By memalign
TapToyPia Posted on 5/24/2026 Tags: Programming , Games , Tap Toy Introducing TapToyPia , the latest addition to the Tap Toy series. (See also: Catch Tap Toy , Counting Tap Toy , Slice Tap Toy , Fireworks Tap Toy , Tap Toy ) In TapToyPia, you are an explorer sent on a one-way mission to a new planet. Your mission: build a settlement that can serve as a new home for humanity. While you explore, you…
Poop App Posted on 5/8/2026 Tags: Programming , Games , Parenting My 4-year-old son enjoys traveling... except for having to poop in a strange bathroom. It doesn't matter if it's a hotel or a grandparent's house, if it's not his usual environment it's uncomfortable. He'll usually say he doesn't need to poop when it's obvious that the need has indeed arisen. Fortunately, some wacky ideas have…
Catch Tap Toy Posted on 3/13/2026 Tags: Programming , Games , Tap Toy Introducing Catch Tap Toy , the latest addition to the Tap Toy series. (See also: Counting Tap Toy , Slice Tap Toy , Fireworks Tap Toy , Tap Toy ) You can play it in the browser or add it to your home screen as a progressive web app. I used royalty free game assets from Kenney . That site is awesome thanks to its broad selection…
MemSky Posted on 1/13/2026 Tags: Programming , Tools Today, I'm sharing a web app for keeping up with your Bluesky timeline: MemSky . You can use it in the browser or add it to your home screen as a progressive web app. Everything is local in the web app except for the API calls to Bluesky directly to authenticate and fetch content. You can browse in two modes: 1. Prioritize Unread Posts (the…
Create Your Own Wolfer Posted on 11/24/2025 Tags: Programming , Parenting , Games , Tools In my post about Wolfers , I mentioned working on a way to generate new game variants. I'm ready to share that today. Please check out the Create Your Own Wolfer page! That page is a step-by-step guide to generate your own Wolfer game with only an English description. It also provides a way to load and test…
Wolfers Posted on 11/3/2025 Tags: Programming , Parenting , Games , Math Introducing Wolfers ! Wolfers is a series of games, playable in your web browser, inspired by the iconic Word Munchers and Number Munchers games of the 1980s/1990s. Wolf down correct answers while avoiding the WoeBots! Take refuge in the Safe Space... if it appears in time! I've wanted to bring this style of educational game…
Phonics Flashcards Posted on 10/27/2025 Tags: Programming , Tools , Parenting Introducing Phonics Flashcards ! My 4-year-old son is learning the basics of reading, starting with the sounds of every alphabet letter. A friend of ours recommended cardboard flashcards by toddlersread.com . This company shared a few helpful videos on how to use phonics flashcards effectively and what sound to learn…
Mandarin Flashcards Posted on 2/5/2025 Tags: Programming , Tools , Parenting Introducing Mandarin Flashcards ! I'm expanding on Mandarin Communication Board by using the same data to create a set of flashcards. These flashcards use spaced repetition, a memorization method where cards you don't know yet will appear frequently and cards you know well will appear less often. This technique has been…
Mandarin Communication Board Posted on 1/29/2025 Tags: Programming , Tools , Parenting Happy Lunar New Year! Introducing the Mandarin Communication Board , a tool for learning and communicating in Mandarin Chinese. My son recently started showing interest in learning Mandarin thanks to some singing books sent by a friend of ours. I made this tool to help us expand our vocabulary and enable us to…
Counting Tap Toy Posted on 1/1/2025 Tags: Programming , Art , Games , Tap Toy , Parenting Introducing Counting Tap Toy , the latest addition to the Tap Toy series. (See also: Slice Tap Toy , Fireworks Tap Toy , Tap Toy ) In Counting Tap Toy, you can tap to count various fish and aquatic creatures. The count is displayed and announced. I built this game for my 3-year-old son. He's pretty good at…
Space Trader Posted on 12/24/2024 Tags: Programming , Games Introducing my latest game, playable right in your web browser: Space Trader In Space Trader, you can trade goods, hunt bounties, amass a fortune, buy a moon and retire. Space Trader can be saved to your home screen as a PWA (Progressive Web App). Space Trader started as a game written by Pieter Spronck for Palm OS, released in 2002.…
MemPlayer Posted on 7/25/2024 Tags: Programming , Tools I recently whipped up a simple audio player dedicated to listening to long audio files across multiple listening sessions. It's called MemPlayer and you can try it here . The problem MemPlayer solves: I listen to most audiobooks in the excellent Libby app. It nails the core use case: remembers playback position, gives easy controls for…
Slice Tap Toy Posted on 5/13/2024 Tags: Programming , Games , Tap Toy Introducing my latest project, playable right in your web browser: Slice Tap Toy Slice Tap Toy can also be saved to your home screen as a PWA (Progressive Web App). This project is my spin on the touch screen swipe-to-slice concept. Every pizza can be sliced multiple times, down to tiny slivers. Can you unlock the whole menu?…
CaveRibbon Posted on 2/19/2024 Tags: Programming , Games Introducing my latest game, playable right in your web browser: CaveRibbon CaveRibbon is a one-button game where you control a ribbon gliding through a shrinking cavern. Avoid the walls and obstacles as long as you can. Compete with yourself and your friends by sharing a replay. Submit your high scores to get into the hall of fame!…
Octogram Posted on 12/23/2023 Tags: Games In an HN post about a very cool PuzzleScript game called Enigmash , I learned sad news. Jack Lance, the author of the game, died earlier this year. I went to his website, jacklance.github.io , and saw that it had been updated to refer to him in the past tense. Seeing that the site is hosted on GitHub, I looked at the recent updates . I discovered two…
Mastodon API Posted on 11/27/2023 Tags: Programming In the same vein as FreshRSS , another open source project with a cool API is Mastodon. Many users I followed on Twitter (now X) have migrated to Mastodon. I found that the Mastodon apps I tried didn't perfect the one thing I want: to read a chronological timeline of posts and reblogs from the accounts I follow - always keeping my spot since the…
AirDesk Posted on 11/26/2023 Tags: Parenting , Tools , Leisure There's not enough time in the day for everything I want and need to do. Parenting, work, exercise, hobbies, sleep, etc. I've found that even optimizing a few minutes here and there can add up to make life easier and more enjoyable. I still use tools for consuming text and audio/video faster. Here's one of the biggest new optimizations…
FreshRSS Posted on 11/19/2023 Tags: Programming , RSS This year has been rocky for free APIs I've enjoyed adopting in personal projects. Twitter (now X) killed 3rd party clients, Reddit made similarly killer API pricing changes, and now Feedly has started charging too. Fortunately, Feedly's API pricing is very reasonable right now: $8/mo or $72/year! Feedly provides a great service, as I wrote in…
Fireworks Tap Toy Posted on 9/17/2023 Tags: Programming , Art , Games , Tap Toy Introducing my latest project: Fireworks Tap Toy On this year's Fourth of July, my toddler son discovered a love of fireworks. With Fireworks Tap Toy, I'm trying to bring some of that magic to the touch screen. Tap, click, type, or go into "auto launch" mode. This project is a remix of a few other projects: - Tap Toy ,…
Remember Forgotten Names Posted on 5/21/2023 Tags: Brain Hacking I use this trick when I can't remember a name I used to know. It works for names of actors, teachers, friends of friends, etc. The trick: First, try to remember as much as you can about the person. Imagine their face, appearance, and other biographical information. Then go through the alphabet saying a name for each letter. Try to…
Emscripten on Raspberry Pi 400 Posted on 1/15/2023 Tags: Programming , Raspberry Pi I recently completed a harrowing journey to install Emscripten on a Raspberry Pi 400. There were many hiccups along the way that brought back bad memories from the ~8 years that I used Linux (4 on Gentoo, 4 on Debian) as my daily driver OS. If you're running a well-trodden configuration, things work pretty…
Simplify Picking a Restaurant Posted on 11/22/2022 Tags: Food , Parenting , Tools With a toddler at home, we've come to rely on DoorDash as a quick way for the adults to eat tasty food. We're lucky to live in an area densely packed with restaurants. Despite the wealth of options, we often struggle to choose when dinnertime arrives. My spouse and I will end up naming restaurants, taking turns…
Trippy Art Posted on 11/20/2022 Tags: Art Here's a collection of trippy art from various corners of the internet. Some is generated with the help of neural networks. Some is human-made. View the collection
Tap Toy Posted on 5/30/2022 Tags: Programming , Art , Games , Tap Toy Introducing my latest project: Tap Toy Tap Toy is a fun little web app for relaxation. Tap the screen to launch some characters which then bounce off each other. Turn on sound for satisfying sound effects and relaxing public-domain background music. In some ways, I think this toy brings the catharsis of popping bubble wrap to…
PCEImage Editor Posted on 2/13/2022 Tags: Programming , Art , Tools After defining the PCEImage specification , I wanted to create a great code editor that can color each character in the image. Try out the editor in your browser or read on for more details. I was inspired by the PuzzleScript editor (mentioned in my post about PuzzleScript ), especially how sprites are defined and styled. Whereas…
PCEImage Posted on 2/13/2022 Tags: Programming , Art I recently needed to make pixel art for a game and wanted to define the images in code rather than having separate image asset files. Defining the images in code comes with some benefits: - I don't need separate versions of the images for different resolutions. I can easily scale them up automatically. - I can easily slice the sprites to animate…
My Beatles Picks Posted on 2/10/2022 Tags: Music I've had the Beatles on my mind recently thanks to the buzz around Peter Jackson's " The Beatles: Get Back " documentary. I grew up long after the Beatles had broken up and I had never listened to a full Beatles album despite liking a lot of their songs. I decided to listen to every album in order, looking up interesting details about the albums and…
