‘Yoshiro sometimes wished that instead of his grandson Tomo were a character in one of his novels. That way there would be no need to get angry, and also much more fun for writer and readers.’
— p. 77, The Emissary by Yoko Tawada
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Poorly rendered architecture.
Ok, I’ve added the flipflop tag to this blog, based on Brian Jones’ comment on the Hand Job Zine. Robin Sloan’s “Dancing the Flip-Flop” essay was dropped—and this link falls in place as a flipflop.
For H3333333K !Mediengruppe Bitnik translate a digital image error, a glitch, onto the façade of the museum House of Electronic Arts Basel (HeK). Applied directly onto the architecture of the building, the glitch misaligns the elements of the façade, bringing disturbance to an otherwise settled structure.
Yeah, check out the video—the glitch was added to an existing building, as if itself had been poorly rendered back to analog.
I’ve also added this group’s RANDOM DARKNET SHOPPER project to href.cool’s Crimes/Simple category. If my flipflop collection gets big enough, I can see it going in the ‘Real/Not Real’ category.
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‘Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way.’
— p. 85, The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
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‘I recognize her. She was on the school advisory board a few years ago, an ardent mother, heavy-hipped, quarrelsome, rarely pleased. I recognize her, because a field trip I’d organized had roused her indignation, on the grounds that the museum we visited housed several photographs of mingled fleshes, white, cold thighs, blue-veined feet pressing on white, cold buttocks.’
— p 18, My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDaiye
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brokenrecord.elf
This link is a few years old, but I get the sense that it never saw much traction. An elf troubadour, rambling through an endless, senseless disaster of Christmas strumming. For some background on this project, see here.
From 2014, but feels very much like the 90’s web. I think this is a fun take on the hyperactive, head-spinning 24/7 side of Christmas. See also: EVERY CHRISTMAS SONG PLAYED AT THE SAME TIME.
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“Allow me to pass over his misfortune in silence; for in the first place talk of it might dishearten you, and secondly and thirdly, and as far as I’m concerned sixthly, it isn’t proper to tug apart all the folds of misfortune and cast aside all ceremony, all lovely veiled mourning, which can exists only when one keeps silent on such matters.”
— Simon, p340, The Tanners by Robert Walser
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Normally I wouldn’t link to a large magazine, but this is relevant to the ‘hypertexting’ discussion.
My friend Nate first told me about this fellow—Karl Ove Knausgaard—who has become a substantial literary figure, which would normally qualify him to be ignored by me. Surely he has enough attention, what with every major magazine taking time out to heap praise on his work. Which bears striking similarity to h0p3’s wiki[1] and to my definition of Hypertexting—the creation of a massive ‘body’ of text, often as an avatar for one’s self. (I, too, am building a ‘body’ but I’m not sure that it’s of myself. No indictment to ‘self’ intended.)
Knausgaard’s six-volume My Struggle has concluded and so folks are internalizing it. In the book, the author attempts to lay bare every particle of his mind, life, relationships and—where do I stop?—it’s an autobiographical work that purports to leave nothing private (nothing? I haven’t started the first volume yet) and, so far, Oprah Winfrey hasn’t made him take anything back.
In violating prevailing standards of appropriate personal disclosure, “this novel has hurt everyone around me, it has hurt me, and in a few years, when they are old enough to read it, it will hurt my children,” he writes. “It has been an experiment,” he continues, "and it has failed because I have never even been close to saying what I really mean and describing what I have actually seen, but it is not valueless, at least not completely, for when describing the reality of an individual person, when attempting to be as honest as possible is considered immoral and scandalous, the force of the social dimension is visible and also the way it regulates and controls individuals.
I don’t know if this article is hyperbolizing the whole thing or what—I read around some other thoughts on the series and found other similar reactions.
From Literary Fundamentalism Forever:
At the end, in the last line, he says he’s no longer a writer, something he’s since disproven. But there’s something about this that’s like he’s put it all out, eviscerated himself and stretched the entrails out like Keroauc’s unfurled scroll along a shuffleboard table. He’s exhausted his capacities. And I’m sure that’s something that many writers have wanted to do at one point but never come close to achieving.
I’ve (and we’ve) been very busy having the meta-discussion about writing and cataloguing and relentless thought collection—we have kinship with this guy’s work. It might be that everyone is dealing with this, with the rise of an ‘automatic’ writing culture all around. I think the interesting thing that Knausguard offers is the moment of a ‘completion’. His six-volumes are up, but his life isn’t—and he’s gone on to write a four book cycle.
So, homework:
When can a ‘body’ be called done—what are the utilities of this moment, how do you see it coming?
For my own sake, I wonder how I might foment a reaction to the logorrheic approach that offers restraint—my Tuesdays and Fridays, for one—although I still end up feeling thoroughly logorrheic and I think I do exhaust anyone passing through. But: I feel to question this approach (hardly to demonize it) but what could a Reverse Knausguard ‘body’ style itself as?
