A feed of the latest posts from Josh Vickerson.
This is a recording of a talk I presented at the 11ty Meetup on February 4th, 2026. I tell the story of how I used Eleventy to quickly add a blog to an existing website and application originally built with Laravel. It worked so seamlessly, I went from request to working solution in about 30 minutes. After a year and a half of use, what initially felt like an unusual idea has turned out to be…
I've become a huge fan of making interactions with my phone more intentional. As I age into my 30's, I find the constant pinging, vibrating and / or screen-lighting of push notifications to be an intense annoyance. I've ruthlessly disabled all but the most critical of notifications, and set healthy time limits for time-sucking apps like Instagram using the built-in settings on my iPhone. As a…
Over the past year, I’ve been working with 8BitJosh to create and maintain a website to showcase his YouTube video content. As a Twitch streamer and YouTube content creator, reaching new audiences can be a difficult task. Josh wanted a website to help make his content easier to find, so that’s what I’ve helped him do. I turned to Eleventy and Netlify to create a low cost website for content…
An old-ish, but great read about Private Equity came across my social feed yesterday… Why Private Equity Should Not Exist by Matt Stoller . And as a significant beneficiary of private equity investment, I'd like to reiterate its point: Private equity should not exist. I've been part of two acquisitions and mergers of companies in my career: The first, an acquisition by a larger company looking to…
A few months ago I relaunched my website, building on Eleventy to replace my use of AnchorCMS , a lightweight, open source, PHP-based CMS that has been out of active development for about 3 years. I enjoyed Anchor for its simplicity, and I learned a lot from it. I started using it as an alternative to WordPress in 2013. I was in college and had started a blog with WordPress.com the year before,…
I was inspired by a brief exchange of tweets today with Brandon McConnell about the idea of a "native function for fallback values" in CSS, who was commenting on a wide gamut color demo by @bramus which also demonstrated how custom properties can be used to provide fallback values. Both the idea of a "native function" and custom properties have interesting usecases for providing fallbacks, but…
With any craft, high quality output takes time. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t make the time for their website to be treated this way (I say “website,” but as the lines between “websites” and “web apps” continues to blur, I use them interchangeably.) Output, either in volume (number of features or changes) or appearance, is often valued over specific techniques, or how things are built…
I’ve struggled with what I even want to say about this year. There’s an awful lot that can remain unsaid since most of us had a similar experience with, well… all of it. I’m not sure I have anything to add to the broader discourse, and simply writing about how hard my year was seems both pointless and a little disingenuous. The objective truth is, on the scale of how difficult 2020 was for…
Well, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve completed a review. I was going to plow through all the months I missed, but the seeming enormity of that task I think is what kept be back from actually completing them, so instead I’ll just skip most of them. There also aren’t many highlights to share month to month these days since, well, I basically don’t leave my apartment. The highlights below should…
Well… we all know what happened in March, but here’s some highlights about me. The Highlights I started working from home on Thursday, March 12th. My company closed the office on Monday, March 16th. I’ve been playing a lot of video games… Okay, that’s typical, but even more video games. Like Animal Crossing, which was released for Switch this month! I started tagging days I’m forced to stay home…
The Highlights After resuming dating again around Christmas time and things going really well for a couple months, Chelsea and I decided to give our relationship another shot so once again, I have a girlfriend. I no longer own a car! Turned in my lease early because I simply did not use my car enough to justify the expense of owning it. It’s a massive relief. Got my annual raise at work, and…
For 2020 I decided to simplify the format of my reviews a little. The hope is that this makes them take less time and that I publish them on time more frequently. Through 2019, each review would take me around 2.5 hours to compile, write and edit. The hope is to cut this to about an hour. So far, I’m off to a terrible start, but here we are. The major changes here are I’m moving correlations to…
