@mattwilcox@mstdn.social
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

mattwilcox

@mattwilcox@mstdn.social

Middle aged white guy trying to become less ignorant over time. I build websites the "traditional" way.

I’ve been building websites for ~20yrs. Progressive Enhancement, HTML/CSS/JS, and accessible practices will always be core to quality work. Frameworks come and go.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

I don’t trust designers at large companies anymore. Not because they’re “bad” but because the bosses tell them a goal and then it’s presented to us as something else.

Twitch tell me they’re testing a new design, “to focus on live streams you care about”, to paraphrase.

So now we have a full screen single stream instead of a list. And you have to scroll to see the next live stream. And it isn’t just people you follow, it’s also random shit. (1/2)

The hidden panel has a section “live following channels” which shows iron mouse and Michi mochievee are both live now, and a list of 12 others that I do follow but are not live.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

You know what I want? The list on the side you bury.

One of these designs shows me a very fast overview of things I care about. The other is about slotting in suggestions and benefitting Twitch’s board goals because they assume everyone is easily distracted and doesn’t know what they want to see already. (2/2)

rem, to random
@rem@front-end.social avatar

Fellow oldies (okay, mid-40s and up): I assume it's totally normal that your body is just shit are repair as you (read: ME) gets older? I got sun burn about a month ago and I'm still peeling (yeah, it's gross, but it's not like I peeling skin off and slipping it into people's pint glasses or anything…).

That's normal, right? (not the pint glass thing, that's just the way I was raised…CHAOS)

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@rem Cuts and bruises and marks last an eternity now.

The “my finger joints hurt” is now “oh, limited movement and swollen? Arthritis? Fuck”

Age happens when you aren’t looking.

obsidian, to random
@obsidian@mas.to avatar

Obsidian 1.6 is here!

  • Faster load time on desktop and mobile
  • New vault switcher, and ability to hide ribbon
  • RTL UI and mixed-direction support
  • Revamped footnotes support
  • Countless little bug fixes and improvements

Now available to everyone, on all platforms.

Obsidian screen capture showing how to switch vaults with the new vault switcher

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@obsidian Thanks for all the work. Still one of my favourite and most crucial apps. New machine?

  1. Download Firefox
  2. Use Firefox to download and sync Obsidian
  3. The rest of the set up
mattwilcox, (edited ) to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

Watching the UK Cycling atm.

I find it hillarious that "mid wales" is a low signal area where we are seeing 1999 webcam quality. But yesterday we were hyper-sonic in oribt getting bombarded by impact plasma - and seeing it all in HD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg6WwYB7p5w

(I get why, but it is amusing)

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

Playing that "Am I really anxious, or am I just hungry and hadn't noticed until now?" game.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

Decided I wanted to play VShojo modded Minecraft today.

Dear reader, only Microsoft could make buying Minecraft something that almost defeated an IT professional.

I can not overstate how absurd - actually, mind-breakingly absurd - the process was. Involving multiple sign-ins, a website that forbade access after login, and not allowing me to choose my own country.

And by the time I did suceed... the Vshojo mods crash my game 100% of the time.

This is why consoles exist.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar
  1. Go to minecraft.net to buy it
  2. Be forced to log into a MS account
  3. Log into my account, met with white server error Access Denied.
  4. Try again on another browser. Same issue.
  5. Find in 1Password the old login.microsoftonline.com URL associated with my account and log in there.
  6. Minecraft.net finally lets me see it, logged in
  7. Attempt to buy it, but realise on checkout its US only and will not let me change country...
mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

...

  1. Hang on, why aren't my saved details from my Xbox here? Bail out.
  2. Try again this time from the Microsoft Store website (which I googled)
  3. Login (with the same details)
  4. Punted to the Xbox UK website - where I log in (again) (same details)
  5. Finally, it recognises my account and shows my saved cards and country etc ... I am able to buy Minecraft, from here.

It's like they don't want to make money. It's an insane mess.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

OK, how do I mod Minecraft?

Forge, apparently. Requires Java installing. Get it, can't work out how to install the mods.

Back out. Download "CurseForge", install that. Re-find the Vshojo mods in it, install those.

Run it. Start it; warned two of the mods inside it are out of date. Igonore, it crashes. Run again, find the mods, download newer mods "fix crash on start", ace. Apply mods. Start game. Crashes.

