10 Year Q & A

Why do you write articles and what do you like most about it?

So for the most part, it’s because I like writing. For a more detailed answer, it kind of depends on which sort of post it is. I see three main categories of things I write: guides based on my experience; “social impact” type articles; and an exploration of something I’ve been working on, with shared findings.

For the guides based on my experience, these are mostly Minecraft-related articles. The main reasons I write these are to firstly reduce misinformation in the community, as well as give myself something to link to for topics I very frequently discuss. Rather than explain something in sparse detail many times, I can just write a highly detailed article once and link to it. I’ve also been told many times over the years that others find my articles useful for the same reasons; an easy link to give people to clear up various debates within the MC community.

When it comes to the more “social impact” articles, these are probably the ones that I care the most about writing. I write these because they’re things that I’m passionate about. I don’t believe that my writing here is really going to amount to any real-world change, but I feel all of it’s important for me to say anyway. These articles are usually the ones that I get the most people reaching out about, either sharing their similar experiences, or letting me know that I’ve made them aware of that issue in the first place. I feel these especially hit to the core of why I like writing.

Finally, the articles that explore and share findings about things I’ve recently worked on. I personally find that in writing about something, I can learn and reason about it better because it forces me to think of it in another way. These are mostly to help me learn and have a record that I can go back to in order to jog my memory in the future. Putting my process out on the internet like that can also be helpful to others doing the same thing, so I always try to cover my needs; what decisions I made; and the justification for them.

As for what I like the most about writing articles, it’s honestly just that it gives me a creative outlet to do all of the above. It’s the creativity and writing process that I love most, and this format lets me do it in ways that feel more meaningful.

What got you started writing articles?

Around the time I wrote my first article, I’d stopped using Tumblr which had previously been my main creative writing outlet. I’ve always enjoyed reading blogs, so starting my own felt like a natural next step. At first, I was mostly writing a tech blog, outlining my experiences making or doing things, but then started having people in the Minecraft community request my takes on various in-community debates.

That was the point where my article count skyrocketed, as I’d get fairly frequent “Hey Maddy, you should write an article on XYZ!” messages. While I feel I’ve written most of what there is to write on that topic at this point, getting into the habit of writing a lot of articles stuck with me. What began as an occasional tech blog grew into one of my larger hobbies.

Which of your posts so far is your favourite?

Choosing a favourite is honestly difficult. I like different things about so many of my articles. If I absolutely had to choose just one, I’d possibly go with my article on motion sickness accessibility. It’s a topic I am very passionate about, as I’m honestly very prone to motion sickness. It is likely a major factor in why I play so few games and am otherwise not massively into gaming.

I keep coming back to the idea of writing a follow-up article to explore various aspects in more depth, or something else to try improving awareness of this issue, so it’s definitely my article I think about the most.

Which post was the most popular and how was that experience?

Long-term, my most consistently popular post has surprisingly been my one on using schematics with the WorldEdit API. It was mostly meant to exist as a replacement for one of sk89q’s old articles on his now-defunct blog. While it’s mostly made redundant by the official WorldEdit documentation, I keep it online so that it doesn’t break old links.

In terms of posts that had the most short-term popularity, it’d be my article chronicling my experience being banned on Meta platforms after a WorldEdit user decided to maliciously report my accounts. It not only took off on Hacker News as well as a few other sites, but the topic of Meta account bans actually got mainstream media attention a few weeks afterwards. For months afterwards I was getting frequent emails from people in a similar situation, asking if I could somehow get them unbanned. It got to the point I had to add a disclaimer to the start of the article that I couldn’t help people with their bans.

It’s always a bit bittersweet when something like that happens, such as an article taking off on Hacker News. On one hand having so many people read my articles is great, especially the ones that I am writing for “social impact” reasons. On the other hand though, so many people always seem to misinterpret the point I’m trying to make, or skim read the start of the article and make comments based on that. It’s a constant issue online that people don’t read the full article, so it’s not exactly unexpected, but it’s always super frustrating seeing discussions form around my content, but not actually about the topic I’m trying to start a discussion about.

Probably the most baffling one I found was a thread on the LTT Forums, where everyone in the thread seemed to be under the impression that I was arguing that banning accounts should be forbidden by government regulation. Which like, no. I’ve moderated spaces for a lot of my life; that’s a horrid idea. My post was about how many private companies are functionally operating public services and therefore being sole arbiter on who can participate in parts of society. I’m always open to disagreement with my articles, I enjoy reading those dissenting views, I’d just prefer if you disagree with what I’ve actually written.

Where do you get inspiration for writing specific articles and what’s your process?

Inspiration generally comes from either my own experiences and observations, and on rare occasions by request. Most of my articles are either because I’ve done something that I want to write about the process of, or I’ve noticed an issue somewhere that I’ve stewed on for a while and decided to write about. When it comes to requests, I’ll generally only write it if it is something that I am reasonably passionate about and can turn into a good article.

