This week in squirrels… From Sun Aug 2nd to Sat Aug 8th

Summary

  • Streams
    • Sunday: Big fun plus a bit of collaboration.
    • Saturday: Finally got my couch test stream in!
    • It took more than a day of fiddling and swapping so many cables and adjusting, but I managed to get my streaming setup on my laptop and mobile enough to work even hanging out on a couch. There are some issues with apps that hate being logged in twice. Like logging into Twitch from Firebot on my laptop breaks auth from Firebot on my Desktop. Brutal.
  • Trying to make my own squirreltuber software
    • Instead of getting my blog post out Sunday, I obsessed over the idea of making my own giftuber software; open source, Linux-first, and worked by creating a browser source instead of screen capture.
    • Of course that’s a bigger lift than I originally figured but also… it’s doable.
    • My choice of Rust may not have been my best play since it’s expensive in CI and compile heat once the app gets bigger, but the runtime is so shockingly slim, and that pays dividends when the app is actually being used.
    • I started using this as a test bed for how to do the “swarm of agents” thing better with Claude. It’s not made this app better in any real way, and I might end up scrapping and redoing it from scratch myself because of this. But my way of doing AI development leveled up a lot. So did my token usage, though. WOW.
    • After a few scraps and attempts to better understand how to design this app well. I came out with something really usable. I used it for my entire test stream and even wrote a StreamController plugin so I could control it with the Stream Deck, all a huge success.
    • The editor is still a mess; AI will have to help my design skills. I also keep finding all the lil features I need to add to polish it. But it’s a fun project to have.
  • Redoing my static site deployer as well
    • I guess I am more in my “clearing tech debt from the hospital” mood. This is a “quick fix” for how I deploy my static sites internally, and by quick fix I mean re-designing how it works.
    • The new method is great
  • Repo consolidation
    • More cleanup, this is about me making a quick template and updating all my Golang repos to a standard setup because I have a lot of them and the spray of inconsistency is annoying.
  • Weekly went clean, but my journal/blog got pushed off for the vtuber stuff. I ended up not doing my journal till pretty late in the week
  • Bestie dinner
    • I always knew how good a cook my bestie is, but then they made a steak w/ veggie stir fry, and this food was so good I almost lost it.
    • Recently they moved from across town to about 12 minutes away, and it’s so nice being able to pop over quickly now that I am feeling better.
  • Biopsy time
    • These are not the worst, but they sure are not a super fun walk in the park either.
  • Insurance wildin’ out
    • My insurance is having such a time that even one of my nurses evoked Luigi. 😆😭
    • I got a letter that said “We aren’t so sure about clearing further cancer treatments,” which made me wtf pretty hard. Then later I got a call from my case manager saying, “Oh, uhhh so we decided that this cancer treatment is medically necessary but uhhhh. Nobody is actually cleared to do this thing.”
  • Have you ever wanted a hot stew in the hottest weeks of summer?
    • I did. And it’s so good, but also eating hot stew when it is 45c out is enough to give me indigestion.
    • Still, it was delicious and something I can eat for a week. Luckily it is also good cold
  • Hazel Fell off
    • I have been using Noodlesoft’s Hazel for as long as I can remember, but I’ve hit a new problem where all of its upload options are completely bugged and the app just hard crashes any time I change any or add any new servers. I didn’t have time to poke support, but the forums were very silent.
    • I legit double-checked if there is an open source solution as powerful as it, but sadly Maid really stopped getting work
  • Invasive thoughts still super ugly
  • Commissions and art
    • I might have gone a touch over on the plan, but I got a backlog of commissions now, and some already in.
    • Not going to lie, it’s hard to beat retail therapy where you also get to support artists and have more art about in your life to enjoy.

Books

  • Who needs books when you can ruminate on your upcoming passing. 💀

Music

  • Binaural Prototype 1
    • This weird experimental hi-fi style album is designed around subtle headphone stereo play. Lots of really fun sampling and upbeat sounds.
  • MANIFESTO by Ennaria
    • I have listened to this album so much since I discovered it that it’s starting to bleed a bit. Still 2026 AoY contender.
  • playing dumb by ramuval
    • This album was made in dark dark times, and I got a lot of dark times so…
  • UNKILLABLE ANGEL by Ada Rook
    • Want some music about dark dark times and collapsing in on yourself. Well this is peak.

Reads and Videos

Quote of the Week

cis het ppl need to learn that allyship is an act, and not a state of mind

you can’t just identify as an ally, you have actually to do shit

you get no brownie points for quietly “accepting” queer people in the privacy of your own mind while doing nothing to change your treatment of us irl

- Twitter