Forty

Today, I turn forty.

I mentioned this to an offhand comment to Jem a few months ago on my Mastodon account a few months ago in the paradox I have with blogging. In so much that generally I blog a lot better when I’m not in the best place mentally. The worse I am, the better this blog does and the happier I am with my writing. Trust me, I’ve currently 14 Drafts that were written at lower points in my life that are just sat there with emo titles that befit the elder millennial generation that I am a member of that I just didn’t post for one reason or another. That’s one for you hackers.

But really? Now? As I write this sentence on the 5th of February and short of the stress I’m putting myself for my 40th birthday party which would have happened by the time you read this (what happens if there’s a train strike? Or nobody turns up? Or just generally things go wrong? Or there’s 2 or 3 people that don’t get on? Or those people who are coming and don’t really know people there?), things are…you know…okay? The past year has flown by and it’s been largely okay? Unspectacular, but okay.

Travel wise there was not really a huge amount. I saw Berlin (again), Athens (again) – both of it were work related trips: WordCamp Europe for Athens, and Berlin to go a wee bit outside my comfort zone and go to a dev conference (WeAreDevelopers World Congress). Not really talked about that but was fascinating hearing Sir Tim Bernes-Lee speak. I suffered proper imposter syndrome at that conference but met some wonderful folks there. There was more internal travel within the UK. London, Blackpool, Huddersfield & my first ever trip to Cornwall were my biggish trips. I felt like I did a lot, and looking back I did.

The usual geeky haunts of Play Expo, Arcade Club for the Retro Asylum meetup were on the list, however I saw a lot of cricket. 4 times to Old Trafford (including one day for the Ashes, which I made the BBC coverage clapping Zak Crawley’s knock). That was the high standard stuff. Village wise although the summer was a bit poorer I did play a lot more games, so most weekends I was watching a game at the Earlestown Oval, sometimes even playing for Earlestown Cricket Club.

Work wise things have been a bit slow and steady, and only really picked up in the last quarter. Whisper it folks, but so far this year is looking good. The spare time has seen me work on my brand, write some blogs, and a couple of side projects – I stuck a proper shop on Retro Garden which is my basic “let’s get rid of a couple of duplicate games I’ve acquired over the years” along with trying some affiliate income. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of folks I know are building WooCommerce affiliate stores. I do wonder if that’s a trend.

I also launched All Rumble Stats which is a site dedicated to tracking every Royal Rumble over time. It’s basically been a spreadsheet I’ve kept offline and stuck online.

I’ve used KadenceWP for that which I’ve talked about here – a theme I also used on the brand new Earlestown Cricket Club website. I’ve really taken to use it in my setups.

Yes, I handle that and I am sponsorship secretary for the club as well 🙂.

Twitch Streaming has continued to be sparodic unfortunately. I’ve just struggled to find time to do it with any sort of consistency, but between Liverpool at Eurovision and a random day I met with a few of my streaming palls of Jess, Kittens, Rosie, Boo & Jans. That was a lovely couple of days that I treasured.

Moments I have treasured and will continue to treasure. Being one to try and experience more I’ve started my 50 before I’m 50 list. It’s currently 35 but hope to add more to it.

Overall, I’ve been relatively happy and in a good mood. I took 6 months (late 38-mid 39) for to look after myself, which is well worth doing. 10/10 would recommend. Between that and therapy (which is now down to a fortnightly session), my last year of my 30’s was pretty good, and been a happy time for me.

It just doesn’t make a good blog post. Soz.

And now the yearly comparison!

As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.

Rhys (With a Spoon)
Rhys (With a Spoon)

Reese Witherspoon
AgeNearly 40 (Up 1)Nearly 48 (Up 1)
Oscars
(Nominated)
0 – No Change
(0 – No Change)
0 – No Change
(2 – No Change)
Books Written1 (No Change)4 (Up 1)*
Marriages0 (No Change)2 (No Change)
Children0 (No Change)3 (No Change)
WordPress Plugins Written &
On the WordPress Repository
11 (No Change)0

* I made a mistake, turns out Reese Witherspoon has been a lot more prolific than I’ve thought.