What does the non-linear hypertext bring to the table?
For some reason, this work does help me really enjoy modern times.
Surely by now you know the link. And, anyway, after yesterday’s discussion of hypertext ‘entry points’, I’m not even sure how to appropriately link to h0p3. Go make your own doorway. ↩︎
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Kids shows are weird. Many of the contemporary kids programs I’ve come across (especially stuff geared towards toddlers on streaming services) seem to follow a similar pattern:
A group of main characters connected by either proximity or “vocation.” No parents, nor guardians really. Just elders who are expert in their field
Characters have clearly defined social roles (e.g. a train responsible for moving freight)
Narratives revolve around characters either learning to fulfill their roles or failing to do so, and then realizing that others suffer when they don’t meet their responsibilities
Are these Neo-Capitalist fairy tales?
I wonder if it’s possible for children’s television to ever be anything but that—considering how much money is required to produce television.
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In this way, I think blogs are a whole lot like essays:
Of all forms of literature, however, the essay is the one which least calls for the use of long words. The principle which controls it is simply that it should give pleasure; the desire which impels us when we take it from the shelf is simply to receive pleasure. Everything in an essay must be subdued to that end. It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last.
– Virginia Woolf, The modern essay
Boy, yes yes, lots of good things in there. I wholeheartedly agree.
Literal truth-telling and finding fault with a culprit for his good are out of place in an essay, where everything should be for our good and rather for eternity than for the March number of the Fortnightly Review.
I will need to read back on this several times to know what she means. She’s not saying that criticism is out of place—she engages in it the very paragraph next. (Although I confess that I am tiring of the constant flow of cultural critique. There has to be more than just that to an essay.)
I think writing for ‘eternity not just March’ could be an expression that stays with me.
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Ok, wow—yeah I actually did browse ‘The Griddle’ from Kottke’s list he put out. I am really into Cryptics and mazes, so we have a lot of crossover there. And, yeah, tacos, sure sure.
Your nostalgia post REALLY excites me, though. Your writings on these links are great and it seems like you’ve seen a lot of spots on the Web that I haven’t seen yet. Do you happen to have more of your links collected like this elsewhere?
As for your projects and sites, I like a lot of what you are doing and I will include you in my next installment of href hunt—thank you for poking your head out. Let me know if this reply is an okay way to reach you or what you prefer. Take care, David.
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A corporeal directory to another world.
In my travels about the hypertext kingdom, I happened upon a rare portal[1] to a so-called ‘Zymoglyphic’ world—islands of Earth ‘formed by the upwelling of molten magma from the underworld.’
I had not ever known of the creatures of this land! We talk of museums, libraries, cataloging and labeling here, do we not? Therefore, I awkwardly flailed out in my typical shock-curiosity to Jim Stewart—the Museum’s curator.
kicks: I recently discovered an interesting local museum a few blocks from my neighborhood after being unaware of it for five years. I drove behind it all the time and would have immediately spotted it had I driven on the other, parallel street. It took me five years to drive on that other, parallel street.
So what are your visitors like? Unsuspecting tourists? Neighbors that happen to drive by? Pilgrims?
jim: All of the above. Probably the majority of visitors are tourists and locals looking for “offbeat” things to see and do.[2] Some are specifically interested in personal museums, natural history, curiosity cabinets, or a rust-and-dust aesthetic. I do get a fair share of people just passing by as well and have met a lot of neighbors this way.
kicks: So, did you have any idea in mind of who you were looking for when you started the museum or were you just glad to have anyone and everyone?
jim: At first I was just doing it for myself, then when I went public I was happy to have anyone appreciate it. Nowadays (after 2000 visitors) I’m mostly looking for the people interested in a more in-depth connection with the museum.
kicks: I love the guide[3] you have, advice for curating your own museum. In a way, I took it as advice for the blog-hunting I do. You even have a section on ‘outreach’—I have a little group of online friends where we call this ‘find the others’—the pejorative word here might be ‘self-promotion’—to what degree do you engage in this kind of thing for the Zymoglyphic?
jim: Very little at his point. The blog has not seen an entry in years and the twitter account is inactive. Events are announced on Facebook and I have a mailing list that gets used 3 or 4 times a year. People who visit leave reviews on review sites and photos on Instagram, and I am on a lot of “quirky things to do in Portland” lists. The place is small and can’t really accommodate many people. Also, I think the fact that this is a physical place and not just an online presence puts it in a category that generates its own publicity.
kicks: Perhaps the museum is ‘complete’ and has no need of updates? Or is it in constant flux—are you always cooking up new exhibits?
jim: The basic format seems pretty stable. I’m working on a lot of different but related projects, such as a library and computer-generated aquarium.
kicks: You also have this profound quote in the book: “Once the museum is complete, it could become a private sanctuary for contemplation, since the museum will be like being inside your own subconscious mind.” This reminds me of the work at philosopher.life—where a fellow is cataloging his life and correspondence in a huge singular oracular HTML file. So when someone visits, are they able to absorb you through this portal—almost as if it is a stand-in for you—or is it as mysterious to you as it is to them?
jim: Very hard to say exactly what other people get out of it. Many are quite enthusiastic I think mostly they are finding something in themselves that they had not been able to express in just that way. I know from personal experience that it is possible to get a lot out of a work of art and not be able to relate to the artist as a person.
kicks: Haha, I love the idea that someone could relate more to the
Zymoglyphic Mermaid[4] than to you. 
