Treating links on the blog as real content.

A Little More Love for Links


I’m going to start treating links as content and not as a separate thing living under [links](/links). I started thinking about this by way of [Stat’s Page](https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/stats-page/) on Jim Nielsen’s blog, which led me to [Indexing My Blog’s Links](https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2020/indexing-my-blogs-links/), which got me thinking that all the inline links I post get lost in posts over time, and the posts I created as "link" type posts were... not numerous. There’s a lot of things I read which are interesting, and it’s a disservice to the Internet (alright… it’s a disservice to me when I go to look these things up again) to not treat them as the rest of the content.

So, I updated [the links page](/links) to show all the external links ever posted here, and I’ll try to get better about re-sharing the good stuff I find. And I’ll remember to share links with the whole link title instead of some clever words because that might be clever but it is _not_ helpful.

Wherein we visit the fair and Lorelei is married off to a Vermont boy.

The Comedy and Tragedy of County Fairs


We went to the [Caledonia County Fair](https://caledoniacountyfair.com) yesterday. I used to go with my parents every Summer when I was a kid, because it was honestly about the only thing to do in the Summer in the Northeast Kingdom back then, short of the day they switched the movie at the theatre in St. Johnsbury.

I don’t remember the fair as much: there were the cows, goats, other small animals being judged (with every single one seemingly winning first place), a demolition derby, a tractor/horse/ox pull, rides that had not seen a maintenance check since the day they left the facility that built them, the usual lineup of crappy carnival games and fair food mixed in with local grub. 

This year was a lot of the same. The big hit was the magic show — Lorelei got picked to be the last “assistant”, and was part of an elaborate “pick a card, any card” trick during which she was part of a sham wedding to a Vermont boy and was threatened to have her armed removed.

![The card Lorelei pulled at the magic show](/assets/images/2022/card.jpeg)

_The card Lorelei picked and how she made it clear it was hers._

But the big difference from when I was a kid was the “guns and Trump” stalls all about the fair. Need a hat with a pistol on it and the words “we don’t call 911 here” above it? Need a Trump 2024 flag? Need a “let’s go Brandon”, uh, anything?

Thirty years ago you’d see some knock off No Fear shirts, or Calvin pissing on whatever stickers, but it tended towards Beavis and Butthead levels of stupid and silly, not blatantly offensive. And it’s not like I think Vermont is the hyper-liberal wonderland some people picture it as (the “no steppy on snek” flags don’t stop at the Connecticut River) but it’s disappointing to see so much of the fair become political Hot Topics for shitfucks.

Even the bears don't want to hike up this.

Above Black Bear


![The gazebo in East Haven at the top of the Haul Road trail](/assets/images/2022/my-east-haven.jpeg)

I wish I could post the sound for this photo. Well I can, I guess? There was no sound. You get out early enough here and there’s no other bikers, no road noise, heck even the birds seemed like they’d had their worms and were chilling. 

This didn’t help the voice in my head that kept wondering why the trail was named Black Bear. It’s just a fun name… right?


A pleasant change from the brown yards of home.

Green Mountains


![](/assets/images/2022/green-mountains.jpeg)

A pleasant change from the brown yards of home. 

You just gotta ignite the light


I [mentioned in July](/blog-posts/2022/07/fourth-fireworks) I had some less than stellar ideas for watching Fourth of July fireworks without crowds. I made up for it tonight by getting a great spot for the Beverly Homecoming ones.

![Fireworks at Beverly Homecoming 2022](/assets/images/2022/fireworks.jpeg).

It’s amazing how well the iPhone Pros can take pictures at night. In the past I’ve tried getting photos of fireworks with a decent DSLR and ended up with blurry lights, now I can balance the phone that I carry in my pocket on my ankle and get something good-enough in 3 seconds.


Elden Ring


![Platinum trophy from Elden Ring.](/assets/images/2022/elden-ring-done.jpeg)

![Frodo saying “it’s done” after he throws the ring into Mount Doom.](/assets/gifs/its-done.gif)

Some notes:
- Took about 90 hours, not including time spent Googling “wtf is going on”.
- Ended up doing two runs, one as a DEX/INT build with Ranni’s ending, and a second NG+ run as STR/FTH that was a speed run to the end so I could do the other two endings via some save scumming. DEX/INT I ran with Moonveil katana and Wing of Astel, and then got enough INT to throw the moon at people. STR/FTH I dual wielded Blasphemous Blade and the Gargoyle's Blackblade. Both were fun. Never used a shield.
- If you’ve never played a Dark Souls game, this is the easiest one to get into, for sure, and there are a lot of ways to have fun exploring and not constantly seeing YOU DIED screens.
- Definitely a top ten favorite game. Maybe a top five. The open world map is _just_ the right size: huge, and so much to explore, but almost every inch of it has enough to make it unique and memorable.

Now, time to wait for some more _God of War_.

Leaving the Island


![](/assets/images/2022/bileaving.jpeg)

Back on the Cecilia Ann. 

Island Night


![](/assets/images/2022/binightsky.jpeg)

Clear skies. 

Morning View


![](/assets/images/2022/bimorningview.jpeg)

From the Block Island Beach House. 

Cecelia Ann


![](/assets/images/2022/ceceliaann.jpeg)

On the way to Block Island. 

What I’ve been up to for the last month instead of posting here.

An illustrated guide to why I haven’t been posting as much

A few reasons:

1. It’s been a beautiful Summer

Like, super nice. Lots of times I’ve just gone out and sat on the back porch and done this for a bit:

![Scene from Con Air where Nic Cage feels the breeze of freedom.](/assets/gifs/freedom.gif)

Granted, it’s nice because it’s been _dry_, no rainy days, not a lot of humidity, so we’re slowly heading towards a future that looks like this:

![Scene from Mad Max where they release the water to the people waiting below](/assets/gifs/mad-max-water.gif)

2. I’ve been playing a lot of Elden Ring

Probably not a lot by some standards but a lot by my standards. I’m working on Platinum-ing it. It’s good. That might be an understatement. It might be my favorite game ever, just need to make it through the last few bosses to make a final judgement.

![Screenshot from Elden Ring](/assets/images/2022/elden-ring.jpeg)

3. I’ve been playing guitar more

I went all in on [Helix](https://line6.com/helix/) and picked up a Helix LT[^1] to replace my Pod Go. It’s cool and makes loud noises at reasonable volumes.

![Angus Young playing guitar.](/assets/gifs/thunderstruck.gif)

4. We’ve been doing house projects

Sometimes it feels silly to be redoing parts of a house that’s not even 10 years old, but it turns out that when builders do a new construction you get a decent house built to the latest standards and literally the cheapest versions of every single thing to finish the house. For example, I was at the store today looking for a replacement for our back lights[^2] and I found our current lights. They cost $7. In 2022! The light bulb in them cost more than that.

Andrea has done most of the planning and work, but she subcontracts to me for plumbing and electrical and moving heavy stuff and some amount of demolition although that’s mostly because I want to use the sawzall.

![](/assets/images/2022/bathroom.jpeg)
_our redone guest bathroom_

[^1]: More on this later.
[^2]: More on this later too.

Convincing your kid that walking into the woods at night is worth it.

Not all ideas are good ideas


The back of our house points towards Salem, and Salem had their 4th of July fireworks tonight. In past years the booms have been loud enough to wake up Lorelei, and we could see the flashes through the trees on our back deck, but it wasn’t “watching fireworks”.

This year, I thought… oh, there’s a trail behind our house, in the woods. Let’s walk back there to where there’s a clear view over the water and watch them. Lorelei is old enough to stay up late, it’ll be fun.

We watched three tiny explosions before I was informed this was “the worst idea ever” and we marched back home. Standing in the (surprisingly dark considering we live in a city) woods was not her idea of a good time. Honestly it wasn’t _my_ idea of a good time either (how long has it been since I was in the woods at night?), but the booms of the grand finale are taunting me a bit right now.

Arts Fest Beverly 2022: Bridge to Nowhere

Took a walk down to [Arts Fest Beverly](https://www.bevmain.org/arts-fest-beverly/) early this morning. Nice weather for a walk, and it seemed like a lot of other people agreed, it was quite crowded. We picked up some prints for the house, and Lorelei went a bit cat crazy:

![Various cats art, books, and clothing.](/assets/images/2022/cats-cats-cats.jpeg)

The walk was great not only because of the weather, but because there wasn’t many cars out because the bridge we take into town is [closed forever](https://baystatelocal.com/2022/06/16/hall-whitaker-bridge-to-permanently-close-friday-replacement-bridge-could-take-over-2-years-news/).

![Picture of the closed bridge.](/assets/images/2022/bridge-1.jpeg)

This bridge has always had an appearance of “should we be driving over this?” so the news of its closure was not surprising, but the one day of notice was. 

![Picture of the bridge deck with holes in it.](/assets/images/2022/bridge-2.jpeg)

Some prints not pictured were from:
- [Eric Pow](https://www.ericpow.com)
- [Ashbeadle](https://www.ashbeadle.com/links)

### Past Years
- [2021](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/08/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-august-22-2021#arts-fest-beverly)
- [2019](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2019/06/arts-fest-beverly)

Forty


I turned forty today. It was a nice day at home, and there was ice cream cake. One upside to having a birthday on a holiday: you almost always have it off. One downside: a lot of other people do too. But late May also coincides with peak allergy season for me, so I’m happy with at home cake instead of sneezing the top scoop of ice cream off my cone.

## My thirties, by the numbers:
- 1 child.
- 3 houses and 1 apartment across two states.
- 4 cars. Two Subarus, a Honda and a Volkswagen. Real exotics.
- Visited 5 new countries: Mexico, Spain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and two new US states, Colorado and Nevada.
- 6 jobs (across 2 careers).
- 1 global pandemic.

The most complete record for those numbers (besides my head) was my Photos library. While I had online accounts that pre-dated my thirties, I deleted two of them (Facebook entirely, everything on Twitter over a few years old), and lost track of a few others (two blogs, including one that was a webcomic that _I swear_ was pretty funny but I have absolutely no record of). I choose to believe that, God willing and the creek don’t rise[^1], I’ll be able to point to this blog post on this blog when I turn fifty.

## Notes for my Forties
Last night Andrea said she wanted to document me giving advice for my fifty-year-old self because, “you can’t go back and give advice to your thirty-year-old self”. Fair. Although I wish I could, because I feel like the main difference between my twenties and thirties was that I had to actually learn something. While I could brute-force my way through a lot of things in my twenties (with mixed results) that fell apart early in my thirties. So, here’s some advice for myself for the next ten years from what I’ve learned from the last ten years.

