Archives: Notes

Stephen Colbert is a massive nerd (complimentary).

Victoria, the infrastructure state.

Queue here for train replacement busses. Please allow extra time for travel as all major roads to the western suburbs are closed

Today marks ten years since I became a WordPress Core committer. It’s been a ride and I’ve certainly grown a lot in that time; I’d have never been able to work on a feature as large as Real Time Collaboration back in the day.

I remember getting the offer very clearly because Slack protocols were still developing and I woke to a message from a Lead Developer, Helen Hou-Sandí, that she wanted to “talk about something” when it was timezone appropriate.

I tentatively replied thinking I must have screwed up and screwed up badly. No, I was about to take the first step that would entirely change my career over the next few years.

It’s been a ride. And sometimes still is.

Heh, I just created an issue to prep a 2.8.0 release. The issue number is 280.

I am easily amused.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a big ol’ clean up of VMs I hadn’t booted for a while on the basis that they could be pretty easily reprovisioned at any time.

This week I’ve wanted to reup two of them. They pull from the Ubuntu PPA. Ask me how that’s going.

Don’t actually ask.

In reply to: this post

1:32pm AEST on a Saturday is the perfect time for marketing. Am I right or am I right?! Something something personal brand something.

I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at WordCamp Europe about recent performance improvements to post querying in WordPress.

With a persistent object cache on many page loads WordPress no longer makes any database queries. The many contributors who worked on this have done great work and I am thrilled to be able to celebrate their work.

I’ve been using computers since my parents gave me a second hand Apple IIe as a combined birthday/Christmas present some time in the 80s.

One day I hope to be good enough at technology that I can convince Netflix to show me the credits of a movie I have chosen to watch from start to finish.

There’s an urgent call for testing by hosting providers for the WordPress Real-Time Collaboration feature coming in WordPress 7.0.

There are a few data structures being considered and the testing will help determine the best approach across a range of environments.

In reply to: this post

I do wish said humans were better at keeping said canines on a leash. Dogs have killed previous Maribyrnong River Swan families in the past.

I’d love to know when the Footscray Arts Centre lawn will be re-opened. The only work they’ve done for months is to mow the lawn three times.

Surely by now it can cope with human, canine and cygnus foot traffic.

Uncommenting the “Today is not a day for social media” section of my hosts file. That’s my hot take.

The thing the AFL needs to realise is that when their (now former) appeals board chair says homophobic slurs are common it’s VERY, VERY BELIEVABLE.

What with no openly gay players and all.

…and here I was thinking that Keynote was frustrating.

I need to use Google Slides and am now singing the everything is shit song.

The lyrics are “everything is shit, ooh, everything is shit ” (repeat infinity)

This is great, the eligibility rules have been changed to allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood in Australia.

When I donated plasma earlier this year, I found out I’m a universal blood donor. I’ve been told by friend to expect regular phone calls. Ironically, I can’t donate at the moment because I’ve traveled overseas too recently.

Are we having roast potatoes with a side of chicken for dinner?

No, that would be ridiculous.

We’re having thrice cooked, duck fat roast potatoes with a side of chicken for dinner. 

I think people reacting badly to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle doing paid and expensive private gigs on their tour are either very naive or very disingenuous.

The amount of money they have to spend on security is astronomical, so of course they’re going cash in when they can. 

Tempted to start posting this every day.

LinkedIn Mini Sudoku #####

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Are oil refinery fires really bad though? The woke left mainstream media should be arksing this question.

International flights that land early in the morning suck. I’m out for a walk so I have no choice but to stay awake for a little longer before a short afternoon nap.

Skipping a conference you’ve traveled some distance to attend in order to binge watch several series of Taskmaster on their YouTube channel. Discuss.

International travel is high fiving a fellow traveler because you’ve made it to 9pm (9:17, to be precise) before going to bed.

In reply to: this post

I do feel sorry for the person sitting next to the guy wearing two day old airplane clothes. I want to move away from me!

Time to recommence travel to WC Asia. I missed a connection after someone fell sick in Sydney and we needed to return to the gate. It can’t be helped and Singapore Airlines put me up in a very nice hotel so I don’t have to deal with any travel insurance claims.

