Stephen's Website

PixelWolf 88x31 Button Generator

2026-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

After trying out a bunch of 88x31 button generators, this one was the easiest to create a few quick, lightweight buttons.

How the CEO of Obsidian uses Obsidian

2026-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

How the CEO of Obsidian uses his own note taking application.

Concrete Laptop Stand

2026-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

This is pretty cool. I like the project and process more than the aesthetic.

Single page calendar

2026-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

A single page calendar.

This version was inspired by https://neatnik.net/calendar/.

Demo: https://abetusk.github.io/neatocal/
Source: https://github.com/abetusk/neatocal

Blogosphere

2026-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

What's old is new again. A nice spot to find content by (hopefully) real people.

Side note: I wish Facebook, Instagram, and all the others were more interested in building connections with friends, family, and my community than squeeze every possible moment of my attention out of me.

Django health status notifications with ntfy.sh

2026-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

There are a gazillion ways to get status notifications for a web application, but here's another one using ntfy.sh

This little helper function would need to be scheduled to run in a task queue like django-q2. It could also be modified slightly into a cron job.

def ntfy_status() -> str:
    """Checks the health check endpoint and sends a notification to ntfy.sh."""
    import requests
    from django.contrib.sites.models import Site
    from django.urls import reverse

    if not settings.NTFY_TOPIC:
        raise ValueError("NTFY_TOPIC environment variable is not configured.")

    # Create the full url to a health check
    protocol = "https" if settings.SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT else "http"
    domain = Site.objects.get_current().domain
    path = reverse("health_check")
    url = f"{protocol}://{domain}{path}"

    health_response = requests.get(url)

    if health_response.status_code == 200:
        emoji = "green_circle"
        suffix = "is up!"
    else:
        emoji = "red_circle,skull"
        suffix = "is down!"

    # Send ntfy message
    ntfy_response = requests.post(
        f"https://ntfy.sh/{settings.NTFY_TOPIC}",
        data=f"{domain} {suffix}",
        headers={
            "Tags": f"{emoji},{health_response.status_code}",
            "Actions": "view, Open URL, {url}, clear=true",
        },
    )

    ntfy_response.raise_for_status()
    return "Sent notification to ntfy.sh with status code: " + str(ntfy_response.status_code)

I ran a half marathon! 🏃

2026-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

I don't think anyone else will ever read or see this, but it was a lot of work; and 6 months ago, I didn't think I could do it.

My goal was just to finish. Based on my training runs, it looked like I might run a 2:45:00 time, but I beat it by about 30 minutes. I was trying to run by heart rate, but it felt boringly slow. A few miles in, I switched to a 90s/30s run walk and it carried me through the end of the race.

Lesson's learned:

A half marathon is very do-able.
Nature's Bakery fig bars are decent real food option for runs.
I drink a lot of water and it was VERY helpful to keep a 500 mL bottle of Skratch with me in a belt during the run.
The Galloway run walk method was amazing! I think the run would have been a lot harder and slower without it.

The difference between worry, anxiety, and stress

2026-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Worrying well: how to bring wisdom to your worries by Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Worrying well is about tapping into the wisdom of real or imagined people, you can turn your negative worry into a positive one—whether a worry you accept, if the circumstances are out of your control, or one you can take action upon.

Worry. A repetitive/ruminative form of thinking about the future or the past.

Anxiety. An uncomfortable feeling of fear, apprehension, or dread, often in the gut or chest, accompanied by physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat and sweating.

Stress. A physical response (fight or flight) to a threat, real or imagined.

Workday Compensation Plan Assignments Security gotcha

2026-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

I hit another Workday security "gotcha" today.

I needed a field that was based on a related business object "Compensation Plan Assignments".

No problem, Related Actions >> View Security for Calculated Field. Okay, View access on Worker Data: Compensation by Organization, great.

And it didn't work! I was stuck for the better part of an hour.

Eventually I came up with the correct search encantation to find something helpful on Workday Community:

Report User Or ISU Not Seeing Merit, Bonus Or Stock Plan Assignment Data

Issue

A report user or ISU account is not seeing merit, bonus or stock plan assignment data.

For example Compensation Plan Assignment related fields, secured by the Worker Data: Compensation by Organization domain, are not returning the expected merit, bonus or stock plan assignment data.

Cause

In line with your Organizations compensation security model please verify if access is also required on the Worker Data: Funded Plan Assignments domain:

Worker Data: Funded Plan Assignments

Domain description: This domain works in conjunction with segment security to provide the ability to secure funded plan (merit, bonus or stock) assignments.

Resolution

Grant the user access to the applicable Worker Data: Funded Plan Assignments domain. Activate changes and retest.

Example impacted fields:

Compensation Plan Assignment

Merit Plans - Plan Details

Workday Studio "exit()"

2026-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Today I learned there is an MVEL expression do do a "System.exit" or "sys.exit()" in Workday Studio.

context.setAbort(true)

Important: The default behavior of all local-out steps is Propogate Abort = true. Generally you'll want this. If the abort isn't working as expected, check that setting first.

Example

1. Set an integration time limit

Somewhere near the beginning of the integration, set a time limit on the integration.

// You could simply set a global value
props["runtimeLimitHours"] = 3.9

// OR you could retrieve it from a launch parameter or integration attribute
props["runtimeLimitHours"] = Double.valueOf(lp.getSimpleData("Runtime Limit (hours)"));

If you use a launch parameter or integration attribute, consider adding an ValidateExp that the value is between 0 and 4 hours

2: Evaluate the run duration

So for example, say you're in a loop processing a few thousand records. After the splitter, you might have an eval component with something like this:

// 1. Get the current time and the 'sent' time in milliseconds
long nowMs = System.currentTimeMillis();
long sentMs = lp.sentOnAsDate.getTime();

// 2. Calculate the difference in milliseconds
long diffMs = nowMs - sentMs;

// 3. Convert to hours as a double (to support decimals like 3.75)
// There are 3,600,000 milliseconds in one hour
double diffHours = diffMs / 3600000.0;

// 4. Logic check
if (diffHours > props["runtimeLimitHours"]) {
    // Logic for when the time limit is exceeded
    props["abortIntegration"] = true;
} else {
    props["abortIntegration"] = false;
}

3. Route by duration

Then you could have a route step that checks props["abortIntegration"] for each record. The choose-route expression would be something like:

// abort
(boolean)props["abortIntegration"] == true

// continue
(boolean)props["abortIntegration"] == false

4. Handle the abort

The last thing in the logic path will be an eval step with context.setAbort(true). Do any steps to close out the integration before the context.setAbort. So for example, there might be steps like:

Log a CRTICICAL message in a PutIntegrationMessage step
Close/save any log files with a local-out step
eval step to trigger the abort with context.setAbort(true)