My writing process involves multiple stages, most of which isn’t actually the writing itself. I have an idea, and stew on it for a while. Thinking of ways it can be expanded on, things to cover, etc. Once I get to the actual writing, I usually already know the points I want to cover. I start by writing out the post structure and headings, and then just write it in one sitting. I find that I struggle to write something if I don’t already know where it’s going, so I’ve basically fully-formed the article in my mind before actually typing out the words. It helps me make sure that it’s cohesive and makes it harder to ramble without actually landing on a clear purpose.

After it’s written, I don’t re-read or edit it at that stage. I usually wait a day or two and proofread it then, possibly with the help of my partner or people in various chats that I feel would be most helpful based on the topic. At that point I publish it, and post it on social media and my mailing list.

Did you have any writing experience or formal writing education beforehand?

Nothing formal. I’ve always loved writing, so I’ve been doing it in many forms for a long time. Whether it was long-form Tumblr posts, short stories I never published, or various writing prompts people would give me. One of my favourite subjects during school was what we call “English.” I’m not sure how universally recognised that is as a school subject outside of Australia, so it was basically just an English literature unit. Reading books, analysing media, writing essays, writing short stories, etc.

I’ve also done a fair few online courses over the years on various forms of writing, but it was all “do in your own time” kind of stuff rather than formalised lesson structures and assessment.

Do you use AI at all in writing your articles?

No, I am against AI replacing creative output. I write because I like writing, and using AI would take the “me” out of it. I’m generally very picky even when it comes to tools to help me edit my articles. Many years ago, before the trend of generative AI, I used to use Grammarly to help grammar check my articles. I noticed that while it helped me have objectively “better” grammar, it was at the expense of my own personal tone and expression. The alerts about using a passive voice still haunt me to this day.

I stopped using Grammarly a few years ago and attempted to re-add that “me-ness” into the articles afflicted by it throughout the first few months of 2021. I’m still not entirely happy with those articles I updated at the time, because it’s much harder to add your own voice retroactively than to have it there from the start.

How have you evolved as a writer?

The two biggest things that come to mind are that I’ve gotten more comfortable expressing myself and being me in my writing, and that I’ve gotten much better at naturally identifying and laying out long-form posts with a cohesive structure.

During university, when I first started writing articles, I felt a pressure to portray myself as more professional. I didn’t let as much of my personality shine through in my writing, nor did I allow myself to really show any vulnerability. While I did add some of that sort of thing into articles in 2021 during my post-Grammarly-purge, the overall tone of the articles still tried to remain professional. I don’t want to do that, writing is a way that I express myself and stifling that expression in my opinion makes for worse writing.

Structure-wise, I feel significantly more comfortable just writing out a post structure. It’s probably fairly evident if you analysed a lot of my more recent posts, but they all sort of follow a similar structure that I’ve found works for me. My “The risks of modding: Community” article is a good example of this. It follows a structure where I introduce a problem, explain the underlying context as to why that problem exists, dive deeper into the impacts of it by using an emotional hook from either my own experience or other examples, provide some form of resolution or ideal solution, and then sum it up with a conclusion.

I’ve also been more comfortable just directly writing out conclusions at the end to help pull everything together, which still results in me being haunted by the voices of every English teacher I had throughout schooling chanting “Never refer to the conclusion as a conclusion” in unison. Honestly though, I feel it does suit my writing.

What are the weirdest things you’ve ever written?

I used to really enjoy doing writing prompts, where I’d be given a thing to write about and I’d have to write it with no research or editing. While I no longer have the exact writing prompts, I remember enough of it to still explain what they were. Two of those probably qualify as the weirdest things I’ve ever written. The fun thing about them was that I was trying to specifically write them in different styles, so I got to use a fairly different writing voice than what I would use for these.

The first was a prompt to write a message board style post from a conspiracy theorist who believed that grass uses mind control to force people to help it colonise the planet and the universe, trying to rally more supporters to their fight against grass. The person who gave me the writing prompt liked it so much they posted it on the conspiracy subreddit (I very much do not condone the username they used, I did not choose it or have anything to do with the account). The follow-up they seem to have posted on the account wasn’t written by me, however; I assume they wrote that one themselves.

The second is one that hasn’t been published anywhere to my knowledge; however, I did promise I would publish it if Half Life 3 were ever released. It was a writing prompt to rewrite Marc Laidlaw’s “Epistle 3” in the style of the old “Half Life: Full Life Consequences” fanfictions. I hadn’t read Epistle 3 before, so I was allowed to read that once before starting. However, I hadn’t read “Half Life: Full Life Consequences” since it took off many years prior on Tumblr’s “so bad it’s good fan fiction” communities and was not allowed to refresh my memory of it. If the conditions of my promise ever happen and I publish it, I’ll try to remember to add a link here.

