From 2b39175011422a0d8f96d7f598f46e2a781dd28f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Steph Enders Date: Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:31:15 -0500 Subject: Initial rework commit: Build Script POC and CSS done I've created the main CSS layout and a proof of concept for the build script: this will actually build any "done" _post/ file and generate it as a workable HTML file. However, no index file generate, rss, or gemini is implemented --- old/rss/items.xml | 2514 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 2514 insertions(+) create mode 100644 old/rss/items.xml (limited to 'old/rss/items.xml') 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 @@ + + Music: A Tour de Chorus + https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-03-18/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-03-18/index.html + Sat, 18 Mar 2023 23:12:23 -0400 + + +

A Tour de Chorus

+

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.

+

What's on display

+

So I have three chorus pedals to show off today:

+
    +
  • Boss CE-20
    • +
  • Warlus Audio Julia
    • +
  • Multivox CB-1 Chorus Box
    • +
+

The other gear

+

I will be playing each of these pedals through my THR-100HD (see + my previous music blog post 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.

+

As for guitar. I am using my Reverend Descent RA Baritone

+

The demos

+

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...

+

Let's start with the clean tone:

+
+ +
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. +

CE-20

+

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.

+

Standard

+

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.

+
+
+ CE-20 Standard Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock +
+
+
+
+ CE-20 Standard Mode - Rate 2 o'clock, Depth 10 o'clock +
+
+

Rich

+

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.

+
+
+ CE-20 Rich Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock +
+
+

Dimensional D

+

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.

+
+
+ CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 3 +
+
+
+
+ CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 4 +
+
+
+
+ CE-20 Dimensional D Mode - Mode 3+4 +
+
+

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!

+

CE -1

+

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.
+ 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

+
+
+ CE-20 CE-1 Mode - Intensity 7 o'clock +
+
+
+
+ CE-20 CE-1 Mode - Intensity 10 o'clock +
+
+

Multivox CB-1 Chorus Box

+

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.

+

Chorus

+
+
+ CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 7 o'clock +
+
+
+
+ CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 10 o'clock +
+
+
+
+ CB-1 Chorus Mode - Intensity 2 o'clock +
+
+

Vibrato

+

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.

+
+
+ CB-1 Vibrato Mode - Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock +
+
+
+
+ CB-1 Vibrato Mode - Rate 2 o'clock, Depth 10 o'clock +
+
+

CB-1 Off with Level Boost

+

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.

+
+
+ CB-1 Off - Level to a point where when I dig in it clips heavily +
+
+

Walrus Audio Julia

+

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!

+
+
+ Julia - Triangle Wave, Rate 7 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock, Lag 3 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) +
+
+
+
+ Julia - Sine Wave, Rate 10 o'clock, Depth 2 o'clock, Lag 9 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) +
+
+
+
+ Julia - Sine Wave, Rate 9 o'clock, Depth 3 o'clock, Lag 9 + o'clock, Mix 12 o'clock (chorus) +
+
+
+
+ Julia - Triangle Wave, Rate 8 o'clock, Depth 12 o'clock, Lag + 12 o'clock, Mix 5 o'clock (vibrato, max) +
+
+

Thoughts

+

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.

+

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!

+ + ]]> + + + + Music: Reworking my THR100HD + https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-01-06/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/music/2023-01-06/index.html + Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Music Blog?!

+

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.

+

Reworking my THR100HD

+

I have a Yamaha THR100H Dual 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 Joyo PXL-Live to act as a "channel" + switcher.

+

Dual Amping

+

Honestly, dual amping is my favorite 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 one of their "use less" challenge videos + he used two amps for maximum tone shaping - which I feel adds some + justification to my efforts!

+

Results after one night

+

I spent an hour or so tonight messing around with my setup and came + out with the following high gain tone:

+
+
+ "Rezzed" - Hi-gain dual amped Baritone guitar +
+
+ No copyright +
+
+

Thoughts

+

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:

+
+ + +
+ Current dual amp settings +
+
+

Future

+

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!

+ + ]]> + + + + How I Generate My RSS Feed + https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/index.html + Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

How I Generate My RSS Feed

+

I only just now started supplying an RSS feed to you fine people! You + can subscribe to it at www.senders.io/blog/feed.rss!

+

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.

+

Publishing blog posts - shell scripts ftw

+

In My Markdown -> HTML Setup I + touch on how I publish my markdown files into HTML for this blog. But + what I don’t really touch on is the shell scripts that tie the + whole process together.

