The Manuscript

 Posted on May 14, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

“And so, no one has any idea what it is about?” “How could we? All of our attempts to study Dr. Barom’s final work have been unsuccessful so far.” The two men sat across from each other in Dr. Walters’s study, the great oak desk between them. “To call our attempts catastrophic would be an understatement,” Dr. Walters continued, “Two senior members of faculty and six grad students, soon to be seven, dead by their own hands. [Read More]
writings  horror  short stories 

Unseen

 Posted on April 14, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

Veni, vidi, vici, he said when he conquered the world. I came, I saw, I conquered. But what did They say? Ubique sumus, videmus omnia, omnes nos habent? We are everywhere, we see all, we own all? They’ve trained us not to see them, but They’re there. Whispering in the background, telling people what to do. They’ve got us all wrapped around Their fingers. Their long, creepy fingers. I’ve only seen Their fingers once. [Read More]
writings  horror  short stories 

Listen

 Posted on April 7, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

Listen - none of this is steeped in reality. I’ve never understood the real world. All I know is my own perception of the world. And even that is tenuous and changing. So I guess I don’t even know that. Why even write? I don’t know that either. I know stories. I read them, watch them, play them, invent them all the time. But do stories convey anything about meaning? Are stories real? [Read More]
stream of conscious  introspective  writings 

S3 on Flashblade

 Posted on March 25, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

I currently work for a company called Pure Storage. One of their products is called Flashblade. I couldn’t find any examples on how to use Flashblade’s S3 capabilities programmatically anywhere online, so I’m putting this out to hopefully help people realize they can move their object store into their data center with very little changes to their code. Code Snippets Most of the work with the libraries I’ve used involves figuring out how to get the client configured properly. [Read More]
tech  programming  code 

Infinite Jest

 Posted on March 2, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

This book was… Fuck I don’t know how to describe this book. It’s partially an exploration in writing. David Foster Wallace is obviously a brilliant writer, and the book contains many scenes that were nothing short of gripping. But it’s also obvious that he was having fun writing this book. He was playing around with it - mixing in multiple different writing styles, the endless footnotes, the odd ways he tells you important information. [Read More]
books 

Cold Bones

 Posted on January 22, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

It just won’t go away. The chill that pierces deep within. Or does it come from inside of me? It’s the worst in the limbs. My arms and legs, so cold no matter what I do. And then it creeps in. Up the spine, through the meninges, into the scalp. My hair stands on end with the chill. I’m just so damn cold. Make it go away. It makes all the bad feelings worse. [Read More]
writings 

2018 in Books

 Posted on January 9, 2019  |  Thomas Nelson

Intro My New Year’s resolution in 2018 was to keep track of everything I read. Context is important when trying to recall how you felt about books, not just the content of the words. Due to different life circumstances, the same book can be incredibly illuminating or insufferable. My goal in keeping track of all of this would be to be able to look back on the year and see how I’ve grown and what I’ve learned from all of my reading. [Read More]
books 

Video Games With Good Stories

 Posted on September 29, 2018  |  Thomas Nelson

Alright, so in general video games have really really bad writing in them. And a lot of them can get away with that, because they’re still fun. But there are quite a few video games that actually manage to have good stories. Here’s a list of some that I’ve played.

  • Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magicka Obscura
  • Bastion
  • Bioshock
  • Chrono Trigger
  • Golden Sun 1 & 2
  • Her Story
  • Persona 5
  • Planescape: Torment
  • Portal
  • Puzzle Agent
  • The Stanley Parable
  • Thomas Was Alone
  • To The Moon
  • Transistor
  • Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
  • The Witcher series (especially the 2nd and 3rd games)
  • The Wolf Among Us
  • The World Ends With You
video games  lists 

Programming Articles and Talks

 Posted on September 18, 2018  |  Thomas Nelson

Here’s a collection of talks or articles that I really enjoy. The Error Model Joe Duffy describes the error model in an experimental programming language that he worked on. Starts off by describing different ways that programming languages give programmers to express and deal with errors. He discusses the pros and cons of each strategy, and then goes on to describe how they designed around those problems to create something truly unique. [Read More]
lists  programming 

Books I Love

 Posted on September 15, 2018  |  Thomas Nelson

I can expand more or add to this list later, but here’s a quick list of books I love: Albert Camus - The Fall Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Aldous Huxley - Island Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis George Orwell - 1984 George Orwell - Animal Farm George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia H. [Read More]
books  lists