<p>This week I read about the web becoming more miserable, and dysfunction in D.C. over tech issues.</p>
<h2 id="in-depth">In Depth</h2>
<p>&lt;InDepthNotes
    source=&quot;Elizabeth Lopatto&quot;
    title=&quot;I don&#39;t want to log in to your website&quot;
    url=&quot;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618804/google-facebook-login-ads-web-design-hell&quot;">https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618804/google-facebook-login-ads-web-design-hell&quot;</a></p>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre><code>The title says it all. If I need to login or enter my email to read your article, I&#39;m not going to. I&#39;ll simply close the tab and move on.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;The web is becoming a miserable experience because some salesbro who is trying to meet his KPIs is doing stuff to marginally increase the number of paying customers.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

I get that websites need to make money and that ads don&#39;t always cut it…especially when there are so many like myself that block ads. But if I&#39;m just reading a single article, cut me a break.

And Elizabeth talks about that too.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;I understand that. Shit, if I&#39;m reading more than 10 of your articles a month, I probably *should* subscribe. Fair&#39;s fair, and writers have to eat just like everyone else.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

I do subscribe to some sites to support their journalism, but sadly I don&#39;t have the money, nor time to subscribe to everything. I&#39;d like to, but I, and many others can&#39;t.
</code></pre>
</InDepthNotes>

<p>&lt;InDepthNotes
    source=&quot;Ashley Belanger&quot;
    title=&quot;Biden helped draft bipartisan bill that could ban TikTok nationwide&quot;
    url=&quot;<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/biden-helped-draft-bipartisan-bill-that-could-ban-tiktok-nationwide/&quot;">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/biden-helped-draft-bipartisan-bill-that-could-ban-tiktok-nationwide/&quot;</a></p>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre><code>I&#39;m not really a fan of TikTok. I don&#39;t have an account and I can&#39;t see any reason that would make me create an account. That said, if the government or other entities are worried about China slurping up all our data, I got news for you…banning TikTok isn&#39;t going to stop them, it&#39;ll just drive them to other sources, like the unregulated data broker industry.

If the concern is China, the best defense is to pass laws and regulations that target the data brokers. The laws and regulations can have the added benefit of protecting U.S. consumers from those gathering all our data, both foreign and domestic.
</code></pre>
</InDepthNotes>

