Journal

Welcome to my Journal

I write articles from time to time. Most cover aspects of design or web-development, but I occasionally tinker with hardware or review things I like. I also create guides, detailing the things I'm learning and the mistakes I'm making along the way.

Latest Articles02

Arcade Cabinet - Part One

Monday, 30 October 2023

tldr: I bought an arcade cabinet. Specifically a 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park Deluxe Theatre cabinet. Blame eBay. Not…

Slaughter-House-Five

Sunday, 30 July 2023

I have a rough list of books I've been meaning to eventually read, mostly classics and famous literature. It's not in any…

New Software Skills

Saturday, 18 March 2023

Working on any project, you occasionally encounter the need to learn a new skill. This happens quite often in web development…

The End of Mr. Y

Friday, 02 December 2022

Scarlett Thomas is awesome, and not just because we share a surname. I've been aware of her writing as far back as 2001, when her…

Ancillary Justice

Monday, 29 August 2022

The last few months has seen me revisiting several of my favourite sci-fi series. I fondly remember reading Ann Leckie's 'Imperial…

Outlining a Novel

Tuesday, 22 February 2022

I started writing a novel over two years ago. Initially I kept quiet about progress but it wasn't long before I announced my…

A New PC Build

Saturday, 22 January 2022

The first PC I ever built was completed in late 2012. I'd spent months, saving up, planning, and researching which parts to get…

Early Riser

Friday, 27 August 2021

I've been a big fan of Jasper Fforde for many years now, particularly his Thursday Next series, so I was excited to sit down and…

Parallax City

Saturday, 13 February 2021

It's about time we revisit our vectorised vintage travel poster. In the last article, we discussed vector graphics and how they…

Cyberpunk 2077

Wednesday, 06 January 2021

This is the first game review I've written for the site. It hadn't occurred to me to write reviews for anything other than the…

Home Server - Part Two

Saturday, 29 August 2020

Several months have passed since I last wrote about the home server. It's been running smoothly for a while now but that hasn't…

Writing a novel

Wednesday, 29 July 2020

Have you ever spontaneously decided to write a novel? I've been an avid reader all my life, but had never once considered writing…

Player of Games

Monday, 29 June 2020

Okay, so the last science-fiction novel I reviewed here, Snow Crash, was written in 1992 and I was blown away by how relevant it…

Snow Crash

Friday, 22 May 2020

I often ask people for book recommendations. I end up reading all sorts of things I wouldn't have otherwise discovered, but every…

Vector Travel Poster

Sunday, 26 April 2020

There's a list of topics I wanted to cover in this journal and working with vector graphics is an interesting one. So today we'll…

Home Server - Part One

Saturday, 28 March 2020

I've always liked the idea of having a home server. Conventional wisdom says not to bother, but a lot of the reasons for hosting…

Shoe Dog

Wednesday, 26 February 2020

When I was initially planning this website, I looked at a lot of other sites for ideas and inspiration. Several of my favourites…

Jurassic Park

Monday, 03 February 2020

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park is one of my all-time favourite films. I'm actually a fan of the sequels too (despite falling far…

My Front-end Development Setup

Sunday, 02 February 2020

I'm a designer and self-taught web developer, working professionally in the field since June, 2014. I'm going to write about the…

Bash Profile

Tuesday, 21 January 2020

Okay, currently my bash_profile is in serious need of a refresh. This thing has been following me around for years, from job to…