I've finally had the motivation to spend the last few days migrating back to Eleventy. I'm now well hooked into the Vercel ecosystem as well as a result. Not happy about that, but trade-offs! You always make them.

For someone who gets overwhelmed easily with the scale of tasks like these, Claude has been an immense help in making this move happen.

I'm most excited for the fact that I've been able to migrate the "likes" feature, including current counts.

Builds take less than 30 seconds, images are still served in AVIF/WEBP formats, and I have a couple of convenience bash scripts to create a new article post + rename files to reflect the final post title before publishing.

I'm relatively happy with the design, this is something that had been sitting in my drafts for over 2 years. Might tinker with it over the next few months to be a little more expressive, but for now, this works. 🙂

Equally excited to keep up with web standards and such in a low-stakes environment. 🐢

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

I shifted to Instagram "stories" — and then monthly photo dumps inside of a "post" — after I realised I need a deeper sense of intimacy when writing these than the public internet could provide. I wanted these monthly recaps to be a way to grow closer to the friends/acquaintances around me.

Stories were great. They are ephemeral.

Monthly posts were great too. It allows me to share up to 20 photos and/or videos at once in a single post. What's more — I get to add detailed captions on each photo (unfortunately, not videos — unless I run them through the Edits app, or the Create Reels feature on Instagram itself). I love explaining what's going on or why I love this moment so much. Without this context, I usually find posts to be for vanity/close friends only — who anyway are already aware of what's going on.

However, Instagram does have its quirks. The two grandest of those have begun to hit me:

• I expect likes/comments to come my way, and feel disappointed when I don't receive "enough."
• I sometimes curate photos that I otherwise wouldn't put in the search of, perhaps, ✨ aesthetics. ✨

While I always maintain that these are records/documents of how my life is progressing – a reminder that helps me battle those two psychological quirks – I do see fatigue setting in. Perhaps a part of it is also owing to my perfectionist nature. I now am trying to use Unfold to create collages of similar photos/moments, for starters.

I've been journaling in private, too. But that is a very specific need/use-case, of course.

I hope I'll find the drive, balance, and the right medium for these monthly recaps. In time…

Ah, anyway, I'm not quite sure what the point of this post is. Guess I just wanted to ping the wider web for a brief second, and let them know I'm still kicking.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

A community is essential.

One of the most important steps to beating depression enough to function, which I would argue can be a life-long exercise, is to hang out with people who remind you the glass is half full.

When you witness people who are hopeful in so many ways, you can borrow a little bit of hopefulness too.

Peak capitalism, and Instagram reels, have convinced us that we're better off protecting our peace, and must do what's best for us — in isolation.

This is not true.

We must be uncomfortable in small and self-consensual ways; and allow it to lead us into a richer community.

Surround yourself. 🌻

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

For the first time a couple of weeks ago (at least at the time when I'm drafting this), I left for Vietnam – my first solo trip and the first international trip as well.

A problem for me was I had only a regular sized suitcase – perfect for domestic trips, perfect for perhaps 10-14 days away from home as long as I do not carry any specialised gear.

This time, however, I did carry some specialised stuff – a pair of hiking shoes and a raincoat.

A rough visual guess would say I was out about 30% volume from the get-go. I needed something that would replace this and give me more space to stash 2 to 3 days worth of clothes that I no longer could in my suitcase.

First option was to consider carrying two suitcases: a small cabin luggage, and a regular sized check-in luggage. I quickly dismissed this. It is not practical for one person to safely, securely, and stress free carry two luggages. On top of, of course, a regular backpack.

I had been bombarded with Mokobara's ads for months on Instagram. They sure know I like collecting bags of all kinds. I looked to see if they have anything that could help me.

Narrowing in.

The Em Travel Backpack is a hit.

It's supposedly a 45L backpack. How they measure it is still a mystery to me. Entering the raw dimensions into a volume calculator places the bag at 32.44 litres. Upon contacting their team, I was told they arrived at the 45 litres capacity claim in the following manner:

The team has gotten back to us with an update, the measurements are calculated using a different method, we calculated by filling the backpack with balls, and then fill those ball in a Jar to calculate the volume.

Mokobara's customer support team.

Huh. Well, OK. I guess as long as the bag solves my issue. Let's not be pedantic. We're flying out in a few days, remember?

They are a brand who always have a discount on, which is equivalent to not having any discount on. Sometimes they have "extra" sales, which is where I grabbed this bag off their metaphorical shelf.

It arrived, I was happy, and I began to place things into definitive places. There is a joy in having marked spaces:

• Hang your keys here!
• Stash your passport here!
• Clothes go here!
• Liquids go here! It's leak-proof!

Perhaps that was the allure for a part of my brain: a backpack that was neatly organised.

