Archive
Blog
Tutorials, systems work, automation, community programs, and technical writing — one archive.
62 Posts
AutomationBypassing a Broken n8n Integration with HTTP Request Nodes
A practical field note on dropping down from a broken native n8n node to HTTP Request nodes against Qdrant.
September 2026
AI workflowLocal video captions with Cursor, Whisper & FFmpeg
Local speech-to-text and ffmpeg burn-in for tutorial videos, plus transcript-driven YouTube listing and thumbnails.
August 2026
AI workflowWorking on NateHaskins.com with ChatGPT, Cursor, and local tools
A practical look at dividing website work between language models, local processing, version control, and cloud storage.
August 2026
AI workflowIntegrating Trello into a Cursor dev workflow
A practical setup for keeping a Trello card in sync with Cursor: status blocks, comments, and inline dev-server screenshots.
August 2026
Practical AI talkAI that works for you: a practical talk for Kirkwood Rotary
I used a hand-drawn deck to give a nontechnical audience a useful map of modern AI: what they could try immediately, what the tools can connect to, and where judgment still belongs to the person using them.
Rotary Club of Kirkwood
Live AI educationGiving local business owners a practical introduction to AI
I introduced a Chamber group to current AI tools, kept the first step approachable, and showed where the conversation goes when AI becomes part of a real workflow.
January 2026
Workshop facilitationTurning a networking workshop into a practice room
I helped coach a session where the room practiced introductions, questions, listening, and follow-up instead of hearing another presentation about them.
June 2026
Product overviewIntroducing Chamberindex.org: a Product Walkthrough
I walk you through the service and show how I introduce an unfamiliar product by keeping the idea, interface, and practical value connected.
July 2026
Conversation → WebsiteBuilding This Website by Talking to AI
I started with a loose idea and used conversation, context, and a lot of small decisions to turn it into the site you’re reading now.
August 2026
Community intelligenceFinding the YouTube creators influencing n8n’s brand
I built a YouTube creator dashboard for n8n community meetups, presented it to the team, and they used it to find and contact people already teaching the product.
May 2026
AI field note37,170 messages, 991 million tokens, and the subsidized AI era
Two year-end summaries captured how deeply AI had worked its way into my thinking and software-development process by the end of 2025.
2025
Community buildingBuilding the St. Louis n8n community one meetup at a time
From three people in a park to hands-on workshops — including a May 2025 AI building session where attendees built their first AI-powered n8n workflows.
August 2024–May 2025
Workflow demoMake the Automation Visible: an n8n and WordPress Workflow Demo
I made this compact demo for a community meetup. It shows how I make a workflow understandable and close the loop with a result you can actually see.
October 2024
Product explorationTesting Godot signals with a small alpaca controller
I reduce a new engine to one focused experiment and use a signals-based controller to give a small alpaca a playable result.
April 2024
Architecture overviewRunning n8n at the Edge: Raspberry Pi 4 on a Local Network
I use a Raspberry Pi and n8n to answer the first question—does this work?—then walk you through the stack and the decisions that come next.
April 2024
From-scratch tutorialFrom a New Ren’Py Game to itch.io
I start with an empty project and walk you through the complete route from Ren’Py to GitHub to an automatically published itch.io build.
May 2023
Automation tutorialShipping a Ren’Py Game with GitHub Actions
I explain the renpy-to-itch workflow and show how a branch push can build for multiple platforms and publish directly to itch.io.
May 2023
Web publishing tutorialPublishing a Ren’Py Web Build to itch.io
I work through Ren’Py’s web build, the common pitfalls around it, and the complete path to a game your players can launch on itch.io.
May 2023
Emerging technology tutorialGetting Havok physics and its visual debugger working in Unity
I work through the preview package, reproduce a misleading connection timeout, and show the missing runtime condition that makes the debugger start receiving data.
November 2019
Spatial prototyping workflowMoving spatial prototypes from Microsoft Maquette into Unity
I test the real design-to-development handoff, automate the export loop, and document both the useful prefab generation and its destructive limitation.
March 2019
Asset optimization workflowDialing in Oculus Medium models for game-engine performance
I compare measured triangle counts against visible quality and show two practical ways to prepare a VR sculpt for a real-time engine.
