markdown, commit
+	and push it, and then re-run the generator and upload the new "live"
+	files. The generator step wasn't making things easier, it was making
+	them more annoying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	You'd also be surprised at how easy it is to make your site fast and
+	reliable on all modern and old browsers when it's boring (read: simple,
+	again). Internet Explorer doesn't care about my site, it's a breeze to
+	render and there's nothing in it that hasn't been in existence for at
+	least a decade. (Alright, I do have a few SVG icons which it probably
+	wouldn't know what to do with. You can't tell the difference between
+	Firefox's and Chrome's renders of my site. And Google's PageSpeed
+	Insights score is a hilarious 99.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	My site is also more functional now. It's less distracting. It's really
+	easy to navigate and read. There's no runtime, no JavaScript that has to
+	execute before the reader sees the page they're looking for. And there's
+	practically nothing to maintain except my posts. It's also really easy
+	for crawlers to quickly ingest all of my posts and turn them into search
+	results. Hopefully, it's also easier for the visually impaired to zoom
+	in and not mess up the document, or use a screen reader that extracts
+	the article tags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+	The benefits are through the roof. My site used to be about tinkering
+	with tools and libraries and frameworks. Now it's just a boring website.
+	That leaves me with time to focus on tinkering with other stuff that's
+	more interesting, and only focus on writing when I'm working on this
+	site. So make your life easier and go make your website boring today.
+</p>