NUGGETS

what?

celebration music, both for the aforementioned milestone and also for a working feed (#53-54):

incredible (my most replayed song last year, a total banger. i can't stop bouncing)

#73

(2/2) here's to many more screenfuls!

for future milestones, i'm considering: a random nugget button, or a pile-of-notecards skeuomorphic view; and perhaps semantic search or filtering.

#72

(1/2) meta: i now have a whole 4k_screenful.jpg of nuggets. the widescreen layout is a months-long brainsplat, all in one page. no pagination, minimal scrolling. sorta like a newspaper spread or like magic ink (more looking, less interaction)

#71

this nugget intentionally left blank.

#70

(5/5) when she doesn’t respond, i know she’s used up all her words, so i slowly whisper i love you thirty-two and a third times. after that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe.”

— j.m.

#69

(4/5) late at night, i call my long distance lover, proudly say i only used fifty-nine today. i saved the rest for you.

#68

(3/5) when the phone rings, i put it to my ear without saying hello. in the restaurant i point at chicken noodle soup. i am adjusting well to the new way.

#67

(2/5) “in an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day.

#66

(1/5) the quiet world is my favorite poem — my favorite piece of writing, actually. you can read it in its original formatting, but i'm also copying it here because i'm a digital magpie and this is my place for beautiful things:

#65

"go away or i will replace you with a very small shell script"

— a cheeky t-shirt worn by a cheeky david korn, author of ksh.


(bonus: TIL david korn met the band korn. pictures)

#64

beware, stationery nerds: the first link in #62 is a trap. everything on that site is so tempting and clever. stub recycler, calendar stamp, pencil extender, pencil chocolate??


"needs, not greeds. needs, not greeds.."

#63

little inventions i enjoy:

#62

TIL the classic cli tool wttr.in has a v2.wttr.in, which has some cute graphs.


also the same dev created cht.sh, which TIL has learning guides like cht.sh/perl/:learn and cht.sh/latency

#61

stayed up way too late for this: fetch-dysentery. fun little oregon trail + neofetch crossover. the pixel art could use some love, but overall im pleased :)

#60

in the works:

#59

(2/2) "i write maybe three and a half thousand sentences a year. is this too many, or not enough, or about right? i have no idea. i write one sentence, then another, and repeat until done."

yes, just sentences, just working toward my quota

#58

(1/2) "think of it like this, as just cranking out a daily quota of sentences, instead of being a writer, which feels like a claim that will need to be stamped and approved."

— joe moran, "first you write a sentence"

#57

thinking about the url for my portfolio:

#56

"people love to romanticize being a writer when really it's just clacky-clacky backspace snacky"

- nicole

- veronique

#55

oh crumbs, the feed is broken... here's some waiting music in the meantime until i can get home and fix it. (flamingosis has some groovy mixes)

#54

i just made an rss/atom feed for this page. thanks for the suggestion, dima and radek. beware: it's a bit of a firehose. it's also generated by an amateur perl script. let me know if something breaks.

#53

a neat one-liner to browse arch packages, using fzf and yay (two palindromes):

yay -Slq | fzf --preview 'yay -Si {}' --height=97% --layout=reverse --bind 'enter:execute(yay -Si {} | less)'

credit & screenshot.png

#52

enough rambling. have you seen the astronomy picture of the day?

#51

(7/7) one more benefit: this page is an idea incubator. some of these nuggets will hatch into full posts. and sometimes i find myself writing several nuggets in a row, only to i realize i had enough juice to write a full post after all, if it weren't for #47...

#50

(6/7) an interesting phenomenon, as julia noticed: this page is like bookmarks but better. before, if i found something cool, i'd bookmark the link and forget about it. now, if i find something cool, i'll write a blurb and share it here, and i'll remember it.

#49

(5/7) casual nuggets relieve the tension. sometimes i want to say something useful or interesting, but it's too short or tangential. sometimes i want to share something non-tech. where does it all go? before, nowhere. now, here!

#48

(4/7) i put too much pressure on my main blog: overediting, triple checking, filtering out ideas. i only write in the format "i made a thing with code, look, i'm proud of it, and here's how it works". it's quite limiting. and slow.

