5545 lines
203 KiB
Plaintext
5545 lines
203 KiB
Plaintext
[1]
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[2]LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
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[3]This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline
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• [4]English
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• [5]Français
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• [6]Deutsch
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• [7]Nederlands
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• [8]Español
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• [9]Italiano
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• [10]Português
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• [11]Polski
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• [12]العربية
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• [13]Tiếng Việt
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• [14]한국어
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Menu
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• [15] About
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• [16] Low-tech Solutions
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• [17] High-tech Problems
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• [18] Obsolete Technology
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• [19] Read the Magazine Off-line
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• [20] Archive
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• [21] Donate
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• [22] NTM
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• [23] [24]
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About the Solar Powered Website
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This website is solar-powered and self-hosted. It has been designed to
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radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content.
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Translations [25]fr [26]de [27]nl [28]es
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The solar powered server that runs this website.
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The solar powered server that runs this website.
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View original image View dithered image
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Last update: April 22, 2022
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Low-tech Magazine questions the belief in technological progress, and
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highlights the potential of past knowledge and technologies for designing a
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sustainable society. Because a web redesign was long overdue – and because we
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try to practice what we preach – we decided to build a low-tech website that
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meets our needs and abides by our principles.
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To reduce energy use, we opted for a back to basics web design, using a static
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site instead of a database driven content management system. We further apply
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default typefaces, dithered images, off-line reading options, and other tricks
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to lower energy use far below that of the average website. In addition, the low
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resource requirements and open design help to keep the blog accessible for
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visitors with older computers and/or less reliable Internet connections.
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Because it uses so little energy, this website can be run on a mini-computer
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with the processing power of a mobile phone. It needs 1 to 2.5 watts of power,
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which is supplied by a small, off-grid solar PV system on the balcony of the
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author’s home. Typical for off-the-grid renewable power systems, energy storage
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is limited. This means that the website will go off-line during longer periods
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of cloudy weather.
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[29]Why a low-tech website?
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[30]Why does it go off-line?
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[31]How often is it off-line?
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[32]When is the best time to visit?
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[33]How is the website designed?
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[34]Which hardware and software do you use?
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[35]What happens to the old website?
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[36]Who made this?
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[37]Can I help?
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[38]Comments
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[39]The solar powered website in the media
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Why a low-tech website?
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We were told that the Internet would [40]“dematerialise” society and decrease
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energy use. Contrary to this projection, it has become a large and rapidly
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growing consumer of energy itself. According to the latest estimates, the
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entire network already consumes [41]10% of global electricity production, with
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data traffic doubling roughly every two years.
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In order to offset the negative consequences associated with high energy
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consumption, renewable energy has been proposed as a means to lower emissions
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from powering data centers. For example, Greenpeace’s yearly [42]ClickClean
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report ranks major Internet companies based on their use of renewable power
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sources.
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However, running data centers on renewable power sources is not enough to
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address the growing energy use of the Internet. To start with, the Internet
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already uses three times more energy than all wind and solar power sources
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worldwide can provide. Furthermore, [43]manufacturing, and regularly replacing,
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renewable power plants also requires energy, meaning that if data traffic keeps
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growing, so will the use of fossil fuels.
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Finally, solar and wind power are not always available, which means that an
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Internet running on renewable power sources would require infrastructure for
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energy storage and/or transmission that is also [44]dependent on fossil fuels
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for its manufacture and replacement. Powering websites with renewable energy is
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not a bad idea. However, the trend towards growing energy use must also be
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addressed.
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Websites are getting “fatter”
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The growing energy use of the Internet is associated with two trends. First,
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content is becoming increasingly resource-intensive. This has a lot to do with
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the growing importance of video, but a similar trend can be observed among
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websites.
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The [45]size of the average web page (defined as the average page size of the
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500,000 most popular websites) increased from 0.45 megabytes in 2010 to 1.7
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megabytes in June 2018. For mobile websites, the average “page weight” rose
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tenfold from 0.15 MB in 2011 to 1.6 MB in 2018. Using different measurement
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methods, other sources report average page sizes of up to 2.9 MB in 2018.
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The size of the average web page increased at least threefold from 2010 to
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2018.
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The growth in data traffic [46]surpasses the advances in energy efficiency (the
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energy required to transfer 1 megabyte of data over the Internet), resulting in
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more and more energy use.
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Over and above this, “heavier” or “larger” websites not only increase energy
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use in the network infrastructure, but they also shorten the lifetime of
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computers – larger websites require more powerful computers to access them.
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This means that more computers need to be manufactured, which is a [47]very
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energy-intensive process.
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Always online
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A second reason for growing Internet energy consumption is that we spend more
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and more time on-line. Before the arrival of portable computing devices and
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wireless network access, we were only connected to the network when we had
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access to a desktop computer in the office, at home, or in the library. We now
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live in a world in which no matter where we are, we are always on-line,
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including, at times, via more than one device simultaneously.
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Continuous network access doesn’t combine well with renewable energy
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sources such as wind and solar power, which are not always available.
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“Always-on” Internet access is accompanied by a cloud computing model –
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allowing more energy efficient user devices at the expense of increased energy
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use in data centers. Increasingly, activities that could perfectly happen
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off-line – such as writing a document, filling in a spreadsheet, or storing
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data – are now requiring continuous network access. This does not combine well
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with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, which are not
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always available.
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Addressing both issues
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Our new web design addresses both these issues. Thanks to a low-tech web
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design, we managed to decrease the average page size of the blog by a factor of
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five compared to the old design – all while making the website visually more
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attractive. Secondly, our new website runs 100% on solar power, not just in
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words, but in reality: it has its own energy storage and will go off-line
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during longer periods of cloudy weather.
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The 50W and 30W solar PV panels on the balcony. One is powering the website,
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the other is powering the lights in the living room. Image by Marie Verdeil.
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The 50W and 30W solar PV panels on the balcony. One is powering the website,
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the other is powering the lights in the living room. Image by Marie Verdeil.
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View original image View dithered image
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How is the website designed?
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The Internet is not an autonomous being. Its growing energy use is the [48]
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consequence of actual decisions made by software developers, web designers,
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marketing departments, publishers and internet users. With a lightweight,
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off-grid solar-powered website, we want to show that other decisions can be
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made.
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The average page size of this website is below 0.5 MB – roughly a sixth of
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the average page size of the original website
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With about 100 articles online, the average page weight on the solar powered
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website is now below 0.5 MB – roughly a fifth of the average page size of the
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previous design, and less than three times the average page size of the 500,000
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most popular blogs in June 2018. The page weight for each article on this
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website is shown in the lower left corner of the screen.
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Below are some of the design decisions we made to reduce energy use. We have
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published a [49]separate document that focuses on the front-end efforts, and
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one [50]that focuses on the back-end. We have also [51]released the source code
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for our website design.
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Static Site Generator
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One of the fundamental choices we made was to build a static website. Most of
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today’s websites use server side programming languages that generate the
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website on the fly by querying a database. This means that every time someone
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visits a web page, it is generated on demand.
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On the other hand, a static website is [52]generated once and exists as a
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simple set of documents on the server’s hard disc. It’s always there – not just
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when someone visits the page. Static websites are thus based on file storage
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whereas dynamic websites depend on recurrent computation. Static websites
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consequently require less processing power and thus less energy.
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A static website requires less processing power because it is not dependent
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on recurrent computation
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The choice for a static site enables the possibility of serving the site in an
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economic manner from our home office in Barcelona. Doing the same with a
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database-driven website would be nearly impossible, because it would require
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too much energy. It would also be a big security risk. Although a web server
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with a static site can be hacked, there are significantly less attack routes
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and the damage is more easily repaired.
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Dithered Images
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The main challenge was to reduce page size without making the website less
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attractive. Because images take up most of the bandwidth, it would be easy to
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obtain very small page sizes and lower energy use by eliminating images,
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reducing their number, or making them much smaller. However, visuals are an
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important part of Low-tech Magazine’s appeal, and the website would not be the
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same without them.
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By dithering, we can make images ten times less resource-intensive, even
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though they are displayed much larger than on the old website.
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Instead, we chose to apply an obsolete image compression technique called
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“dithering”. The number of colours in an image, combined with its file format
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and resolution, contributes to the size of an image. Thus, instead of using
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full-colour high-resolution images, we chose to convert all images to black and
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white, with four levels of grey in-between. These black-and-white images are
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then coloured according to the pertaining content category via the browser’s
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native image manipulation capacities.
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The solar powered server in its new housing, screwed against the wall in the
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living room. The battery is in front. The solar charge controller below the
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laptop powers the lights in the room. Image by Marie Verdeil.
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The solar powered server in its new housing, screwed against the wall in the
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living room. The battery is in front. The solar charge controller below the
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laptop powers the lights in the room. Image by Marie Verdeil.
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View original image View dithered image
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Compressed through this dithering plugin, images featured in the articles add
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much less load to the content: compared to the old website, the images are
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roughly ten times less resource-intensive.
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Default typeface / No logo
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All resources loaded, including typefaces and logos, are an additional request
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to the server, requiring storage space and energy use. Therefore, our new
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website does not load a custom typeface and removes the font-family
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declaration, meaning that visitors will see the default typeface of their
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browser. Only one weight (regular) of a font is used, demonstrating that
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content hierarchy can be communicated without loading multiple typefaces and
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weights.
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Visitors will see the default typeface of their browser, eliminating the
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need to load a custom typeface.
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We use a similar approach for the logo. In fact, Low-tech Magazine never had a
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real logo, just a banner image of a spear held as a low-tech weapon against
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prevailing high-tech claims. Instead of a designed logotype, which would
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require the production and distribution of custom typefaces and imagery,
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Low-tech Magazine’s new identity consists of a single typographic move: to use
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the left-facing arrow in place of the hypen in the blog’s name: LOW←TECH
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MAGAZINE. This pared-down identity drew inspiration from the past as well as
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the banner image of the previous design.
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Why does it go offline?
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Quite a few web hosting companies claim that their servers are running on
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renewable energy. However, even when they actually generate solar power
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on-site, and do not merely “offset” fossil fuel power use by planting trees or
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the like, their websites are always online.
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This means that either they have a giant battery storage system on-site (which
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makes their power system unsustainable), or that they are relying on grid power
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when there is a shortage of solar power (which means that they do not really
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run on 100% solar power).
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Keeping the server on-line no matter what simply requires too many
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batteries, which makes the system unsustainable and expensive.
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In contrast, this website runs on an off-the-grid solar power system with its
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own energy storage, and will go off-line during longer periods of cloudy
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weather. Less than 100% reliability is [53]essential for the sustainability of
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an off-the-grid solar system, because above a certain threshold the fossil fuel
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energy used for producing and replacing the batteries is higher than the fossil
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fuel energy saved by the solar panels.
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Apart from sustainability (and costs), the author’s home has limited space for
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installing solar panels and batteries. Keeping the server on-line no matter
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what – the standard business model of webhosting companies – simply requires
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too many batteries.
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[solar-pane]
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View original image View dithered image
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The sizing of battery and solar panel is a compromise between uptime and
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sustainability. Illustration: Diego Marmolejo
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The sizing of battery and solar panel is a [54]compromise between uptime and
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sustainability. Illustration: [55]Diego Marmolejo
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View original image View dithered image
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How often is it offline?
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Over a period of roughly one year (351 days, from 12 December 2018 to 28
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November 2019) the server was up for 95.26% of the time. This means that we
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were offline for 399 hours (which corresponds to 16.64 days).
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These numbers don’t tell the whole story, though. During the first ten months
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of this period, the server was online for 98.2% of the time. This means that it
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was offline for only 152 hours (6.4 days) – and this includes the winter
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months.
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However, uptime from 1 October to 30 November 2019 plummeted to 80.17%. This
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was caused by a software upgrade of the Linux kernel, which increased the
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average power use of the server from 1.19 to 1.49 watts, and consequently
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brought the website down for at least a few hours every night.
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Image: In October 2019, average power use suddenly increases and the site goes
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down every night.
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Image: In October 2019, average power use suddenly increases and the site goes
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down every night.
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View original image View dithered image
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The graph above, which shows the power use of the server from 15 July to 15
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November 2019, reveals the effect of the software upgrade. Power use is zero
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when the server is offline. Before the software upgrade, this happens only now
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and then, during longer periods of bad weather. From October onwards, it
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happens every night. The two peaks at the beginning of November show two
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intents to charge the battery with grid power, because we initially assumed the
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problem was caused by a deteriorating battery.
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All the data above refer to a set-up consisting of a 50W solar panel with an
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energy storage capacity that is equivalent to that of an 86.4 Wh lead-acid
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battery. In December 2019 and January 2020, we have been running the system on
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[56]different sizes of solar panels and batteries. Based on these experiments,
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we decided to continue with a smaller (30W) solar panel and a larger (168 Wh)
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lead-acid battery. Since then, the uptime has been 100% (March to September
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2020), even though we have added a lot of content by making the website
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multilingual. This is due to the larger (brand new) battery but also to the
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better orientation of the smaller solar panel. The battery’s capacity will
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decline over time, so the higher storage capacity will make it last longer. If
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the uptime remains 100% through the winter 2020/2021, we will probably
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downgrade to a 20W solar panel.
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[57]Here’s a graphic representation of our uptime in 2020, related to the
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weather.
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When is the best time to visit?
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The accessibility of this website depends on the weather in Barcelona, Spain,
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where the solar-powered web server is located. Because it is solar powered, the
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website is most often online during the summer. To help visitors “plan” their
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visits to Low-tech Magazine, we provide them with several pointers.
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A battery meter provides crucial information because it may tell the visitor
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that the blog is about to go down – or that it’s “safe” to read it. The design
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features a background colour that indicates the capacity of the solar-charged
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battery that powers the website server. A decreasing height indicates that
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night has fallen or that the weather is bad.
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To help visitors “plan” their visits to Low-tech Magazine, we provide them
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with several pointers such as a battery meter and a weather forecast.
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In addition to the battery level, other information about the website server is
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visible with a [58]statistics dashboard. This includes contextual information
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of the server’s location: time, current sky conditions, upcoming forecast, and
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the duration since the server last shut down due to insufficient power.
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To access Low-tech Magazine no matter the weather, we have [59]several offline
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reading options available. These include four printed volumes with a total of
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2,398 pages and 709 images.
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The Printed Website.
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The Printed Website.
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View original image View dithered image
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Which hardware and software do you use?
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We wrote three extra articles with more in-depth technical information:
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• [60]How to build a low-tech website: software and hardware, which focuses
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on the back-end.
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• [61]How to Build a Low-tech Website: Design Techniques and Process, which
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focuses on the front-end.
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• [62]How sustainable is a solar powered website?, which focuses on the
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sizing of the solar PV system and the optimal balance between uptime and
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sustainability.
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In addition, Roel Roscam Abbing wrote a conference paper about Low-tech
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Magazine’s solar powered website: [63]‘This is a solar-powered website, which
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means it sometimes goes offline’: a design inquiry into degrowth and ICT.”
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Workshop on Computing within Limits. 2021.
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SERVER: This website runs on an [64]Olimex A20 computer. It has 2 Ghz of
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processing power, 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage. The server draws 1 - 2.5
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watts of power.
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SERVER SOFTWARE: The webserver runs Armbian Stretch, a Debian based operating
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system built around the SUNXI kernel. We wrote [65]technical documentation for
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configuring the webserver.
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DESIGN SOFTWARE: The website is built with [66]Pelican, a static site
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generator. We have [67]released the source code for ‘solar’, the Pelican theme
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we developed here.
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INTERNET CONNECTION. The server is connected to a 100 MBps fibre internet
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connection. [68]Here’s how we configured the router. For now, the router is
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powered by grid electricity and requires 10 watts of power. We are
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investigating how to replace the energy-hungry router with a more efficient one
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that can be solar-powered, too.
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SOLAR PV SYSTEM. At the moment, the server runs on a 30W solar panel and a 168
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Wh lead-acid battery. However, we keep [69]experimenting with different setups.
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The PV installation is managed by a 10A solar charge controller.
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What happens to the old website?
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The solar powered Low-tech Magazine is a work in progress. For now, the
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grid-powered Low-tech Magazine remains on-line. Readers will be encouraged to
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visit the solar powered website if it is available. What happens later, is not
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yet clear. Our work on the website was interrupted by lockdowns and travel
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restrictions in early 2020. We hope to get together again in 2022 and finish
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the job.
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Who made this website?
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Idea: [70]Kris De Decker
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Web design and development: [71]Marie Otsuka, [72]Roel Roscam Abbing.
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Computer hardware: Roel Roscam Abbing
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Solar hardware: Kris De Decker
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Content production & translations: Kathy Vanhout
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The printed website: [73]Lauren Traugott-Campbell.
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Can I help?
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Yes, you can.
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On the one hand, we’re looking for ideas and feedback to further improve the
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website and reduce its energy use. We will document the project extensively so
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that others can build low-tech websites too. [74]Here are some specific
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technical questions that we have.
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To make a comment, please send an e-mail to solar (at) lowtechmagazine (dot)
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com. Comments will be published at the bottom of this page.
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On the other hand, we’re hoping for people to support this project with a
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financial contribution. Advertising services, which have maintained Low-tech
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Magazine since its start in 2007, are not compatible with our lightweight web
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design. Therefore, we are searching for other ways to finance the website:
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1. We offer [75]print-on-demand copies of the website. These publications
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allow you to read Low-tech Magazine on paper, on the beach, in the sun, or
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whenever and where ever you want.
|
||
2. You can support us through [76]PayPal, [77]Patreon and [78]LiberaPay.
|
||
Patrons get early access to new books, book promotions, special editions,
|
||
and more.
|
||
|
||
The solar powered website in the media
|
||
|
||
“[79]How to build a solar powered website?”, Justine Paradis, Outside/In, New
|
||
Hampshire Public Radio, 2022
|
||
|
||
“[80]Can the Internet Survive Climate Change?”, Kevin Lozano, The New Republic,
|
||
2019
|
||
|
||
“[81]The future of web design is less, not more”, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan,
|
||
Fastcompany, September 10, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[82]Imagining a Solar-Powered Internet: Kris De Decker Low<–Tech Magazine”,
|
||
Jasio Stefanski, The Gradient, Walker Art Magazine, November 21, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[83]Interview: Marie Otsuka. Podcast, HTML.energy, December 2019
|
||
|
||
“[84]How to Build a Low-Tech Website”, Roman Zolotarev, Hacker News, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[85]Low-Tech Magazine switches to a low-tech, low carbon website”, Lloyd
|
||
Alter, Treehugger, September 26, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[86]The philosophy of low-tech: a conversation with Kris De Decker”, Aaron
|
||
Vansintjan, Never Apart Magazine, July 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[87]Reconsider the thinking that everything should become digital”, Svensk
|
||
biblioteksförening, March 2020.
|
||
|
||
“[88]Perfecting the solar powered web server”, Tom Nardi, Hackaday, October 8,
|
||
2018.
|
||
|
||
“[89]This Solar-Powered, ‘Low Tech’ Website Goes Offline When It’s Cloudy”,
|
||
Slashdot, October 2, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[90]The Internet’s Carbon Footprint”, IRL Mozilla Firefox Podcast, July 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[91]The Solar-Powered Website Offering a Vision for an Eco-Friendly Internet”,
|
||
Leander Jones, RESET, April 2020
|
||
|
||
“[92]Low-tech Magazine website”, Matthijs Sluiter, Fonts in use, January 9,
|
||
2019.
|
||
|
||
“[93]Low-tech Magazine’s Solar-Powered Website is Rewriting the Rules of Web
|
||
Design”, Liz Stinson, Aiga Eye on Design, November 12, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[94]YouTube’s carbon footprint is huge, but smarter web design could fix it”,
|
||
Nicole Kobie, Wired, May 7, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[95]How an online magazine avoids the internet’s impact on the environment”,
|
||
Alexandria Neason, Columbia Journalism Review, April 30, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[96]Kris De Decker on web design’s energy-efficient future”, Kathryn Bishop,
|
||
LSN Global, October 25, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[97]A solar-powered, self-hosted version of Low-Tech Magazine”, Hemmert
|
||
(pseudonym), Hacker News, April 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[98]A website that runs on a solar-powered server in Barcelona”, Peey
|
||
(pseudonym), Hacker News, May 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[99]Solar Powered Website”, Ars Electronica, Ars Electronica Prix 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[100]Low-tech Magazine and a better internet for the Anthropocene”, Naomi
|
||
Huffman, MCD Books, April 9, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[101]The Future of Websites? How one site has Gone 100% Solar”, S. Fraser,
|
||
Seabr0 .
|
||
|
||
“[102]Restart Podcast Ep. 53: Our low-tech future with Kris De Decker”,
|
||
Restart, May 2020.
|
||
|
||
Off-line portal to the solar powered website at the Dutch Design Week in
|
||
Eindhoven. Designed and built in collaboration with Marie Verdeil. More images
|
||
here.
|
||
Off-line portal to the solar powered website at the Dutch Design Week in
|
||
Eindhoven. Designed and built in collaboration with Marie Verdeil. [103]More
|
||
images here.
|
||
View original image View dithered image
|
||
|
||
Other low-tech websites:
|
||
|
||
“[104]Solar Protocol”, March 2021
|
||
|
||
“[105]Formafantasma”, February 2021
|
||
|
||
“[106]Ontaarde Beschaving, 2021
|
||
|
||
“[107]Post Growth Toolkit”, November 2020
|
||
|
||
“[108]Low Tech Lab”, October 2020
|
||
|
||
“[109]Branch”, October 2020
|
||
|
||
“[110]Chaire Diament, Université du Québec, 2020
|
||
|
||
“[111]Louwrentius”, July 2020
|
||
|
||
“[112]Finding Pleasure in Scarcity”, Daniel Parnitzke!, May 2020
|
||
|
||
“[113]Digital guide to low tech”, Gauthier Roussilhe, Gauthier Roussilhe
|
||
Writings, March 11, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[114]Our lighter website”, Caroline Whyte, Feasta, July 16, 2019
|
||
|
||
“[115]Fisk Solar”, A solar powered website in Sourhall, Todmorden, Yorkshire,
|
||
UK, 2019
|
||
|
||
“[116]Solar powered media project”, 2019
|
||
|
||
Media links in French:
|
||
|
||
“[117]Pour un Web Frugal”, Framalang (pseudonym), Framablog, January 24, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[118]Le design pour lutter contre le changement climatique”, Hubert Guillaud,
|
||
internetactu.net, September 18, 2019
|
||
|
||
“[119]Environnement : un site internet fonctionne à l’énergie solaire”,
|
||
Caroline Drzewinski, RTL Online, October 10, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[120]Quel avenir pour les sites « low-tech » ?”, Geoffrey Dorne, Grafisme et
|
||
interactivité, September 1, 2019
|
||
|
||
“[121]Relier numérique et low tech”, Fing, Agenda pour un futur numérique et
|
||
écologique, Défi No. 13, March 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[122]Faire tourner un site web à l’énergie solaire”, Claire, L’assembleuse,
|
||
November 15, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[123]Ce site est tellement low tech qu’il est hors ligne quand il n’y a pas de
|
||
soleil, Numerama, October 2018
|
||
|
||
Media links in Spanish
|
||
|
||
“[124]Si internet quiere ser sostenible, necesita adelgazar”, El Pais, February
|
||
15, 2020
|
||
|
||
“[125]Low tech magazine, un sitio web sostenible”, Cátedra Telefónica-UOC de
|
||
Diseno y Creación Multimedia, October 10, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[126]Esta página web funciona con energía solar y consume menos debido a su
|
||
diseño”, Alicia Ruiz Fernández, Ticbeat, 9 october 2018.
|
||
|
||
Media links in German
|
||
|
||
“[127]Wie du einen mit Photovoltaik angetriebenen Webserver baust”, Thomas
|
||
Reis, Spandauer Volksblatt, September 26, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[128]Solarbetrieben: Bei schlechtem Wetter ist diese Website offline”, Kim
|
||
Rixecker, t3n, October 9, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[129]Diese radikal nachhaltige Webseite zeigt, wie ein umweltfreundliches
|
||
Internet aussehen könnte”, Leander Jones, RESET, May 2020.
|
||
|
||
“[130]Low-Tech-Website geht offline, wenn die Wolken aufziehen”, Helga Hansen,
|
||
Heise Online, October 12, 2018.
|
||
|
||
“[131]Wie das Internet Strom frisst”, Philip Bovermann, Süddeutsche Zeitung,
|
||
August 28, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[132]How to build a solar powered website?” A Bits & Bäume 2018
|
||
Podiumsdiskussion by Kris De Decker, media.ccc.de, November 18, 2018
|
||
(mediafile).
|
||
|
||
In other languages
|
||
|
||
“[133]Uma revista com muitas dúvidas sobre a tecnologia”, João PedroPerera,
|
||
Publico, May 5, 2019.
|
||
|
||
“[134]Low Tech Magazine gaat terug naar zijn roots”, Branko Collin, 2019.
|
||
|
||
The solar powered website in the Design Museum in London. It forms part of the
|
||
exhibition “Waste age: what can design do?“, which runs until 20 February 2022.
|
||
The solar powered website in the Design Museum in London. It forms part of the
|
||
exhibition “[135]Waste age: what can design do?“, which runs until 20 February
|
||
2022.
|
||
View original image View dithered image
|
||
|
||
Reactions
|
||
|
||
To make a comment, please send an e-mail to solar (at) lowtechmagazine (dot)
|
||
com. Your e-mail address is not used for other purposes, and will be deleted
|
||
after the comment is published. If you don’t want your real name to be
|
||
published, sign the e-mail with the name you want to appear.
|
||
|
||
Reactions
|
||
|
||
Seppe
|
||
|
||
Very interesting project! It’ll be interesting to see how well it holds up
|
||
during the winter.
|
||
|
||
What software are you running on the server to keep the energy usage so low?
|
||
(I’m mainly interested in the OS and HTTP server.)