This is where I fucked up, though.

First few days.

The bag has two striking problems for me:

1. The shape is very rigid. This makes it great as long as you're using it to capacity. At half capacity, it retains its big shape and becomes annoying to carry around.
2. Perhaps my back is less forgiving, but I also did not enjoy carrying it around, starting at roughly 60-70% capacity. It just doesn't feel right, no matter how far or short I pull/push the straps. It was always hanging "away" from my back (that's the most visceral way I have of explaining this), putting more pressure on my shoulders alone than necessary.

These two reasons alone make it a less than ideal purchase for me.

What now?

Well, I was able to return it for a full refund. I wasn't sure if they'll respect their "no questions asked" 30 day return policy. But they did. I made sure not to use the bag at all and keep it clean. They did ask me why, and I told them, but on the face of it, I think they'd have approved the return regardless.

I bought another bag from a local shop while in Vietnam, and this bag had just become dead weight to carry around until I reached home.

What did I learn?

Sigh.

Marketing is marketing. Find out ways to figure out if something is a good fit for you after you look past the marketing.

Which brings me to: test things more thoroughly. While I visited their in-person store, I didn't actually test the bag. With the amount of money that was quoted to me – as much as a big brand suitcase, I needed to be more diligent with my money and purchase.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

1. reporting incorrect battery numbers, swinging wildly from 40% to 90% to 77% and so on, and,
2. turning off randomly with the only way to turn it back on being to plug it into a charger.

As a reminder, I bought this thing for $155 off Amazon back in April 2022. At the time, and I can't speak for now, there weren't any service centres present in India. I told myself I'm taking a gamble and I'd be happy if it lasts longer than a year. It has. And yet, I am unhappy.

Reports are coming in about a software update causing issues for a number of Charge 5 users, including even bricking (TechRadar, AndroidCentral). These are from July 2023 — a time where I did not face any such issues, which makes this all the more weird for me that it's happening in January 2024, presumably not as a result of a software update.

A $155 piece of equipment being useless does not inspire confidence and Google's response, and I highly doubt it applies to India, is abysmal (emphasis mine):

"Fitbit, it seems, isn't handling the issue properly for those affected. Those with broken trackers have been left out to dry. Support isn't offering to replace the device, but rather just giving a 35% discount on new hardware assuming the tracker is still under warranty – the device just launched in 2021, but Fitbit does only offer a 1-year warranty from the time of purchase. But, even then, Fitbit should be offering a free resolution to that problem, given the broken device is being caused by an update from Fitbit directly."

https://9to5google.com/2023/07/11/fitbit-charge-5-battery-bricking-update/

Troubleshooting

So far, I have tried:

1. Restarting the device from the device itself.
2. Restarting the device using the charging cable (three 1-second taps on the button embedded on the power end of the USB cable)
3. Changing the watch face
4. Updating the firmware from 188.58 to 194.91 (the problem was reported on 188.61)

I'm currently in the process of draining the battery, which is a very involved, unforgiving, and annoying task given that the device randomly turns off and has no accurate number on its battery capacity.

Right this moment, as I opened the Fitbit app to look at the firmware version, the device went offline. Perhaps there is something there to look into for Google? Maybe a sync throws the device off?

Anyhow, I managed to get it from a reported 97% to 9% through the course of the night, using the always on display feature. Plug into the charger to turn it on, and the battery is 88%. 🤡 As a battery preserving measure (<10%), the AOD seems to be automatically turned off. Perhaps a good sign that the hardware still has an accurate internal reading on the battery. Using the AOD also helps prevent the device from turning off. I am usually able to bring it back to life by tapping the screen a dozen times.

Let's see when it drains completely and what it does next.

Alternatives

I don't want to purchase a cheap, Chinese fitness band.

I also don't want to necessarily invest in a "smart" watch – something I mentioned before. Who has time to charge a watch every single day? Impossible. This rules out Apple Watch.

Garmin is an option with its vivosmart 5 (₹16,990, ~$205), but it is more expensive than even the newly released Charge 6 (₹14,999, ~$180*). Probably Garmin vivosmart 5 is worth a try if at least the device will last me three or, ideally, more years than that?

• I also find it ridiculous how this sells for $160 plus sales tax in a very rich country, and $180 in a very poor country like India. Like-for-like, pricing, almost.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

• It makes it clear what the purpose of that effect is. This means your colleagues spend less time figuring that out.
• It's going to force you to only deal with one concern per effect rather than bundling way too many things into one.

As someone who's always reading new code at $DayJob, I have learned and realised over time that these are things that constantly frustrate me. It takes up unnecessary mental space while working through a problem. Of course until now, it didn't click for me at all that this was something you could (or should) do.

