Apropos of nothing

If you need to ask what license this is under, you're asking the wrong question.

These are thoughts too long for a status update and too personal for a blog post. Besides, a journal is simply different. See below.

2026-03-25

It's March all of a sudden, and spring is coming fast. I'm back on my bullshit again with another toy programming language. That, and relearning Vala. Maybe third time's the charm. But damn, I have to manage my effort. Being middle-aged sucks.

(Update: I have a working interpreter, and Vala worked out wonderfully for this!)

Otherwise, this month is shaping up busily, between errands, friends to get in touch with and a scheduled visit to the doctor. Surprisingly, this time they offered me an appointment much sooner than last autumn. Turns out they have a lot fewer patients now, just as I suspected. The significant price hike looks like a likely culprit.

By the way, my eyes are the same as last time, so that's one less reason to worry.

Somehow the spring equinox came and passed already. Weather was chilly again for a while, though nights were no longer freezing. Now it's warming up rapidly. The magnolias are almost in bloom. I made another release of Babble-M; thinking about scripting-adjacent ideas now.

Next major milestone: Easter, and hopefully getting in touch with a friend.

Mobile app of the month: NerdCalci, a kind of linear spreadsheet or digital workbook for those who don't need the full power of microMathematics Plus. Ended up not using it on any device, but it's an interesting concept.

2026-02-25

February is starting very slowly. Temperatures are back above freezing at least, and we have hot water. There were good moments too, such as spotting storks at the park, and even a big woodpecker, feathers a brilliant green. Been learning new things again, still without much of a plan.

After multiple attempts to host it on other websites, I synced my link directory to the latest version. This is where it took shape and where people expect it. And there's no point in duplicating work while this site is still online. Likewise for my programming language notes, where I just merged some side text that was lying around.

Other highlights include seeing a friend and printing out some writings, both for safekeeping and so I can more easily hand out copies to interested people.

Long read of the month: Weathering Software Winter, by the Hundred Rabbits.

As the winter is ending (and I'm still behind on writing my journal) another idea for a toy programming language pounced on me. This one is novel enough to be worth my time for a change, and as a bonus it pushed me to learn more on things like Python type declarations or JavaScript classes+modules. That, and it was a reason to finally join the young meta.lisp community. Which, by the way, could use more people if you're into that sort of thing.

Second long-read of the month: The Slow Death of the Power User. Recommended!

2026-01-27

Silence. Blessed silence. That's the best thing after the holidays.

Despite what I wrote last time, small updates still happen around here. Like publishing a new minor version of AntiWiki, or updating my webcomic list. Most other activity has moved to my new site on Nekoweb. But that one still struggles to take shape.

It's winter in Bucharest. District heating is spotty again, so the floors are cold. Getting sick was a matter of time. Not sure where from, but the home situation hasn't helped.

At least my dentist checkup went well. One less worry to deal with these days.

Otherwise, these days I'm idly reading about Scheme again, for no good reason. I'm able to read small samples now, but not feeling inspired or confident to actually build anything. Everything is terrible and scary, and none of this computer stuff makes the world better.

At least learning about the freedesktop.org specifications will allow me to make my little scripts better. That's something. Some people seem to like them. And frankly? I still care about my craft. It's one of the few things no-one can take away from me.

2025-12-25

It's Christmas morning. I can't believe it. All my friends say it's been a bad year for them. It's not helping my mood one bit.

On the plus side, this site just got another lease on life (more or less, see below), and it snowed in Bucharest overnight. For once the weather forecast was spot-on.

Going out later to see a friend. No better time to do it. Might update this in the afternoon.

Otherwise, no news. I still can't write one line of fiction. All my web development work happens on other sites now, too. This one is now legacy. You wouldn't believe how little of it is even worth moving elsewhere. Next summer when I renew the domain it will be for the last time. That's that.

Yeah, idk. Back later with more thoughts, maybe.

Edit: well, that was a big nothingburger. At least the trams are running today, even better than usual.

2025-11-30

When this entry goes online, my journal will be four years old. It's late autumn, there hasn't been much sun lately and I'm severely burnt out. To top it all, the Neok Kiosk is winding down. The only people left are a hundred rabbits on a boat and myself. Oh well, it was a good run.

Experiments matter. Not all seeds are going to sprout, but you have to try.

This month's highlight was likely shopping with a friend whom I don't get to meet often, at the big old market hall in Obor. Damn, that place rocks. It's grand, a bona fide historical monument, yet more lively and nicer to be in than any mall built this side of the 2000s.

Someone ought to write a story about it. Oh wait, I already did.

Right, anyway. There's a squirrel in the neighborhood now. Just the one, but it's a spot of color. They were completely gone for a while, even from parks.

2025-11-02 A spot of grass-touching

October started out with horrid weather, only to look more like early June by the end. I added half a page to the story started this summer, which is more than in September at least. Otherwise spent most of my time coding; so far with little to show for it. Also cleaning up the website, to make room for fresh writing. Been planning that all year, it just didn't work out as expected.

