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21 posts
The post you (almost) didn't publish
This is the comment section for The post you (almost) didn't publish.
Why did I call it PopsicleBoat?
This is the comment section for Why did I call it PopsicleBoat?.
My comment section is static HTML
This is the comment section for My comment section is static HTML.
It feels like a lot of this article was written by AI.
Fair. I do often get a draft from AI and I have not been shy about it here. There's a whole post called "I used AI - it was obvious". This post kept more of the draft's wording than I usually let survive, and "no script, no cookie, no request on pageview" is apparently what that sounds like. I guess I'm not as allergic to AI as others because this is not the first time I've heard that, hence I wrote the post I mentioned earlier. Also, I see that accusation all over the internet, like Reddit. Everyone seems to hate AI.
To me, humanizing the small web and embracing the new are not incongruous. Two things can be true at the same time. Yes, I use AI. It translates to other languages, it finds typos and grammatical issues. It's useful.
The system described is mine. I built it over about 7 years in my spare time. I just want to share it, and I do appreciate you testing it out.
I believe you as much as I believe this line:
From here on out, you’ll never hear a word from me that didn’t come from my own brain. Including this.
Oh well.
Ok fair. Maybe I wasn’t thorough enough, and maybe I should add an edit say I don’t intend stop using ai to draft late night thoughts and ai smells will probably leak through.
This is all free, remember. I’m just doing it for fun and hoping people like it.
You were curious enough to read and reply, so criticisms aside I appreciate you even looking at my work.
FWIW I don’t delete any comments or replies. I want the history here to stay completely honest.
FWIW, I followed through and amended that post https://jva.lol/weblog/my-experiment-with-ai/ with
Edit (2026-08-15): A reader quoted that last line back to me, and they were right to. It didn't survive. I still draft with AI sometimes, and sometimes more of the draft's wording survives my edit than I intend. The more honest version of the pledge is smaller: the ideas are mine, the editing is mine, and when the seams show I'd rather be caught than delete the evidence. The post above stays exactly as I wrote it. Signed, JVA(lol).
I don’t hate AI, I am a heavy AI user, but I hate your writing. Not because of the use of AI but because of your contribution. Your carelessness.
I am sure the article is much better than what you could have produced with your own mind. The problem is that I also have access to the same AI and I find the stuff I can generate with it more interesting.
Everyone seems to hate AI.
And rightly so. The externalities alone are just horrible
No script, no cookie, no request on pageview
Most likely D:
At least they're honest about the costs.
I don't get why someone talking about "humanizing the small web" would be all in on LLMs, a fundamentally dehumanizing technology.
I answered this on lobste.rs but basically I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive. LLMs are massively powerful, my whole team at my day job uses them to get the work done. I’m using them in my spare time to build something I believe supports the idea of offering a platform for small web content. I’m not a purist, I’m a builder. I use the tools available. Remember, this site is free. It’s here for anyone who wants it, and if someone doesn’t like how the sausage is made, well, don’t eat it?
We're all terminally online. I know I am. I know you are too if you're reading this
This is the comment section for we're all terminally online. I know I am. I know you are too if you're reading this.
I hid something fun on my blog
Companion thread for I hid something fun on my blog
First
The confusion is mine. This is not where the puzzle lands. This is the announcement thread. The puzzle ends at a wall that only opens for a solved puzzle, and nobody's signed it yet. 🔥 - love you though
AI is good. Scary good. Scary in a good way.
Companion thread for AI is good. Scary good. Scary in a good way..
Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
My new post script
This is the companion thread for My new post script. Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
Automatic comment threads for new blog posts
This is the companion thread for I've made posting here with a companion thread on PopsicleBoat automatic. Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
23 languages, one I can check
This is the companion thread for 23 languages, one I can check. Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
I think the tradeoff is okay. If someone who speaks Thai but not any of the other languages comes to your website, it's probably better to present them something that they can mostly read, right? I was just looking at https://joinpeertube.org/ and it's written by people who speak French, where English is clearly a second language. It's awkward and grammatically incorrect at time, but of course I get the main message.