I'm going to be investing a little bit of time every time I see this to update the code. Ultimately to make it easier for me, my colleagues, and whoever gets on to these projects in the future to reason about it.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

If we are talking life/career burnout, I am always in.

Of course I stopped writing as often on this blog, but I am tempted to try and speak openly about something I do struggle with — almost always have, and always will. While I have only landed in the crash and burn scenes a couple of times (so far), I am always very aware that I'm skirting these lines and can tip over very easily.

Today I had a call with my immediate boss to discuss some measures we can put in place so I can deal with work better — away from what feels like a cocktail of depression and burnout presenting in unusual (to me) ways.

What I'm doing now to tackle things.

I have already been taking measures in my individual capacity for a while, but I think it was time to reach out and ask for some more support while I work through this process.

Here are some things I am doing, then:

• Paired coding sessions. At least once a week, more if possible/required. Fight that isolation of working remote.
• Changing my work environment frequently. A change of scenery keeps things interesting, I guess. I do have to give up the big screen but I'll take that over this.
• Picking off shorter tasks from the backlog. This can help me feel more accomplished about my work day and work weeks. Balancing it better with new features.
• Hobbies. I've been at it for a while. Just more of the same. Invest my time in hobbies that are not coding.
• Continue to see my therapist. Keeping my emotional burden and general mental health in check so I have space to…live.
• Talking to friends about it. Call it venting if you will.
• Finding in-person tech events/meetups to feel a connection with coding as an activity again.

I think that's it. It seems to help a little. The proverbial jury is still out.

How do you handle the almost-burned-out stage? What are some things you would do?

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Over the last two weeks, I put together a full rig: a big monitor I can use for gaming as well as for coding, and a PC that I can offload, well, intensive gaming to.

Here's some thoughts.

Ergonomics!!!

Three exclamation marks, indeed.

Honestly? There's no comparison. I can't go back. I shudder thinking I might have to use just the MacBook on some days — maybe I'm traveling or just out at a café for a change of scenery. Maybe the power's been out too long and I need to rely on just my laptop battery.

How did we convince everyone just a laptop is okay for full-time work?

While I already used a stand/riser for my laptop so the screen was at eye-level, the screen was still tiny at 13.3 inches. Cue squinting and bending forward at times.

New monitor.

A 13″ screen size gave me very little space to manoeuvrer things. I frequently found myself lost and having to create space and take it away based on what I was doing.

VSCode felt like running a car from a few decades ago at least – no real quality-of-life to go with it.

Okay, I'm not a car woman so maybe that reference is not great. But you get it, right?

Now, with a 4k 28″ monitor, font size is great, and there's space to keep multiple things open. No longer do I have to hide the left and right sidebars in my code editor. It just always is like that. Truly a blessing! I'm so happy. The laptop just sits tucked away in the corner, giving me space to keep other things in the main area of the desk. It's no longer incredibly busy and fragile – is this tricky hand movement going to have my laptop in a short fall to the desk surface?!

Oh, the monitor has something called HDRi – intelligent HDR. I don't think it's the "real" thing. But whatever, it wasn't important to me. Both Windows and macOS let me turn on a toggle that puts the monitor in this mode. It looks awful. And to top it off, I lose control of the brightness of the screen when HDR is on. No surprise, us coders mostly do like dark rooms, and this blows right into it. Not good!

I was worried about buying the wrong monitor but this one holds up really well despite falling in "The Bad Zone" here. No return policy, so I'm excessively glad.

ChatGPT.

While someone I recently met on Hinge (as a friend) helped me 90% of the way with putting my config list together, I asked a ton of questions from ChatGPT to get up to date with what's going on in the PC world.

What's M.2? If it's using PCIe 3.0/4.0 underneath for data transfer anyway, why make M.2? What's an M-key M.2 slot and what's an E-key M.2 slot? What do the "CL" numbers in RAM specs mean?

And so on.

It was super helpful. Obviously I still ran everything by my friend, but a lot of these explanations were critical in me not feeling like an idiot for way too long.

Mechanical keyboards.

I understand people like them, but these are not for me.

At the store, I tried red switches and brown switches. Brown felt firmer, nicer… I might even buy one one day for coding. But I have this Magic Keyboard that I recently threw money at, so I'm not tempted to buy anything just for coding anytime soon.

For gaming, I went with red switches at first. They were quiet enough, bit tactile, and required very less force to actuate them. Perfect! Until it came to billing when I asked for the keyboard to be removed. I just didn't like the layout of the keyboard, the shape of the keys, the elevation of the whole thing as it slanted high to low from top to bottom. It just isn't…me. I like a flat keyboard with a reasonable travel and being able to shift my fingers around with the least effort possible. Chiclet keyboards is just where it is for me. Keyboards are very personal, and I'm super glad I didn't buy one. A shout out to Chris and Dani for being a voice of reason.

