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diff --git a/old/rss/items.xml b/old/rss/items.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1be0ce --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rss/items.xml @@ -0,0 +1,2514 @@ + <item> + <title>Music: A Tour de Chorus</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-03-18/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-03-18/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Sat, 18 Mar 2023 23:12:23 -0400</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>A Tour de Chorus</h1> + <p>I've been talking a lot about chorus on my mastodon, like, A LOT. + So I thought it would be fun to explore my chorus pedals a bit and + present this information in some shareable way, since no one wants to + listen to 18 minutes of audio in a row.</p> + <h2>What's on display</h2> + <p>So I have three chorus pedals to show off today:</p> + <ul> + <li>Boss CE-20</li> + <li>Warlus Audio Julia</li> + <li>Multivox CB-1 Chorus Box</li> + </ul> + <h2>The other gear</h2> + <p>I will be playing each of these pedals through my THR-100HD (see + <a href="/blog/music/2023-01-06/" + rel="me noopener" + target="_blank">my previous music blog post</a> in which I deep dive a + bit into this amp). It's running on the crunch channel, just at + the edge of breakup, with little to no reverb.</p> + <p>As for guitar. I am using my Reverend Descent RA Baritone</p> + <h2>The demos</h2> + <p>For each of these demos I will be playing the same loop (mostly). I + recorded a loop into my Boss RC-3 to remove any playing bias towards the + more warbely chorus tones, and to make it easier for me! Each demo is + about 48s long (depending on how good my trimming was). I added a bit of + EQ in post to cut out some digital hum introduced when pairing my CE-20 + with my RC-3 so sorry about that...</p> + <p>Let's start with the clean tone:</p> + <figure> + <audio controls=""><source src="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/clean.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/clean.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure>This loop is something I had been noodling on all week, while on + my chorus kick. I feel it's actually a decent demo because it calls + on a lot of classic chorus sounds. Individually picked notes, bright open + strings, and then at the end some Nirvana-like dark power chord picking. + All classic chorus sounds to me. + <h3>CE-20</h3> + <p>Next we can go through the CE-20. The CE-20 has 4 modes we'll be + demoing, but there are a total of 6. We are demoing the "Rich", + "Standard", "Dimensional D", and "CE-1" + settings. I skipped the "Acoustic" and "Bass" + settings as they've always felt like some slight EQ on the + "standard" mode.</p> + <h4>Standard</h4> + <p>We can start with "Standard" as it's the most "boss + chorus". Though I personally feel it lacks a bit of the bite the + CE-1 and CE-2 offer. But it wouldn't surprise me if + "Standard" was just a CE-2.</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Standard Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-standard-r10-d2.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-standard-r10-d2.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Standard Mode - Rate 2 o'clock, Depth 10 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-standard-r2-d10.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-standard-r2-d10.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h4>Rich</h4> + <p>Let's compare this with the "Rich" mode. And keep in + mind the only settings I will be changing between these CE-20 modes is + the rate and depth. There is actually quite a bit of tone controlling you + get in the CE-20. But I generally keep those fairly static based on my + guitar and amp settings, and for the purposes of these demos are + static.</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Rich Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-rich-r10-d2.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-rich-r10-d2.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h4>Dimensional D</h4> + <p>This mode is a recreation of the SDD-320 Dimension D effects unit, + later made into the Boss DC-2. This effect is one of my favorite + choruses. It's so unique. On the CE-20 there are 7 modes: 1 - 4, as + well as 3 "combo" modes: 1+4, 2+4, and 3+4. These map directly + to their SDD-320 counterparts, which also let you stack the modes + together. This really shines in stereo, but since the Julia is mono, I + felt it's only fair to use these how I use them on my board.</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 3 + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-3.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-3.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 4 + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-4.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-4.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 3+4 + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-3-4.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-dimensional-d-3-4.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <p>These are always so cool to hear. When you get into the combo modes + you start getting more "chorus" and less just + "width/movement". But these are interesting to listen to + compared to the clean. There is subtle differences - but they're + there! It's almost like it is now less stark and smoother. Like the + notes are lathered in butter, mmm!</p> + <h4>CE -1</h4> + <p>Okay, now on to the real show, the CE-1. Not much to say about this + one. It's a CE-1, you have an "intensity" knob, and + it's so rich. The delay rate is much slower than you would expect, + almost logarithmic. But when you get past noon it starts to get quite + seasick.<br> + <small><em>Editors note: 7 o'clock may be a bit higher than 7. None + of these pedals have freaking numbers on their knobs, so it's all a + guess. But it's a bit up from off</em></small></p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 CE-1 Mode - Intensity 7 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-ce-1-7oclock.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-ce-1-7oclock.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CE-20 CE-1 Mode - Intensity 10 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-ce-1-10oclock.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/ce-20-ce-1-10oclock.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h3>Multivox CB-1 Chorus Box</h3> + <p>The Multivox CB-1 Chorus Box is a CE-1 clone, according to the gear + page, it's literally just the same circuit and components. I got my 5 + years ago because, well, I love chorus. Currently, a part of my rack unit + to be used with my synths, this chorus is just so smooth. But the biggest + trouble is dialing in the right level. You'll notice for the CB-1 + demos it's a different demo recording. I had to move my setup and I + accidentally wiped the RC-3. But because the CB-1 can be a bit tricky to + dial in, it's a bit quieter than the other demo tracks. But the level + control is one of my favorites, as it can add some crunch to the tone on + the peaks, adding a lot of flavor. I am running my guitar through the + "hi" input, because it gives me a bit more play with the input + level.</p> + <h4>Chorus</h4> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 7 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-7oclock.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-7oclock.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 10 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-10oclock.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-10oclock.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 2 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-2oclock.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-2oclock.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h4>Vibrato</h4> + <p>While this is mono, so it's acting like a straight vibrato. When + playing in stereo this creates it's own chorus, the stereo outs are + "dry" and "wet". This differs from the CE-1 chorus + too, so it's like 2 chorus pedals in one. These demos are in + mono.</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Vibrato Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-vibrato-d2-r10.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-vibrato-d2-r10.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Vibrato Mode - Rate 2 o'clock, Depth 10 o'clock + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-vibrato-d10-r2.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-vibrato-d10-r2.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h4>CB-1 Off with Level Boost</h4> + <p>The CB-1 when over driven (just by the guitar itself) gets really warm + crunch to signal, and it's a lot of fun. I usually run my Model D + through this and I love it.</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + CB-1 Off - Level to a point where when I dig in it clips heavily + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-off-with-level.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/cb-1-off-with-level.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h3>Walrus Audio Julia</h3> + <p>I picked up the Julia because it's such a versatile chorus: giving + you control over the rate, depth, lag, waveform, and mix. This lets you + craft basically ANY chorus sound you want. Exploring sounds, I've + noticed the major limiter being the rate. The Julia is just SO fast. Even + at min rate, it's still faster than like 1/3 of the Boss rates. But + the sounds are still amazing!</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + Julia - Triangle Wave, Rate 7 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock, Lag 3 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-1.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-1.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + Julia - Sine Wave, Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock, Lag 9 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-2.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-2.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + Julia - Sine Wave, Rate 9 o'clock, Depth 3 o'clock, Lag 9 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-3.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-chorus-3.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <figure> + <figcaption> + Julia - Triangle Wave, Rate 8 o'clock, Depth 12 o'clock, Lag + 12 o'clock, Mix 5 o'clock (vibrato, max) + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-vibrato.mp3"> + <p>Download <a href="/blog/music/2023-03-18/audio/julia-vibrato.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a></p></audio> + </figure> + <h2>Thoughts</h2> + <p>Realistically? I love every single one of these choruses. It's + such an amazing effect, and I was messing around with the dirty channel + too, which still sounded great! The CB-1 was by no means a steal, but + it's my favorite chorus tone. But it comes with some quirks being a + late 70, early 80s device. The CE-20 is amazing but very much a "mid + 00s digital pedal" giving some of that digital-ness to it, + especially when mixing with other digital pedals. I'm sure you heard + the high pitched wine in the background. I EQ'd it out, but it's + there, and it bothers me. I think getting a CE-2w would give me a lot of + the options I want from this, without those digital artifacts. The CE-20 + would be perfect if it had a vibrato mode, given the CE-1 has one, and + really make it the perfect all-in-one. But given I've had this pedal + for at least 12 years (probably closer to 13. I can dig out the box and + see if I kept the receipt). I got in in college as my first ever chorus. + I was enamoured with it. I'd be on my board today if it wasn't so + big. The Julia is the perfect multi-tool chorus, and I've been really + happy with it. But it lacks that really SLOW rate that the Boss pedals + have, making it a BIT harder to really dial in the CE-1 tones.</p> + <p>I joked on mastodon that I was did this to convince myself I don't + NEED a CE-2w or DC-2w...and now I want them even more!</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Music: Reworking my THR100HD</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-01-06/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-01-06/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>Music Blog?!</h1> + <p>I wanted to make a little blog section to just talk about my music + making. Mainly, to save my friends from enduring my thinking out + loud.</p> + <h2>Reworking my THR100HD</h2> + <p>I have a <a href= + "https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/amps_accessories/thr100hd/index.html" + rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank">Yamaha THR100H Dual</a> which is a nice modeling amp + with two "amps". Typically, I run these in parallel so I am + running through BOTH at the same time. As of late I am actually + considering moving to dialing in separate tones, and using my <a href= + "https://www.joyoaudio.com/product/88.html" + rel="external noopener noexternal" + target="_blank">Joyo PXL-Live</a> to act as a "channel" + switcher.</p> + <h3>Dual Amping</h3> + <p>Honestly, dual amping is my <em>favorite</em> thing. And I would hate + to give it up, as it gives my tones SO much depth. But I find when I try + to mix my guitars that extra depth just makes mixing a bit more of a + hassle than need be. But Mick of "That Pedal Show" on YouTube I + feel feels similarly, considering in <a href= + "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMvhraRDvDs" + rel="noopener external noreferrer" + target="_blank">one of their "use less" challenge videos</a> + he used two amps for maximum tone shaping - which I feel adds some + justification to my efforts!</p> + <h2>Results after one night</h2> + <p>I spent an hour or so tonight messing around with my setup and came + out with the following high gain tone:</p> + <figure> + <figcaption> + "Rezzed" - Hi-gain dual amped Baritone guitar + </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src= + "/blog/music/2023-01-06/audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.mp3"> + <source src="/blog/music/2023-01-06/audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.ogg"> + <p>Download <a href= + "/blog/music/2023-01-06/audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.mp3" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">MP3</a> or <a href= + "/blog/music/2023-01-06/audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.ogg" + rel="me noopner" + target="_blank">OGG</a></p></audio> + <figcaption> + <em><small>No copyright</small></em> + </figcaption> + </figure> + <h3>Thoughts</h3> + <p>I feel its a bit... boomy still. There is some extra weight coming + from the "clean" channel that I think is causing this to lose + some clarity. I don't think if I wanted to add a mix around this + I'd even end up keeping it. Or I would do some heavy EQing to that + channel. Here is what I have dialed in so far:</p> + <figure> + <img src= + "/blog/music/2023-01-06/img/thr100hd-settings-senders-io-img.jpg" + alt= + "A photo of the front face knobs of my Yamaha THR100HD. The top amp is set to the clean setting, the booster is turned off. The gain is roughly at 3 O'Clock, Master at 9 O'Clock, Bass at 10 O'Clock, Middle at 2 O'Clock, Presense off, Rever off, and Volume at 11 O'Clock. The bottom amp is set to Modern, with the booster turned off. The gain is set to around 2:30, Master at 10 O'Clock, Bass at a bit below 9 O'Clock, Middle at 2 O'Clock, Treble at 1 O'Clock, Presents at 1:30, Rever off, and Volume a little above 9 O'Clock" + role="img" + width="100%"> + <figcaption> + <em>Current dual amp settings</em> + </figcaption> + </figure> + <h2>Future</h2> + <p>In the future I plan to setup different profiles between each the 5 + channels per amp - so they're all useable and I can just do single + amping - as that provides me the FX loop until I setup a proper stereo + board. But until then - this is the setup I've been using and I + rarely touch the back!