See y’all next year!

Previous Versions: 303435, 36, 37, 38, 39

Content Creation Ramblings from an Nerdy Elder Millennial

Or: Finding out how my plugins helped out a British celebrity, and yours can too.

Content creation is a weird phrase isn’t it? It can mean anything. From a well crafted blog post, to an hour video on how the Super Mario Brothers 3 record dropped over time, to those videos that crop up every 3 or 4 videos within my TikTok “For You” page that make me embarrassed to watch them in public, to those Facebook memes your racist auntie’s shares on Facebook. Every one of those things could be classed as “Content Creation”. Invariably when I see a talking head with job title of “Content Creator” mentioned in the media by I think one of these roles.

I may sneer a bit. Largely because like other things I sneer at like Formula One or Cody Rhodes’ booking strategy post Royal Rumble 2024 (NB: I wrote this sentence before Thursday 8th February, and publish it on the 9th. Holy shit it’s box office again and consider me a fully paid up member again the Cody Rhodes train again), I don’t really understand it. I yearn for a simpler time.

Rhys laments the old internet…again

Then I’m reminded how the old internet used to be. The one I’ve talked about on this site before. How as creators in any way shape or form we’re just a few steps from connecting with people. How it was a great time.

I saw a toot from Frank Goossens about how his plugin – Autoptimize – was used on Taylor Swift’s website. Taylor Swift! A content creator I have heard of! Using WordPress! There’s hope for me yet.

I remember the brush with celebrity I’ve had using my WordPress plugins. Stacey Solomon – an X-Factor contestant who has carved out a niche as a TV presenter in the UK – used WP Email Capture for a while on her (now defunct) website. Although I’m not an X-Factor or TV junkie, I did remember at the time I thought it was quite cool.

As I’ve gotten older, having somebody invest time as opposed to money into something I’ve created, fills me with a warmth that contracted work can never do. I did lament a few weeks ago (something I talk about in my 40th blog post) about the paradox of how this blog suffers when I’m mentally in a good place. However occasionally, a great read – “Why Personal Blogging Still Rules” by Mike Grindle – will provide me the inspiration to rattle off these few 100 words, such as these.

It may be harder for us to connect off the major platforms (and – if you decide not to pay Elon Musk $7 a month – on it as well). Hopefully something: be it a plugin, an article, a silly video or a meme, made by us, can light the day up and connect a bit closer. We connect, we may drift apart, but eventually remember.

Remembering Jase

I found out a few days ago that a bloke I knew online in my mid 20’s passed away in 2016. We connected through a TF2 community that had a server that was voice only. A ridiculous server with drunken Friday nights sniping on 2Fort. Never spoke to him after I moved to Manchester in 2010. There for a season and left. I knew very little of him, but what I remember sticks with me. He was Irish, and he used to sing karaoke over the server. He introduced me to The Velvet Underground and I knew his favourite song was “I’ll be Your Mirror”. I guess the above 600-odd words are for him. How somebody who entered my life for a few months, yet changed it for a lifetime.

And I guess that’s the power of blogging, or forming communities off of walled silos. Maybe in ways you’ll make something that does for somebody else. Be it a tribute singer from Ireland, or Taylor Swift. You won’t know until you try.

Header image: “IMG_0351 (Copy)” by paisleyorguk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

On Alexa, ChatGPT & AI Programming

Let me begin with a little story

On the day Donald Trump was formally arrested, I did what any sane person would do. I went out for a few beers.

After coming home, I popped a pizza in the oven, which took 13 minutes to cook. I have an Amazon Echo in the kitchen, so I said the words “Alexa – set a timer for 13 minutes”. Of course my comprehension skills weren’t great so I wasn’t sure if the confirmation timer was 13 minutes or 30 minutes, so quick as a flash I said “Alexa, reduce my timer by 1 minute”, before asking for how long was left.

