Checking in for 2023-07-09:

• I've decided that I'm going to try to limit my social media intake on Mastodon by just using third party clients like tootstream and tut over the web interface. The web interface is way too sticky for me, and I can find myself endlessly scrolling. With tootstream it automatically paginates so I can use next and prev to read through each timeline. tut also paginates, but will load a batch at a time so it's not quite as immediate. The only downsides wit this approach are that posting images is kind of a pain in the butt (tootstream in particular needs an overhaul for posting media. I haven't really exercised this code and it shows). Hoping that this exercise will help me to better concentrate on my projects.
• I know I don't need any more projects but for some god forsaken reason I've decided to play around with Smalltalk. I've really fallen down the rabbit-hole on this one, looking at several books and tutorials to get a sense of this language. Part of why I fell down into this hole was because I read about the C3 system at Chrysler, having lived through some of the aftermath of this project (namely the horrific Waterfall processes that followed. It's nice to know you worked for folks that had a project go so off-the-rails that it created not only a cottage industry of programming self-help gurus.
• I posted this on Mastodon but it bears repeating: "Agile / XP are the self-help methodologies of programmers:
  1. Plenty of anecdotes on how not using Agile / XP can go horribly wrong with the tacit assumption that everything will work if you do adopt the system.
  2. There's plenty of coaching and reading material available to help you get better at this.
  3. It's not the fault of the system, you're just not doing it right."
• I've let myself relax over these past few days so I didn't post anything about what's happened. Having the Fourth of July in the middle of the week really broke my brain. Friday had massive Saturday vibes, and I felt like I was practically time-traveling throughout the day. I'd think a minute had passed but in reality it was a half-hour. Very weird.
• I spent yesterday working on tidying up and decluttering my office. I found a great way to declutter a few things: actually try to use them. I had two items just fall apart after use. Also I had several containers with those little cloths for wiping screens and what-not that I haven't likely used since I carried a Palm Pilot. Lots of detritus in those drawers that got tossed / recycled. And that's just one drawer and one little desk unit.
• Also we apparently collect little Scotch Tape dispensers. There are at least four of them in our house.
• I'm still plugging away at learning 6502 assembly language. I swear the best way for me to procrastinate on something is to put it on my lists. I'll find just about anything that isn't on those lists and dive straight into it. This is a pattern that I've long had and it's slightly irritating to me that I still have it. I have gotten better about recognizing it and adding things to my lists.
• One of the things that I'm reminded of is a quote from Leo Babauta in the "Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life" book: "Minimalism is the end of organizing". I keep getting reminded of this, as I wrote a small script to add books that are in the bookshelves in our basement to my someday / maybe list. I'm giving each of them a 6 month "start reading this or justify why it's here" deadline to start reading them or donate them. Some of them will have a little longer, and some of them are there because they're excellent reference material. It just pains me that I'm having to do some form of "organizing" to get these books in front of me. I've gone numb to seeing them on the shelves. With this system I can do a quick t someday gimme +read to pull one out at random and see if it's either something I want to read or something that needs to find a better home. (t is my abbreviation for todo.sh. someday is a plugin that I cobbled together for handling a someday/maybe list. gimme is one of the commands in that plugin for finding something at random, and +read is the tag that I'm using for my "to read" list.)

More as I know it.