#47

(3/7) microblogs are not just for devs and techies, though. many twitter expats use micro.blog or thoughts.page to fill the void of social media.

#46

(2/7) microblogs are the new hotness. see #1. see also zak's shell script and screencast that looks very similar to my workflow. not to mention the cool cousin of microblogs: weeknotes. like alice's or dima's.

#45

(1/7) new post: an ugly alias. it represents most of my computering — shortcuts, vim, scripting, deep diving into technical niches, and writing html. i'm fond of the screencast.mp4. i ended the post early, though. here are some nuggets that didn't make the cut:

#44

TIL: if you test a new domain at home, then test it the next day at work and see an https error, it's probably not your fault! your workplace network may have a "newly seen domain" blocking policy. the solution, as usual: wait 24 hrs.

#43

deployed smoothly!

#42

snagged a domain: in-one.page. i think i'll redesign multiple documentation sites, starting with ghostty.in-one.page. i wish more documentation would let me ctrl+f everything on a single page. pagefind is good too.

#41

also on car modifications: i want ventilated/cooled seats in my car. (driving in florida heat gives me swamp butt) i thought cooled seats were only in fancy cars but TIL there's aftermarket installation options.

#40

randomly thinking about car window speeds: who decided how fast is too fast? how slow is too slow?

fwiw, my window moves 16in (40cm) in 3.5 seconds. should it be faster? can i make it a lot slower for comedic effect?

#39

working on a documentation page: /⁠ghostty-reference. happy to make something that looks professional. (thanks, starlight) happy with the UX too:

shows-not-tells, fits on one page, platform filters, less wasted space.

#38

til: astro has a dev toolbar, hidden at the bottom of the screen. you can mouseover or press tab. it has buttons to report an astro bug, copy debug info, inspect interactive islands, audit accessibility features. pretty nifty.

#37

some random niche songs i love:


1 is punky, 2 is catchy, 3 is smooth

#36

(3/3) i think donny's guide is the prequisite for matthew's typography book, which is more comprehensive, more opinionated, more elegant, yet less practical, despite the title.

#35

(2/3) in summary, look for: a generous x-height, open apertures, even letter-spacing, clear terminals, distinguishable ascenders and descenders, and enough contrast in stroke thickness. aka: give eyeballs what they want.

#34

(1/3) this is the most practical guide i've found for looking at fonts. it's not just about vibes. donny points out exactly what makes a typeface legible. he also shares basic guidelines and css snippets for web typography in general.

#33

til: bash and readline are both maintained by one fellow!

#32

(2/2) the chronicles show the progression of culture along with tech. like, what was life like pre-internet? how did employment change with the introduction of computers? how did the first unix terminals work? what was the first software? who were the early adopters?

#31

(1/2) the best history of computing imo, from 1984 to 2002: the computer chronicles. you see the world gradually discover computers. great hosts, neat demonstrations, good interviews.

perhaps start with S11E7, the internet.

#30

if bored: check the 404 pages of your favorite small-web sites. for example, see tom and jack and sandy and manuel and many others that i'm forgetting.

bonus: http.cat

#29

some instrumental songs that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside:

#28

i got a jaw harp. it makes the boing boing sound in spud infinity and fantastic mr fox. i thought it would be an easy instrument, but no! i struggle to coordinate my face, fingers, and breathing.

#27

cat.jpg

#26

(3/3) on the third hand, where else could i write about huffing my own farts? maybe that's what traditional social media is for. or diaries. or regular blogs.

(ever uncomfortable, the author continues sharing random links)

#25

(2/3) on the other hand, i imagine readers sifting through the page and finding useful nuggets. that keeps me going. i also imagine they enjoy indie-web-voyeurism just as i do: curious to get inside people's heads and see something personal.

#24

(1/3) i'm realizing a few weeks in: microblogging feels incredibly vain. both kinds of vain: vain as in huffing my own farts, and vain as in useless. on one hand, i imagine this page gives the same vibes as a loner tweeting unfunny jokes.

