Ross Wintle
rosswintle.uk
Ross Wintle
@rosswintle.uk
Curious and creative software developer. WordPress. Laravel. PHP. JS. Made Turbo Admin.

Mostly at https://crikey.social/@ross

https://rw.omg.lol/
Oh fun. My anti virus/malware software says VS Code's GitHub Copilot Chat has a dodgy Base64-encoded script in it!

You'd think GitHub, of all people, would know not to do that!
November 11, 2025 at 9:43 PM
I'm not a video games connoisseur but one of my faves on the little PlayDate console, Hyper Meteor, is now on Steam!

A tiny asteroids-like game, but so much fun, perfect difficulty level, excellent sound design.

I'm gonna wreck a controller playing this.

store.steampowered.com/app/1425590/...
HYPER METEOR on Steam
YOU ARE LOST IN SPACE! ALL WEAPONS ARE DOWN! Survive by ramming your ship into meteors and hostile forces.
store.steampowered.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:18 PM
This is incredible. And funny. If you understand why.

“Horrible edge cases to consider when dealing with music”

dustri.org/b/horrible-e...
Horrible edge cases to consider when dealing with music
Personal blog of Julien (jvoisin) Voisin
dustri.org
November 7, 2025 at 9:52 PM
After this week's firehose, I’m back on my wanting-to-improve-school-comms train again. I'm convinced that there's a relatively simple solution to 80% of most school comms issues. But I also know that schools are focussed on education and care, not comms, and would find process change hard.
November 7, 2025 at 9:06 PM
A random thing I learned today.

Occasionally this live version of the Gin Blossoms “Hey Jealousy” pops up in YouTube. I like the 90s nostalgia of it.

youtu.be/wgEQ3FzaS1U

They’re on the Jon Stewart Show, and at the end he thanks “Howard Stevenberg” and Howard Stern for being on the show. 1/2
November 6, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Oh, yay! I didn’t think my LoopConf talk recording was going to be free to watch. But it’s out on YouTube.

This was an epic labour of love. I’m so glad I can share it with you.

My 25 Lessons from 25 years of software development in (a little over) 25 minutes.

youtu.be/cyxQ82L298Y
25 Lessons from 25 Years
YouTube video by LoopConf
youtu.be
November 4, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Reposted by Ross Wintle
A new series of my Household Problems drawings (as seen in my newsletter every week). This one: What your leaning fence says about you.
November 3, 2025 at 5:43 PM
This is an excellent little pop-up calendar app for MacOS. Free. Love it.

lowtechguys.com/grila/
Grila - Calendar for keyboard addicts
Calendar for keyboard addicts: keyboard-driven and instantly available on a hotkey
lowtechguys.com
November 1, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Phew! Epic day with the kids:
- Science Museum
- Minecraft Experience
- Getting lost in Westfield Shopping Centre
- Finding a Nintendo pop-up store!
- Driving to London and back

Hooray!!
October 29, 2025 at 11:12 PM
I'm taking my kids to a thing in London tomorrow and I can only take in a bag that's A4 size or smaller.

WHAAAAT?!
October 28, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Ross Wintle
I wrote down some thoughts about my hope for #PHP open source: stitcher.io/blog/sponsor...
Stitcher.io
A blog about modern PHP, the web, and programming in general. Follow my newsletter and YouTube channel as well.
stitcher.io
October 28, 2025 at 7:59 AM
We played a silly family car game just now. It has raised a very interesting question.

What would happen if you exposed a marshmallow to the vacuum of space?

We are now down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos titled “X in a vacuum chamber”

Can flies fly in a vacuum chamber?

Is this even ethical?
October 27, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Ross Wintle
I stumbled upon github.com/observablehq... and damn, this is cool. I've been looking for a nicer way to render HTML in JavaScript for ages.
GitHub - observablehq/htl: A tagged template literal that allows safe interpolation of values into HTML, following the HTML5 spec
A tagged template literal that allows safe interpolation of values into HTML, following the HTML5 spec - observablehq/htl
github.com
October 26, 2025 at 10:17 PM
Hacktivate looks like a cool game for MacOS/iOS.

Security/code-breaking challenges, teaching text encodings, image processing, and command-line.

You probably need to be a beginner computer nerd to not be totally confused (there's a free tutorial). But this seems very clever.

www.hacktivate.app
Hackivate: Capture the Flag
Cybersecurity challenges for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
www.hacktivate.app
October 26, 2025 at 8:27 PM
This looks like an amazing resource, and it’s free! (Just some P&P)

storytellertactics.com/free-deck
Storyteller Tactics | Get your FREE deck!
Get your FREE Copy Of 'Storyteller Tactics’ Will Show You How To: “Become a Confident Storyeller So You Can Influence, Sell and Persuade”
storytellertactics.com
October 21, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Ross Wintle
found this weird cable buried in my back garden when I was planting potatoes. couldn't figure out what it was for so I just chopped it up with a shovel. didn't get electrocuted so I assume it was okay. posting here because I can't log into facebook right now
March 5, 2024 at 4:11 PM
Still trying AI.

Last week: Oh. Claude Code seems really clever. It’s guided me to best practice for a thing I don’t know much about.

This week: Me consulting the docs and finding out this is not best practice at all, and Claude apologising and tearing its own recommendations to shreds… 1/2
October 20, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Is “Rotated poop emoji” now a trend in logos? Or is it purely accidental? 🫣

This is the second I’ve seen in as many weeks!
October 17, 2025 at 7:15 AM
So it turns out that if you barely ever see anyone because you remote work, and then you see many trains, planes, restaurants, bars and offices at a team on-site, you might pick up nasty bugs that you no immunity to.

🤧🤒😴

(Sorry, team. Hanging out with you was great though!!)
October 14, 2025 at 8:45 PM
"How to build a dev team".

Not gonna lie, I freakin' LOVE that Laracasts is doing this kind of content. I've started watching this and it's great.

Also... Oi, @jeffreyway.bsky.social ! Get Laracasts on Bluesky or Mastodon will ya? There's plenty of us over here now! 😃
The first three episodes of my "How to Build a Dev Team" course are live--and free--on Laracasts today!

laracasts.com/series/how-t...
October 13, 2025 at 4:56 PM
New post: You probably don't want to build "finished software". But what can we learn by thinking about it as a concept?

rosswintle.uk/2025/10/soft...
Software can be finished - Ross Wintle
You probably don't want to build "finished software". But what can we learn by thinking about it as a concept?
rosswintle.uk
October 13, 2025 at 2:06 PM
I don’t remember how I found it but Rogue Words is that rare thing: A free iOS game.

That’s it. It’s a free game!

A roguelike word game with Scrabble influence.

Really nicely done.

rogue-words.web.app
October 12, 2025 at 8:25 AM
It still amazes me what they teach 9 and 10 year olds.

Homework this week:

“Main Focus: How can I make the appropriate choice of pronoun or noun within and across sentences to aid cohesion and avoid repetition?”

I’m sorry, do what now?
October 5, 2025 at 11:04 AM
A little reflection on last week's @loopconf.com

I'm so glad this happened. I was honoured to be a contributor. And it reminded me of how important in-person events are, and how hard they are to organise (Thank you, @rzen.net !!!)

rosswintle.uk/2025/10/loop...
LoopConf and 25 Lessons - Ross Wintle
In-person events are good. I have missed them.
rosswintle.uk
October 4, 2025 at 7:29 PM
No, NYT Connections puzzle. Go home. You’re drunk!
October 3, 2025 at 7:11 AM