More importantly, I managed to touch grass in a big way. Not far from where we live, environmental activists managed to secure legal protections for a little natural area. It's in a corner of the city that's been heavily developed in recent years, so that's a win. Took us half a year to make the trip at long last, but it was so worth it. Had superb weather, and out there strangers greet each other. We even spotted a tiny lizard: another win.

(I mean, seriously? Even the Communists wouldn't touch the city's green belt. Partly because it acted as a buffer between the factories out on the edge and the residential areas, but also because even they weren't far enough gone to leave all the polenizers without a home. RIP wheat fields.)

Saw a couple of movies on TV, too: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (for the first time) and Serenity (for the second time). Suffice to say, the Firefly franchise now has a new fan: mom. Turns out we still know how to talk about smart movies.

Last but not least, guess this my other site now has a section about Linux, only a quarter century since I first installed it. And did I mention a new fan? It's good to see my sci-fi writing appreciated for a change. The money's going to help, too.

P.S. Be right back, helping mom make more jam. Quince this time.

2025-10-01 Fixing breakage

I journaled even more in September, and wrote other stuff too. Like a web page about obscure Basic dialects. It required some research, which in turn inspired a new batch of updates to Batch Basic. That's in addition to other experiments, not yet published. Only my story is still stuck at the 5K-word mark. Can't have them all.

Managed to see a second doctor, too! My eyes are less damaged than I feared, but in need of treatment all the same. It's already helping, too, after only a few days. Still ought to rest a lot more instead of resuming my bad habits. Maybe after this journal entry.

On top of that, I went downtown no less than three times in a month. Haven't been so active in a while. The city looks worse the closer you get to the parts that everyone thinks of as fancy. Hate to be proven right like this, but nowadays everything good happens closer to the periphery.

It sure feels like everything is falling apart. Paying bills and sorting out mix-ups is getting harder every month. Hot water continues to be scarce at best. Prices are rising.

Last but not least, weather went from cricket concerts to almost winter within one month. Had to break out thicker clothes pretty fast!

Oh, I got to meet some visiting relatives: always a good thing. Been more active in various online communities, too. A lot of them seem to be dying this year, all at once. Just my luck. But everyone wants forums back, so there's hope yet.

P.S. Got my hands on another monitor, by the way: a cheap second-hand Dell very similar to my ancient spare. Works just fine, without fuss. Exactly how I like hardware.

2025-08-30 Journaling more often

August was divided between heatwaves on the one hand, and lack of hot water on the other. The heat is abating by now (it's clearly late summer) but hot water still isn't back.

At least parks are still fun places to be. Most of the time, anyway. Managed to locate a nature trail close to home, that I kept hearing about. Can't wait to see what it's like. I miss field trips, and it's a good pretext to literally touch grass for more hours every day.

Oh, I managed to see an eye doctor for a checkup, after repeated delays. Got sent to another one for additional investigations. On the plus side I'm at no risk of cataracts; however glaucoma is a possibility. Not panicking yet.

Been writing another story, too! Not the same as last month. It's my third attempt this year, except this one is working out for a change. Was aiming for maybe 5K words, but I just got there and it's the halfway point at most. Tip: when in doubt, try writing good old-fashioned space opera, or your favorite equivalent. The campier, the better.

I've been writing more in general. My paper journal got eight new entries this month! Going to use it as a basis for these posts from now on.

Been doing programming stuff again, too. These days it's so hard to get excited about tech, but there are still small things to do here and there that might prove useful, or at least fun to learn. At the very least I can teach others.

But first to get a new monitor before my ancient spare gives out as well. Wish me luck.

2025-07-30 Hot summer

I've been writing a new sci-fi story! It's not my usual style, or my usual setting, but still better than nothing. Even if it goes nowhere in the end. Though I keep coming up with ideas, so who knows. To think it all started with a joke post on Mastodon.

(Spoiler: it didn't go anywhere after all. Oh well.)

Anyway, until then, there have been more heatwaves. The current one is pretty bad, but about to end. Been slowly chipping away at chores and errands regardless. Trying to update my personal wiki a little, too. Just enough to let people know it's not completely abandoned yet. Oh, and my link-directory wiki has inspired someone to make something similar! Recognition is always a good feeling.

Can't believe this year is more than half over already. Summer is always too short. At least I got to go on my yearly trip to visit relatives and change the air for a few days.

This July I'm finally getting rid of some old cruft from the website. Not sure what will replace all that stuff. Maybe some art; all my other sites have art sections now. But first I have to up my game and make more of it.

The cicadas are done for the summer; cricket season has started. Too bad I can only hear them with one ear. The other one works fine, except for high frequencies.

Oh yeah, a new heatwave just started. That's, what, the third in less than six weeks? Either way, this one's bad. It broke all records elsewhere, almost did here, and is set to continue in some places. Comparing notes with friends in distant lands is surreal.

