Site history

Changelog

A running log of what's changed on this site.

2 August 2026
- Homepage: fixed the Featured Project random pick flashing the static fallback title/photo before the real pick replaced it — the section now stays hidden until the script has actually populated it, whether with the random pick or (on fetch failure) the static fallback.
- Homepage: fixed the Featured Project block's black background/border only appearing once content loaded — the card itself now renders immediately, and only the image/text fades in once populated. Also added "Satirical Notebooks for the Politically Resentful" to the block so the joke reads clearly rather than as genuine political nonfiction.
- Homepage: fixed the Featured Project block occasionally taking seconds to appear — it was calling the same endpoint /shop uses, which fetches Etsy data for every live title (~25, with 429 retries) to serve a full catalog the homepage never needed; now a random pick is made first and only that one title's data is fetched. Also added a pulsing skeleton placeholder so the wait (however short now) doesn't read as broken, crossfading into the real content once it's ready.
- Homepage: added a skeleton CTA button to the Featured Project loading state — without it, the button popping in on top of the already-settled skeleton text read as a jarring second flash.
31 July 2026
- Homepage: Featured Project now picks a random live title from the catalog on every visit (including client-side navigation back to home) instead of always showing the same fixed one, shown as a background photo blending into black via a gradient scrim, with the title/CTA overlaid.
- Homepage: added a Featured Project band introducing Covert Stories, with a live featured product from the shop.
- Covert Stories: new title, "Manufacturing Jobs" — a notebook on Andy Burnham's manufactured route to No. 10 (a resigned seat, two by-elections, no public vote on the actual leadership).
- Homepage: rebuilt the Featured Project band as a photo hero (aspect-locked image + flexible text column) rather than two half-width blocks, picking a random live title on every visit.
- Homepage: moved the Featured Project band up above the Work/Writing/Projects/Updates grid — a feature belongs higher on the page.
30 July 2026
- Added /shop, a storefront for Covert Stories — notebooks disguised as political nonfiction, every page inside blank.
15 July 2026
- Published new note: Can personal context servers improve AI outputs? — a blind-judged test suite pitting the coach MCP server against unaugmented LLMs.
- Coach MCP: added get_talk_transcripts tool — full transcripts of three conference talks, widening the corpus beyond DLM writing.
- Coach MCP: folded the old "Running a Design Team" blog post into the get_dlm_writing corpus.
- Added /files for unlisted static asset hosting — first file is a PDF report shared via direct link only.
2 July 2026
- Published new note: Mute Mover — Python scripts to migrate Bluesky mutes and muted words to Mastodon.
- Notes: inline code styled to exactly match /coach — salmon with border, dark mode aware.
- /colophon: fix mobile layout — prose and diagram no longer overflow viewport.
- 404 page: animated black hole — lost content spirals into the event horizon.
- Notes: GitHub repo widget — fetched at build time, shown when repoUrl is set in frontmatter.
1 July 2026
30 June 2026
28 June 2026
26 June 2026
- Homepage: Writing section moved into the left column alongside Work. Booking.com's two roles now listed under a single header. Updates feed now auto-includes the latest note from /notes at build time.
- Homepage: project, writing, and update list items are now full-block links with a bg-surface hover highlight and smooth transition.
24 June 2026
- Added /social — a feed of recent Bluesky posts pulled from the AT Protocol public API at build time. Posts grouped by month, rich text facets (links, mentions, hashtags) rendered server-side, images and videos shown inline. Feed refreshes on every Netlify deploy.
18 June 2026
17 June 2026
- Fixed key presses (h, j, k, l) being swallowed on /ask after visiting a photo essay — navigation handlers now clean up properly when leaving the page.
- Fixed the MRFRISBY hero not appearing when navigating back to the home page.
- Fixed a wide empty column gap on the library page on mobile.
- Opening a CD on /music now centers it in the view — other CDs from the row animate to stack underneath it, their titles fading out. The inside sleeve shows the actual cover art. Track listing moved from the sleeve to the album detail panel. Fixed a bug where clicking a peer CD from the same row produced a broken visual state.
- The homepage now pulls the latest DLM post automatically at build time from the RSS feed — no manual update needed.
- Added /colophon — a short technical essay on the stack, type system, colour system, semantic layer, infrastructure, and interface philosophy. Includes a wiring diagram showing how data sources connect to pages at build and runtime.
- Added /changelog page (this one), linked from the footer. Entries link to the pages they describe.
- Widened the home (/) link's click target to reach the left edge of the page.
16 June 2026
- Added "The advocate's trap" to the homepage and to the /ask knowledge base.
- Switched the colour system to OKLCH — a perceptually uniform colour space where equal lightness steps look equal. Hue rotates subtly from warmer (dark) to cooler (light). A hidden /colours reference page documents the full system.
- Fixed light mode accent colour — the previous value was almost invisible on the mint background.
- Added smooth page transitions: outgoing pages fade out, incoming pages slide up.
- Fixed dark mode on /ask — the panel and dock now use the site's dark green palette rather than a fixed cream.
- Added structured data (JSON-LD), theme-colour meta tags that match the palette in both modes, and a WebMentions inbox.
- Typography improvements: hanging punctuation, optical font sizing, tighter tracking on the large heading, and animated underlines on inline links.
- Fonts and hashed assets now get long-lived cache headers for faster repeat visits.
- Added humans.txt and a security contact at /.well-known/security.txt.
- /music page colours now track the site palette automatically rather than using their own hardcoded values.
- /ask gains smooth answer fade-ins, respects reduced-motion preferences, and the ring gradient now uses the OKLCH colour values.
6 June 2026
- /now page redesigned as a BIOS-style desktop with draggable windows. Seven panels covering what I'm working on, thinking about, where I am, and live feeds from Bluesky, Last.fm, Hardcover, and Trakt.
- Homepage: work history expanded with earlier career entries. Writing section moved to a full-width strip at the bottom.
5 June 2026
- Site rebuilt from scratch in Astro. New editorial design with the pistachio palette, dark and light modes, self-hosted fonts, and the MRFRISBY hero letterform that fills the full page width.
- Halftone photo treatment on the profile portrait — blended into the page background using mix-blend-mode.
- /now page draws live data at build time from Last.fm, Hardcover, and Trakt.