Workshop Updates

TechSep 13, 2026

TerraForge now has a catalog of over 5500 exoplanets that leverage our physics and visualization engine to bring them to life! See real NASA-discovered planets as they might look light-years away, including surface views that attempt to visualize what this planet could look like based on real-world physics! https://terraforge.chriswest.tech/exoplanets

TechAug 21, 2026

TerraForge is gaining more traction, and now you can see the star systems you create placed statically on the galaxy. A whole universe of community-created planets and star systems!

TechJul 29, 2026

TerraForge now allows you to build star systems out of your saved planets! My hopes are that in the next few weeks, I will create a galaxy of user-generated star systems that people can visit, share, and "like". I have weekly, "Planet of the Week" posts on my X.com account, calling out an AI-curated remarkable creation from the community.

TechJul 4, 2026

Planet Builder is now "TerraForge"! I invested in a complete visual update with more realistic planets and physics effects! I added the ability to create moons and allow them to have an effect on the physical properties of the planet! So many more controls to build worlds with your imagination.

Technology Reflections

Exploring the intersection of software engineering, AI, and the technologies shaping our future

Latest Article16 min readSep 20, 2026

Turning Measurements Into Worlds: The Physics and Visualization Behind TerraForge

NASA's exoplanet archive is one of the great open datasets in science, and it renders every planet as a point on a chart. TerraForge takes 5,574 of those rows and builds the world from the physics, while staying honest about where measurement ends and inference starts.

TerraForgeExoplanetsPhysicsData VisualizationScience

16 min read-Aug 5, 2026

How It Falls Apart: Four Futures Where AI Goes Wrong

I asked an AI to argue the pessimistic case: how the world might come apart over the next twenty, fifty, one hundred, and two hundred fifty years. Epistemic collapse, economic fracture, machine conflict, and the slow surrender of human agency.

Artificial Intelligence

6 min read-Jul 29, 2026

From Planet Builder to a Shared Galaxy: How TerraForge Grew Up

TerraForge started as a solo planet-building toy. Rising interest and a real community pushed me to add saved worlds, shareable planets, a weekly Planet of the Week, and kid-safe accounts. Here's how it grew, and where the shared galaxy goes next.

Next.jsThree.jsReact Three Fiber

The future of society as AI becomes more engrained in our day to day over the next 250 years.

11 min read-Jul 29, 2026

When the Machines Stop Being Remarkable: Four Futures Across 250 Years

I asked an AI what it thinks the world looks like in twenty, fifty, one hundred, and two hundred fifty years. These are its answers on science, medicine, space travel, daily life, and society, optimistic but honest about what could go wrong.

Artificial Intelligence

From the movie, Project Hail Mary, Rocky's Xenonite ship.

5 min read-Jul 4, 2026

Could Xenonite Actually Exist? The Real Chemistry Behind Rocky's Impossible Material

Rocky's xenonite baffles Grace because xenon is a noble gas that hates to bond. But real chemistry, from Neil Bartlett's 1962 discovery to xenon difluoride and clathrate cages, shows how a solid xenon material could actually exist.

Three.jsReact

6 min read-Jun 22, 2026

Why My Passions Reside in Educational Software

Why every side project keeps landing in the same place: interactive 3D learning tools. A look at the growing suite, the teacher conversations that shaped it, and the plan to unify it all.

Three.jsReact Three FiberNext.js

Traditional art's influence on app design

6 min read-Jun 11, 2026

Painting and Pixels

How a BFA in computer graphics and 20 years of front-end engineering became the same skill set. Color theory, composition, and value structure across every app I build.

Three.jsReact Three FiberNext.js

5 min read-Jun 2, 2026

Where's My Hoverboard?

Back to the Future promised hover tech by 2015. It's 2026 and we're still grounded. But a former NASA engineer's propellantless drive has my attention.

AI Integration as an extension of your app's UI

7 min read-May 23, 2026

AI as a Feature, Not the Product

AI works best as an amplifier, not the main event. How I use it as a faster input method in PitchTrack and a contextual learning companion in Molecular.

