I've mentioned before that I've had to manage a long-distance move and unemployment at the same time, and I've been lucky to be able to prioritize the move and let the job hunt be a backburner activity. Lately I'm trying to catch up on the latter, and that means I need to bring my website up to snuff as a portfolio.

## Visual updates

I've still got a colorful, starry background to the website, but I've turned off the twinkling animation and implemented it with calculated coordinates instead of a 3D transform. This still looks great, and actually handles subtle amounts of scrolling more smoothly. It also fixes the performance issues while idling, which were especially a problem on mobile, but were still pretty annoying on desktop. I didn't like that my own website would kick on my laptop fan, for a pure CSS animation that "should" have been efficient! I could probably make it even more efficient with stacked transparent textures, I'm just kind of stubborn about keeping a wide variety of star depths.

The top nav is now semi-transparent and smaller, and I've changed the way that links show up. Between this and shrinking a margin in the main article, there's now more room for the content that matters, while also looking more modern.

I've improved the way that the GLU helpers at the top of pages work. The old look was pretty bad, and now it has a proper terminal feel, takes up less space, and uses the tab strip to add a close button. The text is still automatically copied to your clipboard, but I don't currently have visual feedback for that, making it more of an easter egg - maybe I'll figure out a way to indicate that without introducing visual clutter. I have an idea that I'll need to experiment with.

I've also moved the webring interface to just the homepage, as it would be confusing with the blog entry next/previous interface I plan to add soon. This also gives me the chance to better explain what a webring even is, which is pretty necessary in 2026. It takes a specific type of nerd to hear that word and say "ah yes, I already know what a webring is and remember how those work. Say no more, lass."

## Content updates

The homepage is significantly edited to highlight portfolio work and my blog entries. I'm not fully satisfied with this, but it's a clear step in the right direction. The page structure is very much to the point, and as much as I'm proud of my non-software creative work, I do need to emphasize the software stuff pretty heavily right now.

The "top 3 blog posts" feature on the new homepage is really cool, but required significant plumbing changes to the static site generator code. Those same changes will also allow me to add next post/previous post buttons to blog entries, which are really high on my to-do list.

It's easier to list the stuff that isn't done yet. I need to reconsider the links in the top nav, I need to revise several non-home pages, and I need to polish up the descriptions of projects I've worked on. What's more brutal is something I realized while looking on job search sites:

 * Most of my professional experience from the last two years isn't transferable.
 * I could pick up almost any new or dormant skill, but not necessarily look good in an interview _today_ without some practice work.
 * My project list is almost exclusively personal research projects, AKA. stuff that hasn't caught on and proven worthwhile to a wider audience yet.
 * My projects would be more interesting with logos. I have the SVG skills, but haven't invested the time.

So, the most useful hobby work I can do is to contribute to other people's projects which I find interesting or personally useful. I have a few specific ideas in mind, but time will tell which will pan out. And some polish is warranted for the stuff I'm making from scratch.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the future right now. I have time in my life, and good things to spend it on. My health is recovering pretty dramatically. I expect 2026 to be a year with significant challenges for me, but real opportunity to tackle those challenges and excel. It's a very welcome change of pace, I can tell ya that!