Ciaran McNulty

Neurotypicals: "Just break big tasks into smaller steps!"

ADHDer: breaks task into 108 micro-steps, gets overwhelmed by the long list, abandons task, start to research road building in the Roman Empire for 6 hours.

#adhd

Some M5 bolts with the brand name "TERF"

I need to buy some bolts but the brand name is putting me off...

Orange plastic rack mounts in place on a bicycle

The removed mounts, dirty but still going strong

Possibly the first thing I ever used CAD for was making these mounts for a bike rack. I retired them today after 5 years of service.

They did well considering they've been outside in direct sunlight most of the time!

Priority boarding is such a farce when the plane you're getting onto is at a remote stand.

Last week we were in "Group 4" so had to let the frequent fliers etc. go first... onto the bus.

We were last on the first bus, and subsequently I was the third person on the plane.

It's just theatre to […]

Two Enigma machines in a museum display case

An Enigma machine IRL is peak #RetroComputing

Rather than focusing on AI maybe Duolingo could release an en_GB version so I'm not getting caught out by crazy Americanisms when I'm just trying to learn French

Please don’t zoom in on the terrible soldering

A device being charged via a short dongle that adapts a USB-C cable to a DC barrel connector

A USB-PD board - a small integrated circuit

Last year I got a bunch of inexpensive USB-PD trigger boards and they are very handy for powering devices that want DC input from USB-C instead.

The barrel connector was scavenged from an old router power supply

Hey "seniors":

Ask "stupid questions" where your juniors can see you asking them and getting answers from other people. Don't make juniors feel alone in not knowing something and being the only ones asking for help.

Reflecting on #FrontEndNorth it was a wonderful experience.

Great talks, cheap tickets, and one of the most inclusive and friendly crowds I've had the pleasure to spend time with at an event like this.

Recommended for future editions!

Craig presenting a slide that reads "Compliant and accessible are not the same thing. You can pass a WCAG audit and still have a product nobody can use"

Confession: I've not been on a project that I can recall where real user testing was used to gauge the accessibility of the system

Which is really bad!

@craigabbott delivered a passionate argument about how accessibility should be core to the entire design […]

[Original post on mcnulty.social]

A quote from David Dylan Thomas: "When I say "web developer" you picture a skinny white guy. It's not because you think people who aren't skinny white guys can't be developers. Its pattern recognition and when it's unconscious it becomes dangerous to hiring practices"

As a point of order, when asked to picture a web developer I picture a *fat* white guy. That may just be about my self-image though.

What a great talk from https://social.design.systems/@Amy_Hupe@social.design.systems about the biases and injustices we build […]

[Original post on mcnulty.social]

Chess.com (@chesscom@mastodon.social) 2 Posts, 1 Following, 650 Followers · Chess on the interwebs

Petition for https://mastodon.social/@chesscom to implement "if there is only one valid move just play it" - even if only for Daily games...

Salma showing a modem dial up screen in her presentation

More PTSD, thanks to Salma Alam-Naylor (https://whitep4nth3r.com/)

I think this "world wide web" might take off

#FrontEndNorth

Amy presenting a slide reading "ID poverty is the inability to prove who you are"

I'm definitely living in a. Bit of a bubble because before this talk I'd not thought about ID poverty at all before.

Amy Rogers (http://amyrogers.design/) did a great job of opening my eyes to an interesting and serious problem

#FrontEndNorth

Nils presenting a slide showing a non-centred grid

I'm learning a lot about more interesting grid systems from https://ruhr.social/@nilsbinder

#FrontEndNorth

Olu presenting a slide that reads "once everyone is on a network, it stops being a luxury and becomes a need, a utility"

Some fascinating points from @oluOnline about how the web(s) operate(s) as public infrastructure, and how that infrastructure can be reclaimed from the big tech firms.

Also will have to check out her book recommendation ( […]

[Original post on mcnulty.social]

Andy Bell presenting. Slide reads "Let's talk about (arrow) design hand-off"

I'm having traumatic flashbacks to 00's print-designer-driven workflows thanks to @belldotbz

@frontend

A presenter in a lecture theatre. A small screen is showing live captions of what they are saying

Very cool to see live captions (on the left of the pic) at @frontendnorth

Meme of Steve Buscemi blending in with teenagers, captioned "How do you do, fellow Front End Developers?"

Off to @frontendnorth today, looking forward to it!

Will be using my 'full stack' experience 2000-2010 will help me fit in.

I assume XHTML, semantic classes, and progressive enhancement are still the name of the game

https://i.imgflip.com/9zuqbk.jpg

Box art of announced Lego set 10358, a G1 Soundwave from Transformers

I don't buy a lot of Lego for myself, but the TF collabs are an insta-buy because they're such a sweet intersection of my childhood obsessions

I didn't realise that AWS released pricing for Aurora DSQL https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/pricing/

eu-west-1 prices:
$0.40 per GB month for storage
$10.00 per million DPUs

Free tier covers the first 1GB/ 10k DPUs

This is likely enough for a lot of small sites to fit into a free tier.

I've […]

For some reason my school was still using this in the 80s so I had the delightful experience of:

* learning to read normal English pre-school
* having to learn ITA at school
* graduating back to being allowed to to read English […]

Centre Court at Wimbledon

What a fun day

To be clear, the core of your system mentioned in point 3 might be 20% at most of the actual system

My current take on AI for software / vibe coding is:

1. It remains unethical how the models are trained both in terms of copyright and carbon output

2. The code quality is already equivalent to that produced by a typical outsourced team so that sector is toast — it requires a similar level of […]

Two drawers filled with Gridfinity organiser bins for batteries and metric bolts

I fear #gridfinity is going to continue to expand not only until it fills my home but, indeed, until it takes over the known universe

Apple Watch podcast sync has let me down too many times

Give me a big "sync now" button please rather than some ineffable 'it magically does it while charging' nonsense

I can use my Switch Pro Controllers with the Switch 2, great!

They can’t wake the device though 😭

Schedule | Front End North Conference Our 2025 schedule

I’m attending Front End North in a couple of weeks and really looking forward to the line-up! https://frontendnorth.com/schedule/