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

So, I'm actively looking for a new job (two weeks left before my layoff), and I just found an interesting method for generating cover letters.

I've been using ChatGPT for a little while, by simply prompting it with: "Please generate a cover letter for me for the following job posting:" and then pasting the post.

I've tweaked it a little bit, and am now getting much better results.

I started a new chat, and began it with:

For the remaining conversation, I'm going to ask for cover letters for various job postings. Here, I'll give you my resume, and would like you to base the cover letters off the experience listed in this resume. Here is my resume:

I pasted a plain text version of my resume after that.

It responded with:

Based on your extensive experience, here's a tailored cover letter

and a generic cover letter.

But, after that, in the same conversation, I do something like:

Please create a cover letter for me for the following job posting, based on my experience:

And I paste in the job posting after that.

Now, the cover letters I get include mentions of my previous work. It's not perfect, by any means. I still have to check it for inaccuracies, and weird word usage (it really likes the word "enthusiasms"), but now I can get job-specific cover letters, with my experience included, with very little effort.

#FediHired #JobSearch

If the Count from Sesame Street drinks the blood of Cookie Monster, does he need to brush afterwards to avoid getting cavities?

#ShowerThoughts #SesameStreet #Vampires #Count #PBS

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