Do you intentionally reference media in your headlines?

I wasn’t 100% sure what this question was getting at by the ‘intentionally’ part, but yes, I often do add references to pop culture and media in the titles or headings of my articles. Normally it’s just references that pop into my mind while writing, either due to having watched/read or talked to people about it recently. Some make more sense than others, as I don’t always worry about lining them up perfectly, I just like making references to things.

For example, my “Pride and Bug Reports” article was written after discussing with someone how I wanted to re-read “Sense and Sensibility”, although the actual references I made were to “Pride and Prejudice”, another of Jane Austen’s works. Although I’ve not had anyone unprompted tell me they got the reference, most just wrongly assume it’s related to the LGBT community or that it references “a pride in one’s work.”

Another article, “What to expect when you’re expecting Minecraft Malware” was written shortly after a friend told me about how she was reading the infamous pregnancy book “What to expect when you’re expecting.”

I have inadvertently made a few accidental references in the past, not because I didn’t intend to make a reference, but because what I was referencing was actually already a reference to something else. In my first article, the one on body diversity in VR, one of my headings is called “Size Matters,” referencing the game “Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters.” Unbeknownst to me at the time, most Ratchet and Clank games are double entendres, so I’d accidentally referenced a double entendre rather than a game as intended. I now generally Google things before I reference them in case they have additional meanings.

What post took the longest to write and why?

It might end up being this one honestly. I’m writing the answers to these questions whenever I have free time, rather than drafting the whole thing at once. While I will likely merge some from the current state that it’s in, if the flow of questions keeps up this might end up being both my longest and most time-consuming article.

Otherwise, my article on the first decade of survival multiplayer in Minecraft. I don’t even remember how long this one took me to write, but it’s so far from whatever comes second that it’s the very clear winner. Not only did I need to write it, but I had to find and cite all of the information. It involved significant information finding and discussion with members of the Minecraft server community.

It was an interesting experience, as I’m fairly into collating and preserving internet history, akin to the YouTuber Strange Aeons who I’m a big fan of. However, it was a lot of work and likely not something I’d have the energy or drive to do with something that I wasn’t already connected to. The fact that it was such a different vibe to normal likely substantially contributed to why it took so long. And editing. Editing a 10000-word article is horrifying.

How do you advertise your articles?

I mostly don’t. I post them to my socials (BlueSky/Mastodon/Twitter), as well as to my mailing list, but that’s basically it. I don’t do much to advertise it beyond putting it in places that people who already follow me will see. A long time ago I used to post more on other sites, but I generally found that to not be too welcomed as people assumed I was advertising for some commercial purpose rather than my actual goal of reading an interesting discussion on a topic I care about.

While I do enjoy reading the discussions that pop up around my articles on sites like HackerNews, I’ve found those kinds of discussions don’t actually happen if you post your own articles as well. I love it when they are posted to places, but don’t want to force it. I prefer it when people want to share my articles and a discussion naturally stems from it.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with advertising my content, I just don’t want to overstep my welcome in a space. I post the WorldEdit release notes to the Minecraft server admins subreddit for example, as I’ve been asked by many people to do that so that they see it. I feel it’s mostly that unless it’s within my own space, I’m much more of a lurker than poster when it comes to social media. I just don’t feel a need to actually add my voice to a discussion unless I have something novel to say and it’s welcomed.

Where do you get the background photos for your post headers?

For Minecraft stuff, I take screenshots in test worlds. For everything else, I use stock photo sites, generally unsplash. I credit the creator for each one, although for some of my very old articles I used to use a stock photo site that didn’t require attribution due to constraints of my old blog theme, so I’m not sure who the original creators were. I’ve replaced most of those now, as I’d rather credit someone even when it’s not required.

As you like writing, did you keep a diary growing up?

Assuming this is the American definition of “diary,” yeah, I had a fair few as a kid. In Australia we call them journals, with a diary being basically a day planner. When I was younger I journaled all the time, usually filling up a book per school year. Once I started using Tumblr, though, I mostly replaced my journalling with Tumblr posts and blogging.

What’s your least favourite article?

My one on the best tools for Java development. Someone asked me to write it and I wasn’t super passionate about the topic, but I wasn’t as comfortable saying no to article ideas I didn’t feel would work well yet. It reads like I wrote it out of obligation rather than interest, which is not something I like.

What got you into software development?

This is something I’ve thought about a lot, especially as no one in my family is really that techy. If anything, I was heavily discouraged from doing it as a hobby or going down this career pathway. But when thinking back to the fictional characters I looked up to as a kid, all of them were nerdy and into computers. Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons), Daria Morgendorffer (Daria), Lex Murphy (Jurassic Park), Tracey McBean (Tracey McBean), etc. It’s a weird 90s to early 2000s media trope where if you’re a nerdy girl, you’re just vaguely into computers in an unspecified way.