Well—and you say on the website that you
like to give the visitors their space to peruse and not be badgered or guided
through. (Have I got that right?) Does it matter to you what the effect of the
museum would be on somebody?
jim: Yes, the museum is on the second floor and I just send people up when they come in (even if they want a quick introduction). When they come back down is when I engage them about their reactions (if they seem open to it) and answer questions. I’m definitely interested in what their take on it is, and what it means to them. I keep track on the web site of all the reviews, blog mentions, etc. It’s especially meaningful if someone gets inspired to do something similar.
kicks: Having lived in towns with small museums, junk art houses, religious shrines—you have given your city and the world a great gift.
The Zymoglyphic Museum. ‘The Zymoglyphic Museum’s primary mission is the preservation of the unique natural and cultural heritage of the Zymoglyphic region. In addition, the museum hosts a variety of special collections and online exhibits related to zymoglyphic themes of natural art, celebration of decay, and museums as curiosity cabinets.’ ↩︎
Creating and Curating Your Own Personal Museum. Furthermore, the publications contains a myraid of other enchanting documents, such as the Museum’s Manifesto and A Guide to the Collections. All very worth your time. ↩︎
‘Somewhat of a spokesmodel for the museum […] its sinuous body and delightful smile grace the museum shop’s drinkware, clocks, and clothing.’ More. (See also: Jenny Haniver.) ↩︎
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Journal-like coverage of early Occupy.
I’ve been both reading Mark Greif’s Against Everything and also just feeling nostalgic for Occupy Wall Street. (People claimed it was muddled, because it didn’t have answers—but I don’t know anyone who thought “We Are the 99%” wasn’t catchy.)
It’s been seven years and I found myself revisiting this day-to-day live blog of the first week, passing the mic between Mark Greif and Astra Taylor. (Here’s a subsequent part that goes into October.)
This author Astra is the wife of Jeff Mangum—and it’s interesting to me that his appearance at Liberty Park later led to a couple rounds of touring after a decade in the shadows. Well, if that was the point, then I’m glad for the times I saw him. Can’t help but wish Zuccotti Park was still a self-organizing commune, though, with its own roving troubadour.
Most of all, I love the description of the orderly congresses:
Noam Chomsky had sent a personal message by email. It was predictably long-winded; I wished people would make the “get to your point” sign. I was sitting close to the aisle of waiting speakers and I was surprised to watch participants whom I assumed knew each other well—since they were working together smoothly—whisper to ask each other’s names. They’re the most easygoing bunch I’ve seen at a protest, and the most calmly confident. Very gentle and not rattled by disruptors. Presumably that’s the confidence of nine days.
Up twinkles, hard block, flat hands—probably too cutesy for most. I dig it. Glad to make a new semaphore any day of the week. Or just fall back on ‘point of personal privilege’. There are rules, but there aren’t.
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‘One day my window was darkened by the form of a young hunter. The man was wearing leather and carrying a rifle. After looking at me for a moment, he came to my door and opened it without knocking. He stood in the shadow of the door and stared at me. His eyes were milky blue and his reddish beard hardly concealed his skin. I immediately took him for a half-wit and was terrified. He did nothing: after gazing at what was in the room, he shut the door behind him and went way.’
— from “The House Plans” by Lydia Davis, p53 in The Collected Stories
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‘After walking through a few other rooms, thinking about The Rose, I returned to look at the painting again. I read the placard again, though I had read it less than an hour before. Everything that is is a record of its process, I thought; this description of The Rose in front of me had more to do with where it had been composed and when than with what The Rose itself was struggling to be. Had the curator lacked imagination, or was it our language that lacked imagination? I looked again at the radiating folds of paint, like rock chipped away by the wind and the rain. Each one recorded the time that had passed while DeFeo worked on The Rose. All the placards around me were lists: a title, an artist, a place, and a time. The best the curator could do was log the facts. Facts are a set of coordinates, in space and in time. Causation, motivation, character—all the rest is fiction.’
— p134, Madeleine E by Gabriel Blackwell
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Sweet ‘foone’ hack to re-sort Trek episodes based on the subs.
Foone’s got a great thing going on Twitter. I can’t quite complain as much about the place when it’s used to this effect.
The script is called ‘SplitBySubs’ and it gives you clips at all the timestamps where subtitles start and stop. And then you do things like… this!