</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>How I Generate My RSS Feed</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>How I Generate My RSS Feed</h1> + <p>I only just now started supplying an RSS feed to you fine people! You + can subscribe to it at <a href= + "/blog/feed.rss">www.senders.io/blog/feed.rss</a>!</p> + <p>I decided rather than manually generating the file contents I’d hook + into my pre-existing publish scripts to be able to generate the RSS + file.</p> + <h2>Publishing blog posts - shell scripts ftw</h2> + <p>In <a href="/blog/2022-11-06/">My Markdown -> HTML Setup</a> I + touch on how I publish my markdown files into HTML for this blog. But + what I don’t <em>really</em> touch on is the shell scripts that tie the + whole process together.</p> + <p>What I have is two, now three, scripts that feed the whole + process:</p> + <ol> + <li><code>publish-blog.sh</code> - the main script</li> + <li><code>compile-md.sh</code> - generates the HTML output</li> + <li><code>update-feed.sh</code> - generates/appends the RSS feed</li> + </ol> + <p>The <code>update-feed.sh</code> script is the new one I just + added.</p> + <p><code>publish-blog.sh</code> is the primary interface, I supply the + date of the post and the path to the md file and that calls compile and + update to automate the entire process.</p> + <p>Without going into TOO much detail you can view the latest versions of + the scripts at <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/</a>.</p> + <p>But the gist of the scripts is I parse out the necessary details, + find/replace some tokens in template files I have setup for headers and + footers, and concat the outputs into the final output HTML files, and now + RSS feed.</p> + <h3>update-feed.sh</h3> + <p>Source File: <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh</a></p> + <p>This script is pretty interesting. I didn’t want to deal with any XML + parsers and libraries to just maintain a proper XML rss file and push + items into the tree. Rather, I just follow a similar setup to my markdown + generation. I leverage some temporary files to hold the contents, a + static temp file for the previously generated content, and at the end + swap the temp file with the real file.</p> + <p>I take in an input of the publish date (this is the date from the + publish script), the title, and the HTML file path. These are all already + variables in the publish script, but also something I can manually supply + if I need to publish an older article, or something I wrote directly in + HTML.</p> + <p>The core of the script is found here:</p> + <pre><code>PUBDATE=$(date -d "$1" -R) +TITLE=$2 +FILE_PATH=$3 +PERMALINK=$(echo "${FILE_PATH}" | sed -e "s,${TKN_URL_STRIP},${URL_PREFIX},g") +LINK=$(echo "${PERMALINK}" | sed -e "s,${TKN_INDEX_STRIP},,g") + +# Generate TMP FEED File Header + +cat -s $FILE_RSS_HEADER > $FILE_TMP_FEED +sed -i -E "s/${TKN_BUILDDATE}/${BUILDDATE}/g" $FILE_TMP_FEED +sed -i -E "s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g" $FILE_TMP_FEED + +# Generate TMP Item File + +cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_HEADER > $FILE_TMP_ITEM +sed -i -E "s~${TKN_TITLE}~${TITLE}~g" $FILE_TMP_ITEM +sed -i -E "s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g" $FILE_TMP_ITEM +sed -i -E "s,${TKN_PERMALINK},${PERMALINK},g" $FILE_TMP_ITEM +sed -i -E "s,${TKN_LINK},${LINK},g" $FILE_TMP_ITEM +sed -n "/<article>/,/<\/article>/p" $FILE_PATH >> $FILE_TMP_ITEM +cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_FOOTER >> $FILE_TMP_ITEM + +# Prepend Item to items list and overwrite items file w/ prepended item +## In order to "prepend" the item (so it's on top of the others) +## We need to concat the tmp item file with the existing list, then +## we can push the contents over the existing file +## We use cat -s to squeeze the blank lines +cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT >> $FILE_TMP_ITEM +cat -s $FILE_TMP_ITEM > $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT + +# Push items to TMP FEED +cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT >> $FILE_TMP_FEED + +# Push RSS footer to TMP FEED +cat -s $FILE_RSS_FOOTER >> $FILE_TMP_FEED +echo $FILE_TMP_FEED + +# Publish feed +cat -s $FILE_TMP_FEED > $FILE_RSS_OUTPUT + +echo "Finished generating feed" +</code></pre> + <p>Some key takeaways are:</p> + <ol> + <li>sed lets you do regex with delimiters that AREN’T <code>/</code> so + you can substitute something that shouldn’t actually ever show up in + your regex. For me that is <code>~</code>.</li> + <li>I always forget you can use sed to extract between tokens - which + is how I get the CDATA for the RSS: <code>sed -n + "/<article>/,/<\/article>/p"</code></li> + <li><code>mktemp</code> is really REALLY useful - and I feel is under + utilized in shellscripting</li> + </ol> + <p>The obvious cracks are:</p> + <ol> + <li>I rely SO much on <code>sed</code> that it’s almost certainly going + to break</li> + <li>I don’t have much other flag control to do partial generation - so + if I need to do something either starting partway through or not finish + the full process, I don’t have that.</li> + <li>Sometimes things can break silently and it will go through, there + is no verification or like manual checking along the way before + publishing the feed.rss</li> + </ol> + <p>The final two can easily be managed by writing the feed to a location + that isn’t a temp file and I can manually do the <code>cat -s + $FILE_TMP_FEED > www/blog/feed.rss</code> myself after I check it + over.</p> + <p>But for now I’ll see if I ever have to redo it. I don’t think anyone + will actually sub to this so I don’t really need to care that much if I + amend the feed.</p> + <h2>Where to put the feed URL</h2> + <p>I never intended to provide an RSS feed. I doubt anyone but me reads + this, and from my previous experience with gemini feed generation was a + bit of a headache.</p> + <p>A quick aside: I really only decided thanks to Mastodon. I was + thinking during the Twitter meltdown “what if twitter but RSS” (I know + super unique idea). But basically like a true “microblog”. And some OSS + tools to publish your blog. This got me reading the RSS spec and looking + into it more - which then lead me down the using the RSS readers more (in + conjunction with gemini, and Cortex podcast talking about using RSS + more).</p> + <p>But I’ve decided to just put the RSS feed in the blog index, on my + homepage, and that’s it. I don’t need it permanently in the header.</p> + <h2>Conclusion</h2> + <p>I didn’t have much to share here, it doesn’t make too much sense to + write a big post on what can be explained better by just checking out the + shell scripts in my git source. The code speaks better than I ever + could.</p> + <p>I really, really like shell scripting.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022</h1> + <p>The hype is real. I only recently wrote last years, so I bet your hype + is nonexistent but for me I was writing that knowing full well there were + some bangers waiting to be unleashed in this year end review!</p> + <p>If you hadn’t read my previous post for 2021 the link is at the + bottom:</p> + <blockquote> + <p>The winner was “KANGA - You and I Will Never Die”</p> + </blockquote> + <h2>The album pool</h2> + <p>As always the criteria:</p> + <ul> + <li>it was released in 2022</li> + <li>it wasn’t a single</li> + <li>if it was an EP it has to be substantial and intentional</li> + </ul> + <p>And the albums are…</p> + <ul> + <li>Amining for Enrike - The Rats and the Children</li> + <li>And So I watch You from Afar - Jettison</li> + <li>Astronoid - Radiant Bloom</li> + <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li> + <li>Cult of Luna - The Long Road North</li> + <li>Dance With the Dead - Driven to Madness</li> + <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li> + <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li> + <li>Giraffes? Giraffes! - Death Breath</li> + <li>God Mother - Obeveklig</li> + <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li> + <li>Long Distance Calling - Eraser</li> + <li>Ludovico Technique - Haunted People</li> + <li>MWWB - The Harvest (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard)</li> + <li>MØL - Diorama (Instrumental)</li> + <li>Psychostick - … and Stuff</li> + <li>Russian Circles - Gnosis</li> + <li>SIERRA - See Me Now</li> + <li>Starcadian - Shadowcatcher</li> + <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li> + <li>Toundra - Hex</li> + <li>Waveshaper - Forgotten Shapes</li> + </ul> + <p>2022’s playlist (+ 2 albums from bandcamp not on Spotify):</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2TCd910OyZcTjQ8l8Dc0Jy?si=efd0dc6286b84062"> + [spotify] senders' Releases 2022 Spotify Playlist</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp] + Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp] + Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a> + </li> + </ul> + <h2>The Top 5</h2> + <p>In alphabetical order:</p> + <ul> + <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li> + <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li> + <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li> + <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li> + <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li> + </ul> + <h2>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</h2> + <p>Some metal infused synthwave, Carpenter Brut managed to release a + catchy and heavy banger of an album. Featuring a few guest performers, + each of these tracks are unique and catchy in what I would consider a + very “same-y” genre. It’s nice having an infinite supply of retro synth + tracks to drive to, but sometimes it’s hard for one to really break + through into “oh shit yes!”. Typically, Starcadian is the one to do that + for me, as they add an extra layer to their tracks through their music + videos (each track being an “ear movie”).</p> + <p>Throughout the year I found myself coming back to a few tracks over + and over - especially when I was showering or doing some other short + activity and I just wanted something upbeat and fun as heck!</p> + <p>Some call out featured songs are The Widow Maker featuring Gunship, + Imaginary Fire featuring Greg Puciato, and Lipstick Masquerade featuring + Persha. I looped these three songs quite a bit. But there are quite a few + more to checkout.</p> + <h3>Favorite Track</h3> + <p>This is tough, as I looped those three songs quite a bit - each + bringing their own unique energy. So I’ll pick all three - my list my + rules:</p> + <ul> + <li> + <p>The Widow maker - feat. Gunship This track is representative of + the genre. It’s synthwave to the core.</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Imaginary Fire - feat. Greg Puciato This is a metal track with + synths. Greg Puciato (of The Dillinger Escape Plan fame) is one of my + favorite vocalists and is immensely talented. This is probably my + favorite because I can’t get enough of his vocal style - the screams + and the clean vocals!</p> + </li> + <li> + <p>Lipstick Masquerade - feat. Persha This is a modern 80s track. + This is what retrowave was designed around and while tracks like The + Widow Maker are more typical of the genre, this is the song they all + are basing their sound off of. This is kill pop song.</p> + </li> + </ul> + <h3>Special Commendation - Non Stop Bangers</h3> + <p>You throw this album on and it hits you with just banger after banger. + I can’t keep myself from dancing. Even as I listen back as I write this + gemlog I am grooving in my chair! Like Kanga last year, this is just a + series of tracks that just make you dance.</p> + <h3>Album Link</h3> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://open.spotify.com/album/37PW0ipoWcjx3APS1MN0ql?si=HE0-siOqTsqVlJrlL9MWTw"> + [spotify] Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</a></p> + <h2>Elder - Innate Passage</h2> + <p>I toot’d a bit about this album, a later release in the year, this + took this year end review and flipped it on its head. I thought it was + wrapped up already with a separate release this year, but this makes the + decision so hard.</p> + <p>Elder came at us with what feels like a return to form. Having + previously released Omens in 2020 and a collaboration album in 2021, + Innate Passage takes the best parts of those two albums and builds on-top + of more “classic Elder” albums like Lore. Elder has carved out their own + niche in the genre making a blend of psych rock and stoner metal, with + each release leaning harder and harder into psychedelic realms. Innate + Passage has this almost ethereal feeling - especially in their opening + track Catastasis.</p> + <p>I think, however, they’ve left the doom and stoner metal behind. Dead + Roots Stirring and Elder (self titled) were certainly “Doomy” and in that + “doom/stoner” metal overlap. Lore, Reflections of a Floating World are + both still very “stoner metal”. But is playing psychedelic-metal with a + big muff automatically stoner metal? I think since Omens they’re + probably, as a band, firmly outside of the stoner metal field - and more + soundly in some psychedelic/prog metal genre?</p> + <p>They introduce themselves as such in their website actually!</p> + <figure> + <blockquote> + <p>genre-pushing rock band that melds heavy psychedelic sounds + with progressive elements and evocative soundscapes.</p> + </blockquote> + <figcaption> + <cite>— <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/">https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/</a></cite> + </figcaption> + </figure> + <p>“Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra” is the track that flips this whole + argument on its head and shows that regardless, they’re still very much a + metal band and one that you’ll absolutely be head banging too, horn up + \m/.</p> + <h3>Favorite Track</h3> + <p>I think “Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra”. A nearly 15 minute track + that has everything in it you expect from Elder.