December 2023

Going to try a screen less weekend. Wish me luck and I’ll see y’all next year!

In yet another sign that I should have just taken this week off, I CRUSHED this week's team trivia. #SoAlone

Was wandering my monitor's settings to turn the brightness down and saw it has a low blue light setting, so I turned it on. This is weird, but let's see if it makes things better.

Time for my annual Comcast Business call where I wrangle more internet for less money in exchange for not moving to fiber (which has been installed my neighborhood but is apparently very noisy and unreliable, but Comcast doesn't know that).

If La Croix tastes like someone waved some fruit over the top of the can before they closed it, Spindrift is like the fruit dutch ovened the can RIGHT before they sealed it. It's way better. #fruitfarts #seltzer #GodImOld

It's a shiny new blog post called: My Favorite Albums of 2023

https://lawver.net/2023/12/my-favorite-albums-of-2023/

#music

TIL about Mermaid: https://mermaid.js.org/ -- great way to write diagrams in a Markdown-like syntax and embed them in Github-hosted READMEs.

One of my all time favorite red wines. So smooth, so tasty, so complex. If you’re ever in Northern California, you owe it to yourself to do a tasting a Davis Family Vineyards.

We’re doing our normal thing of playing cards before Christmas dinner and every time my son beats, I look at him sternly and ask, “are you trying to ruin Christmas?”

And then we laugh. Good times!

I meow, therefore meow meow

~René Descats

#Cats

I fired up instagram for cute pics of my friends’ kids and was confronted with a no-nuance, boldly ignorant trans-hating post from Threads. So, yeah, I don’t think Meta can be counted on to do anything right, and I might close every Meta-based account I have and just be a little fediverse hermit.

Happy Christmas Adam to all men’s rights activists!

I think this ficly thing might be serious. I'm reading the ActivityPub spec... https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

Can’t stop thinking about bringing Ficly back, but federated so people can host their own instances, federate with like-minded groups of writers. (More info on what it was here: https://ficly.com)

If only it were real..

Ho ho ho, LFG.

Free kids book idea: The Awkwardest Ally

I needed to understand the angles on Threads federation in a more rigorous way, so I took a few days to think through and write up my sense of the benefits, risks, and available risk mitigations, along with loopholes that need closing and questions to discuss with fediverse administrators.

This is a blisteringly hot subject for me, so it's hard to keep my head cool enough to understand other people's trade-offs, but I'm trying.

https://erinkissane.com/untangling-threads

Reminded of my favorite bit from QI about the naming of the Giant Tortoise. It makes me giggle every time. https://youtu.be/zPggB4MfPnk?si=1GAvzwFSbwZgH1hJ

Hey, here's a thing. Once you know how to pronounce an unfamiliar name, it's easy to say it right.

Welcome to our 15th Doctor, we can't wait to see your first lone adventure on Christmas day.

From the Whovian Fan Base account on bacefook

#DoctorWho #DrWho #15thDoctor #Ncuti

Not all construction work is equally enjoyable...

For example, enlarging a drilled hole is boring, but fastening pieces of metal together is riveting.

Embarrassing typo of the day: Pubic API. Yes, it accepts pull requests.

Heard joke once:

DevOp goes to doctor.

Says they're depressed.

Says life seems harsh and cruel.

Says they feel all alone with risky deploys, where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. New Year is coming, document risk and let holiday on-call take over. That should pick you up.'"

DevOp bursts into tears.

Says, "But doctor…
I am Holiday On-call."

Good joke.

Everybody laugh

It's a shiny new blog post called: We are all made of star stuff

https://lawver.net/2023/12/we-are-all-made-of-star-stuff/

#Kevin #CarlSagan

I wish people would understand this. The LLMs behind all the generative chat toys that everyone's so excited about have been trained on the absolute garbage fire of online content, so it's no surprise when they spit out garbage. Garbage is all they know.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/20/ai-child-pornography-abuse-photos-laion/
https://archive.ph/uNQCv

PSA: President Biden has so far made 166 life-tenured appointments to our federal courts. Of those, two-thirds are women and two-thirds are people of color, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Representation matters. And when you’re voting, you’re also voting for the person who’s going to fill the courts.

Sara Hill's Confirmation to U.S. District Court Moves Forward Native American Representation in Oklahoma - Native American Rights Fund:
https://narf.org/sara-hill-nomination/

I'm 59; soon to be 60 years old. The most important lesson I learned this past year is to let others have their joy.