Give up, play vanilla, spend too long pissing about, get killed, close it, walk away.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@lyonsinbeta BTW; my understanding is conduction is direct heat transfer between source and target. Convection is indirect; there’s a non-solid medium between the target and source. And radiative is the only one that can bridge a vacuum.

Good episode.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

Fair play SpaceX team. That was madness.

But also fuck you Elon.

sarajw, to random
@sarajw@front-end.social avatar

Sarah Dyan was introduced as being "very brave" for coming to and talking about utility-first CSS!

I agree but I'm happy to listen :)

My biggest grievance with tailwind in particular is how it's cemented breakpoints, while going fluid feels much better.

It may just be that there's a lag between what CSS can do now, and what surfaces through tailwind and other utility first frameworks.

I dunno 🤷

I guess I think utility styles are a good tool that can be used alongside normal CSS.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@sarajw Kinda. It's just that every time I've tried them, I've ended up ripping utility styles out because they're so brittle.

And once we have Mixins in CSS, I will never want a utiltiy class again.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@sarajw I didn't get on with CUBE either. But, all methods work - it's just whether they vibe with your workflow. @andy

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582650/Caravan_SandWitch/

Makes me think of Jusant

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

https://languagetool.org/

n AI-based spelling, style, and grammar checker

Given the abject failures on the first things I wrote to test it, I have to wonder what the point is?

Didn't pick up the incorrect "checker/chequer", or "program/programme" those words are not equivalents and don't make sense.

"there's has never" is fine English is it?

Get in the bin, every single use of "AI" I've seen.

mattwilcox, (edited ) to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

I suspect that the same affliction as at every other tech company involved with AI: the ethics group objected, then was fired or replaced by sexist dumb-fuck tech-bros in fancy dress, getting high on dreams of cash mountains, or the idea of the sound of a woman’s voice pretending to like them. https://mastodon.design/@mjausson/112565489821934961

mattwilcox, (edited ) to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

The problem with Twitter, and Insta, etc is not their policies.

It's the fact they're a centralised service owned by a single company with no interoperability outside of it.

THAT enables the shit policies.

So, things like are not a solution. Not a valid alternative. Because the policies can and will change. And don't solve the core problem.

https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1032/a-critique-of-caraapp-the-no-ai-instagram-and-artstation-copycat-child

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

How to sell me on software:

I’ve also been a Vivaldi user for a few years now, and like that they don’t snoop, and that there is no bundling LLMs/ “AI” or crypto-crapto in the browser. Vivaldi is owned by its employees (all of them, including cleaner and office manager) and has no external investors, so there’s a good chance of keeping that culture.

https://brucelawson.co.uk/2024/joining-vivaldi/

Ok, time to get that installed on the work iMac.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

I don't use Emacs, but I do use Stow, and this is a great little overview of both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf4wiY5bchk

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

Woke from a dream of trying to photograph a snow flurry at my parents despite it being summer. The phone, of course, doesn’t work when I need it to.

Weather today: high of 13c, low of 7c.

Its summer.

cferdinandi, to random
@cferdinandi@mastodon.social avatar

Should I make coding videos on YouTube?

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@christian @cferdinandi I would say, if the video content types are stuff like “how to xyz” - please timestamp and also show a to the point working version of the finished thing first, and then go into detail about the why of the code after.

What kills me with so many tech tutorial videos is how horrifically slow they are to get to the point, or to find the one bit you want to review having seen it before.

I’d watch, but I’m dubious on most code videos, tbh.

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@cferdinandi Good questions to ask.

It's not that I don't like both short and long video's too. On all manner of topics. I'll watch 2min things and I'll watch 4hr things (Hi, Jenny Nicholson) - but when it comes to teaching something I want to do my patience rapidly runs out.

These were the last "good tutorial" ones I saw, but even those were a bit frustraiting later on.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsz00TDipIffreIaUNk64KxTIkQaGguqn

@christian

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@cferdinandi I think, essentially, video is good for an introduciton and high level overview of the whats and whys. But much less good for getting at details. @christian

sarajw, to random
@sarajw@front-end.social avatar

Current favourite game, writing silly messages to someone during remote meetings and trying to break their poker face

mattwilcox,
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

@sarajw This game is always the most fun game

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