Manuel Moreale writing about supporting people online:

But I recently realized that tiers are the wrong approach. At least for me. I believe in kindness. I believe that if you decide to support something I do, you should get all the benefits, no matter how much you pay.

I also realized that 1$+/month is the best price possible when it comes to supporting online creators. The 1$ part means you can set it up and forget about it because it’s a low enough amount that won’t make too much of a difference for the majority of people who are considering supporting online creators. The + part allows you to contribute more if you want to do so. And that’s just perfect.

As a result of this idea, I’ve also gone ahead and updated my Ko-fi page to be up to date, and to also have an option for a £1 a month membership.

Previously I’ve had links to BuyMeACoffee on my sites, but I think the idea of a £1 (or higher) subscription is a better model for supporting people like me online.

At the moment, this subscription is more of a tip to support the work I do here on my blog, and also the software I write. However, this may expand in the future.

For example, I’ve always liked the idea of a newsletter, and I’ve tried it a few times in the past, so I think I may bring that back at some point. And I also want to write more open-source software in the future. Right now the only open-source project I’m really working on is Text Case CLI, and I think I want to do more of this in the future. Along with maybe even working on some free apps.

With all that being said, you can find (and support) me on Ko-fi.

PlayStation:

As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.

I’m so glad this didn’t affect me. Because something like this would annoy me so much I’d stop buying things digitally. And I’m not quite ready for that yet.

It’s only the 4th of December, so there hasn’t been much of Advent of Code so far. Just 8 puzzles, out of the 50 total that we will get to solve.

This is the first time that I’m attempting all of the puzzles, and my aim is do them roughly within the same day. Although I’m not sure I’ll get much code written on Christmas Day.

That being said, while some days have been tougher than others, I’ve had a lot of fun so far.

I’ve seen a lot of people talk about Advent of Code being the perfect tool to help you learn a new programming language. I’m not doing that myself, but I am writing it in Java 21, so I’m both refining my Java skills, and also seeing what is new with the language at the same time.

So far it’s been mainly string manipulation, iterating through arrays, and some fiddly counting logic. It can be a bit tedious at times, but maybe after 25 days it will come a lot more naturally.

If you want to have a look at my solutions so far, I have a public repo on GitHub with the logic for each puzzle.