Greetings, visitor!

I'm Mostaza, or Moz, a technowitch inhabiting cyberspace with curiosity, code, and a touch of magic.

I code, model in 3D, write, research and create digital and physical objects, all while seeking to maintain technical rigor, magical curiosity and symbolic thinking.

I believe computers are magical machines: made of quartz, powered by lightning, built by human hands.

Extraordinary contraptions that, by being everyday objects, we forget are astonishing.

For me, magical thinking and mathematical thinking don't contradict each other; they complement each other. Both are ways of finding patterns, naming the invisible and giving structure to chaos.

I see the internet as a place, with everything that implies.

Cyberspace is inhabited, and inhabiting it implies rights and responsibilities that have far too often been trampled or forgotten.

I'm not interested in submitting to blind nostalgia or falling into technofatalism;

I'm interested in living the here and now, with intention and care, always remembering that on the other side of the screen there's a person, even if not human.

I've spent over ten years working with Python and web technologies, and in this time I've become convinced that code is a craft learned through practice and technical preparation.

Running beneath everything I do is an invisible thread called Mineral de Silicio: my worldbuilding project, the home of my whims and desires, of the ideas that don't fit anywhere else.

My alien theory, my dreams of a more compassionate future, my adoration for little critters we're taught to hate; everything finds solid ground there. It's the project that unifies the rest of the projects (visually, at least).

I give myself completely to my passions.

If anything you find here is useful to you, makes you uncomfortable, or raises questions, you can write to me. I'm interested in honest and respectful dialogue, with clear intentions from the start.

Welcome, one and all.

Browse my cyber grimoire.

Every practitioner needs a space where thought becomes text before it's lost.

Here I write to remember, concretize, reflect, review, and keep record of what I learn and what happens.

The hypertext pages that make up the grimoire are dedicated to non-fiction, in various formats: Letters, essays, chronicles, guides, recipes, reviews, tops, and summaries.

The topics I inhabit in these pages are varied; you can find my thoughts on technology, digital culture, magic, video games...

the cost (monetary and spiritual) and gain (also monetary and spiritual) of the act of creating, and the vicissitudes of inhabiting the internet consciously.

You can also find technical pieces: programming tutorials, blender, or visual arts techniques.

The cyber grimoire is my living archive, with room for everything I need to remember.

The letters are, forgive the redundancy, letters, but open ones, open letters. While they have an addressee, they're open for anyone to read.

I really love writing letters; I remember that in grade school they taught me endlessly how to write a letter, how to write the sender and recipient's address on the envelope, and how to choose and stick on postage stamps.

Unfortunately, I haven't used even 50% of this knowledge even once in my life. To be fair, I have written letters, yes, but to hand them to the addressee in person or to send them into the void of cyberspace.

Knowing how to write addresses has also been super handy, I won't deny it. But the postage stamp stuff? I've never used it.

Letters allow you to scream into the void in a way that feels intimate.

Another thing I learned for the first time in grade school was how to write essays. My favorite part of formal education was writing essays; I adore writing essays.

I loved studying research methodology in college because it made it much easier to organize my sources, my main ideas, and write essays.

In my essays I respect objectivity, but I allow myself to present my impressions and theories, always making the distinction between the two.

I'm simply an essayist at heart. I was born from my mother and I'll die for my essays.

I strive for my recipes (guides and tutorials, but bewitched) to be comprehensive, explanatory, and to cover different learning styles. I'm aware that the best way to learn is to go to the source material; so, whenever I have reference material, I link to it.

In my recipes, letters, and some essays I offer downloadable PDFs and a plain text version; in the case of letters, it's so that if you feel like an appropriate addressee for one, you can have it, because then it's for you.

In guides and tutorials (recipes) it's to give you the opportunity to follow them without internet, locally and with all the benefits that entails.

My process chronicles also live here. When I share what a project required, sometimes what I want is not to teach how to do it, but to tell the story of the process:

How the idea arises, the planning, the stumbles, the decisions, and the analysis of their correctness already knowing the conclusion.

The reviews, the tops, and the summaries are 3 keys connected to a single water container, except instead of water, the container holds my opinions: my love, my indifference, and my resentment toward the things I use and consume.

A popular saying in cyberspace is: "Kindness without honesty is manipulation and honesty without kindness is cruelty." Based on this truth, I write for these areas.

It's necessary to know and consider the context of a production when judging it and, for that reason, to be kind and honest; however, one cannot justify the shortcomings, greed, and cruelties of someone who had everything at their disposal to give.

Welcome, one and all. Thinking out loud here.

Pardon the mess.

Come into my tower, my space for free expression. Mind you, I'm not saying my expression in the grimoire isn't mine, just that it's not as free.

And the atelier… I love tending to the atelier, but I can't use my customer service voice all the time.

What you see in the grimoire has been polished and thought through in detail, and they're all things about which I have enough knowledge to feel the confidence to open my mouth about.

And the atelier is my shop, my business, my pride; I give my best there.

The witch's tower isn't limited to topics I know and learn about; it's more about what I live, like, and do, how I feel.

Here you'll find my thoughts, opinions unargued and unarguable, and ramblings about what I love and hate.

Take off your shoes and sit on my bed.

Welcome to the atelier, look around with no commitment.

Here live the projects that have already crossed the finish line: done, published, out in the world. The digital and the physical coexist here without hierarchy. The material doesn't matter, nor the discipline. What matters is that they already are.

In my atelier you can find code snippets and complete programs, printable 3D models, sewing patterns, assets of various types, digital and printable formats, and digital files from the grimoire.

Reaching the atelier is the final goal of my projects; those that were completed without fail and meet my quality metrics earn the privilege of being placed in the showcase.

Some of the gadgets, tricks, and charms can be yours; when that's the case, it's marked.

Each piece that exists here was made with a purpose, because I believe firmly that creation without purpose, however banal that purpose may be, lacks a soul.

To reach the atelier, a piece must first pass tests that prove its complete functionality.

Before putting a price tag on them, I wait to confirm there are no issues with approximately 10 free downloads without complaints.

Experience has shown me that a satisfied customer rarely communicates their satisfaction; an unhappy customer, on the contrary, does communicate their complaints, so having no comments is, to some extent, confirmation of approval.

Likewise, any product is first tested in use; in the case of models, I upload them only after I've put them to some use.

A piece being in the atelier means I consider it appropriate, polished, and reliable, but not exactly perfect.

I believe there is always room for improvement, not just the piece itself, but myself in my technique, so you may find that these change over time, or that I even create new versions.