About the author

My name is Brandt van den Berg. I grew up near Edmonton, AB, on a small acreage just north of the city.

I had a vested interest in computers from a young age, and can recall repeatedly asking my dad to teach me the basics of programming from the time I was seven. It took a year, but at age 8 he introduced me to the C language, which of course I was terrible at using for the next few years.

I eventually saved up enough money working side jobs to purchase a Lego Mindstorms kit, which really sparked my creativity. Given that I suffered from asthma - never enough to justify an inhaler, but enough to make playing outdoors miserable - most of my childhood years were spent indoors playing with the Mindstorms kit, and studying books full of mechanical engineering concepts like the Lego Technic Builder’s Guide. I recall one month where my brothers and I filled our sizeable basement playroom with a decent Rube Goldberg machine, based on much of that knowledge!

My skills advanced further when I heard from a cousin that 3D printing had progressed from an extremely expensive technique to being incredibly affordable. In the summer of 2019 I purchased a Creality Ender 3, and spent several years past that learning the ins and outs of FDM manufacturing. My skills continued to advance through high school, and in the summer of 2025 I graduated from NAIT with a diploma in Electronics Engineering Technology.

Around that time I discovered that my asthma - which, I now know, is likely triggered by city smog - vanished in the alpine. I quickly became infatuated with scrambling, and have since then landed work in my field in Banff, of all places. I count myself incredibly priveleged to live in one of the “scrambling capitals” of the world.

Why this site exists

This site was born out of frustration with the modern internet, which I find is increasingly filled with echo chambers and vapid thought, and very little substance. For a while I tried to push back on said vapid thoughts with nuance, with little success. Now I’m trying a different approach - putting my thoughts out there for all to see, sans comment section.

If you don’t like it, the door is that way.

That aside, here you’ll find attempts at nuanced thought. I say attempts because I’m acutely aware of the problem I’ve created for myself: this site has no feedback mechanism as of yet, and I’ve effectively built a void to scream into. Time will tell where that leads; I’m still debating how to solve this.

Where is all the content?

It’s coming, but that takes time. Not long ago this site was an empty “under construction” page. I have plenty of half-baked articles that aren’t ready to see the light of day yet, but will be soon.

Why does this site look so plain?

I have to admit I find myself longing for the time before the internet was so corporate - I’m just barely old enough to remember it. Consider this site’s current state a homage to that time, in the vein of Neocities and the like.

My background is not in HTML/CSS; I come from embedded systems and C programming, where you can template code without needing an external framework and - assuming you adhere to the C standard - compilers behave the same. In other words, I’m barely handling the quirks of HTML and CSS as-is! My focus will eventually shift to styling, but for now my primary concern is making sure the site works and the UI is sensible, followed by adding content, and then adding frivolous bits of styling here and there.

What the heck is hagelslag anyways?

Hagelslag is a simple, delightful Dutch food consisting of chocolate sprinkles on buttered toast. While we in North America would consider such a thing to be frivolous, and relegate it to the occasional dessert, the Dutch enjoy hagelslag during lunch breaks of important board meetings. One could argue it is close to a staple food in the Netherlands!

While I remain a proud Canadian first and foremost, I also take pride in my Dutch heritage, despite much of it being lost after several generations. I know only a few Dutch phrases, and cook only a few Dutch dishes. But I can and do regularly enjoy a good slice of hagelslag - and naming this website after my favourite guilty pleasure seems a fitting way to pay homage to those who came before me.