2016-04-20 A Funner Site

Post date: Apr 20, 2016 9:36:27 PM

I read a lot.

Pretty much all day, every day, I'm reading with short breaks for a few TV shows (on Netflix, or Amazon Prime or the like) and sleep. Most of my reading is on websites. Probably half of what I read is technical or related to work in some way, but the other half is for entertainment alone.

I don't think he cares that he is doing it wrong.

I love to read codinghorror and cracked because they are fun. The words and phrasing they use make me choose to read them for recreation.

So when I started writing up my thoughts on encryption and the whole bundle of issues that sprang up in the Apple vs FBI and access to the iPhone case, I wanted to make my writing as fun to read as theirs. I know I haven't succeeded (yet) but in the process I started trying to make the page easier to follow.

I started adding breaks for pictures like I see other sites do. I started adding sidebar blocks like other sites do. I changed themes and layout and font size. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I checked my favorite sites and, while I didn't try to copy them, I did try to learn from their styles.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just remember that.

In the process, I started looking for interesting and compelling pictures I could break my writing with. I found a couple that I wanted to hang onto in this blog post:

I'm also establishing a few rules for what I think makes a website fun to read: