Today I’m releasing ShaderPad. It’s a small, focused library to put a shader on a website without rebuilding the same graphics scaffolding every time. If you want to experiment with writing shaders, I think this is one of the best ways to get started. Motivation If you’ve spent much time on this website, you know I mainly use my computer to doodle. Shaders are an expressive way to sketch with code. There are many shader sandboxes online, most notably ShaderToy, that make it easy to write shaders. But platform lock-in makes moving these sketches onto your own website a hassle. After wiring up the same…

Occasionally, clumsily, I make music. I had a drum kit when I was growing up. Making music looked like this: Sit down.Hit drums for an hour. Now I’ve grown up, so I share walls with landlords and neighbours whose love is conditional. And though I’ve managed to fit drums into some astonishing nooks, my recent apartments haven’t had room for surfaces that I don’t eat or sleep on. These days, I make music with a keyboard or drum pad connected to my computer. It’s the same computer that I spend most of my time…

I included the following in my application for SFPC:

DELETION, PERMANENCE, AND CONSISTENCY=====================================

Silicon Valley likes to store data because it entrenches people in their past behaviors. Corporate culture’s emphasis on consistency is ableist, colonizing, transphobic, and represents a growing discomfort with people’s fluidity.

I hope someday to have an International Day of Deletion. How can we live more presently?

I am excited to say that after a few years of privately practicing Deletion Day on April 4th, we’ve got a public website.

Deletion Day 2020 is less straightforward than it’s been in past years. With the isolation of social distancing, I’ve found comfort in social and digital media. And my gripes about data security and privacy seem tiny next to the health crisis we’re dealing with globally. But – this is still something that matters to me. Privacy and agency remain important components of the rapid changes we’re witnessing in government and society.