</p> + <h3>Special Commendation - Excellent Vinyl Record Cover</h3> + <p>I LOVE their record covers when they do the circular inserts. You can + display this vinyl with having 3 separate views through the port, which + while purely aesthetic - it’s very nice!</p> + <p>The quality of the vinyl release was great, though I find any + non-black Vinyl has a 33% chance of being slightly warped upon arrival. I + am going to stick to traditional black vinyls from now on sadly. It’s too + freaking often</p> + <h3>Album Link</h3> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://open.spotify.com/album/5XClGjeje4c3qPjbtT898K?si=PFgsT8S_TD6hu4dwbFp3Jw"> + [spotify] Elder - Innate Passage</a></p> + <h2>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</h2> + <p>Her second album in her “Electric Guitar” series - Emma Ruth Rundle + (ERR from here on out) has released “Dowsing Voice” a haunting follow-up + to last years Engine of Hell. Holy holy HOLY hell, this album is an + impactful, artistic, just WOW. It’s hard to describe. I was listening to + it for this review and my partner, sitting behind me relaxing, said “What + the hell are you listening too, this is scary!”. And scary, emotional, + and difficult it is. ERR stretches the use of the “electric guitar” + title, as the focus here is the additional layers and voices added on-top + of the main tracks.</p> + <p>An experimental release that, at this time is only available on + bandcamp, is one I don’t put on frequently, but when I do am fully + captivated. If you like artistic records - please check this out.</p> + <h3>Favorite Track</h3> + <p>Probably: Keening into Ffynnon Llanllawer - I love the guitar(?) part + and the wailing/vocalization. It’s haunting. As a recording is + amazing.</p> + <p>Though “In the Cave of The Cailleach’s Death-Birth” is the /best/ + track. Put some headphones on and give this a listen! Just amazing.</p> + <h3>Special Commendation - Album Art</h3> + <p>This album, IS ART, but the album art is just… really suiting the + music.</p> + <h3>Album Link</h3> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp] + Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a></p> + <h2>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</h2> + <p>This is an interesting pick. Having released JUST in time for this + year, this is an album I have been engaging with in many, many ways. + Firstly, I am a patron of this performer via Patreon. They make music + videos (audio only performance videos of the songs) that they compile + into albums. Last year’s album is probably my actual favorite and likely + SHOULD’VE snuck into the top 5 because of the final track alone, which + was an emotional and just epic banger of a track (Linked at the bottom of + this review).</p> + <p>Celestial spheres is a compilation of 8 synth jams. Jay bills these as + semi-improvisational, and while the YT channel is a synth nerds dream of + these informative performances, the songs stand on their own. This one is + no exception. Using various different pieces of hardware synths, + grooveboxes, drum machines and traditional instruments - each track is + unique while still carrying this /energy/ and style. It’s so easy to hear + Jays tracks and know it’s him.</p> + <p>I’ve been following him for years and really enjoy the music he makes, + and the community he’s built up around his music. Due to the disconnected + nature of the singles (releasing effectively as YouTube videos prior to + the album drop) it’s difficult to ultimately rate these in these lists + since I don’t get a chance to really enjoy them /as an album/ until the + end of the year (the past two times happened like this where they came + out around the end of the year). And on my playlist “Future, Tense” is + present as it’s a “2022” album according to Spotify, but was out on + bandcamp in 2021, and that’s when I was gifted it by Jay.</p> + <p>So yeah - this whole section is like “disclaimer disclaimer” but if + you like groovy, typically instrumental synth music - check it out.</p> + <h3>The various other releases</h3> + <p>This year Jay released a few albums actually which I didn’t want to + include separately. If you enjoy this album (which was mostly comprised + of 2022 music, so was the primary focus) check out the other albums:</p> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works</a> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day</a> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day</a></p> + <h3>Favorite Track</h3> + <p>Without out a doubt it’s Nychthemeron. It’s truly a wild track, with + so much happening in it. I suspect it was his favorite too since he made + an actual music video for it:</p> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka-xE3Qo3dA">[youtube] Jay + Hosking - Nychthemeron (Official Music video)</a></p> + <h3>Special Commendation - Each track has a live performance attached to + it!</h3> + <p>If you enjoy videos - these each have a corresponding YT video linked + at the bottom of the bandcamp page.</p> + <h3>Album Link</h3> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp] + Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a></p> + <h2>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</h2> + <p>Tina Dickow (sometimes credited as Tina Dico, depending on the + release) is a fantastic Danish singer songwriter. Since her first solo + album she’s really found a way to elevate what is just folk indie pop. + Her songwriting, arrangements, and performances are always so rich. She + knows when to strip the song back - like Chefen Skal Ha' Fri - while, + has certainly a lot happening beneath the lyrics - mixes them back a bit + to let the layered vocals cut through as the song builds. Each song has + so much to listen to! Picking out various instruments, layers, yet every + song would work performed just her and her acoustic guitar. I find her + style of pop music to be very engaging for that reason. I don’t often + listen to this style of music, but the production behind each track is so + good it hooks me in. That and her beautiful voice - which drew me in + first.</p> + <p>It’s a bit harder to talk about this album given the language barrier + (I do not speak Danish!) Which is a shame, since her lyrics are often + what I love about some of her previous albums. I’ve read the translations + and done my own as a learning exercise, but there is a layer missing + which is a shame given how strong this album is as whole.</p> + <p>I’ve spoken about Tina before in two previous gemlogs (<a href= + "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-04-27-music-spotlight-awesome-eps.gmi">Music + Spotlight: Awesome EPs</a> and <a href= + "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-05-18-5x5-playlists.gmi">5x5 + Playlists</a> (both gemini:// links)) and is one of my absolute favorite + artists of all time. I’ve been slowly collecting her entire discography, + which can be tricky, given a lot of copies are out of print and the + remaining stock/used copies are often in Europe. (And that 5x5 playlist + is very telling given most of those artists have been featured in my top + albums lists and were winners! Is this foreshadowing?!)</p> + <h3>Favorite Track</h3> + <p>I shouldn’t have introduced this section - it has been so hard each + time! I think the title track, Bitte Små Ryk. It’s got everything there, + and is representative of the albums sound.</p> + <h3>Special Commendation - Lovely</h3> + <p>This whole album is lovely. There is emotion here too, and while I + don’t speak the language its often very clear. But I love Tina and her + music. It’s lovely and hits this spot in me thats just warm.</p> + <h3>Album Link</h3> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://open.spotify.com/album/6YV4Gomk4iy0dUyVqPDN7T?si=e3wO7G3XTI-ZIwhOSCswJA"> + [spotify] Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</a></p> + <h2>My Top Pick</h2> + <p>This year has been especially hard, since I spent so much time + listening to 2021s releases which are some of my favorite of all time. + And between 2021 and 2022 (and mentioned in my 2021 spotlight) nearly + every one of my favorite artists released an album. So I have been + blessed with a lot to listen to.</p> + <p>Anyone following me on mastodon may have seen Tina Dickow just owning + my entire wrapped campaign, but with Elder releasing their album after + the data collection stops for wrapped, that certainly isn’t telling the + whole story.</p> + <p>And it wouldn’t be a top album list if I didn’t mention Starcadian + being consistently in the top 10 year after year, just narrowly missing + the top 5 - though technically, this release was in my 2020s list, as it + was available then, but had since been pulled, and was released + “officially” in 2022. Looking at what I can see it’s the same tracklist, + but the “inspired by” credits are entirely gone from the 2022 + release.</p> + <h3>Elder - Innate Passage</h3> + <p>Each year picking the winner is hard. Part of the reason I do this is + I don’t really add stuff to the list I don’t like. A LOT of music comes + out each year, and I add what I listen to. I don’t listen to music I + don’t like - so by nature of the process - each album is a “top album” + for me.</p> + <p>But the top 5 is usually a mix of “omg obvs” and “yeah turns out I + threw that on way more than I expected” (Carpenter Brut). But its really + always a fight between those “obvs” - this year was Elder and Tina + Dickow. Their releases were seriously top tier and repeat listens.</p> + <p>Tina came in with the advantage of releasing in April, and Elder JUST + released theirs at the end of November. But I did some math on my + mastodon breaking down the comparison. Elder came at us with a longer + albums, under half as many tracks, and over 2x the average song length + (about 10min/track).</p> + <p>They didn’t waste a single second (neither did Tina) but just being + such an accessible album - just direct pure energy and power - BOOM! It + was great.</p> + <h3>This should’ve been a tie</h3> + <p>Honestly, I was ready to call it a tie. I am actually writing this + minutes before posting it, because that’s how undecided I am and how + close this is.</p> + <p>Tina Dickow deserves the number one slot any other year, and both her + and Elder’s albums I hope to see more of in the next few years! Both are + classic albums in their discographies (both albums of which I own and + spin regularly). I forced myself to pick, and just knowing me, my tastes, + and all the stuff I said above - I went with Elder. But seriously, listen + to this record - Tina manages to pack so much musicality in carving out a + unique sound and just amazing style. I love her <3 :)</p> + <p>And if her music isn’t your jam - check out her guest tracks on the + Zero-7 stuff - angelic voice.</p> + <h2>Conclusion</h2> + <p>I am REALLY disappointed I had to choose between Elder and Tina Dickow + this year. Similarly, last year I had Raised by Swans, ERR, and Kanga! + And our winner in 2020 was Bell Witch. These ARE my top six favorite + musical artists currently active.</p> + <p>I’ll talk about music trends and my tastes later on. But I just wanted + to emphasize how much of a banger these last 3 years have been musically + and I am grateful I get to share these with you here.</p> + <p>I am really excited for 2023!</p> + <h2>This year’s playlist (2023)</h2> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4zgdFBZslkcEq0xYFyME7U?si=4bc2bf7d015c4254"> + [spotify] senders' Releases 2023 Playlist</a></p> + <h2>Links</h2> + <p>If you use gemini:// you can check out my previous posts (until/unless + I decided to port those over too)</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a href= + "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-11-30-music-spotlight-top-album-2021.gmi"> + [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2021</a> + </li> + <li> + <a href= + "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-03-21-music-spotlight-top-album-2020.gmi"> + [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2020</a> + </li> + </ul> + <p>Thanks for reading! I don’t always crosspost - I am trying something + out :)</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>RSS - A Follow-up</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>RSS - A Follow-up</h1> + <p>Get an RSS reader and connect everything to it!</p> + <p>Between switching to Mastodon for my social media allowance, and using + a dedicated RSS reader has really cut down my overall consumption and + wasted PC time.</p> + <blockquote> + <p>this blogpost is originally posted to my gemini gemlog: <a href= + "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-12-31-rss-a-follow-up.gmi">gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-12-31-rss-a-follow-up.gmi</a> + which is where I do most of my writing, converting some useful to share + things over here. It is also where the original RSS gemlog this is a + follow-up to was posted. For context, I wanted to cutback on a lot of + my web consumption, wasting time and just being mindless online. So I + looked to RSS to help centralize and solve this issue.</p> + </blockquote> + <h2>Recap</h2> + <p>So I am using <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://tt-rss.org">https://tt-rss.org/</a> as my RSS + aggregator. It’s a self-hosted RSS aggregator that, using profiles, + allows you to subscribe to multiple feeds and have them “synced” + between multiple devices (they’re not synced, you’re connecting to a + central server). I like this because I don’t ever have to worry about + dismissing, reading, or marking anything on my phone to have it still + present on my PC. And I don’t have to worry about feed subscriptions + or my phone pinging a bunch of feeds, or obviously, any third-party + hosting.</p> + <h2>How I’ve been using it</h2> + <p>So as always, please send me interesting RSS feeds! Or even your own! + I am trying to read more blogs, and if you have something you enjoy drop + me a DM or email! I’ll share what I am following throughout this section + <3</p> + <h3>Blogs</h3> + <p>Obviously, I am following blogs, one of the last holdouts of RSS. I + have a few that I follow, mostly other transfolk on Mastodon that I found + had their own blogs. Most non-trans folks I follow are using gemini and + still rely on the feed aggregators for that.</p> + <p>If you’re interested the two main ones I am reading right now are:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://erininthemorn.substack.com">Erin In The Morn + (substack)</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.selfawaresoup.com/">Selfaware Soup</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>Which have been pretty insightful. Erin sharing a lot of US + transgender news, which is good since I have dropped off using Reddit + which is where I “got” my “news” from.