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 --- rss/items.xml | 2514 --------------------------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 2514 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 rss/items.xml (limited to 'rss') diff --git a/rss/items.xml b/rss/items.xml deleted file mode 100644 index d1be0ce..0000000 --- a/rss/items.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2514 +0,0 @@ - - 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) -
-
-
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- 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:

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    -
  • 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…

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    -
  • 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