Why? Well, if the timer was on 29 I’d hear “Twenty Nine”. If 12 minutes were left I’d hear “Twelve”. Easily to comprehend for my slightly sozzled celebrating a crap president being impeached.

Why am I telling you all this? Well I feel like it shows how my brain works to find a creative solutions to real world problems, something as a developer I do on a day to day basis. I’m not saying I’m the best developer in the world, but I’m pretty good.

Like most developers, I’ve been hit recently with the downturn in tech. Not as much as some, but I’ve felt it. Furthermore in the past six months we’ve seen the rise and rise of AI so I’ve been thinking – am I safe for a job? Or should I look to retrain?

What I think the future holds for developers

I don’t know what the future holds for developers, but I’d be silly if – as a luxury of being a business owner – I don’t diversify a little bit. I can’t remember who said it but I feel more secure as a business owner having 4 or 5 clients that cover the mortgage than working one place that does. It makes sense to look at other opportunities.

With that said, development is my bread and butter. Whether it’s my own site or clients, 5 days a week I come up to solutions to problems. Sure there are similarities, but nothing is ever quite the same. Is that safe?

I think so, and whilst I did have my heart sink when I saw the Tom Scott video about AI, I was reassured when WordPress said that Use of Code Generators must remain GPL compatible. In short, if you write a plugin to put onto the WordPress plugin repository, you must be sure where every line of code comes from. I’m sure with mine, because I wrote it, but there is no guarantee that AI code is. Mika Epstein in their post then ended with the cheery line:-

Robots won’t take our jobs yet.

This reassured me as you see, code does go wrong. I prefer if it didn’t, but things do go wrong. Part of my job is putting things right. People will use your code in ways you’re not expecting to, or view your code on a Commodore Amiga, or (like I discovered in Neverspoons recently) that searching for Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch causes crashes. It can take time to figure out what goes wrong, and part of the joy (if the 25 thread email chain is anything to go by) is to figure out what the route of the problem is. AI can solve the problem, but may not be able to diagnose why it’s a problem to begin with.

Those problems need the human touch, and familiarity with the code. Familiarity that doesn’t exist when somebody typed “Code a Facebook clone” in ChatGPT. Sure ChatGPT may write code. However it doesn’t come with the learned and community knowledge that comes with developing it

Where I do use AI

I do however use AI for my business and programming. No more than I use automated tools to build CSS files and minify JavaScripts, or Google problems that I have that end up on Stack Overflow . Developers should at least look to use it to generate code and data structures quickly.

To give you an example, this was something similar I used for a project recently. I needed the international dialling code of every EU country, stored in an array.

A graphic of Rhys Wynne asking ChatGPT for an PHP associative array with the dialing code of every EU country, and an ISO 3166 alpha 3 code as the key

It’s simple code, but for me to build would take at least half an hour. Maybe I’d find a quicker way to do it, but even just finding a table, extracting all the EU countries, and putting it into a format I’d use would take time, and also be prone to mistakes. This was 30 seconds for the AI to build, and quick for me to check and cross reference.

Furthermore, my knowledge as a developer using the words “key”, “value” and “associative array” meant the AI Bot was able to build it to spec quickly. Similarly to knowing how to Google and what to Google makes problems easy to solve.

The Developer/Client Relationship with AI

So I guess I’ll end with the fact that this is an open admission I use AI for my job to deliver results for clients. Not much, but occasionally. Some things a computer is better at doing than my easily distracted brain, but I believe in being honest with people. After all, my freelance face is literally named after me.

AI is here, but at least with Dwi’n Rhys, you do speak to a human.

For the love of The Last of Us

And all other video games

One thing that has filled my heart with joy recently has been a lot of people enjoying the drama series The Last of Us. For full disclosure: I’ve never played the game, nor seen the TV show, but I live vicariously through tweets such as this one from Dan Walker, who doesn’t strike me as a gamer.