So I generated the Silence Video. It’s 16 minutes long and it’ll get me copyright-striked on youtube, but here’s the first 2 minutes of it, basically everything up to the Intro. pic.twitter.com/mMVuaGCbFH — foone (@Foone) September 21, 2018
Best of all, the script is now out there. Algorithms are well-suited to mischief. Gah, I was going to read this weekend…
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This is too good. A directory. By a novelist. Structural collapse, eh? Damn inspiring. (By Dennis Cooper. Discovered by laurex.)
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‘Logic, [Nicholas] suggests, knowing, is like an n-sided polygon nested inside a circle. The more sides you add, the more complexities you introduce, the more the polygon approaches the circle which surrounds it. And yet, the farther away it gets as well. For the circle is but a single, seamless line, whereas your polygon seems to be breeding more and more lines, more and more angles, becoming less and less seamless.’
— Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler
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‘He was a pekingese, and as such he had a peculiar, droll manner of walking that aroused my sympathy no less than his facial expression, which was a constant meld of almost tearful sorrow and unreasonable, condescending arrogance.’
— p501, The Island of Second Sight by Vigoleis
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‘I had a memory of reacting similarly to my own mother’s breakups, to cutting off my emotions for the men I had once loved or for whom I’d at least felt an affection. Once I failed at such an attempt; I sobbed and mouthed the name of my mother’s ex while a new man slept in her bed. I sobbed similarly on subsequent nights until I had finally rid myself of any lingering affections.’
— p195, Person/a by Elizabeth Ellen
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Ok, trying out an interview here—throwing some questions to the author of a beloved ‘zine’/‘operating system’.
I try to go out looking for links as much as possible.
(God’s sake, man—why?? Who needs more links, I can give you links—don’t toss yourself into the brambles—)
But I love to see the horrors and grotesques—to measure and inspect them. I aspire to be a grotesque and must be very studious about achieving it!
It all pays off when a link like whimsy.space comes a long.
kicks: Daniel, had a few questions about whimsy.space. (I really love glitch, too, of course—and hope it’s doing well, but the zine hits a nerve for me.) So, what ‘works’/‘zines’ inspired whimsy.space?
danielx: I was inspired by sites that have a lot of heart, things like the original Geocities. Also the feeling of personal computing from the mid 90s like win 3.1 and Win95. I’m also a fan of things like Dwarf Fortress and Bennett Foddy’s games.
Not necessarily that they are inaccessible for the sake of being inaccessible, but that if they were simpler they would be something different. Philosophically I’ve read and respect Alan Kay “The real computer revolution hasn’t happened yet” and Bret Victor.
kicks: Yeah, oh man, Foddy. I teach at an elementary school and a favorite activity I do is to play Foddy games with the kids hooked up to wires (Makey Makey-style) so that when they close the loop (by jumping on the floor or slapping hands, for instance) then CLOP hops around. It’s a credit to the simplicity of his design that we can do that.
What do you hope for it now? Was it just a momentary plaything—or is it an obsession?
danielx: It has been an on and off obsession. It depends on what else I’ve got going on in life and work outside of my own esoteric pursuits.
It’s definitely the hobby
that brings me the most joy when I get to dig into it and see where it goes.
Early on I decided that it would be for my own personal enjoyment and I wouldn’t
look for ways to “make it a success” or “turn it into a business”. I want to
keep my work and play separate you could say 
kicks: I like that it doesn’t explain itself. I didn’t even get that it was REALLY a zine the first time I visited. I still don’t really understand how the filesystem and social media inside of it works. And I can’t help but feel that its opacity is symbolic. It feels like a hidden trove - like a person is or maybe like an animal is. You probably don’t care about ease of use - how did you design it?
danielx: I’ve created a lot of different web applications and sites and things over the years. Some of them for fun and some as businesses. With whimsy.space my goal was to have it be a curated collection of all my works along with other things I find interesting. About eight years ago I built an online game development environment at pixieengine.com. Now it’s been simplified to a pixel editor and art community. Whimsy.space is the spiritual successor to that, I want many different applications that can interact and contribute to creating content. To recreate the part of personal computing where the operator of the computer could combine small components in interesting ways to get profound results.
I care some about ease of use, though it’s not been my top priority lately. Similar to Bennett Foddy’s games I want it to be as easy as it can be without losing its essence and becoming something else.
The design and implementation is a lot of custom code and some integrations of existing components. The site itself is serverless/static hosted on AWS with S3 and CloudFront. I use AWS Cognito for the My Briefcase authentication feature and each user can upload to their own S3 subfolder. The UI is all my custom js/css inspired by Win3.1/95. The code editor is Ace. The apps run in iframes and talk to the system over postMessage. I use CoffeeScript for most of the code.
The essence of the zine part came from my tendency to always go too deep on architecture and infrastructure, so by having a periodic release of content it would force me to prioritize only the features that aided the content and not be a system of pure mechanics with nothing to showcase it.
kicks: Jeepers, didn’t expect that. Is this a kind of backend that you would recommend to hobbyists? I’m used to static HTML and JS.
danielx: I wouldn’t recommend going deep into AWS or other Cloud services for hobbyists. Since I do software engineering for my employment I’ve gained a lot of experience on “industrial strength” solutions.