### Know what to say “no” to
I spent a lot of my early and mid-thirties saying “no” to things out of avoidance. My anxiety about being anxious when doing something got the best of me, and I wouldn’t do it. I know relationships ended because of this. I missed out on things that were objectively fun because of it. I missed out on career paths because of it. Eventually I went to therapy and now I have the metacognition to know better _why_ I’m saying no, and a historical record to look back and that proves that the alternative to avoiding anxiety isn’t being not anxious, it’s being miserable about the choices you made to avoid it.

Austin Kleon wrote about a similar idea recently, [“Would I do it tomorrow?”](https://austinkleon.com/2022/04/27/would-i-do-it-tomorrow/). I haven’t found the right mental model for me to decide yes or no to things, but I at least know it’s not defaulting to “no”, or choosing “no” because you’re worrying about what the bad parts of saying “yes” are.

### Know what choices have been made and no longer require further thought
This is the crux of why becoming an adult is difficult, to me. Looking again at my twenties, I wasn’t entangled with anything. I could quit a job on a whim, move, spend money on whatever. Once I got married, owned a house, had a kid, that all becomes more difficult. Which then breeds a different mindset where you think things _can’t_ or _shouldn’t_ change. 

But a) everything changes eventually and b) being adaptable to change of your own volition is important for being able to deal with when change happens outside of your control.

So think of the future like an artist trying a bunch of different mediums, then saying “I’m going to draw with pen on paper from now on”. They can draw anything, but they don’t have to think about what they’re going to draw it with.

### Listen to the birds
Sometimes Andrea asks me what I’m thinking about, and I reply “nothing”. I don’t think she always believes me, but I’ve been trying to get better about being bored. It’s like a return to my pre-Internet youth, where when you sat down outside, that was it, there was the outside and nothing else. You could listen to the birds, or look at the clouds. Do we need more than that?

This isn’t me going full [“blow up your TV”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofvfVPFbiM). I recently bought a really large, very fancy one. It’s more an acknowledgement that I can only think about so many things, and often I’ll think about things in unhelpful ways. So, sometimes don’t think, just listen and watch, or doodle on a piece of paper, or close your eyes and feel the breeze. Brains need rest too.

### Take more vacations
…and travel to more places. We made an intentional decision after getting married to spend most of our savings on a house, and then made a lot of other life choices around having a house. We now have a nice house and will never move again (see above about knowing what won’t change. Again, God willing and the creek don’t rise), but it meant there was never a lot of money left over for vacations or travel[^2], or we felt that travel was an extravagance. While I do enjoy spending time in our lovely home, some of the best memories I have and the biggest source of novel ideas came from traveling. 

### You can respond to everything with this now
![](/assets/images/2022/too-old-for-this-shit.jpg)

[^1]: Even though I don’t believe in God, this is by far my favorite American saying.
[^2]: But Joe, you say, you went to 5 new countries. Well, they were all for work. If you want to travel, I highly recommend working for a travel company.

Seven


Lorelei turned seven this week. We had a party today, with a princess / fairy theme. We did a pile of yard work on Friday to finish off projects in the back yard, then woke up to clouds. Luckily it burned off by the time the kids got here, and they got to play outside for a bit. None of them mentioned the work we did, although I suppose they would have noticed if it was all a big dirt pile still (and, maybe enjoyed it more).

I look forward to a time in the future when I can tell Lorelei how she spent most of first grade pretending to be a cat. All of her friends seem to accept her catness — they all came with cat-themed gifts, and there was a game they played called “pet the cat” where Lorelei got to pretend to be a cat. The parents lamented that none of their kids ever tell them what goes on at school except in bits and pieces, but we pieced together that this is a game that gets played often at recess.

We also picked up an [instax Link wide](https://instax.com/link_wide/en/) so we could send real pictures of the party home with the kids. This is Lorelei testing it out the day before:

![](/assets/images/2022/seven.jpeg)

I’ve [wrote before about how much I enjoy the instax formats](/blog-posts/2020/12/instax). The wide format is even better, and the printer, which allows you to use your much better camera phone as the source, makes it better x2.

Since yet another Easter has passed and Covid still isn’t over, it was, of course, a topic of discussion. The kids at the party are all in the same class, so the risk of one party is the same as the risk every single other day. Among the parents it was more a sense of resignation: we’re going out, we’re going to work, what else would we do. We want to start talking about “the pandemic” in past tense. Can we? I’m not sure it’s up to us. May of 2022 isn’t the same as [May of 2020](/blog-posts/2020/05), but it’s not the same as [May of 2019](/blog-posts/2019/05), either, but I guess that’s how life goes.

The end of last week we were in Connecticut and Andrea wanted to go to a used book store, so I suggested we go to the Niantic Book Barn.

Books and cats and books and cats and….


Our trips in the past few years have been there-and-back affairs, due to the complications of figuring out COVID hours/openings, the fickle nature of New England nature, and wanting some amount of post-travel pre-work time to relax. But the end of last week we were in Connecticut, Andrea wanted to go to a used book store, and none of the aforementioned issues were issues, so I suggested we go to the [Niantic Book Barn](https://www.bookbarnniantic.com), which met everyone’s requests:

- Andrea: a large, semi-curated but mildly out of control collection of books.
- Lorelei: cats

Andrea found a pile of romance novels:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I just bought a crap ton of paperback romances and romantica dating from the 1930s to early 2000s. Check out my Instagram stories where I’m sharing pics (and commentary of course)!<a href="https://t.co/S578iWQU7P">https://t.co/S578iWQU7P</a> <a href="https://t.co/TzqdudeynW">pic.twitter.com/TzqdudeynW</a></p>&mdash; Shelf Love: Romantic Love Stories in Pop Culture (@ShelfLovePod) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShelfLovePod/status/1517970192852299776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lorelei and I found the cats. Credit to her sixth sense for finding the two under couch.

<div class="four-up">
	<img src="/assets/images/2022/bb-1.jpeg" />
	<img src="/assets/images/2022/bb-2.jpeg" />
	<img src="/assets/images/2022/bb-3.jpeg" />
	<img src="/assets/images/2022/bb-4.jpeg" />
</div>

I wouldn’t recommend going far out of the way to stop there, but if you’re by the Connecticut shoreline already it’s a fun stop. You won’t find a lot of _good_ books unless you snipe one that just got sorted or you pull it straight from the newly arrived section. The stuff that accumulates… well, let’s say they had three entire shelves of L. Ron Hubbard.

![The thermostat, in the politics section](/assets/images/2022/bb-5.jpeg)

As for me, I walked out with one, one dollar book. I think it was a steal.

![A 1968 copy of Conan the Warrior](/assets/images/2022/bb-6.jpeg)



Spending a school-break day underwhelmed at the Boston Museum of Science.

Museum of Science


We went to the Boston Museum of Science today. I have fond memories of it from when I was a kid, although growing up in Connecticut it was a rare treat, so far away in the big city of Boston.

![Floor shot from the Boston Museum of Science](/assets/images/2022/mos.jpeg )

This time I was not terribly impressed. Neither was Lorelei. I was thinking about why, on the way home, and I think it’s:

1. No one would pick the Boston Museum of Science as a museum to really wow someone. They make lightning indoors and it’s got a nice view of the river but it’s not even close to one of those “oh man this is so much museum it might be too much museum” kind of museums.
2. The interest and interaction you can get out of a museum exhibit for a six year old today is _so_ much less than what it was for me as a six year old. You want to learn about nature? Great, here’s birds in 8k video, let’s look up what sounds they make, here’s an AR app to see what kinds of birds live in our backyard. What did I have as a kid? Look up “bird” in the encyclopedia, get a few pictures, maybe go to the library and get a bird book. Bug my Grandfather about bird names until he’d tell me something like “if it’s black it’s a Blackbird” until I went away. Going to a museum and seeing all of that knowledge in one place was mind blowing.

But today a hall of dead (or are they fake? Probably dead) animals isn’t really a draw. A dinosaur skeleton is (if it’s real). A cool physical or interactive exhibit is. The 4D movie theatre was a hit.

But still, we had fun, even though Lorelei pretended she did not when we chose to not eat at the food court there.

![Lorelei trying to max out the sadness meter](/assets/images/2022/sadness-meter.jpeg)

I will say if you’re not from Boston and thinking of going, going on a holiday is _great_. For reasons I cannot explain after living in the area for twenty years, Boston on a holiday is always empty. I have no idea where people go. On the drive in there was not only no traffic, there were parts of the highway where there were _no other cars_. That maxes out the happiness meter for me.



In this era of “more of everything” it’s nice to enjoy something that ends.

The Three-Body Problem or the Three-Book problem?


I finished [The Three-Body Problem](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780765382030) this morning. I’ve been reading it in stops and starts, I found many parts too tell-not-show for my tastes. It’s an interesting sci-fi plot with a graduate-level physics class thrown in the middle. Or it’s not sci-fi at all and it’s an allegory for Communist China’s interactions with the West. 

Either way it’s book number one of a three book series and I don’t think I’ll continue. I tend to stay away from books that are part of a series that can’t stand on their own. I’m two books into [The Stormlight Archive](https://www.goodreads.com/series/49075-the-stormlight-archive) but I’m not interested enough to keep going. Similarly I finished [Horizon Forbidden West](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-forbidden-west/) recently, a sequel itself that sets the story up for a trilogy and — I dunno, I’m not that interested in hearing more, especially if it’s tens or hundreds of hours more.

On sort of the other side of this, we watched _[Coda](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/coda/umc.cmc.3eh9r5iz32ggdm4ccvw5igiir)_ last night. It’s as good as everyone said it was and I don’t think anyone is going to pitch an incredibly ironically titled _Coda 2_ about Ruby in college. In this era of “more of everything” it’s nice to enjoy something that ends.


Sometimes a cigar is just a useless thing to learn about.

Why Didn’t Someone Tell Me This Sooner?

I finished _[Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780063227934)_ yesterday. It’s a good high level intro into almost everything a person might go see a therapist for.  It’s better organized than 6000 Tik Tok videos, which seems to be the _de rigueur_ way to learn about these things.

I took a Psychology class in college, it was pretty useless. I’d much rather someone had just given me this book. Honestly a week reading this instead of an extra week of Freud and bearskin rugs or whatever might have been the most helpful thing for me in college. Oh! This is how anxious thoughts work? And strategies for stopping them? No, useless information. More on Pavlov’s dogs, please.

There’s a lot of overlap here with _[Atomic Habits][1]_ by James Clear, it’s even referenced a few times. There’s an idea they share: say you’re out of shape. A bad goal is to say, “I want to run a marathon”. You’ll probably fail (too ambitious), but you could also succeed then never run again. The idea is to not have a goal but to form a habit. Tomorrow say “I’m a person who runs”, then start running, even if just down the block. While “becoming more physically fit” is one easy to understand example, the crux of it is you reframe your thoughts and change how you think about yourself rather than being reactive (I’m depressed, I need to be happy) or problem solving (I’m burned out, I need a plan for relaxing). 

