I’ve skirted around the issue of paging flak for some time. It’s not that it’s hard; it’s quite easy. Easy to do wrong, that is. As explained here page numbers should start at 1 for old posts. That part is easy, but it leaves open the question of what to put on the last (highest numbered) page.

Lacking an obvious technical solution, I turned to rationalizing the absence of the feature as a feature in its own right. Without an easy way to dig through old posts, I needn’t worry about keeping their content updated. Old posts naturally fade away and decompose.

There’s also a certain psychological trick involved, call it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s the implied promise of posts worth reading, if only you knew the right search terms to find them. A wonderful conceit.

Ah, well, all good things must end. Punting on the issue of paging, I redefined the problem. There’s now a one page flak archive. Minimal info to keep it small, should scale for the next few years without too much trouble.