Add some additional TOC styling, remove black border on site, and add gc scripts to some pages.

Author: devalog

_posts/2025-02-17-montecristo.md

@@ -22,5 +22,6 @@ The plots that the Count engineers are ingenious and very fun to read about. Evi
 Monte Cristo plays god, but he isn’t god. His morality is hard and brutal and not always actually moral. This moral ambiguity and the Count’s subtle back and forth between a righteous god and a megalomaniac makes the book incredibly gripping.
 
 
-
+<script data-goatcounter="https://dlog.goatcounter.com/count"
+        async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>
 

_posts/2025-03-12-aiproofreader.md

@@ -40,3 +40,6 @@ Similarly to the Monte Cristo piece, Claude's suggestions helped me clarify and
 When I was in high school, I'd print out drafts of English class essays and give it to my best friend to proofread. She'd return it to me later that day with it all marked up and a note on the back, and I'd do the same for her essays. Using Claude to edit my work felt like a surprisingly similar experience, except I got the edits back in a few seconds rather than a few hours. Claude wasn't as thorough, harsh, or personal as my friend, but for this kind of personal writing that isn't for a job (or a grade!) that works just fine for me. 
 
 For this kind of personal writing, I don't think I'll ever use AI to write a first draft. That takes the fun out of writing. Also, for me writing is a way to get my thoughts in order and work out my opinion. Having Claude write a first draft would take away this processing stage, and I know my writing and my thoughts would suffer without it. But it's great at clarifying my thoughts and firming up my points. 
+
+<script data-goatcounter="https://dlog.goatcounter.com/count"
+        async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>

_posts/2025-05-23-primer.md

@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ My experience is working for tech companies making software products. But techni
 
 Technical writers have a big range of technical abilities. Some are literally ex-engineers. Others have very little experience writing code, but write for nontechnical users so that works. 
 
+### Resources
+
 Here are some general resources on the technical writing field:
 * [Write the Docs community](https://www.writethedocs.org/). The site has some good resources on the field (including salary information and a hiring guide). The Slack group is super prolific and contains a ton of channels on topics like AI, jobs, resume review, etc. 
 * [I'd Rather Be Writing](https://idratherbewriting.com/) blog, written by technical writer Tom Johnson. Pretty much every technical writer I've ever met knows about this blog. There’s lots of information on the field of technical writing. There's also a free API documentation course. While I haven’t taken this course myself, I’ve heard it can be good for producing writing samples or just learning about API docs (a popular speciality within technical writing).I read this blog religiously when I was a technical writer intern almost a decade ago. I still check in now and then to keep up with trends. 
@@ -47,18 +49,18 @@ After you have a rough understanding of the kinds of jobs you’re looking for b
 
 If you’re just getting into the field, you might not have a relevant writing sample. When I was going through the application process for Google back in 2017, I literally submitted an academic paper I wrote as one of my writing samples, though I had a couple more relevant samples from my tech writing internship the prior summer. When I left Google in December 2024, I once again found myself in need of writing samples. The tutorials I wrote for my internship in 2017 were too old (in my own opinion). Plus, I’d grown so much as a writer since then. However, almost all of my work at Google was for internal engineers and thus wasn’t shareable. 
 
+### My own writing samples
 
 After a bit of trial and error (error = getting a lot of rejections!), I wrote a few samples that I’ve had pretty good success with. (Success to me is getting to the initial interview for a job that requires writing samples upfront.) Here they are:
-* [Using an LLM to revamp my site](2025-02-09-jekyll.md)
-* [Managing library books on the Kobo Libra H2O](2025-01-10-librarykobo.md)
+* [Using an LLM to revamp my site](/2025/02/09/jekyll.html)
+* [Managing library books on the Kobo Libra H2O](/2025/01/10/librarykobo.html)
 
 
 These aren’t really traditional “technical documentation” and I didn’t write them for a company, but they show a couple of critical things:
 
 * **The Kobo library books sample** shows that I can write a tutorial about something (sort of) technical. I wrote about managing library books on my e-reader because I constantly struggle with its slow interface and various quirks. When people ask me where to start with writing samples, I recommend writing about some kind of technical problem they faced, their process, and ultimate solution.
 * **The LLM sample** shows that I can effectively teach myself a new technology, implement something real with it, and then write about it. Sometimes, people I talk to about technical writing can’t think of a technology or product they know well enough to write a tutorial on. Or, maybe the things they can think of are already thoroughly documented. In that case, I advise people to teach themselves how to do something technical and then write about it. I personally used Claude to teach myself something because I wanted to demonstrate technical ability AND the ability to use AI (an important, of-the-moment skill for technical writers) as a tool.
 
