Happy Solstice, everybody! Halfway out of the dark.

It has reached that time of year when I acknowledge that I'm not going to get any new roller coaster credits this year, and look back on the ones I got. Three. I got three credits this year. Patriot and Desert Storm at Castles-n-Coasters in Phoenix, and the new Wrath of Rakshasa at Six Flags […]

[Wordle] Whew

Big thanks to everybody who came out to see my talks @techbash today. When I put audience participation sections in my talks, I hope that people will actually participate, and you all never let me down.

I haven't been posting here very much lately. That's it. That's the toot.

Well, shit. I just learned that Pierre Robert has passed away. For those who didn't know, Pierre was the lunchtime DJ at WMMR Philadelphia for over 40 years. His amazing voice and unfailing upbeat attitude brightened many a lunch break throughout my life. In an industry full of manufactured […]

[Wordle] I just got my THIRD hole-in-one on Wordle, just 17 days after my previous one, and less than a year after my first. I know randomness is unexpected by definition, but that was really random. Now I have to find another starter word.

[Wordle] Got my second-ever hole in one today! Woo! ...now I need a new starter word...

Computer can't connect to printer, huh? Printer not found on network, you say? I've got a six-foot USB cable right here, sucker, so how about you tell me if you can find the printer NOW?

I have a lot of writing about some topics I'm interested in, stored privately. Like, if I collected widgets, and whenever I get one, I jot down a few thoughts about it. Now imagine that I've been collecting for decades and I have several thousand of them. I'm in the process of moving this […]

Pun of the day: Somebody threw a bottle of omega-3 pills at my head. Luckily my injuries are only super fish oil.

I KNEW IT! https://theonion.com/australia-admits-all-those-animals-made-up/

Void coding #cats #caturday

I learned something today. The *beep* that indicates an item has been scanned at the grocery checkout has a volume control. According to the cashier, when it's very busy in the store, you turn the volume up so that you can be sure the beep you just heard was your beep. Don't know how well that […]

Having a deliberately non-productive day.

I got a book in the mail! Getting books in the mail is one of my favorite things about the job I used to have, and I'm not sure when it'll happen again. But I now have a complete collection of the works of @vmbrasseur (for now). If you're in FOSS, in tech, or in […] [Original post on jawns.club]

Me: OK, time to belt up. Slack off, phone in the other room, just me and this article to edit. Focus time! Brain: Hmm-hmm-hmm...🎵 Me: No. Don't do it. Brain: 🎵 Fo-cus time... 🎵 Me: Stop that. Brain: 🎵 Time to turn the Slack off, and see if you can get work done...🎵 Me: Not. Helping. Brain […]

Attention jawns.club: Our mascot game is on point. (Sorry about the Twitter link.) https://x.com/i/status/1946366771373523177

Translated editions are such cool things, and I'm always excited to see them. But I've never had a physical copy of a translated book that I worked on. Lucky for me, @vmbrasseur is a wonderful, thoughtful human being, and sent me this copy. Thanks!

Watching Superman 1 & 2 this weekend. Everybody loved that "Superman gets revenge on the bully in the diner" scene back in 1980 -- I did too -- but now it strikes me as cruel. It'd be one thing if he actually had been a normal guy who worked out, got stronger, and confronted his bully. That's […]

Seems to me that if email marketing can be tweaked precisely to my interests, there should be a way to adjust the frequency to a level between "every frickin' day" and "never." Hey, I like your product. I use it regularly. But I don't need more than one, and certainly not one per day. So maybe […]

https://xkcd.com/3105/ Yeah, xkcd is being funny here, but this would create lots of issues for roller coaster enthusiasts. I mean, just in Manhattan, the A, C, and E lines use much of the same track. Is that one credit, or three? Is the 42nd Street Shuttle even a credit? How is rcdb going to […]

Feel like I might be missing some nuance here...

Email: Important notice from your doctor! Me: What? What is it? Am I dying? Email: <furtive look> Can't say on an open channel. You'll need to log in. Me: Oh god. <clicks link> Website: Need to verify your identity! Me: Yes, right, 2FA, I know. This could be important! Website: Thank you for […]

Thinking about highly technical people with jobs at tech companies explaining technical products to other technical people, but who also say "I'm not a developer." Also thinking about all the assumptions and abstractions needed to operate a modern PC or phone (e.g. "the computer" and "the […]

At the grocery store this morning, a woman and I caused a bit of a bottleneck while trying to get around the spill-detecting robot. I apologized for confusing it. The woman told me that she used to tell her kids that the robot's job was checking for zombies, so if they saw it, they'd know that […]

What? WHAT? What.

I've finished the last of four business trips in two months. That's no big deal to some folks I know, even some folks on my team, but it's a lot for my position. Fortunately, I have no travel lined up until...possibly not at all. Or if I do, it's more likely to be driving than flying. It […]

Shower thoughts: I was Straight Edge before it was cool. ...also after. A large number of my life choices could be described in this way.

Tonight's Doctor Who was surprising on a number of fronts.

I'm not a fan of the word "logo" to mean "company," specifically "big company who is or may become our customer" As in "we landed 30% more logos this month" or "our goal is to get more logos." It makes companies into interchangeable things, without even a name. Why does that matter? Separating […]

Miss you, Mom. Fuck cancer.

PDX ➡️ PHX ➡️ PHL Always feels like some kind of puzzle to me.

Hike in Portland with #writethedocs on Saturday. This view from Pittock Mansion ain't half bad. Glad we had a nice day for it.

I'm heading to #writethedocs tomorrow, and I'm starting to get excited! Had to skip last year for Reasons, but I'm back and better than ever! I'm planning to do the Writing Day, the Hike, the whole enchilada. Who else is going?

Random thought: what if you told an LLM "If you don't know the answer, say 'I don't know' instead of inventing a fictional answer"?

Want to give a shout-out to Winghorn Press (sadly not on Fedi) and their D&D Adventure "The Wolves of Welton." My gaming group is full of nice people, so they'll often say "that was a good session," but it's much less common for them to say "that was a great story." It really hit the sweet spot […]

While I was away for a week, my trees apparently decided it was party time. Enjoy this timeline cleanse.

Help me out, internet: These are the controls on a water dispenser. Red: hot water. Blue: cold water. Green A: ????

No spoilers. Today's Doctor Who felt good. It spent some time on character work, which feels like it's been a little under-served the past few seasons. Too meta? Maybe. Too many RTD tics? I knew that going in. It just felt right to me in a way that I'd missed.

Courtesy of @Chrishallbeck, it's time to bring this out again: [Radiohead Creep] When you were here before Couldn’t look you in the eye You’re shaped like a bunny Your foil makes me cry You’re sold for $3.50 In a beautiful box And I wish I was chocolate You’re so full of chocolate But I’m a […]

You know how some people can't sleep on planes? I'm the opposite. I mean, assuming the flight is relatively uneventful, there's a gentle rumbling, there's white noise, and these days everybody wants the shades closed, so it's dark. I'm not suggesting that I sleep "well" or "comfortably." The […]

Having a good time at my first #pytexas! Stop by the Temporal booth, or come see my talk on documentation this afternoon!

Got a notice from the airline, asking if I'm willing to get bumped for credit. My travel time tomorrow is actually pretty flexible, so I figured, eh, why not? So the app takes me to a page where I can choose the amount of credit that would make it worth it to me to get bumped, with four options […]

The newest "wait, really?" moment on my ADHD journey: justice sensitivity. https://edgefoundation.org/the-fairness-imperative-adhd-and-justice-sensitivity/ Friends have been describing me as "lawful good" since I was a teenager. Many American culture heroes are chaotic good, so I would *like* […]

Trans rights are human rights. May you be as seen as you want to be today. #transdayofvisibility

Participated in some litter clean-up on a road near my house this morning. I am now the proud owner of a disposable hi-viz vest, and two lungs-ful of allergens.

Well, *that* was a first. "Thank you for calling. You have reached our A.I. service assistant. How can I help you?" Used a masculine voice, which was interesting. Of course, I was calling because their website's certificate has expired, so I couldn't reach it. Interesting tech choices this […]

I see we're still doing the "must call to cancel services; can't do that online" garbage. Props to the human phone rep who didn't make it *too* difficult to cancel, although they did go through their whole script. Turns out "I'm recently divorced and consolidating my expenses" is a secret […]

Want to know how my brain works, especially on a Friday? Something random, I don't remember what, reminded me of "All This Time," a 1991 song by Sting. Thank dog for modern streaming services that let me play a song from 30+ years ago that I didn't buy at the time. So I listened, and I was […]