Writing
All writing
Technical field notes on the systems, constraints, and failure modes behind shipped interfaces.
Latest
I Think It Started With an eMachines
An old eMachines, cracked Halo, and a VPN called Hamachi. I think I just figured out why I keep giving my projects Japanese names.
Archive
The Gacha Pull Is Not the Product. The Progression Loop Is. Zenless Zone Zero's loudest transaction lasts a few seconds. The more interesting design is everything that makes a pull feel desirable, legible, and unfinished. What Actually Happens When You Follow a Mastodon Account on Another Server The Fediverse clicked for me when I stopped thinking about instances and followed one remote account through WebFinger, ActivityPub, and two very opinionated servers. I Replaced Five AI Automations With One Weekly Job A five-stage agent workflow gave me more logs, more maintenance, and no better decision. The one-job replacement is the version I still use. What Frutiger Aero Understood About Making Interfaces Feel Alive I don't want leather calendars back. I want interfaces that use depth, motion, and material to explain what they are doing and still leave room for personality. Why AI Wearables Fail When They Add a Device but Remove No Behavior A new AI device has to earn another pocket, another charger, and another place in my attention. Looking interesting is the easy part. I Turned a Retired Laptop Into a Home Server. DNS Was the Real Project. Ubuntu and CasaOS made the old laptop useful again. Pi-hole taught me that installing a home server is easy. Becoming responsible for the network is the actual hobby. I Had 30 Minutes to Design a Homepage. Somehow, It Won. My first design competition gave me half an hour, a wireframe, and no time to hide behind process. The rough edges are exactly what made it useful.