Binary Bonsai

The Hitchhiker’s Guide has the following to say about Binary Bonsai:

The ‘Binary Bonsai’ is a weblog run by the earthling Michael Heilemann since March 15th, 2003. It has gone through many incarnations, but has remained throughout a time consuming hobby for its mostly unwilling author.

Binary Bonsai is hosted by the phenomenally helpful and kind people of Media Temple. If you’re shopping for a web host, I heartily recommend their services.

About the Author

Look, me. I’m the author. Michael Heilemann. I’m a 30-year-old game developer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. A small 6 million people country, described in ’95 by Bruce Sterling thusly:

Composed of the Jutland peninsula and more than 400 islands, the country is a hauntingly beautiful world of Renaissance castles and quiet fishing villages, Viking legend and fairy tales. #

Here I live with my wonderful girlfriend Rikke, spend my days working at Io Interactive, the company behind Hitman and Freedom Fighters, as a level designer on Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and writing this damn blog.

I came into this world on April 30th 1978, spent some time in school, spent some time in high-school, dropped out, worked, spent some time in the army, dropped back into high-school, graduated, moved to Scotland and graduated with a bachelor in Computer Arts from the University of Abertay (not recommendable) in Dundee, Scotland.

Interesting things of note might be that I love computers and have done so for many years and I’m a gigantic movie fan. I have been running this blog for a couple of years now, and I feel strongly about it; before starting this site, I have also run or helped run a good deal of other sites. You can also have a look at how Rikke and I live, should that be of any particular interest to you. My Amazon.co.uk Wishlist is also available for perusal, feel free to buy me something.

Travel

View Larger Map

My Digital Life

Also known as: ‘I’m in your tubes, sharing data’. Feel free to add me to your friends list.

To the extent possible, the following services are also tracked locally in relation to each other in my Lifestream.

• Flickr — I seriously loves me some Flickr.
• Google Reader Shares — Cool things that cross through my feed-stream.
• Last.fm — I’m tracking all the music I listen to (sans iPod).
• Allconsuming — What I’m watching and reading.
• Tumblr — And this is how I link everything else.
• MobyGames — I make computer games for a living, and this is my resumé.
• LinkedIn — For feeling important.
• Digg — I often hate it, but I do digg..

• Library — A nearly complete catalog of our books, movies and games, thanks to Delicious Library.

Random Facts

• All times on this site are CET, the timezone used in Denmark.

• I was for a while the lead of a Half-Life total conversion called USCM: Infestation, which was foxed.

• I then worked for 2015 inc. on a cancelled product, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Laser Arena

• After university, I started working for Io Interactive, and have been almost unfairly credited on Hitman: Contracts as well as Hitman Blood Money.

• I have over the years attained some sort of addictive level of Coke consumption.

• I was always insanely lazy in school. Exiting with a somewhat decent grade point average was a miracle.

• Despite that miracle, I do not believe in God in any way, and consider myself through and through a strong atheist with Cosmicist tendencies, if anything.

• Next to writing, I believe the Internet to be the greatest invention ever made.

• By and large my childhood and teen years were shaped by the output of id Software. As is, you could say, my current job.

• I have created a template/theme for WordPress called Kubrick. Which was adopted into version 1.5 of WordPress.

• Because of that, I was once the most ‘famous’ Dane!, but I have since fallen from grace.

• And also because of that, Binary Bonsai has been 2nd most linked blog on Technorati, though this was after it was removed from the official list (on which it peaked at 8th place due to Kubrick’s link influence. Still kinda cool.

• I’m enough of a geek to enjoy such a thing as my blogger 2.0 code: B9 D+++ T+ K S+ F I+ O X— E+ L C— Y1 R++ W+ P+ M1 N+ H.

• My first logged presence on the Internet, was November 26th, 1996. What a sad way to make an entrance…

• The first mention of me however, is earlier than that, on February 14th, 1996, in a list of Danish BBS’s. Oh, and also check out my old signature; and another, and another.

• I watch a lot of movies, and own quite a few myself (not 100% up-to-date) and feel quite adamant about it. To measure my tastes against yours, start with this rough list of movies I’ve rated on a scale from one to ten.

• I spoke about Open Source Design at reboot7 (a fantastic experience).

• I think perhaps Wikipedia is one of humanities greatest achievements.

• I’ve featured a few times in Matt’s Cascade Failure webcomic

• I try to remember to not discuss the following items online: politics, religion, guns… I do so anyway from time to time.

• I listen to various great podcasts.

• Contrary to some people, I have only a single sticker on my Powerbook. And I cherish it.

• I’ve been known to edit Wikipedia from time to time.

• I am a casual Browncoat.

So now you know…

Colophon

A Colophon is: “An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts about its publication.” #

Binary Bonsai is run on a Media Temple server, out of Los Angeles, and has been powered by WordPress since ya days of old, as well as a veritable slew of plugins.

The site is generally maintained out of Copenhagen, where I live, using TextMate and Transmit, Adobe Photoshop CS. All run—of course—on OS X.

The base of the current template (which is codenamed ‘Invader’), is that of K2.