I’ve purchased two AirGradient ONE indoor quality monitors to measure air quality in my home. AirGradient devices are open-source, so you can flash your own custom firmware and collect your air data locally rather than sending it to AirGradient’s proprietary cloud dashboard.

The existing documentation for flashing firmware requires you to use the Arduino IDE, a clunky GUI program:

This is the U-1206. It was the peak of submarine technology at the end of the Second World War. Right now it lies at 70 metres depth slightly North West of England. You might say this is an impressive feat for a submarine to be submerged that long. Alas, it is isn’t by design but […]

The State of CSS Survey results recently came out and I was asked what I was my pick of the year in the CSS world and turns out I had an opinion.

I told Sacha,

My pick of the year is all the font clamp generators that people have been creating and sharing. What’s great about them is that they are all so different so it accommodates different learning styles. Especially, if reading documentation alone doesn’t help understanding how something works.

For example, Modern fluid typography editor and Clamp Generator. There's plenty more out there but I've picked these two as they have different designs and UI and that shows different approaches to the same concept. My favourite thing about it is that one of them may work for someone else’s particular way of thinking and learning. I'm always fascinated by how people approach the build of a CSS generator and how they interpret the documentation.

I have a little bit more room here to expand on my pick of the year: my pick is you - the author and creator of different ways to explain the same existing concept. Like Andy sharing more ways to centre a div or Josh explaining SVGs because explaining something with your own voice will always be an unique experience for the reader.

I'd encourage everyone to write one guide on something that isn't new and fancy.

Meanwhile, I'll save the screenshot of my contribution into my "happy" folder. Ana from 2018 and before would be delighted.

I am currently regretting the posts I didn't make. Yes, as someone who bangs on and on about posting things on your blog first and then elsewhere, I too fail many times. And, it's been like that when it comes to Jessie.

Since we adopted Jessie in 2017, I've been celebrating her adoption aniversary on social media instead of this blog. And it bit me in the arse. I used to have a lovely thread going on for years on Twitter but, of course, I haven't touched that hell space in a very long time. I was lazy and now I am paying the price. For this year's anniversary I still posted on BlueSky and Mastodon but, I want to make sure that memory is captured here too.

Sweet Jessie has been with us for eight years now and, fun fact, she is about to turn 14! She was five years old when we adopted her. It's been a priviledge that the majority of her life has now been with us.

Since living with us she has:

• lived in three different homes;
• brought a mouse in only once (and it was a baby so it doesn't count);
• went missing once (the worst);
• has had dentist appointments and teeth removed;
• became a big sister to an human;

I really hope I have many more years of posts to make. 💗

Highlights

• I find that not every reader who purchases early access to my book wants to give me feedback about rough drafts.
• I figure out where all my time is going and think of ways to minimize time drains.
• I spend 10 hours reimplementing a web app from scratch that originally took me 300 hours to build.
• I continue to learn functional programming with Gleam, but I might be cheating.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals: