Chris J Wallace
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standard.dev
Chris J Wallace
@standard.dev
160 followers 62 following 190 posts
Post-dadcore he/him.

Makes h̷̶̷̶ͪi̷̶̷̶ͥg̷̶h̷̶̷̶ͪ q̷̶u̷̶̷̶ͧa̷̶̷̶ͣl̷̶i̷̶̷̶ͥᴛ̷̶̷̶ⷮy̷̶ s̷̶͛o̷̶̷̶ͦf̷̶ᴛ̷̶̷̶ⷮw̷̶a̷̶̷̶ͣr̷̶̷̶ͬe̷̶̷̶ͤ things with computers.

https://standard.dev
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standard.dev
My coffee this morning has a whole end of year mood going on.
A box of Dark Arts Cat Nip coffee, with a faux screen printed image of a cat dangling from a branch and the text “hang in there”, like the old motivational posters.
December 17, 2025 at 8:22 AM
standard.dev
Nick is a lovely human with whom I am privileged to work.

Unfortunately for him, I am an irreverent and incorrigible prankster who has been feverish for several days, and as such have pent up devilry. Ergo…
Skeal II The Skequel (A clearly mocked up banner image for the fictional sequel to hit game Skeal).
September 21, 2025 at 3:20 PM
standard.dev
Really not clear what mood you’re trying to put me in here Spotify.
A screenshot of Spotify, with contradictory recommendations. Under “picked for you” is a playlist called “Calming Instrumental Covers”, and right below it, under “new releases for you” are Prisoner of Flesh by Lorna Shore, and Hang Them In Your Head by Conjurer. Both of those are very heavy metal bands.
August 15, 2025 at 9:54 AM
standard.dev
I drive along a shrouded quayside. I pass boats. Cranes. Fisheries. Strangers, looking for the heart of Saturday night. I stir to glimpse the vitality spilling from lantern lit bars, nestled among the anchorages, hidden and out of reach.

My newborn stirs in the back, and I am once more white noise.
A blurry photo of river after sunset. Crane lights bokeh into the background, and the dashboard light is reflected over the image.
July 19, 2025 at 9:29 PM
standard.dev
Second delivery! It’s a good day!

#ttrpg #cairn
Cairn Player’s and Warden’s guides, second edition.
July 19, 2025 at 3:42 PM
standard.dev
My aching bones are cracking at least two spines today.

#mörkborg
Mörk Börg core rulebook, in all its luminous doom glory, still in cellophane.
July 19, 2025 at 12:27 PM
standard.dev
Still hunting for a syntax highlighting theme I like. This is not it.
A code snippet highlighted in a bunch of colours. It's like, _ok_, but not _great_. The text isn't important. Post is here: https://standard.dev/posts/default-object-parameters-in-typescript/
July 15, 2025 at 11:51 AM
standard.dev
Personal site glow up 💄 💇🏻‍♂️ 💅🏻
The "before" version of the standard.dev homepage in black and off-white. It's pretty boring. Text reads: Standard Development Limited is an esoteric technology R&D facility, arcane interface design studio, <s>distributed swarm intelligence</s> and the software consulting company of Chris J Wallace. The "after" standard.dev homepage, in new, premium, edition. The background is a sage green with a subtle gradient to the bottom left corner, where dusk looms. The text has been set fully in MD Nichrome, mixing heavy and light font weights. There's a subtle grain over the whole page, slightly more distinguishable now. It's still pretty boring. Text reads: Standard Development Limited is an esoteric technology R&D facility, arcane interface design studio, <s>house</s> and the software consulting company of Chris J Wallace. House is styled in blue per House of Leaves because I'm just extremely fun and playful. Now clap.
July 15, 2025 at 11:48 AM
standard.dev
Fuck it, let’s be a fit dad instead.
A pink man with a disappointing beard and a cap to disguise the disappointingly thin hair in running gear making the sign of the horns and gurning in front of a picturesque sunset sky. The man is clearly mid run and extremely not comfortable.
May 12, 2025 at 7:41 PM
standard.dev
Aw maaan.

(Oh hi @recursecenter.bsky.social).
A broken mug on a wooden kitchen workbench. The bottom of the mug is ringed with Recurse Center computer logos.
May 1, 2025 at 1:57 PM
standard.dev
I'm a very serious, very senior, very professional software engineer.
A python function with an entirely serious docstring. def guard_against_forbidden_name (name: str | None) -> str | None: """ I have forbidden the names that were in the FORBIDDEN_CHARACTER_NAME_WORDS and which you were probably saving for characters Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so forbidden """ if name: for word in FORBIDDEN_CHARACTER_NAME_WORDS: if word in name. lower(): return None return name The is this a butterfly meme with the character labeled "me", the butterfly labeled "funny docstrings", and the question "is this software engineering?"
April 10, 2025 at 8:16 PM
standard.dev
I have a long plane ride pending, and that quality of liminal space demands particular reading.

Process: A Novel by @matthewseiji.com

#booksky
Process, a novel by Matthew Seiji Burns on a desk, still wrapped in plastic. Techy peripherals frame it: a split keyboard with mint keys, an ableton push controller, the feet of a monitor stand and edge of a mousemat.
March 26, 2025 at 10:55 AM
standard.dev
I make no apology for how I am.
A command line invocation of git, reading: git commit -m "Add missing period, details matter" [main df49499] Add missing period, details matter 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
March 22, 2025 at 8:45 PM
standard.dev
Cursed layout.