Windows 11.

I'm not a big Windows user. My "usage" is limited to tweaking a few settings and hitting those sweet, sweet little icons that launch games. That's it!

Windows 11 feels so much different, but remains…Windows. How do you change your username from the Settings app? You can't. You need to open up the Control Panel app that still exists in 2023. Great job, Microsoft!

OneDrive is still forced into your desktop. Sneaky little thing is they hide this icon into the little expandable space for your tray icons that you can open up. By default. Defaults matter and are an indication of what you want to do as a company.

Centered icons didn't feel like home, so I moved to the classic left sided layout. There's "deep" indexing that's now native (or I am late to the scene) to the OS so that's another great thing. No need for Everything.

Well, there you are. Some random thoughts on this whole experience.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Today, and not for the first time, I picked up some education from an ESLint rule page.

no-await-in-loop tells us how to optimise our code and when not to use parallelisation. It took just two minutes of reading, too.

I love little educational moments like these – especially when they are sandwiched between the start and completion of a task.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

I really do like it better on the fediverse. Feels more like a social place. It protects my mental health too because a ton of people use content warnings to give me the option to engage with things on my own terms that otherwise put together wreck my mental health quite quickly on any other platform.

When I do end up on Twitter.com, I see posts from friends and realise how much I miss seeing more of them around. I hit a like or two and leave. I know by now how quickly this can spiral into scrolling and doomful news and horrible interactions.

If you're reading this, I'm waiting for you on the fediverse.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

The way you push these buttons, the way you move your fingers, how much your fingers travel, how hard you push, where you find the apostrophes and where you hunt for the ellipsis to pause your sentence and your mind. Where you drop a semi-colon from while effortlessly knowing where to look for the currency you need to print on your screen five words from now.

I can never journal my day if it's not my keyboard. The one I am familiar with. I can't even do it on my phone with its touchpad… it has to be tactile, it has to be mine.

I need to know where to rest the palm of my hands when my mind pauses. For that gentle depression of the hand in this physical space to feel familiar.

I need to be able to travel places in my prose as quickly as I do in my mind. I want a 'tool' — something I can wield. Not something that feels like a coarse brick.

It doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to feel right. And anything can feel right to you.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Of course I only use them in "controlled" environments, still, but they sound…pretty good? Spatial Audio isn't so bad, not even 'head tracked' which I disliked so much all throughout. A big reason I don't like those in-the-ear earphones is they disconnect you from the real world: a car honking, a loud bang etc. This is where this head-tracking stuff shines. It allows me to turn my head and have these real world experiences filter through pretty…naturally.

Switching between devices is easy too. The battery backup is fine for me.

That said, I almost lost one earpiece on a flight recently when it fell down and I couldn't locate it. Anyone could have just…taken it. Thankfully, the passenger behind me was kind. (The same two people I had let walk ahead of me when boarding. How cute that it was them!)

It's true that they are designed to be lost and designed to be wasteful — that's what still worries me the most.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

• Being unable to toggle a tick box by clicking/tapping on its label.
  • A label has a much larger surface area for tapping/clicking and keeps things "easy" for everyone.
  • Not to mention it is accessible for people who use accessibility features.
• Not having the right inputmode or type attribute on an input.
  • This breaks iOS auto-fill for one-time passwords received via SMS.
  • Suddenly I have extra mental load I may or may not have space for. It sure is work for me to use the number row on iOS since it isn't perma-visible like on Android, and isn't big and simple like the numpad can be.

I wish we lived in a world where we could care about things like these, but I can only sympathise with developers who have to put a rush on everything and are not even paid a living wage. I don't feel right accusing anyone of shoddy work when they couldn't care less… are not paid to care enough.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Looking at my weekly averages, there are of course good weeks (5 of 8 hours on an average per day) and then there are bad weeks (2-3 of 8 hours on an average per day). I've been trying to build this habit for a really long time now.

I can start the day with a lot of determination, but something or the other during the work day stops me from "getting up." Sometimes I'm so engrossed in my work that I don't even remember the device vibrating to let me know I need to get up.

I try to listen to it, yes, but I probably need to do more. I don't think I've ever had a day that was 8 of 8.

Still, this is infinitely better than my previous lifestyle. It's a step up (that is an intentional double pun and I'm proud of it). I'll take it.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

I use and love Bear, and the closest I have to that with a more cross-platform-friendly constraint is Standard Notes, who also recently added regional pricing. Not to my surprise, though, as they were willing to offer economic difficulty discounts for a long time. All you had to do was drop them an email, but now it's all automated.

