Richard Towers

Twitter archive

An archive of tweets from my deleted Twitter account. Elon Musk can fuck off.

Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Relevant to your interests @TheRealNooshu ?
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
YAML parsers be like
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thank you for all the hard work and big ideas 🙇 t.co/m5lhJht3Fo
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I have fully automated NFT art generation with this cutting edge piece of AI prompt engineering. Finally, the two most hyped technologies of the last year showing their true potential.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Feels inappropriate to credit the inspiration for this given prevailing attitudes in "AI" and NFTs, but anyway

x.com/ronnui_/status…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
TypeScripting the technical interview

richard-towers.com/2023/03/11/typ…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Could it finally be time to retire that <!--[if lt IE 9]>? x.com/TheRealNooshu/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Phippy the Giraffe, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the desired and current state.

A current under sea
Picked her bones in whispers.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn The Wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phippy, who was once handsome and tall as you.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
As she scaled up and down
She passed the stages of her age and youth
Entering the whirlpool
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
CC-BY phippy.io
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
A little blog about SQL and the dangers of stackexchange

richard-towers.com/2023/01/29/fin…​

hachyderm.io/@richardTowers…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Somewhat sad that the new twitter font has broken the @Iinux homograph (I and l used to be indistinguishable) t.co/J6fvqZmFQz
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
@Iinux Still indistinguishable in tweet bodies, but not in the handle
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I know I'm late to the party, but... haⅽhyⅾerⅿ.ⅰo @ richardTowers (excuse the lower case roman numerals)
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
github.com/mi6/ic-design-…

Guess I'm a spy now x.com/XChiefMI6/stat…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Very pleased they've finally implemented this x.com/awsdevelopers/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Devs arguing that software should be written in C x.com/NoContextBrits…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Video alt: a man is interviewed in front of a road. "I will not accept that it's a dangerous road" he says, as a car spins off behind him and two other cars crash into each other.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I have deleted
the microservices
that were in
the cluster

and which
you were probably
using
to generate tokens

Forgive me
they made too many RPCs
so poorly batched
and so slow
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Shocked to learn that Jack wasn't talking about Twitter here x.com/JackTindale/st…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Considering using XSLT 👻
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
The Y Combinator in Google Sheets
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Source: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Increasingly convinced that akka is an elaborate practical joke.

'Since every real actor has a supervisor, the supervisor of the root guardian cannot be a real actor. And because this means that it is “outside of the bubble”, it is called the “bubble-walker”.'

u wot?
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
x.com/benlcollins/st…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Looking forward to this year's advent of code
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
mobile.twitter.com/RichardTowers/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Yes! Particularly the bit about procurement. 35 suppliers, only 2 capable of delivering an accessible product.

Vendors - make your stuff accessible, and most of your competition will just disappear in these procurements. x.com/kyliehavelock/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
In which we relearn the importance of contract tests:

insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2022/06/17/inc…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Pair programming as a manager

(alt: man rides a bike with a fluffy golden puppy strapped to his chest. The puppy air pedals to "help" the man.) x.com/buitengebieden…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
How it feels to use google sheets x.com/GeorgeRussell6…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Alt: google sheets error message. Text reads

There was a problem
This action would increase the number of cells in the workbook above the limit of 10000000 cells.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Me, fasting for one day: I'll conserve energy by avoiding stairs
@mohamed_ridha : x.com/mohamed_ridha/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Gotta go fast 🚀 x.com/TheRealNooshu/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks @HimalMandalia - you're leaving some extremely fancy shoes for me to fill.

I'll do my best! t.co/x0TIa3GmKK
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Time to misuse some generics 😈 x.com/golang/status/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Deloitte, gentille Deloitte,
Deloitte, je te plumerai x.com/stevenjmesser/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I didn't know Kay, but like many others I heard him talk powerfully and eloquently about this at an all staff meeting. It took real bravery to speak up as he did then.

It may be painful, but amplifying voices like Kay's reminds us all to do better. t.co/jwiBhTSc4A
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
"I hate working on legacy code", said the software developer.