(J and U keyscaps swapped to keep the home row bump in the right place).

Put some o-rings on and love the feel, though some of the caps are now only tenuously attached to the switches due to short mounting posts.

In other minutiae: why am I like this?
The left half of a ZSA Voyager keyboard with a cursed Dvorak layout featuring Tai-Hao Thin keycaps in mint green. The Esc key is a Tai-Hao logo key.
March 5, 2025 at 11:50 PM
standard.dev
Just tidied my desk and my book stack pretty accurately reveals what occupies my evening mind of late.
Books stacked on a desk, from top to bottom: - A Philosophy of Software Design, John Ousterhout - A notebook - On Tyranny, Snyder and Krug - Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (2024 alternate cover) - A larger notebook - The Advancing Guitarist, Mick Goodrick
February 24, 2025 at 9:40 AM
standard.dev
Apropos not of nothing.

(It is not the point, but the physical book itself is lovely.)
The cover of Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny, illustrated by Nora Krug.
February 22, 2025 at 9:16 PM
standard.dev
Lesson 14 from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, illustrated by Nora Krug. There is a picture of a man hanging laundry in a treehouse. The text reads: Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.
February 22, 2025 at 9:11 PM
standard.dev
Lighthouse scores aren't everything etc but let me celebrate my victory.

Now my unwritten blog posts are delivered to you _blazing fast_.
A website lighthouse score screenshot, with 100 across the board for performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO, and the metrics: First Contentful Paint: 0.4 s Largest Contentful Paint: 0.4 s Total Blocking Time: 0 ms Cumulative Layout Shift: 0 Speed Index: 0.4 s
February 10, 2025 at 10:13 PM
standard.dev
I am like, super duper slowly still porting this blog to astro.

I landed on MD Nichrome as a title font, Open Sans body. Trying to manifest cosmic bureaucratic agency horror vibes. Work to do.
A totally awesome looking website evoking cosmic bureaucratic horror and manilla envelopes (it is a blog page with very minimal styling, but a noteable pulp scifi novel title font). The text of the post is not the focus but it reads as follows: published April 9, 2023 updated May 17, 2023 Now is a great time to become a programmer The secret is that programming is a design discipline. It feels like every day I see allusions to some job being made obsolete by technology. Recently, programmers, by GPT. And designers, by GPT. And CEOs, by GPT. I don’t think it will play out like that. I can’t speak to the experiences of CEOs, except in the sense that I own and operate a one-employee company, where the employee is me (so I guess I am a CEO? Huh. Neat), but I do not fear for my livelihood in software. At least, not on account of technical advances.
January 30, 2025 at 12:27 PM
standard.dev
On a field blanketed with the blades of fallen enemies, the lone champion has vanquished another pirate foe… but what cost is this life of violence reaping from his mortal soul?
A Tonie figure faces away from the camera on a carpeted floor, with a single pop-up pirate sword embedded upright beside it. The head of a pop up pirate, and many of the swords, are scattered in the foreground.
January 1, 2025 at 5:55 PM
standard.dev
Fear me, for I stalked the pines under the waxing moon, sighing softly the old nocturnes, and deftly plucked from winter’s bough this ancient talisman, which I have mounted — observing the ancient rites — to bring smooches.
A sprig of mistletoe hung above the doorway from the hall to the kitchen in a loosely modern-Victorian style domestic residence.
December 15, 2024 at 1:58 PM
standard.dev
Spending too long playing with fonts, obviously. Kinda digging the saturated analogue vibe of thermochrome, from the awesome @mass-driver.com
The current state of the blog on a post called "Making things is deep magic". It is an off-white background with dark text, and a subtle grain overlay over the whole thing. The body text is monospaced (technically, iA duospaced), and the title is in a dot matrix/thermal printer style. The content reads: published Sep 15, 2022 updated Feb 27, 2023 Making things is deep magick You know what rocks? Making things. From a sort of “spiritual fulfilment” perspective, I think the thing is probably less important than the making. Making things converts the raw resources of life — time, energy, thus food, water, the heat of the Sun, fresh tears in your very muscle fibres — into a manifestation of your will. Heady stuff.
December 13, 2024 at 12:26 AM
standard.dev
Hm. Should I be getting the schema types here, rather than any?
A `getStaticPaths()` function in an astro file. It maps over `posts`, but the `post.data` property is typed as `any`, where I'd expect the schema defined in `content.config.ts`
December 10, 2024 at 11:08 PM
standard.dev
Unexpectedly long break on this, mostly being busy at work and travel, but back to it. I know I have a bunch of images in some posts that I'll have to grab, and it's nice to be able to just follow a train of errors to find them.
An astro ImageNotFound error in a terminal, poining to the name of the file that exists.
December 10, 2024 at 10:36 PM
standard.dev
Damn, couldn’t find my gate.
A large airport sign indicating departure gate 404. A small screen next to it says Gate 404 with some flight details.
December 1, 2024 at 8:16 PM