Author: Ross Wintle

Back from a brief holiday. I was glad to be near the coast where it was significantly cooler than at home. 🥵

I did some family IT support and I was reminded how crap everything is if you’re not in it all the time.

We needed to reconnect an Echo Dot to new WiFi:
– No Alexa app
– An old Amazon account insisting a code gets sent to a phone number we don’t have. (Very glad to get that fixed!)
– Sending email with magic-open links to a device that’s doesn’t have email on it.

So frickin hard!!

Quite possibly no one here cares. But you are my audience right now.

I think I do the admin-visits-only to show which sites you visit most. Perhaps even opt-in?

Command uses will be for future personalization ("frequently used items").

Amazing the power a browser extension has. I freaked myself out with what data I was gathering!!

The next Turbo Admin (WordPress browser extension) release, will add some local/private usage stats.
– Command palette opens
– Counts of commands on each site (with per-command totals)
– Visits of each detected WordPress site.

But I realised that tracking visits is weird. Especially as I detect ANY WordPress site – not just sites you can log into.

Wondering:
– Should I track visits at all? It's interesting but serves no real purpose.
– Should I ONLY track Admin pages, or when logged in?

This whole “hottest May ever” thing and the Big F’ing El Niño thing…

I’m developing a proper anxiety about climate change.

And I can’t (really) do shit about it. It needs global leadership from people with real power.

I fear for my kids. But highly suspect that even I will see awful consequences.

Spent a morning doing some recreational coding. Properly getting into some data design and gnarly issues. No agents. Pure code. So good to exercise my brain in this way. I took my time. Thought about what I was doing. And very nearly one-shotted a feature. And cool stuff coming soon as a result. 😃

You know that thing in npm where you can tell it not to install anything until it’s older than X days? Does that exist for
a) browser extensions?
b) editor add-ons/extensions?

Yes, I am hiding from the sun and catching up on my bookmarks!!

So, someone made an online RPG card game called DDDnD. And I’m reading a write up of some of the things that happen in the game, and I’m laughing out loud at how clever and brilliantly observed this is.

https://blog.moriel.tech/posts/dddnd-mirror/

The article on hardening GitHub actions by @sebastian is worthy of a read by anyone that uses GitHub actions – or any CI/CD really. Really good to understand some of the possible weaknesses.

https://phpunit.expert/articles/hardening-github-actions-workflows.html

Anyone developing a real fear of software dependencies at this point? I don’t want to install anything or run any updates right now.

Ah yes. This is good info!

https://mastodon.social/@john_fisherman/116617981969242002

I increasingly recognise the ability to choose as counter-cultural – perhaps even rebellious. Choosing what you read and watch. Choosing who you share data with. Choosing carefully what you buy. These things take time and effort. And probably require privilege too. They are not the easy way. But they are the better way!

https://fosstodon.org/@mike/116613366092460616

RE: https://crikey.social/@ross/116605777298450051

And clashes happen when people have different communication expectations. You think I’m being long and rambling when actually I REALLY want you to understand without needing to ask further questions.

You’ve written me a short, vague message assuming I understand but I need more details.

Etc.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

RE: https://crikey.social/@ross/116605777298450051

You have no idea how long I spent considering the words this post. I think I went for succinct-precise. 😆

You know how there is a product triangle of cheap, good and quick? Where you can only have two?

I think there is a communication triangle that is similar.

Communication can be simple, succinct and precise. Or any two of those. But never all three.

Simple, precise communication will need lots of words and not be succinct.

Succinct, precise communication will need terminology and not be simple.

And simple, succinct communication will never be precise.

(Note to family/friends/colleagues: Yes, I frequently fail hard on “succinctly”, but you can’t fault my precision… I hope! 😉)

I also wonder if there is something about probably being neurodiverse and not “getting” AI.

I don’t want to use long rambling sentences to describe what I want. I want to learn the specific meanings of things so that I can communicate precisely and succinctly.

This video, for example, is baffling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z-h1HLilceQ

A while back I got frustrated with people on a school Facebook group asking simple questions of each other that were answered on the school website. I thought the fix was clever technology. But I later realised that asking other people has real value. Community. Social capital.

AI robs us of this.