2019 turned out to be a tumultuous year. I looked back on 2018 well , and looked forward to 2019 with a lot of optimism. In early January, it really felt like a lot of things were settling into place. I started to form a plan, and it shows in my review of 2018. I wrote and rewrote the beginning of this review a handful of times, but inevitably there’s only one place to start… March 28, 2019 “I…
The end of the year is always a packed time. The end-of-year holidays often bring travel plans and parties, and this year was no exception. While the holidays also brought a 12-day stretch off work, I didn’t spend the whole month doing nothing (though there was plenty of downtime mixed in!). The beginning of the month, sadly, brought another departure from the team at work. The goodbyes did…
November brought a few notable events. Most significantly, the departure of one of the founders of my company… Our COO decided it was time for her to move on to something else. I’m sad she’s left, and curious to see how things change without her. We sent her off in style, however, with a celebration in Redhook at Hometown BBQ, and Sunny’s bar which was a whole lotta fun. I also attended a show…
October was a pretty full month. First things first, we announced to the company my promotion! I was promoted to Senior Front End Developer, now that I’ve been with the company for two years. A little bit of added responsibility in my day to day work, but other than that not a whole lot has changed from what I’d been doing. It’s been exciting and challenging stepping into the new role, but I’m…
There’s not a whole lot to say about September, as it was pretty uneventful. A couple doctor’s appointments, two last Mets games for the season, and an excursion outside the city to go apple picking. The doctor’s appointments mostly follow ups to investigating my chest / shoulder pain in August (turns out I needed a couple vaccines, and had low vitamin D and iron counts). I’m also publishing this…
August marked a real embrace of summer. After spending the first half of the summer not embracing summer Fridays at work, we picked it up a lot in August. In short, Fridays became more like half days all throughout the month. This led to an increase in going out and generally put me in a mood to spend a bit more money. Overall I’m not thrilled with my budget for August, but a celebratory end to…
Summer in New York has been pretty stellar. Kicked off July with a team outing at work - an escape room at which we set the time record for the room! Naturally, 5 engineers can crush a set of puzzles. Celebrated the 4th with my boss and some of his friends in Brooklyn, which was a fantastic day out. I also finally bit the bullet and rebuilt my PC with some strong upgrades. I’d been slowly buying…
June was a pretty exciting month! We had two interns start at work, and I have the wonderful pleasure of managing one of them, which has been a great learning experience. They’re also doing really great work so far, and it’s been wonderful to have them. The first of the big highlights though: we had our first annual company retreat! Three days in the Catskills, full of bonding, yard games,…
I feel pretty good about May! Things kicked off with a trip to Boston where I got to catch up with some old friends, and attended An Event Apart (my third year in a row!). After the conference, I put together a presentation for the office. It felt great to get back into public speaking a little, and I got a lot of positive feedback from my coworkers about the presentation too, so that was nice. A…
One of the first things a handful of people asked when they learned Tia and I split up is if I was staying in New York. Without hesitation I answered yes. I mean, obviously, right? I’m pretty invested here by now. I have a job I love, and at a minimum I’m stuck in a near-impossible-to-break apartment lease through this year. But maybe they meant after that. I suppose I don’t blame them. The thing…
April has been a month of adjusting. After Tia and I broke up, I was sent spinning a little bit trying to figure out what comes next. We talked things over, and had considered trying to work things out while separated. In the end, that did not pan out, so it’s on to something else for me. At the start of the month, my company joined an intramural kickball league (and we’re currently ranked number…
March was… a month. My boss was away for two weeks for his wedding, working odd hours as his schedule allowed, which made for a busy couple weeks for me as the next go-to developer at the company. In addition, we started interviewing for a couple summer interns, which has been pretty exciting. My own internships as a college student were invaluable as I prepared to exit college, and I’m looking…
The big highlight of February is that I went on vacation with Tia and her family to St. Maarten! The trip was truly incredible, despite a bit of sunburn on my back… This was my first trip out of the country, which made it extra exciting. We had lots of beach time, I went snorkeling and saw some sea turtles, parasailing for the first time, and we hiked Mt. Scenery on the island of Saba. It was an…
