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.
Check out my latest project, a Japanese Word of the Day site that's built using Google's Gemini Pro AI! This was a one-day build combining a simple static site generator, GitHub Actions, and Google AI Studio. Read more about the making of this site here.
Latest Blog Posts
Yesterday, someone posted one of my articles to Hacker News and it ended up in the top spot. Here's what happened.
Using the Overpass API to read OSM data, parsing the data with Rust, and then drawing the map onto HTML5 canvas.
Of course, I also found a couple of art posts.
It's baking soda. Saved you a click. But please still click.
The GitHub mobile app lacks a basic functionality that many people need. Why hasn't it been implemented?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
Making Wi-Fi LED light strips happen without a Raspberry Pi.
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.
How I use P5.js, Inkscape, Blender, and Cura to create simple 3D prints of computer-generated art.
Another intentionally useless website! This time, I'm using Rust to create a markdown parser that returns emojified text.
How I made a quick prototype to control my remote-controlled fan with my phone in less than two hours.