The challenge is finding the subset that actually solve more problems than they cause.
I often feel like I’m crawling around in Jeff Bezos’ spaceship trying to bring alien technology to the people.
kicks: Are handmade ‘blogs’/‘zines’/‘home pages’ dying? Would that be a bad thing - like: is there something else?
danielx: They’re dying in the sense that every living thing is in a constant cycle of death and rebirth. There are probably more handmade blogs and home pages today than ever before (in an absolute sense) but proportionally they make up a smaller part of the internet.
I would like to see more people sharing personal computing and smaller internet communities. Businesses exist to consume consumers, by getting our hands dirty and crafting using technology individuals can gain knowledge and understanding of how these systems work so we might not be so vulnerable to all these forces trying to devour us. The web is a modern marvel, not quite as complex as nature, but it has its own evolution and ecology. I enjoy the first hand experience of digging around in it to see what I can learn about systems as well as myself.
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A compendium of pronounced shortenings and portmanteaus employed in this vicinity.
I very much dislike acronyms—you string together some letters and you’re done. They are certainly convenient when typing. They can confuse conversation. And usually the sound of them is stilted by the implied periods.
A snackronym is simply my term for a ‘word acronym’: a prounceable initialism of a term. These variations on a phrase are much more appealing to the author. (In a way, they recall the mood of cryptic crosswords, where skills and disciplines collide, not willy-nilly, but with blissful meaning and grammar punning.)
Phonetic BPSBF. beautiful, pretty, smart, brave, fire.
From CorpASAs, or: corporatey anthologies of self-advertising. (e.g. Instagram, Behance, Facebook, Twitter)
Phoneticalized ‘COTMs up’. COTM is crontab of the mind.
do what i mean.
fragile narrow laggy asynchronous mismatched untrusted pipes
gray with a little blue
Phonetic HFEI. have fun, encourage, inspire.
(Pronounced: ney-burro.) not an ideal burrough. (Or: nai-tribe.)
reality is darker than you are willing to recognize, but it could be brighter than what you can imagine.
Taking of an antimisanthropic pill that ends all pilltaking.
Phonetic refactoring of the acronym TMTOWDI. Or, there’s more than one way to do it.
talk of and use the little things you want to survive.
Please reply with your own vital terms if you like. Thankyou for reading, as always.
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Phonetic BPSBF. beautiful, pretty, smart, brave, fire.
Phonetic BPSBF. beautiful, pretty, smart, brave, fire.
Kaylee said this everyday before she died. “I am beautiful, I am pretty, I am smart, I am brave, I am fire.” She was six-years-old and she knew to do this. Yes, beautiful and pretty is redundant. 😎 One of many wonderful things about this mantra.
This is usually not said but thought: “You are bipsbiff to me.” Or sometimes I say it to myself: “I am beautiful, I am pretty…” To bring ‘her’ into my mind. Sometimes I just say: “I am fire.” (She is fire.)
Also, if you’re wondering who Kaylee is—the strange thing is that I actually never knew her or met her, so I have no relation to her.
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Phoneticalized ‘COTMs up’. COTM is crontab of the mind.
Phoneticalized ‘COTMs up’. COTM is crontab of the mind.
Much like a jubilant toast, this expression ends an immensely thought-provoking discussion where I am left with much to reconsider. Like the ‘crontab’, a long-running system process that periodically triggers itself, these are the thoughts that might poke me on an hourly schedule throughout the night.
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do what i mean.
do what i mean.
This could be seen strictly as an acronym, however I find the sound of ‘dwim’ as a word to convey exactly the sense of the fully expanded phrase. I usually use it in the context of a tool functioning well in the overall spirit I intend for it and may have to adapt for situations. I also feel like this term wards against uses that would be nice—but would move it outside its purview. But also: ‘I have been holding the kite like this, but feel free to dwim it much higher.’ (So: ‘the specific rules are not important if the wind changes.’)
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reality is darker than you are willing to recognize, but it could be brighter than what you can imagine.
reality is darker than you are willing to recognize, but it could be brighter than what you can imagine.
Courtesy of h0p3. This is close to articulating the feeling I live in. I think I take issue with the ‘is’/‘could’ dichotomy. I am more like: it is ‘is’/‘is’.
I’m also tempted to make it more phonetic, but I think a phrase like this deserves to be pronounced Rid Tee Yawter—or to be butchered senselessly every time.
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Phonetic refactoring of the acronym TMTOWDI. Or, there’s more than one way to do it.
Phonetic refactoring of the acronym TMTOWDI. Or, there’s more than one way to do it.
This is a contentious term; I think it is useful to combat dogmatism. It’s worth exploring other routes even if they turn up as culs-de-sac. I have lived in many culs-de-sac and I think they have some benefits. Extra parking, for instance.
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talk of and use the little things you want to survive.
talk of and use the little things you want to survive.
