Taking my own name in vain.
15th October 2026
Before I write anything else on this post, I have to be honest here and admit I used AI to assist in a good chunk of these changes. I can’t be someone who talks about the negative and downright worrisome trends in regards to AI and not be upfront when I’ve used it myself. In all honesty, probably using it at all will be hypocritcal to some but I’d like to think I’ve never shied away from be up front about things.
I do take issue with how prevelent AI is, that users are given no choice when it’s shoved into apps, and there’s far too many issues with how it’s royally fucked up the cost of technology thanks to the AI bubble circlejerk that’s currently going on. I could go down the deep, dark conversation around generative AI and how it’s messing with us, but that’s probably a post all on its own. Less to say without its help, the things I’ve added to this site over the last few days wouldn’t be possible because my knowledge around Jekyll and Ruby is pretty slim and I’m even worse at CSS.
With that out of the way, I’ve genuinely had fun added a archives page, a proper review template, and a tag cloud page should anyone fancy having a look at what’s been posted before without have to click through every, single, post. There’s also buttons now to navigate forward and backward from the post themselves which I think is kind of handy and saves you having to go back to the main page, click back through the pages to find the post you want. I don’t feel I need a search bar yet but, if I ever do start post to a sufficient volume that some random coming to the site wants to find something I may add it.
Honestly, I’ve been wondering whether I actually need a website at all these days. Most posts are just personal ramblings useful to almost noone beyond my family. Sure, it may be useful to them now and again and I do know one or two people read it, but beyond that, there’s very little reason to visit for the average internet patron. So that got me thinking, what else could I use this space for? My projects page has been dead for a while because I’ve just not done anything of note but, I realised, I do like writing reviews. I’ve been writing reviews for Jump Dash Roll for many years now and whilst I have no intention of posting game reviews here, I do watch and use other things.
The issue for me, really, was that the only time I wrote a review here for Alien Romulus what was there didn’t really fit a review. I mean, what I wrote was fine, I think, but it didn’t really have the look or the feel. My problem was that the theme I have here from the amazing team at Jekyll Themes doesn’t come with anything pre-packaged and, as previously mentioned, my webcoding is rudimentary (I can do basic sites) and my CSS is like moving an image in MS Word; a mess. So this is where I decided to work with AI to get the job done and, if I’m honest, I’m very happy with the result and I feel that, at the very least, my coding background helped me know what to prompt and I knew when it was perhaps off the mark.
Whether or not I vibe code anything else for this site is unlikely. If I’m honest, I do want to learn Ruby as well as Liquid so I’m going to take what I’ve learned third-hand and, when the next tweak comes up, see if I can do it myself. At the same time, though, I do have to be honest about my abilities when it comes to the visual. It’s why I bought a theme for this site, I knew I didn’t have the skills to make my own but that I also didn’t like the defaults either. Part of me, though, knows that with time and patience I could have done that this time around too but, weirdly, I had fun and recently that’s been a tricky thing to find. I know that’s not necessarily a good justification but it’s the truth.
Of all the things I may want to add next it won’t be commenting. I’m all for discourse but I don’t want to have to fight bots which will likely be AI powered which would be somewhat ironic. I’m quite okay with what I have now though I may see if I can hook something in from Flickr so I can show off my photos without having to write some sort of gallery tool. At least that way all I’m doing is pulling something from one site and using what’s already here to display. Very little in the way of designing a look or a visual feel and more about API calls and dealing with the response which I’m far more comfortable with on my own.
Anyway, I do hope the changes are helpful and that those of you who I know amongst my friends share and have legitimate concerns around AI won’t hold my usage against me but I totally understand if you do, too. For me AI has a place in our future, but it should not be “creating” things (it can’t create since it’s ripping off existing stuff) in the visual space and anyone who’s watched The Terminator knows it absolutely shouldn’t be making decisions! Equally, it’s important to factor in the wider environmental impact of its use and the proliferation of data centres and their egregious use of water cannot go ignored either. I’m hoping that, eventually, the brakes will be applied and its use scaled back and controlled as it certainly can’t continue on the trajectory it currently is.