Parker Higgins @xor@mastodon.xyz

I'm going to add Mastodon support to an upcoming release of this tool BUT if you want to do it I won't stop you https://freedom.press/news/meet-open-source-twitter-bot-help-you-surface-stories-anything/

I missed being the first mention of Mastodon on Uses This by almost a year, but I'm in good company with @cwebber and @mattl

Hey I got interviewed on Uses This about my rig. I love these interviews, and was super honored to get to do one https://usesthis.com/interviews/parker.higgins/

A lot of people in my life, when they're trying to cheer me up, offer a "judgment-free zone" type of thing. And I want to thank them for that, and sometimes it's what I need. But then sometimes I want to know that I would make it through judgment! Like, my actions are good and acceptable by some neutral standard, evenly applied!

It's two very amiable probably-middle-aged men talking with infectious curiosity and in Scottish accents about nature and agriculture

If you have precisely my brand of anxiety, you might find that BBC Scotland's "Out of Doors" podcast is a nice way to soothe some of the inner monologue https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hjr

It's satisfying that the language of UK shipping is so densely packed with Britishisms. I put an item in my basket two days ago and now my parcel has been dispatched

Should I make a podcast

I gotta start writing again. I don't think any media people are still on Masto but if you are and you've got tips for who I should be pitching (to write the sort of thing I write) hit me up

As I've gotten more confident as a programmer, I've really started to see the value in looking at the source code underlying APIs I'm using, and I've also learned that most software is hilariously bad

Does anybody have a working example of an actual package on PyPi that uses markdown for its project description, and it works?

I haven't been good about it lately but blogging is such a Good Thing. I have a few years of my life now where I organized and documented my thoughts, and it's so incredibly valuable to me. (And maybe sometimes other people, too!)

I had to pick a nice-looking free font to bundle with this project I'm working on and I went with Noto and I've been seized all day with the worry that maybe that makes me look really 2014-y

What are the actual (case sensitive) filenames of some plain serif fonts that I can expect to find one of installed on various systems? I'd been using 'LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf', which is great for my computer but not everywhere, obviously.

I have learned so much packaging my first Python module for PyPi distribution! It's really hard and it sucks and I love it

How annoying is (manual, selective) cross-posting from birdsite? I presume a lot of you are over there, and a lot of you are not...