</p> + <h3>Podcasts</h3> + <p>The other mainstay in RSS is podcasts. Some even say if a podcast + can’t be consumed via RSS, is it even a podcast? I would agree. + Everything else is just a show. I don’t <em>need</em> the content to be + consumable from my reader, but I’d really appreciate it if were. I am + always on the lookout for more podcasts though. With the only two + consistent listens being:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/penaddict">The Pen Addict Podcast + (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/cortex">Cortex Podcast (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>And currently off-season:</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/backmarkers">Backmarkers Podcast + (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + </ul> + <p>Which has a YouTube video format. Though, I honestly really don’t care + for Austin Evans, I just enjoy consuming some F1 content and pretending I + have friends I can talk to about motor racing.</p> + <p>While writing this section I added:</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://inside.java/podcast/">Inside.java Podcast</a> + </li> + </ul> + <p>I have yet to listen, some of the topics seem interesting and being + infrequent gives me hope its quality over quantity. (And I like having + podcasts for chores to distract my brain)</p> + <h3>Tech News</h3> + <p>Right now I follow two main news sources in tech:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.debian.org/News/">debian.org/news</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://lwn.net/">LWN.net</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>Running servers using stable debian - it’s good to know when security + updates come in, as well as distro updates. And LWN is fantastic, I’ve + been a subscriber for many years and while sometimes (Jake) can focus a + bit heavy on Python news, has been always interesting to read.</p> + <p>This is the section I plan on adding more and more to. I had other + tech blogs that just felt like clutter and were pushing out daily + articles that I couldn’t care less about (opensource.com cough cough). + But that’s just me. Tech news is mainly where I want to focus - since + fluff blogs are rarely my cup of tea.</p> + <p>LWN has some links in their weekly editions for other news feeds I + might consider directly subscribing too, but for now I have these.</p> + <h3>Music News</h3> + <p>Some folk have an RSS feed for their site updates, which I appreciate. + Some use sites like Squarespace but don’t properly connect up the RSS + feed which I do NOT appreciate.</p> + <p>So right now I have two bandsites that DO update it seems (as their + site aligns with the feed) - but the only one I’ll mention is: <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://raisedbyswans.com/">raisedbyswans.com</a> I’ve spoken of + this artist in my Music Spotlight MANY times and is one of my + favorites. His site, while entirely simple, is setup with RSS and has + been publishing his updates consistently. I appreciate this. Always a + strong rec from me!</p> + <p>I’ve been toying with Music Review sites that talk about new releases + in the genres they specialize in, but I haven’t settled on anything that + is helping me discover new music.</p> + <h3>YouTube</h3> + <p>This is probably where the biggest change has actually come in. Having + my YouTube feed fed through RSS has been fantastic. I am able to not only + refresh and not miss any updates (since YouTube sometimes likes to pull + updates in out of order than I don’t see it because it’s buried between + some other videos that I’d already seen.</p> + <p>But this also allows me one further level of filtering on my YouTube + subscriptions. I can stay subscribed to channels I am interested in + watching <em>occasionally</em> but not every video, and keep those off my + RSS feed. And for the “I like to watch most if not all the new videos” I + can subscribe to those via RSS. So it’s like the “bell” but without the + app basically. And since on Mobile I do NOT use the YouTube app (so I can + take advantage of the Ad Blocker in Firefox) that’s great!</p> + <p>What sucks / is tricky is actually subscribing to the RSS feeds + because YouTube buried that feature now. You just need the channel_id or + the username and you can subscribe using the following URL:</p> + <pre><code>https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={ID} +</code></pre> + <p>And you can obtain the channel_id either using the URL (though with + aliases now (@channelname) its rare to see a channel_id in the URL) if + present otherwise a little console JS can print it out:</p> + <pre><code>ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId +</code></pre> + <p>A note however - you’ll need to clear the console if you navigate to + the next channel, at least in Firefox, it caches the result otherwise and + you’ll print out the duplicate value. There are some tools where you can + print your subscribers list into these feed URLs and bulk subscribe. I’ve + lost the link (and it’s what I did initially) but I recommend doing the + manual add at least to focus on the channels you WANT in RSS, since you + can always fallback to the main subscriptions page on YouTube.</p> + <p>But what this has given me is the ability to effectively ignore + YouTube almost entirely. Ideally, I’d script something with YouTube-dl + but I don’t REALLY care that much, and I’ve gotten into the habit of + closing the tab after the video so I don’t stick around and get sucked + into the algorithm.</p> + <p>What my morning looks like is sitting down, switching to my tt-rss + tab, seeing what’s fresh, and watching a video with my coffee maybe, then + just moving on and doing something else. I still lurk Mastodon, or get + sucked into my computer in some way or another, but it’s been really + positive! I can count on one hand how many times since dedicating to RSS + I’ve just clicked around YouTube.</p> + <h3>Hobby</h3> + <p>The last section which really is an extension of Blogs/News is “hobby” + RSS feeds. These feed a bit into the consumerist side of life and why I + keep them separate. Right now it’s almost <em>entirely</em> fountain pen + related (Who'da thought this community would still be writing blogs + :P) but since most of the blog posts are either about products or reviews + in some way, I try and limit how much I expose myself to them. I have + been working on a draft about consumerism for quite a while now and just + haven’t really worked it into a post that isn’t just DAE consumerism BAD? + low-effort Toot level. (But basically, I kinda hate how all my hobbies, + and hobbies in general rely heavily on a consumerism mindset, GAS, and + such). So I’ve been trying to be more appreciative of what I already have + and such.</p> + <p>But these blogs are nice, and often keep in the know about my hobbies + and can react to anything meaningful that’s being released. A good video + sorta on this topic was by Adam Neely(<a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.youtube.com/v/mHoljbkyAEs">Adam Neely - How In-Ear + Monitors are Making Better Musicians</a>), and how his band spend + $6000 on gear for their tour, but what it did was eliminate stress and + enable them to more easily fine tune and control how they monitor + their live performance. He touches on the fact that gear videos feed + into the consumerist mindset of music making, but gear is often + necessary to facilitate certain things, and setting up a portable + in-ear-monitor rig for their entire band is well… unavoidable. It’s + just a minor aside in a much deeper video about IEMs and touring and + FEEL. And quite the departure from his usual music education content. + But it sums up the main thesis of my consumerism gemlog quite nicely I + feel (or at least I am projecting my thoughts into a brief aside he + makes).</p> + <h2>tt-rss - in retrospect</h2> + <p>So tt-rss is <em>fine</em> honestly, I think I need to setup a better + theme, something that has a bit more contrast. I don’t REALLY read in it, + I just use it as the aggregator and then open the links directly. I don’t + mind the way it renders the full articles with images, but I do mind how + GREY it is by default (in “night” theme). It looks totally customizable + and I bet I can download a decent theme for it if I look. But I may spend + some time doing that and try and read more in application.</p> + <p>But other than that it’s been quite the improvement over my internet + experience. More RSS!!</p> + <h2>Conclusion</h2> + <p>I need more feeds, as I do enjoy reading. So I’m always on the look + out. I hate to throw in engagement-y things like “let me know” stuff but + I am genuinely looking for interesting suggestions for stuff you might + subscribe to over RSS. Even if it’s just “this is my webblog” :) I always + like reading people’s things. I should troll the aggregators and look at + folks capsule landings to see what is linked!</p> + <p>Anyway, you should look into getting an RSS aggregator setup. It’s + been really impactful on cutting down on internet scrolling and + mindlessness.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>RSS - A Follow-up</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h1>RSS - A Follow-up</h1> + <p>Get an RSS reader and connect everything to it!</p> + <p>Between switching to Mastodon for my social media allowance, and using + a dedicated RSS reader has really cut down my overall consumption and + wasted PC time.</p> + <blockquote> + <p>this blogpost is originally posted to my gemini gemlog: + gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-12-31-rss-a-follow-up.gmi which is + where I do most of my writing, converting some useful to share things + over here. It is also where the original RSS gemlog this is a follow-up + to was posted. For context, I wanted to cutback on a lot of my web + consumption, wasting time and just being mindless online. So I looked + to RSS to help centralize and solve this issue.</p> + </blockquote> + <h2>Recap</h2> + <p>So I am using <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://tt-rss.org">https://tt-rss.org/</a> as my RSS + aggregator. It’s a self-hosted RSS aggregator that, using profiles, + allows you to subscribe to multiple feeds and have them “synced” + between multiple devices (they’re not synced, you’re connecting to a + central server). I like this because I don’t ever have to worry about + dismissing, reading, or marking anything on my phone to have it still + present on my PC. And I don’t have to worry about feed subscriptions + or my phone pinging a bunch of feeds, or obviously, any third-party + hosting.</p> + <h2>How I’ve been using it</h2> + <p>So as always, please send me interesting RSS feeds! Or even your own! + I am trying to read more blogs, and if you have something you enjoy drop + me a DM or email! I’ll share what I am following throughout this section + <3</p> + <h3>Blogs</h3> + <p>Obviously, I am following blogs, one of the last holdouts of RSS. I + have a few that I follow, mostly other transfolk on Mastodon that I found + had their own blogs. Most non-trans folks I follow are using gemini and + still rely on the feed aggregators for that.</p> + <p>If you’re interested the two main ones I am reading right now are:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://erininthemorn.substack.com">Erin In The Morn + (substack)</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.selfawaresoup.com/">Selfaware Soup</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>Which have been pretty insightful. Erin sharing a lot of US + transgender news, which is good since I have dropped off using Reddit + which is where I “got” my “news” from.</p> + <h3>Podcasts</h3> + <p>The other mainstay in RSS is podcasts. Some even say if a podcast + can’t be consumed via RSS, is it even a podcast? I would agree. + Everything else is just a show. I don’t <em>need</em> the content to be + consumable from my reader, but I’d really appreciate it if were. I am + always on the lookout for more podcasts though. With the only two + consistent listens being:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/penaddict">The Pen Addict Podcast + (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/cortex">Cortex Podcast (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>And currently off-season:</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.relay.fm/backmarkers">Backmarkers Podcast + (relay.fm)</a> + </li> + </ul> + <p>Which has a YouTube video format. Though, I honestly really don’t care + for Austin Evans, I just enjoy consuming some F1 content and pretending I + have friends I can talk to about motor racing.</p> + <p>While writing this section I added:</p> + <ul> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://inside.java/podcast/">Inside.java Podcast</a> + </li> + </ul> + <p>I have yet to listen, some of the topics seem interesting and being + infrequent gives me hope its quality over quantity. (And I like having + podcasts for chores to distract my brain)</p> + <h3>Tech News</h3> + <p>Right now I follow two main news sources in tech:</p> + <ol> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.debian.org/News/">debian.org/news</a> + </li> + <li> + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://lwn.net/">LWN.net</a> + </li> + </ol> + <p>Running servers using stable debian - it’s good to know when security + updates come in, as well as distro updates. And LWN is fantastic, I’ve + been a subscriber for many years and while sometimes (Jake) can focus a + bit heavy on Python news, has been always interesting to read.</p> + <p>This is the section I plan on adding more and more to. I had other + tech blogs that just felt like clutter and were pushing out daily + articles that I couldn’t care less about (opensource.com cough cough). + But that’s just me. Tech news is mainly where I want to focus - since + fluff blogs are rarely my cup of tea.</p> + <p>LWN has some links in their weekly editions for other news feeds I + might consider directly subscribing too, but for now I have these.</p> + <h3>Music News</h3> + <p>Some folk have an RSS feed for their site updates, which I appreciate. + Some use sites like Squarespace but don’t properly connect up the RSS + feed which I do NOT appreciate.</p> + <p>So right now I have two bandsites that DO update it seems (as their + site aligns with the feed) - but the only one I’ll mention is: <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://raisedbyswans.com/">raisedbyswans.com</a> I’ve spoken of + this artist in my Music Spotlight MANY times and is one of my + favorites. His site, while entirely simple, is setup with RSS and has + been publishing his updates consistently. I appreciate this. Always a + strong rec from me!</p> + <p>I’ve been toying with Music Review sites that talk about new releases + in the genres they specialize in, but I haven’t settled on anything that + is helping me discover new music.</p> + <h3>YouTube</h3> + <p>This is probably where the biggest change has actually come in. Having + my YouTube feed fed through RSS has been fantastic. I am able to not only + refresh and not miss any updates (since YouTube sometimes likes to pull + updates in out of order than I don’t see it because it’s buried between + some other videos that I’d already seen.