Ruts and Shovels

 I've been attending more co-work sessions recently as it really helps motivate me during everything *gestures broadly at world*

This also shows just how deep the rut I am currently in is.  I've been planning too much and not actually coding or building. So I've recommited to getting a fully fledged project out soon. I'm going to be concentrating on building out my flask webpage but shifting from Stardew mod tracking and instead build out a webpage about my favorite myths and crytids. Coming soon!

Rusty Python

 I don't like splitting my focus too much, but I do feel the need to learn Rust to go forward.  One big reason its been on my mind so much recently is because of rsky (pronounced Risky) which is aiming to be a full implementation of the AT Protocol with Rust.  I've been watching Rudy and the entire Blacksky team as they build out this amazing tech and I hope one day to be caught up in understanding the technical implementations.

I have a huge backlog of books from Humble Bundles and even with unemployment there isn't enough time to read and take in everything.  But I think Rust Programming Language will go to the top once i work through Python some more and feel more confident in my skills.

Portfolio Work

 I worked on my portfolio projects this week getting a few new programs added to my Anecdotal Tech repository.  I also added some contextual comments as I am debugging some code and its incomplete so looks rather bad without it.  

I've also been revisiting my notes from Pycon and have been watching the sessions I couldn't make in person.  After I finish my portfolio projects (Flask App, 140+ programs, and ATProto feeds) I think I'll be diving back into animatronics and my Maxwell kit. Al Sweigart's Making Python Talk, Make Python Listen is an amazing look at what we can do with python and language processing. 

Bug Whack

At the end of July I attended a Bug Whackathon at a Bellevue Startup incubator called Venture Mechanics.  The event was co-hosted by them and the group Innovate QA to help assist local startups with testing their platforms and giving community members a chance to show off and hone their skills.

I had a great time meeting so many other engineers from different walks of life and seeing some new platforms.  This was the first of planned events to help bridge this need and I look forward to the future events to see what changes it brings.  

Seeing so many other QA Engineers and hearing their thought processes was a big help for me.  I was able to find some issues with each platform I tested, but no major bugs.  Black Box style testing was the main order of the day, though their were a few engineers their running their own software testing agents through LLMs.  

New Portfolio Projects

 I've started to very seriously start my portfolio rather than leave some half baked scripts and ideas around as my public github profile.  I found a PDF called 140+ Basic Python Programs.  I am going to go through the book helping to refine the knowledge I've gotten in my CompSci classes and will be elaborating on them to show off those skills.  I've also been attending public coding meetups and doing more networking, but more on that next time.