comments
… 
from a retired designer.
Of course; real designers do not really retire. They renew themselves, or they let their work become outdated and replaced. I chose that latter route a while back, but am of course still having fun out here, while watching what more active (and mainly younger) designers do, and observing life online in general.
No reason for us to take anything too serious, and remove all that is fun in life. More than enough people around who are willing to do that for us, without us insisting on helping them.
Despite “retirement” and all that; I might keep this site going more or less “as is” for a while, as it gives me something to do when I'm bored and/or in too much pain to do much in the real world. I still find preparing and writing articles, or testing out some minor design-related ideas, quite relaxing.
the world wide web has been steadily growing…
If the statistics are correct, “only” slightly less than 202 million active websites can be found on the world wide web as of July 2023. Just to keep the commercial ones in proper working order, and replace their visual designs at least once a year, should provide a lot of designers, coders, writers and other content-providers, with something to do.
While visual design hasn't evolved much in my opinion, most sites/pages are better laid out and organised now than they were
back in time.
The HTML/CSS/-script toolboxes are
more extensive and powerful these days. And, as basically all of today's browsers are built around one or the other of only
two rendering engines, the need to include workarounds in the site-code for it to work across the entire browserland, is
virtually non-existent.
Quite a change from back when the browser-wars was raging, and “BEST VIEWED IN …”
signs was found on nearly all commercial sites.
Now decisions related to the visual element(s) in a design, is mainly about how large the smallest screens on mobile (or “smart”) phones are that one wants to cater for.
no “revisions” needed…
I get my fair share of emails with offers related to improvements and optimization of my sites. That is all fine, but
none of my private sites are in need of any assistance, or help, regarding design, SEO, or how they work otherwise. Everything is
how I want it to be around here, down to the smallest details in what shows up, or does not show up, on screens of all shapes and sizes.
I don't expect those who offer their services to read this, as I haven't found signs that any of them have actually checked the sites
they offer their services for in the emails I have received. No big deal really, as I do not waste much time on checking them
either … read and forget is the norm for such offers.
When I want something to work different around here, I just set aside the time it takes to make it happen. If/when
I need help, I know where, and who, to ask.
For what it's worth: this site's markup exists in several versions, and generations –
including experimental variants, to reflect status at the time each piece was released.
The styling covers all these versions for a (more or less) identical visual appearance across the site, pluss loads of
experimental and redundant bits and pieces spread over a number of stylesheets that are linked in to individual
pages where needed.
Even the ERRORs in my code are (for the most part) intentional. They are mainly part of how
I test browsers – another of my online hobbies.
I am no longer selling anything – not even my own opinions, and have no interest in whether people find my pages via
Google, Bing, or whatever search engine they fancy,
or if my work goes unnoticed. All that is behind me, and I am quite happy with doing it mostly, or entirely, for my own
amusement.
To me flipping markup and styles, beats collecting stamps or provoking
irritation on Facebook and X.
we will allways have social media…
Social media platforms came, and then – one by one – they got stuck, overused, abused, ignored, and forgotten.
The early ones have pretty much gone the way of the Dodo by now, and more will follow while new ones will emerge.
As phenomenon social media will most likely allways be around, and some even in usable forms. Most will have their places and users, at least for a while.
Depending on mood, I may like to laugh with, or at, people (or other beings)
in various situations. In rare cases other emotions may also be
justifiable. Then social media come handy even for those of us who have gone into early, or late, “retirement”.
What is most practical about social media, is that the more “lazy” or maybe “asocial” (or even “busy”) of us do not have to be very active on them in order to observe, and get a pretty good overview of, life online in general, or limited to our very personal spheres of interests. We can just stop by, observe, follow, “like”, comment or ignore, and leave at will. Suits me perfectly…
sincerely 
Hageland 28.aug.2023
last rev: 11.sep.2023