About
My name is Rauri.
I ❤️ pixels
I am a creative coder, bringing technical knowledge to creative escapades.
The header of this site is my own generative art, some are stills from FunkyVector.com and some are animated. All are hand coded in javascript with no (or extremely little) AI.
If you’ve ever made your own physics engine, hand minified code (code golfing), generated visuals or audio with code, rolled your own 3D engine, manually colourised every pixel or ansi block, aimed for 100% code coverage (YMMV), added an easter egg in a customer facing application, deployed an app just for love, updated your profile pic (any platform) with an icon that you made, created your own font (glyph by glyph), broke production by restarting the server when it had corrupt code, yelled aloud at DNS settings, made a website for a mate for free, performed your own music live, exhibited art, bit shifted, deleted a redundant code comment or just love camping…
…you’re my kind of person.
History
Born in Ireland, I grew up in East Africa, initially in Sudan, then I went to primary school in Kenya. Moved to Brisbane, Australia for high school and I’ve been in .au ever since.
My career has been entirely in tech. I started off as a web designer, but quickly transitioned to coding. I’ve been through the dot com tech bubble, the global financial crash, and the tech squeeze… Currently wrestling with AI.
Heroes
The A List
George Carlin
A comedian and commentator on society. Early on in his career he was mostly pushing run of the mill humour, but he had a moment, a mid life crisis potentially, where he pivoted to heavy commentary on the government, stupidity of humanity as a whole and many other things that just don’t make sense.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Christopher Hitchens
Strong atheist and excellent talker. Many times he overused his extensive vocabulary, making it hard for the layman (including me) to understand. But his message and mission were clear. Not many could stand up to him in a debate.
Jamie Mantzel
Off gridder, general fixer of stuff and creative engineer. Like me, he hates planned obsolescence and builds his own things that will last forever. Has single-handedly built some of the most impressive things imaginable, concrete houses, electric and human powered boats, and giant robots. Forget those that say no, do what you want. The world is full of sheep, you can do it your own way. I disagree with some of his opinions, but as a whole this guy is a massive inspiration.
Zaha Hadid
Just one of the best architectural designers, every building is gorgeous. Earlier in life I was a Raymond Loewy fan, but Zaha takes the cake here… if it’s worth making, make it awesome. A powerful woman in what seems to be a male dominated industry.
Gordon Duguid
An old mate who passed away in his mid 20s. “Define what you hate” was a key take away, as in whenever you are creating something, avoid the cliché and any shortcut that cheapens the creative. Performed live electronica as Captain Mubbers. Utterly uncompromising.
The B List
Gurwinder Bhogal
Another great critical thinker, unlike many of his peers he employs an extremely easy to read voice. This is key: if you want your intelligent thoughts to spread with ease, make them easy to consume!
Steve Hughes
A comedian and metalhead who does not give a fuck. Has gone a little crazy in his later years, I’m not aligned with some of his opinions on gender, but some of his takes on political correctness, general societal idiocy and being controlled are key.
(Speaking about the Netherlands) There’s a road next to a canal, is there a fence? No. No fence. England: there would be a big sign, big fence… “Don’t go in the water, don’t fall in the water and drown, don’t go in.” Amsterdam: “Is your bike wet?” “Yeah.” “Well you’re on the wrong bit mate.”
Iain M. Banks
Just a great author, a science fiction visionary and a legend. Notable moment: he was commissioned by the Scottish Tourism Board to do a book on Scotch whisky. Not the best book, but within he questioned what the ambiguous unit of a “dram” is, and defined it as something like “the serving size that both the host and guest think is appropriate”. I raise a dram to you Mr Banks.
Honourable mentions
Mostly youtube channels, but My Mechanics, Primitive Technology and Hand Tool Rescue are my guilty pleasures.
