Notes

Short updates, links, and thoughts that do not need to be full blog posts.

@tchambers where would I go to donate the costs of running indieweb.social?

I have no idea what to do with myself in the liminal time between Christmas and New Years! Should I be tinkering with tech projects that I'm interested in, or just playing video games guilt free?

Today is my birthday. For some reason turning 31 feels way older than 30!

Starting to see a lot more people I know arrive from twitter!

Here was one of the touch-and-gos

I took my sister with me today and she just send me a few more photos

Me flying a light aircraft. The photo is take from the passenger seat. You can see some building and the coast line below us.The passengers view from the cockpit of a light aircraft. Switches and dials are visible on the dashboard. Outside of the plane you can see the town ( Newtownards) below.My sister and I smiling together while in the airScrabo Tower framed by wing struts on a light airplane

I just read a crazy article about the longest flight ever. It lasted nearly 65 days and was flown in a Cessna 172.

https://hackaday.com/2021/10/25/the-longest-ever-flight-was-over-64-days-in-a-cessna-172/

I got a flight squeezed in today and managed to climb above the clouds to enjoy some sunshine.

The clouds seen from above in a little airplane

I know I’m getting older as I just bought a new fuel can and I’m genuinely excited for it arriving 👴🏻

Is there a way to get library books on a Kindle in the UK?

Is anyone using @GitHub #CodeSpaces for a multi-repo setup. Every time few months I spend a couple of days trying to get it working, fail and vow to try again later.

I'm doing Advent of Code #AoC in #rust this year as a to help me try an learn it. I'm using Github copilot to help and honestly it is a game changer.

Here are my solutions so far.

https://github.com/ThePaulMcBride/aoc-rust-2022

I just bought a kindle and it’s pretty cool. The best part though is the display. #eink is criminally underrated tech!

I was converting my personal site over to use a CMS and changed my mind at the last minute. MDX is just too damn handy. I just wish handling images was better. I want my build system to optimise them, stick them in the cloud then never think about them again.

I finally got to go #flying today. We flew a few circuits to make sure I still knew how to land before heading south to Slieve Croob then on to Bishopscourt before returning to Ards.

My wife Ellie and I in the cockpit of a light aircraft. Were both smiling and wearing aviation headsets.Slieve Donard in the distance with clouds rolling around it. I the foreground is a small lake surrounded by green fields. The wing of the plane the photo was taken from is visible in the top of the photo.Scrabo tower, framed by the wing structs of a light aircraft

I decided to check Twitter to see if I had any notifications. I've not logged in in over a week and I had notifications about random content from people I follow!

Is this Twitter trying to reengage me or is this a horrifying new feature?!

A screenshot of the twitter notifications tab. Three notifications are visible. They are just random posts from people I follow.

I’ll be going flying tomorrow. I’m a private pilot and for the first time in weeks, my time off lines up with suitable weather. I am very excited! Anyone interested in that kinda thing and want to know more about it? Feel free to ask!

What is the most likely reason that the #fediverse fails? What are the failure criteria? How do we make sure that is doesn’t?

A way to achieve #DigitalSovereignty right now is by having a #domain. A url on on the web that is canonically you. I expect that a significant number of fediversians do. Do you own and use a personal domain?

This looks like an interesting library. I love #rails, but I’m not a fan of #ruby.

https://hyperstackjs.io

I've been using #Arc by TheBrowserCompany for my main browser for both #WebDev and general use a few months now and love it.

I'm a heavy keyboard shortcut user and had to break a few habits, but I would recommend checking it out.

https://thebrowser.company/

A screenshot of my desktop. The only application open is my browser arc. One tab is open on https://paulmcbride.com, my personal website.

Andor, the new Star Wars tv show is excellent. Highly recommend!

The #fediverse has a real potential to democratise access to information. The status quo is an algorithm that we have no insight over showing us content that will keep us hooked. With Mastodon we see things posted by the people we follow in the order they posted them. Frankly it’s a little boring and that’s a good thing. Mastodon is most engaging when your involved in conversation with other people. On Twitter you could doomscroll forever. Here, you have conversations, then get on with your life

My copy of #Rust in Action by Tim McNamara (@timClicks) just arrived.

A copy of the book Rust in Action being held up against a grey wall. The cover of the book depicts the sketch on a man in red trousers and a white shirt. His fists are raised.

The #ActivityPub spec only describes how servers and clients should communicate, it doesn't cover how that data should be presented to people.

I think it's only a matter of time before someone builds a timeline algorithm for #fediverse content that might even show #ads.

I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but if it allows people that run servers to cover their expenses, it could help ensure that they (and by extension, your content) stick around a lot longer.