<h2 id="link-blast">Link Blast</h2>
<h3 id="👨🏼💻-software-development--design">👨🏼‍💻 Software Development &amp; Design</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.planetgeek.ch/2023/03/01/myths-about-f-imperative-code-is-simpler-than-functional-code-no-not-at-all-but-you-are-more-used-to-it/">Myths about F#: Imperative code is simpler than functional code! No, not at all, but you are more used to it.</a> <em>(Urs Enzler)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://sixlabors.com/posts/announcing-imagesharp-300/">Announcing ImageSharp 3.0.0</a> <em>(Six Labors)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.joshwcomeau.com/career/clever-code-considered-harmful/">Clever Code Considered Harmful</a> <em>(Josh W. Comeau)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://blog.ploeh.dk/2023/03/06/warnings-as-errors-friction/">Warnings-as-errors friction</a> <em>(Mark Seemann)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.claudiobernasconi.ch/2023/03/03/the-required-keyword-in-csharp-11/">The Required Keyword in C# 11</a> <em>(Claudio Bernasconi)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://geoffgraham.me/my-css-tricks-top-10/">My CSS-Tricks Top 10</a> <em>(Geoff Graham)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://begin.com/blog/posts/2023-02-28-redefining-developer-experience">Redefining Developer Experience</a> <em>(Cole Peters)</em></p>
<h3 id="🖥-technology--the-internet">🖥 Technology &amp; the Internet</h3>
<p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/01/us-postal-service-change-of-address-fraud/">The life-upending flaw that USPS won&#39;t fix</a> <em>(Zack Whittaker)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/01/our-growing-tiktok-moral-panic-still-isnt-addressing-the-actual-problem/">Our Growing TikTok Moral Panic Still Isn&#39;t Addressing The Actual Problem</a> <em>(Karl Bode)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/06/ford-submits-a-patent-that-would-allow-cars-to-repossess-themselves/">Ford Submits A Patent That Would Allow Cars To Repossess Themselves</a> <em>(Tim Cushing)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/7/23629307/gigi-sohn-withdraws-fcc-commissioner-nomination">Gigi Sohn withdraws her nomination for President Joe Biden&#39;s FCC</a> <em>(Makena Kelly)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence">Sci-fi magazine &#39;Clarkesworld&#39; stops submissions after a rush of AI-made stories</a> <em>(Vincent Acovino, Mary Louise Kelly, &amp; Halimah Abdullah)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎮-gaming">🎮 Gaming</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-launched-a-decade-ago-and-it-was-so-disastrous-it-killed-the-series/">SimCity launched a decade ago, and it was so disastrous it killed the series</a> <em>(Callum Bains)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2023/03/06/cities-skylines-ii-annnounced-releasing-this-year">Cities: Skylines II Annnounced, Releasing This Year</a> <em>(Marcus Stewart)</em></p>
<h3 id="📈-business--finance">📈 Business &amp; Finance</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-fill-an-office-today-waive-the-rent-6ff4f9ec">How to Fill an Office Today? Waive the Rent</a> <em>(Carol Ryan)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2023/03/06/immigrants-help-fill-gaps-in-trucking-workforce/">Immigrants help fill gaps in trucking workforce</a> <em>(Elizabeth Trovall)</em></p>
<h3 id="🔬-science">🔬 Science</h3>
<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/nasa-will-target-november-2024-to-send-astronauts-around-the-moon/">NASA studying unexpected performance of Orion&#39;s heat shield ahead of crew mission</a> <em>(Eric Berger)</em></p>
<h3 id="⚾-sports">⚾ Sports</h3>
<p><a href="https://theathletic.com/4285101/2023/03/08/flyers-prospects-artem-anisimov-ahl/">How Artem Anisimov embraced his role as a mentor to Flyers&#39; AHL prospects</a> <em>(Charlie O&#39;Connor)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎒-everything-else">🎒 Everything Else</h3>
<p><a href="https://armoxon.substack.com/p/the-case-for-shunning">The Case For Shunning</a> <em>(A.R. Moxon)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://ericwbailey.website/published/i-doubled-down-on-rss/">I doubled-down on RSS</a> <em>(Eric Bailey)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎵-a-song-to-leave-you-with">🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h3>
<h4 id="nothington---the-lies-i-need">Nothington - The Lies I Need</h4>
<p><YouTubeEmbed
    id="4sPZkQ8RPEw"
    title="Nothington - The Lies I Need"
/></p>


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

Reading Log - March 10 (#21)

<p>NASA&#39;s InSight probe has seemingly sent its last signal back to Earth. Some questionable security from iRobot, and a little bit of Twitter drama makes up some of this week&#39;s reading.</p>
<h2 id="in-depth">In Depth</h2>
<p>&lt;InDepthNotes
    source=&quot;Luke Plunkett&quot;
    title=&quot;The Best Star Wars Video Game&quot;
    url=&quot;<a href="https://kotaku.com/the-best-star-wars-video-game-1701922268&quot;">https://kotaku.com/the-best-star-wars-video-game-1701922268&quot;</a></p>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre><code>I loved this game when it came out. I loved all the games that came out after this too. I wish that Disney would get a game developer to make a good sequel to the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight series.
</code></pre>
</InDepthNotes>