I’ve always seemed to naturally gravitate towards making things myself, so when I did get access to a computer and inevitably got fairly into it, my next move was to want to make software of my own. I feel that grew over time, I gained a better understanding of what the actual career pathways for it were, and then just went for it. I had some other ideas, from biomedical research to journalism, but software development always felt like what I was supposed to do. Plus, I didn’t feel like I could skate through an entire biomed degree without ever having to do any form of dissection 😅.

How do you feel AI impacts open source and the need for third party libraries?

Before I get into it, this question came with a linked tweet as an example. Answering the part about third party libraries first, I feel they will always exist to an extent. People using AI for writing software will probably find less of a need for simple boilerplate libraries, especially those common in the JS ecosystem, but open-source projects provide significantly more than just “don’t have to write the code.”

Open-source software allows you to offload maintenance, security auditing, and domain expertise to passionate people. That’s not feasible for an individual or small team to do for every possible dependency they might need, so crowdsourcing it improves software quality across the board. I do not believe AI can replace that side of open-source libraries.

In terms of how it actually affects the open-source community, I feel this one is not as optimistic. As mentioned in the tweet, many OSS developers are not doing it for compensation. I don’t feel this will affect those developers outside of potential burnout from low-quality AI PR spam. When it comes to monetising sources of information however, this I feel is no longer feasible. I covered this a while ago relating to my own website, which has seen a significant drop in search engine clicks due to AI search engines.

I’m not sure of a proper solution here, but I would love to see something that makes it easy to automatically distribute a set amount per month to all participating dependencies you use, and some incentives for companies to actually participate in that program. That system would obviously be prone to abuse, such as flooding the package landscape with small utility packages designed to be included as dependencies by many larger packages, so it’s not a perfect solution.

Overall, it does feel like some change needs to happen to keep the community and ecosystems healthy. OSS funding has always been a problem, and this change is taking away some of the very few feasible monetisation methods.

If you don’t play Minecraft, why maintain WorldEdit?

It’s mostly because it’s a creatively interesting project and actually has users. I know when I add features that people want, or fix issues, that it’s actively making people happy and improving their workflows.

As a creative outlet I also find it fairly interesting, because new features have such visual impact compared to many other projects. It’s an inherently creative project, and creating new tools for other creative people to employ is an extremely interesting form of creativity for me. I love making things that I know other people are going to use in ways I could never even dream of, to make very amazing artistic output.

Do you agree with Linus Torvald’s take on RAM causing most computer issues?

This is an interesting one, as I would’ve said no in the past, but recently had an experience that changed my mind. I’m not sure whether it’s actually “most,” but I do feel the number of odd bugs caused by memory integrity issues are significantly underestimated. I feel this is especially true amongst those with high frequency RAM above typical JEDEC specs (XMP/EXPO RAM modules), who often talk about needing to frequently reinstall their operating systems due to “weird issues” popping up over time. Software bugs of course exist, so it’s not going to be all issues. But if someone is reinstalling their OS every 6 months due to an accumulation of odd bugs, it definitely feels like it could be their RAM.

I recently had an issue where Windows was corrupting the search index on every restart. My start menu wouldn’t search correctly, with a small notice saying that the search indexing service was turned off. I’d manually rebuild the cache, and it’d keep working until the next restart. After upgrading my RAM, this issue immediately disappeared. It honestly makes me want to look at ECC RAM for any future machines, if the cost makes sense at the time.

Why use your own genetic data in your WGS articles if you value genetic privacy?

Just as an aside, this question was very long with a few parts to it that I hope I answer in my explanation here, but I needed to make it fit into a single line question, so I summarised it.

When it comes to my genetic data, it’s not that I believe it needs to be locked away, it’s that I believe in data consent. I am comfortable with the information about my genetic data that I used within those articles, as to me they are not really things that I see as needing to be private. Also realistically, the only information actually visible is basic stats about the sequencing such as read depth and reference genome, as well as modern and historic ethnicity estimations.

The file stats are functionally meaningless and don’t reveal anything personal about me, and the ethnicity estimations are something that I don’t try to hide anyway. If someone asked me my ethnic background I’d tell them, and a lot of people can generally guess the vague region just by looking at me. I am not concerned about any potential misuse based on that information. I wouldn’t post or share genetic risk information for medical conditions on the other hand, as that’s something I feel could be actually misused.

I had initially considered writing them based on example genomes posted online, however it didn’t feel right to me. Those example genomes are still someone, even if anonymised. I only really felt comfortable including my own information. Also given I wanted it to be as accurate as possible to what real WGS customers are going to experience, I realistically had to use data that came directly from a direct-to-consumer WGS provider. Those example research datasets are going to be fundamentally different due to the context in which they are created.

