Hi, I’m Ian.

I spend a lot of my time (and generally enjoy) working on machines; mainly electronic and software machines, but also mechanical ones. I also spend a bit of time (and generally enjoy) doing mammalian things like sleeping and eating.

Currently I live way down South in Dunedin, New Zealand, but I am originally from Northeast Georgia in the USA. I also lived for a while in Colorado, and have spent some time in Antarctica.

When I was little, I thought that Legos and Ninja Turtles were pretty cool, then I decided TV was lame and virtual reality was way more interesting than school. Then I spent a long while fixing computers, making stoves from old beer cans, walking around, riding my bike, and pumping gas through big hoses. In 2011, I moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, and guessed earthquake magnitudes between testing and building power electronics. After that, my job changed to keeping computers happy so they could count neutrinos at the South Pole. After that spent a little while working on open source CAD tools, then got a job doing mostly firmware type stuff with a local company. Later, I switched to my current fully-remote gig, which is mainly firmware for really tiny machines, and embedded Linux. I still think Legos are pretty cool.

Some tools I like using are Python 3, Rust, good soldering irons, lathes, tricams, wool socks, nice sharp flat files, and battery-powered chainsaws. On the other hand, I can use Phillips screws, Bash scripts, hot glue guns, and Visual Studio even if I don’t really like to.

I’m a big fan of open source stuff; software, physical things, organisations, etc. And, I’m a fan of robust local communities. To that end, I spend some time keeping my local makerspace going, and occasionally help out a bit with FreeCAD.

This site is generated using Jekyll and obviously is hosted on github. I’m a complete Ruby newbie and haven’t learned modern HTML worth a damn, so apologies for any difficulties you might encounter while reading this blog or as a result of reading this blog.

Photos are mine unless attributed otherwise or obviously not real. I do not recommend acting on anything you find here.

code at ianrees dot en zee