Perfect is the enemy of good
So, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, apparently.
I have a draft technical post related to a project I’ve been working on for two solid years now, itself in my drafts for over a year. Sigh.
Part of it has been a near-complete removal of social media from my life. Ever since I got micro posts working here, I started using Twitter less and less, and not at all as a primary publishing location — only copying things I’d posted on my own site and Micro.blog over to there. I never got on Instagram, TikTok is still the sound my shop clock makes, and I have a Facebook archive that I took in February 2012 before deleting my account there, so I guess I’ve been off Facebook for more than ten years? Good riddance.
Even with the microposts, once I took Twitter out of the main() loop of my life, I found the desire to post anything to the ether came up less and less. And that translated to a corresponding hole in my longer-form blogging skills — partly out of inertia and partly out of the less immediate social gratification, something which I had been trained to optimize for while on social media all the time.
I still read 175 RSS subscriptions in NetNewsWire, which I now realize I’ve been using for 20 years. Most of them are real people, even. They’re great. I especially appreciate Allen Pike, Coleman McCormick, Tom MacWright, and the duo at Hundred Rabbits. I’ve got other inspirations, too.
I am still linking things pretty regularly. Go there (feed in the sidebar) if you want the real tenor of where my brain’s at most of the time.
I’m much busier nowadays with client projects (currently, three) involving embedded hardware & software in the areas of ideally-not-related public art and human urine recycling and even one in good ol’ iOS maps. And July marks the aforementioned two years on a project of my own which is very much nearing physical reality. It’s been perhaps the most gratifying and challenging thing I’ve ever worked on, full of energy and learning and motivation and I hope to have more to say about it very soon. You can expect a probable return to the Justin of yore, making lots of public noise about it, pulling it out of my pocket to show you every chance I get, and otherwise fretting over the fine line between enthusiasm and annoyance.
If you’re coming to Portland (or really, if you’re already here), always feel free to reach out. I’m still taking COVID-19 very seriously, but especially during the summer, there are lots of ways that we can meet up. I’d love to reconnect with folks.
Be well out there.