January was a relatively mild month, which was a nice way to kick off the year. Not too many major events, except a family party with Tia’s family and seeing Aladdin on Broadway which was quite good. Productivity Pretty good bump in productivity for January over December, which isn’t very surprising I suppose. The distraction of the holidays tends to make one less productive. Productivity pulse of…
“They ‘trust me’. Dumb fucks.” - Mark Zuckerberg Sure, Mark was 19 when he said that, but given Facebook’s history of wildly abusing the privacy of its more than 2 billion users, we have little reason to think that attitude has changed. Facebook’s history of privacy abuse proves this. The Cambridge Analytica scandal . Giving Netflix the ability to read your private messages . Allowing specific…
Well, 2018 sure was a year, wasn’t it? Personally, it felt like a really big year for me. On February 1st, Tia and I moved form her parents’ house on Long Island to an apartment in Queens, which was a big adjustment. I’d been working in NYC for about 4 months at that point, but living in the city was sure to be different. And it didn’t take long at all for me to start loving it. Sure, getting used…
December was a fast, fairly busy month full of seeing Tia’s family, holiday parties and a long stretch of time off – 11 days in a row without work, which was a nice end-of-year vacation. This month I saw both Wreck It Ralph 2, and Aquaman which were both good movies. Ralph, about what I expected, Aquaman better than expected. We went bowling a few times, which was a great time on each occasion.…
November was pretty eventful. At the beginning of the month, my mom visited New York City with a couple friends. I played tourist with them a little, visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island one day. The real occasion for their visit was seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway, which was incredible! Later on in the month, we went to a wine tasting event at the Long Island…
October marked one full year since I moved to New York City, which is pretty wild. That also meant my annual review at work came around, and I got a raise which is always nice! I also replaced my FitBit with a Series 4 Apple Watch… I got my first FitBit in 2012 and have used one almost every day since then. Leaving one app ecosystem for another can be a bit tough, but the transition wasn’t too…
September was highlighted by time spent with Tia’s family. One weekend for a birthday celebration, a long weekend for a vacation in Connecticut – a county fair, a night at Foxwoods, and a couple days at a campground – and an engagement celebration. I also started working with CUNY Tech Prep , a full-stack development bootcamp for CUNY Computer Science students. I’ll be spending a few hours a week…
August felt pretty busy, with a lot of my free time being consumed with various plans, but with summer coming to a close that isn’t surprising. Tia and I went to the Bronx Zoo for the second time in a year and had a wonderful time. We take our time at zoos, and spent I think 6 hours there. I’m sure we’ll go back again before winter. We also saw an off-broadway musical, /Be More Chill/ (which has…
This summer has been pretty packed. I managed to let my June review slip by, so I’m going to combine June and July into one review. June will mostly be a summary, while July will include the usual look at correlations and such. June Highlights A couple event highlights from June… A trip to Jamestown, NY for my friend’s wedding, which was an incredibly beautiful day. A trip to Texas to visit my…
Took me a while to get around to this this month, so it’s a bit brief, but here we go: Productivity Productivity is mostly flat, though a bit less consistent. I met my productive time goal less often, but when I did meet it, I killed it, pushing my average productive time per day up by just a couple minutes. Productivity pulse of 74 (+0) Met All Productive Time goal 13/22 days Average 5h 11m (+2m)…
More consistent productivity, turning 25 and getting a new iPad are the April highlights. Productivity Overall, my productivity dropped very slightly, but I met my 5-hour all productive time goal at a higher rate, so it would seem that my productivity level was at least more consistent, if nothing else. Productivity pulse of 74 (-1) Met All Productive Time goal 15/21 days Average 5h 9m (-11m)…
Not a whole lot noteworthy happening in March, but a pretty good month overall. Productivity Small drop in productivity this month, but I think last month just had a nice boost after I got back from my vacation so I’m not looking too much into it. Productivity pulse of 75 (-2) Met All Productive Time goal 14/22 days Average 5h 20m (-9m) productive time per day RescueTime Top 5 Categories: Software…
I had a busy start to the year, apartment hunting, then preparing to move. Not much else to say about January, I’m afraid. Productivity Slight drop in average productive time per day in January, but overall my productivity pulse was steady, so this appears to be coupled with just spending a little less time on my computer overall. I’ve also decided to stop noting average tasks completed per day…
Moved into an apartment, went on vacation, had my iPad stolen, filed my taxes, finished an online course… February was a hectic month, but I’m pretty satisfied with it. Productivity My average work day in February was noticeably more productive than in January. It helps I spent an entire week off, which I think pushed me to leave anything I was working on in an okay state, and I came back pretty…
The story of 2017 is that it was not at all what I expected it would be. I’ve done enough annual reviews by now that you’d think I’d learn not to try to plan for a whole year at a time but alas, here I am. The big story for me in 2017 is that in February I broke up with my girlfriend, and shortly thereafter got back together with an ex-girlfriend from college (Tia). We had dated for two years and…
A pretty good end to the year, I think. I took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off to give myself a nice vacation at the end of the year, and to give myself time to visit my family in Maine for Christmas. It was really nice to have a week off for that. Productivity Big drop in productivity pulse, and I definitely felt more distracted at work as the holiday approached. I also forgot to…
November was a lot of fun. Life is starting to feel a bit more normal here in New York, but I’m still struggling to have as much a routine as I had in Rochester. It was especially nice having some time off this month - not just for Thanksgiving, but Tia and I took a 3-day weekend and visited our friends in Boston, which was a blast! No big surprises this month, but here we are: Productivity Very…
It was a month of settling in. The first half was extremely surreal; adjusting to a new job, meeting tons of new people, trying to memorize train schedules and figuring out which way is uptown and which way is downtown. On that last point I don’t think I’m 100% certain still. There are some big upsides though. I was extremely productive this month and it feels great. I’ve started listening to…
At the end of last month’s review , I teased, “more to come in September,” with the intention of writing a separate post telling about what would be happening. I never got around to that post but, the very end of September brought an enormous change: I moved in with my girlfriend on Long Island and started a new job in New York City. I had accepted the job at the end of August, but hadn’t gone…
Less productive and not as active, but strong goal progress. Didn’t manage to finish my book, but good work on the others. Starting to see a few custom tag correlations in Exist which is nice too. Productivity Big drop in productivity this month, and I’m not entirely sure what caused it. The drop in meeting my all productive time goal is absolutely because I changed the goal from 4.5 hours a day…
About a month ago, MacWorld published an article showing that Safari 11 is the fastest browser for the Mac . Apple has made those claims before. I tested that claim about Safari 8 three years ago and found that Safari wasn’t any faster than Chrome or Firefox. In MacWorld’s testing, Safari 11 comfortably beats the competition but I had a couple issues with that post. First, they didn’t say anything…
July was my strongest month of the year, financially; enabled by refinancing my student loans and getting a raise at work. July also saw some changes to productivity, and good progress on my main goals. Productivity On the productivity front, I appear to have made huge strides. It’s not a totally apt comparison as I’ve taken to not tracking the first half hour at my desk every morning. Like most…
This month I overspent, stuck to my workout routine pretty well, and was more productive than usual. Productivity I managed to find within myself a bit of extra focus this month, bringing my productivity pulse up to an all-year high of 72! Pretty happy about that. Otherwise, little is changing in this area. Productivity pulse of 72 (+6) Average of 1 completed tasks per day Met All Productive Time…
Took some time off from work to travel to Maine for my brother’s college graduation, which was much-needed. It also saw the celebrations of a few of my friends’ college graduation as well. All of this led to quite a bit of extra spending, which was not great news for my savings. But, I started weekly intramural kickball with my coworkers, and started a simple workout routine of pull-ups so there’s…
Update 10/12/23: Due to the paywalling of the Twitter / X API, the bot described here no longer exists. Links to the code repo and the bot account have been removed. This post remains for archival purposes. If you've followed me on Twitter for a while, you may have noticed there's a series of hashtags I like to use when quoting people in my life. Specifically, I like to take quotes out of context…