Still, I'm not sure I can leave Bear just yet. I do have one eye on a migration to SN because Bear is, as Will mentioned, strictly Apple-only, and in the long-run, that is very much a "problem."

What's going to convince me SN is good enough is when their editors feel as polished as Bear's do. My experience in the past with its editors has left me wanting for much more. Bear is also cheaper which is very high on my priority list right now.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

However, you will not find any personal posts (or personal side stories) from me anymore over here. Please follow my socials for those.

Techie posts, though, are… okay. Strictly techie.

My blog has some RSS feeds — if you would be keen on following along. 😊

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

The reverse chronological timeline has been failing for me recently. As has the notifications tab for mental health reasons.

I think I was a little afraid to admit it to myself, but it is.

I log in a few times a day, read only a little bit (whatever is recently posted at the time), miss out completely on what's posted when I'm sleeping, and have found myself missing posts from people I generally enjoy hearing from.

All the cool kids live on the other side of the globe, so I'm more likely to miss out than not.

Sometimes through some interaction I find a toot that was posted 7 hours ago (while I was sleeping) that I feel sad about missing.

Maybe it's a social media problem too. Why do I need to hear from all these people? Why do I feel sad if I miss out? I certainly don't feel that way when I'm away for a few days for IRL reasons. But I do feel that way when it's just my daily schedule where this happens.

Lists?

Unfortunately it's lacking UX improvements too. You can't hide boosts and/or replies like you can on the home TL. I hide all boosts and would require that on my lists too.

Lists are simply not tenable for me without these "filters."

Notifications.

Why not use the bell icon for people I enjoy hearing from? The bell icon crowds my notifications and actually overwhelms me so I'm a very conservative user there… and is not a proper solution to the problem anyway. In fact, it brings me to my next problem.

What if I enjoy hearing from 50 people? I'd see about ~200 notifications per day. This is separate from all the other kinds of notifications: boosts, stars, new spam reports, and so on.

I'd love for notifications to be "grouped" in hourly blocks to make them more readable and consumable.

These, I believe, are also growing pains. Maybe they will be tackled one day, maybe they won't. I definitely feel like usability has been tanking and I'm not a fan.

Maybe it doesn't need a new "algorithm" as much as a whole bunch of well thought out convenience features to make the current timeline usable.

And, let me be clear: at this activity level, for me, it is not.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

At the moment, I run SmallCamp, and help moderate Fosstodon along with a fantastic team and over 250 300 350 600 800 950 patrons.

Part 1: looking like an actual person.

1. Please fill out your bio and make an #introduction post with that hashtag, yes. Look at what other people are posting about to get an idea.
2. Put up a nice avatar that you like (whether of yourself or your hobbies).

People are much more welcoming when they can see who you are.

Trust me — these two things really help when people have locked their profiles and you're trying to add them.

With these two steps, we are trying to tackle the problem of: "Yes, you know you're a safe person, but how do I know that?"

People have no qualms about hitting reject… none of them are chasing a high follower count.

So, anyway, once these two steps help you follow more people, your timeline looks more lively. And you want to stay. And you follow more people. And it's a cycle, see? 🙂

Remind yourself that people on the fediverse/Mastodon have been cultivating a safe space for themselves for months (and for most of us, it is more likely to be years).

Anytime a lot of people join at once and in a short amount of time, like right now, their guard tends to be more up than usual.

The culture on the fediverse is a bit different. And remember, any new social network is always hard at first. It gets better.

Part 2: make a few posts.

Keep posting about your day and thoughts like it's 2007 and Twitter hasn't yet taken off. Just vibe. We're all here to chill. Mostly.

Find your community, not an audience.

Post about what you had for lunch.

Send a photo out into the internet — as long as it's safe for you to do so — about the beach you're sipping beer at.

Introduce your dog with a selfie or a regular photo.

Psst! Monetisation… that kind of stuff doesn't work very well here. We're not Twitter v2.0. We're just trying to bring the good old, open, social web back.

Part 3: learn the culture.

It's like Twitter, but it's not Twitter.

You'll notice a few things that we care about:

1. Adding a "content warning" to your posts. This is especially true for politics, or any kind of content that might trigger someone. Remember safe space? Yup.
2. Writing alt text for images… we're big on this. A lot of disabled people use Mastodon regularly, and in any case, it helps everyone. I know I've used alt text before to make sense of some images sometimes.

You're ready. Go have fun? Say hi.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

With that said, I'm also done with my monthly reviews, which is something I wanted to be clear about. ~11-12 meaningful posts over 17 months, and I'm OK with that. It was a good run. I wasn't chasing perfection and that's freaking brilliant.

The future?

Right, there's a reasonable chance I will archive this blog at some point, but we'll see. What does archiving mean? I don't know yet. Perhaps a static bunch of pages that's still accessible?

