blu-lux/REVIEW.md

blu-site: Honest Review & Brainstorm

Site Review

Performance: A+

The site is genuinely fast. It's pure static HTML with no JavaScript framework, no client-side rendering, no bundle. The only JS is highlight.js (deferred) for code blocks. Fonts are preloaded. Images use <picture> with AVIF + WebP fallbacks and lazy loading. Tailwind is pre-compiled to a single CSS file. This is about as fast as a website can be.

SEO: B-

What's good:

• Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags on every page
• Semantic HTML (<main>, <h1>, <h2>, etc.)
• Descriptive <title> tags per page
• <meta name="description"> present
• Font preloading
• <link rel="canonical">

What's broken or missing:

• <link rel="canonical"> is https://blu.cx on every page -- it should be the actual page URL. Google uses this to determine the authoritative URL. Having every page point to the homepage is actively harmful to SEO.
• og:url is https://blu.cx on every page -- same issue, should be per-page.
• No <link rel="icon"> -- browsers will 404 looking for /favicon.ico. The Narsil logo is displayed as an <img> but not set as the browser tab icon.
• No robots.txt -- search engines will still crawl, but it's a best practice signal.
• No sitemap.xml -- important for discoverability, especially for a site with 14+ pages across multiple sections.
• No RSS/Atom feed -- critical for a blog. Many readers and aggregators use RSS. This is a significant miss for someone who writes regularly.
• No structured data (JSON-LD) -- Article schema would help with rich snippets in search results.
• No <meta name="theme-color"> -- minor, but improves mobile browser chrome.
• Copyright says 2025 -- should be 2026 (or dynamic).

Design: B

What's good:

• The dark theme is pleasant and readable.
• EBGaramond is an excellent serif choice -- gives the site a literary, classical feel that matches the content.
• UnifrakturMaguntia for the site name is a bold, distinctive choice. It's memorable.
• The homepage card grid is a good way to surface diverse content at a glance.
• The post pages are clean and readable.

What needs work:

• No navigation. There is no way to get from a post page to the articles index, blog index, journal index, or between sections. The only clickable navigation element is the Narsil logo which goes home. For a site with 14 posts, 3 sections, and tag pages, this is a major usability gap.
• The homepage is a wall of scrollable boxes. The snippet cards with max-h-150 overflow-y-auto create scrollable regions within the page. This is disorienting -- you have the page scroll AND multiple internal scrolls. The Creations and Contributions cards are especially long. Users may not realize they can scroll inside a card, or may accidentally scroll the page when trying to scroll a card.
• Markdown rendering bug in the Writing snippet. Lines like - ### [Fear to Attempt]... render the ### as literal text because the markdown processor doesn't handle headings inside list items. They show up as ### Fear to Attempt with the hashes visible.
• The grid is lopsided. The first snippet (Technology) takes the full width, then the rest are in a 2-column grid. But the cards have wildly different content lengths. The Creations card is massive; the Work card is short. This makes the grid feel unbalanced.
• Footer social links are tiny (16x16 SVGs). Hard to click on mobile.
• No 404 page.
• Mobile experience is untested but the 80% width container with no mobile-specific adjustments may feel cramped or overly wide on different screen sizes.

Content: A-

This is the strongest part of the site. The writing is genuine, opinionated, and deeply personal. The quotes collection is exceptional -- it reveals a serious reader with taste. The Creations section tells real stories about real projects with honest reflection on what worked and didn't. The articles (Payjoin, Micropayments) are substantive technical writing.

Issues:

• The Technology snippet says "This website is built in Elm" -- this is now false. The site is built in Lux. This is the most prominent factual error on the site.
• The bio says "Learning Nix, Elm, Rust, Ancient Greek and Latin" -- should mention Lux, and possibly remove Elm if it's no longer a focus (or rephrase as "Learned from Elm, now building Lux").
• Missing recent projects from Creations. The Lux programming language, Grapho (notetaking/sync), and Lyceum (Ancient Greek reader) are absent from the Creations section. These are arguably more significant and current than many of the archived projects listed.
• The Lyceum article (2026-02-07) exists in content/articles/ but isn't shown in the Writing snippet. The Writing snippet appears to be manually curated rather than auto-generated, so it's out of date.
• Snippets are manually ordered by filename prefix (2000-01-01, 2000-01-02...). This works but is fragile.

Uniqueness: B+

The UnifrakturMaguntia title, the Greek name, the Narsil favicon, the curated quotes -- these all contribute to a distinctive identity. It doesn't look like a template. The problem is that the visual design (near-black background, off-white text, bordered cards) is relatively generic. It could be any dark-mode personal site. The font and title treatment are the only truly distinctive elements.

Ease of Deploy: A

It's a static site. lux main.lux generates _site/. Copy that anywhere. No build tooling, no npm, no bundler. The only dependency is the Lux binary. This is as freedom-friendly as it gets.

