Author: Ross Wintle

After some time on other things I've been back in the #WordPress dashboard building and improving plugins again. Because this is my job.

I discovered my friend's "Table Pixie" plugin which is awesome for debugging transients and options. One of those plugins where you're like "Why does this not have more installs?" 😎

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-table-pixie/

And as I browsed the plugin repo and saw the names and creations of people I know, I was filled with nostalgia and hope… but also sadness.

I'm so glad I bought a lifetime Laracasts license so many years ago. I've dipped in and out of it so much.

Pretty sure Jeffrey hasn't been hard done by – I'm not sure I've recouped its full value in months-paid for yet.

And he's so smart and funny. A great teacher!

Refreshing my Laravel chops, and getting back into my Laravel side projects.

Also tinkering with Caleb Porzio's Flux components, which are just SO well thought out and documented!

Fun learning time!!!

In which I forget that I own the best domain that I ever bought!

Looking through the list…there's a YES/NO to toggle:

https://areqrcodestrendy.yet.fyi/

I also wonder about this:

https://hasmarksneighbourscatbeenfound.yet.fyi/

(No, I have NO idea what that was about!)

“Like if you get the text that is two paragraphs from somebody, either somebody died or you're being broken up with, right?

Like those are the two options.

And instead, we just trained everyone to talk in work like they talked to their friends”

2/2

It was not quick but I did transcribe this in iOS:

“And so all of these like product incentives taught you to do it really fast.

The main thing there was a single line of texts.

And everybody else uses a single line of text in messaging apps.

And so we all just treated this thing like messaging apps.

And it was a bunch of millennials who came into the workforce and are used to the like type of thought, press enter, type another thought press enter, type, another thought press enter….”

1/2

If I can find a quick way to transcribe this I will. Please hold…

The Verge on how people use Slack differently to how it was meant to be is great. (With apologies to the millennials out there who get a special mention that is probably unfair)

https://pca.st/episode/58e2e91e-79ec-4748-b8bb-73b357bbe7a8?t=1681.504019516,1721.2454212454213

This fluffy physical tamagotchi robot is cute:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24268063/casio-robot-pet-moflin

But I find the sentence

“a tool to help improve your mental wellness, similar to Qoobo, the headless robotic cat”

quite disturbing. 😂

Episode 5 of series 18 of Taskmaster was just EXCELLENT!!!

🗒️ Also good, from @sarah:

“Developers all love to hate legacy code. It’s ugly, and it’s gritty, and it’s hard to work with. But do you know the one thing it has going for it? Most of the time, whether it’s beautiful or not, it works.

That’s right: legacy code in production is more valuable than the most beautiful, well-tested code sitting in a repository somewhere. It’s producing value today, rather than hope for tomorrow.”

🗒️ I occasionally dip into James Clear’s weekly email. It’s so good.

"Compete externally and you compare.

Compete internally and you improve."

🧐

So. I thought Balatro was boring after you beat it the first time. But Ooooh no!!!! There’s a lot more to discover. What a super little game.

This hit me today:

“Unless you concentrated on attuning a certain rhythm, your body would naturally choose the one that fit your mood. Therefore, it was always a conscious decision to listen to a rhythm that did not match how you felt. She did this now with Peace.”

– Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson

I just found out that a person I used to follow on Twitter (when I was there a lot more than I am now) made this amazing bulk photo-editing tools site that works all in the browser.

WHAAAAT?

Insta-bookmark!!!!!

https://photoedittools.com/

( @binarymoon are you here?)

Discovered Balatro+ on Apple Arcade.

Beat it within a week (using green deck).

Thought that was it. But now I'm 100% committed to beating the Black deck too.

I appreciate creativity, but I do find it odd that in WordPress I often see people using WordPress for things it really shouldn't be used for, and NOT using it for things it would be really good at. 🤷‍♂️

Well it’s been quite a couple of weeks. I can’t say all that I would want to. I’m exhausted. I’m sad. I’m incredibly proud of what has been achieved. I’m trying not to judge. I’m concerned about people. I have reached out to friends. I’m aware that I don’t have the whole story. I’m unsure of the future of a tech that has meant a lot to me. I’m worried about it. But I also hold some hope that we can emerge stronger.

I don’t know if it’s brain-age or my gen-X cultural baggage or what, but I really struggle with real-time decision making with online chat. Especially when it’s across multiple work streams.

The young folk just seem to be able to do this whereas I’m all: “chat is for _making_ decisions, docs are for _recording_ them.”

A #WordPress PSA:

If you use ACF free or any of the free versions of Delicious Brains/WP Engine plugins then you will want to read about how to get updates to them in future.

https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/installing-and-upgrading-to-the-latest-version-of-acf/

Note that this does not apply to Pro versions. Only the free versions from wordpress.org or installed using the search in WP Admin.