During this National Day holiday, I found myself tinkering with ZISAI again.

I had only meant to fix a few things that had been bothering me. Once I started, though, it was hard to stop.

The homepage, hero image, logo, navigation, Hugo, PaperMod, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare, DNS, CNAME records, 301 redirects… I worked through them all, right down to a small problem with sharing pages on WeChat.

Looking over the site again this morning, I finally felt that this round of work could pause. Most of the problems I could currently identify had been addressed.

A small problem worth following through

The most memorable issue turned out to be sharing a webpage as a WeChat card.

The page opened normally. Sending its URL directly worked too. But sharing it from a browser to a WeChat contact produced a red exclamation mark. Stranger still, posting it to Moments first and forwarding it from there worked.

I tried Safari, Chrome and Edge. Eventually, the trail led to the sharing image. The file was too large. After I compressed it, sharing worked again.

These days, I have gradually settled on a habit: use WebP for web images where suitable, with a quality setting around 82, while checking that they still look right. Q82 is no magic number. It is simply a balance that currently feels comfortable to me: smaller files, with little visible loss.

I may forget the number one day. I am less likely to forget the process of tracking down the problem.

Technical details are often like that. The answer may fade; the way you found it stays.

Work is a responsibility; ZISAI is self-directed

I spent much of the holiday sitting at my computer. From the outside, it probably looked much like being at work. It felt quite different.

Work brings goals, deadlines and collaboration. A sense of responsibility drives me to deliver.

With ZISAI, nobody tells me what the site should look like or when it needs to be finished. If the hero image feels wrong, I change it. If the logo is almost right, I adjust it again. If I do not understand a problem, I try a few more things.

Whether to do it, when to do it and how far to take it are my decisions. I enjoy that freedom. I often feel more creative with fewer constraints. There are still standards and expectations; they come from me.

Making something of my own

As the work went on, it began to feel less like routine website maintenance and more like making a piece of work I could call my own.

Should an image be a little softer? How large should the logo be? Is there enough space on the page? How can Chengde’s character appear naturally? Does the button feel right in that position? Is a few dozen extra kilobytes worth it?

Each decision is small. Together, they create a sense of coherence.

It reminds me a little of woodworking, or editing photographs. Other people may not notice exactly what changed. I know, though, and I keep thinking it could be a little better.

At that point, technology becomes part of the work itself: code, images, structure, speed and detail all belong to the same whole.

Twenty-eight years later

I started ZISAI in 1998, when the internet itself felt new. Forums, chat rooms, webpages and servers—everything invited exploration.

Twenty-eight years later, the technology has changed completely. Now I tinker with Hugo, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare, WebP, Open Graph images and countless frontend details. The website is very different from the one I began with.

Yet something seems unchanged. When I see a problem, I still want to understand it. When something could be better, I still want to improve it.

Perhaps what has lasted is the habit of trying to make things a little more complete.

Time passes. That impulse remains. There is no assignment and no deadline. I simply want the site to come a little closer to the version I have in mind.

A stopping point, for now

This morning, I looked through the site once more. Most of the issues I could think of had been handled.

Of course, a website is never truly finished. I will keep writing and making changes. But this stage can come to a pause.

Being able to immerse yourself in something is an ability. Staying interested in it for twenty-eight years says something about you, too. I have kept going with exercise, English, Japanese and information technology in much the same spirit.

Knowing when to stop is probably another ability worth keeping.

So this round of rebuilding ZISAI during the 2026 National Day holiday ends here, for now.

This afternoon, I am going to the hot springs.

The computer is closed.

As for the next problem—I’ll wait until it turns up.