The complete release log for the 🧠mark2 persona.
43 releases · Page 2 of 3
Notice the new border colors in the two sections above? Yeah, me neither. I can't say I'm thrilled with the styling, but the point of the story is that I have two new release sections now. One for volleyball tournaments, and one for when I visit a new local card shop.
I've got a longer-term idea or two for each.
As I was formatting and writing the last section, the AI bot was off on the side developing the next bit of tcdb functionality. I couldn't move near the speed I do now without my support companions.
Anywho, I(or it) created a way to pass a tcdb trade ID into a route to show the front and back end of any given deal, to include links back to the original chronicle posts. Check out the first example here.
From now on, when I leave feedback on tcdb, I'll also include a link back to the deal on the site. That'll boost engagement a tiny bit and I look forward to seeing how much it registers on the analytics page.
One of my favorite recent releases.
Iterate.
I completed what I made note of yesterday, and ensured the links found in a completed tcdb trade point to the right page, regardless of what side you are clicking from.
Go to pac-man and try it out:
Next vague idea: Create some sort of anchor function that takes you directly to the right section on a page so in this case you would go right to the trade, rather than having to scroll to find it.
Iterate.
I added another prop to the ReleaseSection component and now, when I post the cards I have received from a trade and mark it completed, it will link back to the first post showing the cards I shipped out the door in a deal.
I might add a cool badge or something to give a nicer visual cue for fun. That's for later though.
Iterate.
I managed to corrupt my local repo last night or today, and while his wasn't as dramatic of a problem as the last time I borked myself like this, it's still annoying and lost time. I'm finding the Windows Subsystem for Linux to be pretty buggy and I'm wondering if I shouldn't just find a way to run full Linux, somewhere, somehow.
It's one of those things that sounds really cool and fun, but I've got bigger fish to fry right now. And/or a lack of mental capacity, and/or a lack of time, and/or you get the point. Now, if what I'm doing right now to bring things back up goes horribly wrong or this happens again for the 3rd time in a few weeks......I might just git er dun.
Hey look at that, it looks like we are back - it worked. Because I just brute force these kinds of fixes to include the most current releases of the packages I'm using, I ended up upgrading from Next 16.1.3 to 16.1.6. A random 30 minutes forced upon me ends up in an upgrade.
Let's call that fate.
Iterate.
That Reddit embed above? New feature just added to the blog. I've used it elsewhere on the site, and now it's seamlessly integrated into our chronicles here as well. I was never a big Reddit guy, and then the rest of the internet fell apart and I've been using it more than ever over the past year or three.
In other news, because bonnibel's car is in the shop, my car is with her, and I was nikkigirl's chauffeur today (in her car). On my way to pick her up, I somehow woke up in the card shop just a block down the road from her work. Whoopsies:
That's a future HOFer, a HOFer, some rando vets, and some wasted youth added in for good measure. It gets spicier:
Nice batch of our favorite freaky championship teammates. What a handsome batch of cards. There can only be one winner though:
We scored one freak and added an auto to boot.
Shout out to Fox Cities Cards. I'm known as the "giannis guy" there (because of nikkigirl), and since it's been awhile, they had a nice batch of cheap bucks cards just waiting for me to show up and grab 'em.
In preparation for the next section, I added a new tcdb mode to the ReleaseSection component. When I pass a tcdb trade ID and trade partner, it will do some automagics, and well, you'll see it shortly.
This is also an example of how I can create opportunities to integrate tcdb into the site in ways that leave me room to grow into. Plus, I got trades to blog about.
Iterate.
Oh, and I also converted these 3 chained testing scripts:
npm run lint && npm run typecheck && npm run testInto an easier to remember script:
npm run jamesBasically, this is what I run to double check the code my robot pal, cipher, has generated. There's a lot of long-term possibility here, so this minor change could blossom into who knows what.
Iterate.