+

What I have is two, now three, scripts that feed the whole + process:

+
    +
  1. publish-blog.sh - the main script
    2. +
  2. compile-md.sh - generates the HTML output
    3. +
  3. update-feed.sh - generates/appends the RSS feed
    4. +
+

The update-feed.sh script is the new one I just + added.

+

publish-blog.sh 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.

+

Without going into TOO much detail you can view the latest versions of + the scripts at git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/.

+

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.

+

update-feed.sh

+

Source File: git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh

+

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.

+

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.

+

The core of the script is found here:

+ 
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"
+
+

Some key takeaways are:

+
    +
  1. sed lets you do regex with delimiters that AREN’T / so + you can substitute something that shouldn’t actually ever show up in + your regex. For me that is ~.
    2. +
  2. I always forget you can use sed to extract between tokens - which + is how I get the CDATA for the RSS: sed -n + "/<article>/,/<\/article>/p"
    3. +
  3. mktemp is really REALLY useful - and I feel is under + utilized in shellscripting
    4. +
+

The obvious cracks are:

+
    +
  1. I rely SO much on sed that it’s almost certainly going + to break
    2. +
  2. 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.
    3. +
  3. 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
    4. +
+

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 cat -s + $FILE_TMP_FEED > www/blog/feed.rss myself after I check it + over.

+

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.

+

Where to put the feed URL

+

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.

+

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).

+

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.

+

Conclusion

+

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.

+

I really, really like shell scripting.

+ + ]]> + + + + Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022 + https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/index.html + Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022

+

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!

+

If you hadn’t read my previous post for 2021 the link is at the + bottom:

+
+

The winner was “KANGA - You and I Will Never Die”

+
+

The album pool

+

As always the criteria:

+
    +
  • it was released in 2022
    • +
  • it wasn’t a single
    • +
  • if it was an EP it has to be substantial and intentional
    • +
+

And the albums are…

+
    +
  • Amining for Enrike - The Rats and the Children
    • +
  • And So I watch You from Afar - Jettison
    • +
  • Astronoid - Radiant Bloom
    • +
  • Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
    • +
  • Cult of Luna - The Long Road North
    • +
  • Dance With the Dead - Driven to Madness
    • +
  • Elder - Innate Passage
    • +
  • Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice
    • +
  • Giraffes? Giraffes! - Death Breath
    • +
  • God Mother - Obeveklig
    • +
  • Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)
    • +
  • Long Distance Calling - Eraser
    • +
  • Ludovico Technique - Haunted People
    • +
  • MWWB - The Harvest (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard)
    • +
  • MØL - Diorama (Instrumental)
    • +
  • Psychostick - … and Stuff
    • +
  • Russian Circles - Gnosis
    • +
  • SIERRA - See Me Now
    • +
  • Starcadian - Shadowcatcher
    • +
  • Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk
    • +
  • Toundra - Hex
    • +
  • Waveshaper - Forgotten Shapes
    • +
+

2022’s playlist (+ 2 albums from bandcamp not on Spotify):

+ +

The Top 5

+

In alphabetical order:

+
    +
  • Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
    • +
  • Elder - Innate Passage
    • +
  • Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice
    • +
  • Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)
    • +
  • Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk
    • +
+

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

+

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”).

+

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!

+

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.

+

Favorite Track

+

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:

+
    +
  • +

    The Widow maker - feat. Gunship This track is representative of + the genre. It’s synthwave to the core.

    +
    • +
  • +

    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!

    +
    • +
  • +

    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.

    +
    • +
+

Special Commendation - Non Stop Bangers

+

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.

+

Album Link

+

+ [spotify] Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

+

Elder - Innate Passage

+

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.

+

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.

+

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?

+

They introduce themselves as such in their website actually!

+
+
+

genre-pushing rock band that melds heavy psychedelic sounds + with progressive elements and evocative soundscapes.

+
+
+ — https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/ +
+
+

“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/.

+

Favorite Track

+

I think “Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra”. A nearly 15 minute track + that has everything in it you expect from Elder.

+

Special Commendation - Excellent Vinyl Record Cover

+

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!

+

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

+

Album Link

+

+ [spotify] Elder - Innate Passage

+

Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice

+

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.

+

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.

+

Favorite Track

+

Probably: Keening into Ffynnon Llanllawer - I love the guitar(?) part + and the wailing/vocalization. It’s haunting. As a recording is + amazing.

+

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.

+

Special Commendation - Album Art

+

This album, IS ART, but the album art is just… really suiting the + music.

