Start With the Writing
The tools are the output. The reasoning behind them is in the essays — why a one-person workshop gives software away, what the economics actually look like, what gets abandoned and why. They would still make sense if every tool here were replaced tomorrow.
Start with A Floor of Curiosity, the origin story and the clearest answer to what this site is and why it charges nothing. Then Why I Build These Tools on how it stays free, and How a Tool Gets Built for the technical tour.
Separately, the articles are written from the engines themselves: how a sand table's coordinate system works, what an applicant tracking system actually measures, where invoice rounding goes wrong. Those are for people using a specific tool.
The Tools
Four are finished and free to use. Each one started as a problem I actually had, and each runs entirely in your browser.
What Is My Time Worth?
Calculate your real hourly wage after commute, taxes, work clothes, and decompression time. Then use the decision engine to know when to DIY and when to hire.
Launch CalculatorHoloPath
Transform any image, GIF, or video into animated hologram art with scan lines, glow, and glitch effects. Supports pyramid projectors, LED fans, and Pepper’s Ghost displays.
Launch GeneratorSandPath
Convert images and SVG files into sand table patterns (.thr and .gcode) for kinetic sand tables like Oasis, Sisyphus, and ZenXY. Automatic image tracing with live preview.
Launch ConverterTattooSafe
Preview a tattoo design on your body with your camera, check the size against 16 body placements, and estimate pricing by size, style, and artist tier.
Launch PreviewWhat This Is
Restless Forge is a one-person workshop. Every tool here started as a problem I actually had — working out whether a job was worth the commute, wanting to see how a design would sit on my arm before booking a tattoo, trying to get a photograph onto a kinetic sand table without it looking like corduroy. Each one got built properly rather than abandoned as a half-finished script.
There is no freemium tier, no trial, and no upgrade page. The tools are free because they are cheap to run: they execute in your browser, so there is no per-user cost that would need recovering. Advertising covers the hosting bill. That is the entire business model, and stating it plainly seems better than pretending there isn't one.
Browser-First, and Why That Matters
Almost everything here runs entirely on your device. When you upload an image to convert, or type a salary into a calculator, that data is processed by JavaScript running in your tab and is never transmitted anywhere. This is not a privacy policy promise that could quietly change next year — for these tools there is no server to send anything to, so there is nothing to change.
A small number of tools genuinely cannot work that way. Generating song lyrics means calling a language model, and doing that from the browser would mean handing an API key to every visitor. Those tools are marked with a ☁ Cloud-assisted badge on their card, described in the privacy policy, and carry their own page spelling out exactly what leaves your browser. The badge exists so the question "does this send my data anywhere?" is answerable at a glance instead of by reading source code.
Who Builds This
One person — Ken, a writer and developer in the Chicago suburbs. There is no team, no investor, and no roadmap beyond what I find worth building. That is why things here move slowly, and why a tool only appears once it actually works.
If something here is wrong, or you want to argue with an essay, my email is on the contact page and I answer it. More on the project in about.