Blogs Posts by Nick McHardy

Welcome to my blog, where I cover tech, games and whatever else that’s interesting in the universe like vinyl, fusion jazz and side projects.

This website is inspired by the web of the late 90s - no, not just the style of the site - but also harking back to a time when people would set up websites (probably on Geocities or similar) and write about anything that interested them. Most of the websites looked terrible (my first few sites were no exception) but it was so liberating having your own site. So here’s my modern-day version of that late 90s vibe.

Not sure where to start? Here are some blogs to get you started:

Learning About Leadership Episode 1 (May ‘20)
The Humble Minidisc (Aug ‘18)
Why the Sega Dreamcast is the Best Console of All Time (Aug ‘18)
Common Website Vulnerability Scans Found in Logs (Apr ‘18)
On Being an Engineering Manager (Feb ‘19)

There’s also a 🍊 Garden Diary to check out. It’s sometimes updated as the seasons change.

Latest Posts

My favourite YouTube channels right now

📅 Posted 2021-04-06 (8 minute read)

I was chatting at a recent family gathering about some of the great content on YouTube - to the point where I’ve practically given up on regular “TV” (streaming or broadcast) and go seeking for other interesting content from outside of the ‘regular’ media fold.

This is nothing new of course, but I figured it would be good to share some of my picks including why I turn to these creators. Some have millions of followers and others only have a few thousand. But they’re all doing such a great job that I could almost legitimise “YouTuber” as a career choice. It’s what the Cool Kids™ are doing these days, so I’m told.

On Robert Miles

📅 Posted 2021-03-04 (10 minute read)

Today’s post is a deep-dive into the late Robert Miles, a driving force in the formation of dream house and someone whose music I’ve spent far too much time listening to over the years! This blog is part-tribute and part-analysis. The best kind of blog. Plug in some headphones.

Firstly, some fast facts:

His original name was Roberto Concina and he was born in Switzerland.
He was born on 3 November 1969 and died on 9 May 2017 at the age of 47.
He is known for his work as a record producer, composer, musician and DJ but also at one stage he ran a ‘musically’ experimental pirate radio station in Italy.

I’m going to go through his back catalogue of albums, key facts, my take and my fledgling collection. We’ll start this journey from his first and most successful album, Dreamland.

Markdown to HTML Theme Test

📅 Posted 2021-02-02 (5 minute read)

This document aims to test a custom JavaScript-based Markdown editor which is easy to use and covers all features supported by Hugo, the fastest static site generator. It’s a WYSIWYG editor which takes over a textarea element in a web app.

Probably the closest editor which is similar (but not identical) is https://simplemde.com/

I guess you could say this is not a real blog entry.

Here’s an emoji: 😊

Tech Alignment

Assumed to be delivered in a .js file and a .css file and run in a browser.
Compatible with jQuery v1.11.3 (assumed to already be loaded on page).
Must work on latest version of Firefox, Chrome and Edge on desktop and mobile/tablet.
Internet Explorer support not required.

Parameters & Initialisation

To be invoked with the following params:

Interview Questions

📅 Posted 2021-01-22 (17 minute read)

This post was inspired by one of my mates, Boyter and his post about intern interview questions. Thanks for letting me answer your list of questions! I was fascinated with both the questions and his answers and figured I could have a shot at answering these myself to see where we get to.

I met Boyter when we had a bit of a LAN party group going during high school because of mutual friends, so this would’ve been in the late 90’s. It’s funny when I bump into him in an ABC meeting because people kindly introduce him to me and I politely say we go way back! The industry and the world is indeed small.

How Shigeru Miyamoto Inspires Architecture and Leadership in Me

📅 Posted 2021-01-13 (12 minute read)

I was reading this article in The New Yorker the other day and I suddenly felt inspired to write my own reflection.

The article of course pulls strongly on the nostalgia strings.

But it’s also a story of leadership, too, and I’m in that era of my career/life where suddenly that’s actually really interesting.

It’s 11pm. The room I’m in is a toasty 25’C. I’ve got some beats playing on headphones by Mitch Murder and I’m sipping ground black sesame and honey in hot milk. Let’s go.

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