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Under Construction

Building in public 👉 github repo / changelog

So it seems underscores currently has a platform agnostic solution for sass. Will need to sort out something to generate the css, one of my gulp or grunt scripts, or maybe just CodeKit for now.

I am remembering the use of animated gifs to indicate that your site was under construction. Is that still a thing?

Posted to Twitter for the first time in a long time tonight. Part of starting to post here. Will sort out how to crosspost at some point.

Starting to customize the theme to work as a micro blog. It always seems to start with my local development environment no longer working. Live cowboy coding used to be so easy, but copy-paste or multi-undo version control sort of sucks.

On Smoak as the Jays’ next slugger

From Cathal Kelly’s Globe & Mail article on Justin Smoak’s transformation into Jays’ next-gen Jose Bautista:

His final at-bat of the series against Yankees’ David Robertson was a minor-note master class. To hear Robertson – one of the most cunning relievers in baseball – tell it, he ran out of ideas after eight pitches. Smoak put the ninth one over the centre-field wall. It was a grand slam and the game winner.

When someone asked Smoak if he was thinking curveball on that ninth pitch, he said, “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m just glad I was thinking the way I was thinking.”

Which is not actually an answer.

Smoak is a throwback in a lot of ways, but none so pleasing as the fact that, unlike many of his colleagues, he isn’t demystifying the game. He’s mystifying it.

I was at the exhibition games in Montreal last year, just before the start of his breakout season. One of my friends asked me if I could describe Smoak in a word. My near-instant reply was “Derp”. I stand by that.

I used to write regularly when I was younger. I kept journals, took classes, wrote online and for a newspaper. At some point I stopped. I’m not entirely sure why. It may have been burnout. It may have been writer’s block. Ultimately, it boils down to fear — fear of criticism, fear of disappointment, fear of failure, and so on. I’d love to get everything right, but that’s impossible.

So, in an effort to get over fear, I’ll hit publish and get started.

So it begins. I’ve been meaning to consolidate my online life here for years. There have been a few failed attempts, we’ll see if this one sticks.

Clearing out the cobwebs

Wow, it’s been awhile. I didn’t really intend to stop posting for two years, but that’s always how it goes. Between posting “content” elsewhere and working regularly on other WordPress sites, this place sort of became neglected. So, I’m getting this initial post out of the way (I’ve been avoiding it for awhile) and can return to posting quasi-random crap I find on the internet. There’s also a bunch of tinkering to do with the theme, but I can’t really let that be an excuse not to post.

Confusing Google’s self-driving cars

Apparently, cyclists riding fixed-gear bicycles confuse Google’s self-driving cars.

The car got to the stop line a fraction of a second before I did, so it had the [right of way]. I did a track-stand and waited for it to continue on through.

It apparently detected my presence … and stayed stationary for several seconds. it finally began to proceed, but as it did, I rolled forward an inch while still standing. The car immediately stopped…

I continued to stand, it continued to stay stopped. Then as it began to move again, I had to rock the bike to maintain balance. It stopped abruptly.

I had never head of a track-stand before. Performing one involves a rocking back-and-forth a bit with your wheel at an angle, it helps to preserve momentum. Here’s a video.