building, failing, learning, evolving
Serial Builder and tinkerer, always curious, always playing. I'm usually working on multiple software projects concurrently — I've got more ideas than time available to build them. AI has given us the gift of possibility. What seemed impossible to me a few years ago is now possible. It's also possible these ideas will end up half built, abandoned in my .
with me if you're interested in following my journey.
Hardware died. Along with my dreams and motivation.
An old Canon camera plugged into a USB port taking photos every 5 minutes. Some Perl scripts. FFmpeg animations. IoT-enabled botanical time-lapse SaaS platform if you ask LinkedIn.
✝CSS. Just CSS.
A Java API backend with a web frontend for tracking gym sessions. Made me never want to build a frontend again. v1 and v2 are lost to history. Presumed dead. Cause of death for all three: unknown, but CSS is the leading theory.
✝Over-engineered into oblivion. Nobody dragged. Nobody dropped.
A Java applet timetable manager with an animated drag and drop trophy cabinet. Built for schools. Released via Facebook where 95% of my friends and family had no idea (or motivation) to install the runtime needed for Java applets. The animations were spectacular. The users were not.
✝A Java terminal app. Zero animations. Zero polish. Coded in 30 minutes. Got 400% more use than v1.
✝CSS, and Javascript callbacks
A JavaScript Simon Says game with added thrills - the next Bejewelled. 20 years after high school, I finally understood what SOH CAH TOA was actually for (making triangles on an x,y palette). About 5% of my vision was built, I might see if Claude can build a full version of this.
✝Java applets. Also possibly the law.
Video poker and video blackjack in a Java applet. How hard can an online casino really be? Turns out, much harder than expected.
✝Because its better security. It wasn't better security.
A custom rule creation interface for iptables pushing firewall rules to a dedicated Linux box. Because everyone needs a noisy old Pentium humming in a cupboard at 3am.
✝Knowing where your money goes and doing something about it are entirely different problems.
A custom Java tool to classify bank transactions. The classification script worked, I just never took any notice of the output. The seed of every fintech startup ever built, apparently.
✝Great story idea, thought AI was the cheat code to write it (It wasn't)
A good project for learning about vector dbs and rag and also that AI sucks at writing anything creative.
✝Needed space on my Supabase free tier
A media sharing portal for AI generated songs and slideshow presentations delivered as gifts. Built an interface with emoji reactions that play during video playback. It was a nice interface and thoughtful gift idea, but ultimately I got bored of AI music.
✝Felt soulless and I kinda rage quit on this because getting consistent images was painful.
AI generated family stories with pictures. Thought of it 18 months before it was everywhere and immediately thought it was soulless.
✝Never shipped. Schrödinger's project.
A deck of cards via REST API. Endless options. Zero users. Still sitting in a repo somewhere, simultaneously alive and dead. Would have been useful. Nobody will ever know.
✝Only scaffolded. Parents still asking the same questions.
A WhatsApp and Telegram AI chatbot to answer questions instead of tired kids sports team managers. Got as far as scaffolding. The manager is still tired.
✝Might be still running somewhere.
An app to capture ideas from anywhere. Front end to create text files and upload to S3 buckets with presigned urls. I've used this pattern many times since.
✝C2PA arrived with slightly more resources.
Cryptographic proof of provenance and integrity for digital content. Multi-layered security. Client-side ECDSA signing. Platform-level attestation. Independently derived a standard that Adobe, Microsoft and Google were already building. Supabase, AWS S3 and a bunch of lambda functions has this site still running and costing me a few cents each month. Still looking for a way to resurrect this (https://app.proveitsme.io).
✝Personalized AI fitness coach
A personal health tracking, journaling and AI coaching platform built around a single annual physical challenge. Currently training for an amateur boxing match at 52.
API-first. MCP-first. Building the infrastructure layer.
Started as a QR code thought on a podcast walk. Grew into an API-first physical world intelligence platform. Stick a QR on anything. AI inventories it. Query it in plain English from any AI agent. The wife said OMG. The overnight rule was applied. The groodle approved. This one is different. Probably.