</p> + <p>But this also allows me one further level of filtering on my YouTube + subscriptions. I can stay subscribed to channels I am interested in + watching <em>occasionally</em> but not every video, and keep those off my + RSS feed. And for the “I like to watch most if not all the new videos” I + can subscribe to those via RSS. So it’s like the “bell” but without the + app basically. And since on Mobile I do NOT use the YouTube app (so I can + take advantage of the Ad Blocker in Firefox) that’s great!</p> + <p>What sucks / is tricky is actually subscribing to the RSS feeds + because YouTube buried that feature now. You just need the channel_id or + the username and you can subscribe using the following URL:</p> + <pre><code>https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={ID} +</code></pre> + <p>And you can obtain the channel_id either using the URL (though with + aliases now (@channelname) its rare to see a channel_id in the URL) if + present otherwise a little console JS can print it out:</p> + <pre><code>ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId +</code></pre> + <p>A note however - you’ll need to clear the console if you navigate to + the next channel, at least in Firefox, it caches the result otherwise and + you’ll print out the duplicate value. There are some tools where you can + print your subscribers list into these feed URLs and bulk subscribe. I’ve + lost the link (and it’s what I did initially) but I recommend doing the + manual add at least to focus on the channels you WANT in RSS, since you + can always fallback to the main subscriptions page on YouTube.</p> + <p>But what this has given me is the ability to effectively ignore + YouTube almost entirely. Ideally, I’d script something with YouTube-dl + but I don’t REALLY care that much, and I’ve gotten into the habit of + closing the tab after the video so I don’t stick around and get sucked + into the algorithm.</p> + <p>What my morning looks like is sitting down, switching to my tt-rss + tab, seeing what’s fresh, and watching a video with my coffee maybe, then + just moving on and doing something else. I still lurk Mastodon, or get + sucked into my computer in some way or another, but it’s been really + positive! I can count on one hand how many times since dedicating to RSS + I’ve just clicked around YouTube.</p> + <h3>Hobby</h3> + <p>The last section which really is an extension of Blogs/News is “hobby” + RSS feeds. These feed a bit into the consumerist side of life and why I + keep them separate. Right now it’s almost <em>entirely</em> fountain pen + related (Who'da thought this community would still be writing blogs + :P) but since most of the blog posts are either about products or reviews + in some way, I try and limit how much I expose myself to them. I have + been working on a draft about consumerism for quite a while now and just + haven’t really worked it into a post that isn’t just DAE consumerism BAD? + low-effort Toot level. (But basically, I kinda hate how all my hobbies, + and hobbies in general rely heavily on a consumerism mindset, GAS, and + such). So I’ve been trying to be more appreciative of what I already have + and such.</p> + <p>But these blogs are nice, and often keep in the know about my hobbies + and can react to anything meaningful that’s being released. A good video + sorta on this topic was by Adam Neely(<a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://www.youtube.com/v/mHoljbkyAEs">Adam Neely - How In-Ear + Monitors are Making Better Musicians</a>), and how his band spend + $6000 on gear for their tour, but what it did was eliminate stress and + enable them to more easily fine tune and control how they monitor + their live performance. He touches on the fact that gear videos feed + into the consumerist mindset of music making, but gear is often + necessary to facilitate certain things, and setting up a portable + in-ear-monitor rig for their entire band is well… unavoidable. It’s + just a minor aside in a much deeper video about IEMs and touring and + FEEL. And quite the departure from his usual music education content. + But it sums up the main thesis of my consumerism gemlog quite nicely I + feel (or at least I am projecting my thoughts into a brief aside he + makes).</p> + <h2>tt-rss - in retrospect</h2> + <p>So tt-rss is <em>fine</em> honestly, I think I need to setup a better + theme, something that has a bit more contrast. I don’t REALLY read in it, + I just use it as the aggregator and then open the links directly. I don’t + mind the way it renders the full articles with images, but I do mind how + GREY it is by default (in “night” theme). It looks totally customizable + and I bet I can download a decent theme for it if I look. But I may spend + some time doing that and try and read more in application.</p> + <p>But other than that it’s been quite the improvement over my internet + experience. More RSS!!</p> + <h2>Conclusion</h2> + <p>I need more feeds, as I do enjoy reading. So I’m always on the look + out. I hate to throw in engagement-y things like “let me know” stuff but + I am genuinely looking for interesting suggestions for stuff you might + subscribe to over RSS. Even if it’s just “this is my webblog” :) I always + like reading people’s things. I should troll the aggregators and look at + folks capsule landings to see what is linked!</p> + <p>Anyway, you should look into getting an RSS aggregator setup. It’s + been really impactful on cutting down on internet scrolling and + mindlessness.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>CSS Themes Exist Now!?</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-05/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-05/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>CSS Themes Exist Now!?</h2> + <p>Yeah news to me too! Seems like according to <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme#browser_compatibility"> + the MDN</a> it’s been supported since 2019 for most browsers and + supported by all by now.</p> + <p>This is so wild!</p> + <h3>Why is this cool?</h3> + <p>Well you may have noticed this is in dark mode now (if you set your + preferences to dark in your OS/Browser). But this is cool because it + means we’re no longer restricted to using Javascript and custom + preferences for websites.</p> + <p>I had assumed this existed because sites like GitHub were defaulting + to darkmode despite me never setting anything in like my profile + settings. But I just assumed based off of my legacy knowledge this was + some custom render trick using javascript.</p> + <h4>Still no JS!</h4> + <p>I keep this blog JS free! While not all pages under the senders.io + umbrella are javascript free - everything in www.senders.io (this blog) + will always be.</p> + <p>I try to keep that, not only for my sake, but for your sake too - a + javascript free blog means the priority is reading.</p> + <h3>Examples</h3> + <p>So I achieve darkmode in this blog by doing the following:</p> + <pre><code>/* default / light */ +:root { + --background: white; + --font: black; + --quote: #eee; + --link: #0303ee; + --linkv: #551a8b; + --linkf: #f02727; + --articleborder: #060606; + --tableborder: #aaa; + --tablehead: #ebcfff; + --tablez: #eee; +} +@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { + :root { + --background: #1e1e1e; + --font: #eee; + --quote: #444; + --link: #00d3d3; + --linkv: #cd78f4; + --linkf: #f02727; + --articleborder: #23ed9b; + --tableborder: #aaa; + --tablehead: #6f5a7e; + --tablez: #313131; + } +} +</code></pre> + <p>Essentially, I leverage <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Using_CSS_custom_properties"> + CSS Variables</a> to define the specific areas I set theme specific + colors (my nav bar is static regardless of dark/light mode for + example).</p> + <p>Then if the media preference is dark - I overwrite the variables with + my dark mode values!</p> + <p>Whats tricky is originally most of these values didn’t actually HAVE + values set - I relied on the system default for things like links and the + page colors in an effort to use minimum CSS as well.</p> + <p>I still feel like I am honoring that since I don’t have to duplicate + any actual CSS this way, I just have a lookup table of color values.</p> + <p>That being said my CSS file is still only about 3kB which is not so + bad. And I’ve actually covered most themed properties already - links, + tables, quotes.</p> + <h4>Toggling Themes</h4> + <p>Something else I found out during this experiment is you can actually + toggle the themes directly in your developer tooling. By opening your + devtools and going to Inspector (in firefox at least) there are two + buttons in the styles section “toggle light color scheme” and “toggle + dark color scheme” using a sun and moon icon.</p> + <p>This made testing VERY easy and actually is what I noticed to prompt + me into looking up if this was a standard CSS thing or not. So thanks + Mozilla!</p> + <h3>Conclusion</h3> + <p>Yeah if you’ve never realized this check out the MDN guides on both + variables (I didn’t realize these got put in the standard either!) and + themes!</p> + <ul> + <li>CSS Variables: <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Using_CSS_custom_properties"> + https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Using_CSS_custom_properties</a> + </li> + <li>CSS Media prefers-color-scheme: <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme"> + https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme</a> + </li> + </ul> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>My Markdown -> HTML Setup</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-11-06/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-11-06/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>My Markdown -> HTML Setup</h2> + <p>A common way I see a lot of people blog, especially micro-blog, is in + <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">markdown</a>.</p> + <figure> + <blockquote> + <p>Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted + text using a plain-text editor.</p> + </blockquote> + <figcaption> + <cite>— <a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown">Wikipedia | + Markdown</a></cite> + </figcaption> + </figure> + <p>It built itself on-top of common syntax prevalent on the web and was + designed to be converted into simple HTML output. Since it leveraged + preexisting syntax it was easy for new users to pick up, and is now found + all over the web and applications.</p> + <p>Since I started this website, I had been writing each page by hand + using a few tools to facilitate that - and for a while I had been looking + for a good way to try out using markdown to generate some lighter pages + and these blogposts.</p> + <h3>Writing HTML by hand</h3> + <p>When it comes to blogging a lot of platforms offer WYSIWYG editor – + allowing users to write in rich-text that then gets converted into HTML + in the style of the platform. But for my case, since I self host this + website, I decided to stick to my roots and write PURE HTML instead.</p> + <p>HTML is fairly simple and easy once you get use to the basic structure + of the system. And since I’ve been working in HTML almost two decades + now, at the time it felt like the best solution to make a clean + website.</p> + <p>I briefly touched on my design process in <a href= + "/blog/2019-01-21/">2019-01-21 - First! A New Years Resolution</a> + outlining that I wanted to make a very lightweight and simple website. + And at the time I believed the best way to achieve this goal was to + carefully structure and craft my website’s HTML by hand.</p> + <p>This article is making the process sound far more difficult than it is + – it’s mostly just tedious.</p> + <pre><code><article> +<h2> Title </h2> +<p> + Some paragraph.... +</p> +<h3> +<p> some subsection </p> +</h3> +<p> more text </p> +... etc +</code></pre> + <p>Is essentially what the website looks like - you can view the source + of this page to see – it’s very simple HTML.</p> + <p>The benefit I found doing this, mostly leveraging <a href= + "www.html-tidy.org/">tidy</a>, allowed a very easy to edit codebase. And + by leveraging the existing tags and their properties I also attempted to + keep the styling to an absolute minimum. Using existing tags to enforce + the styling I desired.</p> + <p>Only for certain areas (tables, code, quotes) where readability is an + issue do I setup custom CSS.</p> + <p>Most of this process is actually what will continue to happen but the + actual writing process will be unobstructed by the tedium of writing + HTML.</p> + <h3>Micro-blogging in general</h3> + <p>At the time of writing this, I have no ported over any of my <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://gemini.circumlunar.space/">Gemini</a> micro-blogs. This + warrants a longer post, since I wrote consistently in gemini from + March 2021 through May 2021 – having only stopped due to a long move + leading to a lot of server downtime breaking the habit. My gemini + updated multiple days a week - mostly due to the extremely lightweight + and limited nature of the platform.</p> + <h4>Gemtext</h4> + <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/gemtext.gmi">Gemtext</a> + was the gemini protocol’s standard MIME type. It was a basic markup + language that relied on line based syntax. It was purposefully as lean + as necessary because this was what was ACTUALLY being served to + clients – unlike Markdown which first needed to be converted to HTML, + gemtext was the actual text served and rendered on the viewers client. + You could customize the style of your client - but you could not, as + an author, dictate how your content would be viewed. This meant the + only aspects of your blog you had control over was the actual content + and it’s structure – which for a blog is really all you should care + about.</p> + <p>It’s syntax contained most of what I was actually using here already + from HTML:</p> + <ol> + <li>headings</li> + <li>paragraphs that were wrapped based on page-width</li> + <li>links</li> + <li>lists</li> + <li>quotes</li> + <li>preformatted-text / codeblocks</li> + </ol> + <p>Besides links - it also leveraged the same common syntaxes that + markdown did.</p> + <h4>Gemtext links</h4> + <p>From my brief time in the IRC and in geminispace in general - a lot of + the “recommendations” came from new users about providing in-line links. + The philosophy was that by forcing links to exist on their own line - + clients could configure how they wanted these to be seen and not have to + worry about links interfering with the text.</p> + <figure> + <blockquote> + <p>Like Gopher (and unlike Markdown or HTML), Gemtext only lets you + put links to other documents on a line of their own. You can’t make a + single word in the middle of a sentence into a link. This takes a + little getting used to, but it means that links are extremely easy to + find, and clients can style them differently (e.g. to make it clear + which protocol they use, or to display the domain name to help users + decide whether they want to follow them or not) without interfering + with the readability of your actual textual content.</p> + </blockquote> + <figcaption> + — <cite><a rel="external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/gemtext.gmi">gemini.circumlunar.space + – A quick introduction to “gemtext” markup | Links</a></cite> + </figcaption> + </figure> + <p>I felt that this provided a lot of useful limitations that removed a + huge barrier for me to actually write down ideas without feeling over + burdened. I also lurked in the IRC - as well as <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href="https://github.com/s3nd3r5/java-gemini-server">implemented my + own gemini server</a>.</p> + <p>As a quick aside – the java server was a lot of fun! The protocol was + very simple to work with for basic gemtext. I felt the ultimate downside + was trying to build something for basic gemini capsule hosting (like I + was using for a decent chunk of my time with gemini) - and something for + developers to use as a base application server. At the time in 2021 a lot + of talk was happening on IRC of users starting to look to provide more + complex experiences via the protocol and I wanted a way for those + interactions to be built out in Java - since most were in Go or Python at + the time. This decision lead to me burning out due to difficulties + splitting those responsiblities easily - where you could host along side + your application - since I lacked the experience with more complex Gemini + capsule applications.</p> + <p>But it was a good experience and I got hands on experience with Certs, + Netty, and SNI - which actually came in handy at my job!</p> + <h3>Wasn’t this about Markdown?</h3> + <p>A lot of what I liked about Gemini I found missing when I returned to + the World Wide Web. Writing a new post was tedious and I actually had a + few drafts sitting unposted. They’re probably checked into my git at this + moment! So I thought - why not just use markdown and convert to HTML? + That’s what it’s built for - and I already designed my site to work with + minimal customization of raw HTML tags!</p> + <h3>How I use Markdown</h3> + <p>Firstly, this blogpost was written in Markdown (with minimal HTML + sprinkled in). Then I render the markdown into HTML using <a rel= + "external noopener noreferrer" + target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/discount/">Discount</a>. + Frankly, I don’t know how I stumbled across this markdown parser - I + think it came pre-installed on my KDE Arch system because another KDE + program used it. But I liked it, and it seemed extensible enough for + my needs.</p> + <p>This would produce the “body” of my articles - and I could then + prepend and append the template-head and foot to my html output to form a + blog post/web page.</p> + <h4>Customizations</h4> + <p>After I generated the output file, I replaced some placeholders in the + templates via <code>sed</code> and then <code>tidy</code>’d the HTML. The + only other major issue was Discount had no way of appending any link + attributes – so for external links I had <code>sed</code> append the + <code>rel</code> and <code>target</code> attributes - which work off the + assumption they’re not there. A lot of my home-server scripts rely on + assumptions…</p> + <p>This is all bundled up in a simple script file so I can just supply a + few arguments and the full page is re-rendered on command.</p> + <h3>Two Sources of Truth</h3> + <p>In the sytem I devised the markdown files are really the “source of + truth” but you could argue that the HTML files hold equal weigh - as + they’re what you’re reading right now. The markdown is only useful if I + render it as HTML. There exist nginx extensions to serve markdown as HTML + so I store everything as markdown. I could also provide some heading + information to the markdowns to remove the command arguments and have on + boot it generate the .html files in place before launching the site… But + these are all nice ideas for a later date.</p> + <p>Ultimately, this is something I contribute to ocassionally - I don’t + need something too complicated. I just need to output some HTML a few + times a year. So if I manually publish the HTML each time - that’s likely + far more efficent then re-rendering.</p> + <h3>Learnings</h3> + <p>This is the first post that uses this - though I’ve converted a page + over to this already. But once I worked out the kinks and built a flow + that works for me - this made the writing process a LOT easier. Another + issue was that once I <code>tidy</code>’d the HTML file - it became + frustrating to edit, and I didn’t always re-tidy it. Because the output + is always <code>tidy</code>’d by the script - I can edit the raw markdown + as needed. And the script generally will always output the same file + (with whatever changes I made of course). This makes the editing and git + history a lot clearer.</p> + <p>I would recommend writing in markdown - or even trying out gemini - + you can host your gemini capsule on the web even! (Most gemini webpages + are gemini capsules converted). I am sure other “blog focused markups” + also exist too.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Manjaro Followup - Breaking things!</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2021-01-05/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2021-01-05/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>Manjaro Follow-up - Breaking things!</h2> + <p>I wanted to write a quick follow-up covering how I managed to break, + and then recover, everything when I went to remove my old debian + partition.</p> + <h3>Recap</h3> + <p>To recap: I installed Manjaro alongside a Debian/sid and Windows 10 + install. Each of those OSs were on their own SSDs. I went from a 128SSD + with Windows installed, to adding a 256 installing Debian. Years later I + split the Debian SSD into two parts - installing Manjaro on my new slice. + Since my last update I have been playing around with Manjaro and having + made my i3 keybindings for Kwin I've been pretty happy. But then I + started breaking things.</p> + <h3>Break stuff</h3> + <p>I broke my Manjaro by updating my Debian (apparently). To be honest + this is the one part I don't fully understand <i>why</i> it happened. + From what I could find online I didn't setup my system to handle two + separate Linux OS installs. But I was no longer able to boot directly + into Manjaro without using the initramfs failover boot option. I only + updated my Debian install because I was debugging something on my work + install, which both run Debian/sid. (Otherwise I would've used my + server which runs Debian/Stable). But considering I hadn't had any + need to boot back into Debian I decided to just get rid of it!</p> + <h3>GParted, Grub, Gotchas!</h3> + <p>I went in knowing I'd have to fix my Grub since I'd be + removing Debian, which was the OS that I configured when I first + dualbooted the machine, so I assumed they were linked somehow and I would + need to reinstall it. The process I followed was:</p> + <ul> + <li>Create a GParted Live USB</li> + <li>Launch GParted reconfigure my partitions</li> + <li>Open the terminal in the live USB and reinstall Grub</li> + </ul>The 3rd point being a bit of a "rest of the owl" I + wasn't sure what to expect. GParted thankfully warns you + "you're probably going to break stuff see our FAQ" which + had a section on reinstalling grub. Reading that the 3rd part became: + <ul> + <li>mount the linux OS</li> + <li>bind the live dirs that are needed: <code class='inline'>/dir /sys + /proc</code></li> + <li>chroot into the mounted folder</li> + <li>run <code class='inline'>grub-install <device></code></li> + </ul>But what I failed to realize (stupidly in hindsight) was the + "device" is the Master Boot Record (MBR) device. So in my case + Windows or <code class="inline">/dev/sdb</code>. I had assumed it was the + device of the linux install so I tried that and got notified my EFI boot + directory didn't look like an EFI partition... and from here it was + rabbit holes. + <h3>Where is my EFI partition?</h3> + <p>I have a fairly old Windows 7 install that has been upgraded to + Windows 10 during this whole journey. I've been meaning to reinstall + it (on a larger drive). But rather than having a few partitions on my + drive (typically having a boot partition) I just have the one (and a + recovery partition). Its marked as boot, and even mounted to <code class= + 'inline'>/boot/efi</code> I found when I was able to boot into Manjaro + again. But it made no sense to me. If I needed an EFI partition, why was + my efi pointed to the root of my Windows C drive? The rabbit hole + consisted of:</p> + <ul> + <li>Creating a 200MB Fat32 Boot partition</li> + <li>Mounting that as my efi-directory</li> + <li>Reinstalling grub (again on my Linux device)</li> + <li>Eventually getting it to boot straight into Manjaro</li> + <li>Modifying my <code class='inline'>/etc/fstab</code> to mount my + boot/efi to the new partition (oops)</li> + <li>Repeating the above steps 5 times hoping something would be + different</li> + <li>Eventually finding in a forum that grub should be on the + MBR...</li> + </ul> + <h3>The Fix and Final Steps</h3> + <p>The fix was to basically follow the steps above but use the MBR:</p> + <ul> + <li>Boot GParted Live USB</li> + <li>Properly configure any partitions (this case delete the + "EFI" partition)</li> + <li>Mount the linux device</li> + <li>Bind the necessary live dirs to the linux mount</li> + <li>Run grub-install to the MBR device</li> + <li>Reboot</li> + </ul>It was that misunderstanding about the MBR that sent me on a path, + but now I at least feel semi-confident in changing around my OSs knowing + how to fix Grub. But what bout the Fstab? + <p>Like all true movie monsters, my stupidity came back for the final + scare. I booted into Manjaro, from Grub! to have it crash on me. It + couldn't mount one of the devices! The deleted partition! I was in + the recover shell and was able to modify the Fstab to point back to the + correct boot/efi device. (Thankfully I was familiar with Fstab to begin + with). But editing two files in a super-low-res terminal is not my idea + of fun (okay, maybe it is).</p> + <h3>Conclusion</h3> + <p>One of my new years resolutions was to learn more about my system. So + lighting a fire I had to put out was a great way to get some more + knowledge on maintence for grub/dualbooting.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Manjaro Experiment</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-12-17/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-12-17/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>Manjaro Experiment</h2> + <p>After years on Debian, running i3, I decided to try out a more + traditional Linux setup, and take a stab at gaming on Linux. I chose + Manjaro for a few reasons:</p> + <ul> + <li>It's not Debian based (it's arch btw /s)</li> + <li>It's still on Systemd so I won't lose that familiarity</li> + <li>For gaming it comes with pretty up to date drivers and setup for + running Steam games</li> + <li>It has a KDE installation which is what I wanted to run</li> + </ul> + <h3>Why "not Debian"</h3> + <p>Debian is home for me. I have used it for years on both work machines, + servers, personal desktop. But it comes with its own quirks. Starters - I + am running base Debian, not a Debian based system, which generally means + some packages are out of date. To get around this I run Sid/Unstable. + This hasn't been a particular issue, but sometimes there are version + conflicts and other just nuisances and no real <i>easy</i> way to get + every package in the proper version configuration. This was a particular + pain-point with getting Steam (nonfree too which adds another layer of + configurations) Wine and a few other packages all set up. Plus + 32-bit!</p> + <h4>i3</h4> + <p>I have been using i3 as my window manager and without really any other + desktop environment programs. My login is the typical tty debian login. + But running i3 and then having windows appear, especially game windows + which can be tempermental, getting tiled to have to break it out again is + just a hassle. While I could've gone with another Debian base running + a proper desktop environment + window manager I figured that'd be + boring and I'd just be trying out the programs and not the Linux, + which is half the fun.</p> + <p>That being said. i3 <i>is</i> Linux for me. Being able to just move + between windows with a macro and every bit of it just being intutive + (after you've learned!) is a productivity booster. Which is why I + still use it on my work machine, and can't see myself ever switching + off.</p> + <h3>KDE</h3> + <p>I've used Gnome and XFCE as desktop environments before, and + they're fine, but I've always like the customability, + flexibility, and polished look of KDE.</p> + <h4>Setting up KDE for an i3 addict</h4> + <p>By default KDE isn't really too hard to "get used to" + since it feels like any other OS, especially a windows setup. But the + main thing I needed to change is the <code class= + 'inline'>meta+<key></code> commands.</p> + <ul> + <li>Remapping the Virtual Desktop changes</li> + <li>Remapping the KWin window focuses</li> + <li>Remapping the KWin move to desktop</li> + <li>Installing DMenu</li> + <li>Shrinking the "start bar" panel</li> + <li>Removing Pager</li> + <li>Changing Task Manger to Window List</li> + <li>Configuring Desktop Layout to "Desktop" (this removes the + icons)</li> + </ul>Doing this helped make me feel at home so far, and not have to + retrain my brain. + <h4>Some of the key remappings</h4> + <p>Setting up the KWin window keymapping was really what made me feel at + home. For the first few hours with it, I felt as limited in my + productivity as with Windows. KDE and Windows share by default a lot of + the same keymappings around window manipulation and virtual desktop + changes. <b>Switch to desktop N</b> setting this as <code class= + 'inline'>meta+<N></code> where N is the dekstop 1-10 (0). <b>Switch + to Window to the Left/Right/Up/Down</b> This was one I was nervous + wouldn't exist as a keybind. But What was <code class= + 'inline'>meta+alt+<dir></code> was mapped to without the alt. This + allowed for the very annoying lack of ability to just jump between + browser and terminal, or especially two separate terminals. <b>Quit + Window</b> with <code class='inline'>meta+shift+Q</code>, <b>Tile + Window</b> command to use the Shift key rather, especially as + <code class='inline'>meta+<dir></code> was overwritten by the focus + switching.</p> + <h3>Manjaro</h3> + <p>So I went with KDE Manjaro. Manjaro aims for the gaming desktop + experience. Arch is new for me, so I feel that would be something to + adjust to and learn.</p> + <h2>Gaming</h2> + <p>It has only been a day with it as I am writing. But I was able to get + a fair amount of the fighting games I wanted to play work.