This page, for instance, uses HTML definition lists. (The <dl>, <dt> and
<dd> tags.) These are quite obscure tags compared to the heavily dominant
<div> and <p> tags. I use them because someone has put work into them
and I guess I want them to survive. They are a ‘tultywit’. The acronym doesn’t
quite stand up under that usage; I assure you, the meaning does.
Some of my current tultywits: Beaker Browser, the Indieweb and Blogging of a personal, misdirected, colorful kind.
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Oh, I haven’t used it much—my two attempts so far have been a failure. But I love the concept of leaven. I’m determined to do better with it. Your podcast is a good reminder.
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Rad color. I need to get cracking on this. My tomatoes are just starting to spill off the vines.
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An ideal: privacy should increase as one goes further down the fame, class, race, power hierarchy. A public figure has traded privacy for these things, right?
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It’s good to be a little ‘river’ of thoughts—apart from the estuaries.
Inspired by the concept of Ripped Sheets of Paper, I began to see a new blog design in my mind that departed from all the current trends. (Related: Things We Left in the Old Web.)
The large majority of blogs and social media feeds out there are:
So, yeah, no wonder the Web has deteriorated! We just don’t care. It’s understandable—we experimented for a good ten or twenty years. I guess that’s why I wanted this site to border on bizarre—to try to reach for the other extreme without simply aspiring to brutalism.
To show that leaving social media can free you to build your own special place on the web. I have no reason to scream and war here in order to stand apart.
When I started laying out the main ‘river’ of strips on my various feed pages—here’s my August archive, for instance—I started to want the different posts to have a greater impact on the page based on what they were.
A tweet-style note thing should be tiny. It’s a mere thought.
A reply to someone might be longer, depending on the quality of the ideas within it.
And the long essays take a great length of time to craft—they should have the marquee.
It began to remind me of the aging ‘tag cloud’. Except that I couldn’t stand tag clouds because the small text in the cloud was always too small! And they also became stale—they always use the same layout. (It would be interesting to rethink the tag cloud—maybe with this ‘river’ in mind!)
Even though these ‘river’-style feeds are slender and light on metadata—for instance, the ‘river’ is very light on date and tagging info—it’s all there. All the metadata and post content is in the HTML. This is so that I can pop up the full post immediately. But also: that stuff is the microformats!
Why bother with microformats? I remember this technology coming out like a decade ago and—it went nowhere!
But, no, they are actually coming into stride. They allow me to syndicate and reply on micro.blog without leaving my site. I can reply to all my webfriends in like fashion. They have added a lot to blogging in these times—look up ‘Indieweb’.
Honestly, they make this blog worth using. For me. I feel like the design should be for you; the semantic structure is for me.
This lead to a happy coalescing of the design and the structure: I could load individual posts on a windowing layer over the home page. This is a kickback to the old DHTML windowing sites of yesteryear. (And, in part, inspired by the zine at whimsy.space.)
What’s more—nothing (except the archives dropdown, I should say) is broken if Javascript is off. You can still center-click on the square blog post cards to launch them in a tab. URLs in the browser should line up properly without filling your history with crap.
I do have some new kinds of post layouts that will be cropping up here are there—such as how this article is made of individual tiles. But it all flattens to simple HTML where I need it to.
One of the struggles of the modern Indieweb is to have uniqueness and flair without sacrificing function. I have to do a lot of customization to integrate with Twitter, micro.blog and RSS. But I hope you will not need to work around me. So that remains to be seen.
At any rate: thankyou! So many of you that I correspond with offered juicy
conversations that stimulated this new design. My muse has always been Life
Itself. The experiences and conversations all around --> inspiration!
I feel fortunate to any eyes that wipe across my sentences from time to time.
Time to get back to linking to you.
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“He never knew he was sick. And he died in the arms of a gal!”
It really sucks that Charlie McAlister died last year. I had really hoped to write to him more and maybe talk to him one day! Back in 1998, I found this cassette of his and it’s still out there! But you won’t find lyrics and tabs out there—he was truly underground. (There is a section of my upcoming link directory devoted to the muckpile of this rambling maniac.) In the meantime, please enjoy these wonderful lyrics to the second song.
Bog Man He never knew he was sick And he died in the arms of a gal! Who threw his body into the bog Next to the rice canal. Next to the rice canal. And ten-thousand years later they found His body buried in the moss-- And his skin and eyes had turned to leather And his bones had turned to rock. His bones had turned to rock. So then they took him to a museum And put his body in a case. And people came from miles around To see the bog man's face. To see the bog man's face. But late one night after the museum had closed, The bog man came back to life-- And he went out into the streets in a rage And strangled the mayor's wife. And strangled the mayor's wife. So the next villager to die only had one leg And couldn't run to escape. And the bog man hit him with a cinder block And a pointed rake. And a pointed rake. So the next villager to die was blind in one eye And didn't see it coming. And the bog man hit him with the pointed rake Till the blood started flowing. Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man. Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man. Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man.
