Developing code
& myself.

Making the complex approachable, and the mundane fascinating. Software, self-hosting, min/maxing everyday life — and the occasional wasabi-based coping strategy.

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27 articles
Software Dev 8 min read

Expo iOS 27 crash on launch: a UIScene fix that forwards deep links

Expo SDK 54 apps built with Xcode 27 crash on launch on iOS 27. A UIScene config plugin fixes it and forwards expo-router deep links.

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Software DevAI Agents 12 min read

My AI's tests passed. The code was broken. Five receipts.

AI tests pass but the code is broken: five receipts from my apps, from a 70-hour deletion bug to a fetch that can't stream, plus a checklist.

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Software DevAI Agents 10 min read

AGENTS.md too long? I cut it from 755 lines to 61. It grew back.

Agent instruction bloat, measured: my AGENTS.md hit 755 lines, I cut it to 61, and it grew back within weeks. What git shows, and the test for what stays.

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Software DevBuilding in Public 11 min read

Load-testing a Cloudflare Durable Objects multiplayer game

50 bots in a Cloudflare Durable Objects multiplayer game: about 2 ms a tick, about $15 a month projected, and the netcode fixes that followed.

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Software DevAI Agents 11 min read

Opus plans, Sonnet builds: what 108 agent loops cost me

I ran 108 Claude Code loops where Opus plans and reviews and Sonnet builds. The build was the cheap part. Where the tokens, minutes and my attention went.

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Software DevAI Agents 10 min read

My evals ate production's OpenAI credit: 429, no credits remaining

My eval runs emptied the OpenAI credit production also used, and both apps showed 'Unexpected end of JSON input'. Why, and what I'd set up now.

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Software DevBuilding in Public 6 min read

Chrome Web Store “Yellow Argon” rejection: the rewrite that passed

My Chrome extension was rejected for keyword spam (Yellow Argon) over one line of its description. What the ID means, what I changed, and what passed.

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Self HostingMin Maxing 10 min read

Retiring a WordPress VPS: 393 subscribers, only 78 confirmed

What a WordPress VPS held when I moved my blog off it: a 4.5 GB backup with 9 new files, 393 subscribers but 78 confirmed, and a server I can't delete yet.

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Software DevBuilding in Public 6 min read

Capacitor app rejected by Google Play for ‘unresponsive UI’

Google Play rejected my Capacitor app for broken functionality. The WebView reported a fine pointer, so the joystick never appeared. The one-line fix.

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Building in Public 8 min read

A$73 of Meta ads, 269 clicks, and maybe one user

I spent A$73 on Meta app-install ads. Audience Network gave 210 of 269 clicks for A$2.09, and Meta never heard about a single install.

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Software DevBuilding in Public 6 min read

Building in Public: The 'Back to It' VS Code Extension — Part 1

Context switching costs developers 23 minutes per interruption. I'm building a VS Code extension powered by GPT-4 to fix that. Here's how it started.

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Software Dev 2 min read

Time, the Silent Exploit: The Unseen Enemy in Every Codebase

Your wall was built to the best standards of the time. That was the problem. Nothing changed in its construction — but the world around it kept moving.

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Software DevLife 7 min read

The Mindful Coder's Workweek: 5 Themes to Enhance Your Craft and Satisfaction

Five themed days designed to inject creativity, purpose, and mindfulness back into your coding practice — without killing your productivity.

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Software Dev 3 min read

From Dirty Dishes to Clean Code: How Household Chores Mirror Programming Team Dynamics

Why do both partners in a household think they're doing 60% of the chores? The same psychology is running silently inside your dev team.

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Self HostingNetworking 9 min read

You're Closer Than You Think: The Only 6 DNS Concepts You Really Need

There are dozens of DNS record types and concepts. You need to understand 6 of them. Here's the scroll-past-the-scary-table version.

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Life 3 min read

The Wasabi Method: Shocking Your Way Out of Anxiety Attacks

What if fighting anxiety meant adding more discomfort, not less? A personal account of the methods that actually interrupt the spiral.

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Software Dev 3 min read

Free Software: The New Nicotine? Big Tech's Playbook Straight Out of Big Tobacco

That free JetBrains license felt generous. Turns out it was an investment — in you as a future paying customer. Sound familiar?

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Software Dev 4 min read

Your Gut is Smarter Than Your Spreadsheet: The Art of Software Estimation

Ever been in a meeting where everyone's tossing numbers around like they're psychic? Research suggests your gut might be better at this than you think.

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Software Dev 3 min read

The Subtract Day: Why Less Code Can Lead to More Success

One day a week dedicated not to adding features, but to removing the stale, over-engineered, and unnecessary ones. It's oddly satisfying.

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Software Dev 4 min read

ESLint: Why We Actually Bother

Linting always feels like a chore to set up. Here's why it's worth the 20 minutes — and where ESLint ends and Prettier begins.

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Software Dev 5 min read

Understanding Nginx Part 1: The Power of Event-Driven Architecture

Why can Nginx handle tens of thousands of concurrent connections while traditional servers fall over? It's all in how it handles events.

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Life 3 min read

Exercise Snacks: The Secret to All-Day Energy and Productivity

Short bursts of activity sprinkled through your day can transform your energy, focus, and even your relationship with junk food.

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Life 2 min read

How Important Clamping Is For Woodworking

A little story about car-carpentry, the van build that taught me everything, and why clamps are the most underrated tool you'll ever buy.

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Life 4 min read

How to Fix Your Sleep Cycle

You can't force yourself to sleep, but with modern technology you can force yourself awake. Here's the method that actually worked for me.

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Self HostingMin Maxing 3 min read

Min/Maxing WordPress Hosting

I tried to self-host WordPress as cheaply as possible. AWS Lightsail, then EC2, then a VPS. Here's what I learned the hard way.

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Min MaxingNetworking 2 min read

Min/Maxing My Internet Provider

How many ISPs are actually selling you something fundamentally different? In Australia at least, knowing who owns the pipes changes everything.

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Min Maxing 2 min read

Everyone Uses Super Glue Wrong.

That toilet seat you glued back together is going to fall apart again. Here's the right way to use super glue — and why it actually matters.

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About the author

I'm Jonah — a software engineer in Australia who writes about the stuff that doesn't fit in a README. Self-hosting adventures, estimation rants, the gap between how we think code works and how it actually does, and whatever I'm min/maxing this month.

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