The longer version

Kia ora(Hi). The homepage sums me up in a line: software engineer, gamer, and politics nerd. It's accurate, but a line is a poster, not a person. Here's the fuller picture.

Software engineer

I build web applications for a living, and the thing I actually care about is whether they make someone's day a little easier. Not the framework, not the cleverness. The person on the other side of the screen. I like engineering that's honest and practical: code that does what it says, admits what it doesn't, and never dresses up a simple problem as a hard one to look impressive. If that sounds unglamorous, good. Most of the best software is.

Gamer

I love games, story-driven ones especially: the kind that use the medium to tell you something a film or a book couldn't. These days I'm mostly on Xbox, and I'll be honest, I don't get to play nearly as much as I'd like. But I follow the industry closely enough to hold opinions about games I haven't had time to finish. That probably says something about me. I'm choosing not to examine it too closely.

Politics nerd

"Nerd" is the right word, and I'll own it. What grabs me is the machinery of it — evidence-based policy, and the levers of democracy that decide whether a good idea ever becomes anything. Mostly New Zealand politics, with one eye on the rest of the world. I'm less interested in who won the week than in what actually works, and whether we can show that it works. I'll share opinions here. They're held firmly and revised often, which is, I reckon, the only honest way to hold them.

I write and build from Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa(Auckland, New Zealand).