-
 Even better, I published these samples on this site, showing my experience with GitHub, web development, and version control.
 
 ## Looking for jobs
@@ -71,14 +73,13 @@ To actually find jobs:
 
 I’m not a huge LinkedIn user, but [Sarah Goose](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahgoose/) and [Brenna Lasky](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennalasky/) are two people I follow on LinkedIn. They have direct experience with tech recruiting, and provide good insight on the job market, who is hiring, and how to frame your experience in interviews. Like me, their backgrounds are in Big Tech.
 
-
 ## Takeaways
 
-
 * **Technical writing is broader than you might think.** You don't need to be an ex-engineer writing API docs. Many careers that involve some amount of writing and working with technology can translate well to technical writing, which brings me to the second takeaway...
 * **Your experience is more relevant than you realize.** Whether you're a teacher, marketer, or engineer, you likely have transferable skills. The key is learning to frame documentation you've written, teaching experience, or technical problem-solving as relevant technical writing experience.
 
 
-
+<script data-goatcounter="https://dlog.goatcounter.com/count"
+        async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>
 
 

_site/2020/06/08/elantris.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name"><em>Elantris</em> has a great plot, but a disappoi
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p><em>Elantris</em> is the first book I’ve read by Brandon Sanderson, an author I keep hearing about from a lot of different people.</p>
 

_site/2020/06/13/normalpeople.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name"><em>Normal People</em> is about shifting power dyn
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p><em>Normal People</em> is about the power dynamics that are present inside and outside of a romantic relationship and how they shift over time (over years and also over moments) because of the relationship itself, external factors, and individual factors like insecurity and mental health.</p>
 

_site/2020/09/26/americanwoman.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name"><em>American Woman</em> considers how radicalism c
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p><em>American Woman</em> is a fictionalization of the Patty Hearst kidnapping and aftermath – specifically, it focuses on the time between the SLA robbery of a sporting goods store in May 1974 and her arrest in April 1975.</p>
 

_site/2021/01/01/ereaders.html

@@ -53,6 +53,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name">I like e-readers now
             #tech
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p>I’ve never been a fan of e-readers. I’m put off by the prospect of paying for a book that only exists on a device, especially when the price of e-books approaches or exceeds the cost of physical books (especially the used copies I tend to buy). I also just love physical books – the weight and feel of them, the experience of reading, the look of books on my shelf.</p>
 

_site/2021/02/04/wharton.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name"><em>The House of Mirth</em> and <em>The Awakening<
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p>I read <em>The House of Mirth</em> and <em>The Awakening</em> almost back to back (one book in between – Susan Choi’s <em>Person of Interest</em>) unintentionally, but I was totally struck by how similar the two books are. <em>The Awakening</em> was published in 1899, while <em>The House of Mirth</em> was published just six years later in 1905. The protagonists, Lily Bart and Edna Pontellier, are also incredibly similar (and, interestingly, almost exactly the same age – Edna turns 28 during the course of The Awakening; Lily is 29 when <em>The House of Mirth</em> begins) – both are in rather precarious positions because of both their own actions and their own yearnings for something more than conventional social life, and both end their own lives because they are unable to find fulfillment through men and society and unwilling to conceive of a life outside of those constraints.</p>
 

_site/2021/04/08/mexicangothic.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name">I didn’t like <em>Mexican Gothic</em>, but a lot
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p>I didn’t like <em>Mexican Gothic</em>, but a lot of other people did. I was so excited about the premise: a gothic novel in 1950s Mexico! I thought, “maybe this will be sort of like a new twist on Jane Eyre.” Yeah, it wasn’t. I was disappointed.</p>
 

_site/2021/07/08/snakes.html

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ <h1 class="post-title p-name">Don’t sleep, there are tons of boring linguistic
             #books
         </a>
     </header>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  
   <div class="post-content e-content">
     <p>I recently finished <em>Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle</em>, an autobiographical account of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Everett">Daniel Everett</a>’s time as a Christian missionary to the Piraha (a small Amazon tribe), his analysis of the tribe’s unique language and linguistic structure, and his subsequent “deconversion.” There weren’t a TON of boring linguistic details – just a little too much academic theory for me. I thought I was going to read a travelogue/ethnography with a sprinkle of linguistic details. What I got was approximately half that, and half critical theory. But that’s okay.</p>