I’m a Vim user to my core, but I still use org-mode with this plugin (and Orgzly on Android) because of how useful it is.

My biggest (mostly) irrational internet pet peeve is the proliferation of people suggesting “:wq” when “:x” is strictly better.

• I really, really dislike having two MNF games at the same time. The entire point of primetime games is that everyone can watch and talk about the same game.
• Although both games were decided in the final two minutes, overall, these two games were amazingly bad (in the sense of quality of play, not entertainment value).
• It’s always great to see Deshaun Watson lose. I pirated this game even though I have the necessary subscriptions to watch legally along with a TV antenna because I refuse to give an official view to any game the Browns are playing in.

McLaughlin with his debut touchdown! Good to see a faster pace from the Broncos this week.

This is fascinating. It answers so many questions I never knew I had!

This is exactly right. However, something that I’ve found frustrating is that in many projects (at least the ones that I’m interested in), it feels like there’s a secret roadmap that’s not documented anywhere outside of the maintainer’s head(s). You can scour the wiki, watch the IRC channel and mailing lists, and read through the issue discussions, and you still won’t have a good sense of what they want done next or if the change you want to make is incompatible with some big planned rewrite. I know the answer is to just ask—and I’ve done that more and more recently—but that can be a big hurdle if you’re just getting started.

I’m trying to build a community for a project right now, and this is something I’m very aware of. I’m trying to report on what I’m working on and planning in the project chat so that if someone else comes along, hopefully they’ll (a) understand the current status and (b) feel comfortable asking about the overall vision.

Well said and agreed. It felt awkward because next week was supposed to be a lighter period for me at work after some sustained intensity, while she’s ramping up for a big project due at the end of the month. So all along, we’d planned for me to shoulder more of the packing and last minute planning. I just wanted to make sure that she knew that I appreciated how much extra work I was passing on to her, and to express that I needed to find ways to make it up to her.

However, late last night I found out that the choir’s original plan worked out and they don’t need me to go at all. So…yeah.

To cap off one of my strangest days in recent memory, I just got a call asking if I can go to England all next week to accompany a choir tour. Nothing’s confirmed yet, and I’d have to pull some major strings to get out of my obligations here. However, I’d really love to go.

Unfortunately, we’re moving a few days after I’d get back, so I’d pretty much dump all the packing on my partner. She says I should go regardless, but I definitely don’t feel great about that.

I also just finished up a take-home interview project for a part-time software development job. I’ve been trying to break back into that world for some time now, so I’m very excited about the opportunity.

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As already mentioned, you’re probably looking for Obtanium. There’s also APKUpdater, which hasn’t seen updates in two years but has a 3.0 branch ready for testing. (I haven’t personally used it.)

For Liftoff specifically, I’ll add that it’s available in the IzzyOnDroid repository for F-Droid, which is useful if you’re already using F-Droid for anything else.

I have a pretty unique perspective on this as someone who’s worked in churches my entire adult life. Probably the hardest interview question I’ve ever been asked–across both technical and non-technical interviews–was when I was interviewing to be the organist at a large UMC church in early 2019, right before the General Conference vote that set all of this off. They basically summarized the situation to me and then asked if I was comfortable coming into the position not knowing which way the vote would go. In many ways, this question felt like asking if I had principles and if I was willing to stick to them. As a progressive person, I had to really think about if I’d be ok being in a place where I wouldn’t be allowed to play for a same-sex wedding.

That church’s senior pastor was one of the leading figures in the movement to affirm LGBTQ members. We quietly performed at least one same-sex marriage while I was there, which was technically in defiance of the denomination’s restrictions. Since then, I’ve moved to one of the most prominent progressive mainline Protestant megachurches in the US. We’ve had long standing partnerships with many LGTBQ organizations, and we do lots of tangible things for all sorts of underrepresented communities. We had a visiting trans pastor speak about a month ago, and they received an instant ovation from the congregation.

My point in all of this is that it frustrates me to see comment sections like much of this one where people insist that every church is a highly regressive place. As someone who’s in the closed door meetings, I promise you that there are many that are not, and it’s not just all a ploy to try to stay relevant in today’s society. Some places really do support these causes because they believe in them.

(As a footnote, I’ll say that I don’t like to talk about my religious views online, as it might put me in a weird position with my current and potential future employers. An acquaintance of mine wrote a great blog post that sums up my feelings well.)

Thanks! I did consider Matrix as well, and in fact just set up a personal server yesterday. I was worried about it being too high of a barrier to entry (the reason I stayed away from my first instinct, IRC…). At least Zulip is intuitively just a chat app, even though it might turn people away who don’t want to register for yet another account. One option could be to add Matrix and IRC bridges for Zulip, in the hopes of keeping everyone happy?

I’m still not sure what the best way forward is. It’s a tricky balance between promoting FOSS and remaining widely familiar.

This is aptly timed for me—I spent some time this weekend trying to decide what chat service to use for a project of mine. I’m just starting to try building the community, so it feels like I should have a chat ready if/when people start showing up.

I didn’t consider Discord because I wanted to stick with free software, for the reasons outlined in this post and other similar ones. In the end, I settled on Zulip, but would be happy to reconsider (so far, the chat is just me talking to myself!) if anyone wants to suggest an alternative or has experience in a similar situation.

I thought the first half was a bit of a mess, but I really loved the second half. The plot was maybe a little repetitive: the good guys make a breakthrough, the bad guys catch up and ruin everything, the good guys escape, repeat. And on the topic of repetitiveness, I could have done with one fewer car chase scene. But overall, the ending was so much fun that it redeemed any other flaws, and I certainly enjoyed it!

My version of the “could care less” pet peeve (which is annoying but tolerable) is when people reverse the order of the cases in a “let alone” phrase. The entire point of “let alone” is that you fail to meet the general case, so of course you don’t satisfy the specific case.

For example, if I asked someone “Have you ever been to Germany?” they might answer “I’ve never been to Germany, let alone Europe!” As is, this is nonsensical, but if you reverse the order, all is well. Most examples in the wild aren’t this obvious, but they’re commonplace once you start looking for them.

I’m going to a nearby convention for work for most of this week. The convention itself isn’t terribly interesting, but it has been nice to catch up with old friends and meet some new people.

Looking ahead, this is my first proper weekend off in over a year, so I’m looking around for a good destination for a weekend trip (something I’m told normal people do!). Any recommendations within a 4-5 hour drive from downtown Chicago?

We’ve moved with our cat twice now and are preparing for our third. We’re very lucky in that my partner’s parents live in the same city, so we always take the cat to their house, leave her there while we get everything moved, and then take her to the new place once it’s ready. That seems to stress her out less than moving everything while she’s around, and she gets a nice vacation out of the deal!

She’s maybe a little nervous for the first day or two, but always seems to settle in quickly. She also does this adorable thing whenever she goes somewhere new. She’ll slowly walk along the perimeter of each room, mapping it out and sniffing everything, and when she’s ready, she’ll go on to the next room and repeat. It’s really quite something to watch!

Our rent skyrocketed so we’ve been looking to move, and after a hectic week of making appointments, going to showings, and all that unpleasantness, we found a great new place today! We really lucked out in a lot of ways to get this place. The icing on the cake is that it’s about two blocks away from my work. I also made quite a bit of progress on one of my side projects earlier in the week. So in all, a busy week but a good one :)

My girlfriend and her entire family think I’m an alien for drinking milk whenever I have popcorn. It doesn’t even register as a strange combination to me. I think they’re very complementary flavors.