Ryan Booker
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  • I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time.

    A closeup of a bright yellow boxed Playdate games console on a bamboo desk.
    → 6:30 PM, Jan 30
  • After Twitter, I thought I’d like one home for both random thoughts and blog posts. A single place for everything. Turns out… 😬

    Find me at ryanbooker.com (on Micro.blog) and/or Mastodon.

    → 1:00 PM, Jan 25
  • A BBQ Fuelled Christmas 🎄

    A light green stucco wall with 'i love you so much.' written in red cursive spray paint. Outside Jo's Coffee in Austin, Texas.

    For the first two years of the COVID19 pandemic Australia isolated itself from the world, so I had only ever met my partner’s family over Zoom. For Christmas 2022 we headed to Austin and spent time with them, the first time she’d seen them for about 4 years.

    We had great fun walking around Austin seeing the sights, visited the capitol, went two stepping at Sagebrush, saw a couple of bands at The Far Out Lounge & Stage, went go-carting at the Circuit of the Americas, drank coffee at Two Hands, Jo’s, and Cosmic Garage, ate Bagels from Big City Bagels and Subs, and had a great Christmas eating, drinking, playing games, and hanging out.

    Oh, and we braved that insane cold snap that saw the temperature drop about 40º in two hours.

    We ate BBQ. A lot of BBQ. Rudy’s was my favourite.

    Close up of a box of brisket and ribs from Rudy's in Austin, sitting on a stone bench top, with cups of sies in the background.Close up of a box of brisket and ribs from Rudy's in Austin, sitting on a stone bench top, with cups of sies in the background.

    And checked out some local vistas.

    A view out over Lake Austin from The Oasis, a small boat leaving a trail as it zips across the water.A view of the Pennybacker (360) Brdige from atop the surrounding bluff, looking out over the river and surrounds.A view of downtown and the old rail bridge, from the shore of Town Lake.At Reimers, looking across the water and rocky shore of a river toward the forest.

    It was fantastic. Great food, great music, great people, and best of all, I gained a whole new family. Three new sisters, their partners, and my partner’s parents.

    I can’t wait to visit them all again. ♥️

    → 1:15 PM, Jan 22
  • Currently reading: The Caledonian Gambit by Dan Moren 📚

    → 10:47 AM, Jan 21
  • I’ve hosted my blog, such as it is, many places. It started life on Movable Type (though nothing survives), moved to Tumblr, then WordPress, and now Micro.blog.

    @manton deserves a lot of kudos for how simple, friendly, and interoperable Micro.blog is, culturally and technically.

    → 3:38 PM, Jan 20
  • Vale

    For a decade and half I used Twitter. Every day. Occassionaly via the website or first party apps, but for me it was always defined by third party apps.

    Hell, third party apps and the community gave us the very word tweet, let alone the blue bird logo, mentions, retweets, and hashtags!

    I started with the first version of Twitterrific on macOS and iOS, I used Birdhouse before drafts were ubiquitous, Tweetie before Twitter bought it, and of course Tweetbot.

    I’ve had both Twitterrific and Tweetbot installed on my devices for as long as they’ve existed.

    I stopped using Twitter a few months back when a grifter acquired and rapdily destroyed it. This week he cut off every significant third party app, all but scuttling several businesses, without a word or reason.

    Cowardly.

    The Iconfactory have now discontinued Twitterrific and Tapbots are hard at work on Ivory1 for Mastodon.

    Good luck and thanks. I look foward to seeing and using what you’re up to next.


    1. Tapbots have released Ivory on the App Store, and have a roadmap for the future. It’s easily my favourite Mastodon app. ↩︎

    → 10:39 AM, Jan 20
  • This feels like the right bottle for New Year’s Eve. 🖖

    Close up of a quarter full glass tumbler of red wine and the accompanying bottle of Picard Merlot on a white tiled kitchen bench in front of red brown bricks. A bottle opener with ratcheted arms sits just behind. A har of pasta sauce, a small bottle of olive oil, and an onion and a head of garlic line the wall behind.
    → 10:50 AM, Jan 1
  • Given the hypocracy and bizarre public meltdown happening over on Twitter, I’ve decided to move to Mastodon and Micro.blog (where this site will be hosted when I get around to it).

    → 8:34 PM, Dec 17
  • We’ve been friends for over 10 years, and now they do Fundies… Congratulations Bre, Cedric, Chris, Damien, Josh, and Monique. Welcome to GUE! It was worth the wait for us all.

    Josh, Ryan, Bre, and Chris Damien, Monique, Ryan, and Cedric
    → 5:00 PM, Jul 19
  • Ready to brave the frigid waters of South East Queensland in their shiny new drysuits. Congrats Cedric and Eamonn.

    → 9:50 AM, Oct 23
  • That’s a good looking team.

    → 8:07 PM, Aug 8
  • Congratulations David on completing GUE Fundamentals, and big thanks to Ian for jumping in as a team mate.

    → 7:55 PM, Aug 8
  • Congratulations Team Rainbow passing GUE Fundamentals @ Scuba World, Mooloolaba.

    → 10:41 AM, Aug 5
  • → 7:06 PM, May 4
  • → 7:05 PM, May 4
  • Resilience.

    → 1:11 PM, Mar 29
  • Striking a pose on the Birchgrove, Sydney, a couple of weeks ago.

    → 1:03 PM, Mar 29
  • Big congratulations to Sarah Herbert on passing GUE Recreational Diver 1! An amazing achievement and well earned! 🥳

    → 8:57 PM, Mar 7
  • What a day for our first taste of salt water for GUE Recreational Diver 1.

    Tweed River
    → 10:50 PM, Feb 29
  • Setting up DeviceCheck access for your iOS apps

    If you’re trying to set up DeviceCheck access, I suggest ignoring Apple’s certificate set up instructions at the start of the DeviceCheck docs. They’re garbage. So bad they’re not even wrong.

    Instead:

    1. Go to Certificates, Identifier & Profiles in the Dev Portal
    2. Go to the Keys tab
    3. Create a DeviceCheck key

    Now you can continue reading the docs.

    NB: You’ll need your Team ID from the portal, and the 10 character identifier attached to the Key you just created (which is in the portal, and the Key’s filename), for the JSON object you’ll be creating.

    → 4:57 PM, Feb 27
  • GUE Recreational Diver 1, underway.

    → 10:00 AM, Feb 22
  • Another fine morning on the Coolooli. Thanks again to Dive Spear and Sport.

    → 4:30 PM, Jan 5
  • Nice dive on the Dee Why and Meggol with this crew today. Thanks to Dive Spear and Sport.

    → 4:38 PM, Jan 3
  • Burnt out forest in every direction.

    → 6:28 PM, Dec 23
  • GUE Queensland & Sydney having a blast on the Ex-HMAS Tobruk with Hervey Bay Dive Centre.

    → 6:26 PM, Dec 23
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