Monthly Digest - August 2020

Hey folks, welcome to the debut of my monthly digest! We’re starting things off strong with amazing highlights August has offered followed by a recap of the month. Feel free to use the quick links provided above to jump to your preferred section.

Article of the month

Mainly because there’s not a lot of articles I stumbled upon on August, but I also think that a lot of people and not just developers would benefit from this.

Style Guide to a Semantic Commit Message was written mostly to remind myself and make it easy for me to look at anywhere. Organizing your commits semantically isn’t just useful as a programmer, but I feel it would also increase your productivity and life in general. Knowing how to organize your stuff cleanly and categorizing each items into its own section would help yourself in finding it later on, makes the place you’re living in generally cleaner, and (personally) satisfying to just have everything organized.

Honorable article mentions

• [CSS-IRL] Drop-Shadow: The Underrated CSS Filter

This post was really exciting for me since I write my own CSS from scratch and haven’t had a lot of new things to learn before CSS4 comes out later (waiting for :has selector). I was also just working with SVGs and PNGs with transparent backgrounds, and I immediately changed the box-shadow effect on hover to use this filter and it looked tenfold better than before.

• [ishadeed.com] CSS Mistakes While On Autopilot

I didn’t think this was a problem for most people. But, I now realize that not everyone uses their editor to its fullest, and not everyone writes their own CSS. If you’re utilizing your editor to its full potential, especially those with built-in emmet support like VS Code, I’m certain you won’t have a problem like this.

• [LogRocket] An overview of technical differences between loops in JavaScript

I’ve always known that some methods performs better than their counterparts, I knew it because I’ve read and tested it somewhere some time ago. But, I can’t seem to prove it every time someone asks me why. This time, I’m not making the same mistake and will mention this article as one of the example of why we shouldn’t use .forEach anymore.

• [DEV] Optional Chaining (?.), Nullish Coalescing (??), and Non-Null Assertion Operators (!.) in TypeScript

Even though this article wasn’t published in August, it really helped me understand what was the difference between Optional Chaining and Non-Null Assertion Operators. It also helped me understand everything a bit better with the examples this article provided.

Content of the month

August’s content of the month is an anime that goes by the name of Kill la Kill or Dressed to Kill. An over the top action anime with a unique art style, absolutely stellar soundtracks, and a story so good it’s on par with FMA. Check out the full review in Reviews section, or click the link in the caption above.

Honorable content mentions

A really amazing work of art from a YouTuber who has made SpongeBob into an anime, separated according to its own arcs. It’s not just a hobby project, it’s fully voice acted and beautifully animated, not to mention its amazing soundtracks. If you watched SpongeBob in your childhood, you’ll definitely need to watch this because it’s just amazing.

• [Alchemauss] WATATEN!: an Angel Flew Down to Me

WATATEN or Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita was by far one of the best show I’ve enjoyed watching every second of it. The review is ready so go take a look for more details on this.

• [Alchemauss] Byousoku 5 Centimeter | [Alchemauss] Kimi no Na wa | [Alchemauss] Tenki no Ko

Basically the top 3 of Makoto Shinkai works. I really can’t say much about this other than how great it is. The animations are beautiful, worldbuilding are superb, and the soundtracks are outstanding. I love and enjoyed all of those 3 and I can’t wait to discover more like this.

Music of the month | Spotify Playlist

Uploaded on June 30 this year (a little late to the party but better late than never), Waiting for Rain by Minami had me on repeat for days. This is one of the most beautiful and well animated MV I’ve seen, not that I’ve seen a lot of MVs, but this is beautiful on an Anime level. Its lyrics also tells a story, a sad and perhaps real one for some of us. Also, Minami’s voice sounds super familiar, don’t you think?

This month’s choice is a really tough one to choose, there’s a couple of nominees for this spot and all of them is from Minami. Almost every of her MVs I watch and listen are absolute bangers, and this one’s are no different, the only reason Waiting for Rain is chosen is because it was recently released and would make more sense for this month’s digest.

Hollowness is another one from her I should at least mention here, even though it’s released in 2018, its animation was already great and the music feels timeless. Other than its amazing animations and music, you can also somewhat relate to its lyrics or at the very least understand what it meant. It gives a frisson down my spine the very first time I watched it.

I actually discovered Minami from Crying for Rain, one of her top song. I’m sure most of you FMA fans would appreciate the vibes this one’s giving. Most people said that she has the same energy as Again by Yui [YouTube | Spotify], and I completely agree.

This time it’s actually an opening song from an anime, although I think this OP is more popular than the anime itself, at least that’s what I’ve read. I haven’t watched it yet, perhaps wait for the review some time later?

Honorable music mentions

Such a good and catchy OP from Kill la Kill. I’m the type of person who needs to see “it” first before I can fully feel the vibe and immerse myself in it, but I know some of you can listen to songs from Disney movies before it even hits the theater, so do what you want with this. But, I do recommend you to watch the anime first.

DROELOE releases are always chill and melow, Open Blinds is no different than that. It suits the title well and puts you in the mood, you’ll feel like you’ve just woke up on your bed in your room with sunray hitting your face.

The original Butterfly Effect already has a place in me from the very first time I heard it in COTW Ep. 289 and this caught me off guard. It brings another take with a more upbeat style compared to the previous one.

I’ve been listening to a lot of J-Pop lately and almost forgot why I used to love and listen to Monstercat almost everyday. This mix reminds me again and really brings back memories, especially all the crazy good mixes from the yearly contest around this time.

Video of the month | YouTube Playlist

Have you ever wondered where that random ringing sound comes from? Did you sometimes freak out when it isn’t going away, thinking you might go deaf from it? Well, don’t worry. Turns out, it occurs to practically everyone in the world and it’s not harmful or anything. August’s digest got you covered with an informative video from TED-Ed explaining this phenomenon.

Honorable video mentions

Practically all berries has worms in it, but they’re not all dangerous or harmful.

You’ll think twice before letting your dog (pets) lick you in the face.

Just a fun compilation of Fall Guys game play, even… no, especially when you’re just watching.

Headlines of the month

Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit

You don’t just pull out a 16 page lawsuit from your butt the same day your app gets banned from the store, Epic Games has anticipated this and prepared for it. In fact, this is all a part of their bigger plan. Having their own competing app store in the mobile market.

Source(s): [YouTube - penguinz0 | YouTube - The Game Theorists]

VS Code now has native settings sync in v1.48

This update really saved me a ton of time because I had to reset my whole laptop and lost all of my settings and extensions. Compared to the third-party extension we’ve had before, this is officially supported from the internal team and integrates directly with your GitHub or Microsoft account. So, it doesn’t use GitHub private gist anymore, exposing your API key, and committing multiple times every time you change something with hundreds to thousands of revisions in the history. It’s just a better experience overall.

Source(s): [CHANGELOG]

MAP movement rises and wants to blend in with LGBT community + Netflix newest addition

MAP or Minor Attracted People/Person, just a modern way of saying pedophile, is currently on the rise and on their way to be accepted into the LGBT+ community. Not only that this “movement” suddenly appears, but Netflix decided to drop their poster of “Cuties” about children wearing inappropriate clothes doing inappropriate poses too just days between the MAP movement, might as well say that they support pedophilia. Even 4chan refuses to allow any posts about it.

Source(s): [YouTube | Reddit P1 / P2]

That’s it for our recap of August 2020, folks! Stay safe and have a great September 👋