glyph

glyph, 2 days ago

As I try to mention once a week, I am attempting to start a little lifestyle business writing software, both libraries and apps, mostly open source, and writing about it. Sometimes the actual activity is buried inside these locked patrons-only posts so today I thought I’d try something a little different and do a mega-thread listing all the different projects I’m doing, so if you think your followers would appreciate one in particular, you can boost just that.

glyph, 2 days ago

Here near the top of the thread I’ll just say that you can sponsor me via GitHub Sponsors at https://github.com/sponsors/glyph or Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/creatorglyph .

glyph, 2 days ago

I write a lot of stuff about software and other things as well, https://blog.glyph.im . Most recently, a representative sample of this is my article about the AI hype cycle: https://blog.glyph.im/2024/05/grand-unified-ai-hype.html

glyph, 2 days ago

Pomodouroboros is Pomodoro-method app, focused on folks with ADHD. The problem with productivity timer apps is: if you’re having a day where you already remembered you need a timer, you set it, and you actually start working, you probably didn’t need the timer so much that day. Pomodouroboros never stops running, and gamifies your focus to help you set the intentions YOU care about. It’s also all open source, and in Python. Mostly for macOS, but a Linux port on the way. https://github.com/glyph/pomodouroboros

glyph, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

Fritter is a Python library for timed events. It’s hard to describe, because it’s a way of thinking about timed & repeating events than a library handling a specific function. To give you a sense of its unique structure, one thing it can do is a “tree”, where you create a scheduler, then a sub-scheduler, and pause/resume it. Consider a game with a “freeze” weapon that pauses a single entity’s animations & movement AI. Or a subscription that can be paused & resumed. https://github.com/glyph/fritter

glyph, 2 days ago

DBXS ("dee-bee-access") gives you the simplicity of raw SQL, with the security guarantees of an expression-construction library and the runtime type-safety of an ORM. For applications where you know exactly what SQL you want to execute, it removes most of the downsides. It won't give you all the bells and whistles of an ORM (and sometimes you do need those!) but it also will give you structures and types without needing to reinterpret all your queries into a new DSL.

https://github.com/glyph/dbxs

glyph, 2 days ago

If you just want to write a mac app in Python that does one quick thing for personal use, perhaps you would be interested in QuickMacApp, which can put a little status menu into your menu bar very quickly, with just a few lines of Python code. https://github.com/glyph/QuickMacApp

glyph, 2 days ago

Of course, once that app is happily running along in the background, you might want a global hot key to interact with it, and you don't want to privilege-escalate the whole thing to do event-tap shenanigans to be a full-blown key logger. In that case, you can use QuickMacHotKey, which also lets you just quickly bind a global hot key on your mac with a few lines of code. https://github.com/glyph/QuickMacHotKey

glyph, 2 days ago

Distributing a mac app written in Python is a whole other ball of wax, what with needing to ensure the availability of multiple architectures, code signing, notarization, and constructing an archive in a format that won't lose some critical bit of mac-specific metadata. Once you've bundled it up with py2app, for the rest of these annoying details you can use Encrust https://github.com/glyph/Encrust

glyph, 2 days ago

Of course if you're scripting, customizing, and distributing Python on your mac, you probably need to keep your macOS official Python Dot Org Python up to date, and for that I've got you covered too, with the "Mac OS Python UPdater": https://github.com/glyph/MOPUp

glyph, 2 days ago

@brianokken As Chris already mentioned, they were not against policy, but I'd love to chat with you at some point about why you should want to wear an N95 or better anyway, and where to find N95s that are far more comfortable and less irritating than surgical masks. I am also happy to discuss offline so you don't feel like responding is going to get you into trouble though, this topic can clearly get quite heated!

glyph, 2 days ago

@brianokken thank you, by the way, for starting off with some "I" statements on this one. I wish that more people could just honestly say stuff like "I don't like wearing a mask", "it's uncomfortable", "the requirement makes me not want to attend" as you've done here (there's no way you could be wrong about those things, after all, they are preferences!), rather than opening with "it's stupid" or "obviously we don't need this". I feel like dialog is possible this way.

glyph, 2 days ago

@chrisjrn @nedbat @brianokken This very recent massive meta-analysis and literature review for like Everything Related To Masks is a lot of information to absorb, but as Dr. Tran summarizes, two big takeaways are "masks are effective, N95 respirators are significantly more effective".

https://med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/112485571477215596

glyph, 2 days ago

@herdingdata Hmmmm maybe, but this is honestly the best idea I’ve heard yet, so thanks for that :)

glyph, 2 days ago

@openglx wow straight into The Measure of a Man, huh? That's definitely one of the episodes I really want to get to, I just felt like it needed more context on the characters first. Maybe I am overthinking it!

glyph, 2 days ago

@openglx this is what I aspire to.

glyph, 2 days ago

@davidbisset I feel like the space has been dead since AOL IM went offline, but sad to see another one bite the dust

glyph, 2 days ago

@treyhunner also really worth noting: “read the contributor documentation” means “have a look at it” not “memorize it chapter and verse and don’t bother showing up unless you know it all”. One very useful piece of feedback at sprints is actually “your contributor documentation sucks, I couldn’t figure out how to submit a PR that would be accepted”. Projects love to get feedback like this, so if you’re lost, that’s a very good thing to bring with you to the sprints!

glyph, 2 days ago

@pythonbynight @lorenipsum @chrisjrn @mkennedy @jacob it would be great to find ways to better integrate the online experience into the live conference. On my “if money were no object” feedback list is to put a videoconference setup in every openspace room so virtual attendees could access the hallway track more meaningfully

glyph, 2 days ago

@lorenipsum @pythonbynight @chrisjrn @mkennedy @jacob This is the magic of being an “idea guy”, I don’t have to deal with the consequences of my (brilliant, wonderful, you should definitely do them) ideas

glyph, 2 days ago

@lorenipsum @pythonbynight @chrisjrn @mkennedy @jacob More seriously, my hope is that someone could find a sponsor who could brand the A/V stuff and fully cover the costs; it seems like a good opportunity for a company looking to create some positive brand equity, since you’d be seeing their logo every time you got to interact with one of your new internet friends

glyph, 2 days ago

@chrisjrn @lorenipsum @pythonbynight @mkennedy @jacob I keep telling them to feed the mayonnaise to the tuna fish, I don’t know why they won’t do it already

glyph, 2 days ago

@lorenipsum @pythonbynight @chrisjrn @mkennedy @jacob in fairness being an Ideas Man is really my hobby, in my career I have maintained a ton of open source and thus am intimately familiar with being a Consequences Guy.