You used to write about VR a lot, what do you think of it now?

In 2015, VR was something that I found very exciting. A new technology space, unsolved problems relating to human interfacing, and a lot of rapid development. It felt like it had limitless opportunities for highly immersive interactive storytelling.

When I was young, I really loved a lot of point and click web games, possibly part of the reason I got so into RuneScape. One I particularly loved was the “Crimson Room” series of Escape the Room games. I really wanted to make an escape the room game akin to this, but in VR and with a level editor. It would essentially be a real-life escape room, but with the flexibility of a video game. I attended a bunch of local events, borrowed someone’s HTC Vive Devkit, and eventually got sent one of my own by Valve.

I was fairly dedicated to VR development for a while, making little demo games and testing it with friends and family. One issue I did have though, was I couldn’t easily test the games myself. The development iteration cycle of VR games, especially early on when it was less advanced or streamlined, made me incredibly motion sick. If I was doing development that actually required me putting on the headset, I was limited to half an hour every few days, a completely infeasible development rate.

Due to that motion sickness issue, I mostly gave up on VR development. I brought out my HTC Vive Devkit again once Half-Life: Alyx launched but haven’t really used it much outside of that. I don’t feel I’d ever be suited for VR development due to motion sickness, as part of the trial and error of software development is tweaking things until they work. If one thing doesn’t work, I’m too sick to put the headset back on for days.

Depending on the price of the Steam Frame (which I am hoping has been revealed by the time I launch this post), I may consider buying one to play VR games, but I feel I’ve left VR development behind. Overall though I feel VR still has a lot of potential, especially if the ergonomics and accessibility can be improved.

What was your method to go from beginner coding to big publishable projects?

This is a story I have sort of covered in a previous article. I feel for this one, a large part of it was down to me feeling my contributions were higher quality than they actually were due to my young age and inexperience when I started out. I do in general experience imposter syndrome and a need to only make high quality contributions to other projects, but for my own projects (or projects that I’m a long-established contributor to) I feel less of a need to always push for highly professional contributions.

I feel for someone starting out, making your own projects is a good way to build up that confidence. Publishing something that you’re primarily making for yourself feels different. Getting in the habit of just open sourcing everything and pushing it to GitHub helps with that, kind of like reframing it from “I am publishing this project” to “this is where I save it to.”

Even publishing it to sites like Modrinth, you can realistically publish anything within reason to the platform. Even if only you use what you’ve made, it gets you into the habit of putting your code and creations out there. Then if you do end up having some users of your projects, it gives you the opportunity to gradually shift into more user-focused development.

Overall, it’s just about getting more familiar with putting your own stuff out there, even if it’s not complete or entirely polished. Then over time as you become more confident, you can start contributing to other projects. Starting off with small fixes and eventually moving on to larger features and changes. If you find specific projects that you contribute to a lot over a decent span of time, you can talk to the maintainers about coming on as a maintainer yourself 😅.

Why aren’t your apps on android anymore?

The short answer is Google closed my developer account, and due to the below explanation, I didn’t want to make another.

I received an email in March of 2024 saying that I had to re-verify my email and phone number and then choose a time frame for “further verification” within two weeks to avoid account closure. I signed in, re-verified my details, and then selected a time frame for further verification that would’ve been around August of 2024.

As that was further out than two weeks, I clarified with support that I’d done everything correctly and that it was fine for “further verification” to happen later, and they told me everything was fine.

Two weeks later, my Google developer account was closed with no chance of appeal, with support telling me that I failed to complete “further verification.” The only way to get back into the platform was to make an entire new Google account and re-pay the fee.

Given I didn’t trust them to not close my account again in the future, I decided to just not support Android going forward. I also don’t own any Android devices, so it was already a bit of an annoyance to do in the first place. This just added too much friction to really bother with it.

What games have you always come back to and which is your favourite to relax?

The main games I’ve continuously come back to throughout my life are RuneScape (not old school) and The Sims. I started playing both as a tween in 2009 shortly after we got an internet connection and have continued to play them to this day. I also have a soft spot for the early-mid 2000s collect-a-thon 3D platformer games and will replay any of them that come out with a remaster or remake. For example, the “Ty the Tasmanian Tiger” series or “SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom.” Otherwise, I don’t often replay or stick with games for a long period of time.

In terms of favourites to relax, for me that’s something that can be picked up and stopped at any point; it’s surprisingly games like Solitaire, Crosswords, and other casual puzzle games. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have some of the highest play times of Microsoft Solitaire Collection at this point.

What’s the first content you ever made for a game?

I’d entirely forgotten I uploaded anything to the Sims 3 community, but someone found and sent me this recently. It really depends on if you consider “wallpaper decal” as content for a game, but the timestamp of 7th of July 2010 would put it before anything else that I can think of. The profile says it has three creations so I assume I didn’t publish two, but I can’t get into the account to check what they are or when they were posted.