|
||
|
||
I have a few ideas/suggestions:
|
||
|
||
I think it should be possible to reach much higher uptime by creating a network
|
||
of nodes that all host the same set of websites. It wouldn’t be a very simple
|
||
project, and you might argue that it’s not as lowtech anymore. But hear me out:
|
||
|
||
Say you have 5 “lowtech websites” each running on its own server (node), and
|
||
each located in a different place on earth. You could then duplicate the
|
||
content of each server to the 4 other servers. This only costs you extra
|
||
storage. The servers only need to communicate with each other when the content
|
||
changes. The energy/bandwidth cost of this communication should be negligible
|
||
for static websites that are updated for example once a day.
|
||
|
||
The main challenge is the DNS. There needs to be some kind of load balancing
|
||
between these 5 clients. A rudimentary solution would be to use round-robin
|
||
DNS. Say you have and A record for solar.lowtechmagazine.com that contains all
|
||
5 of the nodes’ IP addresses and a lifetime of 5 minutes. Every time a node
|
||
detects it is going to go down in less than 5 minutes, it updates this DNS
|
||
record: it removes it’s own IP address. Every time a node boots back up, it
|
||
re-adds it’s own IP address to the DNS record.
|
||
|
||
I’m not an expert on DNS, so I’m not 100% sure that this would work. But I
|
||
think it’s worth investigating if you’re thinking about improving uptime.
|
||
|
||
Obviously more complex schemes would be necessary to handle unexpected node
|
||
downtime. Depending on the type of website this may be overkill.
|
||
|
||
About the images. I think you may have gone a bit too far in the image
|
||
compressing. I see that most (all?) of the images on the grid-powered website
|
||
or stored in the lossless PNG format. In general this is not a good choice for
|
||
photos (as opposed to icons or other graphics with few colors): the file size
|
||
will be much larger than when you’re using the lossy JPEG format.
|
||
|
||
For example: [136]the main picture for this article is 739 KB in PNG
|
||
|
||
The dithered version in PNG is 43 KB, which is indeed a huge improvement, but
|
||
comes [137]at a big cost in image quality
|
||
|
||
The B&W JPEG version of the main picture [138](70% compression) is only 35 KB,
|
||
and I’d say the image quality is much higher than that of the dithered image.
|
||
(The image resolutions don’t match entirely. For the same resolution the image
|
||
size of the JPEG would probably be more or less the same as the dithered image,
|
||
but with increased image quality.) You could even lower the JPEG quality
|
||
further than 70%, but this quickly becomes rather unpleasant to look at, so you
|
||
may not want to do this.
|
||
|
||
Jiehong
|
||
|
||
Very interesting experiment!
|
||
|
||
But what about CDN caching and all other kind of caching between your server
|
||
and each of the browsers?
|
||
|
||
It might very be the case that CDN will cache the content of this website for
|
||
some time according to default cache policies, and also that the client’s
|
||
browsers might also cache part of the website directly.
|
||
|
||
I’d say that having big caching time for the browser is a big plus, as it would
|
||
still allow users to access previously accessed pages when they are down at no
|
||
energy cost.
|
||
|
||
On the other hand, estimating network caching energy usage might be
|
||
complicated.
|
||
|
||
Sofie
|
||
|
||
“The design features a background colour that indicates the capacity of the
|
||
solar-charged battery that powers the website server. A decreasing height
|
||
indicates that night has fallen or that the weather is bad.”
|
||
|
||
So that’s what it is! It looks more like a glitch. I think it would be better
|
||
to just add it to the header:
|
||
|
||
This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline.
|
||
Battery: xx%
|
||
|
||
Some other minor issues (in Firefox):
|
||
|
||
The area you can click on links is some places longer than the text.
|
||
|
||
When the window is wide the images become too big and lines denoting cut-out
|
||
text go much further out than the text, which looks odd.
|
||
|
||
QWxleA
|
||
|
||
Quite enjoyed the article, and am interested how you did the image dithering
|
||
and coloring. Do you have a link that explains more?
|
||
|
||
Thanks, Alex
|
||
|
||
PS you could add a logo if you convert /create it in svg and embed it in the
|
||
page.
|
||
|
||
Case D
|
||
|
||
I think it’s a really cool project. I’m a hobbyist website tinkerer with a
|
||
blog, and I’ve been experimenting with CMSes (I just installed WordPress, but I
|
||
think it might be too much for what I want to do – really I’d like a flat-file,
|
||
static site that I can push to from anywhere (i.e., with a webform), which is
|
||
what I can’t figure out).
|
||
|
||
I’m writing you because I was curious if you’d share how your publishing
|
||
workflow works – do you have a CMS that you use? If so, how do you get from a
|
||
web form to a published post? Is that how you do it?
|
||
|
||
tx
|
||
|
||
Some thoughts:
|
||
|
||
RSS feed is missing!
|
||
|
||
jquery-3.3.1.min.js is the biggest file on your page, from the limited amount
|
||
of JS I saw, it could be easily removed. you could cache the your in a separate
|
||
js file, this would also prevent uselessly sending your script to browser that
|
||
won’t support/accept it.
|
||
|
||
would you mind sharing the dithering script you apply to images?
|
||
|
||
I discovered LOW TECH MAGAZINE through this article and I’m really happy with
|
||
the look and feel of the website! Keeping the default typeface is so rare
|
||
nowadays and it works very well without JS.
|
||
|
||
kris de decker
|
||
|
||
Roel Roscam Abbing wrote a conference paper about Low-tech Magazine’s solar
|
||
powered website: ‘This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes
|
||
goes offline’: a design inquiry into degrowth and ICT.” Workshop on Computing
|
||
within Limits. 2021. [139]https://computingwithinlimits.org/2021/papers/
|
||
limits21-abbing.pdf
|
||
|
||
George Dorn
|
||
|
||
@ Case D (#5)
|
||
|
||
Look into various static site generators, like Pelican, Jekyll and dozens of
|
||
others - [140]https://www.staticgen.com/
|
||
|
||
They require a little bit of effort to set up, design the template, etc, but
|
||
then whenever you want to publish, you run a command and it (re)generates all
|
||
of the html. You can run the generator on the server itself, or on any other
|
||
machine and just send the results to the server (somewhat automatically, via
|
||
rsync, ftp, scp, etc).
|
||
|
||
I publish a blog this way via Pelican. I edit a file in reST (other languages
|
||
also supported) and when I’m ready I run ‘make html’ and ‘make publish’ to send
|
||
it to the server.
|
||
|
||
Perry
|
||
|
||
very cool. have you considered p2p/distributed web technologies like beaker
|
||
browser? [141]https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker
|
||
|
||
Dan
|
||
|
||
Your site doesn’t load in Naked Browser on Android.
|
||
|
||
Ben S
|
||
|
||
It’s a cute idea, but please don’t dither your images.
|
||
|
||
One problem which you haven’t addressed is the increasing attitude towards
|
||
web-pages as being “disposable”.
|
||
|
||
A good page, living on a sensible URL, could be available for decades if not
|
||
centuries - but then, surely, there must also be a compromise made to maintain
|
||
sources at the highest basic quality possible? What is worse that researching
|
||
an interesting topic, only to run into photocopies of photocopies of a now lost
|
||
technical drawing, which has become indecipherable over time. Dithering is
|
||
basically this. You are an important source. Please don’t be a source providing
|
||
photocopies of photocopies. I often find myself just grabbing screenshots and
|
||
putting them into presentations or other documents. Ironically, this leads to a
|
||
continual bit-rot as others do the same and screenshot my content. It’s
|
||
surprising how many images in searches are clearly screenshots of poorly
|
||
rescaled original images. Dithering will make this even worse.
|
||
|
||
I understand you’re trying to make a point - and there is a perverse value in
|
||
stubbornly pissing into the wind, otherwise I wouldn’t enjoy low-tech so much
|
||
and try to put it into practice myself - but please don’t let a low-energy
|
||
perspective compromise on the real core of what you do, which is communicating
|
||
excellent alternatives.
|
||
|
||
Edwan Summers
|
||
|
||
Thanks for this excellent post about a very important experiment. The
|
||
adjustment around a website always being on seems like an important part of
|
||
this work.
|
||
|
||
I’ve recently been experimenting with dat [142]1 which can often involve
|
||
adjusting expectations about when content is going to be online or not. They
|
||
have some nice instructions for publishing your static site using dat [143]2,
|
||
which would mean that someone could potentially get your website from a peer
|
||
who is sharing the cost of keeping your content online.
|
||
|
||
I honestly don’t know of what the energy costs associated with this are, but
|
||
presumably the peers would only start to contribute traffic when content was
|
||
requested. I imagine this is something the dat folks would be interesting in
|
||
helping answer.
|
||
|
||
PS. I love the idea of doing web comments over email. It also makes me wonder
|
||
if there could be static site plugins for supporting this process. Like running
|
||
a Pelican/Jeckle/Hugo/etc conmand every day to examine an mailbox and look for
|
||
comments on webpages. I guess there would be a necessary step of reviewing them
|
||
too.
|
||
|
||
Damon Hart-Davis
|
||
|
||
My off-grid solar server:[144]http://www.earth.org.uk/
|
||
note-on-Raspberry-Pi-2-setup.html
|
||
|
||
You may also be interested in some of my tools to reduce page and image weight.
|
||
(No ditherin:; zopfli(png) and similar in my case…)
|
||
|
||
Jeremy Keith
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
That’s an absolutely fascinating article! I really like what you’re doing.
|
||
|
||
You mentioned that you were looking for ideas. There’s a technology you could
|
||
use that would allow people to see something from your website, even when the
|
||
server is down: service workers.
|
||
|
||
As long as someone has visited your site at least once, you could show them
|
||
something when they try to visit the site when the server is powered down. That
|
||
could just be a simple message, or it could be articles that you previously put
|
||
in the visitor’s cache (for example, every time someone visits an article, you
|
||
could store a copy of that article in a cache to show them later when the
|
||
server’s offline).
|
||
|
||
Usually service workers come into play when the user’s device isn’t connecting
|
||
to the network, but they also apply in your situation, where the server isn’t
|
||
connecting to the network.
|
||
|
||
I’d be happy to help you write the service worker script if you like.
|
||
|
||
Jacob Hall
|
||
|
||
Hello there,
|
||
|
||
I absolutely love this concept, and I hope this is where the world is headed;
|
||
it simply doesn’t make sense to bloat the internet with so much needless data.
|
||
|
||
My first thought, which commenter Alex also mentioned, is that you may be able
|
||
to preserve the “modern” look of your site by using .svg graphics for logos and
|
||
some images (such as graphs). As cool as dithered images look, I suspect a .svg
|
||
would have an even smaller footprint, and could greatly improve the readability
|
||
of content such as graphs used in “How Much Energy Do We Need?”
|
||
|
||
Secondly, I’ve heard a lot of people say recently that the future of the
|
||
internet is decentralization, with users “seeding” visited websites to future
|
||
users to create a more efficient and secure internet experience. I believe that
|
||
this concept would lend itself well to the ideals of low energy consumption,
|
||
potentially providing backup should your server ever go down due to weather. I
|
||
know it isn’t practical to implement right now, but I hope that is where the
|
||
world is headed.
|
||
|
||
Thank you for the well-written and thought-provoking article.
|
||
|
||
Jeff Jahr
|
||
|
||
I like the old-timey dithered look of your images, and the way you are using
|
||
the multiply blend to sepia tone them, that is very cool! However, if you want
|
||
to have even lower page weight, then you might consider converting the images
|
||
to grayscale jpg with a reduced quality instead of converting to dithered png.
|
||
|
||
Here’s a quick comparison using your original image, the dithered image that
|
||
appears in the article, and a conversion to gray jpg using an ImageMagick
|
||
‘convert’ command.
|
||
|
||
zeppelin:/tmp> convert -grayscale RMS -quality 50 -geometry 800x600
|
||
6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b23825200b-750wi.png test.jpg
|
||
|
||
zeppelin:/tmp> du -bh 6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b23825200b-750wi.png
|
||
sps_close.png test.jpg
|
||
|
||
739K 6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b23825200b-750wi.png
|
||
|
||
43K sps_close.png
|
||
|
||
28K test.jpg
|
||
|
||
The image (test.jpg) is 15KB smaller than your dithered one, and still looks
|
||
good with your color blending method.
|
||
|
||
If you like the rough look that your dither gives the images, you could ramp
|
||
the -quality parmeter down to 10 or so, and your jpgs will start to look rough
|
||
and mottled too- AND the image size will be reduced into the 9KB range for even
|
||
more weight reduction.
|
||
|
||
zeppelin:/tmp> convert -grayscale RMS -quality 10 -geometry 800x600
|
||
6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b23825200b-750wi.png test10.jpg
|
||
|
||
zeppelin:/tmp> du -bh test10.jpg
|
||
|
||
9.1K test10.jpg
|
||
|
||
Cool stuff, good luck with your web server!
|
||
|
||
Bill Daniel
|
||
|
||
I’m such a fan. I love your work, I only wish you published more frequently.
|
||
|
||
The low tech website is brilliant.
|
||
|
||
I would happily pay to get print versions of your articles.
|
||
|
||
I’d likely print the whole archive! I’m a paper freak. Film and paper-based
|
||
photographer, book collector, and collector and archivist of a wide variety of
|
||
paper-based artifacts.
|
||
|
||
As a media archivist I’m constantly railing against digital storage, on the
|
||
cloud or on drives. The future is going to have a dim understanding of what
|
||
happened in our century, since most of the evidence will be non-existent/
|
||
un-recoverable.
|
||
|
||
Keep up the good work! I hope I get the opportunity to purchase some print on
|
||
demand articles.
|
||
|
||
Drew Gulino
|
||
|
||
It might go against the spirit of what you’re trying to do with your solar web
|
||
site, but users could go to the [145]web archive of solar.lowtechmagazine.com
|
||
when it’s down (once it is archived; www. is already archived)
|
||
|
||
On the other hand, you’re not using ads, so you’re not out any money if users
|
||
go to the archived site instead.
|
||
|
||
Francesco
|
||
|
||
Like others have said:
|
||
|
||
Instead of dithering you can use JPEG. I can achieve 52.4 KB with the image of
|
||
this post, keeping the colors (compressing with gimp, quality 70, artifacts
|
||
visible, but if you ask me only to somebody looking for them). Sure it’s
|
||
slightly more, but the image looks almost the same.
|
||
|
||
Also, since your homepage has a lot of images and might get lots of visits, why
|
||
not thumbnail the images to a lower resolution? This might cut in half or more
|
||
the size of the homepage.
|
||
|
||
Also embedded svg for the logo or other non-photographic graphics it the way to
|
||
go (if embedded you avoid http requests).
|
||
|
||
Additionally, like already said, eliminate jQuery (or at least use the slim
|
||
build, that eliminates some features, see here [146]https://cdnjs.com/libraries
|
||
/jquery).
|
||
|
||
Putting the computer outside in winter might help a bit with energy efficiency
|
||
and cooling.
|
||
|
||
I am convinced this is a low-power website and I like the project, but it
|
||
remains to be seen wether more energy could be saved in a data center where the
|
||
computational resources are shared and they have proper cooling solutions.
|
||
|
||
Evan V
|
||
|
||
Just so you know, if you “snap to web colors” when exporting your dithered PNG
|
||
you can get a similar aesthetic at an additional 50% size savings.
|
||
|
||
Mengyang Li
|
||
|
||
Yep, the JPEG format is much better in storing pictures than PNG, You can even
|
||
use bpg to reduce size while maintain pretty acceptable quality.
|
||
|
||
[147]Visual comparison
|
||
|
||
I think this is over engineered with a huge trade off on the image quality.
|
||
|
||
Leo Tindall
|
||
|
||
One potential way to reduce energy consumption while still retaining content
|
||
accessibility might be to publish the site on IPFS, as I’ve done with my blog
|
||
[1]. That way, people accessing the site help serve the site.
|
||
|
||
1:[148]https://leotindall.com/post/putting_this_blog_on_ipfs/
|
||
|
||
Job van der Zwan
|
||
|
||
So I checked the solar powered website images to the regular website images.
|
||
|
||
To my shock and dismay, TypeKit for some reason uses PNGs for photos. This is
|
||
extremely inefficient: PNG really is only good at compressing smooth surfaces
|
||
and gradients. Photos are a terrible choice for PNGs.
|
||
|
||
I made a test gallery to compare alternative options:
|
||
|
||
[149]https://blindedcyclops.neocities.org/low-tech-image-tests/gallery.html
|
||
|
||
In my experience, and as shown in the above gallery, cleaning up the image
|
||
first makes an enormous difference in compression size, and results in better
|
||
maintained quality at extreme compression values. I suggest Darktable and GIMP:
|
||
|
||
[150]http://www.darktable.org/
|
||
|
||
[151]https://www.gimp.org/
|
||
|
||
Another conclusion that I would draw is that JPGs aren’t that bad.
|
||
|
||
However, if we insist on using dithered PNGs, here are some suggestions.
|
||
|
||
PNGquant is a lossy PNG encoder, which can be found here:
|
||
|
||
[152]https://pngquant.org/
|
||
|
||
The downside is that it only supports Floyt-Steinberg dithering.
|
||
|
||
PNGs can also be losslessly optimized with optipng:
|
||
|
||
[153]http://optipng.sourceforge.net/
|
||
|
||
It is often even worth putting the output of GIMP and/or PNGquant through
|
||
optipng for a few extra percentages.
|
||
|
||
Ivan Vandot
|
||
|
||
Love the idea, great job. For the even more low-tech site definitely remove
|
||
jQuery and rewrite in plain JS part for the icon and weather.
|
||
|
||
A Baldo
|
||
|
||
Wow, this is good news! As one of your readers who lives in a passive solar
|
||
off-grid home in northeastern North America, your new lower-bandwidth site
|
||
loads wonderfully fast over my slow cell signal. I tend to browse in “text
|
||
mode” anyway, for speed and readability on my little phone screen.
|
||
|
||
Because of my slow connection I have become painfully sensitive to the growing
|
||
bandwidth requirements you describe, even to read the news. I rely heavily on
|
||
the text-only NPR page and the text-only National Weather Service forecast
|
||
page; in cloudy weather they are sometimes the only pages that DO load!
|
||
|
||
Glad to be able to add the solar version of your site to the list. It is an
|
||
informative, entertaining, and practical resource (I am now a thermal cooker
|
||
aficionado, thanks to you!)
|
||
|
||
anja
|
||
|
||
PS I agree with Sofie that a simple text battery percentage in the header would
|
||
probably be sufficient and more readable (when Safari isn’t already in text
|
||
mode) than having the web page display battery status via background color.
|
||
|
||
Garve Scott-Lodge
|
||
|
||
Love the idea. Here are a couple of ideas which might improve the site further
|
||
|
||
There’s an easy way to shave a few bytes. The type=“text/JavaScript” attribute
|
||
to the script tag is not needed on html5 pages like yours.
|
||
|
||
But there may be a more complex way of doing away with jQuery entirely.
|
||
|
||
All you seem to be using jQuery for is to pull in a JSON file with the current
|
||
weather and battery stats. Your server is obviously creating the JSON file on
|
||
the fly. If instead you created a small CSS file with the data you could pull
|
||
it in instead, setting the attributes of the battery div and using the content
|
||
declaration of :before and :after pseudo elements to insert words like “snowy”
|
||
into your content. You’d need to ensure the CSS file wasn’t cached, either
|
||
server side or using a little JavaScript.
|
||
|
||
Cheers
|
||
|
||
Jeff Gnatek
|
||
|
||
hi there, curious if you have considered doing an inverted color scheme, so
|
||
dark background with light text.(/blackle.com/ claims to have saved lots of
|
||
watt hours for not being on a white background.
|
||
|
||
i love the magazine and look forward to reading more in the future
|
||
|
||
Sava Chankov
|
||
|
||
Great re-design, completely in line with the site’s topic! Reminds me in a way
|
||
of Fidonet, a lowtech computer network that was popular in early 1990s, before
|
||
the Internet takeoff. It was ran by volunteers, who ran bulletin board systems
|
||
that dialed automatically each other in the early morning hours to exchange
|
||
emails, which took quite long to travel on it compared to the modern email.
|
||
|
||
Jan Steinman
|
||
|
||
YAY! You guys are my heroes! I’ve been wanting to do such a thing for some
|
||
time.
|
||
|
||
One of the fundamental choices we made was to build a static website. Most of
|
||
today’s websites use server side programming languages that generate the
|
||
website on the fly by querying a database. This means that every time someone
|
||
visits a web page, it is generated on demand.
|
||
|
||
But wouldn’t caching deal with that?
|
||
|
||
We run a MediaWiki server on a Mac Mini, and are running memcached. About 90%
|
||
of page requests end up being served by memcached, as far as I can tell. And
|
||
with an SSD behind that, there isn’t too much energy penalty for a cache miss,
|
||
anyway.
|
||
|
||
Nicolas Huillard
|
||
|
||
@Kris “due to the fact that the router is not yet solar powered”
|
||
|
||
Yes, make sure that everything needed to connect the server to the Internet (on
|
||
your side) is solar-powered. Not powering the router, ONT or anything else from
|
||
the sun is cheating ;-)
|
||
|
||
You should be able to switch off the grid in the house and still see the lights
|
||
blink…
|
||
|
||
Having a nice RRD dataset of the information provided in /api/stats.json, and
|
||
generating graphs from it would be very educational: we could see how the
|
||
battery drains in the night, probably faster in the evening when lots of people
|
||
browse the site, then less so in the middle of the night. We could notice when
|
||
solar production starts in the morning, offsetting the drain from the server,
|
||
then starting to charge the battery, and produce a lot of surplus at
|
||
solar-noon. We should also see seasonal variations and how they’re strong.
|
||
|
||
I use 5 minutes resolution RRD for a few days, then ~1h resolution for a full
|
||
year, then store nearly daily data for a few years. The problem with RRD is
|
||
that you must predefine everything at the beginning. The positive side is that
|
||
it’s very light, and suitable for the hardware you have (just take care of
|
||
Flash wear, probably with tmpfs synchronized with Flash at intervals, or a kind
|
||
of in-memory RRD server which will store the RRD file at intervals).
|
||
|
||
(I post on the heavy-website, in the hope that it may reduce your hand-work.
|
||
You may decide to redirect from the old site to the solar one ASAP, not until
|
||
you have solved the differences in URIs : old /2018/09/
|
||
how-to-build-a-low-tech-website.html vs. new /2018/09/
|
||
how-to-build-a-low-tech-website/ ; we should be able to replace www. with
|
||
solar. in the addresse bar and get the same article, not a 404 - nothing a tiny
|
||
rewrite in nginx couldn’t solve)
|
||
|
||
STPo
|
||
|
||
You did a really great job here. Improvements are always possible (and welcome)
|
||
but hey guys, that’s what I call a redesign!
|
||
|
||
Glad to see some folks showing us the path.
|
||
|
||
Laplace Victor
|
||
|
||
First, I’m a huge fan of your solar project !
|
||
|
||
I’m a front-end developer and I see some improvements :
|
||
|
||
• as mentioned in other comments you can easily remove jquery (or at least
|
||
use the [154]CDN version it will be less ressource intensive for your
|
||
server) and as I like your project, I rewrite your code in [155]vanilla
|
||
javascript (let me know if you have any issue)
|
||
|
||
• images have width 100%, this is ok for mobile but not really on desktop, as
|
||
your images max size is 800px, so I think you can add this style :
|
||
.entry-content p.img{ max-width: 800px } it will be less pixel to render,
|
||
so less energy consumption for visitors.
|
||
|
||
• also mentioned in other comments, PNG is not the lightest image format, you
|
||
can have almost the same weight and preserve colors with jpg (or even webp)
|
||
|
||
• you can “minify” images. All images comes with metadatas, those datas are
|
||
not necessary for displaying image on the web (ex for [156]sps_close.png
|
||
40.172 bytes vs 43.415 bytes for original). Have a look at [157]https://
|
||
github.com/imagemin/imagemin
|
||
|
||
• you can [158]lazyload images. Don’t use the technique using ‘scroll’ event
|
||
as it’s really ressource intensive for visitors, prefer the Intersection
|
||
Observer API
|
||
|
||
• you can also improve browser caching to limit reload of assets [159]https:/
|
||
/varvy.com/pagespeed/leverage-browser-caching.html
|
||
|
||
• you can also replace images cloud, sun in footer by unicode characters,
|
||
[160]https://unicode-search.net/unicode-namesearch.pl?term=cloud [161]
|
||
https://unicode-search.net/unicode-namesearch.pl?term=sun
|
||
|
||
That’s it :)
|
||
|
||
Paul Ito
|
||
|
||
First of all: I love your website and wish I had come across it much earlier.
|
||
|
||
The article on how to build a lowtech website was super inspirational and
|
||
sparked (re-sparked?) my interest in building a website with easy and
|
||
low-impact tools.
|
||
|
||
My comments on the project:
|
||
|
||
1. I would love if you would give direct IBAN bank account information if in
|
||
any way possible. As much as I respect the mission of donation tools like
|
||
patreon and librepay, they do take their cut from the donations. The most
|
||
direct way to support your product and your mission is monthly payments
|
||
directly to you. I understand that this is only free of charge if your
|
||
supporters happen to have an EU bank account with IBAN/BIC, but it would be
|
||
worth at least giving readers the option to support you in that way.
|
||
|
||
2. I am not a big fan of the yellow battery indicator that is (as of right
|
||
now) splitting the screen in half. This feels gimmicky to me and is
|
||
distracting my attention from your great articles. (Very much personal
|
||
preference of course)
|
||
|
||
3. In addition to other people commenting on the use of dithered images, you
|
||
might consider hosting more hi-res (jgp?) versions on the server and
|
||
linking the dithered images to them. That way people who want the better
|
||
picture quality can have it, without everyone having to load articles with
|
||
heavy images in them.
|
||
|
||
Keep up the great work, I will definitely come back more often!
