J. B. Rainsberger

Glow Sticks Are Cheap On Amazon #ExcellentTourName /cc @kathleenmadigan.bsky.social

It would probably be a mistake for GTD to impose some WIP Limit on projects, because each person's capacity is different and it changes over time. Instead, it makes sense to me for GTD to provide the information about exceeding your capacity, so that you _actually_ confront the situation.

I don't think GTD, nor any productivity system, can tell you which projects to stop doing. Such a system can only make it clear to you that you need to stop doing some projects, you need to reverse some commitments, and so on.

Thank you. I think it happens like this:

1. You enumerate your projects and actions clearly.
2. You discover that you have Too Much To Do and that new requests are still arriving.
3. You are forced to confront the actual limits of your capacity.

Thank you. I have rheo in my Inbox, which is evidently built on Typst. I've had Typst in the background for a while, but not jumped into it. Touying sounds interesting.

A programmer's act of love: documenting and reporting an apparent defect in painstaking detail, then removing as many superfluous words as possible.

Dr. Steven Hassan: Are You in a Cult and Don’t Even Know It? YouTube video by Trevor Noah

I highly _highly_ recommend this interview. It's long. Very long. Feature-film length.

Even so, I love Dr Hassan's emphasis on what works when trying to help folks out of harmful beliefs, rather than what makes one feel superior over them.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ulv...

Rudimentary TDD in #jq/#jaq:

1. Choose an input; make a text file for it.
2. Figure out the expected output; make a text file for it.
3. `diff expected.txt =(cat input.txt | jaq -L "lib" 'main_filter')`

It seems like real work to run multiple tests together, but this is a start.

J. B. Rainsberger (@jbrains) I had an absolutely disastrous performance in January 2026 in Brantford, then I performed quite well in February in Timmins, but went back to performing very poorly the following weekend in Winnipeg. ...

I'm _trying_ to trust the process, but I haven't yet figured out how to get away from investing myself in the results.

substack.com/@jbrains/not...

Deadlines As An Act Of Love You are probably used to interpreting deadlines as a control mechanism, especially since that's how it seems to be in software development. Imagine seeing de...

What if I told you that we could turn deadlines into act of love?

Stop looking at me like that.

blog.jbrains.ca/permalink/de...

Business continues to make decisions that alienate regular customers. Customers stay because they have no alternatives.

Then... the moment there is an alternative, customers leave in large numbers. Business is confused and blames customers.

🤷

Unfortunate pattern in business:

1. Business struggles with cash.
2. Business makes decisions that alienate regular customers.
3. Regular customers have fewer options, so they stay, but they are ready to go at a moment's notice.
4. Customers stay, so business concludes "nothing wrong".

When I began practising #GTD I thought I needed to get more done in less time. As I learned more from the system, I realized that I was already trying to do too much and I needed to make more space to do less. That's the real wisdom I see in GTD.

A cat leaning out the window appearing to give the finger to the world, thanks to a well-placed human arm.

Compassion fatigue means I forgive myself for doing this every so often, but only a few minutes, then it's back to work.

Is anyone willing to share a story or a perspective of feeling like GTD was pushing them towards multitasking? No judgment; merely an attempt to understand. You're not wrong, but I'm merely surprised because that's not at all how I experienced it and I'd like to help if I can.

I am surprised to learn that some folks struggle with _Getting Things Done_ because of its "emphasis on multitasking". I think the book and the system say the exact opposite.

[more to follow]

Have you tried #GTD and failed? or even struggled? Do you "start again" every few months or once a year? Does it never seem to stick?

What's going on for you? I'd like to help. Reply or send me a message privately at tell.jbrains.ca.

What are the Cool Kids using these days to prepare slides for a conference talk on Linux? Interesting and offbeat options considered.

The TikTok Terms of Service, specifically the “Information We Collect” portion is shown with “status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status” highlighted.

The TikTok Terms of Service are shown, specifically the “Why We Share Your Data: For Legal Reasons” portion. Highlighted is the reason “government inquiries”.

Trump convinced gullible Congress people who don’t know how software works to yoink TikTok & hand it to one of his billionaire donors.

Now the new TikTok ToS say they will tell the government users’ citizenship & transgender status if it asks.

We have less privacy today than we did yesterday.

Yes, and...

...I also consider interesting trades.

How many Rainsbergers do you need? (Hint: all.)

The part of the team that worked full-time under The Astro Technology company did join Cloudflare -- and we are all happy for them! But, the overall Astro team is bigger: some of us worked as contractors or voluntarily, and currently depend on the very hard-to-get OSS sponsorships.

There are some great people, @yanthomas.dev included, looking for their next adventure!

Oh hey, and me included, too! I'm not in a rush, but keeping my eye out for the right opportunity in docs or community leadership. If you've liked using or contributing to Astro, maybe part of that came from me!

When one part of a function is not changing while you're repeatedly changing another part, this is a signal to consider breaking that function into two pieces: the stable part and the unstable part.

This isn't a law, but merely a helpful guideline.

#EvolutionaryDesign

I'm glad you found something! When you have more questions, please ask and I'll try to help.

I haven't written a single starter article. What questions do you have that I could try to answer?

You're welcome! I'm glad. Thank you for helping me organize my thoughts.

"an extraordinarily interesting video that touches on a load of great topics"

No, really! Someone just wrote this comment about my conversation with Marco.

This gives you an idea what it would be like to work with me. What do you think?

One more thing: when we resolve to refactor in the direction of the pattern, then we stop arguing about "how to apply the pattern correctly" and instead simply nudge the design in the direction of the pattern relentlessly. We're more likely to get there with less drama.

When programmers feel the freedom to change their minds, they can live in the best of both worlds: the security of a reliable pattern or guideline or framework without seeing those things as prisons that prevent them from Getting This Simple Stupid Thing Done Sooner.

I find patterns and styles such as Atomic Design more helpful when I know how to break them without disastrous consequences. Sometimes, we need to break the rules for a while, to achieve some other goal, then later bring the design in line with our established patterns and guidelines.