/now

This is my now page, where you can find out what I'm up to at the moment. Last updated 3 April 2026.

life

At long last, after putting it off for at least a decade, I’ve sent off my Irish passport application. The final nudge was Maltese border security taking my biometrics for the EU’s new mass surveillance entry/exit system, gross.

Speaking of which, Leona and I went to Malta! I was aiming for “cheap flights to somewhere it’s more than 12 degrees”, the intent being to have a nice relaxing break from work, but accidentally ended up in one of the most interesting places in Europe and spent the whole time sightseeing. Oops. (It was also a good excuse to finally finish v2 of my travel journal web app.)

projects

It’s all been very computer-focused lately. I’ve spent a fair bit of the last few months creating this website (Astro + SveltiaCMS) and polishing off the aforementioned travel journal (pure Svelte). I’ve been tinkering with the travel journal on-and-off for a decade at this point so it’s a real relief to get it to “good enough”.

Back in January, I attended the Edinburgh edition of Global Game Jam 2026 - my first in-person game jam! I made Spinning Masks with the very talented jfml. I won’t claim it’s a masterpiece of game design, but I am rather proud of how it came out after 2.5 days of only moderate stress.

work

It’s been a busy year at NHS Education for Scotland Public Services Delivery Scotland. Turns out its quite a lot of work to scale something up from 100s of users to millions, especially when it’s happening all in one go rather than in a controlled, incremental fashion (but who am I to argue with the whims of royalty.) As part of the NDP team my focus is largely on the behind-the-scenes parts: how does one fetch data from dozens of heterogeneous clinical systems and somehow present it in a safe, consistent, and useful way to members of the public? Answers on a postcard.

media

I’ve been: