• Gallery: Revisiting Preston Market

    I was rendezvousing with a few people for dinner around Preston this evening. I was early so I’d though I’d walk around the closed market. I used to come here all the time when I was a kid, and it was nice walking the laneways again, even if everything was closed for the night. As with most places you revisit when you’re older, it’s smaller than I remembered. Continue reading →

  • Under the big, grey sky-rail.

    Auto-generated description: A concrete overpass runs parallel to a paved pathway and landscaped area, all beneath a blue sky with scattered clouds.
  • 🔗 (AI) Smells on Medium

    Just in case you need another reason to avoid Medium. Apropos of nothing, the post also includes some links about writing blog posts for developers which look interesting.

    Via: lobste.rs

  • Standard issue at work are LG Ultra Fine displays, but one of my coworkers was perfectly happy with a display that would’ve been considered small 15 years ago. Reminds me of my 15 year old Samsung display at home. I’d like to update it but I’m not sure my desk can fit anything larger.

  • It’s been said that one should write what they know. It’s also been said that one should write what they themselves want to read. Some days, when it comes to decide on what to publish on this blog, these two things are polar opposites to each other.

  • Just taking a note of how I usually get sidetrack:

    1. Start exploring something
    2. Run into a wall, usually because something is not working or is taking too long
    3. Spend a few minutes fixing/waiting for it
    4. Realise more time is needed, so go grab a coffee
    5. Come back after completely forgetting what I was exploring.

    For kicks, occasionally replace 4 with “get interrupted”.

  • Spent the evening revisiting Cyber Burger, my Pico-8 arcade game. What started as fixing some glaring proofreading issues turned into a little bit of tuning and adding some quality of life improvements. Played a few rounds too. Now that the stress of working on it has faded, it plays pretty well.

  • 🔗 LinkedIn: Games

    That’s right, LinkedIn Games. For those that love their professional networking cum. social networking cum. messaging app but felt it needed more features. I’ve not tried these yet, I’ve only learnt about it today. But some might be enjoyable.

  • Three nuisance calls today so now call screening is being turned on. I think this feature deserves a “finally.”

    A mobile interface displays call screening options, including automatic call screening and varying levels of protection from spam.
  • Interesting to see how networks deal with a 5 day test match ending on day 2. Looks like Channel 7 has opted for three reporters sitting on the pitch talking about the match. Hope they’ve got enough material to fill 3 days. 😏

    Three people are sitting on stools, holding microphones, with a caption about cricket strategy displayed on the screen.
  • Made a grave error today. I got invited to join people for tea, and I declined. That was a mistake: always go to tea! What’s so urgent in life that can’t wait an hour or so of socialisation practice? 🤦‍♂️

  • First Impressions Of Google Antigravity

    Testing Google Antigravity revealed its potential as a coding aid, but the overwhelming suggestions and interface design deterred further use. Continue reading →

  • Would be nice for product feature pages to be a little more dynamic than they are, and indicate whether a particular feature is preview only, or not available on your plan or in your country, or just not enabled for your A/B cohort. Helps to know when best to look at it.

  • Random luncheon thoughts wondered to the App Store, and how many users think that mobile apps all come from Apple. But isn’t that understandable if every App Store listing looks the same? Same colour scheme, same font, same layout. Only thing that is distinguishable at a glance is the screenshots and maybe the logo.

    Apple likes to tout, at least in some contexts, that app developers are important to them. So would they even consider allowing developers to change the appearance of their app store page listing? Would one listing with a red background and another with serif fonts give a greater impression to users that these are very different apps from different developers?

    I don’t know, and I’m sure Apple will never allow this. I imagine it’s beneficial to them to consider app developers as just one more commoditised supplier (I don’t agree, of course) and I think the general impression that all the apps come from Apple helps them believe this.

  • I really enjoyed this video from Simon Willison giving a tour of his newsletter automation setup. Also made me aware of Observable, which looks like a JavaScript-based workbook (I’m guessing is a bit like Jupyter). Looks interesting. 📺

  • I will concede, I am starting to like Liquid Glass on the iPad. Still plenty of bugs, but the aesthetics are growing on me. And as soon as the bugs are squashed, it may end up being a nice UI refresh.

  • Gallery: Walking the Darebin Creek Trail

    Had to do some stuff today that weighed on me a little, so it was nice to be given the opportunity to walk the Darebin Creek trail this evening. Walked as far as the Main Yarra Trail, beside the Eastern Freeway. It was a really lovely evening, and it called for some photos to be taken. Continue reading →

  • I think I’ll stop donating to causes that podcasters are trying to raise funds for. Three times I told the cause to stop emailing me, and three times it ignored me. Is this what you do to people donating money to you? 👎

  • 🛠️ Eldiron: Retro RPG Creator

    This looks interesting, maybe. I’ve not made an RPG, or indeed played one. Maybe one day I may consider doing either. Until then, maybe someone else will get value from this.

    Via: @konstantinosd.bsky.social on Bluesky

  • I think if told my ten-year-old self that one day I’d be arguing with a computer about what actually is available in the documentation it’s supposably an AI of, he’d probably say “ooh, just like that BASIC book I read, where they guy was arguing with his smart-lock.” The future is here, kid. 😏

  • I do wish us Aussies had a closer affinity to 24-hour time than we do. I was messaging someone about a rendezvous, and he said they were unavailable from 7pm until 4:30pm. I know they weren’t doing something overnight, but was he unavailable from 7 am until 4:30pm, or was he unavailable at both 7pm and 4:30pm?

    I was hoping to meet them at 7pm to pick something up, so I did what large organisations tend to do and recommended the less ambiguous time of 6:50pm. He accepted, which cleared the matter up. But what an unnecessary bout of uncertainty. If the response was that he were unavailable from “07:00 until 16:30”, then great! Let’s meet at 19:00. So much clearer.

    Ah well.

  • Last night, I dreamt of Paris, which is strange. I should’ve been dreaming of Toulouse.

  • Been to dependency hell and back today. Can’t recommend it. Definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.

  • It’s probably just a matter of time before I take a look at Google Antigravity. I visited their site today, and maybe it was just my laptop, but the scrolling seemed to have some sort of weird inertia effect (mobile was fine). Couldn’t say I liked it. Just hope the scrolling in the editor is snappy.

  • Github FOMO

    Haveing a self-hosted Forgejo instance is great, but it’s not without it’s tradeoffs. Continue reading →