What types of new game releases excite you?

I don’t usually find too many new games that I’m excited for. My favourite types of games are usually third-person character-development-driven story games, but I don’t often try new games unless they are heavily recommended or are in franchises I am already a fan of. The ones I’ve been excited for in recent years would be anything in the “Life is Strange” franchise (I loved ‘Life is Strange: Reunion’ way too much), or anything that follows that format by Don’t Nod. “Lost Records: Bloom and Rage” by Don’t Nod is probably my favourite game of all time at this point, and I would be very excited for a sequel.

Otherwise, I’m a big fan of games by Remedy. I played the original Alan Wake after seeing it repeatedly mentioned throughout the psychological horror communities on Tumblr. I feel the main reason I play most games is for the story and world building, so Remedy games very much appeal to me. When Alan Wake 2 was announced, I was extremely excited to play it. I was very much the kind of person who actually read all the manuscripts in both Alan Wake games and read all the FBC files in Control. I am also very excited for “Control: Resonant” despite being a little sad you don’t get to play as Jesse.

Do you have any favourite extremely niche games?

A lot of the games I’ve mentioned already could probably be described as niche. I rarely find anyone in real life who’s even heard of “Lost Records: Bloom and Rage,” let alone played it. Some of my favourite more casual games growing up probably fit this better though.

I really loved the “Jane’s Hotel” series (and other Jane games), which was one of the inspirations for my Ludum Dare game TidyHomebound. There were a few other management games in a similar style that I loved, but don’t recall the names of.

The “Virtual Villagers” series was another one I really enjoyed, but that one’s big enough to have a Wikipedia page so probably magnitudes less niche. It got me into other more well-known simulation games such as Zoo Tycoon as well as The Sims.

There was also a tower defence game on GirlsGoGames that got me into the tower defence genre (mostly Bloons). I’ve forgotten the name of it but remember that one of the towers was “Evil Eye” and another was a stiletto. I’ve tried to find it a few times without success, but honestly based on the fragments of memory I have of it, it’s probably not at all aged well and better to leave in the past. Later on, I loved “Ninjatown” on the Nintendo DS, which was also a niche tower defence game.

Maybe not as niche as they were more popular web games at the time than the others, but I also loved the Grow series, especially Grow Island. I still sometimes get the soundtracks from that one and Grow Cube stuck in my head even decades later.

Do you view yourself as a gamer?

No, I’ve never really felt I play enough games to call myself that. While I do play games on occasion and am in gaming-adjacent spaces (modding etc), I don’t and haven’t ever felt like a “gamer” if that makes sense. I feel like gamers are people who are into games in general, and want to try out the “big new releases” etc. I have a niche set of games that I like and have very little interest in exploring outside of that. I also generally don’t replay games, so I end up spending very little time actually playing games.

While growing up I was also repeatedly met with criticism of “not being a real gamer” and told the games I played weren’t “real games.” When I did try to play those “real games” to fit in with gamers (typically competitive multiplayer games and shooters), I was always made fun of for being awful at them and for sucking the joy out of the games. Those experiences also likely contribute to my hesitancy to use the term.

What’s your comfort TV show?

The show I can always put on in the background is definitely the Simpsons (shameless plug to my online Simpsons Trivia Game). If we’re talking actual comfort shows though, as in ones that always make me feel a bit better when sad or in that melancholic mood, very much Daria. It’s been one of my favourite shows for basically my entire life, and one that I deeply resonate with. The character I relate with has changed over the years, from mostly Daria to Stacy and a mix of others, but it’s always provided me comfort.

What were your favourite books growing up?

I read a tonne as a kid, so I’m almost definitely forgetting some shorter-term obsessions, but there are a few series that still stick out to me. When I was younger, I absolutely loved “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, with “The Silver Chair” being my favourite from memory. Another favourite was the “Ulysses Moore” series, although only the first three or four were actually available in English at the time I was obsessed with it. I also very distinctly remember loving “The Secret Garden” as well as the City of Ember series (most people don’t realise there’s more than one book!).

As I got a bit older, my taste in books shifted more to the YA dystopia trend of the time. I was extremely into the “Hunger Games” series, obsessing over the books as they came out, then going through the same thing with the films. I was also fairly into the “Divergent” series, although not to the same extent.

Around that same period, I got into a few of the more Australia-specific YA books and series, such as the Tomorrow series (Tomorrow when the war began), as well as the book “Looking for Alibrandi.” I remember relating to the latter especially as I felt very othered by the Anglo-Australians I was surrounded by, although I’m not of Italian descent like the character in the book.

Later on, I got fairly into classic literature through Tumblr, reading Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Harper Lee (although I’m not sure she counts as classic), etc. I remember especially liking George Orwell’s books and writing a feminist critique of 1984.