+

Album Link

+

[bandcamp] + Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice

+

Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)

+

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).

+

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.

+

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.

+

So yeah - this whole section is like “disclaimer disclaimer” but if + you like groovy, typically instrumental synth music - check it out.

+

The various other releases

+

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:

+

https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works + https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day + https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day

+

Favorite Track

+

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:

+

[youtube] Jay + Hosking - Nychthemeron (Official Music video)

+

Special Commendation - Each track has a live performance attached to + it!

+

If you enjoy videos - these each have a corresponding YT video linked + at the bottom of the bandcamp page.

+

Album Link

+

[bandcamp] + Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres

+

Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk

+

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.

+

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.

+

I’ve spoken about Tina before in two previous gemlogs (Music + Spotlight: Awesome EPs and 5x5 + Playlists (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?!)

+

Favorite Track

+

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.

+

Special Commendation - Lovely

+

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.

+

Album Link

+

+ [spotify] Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk

+

My Top Pick

+

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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

Elder - Innate Passage

+

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.

+

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.

+

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).

+

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.

+

This should’ve been a tie

+

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.

+

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 :)

+

And if her music isn’t your jam - check out her guest tracks on the + Zero-7 stuff - angelic voice.

+

Conclusion

+

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.

+

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.

+

I am really excited for 2023!

+

This year’s playlist (2023)

+

+ [spotify] senders' Releases 2023 Playlist

+

Links

+

If you use gemini:// you can check out my previous posts (until/unless + I decided to port those over too)

+ +

Thanks for reading! I don’t always crosspost - I am trying something + out :)

+ + ]]> + + + + RSS - A Follow-up + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/index.html + Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

RSS - A Follow-up

+

Get an RSS reader and connect everything to it!

+

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.

+
+

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.

+
+

Recap

+

So I am using https://tt-rss.org/ 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.

+

How I’ve been using it

+

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

+

Blogs

+

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.

+

If you’re interested the two main ones I am reading right now are:

+
    +
  1. + Erin In The Morn + (substack) +
    2. +
  2. + Selfaware Soup +
    3. +
+

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.

+

Podcasts

+

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 need 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:

+
    +
  1. + The Pen Addict Podcast + (relay.fm) +
    2. +
  2. + Cortex Podcast (relay.fm) +
    3. +
+

And currently off-season:

+ +

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.

+

While writing this section I added:

+ +

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)

+

Tech News

+

Right now I follow two main news sources in tech:

+
    +
  1. + debian.org/news +
    2. +
  2. + LWN.net +
    3. +
+

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.

+

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.

+

LWN has some links in their weekly editions for other news feeds I + might consider directly subscribing too, but for now I have these.

+

Music News

+

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.

+

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: raisedbyswans.com 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!

+

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.

+

YouTube

+

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.

+

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 occasionally 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!

+

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:

+ 
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={ID}
+
+

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:

+ 
ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId
+
+

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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

Hobby

+

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 entirely 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.

+

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(Adam Neely - How In-Ear + Monitors are Making Better Musicians), 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).

+

tt-rss - in retrospect

+

So tt-rss is fine 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.

+

But other than that it’s been quite the improvement over my internet + experience. More RSS!!

+

Conclusion

+

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!

+

Anyway, you should look into getting an RSS aggregator setup. It’s + been really impactful on cutting down on internet scrolling and + mindlessness.

+ + ]]> + + + + RSS - A Follow-up + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/index.html + Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

RSS - A Follow-up

+

Get an RSS reader and connect everything to it!

+

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.

+
+

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.

+
+

Recap

+

So I am using https://tt-rss.org/ 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.

+

How I’ve been using it

+

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

+

Blogs

+

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.

+

If you’re interested the two main ones I am reading right now are:

+
    +
  1. + Erin In The Morn + (substack) +
    2. +
  2. + Selfaware Soup +
    3. +
+

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.

+

Podcasts

+

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 need 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:

+
    +
  1. + The Pen Addict Podcast + (relay.fm) +
    2. +
  2. + Cortex Podcast (relay.fm) +
    3. +
+

And currently off-season:

+ +

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.

+

While writing this section I added:

+ +

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)

+

Tech News

+

Right now I follow two main news sources in tech:

+
    +
  1. + debian.org/news +
    2. +
  2. + LWN.net +
    3. +
+

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.

+

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.

+

LWN has some links in their weekly editions for other news feeds I + might consider directly subscribing too, but for now I have these.

+

Music News

+

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.

+

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: raisedbyswans.com 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!

+

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.