Video games, for me, is the only piece of media I regularly consume. I don’t read. I rarely watch movies (I watched Terminator 2 for the first time last Sunday – it was great). My TV viewing is comfort viewing of Red Dwarf & Phoenix Nights, along with sport and game/antique/cooking shows. That’s really it.

Video games and me

Video games however are my comfort art form, and I always feel like it gets a bad rap. They provoke emotions in me like no other art form. Be it the pangs of nostalgia from playing Tehkan’s Bomb Jack which takes me back to playing it in Rhos-on-Sea seafront arcade with my grandparents, to the endorphin rush of solving another three fates in Return of the Obra Dinn. It has been my comfort blanket for such a long time. Even during lockdown – when we couldn’t go anywhere – me and pals regularly met up in Sea of Thieves to consume (real and fictional) grog. It beat a Zoom call.

That’s just the games that don’t necessarily have the strongest narrative but evoke happy memories. Stories in games have really gotten better and better. The twisting narrative in The Detective for the Commodore 64, through to the RPGs of the Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger games, all the way to modern day classics like Mass Effect, Horizon: Zero Dawn. Stories can be told, with wonderful deep characters and meaning. I enjoy the interactivity, but I understand many don’t. Which is why you’re catered with the compelling stories in walking simulators, such as Firewatch and To the Moon.

I always take it a bit personally whenever it isn’t given the due I feel is deserves. At the time of writing I’ve 3 games on the go. A short blast in RC Pro-Am on the Nintendo, and two story driven games (Metal Gear Solid & Red Dead Redemption). If I said I had three books on the go, nobody would bat an eyelid. Or spending a weekend watching three shows? That’s fine. But I do feel at times occasionally I have to justify spending a weekend resting playing video games. Maybe it’s in my head a bit. It’s for kids, it’s violent and rots your brain, etc etc. Things like that. I’m reminded however of an OkCupid question of “how would you feel if your partner spent the weekend playing video games?”. I feel like no other art form would ask that question.

The main culprit I find is in mainstream media. Not in terms of attacks but, it doesn’t really penetrate into the public consciousness like other things. Take for example quiz shows. When was the last time you had a video game question of reasonable difficulty on The Chase or Pointless? However when was the last time you had a question on TV. Or a film. Or books. There’s probably a reason financially, but another reason could be the folks who are in the positions of power don’t really understand it, and haven’t grown up with it.

Video games in other media

Which is why I welcome TV shows like The Last of Us, as hopefully exposes more people to the art form. Like Marvel, that began it’s success with comic book fans watching their movies, I suspect HBO have made the decision to commission the compelling story because it would get fans of the show to watch first, causing a groundswell, and then get people into the story (the story – if it follows the games – is apparently excellent. You should listen to the Playthrough Podcast that deep dived into both games, and only really criticising the actual game).

With the success of The Last of Us, I hope some of the people who may not have been exposed to video games much, play the games, or indeed other games. I hope other franchises get converted into video games as there are so many stories to tell to new audiences. People missing out on the gripping finale of the reaper invasion in Mass Effect because “they don’t play video games”, I don’t know, just makes me a bit sad.

I’m sad as it’s people who willingly shut themselves off from an art because they don’t understand it or dismiss it for kids. Like people who don’t listen to Rammstein because they don’t speak German. I’m probably a massive hypocrite in this regard as I do the same with books, TV and movies.

But I don’t care. I’ll just get back to John Marsdon galloping around Blackwater in Red Dead Redemption. I’m getting to the the good bit.

New Year, New Goals (2023 Edition)

On why you’ll see more/less of me this year

I’m not one for goal setting, in all honestly. I struggle with maintaining the effort over the course of the year to keep myself on track and often the beauty of being a freelance is to switch focuses incredibly quickly if opportunities arise.

Nevertheless, with everything going on I feel like this year with a recession on the horizon could be one of the tougher years for me, with less money for investment into their sites.

I also feel personally if I could make this year work, then this year could be the year. I’ve said since the business turned 4 years old in August this year I’m beginning to look further than web sites for clients and looking to share my over 15 years of commercial web development. I’ve begun looking at what’s next.

