I've been thinking about hobby projects I can work on in retirement (in a few years) that have a large scope that I would find fun. So, I've started work on a game development library in C that combines a few projects I've started over the years but never finished. It's not very far yet.

I'm building the 2d parts of it in the GLFW library and modern OpenGL (this will eventually also be used as an overlay system when I get to the 3d portions of the project). I'm also adding in simple text menuing so I can quickly build text prototypes of the games so I can also be working on game data structures and basic mechanics while the graphical engine comes together.

So far I've started two basic games, an old school rogue-like on a large scale using tiles and a similar game that combines factory building with the rogue-like parts. I have plans to bring in some other games that will stretch different parts of the engine.

I've been polishing up an old project that allows people to play games on Discord, e.g. Pokemon, via text chat

I'd love to make this a free/break-even service at some point!

https://github.com/shepherdjerred/discord-plays-pokemon

I'm building modular home audio speakers. Wireless, self-powered, upgradeable, repairable. Think Sonos meets the Framework laptop. Check out my prelaunch page here:

https://prelaunch.com/projects/audioblocs-audioblocs

Continuing to build on my programmable server for Server-Sent Events. Built in Rust/Tokio, programmable with Lua.

https://tinysse.com/

https://github.com/benwilber/tinysse

For anyone interested in the tabletop Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight Games / Edge Studio - a friend and I have been working on some small typescript libraries starting with dice rolling and monte carlo simulations that we can eventually use with web apps.

Open source tools and art assets: https://github.com/swrpg-online

A quick repl.it one-shot UI using the monte carlo library: https://dice-pool-simulator-chrispan5.replit.app/

SWRPG Combat Simulator: https://swrpg-combat-sim.com/

Working on a frontend dice roller that utilizes the open source dice SVG files and rolling utility.

We could also stand to fill a slot in our online play group if you want to reach out! :)

While reading AI Engineering[1], I was inspired to take a crack at an idea I've had for a while - diffusion-based LLM. The accessibility of shakespeare.txt[2] and the proliferation of tinyGPT implementations has made vibe-coding LLM research on the brink of possibility. It does help to have a familiarity in the datascience/ML/AI space in order to check and guide appropriately, but it's amazing how well the virtuous cycle is beginning to work.

1. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ai-engineering/97810981...

2. https://gist.github.com/blakesanie/dde3a2b7e698f52f389532b4b...

I am working a SaaS document asset management services called Doccie

At the same time I am exploring the boundary of my ability to think deeper

Thus writing a monthly newsletter that will span for 10 years. Right now it has a open rate over 70%

https://connectingdotsessay.substack.com/

Here are the essays

## Eight Grade syndrome - why grand narrative vision is killing your startup

If you think crafting a grand narratives of your idea is the crucial first step of building a startup, this essay is for you.

## Explorer Mindset - In a world where algorithms decide what we see, how can we rediscover the joy of unexpected discoveries?

If you feel trapped in a narrow view point, surrounded by the veil, and lack of creation muse, this article is for you.

## Why I show up everyday. The peddle, podium, creators and us.

If you are interested in why I started this newsletter and what I learned from it so far, this essay is for you.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Taking shader programs (they have a main() functions), hacking up their source code / AST to turn the into modularized code packages, and then enabling composition of shaders by injecting the output of one module into another (essentially calling the main function of one shader in another). This enables arbitrary shader composition. One application is Photoshop-style stacking of shaders as layers, like https://shaderfrog.com/2/editor/cm6y90vai002mpaxio3zjhfvq

Or getting real freaky with it by composing many effects deep https://shaderfrog.com/2/editor/cm1s7w23w000apar738s9d1x0

For those few living in NZ, I've made a site that lists all the bank saving rates (and TDs), and ranks them by best to worst. This is mostly intended for people who know what they're doing. So don't just pick the highest and roll with it. Higher return usually comes with more risk.

Also, the biggest banks usually have the worst rates, this also goes for Kiwisaver, don't put your Kiwisaver with a bank, it'll do poorly compared to the lowest fee options we got in NZ. e.g. InvestNow (Foundation Series funds) / Kernel / Simplicity.

Still needs some work, like showing which rates are variable, or extra high risk.

Pretty quickly hacked together, to be very utilitarian, and practical. Don't see ever making money on it, made it more for me.

https://savingrates.netlify.app/

RSS reader through Bluesky custom feeds: https://github.com/tfederman/stroma-news

Bluesky API library spun off from the other project: https://github.com/tfederman/pysky

Haven't really started it yet, but a master list of RSS feeds and the code I used to source them: https://github.com/tfederman/huge-rss-list

And also a new project to fetch all links seen in the Bluesky firehose and gather metadata to build a database of sites and pages at a more granular level than the domain. For example, is account X posting video links from one YT channel or many?