@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

TheIdOfAlan

@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io

Hi! I'm Alan. I've had the pleasure of working on the web for 20yrs and want to share that joy with everyone. The options for getting started kinda suck though.

So, I'm making a free, open-source site builder called Neopoligen. It's designed to make building your own site free and easy w/ no programming experience required.

You can learn more about it and follow along here if you're interested: https://www.neopoligen.com/

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

TheIdOfAlan, to random
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

I got to introduce a friend to using the "ISO 8601" date/time format for file naming so their podcast files stay sorted.

For dates, the format is

YYYY-MM-DD

Using that as the first thing in the file name you get things like:

2024-03-02 Some file.txt
2024-03-13 Another file.txt
2024-04-19 And another.txt
2024-05-09 And again.txt

It's a nice quality of life hack for when sorting by date is more important than sorting by title

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

TheIdOfAlan, to music
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

this is amazing. a drummer who's never heard bulls on parade by rage against the machine f-ing kills it doing their own version on the first take:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSX7D-dJRBo

TheIdOfAlan, to Blog
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

New post:

Accessible HTML Tabs For Web Pages

https://www.alanwsmith.com/en/2fggula7/?accessible-html-tabs-for-web-pages

hazelweakly, to random
@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io avatar

What's one of the silliest domain names you own? Mine is legit-elephant.lol and there's an entire story behind it. Some of you were even here for this!

C'mere and sit down, I'll tell you the story of the fateful night in the fediverse where Elon Musk flipped his lid and the entire fediverse flipped a middle finger to him.

The story begins during the winter holidays of 2022, back when hachyderm lived on Kris Nova's servers

It was a different world then, wasn't it?

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@hazelweakly I used to have variations of votes4sale_com. The idea was to put it up before a presidential election with bar graphs representing the "Votes 4 Sale Polling Results". You could add individual votes for your candidate by clicking as much as you want. Or, you could pay $1 for a thousand votes

It was gonna be a shot at memeing into a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage

I never built the site and haven't thought about it in years. But, now that I think about it, it is an election year...

TheIdOfAlan, to random
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

at a patio bar, there's a cat ripping up guitar loops. Gives me a idea: Get a bunch of musicians to make loop tracks to upload to music services and then play then as copyright free tunes for live streams

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Probably the most important solar observing safety bit:

⚠️ Even if you’re in the path of totality you need to use eclipse glasses at all times the sun is visible even if it’s only the tiniest little sliver.

🚫 You can NEVER look at the sun without eclipse glasses.

👁️ Only during totality, and totality only (e.g. not at 99.9%) you can look without glasses because the Moon literally completely hides the sun so you’re only looking at the Moon then.

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs It maybe worth mentioning there are apps that use GPS to find your location to figure out and announce when you're in totality (and therefore when it's safe to look).

I used one for a prior eclipse and it was great. I wouldn't have known when it was safe otherwise.

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Guess the song!

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs psycho killer - talking heads?

hazelweakly, to random
@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io avatar

Core competencies are something I think about a lot. I love to dig into what makes companies or ecosystems or social groups tick. Especially when that core competency enables what they do:

McDonald's, for example, is a real estate company that happens to make burgers.

Walmart is a shipping logistics company that also sells things.

What other examples can you think of where the core competency of the company is such that the "thing" a company does falls out naturally as a consequence?

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@hazelweakly I used to work at the PGA TOUR. The core competency isn't golf, it's media rights and licensing

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Today is my birthday!

If you'd like to do something for me for my birthday, would you please reply to this with—or by other means send me— something with colors you liked? Like an image or a video or a link. Music would also be acceptable if it gives you a strong synesthesiac association with color.

If this request confuses you, here are some examples of images with colors I found striking [Artists: Laurie Barmore, Vian Borchert, Erica Aurahack]. But your reply can be whatever colors you like.

Abstract art by Vian Borchert
Abstract art by Vian Borchert

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc Here's one I'm proud of.

I made it by taking one of my black and white photos into and converting it to 3D cubes that I then took into to apply lighting for the the colors

bijram, to random German
@bijram@graz.social avatar

Quote of the day: "I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are"

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@bijram love that. i'm adding it to my quote collection. is there someone i can attribute it to?

molly0xfff, to random
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

http://indieweb.org is a terrible influence

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@molly0xfff I'm currently on this train. Writing my own markdown replacement too, because why not :blobfoxbreadsnoot: (aiming to have v0.1 out this weekend :ablobfoxbongo: )

hazelweakly, to random
@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io avatar

This article is fucking amazing. It lays out exactly how to do database changes, codebase changes, and feature flag deployment strategies step by step with code examples in order to practice continuous deployment without downtime or breaking anything.

I've wanted to write this article for years and never got around to it. Now I don't have to!

