Okay, okay, this site has suffered from a little neglect lately–but I’ve been busy, okay? It’s been 6 years since this site had a major redesign, so it’s time for a refresh! This one’s been a long time in the making too.

Inspiration

I love the history of electrical engineering, and I treasure the handful of random old catalogs and journals that I have picked up over the years. Something about the look of mid-century technical printing speaks to me. Figuring out how to apply those styles to a modern Web site was a little challenging, since my style is utterly unpopular and I had nobody to copy from. The examples I drew from all employed slightly clunky Scotch Roman fonts mixed with worn Futura, paired with delightfully formal photo and illustration presentation, artifacts of meticulous hand layout. I resisted the temptation to add simulated folds and 3-hole punches. You’re welcome.

It was fun to be reminded of how much high-quality technical content was curated and published by the giants of industry themselves.

I kept the overall grayscale look because it still evokes the Netscape-based Ghost of Internets Past, which feels right.

Words about Wordpress

I reluctantly built the whole site on top of Wordpress again. I think Wordpress has passed its peak years. Its developers are focused on a controversial effort to overhaul the editor (fine in theory) without improving serious underlying architectural problems with the design. They seem much more focused on being a CMS than a writing platform. And it remains an enormously clunky PHP application. But I haven’t found a perfect alternative yet either.

And now…

I have a lot to say about real life, so let’s get to it.