Posts in 2023

Over the last several months I've been trying to decide how I want to keep my notes and my journals. I've gone back and forth between using a notes app and a moleskine notebook.

As I write this, my podcast queue is sitting at 1,136 episodes. Wowzers! If I listen to every episode in its entirety at normal speed would take almost 40 days. I might have a problem, and I think I need to come up with a way to help tackle this.

This week is a little podcast heavy since I'm trying to bring down my podcast queue. Also, NASA successfully returns from an asteroid.

Since my plan to start writing more will undoubtedly cause more posts on my blog, I figured I'd write down my general workflow on how I go about writing some of my more in-depth blog posts. It might sound familiar, but thought it might help someone who might be starting out.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I seem to be unable to finish a project. I have a handful side projects I've been puttering around with, but haven't been able to see them through to completion.

Recently I started reading Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. It’s a collection of short stories he’s written. At the beginning, he went through all the stories and briefly touched on each one of them. On one of them he described an interaction between a friend of his, and Ray Bradbury, author of Farenheit 451 among others. One line stood out to me.

This week I read about how mistakes made in 1999 are still relevant today, .NET 8 RC1 being released, and the never-ending scam that is public funding for sports stadiums.

Summer here in the Northeast USA is winding down and I couldn't be happier.

This week we look at privacy nightmares in new cars, updates to security in .NET, email development being awful, and more.

August was a mostly uneventful month, which seems to be par for the course for me. I'm good with that though, I like being able to take it easy...especially with this heat.

Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been revising how several of my pages get their data. Instead of having to manually edit a JSON file that’s in my code base, I’ve been pulling from Notion’s API. The benefit of this is that it’ll be easier to update the pages. I figure I’ll show how I did it in hopes of helping others.

You might have noticed that I added a new section to my page called “Book Notes”, and RSS subscribers might have noticed the same thing. Inspired by a Mastodon post by Matthias Ott, I decided to add something more than quick notes on the books I read.

This week I finally read a great profile on Mike Masnick, the founder of TechDirt, NASA being concerned with its ability to maintain its Deep Space Network, more reasons to just build your sites, and more.

This week includes hacking through social engineering, coffee and sleep, a classic Star Wars game, and more.

Over the last week and a half, I've been starting to play around with Astro again. I had built a good bit of my site in it a while back, but then decided just to re-jigger my Next.js site. Reading and listening to some podcasts has brought me back to starting over.

Hey there, this week I read about the question of if a "Regular Joe" could get a hit in the major leagues, more .NET 8 news, NYT and ChatGPT, and more.

Something that's been on my todo list for a while is to improve my sleeping habits.

A little heavy on podcasts this week.

Over the last year, I’ve been posting my weekly reading log. This is my list of articles and various things on the Internet I’ve read that I found particularly interesting or helpful. The way I’ve started to manage them is through a Notion database.

I was listening to ShopTalk Episode 553 and Dave asked a question that made me pause and think, hmmm…

This week we look at the danger of KOSA, a new dark matter telescope, and the dangers of climate change.

July was a scorcher. I know we had it lucky compared to other areas of the world, but I don’t do well in the heat so the constant 90º weather was not pleasant for me.

One of the things I wanted to integrate with this project was user accounts. I am not sure that I really need it since I’m not really intending to release my card collection app as a full fledged website for the masses. But I still wanted to add it in if for no other reason than to learn.

A little light this week, but I've read about a new horrible law being pushed through U.S. Congress that could ruin the internet, Google supporting some bad DRM policies and more.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction and have been watching some documentaries like The Roosevelts. I’ve found them to be incredibly interesting, but also very much in depth with a lot of information to digest. Sometimes it feels like I’m back in middle school, but I’ve started to take notes on what I’ve been reading and watching.

It’s another double issue as I was away in Maryland last weekend. Lots of stuff in here from many classic games being no longer available, new C# & .NET features, some CSS tricks, and an unfortunate outcome in the FTC vs. Microsoft case regarding their acquisition of Activision.

With the latest news with Paramount+ and Disney/Hulu pulling their own content from their own services, it's gotten me thinking quite a bit about ownership of what you purchase.

A Lot of software development links this week as well as a history of the fall of Google Reader and more.

Half the year is over. This month also had me surviving another trip around the sun.

Got a lot this week. The NHL and Paramount+ make very poor decisions, some CSS & dev tool tips, Meta's possibly joining ActivityPub and more.

This past week Paramount announced the cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy. And to make matters even worse, they have since pulled the series off of its Paramount+ service.

Last year, the hubbub started when Flyers (my team sadly) defenseman Ivan Provorov decided to not skate warmups wearing the Flyers pride night jersey. Of the 20 active skaters and goalies, he was the only person to not be out there on the ice, and in the pride jersey. This week, the NHL & Gary Bettman gave into the anti-LGBT hate and said that teams will not wear specialty jerseys for warmups in the 2023-24 season.