+

YouTube

+

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.

+

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 occasionally 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!

+

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:

+ 
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={ID}
+
+

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:

+ 
ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId
+
+

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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

Hobby

+

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 entirely 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.

+

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(Adam Neely - How In-Ear + Monitors are Making Better Musicians), 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).

+

tt-rss - in retrospect

+

So tt-rss is fine 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.

+

But other than that it’s been quite the improvement over my internet + experience. More RSS!!

+

Conclusion

+

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!

+

Anyway, you should look into getting an RSS aggregator setup. It’s + been really impactful on cutting down on internet scrolling and + mindlessness.

+ + ]]> + + + + CSS Themes Exist Now!? + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-05/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-05/index.html + Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

CSS Themes Exist Now!?

+

Yeah news to me too! Seems like according to + the MDN it’s been supported since 2019 for most browsers and + supported by all by now.

+

This is so wild!

+

Why is this cool?

+

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.

+

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.

+

Still no JS!

+

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.

+

I try to keep that, not only for my sake, but for your sake too - a + javascript free blog means the priority is reading.

+

Examples

+

So I achieve darkmode in this blog by doing the following:

+ 
/* 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;
+  }
+}
+
+

Essentially, I leverage + CSS Variables to define the specific areas I set theme specific + colors (my nav bar is static regardless of dark/light mode for + example).

+

Then if the media preference is dark - I overwrite the variables with + my dark mode values!

+

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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

Toggling Themes

+

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.

+

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!

+

Conclusion

+

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!

+ + + ]]> + + + + My Markdown -> HTML Setup + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-11-06/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-11-06/index.html + Sun, 06 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0400 + + +

My Markdown -> HTML Setup

+

A common way I see a lot of people blog, especially micro-blog, is in + markdown.

+
+
+

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted + text using a plain-text editor.

+
+
+ — Wikipedia | + Markdown +
+
+

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.

+

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.

+

Writing HTML by hand

+

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.

+

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.

+

I briefly touched on my design process in 2019-01-21 - First! A New Years Resolution + 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.

+

This article is making the process sound far more difficult than it is + – it’s mostly just tedious.

+ 
<article>
+<h2> Title </h2>
+<p>
+   Some paragraph....
+</p>
+<h3>
+<p> some subsection </p>
+</h3>
+<p> more text </p>
+... etc
+
+

Is essentially what the website looks like - you can view the source + of this page to see – it’s very simple HTML.

+

The benefit I found doing this, mostly leveraging tidy, 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.

+

Only for certain areas (tables, code, quotes) where readability is an + issue do I setup custom CSS.

+

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.

+

Micro-blogging in general

+

At the time of writing this, I have no ported over any of my Gemini 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.

+

Gemtext

+

Gemtext + 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.

+

It’s syntax contained most of what I was actually using here already + from HTML:

+
    +
  1. headings
    2. +
  2. paragraphs that were wrapped based on page-width
    3. +
  3. links
    4. +
  4. lists
    5. +
  5. quotes
    6. +
  6. preformatted-text / codeblocks
    7. +
+

Besides links - it also leveraged the same common syntaxes that + markdown did.

+

Gemtext links

+

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.

+
+
+

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.

+
+
+ — gemini.circumlunar.space + – A quick introduction to “gemtext” markup | Links +
+
+

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 implemented my + own gemini server.

+

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.

+

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!

+

Wasn’t this about Markdown?

+

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!

+

How I use Markdown

+

Firstly, this blogpost was written in Markdown (with minimal HTML + sprinkled in). Then I render the markdown into HTML using Discount. + 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.

+

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.

+

Customizations

+

After I generated the output file, I replaced some placeholders in the + templates via sed and then tidy’d the HTML. The + only other major issue was Discount had no way of appending any link + attributes – so for external links I had sed append the + rel and target attributes - which work off the + assumption they’re not there. A lot of my home-server scripts rely on + assumptions…

+

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.

+

Two Sources of Truth

+

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.

+

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.

+

Learnings

+

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 tidy’d the HTML file - it became + frustrating to edit, and I didn’t always re-tidy it. Because the output + is always tidy’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.

+

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.

+ + ]]> + + + + Manjaro Followup - Breaking things! + https://www.senders.io/blog/2021-01-05/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2021-01-05/index.html + Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Manjaro Follow-up - Breaking things!

+

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.

+

Recap

+

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.

+

Break stuff

+

I broke my Manjaro by updating my Debian (apparently). To be honest + this is the one part I don't fully understand why 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!

