2025-10-20 07:21:14
This was a delight to play. I don’t think you can “win”, per se, but I sure did have a lot of fun maxing out all my sprites and gardens.
I was never one of those “I got into programming so I could make games” sorts of developers, but I have made a fair share of games over the years. These sorts of text-based games were always my favorite to make.
I don’t need another project, but I might start thinking through what sort of world I’d build if I made a game like this one.
2025-10-10 20:20:18
I did go to urgent care. And while I was sitting there for an hour (accidentally bleeding on their carpet) I was reflecting on my rush to comfort the people around me for having to react to my injury, and remembered my one and only interaction with the school counselor in 6th grade. Back then elementary schools didn’t have counselors, psychologists, all that. 6th grade was the first time this concept was introduced, and I imagine his mandate was to meet with each kid at least once that year.
So I got called in, and I’m already semi-wondering if I’m in trouble for something, because I was always worried I was in trouble for something. He has me sit down and asks how I’m doing. I immediately have to hold back a flood tears. No one has ever asked me this. I don’t even know what’s happening in the moment, I just know that whatever emotions and feelings he accidentally scraped loose need to be locked down. My instinct was: I don’t want this guy I am meeting for the first time to have to worry about me or take care of me. So I just say “I’m fine, I’m fine, nothing to report, everything’s fine,” desperately trying not to leak tears all over myself, until he sends me back to class. And that was the last time I thought about that until now.
What’s that about one might wonder. Not me though.
When I got laid off last year1, I vividly remember this sense of serenity, of total calmness, as I walked into work that morning.
I knew it was coming. And I knew it was gonna hurt my boss just as much as it hurt me.
During the entire brief meeting, I found myself genuinely asking him how he was feeling, how I could help him, despite the fact that I was the one who needed to figure out how I would feed my family.
I wonder if there’s a psychological term to describe that tendency. Like, a combination of altruism and shock.
Wow, hey, it’s almost been two years! ↩
2025-10-10 13:11:16
The fact is, someone is almost always watching, so it’s worth treating everything you do with purpose and pride. And, even if no one has their eyes on you, it is still a chance to “practice your craft”. To improve. To build strong habits.
Since time is limited, we only get so many opportunities.
We might as well take advantage of each one we get.
2025-09-22 05:35:07
“As I remember London” should be a wake-up call for everyone in the Ruby and Rails communities. This is not a man who wants to keep going. This is a man who romanticizes a past that was predominantly good for white men. This is a man who has spent years railing against diversity, equity and inclusion and who spreads anti-trans rhetoric. This is a man who is deeply afraid of immigration changing countries’ cultures and “national identities”, despite this kind of change being a constant for the whole of human history. This is a man who is a white nationalist. And he is in sole control of Rails, this framework we all love.
Just can’t catch a break from fascism.
I’ve been wanting to rewrite my blog1 and while I had been considering running rails new and using it as a chance to learn Rails 8, maybe I should save the Rails for my day job and try something different for these parts.
Any suggestions? What are the kids using these days, HTMX?
The last time I did a ground-up rewrite was 2017, so hey, eight years is a pretty good run! ↩
2025-09-18 09:11:40
The solution isn’t to ask nicely for these companies to do better. We tried that. The solution isn’t to hope users will abandon these platforms en masse. That won’t happen as long as the network effects keep people trapped.
The solution is regulation. Real regulation. Not the performative theater we’ve seen in congressional hearings, but actual laws with actual consequences.
[…]
Turn off the internet. Or fix it. Those are the only choices we have left. The time for hoping these companies will self-regulate is over. The time for treating algorithmic manipulation as an inevitable part of modern life is over. We know what these systems do. We know who they hurt. The only question left is whether we’re going to do something about it.
2025-09-13 20:30:35
We know these platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.
But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths.
After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world.