Sara Joy
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Colourful speech and thought bubbbles in watercolours

Short Thorts

Shought Thoughts from the jelly between Sara's ears.

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It's just... fun?

Someone on Mastodon asked Kev Quirk why people build personal websites, when social media profiles already serve that purpose well.

Kev replied in blog form.

So did Juha-Matti.

I’m like, it’s just fun!

I’ve been extremely online since 1998/9. In that time I’ve made my own websites, closed them down and retreated into a more private web (was safest while I was a teacher of teenagers for a period), used the likes of blogger and tumblr, and finally in 2020/1 started rebuilding my very own public web presence.

I started building again to aid my getting a job in web development, but it’s since become much more personal and a lot less like an online portfolio.

It feels right to have my own home online, built by me, for me. I do it because I can and because it’s fun :)

Good Box

Cardboard recycling collection time.

Sara is beset by boxes. She fits them into each other like snug Russian dolls, compresses packaging as best she can, unfolds and flattens the boxes that allow for it.

She pauses. And sighs. She picks one up and walks with it into the utility room, adding a new Good Box to the now-teetering Good Box pile.

”But it is a good box. Might come in handy,” she mutters to herself. One of those Good Boxes has a postage label on it from the 1990s. Good Box.

Tasty water

I swear water tastes sweeter when my body needs it.

I’m sort of terrible at being thirsty? If I’m hot and have been using lots of energy, I totally crave cold water - but otherwise I often just don’t notice any thirst.

Until I drink - and if I’m dehydrated - water tastes amazing!

People & Blogs & Guestbooks

I felt super-honoured to be invited by Manu to be an interviewee:

manuelmoreale.com/thoughts/pb-sara-joy

He stumbled across my guestbook last year and was initially sceptical, but also intrigued. A year later he got back to me after adding his own guestbook, and has kick-started a wider trend for them!

This happened to co-incide with the Astro framework bringing out a generous free tier database integration - now guestbooks are spawning everywhere 📖 🚀

La devise du web

Needed on a T shirt:

Privacé, Sécurité, Accessibilité

Bypassing CORS using Netlify _redirects

You need a file called _redirects in your publish directory.

In your _redirects file, you can do something as simple as:

/rewrite/*	https://:splat	200

Anything after the /rewrite/ is now fetched by Netlify’s servers, acting like a little proxy.

Now anything in your HTML that was trying to, say, fetch from another server which was bringing up a CORS error, can instead look like it’s fetching something local:

// not this:
const response = await fetch("https://example.com");

// this!:
const response = await fetch("/rewrite/example.com");

More info at Rewrites and proxies | Netlify Docs.

This web was made for you and me

This web is your web, and this web is my web
From javascript frameworks to hand-coded markup
From self hosted servers to neocities
This web was made for you and me

by Webby Googley (with thanks to Woody Guthrie)

M-PA PA, M-PA PA

MPA is pronounced “oompah”

There’s a little packet
Zipping across the internet
Traveling from
A server
To a client
It is part of something
Much bigger than itself, it’s
Deep within a JavaScript bundle, oh no!

MPA-PA, MPA-PA,
It’s a website!
MPA-PA, MPA-PA,
S-P-A’s trite!
Why call it app when a site is alright?
Now we get MPA-PA!

(Sung to the tune of Oom Pah Pah from Oliver! with thanks to @wwwicked for the inspiration!)

Throbbers

I keep thinking about browser throbbers lately.

We don’t see them any more. Why not?

I guess we expect to receive an immediate website skeleton now, and watch that shimmer instead, as the rest of it loads - as opposed to waiting for a server to build a static page to send us.

Back in the day we could watch the throbber until the new page was served up, and then watch it load.

Now if I click a link and don’t get moved on almost immediately, I think it’s broken.

Meat

We’re all just meat-sacks trying to keep our flapping mouths under control, some of us trying to create beauty or solve problems with our limb appendages, mouth-flaps or skull-jelly, most of us just trying to keep said meat-sacks vaguely comfortable…

(Inspired by They’re Made out of Meat.)

Mastodon <3

I was just scrolling down replies in my notifications looking for a particular thread I wanted to pick back up, and wow.

So many interesting humans and so many thoughtful conversations.

Many of them are new connections, and several are people I long admired on twitter, but couldn’t really converse with because there was so much noise, and they had like eleventybillion followers already.

I’m so happy to be connected to all of them on Mastodon. I thank them for making my social media so enriching <3

Pockets

I’m wearing a dress that I’ve only just remembered has pockets and I am disproportionately happy about it

I am...

