Building software from the browser down to the boot sector.
I am creative and detail oriented, and can quickly excel at any
new technology or software a role requires.
My Projects
The best way to learn something new is to try it yourself.
I aim to use at least one new technology in any project I take on, and develop a broad understanding of software
both in and outside of the browser.
One of my longest running projects is the creation of an entire operating system from the ground up. Iridium is
a microkernel operating system for x64 CPUs written in C and assembly. The kernel is responsible only for memory
management, process scheduling, and inter-process communication - all else, including hardware drivers, is the
domain of privileged user-mode processes. Access to kernel resources is granted in the form of object handles,
which identify a kernel object inside a process's execution context and denote access capabilities. Processes,
threads, IPC channels, hardware I/O ranges, memory address mappings, and memory allocations are all represented
by object handles, and all types are equally shareable among other processes with the principle of least
privilege baked right in. Object capabilities can only be reduced, never expanded. This design was largely
inspired by Google's Fuchsia project. The architecture leads to some unique
possibilities, such as establishing shared memory buffers with an arbitrary number of processes just by sending
around copies of a handle to a common virtual memory object, or creating ring buffers without any special APIs
by mapping the same memory object twice back-to-back.
History
Iridium was born from a persistent exploration of kernel programming over several years. I started small,
writing 16-bit real mode assembly that used BIOS calls to load disk sectors and process input.
After outgrowing real mode I started anew in 32 bits. The OSDev Wiki and
Intel's software developer CPU manuals were indispensable resources during this period. I wrote a PS/2 keyboard
driver, and successfully enumerated PCI devices under emulators and on real hardware
Early 32-bit precursor to Iridium, enumerating recognized PCI devices and dropping the user into a
demo of the keyboard driver. A timer in the corner counts how many ticks of the legacy PIT have elapsed
Iridium is the latest instalment in this chain of projects, and host to many firsts in my journey: my first
64-bit operating system, the first to have a kernel API comprehensive enough to perform useful work, and the
first to load an init process from the disk without recompiling the kernel.
Qnect
I led a team of five to build a forum website during a QWeb development sprint at Queen's University.
Without any prior web development experience between us, we built a React SPA paired with a Node JS backend,
creating a working MVP in just three weeks on time for the demo. I took charge of a development cycle, running
design meetings, guiding technical decisions, and overseeing QA testing before deployment. Together we built a
platform where users can create forums for different topics, have branching conversations in the replies, and
vote on each others' content.
One of multiple Queen's student residence forums created ahead of demo day
The project uses a custom bcrypt-backed authentication system, Express, and MongoDB on the backend.
I'm currently in the process of overhauling the whole platform ahead of an open-source release! The new version
includes a fully relational Postgres database and server-side rendering, leading the way for improved
performance, flexible content feeds, and search engine presence.
This Minecraft NeoForge mod is an ImmersiveMC addon for
version 1.21.1, adding VR-oriented integration with the Create mod and allowing ImmersiveMC's existing features
to work properly in Sable's physics sublevels. The Sable compatibility enhancements are implemented at the level
of core hitbox rendering and interaction, ensuring that even if immersive features are modified or added in the
future they will remain compatible.
Motivation
Sable's modifications supporting detached physical bodies require a significant load of injected code into
surfaces that were originally designed under the assumption that the world exists on a single Euclidean grid.
Sable simulates these extra physics bodies in an entirely different engine running parallel to the game, and
overlays the bodies on top of the standard game world. This breaks the core assumptions that every other mod
relies on, such as only one block being able to exist at a specific set of coordinates at once, and that blocks
close enough to interact with each other are actually nearby in the coordinate space. The authors did their best
to ensure that common distance related functions and a huge list of base-game features were patched to work
in the presence of physics bodies, but ImmersiveMC is one of many mods fundamentally impaired by these changes.
Its entire multitude of features (for both VR and standard play) are rendered completely invisible and
inoperable when anchored to Sable's sublevels.
By making a careful selection of patches to the core APIs supporting most of ImmersiveMC's block-based
interactions, it was possible to patch in sublevel transparency across the board without the need to
individually rewrite every interaction. And since I've already put the effort into supporting Sable, it is only
natural to extend ImmersiveMC's mechanics to Create as well; since Sable was developed as a foundation for
Create:
Aeronautics specifically and those mods are near guaranteed to be used in parallel.
A Discord bot that automatically posts the day's menus for the Queen's University dining halls.
Data is sourced through the same API used on the university's official dining hall website, reverse engineered
by inspecting the code and network traffic. This information is fetched and restructured into Discord embeds
every morning, and posted into configurable channels in every server the bot is added to.
My personal instance (Affectionately known as FoodBot) evolved to include several automated responses to inside
jokes among friends and voting on Memes shared in our server.
Homelab
I host a variety of services used by myself and friends/family
I maintain two physical servers as a home for my own creations and to practice data sovereignty.
Rural internet imposes some constraints on services expecting inbound traffic however, so I use a combination of
Cloudflare tunnels and a cheap, VPN-linked Azure server as my network gateways. Cloudflare's caching layer comes
with the additional benefit of reducing the load on my home network. My personal devices are configured to use
my own DNS server, blocking the majority of ads and tracking at the network level. My smart home compatible
devices (including a de-amazonified Alexa!) are linked by a globally accessible Home Assistant instance, and I
run a personal XMPP instant messaging server for myself and friends. I can even manage the settings and data of
several services directly through symlinks in SMB shares, making tagging music in my Jellyfin media library
or writing datapacks for my two Minecraft servers trivial.
Qnect's frontend deployment pipeline links to an Azure static web app, while the backend lives on my own
hardware.