If you want the super short version of both books, it’s the song “The Next Right Thing” from _Frozen 2_[^1].

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kFkClV2gM-s" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I recommend the book. It’s a quick read. It unfortunately doesn’t cover finding or affording a therapist because your insurance won’t cover it, but I suppose that’s out of scope.

[1]:	https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
[^1]: I love this song and reference it often. While the lyrics are like the textbook example of helping someone overcome grief slid into a children’s musical, it’s also just _really good advice_. 99.9% of the time you can get through life… just doing the next (right) thing. Don’t overthink it! Our brains are dumb!

A minimal reproduction of a bug that took too long to find.

An obvious bug

Debugging is one of the things I enjoy about programming. It’s like a little puzzle to solve. But as code gets more complicated, the little bugs can hide themselves in ways that make them very, very, annoyingly hard to find. This one, minimally reproduced in this Codepen, got me this week:

<p class="codepen" data-height="300" data-default-tab="html,result" data-slug-hash="ZEvxdZg" data-user="jjmartucci" style="height: 300px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;">
  <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/jjmartucci/pen/ZEvxdZg">
  A small bug 🐞</a> by Joseph Martucci (<a href="https://codepen.io/jjmartucci">@jjmartucci</a>)
  on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span>
</p>
<script async src="https://cpwebassets.codepen.io/assets/embed/ei.js"></script>

It seems obvious —  an empty input calculates an invalid date. But then imagine the calculated date was never visible, an empty input is considered valid data, and the system that reported this being an issue was 3 microservice hops away.

And the real issue, it turns out, was ever using `parseInt`. [Day.js](https://day.js.org) can do the calculation just fine with strings.

There’s more writing going on now than ever before in human history.

The most writing in human history

I’ve been reading [Smarter Than You Think](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143125822). Chapter 2 is about online writing and blogging, and Clive Thompson mentions how there’s more writing going on now than ever before in human history:

> As the historian David Henkin notes in The Postal Age, the per capita volume of letters in the United States in 1860 was only 5.15 per year. “That was a huge change at the time—it was important,” Henkin tells me. “But today it’s the exceptional person who doesn’t write five messages a day. I think a hundred years from now scholars will be swimming in a bewildering excess of life writing.”

What’s wild to me is that I got an English degree between the years of 2000 and 2004, and… no one saw this coming. A few weeks before graduating someone suggested I should sign up on some “Facebook thing, it just opened up outside of Harvard, you can see other people from other schools”, and no one I knew had ever blogged anything. So it wasn’t a miss of what was happening, but it was a miss on what _would_ be happening. 

Also, any English program could have ditched Hemingway for some basic communication writing and maybe we could have replaced the E in STEM.

React 18 [is now available on npm](https://reactjs.org/blog/2022/03/29/react-v18.html).

React 18

React 18 [is now available on npm](https://reactjs.org/blog/2022/03/29/react-v18.html).

I started using React back in the `0.14.X` days. I still prefer it over other front-end frameworks because it’s _not_ a framework, it’s just a library. That said — these days I prefer to use it _with_ a framework. When I first started using React it was as part of an MVC app (usually) or a truly single-page application. Once we moved to handling routing client-side, and handling all data fetching and state management client side, and handling authentication client side… it’s a lot. There’s a lot of cases where you would have been better of using AngularJS or Vue or an MVC whatever backend and some web components than trying to glue together React + React Router (no wait, Reach?) + Redux (no everyone uses MobX now, wait, now it’s just React Hooks WAIT, no, now we’re using state machines) + the CSS-in-JS library of the day.

You see the problem. Still, I think the React combination of JSX and parent/child rendering updates, and prioritizing functional JavaScript without a lot of magic is great. Do I care about most of the updates in React 18? Not really. I’m glad Next, or Remix, or some other great framework is going to do magic with them.

Web links worth reading on Canvas2D and the File System Access API.

Two articles on web APIs

The first one: [It’s always been you, Canvas2D - Chrome Developers](https://developer.chrome.com/blog/canvas2d/). Lots of nice updates to performance and quality of life for the Canvas API. I have a soft spot for the `<canvas>` tag — when I was (re)learning web development I spent a lot of time at my non-development related job spinning up little web projects that required no libraries or compilation steps to run in the browser pre-installed on my laptop. The canvas element was the most readily available but also _complex_  web API that runs locally, so I built all kinds of interfaces and animations in it while learning.

Second: [Using files with browsers, in reality - macwright.com](https://macwright.com/2022/03/04/browsers-and-files.html)

> The meaning and importance of the *file* has shifted a lot in the last decade. The Verge wrote about how  [students today don’t have a grasp](https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z)  on how files and folders work - or they have a very good understanding of the norms of storing information in the cloud, but not on their local computers. The web contains all sorts of things that we never think of or use as files: is your email an  [Mbox file](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox) ? Do you ever directly use the  [HEIC files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format)  that are the native format of Apple Photos? Or consider any rich text on the internet, like a Notion page - does it have a defined file type and an option to download? And think of the mobile web. You can download a file from mobile Safari, but do you?

Worth noting, I suppose, that I’m writing this in an application which does not use files. But I generally prefer the workflow of “don’t make me think about this as a file, but give me the file if I ask for it”, so it’s nice to see this API coming together.

And I enjoyed this bit from that article:

> Working with the web platform is dealing with history, with the accumulated matter of  [quirksmode](https://www.quirksmode.org/)  and good-enough standards. In exchange for the ability to deliver instantly-updating software directly to customers with no middlemen and no installation, you have to absorb a great deal of nearly-useless information that’s entirely about dodging meaningless traps.

Edifier R1280T compared to the JBL 104, Apple Mini and Sonos Symfonisk.

Another set of speakers for the $100 speaker shootout

![Edifier R1280Ts next to JBL104s](/assets/images/2022/edifier.jpeg)

I have a thing for cheap, powered speakers, it seems. In November I picked up an Apple Mini and a Sonos Symfonisk. I noted then that [both are fine](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/11/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-november-21-2021#speaker-of-the-house) but neither blew me away. The Sonos was being used in the basement with an old Apple TV for workouts, but because it required selecting it as the output _every single time_ the TV turned on I wanted to find a better solution.

I’ve read many good things about Edifier speakers so I picked up a pair of [Edifier R1280Ts](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088685QVJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). I put them in the office to compare them to the speakers I was using, the [JBL 104s](https://jblpro.com/en/products/104). Here’s a high level ranking:

1. JBL104. Still my favorites. Not as loud as the Edifiers but a better shape for a desktop and much clearer.
2. Edifier 1280T. Ended up going in the basement workout space, hardwired to the TV out. Gets decently loud, not exactly clear but if I’m listening to speed metal while lifting clear isn’t the highest priority.
3. Sonos Symfonisk. Sounds good at moderate volume, and the shape (and ability to be a shelf) is neat. Distorted at high volumes, the Sonos app is miserable to use, and very directional sound. Might be better as a stereo pair but I’m suspicious of the overhead of two wireless speakers working together.
4. Apple Mini. Cute. Fun color. Unless you really need something in this specific size and need it to be “smart” and work with Siri it’s overpriced and anything would be better.




All we need is just a little patience

Two things I worked on this weekend:

1. I cleaned up _all_ the crap on this site from it being a developer playground over the years. Multiple frameworks, 3+ CMSs, metadata from various and sundry file managers, unused APIs, image optimization code that never worked and was making 100s of additional images every time I built, etc. Now everything is done “[the Next way](https://nextjs.org)”, including images, because I finally took the time to set up `next/image` using [Next on Netlify](https://docs.netlify.com/configure-builds/common-configurations/next-js/). I cleaned up a bunch of components and the typography, so hopefully everything reads better.
2. For Christmas this year we proposed the East Coast and West Coast families get together for a “paint (by numbers) night”. We ordered the paint kits for everyone, then forgot about it, then scheduled the time, but then people were busy, then we _finally_ scheduled the time, and last night we did it.

![My finished paint by numbers picture of a cat with cool sunglasses.](/assets/images/2022/paint-by-numbers.jpeg)

Some people were a bit ambitious in their choices and might be occupied by this project until Christmas 2022. 8.5″ x 11″ is a good size. Excited to add this to the rotating art wall behind my on Zoom calls.

Throughout the week I throw interesting articles in my Things inbox, to either file or re-read on the weekend. I’m clearing it out, but these are some I thought you might enjoy.

Interesting reads from the last week

Throughout the week I throw interesting articles in my [Things](http://culturedcode.com/things/) inbox, to either file or re-read on the weekend. I’m clearing it out, but these are some I thought you, dear reader, might enjoy.

[My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll](https://alexanderell.is/posts/infinite-scroll/)
> There’s a broad pattern these days of mobile sites being much worse and more restrictive, since they’re trying to push you towards logging in or downloading the app. Ironically, being conscious of my struggle, these moments of friction actually help push me towards closing the site instead. For that, I’m grateful for Reddit’s mobile UI.

[Desperation-Induced Focus](https://rkg.blog/desperation-induced-focus.php)
> My advice to people when they are thinking about instituting a new process is to go to a whiteboard2 and write down the answer to this question: “If you could only get one thing done this year, what would it be?”. If that answer is “institute some new process”, go for it. But if it’s something like “increase market share from 30% to 60%” or “launch this new product that will 2x our TAM”, don’t waste your time on anything else. Just take your best person (up to and including the CEO), make them responsible for solving that problem, and give them everything and everyone they need to make it happen.

[Family IT Support Turned Blog Post Turned Anecdote in The Wall Street Journal](https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/my-mom-and-the-wsj/)
> In my conversation with Nicole, I tried to explain the idea of “progressive enhancement” and why, I believe, the website my Mom was trying to access should’ve still been accessible. 

[I Welcome Your Performance](https://hypertext.monster/2022/03/08/i-welcome-your.html)
> Please-please-please, don’t let the voice of cynicism stop you from sharing what brings you joy. Instead, let us say to one another: Hey! Fellow humans. I welcome your beautiful performance!

> ‘Performative sharing’ is a small, fascinating window into who we are, what we love, and what’s possible. It takes us out of our own heads, and it challenges our limited view of the world. Sometimes, it’s about nothing but fun, or the base human desire to walk up to another upright ape and show them this thing we found. Isn’t it cool? And what’s wrong with that?