What are your favourite bands?

My favourite genres of music are indie folk and folk punk, usually varying between what bands I like the most. In terms of artists who’ve really stuck with me, I’d say my favourites are Stick and Poke, First Aid Kit, Nana Grizol, “Defiance, Ohio,” and Madeline. I’ve also always loved Avril Lavigne’s music since I was a kid, although very much pop punk rather than anything folky.

What’s your favourite podcast and why?

Probably gl;hf hosted by Memoria and Any Austin. I’ve watched Memoria on YouTube for many years at this point and started listening to the podcast around when it launched. I found Any Austin’s YouTube channel through it and he’s also become one of my favourite YouTubers.

I’m honestly not sure I can point to one specific thing I like about the podcast. They both seem to have interesting and relatable opinions on a lot of topics, and their topic choices are consistently enjoyable. It’s mostly a vibes-based enjoyment.

What were your weird obsessions growing up?

I definitely had a few odd hobbies as a child 😅. The first that comes to mind is growing moss gardens. I’d find moss growing around the place and transplant it into my little garden I’d set up. Aesthetically I was (and still am) very into that mossy/mushroomy vibe. Another was flower pressing in books, where you’d put a flower in a book for a few weeks and get a flat dry flower to display. And lastly, I used to find clay in some bushland near my parents’ place and try shaping it into things. I’d dry it by leaving it out in the Australian summer sun, which surprisingly worked to an extent, although they’d all end up extremely fragile and brittle.

In terms of non-natural things though, I also used to draw and collect Smiggle glitter gel pens, as well as coloured pencils. I feel most things I wrote during my glitter gel pen era would fail almost all accessibility contrast and readability standards. The two main things I remember using them for was decorating my school diaries, and making little treasure hunts for friends and family.

Non-hobby wise, I was really into birds, such as the Bush stone-curlew. I like to think it’s because we both have comically long legs compared to our bodies 😌.

Do you travel?

Not in a fair while, but I have in the past. The only travelling I’ve done in the past few years has been around Australia, mostly within a few hours’ drive.

What are two traits about yourself you like the most?

I don’t really like to be self-aggrandizing or anything, so my answers here are two traits that other people have regularly told me I embody, and that I most appreciate. I feel trying to just decide what these are myself would just be what I strive for, versus what I actually do. Actions versus words type deal.

The first one is that I’m someone who just does things, rather than hoping someone else will do it. Thinking about it, this is basically the basis of my Pride and Bug Reports article too. This is a trait I respect in other people, so it makes me happy when others tell me that it’s one I exemplify.

The second would be that I’m very often given feedback that I’m very empathetic and approachable. I’ve touched on this in another article as well, specifically in the context of it not being always safe to do when it comes to providing support for my software. Luckily, I am still able to be that way in my personal life as well as at work.

This is an opportunity to hawk a charity. Which one do you pick and why?

I honestly had to look up what “hawk” means in this context, in Australia we’d say “spruik” 😅. As a vast majority of visitors to my site aren’t Australian, I’m going to go with an international charity. My choice would probably have to be “The International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD).”

This is an area of medical science that is woefully understudied, while also not being well understood by many doctors and patients. This leads many people to go years without a correct diagnosis, often receiving multiple incorrect diagnoses before finding the right one. As someone with PMDD, this is a topic I am very passionate about, and something I wish had better awareness. IAPMD are one of the few charities actually focusing on this space, which is why I’m choosing to highlight them.

If money weren’t an issue, what job would you do?

I am generally motivated by doing things that I feel can make a difference. The wider reaching that can potentially be, the more motivating I find it. What that would likely mean to me, would be contributing performance improvements to very widely used open-source software projects, to reduce the resource usage of the software. Faster software can lead to lower power draw and fewer required machines, overall being a positive for the environment. This can be fairly major when done at scale, especially with popular software targeted for running in Continuous Integration (CI) infrastructure.

A few years ago I was able to make a PR to the ESLint project, that I feel had the potential for major impact like this. If I didn’t need to work, I would probably keep doing stuff like that. As performance optimisation is an interest of mine, as well as a skill I am decent at, I feel this is likely the easiest way for me to make positive change, even if it’s not very visible.

Immediate associations with acronyms reveal a lot about someone, can you answer these fifteen?

Sure, this ended up being more interesting than I thought it’d be. I didn’t realise how many different things share the same acronym in different spaces.

• OTP: One true pairing
• IRL: In real life (are there actually different meanings to this lol?)
• GT: Greater than
• ACE: My mind immediately jumps to asexual, but that’s not an acronym. Angiotensin-converting enzyme is the first acronym I think of.
• AO: Adults only
• MSM: Mainstream Media
• MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• LFT: Liver function test
• SRS: Serious (tone indicator); otherwise Software Requirement Specifications although I’m not sure I’ve seen someone use that phrase since university
• TSS: Toxic shock syndrome
• BLM: Black lives matter
• BCI: Brain-computer interface
• CPR: The chest compression first-aid technique
• NGL: Not gonna lie
• PME: Premenstrual exacerbation

Where did the username Me4502 come from?

