Justin Vollmer

It’s really nice to be able to take a day to work remotely every once in awhile, and focus on a specific problem with fewer interruptions.

Not too much to report on this week… my time at work was focused on two primary projects Project #1: ensuring that a device intended for limited commercial release is successfully being manufactured.

The weather continues to shift in Central Illinois, sometimes daily.

I think I now have my editing and publishing workflow duplicated on my iPhone & iPad (currently writing from my iPad) - Working Copy for git + barebones editor, Obsidian for long-form authoring

The work week for me was very busy, but most of my time was spent planning for the part of the org/team I work with, so there’s not much to share.

This year was Precision Planting’s annual Winter Conference!

I’ve shared this story with a few coworkers and family members, and decided to write up a short post to share with y’all as well.

I enjoyed reading Manu’s On the importance of friction this week.

I decided to try out weekly notes again this year, and attempt to find a happy balance between whatever caused me to avoid them by mid-ways through last year, and the alternative, which is going for months at a time without posting, if I’m not careful. 😂…

Happy New Year!

I know that they say time flies by faster as we age, but this year I’ve noticed it to be true more than in recent memory!

Merry Christmas!

Looks like an evening of gift wrapping ahead, with the Christmas stylings of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops for accompaniment!

Steaming mug of coffee: ☕ ☑️ Christmas lights on and twinkling: 🎄 ☑️ Run weekly server updates… ⏳

It’s completely normal to reread someone’s blog post and decide to write up a post of your own in response while sipping your morning coffee before work, right?

Earlier this week I ran across You’re a Blogger, Not an Essayist by Barry Hess, and a couple of points stuck out to me.

Random idea of the morning… I wonder if distcc works reliably/robustly over Tailscale?

Better late than never, this evening I finally finished decorating for Christmas!

I enjoyed reading Hyde/Lazybear’s answers to the Colbert Questionert earlier this week, and thought it would be a fun little exercise + post for my Saturday morning.

I learned this evening (via DTNS) that 20 years ago this month, Merriam-Webster chose “blog” as its word of the year.

“If you care about the web, get off social media platforms and get yourself your own piece of digital real estate.” - Manu

You should have your own website.

I’ve been following recent updates from Simon Støvring as he developed a new fun macOS app, and it’s finally out!

Adding my second to Cole’s call to blog more often, plus my commentary on his post.

Most people: The long Thanksgiving weekend is a time to relax, eat, & enjoy time with family.

An update to the apps I use in across multiple categories, based on Hemispheric Views episode 097: Dual of the Defaults.

“I fancy a change… and truth is, I don’t need an excuse.

Completely by accident, my last test worked… but the rules weren’t right.

After a lot of trial and error, I think I have my settings correct so that upon syndication, this post will include a link, but won’t include an image or metadata… 🤞

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m disabling original post link inclusion on my syndicated posts for now… I strongly prefer to include the link back to my original post long term, but until I figure out how to disable link previews, it’s making for a poor reader experience.

Finished re-listening to The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson this afternoon.

Step two of setting up POSSE-style microblogging… connect status updates to Mastodon via EchoFeed.

Assuming everything is hooked up right, thanks to EchoFeed, I should now have cross-posting from my website to BlueSky working… This marks my first attempt at POSSE, posting updates to my own site, and syndicating to other platforms.

Sometimes it’s really hard for me to gauge if I’ve spent a weekend (or just a day off) “well”.

My thoughts on Cory Doctorow’s recent Pluralistic post regarding Bluesky and Enshittification, POSSE, and owning my own content.

I’ve commented on this to coworkers before, but I’ve once again found a case where my past self spent a little extra time designing an abstraction that is allowing my current self to very quickly and easily make some software changes to support a new hard…

It’s still very much a work in progress, but I’ve completed the first major change to my website since 2020!

The conversion of my site to the Bilberry theme is complete!

After weeks (or maybe even months) of consideration, I decided to migrate my website to a new theme, and add some extra functionality.

I migrated this site to use the Bilberry theme, which includes support for statuses.

Back in January, I added giscus comments to my blog, as a potential way for readers to comment and react to my posts.

As I’m typing out this blog post (in Obsidian, if you want to know), I’m sitting quietly in my living room, listening to the occasional sounds of vehicles passing by, and sipping on my final mug of coffee for the day.

A couple of weeks ago, while browsing through the book selection at my local Barnes & Noble (yes, they still exist!)

After reading My software stack is old by Manu (Manuel Moreale), I became curious about the age of the software I use day in and day out as well.

Wow, it’s already been a month since I last posted here (or, well, nearly a month - I’m rounding up slightly).

Once again, this is a combined post!

At this point, I should just summarize every week this Spring with “work is very busy, and I haven’t done much besides that of note.” 😂 (Of course, that’s boring reading though, so I won’t do that.)

The past week was pretty busy at work, with a combination of meetings, project kickoffs, and Spring beta testing/troubleshooting.

The last week in March (Holy Week), I was traveling for both work and to visit family, and didn’t take the time to write up my weekly notes.