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Paul
|
||
|
||
Frederik Van Der Veken
|
||
|
||
Excellent project!
|
||
|
||
I love the idea of a static, non-always on website.
|
||
|
||
You’re making a fair point, and I agree we need to make a mental shift in what
|
||
we expect from the on-time of a website.
|
||
|
||
However, I have some issues with the images.
|
||
|
||
As some people already mentioned, the dithering really lowers the quality a
|
||
lot, while a lossy compression could achieve the same file size but with better
|
||
quality.
|
||
|
||
Another issue is the black-and-white. This is indeed a smart thing to do as it
|
||
saves a lot in file size, however, you have to make sure that your article does
|
||
not depend on the color in the image..
|
||
|
||
E.g. in your [162]article on the high-speed trains the original low-speed train
|
||
route and the newer high-speed train route between Paris and Amsterdam are
|
||
shown on a map in different colours. Of course both look the same in black and
|
||
white and the distinction is lost. Maybe you could solve such issues by make
|
||
one of the lines dashed?
|
||
|
||
Abelardo
|
||
|
||
Kris, I am cuban reader that become crazy with the cool low tech website
|
||
|
||
Could Low Tech design and host low tech websites for a fee, that contributes
|
||
with the magazine?
|
||
|
||
Skye
|
||
|
||
Just wanted to say absolutely fantastic project - I will be watching this
|
||
develop and plan to use your example as a template to follow in a website I
|
||
will be building in the next year or so. The work you are doing is so important
|
||
- thank you!
|
||
|
||
Geoffrey Tolle
|
||
|
||
I haven’t had a chance to read all the way through your latest article (and
|
||
won’t understand most of it when I do) but I did catch one point that I thought
|
||
worthy of consideration in the design of your energy storage system.
|
||
|
||
I see that you chose to use lead / sulfuric acid batteries as your battery
|
||
back-up. May I suggest that you consider switching to iron-nickel batteries. It
|
||
may be that I’m preaching to the choir but, in case you haven’t heard of them,
|
||
iron-nickel batteries are a proven if bulky rechargeable technology. They use
|
||
alternating iron and nickel plates (relatively cheap) in a basic electrolyte to
|
||
store energy.
|
||
|
||
They are rechargeable hundreds of times, have less toxic waste products, and
|
||
are very durable. They have a slow charge and discharge rate but should present
|
||
few problems for powering low-tech websites. While the units can be quite
|
||
expensive, they are also amenable to home-production (something that anyone who
|
||
can assemble a low-tech website should be able to handle).
|
||
|
||
Well, even if I don’t understand the exact nature of this technology, I feel
|
||
that the possibilities and the look into energy cycling will be helpful to me.
|
||
|
||
Roel RA
|
||
|
||
@ Ploc, Jan Fabry,
|
||
|
||
It seems indeed like a good idea to do the GZIP pre-compression as a step in
|
||
the generation process. I’ll look into this. Thanks for the tips.
|
||
|
||
@ Dave,
|
||
|
||
The whole set up, including the webserver, is described here: [163]https://
|
||
homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
|
||
I think both Apache and Nginx are quite suitable for small websites. They are
|
||
particularly good to use when learning about selfhosting, since there are many
|
||
articles online about these softwares.
|
||
|
||
greetings,
|
||
|
||
Roel
|
||
|
||
Tomasz Jadowski
|
||
|
||
Yes, grid-powered router is the weakest part of this project.
|
||
|
||
Have you ever heard about mesh networks and [164]Hyperboria project?
|
||
|
||
When you setup a hyperboria node you could backup your internet connection
|
||
|
||
with Wi-Fi, GSM or another link and powered them by solar.
|
||
|
||
The cost is access only via hyperboria network when a grid is off, you could
|
||
run both versions
|
||
|
||
(for “normal” IPv4 and for Hyperboria mesh) simultaneously.
|
||
|
||
I don’t know how “expensive” in CPU and power is to run a Hyperboria node.
|
||
|
||
Good luck! I love this idea!
|
||
|
||
ijk_ijk
|
||
|
||
Your new solar site is fully accessible from not so powerfull client like old
|
||
pcs and old tablets with poor hardware and obsolete OS. The regular site makes
|
||
the browser of my 6 years old tablet to crash but the solar one is perfect
|
||
..and faster. Static sites are increasing the life of all clients.
|
||
|
||
J Campbell
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
This is so cool.
|
||
|
||
I have always thought static websites are the best when your content is just
|
||
pictures and words. Even the old image rollovers can be fun and generate a
|
||
little interactivity. But I especially like the dithering idea. I use dithering
|
||
as an artistic tool for some of my works because I find the dot pattern
|
||
generated rather pleasing to look at. I also play around with the number of
|
||
colors and swap colors used in the images. Photoshop’s “Save for Web(Legacy)”
|
||
tool is where I play with images and dithering. I find the diffuse style of dot
|
||
pattern the most aesthetically pleasing.
|
||
|
||
Another energy saving concept is that of a black background. When displayed on
|
||
users devices it required less energy. But it’s a significant change to the
|
||
site appearance.
|
||
|
||
I just wanted to let you know that this is a fantastic idea you have and it
|
||
gives your website a palpable quality that does not exist on any dynamic
|
||
webpage.
|
||
|
||
Joel Mikulyak
|
||
|
||
I’m a front-end developer, and just wanted to state that I completely love your
|
||
decision to go low-tech and energy-efficient with your site. If you have any
|
||
other great resources on the topic, I’d love to read more.
|
||
|
||
Marie Otsuka
|
||
|
||
Hi all,
|
||
|
||
I’m Marie, and I’m one of the designers / developers of the website. Thanks so
|
||
much for your feedback! As Kris and Roel have mentioned, it somehow got out
|
||
before we were quite ready, but it’s been amazing to hear all of the responses
|
||
so far. We’d planned for this platform to provoke discussion, so we’re excited
|
||
to get this jumpstarted.
|
||
|
||
A large part of the challenge of this project was balancing functional
|
||
decisions with the design concept. Often, we opted for the more radical option
|
||
so that this design questions our current aesthetic expectations. To chime in:
|
||
|
||
Images
|
||
|
||
Dithering
|
||
|
||
Certain images are better suited for other forms of compression. But our goal
|
||
was to not only compress images, but also to call to attention this act of
|
||
compression.
|
||
|
||
We found that dithered images can be stretched beyond their actual image size
|
||
while providing a distinct aesthetic, and that the artifacts of compression can
|
||
become an integral part of the design.
|
||
|
||
(Along those lines… many sites produce multiple images for different sizes
|
||
appropriate for various display sizes. We opted to use the same image file for
|
||
both thumbnail and featured images to prioritize the caching, even if it means
|
||
that the listing pages may be a bit heavier.)
|
||
|
||
SVG
|
||
|
||
Inline SVG definitely makes sense as a lightweight graphic form! (They’re
|
||
actually used for the social media icons already.)
|
||
|
||
I also agree that the legibility of graphs can be improved with SVGs. But we’d
|
||
need to convert the given raster images we have of these graphs into a vector
|
||
format — which, if done automatically, would end up producing a super heavy SVG
|
||
file. What would be ideal is for any informational graphics to be readable and
|
||
text-based, with svg/css-based shapes, which we unfortunately currently don’t
|
||
have the capacity for within our workflow. But definitely a problem to address!
|
||
|
||
Using an SVG for the logo is a good practice too, which I’ve actually seen done
|
||
well on many sites. But once defined, that logo would have to be preserved on
|
||
any platform, not just on this website — whether publishing in print or web
|
||
form. That file would need to be sent around as an asset for any marketing
|
||
needs. Again, we wanted to question what it means to create a “brand” identity.
|
||
|
||
We also played with Unicode for the weather icons, but found that the way they
|
||
displayed (especially more non-default characters such as “windy” or “clear
|
||
night”) were too unreliable. We’ll work on better sizing/compressing these
|
||
though! Also, more improvements are coming to the battery indicator / dashboard
|
||
/ weather page!
|
||
|
||
JS
|
||
|
||
jQuery
|
||
|
||
As Roel mentioned, removing jQuery is in the plans. Thanks to all those with
|
||
the tips! We thought about doing some more research on potential browser
|
||
compatibility issues the library helps take care of, but looks like it won’t be
|
||
an issue.
|
||
|
||
Offline
|
||
|
||
Service workers for offline reading is something I’ve also been doing some
|
||
research on! We’re looking forward to further develop how caching might fit
|
||
into improvements for the site.
|
||
|
||
Thanks again for all of the comments!
|
||
|
||
And we appreciate your patience as we work through some kinks.
|
||
|
||
More soon!
|
||
|
||
QB
|
||
|
||
I’m a longtime reader and fan; I just wanted to let you know that on Firefox
|
||
61.0.2 on Mac OS 10.13, the website has a huge semi-transparent yellow box over
|
||
the lower half. I think it’s a sun-meter or a battery-meter.
|
||
|
||
I’m not sure whether it’s deliberate or if it’s a bug that is causing it to
|
||
cover all the text on the page. If it’s deliberate, I just wanted to let you
|
||
know that it makes it almost impossible for me to read the page, it’s super
|
||
distracting. I’d love for it to be just a thin sidebar or something in a top
|
||
scrolling navbar sort of thing. Having something overlaid on the text like that
|
||
basically renders the website unusable for me.
|
||
|
||
Thanks for all the work that you do, and the new server sounds really cool!
|
||
|
||
TC
|
||
|
||
First off thanks for introducing the world to your website, absolutely love it.
|
||
I’m new to reading your site, but I assume low-tech is not at the exclusion of
|
||
clever solutions (which IMHO is where the fun starts). The capability of low
|
||
cost hardware means that there is a huge amount of potential in even the most
|
||
basic setups.
|
||
|
||
It is a very neat idea and I think it could be a very useful concept which
|
||
could also be applied to many situations where internet access is difficult or
|
||
limited. In some cases a link to the internet may not be possible, so localised
|
||
hotspots could also be used. This could be in developing countries, areas of
|
||
natural disasters or even war zones. Allowing vital information to be
|
||
broadcast, from medical information/advice to emergency assistance, lost/found
|
||
persons to providing educational resources. Potential website-in-a-box?
|
||
|
||
This could also provide an excellent project for schools for teaching.
|
||
|
||
With regards to the site as a technology news site, I have several observations
|
||
(none is intended as criticism):
|
||
|
||
Images:
|
||
|
||
I agree the dithered styled images are a nice design feature and adds a real
|
||
charm to the site, particularly the colour categories flowing through to the
|
||
article. However, you are right to concede that certain images don’t lend
|
||
themselves well to this treatment - ie. your web page speed test image. For
|
||
diagrams/tables etc SVGs or similar would allow technical details to be read
|
||
clearly, even if you apply the same grayscale colour mapping (if feasible).
|
||
|
||
Power bar:
|
||
|
||
Although I don’t think I have any particular sensitivity to colours, I do find
|
||
the colour hue across the article very distracting when trying to read and
|
||
absorb the content (people who are particularly sensitive to this - often a
|
||
characteristic of neurodiversity - will find it even harder). Perhaps consider
|
||
limiting the overlay to the home page only, or (if feasible) to the article
|
||
header bar only. A nice feature would be to have a day/night theme so people
|
||
can select a contrast which is best for them - ensuring the site is accessible
|
||
to a wider audience (and as someone else commented an added bonus OLED devices
|
||
will use less power).
|
||
|
||
Uptime:
|
||
|
||
I do agree with the principle of 90% uptime, and it underlines the whole
|
||
concept - adding additional panels and battery/storage, like you say, isn’t the
|
||
point. However it would be interesting if you can determine if the downtime is
|
||
likely to be off-peak or not. Clearly for yourselves and your readers within +/
|
||
-2-3 hours GMT their peak times will be very similar and may well be a good fit
|
||
to the site availability. A study of loading before a downtime could provide an
|
||
indication of if a certain group of readers are inadvertently being excluded
|
||
(due to geographical or demographical reasons). Longer term it may be possible
|
||
to characterise the charging and the loading to allow the site to predict the
|
||
best times to go offline in order to meet peak times (and provide forecasted
|
||
downtimes during off-peak periods). I’m sure that would make an interesting
|
||
project for some students looking at machine learning.
|
||
|
||
Multisite:
|
||
|
||
The multiple site location concept does introduce some excellent possibilities,
|
||
since even one similar site elsewhere in the world could provide complete
|
||
coverage with additional redundancy, while reducing overall power needs by
|
||
sharing the serving of multiple sites. This does complicate the setup a little
|
||
but it does provide the opportunity to grow the idea further. This could
|
||
perhaps provide the opportunity to scale down the setup with smaller panels and
|
||
battery. As mentioned before this could have very useful applications for the
|
||
website-in-box concept where multiple setups could be meshed to cover an area.
|
||
|
||
Energy storage:
|
||
|
||
I wonder how feasible alternative energy storage systems would be. It would be
|
||
interesting if eventually you could replace the need for the batteries
|
||
completely by using kinetic storage or similar (I claim no knowledge on how
|
||
practical this is and probably is not suitable for your setup).
|
||
|
||
John
|
||
|
||
Great site, but what software did you use to generate the site?
|
||
|
||
You’ve given hardware details but no software.
|
||
|
||
peter garner
|
||
|
||
I’m truly inspired!
|
||
|
||
I’ve already been running my web site on a Raspberry Pi for a couple of years
|
||
now and it’s proved very economical. This morning I’ve managed to get my home
|
||
page size down from 225Kb to 7.5Kb just by getting rid of “decorative” images
|
||
and reducing the size of others. I found that some page loading speed can be
|
||
recovered by using sprites, assembled using glue-sprite.
|
||
|
||
If you didn’t want to serve images on-the-fly a potential low(er) energy option
|
||
is to use a Gopher server. I also run one of these on a low-power Raspberry Pi
|
||
and it’s very effective for serving documents of all types. I know it’s an old
|
||
protocol but according to a recent survey there are 333 active gopherholes
|
||
(servers).
|
||
|
||
I plan to start setting up a solar-powered web/gopher server soon, but as I
|
||
live in Yorkshire, UK, my sunlight hours are not quite as good as Barcelona!
|
||
|
||
Thanks once again for a brilliant idea - it’s the future!
|
||
|
||
Craig Balfour
|
||
|
||
My name is Craig. I’m a big fan of what you’re doing with the Low Tech
|
||
Magazine, and I love the idea of a solar powered website! The newsletter asked
|
||
for feedback and suggestions, so I had a look if I could come up with any. This
|
||
is all pretty rough, so I’m sure I’ve missed stuff, probably with
|
||
responsiveness etc.
|
||
|
||
Anyway, this is my feedback:
|
||
|
||
Make battery meter a lot less in your face
|
||
|
||
Love the idea of the battery indicator, but it’s so distracting when reading!
|
||
When it’s low it also visually breaks the content and makes anything in the
|
||
battery indicator look like a footer. Here’s how I’d change it:
|
||
|
||
Align it right, not left.
|
||
|
||
Make its width something like 64px so it’s just a bar at the side (in the new
|
||
whitespace)
|
||
|
||
Move the top border from the content to the battery div so it covers the top
|
||
nicely.
|
||
|
||
Lessen the “intensity” of the black on the readout. I found something around #
|
||
333 to be quite nice, but just play around and see what looks nice.
|
||
|
||
Also, when at smaller screen sizes, reduce it further and don’t bother with the
|
||
icon, and maybe even the number.
|
||
|
||
Centre content
|
||
|
||
Wrap your page in a div with margin: 0 auto; max-width 960px; or something like
|
||
this to keep it in a nice tidy column on the screen. Otherwise it looks a bit
|
||
like a newspaper and is hard to follow.
|
||
|
||
Font family
|
||
|
||
Really not a fan of the serif font. Nothing wrong with Arial and co, or maybe
|
||
even a mono font to get that typewriter feel? Idk. I think just the normal
|
||
sans. This won’t increase network traffic, since it’s not sending fonts.
|
||
|
||
Spacing
|
||
|
||
I have changed the page layout from using lists to using divs with
|
||
display:flex. It’s pretty powerful and a lot more flexible than ul. I think it
|
||
will make life easier, and it’s much easier to get decent spacing around things
|
||
like the nav.
|
||
|
||
Logo
|
||
|
||
I do think you need a logo. A simple SVG is pretty tiny, and it makes the site
|
||
look heaps more professional. I made a quick one, but use whatever (use that
|
||
one if you want, or make your own, but I think it needs something!)
|
||
|
||
Sky background
|
||
|
||
I stuck a simply CSS gradient as a background to resemble the sky (since it’s
|
||
solar, it seemed nice). Not sure I like the gradient, but whatever. I did
|
||
wonder about changing the background gradient by time of day. So at night where
|
||
it’s hosted, it would have a black background, then moving into yellow then
|
||
blue as the day goes on. Only on the body background, not the content
|
||
background or it would just be annoying. But it shouldn’t be too hard. I think
|
||
a gradient of black through yellow to blue scaled to something like 5000vh then
|
||
offset based on the time. Shouldn’t be much Javascript. Might look super ugly
|
||
or distracting though, so not sure it’s worth it.
|
||
|
||
Image sizes
|
||
|
||
There’s one image I found called sunnyday.png which is displayed at width 20px,
|
||
but the image itself is 800px wide! This is not good. It’s a simple BW png so
|
||
it’s small, but a simple SVG is still less than 10% of the size. Further, if
|
||
you’re displaying images small on some pages and big on others, save two copies
|
||
and only send the small one if you can. Storage is cheap, bandwidth (for you
|
||
server) is not.
|
||
|
||
Minify agressively!
|
||
|
||
Ok, so I know how much we hate inlining, but it has its place. Not at the
|
||
element level, but on the document level. The size of the files being sent is
|
||
important, smaller files use less energy. However, the number of files is worth
|
||
thinking about too. Sending a bunch of small files results in a server call per
|
||
file, which can add up. Having a working copy of the site with all its separate
|
||
files is a very good idea for building it, it’s SO much easier! But for the
|
||
published one, I would think about minifying everything and putting your
|
||
stylesheet contents in a style tag, using inline SVG for icons (this is a
|
||
tradeoff, since they are duplicated when you use them again. And doing the
|
||
“use” trick is not a whole lot better because it sticks them in an iframe-which
|
||
means you’ve got another request anyway. But for small, one-hit images you
|
||
could base64 encode them. For icons, make a stylesheet for just these and
|
||
base64 encode the SVG itself, which is very small and doesn’t require hitting
|
||
the server again.
|
||
|
||
I minified my version of your homepage to be one file which includes your
|
||
original css, my overrides, the html itself, and the logo image as a base64
|
||
encoded svg. The whole thing is 41kb and loads instantly. It would only be one
|
||
request to the server (the images on the page would all be their own, but
|
||
there’s not much you can do about this. Base64 encoding them would make them
|
||
larger, so best to leave as is)
|
||
|
||
Also, you’re using jQuery. I would avoid that tbh. It’s a pretty big library,
|
||
and all you’re doing is reading some JSON data, which you could do in a similar
|
||
amount of code without needing to import jQuery at all. Until you rewrite that
|
||
function, why not hotlink jQuery from a CDN? It will save your poor little
|
||
solar server from transferring it each reques.
|
||
|
||
Don’t hold open connections
|
||
|
||
Your script for showing battery percentage etc holds an open connection the
|
||
server. I get why you did, but I think until you’ve got your power problems
|
||
sorted, just query it on page load, then close the connection. Just fire and
|
||
forget. Otherwise your server is maintaining a heap more connections than it
|
||
needs, wasting power.
|
||
|
||
With something like this, you want your server to be doing as little as
|
||
possible while still working. So anything the browser can do for you is
|
||
fantastic. The use of image filters etc you’re doing is really great! Keep that
|
||
up! Same goes for Javascript. So many effects can be done by the browser with
|
||
some clever CSS. Try to avoid animating etc with Javascript when CSS will do
|
||
fine. When you do need Javascript, try and avoid jQuery and other large
|
||
libraries.
|
||
|
||
Also, when you are querying things like the weather JSON data, where are you
|
||
getting that from? Can you hit that directly rather than storing it on your
|
||
server then hitting your own server?
|
||
|
||
I know this seems like a lot, I hope it doesn’t come across as arrogant or like
|
||
I don’t like what you’ve done. I am so impressed! I wish I could build
|
||
something like this tbh. Just trying to throw some ideas around, and they
|
||
hopefully some help. You’re more than welcome to use any of my suggestions or
|
||
code, or simply throw it all away.
|
||
|
||
I tried attaching my modifications etc but google doesn’t allow sending zip
|
||
files, so here’s [165]a drive link.
|
||
|
||
If that link doesn’t work I could try sending loose files.
|
||
|
||
I’ve also attached some screenshots just because it’s easier to glance at them
|
||
quickly.
|
||
|
||
[166]http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b4657e200b-pi
|
||
|
||
[167]http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad394c691200d-pi
|
||
|
||
[168]http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad394c69e200d-pi
|
||
|
||
[169]http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad36e9bd0200c-pi
|
||
|
||
All the best, and hope some of this helps.
|
||
|
||
[Craig, thanks a lot, I hosted your screenshots on Typepad otherwise the
|
||
colours won’t show, KDD]
|
||
|
||
Posted by: Craig Balfour | September 28, 2018 at 04:29 PM
|
||
|
||
Premkumar Masilamani
|
||
|
||
Hi Team - I am impressed with the solar powered website running from the home.
|
||
Congratulations. I disabled comments on my blog and used a contact form to let
|
||
the visitors send a message to me. That was one portion of my blog which is
|
||
hosted elsewhere. Your idea of asking the users to send email to get the
|
||
comments is really well thought of. I am going to implement that in my blog.
|
||
|
||
1. How feasible is it to put the email address on the webpage?. Are you net
|
||
yet spammed?. Are you doing something on this front?.
|
||
|
||
2. How are the emails converted as blog comments?. Is it a manual conversion
|
||
or automated? If automated, could you tell us how?. I would like to
|
||
implement that in my blog as well.
|
||
|
||
Hans Fast
|
||
|
||
Many congratulations on taking this step: making the statement, showing that
|
||
it’s possible and even extremely attractive to build a website without all the
|
||
weight we’ve come to accept. Loading this website is like a breath of fresh
|
||
air. And your server performance under peak load speaks for itself!
|
||
|
||
It’s clear that you’re doing more than publishing a website, it’s a
|
||
demonstrator of the energy usage involved in serving a site. Respect for that.
|
||
|
||
I would like to mention dat and Beaker browser again (mentioned at least once
|
||
above). While making a point of letting the website go offline when the battery
|
||
is empty is a powerful educational move, the various peer-to-peer protocols all
|
||
overcome this limitation of the http model (I’m only familiar with dat).
|
||
Publishing over both http and dat simultaneously is fairly straightforward and
|
||
maintenance-free, so it adds little overhead. Then everyone who views your site
|
||
rehosts it: if your server is offline, others can still access it via those
|
||
peers. No need for the solar panels and battery or even the server, you can
|
||
publish from your laptop. Even more (embodied) energy savings :)
|
||
|
||
Of course, this is only practically true once all browsers speak peer-to-peer
|
||
protocols .. and I believe a server is still needed for DNS resolution (so
|
||
people can find the dat archive that belongs with solar.lowtechmaganize.com).
|
||
In the meantime, fantastic work of public education going on here.
|
||
|
||
iří Maha
|
||
|
||
Hey guys,
|
||
|
||
love your project of low energy consumption website.
|
||
|
||
I have a two questions:
|
||
|
||
Any use of versioning system for development? If not, how would xou scale such
|
||
a project?
|
||
|
||
How do you deploy? Simply copy files manually?
|
||
|
||
Thanks and cheers from Czech republic,
|
||
|
||
Jiří
|
||
|
||
Nikolaus Bartke
|
||
|
||
Wow, fantastic project, I‘m in love!
|
||
|
||
I really like the literally spoken „background information“ about energy and
|
||
weather.
|
||
|
||
This makes a big difference in perception and creates awarenes in several
|
||
respects!
|
||
|
||
Pertaining the comment section, perhaps you can publish a timestamp, like when
|
||
the mail was sent…
|
||
|
||
Kris De Decker
|
||
|
||
Hi all
|
||
|
||
Sorry for the late reply and delayed publication of the comments.
|
||
|
||
We will address all feedback in a forthcoming article.
|
||
|
||
Greg Melton
|
||
|
||
Many thanks to all the work that has gone into this site. On a personal level,
|
||
it has inspired me to take up something along the same lines.
|
||
|
||
I’m not a technical guy, but I did notice that solar.lowtechmagazine.com loaded
|
||
quite quickly even over a dialup connection. Image dithering may have played a
|
||
role in the fast load time and perhaps it also requires less cpu power to
|
||
present the image
|
||
|
||
in the browser. Power savings at the server and the browser.
|
||
|
||
Although it is most likely not compatible with the goals of
|
||
|
||
Lowtechmagazine, the Gopher protocol, I understand is also much less energy
|
||
intensive. Perhaps a gopher server on the same machine could serve up a Gopher
|
||
version of Lowtechmagazine.
|
||
|
||
Adam
|
||
|
||
Hi there,
|
||
|
||
I love your solar powered project. Fantastic post about it too. One thing I
|
||
noticed is that your dithered images can be even smaller file sizes if you run
|
||
them through the tool at tinypng.com - I tried out a couple and it shaved 3-5kb
|
||
off each image.
|
||
|
||
I’m a designer/dev and even though there are lots of ways to squish images in
|
||
gulp, photoshop and many other tools, I’ve found that the tinypng tool works
|
||
brilliantly, there’s even a CLI you can use.
|
||
|
||
Just to clarify, I have no links to tinypng, I just really rate their tool.
|
||
|
||
In my job, I make a lot of static sites with lots of javascript scrolling
|
||
effects and images so I’m always squishing and minimising to optimise
|
||
performance but I’m still dealing with quite large page sizes so it’s great to
|
||
see optimisation really pushed to the limit.
