James Bell

@sarcain@ruby.social
116 Followers
211 Following
2K Posts

South East Asian-raised web person, co-organiser of the Scottish Ruby User Group, and Engineering Manager at FreeAgent

@sarcainian on Twitter

he/him

James Bell7h ago
Alphastream 8h ago

Shower with Your Battlemat?

Yes, you should indeed shower with your battlemat. Find this and other tips as I add my review of the time-tested Chessex Battlemat.

Mastering Dungeons is on vacation this week! We will be back next week.

Need to "cleanse" your timeline? Teos has a video for you involving showering and battlemats...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQjU6SNzLBo

#DnD #TTRPG

James Bell2d ago
North West Ruby User Group2d ago

This Thursday! Come hear @caius expound the virtues of tugging on those mysterious threads that we happen upon during our day to day code weaving #ruby

https://nwrug.org/events/tugging-threads-july-2025

NWRUG Event: Tugging threads, Thursday 17th July

After last month's Brighton Ruby break we're back for another edition of Ruby in the North West, AKA NWRUG. This month we have our very own Caius (https://ru...

James Bell3d ago
Scott Hanselman 👸🏽🐝🌮4d ago
We are back! #C64 https://www.commodore.net/ The first official Commodore 64 in over 30 years is here - a faithful recreation of the original motherboard on FPGA hardware. HDMI, WiFi, USB, but compatible with every existing cartridge and peripheral. Not an emulator - a recreation. Same price as my first $299
Home | Commodore

Commodore
James BellJul 4
Scott Hanselman 👸🏽🐝🌮Jul 4
It’s so frustrating that there is this illusion that we are all 49%/49% right now. Us versus them, good versus bad, and it’s all because of the BS that is the electoral system. It’s very likely 70% versus 30% and we’re just not seeing representative government.There’s just no common sense right now
James BellJun 30
r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖Jun 30

With the clarity of hindsight, it's fine to say Honda would obviously nail a reusable rocket test

But, I don't think anyone outside the company actually expected this. Honda has a history of venturing out to experimental work E.G. robotics, but this is totally new

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/hondas-hopper-suddenly-makes-the-japanese-carmaker-a-serious-player-in-rocketry/

James BellJun 29
Natasha JayJun 29
Snakes On A Plane
James BellJun 29
Justin SearlsJun 28
MCP is doing the heavy lifting here. I've written two "agentic" apps. I immediately realized I could improve both by replacing the LLM part with normal fucking code. The revolution here is MCP shoehorning API access into many more programs and services than we previously had https://worksonmymachine.substack.com/p/mcp-an-accidentally-universal-plugin
MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

Or: The Day My Toaster Started Taking Phone Calls

Works on My Machine
James BellJun 26
Ali SmithJun 25

Reflecting on an incredible experience speaking at @TheLeadDev's #LDX3 conference last week! Very grateful to have been accepted as a speaker and for the amazing support throughout.

I enjoyed discussing challenges growing teams in the era of layoffs, and hopeful that my talk can provide some inspiration by treating teaching as a core engineering skill, applying lessons from pedagogy. Slides here 👉🏻 https://speakerdeck.com/alismith/creating-the-next-generation-of-senior-engineers

#LeadDev #EngineeringLeadership

James BellJun 25
Julia EvansJun 25
one of my goals with "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is to show you that you have a lot of choices about how your shell behaves, that a well-configured shell can make your life in the terminal a LOT easier, and that (if you're using bash or zsh) there's a strong chance that some of the defaults are not serving you well https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk/114739372503856382
Julia Evans (@b0rk@jvns.ca)

Attached: 1 image delighted to announce that my new zine "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is out today!! You can get it for $12 USD here: https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal

Mastodon
James BellJun 24
Julia EvansJun 24

delighted to announce that my new zine "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is out today!!

You can get it for $12 USD here: https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal

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Natasha JayJun 29
Snakes On A Plane
Show threadkariidoJun 29
@Natasha_Jay love it 😂
Show threadgrob 🇺🇦Jun 29
@Natasha_Jay any three snakes, however positioned in space, will always be as much in a plane as these 3. #InsufferableKnowItAll 🫠
Show threadStephen Brooks 🦆Jun 29
@grob @Natasha_Jay I was about to post the same thing!
Show threadgrob 🇺🇦Jun 29
@sjb 🤝 we know-it-alls are everywhere 
Show threadOzzelotJun 29
@Natasha_Jay Snakes in spaaaaace!
Show threadJoel VanderWerf 🐧Jun 29

@ozzelot @Natasha_Jay My calculus teacher introduced the "Lines in Space" chapter of the textbook by reading it in that voice.

#Muppets

Show threadChris GerhardJun 29
@Natasha_Jay bravo
Show threadHenk LangeveldJun 29

@Natasha_Jay

Z == 0 apparently

Show threadJoshua BarrettoJun 29
@Natasha_Jay I once made a game for a weekend jam: snake, but you can move in any direction. I called it 'Snakes on a Continuous Plane'
Show threadTadhgJun 29
@Natasha_Jay this deserves a muffin
Show threadMsbJun 29
@CaismirneachRaigi @Natasha_Jay just be careful where you step! ;)
Show threadDavid "Dave" TreloarJun 29

@Natasha_Jay

What is with these placid looking snakes on this rather flat surface?

Show threadCTJun 29
@Natasha_Jay ಠ_ಠ
Show threadBrian TatoskyJun 29
@Natasha_Jay @pluralistic I hate that I laughed at this 😆
Show threadKevin McAleer 🤖 Robot MakerJun 29
@Natasha_Jay steaks on a plane
Show threadMx. Luna CorbdenJun 29

@Natasha_Jay @Mrfunkedude

Now do Shark Nadir!

Show threadRevenantJun 29
@Natasha_Jay I’m loving the reboot. Way better than the original.
Show threadtesseraphJun 29
@Natasha_Jay and because any three non-collinear points in 3D space uniquely define a plane, not only are the snakes on a plane, they all but *must* be on a plane
Show threadJust Tom...Jun 29
@Natasha_Jay - I giggled!
Show threadPhil Thane ✅Jun 29
@Natasha_Jay
That's the tech humour that keeps me here 😀
Show threadrexiJun 29

@Natasha_Jay

limited chirality would present some odd quantum-snake properties, surely.

Show threadGilgwathJun 29
@Natasha_Jay lol 😂 Looking forward to snakes on a hyper plane 😛
Show threadMorten GrøftehaugeJun 30

@Natasha_Jay Snakes on a plain (doughnut)

Snakes on a microplane (really thinly sliced snakes)

Show threadLeiaJun 30
...motherfucking snakes...
Show threadlistlessJun 30

@Natasha_Jay FFS those are clearly SNAKES in a VOLUME

/sarcasm

Show threadStarkRGJul 8
@Natasha_Jay
Snake on a frictionless plane