Raymond Krehn's Blog

I Created a Board Game

March 4, 2024

Before the pandemic wreaked havoc on our livelihoods and sanity, I started building a board game after finding some games I became very passionate about. Games like Carcassone, Dominion, King Domino, Smallworld, and Forbidden Island were on my rotation frequently and I wanted to build something that I wanted to play.

Best Airlines

January 10, 2024

I’ve flown a lot over the years, and I find myself sometimes saying to myself, “I should just pay the extra money and fly this other airline instead.” The problem with always seeking out the cheapest airline ticket is that it’s not always the best value. Just because a ticket is cheap, doesn’t mean you …
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The Prophet Paradox

September 12, 2023

There’s probably a better term for this than the “Prophet Paradox,” but I often wonder if people like Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) or Leonardo Da Vinci are really prophets. Even Biblical people like Ezekiel and Abraham come to mind. Did what they say come true? What if they never said anything? Obvious warning: This is …
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What the Debt Ceiling Bill (H.R.211) actually says

June 1, 2023

Thanks to Google Bard, I prompted the following question for each Title within the H.R.211 Debt Ceiling bill: “Summarize the following section as if I was an elementary school student.” I’m not a lawyer nor am I a genius, so somewhere below that is ideal. It’s also worth reminding people that it’s a Language Learning …
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A Review of the Stock-investing ChatGPT Study

May 20, 2023

Many articles have been published lately about how successful ChatGPT has been with investing in stock choices. Some even say it can “pick stocks better than your fund manager“. I read the study, as per usual, and discovered that a lot of the articles overexaggerated the study’s outcomes and is not entirely realistic. I also …
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Deregulation Keeps Biting Us

March 13, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank recently collapsed as did Signature Bank. The problem is that these were completely unavoidable and were avoidable until deregulations stepped in and allowed these events to happen. As usual, I will reference the actual sources to avoid any biased opinions.

The Ability for AI to Write Articles

January 18, 2023

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way in recent years, and one of the areas in which it has made significant strides is in writing articles. AI-powered writing software can now produce written content that is indistinguishable from that written by humans.

Questions and Answers with ChatGPT

January 4, 2023

For those that don’t know what ChatGPT is, it’s a new service from OpenAI that basically allows you to ask a question to an Artificial Intelligence that scours millions of articles to return information. According to their FAQ, “ChatGPT is fine-tuned from GPT-3.5, a language model trained to produce text. ChatGPT was optimized for dialogue …
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Are Earlier Albums the Best for Artists? Why?

November 21, 2022

I couldn’t help but notice while I was writing my article on my favorite songs, that many of those albums were the band’s second album. Why is that? Is there data supporting my anecdote? What’s a potential cause?

I wrote a letter to my 35-year-old self when I was 30

September 20, 2022

I enjoyed the last time I did it to reflect on life and changes that I did it again. Once again, I forgot about the letter for almost two years, but now I’ll reflect on it since I rediscovered it while digging through the safe while searching for some identification cards. I’ll redact some information …
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I built my own captcha

September 1, 2022

Captcha, for the uninitiated with the term, is displayed on many forms when you register for a website, and it can have impossible-to-read text. It’s fairly easy to install and common across the web. Because I’m me, I don’t want to use it. Maybe it’s “sticking it against the man” or maybe it’s naivety, or …
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The Apple ecosystem vs Windows

July 10, 2022

It’s strange to use the word “ecosystem” to define a set of different devices using the same operating system. Yet, this is exactly what Apple has accomplished with its MacOs, iOS, and Apple Watch. Windows is only used on personal computers – lovingly called PC – and that’s… it?

Are the younger generations financially worse off than older generations?

June 10, 2022

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how data can tell any story you want it to but understanding the correct data can tell the truth. I often hear things about inflation, how difficult it is to live now versus our parents, the baby boomer generation, and how rising costs and lower wages are …
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Best Songs Ever

April 24, 2022

I already covered the metal albums in a previous post, so I thought I’d cover what I deem are the best songs. Unlike the best metal albums ever, this list will cover many genres. Like the best metal albums list, this will not be in any particular order and many bands from that list will …
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Nier Fundamentally Changed Me

February 5, 2022

In a previous article related to music in video games, I brought up Keichi Okabe and the video game director Yoko Taro. I think it’s time to dedicate something to them specifically because Yoko Taro changed my perspective of the world. Obviously, this contains strong spoilers.