|
||
|
||
I think it’s a really interesting project. I work in the news industry so
|
||
taking pages down to the bare minimum is a really interesting idea, especially
|
||
when you’re disseminating essential news in countries or situations where
|
||
internet is sporadic at best.
|
||
|
||
Fascinating stuff and I can’t wait to read how the experiment progresses.
|
||
|
||
Thanks,
|
||
|
||
Adam
|
||
|
||
Brando
|
||
|
||
Hi, I saw yesterday your solar website (via Hacker Newsletter), amazing
|
||
experiment: probably if half the web would save on bandwidth the world could be
|
||
a better place.
|
||
|
||
Just a note, the dithered images are a nice hack but on my full HD screen are
|
||
streched to the border and I think they would look better if you put a maximum
|
||
width at 1080 px, also because the text doesn’t reach the borders (good) and
|
||
the images are 800 px wide.
|
||
|
||
I subscribed the RSS feed, you have some nice articles there but I’m really
|
||
curious how your experiment will evolve. And also you let me think about the
|
||
option to migrate my personal site from WordPress to a static generator like
|
||
HUGO.
|
||
|
||
All the best, Brando.
|
||
|
||
N Bennett
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I just read your article on your new web-server approach. Besides your
|
||
technical implementation, I really liked the way you reduced the web sites data
|
||
footprint. It is so refreshing to see a website that concentrates on content,
|
||
and is not overloaded with cookies, banners and whatsoever content I had to
|
||
ignore otherwise. Websites nowadays are so overloaded with functionality and
|
||
advertisement, which distracts from the actual content of interest. Thanks! I
|
||
think, others should follow your approach as well. Clean, nice, and slick.
|
||
|
||
Leon Stafford
|
||
|
||
I’ve been a happy subscriber to Low Tech Mag’s newsletters for many years now
|
||
and so glad to see web hosting addressed here, as it’s also my nice product at
|
||
the moment. It allows WordPress sites to be published as static websites,
|
||
perfect for then serving on a raspberryPi, as some users have reported doing.
|
||
Depending on the size/load of the site, you can also generate it on the Pi, but
|
||
I’d keep that stripped down as much as possible and just do static file serving
|
||
from it. Almost every Pi owner has another computer that can run their WP site
|
||
for the development part.
|
||
|
||
Tom
|
||
|
||
You guys are awesome! I’ve been following your blog for quite some time now, I
|
||
think the first article I read was the one on velomobiles. As an IT student and
|
||
sustainable, low-tech living-minded individual, let me tell you that your
|
||
article on a low tech internet rang close to home. And now that I see that
|
||
you’re working on an actual low-tech website, I can’t help but offer a helping
|
||
hand. I’ve got a few ideas on how you could make comments work in an
|
||
computationally-efficient manner, and how you could further trim down on page
|
||
weight too, so anyways, hit me up if you could do with an extra pair of hands
|
||
on board.
|
||
|
||
Tomas
|
||
|
||
Hi
|
||
|
||
I saw your article on the sustainability of solar power [1], and I believe your
|
||
argment is a bit off.
|
||
|
||
Yearly insolation for PV purposes doesn’t vary as much with lattitude as you
|
||
think, at least judging by the use of GHI in the article, which is very unfair
|
||
to any installation outside 30°N-30°S or so.
|
||
|
||
A more fair estimate is to use global normal irradiance (GNI), weighted by how
|
||
much power loss is expected due to imperfect pointing [2]. If I do this for the
|
||
solar installation I’m currently building I come up with the number 2500 kWh/
|
||
year, for a 2750 W installation, based on data from the Swedish Meteorological
|
||
and Hydrological Institute for my location.
|
||
|
||
Whether this pans out remains to be seen, so take these numbers with some
|
||
reservation :)
|
||
|
||
There’s two other problems near the poles however: fewer sun hours in winter,
|
||
and the distance between rows must increase. The latter isn’t a huge problem
|
||
since land is much cheaper than PVs. The former is nicely covered by wind
|
||
power, which is more plentiful in winter (but turbines must be quite large to
|
||
be worthwhile).
|
||
|
||
Apart from this I think most of your points are valid.
|
||
|
||
Using nuclear power to produce PVs is something I’ve suggested to some
|
||
environmentalists, and reactionaries pretending to be environmentalists, and
|
||
neither of those have wanted to hear it.
|
||
|
||
Tomas
|
||
|
||
[1] [170]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/04/how-sustainable-is-pv-sol
|
||
|
||
ar-power.html
|
||
|
||
[2] [171]http://solarpaneltilt.com/
|
||
|
||
Rod
|
||
|
||
I agree the “battery meter” is not clear. The battery is around 90% now and I
|
||
kept wondering why the “white header bar” didn’t scroll off with the top of the
|
||
page. I read near the top of page and I hate the visual distraction (on all
|
||
websites). If the battery was 50%-80% I think I’d close the page. :/
|
||
|
||
Why don’t you make it 5-10em wide on the left or right so that it will (most
|
||
likely) fall outside of the text column?
|
||
|
||
Or better yet make it a thin horizontal meter at the top or bottom?
|
||
|
||
Nick
|
||
|
||
Hi there!
|
||
|
||
Very impressive project, especially in today world of overkill. And thank you
|
||
very much for detailed instruction, I was planning on doing something similar
|
||
myself on RPi.
|
||
|
||
But I have one question about storage: you mention that you use SD cards. How
|
||
long do they last for you? I had two cards die on me that were used as system
|
||
storage on Pi. If yours last better would you mind telling me which ones do you
|
||
use?
|
||
|
||
Best regards, Nick.
|
||
|
||
Rick Canfield
|
||
|
||
Hello Kris,
|
||
|
||
Really love the design and mentality behind the website, I think it’s the start
|
||
of a new trend for all potential eco-friendly sites in the future. I can
|
||
picture a coalition of energy saving sites existing with their own badge of
|
||
honor.
|
||
|
||
One thing I’d like to suggest or ask about, and maybe it’s something you guys
|
||
have looked into, but whether inverting the site (dark background and light
|
||
colored text) might not save more energy? I recall Google having an energy
|
||
saving day many moons ago and they inverted the Google homepage to black for a
|
||
day, saving a significant amount of power.
|
||
|
||
I use a plugin Google Chrome plugin called Dark Reader, which helps invert the
|
||
color of pages in a readable manner, more for the sake of reducing fatigue on
|
||
my eyesight.
|
||
|
||
It doesn’t make much of a difference with LCD screens, but would with CRT and
|
||
OLED screens, (which OLED may be the way of the future). It may be good
|
||
practice to start with. [172]https://www.quora.com/
|
||
How-much-energy-would-be-saved-if-Google-used-a-black-screen-instead-of-white
|
||
|
||
I’m just wondering if this something you all have considered. I commend the
|
||
extensive endeavor, creating rare and unique online experiences I believe
|
||
enhances authenticity.
|
||
|
||
Abraham Palmer
|
||
|
||
You might have heard this from others but there are many peer-to-peer and
|
||
synchronization type of technologies that align completely with your goals. It
|
||
allows people to share the hosting. The technologies haven’t crossed over to
|
||
critical mass, but do appear close. I follow things like Holochain, DAT project
|
||
and Beaker Browser, IPFS, and Scuttlebutt. You have already done all the hard
|
||
work and so any mostly available can be replicated now globally with very low
|
||
total energy usage. I need to get my own website and cloud hosted application
|
||
converted over to one or more of these. I’m sure the extended community will be
|
||
happy to help further if you need it.
|
||
|
||
Ander Gomez
|
||
|
||
I’ve seen that you used Armbian, that’s a good choice.
|
||
|
||
Did you consider Alpine with the lbu mode? (r/o image with commits made from
|
||
the user with “lbu commit -a”, will all the new stuff is written back to the sd
|
||
image, which is the rootfs.
|
||
|
||
optipng can optimize PNG images without losing too much quality.
|
||
|
||
Finally, thanks for your low-power site inspiration :D
|
||
|
||
Fred
|
||
|
||
Your website is really excellent, bravo! And it is nice & practical to follow
|
||
the rss. Just one (small) regret, there are no social links (you know, images
|
||
where you may click to “bookmark” the page), on twitter (I like), facebook (I
|
||
hate) or other social media.
|
||
|
||
Alex
|
||
|
||
Dear Lowtechmag Team, hello Kris,
|
||
|
||
First of all thanks you very much for this really nice and interesting piece of
|
||
work. I find it quite inspiring – and also a bit discomforting as it does push
|
||
the what-is-possible quite a bit and is therefore making my everyday life (in
|
||
big IT) definitely not easier. ;)
|
||
|
||
Recently I‘ve had the chance to dive quite a bit into Progressive Web Apps
|
||
(PWA) and Service Workers and while a lot of this is just hype (in my eyes),
|
||
one thing struck out: with PWAs it is possible to make websites offline capable
|
||
and cache resources in a way that goes way beyond Cache Headers in HTTP.
|
||
|
||
I would like to explore this in the context of your website and for that
|
||
already cloned you theme on Github and had a look.
|
||
|
||
Of course it has turned out that things are not as easier as they seemed
|
||
(because I have to learn how to setup pelican with your theme and plugins
|
||
first) and so, before wasting time, I wanted to ask you if this would be of
|
||
interest for your project?
|
||
|
||
If yes, I would create a well documented Pull Request on Github and leave it up
|
||
to you to decide whether or not you find it worth to merge it – but if you know
|
||
this is nothing you would consider I would much rather not invest the effort.
|
||
:)
|
||
|
||
Please keep up the great work and publish more inspiring articles!
|
||
|
||
Best regards from Berlin
|
||
|
||
Alex
|
||
|
||
Andy Jacobs
|
||
|
||
I love the idea that you’re pursuing with the server and it clued me in to some
|
||
great resources for open-source hardware and related projects.
|
||
|
||
A couple thoughts on the comments section (and community). First, there are
|
||
ways to accept comments, store them in git, then rebuild the site. Check out
|
||
[173]https://staticman.net/ which is designed for Gatsby.
|
||
|
||
Secondly, there is a burgeoning movement called IndieWeb that allows people to
|
||
comment, like, or RSVP to your posts from their self-hosted website. Your site
|
||
can be notified using a “webmention” so that you know they’ve commented via
|
||
their own website. Webmentions work a lot like trackbacks, but have some cool
|
||
new features. [174]https://indieweb.org/Webmention
|
||
|
||
Somewhat related ideas: how does hosting on IPFS or Dat align with your goals?
|
||
In that way, the static resources are distributed among nodes, and would still
|
||
be available from the mesh if your node goes down.
|
||
|
||
Keep up the good work! Someone turned me on to your work from the Scuttleverse.
|
||
|
||
LWATCDR
|
||
|
||
Like the solar website layout but I agree that your site would use fewer
|
||
resources if it was run on a cloud server. Modern cloud-based systems are very
|
||
energy efficient. When no one is visiting your site you are still using power
|
||
waiting for a request. On a cloud, that system is serving someone else’s site.
|
||
Second, your solar powered site is not low tech. ARM-based SBC running Linux
|
||
using PV solar is anything but low tech.
|
||
|
||
I find it kind of funny that some of the same things you are using today I used
|
||
20 years ago when I wrote my companies website. I was obsessed with making it
|
||
work well over dial-up and used a lot of static pages. For example, I had a
|
||
directory of people looking for work. It was a static page that was generated
|
||
when someone added an entry.
|
||
|
||
The dithering is kind of cool and retro looking but just not really worth it
|
||
for informative sites.
|
||
|
||
christian weber
|
||
|
||
Hi Lowtech<-magazine Team,
|
||
|
||
Great work with your new solar driven web-server. Even when my SBCs are mostly
|
||
a bit more power-hungry, I like the concept of max out an A20. ‘Featured’ in
|
||
the forum now. :)
|
||
|
||
[175]https://forum.armbian.com/topic/8315-daily-tech-related-news-diet/?do=
|
||
findComment&comment=64064
|
||
|
||
I would love to see a short sum-up tutorial here as well (if time allows it):
|
||
|
||
[176]https://forum.armbian.com/forum/26-research-guides-tutorials/
|
||
|
||
You might get some hints when posting it again there how to improve consumption
|
||
even more.
|
||
|
||
Benjamin Henrion
|
||
|
||
There might be a way to consume way less energy would be to use a mix
|
||
|
||
of an openwrt router as an HTTP proxy caching the connections, and
|
||
|
||
waking up a more powerful device, such as an Allwinner A20 board.
|
||
|
||
Some Allwinner boards have a PMU chip that is well supported on
|
||
|
||
Android kernels. But last time I looked at linux-sunxi.org, the
|
||
|
||
suspend to ram supporting that chip was sparse.
|
||
|
||
I have tried a setup with an openwrt router caching the pages, and
|
||
|
||
that can wakes up an x86 PC with an SSD within 2 seconds with a WOL
|
||
|
||
packet, and some iptables+tc delay magic.
|
||
|
||
Andreas Kosmehl
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
i read the article about image compression on your page.
|
||
|
||
[177]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
|
||
If you compress the image with [178]https://tinypng.com/,
|
||
|
||
the image quality is better than dithering and the file is also small.
|
||
|
||
Dithering is not so nice in the browser display when zoomed out.
|
||
|
||
[179]https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard.jpg
|
||
|
||
tiny.png from 163.3 KB (jpg) to 81.9 KB
|
||
|
||
Dominic
|
||
|
||
Thanks for this excellent post on a very interesting topic.
|
||
|
||
I share your concerns about the increasing energy demand (not only) of the
|
||
internet. Therefore using a purely solar power setup (except for the router…)
|
||
is a pretty radical, yet very consequent (given the “low tech”) approach. In
|
||
addition, to me it seems a bit like art :-)
|
||
|
||
Coming from a job, which is all about power conversion and power management
|
||
(funnily enough: for ARM based system) and having an interest into solar power
|
||
applications for myself I could not stop myself from digging into the described
|
||
and depicted solar charger and supply setup.
|
||
|
||
I may well be wrong (having maybe searched for the wrong part, or maybe just
|
||
found outdated information), but is it possible, that the charge controller is
|
||
just a linear type with no MPP tracking? (I found this one:
|
||
|
||
[180]https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/
|
||
CM2024-PWM-12v-24v-20a-solar_6 0099884539.html)
|
||
|
||
In this case, the power being stored into the battery is not 50Wp, but just,
|
||
say, 20Wp (depending on the way the solar panel is built/ internally
|
||
connected).
|
||
|
||
Opting for the (indeed) more complex technology of an MPP tracker, or at least
|
||
simple switch mode step down converter (Solar -> Battery) could drastically
|
||
increase the amount of power you can use for your setup or other
|
||
|
||
household applications.
|
||
|
||
Even if the charge controller was an MPP tracker, you might want to consider
|
||
using one with a lower current rating. Using (massively) oversized supplies,
|
||
|
||
can ruin (usually it does) the efficiency of such a switcher.
|
||
|
||
In addition a separate step down converter from the solar panel directly to 5V
|
||
for powering the server board might (depends on how’s it built) increase the
|
||
efficiency of the system even further. The input of such a setup would
|
||
|
||
be a (wired) OR (using a dual diode with a common cathode) from solar panel and
|
||
12V lead acid battery then.
|
||
|
||
Having built my own solar powered setup (for a clock and an USB charger/ 5V
|
||
supply for all kind of stuff) I can highly recommend using some(!) more
|
||
sophisticated parts. It really pays!
|
||
|
||
I would also be interested in getting to know, which way the supply voltage
|
||
(5V?) for the Olimex board is generated?!
|
||
|
||
Best regards
|
||
|
||
Dominic
|
||
|
||
Pete
|
||
|
||
I have seen your low-tech-website and when I have seen your “Room for
|
||
improvements” section, I had some ideas, I want to share:
|
||
|
||
Image Dithering:
|
||
|
||
I am not sure, if you can use that for your website, but another day I stumbled
|
||
upon thet project for compressing images: [181]https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF
|
||
|
||
According to the compression experiments we have performed FLIF files are on
|
||
average:
|
||
|
||
14% smaller than lossless WebP ,
|
||
|
||
22% smaller than lossless BPG ,
|
||
|
||
33% smaller than brute-force crushed PNG files (using ZopfliPNG),
|
||
|
||
43% smaller than typical PNG files,
|
||
|
||
46% smaller than optimized Adam7-interlaced PNG files,
|
||
|
||
53% smaller than lossless JPEG 2000 compression,
|
||
|
||
74% smaller than lossless JPEG XR compression.
|
||
|
||
Another more popular image format is “WebP”:
|
||
|
||
[182]https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/
|
||
|
||
From description:
|
||
|
||
" WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy
|
||
images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM
|
||
quality index. "
|
||
|
||
Router for the internet connection (lower power consumption):
|
||
|
||
I would expect, that a sort of ARM computer like RaspberryPi con do the job
|
||
with less power comsumption. As most of them are only equipped with one NIC
|
||
only, you hace serveral options to add a second network interface, which is the
|
||
“clean” way for a router.
|
||
|
||
a) use a USB to RJ45 network card and connect it to the USB port of the
|
||
single-board computer.
|
||
|
||
b) use a “Multiple Ethernet Expansion Board” [183]https://www.raspberrypi.org/
|
||
forums/viewtopic.php?t=179904
|
||
|
||
Look here for a example for RaspberryPi: [184]https://www.raspberrypi.org/
|
||
forums/viewtopic.php?t=179904
|
||
|
||
And here: [185]http://www.industrialberry.com/ethernetberry-v-1-1/
|
||
|
||
SSL and Legacy browsers
|
||
|
||
Should we maintain both HTTP and HTTPS versions of the site?
|
||
|
||
In my opinion: A clear NO. There are a lot of linux distributions, that offer
|
||
SSL compatible browsers with a very small footprint. So I will not trade in the
|
||
security for old browser compatibility.
|
||
|
||
Just my two cents - hope it helps,
|
||
|
||
Pete
|
||
|
||
Paul Clarke
|
||
|
||
I like the idea of the dithering, especially combined with the idea of “print
|
||
on demand” of articles or issues - let people have the high quality images if
|
||
they really want them, but offline. Could perhaps do a paywall with high
|
||
quality versions of the images? Not quite sure how it works with a static site
|
||
but I will think on this. I like the dithering but think you do need to be sure
|
||
you have the lowest file size if you’re going to have low quality images, I’m
|
||
sure you’re on to this now.
|
||
|
||
I also moved to a static site for my family tree site (using metalsmith) and
|
||
don’t really have images on there at the moment, but will be taking some
|
||
inspiration from here, muting my colours and adding in some low res black and
|
||
white imagery while still trying to give it some style.
|
||
|
||
Also inspired to reinstate my solar powered ambitions - I had a raspberry pi
|
||
based webcam powered by motorcycle batter and solar battery charger, but could
|
||
not keep it online for more than a few hours…
|
||
|
||
I have a solution for searching articles while using a static site, for example
|
||
[186]http://www.clarkeology.com/wiki/#solar/power - the (very simple, no
|
||
dependencies) source is below, the minified version is inlined in the page.
|
||
|
||
‘(function (location, innerHTML, path, div, h2, folders, i) {
|
||
|
||
function get (url, callback, request) {
|
||
|
||
request = new XMLHttpRequest() // sorry ie6 etc
|
||
|
||
request.open(‘GET’, url, true)
|
||
|
||
request.onreadystatechange = function () {
|
||
|
||
if (request.readyState == 4 && request.status == 200) { // eslint-disable-line
|
||
eqeqeq
|
||
|
||
callback(request.responseText)
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
request.send()
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
function change (e, hash) {
|
||
|
||
hash = location.hash
|
||
|
||
if (!hash) return
|
||
|
||
path = hash.substr(1)
|
||
|
||
div = document.getElementsByTagName(‘div’)[0]
|
||
|
||
h2 = ’’ + path.replace(/\W/g, ’ ‘) + '’
|
||
|
||
// div.innerHTML === div[‘innerHTML’] and we passed in the string innerHTML
|
||
|
||
div[innerHTML] = h2
|
||
|
||
folders = [’/names’, ‘/gig’, ‘’]
|
||
|
||
for (i in folders) {
|
||
|
||
get(folders[i] + ‘/wiki/’ + path + ‘/’, function (content) {
|
||
|
||
div[innerHTML] = div[innerHTML] + content
|
||
|
||
})
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
window.onhashchange = change
|
||
|
||
change(location.hash)
|
||
|
||
})(location, ‘innerHTML’)’
|
||
|
||
Rob van der Zwan
|
||
|
||
Dear Kris and team,
|
||
|
||
First of all, thank you for many years of inspiring articles. Not only were
|
||
they a joy to read, I have used the insights from them on many occasions in my
|
||
own life (though admittedly I have trouble going through with all the radical
|
||
steps required for sustaining this planet, because the mismatch with current
|
||
societal structures makes it so hard to (ironically) sustain).
|
||
|
||
Not only than that: I have shared specific topics on response to people asking
|
||
for advice on buying something new, fixing an issue in the house, and many
|
||
other cases were your articles can give inspiring alternative ideas¹.
|
||
|
||
Which leads to my suggestion. The articles are great, but also very dense and
|
||
often elaborate, giving historical contexts, developments, etc.
|
||
|
||
My sister just got a new apartment. It is empty. That is a great opportunity to
|
||
start fresh and do things right from the start! I am looking for one myself,
|
||
and when the time comes I look forward to having the same opportunity. However,
|
||
while I enjoy doing the research, the act of “optimisation” my lifestyle, so to
|
||
speak, my sister represents the more typical case of simply not having the time
|
||
to read the whole Low Tech Magazine archive digging for gold nuggets.
|
||
|
||
While I’m already suggestion infrared heating, hooded chairs, Japanese-style
|
||
insulated tables (forgot the name), putting thermal masses on sunny parts of
|
||
her room, fireless cookers, pot skirts, but I know I’m missing lots.
|
||
|
||
Now imagine an illustration of a house, featuring almost all of the ideas you
|
||
ever wrote into one image. A counter-image to the stereotypical technologist’s
|
||
House of the Future. A House of the Past for the Future, as it were.
|
||
|
||
Add an image map (look it up, its forgotten but amazon old HTML technology)
|
||
with links to articles and summaries of articles, and you have a something that
|
||
lowers the treshold for people to start changing their lifestyles.
|
||
|
||
Kind regards,
|
||
|
||
Job van der Zwan
|
||
|
||
¹ for example, last week I shared the article on heated clothing with the owner
|
||
of [187]https://www.sockmama.com/, who actually makes most of her money selling
|
||
special socks in person on markets. Both as a suggestion for heated clothing
|
||
for herself to keep warm in Christmas markets, as wel as promoting warmer and
|
||
even heated clothing through selling the socks herself - she loved the idea and
|
||
is looking into it!
|
||
|
||
(Oh, BTW: I have donated to the project in the past and would like to again,
|
||
but I’d like to do so directly per bank transfer. Is that a possibility? And
|
||
I’ll try to make some time to contribute to that research into image dithering
|
||
pipelines, but I can’t promise anything)
|
||
|
||
Hunor Karamán
|
||
|
||
Yo Kris,
|
||
|
||
First of all good job on the carefully crafted magazine. I really enjoy the
|
||
content and the whole way you handle this site!
|
||
|
||
I don’t know if you intentionally haven’t done it, but sharing the site through
|
||
Dat would be a good fallback for the times it’s down (because of the sun). If
|
||
you’re not familiar with the protocol, I would happily help on that
|
||
|
||
I’m just overall curious about your opinion on this.
|
||
|
||
Michael
|
||
|
||
I’m from Germany and read on an advertisement in the bus this afternoon about
|
||
your website and that it goes out during bad weather. I believe that pointing
|
||
out the last part that the websites sometimes shuts down delivers the wrong
|
||
message about solar which is the biggest argument for coal and other dirty
|
||
forms of energy.
|
||
|
||
The argument that you can’t store solar energy. But it is possible to store
|
||
energy with batteries. Have you thought about buying one so that your website
|
||
doesn’t shut down? Like a Tesla power wall or something. It would deliver a
|
||
much better picture about the sustainability and availability of solar power.
|
||
|
||
Thanks for reading my thoughts on this small topic.
|
||
|
||
Ploc
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I’ve been very interested in reading your article named “How to build a
|
||
Low-Tech website: Software & Hardware” :
|
||
|
||
[188]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#
|
||
compression-of-transmitted-data
|
||
|
||
I’m also involved in generating static website and I’m surprised that you
|
||
confifured your server to gzip resources on-the-fly. As the website is static,
|
||
and already generated, the result og gzipping is a predictable process and can
|
||
then be done at the static website generation step.
|
||
|
||
This would consume less cpu on the server than compressing of the fly, and
|
||
hence save energy.
|
||
|
||
What do you think of that?
|
||
|
||
Jan Fabry
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
One small CPU improvement for nginx: if you use the gzip_static module, you can
|
||
serve precompressed files, instead of letting the server gzip the requests on
|
||
the fly every time. This should save some CPU cycles.
|
||
|
||
[189]https://nginx.org/en/docs/https/ngx_https_gzip_static_module.html
|
||
|
||
You would need to change the Pelican workflow to also create .gz versions of
|
||
the content that can be compressed, but that can’t be too hard.
|
||
|
||
Regards,
|
||
|
||
Jan Fabry
|
||
|
||
Dave Evans
|
||
|
||
Hey there!
|
||
|
||
Just a quick word to say hi and that I really appreciate the project that
|
||
you’re working on. I’ve been a HBSC mailing list lurker for a while as I too am
|
||
interested in self hosting a low power solutions to hosting and creating
|
||
networks.
|
||
|
||
I’m actually doing a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London speculating on the
|
||
relationship between historical
|
||
|
||
asceticism (hermits, monks, austere protestant living) and networks, looking
|
||
for clues to how reimagine the network at a more human scale (I’m not religious
|
||
in the slightest, but the link between how monks etc dealt with the vastness of
|
||
their God and how we might cope with the vastness of the web seemed like a
|
||
nice, perverse lens to look at the
|
||
|
||
internet!).
