Ross's Micro Blog

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

http://offline.kids/

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.”

Tim is knowledgable and eloquent and just such a great teacher. He's a friend, so I'm biased. But this is likely to be amazing and if you need to know about WordPress Security you should get on his list.
https://fosstodon.org/@tnash/114414938157889292

Actually got to solving this one!

Hooray! I solved today's #WordlePress in 11 guesses!

x 7

Test your #WordPress dev knowledge at https://wordlepress.com/

Flippin real old-school deep internet magic happened this week.

There was a discussion about an old C64 game that was beloved by a couple of people including me.

Someone saw this and posted that they were in-person with the developer of that game.

The next day the dev joined Mastodon to join in the conversation and we could tell him direct how amazing his work was.

This… THIS is what the internet and social media should be like, and, as far as I remember, was for some time a while back.

A thing I've realised.

Part of why often feel like I'm failing is that I don't get feedback.

When I ask for feedback I genuinely want it (but positive and/or constructive please!!)

If I don't get any feedback I assume I must be doing something wrong, because I know I'm not perfect and I want to be better.

Hmm…

(I also need to get better at giving feedback in some contexts… more hmm…)

The eldest’s “Catering” lessons are the absolute bain of my life right now. It’s 22:17 and I’ve just realised he needs to take a single sprig of thyme and half a vegetable stock cube that we don’t have to school tomorrow.

And if I don’t find them he’ll be punished for my disorganisation.

Gah!!

Oh, big technology sighs.

I recorded a MacOS Voice Memo that I might turn into a piece of published audio. I figured I could just export it.

But no. Well yes. You can. It's deceptively easy in fact. But totally hidden. (Just drag and drop to Finder if you want the m4a file.)

Right then. Editing. Let's try Descript. That used to be really good?

Descript seems to be running super slow and being totally unusable. Just me? Or has it gone very downhill?

I just want to record and edit audio!!!

We went to the aquarium yesterday with the kids. So they were a bit crazy about marine biology.

"What’s your favourite sea creature?” asked my youngest.

“Hmmm. I think it's the camel?”

It's terrible, I know. But see if you took as long as they did.

Rift Notes is a very interesting little notes app for iOS/iPad. Markdown. Chat-like interface. Tags. Search. Sync via iCloud.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/rift-notes-retro-style-notes/id6739888423

H/T Installer Newsletter

https://www.theverge.com/installer-newsletter

Makes me want to code up a quick PWA for location getting and conversion.

The linked post is worth a read. W3W seems so good on the surface, but dig a little and it’s really not.

There are better alternatives:

Open Location Codes (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code) are implemented by Google as Plus Codes (https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/)

And if you’re in the UK there is a free Ordnance Survey locator app (App Store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/os-locate/id810024913)
https://mastodon.green/@Philsturgeon/114360649451117125

Highly inspired by @samwho.dev’s work.

Was reminded of my 161% nerdy and totally over-the-top write up of the static-hosted, “serverless” 2-player scramble game I made.

Binary encodings ahoy!!!

(I, like, literally can’t believe I did so much thinking and wrote so many words about “minimal Scrabble game encodings”. )

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

Game (Free! No login!!):

https://words.pico.games/

After hearing this I’m revisiting the epic email I sent about my care when I had appendicitis.

It’s almost comically funny in hindsight. But actually life-and-death serious.

I KNOW the health system is under great strain. I have utmost respect for everyone on the front line. But really, just understanding patients points of view better would help so much.

If you’ve ever had a bad healthcare experience, and in particular (but not exclusively) if you are neurodivergent, this podcast is worth a listen. It will make you feel validated. And it’s full of tips for how to get good care.

Helen’s not here, but THANK YOU FOR THIS WHOLE SERIES!!!

https://pca.st/episode/ee92a0c8-8f87-4ed2-aaff-fe20df7fdb3c

So the stuff about LLMs hallucinating dependencies is such a prime example of where GenAI’s non-determinism falls horribly flat. A vastly more complicated and resource hungry way of doing it wrong.

I am convinced that there are better ways to speed up coding than this.

Hang on. Hang on. Y’all have TALKING PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS???

What do they normally say???

https://www.theverge.com/news/647830/crosswalk-hack-musk-zuckerberg-voices-california