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Too Much HTML
Components, reusability, and cues from existing code in an unfamiliar project. Continue reading →
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About The Journey
A preference for the engineering process over the finished product leads to limited use of coding agents for project development. Continue reading →
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2025 Retro
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. It wasn’t easy, but I did manage to get out more, and I have a new standing event that I didn’t at the start of the year. An I attribute that to being public about what I want to achieve. It turns out that being public about your goals tends to keeps them in mind more often. You’re more likely to follow up on them as a result. So definitely more of this in 2026.
- Getting out more: I would like to continue this in 2026, or at least keep it up. Going to boardgames every second Wednesday is a good start, but I think more of this would be good for me.
Do More
- More reading: Seriously, way more reading this year. I didn’t finish anything new last year, and the only books I did pick-up were ones I read already. I may need to be a little stricter about when I ought to have finished something.
- More building in public: In sort, making more of my work available to others. I tend to be afraid of being on the hook for supporting such work, but the support load of the projects that I did release last year (a couple of Micro.blog plugins) wasn’t so bad, and I think I’d like it more if I know others are enjoying my work. Doesn’t have to be everything, but just something to keep in mind.
- Travel: This is probably more of a wish rather than a goal, but it would be nice to get out into the world. I barely did any of that last year.
Do Less
- Unhealthy vices: More healthy eating, less YouTube, basically. This is probably more of a wish rather than an actual goal, but it is something that’s been on my mind, and I do need to improve here. I probably should track some metrics here.
- Going with the flow in my career: The career rut continues and I am wondering whether I should move on. But I’m really not sure what I’d like to do. I still enjoy working with the technology (or, more generally, on the product development side) so the idea of going into a more managerial position doesn’t appeal to me. But moving up the corporate ladder is difficult for one that doesn’t want to take on such a role. So would a sideways shift work? Contracting? A new job? All these questions I really need to get a handle on, and not let these career moves just “happen.” That won’t lead to a career I want to lead.
Achievements
- 1,073 blog posts.
- 1 blog post that somewhat went viral, and is still getting hits from Hacker News.
- 3 project releases:
- Two Micro.blog plugins, plus a silly quiz about ISO standards.
- 18 domain names, that’s 5 less than this time last year.
- 40th rotation around the sun.
There are a few other things I’d like to do this year that I’ll keep private, but I think this is a good start.
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🖼️ Gallery
Rail Infrastructure Around Taradale
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.
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📘 Devlog
An API For a Keyframe Animation Package
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 →
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Rendering Outlined Text in Ebitengine
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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2025 Song of the Year
Once again, a need to play something during Christmas Eve Mass has come around, so it’s time to elect 2025’s Song of the Year.
No obvious song stood out this year, unlike 2023 and 2024. Looking back on what new music I listened to, it was mainly a lot of Enya and Lee Rosevere, with a bit of Anders Enger Jensen. Near the end of the year I also started listening to Jon Hopkins, in addition to one or two other artists featured in the “medleys” published on Music For Programming. Apparently the way I find new music — YouTube videos or finding something I can put on the background for a commute or project work — remains unchanged.
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🦆 Dialogue
Good Banter Not Found
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Some Caution on Using ROWIDs for Primary Keys in Sqlite 3
Relying on ROWIDs in SQLite can lead to reused IDs, causing issues with foreign key cascading deletes, which can be mitigated by using the
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Using Pagefind in Micro.blog to Only Return Posts in Search Results
When I tried out Pagefind for the first time on this site, I was finding that the results were including more than just the posts, such as the post lists, the stats page, the archive page, and a bunch of other indexed pages. These were crowding out the posts themselves, and I expressed my wish for a way to control the indexing in some way.
Turns out there’s no need to modify the indexing, you can do this using Pagefind filters. This enables faceted search in that the end user can configure which pages to show in the results, based on arbitrary key-value pairs you as the site author specify in the HTML (I’m not doing a great job explaining this, please click through to the documentation to see how it works).