"Yes, I know how you feel", replied the doctor. "I hate working on unhealthy patients."
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Finally an option to replace ruby-sass that doesn't involve adding dependencies on node and yarn. ✨ x.com/dhh/status/148…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
The more I learn about AWS VPC Networking, the more I sympathize with Cypher from The Matrix.

Ignorance is bliss.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Do not try and resolve the address. That's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth... THERE IS NO ARP. Then you will see that it not the address that resolves, it is yourself.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Radio 4, after discussing Don't look up:

Presenter: Anyway, to the weather. I hope you're not going to tell us there's a comet heading our way?

Weather: Haha, no. You can rest easy. So the weather: we've had a record breakingly mild new year...
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Don't look at the thermometer
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
We should be trying to eliminate scarcity in the physical world, not retro-fitting scarcity for the digital t.co/u8Zlb26Wo5
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
The input is the program 🤔

github.com/richardTowers/…

adventofcode.com/2021/day/2 #AdventOfCode
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Covid-19: Learn Greek the Hard Way
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Trying to use S3 like x.com/SwiftOnSecurit…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
This is going to be so great for teaching beginners to code. t.co/GxV1GWirVb
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Just discovered ATAG (w3.org/TR/ATAG20/) - accessibility guidelines for web publishing tools. Feel pretty embarrassed for not knowing about these... Are they good?
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
How it feels to maintain legacy code x.com/DuneQuoteBot/s…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Those who would give up open standards to purchase a little competitive advantage deserve neither open standards nor competitive advantage
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Still going strong a decade later 💪 t.co/hme4hbunEf
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
gov.uk as a set of services 🤔

insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2021/09/09/pla…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Annoyed with twitter for stripping the www. from the start of www[.]gov[.]uk. It's important context twitter! If I'd meant GOV.UK I'd have uppercased it.

I need to get out more...
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Types of editor:

WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get
WYSIWYM - What you see is what you mean
WYGIWYG - What you get is what you get
WYGIWYD - What you get is what you deserve
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
GitHub Copilot is firmly in the WYGIWYD category
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
This is a great team x.com/munhitsu/statu…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Internet Explorer's reaction when you try to use Array.prototype.forEach x.com/RichardTowers/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
We've published an incident report about the @GOVUK outage on Tuesday:

insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2021/06/11/inc…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I'm really proud of everyone who worked on this - from the incident team on the day, to everyone in comms who helped get this published so quickly.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Make things open, it makes them better
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
If you don't already work for us, you totally should. It's important stuff. gdscareers.gov.uk
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
We're not done yet. We're going to learn a lot from this, and next time we'll be even better prepared.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Very interested in where the industry has got to. Last time I checked, everything was rubbish. x.com/DanielJonesEB/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Good luck, I'm behind 7 CDNs x.com/SwiftOnSecurit…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Me: I need a word for a boring infrastructure demo
@GOVUK: "bimini"
@concourseci: ✨💃
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Context (as if it's needed): I wanted to demonstrate using our infrastructure as code to bring up a new environment. Asking for a word at the beginning let me prove that the environment was brand new.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
And that's how we briefly ended up with bimini.test.govuk.digital
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Wonderful!

Filling in a form sent to you in the mail with a typewriter is probably still a better UX than a lot of digital forms today.

Looking at you PDF forms that only work in Acrobat Reader 😑 x.com/NickColley/sta…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
I tried to write about the news this week. It didn't fit in a weeknote so I made a separate post. #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021 #MaleViolenceAgainstWomen

richard-towers.com/2021/03/14/mal…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Back on the #weeknotes horse 🏇

richard-towers.com/2021/03/07/wee…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Year 2121. The earth is too hot to support life.

Deep underground, the last remnant of humanity unveils its greatest achievement.

The perfect sha256sum.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x.com/ruskin147/stat…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
#weeknotes episode 2. In which I admit to being a Taylor Swift fan. richard-towers.com/2021/01/17/wee…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
New years resolution: weeknotes. My first one:

richard-towers.com/2021/01/10/wee…

tl;dr - 2021 has been tough so far. Hopefully the next ~51 weeks will be better.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
(And thanks to @stevenjmesser, @barrucadu and @tobiogunsina for their inspirational weeknote-ry)
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Having fun with #adventofcode this year.

Solutions in #Terraform (spoilers):

github.com/richardTowers/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
#adventofcode2020 - I only made it through 11 days, but I had fun richard-towers.com/2021/01/03/ter…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Create the next generation of GOV.UK's architecture

technology.blog.gov.uk/2020/11/16/hea…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
In awe at the size of this QR
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
A reminder that great websites are built by great humans. Thank you for everything @issyl0! x.com/issyl0/status/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
.@MuslamicMakers have launched a 4-month digital skills programme and are looking for volunteer digital skills coaches to work with participants and help build confidence and guide them along their journey: Find out more here: muslamicmakers.com/digital-career…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Since I'm not doing any actual sailing this year, I've been forced to resort to making tenuous sailing metaphors instead. A blog about boats and teams:

richard-towers.com/2020/08/02/lit…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
#muslimsatgds hosted a #fastathon at @GDSTeam - I joined them for one day of fasting. Even one day was tough, but it was a fascinating experience. I took some notes - richard-towers.com/2020/05/20/fas…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
How it felt on Sunday after we maxed out our @GatlingTool load testing infrastructure
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thursday: we're going to build a form. It's got to be live very soon - there's a letter ready to post, and if the service isn't live when people get the letter...
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
So let's build it from scratch. Our solution:

* Ruby on Rails (@rails)
* GOV.UK Design System
* GOV.UK PaaS (built on top of @cloudfoundry)
* Concourse (@concourseci)

All of this is #opensource software, helping us fight against #coronavirus
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Requirements:

* Have excellent #accessibility
* Handle very spiky load
* Store very sensitive personally identifiable information securely
* Ship to prod in ~three days

Meeting those is a big ask from an off-the-shelf solution.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
The form sounds fairly bread-and-butter, but GOV.UK is mostly content, not forms. So how? Government has a few low-code form builders, but GDS don't have a preferred one. We spoke to @MoJGovUK about theirs, and looked closely at a few others.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks to GOV.UK PaaS and @cloudfoundry, we can deploy services to the cloud at scale in minutes, and deploy changes with minimal downtime.

(We're pretty over-scaled at the moment - 30 instances with 2GiB RAM each. Why not though? #itsfreerealestate)
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks to the GOV.UK Design System, we're able to build services which are consistent with GOV.UK and have #accessibility at their heart.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks to @rails, we can build secure, accessible web applications quickly.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks also to the dozens of other open source projects that helped us build, run and test this thing.

github.com/alphagov/govuk…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks to @concourseci, we can create robust continuous deployment pipelines that let our team deliver working software to production quickly.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Finally, thanks to the incredible team of people that worked on this, we were able to release on time. Since Monday, over 350,000 people have submitted their details, and people are now receiving help.

If you want to see what great developers look like:

github.com/alphagov/govuk…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
A few stats since we started building:

* 450 commits
* 189 pull requests
* 272 deployments to staging
* 63 deployments to production
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Alex the duck, on the commute to talk about GOV.UK PaaS at #Sprint19
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Alex the duck, getting ready for #Sprint19 with GOV.UK PaaS and @GDSTeam
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Learning to code at GDS gds.blog.gov.uk/2019/07/18/lea…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Great to see @BBCNews available over TLS - bbc.co.uk/news
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
In awe at the sizeof this lad. Absolute uint.
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Verifying myself: I am richardtowers on Keybase.io. Bl1Hd_uDiZXQuXLXIO_1aA1mG3hCq7zJLg-F / keybase.io/richardtowers/…
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Great #userresearch session on @GOVUKverify's technical documentation for #VerifyLocal. Thanks @GOSSInteractive for your help!
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Thanks @founderscoders for listening to me waffle about life as a dev with @GDSTeam. gds.blog.gov.uk/jobs/
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
vim -c "help paragraph"
&gt; ... IPLPPPQPP TPHPLIPpLpItpplpipbp ...
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
"Cyan is not a background colour" - yeah, whatever. Goes nicely with my magenta text. #design
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Fat arrows!
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Wrote another game: richard-towers.com/5nake/
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Wrote a 'game': richard-towers.com/poleBalancer/
Richard Towers @RichardTowers ·
Doing a twitter.