The idea of making my own website has been in the back of my mind for a long time now. And while I can’t really pin down the exact moment of my interest, as far back as I can remember in my academic and professional careers University level and above, specifically , I’ve found myself looking up other students, employees, and mentors to see exactly what their web presence is.
Honestly, what I found then and continue to find now is a wonderful mixed bag on spectrums of talent and taste. On one end, I discovered the rarely up-kept social media account, and on the other I can point to a showcase of frequent blogging updates that highlight the skills of a true web-development wizard. To maintain reality and come in just under modest, I would like to believe that I sit somewhere between these two peaks, not having any formal training in web-development or design, but excelling at programming enough to learn website basics from a hodgepodge of outdated sources.
When lockdown hit the UK back in early 2020, I resolved to, at some point in the near future, finally take the plunge. What it says about me that I’m finally getting around to it just as the lockdown’s letting up a year later is for you to decide. Anyway, I didn’t procrastinate through the whole year-long period. I did spend the occasional few hours or a day here and there looking at the different tools and styles out there. In order to pick what would be best for me to use, I quickly realized that outlining the goal of this website and identifying its primary audience would be essential, which coincidentally are the first two questions the vast majority of my feedback givers have asked.
Luckily, the answer to the former informs the latter. The purpose of my website is to provide a creative outlet for my different interests. I’ve tried to separate them out into the broad categories at the top of the page, but even then I expect to cross-pollinate over time. So, you might see related posts spread across two or more topics. For instance, I think one of my first projects will involve getting a handle on my health or just being healthier in general. If I read a few books, you may see them turn up under the “Lit Review” category, or if I decide to record and analyse my results, you may find that under “Technical Writing”.
One lesson I’ve learned over lockdown and isolation is that while I may have various interests, not every member of my household likes to hear my droning on about them. I’m blessed with the world’s most resilient Scottish wife, whose patience and kindness I’ve yet to find the limits of. So there is a cathartic, palette-cleansing element to this that I acknowledge, which I hope will serve the dual purpose of providing a consistent area for other, non-local family and friends to check in on me.
Outside of being a mental dumping ground, I’d also like the website to serve the purpose of a sustainable portfolio, one which mimics the spirit often seen among academics and other STEM-focused colleagues in my profession. Moreover, ’d like to take it one step further and work on something that can evolve and change with my interests. In other words I wanted something that’s not just “finished projects, just for show”. I believe the British saying would be “warts and all." The site won’t every be spotless or pristine in its content and structure, rather a fuller picture me undergoing change and development.
I’m aware that there are other platforms out there that would work, are easier to manage, and enjoy more popularity like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, and TowardsDataScience, but I’m not fond of their restrictive natures. And I’m not sure if being a content provider or contributor for those sites makes much sense for a tinkerer who is interested in something more life-long. In short I think the ultimate decision I’ve made – to create something with a high degree of flexibility and expressiveness – suits my needs well, and along the way I’ll also get the added benefit of picking-up some new skills. It only recently dawned on me that I should be taking pictures horizontally with my phone if I want to include them in future posts.
As for “Who the general audience” is, I intend this website to reach my family, friends, and colleagues – basically anyone I know that might share some of the common interests that I do and wants to peek in occasionally. Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if I picked up a few kind strangers along the way who happen to stumble upon these posts. When I tried a similar venture several years ago during my first master’s degree, I found that my audience somehow reached a small group of Canadians, or so the Wordpress dashboard claimed.
For those people or for my family and friends who might be interested, I’ll also briefly describe the general theme behind this site’s design. First, I’m quite fond of the work by Edward Tufte. I’m often inspired by his approach to scientific writing, which emphasizes clarity and minimalism and which I’ve tried to immitate here. This site makes liberal use of his cascading style sheets but also draws structurally on the work of Noam Ross, who I reached out to personally and obtained permission to use his site as a template, adjusting it for my needs. See the footer for his github and further attribution.
The heavy-lifting of this site is built using Hugo, which is simple and easy to use and serves as a compiler that translates a basic directory structure with markdown files into html. Finally, for ease of use I’ve decided to host on Netlify, which conveniently operates continuous development that is tightly integrated with GitHub. Those are the high-points, which I’ve decided to keep brief for now, but you can expect to find a more low-level description with more details in a later post. I’ll be sure to update this page to point you to wherever that may land, as it could be a good candidate for the cross-pollination I mentioned earlier.