Software engineer in Ann Arbor, MI — backend architecture, DevSecOps, and security compliance for DoD and healthcare projects. Zola 2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00 https://timsiggins.com/atom.xml 2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00 2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://timsiggins.com/projects/basalt/ <p>The Zola theme behind this site and behind <a rel="external" href="https://auxdev.net">auxdev.net</a>. Editorial or monospace-accented depending on the persona, keyboard-friendly, light and dark, small enough to serve from a potato. No framework. With JavaScript off, everything still works except the command palette and the comment embeds.</p> <p>Live demo at <a rel="external" href="https://ttsigg.codeberg.page/basalt/">ttsigg.codeberg.page/basalt</a> — screenshots, asciinema, KaTeX, and the comment embeds all run there.</p> <div class="card"> <h3><a href="https://codeberg.org/ttsigg/basalt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">basalt</a></h3> <div class="mono card-meta"> </div> </div> <h2 id="what-you-get"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#what-you-get" aria-label="Permalink to what-you-get"></a> What you get</h2> <ul> <li><strong>btop-inspired homepage panes</strong> with a live uptime clock and a <code>/now</code> page driven by a single <code>data/now.json</code>.</li> <li><strong>Command palette</strong> on <code>/</code>, backed by Zola's built-in search index. ~3 KB, lazy-loaded on first keypress. <kbd>Ctrl+K</kbd> works.</li> <li><strong>Light and dark</strong> with no flash of wrong theme. Press <kbd>t</kbd> to toggle.</li> <li><strong>Eleven shortcodes</strong> with full no-JS fallbacks: alert, collapsible, em, toc, image (float + lightbox), carousel, asciinema, katex, mermaid, project, pullquote, epigraph.</li> <li><strong>Asciinema, KaTeX, and comment embeds</strong> lazy-load only on pages that use them.</li> <li><strong>Mastodon and Bluesky comments</strong>, opt-in per post.</li> <li><strong>Responsive images</strong> via Zola's <code>resize_image()</code> with WebP <code>srcset</code>.</li> <li><strong>MPA View Transitions</strong> in browsers that support them, gated on <code>prefers-reduced-motion</code>.</li> <li><strong>Under 40 KB per page</strong> on almost every route, fonts included.</li> </ul> <h2 id="two-personas-one-engine"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#two-personas-one-engine" aria-label="Permalink to two-personas-one-engine"></a> Two personas, one engine</h2> <p>The thing that took six rewrites is the persona system. Both consumer sites import basalt's SCSS aggregator once, then layer their own token table:</p> <table><thead><tr><th>Token</th><th>auxdev</th><th>timsiggins.com (this site)</th></tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td><code>--font-text</code></td><td>Inter</td><td>Public Sans</td></tr> <tr><td><code>--font-display</code></td><td>Space Grotesk</td><td>Newsreader</td></tr> <tr><td><code>--ornament</code></td><td><code>▍ ▍ ▍</code></td><td><code>⁂</code></td></tr> <tr><td><code>--anchor-glyph</code></td><td><code>❯</code></td><td><code>§</code></td></tr> <tr><td>Accent</td><td>terminal green</td><td>editorial indigo</td></tr> <tr><td>Pullquote chrome</td><td>mono italic, centered</td><td>serif italic, large</td></tr> </tbody></table> <p>Same templates, same bundle, two identities. Adding a third consumer site is a <code>config.toml</code> away.</p> <h2 id="tech"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#tech" aria-label="Permalink to tech"></a> Tech</h2> <ul> <li><strong>Zola 0.22.1</strong> for the static generator and built-in Sass.</li> <li><strong>Tera</strong> for templates, because Zola ships Tera.</li> <li><strong>Sass</strong> with CSS custom properties for theming.</li> <li><strong>Vite + Rollup</strong> for the JS bundle. Output ships as a committed artifact so consumer sites do not need npm.</li> <li><strong>Playwright</strong> for the cross-site visual-consistency suite.</li> </ul> <h2 id="using-it"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#using-it" aria-label="Permalink to using-it"></a> Using it</h2> <p>Clone the repo, drop content into <code>content/</code>, point <code>config.toml</code> at yourself, run <code>just setup</code> then <code>just serve</code>. Production builds go to <code>public/</code> via <code>just build</code>. File a <a rel="external" href="https://codeberg.org/ttsigg/basalt/issues">Codeberg issue</a> if you hit something weird.</p> 2026-03-25T00:00:00+00:00 2026-03-25T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://timsiggins.com/blog/site-restored/ <p>This site was down for a while. I let the domain lapse, the old Jekyll build was technically fine but very out of date, and I didn't care enough to fix it. That changed last week, so I started rewriting the whole thing in Zola.</p> <p>First I wrote the theme, <a rel="external" href="https://codeberg.org/ttsigg/basalt">basalt</a>. That was also my chance to try Claude Design (it didn't get close to a final look, but it got me started). I tried to keep the theme customizable, since my old Hydejack setup wasn't, and I didn't have a lot of luck pushing it where I wanted it to go.</p> <p>The site is now split into two halves. The <a href="/work/">work</a> side has the resume, projects, and the technical writing I would link from a job application. The <a href="/about/">personal</a> side is where I write about woodworking, biking, birding, self-hosting, and whatever else has my attention on a given weekend.</p> <p>I don't know how often I'll post. Not trying to build an audience or a brand, just want a place to write things down that isn't a social media platform. If something here is useful, great.</p> <p>If you're reading this, the DNS propagated and the deploy worked. Good enough for now.</p> 2018-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 2018-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://timsiggins.com/projects/vidatalk/ <p>I led the team that built the VidaTalk Android app at Eloquence Communications from 2017 to 2018. It's a touchscreen communication tool for patients who can't speak — usually because they're mechanically ventilated in an ICU, or recovering from a procedure that left them temporarily non-verbal. Patients tap through menus to tell clinicians and family what they need. The UI ships in 40+ languages, with live remote interpreter call-back where the hospital has the integration set up.