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For the last week-plus, I’ve had The Bee Gees’ “Nights on Broadway” on repeat in my head.
Oh, yes, I had this happen. I was at a taco shack and the song came on. And I ate that taco very slow. I thought it was the full realization of the Bee Gees sound—which I hadn’t ever really ever appreciated before. I probably put in three months of that song.
Do they have other great ones?
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There is a RED CASSETTE TAPE and a WHITE CASSETTE TAPE.
As you may know, I am a former computer expert who has moved into alien studies and I am now dipping a toe—a very amateur toe—into genetic engineering. Specifically, I am working on a new (pricklier) type of squid. We in the field call this transgenic animaling.
It’s not as fun as it sounds. You’re basically just staring at a microwave for many, many hours.
But why move away from the promising field of computer studies? Especially now that multiple computers can be compressed into a single disk? The catalyst, for me, was the discovery of two cassette tapes that I will now introduce to you.
You see, there is a RED CASSETTE TAPE and a WHITE CASSETTE TAPE.
The RED CASSETTE TAPE is reported to contain instructions in an alien language. There are actually two officially recognized ways of listening to it.
The WHITE CASSETTE TAPE is a much longer record of information obtained by extraterrestrials, recorded in the voice of CHIEF MASTER SARGEANT TAMARA CARD of the 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Her account was transcribed in a reference book entitled NINETY-FIVE WATERSHED ALIEN DEVELOPMENTS OF THE MODERN AGE BY DARRELL KNIGHT.
I knew Darrell during former times—we both happened to be gifted computer experts at the same time. The man was a veteran, I kept contact with him after his stroke and I spent many evenings visiting him in his room on the upper floor of the Dalesworth Veterans Administration Hospital. I never saw him use a television, but he continued to use a computer. He bought and sold rare fountain pens on eBay. In fact, this convinced me to resume using a computer for casual purposes to this day.
This WHITE CASSETTE TAPE is a human record of alien knowledge up to and including the year 2006. One of the predictions of the tape is that there will be a massive rift in human society as a result of alien knowledge becoming widely available. This rift was scheduled to occur in 2006 and I maintain that it DID IN FACT HAPPEN—however, not until the following year, in 2007. The RED CASSETTE TAPE should one day corroborate this.
I am not just talking about political or social upheavals. Or a mere rift down cultural lines. I am talking about an alteration in the fabric of human knowledge. I realize this sounds pretty vague and improbable—but try to have some respect for the years I’ve put into this—the way I describe it is: what if previously synonymous words realigned themselves with new words, but you were unaware of the change? I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do with those words that are still somewhat functioning.
The WHITE AND RED CASSETTE TAPES contain another prediction which relates to the Revelations of Saint John, the final book of the Bible. This prediction states that the Revelations of Saint John are incorrect in some predictions, specifically with regard to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The count is wrong; the correct number of horsemen is two. Darrell—again, Darrell the veteran and former computer expert—both of us could run circles around EVERYONE when it came time to interface with faxmodems—Darrell verified to me that the correct number is two. But he also emphasized that these Revelations are constructs of a collapsed reality and that there are no horsemen any longer, for they are lost in another failed reality.
I liked the idea of four horsemen. For some reasons, I liked two even better. So I’m reluctant to go with the idea of none. I’d like to hear it from THE RED CASSETTE TAPE before I back out.
I have said that there are two ways of listening to the red cassette tape. The first is to play it on a standard tape recorder and it can be understood if you are versed in alien tongues. To me it sounds like nothing. I am unable to hear it myself yet. THIS IS WHY I SAY “REPORTED TO CONTAIN ALIEN LANGUAGE” BECAUSE I CANNOT TELL FOR MYSELF. But Darrell could hear it, along with Patty Schlater—a woman who works in the kitchen stiff at the VA hospital—she can sometimes hear it, but not translate it.
The second way of listening to it is by placing it in a holographic video unit. Sgt. Tamara Card describes the curious workings of one of these units. She places its location at a multimedia library inside the testing facility at Groom Lake. Since the cassette tape is damaged, it is not known how much holographic video information is stored on the tape, but it is alleged to contain very important footage of world events. It shows the crucifixion of Christ: MEANING IT SHOWS THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST IN HOLOGRAPHIC 3-D. It is possible that there are individuals out there who have come across holographic video units and this is why I am beginning with a discussion of the red cassette tape. If you are in possession of one of these units, I urge you to contact me.
Now, it is tiring to tell this story. If you are reading, then you certainly don’t believe me and you likely won’t even attempt to be my friend. That’s okay—I believe it’s definitely up to me to make the initial move to be your friend. But I am having a difficult time doing that because two months ago I went to the VA hospital in the evening and was told to speak to Evonne, the woman who acts as the Executive Director of the hospital and who has the authority to take visitors on guided tours of the facility.
Because of the urgency of the request, I visited Evonne immediately and I was told by her that Darrell Knight had passed away at 6:25 AM that morning.