|
||
|
||
Anyhow. I’ve made some solar wireless local area networks (the most recent in a
|
||
community permaculture garden in a train station). I’m also just trying to get
|
||
a raspberry pi running as a home server to host my research. What web server do
|
||
you use for the magazine? I used apache as it was what I’ve been used to, but
|
||
would be interested in
|
||
|
||
alternatives (although I studied printmaking and sculpture so am on a steep
|
||
technical learning curve these days!).
|
||
|
||
I have presented at various international conferences and written some stuff
|
||
about the relationship between asceticism and the internet at the address below
|
||
- and would love to publish to your magazine if you think it might be
|
||
appropriate.
|
||
|
||
[190]https://independent.academia.edu/DaveEvans19
|
||
|
||
Keep up the good work - I will follow with interest!
|
||
|
||
Best wishes from Liverpool,
|
||
|
||
Dave
|
||
|
||
Raúl
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
your project just boom me!
|
||
|
||
I am a webdesign freelance from Madrid mountains that works to transform
|
||
internet into something more simple. I also use portable solar panels to work
|
||
on the woods.
|
||
|
||
If you need some collaboration or help with the project please contact me! you
|
||
can check here some of my portfolio [191]https://lapatineta.com/en/portfolio
|
||
|
||
hasta luego!
|
||
|
||
Raúl
|
||
|
||
Mikoláš Štrajt
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I just found link to Low tech magazine on Hackers news.
|
||
|
||
I really enjoy the articles because I am interested in both old technology and
|
||
solar punk.
|
||
|
||
I also enjoy the somewhat controversial design element - dithering of images.
|
||
|
||
But - sometimes dithering the images makes them “unreadable”. For example some
|
||
of those wood carvings in article about ropeways ([192]https://
|
||
solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/
|
||
aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport-for-a-bargain.html). Even worse is
|
||
map at article about high speed trains ([193]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network.html) - this
|
||
probably should stay as is, because it’s already PNG with limited color set.
|
||
|
||
Anyway I really like your site. I hope there will be enough light/battery to
|
||
stay online at weekend. :-)
|
||
|
||
Also If you need some photos of obsolete tech (steam trains, old tramways etc)
|
||
I can look for it in my archives. I visit transport themed events quite often.
|
||
|
||
greetings from Prague by
|
||
|
||
–
|
||
|
||
Severák
|
||
|
||
[194]https://tilde.town/~severak/
|
||
|
||
PS: now after some 30 years we have again trolleybuses (in trial operation) in
|
||
Prague
|
||
|
||
They did presentation with old vehicle from musem on new track.
|
||
|
||
My photos from that event: [195]https://www.zonerama.com/metropolis/303066
|
||
|
||
Paul Laborde
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I read your article from France and I love your idea.
|
||
|
||
I tried few time ago to create this kind of machine for an automated solution
|
||
in gardens.
|
||
|
||
Maybe I can share some ideas :
|
||
|
||
Add a proxy page when your server is down a temporary offline page can be
|
||
displayed
|
||
|
||
How is user traffic ? Wan you maybe integrate directly a cellular connectivity
|
||
instead of optical fiber ? (like Soracom)
|
||
|
||
This new connectivity allow to move server to original hosting zones (trees,
|
||
mountains, etc)
|
||
|
||
Maybe you can add an power indicator about battery capacity and solar level
|
||
with a downtime estimation ?
|
||
|
||
A super light server with ESP8266 could be original too
|
||
|
||
I just discovered your website, it’s great !
|
||
|
||
N Valova
|
||
|
||
Hello, Kris.
|
||
|
||
I’ve just come across Lowtechmagazine project, thanks to a reshare of a friend
|
||
on Mastodon.
|
||
|
||
The idea behind your project is wonderful, and it’s valuable that you provide
|
||
RSS subscription (thank you).
|
||
|
||
The project is also broadcasting on Twitter. The big Twitter with fat data
|
||
centres. Have you heard of Mastodon? It’s one Fediverse project - a
|
||
twitter-like federating platform.
|
||
|
||
To be honest, Mastodon relies on modern web technologies, so it can’t be easily
|
||
hosted at home on a small computer. But there are other interconnected projects
|
||
(for example, Pleroma) that are more ligthweight and can be hosted “on a
|
||
potato” some users say.
|
||
|
||
Self-hosting. Could this topic be of interest to you, in the context of what
|
||
you’re writing about?
|
||
|
||
I don’t know whether self-hosting one’s social media can possibly decrease
|
||
energy consumption worldwide… May be? If people start paying small ammounts of
|
||
money for energy (self-hosting) or to friends-administrators who will do the
|
||
server work for them, perhaps people will re-evaluate their social network
|
||
habits? When there’re no big companies providing “free” unlimited server space,
|
||
and no algorithms showing constant ads with brands telling you to buy this and
|
||
that “because fashionable”, perhaps, users will stop over-consuming and learn
|
||
once again how to have meaningful online conversations.
|
||
|
||
Please, consider joining Mastodon (Fediverse generally). There are ways to
|
||
automatically post from Mastodon to Twitter ([196]https://
|
||
crossposter.masto.donte.com.br) Many people follow your project on Twitter. I’m
|
||
sure there are also people among fedizens who will be glad to read you on
|
||
Fediverse. Perhaps even some of your Twitter followers will eventually join. :)
|
||
|
||
Sylvain Couhault
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I loved your low tech website and think you’ve done e real great job.
|
||
|
||
Since I’ve read the “Room for Improvements” section I’ve got some ideas to
|
||
share with you that, I hope, will help you to go further:
|
||
|
||
-Images: Did you try the “.GIF” format ? You can use it for static picture
|
||
limited to 256 colors. It is supported by most of internet browsers. [197]
|
||
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF
|
||
|
||
-SSL ciphers: if there aren’t any sensible or personnal datas on the website,
|
||
maybe it’s not needed to maintain HTTPS. The new General Data Protection Rules
|
||
requires Ciphered content only if you use personnal datas. For full public
|
||
datas, it’s not mandatory I think.
|
||
|
||
Nevertheless it would need to be tested on different internet browsers because
|
||
some of them are blocking sites or displaying security warnings when not in
|
||
HTTPS (Google Chrome mainly). I think Google Chrome plans to block non HTTPS
|
||
website in the longterm future but for the moment it works and other browsers
|
||
will still allow it in the future. Maybe the best way is to test your site with
|
||
HTTP (no S) with different browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Microsoft Edge,
|
||
Brave … ), see how it displays (warnings and so on ..) and to inform people
|
||
about the browser they can use to watch your site and the warnings they could
|
||
encounter.
|
||
|
||
-Energy sources: maybe you can combine the solar panel with a little wind
|
||
turbine (thus you can still collect power even with bad weather. It’s less
|
||
efficient than solar panel, but in combination it could be useful to keep along
|
||
a few hours or days without sun). I think this can be coupled with your battery
|
||
system (with some other components to avoid interference between solar panel
|
||
and wind turbine) Here are some examples:
|
||
|
||
[198]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBx3O55lTDw
|
||
|
||
[199]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2XEQZsXcIg
|
||
|
||
I hope these ideas will help you :)
|
||
|
||
Regards,
|
||
|
||
Sylvain
|
||
|
||
Adrien CLERC
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I read [200]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html and I was
|
||
|
||
interested by your image compression techniques.
|
||
|
||
I would like to give you two ways of optimizing more aggressively.
|
||
|
||
Optimizing JPEG
|
||
|
||
==========
|
||
|
||
If you want to keep the same quality of the input image, here are my
|
||
|
||
best experience : use Guetzli (first) and MozJPEG (after Guetzli). The
|
||
|
||
first one (see [201]https://github.com/google/guetzli/) is destructive, and
|
||
|
||
produce a different image, but with the exact same perceptual result for
|
||
|
||
our human eyes. The second (see [202]https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg) is a
|
||
|
||
fork of JPEGTurbo with aggressive optimization without any change to the
|
||
|
||
final results.
|
||
|
||
So here are the two steps with your original image
|
||
|
||
([203]https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard.jpg):
|
||
|
||
• guetzli international-switchboard.jpg international-switchboard.g.jpg
|
||
|
||
• jpegtran -outfile international-switchboard.g.m.jpg
|
||
|
||
international-switchboard.g.jpg
|
||
|
||
I have the following resulting images:
|
||
|
||
156721 nov. 22 10:55 international-switchboard.g.jpg
|
||
|
||
135206 nov. 22 10:56 international-switchboard.g.m.jpg
|
||
|
||
163314 nov. 22 10:54 international-switchboard.jpg
|
||
|
||
Optimizing PNG
|
||
|
||
=========
|
||
|
||
If you have PNG (from ditherised images), you can use zopflipng. This
|
||
|
||
tool (see [204]https://github.com/google/zopfli/) tries to find the best
|
||
|
||
combinations for a PNG, and achieves better result than optipng.
|
||
|
||
One step from your 11 color image
|
||
|
||
([205]https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard11.png):
|
||
|
||
• zopflipng -m international-switchboard11.png
|
||
|
||
international-switchboard11.z.png
|
||
|
||
I have the following resulting images:
|
||
|
||
111255 nov. 22 10:59 international-switchboard11.png
|
||
|
||
106772 nov. 22 10:58 international-switchboard11.z.png
|
||
|
||
Conclusion
|
||
|
||
======
|
||
|
||
With the original JPEG, I have a 17.3% improvement, using only JPEG.
|
||
|
||
This image is still 21.5% larger than your 11-color PNG.
|
||
|
||
With the 11-color PNG, I have a 4.1% improvement. This is not so much,
|
||
|
||
but still significant.
|
||
|
||
Note that guetzli needs a lot of memory and CPU. Other tool are more
|
||
|
||
lightweight.
|
||
|
||
Have a nice compression day,
|
||
|
||
Adrien
|
||
|
||
Erick Lavoie
|
||
|
||
I have read your magazine over the years and I have found tremendous
|
||
|
||
value in your writings. I occasionally give workshops for kids in which
|
||
|
||
I want to introduce principles of low-tech and alternative energies
|
||
|
||
using Lego and custom parts, partly inspired by some of the ideas you
|
||
|
||
have articulated so well.
|
||
|
||
I have just read “How to Build a Low-tech Website” and couldn’t help
|
||
|
||
wonder whether you have thought of using decentralized technologies to
|
||
|
||
distribute your content. The main advantage is that your server does not
|
||
|
||
need to be online all the time for content to be accessible, it can be
|
||
|
||
distributed by your readers themselves. We could even imagine hosting
|
||
|
||
availability following the day cycle around the Earth to reduce the need
|
||
|
||
for energy storage, i.e. people could pull their content from places
|
||
|
||
that are currently sunny.
|
||
|
||
Some friend of mine has started to build their own magazine with the
|
||
|
||
Beaker Browser [1]. I have personally been using Secure-Scuttlebutt [2],
|
||
|
||
which has a mobile application in the works [3], and I am currently
|
||
|
||
actively participating in the community. Obviously most of your readers
|
||
|
||
are currently not using either one of those so that is not a viable
|
||
|
||
replacement to web hosting now. But I think they could still be part of
|
||
|
||
a future analysis in an article and a potential progressive transition
|
||
|
||
as more people adopt them. I also think you would fit right in with the
|
||
|
||
ethos of the current SSB community, so I would be glad to get you
|
||
|
||
on-board and introduce you to people if your are interested.
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Erick
|
||
|
||
[1] [206]https://beakerbrowser.com/
|
||
|
||
[2] [207]https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/
|
||
|
||
[3] [208]https://www.manyver.se/
|
||
|
||
Terry
|
||
|
||
Hello Kris, Roel and Marie,
|
||
|
||
Very cool project for the WebServer.
|
||
|
||
I am even more interested how you run the office (light and what i guess is an
|
||
good old IBM Thinkpad) on solar power.
|
||
|
||
Are you charging the Battery of the Laptop or are you running it without
|
||
battery direkt through solor / or batterythat is loaded through solar panel.
|
||
|
||
Could you share the experiance please?
|
||
|
||
Or give the details on the “electric” hardware you use?
|
||
|
||
Thank you very much in advance.
|
||
|
||
I plan on doing similar and wonder what Solarpanel and PowerControler/Battery
|
||
controler to use.
|
||
|
||
Best regards
|
||
|
||
Terry
|
||
|
||
Arne
|
||
|
||
The gatling webserver is especially resource efficient.
|
||
|
||
[209]http://www.fefe.de/gatling/
|
||
|
||
It’s author uses it for his own blog (blog.fefe.de), which has a wide
|
||
|
||
readership but was hosted on very old hardware until recently.
|
||
|
||
Léo
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I find your solar website amazing!
|
||
|
||
Compressing a page is quite demanding for the CPU so your server may use even
|
||
less power if you cache a compressed version of your pages.
|
||
|
||
Basically, you just need to tweak your nginx configuration and generate a .gz
|
||
for each page, which is very easy to script. Then, for each request, nginx will
|
||
use the .gz file and avoid recompressing the page. If the browser does not
|
||
support compression, the .html file is served.
|
||
|
||
This blog post describe the all process https://www.carnaghan.. Here is the
|
||
official documentation of the module [210]http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ which
|
||
seems to be installed in every version of the debian nginx package.
|
||
|
||
Best regards,
|
||
|
||
Léo
|
||
|
||
Viga
|
||
|
||
I just stumbled upon your website, and I really love the idea.
|
||
|
||
However, I will agree with a lot of the comments about the battery indicator.
|
||
It fails both on conveying the message (it is far from obvious what it
|
||
represents) and at making a user-friendly website.
|
||
|
||
At first it got me to not even attempt reading past the introduiction. It is
|
||
that annoying. I enentually came back because I al really interrested in the
|
||
project, but was annoyed constantly during my reading.
|
||
|
||
It is also marked with a sun icon, wich doesn’t map to “battery” in my mind, so
|
||
the meaning of it may get lost.
|
||
|
||
I understand that you want to convey the message that it isn’t a standard
|
||
website, and the dithered images do that pretty well (with the caveat of graphs
|
||
and tables, as others noted), but the battery meter in its current state isn’t
|
||
the way to go.
|
||
|
||
Also, did you consider minifying the html/js source? Just stripping whitespace
|
||
and comments from the javascript saves a bit more than 2kb per page load. You
|
||
could go further than this by stripping whitespace, comments, and mangling
|
||
variable names in the whole html/js. I do understand why you wouldn’t want to
|
||
do it, as it closes the code by obfucating it, but the CSS is already minified,
|
||
so you may not consider this as an issue.
|
||
|
||
Also, as I read this articles and comments today (jan. 25th, 2019), I have no
|
||
way when they were published, which is a context I really would like to have
|
||
when writing this comment. I believe it would be a nice addition to the site.
|
||
|
||
Viga
|
||
|
||
Sebastian Furnigel
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
Your project got our attention and we’re thinking about what would it take to
|
||
make a similar project.
|
||
|
||
Therefore, I’m curious about
|
||
|
||
the solar cell used – we’re considering a 230w cell;
|
||
|
||
the raspberry model and what aspects were optimized on it;
|
||
|
||
and the battery pack used – which direction did you follow for battery metrics?
|
||
|
||
Your project is a real head-turner and it would be really interesting to have
|
||
some insight into how yours was done.
|
||
|
||
Thank you and have a nice day,
|
||
|
||
Sebastian Furnigel
|
||
|
||
Kyle Norton
|
||
|
||
I absolutely love the solar-powered website. I love the design, I love the
|
||
concept.. I want to try and build one of my own here in Austin, Texas.
|
||
|
||
If I can toss out a suggestion … I love the battery level indicator, but I
|
||
would also love to see an indicator of local time and if the site is operating
|
||
on solar or battery power.
|
||
|
||
Jim Morgan
|
||
|
||
I’ve recently had problems with aggressive searchbots on some websites I run.
|
||
Up to 80% of the bandwidth of the webserver was from bots! I imagine if you
|
||
reduced or blocked bots on your site, you’d also see some energy savings.
|
||
|
||
To combat this, you can create a ‘map’ in nginx, whereby you ban or rate-limit
|
||
bots matching a certain regex pattern.
|
||
|
||
eg. In the main nginx.conf
|
||
|
||
map $http_user_agent $limit_bots {
|
||
|
||
~*Baiduspider 'baidu';
|
||
|
||
default '';
|
||
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
limit_req_zone $limit_bots zone=badbots:5m rate=10r/m;
|
||
|
||
Then in the actual website config in the server{} stanza
|
||
|
||
rate limit for poorly behaved bots
|
||
|
||
limit_req zone=badbots;
|
||
|
||
Monitor the error.log to see crawlers getting banned.
|
||
|
||
Jim Morgan
|
||
|
||
Aleksandar Milovac (Александар Миловац)
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
Maybe this can help to get more accurate result of battery status, temp, etc…
|
||
|
||
[211]https://github.com/KoljaWindel
|
||
|
||
Br,
|
||
|
||
Aleks
|
||
|
||
RC
|
||
|
||
I suspect 99% of power consumption for solar.lowtechmagazine.com is from
|
||
regular kernel book keeping. From what I read, using less ticks per second for
|
||
the HZ variable in Linux or enabling NO_HZ should reduce power even more. I’m
|
||
not particularly knowledgeable in this, but I do admire the direction of your
|
||
website as tech companies build websites only for people who buy the latest
|
||
products, and for everyone to use the latest unmaintainable codebases.
|
||
|
||
As I read this, it looks like your five week uptime may finally fail.
|
||
|
||
Chris
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I’ve came across your website today and like your minimal attitude to web
|
||
design pretty much. It is quite a contrast to the bloated webpages we are used
|
||
to today (the performance improvement is even very noticable when using a quite
|
||
fast connection - 1000mbps at work / 100mbps at home) and I think the web would
|
||
be a lot more enjoyable if more pages were built like that.
|
||
|
||
I’ve read the article about the webserver configuration [1] and got a
|
||
suggestion for a configuration change to the nginx configuration. As it wasn’t
|
||
listed there in the improvement list you might not be aware of this already.
|
||
There is a configuration item called “gzip_static on” [2] which does tell nginx
|
||
to simply deliver precompressed files from the webroot (so if requesting
|
||
“index.html” it does send “index.html.gz”)
|
||
|
||
Pre-Compressing the Webpages when updating the site and shipping these
|
||
compressed versions should decrease cpu load and therefore energy consumption
|
||
of the Server as the computation for the compression is only necessary one time
|
||
when updating the page and not for every request. You might even use a higher
|
||
compression level for this one-time task (though with gzip bumping the level
|
||
from 6 to 9 doesn’t improve the compression ratio a whole lot in my experience
|
||
- at least with my usual datasets)
|
||
|
||
I’ve got no idea how much of a difference this does make - especially as there
|
||
is quite a bit of processing necessary for the https encryption but it might be
|
||
worth a try.
|
||
|
||
Kind regards,
|
||
|
||
Chris
|
||
|
||
[1] [212]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#software
|
||
|
||
[2] [213]http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_gzip_static_module.html
|
||
|
||
David Galeano
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I think your solar powered server project is very interesting and I may have a
|
||
couple of suggestions.
|
||
|
||
I think you could improve performance when serving static files by using the
|
||
open file cache: [214]https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#
|
||
open_file_cache
|
||
|
||
The size of PNG files depends heavily on the compressor used and the contents
|
||
of the image. I found zopfli to be the best compressor: [215]https://github.com
|
||
/google/zopfli/blob/master/README.zopflipng
|
||
|
||
Also the PNG format is very good at compressing images with vertical patterns
|
||
because each row can be stored as a delta of the previous one, not sure how
|
||
that could help you but for example in the past I found that just by rotating
|
||
the image 90 degrees it became a lot smaller.
|
||
|
||
Anyway, hope any of this helps.
|
||
|
||
Kind regards,
|
||
|
||
David
|
||
|
||
Matisse VerDuyn
|
||
|
||
The goal of this project is great!
|
||
|
||
A while ago, I put together [216]https://github.com/matisseverduyn/aureum with
|
||
a similar goal in mind. The concept stemmed from two objectives:
|
||
|
||
1.) The sole purpose of a website is to provide content, and to be useful, that
|
||
content must be “comfortably readable” (on any device), and
|
||
|
||
2.) It’s critical, for many reasons, to minimize data transfer (through the
|
||
elimination of all non-essential HTML tags / attributes, and all CSS classes,
|
||
especially those that are merely there to indicate visibility toggling).
|
||
|
||
Aureum helps to display “comfortably readable” information on all screen sizes
|
||
(including both very large projector screens and very small displays, like
|
||
smartwatches), and does so with only 3kb of minified CSS. I guess it could be
|
||
considered a “reset file”, but as I’ve actually used it on a few projects
|
||
without adding much additional CSS, that classification might not convey its
|
||
benefits with much justice.
|
||
|
||
It seems that “certain devices” which may not support features such as CSS
|
||
media queries are a concern of your current design (“keep the blog accessible
|
||
for visitors with older computers”)? If not, I hope that Aureum is useful to
|
||
your project. As another commenter Anja mentioned, having sites load quickly
|
||
(or at all) under really low-bandwidth is both environmentally sensible and a
|
||
pleasant relief (and quite a surprise to come across).
|
||
|
||
Thanks for what you’ve done here,
|
||
|
||
Matisse
|
||
|
||
sune Petersen
|
||
|
||
Hello Low Tech Magazine.
|
||
|
||
What are your thoughts on IPFS and DAT?
|
||
|
||
Have you thought about putting a mirror of your site up on these protocols?
|
||
|
||
Götz Hildebrandt
|
||
|
||
Dear de Decker,
|
||
|
||
reading about your low tech magazine, and the solar powered server.
|
||
|
||
is thier a plan to enable hosting on that server, or clustering with several
|
||
servers world wide,
|
||
|
||
that works on the same way - low tech as yours?
|
||
|
||
For most web site no interpreting language is need, data access is neeed yes
|
||
but that is all.
|
||
|
||
C++ as server side language is for common cases enough. (for mine it is)
|
||
|
||
what are your plans?
|
||
|
||
Greetings from Germany
|
||
|
||
Ruben
|
||
|
||
Hi!
|
||
|
||
Your article on your setup is great, but I was surprised that you don’t
|
||
precompress your pages, images, etc and serve it with nginx, using the option
|
||
“gzip_static on”.
|
||
|
||
It would be better on your CPU (you’d have to just compress once) and
|
||
|
||
you could use the strongest compression possible. Would be good for
|
||
|
||
speed as well, as nginx will be able to sent the page right away,
|
||
|
||
without waiting for the slow arm CPU to compress it.
|
||
|
||
Just my two cents!