NFL GamePass is the worst streaming service

December 27, 2021

I’m no UI designer by any means. Probably the exact opposite, actually. Despite this, I do recognize ease-of-use with my background in product management and analysis. There are many streaming video services around, and they’re all quite decent, but none of them are as bad as NFL Gamepass. Gamepass is, by far, the biggest pile …
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An Exploration of AI Art Generation

December 13, 2021

I recently discussed AI Art generation and my discovery of it a while back. Since then, I’ve become involved in the AI Art community and learning about the different models that exist out there in addition to the different methods. I’ll primarily focus on four: DALL-e, StyleGAN3, VQGAN, and Wander (previously BigGAN). All of these …
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Browser Extensions

October 28, 2021

The best thing to happen to the internet in the past 20 years is web-browser extensions (or add-ons). These are a few of my favorites and they exist for both Firefox or Chrome (Safari, Vivaldi, Brave, Edge, etc. all use Chrome).

Conspiracies and the Rise of Fascism

October 18, 2021

Q-Anon has been making headlines lately. For the uninitiated, it is a conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them, leading to a “day of reckoning” involving the mass arrest of journalists and politicians (Seriously). Unfortunately, this is …
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Discovering Stocks p2

September 7, 2021

In my first post on stock investing and using learned lessons of missed opportunities and so many mistakes, I thought it would be important to perform a retrospect. However, it’s worth noting I didn’t follow my own advice and got caught up in the same gambling stage that most investors do. You get the win …
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My board game: Paths to Aegis

August 30, 2021

I spent the past couple of years designing a board game with a few friends and I finally finished it and put it up on Kickstarter so it’s cheaper to mass-produce. It’s a rogue-lite game where deck-building or leveling up is a constant balance.

I Upgraded my Walmart Price Scrapper to Multiple Stores

August 5, 2021

My original post was focused primarily on monitoring Walmart prices. I’ve since expanded it to support four different stores including Target, Bestbuy, and GameStop. Originally, I only updated it to include Target and Bestbuy, and the article I wrote completely disappeared when I upgraded WordPress. As I added GameStop, I decided I had to change …
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I Trained AI to Make Art

July 14, 2021

I’ve become fascinated with AI in case my previous article wasn’t clear enough. Oddly enough, I’ve been curious with OpenAI’s engine and defining what it thinks art is by telling it what I want. OpenAI will search a database of pictures with tags and create what I write based on what it “thinks” I’m asking …
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The Best Video Game Composer

July 12, 2021

This is a hotly contested question I’ve seen on Reddit from time to time. You see the normal names thrown out there like Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame, or Keiichi Okabe from the Nier series, Koji Kondo from the Zelda games, and many others. I think a better question is: how do we define …
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UFOs v UAPs v Aliens

June 7, 2021

I attempted to think of a more clever title and failed miserably in light of the recent release of UFO documentation. The more aptly named UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) reminds us that these sightings are just that: unidentified. Some people immediately start to assume these are visitors from other planets, but the reality is extremely …
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The Future of Mobility

May 4, 2021

My eldest son has been obsessed with a Coilbook TV show episode involving a police chase across different timelines. Aside from the fact a 3-year-old is already curious about time travel, the section that takes place 100 years from now has flying cars as primary transportation. I don’t think it will happen.

I Made a Walmart Price Scrapper

March 7, 2021

I built a price checker for Walmart that will both identify pricing of whatever item I choose both in store and compare it to online. Why? Because I didn’t want to pay a service to do it.

Legal Things That Shouldn’t Be

February 9, 2021

America is the best country in the world, right? Though, I don’t know how you could prove it when the US is not #1 in many categories except Gross Domestic Product and most incarcerations per capita. Wait, never mind, China took over GDP in 2018. Well, America has the highest cost of healthcare in the …
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Best Metal Albums Ever

January 8, 2021

It should be no surprise to anyone who personally knows me that I’m a huge metal fan. For those, who didn’t know that – surprise! I’ve thought a lot over the years about which albums are the best. Every time I listen to something new, I try to gain a new perspective on music and …
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Possibilities in New Music

November 22, 2020

Before you read any further, keep in mind that there are no new recordings to share at this time. I’ve been rediscovering my love for writing music and been contemplating what I would do next. Discovering new bands and new passions for sounds have reinvigorated my inspiration and creativity.

