Unblocking myself - I've been listening to quite a few podcasts the past 48 hours, yet for whatever reason, no major interesting thoughts have been arising to explore via notes. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps it's because I'm not thinking about code, or maybe the topics covered are too distant for me to have any strong opnions. Or maybe the very notion that I'm blocked from coding is causing me to be blocked in my writting too. So I'm writing this note to see if it unblocks me. #
2023/08/31 #
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That ambient stagnation feeling - I'm reading this Verge piece about Google and search and how AI is changing all the dynamics of the web. It's part historical, looking at the past, but also very much about the future, yet for some reason I'm reading and reading and it just feels like I'm watching paint dry. I don't think it's terrible writting, it's the sort of article I usually am really into.
I'm reading it in Pocket so all the website styles have been removed. The article looks very dull, black text on white background. That seems like a plausible explanation, though I do often read articles in Pocket where that doesn't occur. Am I just in a bad mood? I'm feeling quite chill, but I have an ambient sense of stagnation that's difficult to shake. I kind of know already before I start anything that it won't get resolved. So why bother?
Well I managed this note didn't I? Take that stagnation.
What is that and where does it come from? #
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Remember to listen to music more often - Sometimes no matter what you do life just feels flat. The weather today has been particularly lousy, just grey and an on/off drisley rain, that won't make it's mind up. I decided to stop listening to tech podcasts, for some reason most episodes in my podcatcher look to be bitcoin and crypto related and I'm feeling like I have reached digital money podcast saturation.
Decided to change track completely abd listened to the latest Rest is History podcast about Sixties Fashion. Interesting, fun, colorful and such a fascinating period culturally. The Teenage Revolution and Swinging London definitely worth a listen. Cheered me up a bit.
Continuing on in the same anything-but-tech approach to the day, now I'm listening to A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast. I'd already listenned to the start of the Dark Star by the Grateful Dead episode week before last. It's epically long so not likely to get through it all today, but it's nice to get out of tech and programming for a little while and into music. I have to remember to listen to music more often. #
Today’s links:
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CSS Nesting just landed in Firefox 117 - Wes Bos Twitter thread where he gives 11 examples of the new CSS nesting feature which is now implemented in all browsers. This is awesome. Having a nesting feature in native CSS will make things so much easier to organize. twitter.com #
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Bézier curves - Richard Ekwonye did a deep dive on this topic and created this article which containts some excellent interactive examples illustrating how Bézier curves are used in animation easing, but also in adding curves to simple and complex shapes found in fonts, icons, illustrations, data visualization charts, 3d objects and other visual elements. blog.richardekwonye.com #
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The new economics of Twitter outrage - The twisted economics that are playing out on Twitter with Elon Musk's new rules. It has changed the "main character" dynamic from something that could benefit people that fitted into existing structured of business, politics and media to one where "you’re just paid directly by a billionaire -- though only if you can afford to pay him first". I'm not sure what it is exactly but some things in this article ring true to real life for me. www.garbageday.email #
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Should you use AsyncLocalStorage? - I've read through this a couple of times now and though I do understand most of the code, I feel like I'm missing something crucial. It looks like it might be a very useful nodejs API but I'm not seeing yet exactly what type of use cases it could br relevant. Hopefully I'll get some more time later to find more examples. eytanmanor.medium.com #