Ross's Micro Blog

As of this week I’m the parent of a secondary/high school student! Eek!

A tech observation: would be great if phones had a “school mode” where they are effectively off, but can still be geolocated. For parental tracking but also for finding lost devices.

Is that a thing?

I really want to be working on side projects, but I’m burning so much mental energy on being executive function for other people right now that I just need to chill once kids are in bed.

And this… this is literally FINE. 👍 It’s better than fine. It’s GOOD!!

🚗 If there’s one thing electric vehicles are really missing it’s an under-car animal detector.

Ending this short thread with some wisdom:

Just because a programming language has weird, ambiguous syntax doesn’t mean you have to use it!

Also, and f*** this:

You can optional-call an undefined function:

let undefinedFunc
undefinedFunc?.()

is fine.

But you can’t optional-call an undeclared one:

undeclaredFunc?.()
-> “undeclaredFunc is not defined”

Even though:

typeof undefinedFunc
-> “undefined”

typeof undeclaredFunc
-> “undefined”

🤬

New JS/TS syntax that I’m learning and that I don’t like:

1) Optionally chained function calls. This is just weird:

someFunction?.( params )

2) Ambiguous short function syntax that does not return an object:

const f = () => {
‘name’: ‘Ross’
}

😎 Tooting my own horn again, but today, I – complete React and NextJS noob (kinda) – reviewed a small-but-mighty NextJS middleware change, found a bug, improved it, and then went and wrote tests for it too!

Go me!!!

(Actually very proud of myself today)

😎 I revisited my “10 things I learned in 10 years of freelancing” posts today.

I’m pretty proud of them. Some great advice and wisdom, even if I do say so myself!

Start here!

https://rosswintle.uk/2021/08/10-things-i-learned-about-freelancing-in-ten-years-with-ten-days-to-go-part-1/

@rhyswynne I happened to open Instagram and saw your Anbernic thing. Is that… legal? And does it really come with 2,500 games including a ton of Nintendo titles?

This golf game looks so cute and creative

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brintown/paper-apps-golf

Duolingo is so funny…

A listening exercise.

“Je voudrais un ________ de vin?”

Options:

a) verre
b) mer

Yes. I’d like a sea of wine please!

Sounds GREAT!!

😂

@jaygeorge I’m reminded that I need to say…

Great podcast this week! 🙌

I forwarded to my ACF-making friends to ensure that they received all of Ambers love and feedback.

There’s some really good people on this here internet.

If you know any good, senior-level front-end devs with React and NextJS skills who also do WordPress and are interested in or have used headless WP, that are looking for a job, do send them my way.

Also looking for unicorns, faries, and the Loch Ness Monster.

Oh, they could get to work with me and my awesome team! 🙌

This seems right to me.

"AI is defined by aggressive capitalism… the most realistic promises of AI are going to make the world worse."

https://drewdevault.com/2023/08/29/2023-08-29-AI-crap.html

But the possible upside is that people get incredibly bored and disillusioned with the internet and start walking up mountains, riding bikes, swimming in the sea, and enjoying time with other people.

Took the kids climbing at the “fun walls”.

Gosh I still hate auto-belay machines!!! 😬

Are all non-fiction books now 10% content and 90% fluffy stories.

I’m sure this works for some people. But it drives me bananas and stops me reading interesting stuff.

It’s like:

All dogs have four legs.

Let me tell you about John. John is a dog. When he was born he had 4 legs. He continued to have 4 legs all through his life. He swam with 4 legs. He chased balls with 4 legs. There was this one time where we went hiking where he really put those legs to use. And yes, he died with four legs.