Thanks for visiting, and for your interest in my modus operandi. I’ve previously discussed my apps and setup, but I wanted to start a living post here where I talk more about how and why I make/work/live (or try to), how this website is set up, and what I’m currently working on.
If you’d like to subscribe via RSS, you can find the feed here. And if you’ve enjoyed anything you’ve read here, maybe you’d like to shout me a coffee. I appreciate it!
Who is this Dan fellow?
I fully understand if the front page’s pithy couple-sentence intro shits you. It’s certainly a trope of hipster 2020s web design, but alas it’s one I kind of enjoy.
In terms of a little more depth, I’m a writer and film director from Melbourne, Australia. I work as a Senior Lecturer in Media at RMIT University; in this role I’ve published two books and several academic journal articles on media genres and technologies, and creative practice. My current interest is in the cultural impact of machine learning technologies and the platforms and companies that deploy them.
I’m also working on a long-form cross-media science-fiction story.
The best way to contact me is via email: dan [at] clockworkpenguin [dot] net
Website & Domain
I’ve had a website of some kind since I first encountered the internet in 1997. From GeoCities to Blog-City, Blogger, self-hosting through to this WordPress site, I’ve had all sorts of sites for personal use, attempts at professional portfolios, and other such fun.
This site initially began as “Binnsy’s Hovel” in 2003 on Blog-City, then Blogger when Blog-City closed down. The site morphed into a semi-professional blog when I shifted to WordPress in 2014, and is now primarily a place for less formal writing and the testing out of ideas. I think this current iteration is a comfortable balance of the much-more-than-two wolves inside me.
The Clockwork Penguin moniker was adopted early in 2024. It evolved from the name of my film production company Deluded Penguin Productions. The name Deluded Penguin was inspired by this scene from Werner Herzog’s film Encounters at the End of the World. Rather than the harsh truth, though, I liked to imagine the (certainly completely insane) penguin wandering off on some grand adventure.
The Clockwork Penguin felt more appropriate to encompass myself and work that’s a little closer to home, particularly my writing. I have written short stories, longer fiction, non-fiction essays and, obviously, many blog posts, over the years, and this name feels like a good bucket to put all of that in, without potential allusions or misinterpretations around mental health. Future film work will probably still be produced under the Deluded Penguin name.
In January 2024, clockwork-penguin [dot] com was registered, and all content from danielbinns [dot] net migrated to the new domain. This was all hosted by WordPress. In March 2024, I made the shift to clockworkpenguin [dot] net, and migrated all content to a self-hosted WordPress site.
Typesetting & Design
For now, I’m using the default typeface for this WordPress theme. The typeface is Albert Sans, and was designed by Andreas Rasmussen in 2022.
The WordPress theme is called Jaida, and was designed by the team at Automattic in 2023. To date, I’ve only made a couple of small layout tweaks.
Scripting & Coding
I’m an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to coding, which basically means I know sweet FA. I can muck about with rudimentary Markdown and HTML, and I’ve bodged together a couple of tiny programs in Python to help with distributing grades in assessments, mostly (converting marks out of 100 to 40% of a total grade, for instance). All this to say, the scripting and code behind this website is mostly whatever shipped with the theme.
I love the ethos behind the tiny internets movement, though, as well as open source, self-hosting and the indie web (remember blogrolls? They’re still a thing!). Further down the road, I’d love to work this site into adhering to some of those principles and protocols, if I’m able.
What is a colophon?
I’ve named this page a ‘colophon’, which is a term for the imprint of a publisher. You’ll typically find the colophon a couple of pages into a book, on the left page or verso, and it’ll list information like the publisher’s contact information, edition or imprint number, typesetting details, and the date and place of publication.
Quite a few people I follow keep colophons on their websites as a way of, as Nicolas Solerieu says, working “with the garage door open.” Check out the colophons of Robin Sloan, Matthew Smith, and Nicolas Solerieu.
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