Microblog

I still can’t believe what Bezos did to the Post.

Currently at the stage of election coverage where I’m searching for “relaxing videos” on youtube

I just started going to this new gym that skews older and they aren’t playing election coverage but they are playing the andy griffith show. How concerned should I be?

Finally removed X/Twitter from the company website (and replaced it with Bluesky, of course)

My kids’ school scheduled parent-teacher conferences this week, and it’s a full week of half days. Not sure what they were thinking with that one.

my plan to handle the stress today is to catch up on my 2-year backlog of Foreign Affairs

I apologize in advance for the next 76 days of election posting.

This seems very cool. You probably know Wired, but if you haven’t checked out 404 Media, you should. Awesome journalism startup.

Fox Mulder’s first words were JFK

Thank you to Mads Ohm Larsen for contributing the first PR to my new festive_errors Ruby gem!

Each of the first five holiday stylesheets now have festive AA compliant accessible color schemes.

I was born into the evangelical premillenarian dispensationalist “theology of despair” and this is dead on 🎯

Wes Bos on Bluesky:

How did you get into web development?

MySpace? Comp sci? Made the jump from print? Bootcamp?

GeoCities. 😅

Some of the first code I wrote was mIRC script for IRC chatbots and other utilities, and I made a website to share it. After that I always had a website and from there got into Perl (made guestbooks, photo galleries), then PHP, and ultimately Ruby. And lots of JS, obviously.

I did major in computer science at one point but dropped out. Then Multimedia & Web Design, also dropped out. I was already freelancing by the time I was in college, and never looked back.

I know that hasn’t been the story for everyone and I feel so fortunate to have had that head start and opportunity.

(I’m not sure I was actually making good money by then but I was happy if I didn’t have to get a “real job” lol)

I like that Nosferatu (1922 and remakes) made the Count more driven and monstrous rather than sexy/seductive, but I must admit that when I read the book I pictured someone more stately and less gangling vole.

I can’t wait for Willem Dafoe’s portrayal though.

I think I’ll reread the book before Christmas, I forget how it describes him now.

Trump has ravaged the GOP, metastasized, and we’re watching the death throes.

So, inspired by schwad, I made a thing:

Festive Errors is a Rails gem that spices up the Rails error page with fun holiday themes. We all like to do a little coding around the holidays. Get into the holiday spirit with Festive Errors!

Debugging an exception in the month of October.

It’s a simple Rails engine that hooks into the layout for the error debug page in dev mode. If it’s currently a holiday period, it adds some custom CSS using a content_for hook that Rails provides in the layout.

That’s it! Just add it to your Gemfile.

I tested this on Rails 7.1 and Rails 8, but it doesn’t have tests or CI yet. Themes are also limited both in supported holidays and design (they currently just add an emoji to the page H1).

It will also need some config options eventually for when there are concurrent holidays!

Let’s get festive (errors)

I still can’t believe that the lunatic fringe may be running the country a few months from now.

Except they’re NOT fringe anymore. Maybe that’s what I can’t believe.

How cool would it be if users could submit alt text back to the OP if they forgot it (on social media, I mean).

Lost 60lb and I can still squat 315. 👍

Someday I will code again

Justin Jackson writes:

Telling someone they have “Trump/Elon derangement syndrome” is a pejorative way to dismiss and minimize destructive behaviors that have real consequences.

Yes. It’s the most ridiculous accusation given the reality and it tells me everything I need to know about the person who makes it.

When a consultant wastes an hour of my time, they should pay me.

We carved jack-o’-lanterns last night. One of us is much better at it than the others. 😸

Happy Halloween everyone 🎃

“We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.”

—Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

make a Bluesky starter pack they said, it will be fun, they said. They didn’t tell us we’d be deciding who lives and who dies

You think things can’t get worse, but they can.

May I suggest that Talia Lavin is doing capitalism right and “coats the soul in spray tan” is one of many delightful turns of phrase you will appreciate in her latest book on the rise of the Christian Right. Go get yourself a copy, it’s 20% off.