#23

just came across keybr, which is spaced repetition for typing practice. it gradually introduces new keys. it analyzes results, too: see my heatmap.jpg of hits and misses (i often flub c, i, t, and p)

#22

i loved dave's reflection on his experience with p5js. he has a lot of passion, creativity, smarts, and good vibes. happy to see him grow with the project.

p5 2.0 seems promising! bonus: the interactive welcome demo

#21

before llm agents, there was jessica's atomist, a "robot pair" for elm codegen. i think about it every year. 1) elm's strong type system and compiler made it possible 2) today, we can almost generate refactors for any language 3) still need better ux

#20

favorite tiny desk concerts:

#19

adding to #1: my nuggets are also inspired by "linkblogs" like tv.goodenough.us or jarrod's 7 things. sometimes you just want to share a cool link ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(we are all digital hoarders)

#18

comments? questions? concerned? reach me at justin@wonger.dev. i like receiving emails from other internet wanderers.

have a swell day ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

#17

kombucha tier list:

  1. brew dr, crisp apple
  2. health-ade, passion fruit + tangerine
  3. synergy, multi-green
  4. publix greenwise, honeycrisp apple
#16

been wanting to write a post: "freetaxusa has great form design". just gotta do my taxes and take lots of screenshots.

#15

one-month review of the xsto wallet:

#14

reducing friction: my alias for alias itself. before: new aliases do not persist until you copy them to ~/.bash_aliases. after: just type alias key='value' as usual, and it automatically saves to file. small UX victories.

#13

i've cooked up a fun alias for sudo !! (no shift required):

alias oops='$(fc -ln -2 -2 | sed '\''s/^/sudo /g'\'')'

it's basically "get last line of history and prepend sudo".

#12

(5/5) ultimately, i'm saying: try weightlifting. find a gym conveniently nearby, find a friend or personal trainer to mentor you for a couple months, find exercises you enjoy, find a time that works for you, find 30-whatever dollars a month.

#11

(4/5) maybe it's cliche to be a gym evangelist. i share these gym nuggets only because it's drastically improved my life. it's much more valuable than a bookmarklet or song recommendation. and that's coming from a twice-a-week newbie!

#10

(3/5) the gym is a refreshingly positive feedback loop: i lift weights, then i'm pumped with endorphins, then i eat & drink well afterwards, then i'm happy and productive for a bit, then i sleep well, then the next day is easier.

#9

(2/5) i've grown used to negative feedback loops: feeling depressed, then not taking care of myself, then losing energy and motivation, then falling behind on todos, then feeling crappy all over again, but worser.

#8

(1/5) just deadlifted my bodyweight for the first time! shoutouts to squat university for superb weightlifting tips. first gym goal: complete. gymgoing is now a lifestyle, not a phase. it's sorta saving my life.

#7

another random music rec: a dream is all we know, by the lemon twigs (spotify). poppy 70s vibes, if that's your thing. their last two albums have been fantastic. i caught a few earworms.

#6

(2/2) this means you can unbloat recipe websites in a few taps with this "foodmarklet":

javascript:void((()=>{let js=document.createElement('script');js.src="//unpkg.com/foodmarklet";document.head.appendChild(js)})());

(source)

#5

(1/2) did you know you can make bookmarklets (userscripts) on mobile? (full instructions)

  1. bookmark any page
  2. change the url to your code
  3. give it a title like !script
  4. to activate, tap the address bar and type !script
#4

one of my favorite songs this year: "sisters of a down". such an unlikely crossover, yet it works so well. i can't get enough. now i'm searching for more indian music and more metal.

#3

before settling on /nuggets, i considered: /thoughts, /tidbits, /notelets, /musings, /shareables, /lately, and /not-twitter. feel free to adopt one for your own site. they deserve a home...

#2

the indie web, particularly jarrod, inspired this page. see also: linus' stream, geoff's one-liners, and simon's TILs. the styling riffs off an earlier experiment of mine, /⁠enjoyables.

#1

greetings from my new microblog! "nuggets: a taste of who i am and what i do." sometimes tech, sometimes not. always casual.

sincerely,
wonger.dev.

#0