</p> <p>I sold my shares and moved on from Eloquence in 2018. The app is still deployed, helping people communicate during some of the worst moments of their lives.</p> <p>It also showed up on <em>The Pitt</em>, Season 2, Episode 8, used exactly the way we designed it. That was a surprise. I hadn't kept up with the company much, and a friend texted me a photo from their TV. The show's medical advisors picked it as the realistic choice for an ICU communication device. Best review I'm going to get.</p> <h2 id="what-it-does"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#what-it-does" aria-label="Permalink to what-it-does"></a> What it does</h2> <ul> <li>Touch menu of common patient needs (pain, water, comfort, family).</li> <li>Free-text input via on-screen keyboard for anything not in the menu.</li> <li>Direct-to-nurse messaging with priority routing for urgent items.</li> <li>Multilingual UI in 40+ languages, switchable on demand.</li> <li>Live remote interpreter call-back when the hospital has the integration configured.</li> </ul> <h2 id="my-role"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#my-role" aria-label="Permalink to my-role"></a> My role</h2> <p>Project Manager and lead developer for the Android side. Coordinated with the dev team (two developers, one tester), worked directly with sales on customer commitments, and shipped on the customer-set launch date.</p> <p>The interesting part was the offline-first design. ICU networks aren't always reliable, and the device has to keep working when wifi drops. The app caches every menu, language pack, and message template locally. Sync happens when network returns. The patient never sees the network state.</p> 2017-08-05T00:00:00+00:00 2017-08-05T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://timsiggins.com/projects/eloquence/ <p>The Eloquence Advanced Communication Solution (ACS) was a re-think of the hospital nurse-call system. Patients press a button on the bedside device and the platform tracks the request through to fulfillment, with status updates back to the patient ("your call has been sent," "help is on the way") that the original beep-and-light systems did not provide.</p> <p>Requests routed by need: pain calls went to the assigned nurse, hospitality calls were batched to a tech. Patients could ask for specific items directly ("water," "blanket," "pain") instead of paging the whole floor. The system also integrated with bedside language interpretation for non-English-speaking patients, which on its own justified the device for several of our hospital customers.</p> <p>I worked on Eloquence from 2013 to 2018, first as Lead Developer, then as Project Manager from 2016. I built or co-built most of the system: the Java backend services for call routing, escalation, and reporting; the Android tablet and phone apps; the bedside hardware integration; and a chunk of the JavaFX desktop admin tools. The office was on the top floor of an old foundry building in Ann Arbor with original ironworking machinery still bolted to one wall.</p> <h2 id="the-technical-work-i-m-most-proud-of"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#the-technical-work-i-m-most-proud-of" aria-label="Permalink to the-technical-work-i-m-most-proud-of"></a> The technical work I'm most proud of</h2> <p><strong>The call-routing engine.</strong> Patient requests flow through a rule chain (bed assignment, nurse availability, request priority, escalation timer) and arrive at the correct device within seconds. The protocol is UDP, custom-framed, with our own packet headers. We built on UDP because the hospital networks we deployed onto weren't always TCP-friendly, and urgent calls needed deterministic latency. The protocol was validated by FDA and UL as sufficient for a certified nurse-call system.</p> <p><strong>An N+1 nested-subquery fix in MySQL.</strong> Reporting was running a separate query per row. Refactored the schema and rewrote the queries; latency dropped about 90%.</p> <p><strong>The AWS migration.</strong> When I joined, the platform was on-prem only. By 2017 we had a parallel AWS backend for demos and non-clinical workflows. Clinical nurse-call flow stayed on-prem because of regulatory constraints we couldn't cleanly resolve in the cloud at the time.</p> <p><strong>FDA Class 2 certification.</strong> Design controls, traceable requirements, documented patch and post-market reporting. New to me when I started, second nature by the time I left. I worked with the FDA directly on the certification pipeline. The product was a durable medical device with a defined patch cadence, which is a very different software-delivery rhythm from "merge on green."</p> <p><strong>UL bedside-hardware testing.</strong> Two trips to Chicago to coordinate with Underwriters Laboratories on the nurse-call tablet certification. The hardware had to survive worst-case conditions: fall, fluid spill, EMI, redundant failover, plus the standard 5-pound steel ball dropped from 8 feet onto the center of the screen. I learned more about durable- electronics design in two weeks of UL testing than in the previous five years of writing Java.</p> <h2 id="the-honest-framing"> <a class="post-anchor" href="#the-honest-framing" aria-label="Permalink to the-honest-framing"></a> The honest framing</h2> <p>ACS never reached broad deployment. The largest installation was a single-floor pilot: 60 beds, 2 nurse stations, 10-15 active nurses. The studies and customer satisfaction were strong. The hospital systems were reluctant to swap out their existing nurse-call infrastructure, and the sales cycle for a durable medical device into a hospital is, on a good day, two years.</p> <p>The company eventually pivoted toward <a href="/projects/vidatalk/">VidaTalk</a>, an Android-app-only product for nonverbal patients with a shorter sales cycle and a simpler regulatory path. That ended up being the commercial success.</p> <p>I'm still in touch with most of the Eloquence team. We go climbing or biking. We built something we were proud of.</p>