Discovering Stocks

October 23, 2020

I have invested in stocks for well over a decade. I tried everything from daytrading to long-term trading; Using dozens of different indicators to determine when to make a move, and when not to. There are lessons I’d like to share.

The Magic of Minecraft

September 15, 2020

Minecraft is a phenomenon and it’s hard to ignore its existence. Everything from t-shirts to even Lego sets based of a popular game that came into the public purview in 2009 has been a world-wide hit selling over 200 million copies as of writing. What made it so magical to begin with?

Understand Data Correctly

July 14, 2020

It’s impossible to escape anywhere either mentally or physically without hearing about the Coronavirus (COVID-19). If you came to read this to escape it then unfortunately I’ve misguided you. It all started when I came across a post on Twitter from someone that believes the virus is a manufactured hoax and their proof of data …
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The Gone World Explained

April 1, 2020

The Gone World is a book written by Tom Sweterlitsch that has many twists and turns and many readers want confirmation on the ending. I want to establish the summary on parts of the book for people to confirm what their theories are, or explain the book to those who got lost. It should be …
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LendingClub AI Investor

February 7, 2020

I shutdown FluxRobot about two years ago, but the software that was investing in various loans is still running. Mostly. I noticed something was odd when I hadn’t received any notifications about new investments in a few weeks. The logs I kept on my virtual private server informed me that the API I was calling …
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I’ve been building a search engine

December 13, 2018

I’m a fan of Ecosia, but it needs a lot work. Ecosia is a search engine using Bing’s engine to generate search results. A majority of their revenue goes to reforestation. Some of the things they have done for poor communities in areas like Madagascar that were dried up and now thriving is nothing short …
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I’m probably shutting down FluxRobot

February 23, 2018

A couple of years ago I created a website and an algorithm called Flux Robot that would automatically invest funds in a user’s Lending Club account to maximize their potential return of investment (ROI). In a lot of ways, I succeeded. The average ROI for the very few accounts in Flux Robot was 7.92%, which …
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Stop Calling Analysis “AI”, Because it isn’t

February 6, 2018

There’s a disgusting trend reoccurring lately. The most recent misuse of “AI” set me off a ledge regarding the Voynich Manuscript. For anyone unfamiliar, the Voynich Manuscript is a 270-page book that has been carbon-dated to roughly 15th century written in a language using an alphabet no one recognizes. There have been dozens of theories, …
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Block Advertisements and Watch Movies with Raspberry Pi

December 3, 2017

I got a Raspberry Pi 3 the other day and turned it into a dual-purpose server in my household. The first purpose disables ads on all websites from any device on our network. The second purpose is it acts as a media server where I can watch various movies and TV shows I have stored …
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I hacked Excel

October 30, 2017

And it was incredibly easy. Some background: I received a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (xlsx file) from someone at my company that was struggling with incorrect numbers. The spreadsheet was password-protected. I noticed one of the formulas wasn’t calculating correctly and giving a percentage of a score that they had a 0%, which was incorrect. This was …
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I wrote a letter to my 30-year-old self when I was 25

October 18, 2017

I don’t remember what sparked the idea, but I thought it would be interesting to write a letter to my future self in five years when I was 25 years old. It’s interesting to think about what my priorities were then, and how it’s shifted to now. I’m halfway on to my next mark five …
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How I Wrote a C# Terrain Map Generator

September 21, 2017

Last week while I was taking the dog for a walk, an idea came to mind: What if I built a town simulation that told stories about people who lived there? Upon thinking this, I was curious if I could somehow build a random map that these people, or “sims” since I grew up in …
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Let’s Talk: The Equifax Hack

September 14, 2017

I want to talk about the Equifax hack. It’s extremely important because if you’re an American, then there’s more than a 50% chance you’re affected and everything about you is at risk: Your full name, your date of birth, your social security number, your address, and more. This article will dive into more details about …
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AutoApply