March 2019
Three-part learning seriesLearning character rigging in public with Unity and Puppet3D
Across three practice sessions, I build the rig, expose the mistakes, animate a hand, and refine the largest problems first.
March 2019
Release automation demoTurning an itch.io Butler push into a double-click release
I take a working command-line publishing path and remove the repeated setup so the correct release action becomes the easiest one to run.
March 2019
Platform integration tutorialConnecting Oculus achievements to unlockable Home items
I trace a player reward across dashboard configuration, Unity code, 3D asset conversion, Home testing, submission, and the intended unlock experience.
December 2018
Museum game and exhibit contributionBuilding FrogBug for the Saint Louis Science Center
I helped build the arcade infrastructure, made FrogBug with the BunnyGun team, and kept improving it after museum visitors found the failure modes we never would have found at a desk.
September–October 2018
Launch communication collectionTurning three game projects into player-facing launch stories
I bring together Danciverse, HAM COMMANDO, and The Music Box to show how I adapted short-form launch communication to three different production contexts.
2017–2018
Developer tooling walkthroughBatch-editing Unity scene settings from the command line
I turn a repeated editor task into a PowerShell workflow that updates the same serialized setting across roughly thirty Unity scenes in seconds.
March 2018
Content pipeline tutorialBatch-generating prototype voice lines with AWS Polly
I connect spreadsheet dialogue to a Node script and AWS Polly so a game team can generate a complete batch of disposable prototype audio.
March 2018
Debugging and test automationTurning Gear VR logcat output into a one-command performance report
I combine ADB, logcat, Unity, and PowerShell into a repeatable workflow for deploying a build and reducing device logs to useful VR performance metrics.
March 2018
Rapid prototyping seriesLearning Unity Timeline through four increasingly complete experiments
I use four small experiments to build a practical mental model for animation sequencing, then carry the most complete scene into an HTML5 build.
September 2017
Release workflow tutorialStreamlining Gear VR publishing with the Oculus Store CLI
I show the complete store-upload path, make the likely failure points visible, and automate the repeated signing and upload work.
August 2017
Multi-product integration tutorialConnecting text, synthetic speech, lip sync, and character animation in Unity
I connect four separate character systems into one working pipeline and explain the handoffs where developers were most likely to get stuck.
April 2017
Subscriber-requested tutorialTurning a subscriber request into a playable Unity dinosaur controller
I answer a community question with a complete controller and animation path, then verify the result in a more ambitious HTML5 follow-up.
April 2017
Platform integration tutorialAdding an Oculus Store entitlement check to a Unity build
I turn a fragmented platform requirement into a focused path across the Oculus dashboard, SDK, Unity configuration, and code.
March 2017
Emerging workflow tutorialBuilding a cinematic Unity workflow with Timeline, Cinemachine, and post-processing
I connect four preview-era tools and show the route from an empty project to composed, blended, and visually finished camera shots.
March 2017
Platform-submission tutorialMaking an Oculus Store cubemap requirement easy to complete
I trace an unfamiliar store-submission asset back to the Unity utility that creates it and reduce the answer to a focused three-minute workflow.
March 2017
VR product trailerIntroducing SeaShell Scuttle through a focused VR launch trailer
I explain an unusual player identity, hand-controller interaction, scoring loop, and time pressure quickly enough that the remaining gameplay can speak for itself.
February 2017
Engineering stand-upExplaining a dynamic sprite-based score display in four minutes
I connect editable number art, sprite slicing, integer conversion, boundary handling, and the final Unity display in one compact progress report.
January 2017
Emerging technology tutorialGetting Unity EditorVR running with Oculus Touch
I learn an experimental Unity release quickly and publish the complete first-run path while developers are beginning to explore it.
December 2016
TEDxGatewayArch VR programFrom one Gear VR table to a seven-station showcase at TEDxGatewayArch
From one Gear VR headset on an empty table to coordinating seven VR installations and industry participants for roughly 500 TEDxGatewayArch visitors.
November 2015–December 2016
Code and systems walkthroughSwitching playable characters while keeping the Unity camera in sync
I explain how selection state, controller state, and camera targeting have to move together, then verify the interaction and expose its remaining edge case.
