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What I Self-Host, What I Don't, and Why

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 08:12:00 +0000

Forty-four apps on five ThinkCentres, two NAS boxes, one rented server, and a list of things I tried and threw out.

Everyone's installing local LLMs. I bought a rack.

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

While everyone chases local LLMs, I did the unfashionable thing and rebuilt my homelab's foundation: a rack, a €25 switch and a €35 router. The plumbing is where the real engineering lives.

Moongate V2 Dev Log #5: GM Tools, Template Tooling, ModernUO Imports, and Smarter Guards

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 23:00:00 +0000

This week I added a GM menu, a template validation tool, a dotnet new plugin template, deeper ModernUO import tooling, a cleaner AI runtime, and much better city guards.

Moongate V2 Dev Log #4: Combat, Corpses, Scripted NPCs, and a Cleaner Architecture

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 23:00:00 +0000

This week I added combat, corpses, loot chests, scripted NPC dialogue, OpenAI-backed NPC behavior, scheduled events, plugin infrastructure, and a major persistence cleanup to Moongate.

Moongate V2 Dev Log #3: Player Portal, Maps, Books, and a .NET Bug I Didn't Own

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:00:00 +0000

This week I shipped a player portal, better world visibility tools, writable books, and lost two days to a .NET bug that turned out not to be mine.

Moongate v2 Dev Log #2 — Three Bugs That Forced an Architecture Upgrade

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:36:00 +0000

Three hard production issues in Moongate v2: MemoryPack+AOT crashes, doors shifting when toggled, and single-thread bottlenecks under load.

Moongate v2 Dev Log #1: When Your Architecture Lies to You

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 23:00:00 +0000

How I fixed the bootstrap, added source generators, and scripted items with Lua in Moongate v2 -- a modern Ultima Online server built with .NET 10.

Moongate v2: Rewriting a Ultima Online Server From Scratch (Because I Wanted To)

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:00:00 +0000

A personal story about nostalgia, a terrible job, and rewriting an Ultima Online server emulator from scratch with .NET 10 and NativeAOT.

Small Objectives, AI-Driven Architecture: How Abandoning Dark Lilly Built LillyQuest

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 11:56:00 +0000

Sometimes the only way to understand constraint-driven design is to ignore constraints entirely, realize you’re drowning, and start over.

That’s the story of Dark Lilly and LillyQuest.

Part 1: The Ambitious Mistake

In November 2026, I started Dark Lilly. A DOOM-like engine. 3D. OpenGL 4.1. Sector-based geometry with portal rendering. Room-over-room architecture. Full BSP tree implementation. A complete demo level in 10 weeks, working 1.5 hours per day

On paper, it made sense. I’d written about building engines through constraints. DOOM’s architecture—sectors and portals—felt like the perfect constraint. Limited but powerful. Reductive but elegant.

Life as a CTO – Part 1

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000

First entry of a personal series about the real, human side of being a CTO.

Building a DOOM-Like Engine in 2026: Discipline Through Constraints

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 19:53:00 +0000

I’m building (Dark) Lilly Engine, a 3D DOOM-inspired engine in C# with OpenGL. Not to clone DOOM. Not to romanticize the past. But because rebuilding foundational ideas until they’re yours is the only way to truly understand them.

Sometimes the only way to understand a system is to rebuild it. Not copy it. Not romanticize it. Just rebuild the ideas until they’re yours.

I’m not building a DOOM clone. I’m building an engine that grew from the same questions DOOM answered, under different constraints.

The Book That Pulled Me Back Into DOOM’s Engine Room

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 19:29:00 +0000

Why I Bought the Game Engine Black Book: DOOM

I recently picked up Fabien Sanglard’s Game Engine Black Book: DOOM.
Not as a collector’s item, not as a coffee-table trophy, but because DOOM has always been an unfinished chapter for me.

It was the second game I ever fell in love with.
The first one was Wolfenstein 3D, which ran fine on my old 486 (yes, IBM PS/2). DOOM didn’t. I would launch it, stare at a frozen screen, and realize the hardware simply wasn’t enough. So I played DOOM at friends’ houses, glued to the monitor, half jealous and half hypnotized.

Day 45: Using Linux as My Primary Development Environment: A Technical Review After 45 Days

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:04:00 +0000

It has now been 45 days since I started my “100 Days of Linux” journey on November 24th. The goal was simple but radical: replace macOS and Windows entirely and verify whether Linux could cover everything—development, gaming, productivity, graphics, and daily use—without compromise.

The conclusion so far is clear: Linux has become my main system, and it works flawlessly.
Below is my technical review as of January 7th, 2026.

100 Days Linux Challenge: Progress Update

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:26:00 +0000

It’s been 23 days since I started my 100 Days of Linux challenge, and I wanted to share a short recap.

Daily Use & Gaming

I feel great using Linux. I’ve been on Linux for years, but I had never really committed to a full migration including gaming.

Now I have.
At home I run a PC with an RTX 5080, and thanks to Proton + Steam, game compatibility is basically perfect for my needs.
So… goodbye Windows between bloatware and Copilot, I don’t miss it at all.

Half-Life 2, Havok, and the Quiet Journey of Building Lilly.Engine

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 20:20:00 +0000

In the late evenings, when everything finally slows down, I find myself replaying Half-Life 2 on my Linux workstation - the one powered by an RTX 5080.
It’s a ridiculous mismatch, I know. With a GPU like that I should be stress‑testing cutting‑edge engines, ray tracing showcases, tech demos that melt silicon.
And yet, instead, I’m back in City 17.
Back with Gordon Freeman.
Back with wooden crates, metal shelves, and that strangely comforting “thunk” when physics does exactly what your brain expects.

16 days of Linux: Intel integrated camera

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:22:00 +0000

Good news for my Dell XPS 13 (9350): kernel version 6.18 officially supports integrated Intel cameras! In fact, they have modified the setup in the Arch Linux wiki.

10 of 100 Days of Linux

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:42:00 +0000

I had a problem that didn’t occur with Windows and OSX. When I was on a call and didn’t move the mouse for 10 minutes, the screen would freeze. I discovered that you need to make a change to Hyperland idle:

# Lock screen timeout (300s) and DPMS off (600s)
general {
 lock_cmd = $HOME/dotfiles/bin/bin/slock.sh
 before_sleep_cmd = $HOME/dotfiles/bin/bin/slock.sh
 after_sleep_cmd = hyprctl dispatch dpms on

 # Respect idle-inhibit requests from applications (default: false)
 # Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Brave) automatically prevent idle during audio/video playback
 ignore_dbus_inhibit = false # Respect DBus requests from applications
 ignore_systemd_inhibit = false # Respect systemd-inhibit --what=idle
}

In return, I installed it on my home PC (as well as on the Dell XPS 13) and imported all my games onto Steam.

3 of 100 of Arch linux

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:19:00 +0000

Third day of Linux (Arch), I still have the camera problem (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)_2024). I have another bug, where if my computer goes to sleep, 1 time out of 10 I have to restart sddm!

2 day of Linux

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 09:38:00 +0000

Second day of Arch Linux XPS 13 (2024). I can’t get the camera to work even though I followed the Arch wiki. There’s no way to make it work, but I’m not giving up.

100 of Linux - First Day

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 08:48:00 +0000

I’ve always been a hardcore Linux user. I remember when I was little, I went out to buy a Linux distribution that existed back then — it was called Caldera Linux. It doesn’t exist anymore, of course. If I’m not mistaken, it was somehow related to SUSE… I’m not totally sure, I’d need to double-check. I remember my dad taking me to the local computer store, Essedi Shop (but that’s a story for another post).

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