About Anthony Wilson

I distinctly remember seeing a laptop doing something interesting in 2010, and I didn't just want to know how to use it - I wanted to know how it really worked.

It was some time after that before I really got a chance to play with things. In 2015 I got an iPad of my own, and around the same time I began learning some basic game development skills through my school. In 2016 I was comfortable with GameMaker and I began teaching myself how to write code using Khan Academy.
I also had a lot of fun modifying websites using JavaScript URLs - because there were no dev tools available on iPads.

In 2018 I got access to a Compaq Presario V4000 laptop running Windows XP. This gave me access to Processing, which let me write graphical programs with Java. I wrote a lot of random programs around this time, including fractal renderers, simple physics simulations, and small games.

At the end of 2018 I learned about Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you prefer), and decided to explore it. I have to shout out the LiveOverflow YouTube channel for informing me about the existence of Linux.
I jumped straight in by dual-booting the Presario V4000 with Ubuntu 16.04, and I got exceptionally lucky that it all worked out first try. I could have very easily rendered that device unbootable with my minimal knowledge at the time.

Linux gave me an entirely new perspective on modern computing, with open source software, customisability, and many tools that enabled easy scripting. I learned to love Bash very quickly.
With my new Linux knowledge I set up an Orange Pi Zero, which is still running strong to this day.
I also learned how to use Arduinos, though I never made any big projects with them.

During this time I still mostly used my iPad, and now that I had a "spare" device I gained the confidence to experiment with iOS jailbreaking. I had a lot of fun exploring the iOS filesystem, modifying things and hoping they didn't break too much. I almost bricked the iPad once, but was able restore it with an iMac (hint: don't set the display resolution on an iPad to more than double the screen size).

In 2019 I obtained a Presario CQ60 running Windows Vista, which I immediately replaced with Arch Linux. Imagine my excitement when I finally got to use a 64-bit machine with an open bootloader! By this time I'd learned to follow guides, make backups, and double-check everything, so while Arch Linux came with some troubles, it was a relatively smooth learning process.

Alongside my software tinkering I steadily learned more about hardware. I learned how to build and trace basic circuits, I got a soldering iron and learned how to solder, and I began attempting to repair broken circuits.
I started small, replacing capacitors in dead power supplies, but eventually I had the skill to debug and repair more complex systems.
One of my most significant hardware repairs was fixing a broken Fisher & Paykel washing machine motor controller. Those 2004-era motor controllers tend to fail quite catastrophically when something goes wrong.

I've also dabbled in robotics, thanks to an opportunity to play with some UMI RT100 robots. Due to their age and the lack of modern software for them, getting the robots working required a bit of troubleshooting. I adapted a Python interface to work with newer versions of Python, and that was adequate for basic control, but I never found the time to go much further with it.

In late 2020 I bought my first modern laptop: a Lenovo ThinkPad L15 with an 8-core AMD CPU and 16GB of RAM (that's 4 times the amount of RAM I had previously).
This device continues to be my daily driver, and it's been running Arch Linux since new. Unfortunately it is beginning to show signs of aging, with a cryptic hardware fault that I had to find a weird workaround for.

With modern technology came more opportunities for learning. Since 2020 I've learned Rust, Godot, LaTeX, and numerous other tools and technologies.
I also enhanced my problem solving skills with Codewars and the Advent of Code, and have participated in some other competitive coding events.

I also developed a strong interest in Quantum Computing in 2022, and used Qiskit to learn how to use quantum computers. That skill probably won't pay off for a while, but the quantum world is very interesting to learn about.

In 2024 I got an opportunity to join the Bali Digital Heritage Initiative (BADHI). Specifically, I joined the temple reconstruction project, which involves using 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) to reconstruct Balinese temples from videos.
Working with 3DGS has been very interesting, and I am currently still part of BADHI.

In late 2018 I wanted to learn how to make websites, so I created my GitHub pages site. As I still used an iPad more than a laptop or desktop, GitHub pages began my primary way of experimenting with web technologies. The commit history on that repository contains a very detailed log of my learning progress.

In 2019 I began self-hosting an experimental website on my Orange Pi Zero. Apache + PHP was a game changer, letting me make dynamic pages that were generated by the server on-the-fly.

At the beginning of 2025 I decided I was well overdue for a website upgrade.
While I still love vanilla HTML, JS, and CSS, I realised it was probably best to get with the times and learn some modern frameworks.
Over the course of a couple of weeks I built the fundamental components of the website that you're on right now using React via Next JS, and I finally gave it a proper domain: welcome to anthonyw.tech.

I have almost as much of an interest in mathematics and physics as with technology, so I've been learning about quantum mechanics since around 2021.
In 2022 I combined my physics and computer interests and used Qiskit to learn the basic concepts of quantum computing. That hasn't been very useful so far, but I wouldn't mind working in this developing field in the future.

At University I have taken physics and quantum mechanics units alongside my Computer Science course, though I continue to learn more about quantum physics on my own as well.

From a young age I was obsessed with plants, and as I learned more about the environment and ecosystem as a whole I began to appreciate everything else more and more.

The first animals I truly connected with were blue-tongued lizards, of which there are many that live around where I live. I documented them and tracked their movements, which sometimes led to interesting discoveries.

At the start of 2023 I joined the community science platform iNaturalist, and from there my enthusiasm about wildlife took off.
Since then my eye for wildlife has improved to the point where I struggle not to find some insect or spider in any place I go.
I get particularly excited when I find something rarely seen or interesting.