My new builder brand site
A build-in-public home base for a Kiwi developer in Melbourne who has too many ideas, probable ADHD, a groodle, and a graveyard that keeps growing. The irony of spending time on a site about unfinished projects is not lost on me.
running
Public blog feed from my coaching platform. Running on Astro with some Supabase connectivity, GitHub actions and probably some other cool vibe coded features I've forgotten I asked for.
Hardware died. Along with my dreams and motivation.
An old Canon camera plugged into a USB port taking photos every 5 minutes. Some Perl scripts. FFmpeg animations. IoT-enabled botanical time-lapse SaaS platform if you ask LinkedIn.
✝CSS. Just CSS.
A Java API backend with a web frontend for tracking gym sessions. Made me never want to build a frontend again. v1 and v2 are lost to history. Presumed dead. Cause of death for all three: unknown, but CSS is the leading theory.
✝Over-engineered into oblivion. Nobody dragged. Nobody dropped.
A Java applet timetable manager with an animated drag and drop trophy cabinet. Built for schools. Released via Facebook where 95% of my friends and family had no idea (or motivation) to install the runtime needed for Java applets. The animations were spectacular. The users were not.
✝A Java terminal app. Zero animations. Zero polish. Coded in 30 minutes. Got 400% more use than v1.
✝CSS, and Javascript callbacks
A JavaScript Simon Says game with added thrills - the next Bejewelled. 20 years after high school, I finally understood what SOH CAH TOA was actually for (making triangles on an x,y palette). About 5% of my vision was built, I might see if Claude can build a full version of this.
✝Java applets. Also possibly the law.
Video poker and video blackjack in a Java applet. How hard can an online casino really be? Turns out, much harder than expected.
✝Because its better security. It wasn't better security.
A custom rule creation interface for iptables pushing firewall rules to a dedicated Linux box. Because everyone needs a noisy old Pentium humming in a cupboard at 3am.
✝Knowing where your money goes and doing something about it are entirely different problems.
A custom Java tool to classify bank transactions. The classification script worked, I just never took any notice of the output. The seed of every fintech startup ever built, apparently.
✝Great story idea, thought AI was the cheat code to write it (It wasn't)
A good project for learning about vector dbs and rag and also that AI sucks at writing anything creative.
✝Needed space on my Supabase free tier
A media sharing portal for AI generated songs and slideshow presentations delivered as gifts. Built an interface with emoji reactions that play during video playback. It was a nice interface and thoughtful gift idea, but ultimately I got bored of AI music.
✝Felt soulless and I kinda rage quit on this because getting consistent images was painful.
AI generated family stories with pictures. Thought of it 18 months before it was everywhere and immediately thought it was soulless.
✝Never shipped. Schrödinger's project.
A deck of cards via REST API. Endless options. Zero users. Still sitting in a repo somewhere, simultaneously alive and dead. Would have been useful. Nobody will ever know.
✝Only scaffolded. Parents still asking the same questions.
A WhatsApp and Telegram AI chatbot to answer questions instead of tired kids sports team managers. Got as far as scaffolding. The manager is still tired.
✝Might be still running somewhere.
An app to capture ideas from anywhere. Front end to create text files and upload to S3 buckets with presigned urls. I've used this pattern many times since.
✝C2PA arrived with slightly more resources.
Cryptographic proof of provenance and integrity for digital content. Multi-layered security. Client-side ECDSA signing. Platform-level attestation. Independently derived a standard that Adobe, Microsoft and Google were already building. Supabase, AWS S3 and a bunch of lambda functions has this site still running and costing me a few cents each month. Still looking for a way to resurrect this (https://app.proveitsme.io).
✝Personalized AI fitness coach
A personal health tracking, journaling and AI coaching platform built around a single annual physical challenge. Currently training for an amateur boxing match at 52.
API-first. MCP-first. Building the infrastructure layer.
Started as a QR code thought on a podcast walk. Grew into an API-first physical world intelligence platform. Stick a QR on anything. AI inventories it. Query it in plain English from any AI agent. The wife said OMG. The overnight rule was applied. The groodle approved. This one is different. Probably.
My new builder brand site
A build-in-public home base for a Kiwi developer in Melbourne who has too many ideas, probable ADHD, a groodle, and a graveyard that keeps growing. The irony of spending time on a site about unfinished projects is not lost on me.
running
Public blog feed from my coaching platform. Running on Astro with some Supabase connectivity, GitHub actions and probably some other cool vibe coded features I've forgotten I asked for.