So, you see, my purpose in writing this is to try to preserve him in my backstory.
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‘Simon replied: "I don’t make a habit of displaying my reverence for a great many things. I tend to keep matters like this to myself, for I believe: What’s the point of wearing a serious expression if one’s been earmarked by fate—’
— p99, The Tanners by Robert Walser
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Some nice key combos for the combo-driven Firefox extension.
Having long been a fan of web-browsing with a keyboard—by way of the old Vimperator extension for Firefox—I have enjoyed its rebirth in the present incarnation of the Tridactyl extension.
As I’ve been adapting to the subtle differences, I’ve found myself browsing the complete list of key combos lately—trying to impress the useful combos into muscle memory. I’m going to jot some favorites here for future reference.
I know this is going to seem sketchy, like I’m hiding something, but I often find myself needing to clean cookies for a web site while I’m working on it.
:sanitize cookies -t 1h
This cleans all cookies set in the last hour. Wish I could narrow it to a specific domain name match.
Adding your own helpful signout command might look like:
:command signout sanitize cookies localStorage -t 1h
Never had this ability before: a combo to copy an HTML element’s text to the clipboard and then “put” it into the current tab—which will usually pass the text into your search engine. (If it’s a URL, though, it will just go there.)
;pP
The ;p allows you to yank the contents of a page element by name. And the
P puts (or pipes) the clipboard contents into a “tabopen” command.
(I think of this move as the “double raspberry”—it’s the emoticon upon one’s face when landing such a maneuver.)
It just so happens that the [[ and ]] keybindings work great on BGG
geeklists and Yucata.de forums. This is so much more convenient than follow
on those tiny fonts they often use.
I’ve bound the shifted J and K to tabprev and tabnext—hitting gtgtgtgt
over and over again was a bit too much of an exercise. Perhaps I would use that
hotkey more if it was possible to hold down g and hit t or T in repetition
to cycle.
:bind J tabprev
:bind K tabnext
In my mind, this works well with H and L to navigate history.
(Incidentally, to pop a tab out into a new window, use the :tabdetach command.
I tend to use this frequently enough that it should probably be bound—just
not sure where!)
This isn’t documented very well, but if you want to bookmark a site, you can
supply it’s URL to the bmark comand:
:bmark https://www.kickscondor.com/
These are not kept in the same list as your Firefox bookmarks—this is a flat list rather than a hierarchy.
There are some keys bound to some bookmark calls. Allow me to clear them up:
A bookmarks (or unbookmarks) the current URL.a does the same, but allows the URL to be edited first.M<key> gives the bookmark (at the current URL) a single character alias.
To use this, you must be on the bookmarked page.go, gn or gw—these expand to open,
tabopen and windowopen. (So: gwp will open a new window with the URL
aliased as “p”.)These three commands are created when you run the M command. So, to remove
these commands, you’ll need to do individually: :reset gnp and so on.
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Great idea—using the ESP8266 to hook NTP up to your table clock. I know they sell these, but this is still a great learning project. Would love to see this in Lua or JS for NodeMCU.
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glitchyowl, the future of 'people'.
jack & tals, hipster bait oracles.
maya.land, MAYA DOT LAND.
hypertext 2020 pals: h0p3 level 99 madman + ᛝ ᛝ ᛝ — lucid highly classified scribbles + consummate waifuist chameleon.
yesterweblings: sadness, snufkin, sprite, tonicfunk, siiiimon, shiloh.
surfpals: dang, robin sloan, marijn, nadia eghbal, elliott dot computer, laurel schwulst, subpixel.space (toby), things by j, gyford, also joe jenett (of linkport), brad enslen (of indieseek).
fond friends: jacky.wtf, fogknife, eli, tiv.today, j.greg, box vox, whimsy.space, caesar naples.
constantly: nathalie lawhead, 'web curios' AND waxy
indieweb: .xyz, c.rwr, boffosocko.
nostalgia: geocities.institute, bad cmd, ~jonbell.
true hackers: ccc.de, fffff.at, voja antonić, cnlohr, esoteric.codes.
chips: zeptobars, scargill, 41j.
neil c. "some..."
the world or cate le bon you pick.
all my other links are now at href.cool.
Reply: Picking Up a Kobo
I have owned two Kobo Wifi readers—the first one had its screen cracked while I was backpacking up in the mountains. That was in 2014. I could have upgraded, but I was perfectly happy with that model and picked up a used one. It’s still perfectly adequate to this day.
I use it to read public domain books—like Don Quixote or The Odyssey. I recently read The Adventures of Telemachus; now I’ve started reading Fear and Loathing. I have tried reading modern literature, but the book quality is usually just too poor. I prefer to check those books out from the library anyway.
At any rate, I am pretty amazed that this nine-year-old device still functions so well. I am happy that I don’t need some book-loading software. It plugs in like a USB drive and I copy ePubs onto it. Nothing to it.
Anyway, as a long-time customer, just wanted to say that I think you’re on the right track!