For now, stays as it is. Maybe I'll have something once in a long while to write about. Maybe something abstract, or much more appealing – something concrete like a dev/code tutorial.

We'll have to see how it goes.

The why.

There are many reasons for this break, but chief among it is feeling safer talking on a closed platform (like a private account on the Fedi, or a private Twitter account, or closed-as-in-private instant messengers) as opposed to a huge, open web.

And, this is maybe my old paranoid self, but I don't feel good, never have, about writing my opinions. This is a very unbalanced relationship. Besides, the internet has enough opinions, from people much smarter than me, so I really don't want to be taking up a stupid amount of space here.

And, like, I can't say I've felt joy in writing things of late. It just isn't flowing anymore like it used to — neither the prose nor the kick.

And, then, I suppose, in line with the ongoing theme over the last year ish, I'm constantly moving my focus — some consciously, some incidental — away from the internet, and privacy, and free software, and such… towards my career, my life goals, my mental health, my physical health, and figuring out who I am as a person. And just being in a better place overall. Which is of course a non-linear and perhaps a not-so-pleasant journey. But it is one and I want to be focusing on it.

Cliché? Maybe. It's the truth, still.

Signing off from here. Everything is fluid. Nothing is scraped on stone. This is what it is today.

I didn't have to make this post, but I'm a drama queen.

See you on the fedi and other private spaces.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

I talked about not blogging as much in my June 2022 review. Internal monologue around that continues and I'm constantly finding myself wondering if keeping this blog is worth it.

Maybe it's just an itch.

Some smart people on Mastodon have recommended just keeping things as they are, and posting occasionally if that's what I find myself comfortable with — even if it's just 3 posts in one whole year — and that sounds logically quite right.

Plus, keeping things as they are has the least amount of resistance. It's probably why I haven't done anything radical for a long time now. A long time at least in the blogging-setup timezone.

A part of me wants to move to a static site, "archive" this blog and perhaps move the blogging portion to some other platform where everything related to it is "managed." That would certainly be keeping in tune with what's been going on with my tech in general the last twelve-ish months.

I wouldn't be happy keeping two "sites" and maintaining visual consistency across the two (but maybe I don't have to do that?). It's a compromise.

Alternatives.

However, I enjoy absolutely nothing in the market.

Substack seems like a misfit and UX hell.

While Matt has been kind enough to offer a regional discount, I'm not sure I still see a long-term future with Write.as (something really nice about it is it's a part of the fediverse).

Ghost is incredibly expensive and for my use case, not so different from WordPress. It doesn't offer anything that makes me want to really try it given my feature requirements.

Medium.com hasn't been held in high regard for a long time now. And uncertainty around their business decisions is something I don't want to deal with.

Dev.to does not seem like a fun place to be. It's a much nicer Medium.com, but its niche is of course just developers. I don't make many of those posts anymore. Plus it's kind of like Instagram but for developer blogs. I just don't like the vibe.

Plume is not maintained. Side story: I was close to committing to a small annual monetary support but that's when I found out it's no longer actively maintained.

BearBlog won't allow scripts and therefore Plausible Analytics.

Prose.sh is way too geeky. SSH for login? Nope. Just yesterday, I opened and edited this post on my phone. A web browser was all I needed. WordPress obliged, too, of course.

Micro.blog seems interesting but I'm not sure it's one for me. Manton declined a regional price too.

Publii sounds like an excellent idea in theory but all it felt to me was clumsy and more work than a managed/hosted blog.

Self-hosting Tanzawa or GoBlog is no longer a task I want to undertake.

A static site generator is literally the last option on my list. Heck, it's not even an option at all. It's great for brochure websites, one-pagers, documentation, etc. but for blogging, it just doesn't cut it. You cannot change my mind. Don't even try.

Sigh. Perhaps paid Write.as is the only service worth considering seriously, thanks in large part to their fediverse compatibility, which is a very attractive feature.

Micro-blogging.

I also really enjoy micro-blogging or writing long walls of text but on a micro-blogging service because who sees what is very much in my control.

A public blog doesn't offer that convenience. I have considered just using a micro-blogging service and then a bunch of static pages on my domain still.

What next?

I don't know.

We'll see.

My apologies for this disappointing conclusion.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Setup.

I set up NextDNS on my laptop and my phone. I left the tablet out. No one else in my household is using this.

Configuration was relatively easy. They had me download some "profiles" that I could "install" and activate. Very old school, like with those GPRS/EDGE profiles your carrier would have you download, install, and activate.

Analytics.

Total queries made: 555,144

Blocked: 84,950

Blocked (%): 15.3%

Queries on laptop: 169,596

Queries on phone: 385,548

My laptop is typically online about 9 to 10 hours a day, whereas the phone of course is online 24 hours a day (how creepy).

