๐Ÿ—ป James Van Dyne

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  • ๐Ÿ”— I gamified my own blog

    Nov 26, 2023
    by James
    Many platforms these days have some gamification features. One of the common features is awarding users/members/players different badges to reward their loyalty and activity in the platform.
    I decided to award some to myself since I self-host my blog and have no one else to give me badges.
    I really like the idea of awarding yourself badges. Could be a fun plugin for Tanzawa.
    1. Tagged with
    2. blogging
    3. indieweb
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • Checkin to IKEA Restaurant & Cafe (IKEAใƒฌใ‚นใƒˆใƒฉใƒณ&ใ‚ซใƒ•ใ‚ง)

    IKEA Restaurant & Cafe (IKEAใƒฌใ‚นใƒˆใƒฉใƒณ&ใ‚ซใƒ•ใ‚ง) 35.522764 139.590671
    Nov 26, 2023
    by James
    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
    Carrot cake and a latte. We were able to get a seat on the 3rd pass.
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink 10 interactions
  • ๐Ÿ”— Opinion | Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can Fight Back.

    Nov 25, 2023
    by James
    Small groups of humans turning off their phones and paying attention for half an hour in their local park is obviously not, in itself, the revolution that will bring the attention frackers to their knees.
    Exactly why you should forget your phone.
    1. Tagged with
    2. attention
    3. education
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • ๐Ÿ”— New research suggests plants might be able to absorb more CO2 from human activities than previously expected

    Nov 24, 2023
    by James
    New research published in Science Advances paints an uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet. This is because more realistic ecological modeling suggests the world's plants may be able to take up more atmospheric CO2 from human activities than previously predicted.

    "However, simply planting trees will not solve all our problems. We absolutely need to cut down emissions from all sectors. Trees alone cannot offer humanity a get out of jail free card."
    Great news, but as it says, we cannot put our foot on the brakes. We need to reforest more land and stop using fossil fuels.
    1. Tagged with
    2. co2
    3. climate change
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • ๐Ÿ”— An Interactive Guide to CSS Grid

    Nov 23, 2023
    by James
    CSS Grid is an incredibly powerful tool for building layouts on the web, but like all powerful tools, there's a significant learning curve. In this tutorial, we'll build a mental model for how CSS Grid works and how we can use it effectively. I'll share the biggest ๐Ÿ’ก lightbulb moments I've had in my own learning journey.
    This is great. I have a feeling a lot of my html on my site could be simplified by using girds instead of flex everywhere.
    1. Tagged with
    2. programming
    3. css
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • Nov 23, 2023
    by James
    ๐Ÿฆƒ Turkey Trot
    Sans Turkey ๐Ÿ˜ญ

    4.3km

    33.0min

    26.2m climbed

    157.8avg bpm

    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • ๐Ÿ”— Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

    Nov 22, 2023
    by James
    Walkable, mixed-use planning is the key to getting young people outside again and enabling their independence.
    ๐Ÿ’ฏ Growing up in the various suburbs, I was outside more with friends in the denser ones (Huntington Beach) compared to the massive sprawl ones (Houston/Clear Lake).
    1. Tagged with
    2. urban design
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • The Week #177

    Nov 21, 2023
    by James
    • ๐Ÿคฎ The bug got me. Unfortunately it didn't really kick in until I was in the office in Tokyo. I left a bit earlier than usual and rode the green car home. Riding the green car is usually quite nice, but I was miserable the entire way.

      On the way I picked up some ice cream from baskin robbins for Leo...which I won't get into why...but it's ridiculous. After buying ice cream as I'm walking back to the station I felt increasingly worse and got more annoyed with each step at the entire situation. My annoyance culminated in breaking the wa the restroom...worrying that his ice cream will melt and I'll have to listen to a, no pun intended, melt down.

      But the moment I got home, Leo was appreciate and said thank you. I b-lined to bed and slept for 12 hours. At its peak I had a 38.3cย  (101f) fever. Thankfully when I woke up in the morning I felt much better. I still have a bit of a lingering cough that's getting a bit better each day.
    • ๐Ÿ“ธ We got the entire family together for Leo's shichi-go-san photos and family photos.ย  Leo as dressed in hakama and Yumi, and myself dressed in kimono. As we rescheduled on short notice, the adults didn't have the option of picking any kimono we wanted. Rather, we had to pick from their stock that day.

      We were afraid that they'd only have a bunch of light colored kimono, as that's was the majority of the choices to begin with, and that it would make me ghosty. Thankfully that wasn't the case. They had some nice darker blue options. Yumi's had a couple of good options as well.

      Leo did a few different poses in a two different hakama. His favorite was his samurai pose where he got to hold a katana as a prop. Besides Leo's single shots, we also took a family portraits, one with the 3 of us and another with everyone. Each time we take family photos like this, I always think we should do this more often.
    • ๐Ÿ”— I added a new bookmarks page on my site. The new display of bookmarks is more streamlined giving clear distinction between the site I'm linking to and my commentary about it. I also added tags, which is a first in Tanzawa, so I can better group and categorize the links I'm sharing.

      Under the hood, there weren't that many changes required to enable this. But having this clear difference in styling between different post types is encouraging me to share more links that I find via my blog.
    • โ›ฐ๏ธ Other minor improvements to Tanzawa this week are improved RSS representations for different post types. Mostly it's replacing words with emoji. But the main improvement has been getting my run photos and routes appearing properly in micro.blog.

      Getting the photos and routes to appear in micro.blog required:

      ย 1) Stop using svg when rendering the route for feed readers and instead use img because svg isn't on the allow list for the timeline. This was easy as I already have a url for creating pngs of the route that I use for previews when sharing.
      2) Using absolute uris for my image paths. Relative paths worked fine in feed readers, but not in micro.blog.

      Improved checkin display

      I also added webmentions to the front page, which is quite reminiscent ofย  following the latest comments on a blog, like people did back in blogging boom.ย 
    • ๐Ÿ‘‚ Spoke too soon - Leo woke up on Monday with an ear ache ๐Ÿ˜ซ Can't we all just get better?
    • ๐Ÿค– I want to end this post on a positive note โ€“ I followed the best bot on the fediverse: @hackers_gifs, which shows gifs of the movie Hackers every few hours.
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink 1 interaction
  • ๐Ÿ”— Social media is sugar. Itโ€™s time we limit its negative impact

    Nov 20, 2023
    by James
    If social media is analogous to sugar, then what is the digital equivalent of eating our vegetables? I believe it involves supporting the parallel growth of democratized publications that are conversely creating an unmistakable net good in society.
    Besides supporting just publications, we should be supporting platforms that allow people to create their own garden and interact with web in an open manner. Finding the IndieWeb is what started me on the path to eating my vegetables again.ย 
    1. Tagged with
    2. community
    3. internet
    4. social media
    5. indieweb
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink
  • Checkin to Studio Alice (ใ‚นใ‚ฟใ‚ธใ‚ชใ‚ขใƒชใ‚น)

    Studio Alice (ใ‚นใ‚ฟใ‚ธใ‚ชใ‚ขใƒชใ‚น) 35.392586853513166 139.44759093462125
    Nov 19, 2023
    by James
    in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
    Shichi-go-san family photo time. ๐Ÿ“ธ
    ๐Ÿ”—permalink 6 interactions
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Photo of James Van Dyne James Van Dyne Japan

Web developer living in Japan.