First of all, my dev environment is bonkers fast compared to before I hit reboot yesterday. Turns out, good things can still happen after I've cursed out my computer for a few hours.
Next up, I re-fixed the thing I was trying to fix when I bricked said environment on Saturday. After creating a command to generate that day's chronicle template, I noticed that depending on when I created the chronicle, it would populate with today's date, and it also might generate with tomorrow's date.
UTC management is lamesauce is my point.
I've been gone because somehow I bricked my development environment. I got it into my head to attempt a few bug fixes, and in typical if it ain't (really) broke, don't fix it fashion, I bricked myself on Saturday.
Since then I've been half heartedly chipping away at it before having a breakthrough yesterday. I could have pushed, but didn't. So here we sit.
My goal of blogging for 365 straight days died at 91. Technically, I made it to 92 days, but that chronicle will forever be lost to history. Shout out to Sergei Federov (91), and Reggie White (92).
Long story short; as part of the this fix package, my dev server was separated from the content layer, allowing for more flexibility and even more importantly, it helps to highlight/find any issues like the one that took me down this week. It also forced me to upgrade to Next.js 16.1, which has a variety of performance improvements that I'm already seeing. Ok, "forced" is maybe too strong. It "helped" me decide to bite the bullet.
Something like 30 files were impacted by this change, and quite a bit had to be re-arranged. Surprisingly, things look pretty good as I click around the site.
Back to more/other bug fixes tomorrow. Maybe you see me, maybe you don't. lol
Hey, see that new border around this? That's a fun little feature I added to tickle me, and me alone. Well, perhaps I'll allow it to tickle you as well. Should you insist.
Anywho, I've gotten back into a pretty good rhythm with releases on the shaolin scrolls release schedule and now when I discuss releases inside of a chronicle, I can flag that section with the appropriate release unlocking the following:
Basically, if any given section of a chronicle has a border 100% around it, that's a blurb about something that I released that day (typically).
Click the release link! Indulge me.
Iterate.
After dropping off the little princess with mom and dad, I got back to some work I left hanging this morning. Basically, I can now tag any section of the daily chronicles blog with the alter ego the content attaches too. In this section's example, we are mark2......for reasons that are only important to me for now.
See the lower right of each section to find the latest trick. Tomorrow, hopefully another trick.
Oh, and I almost forgot a trick. I can now link directly to a release, like the the one I'm working in right now to deliver my next set of features. Almost done with that one [86]; there's just one more batch of coding to finish the thought.
Iterate.
Besides the birthday girl getting first dibs on a new portion of the site, I also added a few more minor improvements:
The first update was brought to you by my OCD and hatred of unintended table wrapping, and the last two are brought to you by nikkigirl providing some good feedback.
Each little bit helps to improve the engagement numbers I'm seeing daily, and I find it fun to see how one improvement to the next drives user behavior. You are my side science experiment.
Iterate.
Last, but not least, I added some comments functionality that attaches to each chronicle. Check it out below and say hi! Hint, you'll need to sign in.
Productive day.
I did a little work today to bring some existing login functionality to the forefront. Two things of note:
But then I got sucked into messing with the UI for the desktop menu and I continue to not like it. I'm reminded of the days I tried to hack away at this to find something that I liked.
It would appear that I am still in a stalemate with myself - perhaps the menu is improved overall, and yet, still annoying with a few visual ticks that leave my OCD twitchy.
Moving along.
Back to accounts, please open up the menu, click the Sign In button, and use your Google Account to login. I'm lazy right now so we'll just see if you smart enough to get logged in without any additional context clues or training.
I believe in you.
Once you are logged in, open the menu, click on your name, and then please play with that functionality. What you see in your profile is the extent of what information I'm collecting or using for authority checks throughout the site. As a new user, you will only see what Google passes to the site, most of it technical bits that are meaningless.
Minimal Viable Product (MVP) aka good enough for now.
Moving along.
I'm also not thrilled that the UI for signing in is so different from the rest of the rest, but we'll circle those wagons down the road.