The irony, oh the irony!
Continuing my theme of acknowledging that I needn't care if anyone gives a shit about anything I post online.....and ironically posting about it online!
I present to you: "No one cares, and that's a good thing!" a new node in my Digital Garden (reluctantly posted to this Blogging category until there's a Digital Garden one.... 😛)
The https://popsicleboat.com/c/digitalgarden space is yours now, I made you the owner and guardian of it. You can edit the name and description, and there's a build-hook field if you ever want your site rebuilding when comments come in.
Cheers
Jake
Commenting now works with two redirects
This is the companion thread for Commenting now works with two redirects. Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
Posting here, start to finish
This is the companion thread for Posting here, start to finish. Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.
The easier way to post to my blog with comments already setup
This is where the talking happens: Easier way to post to my blog with comments already setup
Creating a Claude skill to simplify adding a comment section to my blog post
I wrote about this in a little more detail here, but basically trying to reduce the steps necessary to making this work
If you haven't poked around here, short summary:
Comment area for your content, no libraries to import, all content is owned by you stored in JSON, no ads, no tracking. Let's get back to the original communicative and non-corporate web (modernized though), eh?
BTW if you're curious, this is all built in Elixir, Phoenix, and LiveView. If you don't know what all that is, don't worry. (I think it's pretty cool tech though and love to talk about it, so… if you're curious let's get coffee? literally or just online. I'm an open book.)
Companion to Adding a Claude skill to make a new blog entry discussion thread as easy as possible.
A glance is not a reading
PopsicleBoat's new-posts badge needed some work. Details in this link.
Shipping the badge was easy. Defining the one word it depends on took three tries.
This line screams "I was writtne by AI" to me...
What about it?
The construction. AI says to me all the time something like:
The project is now deployed. Updating the database was easy. Redefining the API surface to use the new database was the part that took coordinated effort.
I hear you. I personally have trouble telling the difference but I can tell other people can. I may have spent too much of my life online lol. I admit I've used AI, the most value I got out of it was translation. Like, I don't know spanish or french. Let alone arabic or japanese. But it took care of that. This website is translated to 23 languages. I didn't hire anyone for all those, I just asked Claude to try. I do read and write and speak german and that all looked right to me. So I rolled with it. Probably have some regional dialect things inaccurate but don't know what to do about that kind of thing short of learning them all which is incredibly unlikely to happen. I actually wrote about my experience with AI and this site here https://jva.lol/weblog/my-experiment-with-ai/
It was actually written by a human - me. I know there's a lot of skepticism out there so I'm genuinely curious, what smelled AI to you? FWIW you misspelling "written" is a clear sign you did not use AI. But what happens when it gets trained on typos? :thinking-face:
The notification that gave up after a minute
I added the option of notifications, but it was buggy. So I fixed it. Full story in the link.
https://jva.lol/weblog/the-notification-that-gave-up-after-a-minute/
The page that rebuilds itself
I added a build hook so your (and my) site can automatically rebuild itself when there's a new comment or post.
Your site can keep the comments
Every thread's public replies are now plain JSON at the thread's address plus /replies.json. You can download it, do what you want. The content is yours even if this site vanishes. More in the link.
The panel that closed itself
I had a painful bug dealing with video chat. A feature I'm proud of and worked hard on so wanted to get right. Details in the link.
Popsicle Boat as a comment section
I wrote up how jva.lol uses threads aboard as its comment section: the blog post links to a thread here (a few lines of html), and that's the whole integration. No widget, no iframe, no tracker. A reader who wants the discussion follows the link, and the hosting page itself stays static.
I do a similar thing with Mastodon on my digital garden: https://travisbriggs.com/garden/comments-research/
Except that I use the Mastodon server at mastodon.online for outsourcing the moderation capabilities and such. I've found that the silence wasn't because I had no comment system...