Weeknotes 2025W32

I did some paperwork, uploaded documents, and took a drug test to onboard for a job this week. I feel ambivalent about this. Logically, I’m very happy to have a job in an economy that isn’t very friendly to job-seekers (especially entry level) right now. On the other hand, it’s a low-paying, somewhat menial STEM job which isn’t what I had hoped or expected from my degree and Peace Corps experience. It’s also the same job I had as a sophomore in college and if you adjust for inflation, I’ll be making around $4/hr less doing the same work with more qualifications. Still, the best time to look for a job is when you have a job and it’ll open up networking opportunities. I’m thankful for that.

I started reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson a few weeks ago. It’s been on my list for a really long time and I finally picked it up. It’s a pretty heavy sci-fi book. I’m about a quarter of the way through and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

On the tech side of things, I cleaned up my RSS feeds. I switched to Thunderbird as my reader (as well as my IRC/chat client) and during the switch I decided to actually go through and delete inactive or irrelevant feeds. I even put them into meaningful folders based on how much I’d like to read them.

The Phoenix framework released an update for 1.8 so I upgraded a small web app I built a few weeks ago. The biggest change was using DaisyUI as a default and I’ve been meaning to try it out anyways. It just adds a little sugar on Tailwind which I use pretty much everywhere. I didn’t really use any of the components but making themes (i.e. dark mode) was really easy.

I also added a new logo to the website that I’ve been sitting on for a while. I don’t love it so I’m not going to display it very prominently but it is better than not having a favicon.

Links

• The Fulbright Program: Chock Full of Bright Ideas by Bastian Rieck.

  It is precisely for this reason that we must resist the urge to see everything as a commodity or as a fungible good. The true value of the Fulbright Program lies in connecting bright minds with others and giving them new opportunities.

• Curate your own newspaper with RSS by Molly White. RSS is a great way to be more independent in where you get your information and escape classic platform enshittification. I actually just moved all my feeds to Thunderbird.
• Phoenix 1.8.0 released! by Chris McCord. The biggest changes for me are using DaisyUI as a default (I’ve been wanting to try this out anyways), simplified layouts, and streamlined core components. I upgraded a simple app this weekend pretty painlessly.
• Ghost 6.0. Really exciting update to Ghost that makes me want to start using it. They went all in on social web features so you can have a completely decentralized, independent platform. It comes with an ActivityPub server built right in!

  No opaque algorithms. No suppression of links. No unhinged mechabots.

• wplace - A massive real-time pixel art canvas on the world map! This is a cool project! People love r/place-inspired things. This one is huge.