Now is a great time to spend some reputation capital on a presidential endorsement (I endorse Kamala Harris for President in case it wasn’t clear).

Anyone who is not furious and dismayed by Trump and his party right now should seriously consider why they’re siding with fascists.

Apparently someone in my town is starting fires in our ballet boxes and burning the ballots. There was one in Portland too. 😦

Here’s MGP’s response:

I am requesting an overnight law enforcement presence be posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through Election Day. Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence.

If you’d like a peek into our local congressional politics here in Southwest Washington, I made a short photo essay on Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s first campaign in 2022.

MGP’s opponent Joe Kent is a known associate of violent extremist groups including the Proud Boys.

Going to an “apocalypse” halloween party and I was going to wear my 9/11 was an inside job shirt but apparently that’s not the vibe we’re going for.

Have you tried a hedonic elliptical? It’s easier on the knees.

So let me get this straight: First they deny (accelerate) climate change, then they profit from it, then they use it as justification to subvert democracy.

Also this quote, lol (emphasis mine)

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told reporters on Friday he hadn’t heard about any plans for the state Legislature to take the steps discussed by Raiklin and Harris. Asked about Harris’ comments, McHenry said, “It makes no sense whatsoever to prejudge the election outcome. And that is a misinformed view of what is happening on the ground in North Carolina, bless his heart.”

I wonder if the nazis accused their opponents of having “Hitler derangement syndrome”

I don’t care who you are, or how long you’ve been around.

If you post anti-trans propaganda or support anti-trans causes, you will earn an instant block across all platforms I’m on.

I will never attend your talks.

I will never buy or support your products or services.

I hope that others will do the same. This is not acceptable behavior in a society. 🏳️‍⚧️

…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Great evening on Bluesky, so much Kesley Hightower in my mentions. 😊

Kelsey is a legend, I’ve been a big fan ever since I first saw him speak at Serverless Days in Portland in 2018. It’s awesome that he’s landed here.

My allergist told me that my pulmonary function is near-perfect, which is extra great news considering I had a lung collapse sixteen years ago.

One of the reasons I’ve worked so hard to get people off of 𝕏 and onto other platforms is that it’s bad for us to be stewing in that cesspool.

It’s bad for our industry, and it’s bad for society.

Update: my wife has convinced me not to bring my bible

TFW you get invited to a Halloween party and the theme is “apocalypse” and you realize this is what you were raised for.

MY TIME HAS COME.

https://joshuawood.net/micro/20241023160309

TFW you get invited to a Halloween party and the theme is “apocalypse” and you realize this is what you were raised for.

MY TIME HAS COME.

“We haven’t had a vampire so close to the throne of human power since McNamara in ’61.”

omg What We Do in the Shadows season 6 is airing

Something I’m working on lately: not interrupting people (like my wife, my biz partner, my employees) with every stray thought I have. A lot of things can wait.

By “interrupting” I mean like texting them/sending them Slack messages—not interrupting in conversation. Anything that might trigger an alert and cause them to stop and think right now. That stuff can often wait.

From Hunter S. Thompson’s obituary of Nixon:

Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism – which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

(source)

𝕏 is starting to feel more like Truth Social and Bluesky is starting to feel more like Twitter.

I got to meet Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond last night.

I first saw Shara perform while touring with Sufjan Stevens in 2007 on the Illinois tour, and then in 2009 with the Decemberists.

I’ve made it to one of her shows in each decade since. She’s an uncompromising artist, one of my favorites.

Woke up today and our cars were covered in a fine yellow dust. I find it a pollen.

I saw Smile 2 yesterday. I thought it was better than the first one. The whole subplot around fame/celebrity really works for that movie.

Alex Hillman shared this over on Twitter, and it’s an excellent read.

This part about the cycle really stuck out.

It’s even harder when the leader of your community is a toxic influencer. (Like in the case of Linus Torvalds)

Listened to a bootstrapping podcast that touched on Elon and this was basically the take:

“Musk’s political activity is related to his multi planetary ambitions because he’s an accelerationist” (laudatory) 😐