A Microblog in Plain HTML

(#59)

#politics when politickers use "anti-"

I don't pay much attention to war as war is a topic that will be lied about. The government and military will be the primary source, and they will garner as much public support for their side otherwise the war effort loses volunteers or funding.

Now, there is a new war in Israel or Palestine, and plenty of political groups root for one of either sides.

So a word I came across is "anti-semitism".

I ended up reading "anti-semitism" as "to be opposed to the socio-political or economic interests of the Semitic people". There should be no problem in being "anti-semitic" under that definition because everyone's interests won't always line up with that community. Eventually, on some issue groups will be in disagreement.

"Should my country entrench itself deeper into debt to send more money than most will see in a lifetime to a foreign government?"

"Should I and my communities incur all economic consequences (e.g affordability of housing, education, healthcare, and anything that can't be outsourced) of that action?"

But usually, the word "anti-semitic" bears a connotation of being a criminal.

To label in such a way is an accusation that deprives the target of their boundaries and puts them under undue scrutiny like a defendant under trial; it is a distraction that guides the discussion away from the issue towards the accused's moral character. So "anti-" isn't a prefix that I consider much worth. The same goes for "-ist" or "-phobe".

(#58)

(#57)

#programming #surf

Yesterday, I got a pull request (woohoo!). I took a peek at the commits and found an unfamiliar domain name.

https://leprd.space/

It looks like another static website host (like neocities) that additionally provides an e-mail address. I don't see an Explore page, but I'd like to discover more hobbyist sites from there.

As for the content of the pull request, I discovered semantic HTML which seem to be for screen readers. I don't have any experience using them and I'm having trouble getting one to work. Still, I support having an accessible default template. Maybe I can link to the old version of the default template for retro computers running very old browsers that don't support those tags.

(#56)

#programming

Pushed a new commit to the microblog generator. Previously, it required pycurl (to upload to neocities) and urllib.request (to fetch json). Now it just has pycurl to do both.

In the process, I was reading

https://pycurl.io/docs/latest/quickstart.html#examining-response-headers

But instead of writing a function to discern encoding, this post following the same variable names as the documented example. I basically invoked buffer.getvalue() to satisfy a parameter for json.loads() and save effort.

Wonder if that breaks in other cases, but it hasn't yet for me. (Not merging the branch to master yet either.)

(#55)

#neocities #programming

I read Qualities of Good Software by sundee

https://sundee.neocities.org/qualitysoftware/index.html

https://neocities.org/site/sundee?event_id=2771917

One thing this page reminds me of is that it's easier to get feedback on fanfiction than it is to get feedback on a program. So what's good for user experience isn't as obvious as what's good in writing.

There are many points I agree on. A really good example is how Photoshop (and GIMP) toolbox icons are grey when it would be much easier to pick tools if they had distinct colors. Though I think if followed it 100% e.g "As many options as possible", my code is going to get real unreadable and ugly; I write lots of if-else statements for configuration.

(#54)

#surf

I heard about Reddit's recent changes to charge a fee for API access. This means applications like teddit will break. (Shucks because teddit has been giving me error 429)

Here is one of the discussions on the topic I've come across. One of the comment that got me thinking the most is the last one. I don't want to scuffle online with that person, and now, the things I think in response don't fit in the "span" of a discussion (like attention span).

https://freepo.st/post/0X8cVr39XT#comments

Whenever a tech company strong-arms its userbase, a reoccurring theme I find in alt-communities is how the general public endures the new changes which then become a norm for the worse in practice and ethics. I find comments (like in the link) characterizing the general public as apathetic, indifferent, or sometimes as sheeple.

But I don't think that's the case.

There are plenty of forums with similar functionality as reddit. An example is Saidit, but I don't go on the internet to read headlines and aggrieved political whining. I can try to use Saidit to talk about hobbies and writing, but I'm unlikely to get any responses because the community of Saidit is set on a different range of topics. Similarly, Freepost focuses on technology.

Conclusion? Linking externally to news articles is no substitution for community building.

(#53)

I'm going to open a tag for interesting articles I've found on #neocities starting with the articles I recently commented on.

https://temora.neocities.org/a/sentropy

https://neocities.org/site/temora?event_id=2707795

This article is about Sentropy, an automated abuse detection and removal system for social media sites. The company uses an algorithm and artificial intelligence to analyze and pre-emptively remove "harmful content" for their clients.

This might sound positive to those ignorant of what may qualify or be omitted as "harmful content", but a legitimate concern is corporate and government interests getting between online interactions and real friendships. The author also did a great job of archiving articles published about Sentropy.

(#52)

#neocities

I saw my website reached 100k hits on Thursday, but didn't quite have the time to post about it. The last few thousands have been a crawl, but my site seems to get about 200-300 hits per day even if I don't update.