Someone likes TV show or a band you don't like? Let them have it. It's better for them and better for you.

Life is tough—why make it harder?

Let them have their joy.

My docker adventure was only interrupted by helping other people with their respective RSpec and Typescript adventures. I’m done for the day. That’s enough adventures.

Using a package manager to install a package manager package to manage packages.

In another edition of Kevin is late to things: The Barbie Movie was really good.

Yep, we’re fucked https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

Thank you SO much to @metagrrrl for bestowing this beautiful gift today. I've listened to it half a dozen times AND sent it to my kids already: https://youtu.be/--9kqhzQ-8Q?si=GRdYOzEea4fn5tiM

Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.
And in next week's edition of Body Builder magazine, there's the arms and ears and eyes and nose.

My pal Peter just launched an iOS notes app! I love it when my friends build things! It's called Appended and it's about as delightfully simple as notes can get: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/appended/id6443959370

my advice on coming out is simple: don't feel like you owe anyone anything at all

coming out is by definition a consequence of cisnormativity

do not give the fuckers an iota of your power

do whatever you want.

be happy.

@RickiTarr
There once was a lad from El Paso,
Who knew how to handle a lasso.
He was good with a rope,
But he looked like a dope,
And behaved like a regular assho.

Just because I don’t post about politics or war or other inhumanities doesn’t mean I don’t see or care about them.

I have my own private void I scream into. Trust me, it’s better for all of us if I stick to silly fun things here.

‎Today you can get the lifetime license for free: Peaks: Biorhythmus Tracker https://apps.apple.com/de/app/peaks-biorhythmus-tracker/id6446705377
#iOS #IndieAppSanta

Hey. Rudy CAN fail!

I started French on Duolingo this morning. I took French in high school, and have spoken French with actual French people (we're planning a trip to Montreal for next year). Is it just me, or are Duolingo's French accents REALLY weird?

I got a CAT scan of my brain yesterday to see if there’s something physical causing my headaches. My favorite line from the report: “The craniocervical junction is unremarkable.” So rude.

cursed idea: alerting on average http response code

tech is dominated by cis white dudes, and tech blogs more so. in more specialized domains (like accessibility), it's even worse.

when writing my last blog post, 90% of the resources i linked to were written by white dudes.

if you're part of a group that's underrepresented in tech, i would love to see your blog. if you don't have one, consider starting one (i can help!)

You didn't ask, but my favorite bot account is @colours. So many pretty colors!

Are you a product designer looking for a new job? Based in the US or Canada (specific cities, but they're listed in the job postings)? Gusto is looking for product designers! Check out the job postings, and if you're interested, I'd be happy to put you in as a referral! https://gusto.com/about/careers/join-the-team

So, we've quietly opened up a TestFlight alpha of Didthis, an app I've been working on for the past bunch of weeks.

It's meant to help folks record progress in hobbies of all sorts. And rather than start Yet Another Social Network, we have aims to slot into "cozy web" sharing like show-and-tell Discord channels and connecting up to the Fediverse. Intentionally centering creations over creators.

Very early days yet, very alpha quality. We're in the "justifying spending more time on this" phase of development, so I'm hoping we can get some folks to check it out.

Edit: Oh yeah, and we have a Discord for folks to join. Very quiet there yet, but that might just be because we're not great at spreading the invite 😅

https://didthis.app/

Oh Captain, my Captain

Dear Slack, let me set a "self-destruct" date for channels.

Other products by the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter people:

- You Thought This Was Yogurt
- Fuck Off It's Mayonnaise
- It's Probably Corn
- Surprise Motherfucker That Wasn't Hummus
- No One Said This Was Ham
- I Hope These Aren't Hornets

I bought a Kindle Scribe and… I love it. The screen is great, and the pen is great for creating highlights. It’s also light enough that it’s not a pain to hold for long periods. Two dorky thumbs up.

What do you call a potato who procrastinates?

A hesi-tater.

I’m seeing a lot of #adventofcode posts, but what I’d really like to see is #lentofcode in the spring, where people give up a framework they commonly use for forty days.

💖 omg.lol: an oasis on the internet - https://blakewatson.com/journal/omg-lol-an-oasis-on-the-internet/

#SalvationArmy

We did a little workshop on creating a website at work yesterday and ended up playing with Google Sites while waiting for people to show up. If you’re already in GSuite, it’s not bad. It can embed most Drive files, and looks better than Wix.

