A Microblog in Plain HTML

#programming curl python pycurl

I decided to write a script to make page updates easier. I don't use cURL often, so I closely followed the example on neocities API documentation. It worked, but when I tried scripting it, I kept getting "file not found errors" such as:

 cURL Error 26: Failed to open/read local data from file/application
 

Explanation: https://github.com/curl/curl/blob/master/include/curl/curl.h#L527

I was uploading files like:

 curl -F "/apitest/tags/latest.html=@./tags/test/latest.html" "http‎s://USER:PASS@neocities.org/api/upload"
 

The proper way to upload files in other directories is:

 curl -F "/apitest/tags/latest.html=@tags/test/latest.html" "http‎s://USER:PASS@neocities.org/api/upload"
 

Most examples of using curl don't involve files in other directories.

What a funny thing to get stuck on.

#invidious #politics global protests

I watched

There is a 'deafening media silence' on global protests

https://invidious.tiekoetter.com/watch?v=lG660H1JjWU

@ 9:00

This has always been a problem for the left. The left always thought particularly it would happen in the 60s and 70s. Once the left was taken over by the academic left, (...), they claim that they speak for the working class. They got frustrated because it turns out that the working class people, most of them, are not interested in "the great revolution". They want affordable energy. They want affordable food. Good public schools. They want limited immigration. They want to maintain their culture and national identity. They wanted to maintain all those things that the left always tells them that they shouldn't.

Often, I notice opposition to immigration is dismissed as racist. If not, the opponents to immigration are otherwise portrayed as lazy or incompetent; the kind that will be displaced from their occupations by harder working migrants. This segment was unusual at least because of how neutrally the opposition to immigration was portrayed. I also didn't expect any media corporation to portray any working class initiatives at all.

It doesn't get said often: the reason why working class people want limited immigration is that immigration increases the supply of labor. Increased competition in the job market suppresses wages. Immigration also increases the demand for food, energy, housing, and healthcare. Immigration generally isn't in the interests of the working class. But it is in the interest of the government (more people to tax, more demand for government-issued currency), real estate investors (more demand for housing = higher rent or sale prices), the employer class (lower wages to pay = higher profit margins), and maybe other players in the economy.

#programming microblog.py

The microblog is a fun experiment. Some flaws to using it for Neocities are becoming apparent however.

Every time I tag a post or update any information on the sidebar, I have to update every page. Currently, I only have an index and one page per tag. If this was real social media and not just a page generator, it would be easy to accrue a few hundred posts. With 20 posts per page, (500/20) = at least 25 pages must be generated per update.

Generating 25 pages is still lighter than running a database and a server application; instead of execution per site visit (cgi), I run page generation when I write new entries. Officially, I think I am being more economical doing things this way. But I can't just drag and drop 25 pages into my browser every time I want to update my microblog.

I should automate uploads. But when I update only the sidebar for my older pages, Neocities is going to automatically post a status with screenshots. The "big", primary screenshot can turn out to be some random page, not my latest status.

#surf #fanfic meta funny

https://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/639238233354616832/what-fanfic-was-the-world-writing-in-2020

Last year, I found a tumblr post that tabulated data on pairings on Ao3. Already, Ao3 counts the sexual relationship in works such as male/female, male/male, female/female, none at all (Gen), or Other. In addition to the "type" of pairing, the list on tumblr tabulated the race.

There are only two races counted though: white (European?) and everyone else. (POC = "people of color", colored people; might as well be Korean, Chinese, or Japanese considering the list.)

Sometimes, it is hard to tell what politically correct people are really going for.

#programming python

https://notabug.org/likho/microblog.py

I recently added two new features to this microblog: pagination and taglines. This is also the first post about the script that generates these pages.

When I first uploaded this (the page) microblog, microblog.py was around 100 lines of code (LOC), and I mainly wrote it for myself. With pagination and taglines, the LOC is 300. As of this post, the master branch is the older version and not reflective of this page. So the 'tagline' branch should be checked out like this:

 git checkout tagline

To use microblog.py, the user writes to a plain text file. The script will apply content to an html template. The README file has extra information, and an example can be found in the Makefile.