My favorite part of TypeScript is debugging the config

Really nothing I love more than figuring out why a random config option got added 2 years ago by a dev, with no comments, and removing or changing it causes thousands of seemingly unrelated errors.

![Scene from We Bear Bears where a doctor is testing each bear for reflex but a different bear is responding.](https://www.builtwith.coffee/assets/gifs/debugging.gif)

I reorganized my office recently and — there’s too many books!

Take my books, please

I reorganized my office recently and — there’s too many books! So I made a filter on my [reading](/books) page of books [I’m trying to give away](/books?year=take-it). They’re all good books, I just don’t want them any more! Drop me a line [on the contact page](/contact) and I’ll send it your way.

Netflix’s Explained: Coding

I recommend [Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software](https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/code-the-hidden-language-of-computer-hardware-and-software-9780735611313) as a great history of _how_ we got to our current world of computers and programming. If you want the < 30 minute version, [Netflix’s Explained: Coding](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11167964/) is pretty good too.

5 Accessibility Quick Wins (and two for this site)

From CSS Tricks: [5 Accessibility Quick Wins You Can Implement Today](https://css-tricks.com/5-accessibility-quick-wins-you-can-implement-today/).

I like articles about accessibility in this format, how-tos of practical examples you see on almost every website. Heydon Pickering’s [Inclusive Components](https://inclusive-components.design) was the first place I saw this, but the site had only a few examples and ended up being short-lived.

I went to implement two of the 5 “quick wins” above that were relevant to this site:

1. The active page now shows up with a bit of style and the `aria-current` page. I was doing a gross hack with the `window.location` to parse out the current page before, and cleaned that up with Next’s [useRouter](https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/next/router).
2. I thought the site didn’t have a document language, but it did! Modifying the `<html>` tag in Next is, like most JavaScript frameworks, somewhat unintuitive. This post shows one way: [How to set the HTML lang attribute in Next.js?](https://melvingeorge.me/blog/set-html-lang-attribute-in-nextjs) but I found out it doesn’t work with `next export` when generating a static site. I then realized I had already done it the _other_ way, using a [custom Document](https://nextjs.org/docs/advanced-features/custom-document).

Did some holiday decorating and baking after going out to see Strange World.

You can’t catch me

I’m the gingerbread man.

![A decorated gingerbread cookie.](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/gingerbread.jpeg)

Did some holiday decorating and baking after going out to see _Strange World_, which I rate a solid “ok”. The central plot (which I won’t spoil) I enjoyed, and some of the visuals were well done, especially the comic book style introduction, but the meat of the story was pretty forgettable. Lorelei’s favorite part: “when the dog licked the thing”. I agree, the dog is funny.

Also I’ve seen the “movie theaters are dying” stories and, sure, COVID, but I didn’t think much of it until today when… we had the entire theatre to ourselves. Early afternoon, and the theater is in the middle of a mall (that also might be dying), but geez, that doesn’t seem sustainable.

I wish that turkey only cost a nickel

![Thanksgiving food](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/thanksgiving.jpeg)

We did “early” Thanksgiving with my parents this weekend. We do it the weekend before because then it’s easier for my parents to visit us, and on the actual weekend of Thanksgiving we usually have four straight days to do “not much”.

Every year I struggle to find the recipes/timings/temperatures I used the year before, even though every year I write it down somewhere. So this year, it’s here. Maybe next year I’ll find it.

- Turkey. 9lb breast only, spatchcocked, 450° for 80 minutes. Should have covered the skin a little earlier (or dropped the rack down a level) but still good. I coat the skin in mayonnaise and [bird herbs](https://www.generalstorepr.com/product/bird-herbs/317595).
- Roasted red potatoes, coated with oil and said bird herbs.
- Buttermilk biscuits with poultry herbs. About 10 years ago now I made these and they rose perfectly and I’ve been trying to chase that magic combination since then.
- Green beans with almonds, sautéed with butter and honey with herbs from the biscuits.
- Homemade cranberry sauce, which is personally my favorite part of the meal.
- A salad (greens, grapes, blue cheese, walnuts, balsamic fig dressing).
- [Pumpkin pie](https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/the-great-pumpkin-pie-recipe/), although not nearly as nicely decorated as the one in that link. Still tasted good.

I miss the old metaphor for the web

That was an actual web, with webmasters, and crawlers, and spiders. It feels like the current web is a lot more spiders dangling from a very high ceiling on a single thread, just waiting for a strong wind to blow them off.

The best parts of my favorite note and writing apps.

Can we smoosh iA Writer, Bear, and Obsidian together

I use iA Writer, Bear, and Obsidian these days. I use iA Writer for writing (like writing this post), Bear for notes, and Obsidian at work for work notes. I wish all three could be smooshed together.

- iA Writer is the best for writing in. The fonts and layout are amazing, not to mention focus and typewriter mode.
- Bear is the best for notes with attachments. Adding a picture in a file based notes app is painful and sad.
- Obsidian queries working on individual blocks of text are _so cool_, and the wikilink previews (and backlinks) are much more powerful than Bear. It makes generating something like a [brag document](https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/) very easy. As you record something, tag it with #brag and then query for each of them. 

A quick example of Obsidian queries. Two separate daily notes with a #workouts tag on them.

![](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/obsidian-example.png)

I’d drop Bear for Obsidian on features, but Bear is miles ahead on UI, especially on mobile. Bear 2.0 seems like it will be released “soon”, but I might start taking advantage of Bear’s export to markdown features to then import in Obsidian for querying.

Wherein I consider throwing my iPad into the river.

Setting up an iPad as a multi-user device

Andrea had a good idea the other day to set up a digital display in our kitchen area to be able to see shared calendars, reminders, other digital debris we individually see on our devices but don’t have a great way of seeing as a family.

We do everything in the Apple-ecosystem, Homekit, iCloud, all that, so it _would seem_ that setting up an iPad to be a simple controller/view screen for this information would be easy, but Apple has made iPadOS the most frustrating OS in existence. Some things I ran into:

-  By default a device being reset to factory assumes you’d want to restore it as is. It even encourages you to use your phone to start set-up (I was too lazy to enter the wifi password), but this then sends you down some miserable “restore all your settings” path.
-  I don’t want this to run my iCloud account, in theory it’s a device that sits downstairs for some shared functionality. Someone could grab it to use, say, Paprika, control the Sonos, but not send e-mails from my e-mail account. Seems easy enough, but it’s also very unclear why I should or shouldn’t make this a family account. And the ability to just run as a “guest” (a feature of MacOS, last I checked) is limited to running a single app. Of course I eventually realized that if I wanted to use this to play Apple Music, I’d have to add it to the family anyway, because I can’t simply have a device with one account that logs in to another account for a single service.
-  To finish a new Apple account, you need a phone number to verify it (why?). To download apps from the app store (even free ones), you need to enter a billing address and phone number. Why!
-  I signed in to this account, completely detached from my family account, opened the Sonos app, and… my recently played music was in there when I selected Apple Music. This might be a thing Sonos exposes but it seems weird.
-  When iPadOS finally boots up, Apple News is dead center. This is only one of what seemed like a dozen upsells during the install process.
-  Enabling location services and then having the default weather widget be Cupertino is some “made in California” bullshit.

Anyway, it’s up and running now, I’ll see how it works out for us. It remains baffling to me that the iPad exists as this “super simple” device for kids and grandparents but also a pocketable super computer. And also why isn’t there an Apple TV with a display. Also why can’t you hide the dock. Also… I think that’s it for tonight.

The wheels on the vehicles go round and round.

Tired

It’s a bad pun, I spent a fair share of time today mucking about with tires, swapping a bike one for a trainer tire for the still-not-yet-here Cold season, and putting on the Winter wheels for our Subaru (for the still-not-yet-here Snow season).

They are deceptively simple, especially a bike one. Bit of rubber with some air in it, but quite amazing (or terrifying) when you realize that’s the bit of rubber keeping the wheels turning at 80 miles per hour. Uh, in the car, that is.

Veteran’s Day


![My Grandfather in his fabulously cluttered shed.](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/grandpa.jpeg)

I wrote about my [Grandfather’s experience in World War II a few years ago](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2018/11/veterans-day?searchterm=veteran). We talked for hours about a few significant days in his life, but at the time it was hard to find any information about it online. Well I searched again this year and found this, [a substantial write-up about the Battle of Metz and Fort Driant](https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/battle-of-metz-pattons-bloody-fortress-battle/).

This paragraph describes the main conflict my grandfather saw in the war and described to me in detail:

> Irwin broke off the attack the following day and replaced elements of his battered 11th Infantry with fresh troops from his 2nd and 10th Regiments; the two units renewed the assault on October 7. This time, the Americans attempted to fight their way into the underground entrances to the fort but made no better progress; they soon were bogged down.

Also interesting:

> The 26th Division alone reported 3,000 cases of trench foot during the November offensive, Patton said.

Which was what eventually sent my Grandfather back to America.

We don’t need more bad ideas getting popular.

At this point I have to hope Twitter fails

At this point I have to hope Twitter fails because if it’s successful a lot of other CEOs are going to wonder if they can cut half their staff and force people back to offices.

If I had to guess, in a year from now it’ll still be around, but some incredibly pared down version of it’s former self that still lives at twitter.com but isn’t recognizable as anything you’d think of as Twitter. I mean Myspace isn’t even completely dead yet.

My favorite programmers are the ones that are smart and lazy.

0.1x engineer

![](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/cat.jpeg)

[Why I Strive to be a 0.1x Engineer](https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2016/01/25/why-i-strive-to-be-a-0-1x-engineer/), bit of a joke title but good ideas in here, especially this one:

> Let’s not keep maintaining this feature. 

I’ve gone so far as to slip some features into the red-lined diff during a refactor to see if anyone noticed [^1].

[Some good quotes from the original Hacker News on this blog post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10978841), definitely a little more pointed after recent stories about a particular new social media owner hiring or firing engineers based on lines of code:

> Jeff Atwood: “the best code is no code at all. Every new line of code you willingly bring into the world is code that has to be debugged, code that has to be read and understood, code that has to be supported. Every time you write new code, you should do so reluctantly, under duress, because you completely exhausted all your other options.”

> Robert Galanakis: “The fastest code is the code which does not run. The code easiest to maintain is the code that was never written.”

> Dijkstra: it is only a small step to measuring "programmer productivity" in terms of "number of lines of code produced per month". This is a very costly measuring unit because it encourages the writing of insipid code, but today I am less interested in how foolish a unit it is from even a pure business point of view. My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger.

> Bill Gates: "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."


[^1]: They did, they always do. They couldn’t explain why it was there but oh boy did they miss it!

So sad I could sing a little country song.

Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year

[A great list on Reddit of sad songs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/yp0l4a/saddest_songs_youve_ever_heard/) if that’s a thing you might be in the mood for tonight.

Always not-sad (glad?) to see John Prine at the top. Weirdly missing, this American sadness classic:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4WXYjm74WFI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

JavaScript Generators

With Tim Tams, at [Why Would Anyone Need JavaScript Generator Functions](https://jrsinclair.com/articles/2022/why-would-anyone-need-javascript-generator-functions/), an enjoyable write-up of a confusing part of JavaScript, although I’m not entirely sure I’d ever use them short of a library that hides all of the implementation details. 

As [noted in the Hacker News comments Redux-Saga uses generators](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506626), that’s where most of my knowledge of them comes from. After implementing it once (look at me, very smart!) I took over another project that used it and immediately ripped it out which, based on the replies, I’m not the only one:

> I had to rescue a saga based project that went badly off the rails and it was some of the hardest code I’ve ever had to debug in any language. Code flow was very difficult to reason about and forget about trying to use stack traces. [source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33514897)

Happy first 5 PM after Daylight Savings ends.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Happy first 5 PM after Daylight Savings ends. I know Winter doesn’t officially start for more than a month but something changes today. Maybe we need a micro-season for it, like Dark Fall.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xUZgM96XY7s" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

…and now too many Mastodons

[@threetonesun@front-end.social](https://front-end.social/web/@threetonesun) and [@jjmartucci@micro.blog](https://micro.blog/jjmartucci). The first I guess I’ll try as a Twitter replacement, the second just a happy little side-effect of cross-posting to [micro.blog](https://micro.blog).

Trying to find a new Mastodon instance, just like everybody else.

Mastodon’t, or can’t

I had a Mastodon account on [mastodon.technology](https://mastodon.technology/about) from a while back (April 2017 my account says — looking for an alternative to Twitter in late 2016 sounds right). Unfortunately the instance is shutting down. I looked about for a new one tonight and a _lot_ of them are already full, waitlist only. Which lead me into self-hosting, but the managed instance service I found, [masto.host is also temporarily unavailable](https://masto.host/pricing/).

Seems like a lot of people looking for a Twitter replacement real quick. Might do some more reading this weekend on the [Digital Ocean 1-click install option](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/04/mastodon-now-available-on-digitalocean/).

The joys of software that keeps getting better.

It’s free software

I’ve currently got my Helix LT updating to version [3.5](https://line6.com/support/page/kb/effects-controllers/helix/helix-350-release-notes-r1003/). Updates for the Helix are interesting because every update gives you more value for your initial investment. It’s essentially free amps, pedals, better tones. This release fixes a lot of the issues with the stock cabs, including allowing you to easily do dual cabs with a simple delay and pan between them, which is something I used to do with every preset in Bias FX.
	
It’s nice to get new and exciting features in an update. Software updates are mixed bag these days. Some apps I prefer they never update (like Things, Bear), because I don’t want to learn new features all the time, I want consistency. Others update to the point where I feel like every time I use them I’m getting a new tutorial on how to use them and overwhelmed by the changes (looking at you Confluence). Others push new features at a higher cost that aren’t necessarily wanted.

Which is to say, shout out to the Helix team at Line 6 for continuously making the software more better and not charging for so many awesome new features.

A quick review of Dicey Dungeons and Monster Train

Game Review: Dicey Dungeons and Monster Train

![Cover art for Dicey Dungeons and Monster Train](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/games.jpg)

Over the last month I’ve picked up [Dicey Dungeons](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/dicey-dungeons-switch/) and [Monster Train First Class](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/monster-train-first-class-switch/) for the Switch (on sale!). They’re both inspired by [Slay the Spire](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/slay-the-spire-switch/), which, to me, was inspired by deck building games like Magic the Gathering. The idea in all of them is that you have a limited amount of resources per turn and a set of abilities or cards to play per turn. 

Dicey Dungeons goes for more of an RPG style game with different classes with different abilities and a load-out for your particular skills. The limited resource is determined by (surprise) dice rolls. It’s by far the more frustrating of the two because the dice rolls are dice rolls and even though you can control them to an extent, depending on which class and variation of the game you’re playing, you are often stuck hoping for a lucky six. And once you get above the intro levels the runs can end extremely quickly — one enemy that is strong against your current load out and it’s game over.

Monster Train encourages you to build up an army of monsters to fight invaders on your train. Don’t think too hard about the plot, the main differentiator is there are multiple levels and multiple monsters per level, which gives it a bit of a “tower defense” game feel. It’s deck building is deeper than Slay the Spire because you mix two factions at the game start and build from both, and it gives you a lot of options to remove or modify the cards you have, rather than hoping for lucky draws in the events where you add cards to your pool.

If you’ve never played any of these games, start with Slay the Spire. It’s the most straightforward, and quickly shows you how the gameplay loop works, where you balance building a resilient character as new cards come in, or going all-in on one strategy to exploit it’s ability to do tons of damage, and hope that later draws (or enemies) don’t completely destroy that plan. After that Monster Train, which is more complex, and if you want a fun diversion that’s easier to understand, Dicey Dungeons.

And be warned: while these are all fun games with strategy involved, you might get a _long_ way into a run and then get absolutely destroyed. And also be warned: once you get your first win, you’ll want your second, and third, and fourth, and….

Nanoblogmore

The key to posting a lot on your blog is making it easy to post on your blog.

Twitter stopped being fun when it had to be twitter.com

Leaving Twitter

> The unique tragedy with Twitter’s changing attitude toward developers is that so many of Twitter’s early innovations did come from third-party developers. The word tweet, the first use of a bird icon, and even the character counter started in Twitterrific. Twitter’s new leadership displayed an incredible disrespect for the value developers added to both the ecosystem and core platform.

From the Leaving Twitter chapter of Manton Reece's [Indie Microblogging](https://book.micro.blog/leaving-twitter/). Just a reminder that political and leadership changes aside, most of the joy of early Twitter died years ago.

This country, they say, is dull and greedy and always misses the point.

Returning, Again, to Robert M. Pirsig

> This country, they say, is dull and greedy and always misses the point. The possibility of a new type of ecstatic vision and a life filled with meaningful tasks, I imagine, is what drew me and so many other readers to “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” We believed Pirsig could see the Buddha in a well-maintained carburetor. We wanted to see it, too, and we wanted to work as he did, perhaps in large part because we saw very little future for ourselves in the striving world.

From [Returning, Again, to Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/returning-again-to-robert-m-pirsig). I keep meaning to reread _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_,  mainly because even if I don’t love the book, it has lots of great little lessons and themes that resonate. I reference [Pirsig’s Brick](https://www.thestrategyexchange.co.uk/2014/05/pirsigs-brick/) quite often.

You aren’t going to need it, or will you probably need it?

PAGNIs and YAGNIs


YAGNI = [You aren't going to need it](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Yagni.html). 

PAGNI = [Probably are gonna need it](https://simonwillison.net/2021/Jul/1/pagnis/).

Many senior software developers I’ve worked with have had their own PAGNI lists in their heads. YAGNIs, on the other hand, are more of an “argue about it every time” kind of list, not to mention as developers we often end up with “can we try to need this?” lists of things to try and learn that are more likely aren't gonna needs than probably gonna needs.

Some I have from past experiences:

- Real User Monitoring (RUM). At some point someone from the business is going to want to see a breakdown of user flows, errors, actions, everything. A one line set it and forget it RUM setup can save weeks of setting up specific logging and reporting.
- Preview environments. I push a branch, I get a place to see it. Takes time to set up but pays massively for testing and getting product sign off.
- Feature flags, because eventually you're going to have to release something to production and you don't want to have to let everyone at it.
- A no-code way to modify production. This one has pros and cons but eventually you'll have simple strings that need updating or images or a configuration that doesn't map to an API anywhere and someone will wanted it updated ASAP. Why break out a code editor when you can edit a value in a CMS and push publish.
- Regression test checklists. Not everything will be caught by automated tests. Make a checklist on the first day of prod releases, modify it so it’s up to date over time.
- Hard limits on build times, API request times, and asset load times. Because if it’s fuzzy it’ll one day seem slow, and then next time you look it’ll be unbearably slow and no one will totally understand why or how to fix it.

Breakdown of where tone come from in a guitar amp.

I’m just a performer, I don’t know anything about circuits

[Jim Lill](https://www.youtube.com/user/JimLill45) has a lot of great videos breaking down what makes a difference in guitar sound. This one might be the best because the guitar market for amplifiers (along with guitar pedals) has had this mix of classic collectors claiming only one amp can get one tone, and deep-state conspiracy theorists arguing one wire makes all the difference (but don’t _look_ at the wire, opening the amp will change everything).

Turns out... nothing matters much except in what order the EQ and gain is added. So yes, a Fender _does_ sound different than a Marshall. Unless you want them to sound the same. And no, your Soviet-era tubes don’t radiate magic sound waves into your signal.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wcBEOcPtlYk" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I wish my web server were in the corner of my room

> I could hear the hard drive spin up if somebody accessed the machine, and a little chug-chug-chug while Festival (the open source text-to-speech engine I’d installed) generated the voice. Like footsteps approaching before the door opens.

From [I wish my web server were in the corner of my room](https://interconnected.org/home/2022/10/10/servers). I enjoyed the [Hacker News discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33165836) on this, lots of early 2000 throwbacks about hosting some stupid script on a laptop plugged into a university network, but also some good options if you wanted to serve something from home in the year 2022.

Do you? Probably not, but I do miss thinking of a server as a thing that I can physically know and not some amorphous cloud entity.

The garbled text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding.

TIL: Mojibake

> the garbled text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding.

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake) by way of [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33053918), where I learned:

> In Russian this phenomenon is called "бНОПНЯ" (read "b-nop-nya") and was caused by taking the word "Вопрос" (meaning: "question") in win-1251 encoding and reading it as if it was in KOI-8 encoding.
>
> Also this is called "крокозябры" (read: kro-ko-zya-bry, nonsense word, no translation) especially when reading a binary file in a text viewer.

RIP The Middle East

![](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/a-wilhelm-scream.jpeg)

[A Wilhelm Scream](https://www.awilhelmscream.com), likely the last show I’ll ever see at [The Middle East](https://www.mideastoffers.com) in Cambridge now that they’ve got the notice on the window to [start demolition for a luxury hotel](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/middle-east-cambridge-closing-hotel-retail/).

Three loosely related thoughts on “getting things done”. Entirely not something on my mind after a week of work, for any reason.

Teach Them to Yearn for the Vast and Endless Sea

Three loosely related thoughts on “getting things done”. Entirely not something on my mind after a week of work, for any reason.

