Dev Env
A new design for this blog — and the one thing that didn't change
This blog now has a font-size dial, a real dark mode, and a mode that strips it down to nothing but words. Behind the scenes, articles get outlined and drafted with AI help. One thing about all of it didn't change.
TL;DR
- Three new reading controls: font size, theme, and an eco/performance mode — none of them existed before this rebuild.
- Articles are now outlined, drafted, and polished with AI assistance.
- Publishing is still a manual step — one field flipped in a file, by hand, every time.
Reading options that weren't there before
The old site had one font size, one color scheme, and no way to lighten the page. This one has three controls, all of them persisted, none of them re-decided every time you show up.
| Control | Options | What it actually does |
|---|---|---|
| Font size | S / M / L | Scales the whole reading column from one CSS variable — no more zooming the entire page to read one paragraph. |
| Theme | Light / Dark | An explicit toggle, not a guess at your OS setting. Pick it once, it stays picked. |
| Eco / performance mode | On / Off | Drops cover images, freezes the hand-drawn annotations, cuts the extra JS. Same words, a fraction of the weight. |
Eco mode doesn't hide the article — it hides the weight. Every image gets a plain-text caption instead, so the content survives even with images off. Whatever you pick sticks for next time — nothing here asks you to choose again.
Written with AI, published by me
The part that changed less visibly, but matters more: how an article gets from an idea to this page.
-
Outline
Sections, angle, and component choices get planned first. I approve the structure before a single sentence of prose exists.
-
Draft
A full pass gets written from that approved outline — title, metadata, and the article body.
-
Polish
A pass that rewrites anything that sounds like a generic AI summary instead of a field note, and flags claims that still need checking.
-
Publish
A manual edit —
statuschanges fromdrafttopublishedin the article'smeta.json— then a build command runs. Nothing in the previous three steps can do this on its own.
The AI drafts. I still decide what's true and what gets published — that part didn't change.
What's next: slides
None of this is exotic. The controls are three CSS variables and a bit of localStorage; the pipeline is three AI passes and one human decision that never moves. That last part is the whole point.
Read with intention.
aesthete + coding
