About
I'm ZLG, a guy who loves pixels, video games, programming, and chiptunes. I live in Washington state with my partner. I practice digital self-sufficiency by hosting my own website and its associated services, as I have been since 2016. If you're reading this, then you've connected to a Raspberry Pi computer in my office!
From a young age, I day-dreamed about the various worlds that I encountered in video games and animation. They inspired me to go on adventures in the pastures of the farm I grew up on, and pretend to be in those worlds. A simple chicken house became a deep cave of adventure, with the Mystical Sword at the top of a hay bale. It was more like sticks cobbled together and stolen from my great-grandmother's granary, which I'm sure she loved. :)
In my teenage years, I pursued programming on a hand-me-down computer so I could make my own website, and picked up GNU/Linux so I could customize my computer more than what Windows allowed me to. My ultimate goal is to make video games.
Over time, I picked up a number of programming languages and technical skills. After distro-hopping (as one does...) I settled on Gentoo Linux and contributed as a Developer from 2016 to 2018. After that, I assisted Adélie Linux in getting their initial package set going with Certbot, Mumble, and their dependencies. Then I researched and wrote a guide on setting up full-disk encryption with LUKS, LVM, and initramfs with cryptsetup to automate decryption on boot. The right project could encourage me to contribute again, but I want my code and time to be appreciated.
Non-Tech Stuff
I've doodled and drawn ever since I could hold a pencil. School would often bore me, and I would get in trouble for drawing to pass the time. It's hard to resist the urge to doodle when I see an empty piece of paper.
When the opportunity strikes, I enjoy bowling, billiards, bicycling, hiking, mini-golf, go-karting, and swimming. I learned to play saxophone in middle school, and applied what I learned in school to also learn ocarina. Some day, I want to return to music, and learn otamatone, drums, and keyboard. I have also enjoyed playing with KORG synthesizers and tracking software like Rytmik or NitroTracker.
Animation
In terms of art, I was inspired by a number of works:
- The Land Before Time
- Ren & Stimpy
- Sailor Moon
- Cowboy Bebop
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Serial Experiments: Lain
- Lucky Star
- Lilo & Stitch
- Samurai Champloo
- Mushi-shi
Games
These are some of my favorite video games, which have all left a lasting impression on me as a person.
- Zelda: Majora's Mask
- Super Metroid
- Dark Souls
- Pokémon Gold & Silver
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Diablo II
- Mega Man Legends
- Jet Force Gemini
- Yoshi's Island
- Factorio
- Sonic Adventure 2
- Risk of Rain 2
Software
The single most influential piece of software in my life is Vim. It's not only my favorite text editor, but it led me to discover the Free/Libre Software movement, GNU, the GPL, and Linux. It unlocked an entire world of software that I could use, change, and share with anyone. Without access to a free system to learn and tinker with, I would not know as much as I do about computers or programming.
Desktop
On my desktop computer, I use Windows 10 right now.
On it, I use:
- Notepad++ for editing text
- 7-zip for handling archives
- Firebot for stream automation and integration
- Elgato Wave Link to manage audio cleanly
- PuTTY to remotely access my laptop and server
- WinSCP to move files to said computers via SSH
- Parsec to share multiplayer games over the network
- Filezilla to move files via (S)FTP
- ProMotion NG for making pixel art
- ShotCut for editing videos
I'll probably write some blog entries about my setup some time.
Laptop
On my laptop (a Librem 14 by Purism) I run Gentoo Linux, protected with full disk encryption and hardware access token.
On it, I use: