• And the number of phones dropped during this train trip now sits at 3. Congratulations, everyone! Personal best for this carriage. 🤪

  • Touché, Metro. I can understand why you kept us outside of Clifton Hill for 15 minutes. That was some legitimate flooding.

  • Amusing to find myself being roped into a release of… something, that needs to go out this week. Not entirely sure what needs to go out, and I don’t think anyone else does either. But damnit, it must be released by Friday!

    Auto-generated description: A standing man in casual attire appears to speak to a group of seated individuals, evoking attention and interest, accompanied by the text Isn't knowing what you want a precondition of getting what you want?
  • Not sure why Numbers needs access to my Contacts. I granted it access anyway, as I had work to do and I needed to get the modal out of my face. Yes, this is a comment about how rubbish these permission modals actually are. (Also, I don’t have any contacts on my work laptop).

  • It’s sometimes hard knowing that people you know are aware that you blog. Harder still knowing that they could read it (as they have in the past). I’m grateful, but that does mean there are certain topics I can’t really talk about.

  • Spent the evening upgrading my Forgejo instance to the latest LTS release (I know, riveting). It’s good of Forgejo to prepare a Debian repository for their packages now. Going from APKs that were downloaded and installed manually to ones managed by the repository worked seamlessly.

  • Found this gem of a remark in the documentation of Go’s time formatting string:

    It is a regrettable historic error that the date uses the American convention of putting the numerical month before the day.

    Yeah, kind of wish we learnt from history on this one. 😼

  • Quick update on my attempt at reading saved posts on my commute home, in place of scrolling social media. So far, it’s a failure. After work, I’m just too tired to focus on anything substantial, and just need something mindless to experience. I’ll have to have a think about what to do here.

  • Watched a video about the Suburban Rail Loop. Construction is underway, but it won’t be finished anytime soon. The section most useful to me is scheduled to be finished in 2043, and the whole thing is to be done around 2085. So, likely to be something that my niece’s grandchildren can enjoy.

  • If anyone asked, I probably would dissuade them, but I could understand why someone would want to start something on Substack. What I don’t understand are those with established paying audiences migrating their platform to Substack. Why? What can they offer that is worth your online independence?

  • It may seem difficult to spot those that are a tad too enthusiastic about AI replacing jobs, but the signs are there. For one, they tend to be the type of people that don’t spend the 0.5 seconds it takes to realise that connecting your account reset login to your chatbots is not a good idea.

  • Really enjoyed Ben Thompson’s Daily Update today, about the success of Backrooms and Obsession, and how it compares to the recent Star Wars film. Really drives home the idea that in a world without gatekeepers, success involves coming up with something that’s actually compelling.

  • Done! The backdrops for my Godot game have been made. Finished the desert one last week, and the coast one this evening. I also redid the mountain one, which is a little less interesting than the one I had, but it better matches the others artistically. Now time for the meta elements. 😓

    Auto-generated description: A pixel art-style video game scene features a character with a red hat and sword standing on a wooden platform over water, with a background of grassy cliffs and trees. Auto-generated description: A pixelated video game scene features a character standing on a stone platform, surrounded by mountainous terrain, floating platforms with arrows, and collectible coins. Auto-generated description: A pixelated knight character stands on a stone pillar in a desert-themed platform game.
  • Oof! First day of winter, and winter is definitely making itself known: cold, and wet. ❄️

  • Compared profile websites at work today. I really need to get mine cleaned up. I still have a link to GitHub, despite not using that account for much nowadays.

    Auto-generated description: A personal website homepage displays contact options and social media links for Leon Mika, including Micro.blog, Mastodon, Bluesky, GitHub, email, and a blog.
  • They say that “success is in the agency of others.” I think that’s true in more way than one. Certainly having contacts help, but I think also being around people that are willing to do things you wish you could helps too. It’s enabling, in the good sense of the word.

  • Now that I have Inkwell on all my devices, it’s time to close my Feedbin account. It’s been a great 9 years, and Feedbin has been an amazing service. I’m trying something different for the moment, but if it doesn’t work out, I may return. Until then, all the best. And thank you. 🥲

  • Must say that I’m looking forwarded to generic methods coming in Go 1.27. Generic functions work, but they feel out of place when the rest of your type uses methods in it’s API. This change will make for a great quality of life improvement, even if interface methods are excluded for now.

  • Trying to develop the habit of using the Micro.blog app for MacOS, so the backup feature will run. I expect the backups of this blog to be large. But 2.59 GB compressed? Wasn’t expecting it to be that large.

    Auto-generated description: A file directory titled Backups contains two backup files, each named lmika.micro.blog with different dates and sizes, showing their locations on the left sidebar.
  • Backrooms is a certified blockbuster with a $38 million opening day

    That also means that Backrooms is an incredibly profitable movie, with an estimated $10 million budget. By comparison, the latest Star Wars disappointment cost $165 million and was considered affordable compared to other entries in the series.

    It may seem like having all the money in the world will grant you the ability to do anything, but I think it’s clear that there’s no way Disney could’ve made a film like Backrooms. Not because they don’t have the resources. Rather, their investors wouldn’t let them. It wouldn’t be too “mainstream” enough to justify the “risk”, and they have to justify the money they spent for the rights to Star Wars. So they’re stuck making mediocre things based on these tired franchises. Money entraps us all, both high and low.

  • Ah, blessed oak tree. Being the shelter of this fool who decided to go for a walk without a jacket or umbrella.

    A view of tree branches and leaves with a mix of green and yellow colors against a partially cloudy sky.
  • At the cafe. The guy on the table I’m facing is reading the paper with a dog on his lap. The dog puts her front paws on the table, so the man starts placing pages on top of them. Then the dog places her head on the table. The guy then takes out his phone. I found this incredibly funny to witness.

    Auto-generated description: A fluffy white dog is sitting on a person's lap at a café table, while they read a newspaper.
  • All the recent liminal horror films that are coming out, like Backrooms and Exit 8, look interesting. Only issue is I generally hate horror, mainly because I can’t deal with things like jump scares. Here’s hoping the producers of these lean into the liminal aspect, and leave the cheap tricks out.

  • I had to smile after reading Manuel Moreale post about the Enhanced Games, namely because I had the same thought. I’ll only spend a few words on this, but the idea I had was for the event to be like the Formula One of althletics. Instead of individuals, different teams compete to engineer the best performing athlete tech can produce. This could include things like sportswear, diet, training regime, and yes, even developing performance enhancing drugs. An individual will still compete in the event but the team will get the glory.

  • The spreadsheet really is the “jack of all trades, master of none” app when it comes to structured data. It needs to be a calculator, database, structured table manipulator, and analysis tool; and it needs to be approachable to novices and usable by advanced users alike. And it does it. Not well, but it does it.