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Leon Mika
Software engineer in Melbourne, Australia.
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  • Apparently Metro trains impose speed restrictions on very hot days, like today. Good. I was hoping they would. When it comes to public transport in hot weather, better late than never is a good principal to operate by.

    January 7, 2026 4:34pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • I got around to putting together that walkthrough video of Alto for that person I’ve shared it with. Reposting it here for posterity and for anyone who’s curious. Fair warning: don’t expect amazing video production quality.

    January 7, 2026 7:42am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Videos

  • A potentially useful feature for IDEs would be to open up the same file in a two-pane split, then “freeze” one of the panes such that it won’t change while you’re making edits in the other one. That way, you can refer back to the file as it was before you’ve started changing it.

    January 6, 2026 2:40pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • One of these days we’ll have a World Wide Web where all the HTTP servers will return the correct MIME types of their content. Maybe (Definitely) not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day. Hopefully some day before we get flying cars or fusion power. 😛

    January 6, 2026 12:38pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • Bit strange seeing Goland suggest the IdeaVim plugin. I’ve never used Vim mode in Goland.

    January 6, 2026 9:22am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • I have grand plans of rewriting Alto, replacing the HTTP framework and redoing the entire web UI. I feel that’s never going to happen. Realistically, it probably never shoud happen. I guess if there’s one saving grace, it’s that even though Buffalo’s no longer maintained, it still works quite well.

    January 5, 2026 10:45pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • Was hoping to prepare an account and make a video on using Alto for that interested party, but ended up fixing all the dodgy UI elements that were either dangerous or just plain embarrasing. The evening’s over now, and it’s still pretty dodgy, but it’s probably good enough to share with this person.

    January 5, 2026 10:36pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Devlog

  • About The Journey

    January 5, 2026 12:25pm
    Reading Time: 2 minutes
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Long Form Posts

    A preference for the engineering process over the finished product leads to limited use of coding agents for project development. Continue reading →

  • Dusted off Alto to give access to someone I know. Need to finish off the multi-tenant functionality, along with removing the hardcoded tokens from the mobile app. Manage to start work after 5 or so minutes of waiting for dependencies/builds/whatever, which is a nice change.

    January 4, 2026 8:09am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Devlog

  • From now on, I’ll only try to write good blog posts. The only trouble is that the measure of how “good” a blog post is changes with time, and not always in the same direction.

    January 3, 2026 9:49am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • When all you have is wood, the one thing you are in want for is someone who has access to a fireplace.

    (In other words, I finally organised removal out the wood that has been in my yard since, well, this post)

    January 3, 2026 9:43am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • Flies are annoying, and it’s hard to resist brushing them off when you see one on your clothes. But a static fly on clothing is one less fly buzzing around your face, so if it’s not on skin or irritating you, it’s always best to leave them where they are.

    January 3, 2026 8:27am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • Making use of that animation package: test scene and interaction for something I’m putting together for my niece.

    January 2, 2026 9:54pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Videos

  • 🔗 Wikipedia: Rubber-tyred tram

    Some follow-up on my speculation of how this one-rail tram vehicle that I saw in Italy works. Turns out that the single rail is used for guiding the vehicle, and the one pantograph variant does use the rail for the return current. But there is a two trolly-poll variant that only uses the rail for guidance, and can disconnect from it to form a bog standard trolleybus. Bit weird to consider the rail at all at that point, but still quite intriguing.

    January 1, 2026 8:00pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Links

  • 2025 Retro

    January 1, 2026 5:51pm
    Reading Time: 3 minutes
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Long Form Posts

    No, not the good retro: the “agile” one. I felt that I didn’t have enough material for a comprehensive “year wrapped” post, but I did want to be a little reflective on what was . So it seemed fitting to use an approach favoured by software teams, where the points are brief, and the action items are never followed up. Keep Doing Public goal keeping: Documenting my goals, and when I achieve them, on this blog was a massive success. Continue reading →

  • Happy New Year. Let’s make this year a better one than the last.

    January 1, 2026 7:15am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • 🖼️ Gallery

    Rail Infrastructure Around Taradale

    December 31, 2025 5:33pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Long Form Posts

    Photos

    Galleries

    Since I was in the area, I figured I’d take a quick detour to Taradale to check out some of the local rail infrastructure: the closed station and the viaduct. Here are some photos of both. Continue reading →

  • Enjoyed a nice walk at Trentham this morning. Good to get out of the house.

    A narrow path winds through a lush, green landscape flanked by tall grass and trees under a blue sky.A dirt pathway surrounded by tall trees and greenery extends into the distance under a clear blue sky.

    December 31, 2025 12:27pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Photos

  • Oh, to have the endless optimism of a pigeon hanging around outdoor cafe furnature.

    December 31, 2025 8:10am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • 📘 Devlog

    An API For a Keyframe Animation Package

    December 30, 2025 5:42pm
    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Long Form Posts

    Videos

    Devlog

    Golang

    A Go-based key-frame animator for Ebitengine projects was developed, emphasizing a clear API for animating float values with room for future enhancements. Continue reading →

  • 🔗 Steven P. Wickstrom: Over 300 words to use instead of SAID

    Filing this for later when I want to write some fiction (it could happen).

    Via: summeroakes.bsky.social on Bluesky

    December 30, 2025 8:52am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Links

  • Released version 1.4.0 of Postlist for Micro.blog. New feature is the ability to turn off summaries in favour of the post’s body when using content display mode. This is achievable with the added content-options parameter:

    {{< postlist display="content" content-options="no-summary" >}}
    
    December 29, 2025 11:27am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Releases

  • Listening to the latest ATP, it’s just killing me that the hosts are saying “iPhone XX” (as in “i-phone-ex-ex”) without considering that, given that the X in iPhone X refers to the Roman Numeral for 10, XX could refer to 20.

    December 28, 2025 5:43pm
    Leon Mika Leon Mika
  • Achievement unlocked: setting up a CI/CD pipeline the builds a Go WASM project and deploys it to Netlify that worked first try.

    December 28, 2025 11:11am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Golang

  • Rendering Outlined Text in Ebitengine

    December 28, 2025 10:34am
    Leon Mika Leon Mika

    Long Form Posts

    Screenshots

    A method for rendering outlined text using the Ebitengine and the shapes package by creating a separate image for the text and applying an outline to it. Continue reading →

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