<h2 id="link-blast">Link Blast</h2>
<h3 id="👨🏼💻-software-development--design">👨🏼‍💻 Software Development &amp; Design</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/how-to-structure-your-dot-net-solutions-design-and-trade-offs/">How To Structure Your .NET Solutions: Architecture And Trade-Offs</a> <em>(James Hickey)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://devclass.com/2022/12/22/microsoft-plans-pre-compiled-queries-for-entity-framework-and-may-replace-old-and-crufty-net-sql-server-provider/">Microsoft plans pre-compiled queries for Entity Framework, and may replace old and crufty .NET SQL Server provider</a> <em>(Tim Anderson)</em></p>
<h3 id="🖥-technology--the-internet">🖥 Technology &amp; the Internet</h3>
<p><a href="https://tfos.co/p/rebuild-social-media/">How to rebuild social media on top of RSS</a> <em>(Jacob O&#39;Bryant)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/20/no-the-fbi-is-not-paying-twitter-to-censor/">No, The FBI Is NOT &#39;Paying Twitter To Censor&#39;</a> <em>(Mike Masnick)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/oktas-source-code-stolen-after-github-repositories-hacked/">Okta&#39;s source code stolen after GitHub repositories hacked</a> <em>(Ax Sharma)</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/">A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?</a> <em>(Eileen Guo)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎮-gaming">🎮 Gaming</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/classic-fps-star-wars-dark-forces-has-gotten-a-well-deserved-glow-up">Classic FPS Star Wars: Dark Forces has gotten a well deserved glow-up</a> <em>(CJ Wheeler)</em></p>
<h3 id="📈-business--finance">📈 Business &amp; Finance</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/22/the-free-market-is-failing-us-on-antibiotics/">The free market is failing us on antibiotics</a> <em>(Sabri Ben-Achour)</em></p>
<h3 id="🔬-science">🔬 Science</h3>
<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/nasas-insight-lander-has-probably-phoned-home-for-the-last-time/">After a long struggle with Martian dust, NASA&#39;s InSight probe has gone quiet</a> <em>(Eric Berger)</em></p>
<h3 id="⚾-sports">⚾ Sports</h3>
<p><a href="https://theathletic.com/4026971/2022/12/22/mets-steve-cohen-spending/">Steve Cohen&#39;s Mets spending spree and the ramifications for the rest of the league</a> <em>(Evan Drellich)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎧-podcasts">🎧 Podcasts</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/chatgpt-can-write-english-essays-quite-well-how-are-teachers-going-to-deal/">Marketplace Tech: ChatGPT can write English essays...quite well. How are teachers going to deal?</a></p>
<p><a href="https://nodogmapodcast.bryanhogan.net/163-jared-parsons-the-c-compiler-part-1/">No Dogma #163: Jared Parsons, The C# Compiler, Part 1</a></p>
<p><a href="https://nodogmapodcast.bryanhogan.net/164-jared-parsons-the-c-compiler-part-2/">No Dogma #164: Jared Parsons, The C# Compiler, Part 2</a></p>
<p><a href="https://hanselminutes.com/838/cross-platform-uis-with-c-and-avalonia-with-dan-walmsley">Hanselminutes #838: Cross-platform UIs with C# and Avalonia with Dan Walmsley</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095354740/what-leadership-looks-like">TED Radio Hour: What Leadership Looks Like</a></p>
<p><a href="https://hanselminutes.com/872/hachyderms-kris-nova-on-running-a-mastodon-server">Hanselminutes #872: Hachyderm&#39;s Kris Nova on Running a Mastodon Server</a></p>
<h3 id="🎒-everything-else">🎒 Everything Else</h3>
<p><a href="https://timharford.com/2022/12/quitting-is-underrated/">Quitting is Underrated</a> <em>(Tim Harford)</em></p>
<h3 id="🎵-a-song-to-leave-you-with">🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h3>
<h4 id="brand-new---cant-get-it-out">Brand New - Can&#39;t Get It Out</h4>
<p><YouTubeEmbed
    id="\_esbL0or930"
    title="Brand New - Can't Get It Out"
/></p>


NASA&#39;s InSight probe has seemingly sent its last signal back to Earth. Some questionable security from iRobot, and a little bit of Twitter drama makes up some of this week&#39;s reading.