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Ruben
|
||
|
||
Brian Sutherland
|
||
|
||
Hi, Kris:
|
||
|
||
Cool website, and one I may be discussing in my PhD thesis on DIY sustainable
|
||
IT and electronics design.
|
||
|
||
I suggest that instead of batteries you use a graphene supercapacitor array.
|
||
Buy it once, it lasts for 10-20 years, and the system can recharge 1,000,000
|
||
times without wearing out. No heavy or toxic metals, just carbon, plastic and
|
||
aluminum. Just be careful about insulating it properly if you stack it into 12
|
||
volts rather than 5 volts and use the appropriate cell balancing kit to ensure
|
||
the capacitors charge evenly.
|
||
|
||
Also, if your site mirror was in a different time zone with the sun shining, it
|
||
would never need to go offline, but it would still be 100% solar powered. Fibre
|
||
optics being light don’t need much power to send information far.
|
||
|
||
+1 to 117) Ruben’s suggestion to use the gzip standard for webpages to reduce
|
||
the storage and data transfer.
|
||
|
||
I’m not certain I agree that static HTML pages make for a significant power
|
||
saving compared to dynamically generated pages since the CPU still needs be
|
||
running on the storage requests and it writes requests into a log file, that’s
|
||
not much different from a web page call.
|
||
|
||
Complements to your awesome city: my spouse and I visited a few years ago. We
|
||
enjoyed the art and culture, especially the architecture, and I’ve been
|
||
following Francisca Bria’s digital citizenship work very closely.
|
||
|
||
Paul Geraghty
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I followed with interest the Olimex link to your pages (via twitter and
|
||
@EENewsEurope)
|
||
|
||
Fine work, this board might be a solution for a problem I have too.
|
||
|
||
However, being an ex-LAMP dev kinda guy, with experience of caching I noted
|
||
with interest you do not seem use a memcache.
|
||
|
||
Heres a link to more info:
|
||
|
||
[217]https://blog.octo.com/en/http-caching-with-nginx-and-memcached/
|
||
|
||
I used to do similar on a .gov website for certain common webpages like home
|
||
page etc.
|
||
|
||
But this was 10+ years ago using PHPs own memcache on Apache, so I cannot
|
||
really help you much more.
|
||
|
||
In effect, this loads, for example, your html in MEMORY so you are not
|
||
constantly pulling from your sd card. You just need to flush the ram every time
|
||
you update your page, or it will do it when the SBC reboots, or you can set a
|
||
time limit, I used to use hourly.
|
||
|
||
Sorry if my ignorance of SBCs is lacking, and what I am saying is not doable -
|
||
eg more ram is a no-go, or even if the idea of ram does not translate to the
|
||
SBC world. Your the sample nginx config seems to show you are not using this.
|
||
|
||
Just thought I’d share that with you in case it leads to something positive.
|
||
|
||
Thanks again for the detailed write-up.
|
||
|
||
Shelby Marvell
|
||
|
||
I’m thinking of making my raspberry pi a super low-power server… Just wondering
|
||
if you had done any more to improve it since this article: [218]https://
|
||
homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
|
||
And had a suggestion to maybe reduce image size. GIFs? They take dithering
|
||
really well… But I know PNGs are compressed at varying strengths. And now I
|
||
need to find a way to use a solar battery or something for powering it…
|
||
|
||
Nicolai
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I love your site! It’s pushed me to make actual changes in my life.
|
||
|
||
Here are some small changes you can make to improve your https
|
||
|
||
configuration to maintain (or increase) security while also using less
|
||
|
||
electricity.
|
||
|
||
First, on the server itself, type these commands and compare the output:
|
||
|
||
openssl speed aes-128-gcm
|
||
|
||
openssl speed aes-256-gcm
|
||
|
||
openssl speed chacha20-poly1305
|
||
|
||
Since your server’s CPU (ARM Cortex A7) doesn’t support accelerated
|
||
|
||
AES, chacha20-poly1305 should be SIGNIFICANTLY faster (possibly 10x
|
||
|
||
faster) which means less electricity usage. Similarly, aes-128-gcm
|
||
|
||
should be a bit faster than aes-256-gcm. In the real world, in actual
|
||
|
||
TLS usage, aes-256 doesn’t solve a problem that aes-128 doesn’t.
|
||
|
||
So, you should configure nginx to support and prefer only these ciphers:
|
||
|
||
chacha20-poly1305
|
||
|
||
aes-128-gcm
|
||
|
||
aes-128-cbc
|
||
|
||
You don’t even need aes-256. For ECDH curves, you also don’t need
|
||
|
||
secp521r1 or secp384r1. Even google.com, which is famous for not
|
||
|
||
wanting to lose any users, doesn’t support these curves. You should
|
||
|
||
just support x25519 and P-256 (aka secp256r1).
|
||
|
||
Finally, making ECDSA signatures requires less power than making RSA
|
||
|
||
signatures. So switching from an RSA cert to an ECDSA cert would
|
||
|
||
lower your electrical usage.
|
||
|
||
Hope this helps, and thanks again for your outstanding website!
|
||
|
||
Artūrs Pupausis
|
||
|
||
Intresting project for sure!
|
||
|
||
When speaking of server efficiency. Old 40nm SoC isn’t the way to go. PNG could
|
||
be optimized by PNGgauntlet or use webp but I guess it only supports 24bit
|
||
colors. Brolti compression is more efficient than gzip. CSS, HTML & JS can be
|
||
minifyed before compression. One commented about Flif but it isn’t optimized
|
||
and not natively supported in browsers.
|
||
|
||
Combining multiple websites on one server to uses hardware more effectively.
|
||
SPF+ uses less power for given amount of data compared 100m nic. From a larger
|
||
server waste heat can be recovered for water heating or room heating in winter.
|
||
Waste heat can be recovered from waste water drain as well as that water can be
|
||
reused for toilet. 10nm ARM server uses far less power for the same work
|
||
compared even to latest Intel offers.
|
||
|
||
Even better if it is running on hybrid solar PV system with a small battery
|
||
backup plus optimized PV system with minimal conversion of electricity.
|
||
|
||
Lastly reusing certain parts of servers like a case and hard drive
|
||
Remanufacturing instead of shredding could help reduce emissions of the
|
||
internet.
|
||
|
||
Speaking of printed version depending on the tech used on paper production,
|
||
weight, shopping, power source, raw material, disposal & etc. Typical sheet of
|
||
A4 paper uses ~50 watt hours of energy or more. While reading on modern
|
||
smartphone for one hour takes Less than a watt hour, but it quickly changes if
|
||
done on a laptop or older desktop with multiple monitors. But does not include
|
||
cradle to grave impact of hardware and software used for it Also it would need
|
||
to be divided by all other stuff used on computer.
|
||
|
||
Amos Blanton
|
||
|
||
I thought I’d share my solar powered website as it stands, along with
|
||
|
||
the offer of any help I can give should anyone run into problems I might
|
||
|
||
be able to help with.
|
||
|
||
[219]http://solar.amosamos.net/
|
||
|
||
([220]https://gitlab.com/Lightnin/amosamos.net)
|
||
|
||
• It uses an ina219 to measure the state of the battery (Thanks Roel!)
|
||
|
||
• I’m experimenting with changing the background image depending on the
|
||
|
||
weather. I’m intrigued by the idea of physically situated servers tied
|
||
|
||
to their place in space.
|
||
|
||
I have yet to tackle the data optimization or server customization and
|
||
|
||
caching, and logging the power usage to look at trends / see if I can
|
||
|
||
cope with a Danish winter (unlikely at this point). And I am proxying to
|
||
|
||
my site on nearlyfreespeech.net [221]http://nearlyfreespeech.net when the
|
||
|
||
pi is down. I’m rather attached to uptime at the moment as I am looking
|
||
|
||
for new opportunities in the realm of playful learning and sustainability.
|
||
|
||
Thanks for to you all for making this list / club, and for your
|
||
|
||
contributions to solar.lowtechmagazine.com
|
||
|
||
[222]http://solar.lowtechmagazine.com and associated documentation - which
|
||
|
||
I found to be really inspiring.
|
||
|
||
Best,
|
||
|
||
Amos
|
||
|
||
Petar Marinov
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I’ve been reading articles when you post on lowtechmagazine.com and I like how
|
||
your photos look (and how little space they take). I’ve spent some time
|
||
attempting to replicate the dithering effect of my own photos by I couldn’t
|
||
make it look like in lowtechmagazine.com.
|
||
|
||
Could you please share what is the command-line (imagemagic) which you use to
|
||
produce your photos?
|
||
|
||
–pe
|
||
|
||
[223]https://github.com/pmarinov
|
||
|
||
Roel Roscam Abbing
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
We wrote a Pelican plugin for it.
|
||
|
||
You can find the code here:
|
||
|
||
[224]https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/rra/page_metadata
|
||
|
||
greetings,
|
||
|
||
Roel
|
||
|
||
Stephen Henderson
|
||
|
||
You forgot to subtract, car trips to library, record store, theaters, not
|
||
watching TV, delivering newspapers, producing paper. The internet is an
|
||
extremely efficient, fast, decentralized way off transferring information
|
||
compared to other methods. Therefore your premise of the Internet as a carbon
|
||
problem is just not true, it’s a large savings.
|
||
|
||
If there was simply a fair carbon tax on on everything producing carbon they
|
||
would all use renewable energy. A server farm produces NO carbon using
|
||
electricity from an utility. The utility produces carbon because they burn the
|
||
fossil fuels to supply a server farm. ALWAYS, atack a problem at it’s source.
|
||
|
||
A fair carbon tax is just so simple it makes you sick to think it’s not
|
||
implemented.
|
||
|
||
rockyIII
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
Thanks for your very interesting website.
|
||
|
||
I´m reading “How to Build a Low-tech Website?“ with lots of attention.
|
||
|
||
I also have read on several other places (e.g. [225]https://developer-blog.net/
|
||
raspberry-pi-mit-sonnenenergie-betreiben-teil-4/) that the needed emeryfor a
|
||
singelborad computerdoes not so much depend on the use of given capacity… so
|
||
even so astatic web page is faster and needs less energy we could still
|
||
consider to build also dynamic pages…
|
||
|
||
That said – I really like the design of [226]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
but it limits us by using some interesting functions if we think of interactin
|
||
websites, which is a feature that becomes more and more important.
|
||
|
||
You seem to have no problem to use Facebook and twitter - but this use is a
|
||
contradiction to your project I want to to address here.
|
||
|
||
Have you heard of the “Fediverse”?
|
||
|
||
[227]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
|
||
|
||
and the decentralized networking options? This is a very interesting option
|
||
which would be interesting to integrated in the Low-tech website project too.
|
||
|
||
Here I want to recommend the project Hubzilla.
|
||
|
||
[228]https://hubzilla.org
|
||
|
||
You can run it in a PHP environment.
|
||
|
||
Hubzilla has a function called „normadic identity“. With this function you can
|
||
clone and transfer network accessibility from one to an other server. If one
|
||
server is down, the other server takes over the job and can do the work. So
|
||
this concept would allow downtime for a solar driven websites even so
|
||
functionality of connections would still be working. You jut have to find few
|
||
partners - self hosted severs, spread all over the world, each powered by solar
|
||
power, to have a 100% up time. This would be an other innovative concept for a
|
||
low tech website ;-)
|
||
|
||
What do you think?
|
||
|
||
all the best
|
||
|
||
chris
|
||
|
||
Tom Sparks
|
||
|
||
For static comments, you could look at [229]https://mademistakes.com/articles/
|
||
jekyll-static-comments/ it is jekyll centric but you should be to adapt it to
|
||
use with Pelican.
|
||
|
||
stilbruch
|
||
|
||
Greetings,
|
||
|
||
First off, I just want to say how much I absolutely love the lowtechmagazine
|
||
website. I’m a member of tilde.town, and me and some other members were talking
|
||
about the site today. We all enjoy the special attention that is paid to design
|
||
and sustainability. However, the one thing that many of us find slightly
|
||
annoying about using the site is the presence of the yellow line through the
|
||
articles indicating the battery of the site. The site would be much easier to
|
||
read in my opinion, if simply the battery level, or perhaps a bar indicating
|
||
the level, were presented on the page. Thanks so much for putting out this
|
||
amazing content!
|
||
|
||
Hayden
|
||
|
||
Rick Carlino
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
I loved the article about building a low tech internet. I started building a
|
||
software package that could support people and systems that do not have the
|
||
luxury of constant power or connectivity. Its main use case is for peer-to-peer
|
||
sneakernet applications.
|
||
|
||
I wanted to share it with you because your work was one of the main
|
||
inspirations for it. The first proof-of-concept is still in the works ([230]
|
||
https://github.com/PigeonProtocolConsortium/pigeon-cli-ruby). I hope you have a
|
||
moment to look it over and I would value your feedback very much, given your
|
||
level of research into low uptime / low tech systems. Please feel free to share
|
||
it with anyone and everyone.
|
||
|
||
[231]https://github.com/PigeonProtocolConsortium/pigeon-spec
|
||
|
||
Thanks again for all the great articles and research!
|
||
|
||
Alva
|
||
|
||
I saw many comments regarding the battery level indicator.
|
||
|
||
One thing I didn’t see mentioned, is that it forces the web browser to
|
||
|
||
perform (possibly expensive) compositing operations, due to the
|
||
|
||
resulting layers.
|
||
|
||
It can’t just move the whole page without redrawing the visible parts,
|
||
|
||
when scrolling.
|
||
|
||
On computers that can’t use hardware acceleration (such as mine,) this
|
||
|
||
results in very poor scrolling performance.
|
||
|
||
Making the browser do more work than neccessary means it consumes more
|
||
|
||
power for all of your visitors, so I think it could be quite beneficial
|
||
|
||
to reimplement it in a way that does not require compositing several
|
||
|
||
layers.
|
||
|
||
Kapibara
|
||
|
||
Very good ideology, but no way to make it alive. Ip address and DNS are the
|
||
bottlenecks. It’s my opinion, but it’s much more efficient to place an
|
||
optimized website on shared hosting in a data center with an optimized
|
||
environment placed in an optimized climate zone + use CDN to reduce the load on
|
||
routing devices. Your hosting machine is NOT an energetical bottleneck.
|
||
|
||
Maik Merten
|
||
|
||
Dear Mr. De Decker,
|
||
|
||
I find the concept of low-power website hosting very interesting -
|
||
|
||
thanks for documenting your effort!
|
||
|
||
The choice of using dithered PNGs to save bandwidth is an unique
|
||
|
||
approach and your website demonstrates that it can result in quite
|
||
|
||
charming results.
|
||
|
||
I noticed, though, that the pictures you host don’t appear to be
|
||
|
||
optimized with latest PNG optimization tools. For instance, the
|
||
|
||
open-source tool “zopflipng” can losslessly recompress PNGs (it contains
|
||
|
||
a better implementation of the DEFLATE compression algorithm than what
|
||
|
||
usually is used in graphics software).
|
||
|
||
For the pictures on [232]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about.html I get
|
||
|
||
the following results with zopflipng:
|
||
|
||
file | original size | zopflipng size
|
||
|
||
—————————————+—————+—————
|
||
|
||
new-solar-charge-controller.png | 44591 | 41135
|
||
|
||
solar-panel-solar-powered-server-2.png | 63238 | 58667
|
||
|
||
solar-powered-server-detail-2.png | 33061 | 30346
|
||
|
||
sps_bats.png | 36452 | 33559
|
||
|
||
—————————————+—————+—————
|
||
|
||
total | 177342 | 163707
|
||
|
||
That’s a saving of 13635 bytes, which means that roughly 8% of savings
|
||
|
||
can be had.
|
||
|
||
With best regards,
|
||
|
||
Maik Merten
|
||
|
||
Heikki Lotvonen
|
||
|
||
Hi!
|
||
|
||
Big fan of LOW←TECH MAGAZINE and as a “critical” web developer&designer, very
|
||
inspiring to read your approach with how you built your site and your ideas
|
||
behind it.
|
||
|
||
On the page [233]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/
|
||
how-to-build-a-low-tech-website.html
|
||
|
||
you had said you are looking for ideas and feedback to further improve the
|
||
website and reduce its energy use. I’ve been musing on a very incidental power
|
||
saving possibility on the users side. According to this discussion [234]https:/
|
||
/superuser.com/questions/483456/
|
||
does-a-computer-screen-consume-more-power-to-display-black-or-white, white
|
||
background on a page saves more power on LCD monitors, while a black background
|
||
saves power on OLED screens. This led me to think that serving a “dark mode” to
|
||
mobile users and “light mode” to desktop users could possibly save some (albeit
|
||
probably a minuscule amount) energy on the users side. Just a thought!
|
||
|
||
cheers,
|
||
|
||
Heikki Lotvonen (Finland)
|
||
|
||
Guillaume
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I seen you’re using Armbian Stretch (base image ~300 MB)
|
||
|
||
Had you tried Alpine Linux (base image 128 MB) ?
|
||
|
||
Have a good week-end, from France :)
|
||
|
||
IPv7
|
||
|
||
James
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I noticed that you say that the solar powered server used gzip compression. I
|
||
wonder if you’ve configured Nginx to serve .gz files if available? If the site
|
||
is already static that should avoid all the CPU load due to compression leaving
|
||
only I/O load and could save a couple of Watts.
|
||
|
||
Jörg
|
||
|
||
Hi There,
|
||
|
||
1. perhaps this could be interesting
|
||
|
||
[235]https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-POE/open-source-hardware
|
||
|
||
since is very low power and there is software available for serving
|
||
|
||
static files from microsd card.
|
||
|
||
its low cost and poe powered, so stackable..
|
||
|
||
you can use a standard PoE switch for multiple boards and
|
||
|
||
multiple webpages/vhosts. like this one
|
||
|
||
[236]https://www.edimax.com/edimax/merchandise/merchandise_detail/data/edimax/
|
||
global/smb_switches_poe/es-5104ph_v2/
|
||
|
||
you just have to connected the PoE switch to your solar power supply.
|
||
|
||
2. you generally could save more traffic and avoid unnecessary requests
|
||
|
||
by doing this:
|
||
|
||
• packing/compressing html. since most modern browsers understand
|
||
|
||
html.gz if your server delivers this.
|
||
|
||
[237]https://www.lemoda.net/mod_rewrite/gzip-static/index.html
|
||
|
||
• put all images base64 encoded in this single html per article.
|
||
|
||
so it’s easy to archive and copy an article. don’t use a image twice
|
||
|
||
in the document. set reference to it.
|
||
|
||
• don’t insert menu and double content, social media stuff and anything
|
||
|
||
like that. use server directory listing as
|
||
|
||
menu. just for choosing and delivering static html files. and just a
|
||
|
||
normal about.html.gz for further information about author etc.
|
||
|
||
• don’t blowup up html files with bullshit tags, javascript etc.
|
||
|
||
dont use css classes. just clever combine short html tags and set
|
||
|
||
style for that tag. h1,h2,h3,p,em,b and so on.
|
||
|
||
generally: don’t force user visitor to use
|
||
|
||
your stylesheets at all. give him plain old html and one single
|
||
|
||
reference to your stylesheet.
|
||
|
||
• save spaces, line breaks etc. in html since you can use auto line
|
||
|
||
wrap while editing. (have a look at html coding style in
|
||
|
||
the attached example)
|
||
|
||
• insert <link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,="
|
||
|
||
to prevent browser from trying to fetch a favicon icon,
|
||
|
||
which doesn’t existent. (addition useless request)
|
||
|
||
example attached. have a look at source code via any
|
||
|
||
text editor with line wrap mode.
|
||
|
||
total page size ~ 136kb (including images)
|
||
|
||
compressed… ~94kb.
|
||
|
||
This is a quite minimalistic and function html wrap:
|
||
|
||
no need for body/head tags etc. saving additional
|
||
|
||
requests and has not further dependencies.
|
||
|
||
<html style="padding:4em">
|
||
|
||
<link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,=">
|
||
|
||
<style>img{width:100%;height:auto;}</style>
|
||
|
||
<meta charset="utf-8">
|
||
|
||
... put your html code here...
|
||
|
||
</html>
|
||
|
||
Kind Regards
|
||
|
||
Jörg
|
||
|
||
Oliver Fleischer
|
||
|
||
Dear Lowtechmagazine team,
|
||
|
||
thank You so much for providing a website that dares to stand up against
|
||
|
||
modern design fantasies of the modern web and the bloat that follows.
|
||
|
||
Thank You all so so much for creating a responsive, fast-loading website
|
||
|
||
that respects their users and puts them first. I felt obligated to get
|
||
|
||
this off my chest seeing how this is the first comment ever left here by
|
||
|
||
me.
|
||
|
||
The dissection of how this here experiment worked out, how to improve it
|
||
|
||
and the fundamentals is has to rely upon is fascinating to read. I too
|
||
|
||
like to see such efforts since they inherently come with speed and
|
||
|
||
efficiency from which every user benefits.
|
||
|
||
If web-design is cut down, then client software would be cleaner,
|
||
|
||
smaller and more efficient. Less required computing power obviously
|
||
|
||
comes with cheaper and less power hungry hardware.
|
||
|
||
I am sorry for rambling on, I just wanted to elaborate on why everyone
|
||
|
||
should be invested in this.
|
||
|
||
What I wanted to throw into the conversation – since I have not seen it
|
||
|
||
in the comments yet – is Gopher. An ancient protocol which sadly has
|
||
|
||
been supplanted by HTTP. It is way more resource-friendly because all of
|
||
|
||
the metadata has been cut. It’s document format (the gopher menu) is
|
||
|
||
much smaller than HTML.
|
||
|
||
This is mainly due to the fact that it uses TSV which has way less
|
||
|
||
overhead than XML on which HTML is based.
|
||
|
||
Just my two cents.
|
||
|
||
Anonymousemail
|
||
|
||
Please add an option to remove the “coloring” that shows how much the battery
|
||
of the website is charged. It is a nice idea but I find it a bit annoying and
|
||
makes reading harder. This is of cource not urgent just a tip.
|
||
|
||
N07070
|
||
|
||
Hello.
|
||
|
||
I’m writing to you after reading your last article on growing oranges in
|
||
|
||
the snow. I liked it a lot, as I’ve liked a lot of other articles I’ve
|
||
|
||
been reading for a few years now.
|
||
|
||
I really enjoyed the initiative to build a Solar-Powered website. And,
|
||
|
||
as the world is going more and more to shit everyday, I’ve been thinking
|
||
|
||
of low-tech ways to keep the internet running, in situations where grid
|
||
|
||
power might not be available, and where fiber optic links might not be
|
||
|
||
available. In that optic, I’ve started
|
||
|
||
[238]https://git.n07070.xyz/n07070/Solar-Server, which ..is an ongoing
|
||
|
||
research project that aims to develop a Solar-powered off-grid internet
|
||
|
||
server." I thought you might like to contribute to it, maybe ? You can
|
||
|
||
send me patch commits by email if you wish !
|
||
|
||
Another thing, is that I might have a few suggestions about improving
|
||
|
||
the website. I’ve seen that it might soon be offline, as a lack of
|
||
|
||
battery. But, maybe someone has a copy of the website that I could read
|
||
|
||
? Like, when the library is closed, I can always ask around, see if
|
||
|
||
someone else has the book.
|
||
|
||
On the internet, we can do it in several ways. On of this ways if the
|
||
|
||
DAT protocol. “Dat is a new p2p hypermedia protocol. It provides
|
||
|
||
public-key-addressed file archives which can be synced securely and
|
||
|
||
browsed on-demand.” Think HTTPS, but decentralized. Do you think it
|
||
|
||
could be interesting to implement this solution ?¹
|
||
|
||
Second, more minor, but regarding the interaction of the website, I
|
||
|
||
think the language selector should be more visible, for example by
|
||
|
||
making the round black button a globe emoji. As you already load
|
||
|
||
font-awesome, it should be trivial to implement. If you have a git repo
|
||
|
||
I can make a pull request too, I can do it myself. Is the website
|
||
|
||
open-source ?
|
||
|
||
I look forward to hearing from you,
|
||
|
||
N07070
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
[1] : [239]https://www.datprotocol.com/
|
||
|
||
Marcia
|
||
|
||
Hi, Kris,
|
||
|
||
My son introduced me to your site today.
|
||
|
||
I am now a fan and a subscriber!
|
||
|
||
My ranch is in a cold canyon in California’s central coast where we get temps
|
||
down to 16 degrees fahrenheit on winter nights. Until now I thought I couldn’t
|
||
grow citrus here. After reading your article I’m eager to grow Satsumas which
|
||
we loved in Santa Barbara.
|
||
|
||
Long ago I was a book designer, learning the trade in a small publishing house.
|
||
|
||
Book design isn’t just lllustrations or cover art; it really means making the
|
||
material accessible.
|
||
|
||
Serif fonts were all designed for readability, sans-serif came in for
|
||
advertising.
|
||
|
||
A well chosen serif font, correct line width, and enough space between lines
|
||
(what used to be called “leading,”) are all important factors in the
|
||
readability of text.
|
||
|
||
I implore you to think about ways to improve the accessibility of your
|
||
material!
|
||
|
||
Check out The New Yorker online, which is probably the best in this area.
|
||
|
||
All the best,
|
||
|
||
Marcia
|
||
|
||
Swann Sokolov
|
||
|
||
Hi ! Nice website !
|
||
|
||
I guess the texture of your pictures allows them to be very light. What is the
|
||
process ? How do you call this kind of texture ?
|
||
|
||
Thanks !
|
||
|
||
David Schlachter
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I enjoyed your article on building a low-tech website. You mention that
|
||
dithering is an open question: I wanted to recommend HyperDither, which
|
||
reimplements the dithering algorithm in Apple’s HyperCard software [1]. The
|
||
algorithm creates distinctive images in 1-bit color, which you could convert to
|
||
a different two-color (white, color) palette to match the site’s aesthetic. I
|
||
find the quality is such that it could be realistic to use 1-bit images. I’d
|
||
suggest post-processing the resulting images by converting to PNG and
|
||
optimizing with a tool like optipng [2].
|
||
|
||
David
|
||
|
||
[1] [240]https://www.tinrocket.com/content/hyperdither/
|
||
|
||
[2] [241]http://optipng.sourceforge.net/
|
||
|
||
Nicolas
|
||
|
||
Hello
|
||
|
||
I found your articles about running a very low tech website on a solar powered
|
||
RPi really inspiring
|
||
|
||
Do you think it would be feasible and relevant to create a hosting company
|
||
based solely on this kind of setup ? And why not replicating it in several
|
||
places and use ZeroNet or Hypercore Protocol to make the whole service
|
||
distributed and more resilient ?
|
||
|
||
Thanks
|
||
|
||
Best
|
||
|
||
Nicolas
|
||
|
||
Jannis
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I just stumbled over the Low Tech Magazine and its solar-powered website and
|
||
I’m absolutely intrigued. This is a very nice project, and I even find the
|
||
solar-powered version better to use than the regular version. (I think this is
|
||
especially because the delay between clicking a link and getting a fully
|
||
rendered visual result is noticably lower than with most websites. I really
|
||
don’t know why people don’t bother to reduce UI latency. Anyway.)
|
||
|
||
Since you write on [1] that gzipping »lowers the size of transmitted
|
||
information at the cost of a slight increase in required processing« I wanted
|
||
to remark that I noticed the Caddy web server [2], when configured to serve
|
||
static files, will transparently serve the contents of an equally-named .gz
|
||
file that is stored next to the file that was actually requested, and gzip
|
||
encoding is Accepted. So for example, if you request about.html with
|
||
Accept-Encoding: gzip, and the server sees the file about.html.gz, it will
|
||
serve the contents of about.html.gz.
|
||
|
||
(If you’re wondering how I noticed, imagine somebody only updating the contents
|
||
of the uncompressed file, and wondering why the change doesn’t become apparent
|
||
in their browser…)
|
||
|
||
While I haven’t got any experience with the power overhead of a Go-based HTTP
|
||
server over nginx (might be an interesting experiment though, let me know if
|
||
you’d be interested in me running benchmarks), maybe there is a way to teach
|
||
nginx the same behaviour? This might further reduce the average power usage
|
||
since the compression algorithm only needs to be run once.
|
||
|
||
Best regards from Heidelberg, Germany
|
||
|
||
Jannis
|
||
|
||
[1] [242]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#
|
||
compression-of-transmitted-data
|
||
|
||
[2] [243]https://caddyserver.com/
|
||
|
||
Charles-Édouard Coste
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I’m a big fan of the solar version of the lowtechmagazine. The only bad aspect
|
||
for me, is that it requires a battery to work. And the availability of the site
|
||
depends a lot on the battery capacity.
|
||
|
||
So I don’t know if you are aware about those new peer-to-peer oriented
|
||
protocols like ipfs, zeronet, and hypercore… Hypercore is my favorite for now
|
||
as it’s easy to try with Beaker Browser ([244]https://beakerbrowser.com/).
|
||
|
||
I told myself that if this kind of protocol would become popular, it could be
|
||
possible to remove the battery and just seed the web site few hours a day…
|
||
|
||
Maybe, you already know all of that… So I write you this mail to ask if you
|
||
already experienced things with it and what results you got. If you didn’t ever
|
||
eared about it, just take it as some hints for futur potential improvements. :D
|
||
|
||
Best regards
|
||
|
||
Brian Ramirez
|
||
|
||
Hello Kris,
|
||
|
||
I really love your site and and what it stands for.
|
||
|
||
I just noticed that the images are not lazy-loading. You might want to consider
|
||
adding a little attribute to your image links so that they lazy-load and save
|
||
kilobytes of data whenever visitors don’t scroll down the whole way (at least
|
||
in Chrome): [245]https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/
|
||
|
||
Sincerely,
|
||
|
||
Brian
|
||
|
||
[246]http://blr.design
|
||
|
||
Pablo Lazo
|
||
|
||
Hi!
|
||
|
||
I came across an article on your website and I love the idea of running it off
|
||
solar power.
|
||
|
||
I found the battery meter background made it a little hard to read the article,
|
||
just wanted to suggest lowering the opacity a bit. I tried the same color with
|
||
50% opacity and it’s much less jarring while keeping the same effect.
|
||
(screenshot attached)
|
||
|
||
Best,
|
||
|
||
Pablo
|
||
|
||
Luis M. Portillo
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
First of all, congratulations on your project because I think it is very
|
||
interesting and successful.
|
||
|
||
I wanted to ask you about the interpolation used in the images of the web. Do
|
||
you use any program or script in particular? I’ve been trying different options
|
||
in some programs (using GNU/Linux) but, even if I get a similar aesthetic
|
||
effect, I can’t reduce the size of the images.
|
||
|
||
I was hoping you could give me some hints about it.
|
||
|
||
Thank you and best regards,
|
||
|
||
Luis M. Portillo
|
||
|
||
Marcus Rohrmoser
|
||
|
||
Hi fellow Low-Techies,
|
||
|
||
[247]https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#
|
||
sensible-comments-on-static-sites says “Dynamic content such as comments are in
|
||
theory incompatible with a static site.” - which is true and isn’t.
|
||
|
||
While it is true for what the server sends as a document, it is not for what
|
||
the reader gets as a visible document.
|
||
|
||
Think of images - they (usually) are not part of the sent html, but are
|
||
nevertheless part of what the reader considers the document.
|
||
|
||
As to comments - put them into an iframe! See my blog as an example without
|
||
[248]https://blog.mro.name/2019/05/wp-to-hugo-making-of/ and with [249]https://
|
||
blog.mro.name/2009/07/nsurlcache-joke-iphone/ comments.
|
||
|
||
What do you think of that?