Custom Aesthetic: C

This is where the biggest gap is. Based on the NixOS configuration, there's a carefully curated classical/antiquity color palette:

• Deep brown #1a1611 (background)
• Cream #d4c4a8 (text)
• Gold #d4a857 (accents)
• Olive #8a9a5b (secondary)
• Terracotta #b85c38 (highlights)
• Wine #722f37 (emphasis)

The current site uses none of these. It's #111 (near-black) and #fffff8 (near-white), which is fine but doesn't express the classical, warm, parchment-like aesthetic that's clearly been thought through for the desktop environment. The disconnect between the carefully themed NixOS rice and this generic dark theme is notable.

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Brainstorm: Making the Site Reflect Who You Are

The core theme across all your work is the recovery of classical wisdom through modern tools -- using sovereign technology (Bitcoin, Nix, self-hosted systems) in the service of perennial human values (liberty, truth, beauty, craftsmanship). The site should feel like walking into a scholar's study, not a developer portfolio.

1. Apply the Classical Color Palette

Replace the generic dark theme with the NixOS palette:

• Background: #1a1611 (deep brown, like aged wood or leather)
• Text: #d4c4a8 (cream, like parchment)
• Links/accents: #d4a857 (gold, like gilt lettering)
• Hover/secondary: #8a9a5b (olive, like old book bindings)
• Highlights/tags: #b85c38 (terracotta)
• Borders: muted gold or olive instead of gray

This would immediately make the site feel warm, distinctive, and coherent with the desktop aesthetic. The EBGaramond + UnifrakturMaguntia fonts already support this direction -- they'd look even better against a brown/cream palette than against stark black/white.

2. Add Navigation

A minimal, classical navigation bar:

[Articles]  [Blog]  [Journal]  [Creations]  [Quotes]  [Books]

Placed below the title/bio section. No hamburger menu, no complex dropdowns. Just labeled links. This is the single most important usability improvement.

3. Restructure the Homepage

Instead of scrollable cards, consider a layout inspired by a classical manuscript or broadsheet:

• Hero section: Name, Greek name, one-line description (drop the multi-line bio, it reads like a resume)
• Featured/latest post prominently displayed
• Section previews: Each section gets 2-3 recent entries with links to the full index
• Quotes sidebar or rotating quote as a subtle personality element

The current approach of dumping all content into scrollable boxes on the homepage buries the actual writing. The writing is the best part -- surface it.

4. Showcase Your Projects (Lux, Grapho, Lyceum)

These are your most distinctive creations and they're completely absent from the site:

• Lux: You literally built this site with it. "This site is built with Lux, a programming language I'm designing" is a compelling hook.
• Grapho: A notetaking/sync system -- this reflects your interest in self-hosted, sovereign tools.
• Lyceum: An Ancient Greek reader -- this directly connects to the classical theme.

These deserve prominent placement, perhaps a dedicated "Projects" section that replaces or augments the current Creations card.

5. Fix the Content Errors

Immediate fixes needed:

• Update "This website is built in Elm" to "This website is built in Lux"
• Update bio: "Learning Nix, Elm, Rust..." -> mention Lux
• Add Lux/Grapho/Lyceum to Creations
• Fix the ### rendering in the Writing snippet
• Update copyright to 2026

6. Add RSS Feed

Critical for a blog. The site generator should output an atom.xml or rss.xml. Many of the people in your intellectual circle (Bitcoin devs, Nix enthusiasts, classical scholars) are exactly the kind of people who use RSS readers.

7. Add a Proper Favicon

Set the Narsil image as a browser favicon:

<link rel="icon" href="/images/favicon.webp" type="image/webp">

8. Fix Canonical URLs

Each page should have its own canonical URL:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://blu.cx/posts/articles/2023-10-31-payjoin-better-future">

Same for og:url. This is important for SEO and for people sharing your posts on social media.

9. Consider a Colophon or "About This Site" Page

Given that the site is built with a language you created, running on NixOS, using self-hosted infrastructure -- telling that story is itself compelling content. A colophon page describing the stack (Lux SSG -> static HTML -> VPS/NixOS) would interest exactly the kind of people you want reading your site.

10. Add Sitemap + Robots.txt

Easy wins for SEO. The site generator can output these alongside the HTML.

11. Subtle Classical Touches

• A thin ornamental rule (<hr> styled as a classical divider -- maybe a simple * * * or a small SVG flourish) between sections
• Pull quotes styled with a larger font size and subtle left border in gold
• Drop caps on article first paragraphs (CSS ::first-letter)
• A subtle paper texture or grain on the background (very light, just enough to feel tactile)

These would reinforce the "scholar's study" aesthetic without being heavy-handed.

12. Tag Cloud or Category Index

The tag pages exist but are undiscoverable. A tag listing page or tag cloud on the homepage would help readers find related content. Tags like bitcoin, privacy, history, philosophy would help people understand what you write about at a glance.

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Priority Order

1. Fix factual errors (Elm -> Lux, bio text, copyright)
2. Fix canonical URLs and og:url (SEO harm)
3. Add navigation (usability)
4. Apply classical color palette (identity)
5. Add favicon (professionalism)
6. Add RSS feed (reach)
7. Restructure homepage (first impression)
8. Add Lux/Grapho/Lyceum to Creations (showcase real work)
9. Add sitemap.xml + robots.txt (SEO)
10. Fix markdown rendering bugs (quality)
11. Add colophon page (storytelling)
12. Classical design touches (polish)