Release 1.16: Garbs! Custom piece images.

Published on 2024-07-31 by Stuart Spence

Since 2018 I've heard thousands of feature request ideas. By far the most popular feature request is to share your own custom images for pieces. Well it's finally here! I've just released version 1.16 on Google Play and Steam. It should be available within a few days, starting with …

A Proposed Point System for Government WFH

Published on 2024-05-01 by Stuart Spence

This page describes a point system where public servants and their managers can autonomously identify what their minimum work-from-home (WFH) day count should be.

Why RTO

Some politicans are more transparent than others about why return-to-office (RTO) is so important to them:

"Three days is a good start," Ford said …

MA in Education Technology at Concordia

Published on 2024-02-16 by Stuart Spence

Every so often someone asks me what I thought about the master's program in education technology (instructional design) at Concordia University in Montreal. If that's you, you've come to the right place.

Overall I'm happy I enrolled. However the master's was just an outlet for my own self-drive and did …

ChessCraft in 2023

Published on 2024-01-01 by Stuart Spence

I've often liked year-end reviews like from quanta magazine. So here's another short one for ChessCraft like last year.

660,000 Installs

It has now been 6 years and 2 days since my first git version of ChessCraft. Remarkably, the rate of installs per month is still increasing. We're now …

New Role at ECCC

Published on 2023-10-23 by Stuart Spence

Today I'm excited to say I'm moving to a new team! They build AI prototypes in the cloud for Environment Canada (ECCC). On paper this is like a dream job! On this page I'll go over key details, the job description, and highlights.

Key Details

One year assignment starting November …

Better Hiring in Government

Published on 2023-07-07 by Stuart Spence

When I help with government hiring I often give the same suggestions to hiring teams. So I wrote this page as a starting point. I focus on IT hiring but this also applies generally. If these points resonate with you, I'd love to help you with your hiring.

Important note …

Goodbye MongoDB

Published on 2023-05-27 by Stuart Spence

After years of strange problems and bad performance with MongoDB, this week I successfully migrated chesscraft.ca to PostgreSQL. This took lots of preparations, went smoothly, and is performing great, so I thought I'd write about it. Writing here is cathartic. Also, others might find it useful.