Day 4 of Weird Web October - Filters wwo-2025-4.alanwsmith.com

this remains the one of the coolest musical tricks I've seen. switching the audience from clapping on 1&3 to 2&4 by throwing in a single measure of 5/4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI-C...

tried using AI as a coding assistant - TL;DR: - What it gave me mostly didn't work - It confidently told me ways to do impossible things (which, of course, didn't work) - Some of the stuff it threw out was useful as a pointer for things to look up in the docs www.alanwsmith.com/en/33/zm/cw/...

day three of weird web october - scramble: wwo-2025-3.alanwsmith.com

Weird Web October - Day 2 - Maps - wwo-2025-2.alanwsmith.com (It's lower contrast than I should be right now. I'm working to fix that)

alright. day on of weird web october is up. the theme is transparency wwo-2025-1.alanwsmith.com

The Intersection Observer page on MDN has a ton of theory and prose that make it hard to figure out what you actually need to do. I made a reference page so I can copy/paste when I need it: www.alanwsmith.com/en/33/oi/ia/...

a question about how folks interact with standards and guidelines came across my feed. my response turned into a post: www.alanwsmith.com/en/33/0p/hp/...

one of these days, my keyboard layout is gonna be perfect

TIL: Netlify is moving to a "credit-based" pricing model. I don't fault them, but it's the beginning of the end of me using them. www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/qq/o2/...

Part 2 of my Let's Code: Building a Local Tools Web Server in Rust series is up www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/iw/b9/...

I'm making a personal web server to host tools I use to make content for my site. I'm recording live coding videos of the process. Finished the first part this evening: www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/iw/b9/...

I made a silly new silly: blank.alanwsmith.com

just switched a single page site from Next.js to bitty-js. The source code went down from 380MB to 840KB. www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/fv/rz/...

Alright, I'm gonna say it: You should make your own static site generator - www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/ed/5q/...

The Job vs. The Work - A reminder that comms take a lot of you. www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/dz/jg/...

I made another silly thing that has no practical purpose. I just thought it might look cool. QR Code Typewriter: qr-typewriter.alanwsmith.com

here's one that pushes the limits: a two pixel tall font: joefatula.com/twoslice.html

saw someone post their weeknotes. reminded me to do my own: www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/bw/sm/...

in which I see clearly how much social media takes out of me www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/ye/rg/...

I'm thinking about a new NAS. Brain went to the possibility of government mandated surveillance that puts software on them to look for undesirables. www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/vh/fd/...

oh-my-zsh is awesome. but, it's not required to customize your command prompt. you can drop your on enhancements in your `~/.zshrc` (or `~/.bashrc` or whatever) file for all kinds of fun www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/ue/tq/...

saw someone ask about what song you listen to for testing new audio gear. I don't have a single track. I've got a list: www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/te/q2/...

did a live coding video using bitty-js (web component that uses signals) to make a tool to dedup lines in text. ended up being 4 lines of HTML and 16 of JavaScript Code and live example at the bottom of the page: www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/qm/j3/...

Request for feedback: I'm making a web component that needs to pull functionality from its parent page. This is how I'm doing it: www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/m1/a4/... Everything works, but I'm nervous I'm missing something. I'd love feedback from anyone who knows more about it than me.

new post: enshittifying search with AI. in which a search engine adds AI that slows down results and makes them worse www.alanwsmith.com/en/2v/tc/qq/...

new post: what if we use proportional fonts for code blocks? tl;dr: took a little getting used to, but they give you more space and are easier to read www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/hb/us/...

New post: Hanging a Picture without Building the House "Wanting to make something on the web is like wanting to hang a picture. You shouldn't have to build a house in order to have a wall to hang it on." www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/ce/65/...

today's agenda: reading rust error message to figure out how to use tokio for async work. sure, I'll hit the docs too. but, like, it's the errors that are gonna show me the way

new post: scroll tmux one line at a time with the mouse wheel only took forever and a day to find the answer. hopefully this will help anyone else looking www.alanwsmith.com/en/32/3t/ut/...

The 1972 Annual Report of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is now my favorite band.

When we die, I wish we got to see the top 5 times we almost died but didn’t know it…

sink into the couch music: Miles Davis - Pharaoh's Dance www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtOR...

getting the brain going again with the first thing I've written in weeks www.alanwsmith.com/en/2z/vc/8j/...

my brain has been offline for a couple weeks. starting to reboot. not sure what to get into. I lost track of all the things. first step is a given, though. turn the music up in the headphones

greetings i have made another zine, this is about how i got my hands on a knife at age ~9 (individual pages in the replies) #internationalzinemonth #minizinejuly2025

Think I just found my favorite Eastern Screech-owl photo ever. By Christina Evans, in the Macaulay Library: macaulaylibrary.org/asset/621156... 🪶

If you put googly eyes on the Pillars of Creation you get muppets 😄😄

last night was the first time I dreamed about civil war starting in the U.S. I suspect it won't be the last

It's a decade old, but watching these kids absolutely kill it covering Tool gives me hope for the world: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYKL...

bari sax for the baseline of rage against the machine will never not rock www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jrl...

Skyline cleanse. Sound up 🥲

*blinks at the horizon

A phantom

if ur girl looks like this shes a keeper

What's the over-under date for the announcement of computer generated ("AI") Patriotism Scores in the United States?

just got home after a 10hr road trip. time to sit in a dark room and catch up on some doctor who

please don't use ai, please don't use ai, please don't use ai, please don't use ai...