SoundsJustLike Posted on 12/26/2021 Tags: Music I still enjoy finding songs that sound similar . I recently listened to Dear Prudence by The Beatles and could've sworn I had heard the chord progression somewhere before. I searched online and found that I probably heard it in Beautiful by Christina Aguilera. The website that gave me this connection is SoundsJustLike.com . SoundsJustLike.com is…
PuzzleScript Posted on 12/24/2021 Tags: Games , Programming PuzzleScript is a way to make tile-based games that run on the web. It was created by increpare . An interesting tidbit from the credits page: PuzzleScript's creator is/was flatmates with Terry Cavanagh , who made a bunch of popular and creative games: VVVVVV , Super Hexagon , and (my favorite) Don't Look Back . The PuzzleScript games…
Wheat Chex Posted on 12/19/2021 Tags: Food The Chex cereal pieces in official store-bought Chex Mix are not the same as the pieces you get in cereal boxes! Just take a look at the photo above. The Wheat Chex on the left is from a bag of Chex Mix. The Wheat Chex on the right is from a cereal box. Notice how the cereal box one is flatter, denser, has little rectangular holes instead of little square…
PICO-8 Posted on 12/12/2021 Tags: Games PICO-8 is a way to make "retro"-style games and then play them anywhere, including on the web. PICO-8 initially caught my eye with a few beautiful pixelated games and graphics. Just look at the delightful screen capture of Celeste above. Here's what I love about this platform: - Thanks to web technologies, these games can be played anywhere. They work great…
Fussy Baby Checklist Posted on 11/14/2021 Tags: Parenting Do you have a fussy infant? Here's my checklist for trying to resolve fussiness: - Does the baby need a diaper change? Check for diaper rash - make sure to slather on extra diaper paste if you see redness/bumps. I saw one website say you should spread it on as if "icing a cake". Our first few diaper rashes were caused by the diaper being…
Fall Asleep Posted on 11/13/2021 Tags: Brain Hacking I've always had a hard time falling asleep . Closing my eyes invites a whirlwind of thoughts. I can't stop thinking so I can't fall asleep. Then I found a way to clear my head and fall asleep quickly. It's been working for months now! Here's what I do: As I shower and brush my teeth before bed, I spend that ~30 minutes clearing my head. When I…
Shape Your Destiny Posted on 10/3/2021 Tags: Writing , Brain Hacking A friend of ours shared the eulogy he gave for his dad. In it, he quoted a lesson his father taught him as a kid: Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. (This…
Tim's Vermeer Posted on 9/25/2021 Tags: Art , Leisure I recently saw news that a painting from the 1650s had been restored to unhide a painting-within-a-painting in the background. Here's what the "after" and "before" look like: It's fascinating that modern technology can both find the hidden painted-over image and confirm that it was painted over by someone other than the artist. I showed my wife…
Day and Night Posted on 9/18/2021 Tags: Writing , Poetry Saul made a friend or two A friend was successful, Saul celebrated A friend had misfortune, Saul felt their pain and supported them with kindness Saul had success, the friends celebrated Saul had misfortune, they came to the rescue Sometimes they didn't see each other but could always pick up where they left off Friendships were sometimes…
Lights Off Posted on 8/14/2021 Tags: Games , Programming Tap or click and take a trip down memory lane with the historic Lights Off. Exactly fourteen years ago today Wired got the scoop: Lights Off: First iPhone Native Game Arrives . And today I'm sharing a new implementation that everyone can play in their web browser: Play here! Lights Off's story begins with Tiger Electronics who launched their…
Batman Curve Posted on 8/7/2021 Tags: Math With FormulaGraph now available, it's easier than ever to explore more math shapes . An interesting one is the "Batman Curve". A professor named J. Matthew Register created this formula to make math fun. Here's what he says about the history in a post on Quora : "I wrote it many, many years ago. I was teaching at a few art schools throughout the greater…
FormulaGraph Posted on 8/4/2021 Tags: Programming , Math I'm excited to introduce FormulaGraph , a graphing calculator for general formulas (not just functions of x)! Whereas many graphing calculators require an equation like y = sqrt(1 - x^2) , FormulaGraph can handle formulas like y^2 + x^2 = 1 . You don't have to solve for y to use FormulaGraph. Here's what else it can do: - Polar formulas in…
Bouncing Ball Posted on 3/28/2021 Tags: Math I mentioned here that TI calculators can make some simple animations: "An upperclassman graphed some functions together which made it look like this circle was a ball bouncing down stairs." I also mentioned something special about Graphtoy : "Graphtoy has a variable for elapsed time (t) which can be used to create animations" In this post, I'll recreate…