May 12, 2017

Filling out job applications can be very time-consuming. Unfortunately, I was laid off about a month ago. Since I’m unemployed and I want to be more efficient, I started building a program that will automatically fill out a majority of the forms for me automatically. So far, I have a settings menu where you can …
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Microsoft Office 2016 and Activation

February 3, 2017

I recently purchased a dozen desktops for the office and was tasked with setting them up and installing Microsoft Office 2016. I purchased the Dell Precision towers with Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 pre-installed on each one. One thing that I did not account for was that Microsoft changed their activation method and now tie …
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Creating SSL Certification

August 15, 2016

This guide will walk through setting up an SSL certification and installing it on your server. I used these steps in the past for Jira and Confluence, but there are many uses for this. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. …
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How to: Land a Job

July 25, 2016

I’ve been interviewing for a position at my company for a few weeks now and I can’t help but notice how frequently some (what I would assume) basic concepts of getting a job are completely ignored. I was recently browsing social media when I came across someone complaining about the difficulty of finding a job. …
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Peer-to-peer Lending Evolved

April 28, 2016

My article relating to Peer-to-Peer Lending is one of my most popular articles with over 6,000 visits. I think that’s a rather huge accomplishment for a personal website with no desire to publically broadcast. One of the items I talk about later in the article is how to reduce risk while increasing rewards. Using backtracked …
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Reading Lines in C#

March 24, 2016

I came across an interesting scenario today while I was building an application that required me opening a file, reading it line by line, and importing it into a dataset. The reason this was an interesting scenario is because there is data that belongs to a specific identifier on different lines.

SQL Basic Maintenance Script

March 4, 2016

I came across a database that has suffered a lot of deadlocks recently. This, along with slow query execution among other problems led me to convince management that the database required downtime. Some of the maintenance I performed was re-building tempdb tables and moving them off the C Drive, which I highly recommend for various …
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Cutting Television

October 9, 2015

I’ve had a television service ever since I was a little kid. I remember when I had an antenna on top of my box that we called “bunny ears.” Yes, the television was a large box with ears. We had to adjust the antenna once in a while to get clear reception, or the channels …
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Adblocking

August 13, 2015

Note: Recommendations are at the bottom if you want to skip this article. I came across an easily one-sided article that states in the opening statement, “The use of ad-blocking software is exploding and is projected to cost websites nearly $22 billion in lost advertising revenue worldwide this year, according to a new study.” Without going into semantics …
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My SSD is near capacity. What can I do?

June 27, 2015

I see this question a lot and it actually bothered me that my 120 GB Solid State Drive (SSD) was near full capacity despite the fact I install almost everything on a secondary drive. I try to keep only my Windows installation on the SSD for incredibly fast boot times. If you’re unfamiliar with the …
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Password Manager LastPass Security Breach

June 16, 2015

“LastPass, a company that offers users a way to centrally manage all of their passwords online with a single master password, disclosed Monday that intruders had broken into its databases and made off with user email addresses and password reminders, among other data.” But, you probably shouldn’t worry too much. LastPass utilizes AES 256-bit encryption on your …
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Let’s Talk About Peer-To-Peer Lending

March 16, 2015

A synopsis: Peer-to-Peer lending is when individuals loan money to other individuals who need loans. An Analogy: Remember when Napster first existed? The idea was that you had a song on your computer that was typically in a format known as mp3. You most likely listen to mp3s to this day through programs like iTunes, …
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An RSVP PHP Script

January 3, 2015

I’ve been terrible about posting on here and I just noticed after all this time that my blog doesn’t contain any web-based scripts. I am getting married this fall, so I built a website with a RSVP PHP form for our guests. I’d rather have all our guests in a centralized location than a group …
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e(volve) release date announced!

