November 2023

Oh no. I think I’m going to write a book.

Undefeated and still reigning Zoom Chat Super Villain! I can derail a meeting in no time flat. Am I proud of it? No. Am I impressed? Yes. Do I plan on stopping? Nope.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Wrapping up National Blog Post Month

https://lawver.net/2023/11/wrapping-up-national-blog-post-month/

#blogging #SocialMedia #nablopomo

One of the best things about the week after Thanksgiving is that I can use the leftover heavy cream in my coffee.

Preparing for an allergy test when you have allergies is stupid. I would like my antihistamines back, please.

AND, Spotify's DJ feature is all Wrapped-themed this week, so it'll play things from your Wrapped instead of its usual mix of sometimes-weirdness.

Hello, I am Sergeant Chortle from the Fun Police. Yes, we're part of Joy Division. I hear you've been sharing your Spotify Wrapped, because you love music and you think it's interesting. It turns out, some people don't think so! We're here to serve you a cease and desist because we're afraid people may injure their eyes from rolling them too hard.

(Fuck the Fun Police - share that shit all you want! You're allowed to love things, and the people who don't can keep on scrolling)

Spotify Wrapped is fun, but does anyone else keep a favorites playlist for the year? I've been doing it for a while, and it's always fun to look back on how much great stuff comes out in a year. Here's 2023's: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lwMXig8Zy940L6YqRHZzu?si=621e5d54b8a7489f

It's a shiny new blog post called: The expert is calling from inside the house

https://lawver.net/2023/11/the-expert-is-calling-from-inside-the-house/

#work #nablopomo

It's a shiny new blog post called: Avoiding cynicism

https://lawver.net/2023/11/avoiding-cynicism/

#work #nablopomo

• Mask wearers are just cool as fuck.
• Mask wearers know they look good in those jeans.
• Mask wearers could be sticking their tongue out at you right now and you'd never know.
• Mask wearers sparkle in the sun.
• Mask wearers make friends and influence people.
https://masto.ai/@justyourluck/111489168035234353

This afternoon's daylist is “hipster indietronica tuesday afternoon" and I feel both loved and called out. Thanks, Spotify.

The British Museum is old enough and famous enough that it could be considered a historic artifact.

The true power move would be for a country to steal the British Museum and put it in their own museum.

It's a shiny new blog post called: First day back

https://lawver.net/2023/11/first-day-back/

#Kevin #allergies #nablopomo

A pun has not completely matured until it's full groan.

I've started investing in stocks: beef, chicken, vegetable...

One day I hope to become a bouillonaire.

I think it's the cymbals... like the closed high hat (I'm pretty sure what that is - it's been 30 years since I touched a drum kit)... it's just catchy as hell.

I forgot that this song was also in Letterkenny (there's an EPIC cover of it in Sex Education). It's a song that shouldn't work, but 100% does. https://open.spotify.com/track/0NWWDumjD2TCrR6iV6ZFgR?si=11d4ec9f595f4bd3

Monday after over a week off and... I don't even remember what I was doing. Is this my job? No? What IS it then?

I’ve been rewatching Letterkenny ahead of the final season, and got to my favorite scene from the show over the weekend, in the “Bock et Biche" episode where Wayne meets Marie-Fred for the first time. It's great, and this song is the only thing you hear as they lock eyes: https://open.spotify.com/track/3Uo30HlnRjZRKW4EtlfPZH?si=81035ffb52c44af0

Letterkenny has one of the best soundtracks on TV. From The Pack AD in episode one to this song, it's full of great Canadian tunes.

I was also an authority on everything. For example, I knew a lot about project managers: https://lawver.net/2002/02/how_to_get_your/ (from almost 22 years ago)

This is probably going to be tomorrow's blog post, but a million years ago (23, to be exact), I was the front-end developer for AOL's search engine, and was also the stats guy - I wrote a thing that downloaded a bunch of log files and generate reports about the top queries for the day and sent an email to pretty much everyone. I'd blog about it sometimes - like the week after 9/11, "nostradamus" was the number one search term, eclipsing everything else.

It's funny... I was DataDog.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Football, no, the other one

https://lawver.net/2023/11/football-no-the-other-one/

#sports #football #nablopomo #soccer #WSL

i am young enough to know how to use email but old enough to talk to myself like strongbad while doing so.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Nothing to say

https://lawver.net/2023/11/nothing-to-say/

#Kevin #allergies #nablopomo

First leftover turkey sandwich has been consumed. Am pleased.

I feel like I’ve let down all of Thanksgiving… we didn’t listen to Alice’s Restaurant today. I sure hope the Great Turkey forgives us and doesn’t make us sit on the 4F bench.

