Welcome to my re-launched web site

I operated my first web site for probably more than a decade, eventually surpassing a million views. (Having just 10 cents for each one of them wouldn’t have been bad, eh?) But there were some things wrong with it, and so, when I finally got fed up with the poor service from my old ISP, CrystalTech or whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays, I decided to rebuild the site from scratch rather than simply porting everything across to my new host.

Rather than hand-coding each page, I’m now using a small application that I built myself to generate the code. It’s quicker, more consistent, and allows me to regenerate any or all of it whenever I want.

I’ve removed the clear text email address I’d unwisely put into some of my pages. The “contact me” link at the bottom of each page is now generated by some simple JavaScript. I used to get more than 300 spam messages per day. Now I get none. This is probably “hate speech” but virus-writers and spammers are the scum of the internet; I hope they all die slowly, alone, and in great pain.

There are now separate hit counters on each page, rather than a consolidated counter for the whole site. Sure, the numbers are less impressive, but they're a lot more informative.

My old site rambled on about anything I felt like. That was fun, but the new one at least has the virtue of being a bit more focussed. Travel, astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary theory – that’s it for now.

The new host ISP is HostPapa, by the way. I kind of recommend them. They seem to use Linux servers so the URLs for the pages are case sensitive, whereas they didn’t used to be. That’s a pain. And when you report a problem, there’s this incredibly frustrating dance you have to go through: at least two communications before you get escalated high enough up the support chain to be talking to someone with the knowledge and skill to actually help you. Their first responders are almost invariably (one exception) useless. But at least I have always received a prompt and courteous reply; my emails do not simply vanish without trace, as used to be the case.

So welcome. Make yourself at home. Please revisit occasionally, because I’m putting up a new page, or seriously amplifying an existing one, around about every three weeks or so.

Chris Clowes
8 August 2018

Main Topics

• Astronomy
• Paleontology
• Evolution
• Travel essays

As always, I'm happy to take suggestions for priorities.

New or updated recently

• Novae and Supernovae
• Cambrian Period
• Precambrian
• Major Events in the Evolution of Life
• Cretaceous Period
• Major Events in the Evolution of Plants
• Devonian Period
• Ediacaran Period
• Ediacaran Assemblage