BIT-101
Bill Gates touched my MacBook Pro
Welcome to BIT-101. My home on the web since 2001. Initially this started out as a Flash based experimental “lab”, where I did a Flash experiment almost every day for several years. Usually some kind of interactive animation using math or physics. It was a lot of fun.
In 2003 I also started a traditional blog. This is the third version of that blog. You can find the original two versions in all their glory here:
Another site that’s still somewhat active is:
Here’s a screenshot of the original Flash site in 2001! When I finally stopped maintaining it in 2005, it had around 800 open source experiments.
In 2003, that site won the Experimental category at the Flash Film Festival at the FlashForward Conference in NYC. My award was a rubber arrow (the conference logo), which I still have today!
That was my big moment. I got home from New York, and the next day I got fired from my crappy job in the estimating department of a mechanical contracting company. Best thing that ever happened to me. Got a new job as a programmer within a week. Twenty years later, I’m still working in tech. These days I manage two engineering teams and oversee another manager on two other teams. I don’t write much code at work anymore, but that’s OK. I let the kids do all that stuff.
I still write code all the time, mostly for fun or artistic purposes, or the occasional side project. I love learning new languages, techniques, new formulas to make interesting images or animations. That’s a lot of what you’ll find me writing about here.
The original Flash site also lead to me to getting my first authoring opportunity - writing a chapter for Flash Math Creativity. Such an amazing book! Nobody publishes books like this anymore. Someone should.
Over the next many years I wrote or contributed to at least sixteen programming books.
I wrote a bit more about the history of this site and some of my professional experiences in my 20 Years post on the earlier site.
I live outside of Boston, Massachusetts in the USA. While I’ve spent up to a few months in other locations, New England has always been my home. I grew up south of Boston, lived in Boston and Cambridge for many years, then north of Boston for a while. Now I’m out in the western suburbs for the past fifteen years. I’ve got four kids from my first marriage, all grown up and scattered across the country, and one daughter still at home, in junior year of college. My oldest daughter just made me a grandfather recently!
I don’t take many selfies, so this is your chance to get a look at me. From age 21, 42, and 59.
I just keep getting more handsome! I’m about 60 pounds lighter in the third picture than in the second one. A lot of that is due to running. I ran three marathons in my late 40s. Took some years off after that, but I’ve been back into it and logged over 500 miles in 2023. I might shoot for a half marathon in 2024.
Header image 'To US 101' by Oran Viriyincy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
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