November 2016
Narrated debugging experimentDebugging 2.5D camera boundaries across multiple aspect ratios
I kept the real camera-constraint debugging loop in the video. It’s an experiment in progress, not a polished tutorial pretending I already knew the answer.
November 2016
Archive tutorialTeaching the Whole Workflow: itch.io Butler from Scratch
I start from a clean machine, build the entire Butler workflow, and show you the result from both the developer and player sides.
September 2016
Game-jam product demoExplaining a game-jam VR prototype through a complete playthrough
I use the full player journey to explain Masquerade Mystery's dialogue, spatial audio, quiz outcome, and replay loop without overproducing a jam prototype.
August 2016
Two-part VR launch packageUsing a 360 teaser and gameplay demo to introduce a VR world
I give direct gameplay and an interactive panorama different jobs, helping a flat-screen audience understand both the product and its environment.
March 2016
Co-taught beginner tutorialTaking a beginner from an empty music project to a looping Unity track
A sound director and I connect installation, basic composition, export, Unity import, and in-game verification into one free beginner path.
March 2016
Focused hardware onboardingRemoving the first-run friction from an Akai MPK Mini and FL Studio
I turn an optional hardware recommendation into a separate two-minute setup path so it does not derail the main beginner tutorial.
March 2016
Playable prototypeFrom Character Asset to Playable Movement in Unity
I connect an MCS character to Unity’s standard controller and animations, then test the whole setup with a character that runs and jumps.
February 2016
VR development troubleshootingUpdating a DK2 Unity stack without losing video or controller input
I connect the Oculus runtime, Unity, integration package, controller support, and OVRInput into one ordered recovery path, then verify the complete stack.
October 2015
Companion asset tutorialTurning an MCS sci-fi bundle into a working Unity character
I turn the next question after base-character setup into a focused follow-up, keeping the prerequisite, add-on workflow, and real setup issues connected.
October 2015
Archive tutorialGetting Started with MCS Female Lite in Unity
I revisit an early MCS character tutorial as an example of practical onboarding, while making its outdated workflow explicit.
September 2015
Code walkthroughParsing Trello JSON with a small PHP utility
I needed a plain-text list of Trello cards, so I wrote the smallest useful program, showed the JSON structure, and connected the code to a concrete output.
December 2014
Data workflowImporting spreadsheet data into WordPress Pods
I built a version-two importer that moved external records into structured WordPress content and explained the real edge cases around dates and geocoding.
March 2014
Workflow tutorialCreating WordPress Pods content from a spreadsheet
I show the complete route from spreadsheet columns to a Pods content model and usable records inside the real WordPress interface.
March 2014
Deployment experimentSpeeding up WordPress staging and production with Bash
I use Bash automation to reduce a repeated development-to-production process and demonstrate the work honestly as an experiment rather than a finished tutorial.
May 2012
Plugin demonstrationBuilding a WordPress-based Google Analytics scanner
I combine a site list, scheduled scanning, and emailed reports into a complete operational loop, then demonstrate the result through the operator’s workflow.
March 2011
Product demonstrationDemonstrating the MindNode Foundation Builder for WordPress
I introduce an unfamiliar plugin by showing the real interface, the first useful workflow, and what changes as the user works through it.
January 2011
Automation buildAutomating a Coda and Firefox workflow with Sikuli
I use visual interface automation to remove repetitive work across two desktop applications and record the script taking shape against the real process.
January 2010
Speed tutorialA two-minute Maya blood-flow experiment
I made this at URI Pharmacy’s 3D Animation Program—part of the scientific-visualization work that took me to my first Gordon Research Conference as an undergraduate.
February 2008
Speed tutorialBuilding a dynamics-driven catapult in Maya
I combine rigid bodies, a pin constraint, gravity, springs, and a camera into one working system whose behavior is easy to read.
February 2008
Speed tutorialCreating organic cell movement with Maya soft bodies
Working with URI Pharmacy’s grant-funded 3D Animation Program, I used soft bodies and turbulence fields to explore how Maya could communicate organic motion in a scientific model.
February 2008
Early careerThe problem after the sale
I was selling computers and kept meeting customers who were excited about the purchase but unsure what to do when they got it home. Helping with that next step grew into repair work and, later, websites.
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