Tidbits from Brian - Issue #47

Our healthcare system in the US is a joke. 🏥

Aug 29, 2025

Living with an autoimmune disease, things can occasionally get out of hand. I’ve been fine for a few years, but back in May, I had to go to the emergency room. I tried everything before making the trip. Which was probably part of the problem, as I ended up waiting too long. But my family convinced me to go in. 😅

This wasn’t my first ER visit, but I always forget just how bad our healthcare system is here in the US. From the wait times, quality of care, and cost. One emergency room visit was a whopping $14,267.90. Thankfully, I have good health insurance (which isn’t cheap), but this is insane. 😮

To add insult to injury, my health insurance provider just pulled out of Arizona, leaving me and around 60,000 other Arizonians scrambling to find a new provider. To put it in perspective for those outside the US, the average annual cost of a family health insurance policy in 2024 was $25,572. 💰 It’s cheaper if you work for a big company with its own plans, but many small businesses and self-employed folks don’t have this luxury.

We also have this ridiculous system of PPO vs HMO plans. PPO plans are like flexing a Black American Express card. You can see any doctor you want right away, even out of network. HMO plans (the affordable ones) mean you have to get a referral first to see the doctor you want, and then they limit where you can go.

This isn’t about politics either. The healthcare system in the US has been broken for decades, and the cost of health insurance keeps going up regardless of who is in office. Something definitely needs to change, as this isn’t sustainable. We need a complete reset. 🙃

Updates ✍️

We pushed out a couple of updates for our Perfmatters WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:

New WP-CLI subcommands: clear-minified-js, clear-minified-css, and clear-local-fonts.
Added support to enable and disable the clean uninstall option in WP-CLI.

Added support for targeting header element when using parent selector matching functions.
Added built-in stylesheet exclusion for Bricks layer stylesheets.
Added a built-in Script Manager rule to prevent dashicons from being dequeued when logged in.
Adjusted emoji_svg_url filter to only return false outside the admin dashboard.
Updated early hint attribute check to include sizes and media attributes. ⚡
Updated delay JS quick exclusion for Bricks to include splide.
Updated delay JS quick exclusion for CookieYes to be more compatible.
Updated CSS parsing library to the latest version (8.9.0). New features, deprecation removals, and bug fixes.
Updated deprecated function in CSS class to use current method.
Updated minification library to the latest version (1.3.75).
Updated minimum PHP version requirement to 7.2.
Updated our staging site license key exception list with additional formats (.mystagingwebsite.com for Pressable hosting and stg.*). 🔑
Fixed a WP-CLI issue where license activation and deactivation subcommands were not working correctly.
Translation updates.

We also pushed out an update for our Novashare WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:

New AI share buttons for ChatGPT, Grok, and Perplexity, which link to a prompt that will summarize the shared post’s content. 🤖

New follow button for Nextdoor.
Updated Nextdoor brand colors. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑
Adjusted copy button URL to work with the existing novashare_permalink filter when displayed on single posts.
Fixed multiple PHP warnings coming from the follow widget class.
Fixed an issue where floating bar icons were not centering properly when fill available space option was being used. 📏
Reverted Facebook share button mobile URL to use web link to be more compatible with all platforms.
Updated our staging site license key exception list with additional formats (*.mystagingwebsite.com for Pressable hosting and stg.*). 🔑

Interesting things 🔎

Misc.

I’m a fan of backup services like Backblaze, because iCloud is not technically an off-site backup; it’s a sync. A new Mac app called Parachute Backup was recently released. It automatically backs up iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, and your Apple Music library to your own storage (external hard drive, SSD, or even another cloud). It’s a one-time purchase, no monthly subscription. Worth checking out!
Proton has launched Proton Authenticator, a free, open-source 2FA app with multiple sync options: Proton account, iCloud, or local. It’s available on all platforms. 🔒
How Apple AirPods work. The engineering behind these is mind-boggling!
This infamous people search site is back after leaking 3 billion records. See how to remove your data from it ASAP.
I never knew about this secondary time zone trick in Google Calendar. Definitely handy when traveling. 📅
Snagit 2025.3.0 was released, and large .snagx files now save up to 2x faster.
I’m not a huge gamer, but I grew up playing Battlefield. The last few have been flops. I recently tried the Battlefield 6 beta, and it was amazing. Excited for the release in October! Check out the trailer.
If you like The Midnight, this new song, “Summers Ending Soon,” is an instant classic. They are coming back to their roots. 🎙️

WordPress

Enjoyed this sitdown with WPLegends! We talk work-life balance, WordPress plugins, SEO landscape, and even Netflix recommendations. 😄
Activity Log Pro has launched on the WordPress repository! It’s a new activity monitoring and audit log plugin for WordPress. Track user actions, system changes, and security events with a clean UI and GDPR-ready features like IP anonymization and retention controls.
Ever wonder how themes and page builders stack up when it comes to accessibility? Check out this in-depth report from Equalize Digital.
There is a new editorial experience coming to WordPress. Have you seen it? It looks interesting, but I don’t like it being mixed in with regular comments.
Rocket.net joins hosting.com (previously A2 Hosting). Talk about an interesting and exciting combination. Definitely didn’t see this one coming. I personally love working with Rocket.net clients, as it makes my job much easier.
Enjoyed this post from OpenChannels.fm on how to handle customer support as a growing WordPress plugin business.
The Simple Cloudflare Turnstile plugin got hit with a trademark violation. 😢 Looks like he might have to rename the plugin.
Patchstack found that 87.8% of vulnerability exploits bypassed hosting defenses.
When folks ask me if they should use WordPress or another solution for their business. This is how I feel. 👇

Marketing

Ever have a Gmail thread with a ton of responses, and it starts to slow down your browser almost to the point of crashing? 🐌 You can delete the trimmed content altogether. Simply press the arrow key down until it lands on the three dots. Then hit delete on your keyboard. You can’t click on it; otherwise, it will expand the trimmed content. And voila, super speedy again (minus the history)!
Google is rolling out the August 2025 spam update.

Performance

Heads up. Cloudflare Mirage is being deprecated and will be removed on September 15, 2025. 🪦
I published a doc on our site with a bunch of image optimization tips. I’ll keep compiling things here, so perhaps a good one to bookmark.
Kadence Blocks is currently beta testing some awesome new performance features! ⚡
- Lazy load background images
- Smart image optimization (show the right size based on the screen)
- Lazy load HTML below the fold
2025 Core Web Vitals challenge: WordPress versus everyone else. 🫣
You’re loading fonts wrong (and it’s crippling your performance).

AI

Grammarly says its AI agent can predict an A paper. I can’t imagine what teachers must be going through these days. I grew up rewriting snippets from SparkNotes, hoping to get a good grade with the least amount of work. 😅
OpenAI released GPT-5, featuring state-of-the-art performance across coding, math, writing, health, visual perception, and more.
xAI released Grok Code Fast 1, a speedy and economical reasoning model that excels at agentic coding.