I do have an ad-blocker on my primary browser on my laptop (Firefox, uBlock Origin). It helps when I use Safari or Vivaldi though since I don't have to think too much. The latter comes with its own ad-blocker too but it's good to give it a little help.

GAFAM dominance.

A little nicety offered by NextDNS is a section on their analytics called GAFAM dominance.

Their explanation: "The 'GAFAM' (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) are the 5 dominant Internet companies that own many popular services, often operating under a different name, e.g., WhatsApp and Instagram for Facebook."

Service breakdown:

• Apple: 186,278 queries (33%)
• Google: 118,695 queries (21%)
• Facebook: 30,695 queries (5%)
• Amazon: 13,422 queries (2%)
• Microsoft: 11,091 queries (2%)

A reminder.

While yes, I am using Apple a lot more, I am surprised to see 21% of my queries being Google even after all this time and effort spent on de-googling.

They really do dominate the web.

And this is a good reminder.

Motivation.

I went with a hosted and managed DNS service because, well, they are simpler to use. The thought of getting my Raspberry Pi 4 out, ready, and then installing and configuring PiHole or AdGuard on it and then my devices… there was no way I was going through all of that.

And then take into account the fact that there's extra config if you want to use this "local" DNS outside of the local network!

NextDNS' setup took about 15-25 minutes and I didn't break a sweat at any point. Not there, and not during the roughly one month of usage.

My thoughts on this.

Effectiveness.

I tried to browse on Firefox without any ad-blocker and it was a massive fail. I added a lot more filters to try and see if it would help matter, but at that point, some legit sites stopped working. So it can be aggressive, but then that's too aggressive. And even so, keep in mind DNS based filtering only goes so far. uBlock Origin or a similar ad-blocker is absolutely an essential, despite NextDNS.

However, on my phone, where I use Safari which doesn't allow ad-blocking, it has made things… more tolerable. Not an absolute amount of tolerable, just relatively more tolerable.

Telemetry.

The nicer thing it has done is it blocks a ton of logging by Mozilla, iCloud, Firebase (Google), and WhatsApp (Facebook/Meta). I appreciate that.

I do worry that it makes debugging and opt-in tracking harder (where I want apps to improve!), but for now, I'm OK in this box.

Ease of use.

Oh this is a joy! I remember how annoying running PiHole was. I gave up within days. This has gone on for over 3 weeks in comparison.

And that's it. With little config and no worry of managing anything, I get a little less spied on for free!

8/10, would recommend.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

New workplace.

I mentioned about starting a new contract soon when I put up my July 2022 review post.

Well, it has.

While dealing with React and friends isn't always a joy, can I take a moment to acknowledge that working on user interfaces and delivering a great user experience is something I love so much?! Of course open-source libraries do maybe even like 80% of the heavy lifting, so that's there. It does allow one to focus on the details, then, which is great for the end-users!

4-day work weeks are a blast. I love that too. Never going back. Well, unless, I have to. I'm also starting (ish) my days with coffee now (unfortunately). Fosstodon rubbed off on me. 😆

Independence.

Something that struck me an awful much when talking about this new role was the fact that my (now) boss enjoyed using AWS/alternatives because it gave him freedom to do things with just one language and (mostly) just one side of the stack, and even as a one-man team!

I think that's going to be helpful to me as well in the future for my side projects. For example, I can't wait to make something decent with Supabase. I'll probably pace it though, knowing how things have been in the last few years with burnout and everything.

Big life changes.

A new workplace is a big change, sure, but I've had a couple more big events this year (you'll know if you follow me on my personal Mastodon account), and a couple more to come in the next two years.

It's a little bit turbulent period in the scheme of things, and for once, I am looking forward to things. That's actually quite remarkable!

Losing weight.

Still the biggest mental-space hoarder is my weight loss journey. Had joined the gym for a bit but couldn't make it stick. I'll try again soon.

Overall, making slow progress — I'll get there! 💪🏼

Media consumption.

I've been watching Ted Lasso, Westworld, and Chicago Med (which is long enough that despite starting it months ago I'm still aways). All of them are great!

I bought Altered Carbon (the book) but yet to start it. It takes me a bit to get things going, so no sweat. And the best part is I haven't seen the Netflix series!

Been trying to get back into music a bit, but it's hard when you don't have hours to obsess over artists and all the ins and outs of a person/group like you could during your teen years.

See you next month!

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Between hopes and dreams.

When moving to iOS, I decided to take a chance and install Signal. I was already losing all my chats from Android at the time, but I had hoped that we'd see a backup solution on iOS any month from that point on and there was an option to archive all my chats for posterity. My patience then finally ran out when I was asked to backup all my content before sending in my device for a small repair.

