Tom VanAntwerp 🔵

@tomvanantwerp

💻 code things, mostly TypeScript 🏡 hyperlocal Alexandria VA drama 🔮 building bizarre things nobody wants Please don't make me run for office, I do not want to run for office.

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Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 21d

Just now realizing this ban will be enforced about as well as parking violations: hardly at all. 😭

Enforcement will be handled by the city's Environmental Quality team, which now has two noise inspectors — one position predating the ban and a second added around the time the ordinance was adopted.

For civil penalty citations, Atwood said a violation must be directly observed by city staff — a neighbor's photo or complaint alone is enough only for the informational warning letter, not a fine.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 21d

When the entity with debatable consciousness isn't aligned yet so you put it in a sandbox.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 21d

Can anyone recommend a pet sitter for our pup Oreo? Our usual pet sitters are booked, and she needs someone to stay with in August.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 23d

Office Space scene: "I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob."

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 26d

Splootmaxxing.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 26d

It's hot out, y'all.

A squirrel lying on a tree branch, legs hanging in the air, looking exhausted.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· 28d

If you thought body shaming me would encourage me to put down the ice cream sandwiches and eat a vegetable, you were dead wrong.

A package of ice cream sandwiches. The words "Fat Boy" are emblazoned on the front.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 11

Dude, it's already done.

You'd best start believing in alternative Twitters; you're on one!

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 11

Doin' numbers!

My initial reply was immediately shared by a scam bot.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 9

I'm blissfully distant to Silicon Valley and all of this drama. But I do remember reading this pitch when Oven started hiring and thinking it was a huge red flag and that I'd never want to work there. So while I don't *know* if this section is true, my biases tell me to believe it.

"Oven is going to be a grind, especially the first nine months or so. If work-life balance means a lot of time spent not working, it's probably not a good fit."

Fun fact: people talk to each other.

I talked to those who interviewed for a job at Oven. I talked to people who worked there. Those people talked to each other. Everybody talked to everybody. The grapevine was large and healthy and full of juicy grapes, and all those grapes contained the juice of the same message: Jarred was a stinky manager. Poor communication, unrealistic expectations, low empathy, no experience. Just a total shit show, from an employment perspective.

Consequently, although Zig community members were eager to find work coding in Zig on the clock, most of the talent pool steered clear of Oven and Bun.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 8

This painting of Obama stands out in my memory. From pictures online, I wasn't impressed. "He went for the 'Homer backs into shrub' meme?" I thought, confused. Seeing it in person was something else. It was so vibrant, had so much depth—I didn't know it was good until it was in front of me!

President Obama painted sitting in a chair surrounded by plants

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 7

Same difference.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 5

I'm too confused to have a comment about this.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 4

Reporting this stupid post for trolling, which it is.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 3

I didn't know Garmin had an achievement for "do a workout in 100ºF heat" and I'm sorry that my ignorance has been taken from me.

"Toasty" badge. The design is just a big hot sun.

"Record an activity when it's 100º F (38º C) or hotter."

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 3

Hmm, yeah, can't really find any explanation of the name Del Ray either. Probably just a marketing thing like "National Landing"; some guy just liked the sound of it. Found a contemporary racehorse named Rey Del Ray, and there was a racetrack right next door, so maybe...

Rey Del Ray and other horses with names like Banquet, The Pepper, Terrifier, and Major Domo.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 3

This has got me looking for similar info on Del Ray. I think this is the nicest ad for it I've seen so far. "A Good Beginning is a Thing Half Done." "LAGGARDS LOSE." "Men of Action Win." "PERFECT NATURAL DRAINAGE."

Ad for Del Ray suburbs from May 6th, 1894. Way too much text for alt text, but suffice to say it's a standard old timey advert.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 3

Feels like everybody taking this quiz it up and to the right. Not sure if the bias is A) the people most likely to find and take the quiz or B) the quiz itself.

"The Pilgrim", an alignment that points up and to the right on the compass.

60% of people have The Pilgrim, and 21% have The Sea Captain (which is also upper-right from screen caps I've seen), so results strongly lean toward one direction.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 2

Deers drinking water with a "PAUSA DE HIDRATACIÓN" overlay.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jul 1

Seems about right for me: firmly anti-authoritarian, but too much "it depends" in my blood to rate strongly left or right. Of course, at least 40% of questions I'd reject the framing of entirely; but that's never an option and I don't know how you'd chart it if it were. 🤷

Committed Libertarian Left

You want equality without a boss. Mutual aid, shared ownership, as little coercion as you can manage.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 28

Shaders are forbidden knowledge, apparently...

Prompt to Claude: "Can you help me find any online galleries of shader effects I can use on the web? I have some ideas of effects I'd like to build into my web projects, but I don't know anything about shaders. And it's hard to ask for what I want when I don't even know how to properly describe certain effects, much less how they work."

Anthropic warning: "It appears your recent prompts continue to violate our Acceptable Use Policy. If we continue seeing this pattern, we’ll apply enhanced safety filters to your chats."

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 27

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 26

I fell you, Claude, I feel you...

Bash command:

rm -f /tmp/sanity.mjs
Run shell command

Do you want to proceed?
> 1. Yes

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 26

If you can find it, I highly recommend it! One of my favorite sci-fi shows of all time.

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 26

The average experience of trying to do literally anything with ADHD:

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 25

This is business acumen. Teach this to MBA's

Restaurant owner Bill Blackburn was inspired earlier this month after throwing watermelons off the roof of another of his restaurants, Tequila & Taco in the city’s Carlyle neighborhood.

“I thought, ‘This is fun,'” Blackburn told ALXnow. “How can we throw more things off the roof and call it business?”

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 24

Coming soon to The Avenue (threatening)

Google Street View of where The Dog Store is, but it has been replaced with a soulless 5-over-1. There's even some pointless abstract dodecahedron statue outside that screams "corporate art".

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 20

Yet again, llamas find a loophole in city code.

No dogs allowed sign. And indeed, the many animals surrounding it are not dogs!

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 18

They could've put this in the grass! They could've put this in the corner of the blacktop behind the fence!

Utility pole blocking the sidewalk for no good reason

Tom VanAntwerp 🔵@tomvanantwerp· Jun 18

I'm starting to think the sidewalk always ended there for some reason. Here's an aerial photo from @alexandriavagov.bsky.social from 1983 that, I think, shows this. Tried looking further back, but the next oldest aerial they had was 1949 and that doesn't even look like the street was paved yet!