It's already December! I feel like every year seems to go by just a little faster. I feel like an old person cause I say that every year on repeat. But it's true. Maybe I am an old person now.

In 2023.11, I went to Toronto, dove into the world of server-side rendering with F#, started doing vodcasts, created an email list, and finally went to the doctor.

Observe

Adventure

We've been making regular adventures around the North East this month.

• Exploring Jersey City
• Enjoying the last bits of daylight in NYC (sunset is at 1700 =()
• Traveling to Toronto
• Last Sleep No More show EVER
• Lots of lil dinner outings

Community

And reconnecting w friends near and far. Winter season can be tough since lots of people are traveling around for holidays / escaping the cold but life is busy so you must still find a way.

Research

Recently I've been diving into the old but trending idea of server-side rendering. It's really gotten me excited to build again and I think that's pretty apparent in my TECH and Shares buckets.

• HTMX Essays - Very good, in-depth essays on Hypermedia as a technology
• Hypermedia Systems - A deep dive into Hypermedia and ways to think ab Hypermedia Driven Applications (basically server-side rendering at scale). This is from the same people writing those Essays just in a more structured book form.

Megna has continued to dive into the world of video games and it's been fun to share that together. This month she's experiencing a JRPG for the first time which has been amusing to witness.

Create

Business

Work is going well! I was v anxious a few months ago cause I didn't know if it would end up being a good decision or a bad one. But overall it's been a very positive experience and I'm enjoying getting to build a lot again.

I'll probably have a longer essay on this in my year review but some things that are top of mind that I like and think are important for finding roles that provide satisfaction:

• Work I can get paid for (the world wants the product and will pay for it)
• Work I'm good at - Software Engineering
• Work I like - I like actually building things. As you get more senior you do need to be in more product discussions but if this ever gets above ~40% of my time I think my satisfaction begins to plummet

Anyways it's p good now even if I have to deal with some less than ideal pythonisms.

TECH

Earlier this year I decided that my TECH bucket needed a change. I was so focused on trying to be "impactful" that I forgot how to just have fun. But the whole point of this stuff is for me to have fun / lead a good, fulfilling life so that path kinda missed the point.

So I changed to a more playful, experimental outlook.

Since then my builds have been a lot more random-seeming. But they've also been a lot more fun and exciting!

Essentially I've just allowed myself to build / play whenever and sometimes this leads to 0 outputs and sometimes it leads to too many outputs. But overall I'm having a better time so that's a win.

This month I've been going in on server-side rendering, particularly with F# - my favorite language - and HTMX which gives your HTML superpowers (also the memes / essays are unreasonably good).

• This site now runs on F# with server-side rendered HTML - Migrating my sites from SvelteKit to F#
• CloudSeed (my F# project boilerplate) now runs on pure F# - Why I'm moving from SvelteKit to F#

I've found the server-side rendering paradigm very refreshing. It's simple. It's powerful. It's super fast. And I only gotta write in F# which makes it fun.

Shares

Similar to TECH, my Shares have taken a more informal turn. And that's made them a lot more fun as well.

Previously I was putting a lot of work into strategizing and polishing up my Shares to kinda be short, pithy presentations. But that took a lot of work on my side, wasn't super satisfying for me, and I think kinda came across as selly / inauthentic. I think my discomfort / non-funness bled through a bit in these videos.

Recently I've taken some inspiration from the long-form podcasts and YouTubers I follow and shifted focus from my presentation back towards my content. I'm loosely calling this a vodcast.

This has led to:

• Longer, more in-depth, higher quality posts (w more editing and pictures)
• Longer, more rambly videos
• Less time / energy spent on creation
• More time spent writing (which I really enjoy!)
• More fun / excitement creating

So definitely tradeoffs and the long-form posts / videos won't be for everyone. But ultimately I think this has led to more fun / energy for me and thus is a more sustainable 3S (Simple Scalable System) long-term.

Now I kinda just share the things that are top-of-mind, typically things related to stuff I'm building in Business / TECH or interesting things I've read recently. That's been fun and I hope to continue making it fun.

I already have Shares scheduled through most of the month of December which I think goes to show how much more I like this approach than previous ones.

Also! I started up my email list again so if you want to get a ~monthly email when I write release notes like this, sign up for The HAMNIVERSE.

Top Posts

• Stop wasting your time on Bad Startup Ideas
• The Rise and Fall of Ruby on Rails
• Type-safe Server-side HTML Rendering with F# / Giraffe

Reflect

No big updates here.

• Health - Still doing morning workouts and still love it. Finally went to doctors this year cause got insurance figured out. This is your reminder to go to the doctor this year if you haven't already.
• Finance - Prob bad cause no job most of year but now I have a job so prob better than it could've been
• Happiness - I'm pretty happy! I think Creation is a bigger part of my personal satisfaction than even I realized. I'm back on the Creation train building things I like and that's been huge for me.

Next

It's nearing end of year so will be wrapping up any in-flight projects and reviewing my year. Year in Review coming in ~1 month.

Thanks for reading and have a good December!