Claude calling db-level & (ActiveRecord-)model-level validations "belt and suspenders" is one of the oddest things I have seen come out of the black box.

The recent cold snap here has reminded me of the joy a London Fog can bring. I learned about them working in a bookstore and befriending the staff at the coffee shop inside the store, and I will never forget their main selling point: "It tastes like Froot Loops milk."

Getting ready to do my first-ever MVP presentation. Any tips for managing client expectations?

Beware the IDEs of March

The accent is what makes this.

Sprint problems: I just drank some water and said "ugh, this water tastes weird." I couldn't figure it out for awhile, but then I realized it's because I forgot what it tasted like. Apparently it's been black coffee only around here for days.

I finally finished the mohair sweater I started in December! There is nothing quite like the feeling of sewing a tag into your work and then realizing it looks like an Actual Sweater you’d buy in a store. 🥹

Learning that the first version of JS was written in 10 days and suddenly it all makes sense...

I'm getting ready to deploy my 2nd production web app and can I just say... I really appreciate DevOps professionals for all that they do, because I feel like a vampire being exposed to sunlight getting these ducks in a row.

Colonel Panic, reporting for duty 🫡

Love this! 👇 How knitting can help you kick harmful habits www.bbc.com/future/artic... by @eabrown18.bsky.social One of my children (in medicine) doing research on using knitting as an affordable, accessible, scaleable and community building mental health intervention! #TeamKnitting! 🧶

An observation: learning a new area of engineering is like learning a language. At the end of the day, the best method is immersion. And the earlier you immerse yourself, the better. Even if you don't understand 100% of the conversation, you're making connections that will build patterns over time.

Found a StackOverflow thread that answered a question I had this morning. Is nature healing?

What I imagine it feels like to be a full stack JS dev in this economy

one reason we don’t need more data centers is we have a whole lot of data and most of it is just not good. increasing the available data will only make the situation worse

Being a solo dev on a project is fun and all, but then there's the "UI bug bash" phase. It makes me miss the days before designing for multiple viewport orientations & sizes. And it also makes me wish I could hire an intern.

Is it just me or do these notifications make it less likely that the user will return to the app?

LinkedIn's "Open to Work" feature is strange if you think about it in the context of adding the same flag to a relationship status. "Yes, I'm dating someone, and you can see how long we've been together if you look at my full profile. However, if a better offer comes along, I'm dumping that loser."

My inner voice always pronounces "git init" with a British accent: "git, innit?"

Cannot wait for this kit to drop! Thanks Gus!

I just had an interview with an AI HR rep. 🤖 Possibly one of the strangest experiences I've had in awhile. Uncanny valley for sure. Has anyone else done one of these interviews?

It's been a long day of writing and programming, but I think everyone that picked up a copy of Programming Nerves (programmingnerves.dev) will really enjoy building the Etch A Sketch project 🎉! @nerves-project.org + @livebook.dev = ❤️ #MyElixirStatus #ElixirLang #Erlang #Elixir

I really liked reading this post by @cassidoo.co cassidoo.co/post/good-br... Especially the quote: “Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” Frank Herbert, Dune

nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/w... - thanks @cassidoo.co for sending me this one from @nolanlawson.com that perfectly sums up my feeling right now. Tempted to go write this out on some ancient looking piece of fabric in cursive and hang it on the wall!

Who thought I'd learn something positive out of all of this? www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVVn...

Just learned about the "angry user" test and I am so tickled. I don't feel angry today, so I guess I need to outsource that part of the bug bash.

Trying to pinpoint the feeling I get arguing with Claude. Closest I have so far: It's 2006, and you put a dollar in a vending machine, only to have the machine spit the dollar back out at you. Try again: dollar spit out again. Repeat.

Another public service announcement: The German Language is at it again

Public Service Announcement: Microsoft is at it again

Refactoring JS for my ecom site's search feature (from <script> tag to Stimulus controller), I learned how I could unwittingly cause a memory leak if I didn't properly disconnect a controller instance. I am now on a fun side quest learning how to diagnose memory leaks in the wild. 🤠 A rare fun day!

The biggest "stink" of LLM code in Ruby currently is how it writes loops like it's writing C. Set up lots of blank/empty variables, loop with each, update variables inside the loop. Use Enumerable! Matz gave us this gift for a reason!

Horribly undercaffeinated, I logged into my personal computer instead of my work computer just now. I realized it after the fact, and said out loud "Oh, I'm not supposed to be on this branch." Apparently my brain runs on git.

"[The valuable skill] isn't React. It's not Python. It's not LeetCode. It's frustration tolerance." This video is a much-needed reminder to stay the difficult course, and to be disciplined about code, not passionate. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTt_...

Thinking about all of the ways that OOP was explained to me when I first started learning Ruby after working in C only. Least Helpful Premise award goes to: "imagine you're cooking a lasagna and you need to calculate how many minutes it has left in the oven based on a global 'cook time' constant."

Check out this keeb I built

This post brought to you by Custom Class Gang

In 2026, I decided to learn things just for fun, focusing on embedded dev. 📟 Latest update: I now understand why we use values between 0 and 255 when defining RGB colors in human-readable code. In short, this value corresponds to the length of the pulse sent from Arduino to LED. 🤯 NEAT!

resizing images with Microsoft Paint because old habits never die

lazy loading for humans: piddling around all morning and finally locking in at 1pm.

When you forget to replace the placeholder int with its corresponding variable before pushing to prod 😬

Listening to deep house while I work this morning and realized that there may, in fact, be a 'enjoying 90s Weather Channel music' to 'enjoying deep house' pipeline that I fell victim to.

This was a terrible thing to wish for, as 2 weeks later, I seem to have manifested not just a bug, but an environment configuration conflict.

Wow. "Ruby’s `Time` uses a proleptic Gregorian calendar — it projects the Gregorian calendar backwards, ignoring historical reality. October 10, 1582 doesn’t exist in Italy (Pope Gregory XIII removed 10 days that October), but Ruby happily creates that timestamp." blog.arkency.com/stop-using-d...

Ruby isn't dying, it is already dead. So is every other language. Rejoice, you have been liberated! You no longer write Ruby for The Man, but yourself! Reclaim the means of production as the means of amusement! Ruby was created to make you happy, not the machine. Wrest back your joy!

Hey #ElixirLang & #Ruby fam, I got laid off this last Friday and am looking for the next adventure! If anyone has any opportunities, feel free to reach out!

I’m learning Norwegian color work this year. I’ve knit English for most of my life so this feels like I’m holding wet spaghetti. My stitches are uneven and my tension stinks. BUT, being not-so-great at something the first time you try it is humbling & I highly recommend it. Plenty of room to grow 😌

If your New Year's resolution is to do more cardio, might I suggest a mock technical interview?

Did you know you can get your GitHub profile pic by adding .png to your profile page? It's super handy! github.com/cassidoo.png

The Tailwind folks released a new marketing template and the social proof quotes are hilarious :D tailwindcss.com/plus/kits/oa...