Reading Log - December 23 (#11)

<p>I&#39;ve been tweaking my site here and there and the one thing I recently did was change how I populate my &#39;<a href="/likes">likes</a>&#39; page. Previously I had been doing it manually, but recently after having listened to the founder of <a href="https://feedbin.com">Feedbin</a> on the <a href="https://changelog.com/podcast/499">Changelog Podcast</a>, I decided to try something different. I wanted to use a nice feature Feedbin has to make the page better.</p>
<p>I&#39;m a subscriber to <a href="https://feedbin.com">Feedbin</a> and the one feature it provides is the ability to view the items you&#39;ve starred as a feed in and of itself. That means that for any article on any of my feeds, when I star it, it gets added to its own RSS feed that is public. I decided that I was going to use that to populate my <a href="/likes">likes page</a>.</p>
<p>The first thing I needed to do was to create a TypeScript model for it.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">interface FeedbinItem {
    title: string
    link: string
    domain: string
}
</code></pre>
<p>It&#39;s a pretty simple model, I want the title, the URL, and the domain.</p>
<p>The next thing I needed to do was to find a good way to parse the XML returned from Feedbin. Since I&#39;m using Node, the DOM Parser the browser uses is a no go as the Node backend doesn&#39;t support it. Fortunately I found <a href="https://github.com/NaturalIntelligence/fast-xml-parser">fast-xml-parser</a> which does a fantastic job of converting an XML string into a JSON object that would allow me to easily go through the data returned.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">import { FeedbinItem } from &#39;@models/FeedbinItem&#39;;
import { XMLParser } from &#39;fast-xml-parser&#39;;

export const getFeedbinItems = async (): Promise&lt;FeedbinItem[]&gt; =&gt; {
    const items: FeedbinItem[] = [];

    const res = await fetch(&#39;https://feedbin.com/starred/starred-items.xml&#39;);

    if (!res.ok) {
        // handle error logic
        return [];
    }

    const response = await res.text();

    const parser = new XMLParser();
    const data = parser.parse(response);

    data.rss.channel.item.forEach((i: any) =&gt; {
        const domain = (new URL(i.link));

        items.push({
            title: i.title,
            link: i.link,
            domain: domain.hostname,
        });
    });

    return items;
};
</code></pre>
<p>The first thing I do in the code is to declare the array of items to return. I then make a fetch call to Feedbin to retrieve my starred items.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">const res = await fetch(&#39;https://feedbin.com/starred/starred-items.xml&#39;);
</code></pre>
<p>Assuming the call was successful, I create the parser and have it parse the XML into a JSON object.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">const parser = new XMLParser();
const data = parser.parse(response);
</code></pre>
<p>After that, it&#39;s simply parsing the returned items and adding them to the items array.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">data.rss.channel.item.forEach((i: any) =&gt; {
    const domain = (new URL(i.link));

    items.push({
        title: i.title,
        link: i.link,
        domain: domain.hostname,
    });
});
</code></pre>
<p>The only slight complication is me getting the domain or hostname from the article&#39;s link to add that to the model. For that, I simply create a new <code>URL</code> object and pass the link in and then grab the hostname.</p>
<p>The next step was to pull the data into the page in Next.js. Originally I was just using a <code>.ts</code> file with an array of my likes. Since it was static data, I just used Next.js&#39; <code>getStaticProps</code> to get the data from the <code>.ts</code> file and load it into the component. Since I need this to now be dynamic, I switched to the <code>getServerSideProps</code> so that the call is made on the server, rendered on the server, and sent down to the client after.</p>
<p>I wrapped the fetch code above into its own file to make the <code>likes.tsx</code> component a little cleaner.</p>
<pre><code class="language-ts">import { getFeedbinItems } from &#39;@lib/feedbin&#39;;
import { FeedbinItem } from &#39;@models/FeedbinItem&#39;;

export const getServerSideProps: GetStaticProps = async () =&gt; {
    const data = await getFeedbinItems();

    return {
        props: {
            // only return most recent 25
            likedItems: data.slice(0, 25),
        },
    };
};

type LikeProps = {
    likedItems: FeedbinItem[];
};

const Likes = ({ likedItems }: LikeProps): JSX.Element =&gt; {
    // the render code
}
</code></pre>
<p>It&#39;s pretty simple. When the page is to be rendered, it loads the starred items from my custom RSS feed, and passes the items into the React component.</p>
<p>So there you have it. It&#39;s a pretty simple thing to setup, and it provides me a way to keep my likes page a little more up-to-date without having to manually add items. Of course it means that the items I star have to be part of an RSS feed, but that&#39;s why everyone should have a blog of their own WITH an RSS feed.</p>
<p><em>Edited 8/3/2022 - Typo/Grammar Edit</em></p>


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