Two weeks worth of articles this week as I was in New York City last weekend. This log has a bunch of news out of the Microsoft-Activision acquisition, Reddit following the path of Twitter, and more.

I’ve been pretty good with my fitness to start the year. For the first 3 months of the year I worked out in some fashion just about every day. Then I tweaked my hip flexor and it came crashing down.

Well, it’s official...I deleted my two Reddit accounts.

This week I read about Reddit’s bullshit and CEOs screwing over employees.

I mentioned in my last reading log that Reddit looked to be making changes to its API pricing and wanted to put down some more thoughts on the matter.

A little light this week, but some changes to the Reddit API look to be coming, AI might not be the job killer many seem to think it is and more.

May was a bit of a frustrating month, but I can’t fully point my finger at why exactly. I ended up tweaking a muscle early in the month that limited my physical activities, but not much else really jumps out at me as to why the month felt off.

Wow, 30 issues now of my reading log in its current format! This week I read about Instagram joining the fediverse, Google’s AMP disaster, the importance of core functionality working without JavaScript, and more.

It was 10 years ago when I ended up starting to play ice hockey. I had tried playing baseball again but ended up hurting my shoulder so I opted for trying something new.

Over the course of the last month, I’ve been reading a three book series written by Ian W. Toll on the history of World War II in the Pacific. I’m currently on the second book and I can’t recommend it enough.

I’ve finally started going through all my RSS feeds, so there’s a lot to this week’s log. The topics are all over the place from the IRS doing what it should have done from the beginning, to a boneheaded decision to add some new top level domains, to the US Supreme Court saving Section 230.

This week I look at a new game that helps illuminate what the content moderators of sites like Twitter, Facebook and Reddit have to deal with. I’ve also read about writing better CSS, Bookshop.org’s rise, return to office shenanigans and more.

Between a weekend trip and my site update, this has been 3 weeks in the making. This log we look at the passing of a folk legend, Microsoft reverting to its old ways, Microsoft facing a hurdle in its Activision acquisition, some chatty parrots, and more.

I enjoy playing hockey and will often play as much as 3 nights a week. Being an adult, I’m stuck with the late ice times so the kiddos can be home and in bed. This means that I’m often not starting games until 10:00 to 10:30pm some nights. This means that I’m not home until midnight some nights. Add in the rush of adrenaline from playing and it’s not a fun combo. I’ve started to settle into a good habit though.

April wasn’t a bad month. I was productive and was able to finish the month with a well deserved long weekend vacation.

Over the course of the last month or so, I’ve been tweaking the design of my site. You might have noticed the changes to the look and the feel.

As a kid, I loved it when my parents took me to the library. I read often and loved checking out books to read. As an adult it’s no different.

This week a lot of details were announced about .NET 8 and C# 12. Also included is NPR leaving Twitter, Uber screwing drivers, and the power of libraries.

NASA makes a big announcement about Artemis II, rumors about Apple’s USB-C iPhone, Twitter being Twitter, and more.

Now that I was getting my feet wet, it was time for me to start laying out the framework for my first real Blazor project. Step one was to get the database setup.

March wasn't a particularly bad month, had a wedding a whiskey dinner.

Podcast heavy this week. I've been trying to go through and listen to my unruly queue.

Right now, I am currently subscribed to 170 podcasts. And while I don't necessarily listen to every episode of every podcast I subscribe to, it does lead to my podcast queue to become rather unruly.

You know all those supposedly "good" password rules? Well, they tend not to be so good.

I've been hearing a lot of good things about Blazor for a while now and as a .NET developer I figured it was time for me to see what the fuss was about.

New updates about .NET 8 & TypeScript, JavaScript failures & progressive enhancement, and more.

This week I read about the web becoming more miserable, and dysfunction in D.C. over tech issues.

Two months in and the year has been going relatively well. Bummed the Eagles couldn't pull off a Super Bowl win, but no complaints otherwise.

Due to a trip out of town last weekend, this edition has 2 weeks worth of links!

I just moved my reading logs into their own page and unfortunately I'm dealing with a few side effects caused by it.

CSS is finally getting a killer feature, Elon is being Elon & the Supreme Court hears an important Internet case.

I forget what I was reading, but there was a line in it about luck that stuck with me.

Some criticism and defense of React this week.

It seems like a new year just started and already we're one month in...

This week we look at the next version of TypeScript, the new version of EntityFramework, a big acquisition at Netlify and more.

A lot of CSS related posts this week. Also, Astro v2.0 was released this week. I've been toying with building something in it, and it looks like it's added a bunch of good stuff. And one of my favorite games as a kid has been re-launched on the Xbox and the Switch!

RIP Tweetbot.

A little light this week. Identity thieves targeted a credit reporting agency, a look at the podcasting market, and more.

While I didn't quite hit my 2022 goal of 30 books, I did manage to read 20 books.

A scary moment in the NFL Monday night. Also lots of podcasts this week.

Well, 2022 is now over and done with, and I don't feel like much has changed.

December was a quiet month, but I feel like I spent the better part of it dealing with colds.