#ainokusabi #fandom

For the first time in a long time, I decided to visit the Ai no Kusabi wikia. Previously, I didn't consider this wiki reliable; however, it is an honest source of quotes that at least cited the chapter and pages.

To my surprise, the wikia's theme has been updated, and many articles have been rewritten. But the quotes I visited it for are gone. On the bright side, a page that had contained false or poorly cited information has been revised. The changes can be seen here.

https://ainokusabi.fandom.com/wiki/Blondies?type=revision&diff=6395&oldid=5934

Blondies are a type of ruling class cyborgs with blond hair. Sometimes, fanfiction portrays them as family because they reside in a palace tower and share a creator. The light novels mention that there are thirteen Blondies. But only nine of thirteen have appeared in the main series of light novels. Thus, four of thirteen and their names are unknown.

Before the 2022 wikia edit, what this page had done was purportedly list the names of all thirteen Blondies. The only citation was a cosplayer's tumblr page. The titles of the extra materials in which the characters appeared were never given. These unconfirmed characters have been removed in the wikia's current revision. I had thought they were a joke, a fib for extra attention or to pull someone's leg, so I had never used them in my fanfiction. If they turn out to be real, I can only hope the new editors will make proper citations. Here are the "unconfirmed Blondies" with my impression in parenthesis.

Griffith/Griffin Wallace (Berserk reference?)

Leon Clare/Claire (Resident Evil reference?)

Sieg/Zeke Bell/Belle (Zach Bell reference?)

And lastly, a name that didn't immediately come across as a reference:

Rupiahs/Ruphias/Rufias Dean (still weird)

from

https://archive.ph/Vr3xt

#surf #ainokusabi #fanfic reference

RE: Domain of Gaia on Archive of Our Own.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34972099

What were pre-modern methods to verify coins for authentic metal composition?

I had found this link which details the parallels between metal assaying and the methods in which inquisitors distinguished witches from innocent women. The link hypothesizes "witch" was a codeword for counterfeit coin.

https://stolenhistory.net/threads/the-church-inquisition-did-not-persecute-people-but-counterfeit-coins.5472/

Deeper in the discussion, I found a book titled "The Assayer's Guide" (1884) which documents now obsolete methods of metals assaying. (Nowadays, an electronic scanner detects types of metals. So no need to damage the coin with heat or needles.) Even though this book is well into public domain by now, the free copy has paywalled pages. (lol)

#fediverse obituary (2/2)

I might make another friendica account later. But I also might take another break from the fediverse.

I initially joined the fediverse so I could find other fanfic readers and writers, to get interactions and feedback on my writing projects. But I think the fediverse has become more trouble than its worth.

#fediverse obituary (1/2)

https://sendero.social

https://archive.is/OqQBS

admin: mattp

After gnusocial.no went offline, I picked a Friendica instance because Friendica seemed to be the most compatible type of instance. Friendica interacts with Gnu Social, Misskey, Pleroma, and Mastodon with little issue. The downside was that Friendica's frontend was relatively slow.

I liked using Friendica; however, the instance sendero.social was not my ideal instance. At one point, the administration blocked *.eskimo.com for "linking to Qanon". There was no clarification in that *.eskimo.com officially linked to Qanon or just a user of *.eskimo.com linked to Qanon. And I didn't find anything out of the ordinary when I just typed the domain in my address bar.

When I and someone else brought up the issue of the instance block, the administration/support said they would allow users to follow someone under review if the instance block got in the way. It was at this point, I figured that the fediverse has lost a sense of purpose because no other platform requires admin permission to follow someone.

#surf money #politics

I read

https://tomluongo.me/2022/03/13/ins-outs-whose-money-is-it-anyway/

The article has an interesting interpretation of the commodities market (as the price of nickel made exponential gains lately).

What I understand of the situation: a Chinese client had a short position on nickel on the London Metals Exchange (LME). When the price of nickel went up, instead of letting the client lose money, trading was suspended.

Reuters - LME suspends nickel trading after prices soar past $100,000

https://archive.ph/q9odp

TL;DR the author speculates that these moves are to impact the credibility of LME. So commodity exchanges move from London and Chicago to Moscow or China. In that case, the sanctions against Russia won't matter as much? It seems the main goal is so the world transitions from using US dollars ($) to gold as a mediator of oil trade.