I am staff.
I am referee.
I am judge and jury.
I am first aider.
I am counsellor.
I am teacher.
I am caterer.
I am Lego piece finder.
I am repairer of broken things.

I am tired.
I am loved.
I am parent.

Refreshing

There’s something deeply satisfying about ripping out or simplifying a whole bunch of code, and seeing absolutely no change in the browser.

Coding rollercoaster

Wheeeeee, I know I’m a stuck record on this, but honestly riding the highs and lows of #coding is bonkers.

”omg, what does all this mean, I know nothing"
"wait, what if I just change this bit here"
"ooh! that does a thing! but not the right thing"
"nope, not working"
"let’s try the next step anyway"
"mmmm nope. maybe I can just copy some stuff and rename the variables to what I want"
"woohoo it bloody worked!!!"
"oof now for all the follow-up work…”

I need a rest between each cycle of this 💀

Reading book UX/UI

Since doing a lot of reading around accessibility I’m finding myself being so frustrated by a bunch of the children’s books I read to my kids at bedtime.

SO MANY of them have terrible text contrast with the background. Questionable typeface choices. Unclear which word or sentence comes next, when they are placed randomly on the page.

Also for the other olds - varifocals are so annoying at the distance you hold a picture book when reading to a child!

We both posted our lunch

Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, we both
Oh, yes, we both, oh, yes, we both posted
Our lunch, our lunch, our lunch, our lunch, oh, yes
We both posted our lunch, yes our lunch

[…]

Mastodonable, oh so boostable,
Yes, it’s perfectly retootable
Plate on a table, so delectable,
Not a little debatable, it’s so relatable…

The Broom of Trigger

Nobody:

Every Brit:

“I don’t know the Ship of Theseus but I’m familiar with the concept of Trigger’s Broom.”

International Rescue Forever

The more kids TV we (have to) watch, the more we’re reminded of the original 1960s Thunderbirds TV series.

Seems like every one of these is a version of of International Rescue:

  • Paw Patrol = I.R. with dogs
  • Octonauts = I.R. underwater
  • Mighty Express = I.R. with trains
  • Go Jetters = I.R. with planes
  • PJ Masks = I.R. in pyjamas

I’m sure there are loads more! Were the Thunderbirds the first with this trope?

Addendum:
I’ve been made aware that Stingray came before Thunderbirds - so Octonauts is actually Stingray’s WASP (World Aquanaut Security Patrol) with cutesy animals

Slippery

Only the internet could give me choice paralysis when trying to buy a new pair of slippers

Web Shedvelopment

I have come to a realisation about this website.

…my realisation is that it’ll never ever be “finished” and that I think I’m OK with that.

That its purpose is to keep me tinkering with it. It’s my shed at the end of the garden, where I go to lose myself in flow-state for a while.

Identity: Parent

Pet theory alert:

One reason why new parents often feel isolated and lose their feelings of individuality, may be that they are not seeing other people with strong identities and stand-out looks.

Once we have kids, we get immersed into a world of babies, comfy clothes, daycare, exhaustion and… that’s often it. Those of us who are working may be working from home or in an out-of-town office.

We’re surrounded by other parents too. Often we’ve moved into the suburbs, away from city life.

I’ve been through all this. I like our home in the suburbs, thankfully as otherwise being stuck in it during a pandemic would have been less nice.

But since I’ve started a new job in a bustling and characterful part of the city, where I walk past all kinds of people wearing all sorts of different styles of clothing, and I’m starting to remember what it felt like to not only be “mamaaa”.

ASCII Art Heart

Got the chance to flex my #ASCIIart muscles - @robb set up a cli for https://omg.lol and was generating an image of the mascot @prami - I was like wait, let me do it!

      ____     ____
  ,-""    "-.-"    ""-,
 /  __  .  . .  .  __  \
|  (  ) '--' '--' (  )  |
 \  ""   ,     ,   ""  /
  ",      "---"      ,"
    ",             ,"
      "-,       ,-"
   sjw   "-,_,-"

It finally got me

Three years lying in wait, trying to avoid a disease is a long time.

And then it got me anyway, 3 months after the last booster, my 4th vaccination against covid-19.

All that time, I’ve been reading stuff, some of it horrific, about the dangers of microclots, long covid, loss of brain function.

I’m worrying about every headache, am I losing cells?

Watching the elder of my two sons who has also tested positive, for any signs of Bad Things that may be happening on his insides.

It’s scary.

