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Hi, I’m Alex. Welcome to my website!

A selfie! I’m smiling at the camera, wearing a green dress, and sitting in front of a large amount of green foliage. It’s a sunny day and shining both on the side of my face and the plants.

I’m a software developer, writer, and a hand crafter, and I live in the UK. In my day job I build software for digital preservation, and I think a lot about archiving and long-term systems.

This website is where I share stuff I find interesting or fun. That includes notes on technical problems I’ve solved, personal reflections or thoughts, and fun toys that I’ve built.

I’m queer and trans, and my pronouns are “they” or “she”.

I hope you like it!

Recent articles

  • The selfish case for public libraries · Personal thoughts ·

    I don’t use libraries out of a sense of civic duty; I use them because they make me a happier, more adventurous, and more prolific reader.

  • Dreaming of a ten-year computer · Computers and code ·

    Modern computers are more powerful than I know what to do with, but the norm is still to upgrade every few years. I want my current computer to last a decade, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

  • Gumdrop, a silly app for messing with my webcam · Fun stuff ·

    When it’s dark, a large computer monitor is a fun way to make the room change into different colours.

  • The bare minimum for syncing Git repos · Git ·

    I don’t need GitHub or a cloud service to keep my Git repos in sync – files and folders work just fine.

  • Creating Caddyfiles with Cog · Python ·

    Cog is a tool for doing in-place text generation for static files. It’s useful for generating repetitive config, like my web server redirects.

Read more articles →