I signed up to the game Habbo Hotel as a child to play with a few friends and wanted to protect my identity, so I wrote “Me” in response to its “Who are you?” question when choosing a username (because it wasn’t a lie and didn’t give anything away). That name was of course taken/disallowed, so it suggested adding “450” to the end, and I ended up with the name Me450.

The name did also lead to some funny situations. In Habbo if a chat room was full, people often voted on who to remove by saying “Kick [username],” but they usually didn’t bother including the numbers in usernames. So, people would sometimes type “Kick me” and get kicked themselves instead of the vote counting towards me.

Later when I went to sign up to something else (I forget what, maybe RuneScape?) Me450 was taken, so I just added a 2 to the end. The name kind of stuck, but I sort of wish it hadn’t because it’s so generic and looks like a spam bot’s username. I used another username on Tumblr back in the early 2010s which was a literary reference and sometimes wish I’d swapped over to that one instead. It’s definitely too late now though.

Also, as an addendum, this wasn’t part of the actual question but something I’ve been asked a fair few times in the past. I personally pronounce it “Me Four Five Zero Two.”

Do you enjoy cooking?

Yeah! I grew up in diaspora and would spend a lot of time with my paternal grandmother learning family and cultural recipes from a young age. I would always be either helping out or observing, either for diaspora events alongside a cloud of other people, or just with her while she made elaborate foods to gift to others or stash away for later.

I always joke that I cook by vibes rather than formal recipes. While I do have a lot of her old recipe books (and handwritten recipes), most of what I learnt was how to intuitively know what to do. I still don’t trust timers for cooking a stovetop pilaf to this day for example, only the intuition I was taught. I still enjoy cooking these foods to this day, even if I never mastered the intricacy required for some of the foods she’d prepare.

What’s your Myers-Briggs type?

I pretty consistently get ENFP, although I’ve occasionally seen an INFP or ENFJ result pop up. ENFP always feels like it vibes the most with me, however. I don’t put too much stock in Myers-Briggs overall, but I’ll do the test when someone brings it up because I like doing random online quizzes 😌.

What types of tea do you enjoy?

I’m not the biggest tea drinker but will occasionally have various herbal teas. Mostly the calming/sleepy kinds of herbal tea blends. Although there was this one fruit tea containing nougat I got from T2 a few years ago that I really enjoyed.

Day-to-day though, I’m mostly a coffee drinker, and my coffee of choice is an iced long black. I’ve been repeatedly told this is an Australia-specific coffee drink, so it’s basically an iced americano that has more crema due to the coffee being poured into the water rather than the other way around. Just a double shot of espresso poured into ice water, no milk or anything fancy.

Red bull or Monster?

Neither. I am not really into energy drinks at all honestly. I’m not sure if I’ve ever even had a Monster before, and the only time I can remember having a red bull was in a mixed drink.

What kind of LGBTQIA+ are you?

I’m asexual, bisexual, and intersex. I don’t really mention it in my writing as it doesn’t naturally fit into anything that I’d normally write about, although it probably is part of why I’m so interested in inclusion and how technology can be more human-orientated. Intersex people in general run into a lot of design and social assumptions that don’t account for us, and a lifetime of those experiences definitely shapes how you see the world.

What was your highschool group chat called?

Only one I can still find or can remember was “SIR! It’s the Gay-dar! It’s Going Crazy!”

What generation do you align yourself with?

I fit into the “Zillennial” Gen Z / Millennial cusp generation, although I feel I fit more with millennials than gen z when picking a single generation. I find the concept of generations is fairly Americanised, and Australia was a bit behind technologically and culturally until the 2010s. During my childhood I remember VHS, dial-up internet, a lack of social media, etc.

The dial-up we had was also unstable because we were too far from the exchange and the phone lines were decaying, so it wasn’t really usable outside of niche situations. I didn’t get proper internet until 2009, so most of my formative years were functionally without internet. My family weren’t very tech savvy, so we didn’t have the most up to date technology either. The school I went to was also fairly lacking in technology, only getting machines that had USB ports in fifth grade, so I also had significantly more exposure to floppy drives and Windows 98 and ME for people my age.

I do sometimes wish that I could’ve experienced more of the earlier internet that others my age grew up with, but I feel not having access to the internet during my earlier years impacted the way I approach problems for the better. I still managed to get some of the earlier YouTube trends though, thanks to some “Best of YouTube” iTunes podcast that I’d sync to my iPod Nano whenever I found somewhere that had an internet connection.