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Marcus
|
||
|
||
P.S.: Awesome magazine.
|
||
|
||
Kea Youll
|
||
|
||
Hi Mr. Kris,
|
||
|
||
As a suggestion for further reducing your websites energy usage, may I suggest
|
||
offering a fully compressed downloadable version. I think Wikipedia has
|
||
something similar where you can just download Wikipedia as a file. At this
|
||
point I’ll probably end up reading all your pages over time.
|
||
|
||
If you need ad revenue, you can simply have people hop through a few ad-page
|
||
hoops to reach the download link perhaps. But then, perhaps I should grow a
|
||
beard? Growing a beard saves on razors after all, but denies a source of
|
||
donatable bird nest material.
|
||
|
||
My teeth go clack,
|
||
|
||
Kea Youll
|
||
|
||
Mike Graham
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
I love the solar-powered edition of Low-Tech Magazine, and the really
|
||
|
||
thorough articles you’ve written about how it was achieved. It’s given
|
||
|
||
me a lot to think about – and maybe a project to embark upon. The
|
||
|
||
climate up here is perhaps not as conducive to solar-powered hosting.
|
||
|
||
I was working on a friend’s (non-solar-powered) website redesign, and
|
||
|
||
one of the main goals was to reduce page-size as much as possible. I’d
|
||
|
||
independently realised dithering as one way of doing this, followed by
|
||
|
||
heavy optimisation/compression of the dithered images to further reduce
|
||
|
||
file-sizes.
|
||
|
||
In that vein, I did a quick test on some images I pulled from the
|
||
|
||
solar-powered edition of LTM. I wanted to share the results in case
|
||
|
||
they’re useful to you.
|
||
|
||
I made up a sample set of 13 images from the site and optimised them.
|
||
|
||
Here are the results:
|
||
|
||
Original size: 362K
|
||
|
||
After optipng: 360K -0.55%
|
||
|
||
After tinypng: 337K -6.91%
|
||
|
||
Some notes:
|
||
|
||
• All sizes reported are as output by du on Mac OS 10.11 using the ‘-h’
|
||
|
||
and ‘–apparent-size’ flags.
|
||
|
||
• I used optipng with the flags ‘-opv’. This runs locally as it’s an
|
||
|
||
installed package.
|
||
|
||
• I used the tinypng-cli program available here:
|
||
|
||
[250]https://github.com/websperts/tinypng-cli
|
||
|
||
This sends the image to tinypng.com, which compresses it and sends it
|
||
|
||
back. It needs a (free) TinyPNG API key, which is limited to 500 uses
|
||
|
||
a month. You also need to make sure you have a good backup –
|
||
|
||
occasionally this loses a file by replacing it with a 0-byte file of
|
||
|
||
the same name.
|
||
|
||
• I have absolutely no idea how much power you’d use for these
|
||
|
||
optimisations, and how long it would take to ’earn’ the power used by
|
||
|
||
serving the smaller files.
|
||
|
||
I’ve attached a zip file with the three sample sets in it. I figured
|
||
|
||
this was probably preferable to leaving the zip sitting on Dropbox or
|
||
|
||
iCloud’s servers.
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Mike
|
||
|
||
Reg Tait
|
||
|
||
Hi there Kris, Roel, and the team
|
||
|
||
First, I’m a huge fan of solar LOW←TECH MAGAZINE. I love everything about it.
|
||
The lightweight presentation makes it a much better website. So much more of
|
||
the web should be built like this.
|
||
|
||
I have a simple suggestion to help reduce energy use. Add (native HTML) lazy
|
||
loading to each image.
|
||
|
||
As you might know, the idea of lazy loading is to defer loading any image until
|
||
it’s near the viewable screen—so only loaded when needed. The idea has been
|
||
around for a long time. It’s great for performance, but needed JavaScript
|
||
plugins in the past. Now we can do it in HTML. It works really well.
|
||
|
||
Hope that’s worth looking up and trying out. Appreciate everything.
|
||
|
||
Cheers
|
||
|
||
Reg
|
||
|
||
Mattieu Moreau-Domecq
|
||
|
||
Hello Chris,
|
||
|
||
I hope you’re fine
|
||
|
||
First I want to congratulate you for the good work on your website !
|
||
|
||
I’m building a website mainly inspired by your guidelines for some friends of
|
||
mine.
|
||
|
||
I have a question and I thought you might help me.
|
||
|
||
What script do you use to display the weight of your pages at the bottom of
|
||
each page ?
|
||
|
||
is it a script ? or some text ?
|
||
|
||
I’m trying to do the same but I can’t find any resources, I would appreciate if
|
||
you can help me with this !
|
||
|
||
thanks and best from Paris !
|
||
|
||
Marco
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I really like your solar website and the technology behind.
|
||
|
||
It has been since I found out about your website that I thought how nice
|
||
|
||
would be to have a webserver like yours for my website.
|
||
|
||
I lack all the skill to make a webserver, I would like to know if you are
|
||
|
||
considering selling kits or sd card configured to run on a raspberry.
|
||
|
||
I am of course willing to pay for this. I looked in the internet but I
|
||
|
||
found no one that sell this kind of kits.
|
||
|
||
I don’t think I am the only one looking for more sustainable ways to do
|
||
|
||
activism.
|
||
|
||
Anyway I bought both of your books so that I do not have to use a computer
|
||
|
||
to read all the nice articles you have made.
|
||
|
||
I hope one day to be able to deploy a solar powered website like yours.
|
||
|
||
All the best,
|
||
|
||
Marco
|
||
|
||
Hans Wernars
|
||
|
||
Dear Lowtechmagazine,
|
||
|
||
Instead of dithering pictures there might be another technique to get the
|
||
desired low file size.
|
||
|
||
This is the (often forgotten) JPEG compression in combination with reduced
|
||
resolution.
|
||
|
||
Reducing resolution sounds dramatic, but when showing in the browser it can be
|
||
showed with a factor 2x.
|
||
|
||
In this way the visitor will see the image at the original size.
|
||
|
||
Most visitors will hardly notice any difference. Some do.
|
||
|
||
By adding optimal JPEG compression it is possible to reduce even further.
|
||
(optimal for the tool used=50% setting)
|
||
|
||
The advantage is that the picture still has the full-color properties.
|
||
|
||
Example:
|
||
|
||
Original picture: 1280 x 518 pixels. File size 160KByte
|
||
|
||
Compressed to 50%: 1280 x 518 pixels, file size 90.8Kbyte
|
||
|
||
Half size and compressed: 640 x 259 pixels, file size 28.2Kbyte (17%)
|
||
|
||
Tool used: JPEG resize V2.1 from Heinrich Peuser ([251]http://
|
||
www.virtualzone.de)
|
||
|
||
Attached the original picture and the compressed ones to verify the results
|
||
|
||
The original picture can be downloaded at: Megen_panorama
|
||
|
||
With kind regards,
|
||
|
||
Hans Wernars
|
||
|
||
Christian Hieke
|
||
|
||
Hi Low-Tech-Team,
|
||
|
||
I rediscovered this project while researching solar and battery-powered
|
||
devices.
|
||
|
||
While I was looking at your website code I saw some room for improvement in the
|
||
JavaScript code. Attached [1] you can find the modified code which reduces
|
||
filesize by over 2 KB (uncompressed) or 0.7 KB (gzipped) when run through a
|
||
compiler ([252]https://closure-compiler.appspot.com). Hope that helps to
|
||
further reduce energy consumption, even if it’s just on a small scale :) If you
|
||
have any questions or need more help don’t hesitate to contact me.
|
||
|
||
Christian
|
||
|
||
[1] [253]https://www.codepile.net/pile/3m4jZRQ5
|
||
|
||
Daniel Parnitzke
|
||
|
||
Dear Kris
|
||
|
||
I already wanted to reach out to you earlier. Based on the example of
|
||
solar.lowtechmagazine.com I hosted my MA thesis on a solar server out of my
|
||
bedroom. I think you might have already come across it. You can find it here:
|
||
pleasureinscarcity.com (currently I’m on the move, so it’s in a box, the stats
|
||
don’t work). It’s not as consequently designed as solar.lowtechmagazine.com,
|
||
and it’s also been offline more frequently as it’s consuming around 4W
|
||
constantly, (in the Netherlands). Therefore I started scheduling offline times
|
||
every night.
|
||
|
||
I recently graduated from my MA Social Design in the Netherlands, with a
|
||
research on how change can occur in simple acts of creation and joyful moments
|
||
of communal gathering. I therefore constructed rocket stoves with locally
|
||
available (scrap)materials and with the help of local communities. Therefore,
|
||
your articles were super inspiring, regarding the theme of setting limits to
|
||
behaviour based on the availability of resources. Your research on rocket
|
||
stoves, efficient heating, windmills, alternative ways of energy production
|
||
(and so on) offer great insight into ’ecological alternatives’, and more than
|
||
once it helped me develop my own research.
|
||
|
||
If you’re interested in my graduation work, which promotes a different
|
||
perspective on ’enacting change’ – not through fear/guilt but through pleasure/
|
||
joy – you can find a short video outlining my research and the outcomes. [254]
|
||
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oocbejOMXtA
|
||
|
||
Right now I’m fixing up a van which will be my mobile home and workshop for
|
||
2021. Therefore I’m building a wind generator, carving some wood rotors at the
|
||
moment (thanks for that) based on the plans of Hugh Piggott. In 2021, I hope to
|
||
visit (and participate in) interesting projects, places and initiatives all
|
||
over Europe. (Maybe you know of a place that I shouldn’t miss on my trip?)
|
||
|
||
As a last note, I’d like to bring your attention to two people I came across in
|
||
the past year: Barnabé Chaillot, a French YouTuber and Alexandre Monin, a
|
||
French academic/teacher/philosopher. The former was great in terms of applied
|
||
inspiration, the latter just initiated a Master program in Lyon which is called
|
||
“Master of Science Strategy & Design for Anthropocene”.
|
||
|
||
Keep up your great work, and if I’ll ever be close to Barcelona I’d love to
|
||
visit to see the server and how it works :)
|
||
|
||
I hope there are good things coming your way.
|
||
|
||
All the best from Germany,
|
||
|
||
Dani
|
||
|
||
Simon
|
||
|
||
Hello Kris De Decker,
|
||
|
||
together with friends I am starting an architecture collective near Cologne,
|
||
Germany.
|
||
|
||
We are willing to go unexpected paths and engage ourselves in transformation
|
||
and urban design tasks in this area.
|
||
|
||
There is plenty of work as the area is mostly aligned on car-depended urban
|
||
design and coal energy.
|
||
|
||
Since we stepped on the low-tech magazine website we would like to adopt your
|
||
idea and the technology for our project.
|
||
|
||
On the other hand we should focus on our projects and the urban design field.
|
||
And, we like the idea of becoming accomplice for future development.
|
||
|
||
Therefore we would like to know, if you ever thought about the possibility of
|
||
hosting other sides (with the solar low tech system) as a business model?
|
||
|
||
At the moment we do not have enough time (and less sun hours) to build of our
|
||
own system…
|
||
|
||
I am looking forward to hear from you!
|
||
|
||
Best
|
||
|
||
Simon
|
||
|
||
Jakub
|
||
|
||
Hey Kris,
|
||
|
||
I’ve been reading Low-tech Magazine magazine for a while now, I find the idea
|
||
captivating and the content is thought-provoking. Thank you for working on it!
|
||
I also appreciate the fact that it has an RSS feed, it makes it much easier fo
|
||
find the new content.
|
||
|
||
One piece of feature-requesty feedback that I have is it’d be cool if the HTML
|
||
|
||
Best wishes,
|
||
|
||
Jakub
|
||
|
||
Nathan Landry
|
||
|
||
Hola desde el soleado puerto rico,
|
||
|
||
Me gusta su sitio web de bajo consumo y me gustaría sugerir cómo reducir el
|
||
consumo de energía del enrutador.
|
||
|
||
calor = desperdicio
|
||
|
||
Use un tubo de calor pasivo y saque el enrutador de la carcasa, móntelo en el
|
||
chip caliente del enrutador.
|
||
|
||
Mo Lotman
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
I just wanted to say I’m a big fan of Low Tech magazine and have the printed
|
||
version. I started a magazine/nonprofit along a similar theme a few years ago
|
||
(The Technoskeptic), although ours is more related to social crit/philosophy/
|
||
policy than physical implementations. We’ve been in a bit of hibernation lately
|
||
so there is not a lot of new content up there right now, but I’ve been thinking
|
||
about what the next steps might be, and I’m very interested in following your
|
||
lead so far as the web design/sustainability, both in terms of saving energy
|
||
and also (I presume) avoiding interfacing with abusive tech companies. Did you
|
||
do it all yourself? I’m curious if you could recommend anyone to help do a
|
||
redesign according to the principles you generally espouse. I don’t think the
|
||
average person would know how to do it. Any suggestions?
|
||
|
||
Thanks so much, and keep up the great work!
|
||
|
||
Best,
|
||
|
||
Mo
|
||
|
||
Gauthier
|
||
|
||
Hi guys,
|
||
|
||
Following your excellent work on building a solar powered host for lowtech mag,
|
||
you mentionned that a service rate lower than 100% is essential to a truly
|
||
efficient system in terms of ressources vs service ratio.
|
||
|
||
It sure is, yet the internet is not an autonomous system (as you mentioned) -
|
||
so could you not use this as a leverage for a higher service rate?
|
||
|
||
The idea would be to use a network of fair players - let say a community of
|
||
solar powered websites (yours becoming one amongst many others) - on each,
|
||
several other websites being mirrored and hidden most of the time (I’ll come
|
||
back to this point a bit later).
|
||
|
||
Once your server power runs super low, it just anticipate a bit and request
|
||
another server to play it’s mirror role. Once your server is back online,
|
||
another request is sent and voila, back to normal.
|
||
|
||
With a network of those servers, it would become easy to have virtually 100%
|
||
(let say 99.9999% of the time) at least a way to access knowledge.
|
||
|
||
Back on the hidden concern, in terms of energy, I don’t know what’s the actual
|
||
impact of distance between server and client and if it would make sense to have
|
||
closer mirrors used when enough power is available.
|
||
|
||
I guess this should also be compared to the increasing power consumption of
|
||
local servers hosting several sites and being more visited due to geographical
|
||
reasons (let say servers closer to high density areas such as big cities).
|
||
|
||
Anyway, that was just an idea :) Thanks a lot for everything you do!
|
||
|
||
Gauthier
|
||
|
||
Peter Fischer
|
||
|
||
Hi Chris!
|
||
|
||
this got some traction in nerd circles lately:
|
||
|
||
[255]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
|
||
|
||
centre of the gemini universe
|
||
|
||
[256]https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
||
|
||
list of awesome links regarding gemini
|
||
|
||
[257]https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini
|
||
|
||
feels like the 90ies (the good, new shiny party of it).
|
||
|
||
-> 1 URL = 1 document, no inline content.
|
||
|
||
-> styling is don in the client, no CSS
|
||
|
||
-> server kays are handles like in SSH, no CAs involved
|
||
|
||
What it needs is more non-nerd content, like
|
||
|
||
solar.lowtechmagazine.com … ;)
|
||
|
||
Cheers,
|
||
|
||
Peter
|
||
|
||
P.S.: lowtechmagazine.com (the “normal” version ) seems to be down at
|
||
|
||
the moment?
|
||
|
||
vadim
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
thanks a lot for your solar journal/blog/magazine, whatever you call it.
|
||
|
||
I thoroughly enjoyed your logic and consistency you operate with.
|
||
|
||
Insightful articles as well ❤
|
||
|
||
I thought I’d share the feedback about site’s CSS, I slightly tweaked it
|
||
|
||
for my own pleasure using the Stylish extension.
|
||
|
||
3 points:
|
||
|
||
1. I find the article text with is too narrow for reading. (Maybe the
|
||
|
||
artificial big margins also look weird on mobile, wasting useful screen
|
||
|
||
space?) I opted to make max-width: 40rem; oh and I also used 90% zoom,
|
||
|
||
the text was too big for me.
|
||
|
||
2. Images are hard to view when they are stretched to full width on a
|
||
|
||
16:9 monitor, made them smaller
|
||
|
||
3. Captions also centered now, because images are
|
||
|
||
4. Battery. I understand this might be artistic, but I noticed from an
|
||
|
||
UX point of view, I scrolled down such that the “entire” reading area
|
||
|
||
was covered by the yellow indicator (i.e. text I’m reading is not split
|
||
|
||
between yellow/white). It’s the same phenomenon like on mobile: Even
|
||
|
||
though you have 30%+ space left, you scroll further down (wasting
|
||
|
||
precious battery charge btw).
|
||
|
||
So I made the battery indicator a smaller bar on the right and it
|
||
|
||
stopped bothering me. Yet it was still an “eye catcher” to see how much
|
||
|
||
% remains. The CSS for it looks fine with articles, but a little off on
|
||
|
||
the main page.
|
||
|
||
I’m no CSS wizard, this absolutely needs testing on mobile etc. :)
|
||
|
||
Greetings from Germany,
|
||
|
||
Vadim
|
||
|
||
Yiming
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris!
|
||
|
||
I’m Yiming, a student writer/illustrator from China. I was applying some low
|
||
tech mindset for some time, and recently I rebuilt my blog into a low tech one
|
||
([258]http://www.wellobserve.com/index.html). I mostly rebuilt the style into
|
||
what it looks like the solar one and did some optimizations for Chinese
|
||
paragraph viewing and printing. And to showcase some of my paintings, I made a
|
||
gallery mode which made it easy to layout text and images for direct printing
|
||
into pictorial books, like this one here.
|
||
|
||
[259]http://www.wellobserve.com/blog/2020/04/
|
||
01_CloudTravelClassics_03_TropicOfCancer.html
|
||
|
||
Although it looks almost the same to the solar site, I did not use existing CMS
|
||
but wrote my own script to generate the HTMLs according to my need. My script
|
||
can be downloaded at this page.
|
||
|
||
[260]http://www.wellobserve.com/blog/2021/01/15_StaticBlogGenerator.html
|
||
|
||
:D
|
||
|
||
Your low tech stuff is so inspiring! Thank you for bringing such wonderful
|
||
content into the world!
|
||
|
||
Yiming
|
||
|
||
Stefan
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I’ve just discovered your very interesting site.
|
||
|
||
I’ve found two issues:
|
||
|
||
1. German RSS feed content does not reflect the latest German articles
|
||
|
||
2. The bottom icons for RSS, Twitter and Mail overlap the footer text.
|
||
|
||
Best regards
|
||
|
||
Stefan
|
||
|
||
Juan J. Alcolado
|
||
|
||
Hola Kris!
|
||
|
||
he conocido de vuestra iniciativa desde artículo en El Economista, encontrando
|
||
cierto hermanamiento como podéis comprobar por el nombre de este dominio
|
||
ServidorSolar.com desde donde os estoy escribiendo.
|
||
|
||
Ciértamente nuestra finalidad es que la fuente de alimentación sea plenamente
|
||
solar, si bien -y para evitar sensaciones frustrantes- lo tomo como un ideal en
|
||
pos del que trato de luchar de forma efectiva.
|
||
|
||
Además de felicitar por el logro y la gesta, también me permito alguna
|
||
indicación que en aras de la eficiencia humildemente apunto.
|
||
|
||
Así, veo que el código html, al menos de la home [261]https://
|
||
solar.lowtechmagazine.com y el de la página principal en español, idem + /es/,
|
||
adolecen de algunos errores en cuanto al cierre de etiquetas de contenedores
|
||
(“div”), por cuanto su interpretación por los navegadores fuerza el uso de
|
||
recursos para corrección y sucesiva presentación en pantalla.
|
||
|
||
En la home ocurre en la línea nº 21 del código, que con el browser Firefox
|
||
marca en rojo </link></link></meta></meta></meta></meta>.
|
||
|
||
Saludo cordialmente, y quedamos a vuestra disposición, de forma personal y como
|
||
medio editorial que gestiono encantado de publicar sobre cuánto estiméis
|
||
|
||
Juan J. Alcolado
|
||
|
||
[262]https://suelosolar.com
|
||
|
||
Isaiah
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
I am not sure if you have researched but I think the Tor Network and their
|
||
hidden services would provide a lot of benefit in hosting/domain costs and
|
||
encourage, lean energy efficient websites like yours. I really believe in Tor.
|
||
I think Tor among a few other projects have really great potential to allow
|
||
secure, private independent, but also far more energy efficient services than
|
||
the terribly bulky garbage that is normally available. I personally am doing a
|
||
lot of research into this and I will let you know any progress. I hope you have
|
||
a wonderful day! Linked below is a link to the Tor Project.
|
||
|
||
[263]https://www.torproject.org/
|
||
|
||
[264]http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/
|
||
|
||
With great respect,
|
||
|
||
K N
|
||
|
||
“…do the same with less…”
|
||
|
||
This is a great statement - this is the first time I’ve come across someone who
|
||
wants to get off the “perpetual upgrade arms race”.
|
||
|
||
Some suggestions, if I may?
|
||
|
||
1. Reduce your kernel size and potentially make it run more efficiently.
|
||
|
||
e.g Minimise RAM utilisation by Kernel and save on SD card swap space (which
|
||
delays things).
|
||
|
||
The following might be a useful overview as to why the kernel should be
|
||
optimised.
|
||
|
||
It’s in the context of embedded hardware, but I think you’re aiming to do the
|
||
same.
|
||
|
||
[265]http://events17.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/
|
||
opdenacker-embedded-linux-size-reduction-techniques_0.pdf
|
||
|
||
2. Blacklist kernel modules: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
|
||
|
||
Disable drivers for bits of hardware you’re not going to use on the board =
|
||
more RAM
|
||
|
||
Faster kernel execution.
|
||
|
||
3. Recompile your kernel
|
||
|
||
This is to remove modules that are integrated into the kernel itself that can’t
|
||
be black listed.
|
||
|
||
[266]https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_Kernel_Howto
|
||
|
||
4. NGINX Web server
|
||
|
||
It’s not clear whether this was the standard (dynamically linked) one from the
|
||
repository or whether you built this with static modules from source.
|
||
|
||
If pre-packaged, suggest that you consider building from source a binary to
|
||
optimize.
|
||
|
||
Above presentation also covers RAM, Size & performance profiles of dynamically/
|
||
statically linked binaries.
|
||
|
||
Faster execution if smaller
|
||
|
||
4. Investigate changing the clock frequencies - although not 100% clear if it
|
||
can be done on this board.
|
||
|
||
Whilst I didn’t find a specific link to underclocking the CPU, I did find
|
||
references in the Linux sunxi pages that refer to overclocking.
|
||
|
||
This suggests you can specify lower values to attempt to underclock.
|
||
|
||
Simliar or same performance with less power.
|
||
|
||
Here: [267]https://linux-sunxi.org/Cpufreq
|
||
|
||
My Raspberry Pi 2 is underclocked and works just fine.
|
||
|
||
Kwok
|
||
|
||
Erik
|
||
|
||
Hi Kris,
|
||
|
||
I’m not quite sure you don’t mind the informal salutation. If you do, I’m
|
||
|
||
sorry.
|
||
|
||
Yesterday, I read about the Gemini project in the German computer magazine
|
||
|
||
»c’t« and immediately thought of you because it might be of interest for
|
||
|
||
your magazine since it is quite »low-tech« and therefore sustainable. I’m
|
||
|
||
not involved in this project (although I’m thinking of launching a Gemini
|
||
|
||
site myself), so this is not an ad 😉
|
||
|
||
In short, the Gemini project is about some kind of parallel Internet which
|
||
|
||
does use the Internet infrastructure but has its own super-lightweight
|
||
|
||
software stack on top of it (like Gopher). The explicit goals, among
|
||
|
||
others, are to keep it as simple as possible while protecting people’s
|
||
|
||
privacy (no cookies, tracking and the likes, but encryption of the
|
||
|
||
connection is mandatory). As an illustration, my Fairpone 2, which is
|
||
|
||
always short on memory and often takes minutes to open a ordinary web page,
|
||
|
||
has no problem accessing Gemini content.
