The last two titles I wanted to ensure ran properly were Flight Simulator and Age of Empires IV (ironically, both Microsoft games):

AoE IV

Install was simple and game launched successfully. I did run into a few issues described below, but is otherwise running smoothly. 

ProtonDB article for AoE IV

• Mouse cursor didn't line up with what was selected 
  • Resolved by changing to Full Screen mode
• There's a warning that my GPU may not be able to handle high settings
  • My RTX3090 is otherwise being detected, used and performing, so just ignore it
• Changing resolution worked in menus, but games looked to be low resolution
  • Had to change the "Game Resolution Scale" slider from 50% to 100%
• Didn't use any custom Launch Options

MS Flight Simulator

ProtonDB article for Flight Simulator

• Simple install, ran and performed well
• Logitech joystick was automatically detected and worked as expected
• Didn't use any custom Launch Options

I knew it was a regular globe symbol with half of the meridians blacked out and that it was in some archival-type photo. Finally tracked it down...

I eventually remembered that the logo was from a rather interesting YouTube video I watched called Oregon's Failed Attempt at a 200-Mile Riverfront Park by Peter Dibble, which is about the once ambitious plans for the Willamette Greenway. 

It appears to be the logo for the Benson Hotel, where a meeting was being held to discuss the project. 

Benson Hotel doesn't seem to use the logo any longer. If I had to guess as to it's meaning, I suspect they were going for "a world-class company operating on the west coast". Made some rough mock ups of it below:

I'm an absolute amateur when it comes to working on watches, so none of this should be taken as a tutorial, but it's always fun taking things apart...and try to put them back together again. 

Plan of attack:

1. Remove bracelet
2. Remove case back
3. Remove crown
4. Remove movement
5. Dust off the crystal with compressed air
6. Reassemble 

That got me reminiscing about my beginner-level attempts at astrophotography and had a fun time going through old photos. Here are some of my favorites from EO and a few from recent years.

Equipment

               

Solar System

Deep Space

A tricolour with two stripes shifted under the left third.
The colors represent a watermelon slice and are reminiscent of the Flag of Mexico, a nod to the significant Mexican population in the area. 

3x5 Aspect Ratio
#386640 1/6th, #f2e8cf 1/6th, #bb4748 2/3rd

Simulated flag made with: https://krikienoid.github.io/flagwaver/

Alternative color options:

However, that quickly gave way to using Dreamweaver, Wordpress and Drupal paired with ever increasing amount of libraries, plugins and databases. Each of these added functionality and convenience but at the expense of complexity. I found myself constantly worrying about security vulnerabilities, updates and managing servers rather than working on projects and writing posts. 

In the end, I scrapped the sites and forgot about the whole thing, which brings us to today. There has been a resurgence of static websites and tools to build them, enough so to spark my interest and start this site. I'll recap my experiences so far and intend to keep posting as part of the experiment. 

What Are Static Websites?

A static website is a site like any other, but it doesn't rely on databases or server-side scripting like PHP. As a result, it can not provide interactivity, comments, logins, etc. Instead, it merely serves up HTML and JavaScript hosted by any basic web server like Apache or NGINX. 

This is likely similar to how many of us started: creating an index.html file and opening it with Notepad. This approach still works of course, however it becomes difficult to manage as the site grows larger. Additionally you're missing out on useful features like tagging, prebuilt themes, WYSIWYG editors, etc. 

In order to bridge the gap between simplicity and functionality, there are numerous Content Management Systems (CMS) that you can install locally which help to build and structure a website. When you're ready to publish, it renders the content into static source files and uploads them to the server of your choice. 

Like any website, you have the option of loading external resources such as fonts and libraries. However, in an effort to simplify and secure these sites, many of the CMSs bundle all dependencies within the compiled files. 

Are they worth it?

So if a static website is defined by what it can't do, why would you bother? I would argue that the benefits fall into three main categories:

Simplicity: In order to get started with a static website, all that is needed is a web server like Apache or NGINX. In order to setup your build environment, it's as simple as installing a local CMS. If you have multiple editors, they can sync files via Google Drive, DropBox, etc (I use a self-hosted Nextcloud instance). Source control can all be managed via the Git service of your choice. 

Security: Since the pages lack any form of input and there is no server-side code to run, the attack surface is drastically reduced. There are no updates to manage and no third party libraries to be compromised. Additionally, the lack of server-side scripting or cookies makes GDPR compliance easy.

Speed: Without server-side code, DB lookups or third party dependencies to load, pages load significantly faster. That speed and reduced size translates to reduced costs and better user-engagement. 

What I'm using

As I mentioned, there are many CMS tools to choose from, including HUGO and Jekyll. However, I landed on Publii.

Publii strike a wonderful balance between simplicity and functionality. Additionally it's fully open source and committed to security:

"All official Publii themes that our team creates, both free and premium, do not use any CDN or third-party providers to deliver files. Instead, all files; fonts, scripts, icons, and CSS files, as well as any images Publii generates, are stored locally.

Basically, if you're running a base Publii website without any third-party extensions, then you're site should be fully GDPR compliant; no mess, no fear, no fuss."
https://getpublii.com/privacy-focused/

You simply download the installer and connect to the hosting solution of your choice. In my case, I'm going to GitHub Pages and use Cloudflare for DNS/WAF/Analytics.

So far, the simplicity of Publii was reason enough to get me interested in posting again. We'll see how it goes over the coming year.