Personal Goals Update — August 2025

Summary - key takeaways

• AI-assisted comments shipped and live on blog and project posts.
• OG/Twitter images standardized via cardImage transforms.
• Custom hero SVG added for the update post.
• Minor layout and mobile polish across site.
• Next: optional global OG fallback image.

Goals Achieved Since The Last Update

• AI assisted comments (blog + projects)
  • Implemented a comments section across both collections
  • Streamlined the UI and wired up basic client‑side validation
  • Left room for moderation and anti‑spam hardening in the next cycle
  • See the project deep‑dive page: Astro + Turso Live Comments

• Projects layout and details
  • Grid, spacing, and card ratio tweaks for consistency
  • Details page: typography hierarchy and media handling fixed
  • iPad/iPhone: targeted breakpoints, no horizontal scroll, buttons/tap areas adjusted

• Tags page
  • Tighter layout with clearer tag headings and card spacing
  • Better small‑screen flow and centered headings

• Climate page
  • Visual cleanup, color/contrast alignment with the green theme
  • Minor responsiveness and content spacing fixes

• Gases page and component
  • Component simplified; styles consolidated to reduce CSS drift
  • Better empty/loading states; layout stable at mobile/tablet widths

• Photos page highlights reel
  • Long‑running flakiness addressed (initialization order and timing)
  • Smoother transitions; fewer layout shifts on load

• Consciousness links
  • Curated and grouped related links for clarity
  • Improved labeling for scan‑ability

• Search page
  • Result item layout tightened; headings and snippets more readable
  • Minor ranking/ordering tweaks and mobile spacing fixes

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Metrics Snapshot

• TODO: Add 1–2 simple before/after metrics (e.g., CLS reduction on photos highlights, search click‑through)

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What Worked

• Focusing on a handful of targeted breakpoints (iPhone and iPad) accelerated quality fixes
• Consolidating styles reduced regressions across components (cards, headings, meta)
• Shorter iteration loop on the highlights reel removed most flakes
• AI-assisted comments UI was straightforward to implement with basic validation
• Changes to database table structure which enabled the comments and stored a user nickname

What Didn’t

• Highlights reel still needs long‑session soak tests to catch rare timing issues
• Search relevance for edge queries could be improved (synonyms and boosting)

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What’s Next (Focus For The Coming Period)

• Comments: add moderation flow and anti‑spam guardrails; consider light rate‑limiting
• Search: add simple synonyms and adjust weights for better intent matching
• Performance: reduce layout shifts on media‑heavy pages and measure improvement

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Gratitude / Shout‑outs (Optional)

• Thanks to the Claude 4.0 and ChatGPT for assistance on the comments UI and layout tweaks

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What Didn’t

• Highlights reel still needs long‑session soak tests to catch rare timing issues
• Search relevance for edge queries could be improved (synonyms and boosting)