</p> + <h3>Proton + Steam</h3> + <p>So far my main focus has been running the fighting games I noodle + around on in Steam. To do this I launched Steam and installed the proton + and setup to run all games, regardless of compatibility. None of the + games I hoped to run had worked this way. I then opt'd into the beta + for Proton running the experimental builds, which should generally have + the more up-to-date tunings for games. With this setup I was able to get + Soulcalibur VI to work. Battle for the Grid and Dragon Ball FighterZ both + had launching issues. So I looked around and found <a href= + "https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/">Proton Ge + Custom</a> which is a custom fork of Proton that contains custom settings + and tweeks for various games. One of which is Battle For the Grid which + is how I found it. Using this I was able to play every game except Dragon + Ball FighterZ! A callout for Dead or Alive 6 which is performing + questionably. It can run and isn't actually too bad, but in windowed + or borderless it stutters and drops frames.</p> + <h4>Other issues</h4> + <p>Even on Windows there are issues with some games and your standard + configurations. Disabling Steam Overlay and adjusting the Steam Input + Setting on some games helped get some games working.</p> + <h3>Conclusion</h3> + <p>Gaming on Linux is still not great. Its MILES ahead of where it was + even a few years ago when I setup this PC. And I think it will take some + adjustment getting a feel for an i3less workflow.</p> + <h2>Update!</h2> + <h3>NTFS mounting</h3> + <p>Update! I got DOA and a few other games to run a bit smoother by + remounting my NTFS drives properly. I ended up using the following for my + /etc/fstab configuraiton for my NTFS drives: <code>UUID=<drive-id> + /mount/path ntfs + uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,async,locale=en_US.utf8,umask=000 0 + 0</code> I had noticed that both steam and mount.ntfs was running at + 20-40% CPU while not really doing anything. And then upwards of 80% + during gameplay.</p> + <h3>i3 Compatibility</h3> + <p>As I spend more time using the OS I made a few more adjustments:</p> + <ul> + <li>Removed everything except the Clock and System Tray.</li> + <li>I added KRunner to <code class='inline'>meta+space</code> to ease + running KDE specific programs that I can't be bothered to memorize + the name of</li> + <li>Back and forth on forcing "No border" on all windows. + Part of the reason I moved away from i3 was so that I had better + floating window management. And doing this would basically put me in an + equally hard to manage system for floating game windows. So until I + find a plugin that makes small taskbar/borders for the windows I'll + be sticking with the default.</li> + <li>On Manjaro at least: UNINSTALL mesa-demos! <code class= + 'inline'>sudo pacman -R lib32mesa-demos mesa-demos</code> This package + had the annoying "fire" demo which made dmenu opening firefox + a pain in the ass.</li> + </ul>The biggest difference was removing the Application Launcher from + the main panel. Having it there really felt like a crutch for running + programs. It is equal I would say to running apps as dmenu via + <code class='inline'>meta+d</code> vs just <code class= + 'inline'>meta</code> to launch the Application Launcher. However, the + bulky UI of it, even using just Window List, took away from the look/feel + I was going for. + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Bread Blog (First post)</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/bread/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/bread/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>Bread</h2> + <p>I decided to make a singular dedicated page to my recent bread bakes. + I am trying to at least keep a log of each bake, what went wrong/right in + hopes of nailing a recipe that works best for me.</p> + <h3 id="2020-02-17">February 17, 2020</h3> + <p>First post! I have done four bakes in 2020 that are worth mentioning. + Three that ended up rather successful and one lesson learned. Because + this is my first post its containing three very similar bakes that were + effectively the same recipe</p> + <h4>Boules</h4> + <p>I have made two very good boules in 2020. I first made a pate + fermentee using the following ratio using 50% of my total flour weight: + (500g, so 250g).</p> + <table class="bake-info"> + <caption> + Pate Fermentee + </caption> + <thead> + <tr> + <th>Item</th> + <th>%</th> + </tr> + </thead> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>Flour (Bread)</td> + <td>100%</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Water (Room temp)</td> + <td>70%</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Yeast (Instant)</td> + <td>0.55%</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Salt</td> + <td>10%</td> + </tr> + </tbody> + </table>To make the pate, I mixed all the dry ingredients together, then + added the room temperature water. I let that loose mixture rest for 15 + minutes. Once it was rested, I wet my hands and bench (lightly) and + kneaded for roughly 8 minutes. After kneading I tightened the dough into + a boule and let it sit in a plastic wrap covered greased bowl for an + hour. After an hour I placed it into the friged, as is. + <p>The next day, basically in the AM when I had time to bake I took the + dough out of the fridge, cut it into smaller bits (four), and let it come + to room temperature (ish, about an hour). I prepped the same ratio above + except with warmer water (~108°F). When I added the water to the dry + ingredients I added the pate along with it. I used the curved edge of my + scrapper to cut into the pate and incorporate it fully. Once I felt it + was all one loose mess I let it sit for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes + I wet my hands, and bench, and began to knead the dough for 8 minutes. + After kneading I formed the dough into a boule and placed it into a + greased bowl covered in plastic wrap. I let that sit on my bench for 90 + minutes or so. After the first proof I dampened my bench and took the + risen dough out of the bowl and lightly pressed it into a thick circle. I + then took the, what would be, corners of the mass and folded them into + the center, rotating after each fold. This process creates a boule shape + while creating tension. I would continue to do this about 8-10 times + really until it felt like I couldn't grab anymore/it wouldn't + stick. Then I flipped the dough over and tightened the boule in a + scooping motion as I rotated it. Then placed it into my floured banneton. + I let it rise again for about 45 minutes. Around the 30 minute mark I + would preheat my oven to 500°F. Once the oven was preheated and its been + at least 45 minutes. I flipped out the dough onto the peel (dusted with + corn flour) and scored it. I then misted the top with a spray bottle of + water and slid it onto my baking stone. While preheating the oven I also + set a kettle to boil some water which I poured into the preheating baking + sheet on the bottom rack. I set the timer for 10 minutes and every two + minutes or so I would add more boiling water. After 6 minutes I rotated + the dough using the peel (careful not to damage it). And misted the + facing side with the spray bottle (I found the back is lighter so this + helps make the entire steaming more even). After the turn and mist I add + twenty minutes to my timer and drop the temperature to 450°F.</p> + <p>This produces a nice, well risen boule with a golden brown crust.</p> + <p>I skipped the pate in my most recent bake and just did 100% (500g) + starting from "day 2". I also subtituted 100g with AP + flour.</p> + <h4>Baguettes</h4> + <p>I actually did the boule recipe first for my baguettes. I did aiming + for 1000g flour so my pate was with 500g and a 50/50 AP/Bread mix. I + screwed up the ratio for yeast and added almost double. The recipe is + essentially the same with the final steps being the difference.</p> + <p>After the first proof I sliced the dough into three chunks. Then I + formed those into boules and let them sit for 5 minutes. After resting I + then rolled them into batards and let them sit for 10 minutes. After 10 + minutes I then rolled them into baguettes and placed them on the baguette + sheet. And then baked them. After letting them rise for 45 or so + minutes.</p> + <h4>Accidents</h4> + <p>Baguette rolling is hard. And I need to let the dough rest longer + between each shape.</p> + <p>1000g for three ~15 inch baguettes is too much. I would do 750g next + time.</p> + <p>Proofing on the sheet is not recommended in the future as the rose + really well (probably all that extra yeast!) and ended up sticking + together.</p> + <p>I broke my oven light with my spray bottle. And I ruined my cast irons + seasoning usnig that for the boiling water.</p> + <h4>What to do next time</h4> + <p>Next french style boule, I want to do a pate again. As I've only + done it for one boule loaf. And I want to try making two loafs from + it.</p> + <h2>Resources</h2> + <p><a target="_blank" + href="https://bakewithjack.co.uk">Bake With Jack's Youtube + Channel</a> really helped me shape up my shaping up. And the core of + the pate+french bread recipe is based on that from <a target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39910.The_Bread_Baker_s_Apprentice">The + Bread Baker's Apprentice</a></p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>remember/recall - what could’ve been a command line tool</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-01-13/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-01-13/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>remember/recall - what could've been a command line tool</h2> + <p>During a meeting at work when I realized I often forget useful + commands. So I had the bright idea to create a command line tool that + would basically append a file with the command you wanted to remember + that you could search over later if you wanted to recall a certain + command. I figured I could it could just be a simple bash script that + recalls your bash-history and appends it to a file, all things that are + incredibly easy to do... or so I thought.</p> + <h3>Look before you leap</h3> + <p>This article is a reminder to myself to test the core functionality + first, before decorating your program/script with all those bells and + whistles. While I did learn a lot in the process it is always a good to + check the basics first.</p> + <h3>What went right</h3> + <p>I actually ended up learning a lot during the development of the + (never finished) tool. I had never used <code>getopts</code> inside a + script before, which turned out to be extremely intuitive. That was all + that went right...</p> + <h3>What went wrong</h3> + <p>Literally, everything else that could've went wrong did. The + "project" was a single bash script roughly 160 lines long + before I found out it wouldn't work. It was a series of flags that + enabled actions that called functions, some of which ended the script + either successfully or not. It wasn't necessarily a mess to read (I + tried to make it that every function ended up in an exit so I knew if I + entered I would need to assume it terminated) but it was hard to follow + when writing. I tried to allow it so you could default an action to make + the CLI intuitive which lead to a messy set of if/elses and switch + cases.</p> + <h4>You can't access un-committed bash history</h4> + <p>History command in a bash shell commits the history at the end of the + session. This makes sense once you know this, there are a lot of reasons + saving the commands to file after every execution is probably not the + best idea. However, it can be enabled with a flag when you enable a shell + session. But I didn't want to build a tool that required me to + remember I had to add something to my bash_profile before it would work. + I wanted something I could just copy onto a new machine and have access + to its functionality.</p> + <h3>Lesson learned</h3> + <p>While developing a tool to help me remember things, I learned + something I cannot forget: Test the core, simplest functionality first. + Before you do anything validate what you're trying to do will work. + Because after building all of these fancy bells and whistles, if it + can't do the basics, there is no point.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Lisps, Assembly, C, and Conlangs</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-12-09/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-12-09/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>Lisps, Assembly, C, and Conlangs</h2> + <p>I had originally hoped to do more blogging as a way of practicing my + writing and an incentive to do more hobby programming. The intent was + never to make this site solely programming, I had actually a few scrapped + posts about baking and guitar that just didn't get anywhere... but + that being said I did have a fair amount of hobbying in 2019 that I can + share some unfiltered, semi-structured thoughts on.</p> + <h3>Racket, 80x86, and even more C</h3> + <h4>Racket</h4> + <p><a target="_blank" + href="https://racket-lang.org">Racket</a> is a general-purpose + lisp-like language. I had began messing around in it with the + intention of creating a similar language to <a target="_blank" + href="https://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/">Scribble</a> a document + authoring language written in Racket. I made <a target="_blank" + href="https://xkcd.com/1205/">the classic mistake</a> of trying to + create a productivity tool rather than just do the task I had + originally intended to do. It was interesting messing around in a + lisp/functional language which I haven't really used in a long + time. I wish I had more insightful things to say about it or project + to share. Either way its very worth the look.</p> + <h4>6502 -> 80x86 -> Commander X16</h4> + <p>I wanted to play around with writing some assembly language programs. + I looked back at the NES tutorials and tried writing some basic + hello-world programs for it, but never really came out with anything + worth while. I booted up dosbox and tried experimenting in some DOS + programming to get a kick of nostalgia. On my way over to a friends + apartment I stumbled across an 80x86 reference book which I took home and + dug into. I made some decent progress in, relative to my 6502 learning. + But this was in the summer, and I was preparing for what would turn into + a pretty time consuming move. After my move, my puppy, and some youtube, + <a target="_blank" + href="http://www.the8bitguy.com">The 8-Bit Guy</a> made a video about + his 8 Bit computer project <a target="_blank" + href="http://www.commanderx16.com/X16/Ready.html">Commander X16</a> + which I started looking into. Like all the other assembly language + projects they never amounted to more than a few print statements or + colors on the screen. But X16 is something I am going to keep an eye + on in 2020.