The only explanation I can think of is a decent placement on a tag/category on neocities. But even as I have a bunch of hits, I feel like I don't know most of the people who visit my site. Regardless, thanks for visiting.

(#51)

#politics

I heard about the OceanGate submarine, and lol at the countdowns and the media chatting about the oxygen left.

example:

https://archive.is/https://twitter.com/TitanicSub/status/1671533432042840064

When the US Navy already knew it imploded on Sunday (18th) and only revealed so Thursday (22nd), the same day oxygen would have run out.

https://archive.is/https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-us-navy-detected-titan-implosion-on-sunday-but-biden-admin-only-released-news-on-thursday-after-hunter-plea-deal-and-whistleblower-reports-released

Not sure if this can be considered "leading the public on" or "breadcrumbing". I need new words for the bullshit that happens in the public sphere. But TIL navies plant underwater microphones in the ocean to listen for torpedoes.

(#50)

#microfic #programming

"I got an idea to package my microblog generator on PyPi."

https://pypi.org/

I said that to my friend over an instant messenger.

The chat client I used had event notifications, and so the bottom of the terminal reported he was typing a response. But he took an extra minute of contemplation before he entered.

"lol

"how would you like 200 issues on your repository?

"from confused people who never read your instructions or documentation"

(#49)

#surf rant

I check the neocities subreddit from time to time. I get over-optimistic in that I might find like-minded people who (1) have the same hobby of building a static website, (2) have preferences leaning towards the old web. But every time I visit, I get disappointed.

https://teddit.net/r/neocities

Every time someone asks why their visit counter doesn't work and dumps their blob of html with an embedded third party script. I keep thinking:

"Neocities already gives you a visit counter on your profile. Why would you want that?"

Thinking a little more on various points, I find that nostalgia is not only guiding to re-create an approximation of the old web, not bounded by the older technology and limitations that define the old web, but also to re-create the mistakes of the old web such as overembellished pages that take too long to load or are plain unreadable.

Also turning the neocities subreddit into some HTML and CSS help desk is probably the worst idea the sub's moderators had. StackOverflow has both a better format and better answers. If the userbase knew the keywords to their problems, there would be no reason to ask for help on reddit.

(I find that taking advice from that subreddit is like the equivalent of asking a boomer for information on fertilizing a garden. In which the answer will usually be to buy "miracle grow" or some product without any thought on what was added to the soil before. And elsewhere is documented which kitchen scraps augment with what element, carrying a neglible risk of nitrogen burning the plants.)

(#48)

(#47)

(#46)

I take back what I said about Charles from #metalocalypse possibly working as a CPA or tax accountant before becoming the manager of Dethklok. I now see him as working as a lawyer at an insurance company. Nathan crashed his car while listening to his own music and met Charles.

(#45)

#test #surf

I made a new navigation bar even though I thought the old one is okay.

Why:

https://website.grader.com/tests/likho.neocities.org

Originally, the results gave me great marks for performance and security. (Can't get any more secure than absolutely no javascripts.) But I got docked down for mobile and "search engine optimization". For the former, I was apparently lacking "tap targets".

I've opened my own site on a phone before and didn't think there was any issue. (And I mistap things on small touchscreens plenty of times.)

With the new navigation bar, it should be even harder to accidentally tap on the wrong links.

Just for that I now have 30/30 on design for mobile as far as the website grader is concerned. But I only applied the new navigation bar to the index page.

I had fun making a new design, but I'm not sure if I like it yet.

(#44)

(#43)

(#42)

#__pages__ #metalocalypse #fanfic

title: Pillowklok

Dethklok is a melodeath band that saw phenomenal success and the celebrity spotlight cast upon them. They discover their manager has fans too and decide to adjust a day dedicated to the fans accordingly.

https://likho.neocities.org/pages/pillowklok/ch1.html

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44263336

200 hits on Ao3! I know those are small-time numbers. Given the size of the fandom and general low interest in non-romantic fiction, I consider that an accomplishment.

(#41)

#original-work that started as #ainokusabi #fanfic

While it isn't writing I am proud of anymore, I did bother to typeset Mnemosyne's Heretic. With a home printer, some printer paper, two staples, and scotch tape (to reinforce the spine), I printed a physical copy of Mnemosyne's Heretic for myself. These are the photos I've taken.

(#40)

#programming #test

New update for microblog.py: image thumbnails.

For the entire time I've been posting screenshots of cartoons. Usually, the file sizes are small as is. For photographs and video game screenshots, however, posting too many images on one page will impact loading times (not good). So now, the mini-galleries in each post can now support paths to thumbnails.

microblog.py remains as a page generator and doesn't manage images, so I use another program to resize. Example:

https://imagemagick.org/Usage/resize/#percent

microblog.py