Developerator

Projects

Open Source

  • GPTDiskCreator
    Timeline: Jun 2021 - Aug 2021
    This is a library that creates GPT virtual disks with FAT32 formatted volumes. It was supposed to be a component of ThatOS64 which creates GPT disk images. The plan was to port the code to the OS installer as well. ThatOS64 was being developed by ThatOSDev before the developer quit.

  • LogicBlocks
    Timeline: May 2021 - slowly in progress
    Inspired by Charles Petzold’s book, I decided to create a software library of relays and gates and various other components required to build a computer. I’m planning to build primitive computers with it and see how far I can take the project before it starts falling apart due to the sheer number of relay objects it’ll need to create and maintain.

  • Postcode API
    Timeline: Jun 2013 - in operation
    A fairly simple REST API I built back when trying to learn Django. I decided to register a domain and push it live. To my surprise it attracted users, and even more surprisingly it experienced only a couple of hours of downtime in its lifespan. I want to build its next version and open source it next.

Aviation

  • 3 Diamond Badges
    Timeline: Jan 2020 - in progress
    These are actually three separate badges and the last of badges that I’ll be attempting.
    One of these diamond badges I already have attained. It’s the 350km flight from Jan 2020.

    I need a 500km distance and a 5,000m height gain. The latter is much harder to achieve and requires different air than one found in flatlands, at least in Australia, waves are the way to go.

    There are distance diplomas for flights of 750km and above (increments of 250km) but I don’t think I’m that interested in them, at least at this stage in my gliding career.

    Update (Feb 2022): 500km flight is done in a dry LS6c. All that’s remaining is a 5,000m height gain. *gulp*

  • Gold Badge
    Timeline: Jan 2020 - in progress
    Similar to the Silver Badge with the difference of 300km in distance and 3,000m height gain. I can re-use my Silver duration flight for this claim. I did my first 350km flight in Jan 2020 in a DG300.

    Now I need the height gain flight which with some luck may happen in the next season.

  • Silver Badge
    Timeline: Jan 2019 - Jan 2019 achieved
    First gliding badge from Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). It requires the pilot to have achieved 50km cross-country distance, 1,000m height gain, and duration of at least 5 hours. Not necessarily all in one flight.

  • Learn to Fly Glider Sailplanes
    Timeline: Jun 2018 - Oct 2018 achieved
    My best dreams are the ones where I’m afloat and flying. My life changed when I found out about gliding in Australia and joined Geelong Gliding Club. I ended up learning from some of the best instructors there is. I flew at least one day every weekend (if weather permitted) for 4 months. I did my first solo flight after 40 instructional flights (totaling 14.6 hours).

Books

  • Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (2018) - James Clear Timeline: Apr 2022 - In progress

  • When Breath Becomes Air (2016) - Paul Kalanithi
    Timeline: Mar 2022
    Heard good things about it. It’s been pretty interesting so far.

    Update: Finished the book. It’s a pretty sad story. Fuck cancer.

  • Daemon (2006) - Daniel Suarez
    Timeline: Aug 2021 - Oct 2021
    Was on the hunt for a modern sci-fi novel and picked this one up. So far so good.

    Update: Finished reading the book and didn’t quite like it as much. My review can be found here on Goodreads.

  • Computer Connections (1993) - Gary Kildall
    Timeline: Aug 2021 - in progress
    I recently found out that Gary Kildall was planning to publish a memoir before he died unexpectedly in 1994. He always looked like a genius yet a strange character to me. His family kindly have made the first 7 chapters of the book publicly available. I’ve got a copy and am enjoying reading it. More to follow…

  • Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software) (1999) - Charles Petzold
    Timeline: Oct 2020 - slowly in progress
    Always fascinated with the universe of computers, it mind boggles me how we’ve built this new dimension into our lives from nothing but boatload of relays! Having had only bits and pieces of information in my head, this book is helping me connect the dots and see how the cogs work together.

  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) - J. K. Rowling
    Timeline: Jul 2021 - Aug 2021
    I’m now committed to reading the series. I’m not quite reading a chapter a day at the moment because I’m working on GPTDiskCreator and experimenting with ThatOS64 late at nights, so it’s going slower than the first two books. I’ll most likely take a break from Harry Potter after this book and come back to it later in the year.

  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998) - J. K. Rowling
    Timeline: Jun 2021 - Jun 2021
    The first book was a hoot to go through but by no means I binge read it. I did discipline myself to read a chapter every day though. Kindle suggests it’ll take me about 160 hours to finish the whole series. Each chapter (at least in the first two books) is about 45 minutes, so that’d be about 214 days if I read every day for 45 minutes.

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) - J. K. Rowling
    Timeline: Jun 2021 - Jun 2021
    Looking to get back into reading, I returned to a childhood favourite. This time in English, this was a great warmup for me to get back into the habit of routinely reading. I binge read this book in Farsi in the late 90s, when I was a teenager. At the time I didn’t realise, but reading it now, boy, is it a book for children!

  • The Phoenix Project (2016) - Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
    Timeline: Aug 2015 - Nov 2015
    I guess this was a must read for the DevOps professionals. A “Brent” in our industry is a known term because of the book.

  • Domain-Specific Languages (2011) - Martin Fowler
    Timeline: May 2015 - Jun 2015
    Back then I was planning on making a tool that’d be a better DSL for defining cloud infrastructure to replace CloudFormation, because really AWS? JSON? That idea never eventuated, but CDK is somewhat close to what I had in mind only much better. The book is alright.

Video Games

  • Final Fantasy 7 (1997) - Nintendo Switch
    Timeline: Dec 2020 - on hold
    A childhood favourite that is a fairly long, large, and detailed game for its time. I never finished the game, so when I found it in the Nintendo eShop, I decided to give it a whirl over the Christmas break. I’ve made decent amount of progress (more than I ever did) before stopping playing. I do need to get back into it, soon!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of these projects. So why not get in touch with me?