Hardware died. Along with my dreams and motivation.
An old Canon camera plugged into a USB port taking photos every 5 minutes. Some Perl scripts. FFmpeg animations. IoT-enabled botanical time-lapse SaaS platform if you ask LinkedIn.
✝CSS. Just CSS.
A Java API backend with a web frontend for tracking gym sessions. Made me never want to build a frontend again. v1 and v2 are lost to history. Presumed dead. Cause of death for all three: unknown, but CSS is the leading theory.
✝Over-engineered into oblivion. Nobody dragged. Nobody dropped.
A Java applet timetable manager with an animated drag and drop trophy cabinet. Built for schools. Released via Facebook where 95% of my friends and family had no idea (or motivation) to install the runtime needed for Java applets. The animations were spectacular. The users were not.
✝A Java terminal app. Zero animations. Zero polish. Coded in 30 minutes. Got 400% more use than v1.
✝CSS, and Javascript callbacks
A JavaScript Simon Says game with added thrills - the next Bejewelled. 20 years after high school, I finally understood what SOH CAH TOA was actually for (making triangles on an x,y palette). About 5% of my vision was built, I might see if Claude can build a full version of this.
✝Java applets. Also possibly the law.
Video poker and video blackjack in a Java applet. How hard can an online casino really be? Turns out, much harder than expected.
✝Because its better security. It wasn't better security.
A custom rule creation interface for iptables pushing firewall rules to a dedicated Linux box. Because everyone needs a noisy old Pentium humming in a cupboard at 3am.
✝Knowing where your money goes and doing something about it are entirely different problems.
A custom Java tool to classify bank transactions. The classification script worked, I just never took any notice of the output. The seed of every fintech startup ever built, apparently.
✝Great story idea, thought AI was the cheat code to write it (It wasn't)
A good project for learning about vector dbs and rag and also that AI sucks at writing anything creative.
✝Needed space on my Supabase free tier
A media sharing portal for AI generated songs and slideshow presentations delivered as gifts. Built an interface with emoji reactions that play during video playback. It was a nice interface and thoughtful gift idea, but ultimately I got bored of AI music.
✝Felt soulless and I kinda rage quit on this because getting consistent images was painful.
AI generated family stories with pictures. Thought of it 18 months before it was everywhere and immediately thought it was soulless.
✝Never shipped. Schrödinger's project.
A deck of cards via REST API. Endless options. Zero users. Still sitting in a repo somewhere, simultaneously alive and dead. Would have been useful. Nobody will ever know.
✝Only scaffolded. Parents still asking the same questions.
A WhatsApp and Telegram AI chatbot to answer questions instead of tired kids sports team managers. Got as far as scaffolding. The manager is still tired.
✝Might be still running somewhere.
An app to capture ideas from anywhere. Front end to create text files and upload to S3 buckets with presigned urls. I've used this pattern many times since.
✝C2PA arrived with slightly more resources.
Cryptographic proof of provenance and integrity for digital content. Multi-layered security. Client-side ECDSA signing. Platform-level attestation. Independently derived a standard that Adobe, Microsoft and Google were already building. Supabase, AWS S3 and a bunch of lambda functions has this site still running and costing me a few cents each month. Still looking for a way to resurrect this (https://app.proveitsme.io).
✝Personalized AI fitness coach
A personal health tracking, journaling and AI coaching platform built around a single annual physical challenge. Currently training for an amateur boxing match at 52.
API-first. MCP-first. Building the infrastructure layer.
Started as a QR code thought on a podcast walk. Grew into an API-first physical world intelligence platform. Stick a QR on anything. AI inventories it. Query it in plain English from any AI agent. The wife said OMG. The overnight rule was applied. The groodle approved. This one is different. Probably.
My new builder brand site
A build-in-public home base for a Kiwi developer in Melbourne who has too many ideas, probable ADHD, a groodle, and a graveyard that keeps growing. The irony of spending time on a site about unfinished projects is not lost on me.
running
Public blog feed from my coaching platform. Running on Astro with some Supabase connectivity, GitHub actions and probably some other cool vibe coded features I've forgotten I asked for.