Uber driver for the trip to the airport this morning had not adjusted their car’s clock. Cue mild panic.

Most of my luggage for WordCamp Asia in Mumbai is socks and jocks because I can remember how well my body coped last time I was in the tropics proper. Not. At. All. 

I’m getting a lot of “since when can I read a clock, Peter?!” vibes from the cat as she waits for dinner tonight.

Google Maps gets very confused with travelling inbound from Footscray on the Metro Tunnel. They always recommend catching an outbound train to Middle Footscray and changing to an inbound train that stops at Footscray. It’s been doing this for weeks. 

Something I miss now we’re in the streaming era is the clarity around when it’s ok to post spoilers. It’s especially difficult for Netflix when they drop the entire season at the same time. 

In this house we remember supermarkets and bottle shops are closed on Good Friday in odd numbered years only. Whoops.

I grew up with Harry Potter. It means a lot to me so I’m going to watch the new series. It doesn’t make me any less of an ally.

Yes, it does. There’s no ambiguity, you are less of an ally.

What you’re actually saying is “I’m an ally unless it inconveniences me”.

The show everyone has been telling us for years is really good is really good, Deadloch edition. 

We will never get along if you can read the headline “Complaints about foul smells skyrocket in Melbourne’s west” without making a fart joke.

My favourite travel story is really pretty simple and happened the only time I’ve visited Boston.

After arriving I decided to go for a walk as dusk fell. Within five minutes I saw another man jaywalking through a roundabout. 

A car honked and in the broadest New England accent I’ve ever heard the man yelled “Hey, I’m walkin’ here”. It was just like in the movies. 

My Bostonian friends hate this story. 

My partner is watching a lecture series about the American war of independence and I’m finding it really disconcerting because the lecturer looks like (and sounds slightly like) Dr Phil.

In reply to: this post

As part of my cooking YouTube adventures, I’ve been watching the Fellow channel a fair bit. The main effect this is having is I say bish bash bosh a lot during meal prep now.

Breaking: A word often used at the start of a sentence to try and make it seem more interesting than it actually is.

A single paragraph in an email I sent today included both “woefully inadequate” and the word “frankly”. I could feel the boomer vibes coming off me as I wrote it.

In my defence, it was to the bank who have deprecated their internet banking in favour of an app. 

In reply to: this post

The Pulp concert was a really good the rock and the roll gig, a really good set list.

Half way through the clouds cleared just as the moon was at peak eclipse over the Myer Music Bowl’s canopy.

I’ve put together a playlist of the set.

The checkout flow for paying for VA flights via PayID is really nicely done.

For local fairs avoiding a surcharge isn’t a huge saving but, if anything, it’s lower friction than finding your wallet, getting out a credit card so why not save a few bucks.

As an apparently capable person, the number of times it gets to two o’clock (or later) and I realise that the reason I’m hungry is because I haven’t had lunch is truly alarming.

I’ll take Reply Guys for one hundred dollars, thanks Alex.

I’m getting the impression that every middle aged person in Melbourne will be at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl for Pulp tonight.

I’ve just noticed that the lens cleaner that came with my glasses warns “avoid contact with eyes, not for use with contact lenses”.

Every warning tells a story, often of extreme stupidity.

Oh good, Climate Town have released a new video overnight. That will be nice and depressing watching for this-evening. I’ll watch it before Shrinking so I have a palate cleanser.

Today’s web api that I wish existed:

document.hasFocusIncludingAnyIframesButSecurityMagicEnforcedWithinTheScopesUsingThisData()

Granted, it’s not a catchy name but I’d sure find it handy.

I kind of need something like the visibility API but accounting for changing windows.

The doom machine is on fire today. Sometimes I miss the days of dial-up when the internet was intermittent.

Rain: falling gently on to the tin roof. 

Cat: eagerly snuggling up and purring beside me

Me: struggling to stay awake after a big long walk 

Actually me: not really bothering with the struggle, honestly. 

Twenty years later and they’re still, on occasion, referred to as “the Chaser boys”.

Obviously the reason LinkedIn have started doing games is because the want to bring people to the site each day to play a game and then go and check their feeds to read about the morning routines of self proclaimed global thought leaders.

Ironically I think I’m reading my feed less because I’ve been to the site so why would I go there again.