We all (the adults anyway) tried my tawny, 10 year and 40 year ports after dinner. They’re all different and I love all of them.

Port is so good. It’s wine, but it’s complex and rich and I love it.

For the record, I love wine too.

Because I’m allergic to hops and can’t drink beer anymore.

I love making things ahead: dressing, green bean casserole and gravy are all pretty much done and ready to go in the oven. Turkey is next.

My favorite holiday. Fuck the myths, bring on the food and family!

Look I'm not saying it's very easy to start calling someone by a different name

But it's pretty fucking easy

This one... right in the feels. When people ask why I have no hair and my beard is white, this is why: https://lawver.net/2001/11/freedom/

It's a shiny new blog post called: The past is embarassing

https://lawver.net/2023/11/the-past-is-embarassing/

#blogging #nablopomo

Time to do the “what goes in the oven at what temp and for how long” dance! Having two toaster ovens really helps (why I have two toaster ovens is a different story).

We went out to brunch this morning and then to the Middle Eastern and Vietnamese grocery stores. I got garlic paste, which I’ve never seen before. Ummm, what should I use it for? #cooking #mysteryIngredient

And the best part of writing that post is that it reminded me of my “southern pork ramen" experiment: https://lawver.net/2017/05/southern-pork-ramen-broth/

It's a shiny new blog post called: A Simple Thanksgiving

https://lawver.net/2023/11/a-simple-thanksgiving/

#cooking #nablopomo #thanksgiving

Just saw that CBS Sports has a show about women’s football. The Athletic has a women’s football podcast (maybe two?). Big Kick Energy won awards at a big sports media event.

The quality of the play in the NWSL and WSL is fantastic. The WSL season is in full swing and every game is super important.

I don’t know how to end this other than to say… watch it. If you like football, then please support the women’s game.

I’ve got ten days of #NaBloPoMo left and I thought it would be fun to do a career advice column! So, if you’ve got tech career questions, bring them on and I’ll try to answer them!

It's a shiny new blog post called: Mid-caffeination Mastodon Thoughts

https://lawver.net/2023/11/mid-caffeination-mastodon-thoughts/

#fediverse #search #SocialMedia #moderation #nablopomo

An actual use for machine learning that I'd want: a bot that records all the posts that cause me to block someone, saves them into a db, and then automatically hides posts that match above a certain threshold.

Every now and then I think its important to remind all that Jack Dorsey likes, respects, and agrees with Elon Musk about nearly everything.

Finished @scalzi’s Starter Villain and it’s fun. It’s got some very clever ideas in it but it was a bit… light? I had a great time reading it, but it’s not going to stick with me like Kaiju Preservation Society, Redshirts, Locked In or his other series. But if you want a fun read that flies by, grab it.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Recovery times may vary

https://lawver.net/2023/11/recovery-times-may-vary/

#travel #nablopomo

The luckiest.

Wordle 882 2/6*

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Other than sleeping all weekend, I plan on finishing @scalzi’s Starter Villain. I’m about 2/3 of the way through, and it’s a lot of fun.

Yaaaaaay, I’m home! Dinner, then try to sleep all weekend.

The airline said be two hours early. I’m here. TSA doesn’t open for 52 minutes. I’m such a sucker.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Stupid sleep

https://lawver.net/2023/11/stupid-sleep/

#travel #nablopomo

I am very upset that I am not asleep right now and I would like to speak to the manager.

The antisemitism spewing from Musk, Carlson, & Hagee is beyond reprehensible. Such vitriol only fuels more violence. Dehumanizing Jewish people has no place in a civilized society.

Back in 2018 I was honored to be invited to speak at the Emek Shalom Holocaust Memorial Cemetery on the then 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. In my remarks I spoke of the need to stand united as one human family against antisemitism and all forms of hate.

1/2

Dear Slack: give me a preference to turn off notifications for threads. I hate it. Thanks.

I finished @charliejane's Unstoppable series on the plane this week and... I'm not ashamed to say I cried on a plane near other humans. It's super fun, super queer, and full of really creative space opera world building. READ THEM. DO IT.

Three hours is my time zone change kryptonite. Second day, and I woke up at 4:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep. There won’t be enough coffee in the office.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Strategic apathy

https://lawver.net/2023/11/strategic-apathy/

#work #nablopomo

Today, I was cut in layoffs. I’m so gutted because I loved this company, & my team was the best; I’ll miss my team most.

Now, as I look ahead, I’m searching for a staff/principal role where I can help other developers level-up through mentoring, tooling/infra, architecture, & improving DX. I’d love to work with a company contributing to open source & even to the #PHP programming language itself.

