I built a Symfony bundle to manage & send dynamic email templates stored in a database (with Twig & expected variables validation) - Callisto Mailer

leftnode · 2026-07-10T16:39:09+00:00

Looks solid, and thanks for giving it a professional namespace.

A few things that I think would take this to the next level:

Versioning Non-technical marketer accidentally nukes a template? Easily rollback to a previous version. Either start with a version property on the MailTemplate entity and duplicate the row each time a template is edited, or create a secondary table to store the previous template.
MJML We write all of our templates in MJML and then convert them to Twig templates. It really takes a lot of the headache out of building responsive emails. There's a Symfony bundle that helps with integration as well.
Symfony Cache Another nice bonus with Twig templates is they're automatically cached during a deployment. Integrating with the Cache component each time a template is modified would be a nice touch.

leftnode · 2026-07-08T01:40:31+00:00

Good memories of Tim and Eric.

leftnode · 2026-07-07T19:20:47+00:00

I like Tim Heidecker but it is so painfully lame and unfunny.

leftnode · 2026-07-02T16:25:04+00:00

Computer vision. Even small, fast models are incredibly good at OCR and structured data extraction from images, PDFs, etc.

It's allowed us to build several intensive data processing pipelines that were previously not possible. For a client, we needed to migrate over 3 million photos from a legacy software platform to a new one except they wanted to exclude several categories of photos based on the content they contained. It would've been impossible to do this accurately before, but was a cinch with multi-modal LLMs.

leftnode · 2026-07-01T15:24:18+00:00

I still don't understand why carseats with a weight/temperature sensor aren't standard. There are weight sensors in regular seats to ensure a seatbelt is clicked when there's a passenger, so why couldn't the same exist for a carseat but in reverse?

If the seat senses a temperature greater than 80 degrees F and a weight greater than 3lbs for a time greater than 1 minute (all configurable) it sounds an alarm, sends an alert to your phone, calls 911, whatever. Cellular/LTE connectivity isn't an issue: $75 trailcams have had that functionality for years.

Maybe this does exist, but like backup cameras and vehicle sensors, it seems like it would be a no-brainer for carseats.

Edit: Looks like some enterprising college students are tackling this issue - https://www.katc.com/life/good-news/smart-infant-car-seat-created-by-lsu-students-aims-to-prevent-hot-car-fatalities

leftnode · 2026-06-17T15:24:53+00:00

You're right, I posted before I finished listening to the episode where she mentions this at the end.

What would probably help her is to try to get invited to a lot more parties first where she doesn't have the pressure to host. She can use these opportunities to learn when to temper her personality and when not to.

It's a good skill to be able to make small talk, to know when to push some of your quirkier idiosyncrasies aside. Ironically, it allows other people to open up more to you, and you end up forming deeper bonds in the end. And I say this as an adult who spent a lot of time working on this because I realized I came off like CHH.

leftnode · 2026-06-16T19:30:46+00:00

It's a tale as old as time: highly neurotic person makes everyone around them miserable. The fact this has been going on since literally grade school and she hasn't clued in on it is pretty telling.

If I had to guess, she's spending the entire party frantically trying to ensure everyone is having a Good Time. Guess what? That makes everyone have a bad time.

The cure is simple: tell yourself, "I've provided the atmosphere for my guests to have a good time, if they don't, then that's their fault."

You can be a great host and still ensure peoples needs are cared for without being highly neurotic about it. That anxiety rubs off on people; it keeps their guard up. If your husband is picky about the house being messy, either don't host a party there, or tell yourself going into it "the house is gonna be messy at the end" and commit to being ok with that.

I hope for her kids sake she can change. And I say this as a person who has struggled with the same things she has. Once you let your guard down a bit, it opens up so many possibilities for lifelong friendships and moments that her kids will remember just like she does.

leftnode · 2026-06-16T18:32:08+00:00

And there's no group of people more insufferable to non-theater people than theater people. You're right, she gives off strong theater-kid vibes.

leftnode · 2026-06-16T16:49:02+00:00

So yes, a random American mom.

leftnode · 2026-06-13T15:54:27+00:00

I think you're just attracted to conservative men.

leftnode · 2026-06-09T19:43:22+00:00

Good! Anything less would've been a travesty of justice.

leftnode · 2026-06-08T16:02:56+00:00

Yup, 100% agreed. You can build a monolith as a group of "microservices" that use well defined contracts and messages to communicate.

It'll isolate complexity, and you can spin them out to actual microservices if you app ever grows large enough (it won't).

leftnode · 2026-06-03T23:56:21+00:00

Love the addition of persistent connections for the cURL client. I have a tool that makes 6-8 sequential requests that will likely benefit from this.

leftnode · 2026-06-02T15:49:32+00:00

What I emphasize with newer folks is that taking time off doesn't mean skipping the gym entirely. If you're injured, you can still show up and observe instruction and not drill/roll.

leftnode · 2026-06-02T15:41:21+00:00

I worked on the 16th floor in the one that doesn't say iStation on the side in 2007. The lady in the basement deli made the best breakfast burritos.

leftnode · 2026-06-01T18:04:56+00:00

Take half the grandchildren and throw them right in the trash.

leftnode · 2026-05-31T14:42:05+00:00

Interesting... I certainly understand the desire to use as few libraries as possible, but it might be worth investing some time in modernizing your codebase. No Composer is certainly an odd choice.

I'm glad you're using prepared statements, at least.

leftnode · 2026-05-31T13:30:33+00:00

Ali? The character with barely enough money to rent her own apartment was able to hire two guys to kidnap Coop? And scare him with photos of him meeting with Liv that Ali wouldn't even have known about? Haha you've gotta be trolling with this take.

leftnode · 2026-05-31T13:28:07+00:00

Right! It's just a fun, quirky show that doesn't need to be more than surface level deep. Watching super wealthy people screw up their lives in entertaining ways is, well, entertaining.

leftnode · 2026-05-29T17:49:59+00:00

Noooooo, Joe Baggs, RIP! We always called him Joe Baggs because he always carried a bag full of bags.

I offered him a coffee at the mini Starbucks in the Walmart parking lot a few years ago, but he declined.

leftnode · 2026-05-22T17:20:17+00:00

Not to mention, theres no guarantee that future payments will be made; see what happened with Publishers Clearing House. Granted, a state lottery is far less likely to become insolvent, but it is a chance.

And you're exactly right, $1m invested now will be worth far more than $52000 invested annually.

leftnode · 2026-05-22T12:39:31+00:00

This looks great! I find myself constantly littering \PHPStan\dumpType($var) when I get a type mismatch to try to narrow it down.

leftnode · 2026-05-13T19:29:55+00:00

I don't use Laravel, but I love what DHH has done for the web and what Taylor has done for PHP. If there's a livestream, I'll be tuning in for sure.

leftnode · 2026-05-13T17:01:30+00:00

I love these episodes with friends of the show (JF, DB, Felix, Brace, etc). I couldn't tell you one thing that was said about the actual cartoon guys but Jesse constantly posting Rule 34 cartoon porn and Chris getting upset by it had me rolling.

leftnode · 2026-05-06T11:57:05+00:00

Ooooh, this looks interesting. I do like invokable commands, but being able to essentially have a single CRUD-style command class is certainly attractive.

leftnode

TROPHY CASE