[Fast · Patrick Collison](https://patrickcollison.com/fast): Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together. 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Metrics are crucial and it’s good to be data-driven, esp to be clear what you’re shooting for. <br><br>However, it&#39;s easy to lose sight of the purpose and game the metrics. Chasing things like hitting 100% of goals or 6 nines uptime can mean you’re not innovating and taking risks.</p>&mdash; Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) <a href="https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/1575501694611337216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 29, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Andrea used to have [this quote](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/25/sea/) by her desk:

> If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men into teams and send them to the forest to cut wood. Instead, teach them to long for the vast and endless sea.

How to Beat Worry

I like blogs where people add little cartoons and drawings to the text, which makes me think I should do it more. This one does it, and is a good read: [How to Beat Worry](https://moretothat.com/how-to-beat-worry/).

> The last thing a worrier should do is wait around for something to happen. Anticipation doesn’t bode well for someone caught in a worry feedback loop, so the key is to proactively invest thought into a worthwhile challenge instead.

Franklin Park Zoo

We had plans to visit friends in Dorchester today, and earlier in the week I thought “well what else can we do if we have to drive to Dorchester”, then realized the [Franklin Park Zoo](https://www.zoonewengland.org/franklin-park-zoo) was nearby, and the weather looked nice, and it was “Princess & Pirates” day so why not.

We went to the [zoo in 2020](/blog-posts/2021/03/one-year?searchterm=zoo) but not to see the animals, to see the [Zoo Lights](https://www.zoonewengland.org/engage/boston-lights). I’d never actually been there to see the animals. On a scale of 1-10 I’d give the zoo a solid 7. Going during Zoo Lights but not at night means the park is more decorated, and given that its past Labor day there wasn’t much of a crowd, although a few animals were away. I assume in Florida.

Notes:
- The “open air” exhibits were the big hits, like the rooms where the birds could fly around or the butterfly house.
- Lorelei: “ocelots in real life are cuter than in Minecraft”.
- I’ve always kind of thought of tapirs as being about the size of a dog about apparently some are 600 pounds.
- We spent a little over 3 hours there, which included eventually getting food because we had planned on being there more like 2 - 2.5 hours.
- ![](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/chad.jpeg) look at this absolute Chad. 
- Driving to a point in Boston has gotten so much more annoying in the last 10 years that it might have been easier to drive to the zoo in Providence had we not already had a reason to be in Dorchester.

🔗 Link: THE HIERARCHY IS BULLSHIT, WE CAN DO BETTER

THE HIERARCHY IS BULLSHIT, WE CAN DO BETTER.

> Why do people climb the ladder? “Because it’s there.” And when they don’t have any other goals, the ladder fills a vacuum.

> If you never make the leap from externally-motivated to intrinsically-motivated, this will eventually becomes a serious risk factor for your career. Without an inner compass (and a renewable source of joy), you will struggle to locate and connect with the work that gives your life meaning. You will risk burnout, apathy and a serious lack of fucks given..

> The times I have come closest to burnout or flaming out have not been when I was working the hardest, but when I cared the least. Or when I felt the least needed.📈📉💔

From [THE HIERARCHY IS BULLSHIT, WE CAN DO BETTER.](https://charity.wtf/2022/09/23/the-hierarchy-is-bullshit-we-can-do-better/). Happy Friday everyone.

DOOMCAT


We were out at lunch the other day and after burning through all the games on the front of the kids menu, Lorelei turned the menu over and started Tic-Tac-Toe on the back. Andrea suggested Hangman instead, and started explaining how you play it. It occurred to me that Hangman is… well kind of awful, so I suggested instead of Hangman we play DOOMCAT. Which is drawing a cat: two ears, two eyes, two pairs of whiskers, two teeth and then the DOOMCAT eats you. Which is also a little morbid but at least avoids antiquated forms of capital punishment.

We ran out of paper and then we ran out of food and left. Lorelei mentioned she liked and I thought, well, what if I just made it for you to play whenever. 

So… I made [DOOMCAT](https://doomcat.builtwith.coffee).

![DOOMCAT the game in action](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/doomcat.gif)

Some fun things:
- The cat emojis came from [OpenMoji](https://openmoji.org). They’re well set up for slicing for simple animations like this.
- Rather than set up a new project I made the entire thing in [Code Sandbox](https://codesandbox.io/) then exported it to Github. From there I added it as a project in Netlify and made the custom domain a subdomain of this site which, as far as I can tell, worked and didn’t break anything.
- The GIF above was made with [Gifski](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gifski/id1351639930?mt=12).



dun nuh na nuh nuh nuh, dun nuh na nuh nuh nuh, wah woo we woo we woooooo

I Want To Believe

![A ballon over George Washington in the Boston Public Garden](https://coffee-cake.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/2022/i-want-to-believe.jpeg)

Nice evening in Boston. Met up with the parents for dinner at [Citrus & Salt](https://www.citrusandsaltboston.com)

First ride

I see:

![Screenshot of the iOS weather app showing a temperature of 66 degrees and a Winter storm warning.](/assets/images/2022/weather.jpeg)

I do this:
![My Santa Cruz Tallboy in the woods.](/assets/images/2022/bike-at-gordon.jpeg)

Warm days in early Spring used to be my favorite time to ride as a kid. Warm enough you go in shorts and a shirt, but you can goof around on icy patches and catch those cool breezes off all the semi-frozen streams and ponds.

Today… wasn’t as great. Too much coffee and not enough breakfast and amazingly, even though these woods aren’t big, the trails were littered with enough dead leaves and dropped trees I got lost once, or twice, or thrice. But still — some goofin’ on the ice.

The last time I stopped by my parent’s house they handed me a medium sized box full of my old CDs. As an elder-millennial I did have an iPod and a hard drive full of mp3s in college, so these CDs were from the pre-Internet days, and none of them were good enough that I wanted them around after graduating college. So, take a trip down memory lane with me, by way of CD.

Compact discs

The last time I stopped by my parent’s house they handed me a medium sized box full of my old CDs. As an elder-millennial I did have an iPod and a hard drive full of mp3s in college, so these CDs were from the pre-Internet days, and none of them were good enough that I wanted them around after graduating college. So, take a trip down memory lane with me, by way of CD.

### Ska one hits
Only 90s kids will remember, but once upon a time if you heard a good song and wanted to hear it again, and it didn’t get radio play… you had to buy the whole CD. 

![A bunch of ska albums I bought for one song.][image-1]

### The albums I thought were cool when I was a teenager I haven’t thought about since

![CD covers of Candlebox’s Lucy, one hot minute by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and pet your friends by Dishwalla.][image-2]

Alright… I do think _one hot minute_ is a good album. And there’s two good songs on the Dishwalla album. But I really wanted that Candlebox CD and can’t remember a single song from it.

### The cool covers collection

![CD covers of Tool’s Anima and Alice in Chains’ self named album.][image-3]

I’m glad animated covers have made their way back to Apple Music. The Alice in Chains one didn’t move, but purple plastic! My kid will never understand the excitement of plastic in a non-clear color.

### Lost and gone
I have a number of albums that I downloaded (don’t tell Lars) or had copies of from friends that disappeared[^1], but this one, _Gravelled and Green_ by the Actual Tigers I liked, but it was [possibly never released](https://www.andrewjoslynmusic.com/gravelled-and-green-the-best-album-never-to-have-happened/), and doesn’t exist (as far as I can tell) on any streaming platform.

![Gravelled and Green by the Actual Tigers][image-4]

But if you want the vibe, some of their songs are on YouTube.
 
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tMuvLRC1mOw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

### Deep regrets
Man I hope I didn’t actually pay this much for this one.

![Cover of the Megadeth album Youthanasia with a $24.99 price tag on it.](/assets/images/2022/cd-price.jpeg)

### Ran out of lives
![CD cover of Aerosmith’s album Nine Lives.](/assets/images/2022/cd-nine-lives.jpeg)

I bring up this CD in conversation a lot because it included a game on the disc called [Virtual Guitar Quest For Fame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fame) which at the time was cool. It was also the only way you could reasonably listen to the album, which otherwise sucked.

### Wrong place, wrong time
Some CDs just bring up very distinct memories. That long car ride you took where it was the only CD you had so you listened to it over and over. Sad songs that bring up sad times and ska songs that… also bring up sad times. _Hangs-ups_ by Goldfinger always brings up one specific memory for me.

![CD and cover of Goldfinger’s album Hang-ups.](/assets/images/2022/cd-superman.jpeg)

When I was in college I broke my leg, but due to some questionable doctoring it was assumed to be a pulled ligament or muscle for a few weeks, until I noted that it still wasn’t better. So they sent me off for an MRI[^2]. When scheduling it, the hospital mentioned that I would be in the MRI machine for a while, so I could bring a CD to listen to. 

Great, I have CDs. So which one would I pick, what music would be most appropriate to listen to while lying still for 30 minutes? Of course, the one that starts off with the most upbeat track from the _Tony Hawk 2_ soundtrack.

![](/assets/gifs/i-will-never-turn-my-back-on-ska.gif)

[^1]: The albums and the friends.
[^2]: The astute among you will note that an MRI is not a good way to diagnose a broken leg, but it did image the torn ligaments around my knee, which then led a slightly better doctor to recommend I get an X-ray which found the cracks on my femur and tibia. Yay!

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/cd-ska.jpeg
[image-2]:	/assets/images/2022/cd-wanted.jpeg
[image-3]:	/assets/images/2022/cd-covers.jpeg
[image-4]:	/assets/images/2022/cd-missing.jpeg

At some point I found a webpage that had an entire list of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies. I put it in a Bear note but that doesn’t quite capture the “I just need a new way of thinking aspect” of it, so I put the list on a page, and it grabs one from the list at random.

Oblique Strategies

At some point I [found a webpage][1] that had an entire list of [Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies][2]. I put it in a Bear note but that doesn’t quite capture the “I just need a new way of thinking aspect” of it, so I put the list on a page, and it grabs one from the list at random.

Please enjoy [an Oblique Strategy][3].

And if you’re like “uhhhh what”… just reload the page!

[1]:	https://oblique.ookb.co/list.html
[2]:	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies
[3]:	https://www.builtwith.coffee/oblique

Is a human on a Zoom call just an avatar of a human?

The cognitive dissonance of digital communication.

Two things I read this weekend.

1. [What We Lost][1]: about Zoom versus reality. I’m on the fence, I do like seeing people, but very rarely. Certainly not enough to consider going to an office every day again, but still…
> No, I have no idea that everyone hates the idea you just proposed because my ability to read the room has been mostly erased. I can’t tell the difference between “We hate this idea” silence and “We mostly just quiet because it’s a chore to speak during a video conference” silence.

