Author: Ross Wintle

Hmm. So Aldi seem to think that you can't have a cold beyond mid-April and so stop selling medicine for colds? 🧐

Has anyone else got this stupid virus that won’t go away for many weeks? I get a little flare up every 1.5-2 days. Mostly just a sore/swollen throat. But had been headaches too.

I know folks who’ve had a cough for 6 weeks now.

What is this thing?

Does anyone have recommendations for UK-based garden office suppliers?

I have one lined up but want to make some comparisons.

I want delivered and built for under 20k.

Who is good?

Thanks!

When I finally leave WordPress development (which seems both inevitable and yet perpetually-unattainable) I can see me becoming some kind of expert consultant in slow, careful, deliberate, elegant software development.

Actually… not slow. I truly believe that if you are careful early on you can remove friction and increase velocity.

See “Rocket Turtle”/“Interrogator”/“Simplifier” archetypes here:

https://www.simplethread.com/the-10x-programmer-myth/

This, and the article it links, are great.

https://www.simplethread.com/the-10x-programmer-myth/

I regular-boosted this but I want to quote it too.

The last 2 episodes of @aurooba’s little daily podcast go together and are deeply impactful. I’ve listened several times.

They remind me of many important things.

And alongside “default to kindness” is “assume good intent”.

Why?

Because you know a mere tiny fraction of the other person. Their day. Their situation. Their life.

Kindness is critical. We ALL need it. So be the one who pours it out.
https://mastodon.aurooba.com/@aurooba/112301264035429062

There’s something very T-1000 about the new Boston Dynamics Atlas robot. 😬

https://youtu.be/29ECwExc-_M

Only 2,300 words in the end. But here's a deep dive on using JavaScript BigInt's to do efficient binary representation of Scrabble game data.

I can't believe anyone will read this. But if you're curious about how binary works, how it can be used to efficiently encode and transmit data, and how you can do this using JavaScript, then maybe you'll learn something.

For me, it was SO good to take on a nerdy challenge like this and revisit some of my computer science roots.

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/04/static-not-scrabble/

Who? Me? Writing what will eventually be about 3,000 highly-nerdy words on minimal binary and Base64 representations of Scrabble games and how to do bitwise manipulation in JavaScript using BigInt’s?

I never would, would I?

Sounds awfully boring.

Doesn't it?

😂

This is a really interesting sign the CEO of Cloudflare.

He’s a very impressive person and an excellent communicator.

https://pca.st/podcast/01a33f10-fcfe-0132-18b7-059c869cc4eb

If anyone is wondering why I might do this:

1. It was a really interesting and fun coding project.
2. All the other Scrabble clones are totally enshittified. Ads. Gamification. Upsells. Unnecessary chaff.

This is ad-free. Server-free. Crap-free. Just a 100% free-to-play game. No catches.
https://fosstodon.org/@ross/112264650811554948

👆 @emd @alifeee !! ?

OK. Yay. I did it! I made a server-less 2-player Scrabble clone where you pass game data around in encoded URLs.

https://words.pico.games/

This is basic and simple (more rules to implement) but works and proves the principle.

Anyone want to test a game with me?

This, that I just wrote, is mostly what I think about the web these days:

“Yay look at this exciting thing that fixes a bunch of issues we made by implementing other exciting things, and creates a bunch more issues that will have to be fixed by future exciting things!!”

I really hoped the two week Easter school holiday here in the UK would be productive. Clocks went forwards. We have evening daylight. I have time off with kids. I would wash the car, start work in the garden, fix some stuff up around the house. Enjoy some outside time.

But no. Everything conspired against me and I’ve just bounced from fighting through days at work, fighting through days at home and using every spare minute to rest and try to get well after another sodding virus got me. 😫

This is a great article on using the #WordPress playground and its APIs.

Leveraging the WordPress Playground’s Versatile API Suite
https://deliciousbrains.com/wordpress-playgrounds-api-suite/

What was the thing a while ago that enhanced your existing terminal/shell with pop-up commands and stuff. It was around the same time as the Warp terminal was getting good, but it wasn't actually a terminal.

Anyone remember what I mean?

EDIT: It was https://fig.io/, and, surprise surprise, it's being sunset.

Makes me fear for Warp, Zed, etc. Are these tools going anywhere financially?

My friend @tnash very kindly shared some content of mine today. And I realised I've not yet promoted his EXCELLENT security tales video that he released recently.

It's SO good and has some great lessons in. It's technical – it's about internet security – but has lessons for us all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMKcK93tNjA