I struggle personally to look at the big picture, opportunities that exist outside of my main focus. So I’ve made a few goals that I’d like to achieve in the next year. Some of those personal, some of those professional. Here are where my focuses are 2023.

Professional Goals

Improving my Personal Branding

My personal branding is a mess. Everything is not the same. In the classic case of the busiest shoemakers have the worst shoes, if you looked at my sites that I use to advertise my wares then you’d think I’m terrible.

I have this blog which is everything, Dwi’n Rhys which is my WordPress freelance site, Winwar Media which is the name of the company, and half a dozen other sites. And don’t get me started on my bloody Twitch Channel branding. Twitch handle one name, Twitter another. It’s all a bit of a mess.

I’m not sure exactly how to bring it all together, but I will aim to. Also the sites need redoing. They’re old. So that’s an idea.

I guess my goal for 2023 is to be in a better position personal branding wise than I am now. At the very least get at least one of my sites that use jQuery Migrate (Winwar Media & WP Email Capture) bloody off of it.

Side Projects to Cover the Mortgage

I’ve a bunch of side projects that have been coming out the wazoo. Domains bought, affiliate links not transferred, Twitter accounts began with gusto but died quickly.

I’d like to pick them up and make them bigger. A few people I know have been rather successful with them, and I’d like to improve them.

Side projects are hard. Like, really hard, and do require focus. Sure you can do 5-9pm but there is life as well and I went freelance to eventually craft out working for myself and give myself more time, but ideally – especially with the way the world is going in 2023 I’d like to grow them.

The goal for my side projects is for it to pay for my mortgage by the end of the year. Christ that is such a lofty goal, but we’ll see how we get on.

Which is related to the following…

Work Less

In Blackpool, on September 30th, I had a realisation.

I was just about to close my laptop from a week in work. I’d made the trip up to the seaside resort from one of my favourite weekends of the year – Play Expo in Blackpool. My calendar was opened, and I noticed something.

I had not done as much as I intended.

Sure, I’ve been busy, incredibly busy, but I had manage to cope. Clients were happy, I was happy, and things were getting done. But, inadvertently, I had only worked four days every week for a month.

It wasn’t planned, of course, but every Friday I was busy. I was either in Cardiff for Clash at the Castle, or London for OMG Center’s launch, or at Play Expo in Blackpool. I was busy doing things, enjoying things, or pushing my business forward.

COVID had been an interesting time, in that I had to hunker down a bit and not do much.

So this got me thinking – how can I do it more?

I’d looked on with a bit of admiration with what my good friend Shane has managed to carve out since going freelance in terms of his work schedule. He had one tip – book your time out for other things.

So, for the foreseeable future in 2023, I’m dropping to 4 and a half days per week.

Friday afternoon, which traditionally isn’t the most productive time anyway, I’m dedicating to side projects, hustles, improving things, or just knocking off early and going for a walk.

My goal is to hopefully have had Friday afternoon largely free for 80% of the year.

Personal Goals

These are more “nice to have” goals within my personal life.

The first is an art form I really enjoy – podcasting. I’d really like to appear on a podcast at some point. Because as a straight white man it’s pretty much the goal isn’t it? Not sure where, not sure how, but I’d really like it as a medium I think it’s great.

The second is a sport that I fell in love with in 2022 – cricket. Last March soon after my birthday I joined my local cricket club (remember last year where I said I needed a hobby? Well I found one). Playing wise I feel I’m better at batting than at bowling, but even then I’m not 100% confident. Last season I played 8 games with a high score of 10. In 2023 I’d like to score 23 in a match (the only mate I knew before playing cricket who played cricket’s high score was 22, so I’d like to beat that), and play more than 8 games in the season.

Finally, I feel like I need another personal goal, but I’m struggling. I am proud of the personal growth I made in 2022, so I’m throwing it open to you 🙂. What should I improve in 2023?