+

GParted, Grub, Gotchas!

+

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:

+
    +
  • Create a GParted Live USB
    • +
  • Launch GParted reconfigure my partitions
    • +
  • Open the terminal in the live USB and reinstall Grub
    • +
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: +
    +
  • mount the linux OS
    • +
  • bind the live dirs that are needed: /dir /sys + /proc
    • +
  • chroot into the mounted folder
    • +
  • run grub-install <device>
    • +
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 /dev/sdb. 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. +

Where is my EFI partition?

+

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 /boot/efi 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:

+
    +
  • Creating a 200MB Fat32 Boot partition
    • +
  • Mounting that as my efi-directory
    • +
  • Reinstalling grub (again on my Linux device)
    • +
  • Eventually getting it to boot straight into Manjaro
    • +
  • Modifying my /etc/fstab to mount my + boot/efi to the new partition (oops)
    • +
  • Repeating the above steps 5 times hoping something would be + different
    • +
  • Eventually finding in a forum that grub should be on the + MBR...
    • +
+

The Fix and Final Steps

+

The fix was to basically follow the steps above but use the MBR:

+
    +
  • Boot GParted Live USB
    • +
  • Properly configure any partitions (this case delete the + "EFI" partition)
    • +
  • Mount the linux device
    • +
  • Bind the necessary live dirs to the linux mount
    • +
  • Run grub-install to the MBR device
    • +
  • Reboot
    • +
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? +

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).

+

Conclusion

+

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.

+ + ]]> + + + + Manjaro Experiment + https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-12-17/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-12-17/index.html + Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Manjaro Experiment

+

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:

+
    +
  • It's not Debian based (it's arch btw /s)
    • +
  • It's still on Systemd so I won't lose that familiarity
    • +
  • For gaming it comes with pretty up to date drivers and setup for + running Steam games
    • +
  • It has a KDE installation which is what I wanted to run
    • +
+

Why "not Debian"

+

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 easy 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!

+

i3

+

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.

+

That being said. i3 is 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.

+

KDE

+

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.

+

Setting up KDE for an i3 addict

+

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 meta+<key> commands.

+
    +
  • Remapping the Virtual Desktop changes
    • +
  • Remapping the KWin window focuses
    • +
  • Remapping the KWin move to desktop
    • +
  • Installing DMenu
    • +
  • Shrinking the "start bar" panel
    • +
  • Removing Pager
    • +
  • Changing Task Manger to Window List
    • +
  • Configuring Desktop Layout to "Desktop" (this removes the + icons)
    • +
Doing this helped make me feel at home so far, and not have to + retrain my brain. +

Some of the key remappings

+

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. Switch to desktop N setting this as meta+<N> where N is the dekstop 1-10 (0). Switch + to Window to the Left/Right/Up/Down This was one I was nervous + wouldn't exist as a keybind. But What was meta+alt+<dir> 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. Quit + Window with meta+shift+Q, Tile + Window command to use the Shift key rather, especially as + meta+<dir> was overwritten by the focus + switching.

+

Manjaro

+

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.

+

Gaming

+

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.

+

Proton + Steam

+

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 Proton Ge + Custom 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.

+

Other issues

+

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.

+

Conclusion

+

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.

+

Update!

+

NTFS mounting

+

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: UUID=<drive-id> + /mount/path ntfs + uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,async,locale=en_US.utf8,umask=000 0 + 0 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.

+

i3 Compatibility

+

As I spend more time using the OS I made a few more adjustments:

+
    +
  • Removed everything except the Clock and System Tray.
    • +
  • I added KRunner to meta+space to ease + running KDE specific programs that I can't be bothered to memorize + the name of
    • +
  • 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.
    • +
  • On Manjaro at least: UNINSTALL mesa-demos! sudo pacman -R lib32mesa-demos mesa-demos This package + had the annoying "fire" demo which made dmenu opening firefox + a pain in the ass.
    • +
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 + meta+d vs just meta 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. + + ]]> + + + + Bread Blog (First post) + https://www.senders.io/blog/bread/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/bread/index.html + Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Bread

+

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.

+

February 17, 2020

+

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

+

Boules

+

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).

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ Pate Fermentee +
Item%
Flour (Bread)100%
Water (Room temp)70%
Yeast (Instant)0.55%
Salt10%
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. +

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.

+

This produces a nice, well risen boule with a golden brown crust.

+

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.

+

Baguettes

+

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.

+

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.

+

Accidents

+

Baguette rolling is hard. And I need to let the dough rest longer + between each shape.

