From the archives — 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'

Was true a year ago and is currently true today.

Done. Removed the Discover feed from BlueSky. I was getting a little too obsessed with it and depressed from it. It’s reverse chronological from here on out.

(Honestly, I should probably cut down on social media altogether, but one step at a time.)

Day 19: equal

Full disclosure: I used the Google Photo AI erasure tool to remove the front number-plates from these two silver Toyota Echoes (if you’re a regular reader, you can probably guess why). #mbjune

Two cars of the same make, model, and colour are parked side by side in a parking lot at night with a building in the background.

Found a particularly interesting bug in Safari when I tried adding a background transition to radio-button labels styled to look like regular buttons. Tapping the labels on the iPad causes the background colour to flicker:

Fixed it by working around the problem: I only need the transition when the user taps “Submit”, so I held-off from applying the transition attributes until that happens. But wow, what an weird way to fail.

Pro tip: don’t copy the .git directory of one repository over the .git directory of another. Some weird and wacky things will happen, like the active branch changing from underneith you to the files you modified being in conflict with those same files being deleted.

Tried out the Micro.blog Raycast extension by Tynan Purdy. Works well. I am curious to know how customisable the input form is. A larger text box and a character counter would be nice.

Auto-generated description: A post to Micro.blog is being composed with text about Meta putting ads in WhatsApp, relating it to Microsoft's attempt to add ads in Skype.

Thinking of Meta putting ads in WhatsApp reminds me of when Microsoft tried ads in Skype. The pitch for users, as I was to understand it, was that the ads will help drive the conversation. I know my life could be spiced up with a conversation about dishwashing detergent.

Day 18: texture

#mbjune

Auto-generated description: A geometric pattern of hexagons in black and green overlays an intricate background with hints of wires and electronic components.

Mark this day where I got swayed to build something atop of Kubernetes rather than doing something hand-rolled. Hope not to look back on this day when things are broken and delayed and I have no idea of how to fix it.

I think I’ve decided that I prefer Canberra in the summer rather than the winter. Sure it means you’re likely to get the hot weather, but it needs to get really hot before you decide not to go outside. And getting outside when the temperature is at or below freezing is just as hard. 🥶

🔗 Nicholas Bate: The Greatest Productivity Tips, 159

Simply because we do not affix a postage stamp to our e-mail does not mean it is free. That mail has a huge cost in productivity terms: for us, in did we craft it correctly first time? For others in lack of certainty perhaps of what is required of them. For others in being cc’d without need.

No, mail isn’t free. It’s extraordinarily expensive.

So true. I would add that Slack is just as expensive, only that you’re making micropayments over the course of the day instead of one lump sum.

Day 17: warmth

#mbjune

A cozy fire burns brightly in a brick fireplace with logs and embers glowing.

Just watched the WWDC video on Liquid Glass and I must say it looks pretty nice. Granted I’ve not actually used any part of this new design yet, but if they can manage to pull it off, it’ll be quite a refreshing new look.

Day 16: blur

#mbjune

A blurry view from a moving vehicle shows a landscape with fields and distant hills under a gray sky.

🔗 82MHz: Blogs are still a thing

One more for the “blogging’s not dead yet” list everyone’s keeping.

Blogging is a small niche these days. There isn’t much hype around it, nor is there any money to be made because the VC firms are all busy chasing the next big thing […] But it is still here, and I like it exactly because it’s not the hype technology of the day anymore. It isn’t commercialised, algorithmically curated and set up to make some other person rich.

That’s why I like it too. It’s a slow, quiet, and comfortable form of online interaction.

Via: Mastodon boost by Brent Simmons

Gallery: Day Trip to Yass

Decided to go to Yass today, a small town in NSW just north of where I’m staying in Canberra. I pass by Yass every time I drive to Canberra from Melbourne, and I wanted to see what it was like, at least once. And this morning I discovered that it had a railway museum, which sealed the deal. Unfortunately the weather was not kind: it was bitterly cold and rainy the whole time I was there.

First stop was the Railway Museum, which featured quite a few bits of rolling stock that operated on the Yass tramway. Yes, Yass had a tramway which, given the size of the town, I was not expecting.

This was followed by lunch at a local cafe, then a brief walk by the Yass river, which had an old tram bridge. I managed to walk around 500 metres from the bridge to the footy oval. It would’ve been nice to walk a bit longer, but it was cold, wet, and the ground was quite slippery. Plus I had to get home to spend some time with the birds. But I did make a brief diversion to Yass Junction railway station to see if there were any trains passing through (unfortunately, there were none).

Day 15: tie

Was wondering what I’d submit for today until I realised that the bird cage had all sorts of toys with tied knots. #mbjune

Various natural and wooden toys hang from a woven structure, possibly for pets like birds or small animals.

🔗 MOR10: Blogging is dead. Long live ephemerality.

This ended up being quite an insightful piece, particularly around how much better the authoring tools are in Instagram and other social media apps.

Via: Juha-Matti Santala

Appreciate that there's someone else out there getting driven crazy by Apple throwing up permission pop-ups everywhere in MacOS. And the Terminal, of all places.

Ricco’s taken an interest to my shoes today. Ivy, despite trying to come off as her own bird when it comes with dealing with Ricco, couldn’t help taking an interest too. 🦜

Auto-generated description: Two cockatiels with distinct plumages are perched on a person's shoe, which rests on a textured carpet.