I went through a bunch of the accounts I follow and it’s sad to see how many of them have been abandoned. I absolutely believe the #fediverse is the future of social media, but evidently we’re not there yet.
Notes
Short updates, links, and thoughts that do not need to be full blog posts.
I am having so much fun with #rust. I love that I can write code for 20 mins without ever running it and as long as I do what the error messages are telling me, I know it'll work.
I'm really happy with this post. It's not exactly a hot take, but it is how I try to approach building #software that balances quality and product velocity.
https://paulmcbride.com/posts/make-it-work-make-it-right-make-it-fast
I just spent an obscene amount of money on a keyboard from ZSA. I’m hoping it’ll help with the twinges of RSI I’ve been feeling but I’m more excited about programming it.
I'm really enjoying working with #rust! Treating errors as regular values makes so much more sense than the try/catch nonsense in #javascript land.
Please @ivory let me go to my profile when I tap my avatar at the top left.
I'm setting up an #RSS reader using @feedbin. Send me your favourite developer feeds.
I built a little cli tool in #Rust that would be useful for private pilots. It's called logbook and is exactly what it sounds like; a tool for recording your flights.
If you have any experience with this stuff, I'd love some guidance on how to distribute such a tool!
Here is a link to the repo, and a demo: https://github.com/ThePaulMcBride/logbook_rs
I’ve been using the Henson razor every week for over a year now and every time I use it I’m still excited by how good it is!
I could happily listen to music by Foy Vance exclusively for the rest of my life
I wrote a little about #stoicism
Note to self: When it comes to learning, there is no substitute for doing
I just deployed my first #rust API service. It doesn't do much, essentially, reading a bunch of markdown files and serving them as JSON, but it was fun to build!
There is no read me right now. I'll maybe add one later.
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
The older I get the more this seems true
I’ve been reading about the #kagi drama today (They have started using the Brave API for search results. The CEO of Brave is problematic.) and it has surfaced a lot of interesting questions I’ve not thought deeply about before.
Should a private company have the power to sensor content on their platforms?
There are obvious arguments for this right? Nazis are obviously bad etc. But if we force companies to do that, where do they draw the line? Who actually decides what is right and wrong?
In a non perfect world, how many levels removed from something your find amoral do you have to be before you’re okay benefitting from it?
In some ways we all do that, right?
I get that these are all just my dumb thoughts and that I have a lot of privilege, but are there any right answers to those questions where there aren’t also negative consequences?
This cartoon is relevant I think

I hate clothes shopping. Everything is poorly made stretchy denim crap. There is no amount of money I wouldn’t spend on a pair of jeans that are made of actual denim and that fit me.
My favourite thing about #mastodon is how it’s kinda boring. I can scroll for 5 mins a few times a day then get back to the real world. That may sound like a bad thing, but I think it might be why this place is so pleasant compared to Twitter.
Incase you missed it yesterday, I did some writing about writing: https://paulmcbride.com/posts/writing-is-thinking
I'm researching for an post that I'm writing and came across this video. I know I'm fairly susceptible to stoic focused advice, but it is excellent. I highly recommend giving it a watch.
This last year, I've spent a lot more time writing it has made me a better thinker.
I just tried our https://helix-editor.com and it is nice! If you like #vim, check it out.
Are any of you running #linux as your main desktop OS? What are you using? What is it like? Anything you wish you’d known when you started?
It’s my birthday today. I’m now 32. I woke up wanting to learn about Linux. Is that normal?
Anyway, I just installed pihole on a server and use Tailscale to route all my dns lookups through it.
On the eve of my 32nd birthday, I find myself wondering when I went from being young and wild to being excited to show people how much water my dehumidifier has collected.
Ireland is far from perfect, but this Christmas message from Michael D. Higgins is well worth a listen. He’s the president of Ireland, which is mostly a ceremonial position, but he uses that position to speak truth to power.
https://president.ie/en/diary/details/christmas-message-from-president-michael-d-higgins23/video