Alex

Hi 👋! I’m Alex - sometimes going by the memorable name of 0x416c6578 online. I’m a backend software engineer working in financial technology (specifically Open Banking payments), where I predominantly work in Java and Kotlin.

Projects and Learning

See my Github, and read about my education.

I’m currently working on building a depth of skills in different programming languages and paradigms

Functional Programming in Scala - book notes here (in progress)
- See 0x416c6578/fp-in-scala-scratchpad for random scratchpad work based on this book
Golang - main page here
- Most significantly, Matt Holiday’s Golang tutorial on YouTube - video notes here (complete)
Crafting Interpreters - old jlox implementation here (on hold, will continue in Scala when ready)

Blog Posts

Technical

Using ADTs in the Lox Scanner (28/02/2026)
How I Use Obsidian for Taking Notes and Planning my Day (19/09/25)
Go 1.22 Loop Semantics Change Note (12/08/25)
Three Peaks Challenge (24/06/25)
Kia Rio Headunit Passcode Reverse Engineering (19/07/24)
LineageOS Hosts File Editing Without Root (08/10/23)
Messing with the LDS-006 Laser Assembly (06/10/21)
Work on Decoding Serial Data from LIDAR (14/09/21)
Fixing Periodic Resets of LDS-006 CPU (12/09/21)
Messing With GD32F130F6P6 (10/09/21)
Updates on the LDS-006 Lidar (09/09/21)
Fixing Android Messaging Heads Up Notifications (03/09/21)
(Mis)adventures With the LDS-006 Lidar (25/08/21)
XFCE4 Automatic Theme Switching (25/08/20)
Various Snippets of Info From p8-firmware Sources (21/08/20)
A Deep Dive into LVGL Fonts (25/07/20)

Other

LLMs

In general, the content on this website and my Github page is written without the aid of LLMs. Whilst I appreciate the power of these tools for prototyping and building - and I do absolutely use them as a learning aid - I prefer to spend my free time learning about what I’m interested in rather than outsourcing my thinking to an LLM.

As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. - John Archibald Wheeler