September 19, 2014

Expect e(volve) to arrive October 13, 2014! It will be available on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Music, Spotify, XBox Music, Sony Music, and much more! It will be available to listen to on bandcamp.com and only $5 for purchase.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Explained

September 8, 2014

Before I begin, I will state that the following article is a completely unbiased and is a shortened version of the actual act itself. What people call “Obamacare” is actually the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (abbreviated to PPACA or ACA). However, people started calling it “Obamacare” before all the rules were even applied. …
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Re-imagining Employee of the Month

April 27, 2014

It’s common amongst management to recognize employees for their high work ethics. One of these methods is the all-to-familiar “Employee of the Month.” You can see these displayed in some stores or offices along a wall with a picture of the the employee’s face and usually a quote dictating why they’re there. However, there can …
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Open-plan offices are a false economy

April 21, 2014

It wouldn’t be too wild an assumption that very few of us enjoy working in an open-plan office. For all the propaganda that they improve communication, boost team spirit and increase efficiency, the fact is that as far as most of their inmates are concerned, open-plan offices are noisy, distracting and stressful –just the wrong …
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Heartbleed security breach and what you should do

April 15, 2014

Unlike other exposed security breaches the heartbreak won’t affect many people. There was a hole in SSL signatures that basically allowed hackers to take a peak at data being transmitted. Essentially, SSL is like using keys to get in a door to your home. Heartbreak is like when a robber uses the old credit card …
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Where is album?

March 7, 2014

There are a lot of factors into why I haven’t released the album yet. Some of it is due to procrastination and some of it is a legitimate reason. Here’s a list: I’ve really struggled writing lyrics. Writer’s block exists for musicians too! Some was too redundant and some I couldn’t think of a theme. …
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Latest on the album

January 15, 2014

I can say that the following are officially complete with the album: Drums, Guitars, and Keyboards. Right now I am focusing on final touches, writing vocals, and recording the vocals. From the last update I deleted 2 songs, rewrote one entirely, and wrote 2 new songs. I’m pretty happy with the way this record is turning out …
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New album

October 9, 2013

I’ve been spending the last few months really focusing on my new album. With this, I can officially claim that I am done writing the album. The drums are done recording and I will spend the next month or two recording the guitars, vocals, and finishing up the keyboards as some of those are finished. …
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Tutelary Setbacks

August 12, 2013

While working on Tutelary I had squashed some bugs, added some mini-games so you’re rewarded for exploring, and started work on the three towers (act 4 of 5). Unfortunately, for some unknown reason the towers were completely lost! Thankfully, all the smashed bugs and mini-games remained. I have no idea how any of this happened …
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New layout and a new section

April 27, 2013

First thing you’ll probably notice is a new layout for the site. The other one was just overwhelming so I wanted to make it simple. The next thing you’ll notice is the “Interesting Articles.” I spend a lot of time reading random articles around the web and I’m afraid that someday they may disappear over …
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A Tutelary Update

February 14, 2013

I’ve been on vacation lately and worked on Tutelary: The Adventures of Freyr a little more. I’ve made A LOT of progress. A large setback for me was getting the floating city of Meiji working properly. I also added a new skill for Freyr. I’m debating on getting a Kickstarter going. I would like someone to …
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Dreams and Visions

November 24, 2012

I moved some stuff that was on my former philosophy blog over to this site. Specifically, I brought over my dreams and visions sections, which you can view on the left. To start off the launch, I wrote a new dream I had.

New song!

October 30, 2012

Enjoy the work of a new song I’ve been working on recently.

See the blog on the left side?

September 25, 2012

No? Okay, it’s missing for a reason. A couple of weeks ago I received an error that my maximum bandwidth had been getting close. I was confused as I have 200GB of bandwidth and on a good month about 10MB is used since I don’t get a lot of traffic. It turns out that the …
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A Tutelary Update: Chapter 3 is complete!

July 16, 2012

I’m pleased to announce that Chapter is 3 is complete and Chapter 4 is currently going strong. Now that most of the towns have been designed, the game development will go much more faster. At this point it’s mostly adding dialogue and events that will consume the rest of my time. After Chapter 3 ends, …
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Portfolio is available

June 15, 2012

You can view my portfolio of websites and games by clicking “Portfolio” on the left side. I also finally recovered my personal blog which contains visions, dreams, and other fun things. Enjoy.

New website

May 28, 2012

I gave up on restoring the old website. I decided to just start over, so enjoy 🙂

Frustrations and progress

May 9, 2012

Moving to a new host has proven to be a bigger headache than I had hoped for. I’m having issues restoring my previous blog. All the information is there, but getting it to connect is proving to be difficult. I will also be re-doing the portfolio section. On another note, my album is coming along …
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