Leon Mika Profile Photo

Leon Mika

Software Developer and occasional writer of music. Based in Melbourne, Australia.

Art

    ∞

    Smack bang in the middle of the automation smiling curve for my current task. 😩

    A meme depicting a smiling curve graph illustrates the relationship between problem size and satisfaction. The left size says 'Job really small. I'll just do it manually.' The right size says 'Argh, too big. I better automate.' In the centre is an arrow pointing to the lowest point on the curve with the annotation 'Automate half the job, but then realise it's probably quicker to just finish it manually.'
    ∞

    I made a different version of this image earlier today. Glad I found the discipline to do what needed to be done, giving me the opportunity to change it to this:

    Auto-generated description: A mock-up of a reminder for a tax return due on 24 September 2024, with options to Mark Complete or Snooze, with a mouse cursor hovering over the Mark Complete option, giving the sense that the user will click it.
    ∞

    More DOS game nostalgia watching on YouTube over the last few days. This time on Commander Keen, an absolute favourite of mine growing up. For all the other Keen fans out there, this one’s for you.

    A message written in Standard Galactic Alphabet in a style that attempts to resemble pixel art from the 90s. Message reads as follows: Might be that building something that would generate a message in SGA is super nerdy. And you would be right. But I needed something to post this evening.

    And yes, making this is how I spent my evening. 😄

    ∞

    Surprising how much of working with TLS certificates is just dealing with PEM files.

    A meme of a blackboard with the heading 'Things for today', then the items '1/ Decode from PEM', '2/ Encode to PEM', '3/ Decode from PEM', '4/ Encode to PEM' written in white chalk. The first two items are crossed off.
    ∞

    So, this is how my morning went.

    A drawing of a Git commit tree showing a successful merge of Y with a green CI/CD run, a few commits of me making changes to a branch over the course of 2 days, then eight commits with a few minutes between each one with each one having a red CI/CD run. The commit messages suggest that each one was an attempt to fix the CI/CD problems of the previous one.

    Apologies to my reviewers for all the notification emails they’re receiving during this battle with the CI/CD build.

    ∞

    Key ring.

    Image of a keychain with the phrase 'Everyone I know has gone to Europe and all I got is all this work to do' with stars below Europe, and laptop and briefcase emoji below 'Work to do'
    ∞

    Been asked to do a routine task today. This is the fifth time I’ve started it, the fifth time I said to myself “hmm, I should probably automate this,” and the fifth time I just did it manually. Now wondering if that was time well spent.

    Two columns, the left one with the heading 'This Universe' and five evenly sized boxes with the label 'Nah, it'll take too long. I'll do it next time', the right one with the heading 'Alternate Universe' with one large box with 250% the height of the left boxes with the label 'Build the thing' , and six small boxes taking up 50% the height of the left boxes
    ∞

    Cracked open Acorn to come up with a new wordmark for Apple:

    The word 'Apple' with an uppercase I replacing the lowercase L, with both the A and I in black with the remaining letters in grey

    Yes, I know I’ve got work to do. 😜

    ∞

    Working with PostgreSQL is an absolute joy. Such an amazing database. Just goes to show that the fun tech out there is not always the new and shiny. The battled hardened, featureful, bread-and-butter tools that tends to get overlooked can be just as good (Linux falls into that category as well).

    Created using Vintage Logo: a poster with a vintage car and the headline ‘PostgreSQL’ and sub-headline ‘Still Effin’ Amazing’.
    ∞

    If Slack’s looking for features to add, my vote would be for personal “annotation” messages in threads, similar to what Hey mail has. Many a time I receive a support request as a Slack thread, and it’d be nice to add notes such as customer IDs as a message that only I can see.

    Here’s a mockup:

    A concept mock-up of a Slack thread showing interaction between a support person and the author, with the private note message highlighted in yellow with the disclosure 'only visible to you'

    Edit: I knew I talked about this before. And looking through On This Day, I found this post, where I professed my wish for FastMail to add the same feature. Probably a good hint that such a feature should be table steaks for any system involving other people.

    ∞

    Playing around with Vintage Logo this morning. HT to @odd and @mandaris for posting a link to this iOS app. They’ve got some very nice logo templates here, including this art deco one featuring a bird in flight.

    Used it to make this logo, which I call: lodgings for the evening.

    An art deco inspired logo featuring a line drawing of a bird in flight in blue, and the name ‘the cockatiel cafe’ written along in cursive writing in red