I've been using this account as my primary for about a week now, and I'm think I'm settled on using it for the foreseeable future, so I guess it's time to do another #introduction post.

I'm a dad of four kids, and a web developer. I have a college degree in #Theater (or #Theatre) and had aspirations of being an actor. I kind of fell into web development as a career. It was a hobby back in high school, and I just needed to pay some bills after college, so I ended up doing this.

I always have aspirations to do other things, but for now, I'm pretty happy spending most of my time as a dad and husband.

Some day, I'd like to get back into #acting, or maybe do some #VoiceActing. I also enjoy #writing and will, from time to time, post some #MicroFiction, usually from somebody's #WritingPrompt.

I love #StarTrek, and usually watch at least one episode nearly every day. I like all #SciFi really, though, as well as #fantasy. I used to read a lot, but find I don't have as much time or mental capacity for it as I used to. I also enjoy watching #anime, and have really been enjoying the new episodes of #Bleach lately.

Feel free to follow me if you think we have similar interests, and I may follow you back, if I think likewise.

#WebDev #PHP #BackEnd #Laravel #introductions #Parenting #DadLife

My company has just announced that there will be a round of layoffs soon. They just laid off a bunch of C-levels. They're giving us the opportunity to "opt in" to "workforce reduction" with a promise of three months severance.

It's been pretty tumultuous here, lately, to be honest, and I'm considering it.

But, I've got a wife and four kids to take care of, and I've never willingly left a job when I didn't have another one already lined up. And we've got good benefits (healthcare and dental) right now, so I really don't want to give that up.

Maybe if I had something lined up with similar pay and benefits, I could do it.

So, I'm looking for any recommendations. I'm a #PHP developer (of roughly twenty years), who has been doing a lot of #golang for the past year, and I've gotten very proficient at that as well.

I'm looking for a US-based company, and a Principal/Staff/Senior Developer role.

Anybody have any good leads? My website is at https://danielrayjones.com, and I can be emailed at [email protected].

#FediHire #FullStack #Programming #WebDevelopment #BoostsWelcome #PleaseBoost

The song Party in the USA in a minor key sounds like Party in the USSR.

My six-year-old has expressed an interest in learning how to program. I'm not really sure where to start. He definitely has the right kind of inquisitive mindset for it, though.

I taught a high school class for a little while, but that had a specific, very set curriculum.

And I taught myself when I was just a few years older than he is now. But that was with a Commodore 64 in BASIC. So I don't really want to start him there.

Anybody have any experience teaching young kids programming? I do know of the MIT Scratch language, but aside from that?

#Parenting #Programming #Education

Don't play chess with a pigeon. It knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

I forgot the word "badminton", but remembered "shuttlecock".

As in, "what's that game called that you play with a shuttlecock?"

#BrainFart

I'm watching the new X-Men '97 on #DisneyPlus. It's leaning pretty hard into the #90s nostalgia, almost a perfect continuation of the original series.

Leans into the social justice themes so prevalent in #XMen as well, even with a kidnapped mutant kid in the first five minutes pleading with the bigots who kidnapped him by saying, "Please, I can't help it. I was born this way." X-Men never was subtle with the excellent social commentary.

The accents, though, are really throwing me off. Gambit sounds less Cajun, and more like a French Canadian pretending to be Cajun. Rogue sounds like a muddled mess of Tennessee and a bit of Georgia, but not Mississippi. I don't know exactly what they were going for with Storm, although hers at least was a lot like the 90s Storm.

Mostly, definitely enjoying it so far.

#90sKid #StayWoke

If I eat all the seeds off the hamburger, how do they grow new hamburger trees? #ShowerThoughts

Today is the fourth anniversary of the last day I worked in an office. #WFH

Turns out I'm related to both Bob Ross and Mister Rogers. If I only had LeVar Burton as well, I'd have the PBS trifecta.

#PBS #LearningIsFun #EducationIsPower #BobRoss #JoyOfPainting #MisterRogers #LevarBurton #ReadingRainbow

Chimps and Bonobos belong to the Pan genus, collectively making them paninis.

I finally deleted my #IFTTT account. I was no longer using it, since they've made the free account nearly useless.

First it was limiting free accounts to three applets (I had dozens before that), and then it was disabling custom applets (most of mine were custom), and the final nail in the coffin was when they disabled the Webhooks service for free accounts. The grandfathered custom applets I was still using were all Webhooks.

They have nothing left for me because the service they built, primarily for free users, was taken away.

Oh, well. I've replaced it with a combination of n8n, Automate for Android (similar to Tasker), and a custom webhook server I built recently.

There's a crop duster circling my neighborhood spraying a nearby farm. It keeps getting so close to my house, I can almost smell the pilot's coffee.

Well, #IFTTT continues to make its free tier even more useless.

They've decided to make their webhooks service (previously known as the Maker channel) only available on a Pro account.

So, in addition to only being able to use three recipes total, webhooks aren't even one of them.

I guess it's time for me to get webhooks working on my n8n installation, and completely delete my IFTTT account.

It used to be such a good service, and a nice alternative to Zapier for those who couldn't afford it. Now, it's still not as good as Zapier, and there's no point using it if you can't pay for it.