2022-02-07
How to survive the sea
I have been running my services for more than one year exclusively on a Raspberry Pi. How did i do it? In more than two decades i figured out what is really needed. I tried a lot of different things, and optimized my knowledge, my tools, and myself. I'm my own researcher and scientist, hoping to learn something new all the time. I have reduced costs by reducing complexity, resulting in less load on the hardware.
Most files that are called by the browser are static on the server. Only if you want to save new data or open specific data, then the files received by the browser are dynamically generated, like for storing messages, flipping through older pages or for searching names to fill in. And the refresh rate depends on how active you are, to reduce bandwidth usage. Another example, you just copy and paste HTML code to use my chat widget. And i automated many processes to help me be a good admin. Just imagine that i was the only person who prepares and serves food at a well run McDonalds, basically scaling to the size of the building, only limited by physics.
In the past four years the traffic has gone down, because people are spending their time mostly on smartphone messaging apps, and are not surfing the web like it used to be. I would not know how to monetize users anyway. In the distant past i relied on affiliate programs and Google Adsense. But this doesn't keep the lights on, so i stopped going that path. I could have kept it in the cloud, like on Amazon AWS. But a lower tier Lightsail instance is basically a Raspberry Pi connected to the internet. And since i'm not going anywhere, i was willing to get my hands dirty by literally running everything from my bedroom. By doing this i consolidated my skills.
How to reduce complexity? Just imagine a homeless man next to a politician. Do you get my point? One is struck by life just surviving, and the other throws his puppets to see what sticks. For example, you don't need to sign up for anything. If someone chooses the same name as you, a number will be added to it. And no cookies are getting harmed too. You will be mostly remembered or identified via your browser selection, screen resolution, and IP range. PETA would be proud of me.
Or let us try another picture. My animation tool enabled me to produce more GIFs than before, because i took the time to simplify the use of math formulas. Their input and output became easily accessible for further combinations, to create more unique results, without having to think too much about the actual numbers. And the heartbeat i developed made all layers and parts loop smooth and in sync, regardless of the length of their paths and their moves.