What else needs to be said? Seriously though…

If someone posts their Chanukah menorah and you respond with something anti-Israel, that's antisemitism. If you don't understand why, do some reading about how Jews are an ethnicity and Israel is a state with a government that most Jews don't even support.

If you're tempted to argue about this with me, just save yourself the trouble and block me. I don't want bigots following me, anyway.

"so many homophobes turn out to be secretly gay that im nervous im secretly a giant spider"

Washington Post workers are on strike Thursday, Dec. 7, and have asked that we don’t read, click, share, or like any WaPo content in solidarity. Support workers! Skip the Post for the day! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/workers-at-the-washington-post-deserve-a-living-wage

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want a girl in a short skirt
And a loooooooog, looooooooooooooong
Jacket

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse
The sun had gone down and the moon had come up
And long ago somebody left with the cup
But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns

He's coming for Christmas
He's coming for Yule
He's flying up (flying up)
To the rooftops he flew

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot
His clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot
He's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He whistled and called them and shouted with force
On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen
On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!

He's coming for Christmas
He's coming for Yule
He's coming down (coming down)
Down the chimney he flew

And I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight,
Because he's haunted by something he cannot define
And he's hoping in time that his memories will fade
In his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade

I don't really want to run anything anymore. I want to help other people grow their confidence so THEY'LL run things. I think running things might be easier than convincing people they can do something…

I keep hearing people talk about "both sides" in this political climate in my country. People....PEOPLE, NAZIS DON'T HAVE A SIDE. THE ENTIRE FUCKING GLOBE ALREADY HAD THIS "DISCUSSION". NO NAZIS ARE THE SITUATIONAL NORM TO BE ACHIEVED. Discussion good, NAZIS BAD. JFC

Unsolicited sales emails should have to come with both Unsubscribe AND "Fuck all the way off" links. The more of the latter you get, the worse you know your targeting is. Because, dammit, they're almost all WAY off.

Please favor and boost. Let’s show that love can overcome hate and ignorance.

The fascists love to demonize queer ppl for "making everything about sex" or "making their gender their whole personality" but every time I go to a queer event I am struck by how precisely they have this backwards. Cis society is profoundly sexualized, and literally every interaction is pre-coded with assumed gender. In a queer space, you purposefully never make assumptions about who someone is or what they're up to, so interactions are much *less* coded by gender and *less* intrinsically sexual

If you can’t be an engineer, be a mythical creature. The pay isn’t as good, but the work life balance is hard to beat. https://twitchard.github.io/posts/2019-05-29-not-a-real-engineer.html

Wonderful job by the San Antonio Express-News calling out raging asshole Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX). To quote former Senator Al Franken, "'I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I fucking hate Ted Cruz.'

Never have I ever been roasted by Duke librarians

Hey, if you are looking to make a (US) tax-deductible donation before the end of the year, Trans Lifeline could really use it, as they're having to pause operations right when a lot of people probably need them most.

https://give.translifeline.org/give/461718/#!/donation/checkout

https://translifeline.org/new-hours-eoy-pause-hotline-operations/

(Just making my own post because I didn't like the language in another post that's going around, I have no particular connection to them.)

But that’s getting older. I said that when I started going bald, I’d just shave it - and I’m fine with it. I like being bald. But, it’s fun to check in with my follicles from time to time.

I’m doing my annual “grow my hair out a bit” thing just to see how weird my hairline is and how many different colors it is. Last year, my hair was at least three colors and my hairline was “slightly upsetting”.

If I say a meeting is going to be fun, I MEAN it. I will break out the bad metaphors, the awful puns, you name it. You will have fun, even if we're talking about dry-as-a-bone topics... I WILL MAKE IT FUN! Because, why do it any other way?

You've tried strawman and steelman arguments, but... have you considered the balloon animal argument? Twist whatever it is into any shape you want, pretend that's what you intended, and then add enough jokes to giggle your opponent into submission.

[steps up to microphone] tap, tap “are you tired of winning yet?”

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/113023_lake_ballots/

I bought an Aeropress XL on a whim and I can’t find a reusable steel mesh filter for it. Does anyone know of one? It’s going to be a great travel brewer, but I want a reusable filter and no drip attachment thingie.

This is how librarians say "fuck you, you racist piece of shit."
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/11/30/why-were-dropping-basecamp/