2016

A quick rundown of what's been catching my eye lately: articles, movies, and thoughts on everything from internet access to scary trees.

Let's Encrypt certs expiring on Heroku? Quick steps to renew and update them, keeping your site secure and running smoothly.

React, Gomix, office hours, best-of lists, and fun word games – a few things making me happy despite the gloomy news cycle.

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Links, thoughts, and inspiration: John Lilly's advice, mesh networking, Lin-Manuel Miranda, tech & politics, Recurse Center, and mindful spending.

A month away, and back with movie excitement, encryption insights, amusing cartoons, great music, and digital security tips. Plus, thoughts on What.cd.

A few things making me happy this week: The Daily Show, Silver Surfer in NYC, ASAD's new video, automato.farm's designs, and GifCities.

Steve Jobs' insightful words on innovation and moving forward, captured at an Apple event. Find inspiration for your next project.

A pre-election list of 12 notable Hillary Clinton endorsements, from James Franco to The New York Times. See who made the cut and why.

A brief respite from election anxiety: a few things I'm finding joy in right now, from podcasts and tech to articles and short films.

New Nintendo Switch console looks amazing! Check out the debut video for a glimpse at this innovative portable gaming system.

A roundup of interesting articles, videos, podcasts, and music that brought me joy this week, from security vulnerabilities to Star Wars trailers.

Cut Heroku SSL costs! Use free Let's Encrypt certs and Heroku's new free SSL option to secure your custom domain for as little as $7/month.

A few things making me happy this week: a hilarious tweet, a visit from a friend, great Tiny Desk concerts, and cool new phones.

Explore insightful conversations on creativity with Roy Horan, Joe Hollier, and David Kelley. Discover new perspectives and fuel your own creative journey.

Experimenting with blog design: a Tachyons update and a look at potential future directions. Is the new direction right?

A few things making me happy this week: RBG's life advice, Christian Louboutin's studio, Penn Station's redesign, and Postgres' full-text search.

Work survival, silly quizzes, wishing for Spectacles, Carmack's .plan, SpaceX coverage, live jelly, and Star Wars Rebels. A mixed bag of happy.

Compromised accounts & hidden games: What if Twitter held real-world mysteries? Explore the potential for subtle online clue trails and unexpected narratives.

A fascinating look at typography, problem-solving, and continuous learning through the lens of AI. A must-read piece by Jon Gold.

A few happy links for the week: Ruby infinity, internet outages, motion design, Emmy GIFs, fall foliage, love questions, & Bear Grylls.

Modernizing the CSS on my personal site, natwelch.com. A visual before-and-after of the upgrade from an outdated version of Tachyons.

Reflecting on 9/11, finding joy in Cowboy Bebop, BoJack Horseman, and unexpected places like political analysis and Humans of New York.

A few things making me happy this week: Robert Khoo's impact, Gene Wilder, Kanye's music, print's resurgence, David Lynch, and great live music.

A few things making me happy this week: music, design, parks, fashion, a museum visit, and interesting reads on habits and email introductions.

Turn a Raspberry Pi into a simple, wall-mounted display! This guide covers hardware, OS setup, and scripting for an always-on kiosk.

A few online things making me happy: D&D parody, automated John Oliver/Supreme Court mashups, plain text art, satire, and an Olympian connection!

A few cool links I enjoyed this week: art, code, work/life balance, government policy, and... Pocky teaching kids to code? Plus, a Javascript satire.

Why schadenfreude about tech failures is a bad idea. Downtime happens, and we can learn from each other if we avoid ridicule and foster openness.

Exploring microfiction: a dive into ultra-short stories, chat-based narratives, and a quest to write something tiny and impactful.

A few things bringing joy this week: animated movies, disaster recovery testing, cybersecurity takes, memes, and text editor design.

Reflecting on early work experiences. A look back at a few unexpected jobs held before settling into a career path, and the interesting paths of others.

Technology isn't the problem. It's the human element: creation, implementation, and inevitable errors. A look at voting machines and Russian trolls.

Google's massive single codebase requires sophisticated tools for sweeping changes. Is Google pioneering automated code updates across the wider ecosystem?

A few things bringing joy: queue software lists, visualizations of Apple's earnings, a wild music video, and security vulnerability grading.

A thank you to all the sysadmins, SREs, and IT professionals who keep everything running, especially those who inspired a lifelong journey into tech.

A look back at the busy weeks launching websites and apps for Hillary Clinton, followed by the experience of watching the Democratic National Convention unfold.

Explore two podcast episodes that delve into the creative process: when to edit, when to let loose, and the parallels between different creative fields.

A look back at an ambitious project to build ten things in six months. What went wrong, what was learned, and what's next for smaller, focused goals.

A look back at the second quarter of 2016: goals set, progress (or lack thereof) reviewed, and a reset for the months ahead. What worked, what didn't?

A look behind the scenes at the Hillary Clinton campaign's use of chatops for internal communication and automation.

Instagram's API changes are locking out developers. Personal data access is gone, leaving only business-focused tools. Why can't I get my own data back?

Seventeen days later, an update arrives. Longplay.club progresses (sort of), Billow.in faces abandonment, and locative.garden explores the Physical Web.

Project update: Progress on enki.garden, Raspberry Pi setup for locative.garden, and more Gandalf writing. See what got done and what's on hold.

Debugging a production outage? Discover a quirky, memorable `netstat` command that reveals open ports and associated processes. Plus, important updates!

Sharing what's bringing joy this week: food shows, robot music curation, a moving Prince tribute, and a surprising Olympics logo opinion.

Catching up after a missed update. Working on enki.garden file indexing, Forgetful text capture, and a list of neglected projects.

A few things making me happy right now: Warriors highlights, Billions, new music from Weezer and Moderat, great podcast interviews, and Prince.

No progress lately, but pushing on with #tenbysix. Inspired by Liz Gilbert on sticking with projects, not chasing shiny objects. Thinking about note-taking, Kindle highlights, and getting some code written.

Experimenting with Genius Web Annotations: adding it to the blog and exploring the impact. Try it out!

A quick look back at things bringing joy: a comedian's story, subway antics, Rogue One hype, a chainsaw drone, and the Panama Papers.

Q1 2016 is done. Reflecting on goals, tweaking objectives, and assessing progress (or lack thereof) on health, projects, and culture.

Updated Google employee campaign donation data, corrected after a scraping script bug. See the latest FEC filings.

Hitting a wall on my open-source Heroku-like platform. Brainstorming deployment workflows: Packer, Docker Swarm, Nomad, and the quest for a viable pipeline.

A look at what brought a little joy this week: Hillary Clinton articles, Reddit Robin, Google SRE book, Cyberpunk art, and the perfect April Fool's joke.

A quick update on my personal projects. Progress was slow last week, with only minor changes to Creepermon monitoring. A list of untouched projects included.

A personal list of things bringing joy this week: brotherly visits, inspiring podcasts, insightful web design articles, and cyberpunk art.

Update on my side projects: Locative game design with Wi-Fi and a Go/React web frontend. Slow progress while learning new tech.

A few things that brought joy this week: political wins, brother visiting, Snowden's words, cool talks, creepy tech, beautiful music, and funny comics.

Inside Hillary for America's Brooklyn HQ after a big win: A video of excitement for @hillaryclinton and a look at the day's election sweep.

A few things bringing joy lately: anime, a beautiful (but short) game, 808 State, design podcasts, and Jay Pharaoh's Katt Williams impression.

Two months into the project. Progress feels slow. This week: Gandalf copyright musings, Swift exploration, and a barely-working quote-saving web app. Plus, thoughts on archiving entire websites.

Reflecting on my values and mission. Are my actions aligned with how I present myself online? Exploring personal definitions and future goals.

A quick look at what brought joy this week: a fantastic anime film, a fun fantasy thriller, a beautiful comic, and some interesting reads on tech and security.

A quick update: Super Tuesday slowed progress, but I did manage some coding. I built basic webring software inspired by @jongold – check out icco/ringdirector.

A few cool clocks, a Prada show, Rikers Island, and finally getting into The Stormlight Archive. A quick look at what brought joy this week.

Quick update on my various side projects. This week was mostly note-taking and brainstorming, covering everything from Android apps to text-based games.

Struggling to build a consistent morning routine? Explore one person's attempt at structuring their day and share your own tips!

A personal list of interesting finds: music, cool projects, a Playboy article, thoughts on code analysis, art in NY, & gravitational waves.

New OS and hardware platform release! Plus, a look back at 2015 and remembering family. Release notes inside.

Progress on ten prototypes in six months: scraping blogs, exploring document ranking, and tackling a big project fear.

A look at the things that brought joy amidst a busy week: Grand Central Tech, great conversations, Deadpool, interesting articles, and some awesome movie trailers.

Progress on PCA (Stripe integration!) and initial MVP thoughts for enki.garden. Plus, an update on RingClub and a list of neglected projects.

Discover where Google employees have donated to political campaigns since 2015. Data sourced from the FEC, revealing top recipients and total contributions.

Creepermon scraping, Keen.io data, and a blog redesign born from slow query times. Plus, Gandalf story ideas. What didn't get done this week?

This week's happy list: TV recommendations (sci-fi, drama), interesting podcasts, a surprisingly good film, and reasons to cheer for Wikileaks.

Week two of my personal challenge: building ten prototypes by June. This week's progress focused on Creepermon, including architecture and config parsing.

A week of campaign work, interesting podcasts, fun videos, great articles on games, and insightful political analysis. Plus, inspiring personal websites.

A few things making me happy this week: podcasts, snow forecasts, Larry Page, cyberpunk adaptations, and personal projects.

Project kickoff! Setting up repos and codenames for ten new side projects, from RSS readers and monitoring apps to a Gandalf-in-Tokyo game.

A few things that brought joy this week: Pocket Mortys, Adele's Carpool Karaoke, great articles on CitiBike, and tributes to Alan Rickman & David Bowie.

Ten ideas in six months: prototyping begins! Follow along as the author tackles a diverse list, from RSS readers to Gandalf in Tokyo. Check-in #1 tomorrow.

One hundred ideas, ten to build, one to ship. A list of web app & software project ideas, from the practical to the absurd, ready for your consideration.

A look at what brought some joy this week: propaganda analysis, travel inspiration, Oscar predictions, upcoming games, music, and decluttering.

Reflections on a week of inspiring interviews, insightful articles on writing and business, urban exploration, and favorite quotes.