The weblog of Pittsburgh-based web developer Bill Turner.
I seem to keep falling into a familiar pattern. I’ll rebuild the weblog (updating the layout a bit, upgrading the software that runs the blog, etc.), and get all excited. Then I’ll lose interest and forget about it again. But, let’s give it another try. It’s been an interesting couple of years since my last post here. Started work at a large multinational real estate company that didn’t end up…
After getting a new version of Jekyll installed, pulling some archives from Github, and some from the Internet Wayback Machine, I think I have most of my posts back. I need to do some adjustments to a few of the templates, but I think we’re back and running well enough. There may be some older posts that I’m missing, but I think they’re fine being lost to the ether. I tried a few different static…
Editor’s Note: This was moved here from my short-lived TTRPG weblog. I believe I’ve adjusted all the links, so everything should still work. I’m now just over a couple of weeks into the Dungeon23 challenge, and it’s actually going pretty well. I’m still feeling my way into the challenge, but we’ve only just begun. As it progresses, I should get a better handle on my voice in the process. As…
Editor’s Note: This was moved here from my short-lived TTRPG weblog. I believe I’ve adjusted all the links, so everything should still work. In his original post, here’s how Sean McCoy planned on creating his Dungeon23 megadungeon: A dungeon room a day, every day, for 2023. That’s 365 rooms. I’ll do a level a month, so 12 levels. Every week is a little area of 7 rooms, so I can keep my focus…
Editor’s Note: This was moved here from my short-lived TTRPG weblog. I believe I’ve adjusted all the links, so everything should still work. The first question I need to answer is this: do I really know what I’m doing? The answer so far is: not really! I’m just winging it at this point. But that’s fine. TTRPGs aren’t completely new to me, as I mentioned in the opening post here, but writing one…
Editor’s Note: This was moved here from my short-lived TTRPG weblog. I believe I’ve adjusted all the links, so everything should still work. For the last four years or so, I got sucked into tabletop board games to quite a serious degree. Once I found the types of games I liked, I felt determined to own more and more. I bought more games than I needed, and read about even more that I thought I…
Thanks to the Roguelike challenge I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been having a lot of fun working on my Python skills. To be honest, competing in the challenge was mainly a lot of typing out code from a tutorial, but it did help me learn additional syntax, tips on class creation, and overall project organization. Building such a big project also got me itching to start on a another where I’m…
Well, I didn’t complete the Every Day in May challenge like I was hoping to, but I did do better than last year. Last year I completed 10 of the daily challenges; this year, I finished 17. But even without completing all of the prompts, I am pretty happy with a few of the sketches: a bunch of bananas the Greentree water tower a couple of books - extra special because I used my little paint kit,…
If you look at my Flickr album for 2018’s Every Day in May, you’ll see I was only able to complete 10 of the 31 challenges. I can’t recall what led me to stop keeping up with the entries, but I plan to give it a better attempt this year. I’ll admit that some of this year’s prompts are a little different - like “Your favorite song” - but overall I think they’re all doable. And there are a few I am…
In my last post, I wired up a very simple API server in Python with Flask. This time, I’ll add in a library meant to make building APIs a bit easier: Flask-RESTful. The goal will be to add in the library and adjust all code necessary to take advantage of this library. If all goes well, then the tests we wrote the last time should still pass. Let’s cross our fingers. The code for this time will be…
This should be the first of a few blog posts explaining how to get a simple API up and running with Python, and using the Flask framework. I’ll try and link all these together once I get more up. And if you’d like the source code at any time, you can grab it here: github.com/billturner/simple_flask_api. The branch for this part will be 01-bare-bones. I’ll be using Python 3.x, and I’m going to…
With the internet, there are so many resources available to help you learn about something new - a new recipe, a new hotel, a new celebrity couple, and a new-to-you programming language. In fact, there are often too many resources and opinions out there, and finding the right place to start learning can be quite daunting. I’ve found this to be the case lately while trying to learn Python. In…
When I initially thought about how I’d rebuild Lists of Bests, I had in mind to use some technologies that were somewhat new to me, so I’d have a chance to learn along the way. Well, since that post those new technologies aren’t all that new to me anymore. At my new(-ish) position at Arcadia, I’ve been writing quite a bit of React along with Ruby on Rails (and its API capabilities). So, there…
About a year ago, I bought a Windows laptop so that I could have a non-work computer to use. I thought about getting another Mac (for over 10 years, have been using them for work and home), but I didn’t feel like shelling out how much they’re asking for the newer MacBook Pros. So I started looking at Windows laptops for their power, but also the ability to play games that aren’t available on Macs.…
Since I’ve been sketching more the last few years, it sometimes seems like I’m always searching for the next sketchbook to buy. I’ve been a huge fan of the different sizes of the Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbooks, but I thought it could be fun to make some sketchbooks of my own. When I started looking for some bookbinding tutorials, I came across Sea Lemon’s videos on YouTube, and specifically her…
Even though I have uninstalled Flash and checked all the appropriate settings in Chrome, CNN still seems to be able to get its videos to start playing whether I want them to or not (I don’t). And because of this, I decided I’d like to give building a Chrome extension a try in order to stop those videos from autoplaying. I realize there may be other Chrome extensions out there (like Disable HTML5…
With an upcoming version of Firefox set to warn users when they’re browsing on a site without SSL encryption enabled, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get it all set up for this domain - kindofblue.com - as an experiment. I knew that with Let’s Encrypt, the SSL certificates are free. It just requires a bit of work to get them set up. Luckily, at DigitalOcean - where I host this site/domain - they…
When Lists of Bests launched in 2003 (see previous post), the site consisted of a few Perl scripts and maybe an external CSS file. I don’t think I used a bit of JavaScript on the site at all, and my design skills were less than competant. Despite all that, the site did quite well. I can’t recall the total number of users I had on the site at the time I sold it to the Robot Co-op, but it was maybe…
I have a crazy idea. It may even be a bad idea. I’m going to try and bring Lists of Bests back from the dead. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the story. Back in early 2003, I had an idea for a website where you could keep track of books you’ve read, films you’ve seen, and albums you’ve listened to that happened to be on a list of greats (think The Academy Awards, the Pulitzer…
Today I picked up Charles Stross’ 2004 book The Atrocity Archives from the library. So far, I’ve only read the introduction, but I really think I’m going to like this book. Here’s a small bit from Ken McLeod’s intro: It is Charlie’s experience in working in and writing about the Information Technology industry that gives him the necessary hands-on insight into the workings of the Laundry. For…