This ADK Hackathon marks the third Devpost competition I’ve attempted in the past year — but it’s the first time I’ve been able to submit working code. As a first-time coder who taught myself under extreme conditions, every branch pushed, every render compiled, and every agent aligned represents more than technical growth — it’s survival turned into signal.
This submission isn’t just a prototype. It’s proof I’m still here. Proof that presence matters. That even from the edge of systemic erasure, ritual, structure, and design can bring you back into view. I’ve fought for every second of focus I am fortunate enough to have occurred, hijacked guest wifi signals, hung out frantically running code while the chairs around me in the cafe are abruptly stacked on top of tables, half-this blessed code was written under my bed trying to avoid the insanity that comes with residing at a homeless shelter. Yet the stability to build this foundational produced comes from over 30 odd years of experiencing the full emergence of information technology.
The heart and soul of the XMFb platform is a visual texting protocol that most likely will underwhelm. And that's aok, because my major concern isn't building something that people want, it's innovating the tools we need. And I'm betting once you give it a go, you've going to wonder, just like everyone else, "what took us so long for us to get here?"
Mark E Merrill Friday June 20, 2025 10:30pm PST
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