Welcome to Not A Robot
A home for the playful techie, Not A Robot is about re-discovering our place in a world that can often feel cynical, joyless, and decidedly anti-human.
I’m a professional software developer from Liverpool, UK, with a love for technology, people and the absurd. I’m primarily interested in game development, but will be writing about all manner of tech-related topics. I’m a firm believer that technology should be for everyone, of any age, and should make our lives easier, more interesting, and more human than ever before.
At Not A Robot, you’ll find:
Thoughts on technology, old and new
What the Vision Pro is actually for
Earlier this month, Apple announced the Vision Pro headset - their first dedicated device for AR (Augmented Reality) / VR (Virtual Reality) - hereafter referred to as XR - after several years of speculation and rumour. The response has been mixed: Mark Serrels at CNET branded the Vision Pro a ‘
Inverting The Tower
Behind every great text is an author frustrated with their inability to find the right words. Every canvas invites the artist to describe - but not quite - their vision. Every soaring orchestral masterpiece is a scream from the soul of the composer: please understand, please hear me....
Programming tutorials and guides
Bootstrapping your Unity game with Addressables
In this post, we’ll explore a straightforward way to assert control over your Unity game, keep your scenes clean, and lay the foundations of a flexible, extendable bootstrapper that leans on Unity’s Addressables system.
Tiny Gardening
A few weeks ago, I posted an introduction to the Tiny game engine, which you can read at the link below: Since then, I’ve been sporadically working on a little game called Tiny Gardening, which is intended to be something of a re-vamp of one of my first coding projects:
Self-Hosting Shenanigans
I’ve been thinking recently about self-hosting - running your own servers and services to suit your needs and facilitate your personal and professional life. In an era where technology creeps into our homes from every angle (even the humble doorbell is now an internet-aware communications device!), it seems to me that seeking to coalesce and control thi…
Stories, advice, and information from my career
The Warehouse Of Horror
Sometimes in software development, a project can seem to go perfectly well, but still result in disaster. This is the story of my first major taste of such a project, how I dealt with the immediate fallout, and the lessons I learned in the process. This is a fairly long post, so I’ve tried to keep it entertaining - but if you’d rather
How To Actually Use A Computer #1
The internet today is creaking under the weight of a seemingly endless barrage of auto-generated clickbait articles, irritating website design, and next-to-useless search-engine results. Even when Google does manage to surprise you with a relevant result, there’s a high chance that the website you end up visiting will attempt to sell you thirteen differ…
If you believe crypto is closer to the printing press than it is the Bank of England, that AI deserves praise and pause, and that there is still joy, humanity and humour to be found in a tech world dominated by gigantic corporations and AAA studios, then I hope you’ll find something of interest here.
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Disclaimer
All views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are entirely my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
