Who am I? Well … I’m a person! In fact I am actually a /human being/ who /attempts to look like a person/ and /frequently fails/. But I try, and that’s really all you can do in the end.

My skills

I write, and I make music, and I code. Not necessarily in that order! (Actually, in terms of societal worth, that order’s almost exactly backwards!) BUT I WANT TO DO ALL OF THEM. One tries.

What are your musical inspirations?

Hayley Kiyoko and Flying Lotus. Just imagine those two people crossed. That’s who I want to be. I mean, there are a ton of others though. Toro Y Moi, Tokimonsta, Syd tha Kid, Pentatonix, Kaytranada, BBNG, Tyler the Creator, Nujabes, Gallant … honestly at this point I’m just listing artists. Music is good.

What are your gaming inspirations?

If I could just replay Butterfly Soup every day for the rest of my life, I’d probably be happy. But eventually I’d make an extension where I could play as the goose from Untitled Goose Game, and every scene was just me honking in vain at the other protagonists. I also play League of Legends. Way too much of it. I’m trying to play more narrative games, but it’s hard.

Who are your writing inspirations?

David Foster Wallace inspired me a /lot/ when I was younger, and he still does today, despite the problems he’s had. Ursula K. LeGuin is fantastic, I also read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut … the entire Animorphs series fascinated me as a child, so K.A. Applegate. William Gibson is fantastic and Pattern Recognition is one of my favorite books. Franz Kafka and Vladomir Nabokov were also massive influences. Cory Doctorow. Emily Dickinson, whose name I can never spell right. Neil Stevenson. e.e. cummings. … I’ve listed enough writers here, right? I want to add more but that’s not necessarily … useful.

Who are your coding inspirations?

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I have specific inspirations in regards to coding or designing systems! Maybe I should? It’s hard to find these things out.

Oh, okay. Well, what do you enjoy coding, and how?

I enjoy making scripts that make things I’m doing already go better. I would say I do less coding right now, and more … designing systems to make things easier, whether that’s coding or something else. Measure twice, cut once! I write a lot of puppet code and terraform code, work within AWS … organize configurations and ensure that the method by which we’re installing services works, making sure our DNS layer is stable, adding build plans in Bamboo to automatically be able to update AMIs, etc. In general, just … trying to use the right tool for the right job. And trying to convince others to do the same.

It’s pretty tiring, though! I wish I could write more non-code things, but after coding/being the DevOps Holder of Many Hats, my brain tends to, ah, go ‘splat’. Which isn’t very conducive to writing.

Let’s wrap this up. What else do you want to say?

HONK