Moving along.
Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.
The last few days I've been seeing this warning on vercel:
I couldn't stand it if someone hacked my shit and found out what a big cry baby I am. Or maybe they get really mean and change it so I only have 2 giannis cards in my collection. I actually wouldn't be too upset if someone started blogging for me every now and again without my permission. Let's get wild with it.
Anywho, it's been a few weeks since I've released anything on my (personal) project plan so it's nice to increment that number again to eliminate a bug.
As per usual, I argued with the robot for awhile before we figured it out.
While I'm not going to lie and say that I don't fear failure or change, I do find that I process this fear differently than most around me. The status quo does not work for me. I need to explore the boundaries around me at all times. When I find the first boundary, it's on to the next. And the next after that. I'm more afraid of being stagnant, than of tripping over some arbritrary line. Especially a line that only exists because someone was simply afraid of crossing it.
scroll amendment · 2025-11-18Unless it has to do with heights. Then you can go fuck yourself. I'll stay right here.
There's a scene in the first avengers movie where tony stark asks bruce banner how he is managing his anger to prevent the incredible hulk from showing up. Things happen and he doesn't end up answering the question until later in the movie when this happens:
That's me and fear. That's my secret cap, I'm always afraid. Always have been. If you live close enough to something for long enough, you start to see past it. Always there when needed, easily ignored when it's not.
Now, when I am "right", there is no fear of failure because I can see past it. In fact, give me all of the failure. This scene in succession has stuck with me from the moment I first saw it:
Show me every way (fill in the blank) can fail. RIGHT NOW! All at once, preferably. From this rubble is where I have the most fun. Infinite possibilities.
Anyone can follow the path that's been proven successful. Who can lead down the path yet discovered?
Because being a creep on early twitter isn't nearly the worst of it, I repent via hug ball.
Long story short, I added a new component that will append every blog post with a signature block to include hug ball (and a link to its origin story), as well as the title, date, summary, and tags for any given chronicle.
New menu, who dis?
Hu......psyche.
This next bit of content was #34 on my overall project board that now sits at 566 total items. 34 is giannis, so I could go on a numerology tangent at any moment. For now though, let's just say it was good to get an old idea off the shelf and placed into production.
A month or two back I spent something like 3-5 hours trying a variety of methods to get this idea off the ground, but it never quite worked and I had to put it away. Then OpenAI released Sora 2 and I was able to figure it out within minutes. One release to the next was like 100x better than the last. How good will it be 3 or 4 releases from now? It's kinda wild to watch something evolve so quickly.......
Anywho, this is the dumbest thing that I have done yet:
So, every time I hear daddy kane and action bronson comes in with the line......I peel my face off, it revealed the same face......I laugh. He's says some of the most ridiculous shit, and this is that fo sho.
scroll amendment · 2025-11-11Where'd my glasses go though? Stupid robot.
The original idea was just that I wanted to laugh about this and share it with the right group chat and it evolved into whatever the hell that just was.
I was also today years old when I put together the fact that the album this comes from, the elephant man's bones, by roc marciano, was entirely produced by the alchemist. The same alchemist that showed up yesterday in mercy. I didn't remember that until after I started working on it.
Catch me reading from my spellbook and bringing you the will of the gods.
For giggles, here's the full version of daddy kane:
I'm telling you, that cold NYC feel is the perfect backdrop for frankenstein's monster as he wanders through siberia.
A few different things drifted this week, so I spent a good chunk of today cleaning up the project plan and closing out some lingering work.
The biggest change this week was the installation of analytics tools on the site. Here's what you knuckleheads got up to this week:
I've got a guess who the Mac user is:
If you haven't used the site on a desktop/laptop, give it a shot. Things are quite a bit different on a screen larger than your phone. The most obvious places are the menus, shaolin scrolls, and homies.
As part of this first release since v2.5.0, I created a new page: squad.