|
||
|
||
From what I have understood, the Gemini »web« is quite text-centric. It is
|
||
|
||
made up of text pages called »gemtext« which contain a simplistic markup
|
||
|
||
(even more simplistic than basic HTML). They don’t even include extensive
|
||
|
||
styles so that the device which displays them is free to adjust the looks
|
||
|
||
to the user’s requirements and wishes. It’s not so simple that it does not
|
||
|
||
support multimedia files, but they’re only loaded on request.
|
||
|
||
Gemini also has made adjustments on the tech below the gemtext (like the
|
||
|
||
before-mentioned abandonment of cookies, minimalistic requests and so on),
|
||
|
||
but i wrote »in short« above, so …
|
||
|
||
If you’re curious, you might want to start here (I’d like to link you the
|
||
|
||
c’t article but it’s behind a paywall unfortunately):
|
||
|
||
[268]https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
||
|
||
I imagined that this might also be something for your solar-powered
|
||
|
||
website. Just a suggestion 😉
|
||
|
||
Anyways, keep up the good work!
|
||
|
||
Erik
|
||
|
||
Jiri Slimarik
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
I really like your blog. The way it is made and the topic as well. I’m
|
||
|
||
curious how to make my photos to look similar. I guess making the
|
||
|
||
photos look this way also reduces energy consumption, so I wonder, how
|
||
|
||
do you do that? Is there any blog post on this theme? Any rules to
|
||
|
||
apply?
|
||
|
||
Looking forward to your response.
|
||
|
||
Best regards,
|
||
|
||
Jiri Slimarik
|
||
|
||
Alexander
|
||
|
||
Hello, Kris!
|
||
|
||
I learned with great interest about your site running on a
|
||
|
||
microcomputer. The Internet is full of instructions for using a
|
||
|
||
microcomputer as a home hosting server, but there are almost no real
|
||
|
||
applications.
|
||
|
||
However, I can tell you about another amateur site running on a homemade
|
||
|
||
microcomputer hosting service! This site works in Russia and on a
|
||
|
||
Russian microcomputer. Home page [269]http://mb7707.su/ notes on the Russian
|
||
|
||
microcomputer [270]http://mb7707.su/module/articles/articles.html homemade
|
||
|
||
products [271]http://mb7707.su/other/handmades/handmades.html gallery of my
|
||
|
||
developments [272]http://mb7707.su/other/gallery/gallery.html The site was
|
||
|
||
launched in early 2018, last year I changed my domain, but in general,
|
||
|
||
my Internet resource has been working for three years.
|
||
|
||
I wish you further creative success!
|
||
|
||
Sincerely, Alexander.
|
||
|
||
Ian
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
A friend pasted a link to your site on IRC (libera.chat #gopherproject).
|
||
|
||
Having read some of your articles over the past day or so; I would like
|
||
|
||
to firstly say, thank you. The articles are informative and appear well
|
||
|
||
researched. Secondly, I’d like to recommend offering your site via
|
||
|
||
Gopher. Gopher provides ultra low resource content browsing and delivery,
|
||
|
||
the forerunner to the modern web. It would seem to fit well with the
|
||
|
||
ethos of what you are doing.
|
||
|
||
Gopher is making a comeback, due to people becoming increasingly
|
||
|
||
frustrated with surveilance and marketing on the web. Myself and a
|
||
|
||
number of others who share the same feeling host our own Gopher servers.
|
||
|
||
Gopher has more a feel of the old web, where the content was mostly
|
||
|
||
provided by enthusiats.
|
||
|
||
Gopher Protocol: [273]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
|
||
|
||
More about gopher: gopher://gopherproject.org
|
||
|
||
My gopher-hole: gopher://gopher.icu
|
||
|
||
Hopefully you have lynx installed which will allow you to browse gopher
|
||
|
||
sites without additional software. Though there are other clients,
|
||
|
||
http proxys and browser plugins also available.
|
||
|
||
Best regards,
|
||
|
||
Ian
|
||
|
||
BTD Master
|
||
|
||
This is partially crazy, but how does moving to Redbean for reduced
|
||
|
||
power consumption sound? [274]https://redbean.dev/ [275]http://
|
||
redbean.justine.lol/
|
||
|
||
Ruben Vorderman
|
||
|
||
Dear Kris,
|
||
|
||
Thank you for your inspiring website. It inspired me to start working on
|
||
|
||
my own blog that will be hosted in a similar way.
|
||
|
||
As a consequence I found an easy way to save power on the server. The
|
||
|
||
server CPU runs on a certain frequency. Higher frequencies are faster,
|
||
|
||
lower frequencies save more power. This is however not a one-to-one
|
||
|
||
relationship. Higher frequencies cost more power than the speed that
|
||
|
||
they bring. It is therefore most efficient to run at the lower
|
||
|
||
frequencies. By default power is managed by the “ondemand” governor.
|
||
|
||
That governor quickly ramps up the frequency when the demand increases
|
||
|
||
and quickly ramps down again as it decreases. This makes the system more
|
||
|
||
responsive but in terms of power efficiency this continuous over
|
||
|
||
correction leads to power loss. This is fine for wall-connected devices,
|
||
|
||
but for battery powered devices it is less than optimal.
|
||
|
||
It can be fixed quite easily. For this you will need to install
|
||
|
||
‘cpufrequtils’ and run ‘cpufreq-info’. This shows you the current
|
||
|
||
frequency as well as the available governors for your CPU. It also shows
|
||
|
||
you stats about how much time is spent in certain frequencies. Very useful.
|
||
|
||
I recommend using either the “conservative” or the “powersave” governor.
|
||
|
||
Powersave runs at the lowest frequency all the time and is therefore
|
||
|
||
most efficient, but also always slowest. Conservative is the next best
|
||
|
||
thing in power-efficiency, it scales up when demand is higher for a
|
||
|
||
longer period of time. It is therefore more suited for continual load
|
||
|
||
tasks with spikes such as your web server. I recommend checking if
|
||
|
||
powersave delivers adequate performance, and if not switching up to
|
||
|
||
conservative.
|
||
|
||
To set the governor to powersave use “sudo cpufreq-set -g powersave”. To
|
||
|
||
make this change persistent at boot make sure that the cpufrequtils
|
||
|
||
service is enabled with “sudo systemctl enable cpufrequtils” and create
|
||
|
||
a file /etc/default/cpufrequtils with contents GOVERNOR=powersave.
|
||
|
||
Hope this helps!
|
||
|
||
Best regards,
|
||
|
||
Ruben Vorderman
|
||
|
||
More information on available governors:
|
||
|
||
[276]https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.html#
|
||
generic-scaling-governors
|
||
|
||
Johannes Löthberg
|
||
|
||
Hello,
|
||
|
||
While discussing dithering and image compression on IRC I was linked to
|
||
|
||
your article on building a low-tech website[277]0, and I have some comments
|
||
|
||
on your decision regarding using dithering.
|
||
|
||
It essentially boils down to that if you want to save data transfered
|
||
|
||
you should be using a modern JPEG compressor such as MozJPEG[278]1, not
|
||
|
||
dither the images. I do not think that you’re going to be able to find
|
||
|
||
any cases in which a dithered PNG will be able to beat compressing the
|
||
|
||
original image with MozJPEG.
|
||
|
||
For example, passing the first JPEG of the switchboard operators through
|
||
|
||
MozJPEG’s cjpeg without any option leads to an output file that is 104.5
|
||
|
||
KiB, which is not only smaller than the original (159.5 KiB), but also
|
||
|
||
smaller than the your final dithered PNG (110 KiB). And this with no
|
||
|
||
loss in visual quality.
|
||
|
||
If I run it with -quality 70 that number goes down to 82 KiB, also
|
||
|
||
without any loss in visual quality.
|
||
|
||
If you want to keep the dithering because you like the visual look of
|
||
|
||
it, then running the last dithered image through MozJPEG with `-quality
|
||
|
||
70`, the resulting image is 94.9 KiB, which is still significantly
|
||
|
||
smaller.
|
||
|
||
JJ
|
||
|
||
Like many, I presume, I found your project through Hacker News and I’d like to
|
||
answer this question:
|
||
|
||
“For example energy savings from disabling some of the hardware such as the the
|
||
USB-hub? Some tips or insights into this are greatly appreciated!”
|
||
|
||
Powertop is what you need. Just apt install powertop and you’ll start saving
|
||
energy immediately. More information in man powertop or on [279]https://
|
||
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerTOP
|
||
|
||
Best of luck with your awesome project!
|
||
|
||
Greetings,
|
||
|
||
JJ
|
||
|
||
Roel
|
||
|
||
Hi,
|
||
|
||
First of all, what a brilliant project! I love seeing solar-powered computers
|
||
online, especially so well thought out! I’m curious to know how the project
|
||
evolves.
|
||
|
||
In the past I have played a little bit with a similar setup to yours. I ran a
|
||
raspberry pi zero w on a 9Ah 12V battery with an IVT SCplus charge controller.
|
||
My code from back then can be found here[1].
|
||
|
||
What I did on the Pi zero was:
|
||
|
||
• Turn off USB ports, see [280]https://github.com/roeles/solarpi/blob/master/
|
||
code/disable_usb.sh
|
||
|
||
• Turn off HDMI
|
||
|
||
• Turn off DHCP for reduced traffic
|
||
|
||
• Turn off IPv6
|
||
|
||
I also noticed that flash reads cost me more power than using a RAMdisk
|
||
(tmpfs).
|
||
|
||
I think you could also turn off the second core on the machine, if it normally
|
||
has enough power. The frequency on the first core can perhaps be limited.
|
||
|
||
If the IVT SCplus charge controller might be interesting for you, here[2] is
|
||
some reverse-engineered code to get data from it over USB. I turn on USB, wait
|
||
for the bus to settle, read data, turn USB off again.
|
||
|
||
best regards,
|
||
|
||
Roel
|
||
|
||
[1] [281]https://github.com/roeles/solarpi
|
||
|
||
[2] [282]https://github.com/roeles/solarpi/blob/master/code/scdplus.cpp
|
||
|
||
Noah Pendleton
|
||
|
||
This is a very cool project!
|
||
|
||
Multiple solar-powered servers with a non-100% uptime could work
|
||
|
||
together by using something like IPFS, so that content can be served
|
||
|
||
even when the “main site” hosting the files is down. Such a system
|
||
|
||
could be very flexible in terms of surviving certain servers going
|
||
|
||
down.
|
||
|
||
Cheers
|
||
|
||
pep
|
||
|
||
Hey, I enjoyed your article after seeing it on hacker news.
|
||
|
||
[283]https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/
|
||
how-to-build-a-low-tech-website.html
|
||
|
||
I’ve made the transition to static sites a few months back and am absolutely
|
||
pleased with the results.
|
||
|
||
One thing suggestion to make the site even more efficient would be to use a
|
||
tool like [284]https://purgecss.com/
|
||
|
||
I went with Hugo for the static site builder and have the purgecss command run
|
||
on build. I’m sure you can figure out how to hook it in with Pelican.
|
||
|
||
Cheers to a faster, more energy efficient web.
|
||
|
||
pep
|
||
|
||
Erik Wallace
|
||
|
||
Good morning, I read your article “How to Build a Low-tech Website” and enjoyed
|
||
it. Most of the things I could think of you have already checked off. However,
|
||
there are two quick wins that will shave down file size: minifying your CSS and
|
||
further optimizing your images.
|
||
|
||
Minify CSS
|
||
|
||
Your stylesheet is 21 k at the moment, a minified version would be 16 k.
|
||
|
||
Image Optimization
|
||
|
||
Using a drag and drop image compressor (ImageOptim) I was able to shrink the 5
|
||
images in the article without a loss in the quality. The savings range from 13%
|
||
to 6.8%.
|
||
|
||
Best,
|
||
|
||
Erik Wallace
|
||
|
||
Draco Metallium
|
||
|
||
Hi! I know that the solar powered website is an old project, but I was
|
||
|
||
wondering if it would be possible to still make some changes to the
|
||
|
||
presentation.
|
||
|
||
I love the look of the solar site and find it more comfortable to read
|
||
|
||
than the standard one, but only when the battery is full or I disable
|
||
|
||
javascript (which I can’t do on my phone). I find the change of the
|
||
|
||
tint at half the page uncomfortable. I have found myself going to the
|
||
|
||
nonsolar site just to have a consistent look across the screen.
|
||
|
||
Could you please limit the battery charge to a bar a few pixels wide?
|
||
|
||
Something like changing the battery div style to ´#battery{ position:
|
||
|
||
fixed; bottom: 0; right: 0; width: 1em; background: #fff5d1;};´
|
||
|
||
might be enough.
|
||
|
||
Anyway, thanks for your articles! I find them thought provoking. I
|
||
|
||
have changed some of my routines already. Thanks!
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
Draco Metallium
|
||
|
||
Mirroronthewall
|
||
|
||
Something to possibly blog about or create (don’t think I saw on the site), in
|
||
trying to consume less internet bandwidth, some sites have a text-only mode,
|
||
for example NPR: [285]https://text.npr.org/
|
||
|
||
It’s often that URL format of text.[Address], like solar.lowtechmagazine.com to
|
||
text.lowtechmagazine.com
|
||
|
||
sometimes pictures just aren’t that necessary, sometimes they’re helpful
|
||
|
||
Cheers
|
||
|
||
O.Q. Olarte
|
||
|
||
Hi Low-tech Magazine!
|
||
|
||
I came across the “Can I Help?” section in your site and eventually stumbled
|
||
upon the “SSL & Legacy browsers” section[286]1.
|
||
|
||
Old machines can benefit from the Gemini Protocol[287]2, a new internet
|
||
protocol that is text-based yet still secure. Since this is text-based, I think
|
||
it would drastically reduce the power consumption required to host, serve, and
|
||
fetch the data in this protocol.
|
||
|
||
It’s written in Gemtext, a variety of Markdown. There are programs that can
|
||
convert Markdown (or even HTML, I think) to gemtext, like lowdown[288]3.
|
||
|
||
I guess the challenge would then be to format the content of Low-tech Magazine
|
||
for gemtext. That is, if you consider this route.
|
||
|
||
And finally, at its current state, old browsers can still access the site via
|
||
terminal-based programs like w3m[289]4 or lynx[290]5 among others. That means
|
||
old computers with these old browsers connected to the internet technically can
|
||
still read your content.
|
||
|
||
I hope this helps!
|
||
|
||
Regards,
|
||
|
||
O.Q. Olarte
|
||
|
||
542.94KB
|
||
[291] ↑
|
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|
||
[292]LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
|
||
|
||
• Server Stats
|
||
|
||
• Forecast
|
||
|
||
• Info
|
||
|
||
[293] About [294] Power [295] Our Team [296] Donate [297] Privacy Policy
|
||
• Contact
|
||
|
||
© Kris De Decker
|
||
solar [at] lowtechmagazine [dot] com
|
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|
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[298] [299] [300] [301] [302]
|
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|
||
|
||
References:
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|
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|
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[57] https://www.notechmagazine.com/2021/04/solar-powered-website-uptime-for-2020.html
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[58] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/power.html
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[59] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/offline-reading.html
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[64] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#server
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[65] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#configuring-the-webserver
|
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[67] https://github.com/lowtechmag/solar
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[68] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#network
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|
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[70] http://www.krisdedecker.org/
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[71] http://motsuka.com/
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[72] https://roelof.info/
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[73] http://squishysystems.com/
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[83] https://html.energy/marie.html
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[93] https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/low-tech-magazines-solar-powered-website-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-web-design/
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[94] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-digital-waste-interaction-design
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[95] https://www.cjr.org/innovations/low-tech-magazine.php
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[96] https://www.lsnglobal.com/big-ideas/article/22970/kris-de-decker-on-web-design-s-energy-efficient-future
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[97] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407847
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[98] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20038619
|
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[99] https://calls.ars.electronica.art/prix2019/prixwinner/32502/
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[100] https://www.mcdbooks.com/electric_eel/issue-021
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[101] http://www.seabro.it/the-future-of-websites-how-one-site-has-gone-100-solar/
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[102] https://therestartproject.org/podcast/low-tech/
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[103] https://www.notechmagazine.com/2021/11/off-line-portal-to-solar-powered-website.html
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[104] http://solarprotocol.net/index.html
|
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[105] https://formafantasma.com/website
|
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[106] https://ontaardebeschaving.nl/openuren.html
|
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[107] http://postgrowth.art/
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[108] https://lowtechlab.org/en/news-blog/le-low-tech-lab-lance-son-site-internet-low-tech
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[110] https://diament.uqam.ca/apropos/
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[111] https://louwrentius.com/
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[112] http://pleasureinscarcity.com/chapter/27
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[113] http://gauthierroussilhe.com/en/posts/convert-low-tech
|
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[114] https://www.feasta.org/2019/07/16/our-lighter-website/
|
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[115] http://fisksolar.ddns.net/
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[116] https://wp.nyu.edu/solarpoweredmedia/
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[117] https://framablog.org/2019/01/24/pour-un-web-frugal/
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[118] http://www.internetactu.net/a-lire-ailleurs/le-design-pour-lutter-contre-le-changement-climatique/
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[140] https://www.staticgen.com/
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[141] https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker
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[142] https://datproject.org/
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[143] https://taravancil.com/blog/how-i-publish-taravancil-com/
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[147] http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/#mascot&jpg=s&bpg=s
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[148] https://leotindall.com/post/putting_this_blog_on_ipfs/
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[149] https://blindedcyclops.neocities.org/low-tech-image-tests/gallery.html
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[150] http://www.darktable.org/
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[151] https://www.gimp.org/
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[152] https://pngquant.org/
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[153] http://optipng.sourceforge.net/
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[154] https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.3.1.min.js
|
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[155] https://jsfiddle.net/59kopbx3/
|
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[156] https://imgur.com/VsSji3A
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[157] https://github.com/imagemin/imagemin
|
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[158] https://css-tricks.com/the-complete-guide-to-lazy-loading-images/
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[159] https://varvy.com/pagespeed/leverage-browser-caching.html
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[160] https://unicode-search.net/unicode-namesearch.pl?term=cloud
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[163] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
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[164] https://docs.meshwith.me/
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[165] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1G8j1G9JyVuq8d8kz4EWUity2gmXKuuih?usp=sharing
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[166] http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad3b4657e200b-pi
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[167] http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad394c691200d-pi
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[168] http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e88833022ad394c69e200d-pi
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[171] http://solarpaneltilt.com/
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[173] https://staticman.net/
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[174] https://indieweb.org/Webmention
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[175] https://forum.armbian.com/topic/8315-daily-tech-related-news-diet/?do=findComment&comment=64064
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[176] https://forum.armbian.com/forum/26-research-guides-tutorials/
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[177] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
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[178] https://tinypng.com/
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[179] https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard.jpg
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[180] https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/CM2024-PWM-12v-24v-20a-solar_6
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[181] https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF
|
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[182] https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/
|
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[183] https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=179904
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[184] https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=179904
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[185] http://www.industrialberry.com/ethernetberry-v-1-1/
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[186] http://www.clarkeology.com/wiki/#solar/power
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[187] https://www.sockmama.com/
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[188] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#compression-of-transmitted-data
|
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[189] https://nginx.org/en/docs/https/ngx_https_gzip_static_module.html
|
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[190] https://independent.academia.edu/DaveEvans19
|
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[191] https://lapatineta.com/en/portfolio
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[192] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport-for-a-bargain.html%29
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[193] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network.html
|
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[194] https://tilde.town/~severak/
|
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[195] https://www.zonerama.com/metropolis/303066
|
||
[196] https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/
|
||
[197] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF
|
||
[198] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBx3O55lTDw
|
||
[199] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2XEQZsXcIg
|
||
[200] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
[201] https://github.com/google/guetzli/
|
||
[202] https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg
|
||
[203] https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard.jpg%29
|
||
[204] https://github.com/google/zopfli/
|
||
[205] https://homebrewserver.club/images/international-switchboard11.png%29
|
||
[206] https://beakerbrowser.com/
|
||
[207] https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/
|
||
[208] https://www.manyver.se/
|
||
[209] http://www.fefe.de/gatling/
|
||
[210] http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/
|
||
[211] https://github.com/KoljaWindel
|
||
[212] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#software
|
||
[213] http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_gzip_static_module.html
|
||
[214] https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#open_file_cache
|
||
[215] https://github.com/google/zopfli/blob/master/README.zopflipng
|
||
[216] https://github.com/matisseverduyn/aureum
|
||
[217] https://blog.octo.com/en/http-caching-with-nginx-and-memcached/
|
||
[218] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
[219] http://solar.amosamos.net/
|
||
[220] https://gitlab.com/Lightnin/amosamos.net
|
||
[221] http://nearlyfreespeech.net/
|
||
[222] http://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
[223] https://github.com/pmarinov
|
||
[224] https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/rra/page_metadata
|
||
[225] https://developer-blog.net/raspberry-pi-mit-sonnenenergie-betreiben-teil-4/
|
||
[226] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
[227] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
|
||
[228] https://hubzilla.org/
|
||
[229] https://mademistakes.com/articles/jekyll-static-comments/
|
||
[230] https://github.com/PigeonProtocolConsortium/pigeon-cli-ruby%29
|
||
[231] https://github.com/PigeonProtocolConsortium/pigeon-spec
|
||
[232] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about.html
|
||
[233] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-low-tech-website.html
|
||
[234] https://superuser.com/questions/483456/does-a-computer-screen-consume-more-power-to-display-black-or-white
|
||
[235] https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-POE/open-source-hardware
|
||
[236] https://www.edimax.com/edimax/merchandise/merchandise_detail/data/edimax/global/smb_switches_poe/es-5104ph_v2/
|
||
[237] https://www.lemoda.net/mod_rewrite/gzip-static/index.html
|
||
[238] https://git.n07070.xyz/n07070/Solar-Server
|
||
[239] https://www.datprotocol.com/
|
||
[240] https://www.tinrocket.com/content/hyperdither/
|
||
[241] http://optipng.sourceforge.net/
|
||
[242] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#compression-of-transmitted-data
|
||
[243] https://caddyserver.com/
|
||
[244] https://beakerbrowser.com/%29
|
||
[245] https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/
|
||
[246] http://blr.design/
|
||
[247] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#sensible-comments-on-static-sites
|
||
[248] https://blog.mro.name/2019/05/wp-to-hugo-making-of/
|
||
[249] https://blog.mro.name/2009/07/nsurlcache-joke-iphone/
|
||
[250] https://github.com/websperts/tinypng-cli
|
||
[251] http://www.virtualzone.de/
|
||
[252] https://closure-compiler.appspot.com/
|
||
[253] https://www.codepile.net/pile/3m4jZRQ5
|
||
[254] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oocbejOMXtA
|
||
[255] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28protocol%29
|
||
[256] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
||
[257] https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini
|
||
[258] http://www.wellobserve.com/index.html%29
|
||
[259] http://www.wellobserve.com/blog/2020/04/01_CloudTravelClassics_03_TropicOfCancer.html
|
||
[260] http://www.wellobserve.com/blog/2021/01/15_StaticBlogGenerator.html
|
||
[261] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
[262] https://suelosolar.com/
|
||
[263] https://www.torproject.org/
|
||
[264] http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/
|
||
[265] http://events17.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/opdenacker-embedded-linux-size-reduction-techniques_0.pdf
|
||
[266] https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_Kernel_Howto
|
||
[267] https://linux-sunxi.org/Cpufreq
|
||
[268] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
||
[269] http://mb7707.su/
|
||
[270] http://mb7707.su/module/articles/articles.html
|
||
[271] http://mb7707.su/other/handmades/handmades.html
|
||
[272] http://mb7707.su/other/gallery/gallery.html
|
||
[273] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29
|
||
[274] https://redbean.dev/
|
||
[275] http://redbean.justine.lol/
|
||
[276] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.html#generic-scaling-governors
|
||
[277] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
|
||
[278] https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg
|
||
[279] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerTOP
|
||
[280] https://github.com/roeles/solarpi/blob/master/code/disable_usb.sh
|
||
[281] https://github.com/roeles/solarpi
|
||
[282] https://github.com/roeles/solarpi/blob/master/code/scdplus.cpp
|
||
[283] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-low-tech-website.html
|
||
[284] https://purgecss.com/
|
||
[285] https://text.npr.org/
|
||
[286] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#room-for-improvements
|
||
[287] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
||
[288] https://kristaps.bsd.lv/lowdown/
|
||
[289] http://w3m.sourceforge.net/
|
||
[290] https://lynx.invisible-island.net/
|
||
[291] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about/the-solar-website/#top
|
||
[292] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
|
||
[293] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about/
|
||
[294] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/power/
|
||
[295] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about/the-solar-website/{%20absLangURL%20"about/team/"%20}}
|
||
[296] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/donate/
|
||
[297] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/privacy/
|
||
[298] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/feeds
|
||
[299] https://d69baa34.sibforms.com/serve/MUIEANc2lrp0ZlxefJj9bGWkRWAP8XKI8G25tXyMryhx1Q6iKLoxg-A9u3QuJxksFS7rQuYNdNjVBqcJfwig9kXB6QzKRFg0KK2ZhiJjarVqjLKhFw2Ej58I5aLFMcgBWzD0MrDKgWiQgF_qMW1-rhMF_nsEY44QyiGRITSt0oJGZGZMjXkhgKH6t_x5-HgMgcnO1J4fSoQ_2iw-
|
||
[300] https://www.patreon.com/lowtechmagazine
|
||
[301] https://www.linkedin.com/in/krisdedecker/
|
||
[302] https://www.youtube.com/@lowtechmagazine/videos
|