Update (27 Feb 2024): Thanks, everyone! I’ve accepted an offer. Please see update in thread below.

It's a shiny new blog post called: Bring me all the joys

https://lawver.net/2023/11/bring-me-all-the-joys/

#family #nablopomo

I took a Lyft today and the guy was driving a hydrogen powered car. He says there are now only 3 places he can refill it in the his area, and it costs him twice as much as gas would.

It sucks that he’s basically stuck with the Betamax of cars. I love the idea of hydrogen but it feels like it lost to EVs, right?

It's a shiny new blog post called: Travel Tired

https://lawver.net/2023/11/travel-tired/

#travel #nablopomo

Now, THAT’s a headline. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a45822510/trump-veterans-day-speech/

Heads up! Promises Stronger Than Darkness, the third book of my YA space opera trilogy, is just $2.99 in all ebook formats for the next few days. The final battle for the fate of the galaxy involves a lot of feels, queer joy, hard choices and singing monkey robots.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250317490/promisesstrongerthandarkness

font-size: 3000%;
[hacker voice]: i'm in

It's a shiny new blog post called: App Defaults

https://lawver.net/2023/11/app-defaults/

#computing #nablopomo

Or laugh… I’m fine with that… but then tell me the answer.

Don’t laugh but I have a wine question: sparkling rosé: wine glasses or champagne flutes or something else?

It's a shiny new blog post called: Proof I can maintain something

https://lawver.net/2023/11/proof-i-can-maintain-something/

#Duolingo #nablopomo

The counter girl hopped right up when I walked in and was clocking in to help me.

Me: were you on break? I can wait until it's over I'm not in a hurry.

Her: no, we're supposed to clock out when there aren't customers

Me: oh no, honey, no. That's illegal.

Her: 😳

Me: not for you, for your manager or whoever told you to do that.

Her: it is?

Me: it's called wage theft when your boss doesn't pay you what you earned. when your boss requires you to stay here, he needs you pay you for your time.

Her: oh.

Me: here, this is the office number to an employment lawyer, call her and tell her you need to come in to talk about this

Her: I don't have any money

Me: we're gonna get your money, you already earned it sweetie.

Edit message to include a link to info about worker's rights:

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/workers

It's a shiny new blog post called: Just go read this, and then write something

https://lawver.net/2023/11/just-go-read-this-and-then-write-something/

#DailyTedium #nablopomo #writing

Alert: The Aristocrats is on Peacock. I haven’t watched it since it was released a hundred years ago, and I can’t imagine it’s aged well, but I laughed so hard the first time I watched it, I had to use my asthma rescue inhaler three times.

Wow, Apple Weather now has forecasts for Fediverse conditions!

"Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” — Annie Dillard

Today's #NaBloPoMo is a little celebration of blogging and trying to be understood: https://lawver.net/2023/11/just-trying-to-be-understood/

It's a shiny new blog post called: Just trying to be understood

https://lawver.net/2023/11/just-trying-to-be-understood/

#blogging #nablopomo

I've taken some time off to recenter myself, and now I'm officially re-entering the job market.

If you're in need of a technical editor, writer, or manager of either, or if you know someone who'd be interested, let's talk.

I've worked on tutorials for DigitalOcean, books for O'Reilly and Pragmatic, and other stuff besides.

Boosts for reach are appreciated.

A friend who runs a small media company is looking for a part-time backend developer to help them fortify, maintain, and build out their Wordpress-based tech/publishing stack. Any ideas?

Hey, do you love DEI work? Gusto is looking for its next Chief Diversity Officer (you have to be in SF, Denver or NYC, sorry) and it COULD BE YOU! I co-lead on of our ERGs and would be happy to talk about life at Gusto and put you in the system as a referral if you're interested! #fedihired

https://boards.greenhouse.io/gusto/jobs/5349306

Today's #NaBloPoMo post (8/8!) is all about software engineers, people and problems: https://lawver.net/2023/11/people-are-always-the-problem/

⚡️ Our next flash sale is live! Buy a new omg.lol address with 3+ years, or add 3+ years to an existing address, and save 33% with code THIRTYTHREE. Today only! Or maybe longer, if I forget to disable the coupon code, which is almost guaranteed to happen.

Today's #NaBloPoMo post (7/7, baby!) is a look back at a 16 year old post about a project and my reflections on it: https://lawver.net/2023/11/looking-back-ficlets-launching/

But, I got to mess with apache config and crontab stuff for the first time in forever, so... thanks, bot! I feel like a nerd again!

