I hope you enjoy my weird hybrid playground/portfolio. I need to add at least one blog post before this thing is ready, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to write about the site itself.
The Blog
Despite my best interest, I've made a blog. To be honest, I don't like writing publicly much. Sometimes I get a fit of inspiration and don't have anywhere to put it. This blog has lowered the obstacles to making things happen.
Might add comments eventually - however that would require moderation (yuck) and breaking my static-only rule (double yuck). I'll figure something out eventually. In the meantime you can write to me via my contact page.
The Website
As of late I've fallen in love with small, static sites. They've proven to be kinder, safer spaces for individuals and communities to thrive. This is my attempt of making my own space that achieves that purpose.
Inspirations
The design of the site is heavily inspired by sci-fi author qntm's site. Other sites that have influenced me are caesar.wtf, pastelhell, and good the ol' freaky heavensgate site.
Essentially: both fun and intentionally designed. I'm not necessarily aiming for something retro - it just happens that old-school static sites tend to look this way.
Highly recommend reading The Yesterweb Manifesto if this kind of stuff interests you.
Website Goals:
Be a source for all things Than
Not trying to sound narcissistic.
So often when I'm trying to network I have a whole list of communications/contacts/resources that need to be all packaged together and handed out. Networking already sucks - I'd like to avoid any more obstacles in that process.
So now I can just send someone my site and they get everything they need. Historically, this has been the obvious purpose of websites. But it's all still new for me so I'm allowing myself to be excited.
Don't let it go stale
Dead websites make me sad. To avoid this, I'm attempting to make the site (functionally) timeless. The website and it's elements are completely static. This way if I'm gone for a while, nothing should break (probably naive of me to assume this).
Don't end up hating it
I don't want to dread writing blog entries more than I already do. So I've lowered the barriers to making updates. The content management of this site is set up to be as simple and intuitive as possible.
Technical Notes
The back-end is run on a self-hosted Directus container on my private server. To keep the site static, I have to run a build every time I make an update. I've streamlined this so it's fast and doesn't take any extra effort.
The front-end of my website is accessible as a public GitHub repository. It's built for personal use. But you're still welcome to take a look and use anything you find neat.