Tony Andrew Meyer

Wests Fruit Cocktail

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:07:01 +1200

(Post theme: Taste (covered) by Daisy Grenade)

Last time: Hakanoa Dry Ginger Beer, this time Wests Fruit Cocktail.

This comes in a plastic bottle, unfortunately, but a reasonable size, 350ml. I’ve never seen or heard of this before doing some random searches for drinks online. As usual, no issues with having rural post deliver some, though.

I believe the flavour is meant to be some sort of generic fruit punch. It tasted to me a bit like a nicer Fanta (Orange), but not so much that I’m in a hurry to try it again. I forgot to try it with ice, but it was fine just fridge-chilled.

Hakanoa Dry Ginger Beer

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 22:00:45 +1200

(Post theme: Rain by Dragon)

Last time, Aroha Sparkling Feijoa, this time Hakanoa Dry Ginger Beer.

This comes in a glass bottle with a twist top, a decent 330ml. I had never seen or heard of this before it was featured in the Spinoff Ginger Beer Ranking (spoiler: it came second, behind my favourite ginger beer, which won’t be reviewed here since it’s Australian). Once again, though, no issues with having it delivered, even with rural post.

Aroha Sparkling Feijoa

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:25:20 +1200

(Post theme: Oh My by Gin Wigmore)

Last time, Karma Drinks (Apple), this time Aroha Sparkiling Feijoa.

This comes in a glass bottle with a regular cap; once more a great start. 330ml, so we’re finally at a decent volume. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a cafe, service station, or supermarket, unfortunately – I’m sure I would have tried it if so – but once again, no troubles with getting this delivered with rural post.

Review: The Manager's Path

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:35:00 +1200

(Post theme: You Don’t Know Me by Ben Folds (feat. Regina Spektor))

Camille Fournier’s The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change pairs well with Tanya Reilly’s The Staff Engineer’s Path that I reviewed earlier this year. Where Reilly focuses on the senior individual contributor track, Fournier walks the management ladder from the bottom rung all the way to CTO. Despite the management focus, I’d recommend this book even if you have no intention of ever being a manager (or, like me, have managed before but don’t plan to again) because understanding what good management looks like from your side of the table is genuinely useful.

Karma Drinks - Apple Juice

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:35:54 +1200

(Post theme: Karma by Taylor Swift)

Last time, Foxton Fizz (Pineapple), this time: Karma Drinks, Apple Juice.

This comes in a glass bottle with a regular cap, which is again a great start. Aluminium is ok, but glass is almost always nicer, and it is convenient to be able to close it again, although 300ml makes that unlikely. 300ml is, for me, a bare minimum volume, so Karma just squeaks in there.

The Karma drinks are quite widely available in cafes in my experience, but I don’t generally see them in supermarkets or service stations. I ordered online, which worked perfectly, even with rural delivery. (I do wonder if my postie is annoyed at how many large/heavy parcels I get, or likes that these contribute to the continued existence of the rural post service.)

Foxton Fizz - Pineapple

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 21:59:13 +1200

(Post theme: Soda Pop from K-Pop Demon Hunters)

Backstory: I love trying new (non-alcoholic) drinks. One of my most favourite things about travelling for work is being able to go through a supermarket in a new country and try out all the new (to me) things they have. I also love supporting local (for the purposes here: New Zealand) businesses, particularly small ones, so extra love trying new, local, drinks. But I struggle to remember the drink I tried months ago, both whether or not I’ve tried it, and how much I enjoyed it. So I’m writing them up. These aren’t really reviews, because unless you share my taste, your results will vary.

Combining Canonical's Inference Snaps with Willison's LLM tool

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 20:58:25 +1200

(Post theme: I Want You to Know Me by Emerson)

Running LLMs locally has a somewhat deserved reputation for being finicky. Download a model, pick a runtime, figure out GPU offloading, wrestle with dependencies, expose an API, and then you can start actually using the thing. Canonical’s inference snaps and Simon Willison’s llm tool each solve half of that problem – and it turns out they snap together (sorry, not sorry) almost effortlessly.

Review: Communication Patterns by Jacqui Read

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:06:31 +1200

(Post theme: Bullsh*t Baby! by aleksiah)

Unlike the last couple of reviews in my work ’training and development’ series, this one for Communication Patterns: A Guide for Developers and Architects will be very short. Unfortunately, that’s because of the “if you can’t say anything nice” rule – and I don’t even think it’s worth a detailed critique. Just avoid it.

A few lowlights: obvious, tedious, lengthy words on diagrams, where the diagrams themselves probably do convey information well but are ugly, and beauty matters; remote work “insights” that seem like they come from someone that has never spent any serious time doing remote work (I was reminded of all the terrible advice from people who suddenly started during COVID); a near total disregard for cultural differences; and way too much self-hype.

Review: Vibe Coding by Gene Kim and Steve Yegge

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:21:49 +1200

(Post theme: Be Better by Where’s Jai?)

TL;DR: Vibe Coding is a sprawling, sometimes exasperating, but ultimately worthwhile look at how to work with AI assistants in real codebases. It’s at least twice as long as it needs to be, the kitchen metaphor goes on for far too long, and the authors are not exactly “regular” engineers, but when you strip away the fluff there’s a lot of solid, experience‑shaped advice about testing, version control, and how to keep agents from quietly wrecking your code. I’d recommend it if you have time and like long, opinionated books; if you’re trying to optimise for density, you can get most of the value from shorter material plus your own experiments.