(Looks like they have a book on continuous deployment coming out soon. I might have to get this for my teams 👀 )

https://oooops.dev/2021/07/30/surviving-continuous-deployment-in-distributed-systems/

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@hazelweakly There's nothing quite like having someone you trust in a field pointing you to a resource for something you want to learn

Much appreciated :ablobfoxbongo:

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

It has been a minute since I've done a music question, and it seems like a fun day for it, so:

What is your Pump Yourself Up Kickass Song?

Here's one of my favorites:

https://youtu.be/3CGxxJeQ6Tk?si=1cVMNoZWQzNOSpOA

TheIdOfAlan,
@TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

@RickiTarr

Bleachers - I Wanna Get Better is always a great listen for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5osPtE7kXI&t=56s

girlonthenet, to random
@girlonthenet@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @girlonthenet how about sky blue

    thomasfuchs, to random
    @thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

    This is my favorite era of Computer design, it's kind of Dieter Rams meets Soviet space probe engineer

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @thomasfuchs feels like the start of a pixar bot

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

    oh shit is today the day one of my favorite side projects falls over due to old dependencies 😰

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @keithjgrant too real :blobfoxcomputer: :blobfoxcrylaugh:

    thomasfuchs, to retrocomputing
    @thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

    Does anyone know what the materials were used for backdrops like in the picture? Or is there a handy "make photos of computers like it's 1990" guide? I'd love to be able to make photos of old computers (and other stuff) like this.

    [Update: thanks to some pointers from readers found this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/816336-REG/Impact_BGC_1012_GM_Crushed_Muslin_Background_10.html]

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @thomasfuchs heads up that they wrinkle a lot but steam out pretty easily. Or, if you're hanging them on stands you can use A clamps to pull them tight so it's not much of an issue if they are back enough from your subject to be blurred a little

    TheIdOfAlan, to random
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    The word "thistles" looks like a cat stepped on the keyboard

    noellemitchell, to random
    @noellemitchell@mstdn.social avatar

    Well no wonder it seemed like nobody saw my posts on here 😆 I removed 400 dormant followers and there's still more to go

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @noellemitchell I'm still here! :blobfoxcrylaugh:

    thomasfuchs, to random
    @thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

    I’m curious as to what new tech hype will displace the AI hype

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @thomasfuchs

    A GIF from the movie The Hudsucker Proxy. There's a person wearing an apron over a shirt and bow-tie holding a piece of paper up with a circle on it. Text at the bottom of the image says "You kno, for kids!"

    twilliability, to RSS
    @twilliability@genart.social avatar

    Under-the-radar late night launch: RSS Parrot is live! It talks like Mastodon, but it doesn't walk like Mastodon. BUT! It will relay any RSS feed straight into your timeline.

    Turn Mastodon into your very own feed reader. Follow anything that has an RSS feed and get a toot about new posts.

    How? Mention @birb with the address you want to follow.

    More details at https://rss-parrot.net. Boost for visibility :)

    #RSS #Atom #FeedReader #Fediverse

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @twilliability @birb I broke something :blobfoxbreadsnoot:

    I just setup an atom feed for my site today and tried to make a parrot account for it. It came back with just an @ that points to /u

    https://hachyderm.io/deck/@birb@rss-parrot.net/111690395492612609

    (I'm using a rust crate to build the feed and it's very possible I've got something set up wrong, but it's working in NetNewsWire)

    shanselman, to random
    @shanselman@hachyderm.io avatar

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @shanselman Happy New Year!

    evan, to random
    @evan@cosocial.ca avatar

    I would like to see a time loop movie, like "Groundhog Day" or "Palm Springs", but the loop is a full year instead of just a day.

    I feel like at 12:01 on 1 Jan you'd vow to figure out a way out of the loop, and then by about mid-February you'd start procrastinating on the project, and then forget about it and just live your life.

    And then a day or so after Christmas you'd be, like, oh shit, that's right, time's gonna loop again. I have to remember to break out next time!

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @evan Did you ever see "12:01PM"?

    It goes the other way, just an hour

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVooyfaPYD8

    TheIdOfAlan, to rust
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    One of the things I've noticed about is that it's easier for me to get back to code I wrote a while ago

    I'm working on something I haven't touched in months. I wasn't really sure where to start, but poked at a few things and then the error messages started showing up and I just followed them to where I needed to go

    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    on yeah, and the tests too. I wouldn't have been able to figure out what I was doing without them

    kubikpixel, (edited ) to rust
    @kubikpixel@chaos.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    TheIdOfAlan,
    @TheIdOfAlan@hachyderm.io avatar

    @kubikpixel rust error messages looked like a foreign language when I first started working with the language. As I've gained practice learning to ready them, I can't imagine working without them.

    I've heard rust folks say that if an error doesn't contain enough information to let you know how to it, they consider that a bug. That's just an amazing philosophy.

    (Of course, it takes practice to learn how to read them to get the info so it's not an instant thing, but it's awesome)

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