@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

tbaxter

@tbaxter@mastodon.social

Ex-designer, occasional dev, recovering journalist & lousy guitarist. Proud 18F alumni. These days I usually traffic in management musings, civic tech thoughts and bad jokes.
Don't blame my employer for the dumb things I say.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

tbaxter, to random
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@jacob my search skills are failing me... didn't you write something once on the perils of managers uttering the contextless "have a minute"?

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@jacob I thought so. Thank you.

aardrian, to random
@aardrian@toot.cafe avatar

This is a big reason I find demands that users upgrade to the latest release to be unrealistic, and why companies need to support more versions than “latest minus one” or “current release minus 6 months” or whatever.

Reminds me of current problems with Sonos or Tandem.

https://mastodon.stickbear.me/@seedy/112412309443250570

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@aardrian Your post finds me the same day I discover my perfectly capable Mac Mini Plex server is bricked because Plex auto-updated me to a version the Mini can't run while Apple won't allow me to update the OS.

clive, to random
@clive@saturation.social avatar

As I behold "Crush!", the new Apple ad for their Ipad Pro ...

... I fluctuate, with heisenbergian indeterminacy, between "they are clearly trolling us" and "they are totally earnest and have no idea how completely sociopathic they appear"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@clive I think it may be the best illustration yet of the unsustainability of technology consumerism.

webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

🤔 Friends, I'm helpful.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology True.

llimllib, to random
@llimllib@hachyderm.io avatar

When people named files "utils", or data types "data", I like to imagine that they twirled their snidely whiplash mustaches as they did it

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@llimllib Everyone knows you're supposed to name the whole directory "utils"

eric, to random
@eric@social.ericwbailey.website avatar

aria-direct-line: Requires the valid email address or phone number of the designer of the website or web app.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@eric better yet, the primary stakeholder

webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

🤔 I am more and more of the opinion that most organizations should skip Google Groups for email and use a service like https://forwardemail.net instead.

😭 I say this as someone who has to check at least six different email accounts on different Google Accounts, which is a drag.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology I've grown to be pretty worried about security and privacy of Google email. Haven't stopped using it (yet) but I am increasingly convinced they're feeding everyone's "private" emails into the machine.

davatron5000, to random
@davatron5000@mastodon.social avatar

Oh cool, they’re using AI to [checks notes] determine my children’s academic prospects!?!!?

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/staar-artificial-intelligence-computer-grading-texas/

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology do you know of a good pinboard replacement and/or maybe a self-hosted open-source version?

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology That's enough of an endorsement to make me drop the idea of rolling my own. For now. :-D

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology Playing with Raindrop now. if nothing else, I think it will be a good way to firm up what I want.

On my current list:

  • For other services that have their own bookmark-like saving functionality (like pinterest) capture those
  • Attempt to capture a representative image, maybe from og:image
  • MAYBE an AI-generated synopsis (mostly as an excuse to play with AI APIs)
webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

TIL: Brandolini’s law

💬 The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology I don't even need to follow the link to know Brandolini's law must predate computers and their ability to produce bullshit At Scale.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology Coincidentally within seconds of seeing your post I saw @matthew also make a Brandolini reference, which is a weird cosmic moment.

tbaxter, to random
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

Lazyweb: is there a preferred way to collect and mark up "found" content and links on an 11ty site? Some established workflow or something?

Hoping maybe @zachleat or @matthiasott may chime in, along with anyone else who knows!

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@zachleat @matthiasott @nhoizey Yeah, that does look a lot like what I'm looking for!

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@zachleat @matthiasott @nhoizey Well, the output is pretty close to what I'm looking for, but what I'd really like to see is a walkthrough from capturing the links (bookmarklet?) through output.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@zachleat @matthiasott @nhoizey

Closing the loop on my quest for an 11ty Linkroll, I now have one and have written up how: https://another.rodeo/linkroll/

Thank you all!

webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

✏️ Last night, I wrote about "My Python Roots,” which includes my first Python app and two libraries that inspired me to learn Python.

I didn't mention Django, but Django is what eventually made me a Python developer. https://mastodon.social/@webology/112079972029205338

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology That's awesome. I was inspired by Jeff Croft's "Django for Designers" and thought "Hey, I think I could do that". So I did. That was Django 0.95 era, if I recall correctly.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

Putting together the blog post collection has meant trying to find old links in the Wayback Machine

One was this one by the legendary Kathy Sierra in 2004. It’s both inspiring and depressing, because we all know what happened in the intervening two decades

“A Computer Book Author’s Manifesto” https://web.archive.org/web/20120118171954/http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/ksmanifesto.html

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur I still miss Kathy on the internet but genuinely hope she's living a MUCH better life away from it.

webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

✏️ My daily writing streak continues. Here's what happened last week.

🏀 With March Madness approaching, I don't expect to keep it up all month, but one day at a time until then. https://mastodon.social/@webology/112074369710168211

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology I am astounded by your ability to write something daily with all the other things you have going on. Just amazed.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology I'm trying to put myself on a weekly schedule. I am a little antsy about the response to today's.

jonhicks, to random
@jonhicks@mastodon.social avatar

Fallen down a rabbit hole of third party Apple Music apps that offer different layouts and things like last.fm scrobbling - Cider, Marvis Pro (!) & Soor. Anyone used any others?

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@jonhicks Y'know I've been looking for an app that will import and understand smart playlists, but maybe what I just need is a better client. hmmmm.

tbaxter, to random
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

Some thoughts on writing more effective technical documentation, the futility of the Single Source of Truth and the importance of knowing your audience.

https://another.rodeo/know-your-audience/

webology, to random
@webology@mastodon.social avatar

🎉 I posted for 29/30 days in a row on my micro blog. https://micro.webology.dev/archive/

I am not necessarily sold on the platform, but it did well enough (sans lack of image support) to get the job done.

My goal from here will be to port this back to my blog and to migrate my blog from static back to Django.

I'll probably do a write-up later or tomorrow on the rest of the wonderful @wigglework folks who also joined me for the last month.

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@webology I have this probably dumb idea to set up django locally as my authoring interface and having it output 11ty templates (mostly markdown files) for deployment. I'm not sure it makes any sense, but I kinda just think I could make it work so then i want to try.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Me: You can’t gentrify homelessness
Techbro: Hold my beer

Original post (now deleted): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jared-boynton_today-marks-day-1-of-homelessness-for-me-activity-7166172593115377664-geVb

tbaxter,
@tbaxter@mastodon.social avatar

@drahardja I'm reminded of a time in college where a bunch of people were going to have a "Night of Homelessness" to raise awareness. They brought in a DJ and absolutely massive amounts of booze. It was just short of turning into Burning Man.

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