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mary.codes

Web development, art, and tinkering with fun projects. JavaScript, Python, WebGL, GLSL, Rust, Lua, and whatever else I find interesting at the moment.

The personal website of Mary Knize. Web development, art, and tinkering with fun projects. Sometimes I write about my life. Every so often I add one of my favorite recipes.

Latest Blog Posts

I started painting again
Art
Apr 1st, 2024

Why I turn to painting when I need to unwind.

100 days of Japanese on Duolingo
Life
Mar 22nd, 2024

The bad, the good, and the alternatives to learning Japanese on Duolingo.

How I'm organizing my work in 2024
Programming
Mar 20th, 2024

I'm always looking for good ways to organize my work notes. Here's a few new tactics I've been using for work and personal projects.

Watch the documentary 'Good Night Oppy' if you're feeling science-y
Life
Mar 18th, 2024

I watched this film on a whim, and it re-ignited my love for space exploration.

Sculpted robo-goldfish, a rainbow office building, and a look inside click farms
Friday Faves
Mar 15th, 2024

Also, digital gardens, rewinding detergent cassettes, and a special 6th thing.

More Blog Posts...

What I'm obsessed with right now

  • Algorithmic art
  • Home automation and IoT
  • 3D printing
  • Learning Japanese
  • Perfecting my shrimp and grits recipe
  • It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  • Just Dance 2024

About me

profile pic

I'm Mary Knize, and I'm a web developer and artist. Believe it or not, I double majored in Theatre and Art at Wilmington College. My photo actually hangs in the theater lobby. But even though I was a teenage theatre nerd, I also loved tinkering with computers, and learned how to reverse-engineer websites in my free time. I took a few web design classes in college in the era of using tables for layout, but found myself having more fun tinkering with this brand-new thing called WordPress instead.

galactic starcruiser

I've gotten to do a lot of cool things. When I was in college, I was Nickelodeon costumed character at then-Paramount's Kings Island. For a few years I wrote about nerd culture, and got to moderate a few comic con panels. A few years before that, I was playing roller derby. I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan, and I have the "vintage" novels to prove it. And, of course, my pictures here are from my one and only trip on the ill-fated Galactic Starcruiser. Also, I have a very handsome husband, the cutest dog, and a really nice house. I couldn't ask for more.

my dog

Currently I'm a Development Team Lead at BlueToad doing full-stack development with JavaScript and PHP on a daily basis, and I've been with the company for over 8 years now! I've gotten to do some really cool stuff, like create a VR magazine reader. Now I'm working on rewriting our publishing platform in React, and creating new features to help our customers create content easier and faster. I was really lucky to have had that experience tinkering with websites in the early 2000s. I was able to teach myself JavaScript within a year of deciding I wanted to be a programmer, and I continue to teach myself new things about computer science, web development, and networking every day.

I'm definitely one of those people who has a dozen half-finished projects sitting around at any time. I love tinkering and finding new, creative uses for everyday items. In 2024, I plan to finish some of my ongoing projects, and document them in my blog.

Favorite Posts

Generating a 3D map with OpenStreetMap and A-Frame
Programming
Mar 4th, 2024

Part 2 of my experiment with OSM data. This time, instead of a canvas, I'm going to render the data in A-Frame to visualize it in 3D.

Translating OpenStreetMap data to HTML5 Canvas with Rust and WebAssembly
Programming
Feb 19th, 2024

Using the Overpass API to read OSM data, parsing the data with Rust, and then drawing the map onto HTML5 canvas.

Making a static word of the day site with Google AI Studio and GitHub Actions
Programming
Jan 29th, 2024

An experiment using Google's Gemini Pro AI to generate new Japanese vocabulary words on a daily basis, with an automatic build step using GitHub Actions.

Learning how to control an LED light strip with an ESP8266 microcontroller and WLED
Home Automation
Dec 20th, 2022

Making Wi-Fi LED light strips happen without a Raspberry Pi.

Creating a Wordle command line clone in Rust
Programming
Apr 15th, 2022

Hopping on the Wordle craze a little too late, I decided to create a command-line Wordle clone in Rust called NOT THAT WORD GAME.

3D printing generative art with P5.js and Blender
Art
Jan 7th, 2022

How I use P5.js, Inkscape, Blender, and Cura to create simple 3D prints of computer-generated art.

Rust, WebAssembly, and FCKed Editor, a cursed markdown editor
Programming
Nov 21st, 2021

Another intentionally useless website! This time, I'm using Rust to create a markdown parser that returns emojified text.