iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

It's been too long since I read #4RulesOfSimpleDesign. Time for a fast refresher. #CodeRetreat

An e-paper reader showing the cover of Understanding the 4 Rules of Simple Design, by Corey Haines

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

I have been honored in the form of a hello world container bearing one of my rants

docker run --rm -it quay.io/zzlotnik/hotdogcart:latest

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

Be not afraid, this is Halloweentown

A white pumpkin sculpture with a whole lot of green eyes popping out of it

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

There's just too much confusion Can't get no relief

A screenshot of a Google search result for the search "hobby electronics store Pittsburgh" showing an AI overview for what candy Pittsburgh is known for, notably, the Clark bar.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

I finished a fiction book today! Book: A Princess of Mars, by ER Burroughs Reader: XTEINK X3, w/ Crosspoint firmware The son of a special ed teacher who specialized in teaching reading, I was an early reader. I think I cut my fiction teeth on the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A hand holding a epaper book reader that says end of book

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

Especially when we're in a very long meeting

A Zoom meeting timer showing 34,862 hours, 33 minutes, and 44 seconds remaining. Almost 4 years.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

This is kind of a big deal for me. I've been tracking my feelings and journaling daily since late 2019. Part of that includes this goal of #gaming 3 days per week for at least 30 minutes. "But Colin, you're such a #gamer!" Oh yes, but I'm also a workaholic […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A Daylio card that says my goal: gaming, showing a current streak of 1001 days with 331 successful weeks and 1,883 total completions

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

3 years of Dutch, with some Korean sprinkled here and there!

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/07/2026

Aw, whin ja git two yinzers in da same rum as a gaggle of, well, everyone else… Or just git one a bit a boozed 'n'at

A Duolingo card that says in english, the American speaks a dialect I can barely understand.

Een Duolingo kaart die zegt: de Amerikaan spreekt een dialect dat ik nauwelijks kan verstaan.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2026

Een #ontbijt van Mekkerstee kaas en potbrood met rozemarijn en knoflook

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/05/2026

Come listen to me rant about wrangling snakes on planes at #opensourcenorth in Scooters. I'll roll right along and I'll promise you will be moved. I can't promise my wit will be razor sharp but if you want your AI to be a Go-bot, come and learn something that makes it more predictable. #python

Colin Dean in a top hat in front of the open source North banner

A picture of the open source North schedule for the scooters room

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/04/2026

I was honored to be a finalist for #Pittsburgh Tech Council's Tech Trailblazer award tonight. I didn't win but I'm very happy with the outcome, a great showing for my home area of northern Lawrence County with the winner and I graduating from neighboring schools.

A projected screen saying Colin Dean, managing Director of code and supply

Colin Dean wearing a top hat and polka dot scarfand a red shirt that says code and supply

A wide angle view of The Matrix themed presentation stage

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/02/2026

When Duolingo pairs me with my retired mother for a weekly challenge

A Duolingo challenge card showing a progress bar and two users, Colin Dean, and his mother. Colin has zero XP towards a 2000 goal, while his mother has 1707.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/01/2026

Sometimes I forget how good I've had it in most of my jobs and teams. @coryhouse sharing about not needing so many environments #codemash #codemash2026

My preferred workflow, a slide from codemash.

Fully local dev env. No internet required.

Start dev via one command.

My local DB is populated with static data committed to source control.

I can reset the DB via a single command.

I can easily toggle features.

Automatic preview deploys for each branch with unique URL and DB.

QA/UAT occurs before PR merge via preview URL.

Merge to main auto-deploys to prod.

Deploy dark via flags as needed for final approvals / phased release.

Do phased deploy or blue/green and monitor prod to limit risk.

Prod is the only long-lived environment.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/01/2026

900 days of Dutch and Korean! Most of that is Dutch, but I'm basically at the point of pleasantries in Korean now.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/12/2025

And on the seventh day of vacation, Ernie died. I was there at his beginning and his end. He was not an easy dog to care for: one year away from us became 9 years of precautions. There were lighthearted moments and he finally got along with his mother […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Ernie sits on a show table having gotten a groom on a lovely spring day.

Ernie and his mother Current at The Summit shopping center in Louisville in 2018, his last big trip with us.

Ernie at a few hours old feeding from Current, his trademark orange collar around his neck.

A gray-faced Ernie in his final moments of lucidity.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

And then in another binder, this one from 2003, I find papers used in my high school senior research paper about the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA). It's hard to believe that we're approaching 30 years of a law that so many people thought would be repealed in the mid-2000s.

A series of printed papers layered on top of each other. Titles include:

What is WASTE?
THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT AND OTHER EGREGIOUS LAWS
How to infuriate the RIAA and stay enragingly legal
Draconian DMCA (infoworld, June 2002)
DMCA prosecution ends in acquittal

And note cards from my thesis outline

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

The cleaning out a closet at my parents house, a shelf not touched since probably 2007, I find interesting artifacts showing my interests going back 25 years—when I moved into this bedroom after we completed the addition of the second floor of the house […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A printed copy of "incentives build robustness in BitTorrent" which is the original white paper for the protocol.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/11/2025

Yay #Homebrew on my phone, via Android's built-in, experimental "Linux Development Environment" and Terminal app.

Running sl, the steam locomotive app, via Homebrew on my Pixel 8

Looking at brew info for some apps on my Pixel 8

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/11/2025

[l33t m34t] I didn't even realize this when I bought it.

A package of slab bacon from Wholey's market, with a total price of $13.37

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/10/2025

@ThePSF did a big thing and said no to big government money in order to preserve its mission and integrity. They could use a hug right now. If you got it, put your money where your mouth/code is. Donate to the PSF: psfmember.org/civicrm/contribute/tr…

A Paypal payment receipt that says a $51.50 donation to The Python software Foundation

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2025

Stress bake or rage bake? Or procrastinate bake?

A wire rack with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2025

If I had a drink in hand, this would have caught me a spit take. Loud audible laughter emitted. Good job, Taskrabbit.

"She's so lucky / She's a star / But she cry cry cries building shelves is hard"

taskrabbit ad on the Minneapolis skyway

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2025

Much better now. ~4x the memory available now.

A memory usage graph showing three clear plateaus: one before anything was done, one mitigation, then a solution.

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2025

That blip there on the basic chart is good. The free/available shot up after reducing the workers by 1.

A Fly.io memory usage dashboard. The key thing is in the upper left, showing far less memory usage

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Colin Dean @colindean.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/08/2025

For how dumb this is, I laughed way too hard. I can't wait until I see this in AI generated code can I take solace and knowing that a good compiler should optimize it out.

python code that reads

def add(a, b):
if b == 0:
return a
return add(a + 1, b - 1)

def multiply(a, b):
if b == 0:
return 0
return add(a, multiply(a, b - 1))

With a picture of a computer on fire beneath it

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