And in reading that I think, wow, Zoom hasn’t improved in voice quality _at all_ during this pandemic. Background blur _still_ makes you look like a spirit passing through a room from another plane of existence. And it’s not just Zoom, I Facetime with my parents and in the middle of saying something important hear, “oh the video just went away” on the other-side.

![This is fine][image-1]

2. [Gurman: FaceTime for Apple AR/VR Headset Could Rely on Memojis and SharePlay][2]. The flip side of this is it appears (or in the case of Meta, it is known) that tech companies think the problem with remote communication is that we haven’t gone far enough. Maybe they’re right. Voice chat while playing a video game is usually better than Zoom. My Zoom avatar, when I don’t have my camera on, is a T-Rexicorn, why not just animate it and make it 3D and map it to my face.

With so many companies sticking to all-remote for now and in the future, maybe it’s the right move. Get rid of offices, get rid of conferences, get a fancy reclining pod chair in your house and drop in to any “room” in the world. Sure, you’ll have the head of a cat and you’ll only exist from the waist up, but that’s close enough, right?


[1]:	https://randsinrepose.com/archives/what-we-lost/
[2]:	https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/13/headset-facetime-could-use-memojis-and-shareplay/

[image-1]:	https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9LhOhLWUAwpozS?format=png&name=900x900

The motion of the ocean

Because my wife is an amazing podcaster and, when it comes to dealing with me, editor.

My first podcast appearance

Why bother with Finder when you can grab them straight from the cloud itself.

TIL, you can download your iCloud data

I learned from a [possibly hyperbolic Reddit thread][1] that if you go to [https://privacy.apple.com][2] you can download not only all of the data Apple has about you, but also all of your iCloud files. Because Apple insists that the iCloud folder must live on  an internal hard drive, making a complete copy to an external drive has always been a chore. The best options are either spend $800 on a 2TB internal drive (which, isn’t a great option on a $999 machine and is only recently even an option) or setting up a Windows machine because iCloud on Windows could be installed in any directory.

There’s still no easy way to do this for family accounts, that I know of. If you know of one, let me know. I generally trust iCloud, but [after last week’s outages][3] I realized I might be _too_ trusting.

[1]:	https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/sixyvx/warning_files_on_icloud_drive_are_not_safe/hvbq9y2/?context=1
[2]:	https://privacy.apple.com
[3]:	https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/26/apples-icloud-service-experiencing-outage/

Full self-driving beta controls the whole car, but you’ll only need the edge of your seat!

When you steal your ideas for a self-driving car from Maximum Overdrive

[Maximum Overdrive][1] was a film written and directed by Stephen King in which all machines become sentient, including vehicles. It’s probably best known for:

1. Being the only movie Stephen King directed.
2. Having the AC/DC album _Who Made Who_ as its soundtrack.
3. The “main character”, a semi-truck with a goblin face that tries to kill people.

![][image-1]

It’s an awful film, but it’s a great “here’s the absolute worst-case scenario for self-driving vehicles.”

Related, Tesla has to [recall a bunch of cars because they roll through stop signs][2]. That’s not quite stick a goblin mask on it bad, but as a consumer product it ain’t a great start. Tesla true believers will tell you “humans would do that too”, but in my opinion human drivers are only _slightly_ better than sentient goblin trucks anyway, so maybe we should aim higher.

I find many interesting articles on Hacker News, and sometimes interesting comments. [But the first one here is a treat][3]: basically, how should a self-driving car know whether to do the “school’s in” speed in a school zone, or the “school’s out” speed. Can mankind solve this impossible question? What first solution might we try? My gut says if we go double the max speed limit, we’ll be too fast for anyone to catch us!

[1]:	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Overdrive
[2]:	https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-recalls-nearly-54000-us-vehicles-rolling-stop-software-feature-2022-02-01/
[3]:	https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30164317

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/maximum-overdrive.png

Notes on the book Effortless, by Greg McKeown.

Effortless


I read Greg McKeown’s book [Essentialism][1] back in 2020. It had been sitting on a shelf in our house for a long time, but I picked it up on a sunny pandemic Sunday and read the whole thing in one go. It’s a good book for that type of reading, lots of anecdotes and the central point is “say no to more things” which isn’t a terribly complicated message.

I was browsing Libby the other day and saw his new book, [Effortless][2] was available. Sure, I said, why not.

**TL;DR:** If you were only going to read one of the two, read Essentialism. Really, read neither.

The central theme here starts with the “rocks in a jar problem”. If you have big rocks, little rocks, and sand, and needed to fill a jar, you’d start with the big rocks, then the little ones, then fill in the gaps with sand. Use that as a metaphor for prioritization: big rocks first, sand last. But what if, the book wonders, you have too many big rocks to fit in the jar?
McKeown gives a productivity book great hits list as the solution to this problem: time-block your life, make checklists, ask how to make something “easier” by rejecting notions of how it is currently hard. Automate common actions, prefer solutions that have non-linear application, set reasonable goals that can be repeatedly daily rather than burning bright and burning out fast.

My problems with the book:
- McKeown frames all of the business platitudes with a story about how he needed to find a way to make his own life more effortless because one of his children suddenly became seriously ill. This is an _interesting_ story he only touches on at the start and the end. You go back to the rock metaphor: if you’re a parent, you can easily end up with too many kid shaped rocks. Not to mention a lot of his great ideas for being more effortless (get more sleep! set a schedule!) become way harder when you have kids. I wanted more of this!
- Every book aimed at anyone in business has to name drop Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. I find it especially weird (the last two, anyway), in a story book ended about being effortless _for your family_. Two of those guys suck at it[^1]!
- All books of this nature have to quietly ignore survivorship bias. They also have to ignore counter examples. At one point McKeown suggests, as an example of consistency, writing more than 500 words a day, but stopping at 1000. This ignores that someone like Stephen King wrote his best books after snorting a table-full of cocaine.

McKeown suggests not just reading books, but understanding books. Write a one-page summary afterwards. Well, here it is. To follow the lessons of his first book, here’s the 10% version: don’t read it.

[^1]:	I know nothing about Warren Buffet’s personal life. Nor do I care.

[1]:	https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780804137386
[2]:	https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593135648

Wintering

Some ice, and some snow.
![][image-1]![][image-2]

It occurred to me, watching Lorelei try to ice skate, how absurdly hard it is to learn unless you’re out on the ice _all the time_, and even then it’s such an odd activity. Here’s some tiny stilts that make you go much faster, unless your legs get a little bit further apart in which case you’ll fall directly on your head on the hardest thing we could find that wasn’t a rock.

On the topic of skates, I ordered some for myself. While we don’t skate often I figure at this point my feet are this size until I die, so why not get some decent skates. Fate has decided this is a Winter 2022 — 2023 goal for me instead.

![][image-3]

It’s fine. I’ll go slip on the front walk and hit my head on that instead.

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/wintering-ice.jpeg
[image-2]:	/assets/images/2022/wintering-snow.jpeg
[image-3]:	/assets/images/2022/skate-delays.png

Happy Sunday, life is meaningless. But not just yours, everyone's!

The End of Everything

Finished [The End of Everything][1] this morning. Here’s a fun quote from the epilogue to chew over:

> If the universe is going to end, one way or another, I concede that we may as well make our peace with it. Pedro Ferreira is way ahead of me on that one. “I think it’s great,” he says. “It’s so simple and so clean.”
> 
> “I’ve never understood why people get so depressed about the end, the death of the Sun and all,” he continues, “I just like the serenity of it.”
> 
> “So it doesn’t bother you that we ultimately have no legacy in the universe?” I ask him.
> 
> “No, not at all,” he says. “I very much like our blip-ness… It’s always appealed to me,” he continues. “It’s the transience of these things. It’s the doing. It’s the process. It’s the journey. Who cares where you get to, right?”

<video autoplay loop muted playsinline src="/assets/images/2022/heat-death.mp4"></video>

[1]:	https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982103552

The Platinum is in Another Castle

I played two games recently: [Death’s Door][1] and [The Forgotten City][2], both on the Playstation 5. Both were good (Death’s Door I’d even say great), but one thing they have in common that I don’t love about modern video games is the notion that the story is over, but wait, there’s more! More quests, or endings, or collectibles, or twists on playing the game you just played but slightly differently.

I kind of liked old video games where there was an end, and you could say you beat it, or, more likely with some [Nintendo-hard][3] games, didn’t.

![The Contra end screen.][image-1]

[1]:	https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10003808
[2]:	https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP1309-PPSA03026_00-THEFORGOTTENCITY
[3]:	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/contra-end.png

Hygge


![Maggie and Jake on the couch together.][image-1]

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/hygge.jpeg

Pandemic musings while waiting for an oil change. And tire rotation. Oh and the inspection, don’t forget that.

Annual maintenance

In January of 2020 we bought a new car, a 2019 Volkswagen GTI. It’s become a little touchpoint on the pandemic over the years. 

### 2020
We bought the car because, while we had gotten by with only one car for a few years at that point, Andrea had started a new job that required one, and while I was already mostly remote, various kid related tasks were outside the range of convenience for seriously considering walking.

### 2021
Volkswagen sets its service schedule as 10,000 miles or 1 year. If it had been used to commute every day, plus various side trips, it probably would have been around that mileage mark. Instead, after having it for 2 months, we found out we wouldn’t be commuting for a while, which became a long while, which by January was looking pretty much like never, ever again. It had under 3,000 miles on it. I waited at the dealership for the service because at that point it was a bit of a novelty to be out in public. It was still pre-vaccine so everyone waiting was avoiding the other people waiting, and most of the people working at the dealership were over it. They had a VW Bug by the front door. I went to Trader Joe’s on the way home, and there was a queue out front to limit the number of people in the store at any time. A cheerful Trader Joe’s employee handed you a cart when they let you in.

![a sketch of the VW Bug I drew while waiting last year.][image-1]

### 2022
2 years, or 20,000 miles. We’re still well under 10,000 miles despite using the GTI for every “trip” we’ve taken in the last two years. They replaced the VW Bug in the lobby with a VW Bus. Everyone is, once again, wearing masks, but it doesn’t feel weird to drink coffee while waiting, or have a conversation at a reasonable, human distance. There’s a 2022 GTI in the dealership in the flat-gray color I wanted to get ours in[^1], but two years later I wouldn’t even think about a new gas powered car. We’ll drive the two we have until they become dinosaurs running on dinosaurs. I went to Trader Joe’s on the way home. There was no queue outside, but the store was its normal weekend levels of packed. I had to get my own cart.

What’s my best guess for January, 2023? No masks. Finally hit 10,000 miles but still well under 20,000 and impossibly far from 30,000. I’ll still go to Trader Joe’s after. I’ll be smart enough to do this on a weekday so I don’t get stuck in the weekend crowd. Things change, but things stay the same.

