Brian M

Halloween-ops report ::

117 trick or treaters. All received treats. Peak traffic 6:15-6:30 PM.

Candy chute experienced two bugs.

1) Screw in position #2 was not flush. Hotfix with tape.

2) A small number of candy bags got stuck. Long pole used to resolve.

RCA tomorrow.

Happy #Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

#halloween

The Republican Plan to Reform the Census Could Put Everyone’s Privacy at Risk A little-known algorithmic process called “differential privacy” helps keep census data anonymous. Conservatives want it gone.

Did not have "Republicans against Differential Privacy" on my 2025 bingo card.

www.wired.com/story/republ...

Bump rails from 8.0.3 to 8.1.0 (#463) · bamnet/concerto-fresh@1be2e70 * Bump rails from 8.0.3 to 8.1.0 Bumps [rails](https://github.com/rails/rails) from 8.0.3 to 8.1.0. - [Release notes](https://github.com/rails/rails/releases) - [Commits](https://github.com/rails/...

One of the most satisfying feelings of Rails development is successfully upgrading your app to the next release of Rails.

There's no guarantee it's going to go smoothly, it feels like a litmus test for adherence to The Rails Way.

Just landed 8->8.1 for Concerto

github.com/bamnet/conce...

#rails

Happy birthday!

new nas, who dis?

It's so cute. Someone from Tailscale's sales team is trying to sell me on Tailscale.

In a personal capacity, I've already been using it since 2020.

In a corporate capacity, replacing BeyondCorp @ Google with Tailscale feels a bit too ambitious.

announcing a new community-focused gem server from the team previously behind rubygems: gem.coop. join us and start using it today!

Brian standing in front of the agenda for Devfest NYC

View from the back of the audience at Devfest NYC.

<imposter syndrome intensifies>

Gave a talk at #devfest NYC about GMP Code Assist.

You can check out Code Assist @ developers.google.com/maps/ai/mcp

TIL United has an in-flight map that uses OSM sometimes. Very cool!

Kinda surprised they stuck with the default styling.

And you can bet I overcorrected adding:

- type and value validations on the Rails model

- prop validation in the Vue JS frontend

- squashing the infinite loop JS edge case which was a red herring

- test coverage for all of the above

Very satisfying code to write. Past self is thankful.

2 hours spent debugging to catch an errant comma.

Foo = bar,

vs

Foo = bar

That meant that Rails turned Foo into an array, which then threw the JavaScript into an infinite loop since.

This vibe coding stuff has its pitfalls.

Impeccable timing. Bought a NAS 3 days ago. Yesterday, Ubiquiti announced their new NAS lineup which looks quite nice. 😭

Luckily, the TikTok Shop has free returns. Kinda feel bad for all the new NAS players tho.

After a near-miss using `diskpart` to extend a few volumes on a PC, I should finally invest in a NAS. Recommendations welcome.

Also, why don't these commands have confirmations...

That's awesome, just what I've been for. Thanks a bunch!

Oh neat! Does this solve the problem of needing to manually scaffold out a fresh rails app just to compare all the diffs by hand?

I'm always worried that I'm going to miss something with these updates and fall behind.

Screenshot of Yahoo News Headlines in Concerto.

Screenshot of RSS configuration information.

RSS Feed support ✅

Refreshing Concerto is going smoother than expected, in no small part because LLMs are faster at CSS than I am.

Is there anyone disrupting AllTrails?

Their desktop planning and discovery gets worse every time I try to use it.

All I really want is to find loop trails that are in areas I haven't already explored. I don't want to see the other 4 slight variations of the hike at Rampo State Park.

YouTube video by Boys Like Girls - Topic The Great Escape

Sometimes TikTok's FYP does an excellent job reviving songs that I completely forgot existed.

I partially blame this on the data loss in the transitions from iTunes -> Grooveshark -> Play Music

music.youtube.com/watch?v=VIKY...

An inflatable tube man at dusk

Checked out the Lunar Faire @ Jungle Habitat in NJ tonight. Better collection of vendors than expected.

Nice work @lunarfaire.bsky.social!

As vibe coding proliferates, I hope code reviews catch up.

It's great to see tools helping more people contribute.

It's also time consuming to have feedback on 75% of it. Duplicate variables, inconsistent syntax, code smell, etc.

It's not clear to me the costs are well aligned.

Outside of attributes, which other fields are required vs optional? Could a Place just have a collection + rkey?

In some place ecosystems, looking up additional information about places gets complicated and there are benefits to doing it in the presentation later.

Tech Tip Thursday:

Continuing the #ADK trend, if your agent has prompts that include optional state, use syntax like {state:} instead of {state}.

The trailing colon lets the template fall through to a default, like an empty string.

Super helpful if your agent builds its own state along the way.

Just 1, might be a personal best!

A Danze Opulence kitchen faucet with sprayer installed above a stainless steel sink.

Collection of parts from a danze opulence kitchen faucet spread out on a counter after being removed.

Kohler Crue kitchen faucet installed with an echelon and a garbage disposal air switch.

Beginning. Middle. End.

3.0 in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ.

earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

Yea, pretty solid shake here in Hudson County.

NYC/NJ earthquake

Tech Tip Thursday:

If you're connecting #ADK agents together, you probably want to use agents-as-a-tool instead of sub-agents.

The subagent syntax is appealing and the name _sounds_ intuitive, but it's a complete handoff instead of a parent-child model. Tools keep your parent agent involved.

Signs that Google is healing:

VPs/Directors.are taking small teams out to dinner to celebrate projects again.