About

I’m Tyler. My site is a digital garden— a place for experiments and things I’m learning about. Right now that means semantic HTML, accessibility, and typesetting. I’m thinking a lot about the philosophy of the small web and how to disconnect and connect in the right ways. I love making things and sharing them with others—this site has been a great creative outlet for me. Send me something you made on mastodon!

Colophon #

This is a static site built in public on Codeberg. The text uses Libre Baskerville and Fira Code. The layout was inspired by Ben Crowder. The color palette comes from artwork by Helvetica Blanc.

Licensing #

All of my work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, which means you must credit me when you use it (BY), may not use it for commercial purposes (NC), and must distribute modified works under the same license (SA).

Uses #

Services #

• Social — Mastodon is a great place to explore the small web. It has a unique culture and has taught me a lot about accessibility and art.
• RSS — Artemis is a fun and simple way to follow your favorite websites.
• Version control — Codeberg is what GitHub should have been. It’s built on the commons and run by a non-profit.
• Email — It sucks, but Proton Mail makes it better. It sells a service instead of your data and it supports encryption both in transit and at rest.
• Search — Kagi provides magic results to anonymous queries. It uses the open standard privacy pass through an extension to allow you to use the paid service without signing in.
• Search (again) — Wikipedia is actually a great search engine. Think how often you search Google and click the first link: Wikipedia. Skip the middle man and make it your default search engine.

Laptop #

• Operating system — Installing Fedora Workstation is an awesome way to start taking back your privacy and control over your computer. It’s built on GNOME, an exceedingly user friendly interface which has plenty in it for power users.
• Editor — It’s not for everyone but Neovim feels like nothing else to me. It has a steep learning curve in which one learns a micro-language of semantic keystrokes designed to make editing text a quick and rich experience.
• Terminal — Ghostty has a lot of momentum behind its development and is taking inconsistently implemented features from other emulators and building them in as proper standards. It’s built on the cross-platform libghostty, and supports native UIs on macOS and Linux.
• Browser — Firefox with the right settings can’t be beat. I’ve switched to other browsers many times, but I always switch back. Brave’s crypto stuff was just too much. LibreWolf received security updates too infrequently. Zen Browser dropped frames on my hardware. Firefox is what you make it; an excellent foundation for user choice.

Phone #

• Device — I need my phone to be cheap, supported for many years, and allow alternative operating systems. The Google Pixel 6a struck a balance of these needs that no other phone at the time did. When my phone is no longer supported I’ll likely buy a used Pixel 10a and aim to use it for its six remaining years, although I dearly hope (cope?) that a more ethical company is producing something better by that time.
• Operating system — GrapheneOS is Android de-Googled. Android phones are usually terrible when it comes to privacy; Google is thoroughly ingrained into the system and tracks users in every app. GrapheneOS puts the power in the user’s hands to choose their place on the spectrum between convenience and privacy.
• Messaging — I use Signal for almost all of my communication these days. It’s encrypted like nothing else is, and easy to set up and use. Convincing friends and family to join took time but we eventually got there.
• Podcasts — They’re one of the few open mediums that people engage with regularly. AntennaPod is straightforward, clean, and respects its users, which is all I want from a podcast app.