+

1000g for three ~15 inch baguettes is too much. I would do 750g next + time.

+

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.

+

I broke my oven light with my spray bottle. And I ruined my cast irons + seasoning usnig that for the boiling water.

+

What to do next time

+

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.

+

Resources

+

Bake With Jack's Youtube + Channel really helped me shape up my shaping up. And the core of + the pate+french bread recipe is based on that from The + Bread Baker's Apprentice

+ + ]]> + + + + remember/recall - what could’ve been a command line tool + https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-01-13/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2020-01-13/index.html + Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

remember/recall - what could've been a command line tool

+

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.

+

Look before you leap

+

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.

+

What went right

+

I actually ended up learning a lot during the development of the + (never finished) tool. I had never used getopts inside a + script before, which turned out to be extremely intuitive. That was all + that went right...

+

What went wrong

+

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.

+

You can't access un-committed bash history

+

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.

+

Lesson learned

+

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.

+ + ]]> + + + + Lisps, Assembly, C, and Conlangs + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-12-09/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-12-09/index.html + Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Lisps, Assembly, C, and Conlangs

+

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.

+

Racket, 80x86, and even more C

+

Racket

+

Racket is a general-purpose + lisp-like language. I had began messing around in it with the + intention of creating a similar language to Scribble a document + authoring language written in Racket. I made the classic mistake 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.

+

6502 -> 80x86 -> Commander X16

+

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, + The 8-Bit Guy made a video about + his 8 Bit computer project Commander X16 + 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.
+ Ben Eater also started a 6502 video series 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.

+

Never ending C

+

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: calc "+ + 1 1". To me this was far cleaner than writing: echo $((1+1)). 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.

+

Non Programming Writing

+

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 + The Horse the Wheel and Language 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 + The + Origins of Language: A Slim Guide 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 conlang. + 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.

+

Closing

+

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.

+ + ]]> + + + + Venturing back into C + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-02-17/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-02-17/index.html + Sun, 17 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

Venturing back into C

+

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.

+

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 char * 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.

+

The Project

+

I started working on an application I had been meaning to develop + called reminder.d. 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.

+

The Beginning

+

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.

+

The CLI

+

The CLI remindme 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:

+
    +
  • Message - The body of the notification.
    • +
  • Time - This is either a datetime or a period for when the + notification should send.
    • +
  • Flag - The Flag was set by the CLI when written to the file, + this marks the status of the reminder
    • +
After a notification is written the daemon will pick up the + notification and notify if the time set is now/past. +

The Daemon

+

The Daemon reminder-daemon opened and tailed a file at + /usr/local/etc/reminder.d/$USER.list. It would tail the file + monitoring any incoming lines parsing them into reminders. The syntax of + the reminder is FLAG EPOCHSEC MESSAGE . + 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 FLAG + to 'd'. This is so when the daemon starts back up it skips the + reminder. Notifications are sent via libnotify: Reminder - $DATETIME 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.

+

Future Plans for Reminder.d

+

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.

+

Remote syncing would change entirely how I deal with reminders in the + file.

+ 
+
+ struct remnode { 
+   long fileptr; 
+   struct reminder* reminder; 
+   struct remnode* next; 
+ }; 
+
+

Is currently the struct I use to keep track of the reminders. + fileptr is the line of the file where the + reminder is, so I can fseek 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.

+

What I've learned

+

First off, I probably could've done this in bash. With + date notify-send git awk cron 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.

+

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.

+ 

+.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]
+        
+
+

Libnotify was insanely easy to work with, from a programming + perspective.

+ 

+  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);
+        
+
+

In closing

+

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.

+

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...

+ + ]]> + + + + First! A New Years Resolution + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-01-21/ + https://www.senders.io/blog/2019-01-21/index.html + Mon, 21 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 + + +

First! A New Years Resolution

+

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.

+

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.

+

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

+

What can be expected here

+

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.

+

How often do I intend to update this blog

+

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

+

Designing my site

+

Designing this blog actually took way more time than it should have. + It began when I wanted to tackle a javascriptless 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 <pre> tag wrapping Java code with partial syntax + highlighting.Possibly mistaking highlight.js + usage documentation. But I would like to prevent having javascript on my + main website keeping it as simplistic as possible.

+

I test the site using both tidy and + nginx via docker. + 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.

+

Then I deploy the site through s3-cli + Which is simple and to the point.

+

In Closing

+

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.

+ + ]]> + + -- cgit v1.2.3-54-g00ecf