🐝 Look at this beautiful bee and her pollen baskets!
🐤 See the seeds on the leaves in the background? The American Goldfinches have been dining on the other flowers on this plant!
Remote
🐈⬛ brie biker-ranza 🚲
@brie@social.lol
mastodon 4.7.3+glitch🐈⬛ My name is Brie (she/her) -- hi! ✨ I am an infosec-oriented engineer and leader WHOIS curious about everything. I corrected a typo at the Library of Congress. https://brie.dev
I like cats (@plop@social.lol), kindness, the Internet, DevOps, #IndieWeb, RSS, ransomware, DNS, automating stuff, biking, talking about #bookmarks (🔖 https://bookmarks.by.brie.dev) and lots of other things!
🙌 I'm passionate about https://troubleshooting.party and helping to explain how things are supposed to work.
🏳️🌈
324 Followers
611 Following
28 Posts
Joined July 13, 2025
🏡 brie.dev:
🔖 bookmarks:
📸 photos:
🎧 music:
📝 xteink x4 guide:
🎶 album reviews:
📘 Hardcover:
✉️ send me a note:
🌻 These are both Orange Mahogany Bicolor sunflowers. This is my first year growing this variety and I will definitely add them to the mix for future seasons. I love going outside to look at them!
🐦⬛ My Bird Buddy solar smart bird feeder arrived and I'm rather happy with how easily I was able to integrate with Home Assistant thanks to pybirdbuddy.
🧪 I'm also experimenting with sending photos of bird sightings to Mastodon (with #AltText)!
🌻 So many sunflowers are taking their final bows.
😿 I know I should be happy they bloomed instead of being sad that they are wilting. I put so much of my heart into planning and tending for months: it is hard to say goodbye. 💔
✍️ Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W33
📘 Finished 'The Curfew' and 'Sundiata': both quick and excellent reads!
🎥 I watched 'My Neighbor Totoro': so sweet and beautiful!
🌱 The dahlias started blooming! This marked the seventh consecutive week of sunflowers blooming!
🎥 Super pumped about using QR Codes for Camera Control with my GoPro.
😸 It might look like he's waving but @plop@social.lol was swatting at the cat in the window.
📸 The first Tithonia bloom
Yesterday would have marked six years working at GitLab. That anniversary and the recent changes there inspired me to write about the CREDIT values, how important they have been for me and how they might help you, too.
https://brie.dev/where-credit-due
💖 I poured my heart into this piece; I hope it resonates with you.
🌱 I go through this every year but... it's heartbreaking to find evidence of birds breakfasting on my seedlings in the mornings!
🤭 This is why I plant way more seeds than will bloom...and give extras away!
🤭 I got pedals to match my bike frame! 😸
🧪 Initial test ride on Montour Trail this morning was a success!
🚲 Cycling: biked the GAP and to the Color Park!
🦋 Self-care: fresh butterfly-themed nails.
⛰️ Training: tackled nearby hills for 700+ ft elevation gain.
✍️ Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W27
📖 Reading Shogun for book club on my tiny e-reader.
🌻 The first sunflower bloomed!
📏 Inspired by a chat with @jayo@triangletoot.party I am measuring sunflower heights with a clinometer and trigonometry!
🍿 Watched Minions & Monsters, my 15th film of the year: cute!
✍️ Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W21
🚲 Biked the gorgeous North Coast Inland Trail through Huron County in Ohio, longest ride of the year so far
📖 Trying to guess which portions were omitted from the abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo.
🎥 I watched my 10th movie of the year: The Rip (2026). I wanted to like it more than I did.
🤏 I got a teeny tiny notebook to go with my tiny e-reader.
✍️ Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W23
📘 Finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo! The 1975 made-for-TV film adaptation with Richard Chamberlain became my 11th movie of the year.
🎧 Discovered Billy Talent and Gob
🚲 A lovely rain helped cool me down as I biked Montour Trail
🌱 Plop is enjoying his catgrass very much! The final batch of seeds are sprouting: dahlias, sunflowers and zinnias!
✍️ Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W19
🚲 Cycling Montour Trail while recovering from the half-marathon
🎥 Watched my 8th movie of the year: "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962)
🍓 Strawberry mani
🚀 New post on brie.dev (tiny e-reader)
🔍 Can you see the Xteink X4 on my bike?
Replying to
📸 Xteink X4, 8BitDo Micro Bluetooth Gamepad inside The Count of Monte Cristo
I decided on the new approach I'll use to signal that my blog posts are written by me without the use of generative AI.
❌ Tired: Written by Brie Carranza
✅ Wired: Handwritten by Brie Carranza
🤭 Bonus: Most posts I write do start out on paper.
🫠 There's a part of me that hates that I feel I have to do this but...here we are!
🧰 One of the tools I use and recommend most often is gron.
🫠 Trying to make sense of a bunch of JSON quickly? Want something more accessible than jq?
👉 Use gron 👈
🙌 Tiny Weeknotes 2026-W16
🏆 Earned 20 achievements in "Ever Seen A Cat?"
🌱 Moved all the seedlings inside: subfreezing temps in the forecast.
⚾ Watched the Buccos defeat Tampa Bay at PNC Park!
🚲 Increased distance and speed on the bike -- final weeks of half-marathon prep.
📖 Started reading Chain-Gang All-Stars for book club
📜 Plop was cute and playful -- he loves honeycomb paper!
Replying to
@neatnik@social.lol ✅ Cool: this works nicely and it's super cool to have community bookmarks!
ℹ️ I'm using Linkdy on Android.
🤭 later.place is my new happy[.]place! 🥰
Replying to
@neatnik@social.lol 😻🚀 Oooh: *very* exciting! Web bookmarks and fun ways to share, manage and explore them are among my absolute favorite things to think and talk about!
🤭 I hadn't bothered with my chosen LinkDing client for Android just yet but now I have another very good excuse!
🔖 I know what I'm doing this weekend!
Replying to
@cygnoir 🤭 Your post was enough for me to move Virtual Cottage 2 from my wishlist to my library.
✨ I'm pleased to see they've addressed some of what I mentioned on my review of the original game!
Replying to
@cygnoir 🙌 I love it!
🏡 Virtual Cottage-style games are very much my jam!
✨ Feeling inspired to revisit tiny weeknotes again too!
Replying to
@Timothyswallehz@mastodon.social 🌱💚 Aww!
They are in rows in nursery pots. If I plant them in the ground, the local groundhogs will dine on them all! 🤭