Smartphone Woes

Oh woe. After many drops of my phone - even outdoors on concrete - where it survived, the screen finally went ping after falling off our sofa onto the wooden floor.

Sadly the Pixel 4a isn’t very fixable; parts are hard to get and then they’re hard to fit.

Second hand they still cost a lot in Germany, but apparently not in the UK, where I’ve sourced one for far less to be sent to my mother.

Now I’ve put a screen protector on this smashed one to keep the shards of glass in place however, I’m finding myself still fond of it. It still works fine. I don’t want to start using the ‘new’ one and break that one too!

I’ll be glad to have a spare for if/when I really do kill this one. Android phones of this ‘compact’ size are rare.

Bye Gmail, hi Fastmail

I have been considering making a jump away from Gmail for a while, I feel like it’s a good idea to lessen my reliance on Google.

Finally a few things came together which gave me a direction to go, i.e. to Fastmail.

Sometimes I just have to force myself or I waver for days, getting ever more annoyed - so I bought 3 years of their service.

There’s nothing like spending a bunch of money on something to make you use it!

Legitimate Interest

Me: Reject all

Legitimate Interest: Hey but what about—

Me: REJECT ALL

Legitimate Interest: Ah see I’m different, the site needs me, I’m totally legi—

Me: OBJECT ALL

Legitimate Interest: OK, bye

I > Job

It’s just occurred to me that I’ve recently started describing myself by my job title, in my bio.

For my entire working life I’ve been allergic to describing myself by my job title, or talking about my work. It was never an identity I wanted to consider myself as, or spend any extra time outside of work hours talking about.

But now I’m finally doing something I mostly find fun, in a company that has good values I agree with, and it’s like, oh? All that time, I didn’t know this was possible.

2022 in Review

I feel like it could either be a very long blog post, or a very short one.

Let’s go with short:

In 2022, I managed to claw my way out of my depression, and after re-training myself in modern web development, scored a new job in a company that really suits my values, doing work that actually entertains me.

The kids as ever have been a source of joy, frustration, exhaustion and love. My husband is the very best.

In all, it has been a good year 🥰

Just Build

Lately it’s become clear that the web isn’t so different than it used to be, in function.

You can still just write your own website in HTML, CSS and maybe a sprinkling of JS, like it’s 2002. Just for your own fun, your own corner of the net.

Yeah, there are lots of whizbang interactive websites and web apps built with a lot of logic using libraries, frameworks, or site builders, or backed by wordpress - but also - you don’t actually need any of that stuff to just put your personal page online.

Coding

I don’t get it. I don’t get it. I don’t get it. There’s so much. I just don’t ge—

Ohhhh.

I get it.

Along comes the next thing:

I don’t get it. I don’t get— ad infinitum

I think the deal is that those things we don’t get are increasingly more complicated, so we improve, but we spend just as much time in confusion…

Tired Kids

My kids:
“I don’t need to rest! I don’t need to rest! I don’t need to rest!“
…and then promptly fall asleep.

Me:
“I need to rest! I need to rest! I need to rest!“
…and then stay up for too long every evening.

Allyship

I am a largely neurotypical cis woman, in a happy monogamous hetero marriage, I use she/her pronouns - and I also really love bright colours and rainbows and human rights and dignity for everyone.

I can come across as LGBTQ+ and while that’s totally fine with me, I’m just one of the vast majority of cishet normos who deeply dislike any hate on our fellow humans, for just being who they are.

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

Dungarees

👍 enjoying the comfort of a big cosy cardigan worn over loose dungarees

👎 having to remove the warm cardigan when needing to use the chilly bathroom

Base-12 Fingers

I wish humans had 12 fingers. ‘Digital’ (or ‘Decimal’) would then be base-12. I wonder what the two extra characters would have looked like.

Developing Developer

I’ve just decided that the term ‘developer’ does not only refer to my working output, but also to myself. I am developing.

The many definitions of development are all about growth, change, realisations, processes, renewal, improvement, advancements in skills/ability/quality…

To be an effective developer in a field which is constantly changing, we have to keep developing ourselves to keep up with it.

As if the code and the people are all part of the same ongoing process of development.

What-Ifs

Suddenly I’m feeling full of what-ifs but you know what NO I’m a fully rounded interesting person who has had lots of interesting experiences and I love my family and home and I’m here NOW and that’s all that matters

Little Lives Limerick

When your children are young, life is fraught
Days are long, but the years they are short
The hope is that they
Will be happy some day
So the love and stress won’t be for nought

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