Review: The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 16:25:52 +1200

(Post theme: something to my something (feat. Maddy Low) by FDaSavage)

Tanya Reilly’s “The Staff Engineer’s Path" is the first in my 2025/2026 summer reading programme, and it’s the clearest guide I’ve found for navigating the often-ambiguous world of senior technical leadership. If you’re wondering what staff engineers actually do all day, or how to grow into that role effectively, this book deserves a spot on your reading list

What Makes This Book Different

Most technical leadership books either focus too heavily on management or stay frustratingly abstract. Reilly strikes a better balance, addressing the messy reality of being a senior IC: you’re expected to have broad impact, but nobody’s quite sure how. One highlight that captured this perfectly was her observation that staff engineers “take on ambiguous, messy, difficult problems and do just enough work on them to make them manageable by someone else.” That’s the job in a nutshell.

2025 in Media

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 22:11:01 +1200

(Post theme: friendly fire (the pool song)).

This year, I watched 164 films. I recommend Tinā, KPop Demon Hunters, The Gorge, Swiped, Python: The Documentary, Girl Haunts Boy, and We Live in Time, and Sinners. A somewhat disappointing year for films for me.

I also watched 1,259 episodes of TV. I recommend Taskmaster, The Runarounds, Murderbot, Department Q, and Shrinking. Not a great year for TV, either - a lot of stuff I’m somewhat interested in watching, but nothing that really grabbed me.

On YouTube, I watched a lot more than in previous years. I recommend the Taskmaster Podcast, the TalkVille Podcast, Nikki Lu, Dish Podcast, and Off Menu.

Review: Help! I Have a Manager! - Wizard Zines

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:42:36 +1200

(Post theme: Talk by Coldplay)

Next up in the Wizard Zines set is an odd one, not being particularly technical, and I think one of the earlier ones: Help! I Have a Manager, which is all about building good relationships with your manager.

Like Julia, I’ve had several good or great managers, and a few not so much. I have found them all very different, so page 16, which is all about this, really resonated. Other than that, this was pretty much all advice I’d seen elsewhere and/or picked up naturally. For someone really early career, this might be worthwhile, but I’d skip it otherwise.

Review: Bite Size Bash - Wizard Zines

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 22:18:42 +1200

(Post theme: Hall of Fame (feat. will.i.am) by The Script)

As mentioned previously, I purchased the set of Wizard Zines via my annual training budget, and am working through them. Current reading: Bite Size Bash.

The first 20 pages surprised me - I don’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable in terms of bash (or similar shell scripting) but pretty much everything in the basics I’ve managed to somehow pick up over the last couple of decades, despite usually jumping pretty quickly into another tool whenever my needs get above simple. It is a great intro, though, and I would have benefited having this at hand years back.

Review: Become a SELECT Star - Wizard Zines

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:04:54 +1200

(Post theme: Call Off the Search by Katie Melua)

As part of my training allowance for 2024, I purchased all 14 of Julia Evan’s zines. There are definitely ones I expect to learn from more than others, but having the pack appealed, and one of the things I really enjoy about her posts is finding little tidbits of information that I didn’t know, even though I would have said I know the topic fairly well in general.

GitHub "sync fork" silently failing

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 10:40:26 +1200

(Post theme: Oops! I Did It Again by Britney Spears)

Posting because I’ve hit this three times now and each time not remembered the solution until I figured it out again, in the hopes that writing it down will prompt my memory next time and avoid a fourth “figure it out fresh” cycle.

At work (in the team I’m on), we develop in the open using public Github repositories. To introduce a change, we fork the repo, create a branch, and submit pull requests to the upstream main branch.

Mobile Phones at Mahurangi College - Feedback

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 21:17:51 +1200

(Post theme: The Times They Are-A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan)

This is a copy of the feedback I provided to Mahurangi College in response to this consultation request:

The Government has introduced regulations that require all state schools to have student phone rules in use. Rules must be in use as soon as possible in Term 1 2024 and no later than Term 2.

Many countries around the world have successfully banned mobile phones in classrooms, or are in the process of doing so. A solid body of evidence is emerging that supports the banning of phones in schools.

Writing as a metaphor for coding

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 23:59:25 +1200

At work, our book club is reading Code Complete, and had our first discussion session today. I first read this in early 2011 - roughly 6 years into professional software development - and remember thinking quite positively of it at the time. We’re only three chapters in, but I’m decidedly more mixed on it this time around - I’ve had a lot more varied experience with development projects than in those early years, and a lot of the book lands quite differently (I do suspect that the later chapters will have stood the test of time better).

Inconsistent public service efficiency

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 21:48:01 +1200

(Post theme: drivers license by Olivia Rodrigo)

I renewed my driver’s license last week (having turned 45 recently) and it was striking how different the experience was to the other common government-issued identification: a passport. New Zealand’s passport service, Te Mata Uruwhenua, (run by Te Tari Taiwhenua the Department of Internal Affairs) is remarkably efficient - everything from the application process through to delivery is handled extremely well. They promise reasonable process times, and almost always better them.

Asking ChatGPT for help, take 2

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 23:24:19 +1200

(Post theme: With a Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker)

People (at lunch) at Kiwi PyCon were praising ChatGPT as a tool to help write code more efficiently, so I had another go.

I recently moved a Django project to use Whitenoise, and more specifically to have manifest files, where the version is appended to the collected file names. This all works great, except that there are a few files that users download, and instead of getting, for example, template.xlsx, they were getting template.{md5hash}.xlsx.

Python return styles

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 18:15:20 +1200

I was reading through the charmed tech ops code today and noticed a bunch of code like:

def f():
 if check:
 return val
 else:
 return None

I don’t particularly love this (although I do feel you should match the style of an existing code base and should avoid changes that don’t meet a reasonable level of value-add). I would generally leave out the else (and dedent the second return). It seemed likely that these generate the same opcodes so this is purely about readability, but it was worth checking that: