Well... Here we are.
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Welcome to my new domain ste5e.site. In case you are new here, this is the domain belonging to me, Steven Leibrock, programmer-for-hire and all around tech goofball.
I am writing this because it's been a pretty long time since I wrote an "introductory" post of some sort. I might pin this to the front page in some capacity as a "hey, welcome, here's what I'm about" kind of guy. By doing this, you can decide immediately whether you stick around (by using RSS or bookmarking, or whatever floats your boat).
Anyways, let's begin.
My name is Steven, and I have been a programmer for something like 18+ years now. I got my start by installing Ubuntu on a computer I probably should not have, and now I write code that runs in server computers in random parts of the world. I am a practicer of Computer Science, the art of understanding what a computer does under the hood and how to solve real-world problems with it. I use computers every day, and have a wide array of experience with them, inside and out.
I live with my partner in Long Island, New York, and we raise a dog together.
Programming wise, I am experienced the most with Python, and it is what pays the bills. I love using and trying out new languages where possible, and my most-notably used ones would be as follows (most to least order):
In my spare time for fun, I enjoy video games. Who doesn't? They're fun. It's also my ambition to one day become a self-published game developer to support a small family. We'll get there one day. The game I spend objectively the most with is Oldschool RuneScape, and I've been playing that for years.
My Oldschool RuneScape character. I have been playing this account on and off for several years now, with over 245 days of in-game time accumulated.
My other hobby includes the hit card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, which I only really picked up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since then, I've been playing it less digitally and more in paper with friends. I have a few constructed decks, and have watched the anime series.
My prized collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V manga exclusive cards, next to figures of Red Eyes Black Dragon and a miniature Blue Eyes White Dragon.
Past that, I am focused on working towards being the best possible version of myself by applying a pragmatic principle of always looking for the best and most practical option in any given situation. Should you like reading about programming, computers, or even video games, feel free to stick around, I'll try my best to write as often as possible.
I welcome shared opinions on any article I write, and you can reach me over email or Mastodon.
This is technically a new domain, and if you click that post, it goes into what happened with the last domain and how we ended up here.
This is my personal blog, where I write about anything that tickles my fancy. I started it a few years ago, maybe back around 2019 when I first purchased the domain, and started doing self-hosted blogging, where I use a static site generator to generate a website, push it to a host, and push it to social media / the webz all my own.
To achieve this goal of hosting a website, I did the following steps:
One might ask, "Why not use GitLab Pages instead of Cloudflare Pages?", and my answer is: I don't think GitLab is suitable for proper website hosting. While I think GitLab is great for hosting homepage projects or other such things, I think Cloudflare has better tools for dealing with hosting, like caching, traffic handling, DoS protection, DNS rules, and more importantly I get their analytics tools to use as well. That's right, I can see where all of you are from now.
The site is generated with Zola, as mentioned, and I used to try and create my own static sites with Racket, but I don't do that as much anymore since it eats up a lot of time via yak shaving constantly.
Much like the famous Freelance Detectives Sam and Max, I am also a freelance programmer. Should you need services of mostly any kind, I can be of help. If you need assistance with any of the following list of services:
Then I am available for hire! Please drop me an email at contact[at]ste5e.site and we can talk more there. Depending on your needs, I could offer to work pro-bono, but there is no guarantees of that, so please keep that in mind and let's not waste each others' time.
I have a wide collection of hardware, and I'll mention them here so you know exactly what I work with and sometimes write about.
I use Linux full-time as my daily driver, and my only real interaction with it is with a Windows PC I use mostly because of my partner. I will probably only talk about Linux here.
That's it about me, for the most part. I like video games, Yu-Gi-Oh!, metal music and fiddling around with both code and Linux. You can catch me on Mastodon talking about whatever, and on here also blogging about whatever. I will continue to update this with whatever relevant information I feel is important for me to create a connection with you, a visitor and hopeful future reader.
Feel free to follow my main RSS feed for updates, as I believe RSS is pretty future-proof and allows us to connect better with others. Past that, I hope to see you around again sometime!