Extras I interpreted:

• de-dollarization means less value for the $.
• less value for the dollar means gas prices go up.
• people complaining about $5 gas and inflation have more to complain about.

#fanfic #monnaielibre

I commissioned a French translation for Cephalon Stallman a while ago, but I haven't gotten to publishing it until recently. They are temporarily available at:

https://likho.neocities.org/pages/drafts/1.html

https://likho.neocities.org/pages/drafts/2.html

This translation is by Aur&lie on ğchange.

The drafts section of the site is where I'll be posting incomplete works or translations under review. These French translations are on that section as I still want feedback from native French readers before considering them complete.

#fediverse obituary

https://gnusocial.no (dead)

https://archive.is/ckpsY

admin: @vaeringjar of https://peers.community/

gnusocial.no featured a tag cloud for user profiles and the public timeline. If gnusocial ever obtained a large userbase, I would have a much better time browsing it than other instances on the fediverse.

However, the profile directory was sorted alphabetically which made it difficult to discover other active users. Eventually, the userbase dwindled, and the public timeline was dominated by two bots. The protocol Ostatus was also deprecated by Pleroma and Mastodon, so the amount of interactions also declined.

gnusocial.no shut down in August 2020.

Here were old links I kept on my Ao3 profile, but it's time to take them off.

https://gnusocial.no/licho

https://gnusocial.no/licho/tag/ainokusabi

https://gnusocial.no/licho/tag/fanfic

https://gnusocial.no/licho/tag/writing

#ainokusabi #fandom

The end result was that instead of countering through brute-force and eradicating Area 9 (Ceres), Midas simply announced that their residential records would be deleted.

Without a single loss of life -- they (Ceres) had won their rights, their freedom, and their independence.

Dana-Bahn itself was constructed from military technology not of Tanagura.

The near end of the series introduces a large structure within Ceres called Dana-Bahn that was supposedly pivotal during the independence movement. But it exists as the stage to end the story. From then on, there is not much content to scrutinize for the history within the world. A supposedly bloodless event and a major construction of military technology had me speculate there was a major discrepancy between the stated history and what had actually happened.

This idea manifested in my first #fanfics of Ai no Kusabi (Prologue of Two Opposites and Life In Midas) as the memories of Iason tell a much different story than an online article from Midas.

#ainokusabi #fandom

The platinum blonde Aire. Lean's blue-black hair and ice-blue eyes. Sheila's fiery red hair and amber eyes. Ghil's unblemished white hair and scarlet eyes. Health's straight, honey blonde hair and brown eyes. Raven's silver hair and gray eyes. No matter how many years passed, every face remained forever young in his mind.

When Riki reminisces about his block mates from Guardian, their described hair colors line up with the ranks in Tanagura (Blondie, Platina, Ruby, Sapphire). The only rank not described is Jade, and Riki is the analogue to Onyx in this group.

I thought about this exerpt and the other ties between Ceres and Tanagura. It was one of the things that inspired my #fanfic in that Riki was the clone of an Onyx that led a rebellion to found Ceres.

That was all before Midnight Illusion's translation even started. So it might be one of the ways my fanfic will break off from canon.

Taking a break from the #fediverse

Everyone is talking about COVID-19 even though we've been living with this pandemic for two years. And that the novel coronavirus isn't so novel anymore. I totally understand it and what the government is doing is important. (The last time I had to take a break was during the 2020 US Elections.)

I really wish people would use hashtags so I can read coronavirus stuff when I want to and easily find the niche geek crap I came for.

The reason I made this microblog was to refocus on why I wanted to join a microblogging platform to begin with. And that reason wasn't to get vaccuumed into hot topics like politics.

Think I should do more for videos. #test #invidious

https://invidio.xamh.de/watch?v=AQx_KMoCgJU

mini gallery generation #test

#surf

I read the blog of a bear hunter and chef.

https://www.sitkagear.com/experience/what-you-need-to-know-about-eating-bear-meat

He mentions bear meat is thought to be inedible as a result of bears that have fed on spawning salmon. But I wonder what in salmon makes bear meat inedible.

Test. #test # blog

Got a goofy idea to make a microblog in plain HTML, and here it is.