Icing on the cake for this situation… here's what we have from the Signal team (emphasis mine):

"It is highly unlikely we will ever build a file based backup system for iOS...The future for moving your data between devices in Signal likely looks like a choice between direct peer-to-peer transfer or restoration from some form of secure network storage."

— Nora Trapp, Signal, November 2020

Sounds like Android literally just got lucky with a backup solution. It could just have been iOS if it were more technically feasible at the time they introduced backups.

Workplace history.

I suppose MilitaryGradeUser raises a good point here:

"In 2020 and last year Michael and Matthew left the team and they were the first professional iOS developers that Signal ever had!"

— MilitaryGradeUser, Signal Community Forums, August 2022

I wish all of them luck, but it is clear that at this time, I can't keep using Signal.

Moving on.

I'm now using a mix of other proprietary instant messengers, and all my chats are self-deleting on Signal (at least the expectations are clearly set!).

Between losing years worth of messages and being able to search and look back on those same years worth of messages, I know which one is more important to me — proprietary or not.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

rain.

Not very appealing, is it?

A lot of rains this month. Not enjoying them as much as an adult as I did adolescent. I guess that also has to do with the state of things in a developing/poorer country. The infrastructure almost never copes with anything more than mild showers.

energy.

At this point in time, I feel like I have no energy for anything but work and relaxing and working on my fat loss journey. That's literally it. My plate is full.

And oh, the environment? Why bother when Taylor Swift and Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner and all of them millionaires and billionaires are "flexing" and renting out and using their private jets like a car. We can't catch up. I can't catch up.

I mean, I did buy an e-bike recently for going around town, so I'm still making those choices when I can. But it feels absolutely futile. The green factor is an added bonus point, but not the reason for it.

social media.

A special shout-out to Cheri Baker's "Where Does Blogging Fit In?" section on her No Social Media Club post. Hard relate.

In other news, I've taken one step back from my personal fedi account in a bid to work on and improve my mental health. It wasn't helping to dump negativity all the time. And the change is definitely helping, among other measures.

career.

I'm going to start a new contract very soon, and although not a fan of the tech stack, I just can't be bothered anymore. Feels similar to what I feel for the environment.

It should be interesting though. It's a 4-day work week with an option to work the 5th if I feel like it.

Photo by Sonika Agarwal on Unsplash.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

I could not have been more wrong. I now wish I didn't buy a pair at all.

Generic downsides that will apply to most products.

To name a few downsides:

• They are not made to last. Can you replace the battery on these things? Nope! Even the original manufacturer would refuse it!
• Multi-fold higher cost than its wired counter-part. And that's an under-statement.
• Needing to constantly charge it. One more gadget to charge. Ugh.
• Lossless audio isn't supported over Bluetooth.
• Since they need to pack a lot of tech into the buds, it's heavier.
• A good fit is difficult to find. It takes a lot of trial and error. If you live somewhere where returns aren't a thing (hello India!), this won't even be possible at all. Stuck with what you get the first time around.
• Personally, I'm always afraid of losing it — for example, dropping it in a place where recovering it is impossible. Or somewhere where damage is possible within seconds of the drop such as streets.
• Mic audio isn't good enough and apparently can't be.
• Fear of theft is also high enough on my list. If it's expensive, and easy to carry, it's at risk of theft.

AirPods specific downsides.

For AirPods specifically, there are a few more downsides:

Poor connection guess-game.

Apple devices never know which device I want the AirPods to connect to. Whatever algorithm is in place here, it's crap.

I might be watching something on my iPad and open the AirPods next to it (is that even a thing?), and lo and behold, my iPhone is now connected to the AirPods. Thanks, Apple? I guess?

Inability to hold a connection.

OK, let's assume I've set up the right device with the AirPods. You know what's so, so, so annoying? That this connection drops randomly. I've been on phone calls where I hear a disconnection sound and I think to myself, "Is this what Apple makes for $225?"

Honestly, if this happens now, I don't even bother reconnecting. It's a whole charade. Better to just apologize for the missed sentence and hold a brick of a phone up (iPhone 13 Pro is heavy) next to my ear.

Doesn't wake up properly.

Sometimes I need to pop it back into the case and then re-connect because only earpiece connected the first time for some weird reason.

I'll say this once again:

TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS?

My current routine.

I now prefer my wired EarPods. Fraction of the cost, supports lossless audio, and I can wear it while exercising. It's just better in so many ways.

It's only on occasion I take out the AirPods — maybe I'm watching a movie in my bed, talking to someone in a secure space and don't want my arm to hurt from the bulky iPhone 13 Pro, and a few more scenarios like this.

Hopefully this means they also last much longer by virtue of not being in active use? Fingers crossed.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.