2024-05-20 23:20:05

Did some fun stuff on my personal laptop today and YAY it's SO frickin nice to have MY tools and preferences. 🙌

2024-05-20 21:58:58

I used to get excited by big tech announcements. But now it's all just so uninteresting. Is this because I'm old? Is it because there's just SO MANY keynotes and product launches now that it's too hard to keep up? Or… has it actually become boring and mundane for others too?

2024-05-19 16:35:23

These EV Ultra-Rapid chargers at Sainsbury’s (UK Supermarket) are FAB! Real easy to use. And they give you a QR code that takes you to a personalised real-time view of your charge.

Real nice!

2024-05-19 16:33:27

So. Yay! I finished an epic book.

It was GREAT! But I gotta be honest, I wish I’d spent 35 hours reading a book that had some kind of conclusion.

I know it was part 1 of many, but I still wished things were more wrapped up.

Also, there’s too much detail in battle scenes.

But what a great read. I was totally into it for most of the time and I’m not a big fiction reader.

2024-05-16 10:45:13

I’m loving all the retro gaming and emulation stuff that’s happening in a big way now (yeah I know it’s not new).

Questions:

– is there any official way to buy ROMs? Will the game owners ever catch on to this? In happy to pay!
– are downloaded ROMs safe? Can they do anything bad?

2024-05-12 19:33:15

So here’s a thing.

I like structured communication. Document templates. Emails with headings and executive summaries. Bulleted lists. Meeting agendas.

But… it occurred to me today…

Is this a generational thing?

I really want to get others in my life to see the benefits of it.

But are younger generations (I’m mid forties) just not into this stuff? Is it not actually beneficial for them because they are so adept at unstructured comms?

2024-05-10 23:21:41

Wow! This IS a big solar storm. Southern England. We can see aurora with Naked eye despite light pollution. Long exposures working well!!

2024-05-10 07:53:44

The Scrabble game logic and scoring is so well ingrained in my muscle memory. But writing it down was really hard!

Not proud of the code that achieved this. It was pretty brute force!

2024-05-07 21:04:52

A screen grab of a white screen that reads “file Office Open XML word processing document. 120kb”

Oh gosh. If there’s one thing more inaccessible than a PDF for school comms that go far and wide to a diverse audience of people with all sorts of devices and IT skills…

2024-05-06 23:14:50

Loving working on the serverless Scrabble clone. Nice, intricate logic. Fun to test!

words.pico.games/

Fixed some simple, but hard-to-find bugs for edge cases tonight. You can now actually play a game right to the end! 🤦‍♂️

I'm thankful for people playing and reporting bugs! 🙏

Key things to add:

– Skip/swap tiles as a feature
– Double/triple squares on the board

Then it’s kinda complete!

Nice to haves:

– Some drag-and-drop or keyboard entry
– Some instructions
– Better UI/design

2024-05-05 18:41:03

Forget social media and video games…

… I’m gonna get such a dopamine hit when a bird finally uses my new bird feeder.

😂🐦🐦🐦

2024-05-05 15:02:46

This news story is a near-perfect Ross cross-over of:

– Grammar policing
– IT system ridiculousness
– Over-enthusiastic NIMBYism

North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york

2024-05-05 14:28:41

Oh dear. How awfully (or wonderfully!) middle aged am I now.

I have a preferred toothpaste brand.

And I’m buying bird feeders and watching the birds in my garden.

😂

2024-05-03 21:28:56

Ooof. Shots fired on the weekly satirical news quiz show…

“I haven’t been to Rwanda, but I’ve been to Swindon. We should threaten to send asylum seekers there. That would put them off coming.”

2024-05-03 21:09:39

How long have I been a professional programmer?

Over 25 years. That’s how long.

What was I doing today?

Debating the relative merits of the following:

if (title)

if (Boolean(title))

if (title !== undefined)

if ((typeof title) != null)

if (title ?? ‘’)

I’m not sure if this is because of my experience, or despite it! 😬