I’m watching back the first of my fellow presenters’ @wordsesh talks and I’m declaring this online conference highly under-hyped.
There is some GREAT stuff here and it’s free to watch until August.
https://wordsesh.com/recordings
@rzen has done an awesome job curating this. Bravo!👏
The WordSesh talk is recorded! Hurrah!!!
A reflection: Dang, you REALLY have to ham it up to get any emotion to come across on camera. I thought I overdid it, but no. I could have gone wild and it would still look like I’m only vaguely excited. 🤣
I don’t do public speaking often so it’s a big deal (for me) when I do.
I’ve done three screen tests at this point.
I just had to cut 1,000 words from my loose “script” to get it into time.
I commissioned my kid to make me a custom pixel-art avatar for my slides.
I take these things seriously!!!
Quite pleased with the summary of my talk which will be shown at WordSesh next Tuesday (9am UTC!):
"I'm going to use (and really stretch as far as it will let me!) the metaphor of side quests in video games to explain how side projects can benefit your career.”
I'm having a LOT of fun writing this.
Sign up – it's free!
Oh, there's a whole bunch of other serious talks you can see too. If that's your thing. 😉
https://wordsesh.com/sessions/level-up-how-side-quests-enhance-your-career
I’m now so old I’m watching the generation below me despair that the generation below them thinks they are uncool.
Lol!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/08/cringe-how-millennials-became-uncool
I’ve recently been mentoring someone towards being a software developer. It FASCINATING going right back to the roots of solving problems with code. I remember this from classes I took a whole 30 years ago:
– Abstraction
– Encapsulation
– Decomposition
These are still the core principles behind any language or programming paradigm.
Separation of concerns. Good naming & APIs. All the key things are wrapped up in these ideas.
You should learn and practice these as much as the coding bit.
So I guess this is official! AAAarrrrgghhh!!!
All those awesome people… and little old me??
Wow!
You want to hear my take on why side projects are awesome?
You need to get yourself to @wordsesh
So, @tnash and I moved to a private Mastodon instance on @mastohost
Despite following all the instructions, trying reboots
and re-running dead jobs, we are both WAY down on followers that haven’t redirected.
I’m at about 25% of my old followers from ross@fosstodon.org !!!
Is this normal? Did we do something wrong? Are they dead accounts? Do we need to just wait? Tips for fixing?
NOW!
You judge. Grey, almost bald, giant eared elephant?
Or shaggy-haired, small-eared, admittedly tusk-less terrier.
The future of mammoth comparisons is yours.
Do the right thing.
Elephant
Yorkie
“What looks more like a woolly mammoth than an elephant?”, I hear you cry?
Well. See.
You have forgotten.
You have been blinded by years of mammoth-elephant conspiracy.
Let me open your eyes.
This… THIS!!!…
Is a Yorkshire Terrier!
When asked the question “which animal looks most like the woolly mammoth?” in a quiz, my wife said “Elephant”.
The quiz somehow agreed.
I, vehemently, did not.
THIS is an elephant…
Internet. My wife has brought up a decades-long argument. YOU will resolve it.
This… is a woolly mammoth.
My son just showed me this years April Fools version of his weekly comic. It’s very funny.
I'm Ross!
I code with PHP, Javascript, WordPress and Laravel.
I work at Delicious Brains/WP Engine.
I have too many side projects including Turbo Admin, my magical command palette for #WordPress.
I'm a dad of two. I care about sustainability. I ride bikes. And my boss says I "bring lots of questions and energy".
Server move imminent!
I’d always wondered about self-hosting Mastodon. But was happy where I was.
And then stuff happened. And I became wary of the sustainability of big instances.
And I found a friend willing to share the costs. So it became very viable!
So you may see a new me shortly.
Huh. So. Birdsong in general, and the call of the Great Tit in particular, make an excellent accompaniment to Belle and Sebastian’s “The Boy with the Arab Strap” 😃
Up late preparing for a talk I’m giving soon.
It’s so great to have some creative energy flowing.
Talk prep is fun and exciting!!!
(No I can’t tell you what it is yet. Soon!!!)
Ironically, when I tried to take the "State of Devs 2025" survey…
This episode of The Vergecast contains the most hilarious segment on party speakers. It’s slightly in-joke for listeners, but I think it stands alone too.
I’ve laughed along to it twice now.
https://pca.st/episode/d8f931f4-a786-4f07-8361-25183aee25ba?t=212.0
Oh this is good. My friend Keith made
A site full of simple, low-effort activities for parents who want to spend more real-world time with their kids (without screens).
He says:
“As a tired dad and a web developer, I needed this myself. Now I’m sharing it with you.
If you’re a parent, I’d love you to check it out — and if you know one, maybe pass it along.”