Welcome to the new site!

I have a new website! Dismal.ink is dead, long live dismal.ink!

My impetus for starting this website back in 2021 was to showcase my work, which has been primarily artistic in nature. In its first incarnation, it was a WordPress site hosted on the cheap at Dreamhost’s shared starter plan. That was my first time using a modern content management system, and it was eye opening.

It offered automatic thumbnailing, RSS feed generation, search, deep layout templates, and plug-ins galore. It got me going with a good looking, easy to use site in short order.

I never stopped bristling at its friction, though. It was very slow, lumbering and wheezing like me after a two mile run when asked to do something awful like show the admin interface. Editing was slow and painful. Trying to control page elements felt like a battle, and all the advice channels want to do is sell you some premium upgrades.

WordPress is a commercial behemoth trying to solve all problems for all people. When I tried to convert from my original Blocksy template to the stock editor in the hunt for lower latency, I wound up making both slower and uglier.

Around that time, I was getting deep with Chimera-md and wanted to have some way to showcase it too. When I read about CloudFlare tunnels (and got a push from a friend), I saw a road to make both ends meet. I would convert the content to Markdown and host the site myself.

Now you’re here! Hopefully without too much of a speed bump on the way in. Check the place out, kick the tires a bit. Let me know if anything rattles or looks out of place. If you have questions about how it was all put together or want to host your own Chimera-md instance, I’ll be happy to talk about it.

Thank you for coming! I hope you enjoy it!