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🖼️ Gallery
Riding The Metro Tunnel
Checking out the new Metro Tunnel, and taking lots of photos in the process. Continue reading →
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Trying Out Pagefind in Micro.blog
Setting up Pagefind in Micro.blog and some early thoughts using it. Continue reading →
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📘 Devlog
Godot Project - Level 3-2 And Bobbing Water
After some distractions, progress on a Godot game level is underway, focusing on design elements like a generator sprite and a dynamic water mechanic. Continue reading →
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📘 Devlog
Blogging Tools - Image Collections Triage App
Using Google Antigravity to add an improved image triaging feature for Blogging Tools, allowing the user to categorise images from posts and automate header image updates. Continue reading →
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Some Thoughts on the State of Python Package Documentation
The lack of standardized and accessible documentation for Python packages hinders the user experience compared to other languages like Java and Go. Continue reading →
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🖼️ 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.
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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 →
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🖼️ 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.
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Github FOMO
Haveing a self-hosted Forgejo instance is great, but it’s not without it’s tradeoffs. Continue reading →
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📘 Devlog
Blogging Tools - Chunking File Uploader
An attempt to improve upload speeds by chunking large files and uploading them via multiple HTTP requests dispatched concurrently. Spoiler: it didn’t help. Continue reading →
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On TOON And Human Readable Data Formats
My thoughts on defining human readable formats that are difficult to modify by hand, and taking it out on TOON which is geared towards LLMs. Continue reading →
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📘 Devlog
Laying The Groundwork For Dynamic Header Images
Making some changes to the Card theme I’m using for this blog. First think I’m considering is a banner image, similar to the one in Scripting News. And like Scripting News, I’m hoping for the image to change occasionally. I’d like the change to happen when the blog is being built, and in order to do this, I need a way to configure this value. I’m hoping to use Blogging Tools to do this, but to actually make use of these values, I’m hoping to use Hugo’s resource data methods.
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📘 Devlog
Dynamo Browse - Item View Annotations and Asynchronous Tasks
Adding to the UCL extension support in Dynamo Browse the ability to annotate displayed result items, plus scheduling tasks that will be executed in the background. Continue reading →
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Delta of the Defaults 2025
It’s been two years since I published the default apps I use after listening to Hemispheric Views #97 - Duel of the Defaults. A year later, I published a delta listing the changes I’ve made since that original list. Now that Cup Day is here, it’s time for the update no-one asked for.
Like last year, I’ll simply list the changes. You can see the original list of defaults here.
- Notes: The perennial category, apparently. 😀 I’m all in on Obsidian now, for all notes for work and my personal life, opting to pay for the 10 vault plan, which will become relevant for later categories. Only exception is Google Keep for my shopping lists.
- To-do: Obsidian too.
- Bookmarks: I still have that Linkding instance running on Pikapods, but I haven’t been using that as often as I had been. I tend to use Micro.blog’s Bookmarks feature for this now.
- Presentations: It’s two years and counting since I had to make a presentation. But it’s still iA Presenter, as I’m still paying for it.
- Social Clients: I’ve pulled away from the fediverse a little but I still use Micro.blog to follow Mastodon accounts. I have been spending more time perusing BlueSky, but I don’t want to get into the habit of spending too much time on the socials, so I simply use the browser for that.
- Music: Alto, my own music app, is still my primary music player. I’m no longer using Spotify, electing for YouTube music when I want to stream something. But lately, I’ve been buying most of my music on Qobuz and Bandcamp.
- Weather: Still using the Bureau of Meterology website, but wow, their recent redesign is a shocker. Fortunately the domain for their registered users, which has all the public pages, has been left untouched for now.
- Journalling App: Obsidian. This is where that 10 vault plan comes in handy.
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📘 Devlog
Godot Game - Level 3-2 and a Rotating Platform
Starting to work on level 3-2, and adding a new rotating platform mechanic, with some thoughts on how to build it. Continue reading →