"You know that reel where a chipper robot voice narrates a Reddit breakup over Subway Surfers footage? The one you swipe past while convincing yourself this is “research”? That’s not harmless background noise—it’s rehearsal footage for a political movement that prefers spectacle to substance and uniformity to thought."
https://www.thecontentwrangler.com/p/scroll-click-comply-how-ai-slop-greases
Wait, you mean you're supposed to resolve the merge conflicts BEFORE publishing the docs?
Huh.
I spent the last few days setting up a new mini PC for a home lab and Home Assistant OS in a VM.
All the HA stuff is pretty new to me, so I've had to learn a fair amount of new concepts and terms.
As a tech writer, I've become allergic to word like "simply" and "just [do X]" in the docs. And one of those sentences gave me a lot of head scratching in the Valetudo MQTT + Home Assistant integration[1]. Saved by a YouToube tutorial.
On the other hand, I loved (and succeeded) following Brian's readme for the xkcd card integration[2].
[1] https://valetudo.cloud/pages/integrations/home-assistant-integration.html
[2] https://github.com/Brianfit/xkcd-card-ha
Haunted manuals lightning talk
I gave a lightning #WriteTheDocs in Portland, and in this post I share the recording and my slide deck.
https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2025-05-16-haunted-manuals/
Just a couple of tickets left now for my Writing design systems documentation session at 10am-1pm next Thursday, 29 May.
If you're available and want to learn how to create docs people can find, understand and use, I'd love to have you.
Tell your friends!
I impulsively signed up for a lightning talk at #WriteTheDocs today. To my surprise, I got chosen and so prepared a 5 minute version of my Haunted Manuals series over lunch and presented it. I had a lot of fun! Maybe I’ll actually finish the blog post series this year. https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2023-08-11-haunted-manuals/
Day 2 of providing live captioning at #writethedocs. #wtd @whitecoatcaptioning
So excited to be captioning #writethedocs for the 7th year in a row! 
@whitecoatcaptioning @writethedocs
Doors are officially open here at our Portland #WriteTheDocs conference! 
Get ready for two days of insightful talks, collaboration, and connection. Individual talks are followed by 10 minutes of Q&A, so bring your curiosity and your questions!
Today’s speakers: Rachel Rigdon, Yanjie Niu, Holly Mickelson, Stephanie Fuller, Janine Chan, Ravind Kumar, Manny Silva
More resources can be found on our Attendee Guide: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/attendee-guide/ #WTDPortland2025
Anyone attending the #WriteTheDocs online conference today? (today for me, tomorrow for some of you)
Hike in Portland with #WriteTheDocs on Saturday. This view from Pittock Mansion ain't half bad. Glad we had a nice day for it.
I'm heading to #WriteTheDocs tomorrow, and I'm starting to get excited! Had to skip last year for Reasons, but I'm back and better than ever! I'm planning to do the Writing Day, the Hike, the whole enchilada.
Who else is going?
Getting ready for this week’s Portland conference, and have a question? We may have just answered it in our News! Head to the link below for the FAQ scoop including how to participate, important links, and more. We’re also excited to announce that we’re opening up our Monday Unconference schedule and are accepting Lightning Talk submissions beginning today.
https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/news/welcome-portland-2025/
I managed to wrangle the budget to fund me and 2 other writers on my team to come to #WriteTheDocs in Portland in person and we are all very hyped. It’s my second time attending in person (I think? Lots online. Time is a blur), but the first for the other two.
It’s the last day to submit your Writing Day project, and be featured on our blog! In just 11 days, our Portland conference kicks off on May 4th with opportunities to collaborate, contribute to open-source projects, and improve documentation together.
Submit your project by the end of the day, and we’ll include it on the website: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/writing-day/
You’ll be in great company.
I liked watching Andrea Kao’s FOSS Backstage talk, particularly the way Andrea talked about the word “content”: it doesn't just diminish the work, it also diminishes the people do the work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmwpPyrrPdY
I took some longer notes here: https://ddbeck.com/notes/diminishing-content/ #WriteTheDocs
Swing by DeveloperHub’s booth at WTD! Whether you want to master building world-class docs or prove you’re the ultimate technical writing champ in our Technical Writing Olympics, we’ve got something for you. Oh, and did we mention? You could win a pair of Beats earphones! 
Get your ticket: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/
Ever wondered how beforeEach works in unit test frameworks? Check out our new lifecycle diagram!
https://qunitjs.com/lifecycle/
People generally guess right when it comes to ordering, so why a diagram?
We want to show that the order is guaranteed, and showcase what's possible when you depend on it.
Thanks to FND, Jan, and NullVoxPopuli for improving and promoting this work! H/T @FND @simulo @nullvoxpopuli
We’re excited to announce that ReadMe is one of our wonderful sponsors at Write the Docs Portland. 
ReadMe transforms static API docs into interactive developer hubs. Find them at their booth May 5-6.
Buy tickets: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/
We are excited to announce our Keystone sponsor - Mintlify! 
Mintlify helps you create beautiful documentation that converts users.
Visit them at their booth throughout the WTD weekend.
Tickets available: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2025/
