A markdown doc, excitement, and forgetting to check open PRs

This experience is pretty fresh, so I’m going to document it.

I was reading a great article, clicked some links that were mentioned, read those, and made my way back to the source article.

I threw the website url+ note into Notion for reference/inspiration.

As I scrolled down the homepage, I originally thought the links to my right were written by the author, but they seemed to be links to external websites + a short note.

Visually, I really liked the hierarchy with the weight of the font and the use of color.

The fact that there were additional links in such a small amount of text was something that I appreciated.

One of the notes caught my attention.

inspect source for comedy

After reading a solid article, I explored the site and noted the patterns, then spotted copy I couldn’t resist

Upon reading, I clicked and immediately inspected source.

It made me smile because the internet can be a fun place, and I appreciate that people make stuff and are good at things (in this case, an incredible example of CSS artistry and incorporating a subtlety in craft that I’m curious how many people found without a suggestion to inspect).

inspected & laughed, went to github listed in nav then found the README & spotted something I might be able to help with

I went to the Github that was listed and found the site’s repo.

That’s when I noticed it.

I went from admiring a level of CSS that I don’t think I’ll ever put the time to get to, to staring at something that I might be able to fix.

There was a broken image in the README doc.

Clicking ‘raw’ allows you to view the source code

• I clicked the file and viewed the RAW source.
• Copied the image url and pasted it into the browser.

Boom. 404.

That’s when I began to realize that I’m not actually sure what it is I can do.

There’s an infinite amount of things that could be wrong, and I’m not sure what I’d be able to solve outside of what I have, which is the url.

Before the wild world of User Experience/Product Design, I was in the Air Force and spent a few years in I.T. (helpdesk, trouble-tickets, plugging in people’s mouses, physically moving printers, basically only being useful for my admin credentials to install updates, etc.).

After working in I.T. for a while, you begin to notice a pattern.

Sometimes it takes a while to pay attention, but you start with the most basic thing you can.

In the physical I.T. world, the number of times something hasn’t worked because of a power problem (outlet not working, physical cable to outlet is bad, some switch in another room not flipped, etc.) is baffling.

If you begin by checking if there’s power + a good known-working-cable, then you’re off to a good start.

If you go through a bunch of things, only to realize you just need to replace a cable (or god forbid, just push the cable a little bit further to fully seat it), you begin starting with the more fundamental things first.

In the case of this url, I went with the most fundamental thing that has caused me err’s, and that’s the file-extension.

I updated the `.jpg` to `.png`, boom, worked!

success 🎉 from product design to software engineer in a couple letters

Feeling like a l337 h@x0r, I figure that I’m going to make a quick pull request to update this doc.

After still feeling nervous about actually submitting the PR, I submit and then step back.

Now that I’ve done something productive in the world, I looked over and saw that there were a couple of pull requests open.

It looks like the thing I was excited to fix was solved a few days ago.

In the `Github` repo context, checking to see if there’s an open pull-request that fixes the exact problem you notice, is pretty close to checking the power source.

I don’t think I would have done the beginning differently because I enjoy the process and got too excited when I saw something that I might be able to help with.

What I would have done differently is, after noticing that I was able to fix it, check the pull-requests to see if I’m just one of many.

note-to-self: check open pull-requests before* opening one

I sheepishly closed my pull request, left a comment mentioning that it was already solved in the *first pull request*, and then decided to write about this experience.

Have fun exploring things, but remember to check the fundamentals in each context.

It was an exciting rollercoaster for today.

Best,
Kelsy

Patterns & Notes
- links sidebar, the visual weight + including additional info
- incorporate images into pull-requests (mine said what I was doing, but the visual in the original PR clearly showed broken img + it working)
- check the open pull-requests before I spend time worrying about opening my own
- remember to incorporate fun things, not just on the surface-level

Links

Original article an artists’ work being used on a model without their knowledge:
- https://waxy.org/2022/11/invasive-diffusion-how-one-unwilling-illustrator-found-herself-turned-into-an-ai-model/

The pure CSS pinup by Diana Smith
- https://diana-adrianne.com/purecss-pinup/
- https://github.com/cyanharlow

My closed PR
- https://github.com/cyanharlow/purecss-pinup/pull/3