The site is a desk; the desk is a story. I spend most days at it, reading slowly and writing more slowly. The drawers below contain my notes — pulled out only when somebody asks.

Yongzoon is the name on the brass plate. It has two o's, and they are both correct.

• tideglass — a small viewer for shipping forecasts. Mostly nautical.
• brassgauge — a CLI for reading and writing log files like a 1920s engineer.
• letterbox — a static site generator for plaintext letters.
• compass-rose — a navigation library nobody asked for.

I am studying — at the pace of one paragraph per evening — the etiquette of historical user interfaces. The leather-padded buttons of the IBM Selectric. The brass dials of the marine sextant. The clear small click of a well-made door latch.

Findings are filed under haptics, before haptics.

"The flat-design era ended on a Tuesday in spring. The sky did not fall. The buttons returned, gently raised, with their soft drop-shadows. We were grateful."

"A well-designed interface is, in the end, a piece of furniture. You will use it for years; it will outlast the project."

"The water in the panel is decorative. The desk is not."