<br> + <a target="_blank" + href="https://eater.net/">Ben Eater</a> also started a <a target= + "_blank" + href="https://eater.net/6502">6502 video series</a> which was amazing, + and thankfully my learnings from earlier in the year made the content + very understandable. In summary, I spent a lot of 2019 reading and + watching a lot of content about assembly language programming, but + never really did anything with it.</p> + <h4>Never ending C</h4> + <p>Without much to really say on the topic, I kept writing small programs + in C throughout the year. I spent a lot of time debugging and + troubleshooting a prefix terminal calculator with the intention of making + it a full utility to use on the command line / from within scripts. You + could do simple math without opening up x-calc, which I find myself doing + to check some quick math. Example code: <code class="inline">calc "+ + 1 1"</code>. To me this was far cleaner than writing: <code class= + 'inline'>echo $((1+1))</code>. The big ideas I had for it was adding a + REPL and making it a command line calculator tool where you could get the + features of a standard calculator with store and recall functions. This + project involved making two stacks: the operations and the numbers. + Implementing two stacks from scratch was interesting and I may upload the + source and link it in an update. Overall it was full of breaks, bugs, + wrong turns, and bizarre memory issues. So needless to say it was a fun 3 + days of programming.</p> + <h3>Non Programming Writing</h3> + <p>The project that soaked up a majority of my writing time, which sadly + should've been documented here, was my conlang / world-building + project "Tyur". This project spawned out of sci-fi story ideas + that, of course, never went anywhere (due to my poor dialog writing, and + writing in general) and my interest in language history. I have been + reading <a target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1831667.The_Horse_the_Wheel_and_Language"> + The Horse the Wheel and Language</a> by David W. Anthony, which goes into + the history around Proto-Indo-European. It can be a bit dense so I had + been reading it on and off, and during the off times also started + <a target="_blank" + href= + "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18635317-the-origins-of-language">The + Origins of Language: A Slim Guide</a> by James R. Hurford, which tries + to provide insights on the evolutionary concept of language. Both of + these provided some fodder for the idea of creating my own <a target= + "_blank" + href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language">conlang</a>. + My conlang is "Tyur" the language spoken by the Tyur people. + This process has really been a mix of world-building around the Tyur + and some fun fantasy mini story ideas similar to The Lord of the Rings + and old Warhammer Fantasy worlds. This however began my adventure down + the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to create a font so I can + write more here about it. The documentation on this conlang is a mix + of loose-leaf folded in my bag that I scribble on when I get an idea. + So figuring out a proper way of building the alphabet and some root + words to start a dictionary are my current goals for the remainder of + the year/ start of 2020.</p> + <h3>Closing</h3> + <p>In closing, I think despite not writing much here, I messed around + with some interesting languages this year, and hope I can hobby more in + 2020.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>Venturing back into C</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-02-17/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-02-17/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Sun, 17 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>Venturing back into C</h2> + <p>For the past two weeks or so I have been diving back into C + programming. I've found it to be a very fun and refreshing experience + coming off of a slog of Java 11 updates at work. I've found comfort + in its simplicity and frustrations in my "I can do this without an + IDE" mindset.</p> + <p>I started C programming in College during a 8 AM course of which all I + can remember is that it was at 8 AM. I loved programming in C, dealing + with memory, pointers, no strings, structs, no strings, linking, no + strings. It was a really interesting difference from the web and Java + programming I had done previously. Obviously the lack of the + "string" type made things interesting and initially a challenge + for me back then. In my most recent endevour I found <code class= + 'inline'>char *</code> to be perfectly suitable for every case I came + across. It was usually a separate library that was failing me, not a + fixed char array. This was mostly due to the types of programs I was + writting in college were text adventures where all of what I did was + using strings. And my lack of understanding of what was actually + happening in C was really what was causing all the issues.</p> + <h3>The Project</h3> + <p>I started working on an application I had been meaning to develop + called <a href= + 'https://github.com/s3nd3r5/reminder'><b>reminder.d</b></a>. This daemon + would monitor for reminder notifications I would send via a CLI. It queue + them up based on some time set to send the notification. I ended up + writing both the CLI and the daemon in this past week, both in C.</p> + <h4>The Beginning</h4> + <p>This project started with an outline (as a README) which I think was + the reason this ended up as an actually successful project. I had been + thinking about this for a long time, and had begun using a calendar to + keep track of long term reminders/dates etc. First, I outlined the + architecture "how would I actually do want to send myself + remidners". Since half my day is spent infront of a computer, with a + terminal open or at least two keystrokes away, a CLI would do the trick. + Then how do I actually send myself notifications... writing them down. So + I can use the CLI to write to a file and have a daemon pick up the + changes and notify me once it hits the desired time posted.</p> + <h4>The CLI</h4> + <p>The CLI <b>remindme</b> took in messages and appened them to a file. + This file would be monitored by the daemon later on. Each reminder + consisted of three parts:</p> + <ul> + <li><i>Message</i> - The body of the notification.</li> + <li><i>Time</i> - This is either a datetime or a period for when the + notification should send.</li> + <li><i>Flag</i> - The Flag was set by the CLI when written to the file, + this marks the status of the reminder</li> + </ul>After a notification is written the daemon will pick up the + notification and notify if the time set is now/past. + <h4>The Daemon</h4> + <p>The Daemon <b>reminder-daemon</b> opened and tailed a file at + <i>/usr/local/etc/reminder.d/$USER.list</i>. It would tail the file + monitoring any incoming lines parsing them into reminders. The syntax of + the reminder is <code class='inline'>FLAG EPOCHSEC MESSAGE</code> . + Tokenizing on spaces it was then added to a linked-list sorted by time. + Every second it checks the file for any new lines, adding reminders as + they come in, then check the head of the list. If the reminder at the + head is ready to be notified the daemon pops it off the list and sends + the notification. After a notification is sent successfully the daemon + modifies that line in file updating its <code class='inline'>FLAG</code> + to 'd'. This is so when the daemon starts back up it skips the + reminder. Notifications are sent via <i>libnotify</i>: <code class= + 'inline'>Reminder - $DATETIME</code> with the message body. They are also + set to last until dismissed manually, this way if were to walk away, once + I sat down I'd see the stale reminder waiting.</p> + <h4>Future Plans for Reminder.d</h4> + <p>Having a system to create and send myself notifications is incredibly + useful but having them limit to just the computer I sent them on makes + them a very limited. I have been using them at work for the last few days + and its nice to be able to tell myself to remeber to email a person after + lunch. But I would like to be able to tell myself things later in the + day. I have planned since the beginning to have a remote server I can + sync the reminders through. In addition having an application running on + my phone that also gets and sets reminders.</p> + <p>Remote syncing would change entirely how I deal with reminders in the + file.</p> + <pre> +<code> + struct remnode { + long fileptr; + struct reminder* reminder; + struct remnode* next; + }; + </code></pre> + <p>Is currently the struct I use to keep track of the reminders. + <code class='inline'>fileptr</code> is the line of the file where the + reminder is, so I can <code class='inline'>fseek</code> back to the + location and overwrite its flag. I cannot currently think of a way to + keep the files perfectly identical without introducing countless + edgecases. What I do think might work is providing some form of UUID. + When a remote pull tells the systems daemon that a notification has been + cleared it can mark it by ID. Right now the fileptr is effectively its + ID, but that will not work anymore. A composite key of the daemons own id + (generated at install?) with a new ID of each incoming message would help + ensure uniqueness across ID generations across multiple systems.</p> + <h3>What I've learned</h3> + <p>First off, I probably could've done this in bash. With + <code class='inline'>date notify-send git awk cron</code> and a few other + useful commands I could very easily keep track of file changes and push + notifications at a certain time. But seeing as I scrap together bash + scripts all the time I though C would make things more fun.</p> + <p>Writing manpages was the probably the most fun I had working on the + project. They have a simple elegance to them, similar to C. That being + said you could FEEL the age of the language. Every single decision is + there to make things simple to parse. Even compared to modern markup the + explicit direct nature of the language made it so easy to learn. Every + tag served a specific purpose and each objective I had had a flag to do + it.</p> + <pre><code> +.TH REMINDME 1 +.SH NAME + remindme \- Send yourself reminders at a specific time on one or more devices +.SH SYNOPSIS +.B remindme +[\fB\-t\fR \fITIME\fR] +[\fB\-\-at \fITIME\fR] +[\fB\-i\fR \fIPERIOD\fR] +[\fB\-\-in\fR \fIPERIOD\fR] + </code> + </pre> + <p>Libnotify was insanely easy to work with, from a programming + perspective.</p> + <pre><code> + NotifyNotification *notif = notify_notification_new(title, rem->message, "info"); + notify_notification_set_app_name(notif, APP_NAME); + notify_notification_set_timeout(notif, NOTIFY_EXPIRES_NEVER); + + GError* error = NULL; + gboolean shown = notify_notification_show(notif, &error); + </code> + </pre> + <h3>In closing</h3> + <p>Overall, this was an extremely fun first week of engineering. I look + forward to what I am able to do syncing and sending notifications on + android.</p> + <p>For the zero people reading, grab a beer and outline your project. + Full through. Think about the how, then write it down. Don't worry + about getting in the weeds of how to write a manfile, thats what is fun + about programming. I thought I botched my debian/sid environment + uninstalling and reinstalling a notification daemon. Infact I think its + caused me to take a stance on the whole systemd thing. Either way, start + a private repo (they're free now) write a README and a LICENSE file + and iterate on the README until you realize "oh shit this is + something I can do". Then do it. This project still needs some work, + but for an MVP, its actually done. And now I can dive in the deep end of + trying to actually make it easy to setup on a fresh PC. Or dive into + modern android development and server syncing...</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> + <item> + <title>First! A New Years Resolution</title> + <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-01-21/</link> + <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-01-21/index.html</guid> + <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate> + <description> + <![CDATA[ + <article> + <h2>First! A New Years Resolution</h2> + <p>I like to write small hacky things from time to time when I have a + weekend to myself, or a day, or an hour... But I never had a place to put + them or the push to complete them beyond their initial hack. So I decided + I should write a blog about it.</p> + <p>Also for work I had to write some prose about myself, something beyond + a technical document or RFC and I realized I am shit at writing my + thoughts outside of a very direct specific technical way.</p> + <p>I am not sure if it is the age of the internet I grew up in where most + of my written communication was informal or for school. But my personal + writing skills are trash and this is my attempt to kill all the birds + with one stone</p> + <h3>What can be expected here</h3> + <p>My intentions for this site beyond just a landing page with my resume, + I hope to upload some code-snippets from things I found interesting, + ideally some recordings, drawings, and model-painting.</p> + <h3>How often do I intend to update this blog</h3> + <p>Ideally, whenever I have something that I feel is worth sharing. But + for the sake of my resolution I want to do at least one post a month, and + if I am keeping my other resolutions I should have content to put + here</p> + <h3>Designing my site</h3> + <p>Designing this blog actually took way more time than it should have. + It began when I wanted to tackle a <i>javascriptless</i> website. And I + found that a bit difficult if I wanted to have code with syntax + highlighting. So I wrote a python script to generate <code class= + 'inline'><pre></code> tag wrapping Java code with partial syntax + highlighting.Possibly mistaking <code class='inline'>highlight.js</code> + usage documentation. But I would like to prevent having javascript on my + main website keeping it as simplistic as possible.</p> + <p>I test the site using both <code class='inline'>tidy</code> and + <code class='inline'>nginx</code> via <code class='inline'>docker</code>. + Using tidy I can validate the html (making sure I didn't miss any + tags etc) and tidy up any odd spacing. And then visually test it running + nginx. Having it served up similarly to s3 all the paths will work, and + is insanely easy to setup! If you're reading this and have anything + beyond a simple html file I recommend running docker + nginx over any + javascript server.</p> + <p>Then I deploy the site through <code class='inline'>s3-cli</code> + Which is simple and to the point.</p> + <h3>In Closing</h3> + <p>I wanted to include more but I ran out of time today to write more, I + will probably update this article with more information (and an updated + timestamp). Or just make another post of my code highlighting task.</p> + </article> + ]]> + </description> + </item> |