Hi, I'm Tim
I've been writing software for 40+ years. E-commerce, insurance, consumer mobile apps, a handful of startups of my own. Some of those worked. Most didn't. The ones that didn't taught me more, which is what everyone says, and it's annoying because it's true.
The stack keeps changing. A lot of that change is pointless, in my opinion. But the actual job, taking some half-baked idea and getting it to run, that part never really changes.
I've been a developer, a tech lead, a CIO, a founder. Some of those high level positions I didn't enjoy. Too many meetings. Not enough building. That's basically why I keep coming back to just making stuff.
Languages I've spent real time in: Swift, Objective-C, C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, Pascal, classic ASP, Ruby on Rails. Databases too. MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server. Some of those probably tell you how old I am. I'm old. It's fine.
Why Spin Savvy
Two reasons, basically.
The first one bugged me for a long time. All these roulette systems people post about online, do any of them actually work? Short answer, no. But they sound like they should, and that's the interesting part. You almost want to believe them. Then you do the math for ten minutes and the whole thing falls apart.
So I wanted a place to just settle it. Run it. Thousands of spins, Monte Carlo, none of the "my buddy won six grand one night" stuff.
The second reason was more fun. I wanted to see if I could build a real 3D roulette wheel inside an iOS app. Felt, ball physics, the little hop the ball does before it drops in. Wasn't sure a phone could pull it off. Turns out it can. Took me way longer than it should have.
Outside the editor
I play a few instruments. Guitar and bass are ones I've been playing for years. Picked up and fiddled with Ukelele through covid. Piano I'm still figuring out and been dabbling for years.
I did photography on the side for a long time. Lots of sport photography and live events. It was a ton of fun but every time consuming with little pay for that time. Would have made more flipping burgers. So the pandemic helped me shut that down easily. Landscapes I'd do forever, if anyone wanted to buy them.
Mostly though, I just build things. Software, woodwork, random gadgets. Anything where I can look at it after and go, yeah, I made that. Some of it's pretty good. Some of it's sitting in a box in the garage and that's where it's going to stay.
More posts coming. Some strategy breakdowns. What the simulator's actually been showing me (a couple of things genuinely surprised me). And whatever else seems worth putting down.