[^1]:	One upside to buying a car where model year = current year -1 is that they can be cheaper, or have better financing deals. The downside is you’re usually stuck picking from black or white for colors.

[image-1]:	/assets/images/2022/bug.png

Adding search to a static site

This blog post is [based off this tweet reply][1]. Because I read it and thought “oh, I already did write about this!” then tried searching for it on the site and couldn’t find it by clicking around, so I searched in the files for the site on my computer and couldn’t find it, then searched across my entire computer and found a long blog post about using [Lunr][2] to search gifs that I never finished[^1].

So, here’s a finished version in a similar vein: let’s add search functionality to this site using Lunr. We need to build an index for Lunr at build time, which means we need some piece of code that will be triggered to begin looking for items to add. I did this by creating a new [Search page (/search)][3]. I copied the logic from my index page and removed some logic that isn’t relevant, but the code here gets all of the markdown files in my content folder and then loops through them. In this case we want to build a “[document][4]” structure for Lunr to be able to search through:
```js
export async function getStaticProps({ ...ctx }) {
  //get posts & context from folder
  const posts = ((context) => {
    const keys = context.keys();
    const values = keys.map(context);
    const data = keys.map((key, index) => {
      const value = values[index];
      // Parse yaml metadata & markdownbody in document
      const document = matter(value.default);
      document.data.date = singleDateFormat(document.data.date);
      if (document.data.finished) {
        document.data.finished = singleDateFormat(document.data.finished);
      }

      return {
        title: document.data.title || "",
        body: document.content || "",
        slug: key.replace(".md", "").substring(1),
      };
    });

    return data;
  })(require.context("../content", true, /\.\/.*\.md$/));

  return {
    props: {
      searchData: posts,
    },
  };
}
```

In the actual Search page component itself, we build the Lunr index from the `searchData` prop:

```js
 const lunrIndex = lunr(function () {
  this.ref("title");
  this.field("title");
  this.field("body");
  this.field("slug");

  props.searchData.forEach(function (doc) {
    this.add(doc);
  }, this);
});
```

After this we wire up the Search page to have a text input that,  on change, searches the Lunr index. This is the code for the entire page[^2]:

```js
function Search(props) {
  const [searchString, setSearchString] = useState("");
  const [searchResults, setSearchResults] = useState();
  var lunrIndex = lunr(function () {
    this.ref("title");
    this.field("title");
    this.field("body");
    this.field("slug");

    props.searchData.forEach(function (doc) {
      this.add(doc);
    }, this);
  });

  const searchLunr = (e) => {
    setSearchString(e.target.value);
    setSearchResults(lunrIndex.search(e.target.value));
  };

  const searchResultsList = () => {
    if (!searchResults || !searchResults.length) {
      return null;
    }
    return searchResults.map((result) => {
      const slug = props.searchData.find(
        (data) => data.title === result.ref
      ).slug;
      return (
        <li key={slug}>
          <p>{result.ref}</p>
          <Link href={`/${slug}`}>{slug}</Link>
        </li>
      );
    });
  };

  return (
    <Layout>
      <ReadingContent>
        <h1>Search</h1>
        <input type="text" value={searchString} onChange={searchLunr} />
        <h2>Results</h2>
        <ul>{searchResultsList()}</ul>
      </ReadingContent>
    </Layout>
  );
}
```

So that’s cool, and it works, but one thing I noticed here is that this Lunr search runs against the full text of the content, but once you click through, if the post is long it’s not immediately obvious where the term you were searching for appears. Let’s do something about that, at least for blog content.

First, let’s append a query parameter to the link we get from our search results, like this:
```js
<Link href={`/${slug}?searchterm=${searchString}`}>{slug}</Link>
```

This blog is built with Next so for me getting that query parameter on any given page looks something like:
```js
import { useRouter } from "next/router";

// inside the component
const { query } = useRouter();
const searchTerm = query.searchterm;
```

All of the post content is written in Markdown, so we can pass the post body to a function that looks for the search term in the string and replaces it, like this: 
```js
const wrapSearchTerm = (string) => {
    if (searchTerm) {
      const regex = new RegExp(`${searchTerm}`, "g");
      return string.replace(
        regex,
        `<span class="searchTerm">${searchTerm}</span>`
      );
    }
    return string;
  };
```

One thing I realized was doing it this way breaks links that might have the search term in it, because the searching is happening on the unprocessed Markdown. Running it post processing would be better, but to be lazy, let’s just search for the word with a reasonable set of boundaries to ignore, like this:
```js
const regex = new RegExp(`${searchTerm}(?![-_])`, "g");`
```

which eliminates most slugified versions of the word. It’s still case sensitive but the 80/20 among its users (me) says it’s good enough to ship.

[^1]:	For good reason, the original post was about recreating Giphy using Lunr and lambda functions. Those parts were fine, but I think I lost the thread trying to make a Slackbot to tie them together.

[^2]:	This is React with some wrapping components like Layout and ReadingContent that only handle styling.

[1]:	https://twitter.com/jayroh/status/1479568755478999055
[2]:	https://lunrjs.com
[3]:	https://www.builtwith.coffee/search
[4]:	https://lunrjs.com/guides/core_concepts.html#documents

A post on a Sunday about the past week that is definitely not a weeknotes post.

A Sunday Post that is not a Weeknotes Post

I said in my [last weeknotes post][1] I didn’t want to do weeknotes any more, so this isn’t that, it’s just a post that happens to be on a Sunday that _maybe_ talks about the past week.
- We were at my parents house on Monday and Tuesday. This was considerably better than last year’s Zoom-Christmas for lots of reasons but I have to say one big reason is because my mother makes lasagna for Christmas and that’s very hard to reproduce digitally.
- As far as we know, no one has gotten COVID in this house. That said school starts back up tomorrow and based on the numbers it seems like either we’ve already had it and we just didn’t notice or we will by the end of January.
- I read _[If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now][2] _ yesterday, and posted some bits I liked from the book. It’s an interesting story — I liked Christopher Ingraham’s posts for the _Washington Post_ and had read the original article that started the whole story so I enjoyed the book. The book was written pre-Pandemic, and a fair amount of his complaints about living in the greater DC area revolved around commuting. Housing costs were the other big issue, so maybe that last two years have been a wash but I should go see if he’s had any follow-ups on his thoughts about moving the Minnesota.
- Starting and finishing a book on January 1st means I’m currently on track to read 365 books this year.
- Lorelei has restarted and beat [Donut County][3] every day for the last five days.
- It was Andrea’s birthday this week. Like every year, we fail to account for the fact that her birthday is on New Year’s Eve and without at least a few minutes of prior planning, getting food from a restaurant is _not_ going to happen.
- Also like every year we’ve gone to bed well past midnight almost every night this week, so getting back to our routine tomorrow is going to be painful.

[1]:	https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/12/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-december-26-2021
[2]:	https://www.builtwith.coffee/books/2022/if-you-lived-here
[3]:	https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/donut-county-switch/

Looking back on 2021. Also I guess Christmas happened.

Weeknotes for the week ending December 26, 2021

Last weeknotes of the year. Andrea and I were reflecting on something the other day, and we realized how hard it is to separate 2020 from 2021. There were some big, obvious, very good differences between the years but in terms of how things got filed away mentally they didn’t get their own boxes. For me 2020 continued until April / May, when Lorelei went to in-person school, I started a new job, and the adults started getting vaccines.

One good thing though, I can actually look back here and figure out what happened when!

**Personal highlights:**
- Started a new job at [Chewy](https://www.chewy.com). It’s better than the old job. I’m old enough now that calling out when things got better and not worse is worth mentioning!
- Redid the kitchen and [fancied up the back yard](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/06/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-june-20).
- Sent the kid to school with other kids.
- Stayed [married for 10 years](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/08/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-august-29-2021).
- Got back into [mountain biking](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/09/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-september-05-2021). Strava says I put 60 miles on the bike, but more importantly all but two of those rides were with friends.
- Got [a little into Fortnite](https://fortnitetracker.com/profile/all/Verycoolperson88).

**Meta highlights**
- I updated my [about page](https://www.builtwith.coffee/about).
- I switched from [Netlify CMS to Forestry ](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/02/from-netlify-cms-to-forestry) and then gave up on both. I’m currently trying [Frontmatter](https://frontmatter.codes) in VS Code out. I’m about two more annoyances away from making my own CMS.
- I started doing weeknotes [mid-May](https://www.builtwith.coffee/blog-posts/2021/05/weeknotes-for-the-week-ending-may-16-2021) and haven’t missed a week[^1]. After doing it for a year I’m a) glad I did, because I just read through all of them and there was a lot I had forgotten and b) would like to move away from them next year and instead write more often, and break events/thoughts into their own posts with useful titles.
- I added the “recommended” button on my [reading list page](https://www.builtwith.coffee/books).

### etc
- Christmas! We don’t make a big deal of it here. I made cinnamon buns from a recipe my dad adapted from a King Arthur Flour cookbook that seems to not exist on their website. It’s basically: make dough, fill with sugar and nuts, stuff in face, but if you want the actual recipe just ask me. It seems easier than the ones they do have on their website.
![Our cats Maggie and Jake exuding Christmas energy](/assets/images/2021/cat-christmas-energy.jpeg)
- We started watching season two of _The Witcher_. It’s good, it’s not amazing. I really liked the first episode which was it’s own little story, but the season-wide plot is too high fantasy “it’s the end of the world as we know it” boring. The game had the same problem. I just want a _Columbo_ style _The Witcher_. Which of the townfolks turns into a monster at night? What clues will give it away? How great would Geralt angrily mumbling “one more thing” sound?
- We also started watching _Station Eleven_. I read the book a long time ago and enjoyed it, the TV show is different but good in its own way.
- Dave Barry’s humor is a hand-me-down from my dad, but at least unlike Scott Adams he didn’t turn out to be a terrible person and I still enjoy his yearly reviews in WaPo: [Dave Barry’s 2021 Year in Review](https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/12/26/dave-barrys-year-review-2021/?itid=hp-top-table-main)
> Another improvement was that most stores got rid of those one-way anti-covid arrows on the floor. Remember those, from 2020? You’d be halfway down a supermarket aisle, and you’d realize that you’d gone past the Cheez-Its but you couldn’t turn around and go back because you’d be going AGAINST THE ARROWS, which meant YOU WOULD GET COVID.

[^1]: I don’t think I did, anyway. Making a view of the site that’s calendar is on my todo list. I made the calendar for the [album a day project I gave up on](/album-a-day) so it’s half done.

built with coffee ☕

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018