Next.jsReactThree.js

9 min read-Apr 30, 2026

Preparing for the Post-Keyboard Interface

The keyboard is fading as the primary interface. Voice, gaze, gesture, spatial computing, and BCIs are reshaping how we build. Here is what developers should prepare for now.

Web Speech APIAssemblyAIOpenAI

8 min read-Apr 21, 2026

42% of React Code Is AI-Generated. Your Design System Isn't Ready.

With 42% of React code now AI-generated and climbing to 65% by 2027, design systems are the last line of defense against fragmented, hallucinated component code.

ReactTypeScriptNext.js

I've obtained a BFA in Computer Graphics from Syracuse University

7 min read-Apr 16, 2026

Artists Are Designers, But are Designers Artists?

I was traditionally trained as an artist before becoming an engineer. My art training changed how I think about component architecture, constraints, and creative problem-solving in code.

Traditional artists leveraging the digital medium

7 min read-Apr 11, 2026

Code as Canvas: Why Should Traditional Artists Learn to Code?

Traditional artists aren’t abandoning painting for code. They’re finding that composition, color theory, and spatial reasoning transfer directly to generative systems. Platforms like fxhash and Art Blocks finally created galleries for the work.

Three.jsp5.jsGLSL

5 min read-Apr 8, 2026

Fifty-Four Years Later: What Artemis II’s Lunar Flyby Means for All of Us

Four astronauts just crossed a gap fifty-four years wide. A reflection on Artemis II’s historic lunar flyby, from the Earthset photograph to what it means that we’re finally going back.

6 min read-Apr 6, 2026

The ABS Is Catching What Umpires Miss: 12 Days of Strike Zone Data

The ABS system overturned 299 of 542 challenges in its first 12 days. A data-driven look at which umpires are struggling, when teams challenge most, and what the numbers reveal about baseball's new reality.

AI Analysis

8 min read-Mar 29, 2026

Design Systems as Living Architecture

Design systems are now critical infrastructure. The W3C Design Tokens spec, React Server Components, and micro-frontends are reshaping component architecture. Here's what that looks like from inside an enterprise eCommerce stack.

ReactNext.jsTypeScript

7 min read-Mar 22, 2026

AI Won't Save the Climate, But It Might Help Us Make Better Decisions

AI's biggest climate impact isn't flashy breakthroughs. It's optimization, forecasting, and giving policymakers the evidence they need to act faster.

AIMachine LearningData Science

8 min read-Mar 12, 2026

How AI Is Helping Scientists and Doctors Find Cures Faster

AI is transforming medicine from drug discovery to cancer diagnostics. How machine learning designs molecules no chemist imagined, catches cancers earlier, and is accelerating the path from lab to cure.

9 min read-Mar 11, 2026

How the Hail Mary Ship Actually Works: Astrophage as Rocket Fuel

How does the Hail Mary ship work? Astrophage fuel stores energy near the E=mc² theoretical limit, powering a photon drive across 12 light-years to Tau Ceti. A breakdown of the real physics behind Andy Weir's interstellar spacecraft in Project Hail Mary.

5 min read-Mar 3, 2026

ABS: The Math of a Strike: How Geometry Defines the New MLB Strike Zone

The 2026 MLB season brings the most significant change to ball-and-strike calls in the sport's history: the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System. But behind the Hawk-Eye cameras and 5G networks lies something more fundamental — a strike zone that is, for the first time, defined purely by math.

The reckoning where agentic tools are today's new designers

9 min read-Mar 1, 2026

The Creative Reckoning: AI, Design, and the Return of the Human Hand

AI is disrupting design jobs the way it has coding — but the story has a twist. As engineers bypass designers with AI tools and companies cut creative roles, the market for handmade, traditional art is surging. In a world flooded with digital content, the human hand is becoming more valuable.

5 min read-Feb 11, 2026

The Changing Shape of Technical Expertise

AI coding agents boost speed and productivity, but they risk eroding core engineering skills. As developers shift from building systems to prompting models, deep understanding can weaken. The challenge isn’t using AI—it’s ensuring it augments thinking rather than replaces it.

