• With a couple of public holidays lined up, we had a 4-day weekend. While the covid numbers aren't spiking in Kanagawa too much, it still doesn't feel safe to go out and about We mostly kept close to home.


• I got a haircut for the first time since just before covid started. Everyone wore masks (as you'd expect, this is Japan after all), not much talking (woo!), and a shave to boot. Even in normal times I don't like going to the barber, but I'm always happy I went and wonder why I don't go more often right after I finish. Humans are funny.


• I just found out about Svelte this past week. It’s been a revelation for building reactive apps. Moving reactivity from runtime to compile time is so smart. Rich’s talk Rethinking Reactivity is really worth a watch if you do any frontend development.


• To learn Svelte, I’ve started to build a small app with it that I’ve been wanting for a while: A photo blogging client using IndieAuth/Micropub. So far I got the basic layout (using Tailwind.css) and the IndieAuth workflow setup. Once it’s ready y’all be the first to know.

Cinnamon rolls~

Podcasting is perhaps the last bastion of the open web. Where the distribution system isn’t centralized into a single large tech company’s systems. Yes, those big tech companies run directories, but they’re all powered by the same open technology under the hood - rss. Which is quite surprising as Podcasting was popularized by Apple and the iPod. One might argue that the Apple of the early 2000’s is different than the Apple of today and they’d be right. But despite the podcasting boom, they don’t seem to have any interest in closing the podcast kingdom.

I want to help the health of the open web with the next service that I build. While I try to figure exactly what that service will be, I do what I can to help by blogging and mostly syndicating what I write to social media.

Building a service around podcasting or starting a podcast may seem like the simplest way to help reinforce the open web and build a fun new service. But I’m not a podcaster and, most importantly, the world needs another audio blog by a white 30-something software engineer as much as I need a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

But the open web doesn’t need a new service to make it strong again. It’s easier today than ever before to setup your own site using open source software and start publishing. What it needs is more people participating. More people. Writing more. In more places.

Blogs didn’t die because Google killed reader. Blogs died because people starting posting their content on social media and not their own site.

And so, to help the web, I’ll continue doing what I’ve been doing this past year. I’ll think. I’ll read. And I’ll write. But under my own domain.

First quiche since...February when I went into the office last.