sm

Blog

Thoughts, opinions, and ideas of an unremarkable man from Pittsburgh, PA.

Posts

  1. Reorganizing the site into Categories
    I have divided content into four Categories to enable each to have a unique experience.
  2. Lost Stranger Things finale mid-credits scene
  3. Dog Poo
    Axioms for home-owners and dog-owners to live peacefully together.
  4. Maccy is a great clipboard manager for Mac
    Maccy has improved the way that I work. What more can you ask for in a free tool?
  5. Kellen Lovejoy presumptive winner in primary election for Wilkinsburg Council Ward 1
    Kellen Lovejoy is the presumptive winner of the Democratic-Party primary for Wilkinsburg Council Ward 1, defeating incumbent Council President William Smith III. Final election results will be posted on Friday, May 23.
  6. What to do when you find a dead deer on the street in Allegheny County?
    Roadkill on state roads are disposed of by PennDOT
  7. Introducing Speed Catan
    I like Settlers of Catan... in theory. But in practice it needs some changes to make it fun for everyone.
  8. Rewriting in Eleventy (again)
    Why I rewrote this site with Eleventy after a two-year sojourn with Astro.
  9. The only line from Shrek with a Canadian accent
    Mike Myers does not seem to use his iconic Scottish accent for the line "It's on my to-do list!"
  10. Mc-Pher-son
    We know how to pronounce "er", "her", and "pher", so why is it hard to pronounce "McPherson"?
  11. Balance bikes are just better
    Our older son struggled with training wheels, but after switching to a balance bike he and his younger brother learned in no time.
  12. Smile and wave
    To dissuade drivers from speeding down my neighborhood street, I make the choice to smile and wave at them.
  13. Seventy7 Ventures feigns credibility with fake "Best of British Business" award
    The new majority shareholders of Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC are passing sponsored content off as an award from the Independent
  14. Site update May 2024
    tl;dr I removed dark mode, `/contact`, likes, analytics, Netlify, and changed random articles
  15. A Few Things #12
    A collaborative interactive, Toto on ocarina, a word-based strategy game, and a classic infinite runner
  16. A Few Things #11
    A personal apologetic, assessing the world, Scotland's rainforests, and finding new music
  17. A Few Things #10
    A pink lake in Senegal, an Indian community that solved drought, and the strange origin of Idaho's name.
  18. Upgrading from Astro v2 to v4
    I needed to update dependencies, change a client directive, and then update configuration in Netlify
  19. A Few Things #9
    A reflection on silence contemplation, the art of bookmaking, semantic satiation, and soccer logo design
  20. On articles and blogs
    Thoughts on avoiding then embracing the word "blog"
  21. A Few Things #8
    Tree mails, disappearing cockroaches, and an entry in the game dev log genre
  22. A Few Things #7
    7 million syllabi, trash bag testing, a skeleton gardener, and jokes that probably aren't that funny.
  23. A Few Things #6
    Reflections on digital waste, a great green wall, beautiful illuminations, and a fun trivia game
  24. A Few Things #5
    Handwriting research, medieval fighting snails, wholesome comics, and banana price projections
  25. Adding a components page
    After a recommendation from Syntax.fm, I added a public page to see all of the components that I’ve created for this site
  26. Making a video game with my kids
    My experiences after one week of building a game with my kids using Kaboom.js
  27. A Few Things #4
    An investigation in remote Madagascar, Parkinson's Law, writing letters to your future self, and a live shark tracker.
  28. A Few Things #3
    The Japanese art of repair, a movie/TV recommendation service, a relaxing gardening game, and answering the question "Can elephants swim?"
  29. Adobe has the worst captcha
    To create an Adobe account, you are required to count the value of a pile of dice 120 times
  30. A Few Things #2
    Reflections on creation, the NFL's success, a map of lightning strikes, and Chester A. Arthur holding ham.
  31. Receiving cold-emails from GitHub stars
    I've started receiving cold-emails from maintainers after starring a repository on GitHub, and I don't like it.
  32. A Few Things #1
    An app to help you travel, dispelling an American myth, reflection on creation, and a game that will make your head spin.
  33. Off to Kindergarten
    My first born starts Kindergarten today and boy am I going to miss him
  34. 1000 commits
    This article marks the 1000th commit to this website's repository
  35. Losing steam
    This year started strong on writing, but I have found little motivation recently
  36. I have never reviewed a podcast
    Despite being a regular listener, I am unable to review podcasts
  37. Reviewing my Netlify Analytics
    Thanks to Netlify Analytics I know to focus on writing how-to articles, but it has less data than I hoped
  38. Starting an RSS Club
    I can publish an article exclusively to the RSS feed with a special flag in the frontmatter
  39. On closings
    Closings are lovely in letters but unnecessary online. I'm going to try to omit closings from my articles.
  40. How long should it take to write an article?
    Can I write articles in five minutes that are worth my and my reader's time? I don't know, but I think it's worth exploring.
  41. My writing process in February 2023
    The process involves mostly manual steps, and I am looking for a better solution.
  42. Learning about Smart Brevity for writing
    Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei advocates for a writing style that is clear and concise. I'm interested in learning whether I can provide more value through direct and informative writing.
  43. Burrito emoji
    Burrito means thank you. Thank you means burrito. Enjoy the burrito.
  44. Site improvements in 2023
    An unordered list of things that I would like to change about this site in 2023.
  45. Back from time off
    Reflecting on taking a break for all of January 2023
  46. Adding images to articles (again)
    I went through the process of adding images back to my articles with a helpful script to automate image processing for me.
  47. Thoughts on Steve Job on consulting
    Steve Jobs had some opinions on consulting, and it sparked a few thoughts of my own. What makes a valuable consultant? Experience.
  48. Rebuilding with Astro
    Detailing why and how I rebuilt this site with Astro.
  49. Slack Emojis
    A curated list of the best reaction emojis that I have created for Slack
  50. Reflecting on a new role
    Moving into mobile development at Niche and looking back on how I got here
  51. What is the song from Boston Dynamic's Spot Launch video?
    Using the Google app's music recognition feature, I was able to identify the song as "Banana" by Stony Pony
  52. A modest redesign for 2021
    Freshening up SeanMcP.com for the new year
  53. Adding images to my articles
    How the right design and process for sourcing images made all the difference for me
  54. MagnoliaJS 2020 conference notes
    Some notes from the talks that I was able to attend
  55. A new Twitter handle
    Kicking off 2020 with (yet another) new handle
  56. Reviewing 2019 goals
    Checking in on the goals I set for myself in 2019
  57. Lessons Learned at Abstractions 2019
    Some notes and thoughts from Pittsburgh's cross-discipline software conference
  58. How to pronounce my name
    A guide to pronounce my often-mispronounced name
  59. 2018 into 2019
    Reflecting on last year while looking forward to next
  60. Why a blog?
    An effort to preserve my content on the ever-changing web