Technology

I’ve moved my hosting from Dreamhost, where I’ve been for about 12 years, to Hostinger. Dreamhost isn’t a bad hosting company, per se — they are great if what you want is pretty basic, and will grow with you as your needs grow — but all that comes at a price.

My hosting needs are pretty simple. I basically need some WordPress, and occasionally I may want to install my own Node.js, PHP, or Python-based site… Maybe I want to set up a reverse-proxy to another service. Could I do that on Dreamhost, yes, but I’d pay fees based on how much I use it. That sounds fair, doesn’t it?

Except even idle (sending zero bits, receiving zero bits, using only enough CPU and memory to run absolutely nothing would cost me $25 a month. The moment I use it, I start paying for every electron that passes through my server. I used to pay $25 per year to run my WordPress site. With Dreamhost’s additional flexibility, my hosting charges would go up 1,200%, and that’s before I even move this blog over.

Hostinger, by contrast, charges me by $27 per month — yes, that’s more, but I get 4 x the memory, 4 x the CPU cores, and I can use all of the available memory and CPU I want. I’ll be slowly migrating over some additional services as I have time.

More
  • November 21, 2025

With Elon’s acquisition of Twitter more or less complete, the vast punditry is asking what kind of shithole will it become? Will they let Trump and his fascist goons back in to spew more hate, lies, and demagoguery? Will it become a pay-only service? Many have predicted that they’ll be forced off the platform in one way or another, and they’re looking for safe harbors.

It’s no accident I’m posting here again after 4 years of inactivity.

I was tweeting at my friend Mark earlier:



and I’m still serious. What if we just kept on microblogging on whatever platform we want, and syndicated our content via RSS again? We could still keep up with each other, control who engages with our content via access control and our own comment moderation, and more thoughtful long-form discussion rather than 280 letter bumper-sticker manifestos.

What if?

More
  • October 27, 2022