Hello lainanons, lately my life's been pretty hectic, a lot of exams, new projects and new relationships. In this moment of rest between all the chaos, I wanted to look back a bit in my life and this project before moving on with more stuff. Don't worry, just for this once I won't shill any of my games lmao. When I first drafted this post it resembled an autobiography, but I don't want to be so full of myself so as to believe I deserve one, instead I'll do my best to open up a wee bit so that you know more about the person behind the keyboard. Here goes nothing.
So, who am I? My name is Manuel. I’m a 22‑year‑old vidya dev from Argentina. It's surprising that Google already linked this userhandle to my real identity a long while ago, ha.
I started this blog a couple of years ago, back in my last year of high school. Honestly, it’s one of the things I’m most proud of, this is my longest running project so far and, like many things in my life, this site began late at night. I’ve always identified with the calm and solitude the night brings. It’s when I feel most productive, relaxed, and eager to dive into my hobbies without the pace of the day breathing in my neck.
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t exactly the most social person back then. The pandemic barely changed my routine. Around that time, I started dabbling in online communities and, like any good edgy teenager, developed an interest in existential anime. You see where I’m going, right? The seeds were already planted for me to, sooner or later, end up on lainchan. I was deeply moved by Serial Experiments Lain. It was the weirdest anime I had ever seen.
I eventually stumbled upon its cult on the wayado and saw a small webring community forming. I couldn’t resist but joining in. Neocities was (and still is) free, and I knew enough HTML and CSS to "take inspiration" from other sites.
And so, my dear lainanons, join I did. I felt like a total 1337 h4xx0r at the time lmao. This site became all I could think about. Over the years, sometimes more intensely, sometimes less, it has remained a place I keep both in my mind and heart. I’ve used it to post about the things I’ve learned, interesting finds from around the web, and my own reflections. I ranted/rambled so much, defo my favorite post is "On Creativity". Full schizo mode. I've never felt like such a philosopher again. This site became a place where I truly felt heard even if no one was listening. A small mark in my own little corner of the internet.
When I was a kid I used to watch my older brother tinker with linux in his own netbook, I remember him toying with compiz' fire effects in Ubuntu and we would also play CS:Source together. He also taught me how to torrent and how to install custom roms on an android phone, so guess what I did when I got my first phone (shoutout to TWRP and CyanogenMod). One of my fondest memories is us burning games on disks to play on our chipped PlayStation2. I love that muthafucka.
So yeah, I was into the hacker/tinkering with tech culture since I was very young. Later on I felt compelled to learn how to program, it felt like the natural course of events, and for a couple of years I went back and forth learning about websites, operative systems, videogames, hardware and cybersecurity. Like I told you, I wasn't all that social, and my brother went off to college, so I spent most of my waking hours with these stuff. Little by little, learning, experimenting, messing with stuff. I quickly lost the fear of fucking up or bricking my electronics, you know? I felt liberating knowing that on most cases, you can simply flash an OS again.
I managed to build my PC all by myself ofc, for me it was a rite of passage, an initiation if you will. I had more horsepower I didn't even know what to do with it, I mined etherum once, when it was profitable, but I spent my time playing videogames like Bioshock, CS:GO, Far Cry and, a personal favorite, Dying Light. I briefly tinkered with electronics as well, especially with Arduino and my trustworthy Raspberry Pi 3B+ (which I still have and got no idea what to do with it).
I never committed to a single branch of hmm... computers? computing? In any case, after a while I realised that I was calibrating myself, going back and forth between software and hardware, got to a middle point and I chose to investigate about low-level software. I was fascinated and confused about how hardware and software work together, until I understood the good ol' Layers of Abstraction with this video (it's in Spanish tho). Then everything clicked.
I knew I liked graphics and I knew I was interested in low-level software and suddenly I felt the urge to develop GPU drivers (yeah, I know). I didn't even begin learning that I abandoned, that was way too complex for me. So I went for an abstraction layer above... and started learning about Graphic APIs, more specifically, OpenGL. Thus we reached the first posts of this site.
I left my hometown to study Computer Engineering and I got my first job as a Japanese translator for an Argentinian publishing company (yes, that one). I dropped out of college after 1.5 years. I hated it so much. It simply was not for me, I guess. After dropping out, I stopped programming completely and wanted to get as far away from computers as possible, hence no posting in 2023. I got my N2, and saved enough money to go to the US to work abroad for a couple of months, then I went to Japan for a month with my brother.
During that time, I started missing computers and programming so much, I yearned for a keyboard and a screen, so I decided to get back to it and started my gamedev journey with CantoSalvaje. I promised no shilling, I know, but this was essential to my story. I dabbled a bit into low-level graphics again via Raylib, joined a gamejam and well... here we are now.
What a journey my frenz. There's little left to be said, really, there's soykaf I'll keep to myself for now. Nowadays I am doing freelance work as a Godot dev. I am attending some gamedev courses to fill in the gaps (audio, design, modelling, etc.) and I am having a blast (most of the time). Someday I would like to integrate this site a little bit more with everything else I am doing, it feels a bit isolated from the rest of things.
Throughout these years, I've come to learn something absolutely essential about human nature. We really are meant to be connected and relate to each other. The humand mind and spirit absolutely flourish when they work together with other people's mind and spirit. It is imposible to lead a good, fulfilling life all by yourself. We all need to laugh, cry, make good memories, fight, love, get hurt. There's no way around it and it is something so human. I am glad to be a person.
Thank you for reading this, lainanon or random netizen. I hope it was a fun read for you and that you find it interesting. Going down memory lane certainly was fun for me :)
Now, take good care of yourself, and remember...
No matter where you go, everyone's connected
No importa a dónde vayas, todos están conectados
どこに至って、人は繋がっているのよ
