Instant web dev classic

For many web developers, A Complete Guide to Flexbox from CSS-Tricks.com is a pillar of our web developer reference material. It’s my externalized memory on how the flex feature of CSS works. I don’t have to remember how it works because I know I can look it up there. You can even download a poster version to hang on the wall.

Cartoon image of a smiling person with the text "An Interactive Guide to Flexbox"

Now there’s another great reference An Interactive Guide to Flexbox by Joshua Comeau. An instant classic.

 

Rough winter

Canada’s central bank is warning us to “brace for a rough winter”, so I’ve lined up snow-removal service for my driveway with Steve’s Snow Removal (no relation).

 

New (to me) music: Expert In A Dying Field by The Beths

Today I stumbled across (via the YouTube algorithm, I think) a song I immediately loved. The song is called Expert In A Dying Field by a band called The Beths.

My preferred musical formula: heavy + melodic. While I wouldn’t call their music ‘heavy’, they combine fuzzy guitars with sweet melodies, which does the trick.

The jumping in-and-out of falsetto reminds me of Regina Spektor, the lyrical style reminds of me Kathleen Edwards (bonus recommendation: Change The Sheets), and the fuzzy buzzing guitars remind me of, me!

 

Only Wallpapers in the Building

The TV-series Only Murders in the Building is fun for a few reasons. It makes fun of true-crime podcasts and the combination of Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez is perfect.

What I was most surprised to find myself enjoying about the show: the literal wallpaper.

Frame from the show Only Murders in the Building with a person climbing out of an air duct into a room with dark floral wallpaper.
Frame from the show Only Murders in the Building with two people standing in a lushly decorated apartment light floral wallpaper.
Frame from the show Only Murders in the Building with three people talking in front of a geometric wallpaper pattern.
 

How many pizzas should I order?

For all its sordid history, the gossip-news site Gawker left us with a lasting gem: The “How Many Pizzas Should You Order” formula. It’s elegant in its simplicity: (# of people) × 3/8.

What if some of the people are adults and some are kids? Large pizzas or Medium? No more questions! Just use the formula, and round up to the nearest pizza. It works. Your quality of life will improve.

 

Know what PHP stands for?

The company I helped to found over 23 years ago, silverorange, is thriving in a way I couldn’t have imagined back in 1999. Getting to work with and learn from new team members of all different backgrounds is the best part.

We’re hiring for a few different positions, the most recent of which is a PHP-focused Web Developer position. It’s a great group of people to work with.

 

My Fiona

Photo of large tree collapsed in front of house with branches and power-lines knocked down around it.
Across the street from my house in Charlottetown – this tree did a lot of damage, but it could have been much worse.

Having just weathered Hurricane Fiona, the strongest to hit Canada on record, I have a few notes:

  • Everyone in my circle and as far as I can see around me is safe.
  • I’ve never felt my house shake in a storm – but I did this time.
  • We had a lot of close calls, but no major damage to property.
  • There was a lot to clean up (branches, sticks, leaves, trash, etc.)
  • Our power was out for an entire week (even longer for others).
  • It gets dark early! We really rely on our artificially-extended days to keep up with life.
  • A BBQ with a burner was a life-saver. We cooked a ton of decent meals, and boiled a LOT of water.
  • There was no interruption to our municipal water supply (we could flush the toilets!).
  • It takes a LONG time to boil water.
  • Cleaning out the fridge after a week wasn’t as bad as I expected.
  • Cleaning out the freezer after a week was was much worse than I expected.
  • The mobile network was unreliable. Text messages wouldn’t go through, and then would go through 10 times repeatedly. Mobile data was like the weather, coming and going as it pleased – never there when you need it.
  • The clean-up and recovery mobilization at a large-infrastructure level has been impressive (tree removal, power line repair, etc.).
  • Solar panels are awesome, but people don’t realize that most residential solar installations can’t generate power when the grid is down. For now, the only option is a $10,000-$20,000+ battery installation.
  • A similar outage in winter would have been much more dangerous. Keeping warm and keeping pipes from freezing would be difficult and has me thinking of contingency plans.
 

Buy my guitar gear

I’m moving to a new house (same town) and so I’m being forced to contend with All of My Stuff.

I’m selling off a few bits of guitar gear that I’m not using as much these days. You can buy my stuff through this Reverb shop. It will be much easier for me to carry your money to my new house than my stuff.

Screenshot of guitar items for sale on the Reverb website including a "Fender Mustang Micro personal guitar amp", and a "Electro-Harmonix Sovtek 'Green Russian' Big Muff Pi"

That Reverb site makes it dangerously easier to buy and sell music gear.

 

Container ship or hatchback?

I enjoy how the Hyundai Canada website asks you to choose between a gigantic container ship and a hatchback EV.

Screenshot of Hyundai.ca website showing an choice between a large container ship and a compact car.
 

The Wikipedia rabbit hole of Wendy Melvoin

I was surprised to learn today that the distinctive guitar sound from Sheryl Crow’s song My Favorite Mistake, is from Wendy Melvoin, who played guitar with Prince for much of her career. I learned this on the Dead Wax YouTube channel (which has some great guests, but I’m having a hard time with the over-the-top YouTube-thumbnail enthusiasm).

I was surprised to hear this, and hit up Wendy Melvoin on Wikipedia. You could spend a full day with the links on this page. A few that stuck out to me:

This post is best read in the voice of Casey Kasem.