I love building software, and I love building software platforms.
These days I do that at Bendyline, my small software company, where I make honest, free tools like Gezel, DocBlocks, and Qualla. Before that, I spent more than 25 years at Microsoft and Mojang on developer platforms, from SharePoint and Microsoft 365 to the Minecraft creator platform.
Bendyline is my company, and it's where my passion projects live. I build free software with no tracking, no dark patterns, and no fine print. Your work stays in plain files that you own, and the foundations are open source for anyone to build on.
Hand off a job tonight. Review it in the morning.
A crew of AI helpers, including a researcher, a writer, and a developer, working on your own computer. They leave reports and suggested changes waiting for you, and your files only change when you say so.
gezel.com ↗
Write once in Markdown. Publish it anywhere.
A local-first editor where one Markdown file can become a Word doc, a PDF, a slide deck, an e-book, or a video. No account and no lock-in: your documents stay plain .md files.
docblocks.com ↗
Visit the world through stories.
An endless stream of stories about places around the world, drawn from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage and retold with maps, photos, and narration. No account and no tracking. Just wander.
qualla.com ↗A small extension to Markdown that turns headings into slides, photo grids, maps, and charts, and converts to DOCX, PDF, EPUB, PPTX, and more. It powers the DocBlocks editor.
An AI-legible engine for games, visualizations, and interactive 3D experiences, with a headless kernel and dev loop an agent can drive end to end.
The engine behind Gezel, open for you to build on. Drive it from the command line, connect your own software, and package workflows as apps your team can install.
An open format for packaging reference documents with full-text and vector indexes in a single portable file.
I write about what I'm building and what I'm learning along the way: running AI models on your own hardware, putting machines to the test, and how Gezel and DocBlocks fit together.
Demos, walkthroughs, and experiments. Many of my posts have a companion video, so pick whichever you prefer. Here's a good place to start:
I spent more than 25 years at Microsoft and Mojang, mostly on developer platforms: the APIs, tools, and programs that let other people build.
Mojang Studios
Microsoft 365
Bing Maps & Yammer
SharePoint & Excel
Aces Game Studio
I like to "camp" in my RV. The Winnebago lovingly referred to as "The Party Wagon" gets me out to see more of the world, and it's also quite the project, unfortunately. I'm always happy to trade road-trip spots and repair stories.
A couple of DOS games from back in the day, still playable if you're feeling nostalgic:
Sammamish, Washington, just east of Seattle. Naturally, Qualla has some stories about it.