7 min read-Jan 10, 2026

The Epstein Drive: Why The Expanse Makes Me Love the Future—and Feel Impatient With the Present

A reflection on the Epstein Drive from The Expanse—why it feels so plausible, how it exposes the limitations of today’s propulsion technology, and what real-world advances in fusion, materials, and heat management would be required to turn science fiction into reality.

5 min read-Dec 28, 2025

How Artificial Intelligence Is Powering NASA’s Artemis Missions—and What Comes Next

NASA’s Artemis program uses AI to enhance navigation, detect anomalies, assist landings, and support mission planning. As missions expand, AI will enable autonomous lunar operations while humans remain central to decision-making and exploration.

8 min read-Dec 4, 2025

A Smarter, Cheaper Future for AI: Solving the Data Center Cost Crisis

AI data centers face soaring costs and environmental stress, but solutions exist. Liquid cooling, renewable power, optical networking, edge deployment and futuristic ideas like high-altitude or space computing could make AI cheaper, cleaner and more sustainable.

6 min read-Nov 26, 2025

Project Hail Mary: The Astrophage and Real-World Parallels in Biological Energy Storage

Astrophage is a fictional organism with extreme energy storage, inspired by real biology like ATP, lipids, and extremophiles. Andy Weir grounds the concept in real science, exploring how life might store massive energy or survive near a star while pushing biology into speculative territory.

Ball tracking analytics captured in the MLB by Trackman

7 min read-Nov 16, 2025

How MLB Scouts Interpret TrackMan Numbers and How They Shape Draft and Trade Decisions

TrackMan data now drives MLB scouting, shaping draft value and trade decisions. Pitch metrics like spin, movement, and VAA help teams identify pitchers with elite traits, while exit velocity and barrel rates reveal hitters with strong projection and underlying power.

AI Analysis

A Solar System Propulsion Technology App

6 min read-Nov 11, 2025

Building a Solar System Spaceship Propulsion Simulator in a Weekend

A weekend project created a 3D Solar System simulator that models planets, orbits, propulsion systems, and flip-and-burn trajectories. It blends science and visualization, showing how fast complex space-travel tools can be built with modern AI-assisted development.

Claude CodeThreeJS

The art of the technical writer is making a comeback.

7 min read-Nov 7, 2025

The Technical Writer Strikes Back: How Prompt Design Is Reshaping Software Development

AI agents now generate code, plan tasks, and work across tools, making clear communication essential. Technical writers are becoming key players in guiding and structuring AI-driven development, shaping how software is planned, built, and maintained.

8 min read-Nov 6, 2025

Robots, AI, and the Future of Manual Work: Why Humanity Still Needs Its Plumbers and Electricians

AI is transforming white-collar work, but trades like plumbing and electrical work remain hard to automate. While AI can design and diagnose, real-world repair requires dexterity, judgment, and trust—skills robots still lack. The future will augment, not replace, the hands-on worker.

7 min read-Nov 4, 2025

Why Every Company Is Betting on AI, Even as They Lay Off Workers

Companies are pouring money into AI, like Amazon’s Anthropic deal, while cutting jobs to fund it. They’re restructuring around automation to boost efficiency, stay competitive, and future-proof operations, shifting routine work to AI and reskilling some workers for new roles.

The transition to prompt based search tactics is coming

4 min read-Oct 31, 2025

The Future of Human-Computer Conversational Etiquette

The days of pulling up Google to search for answers to question are already coming to an end. What will the future "search" on websites look like in a few months, a year, or the next 10 years?

4 min read-Oct 31, 2025

A Journey Down the Claude Code Rabbit Hole

I've been using Copilot for a while now, but started to experiment with a portfolio side project using Claude, and I fear I can't go back now.

Claude CodeNextJSReactJS

5 min read-Oct 30, 2025

Rebuilding and Rediscovering: Why I’m Creating Again — in Code and in Paint

After a decade without a web presence, I have decided to get some software and art examples together to showcase.

Dodgers win their 2nd consecutive championship.

12 min read-Oct 28, 2025

AI and the Future of Baseball: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing the Game We Love

MLB scouting teams are leaning more and more on AI to make decisions for the draft, defense alignment, contract negotiations, as well as how to keep players healthy. They're just getting started.