There's some new robot out there that hit my little blog so hard, apache got oom-killed. I think I've fixed things so it doesn't happen again, but... hope the bot got something out of all the things it scraped.

Trump is already talking about using the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, if he is reelected, to put down any civil protests. I can’t stress this enough. No matter what you think of Biden, his age, his policies, he is no dictator. He believes in democracy. We cannot let Trump anywhere near the White House again.

6/6! That means I'm 1/5 of the way through #NaBloPoMo! Today's is my attempt at a response to @amyvdh's question about kindness being seen as weakness: https://lawver.net/2023/11/be-kind-but-have-boundaries/

I really liked this season of Shoresy until the stupid family dinner transphobic and completely unnecessary conversation in the finale. Why? It didn't do anything except make me ill, and ruin the show. So disappointed, in what is normally a gross, but inclusively gross, show.

Thanks to @amyvdh for the idea for today's post! It's all about kindness, humor and privilege: https://lawver.net/2023/11/the-intersections-of-kindness-humor-and-privilege/ #NaBloPoMo

So far so good on #NaBloPoMo, but not sure what to write about today. What would you like to read on a Sunday?

What's the worst B thing to fill a piñata with?

Eventual goal is to mess around with web components to pull in toots and maybe some of the other omg.lol goodies into the site so it's not so static - or, I might actually set up WordPress again somewhere cheaper and go through the hassle of importing everything again. But maybe not.

DNS on the new thing is still shouting its way across the internet, but I wrote a new homepage, got it online, and wrote a blog post about it before the football game I'm watching got to full time. My faith in the handmade hobbyist web is kind of restored. https://lawver.net/2023/11/web-based-faith-restored/ #NaBloPoMo

It's amazing how much basic CSS stuff I've forgotten in the last couple of years... but it is fun writing plain old HTML and CSS! New very very simple @techsav site coming soon - just want to make sure I've got all the old stuff backed up.

My little nonprofit is on Mastodon now. Say hi to @techsav!

Woo, day three! 10% of the way there! Today's post is me pining for a simpler web: https://lawver.net/2023/11/pining-for-simplicity/ #NaBloPoMo

The timeline of Github outage emotions from not-Github engineers:
- Am I... fired? 🤔
- Oh wait, you too? At least we're going together. 🤜🏻 🤛🏻
- Nope, it's Github. Oh well... early weekend! 🍻
- Oh shit, it's fixed. Back to work. 🚶‍♂️

Woo! Github's broken! I'm not actually fired! But... I think this means we can start the weekend early? 🍻

Woo, two days, two posts! I am 1/15 of the way to winning #NaBloPoMo! Here's today's, all about playing at work: https://lawver.net/2023/11/playing/

For anyone who still thinks that government documents are hard to find, read and understand, behold the accessible beauty of the Small Business Administration's site: https://sba.gov. It's so easy to find things, read them, and they link out to more detailed things all over the place.

Bring on the cold! Sedate those plants and remove their desire to constantly inseminate my sinuses! (Pretty sure this is how I become a Batman villain)

Alright, #NaBloPoMo, let's go. Today, I wrote a thing about Mastodon (how TOPICAL!): https://lawver.net/2023/11/yep-mastodon-is-good/

If you’re a senior+ engineer and you’re not regularly interacting with customer-facing colleagues, ask yourself why not.

The benefits are many: help customer-facing teams deliver more/better/quicker to customers; help you understand what’s bugging customers right now today so you aren’t caught off guard tomorrow; networking.

I make a point to be available to answer technical questions, and I in turn learn stuff I would otherwise miss. I appreciate other roles more. People I’ve helped in the past sometimes proactively bring me great intel now.

This goes double for infosec, since everything moves so fast.

I created a bookmarklet for figuring out if input fields have autocomplete attributes and then display the attributes on the screen #a11y #Accessibility

https://racheleditullio.com/blog/2023/11/autocomplete-accessibility-bookmarklet/

oh no, i have leftover halloween candy! whatever shall i do?!

(lol, i'm a gonna eat it is what i'm gonna do, mwa-hahahahaha)

Our pride gets in the way of moving forward. Saying "I don't know, but I'll find out" is the only reason my career has happened at all. Admit when you don't know. Commit to finding the answer. Follow up and share the result. That's the whole answer to growing your career AND bringing people with you.

https://techhub.social/@shantini/111331436274253780

Someone is typing in Slack, and then stops w/out sending.
My anxiety: What? Why are you afraid to talk to me?! Did I do something wrong?!

Someone showed me this today, and it's truly a work of art.

https://tomstu.art/the-dhh-problem