Last but not least, I'm finally done going to the dentist for this year. Never mind the expense, it's been a very stressful July just when I really didn't need that.

2025-06-16 Research is fun

Weather stayed capricious throughout mid-May; at least we're done with the political drama. Been working on my web directory again (got rid of so many dead links thanks to the spider mode in wget; highly recommended). Been talking to more people about my fiction, too. Oh, and blogging. Three times in a week, even. Between my paper journal and this one, I've been writing a lot lately. Too bad it's mostly ramblings. Spent some time doing research for my newest sci-fi setting, too. Worldbuilding is a lot of fun, but frankly unlikely to result in a story. Wouldn't be my first failed attempt this spring. Could still prove useful down the road.

In other news: courtesy of an infographic posted on Mastodon, I spent half a morning researching e-mail providers with a free plan. So far the winner for me is mailo.com, a no-nonsense French service; runner-ups were:

There was also a Swiss company, but they were pushing AI. Hard pass.

It's summer now, the last week of school, and I'm in a much better mood than last year when it was one bad thing after another. Even the weather has been fine, aside from one early heat wave. There's been rain and trees are leafy, so the ground hasn't started to burn yet. Let's see how long it lasts.

2025-04-30 Writing, coding, more

It's barely been one year and I'm back on my bullshit with yet another toy Forth nobody needs, but it was fun to make and taught me a few things, among which a new-old programming language.

Weather continues to have swings. Big ones. This isn't normal. We're talking an 18C drop in one day, going from almost-summer back to snow, then up again after one week.

At least early summer temperatures feel right for Easter. Helps with the festive mood.

Been writing more on paper, too. It's fun to actually use all those old pens instead of letting them dry up, and a notebook doesn't go into stand-by while you're trying to think about the next sentence. The hard part is finding certain exotic refills. Fountain pen manufacturers have standardized on those little plastic vials, why can't everyone else?

In other news, the Neon Kiosk started working again after a seven-week outage during which it was up but didn't update. So my previous entry will only have been visible on the new blog, where I've been mirroring them lately. Glad to see it's back. We don't use these journals to talk to each other like we should, but their absence still left a hole.

Last but not least, I'm finally getting the hang of coding in Perl. It's never going to be a favorite, but it means being able to share code with some of my friends, who use it extensively. Plus, it's a fine language, that doesn't deserve its bad rap! I like its philosophy and community norms.

For once I had to trim down this journal entry to make it fit. It's a good feeling.

2025-03-20 Seasons and software

We had a mini-winter vacation in February after all, complete with kids building snowmen and sledding. Watching them play was amazing. I hope it doesn't become just a memory. Took some photos anyway. Wrote some impressions in my new paper journal, too. Managed to keep a self-imposed pace all month, and it feels great.

In the way of programming, I revived not one but two old projects, and marked others for archival. That was a harder decision, but no less important. My personal site is a living place, not a museum, so it needs a shakeup now and then. Doubly so in the web design section, that's become cluttered over the years with lots of little experiments I never looked at again.

Spring arrived at breakneck speed in Bucharest, going from zero to late May weather in less than a week; plants didn't even have time to react. It got way too hot for about a week, then we had another cold snap. Better than winter lasting until early June like in other years, but not so great for agriculture.

After flailing around for a few days, I resumed work on AntiWiki. Added some features I had planned for much later, and even came up with a spin-off script that could prove useful in some situations where even AntiWiki is overkill. Never thought this little tool would have such long legs, but where I use it, it's really useful.

At least this is among my projects that are still popular, especially those in the web development section. Other parts of my site hardly receive visits anymore, and I'm still finding old clutter to get rid of.

I'd better wrap this up by now because it's the spring equinox all of a sudden.

2025-02-10 Winter and websites

It's warm again in Bucharest at the end of January. The weather forecast says we'll have a winter without snow. That's unheard of. Even last year we had a little, a couple of times. Things are changing fast.

In other news, I'm still burnt out on coding, after doing way too much of it last year. Note to self, that can happen even with one's main hobby. That didn't stop me from releasing a new version of AntiWiki, because I'm using it more again, and it was lacking.

But mostly I've been working on my websites. Lots and lots of that. Learned all kinds of new tricks. Made some experiments, too, of which I can announce a couple at last: my redesigned photography website (friends only, sorry) and my new blog.

Overall, I've been a lot more active again starting in December. It's obvious from the amount of notes I've been taking. That's a good sign.

February started with a cold spell for a change. Not even as much as last year, but I'm no longer used to it. Didn't stop people from going out a lot, anyway, myself included. And now it's all sunny again.

2025-01-15 Cloud apps on my mind

On holiday season I have cloud apps on my mind. Most people seem to find them a boring subject, but they're important tools nowadays, for sharing files with each other and between devices (short version: use CryptPad, it's the best right now).

I also wrote a story between Xmas and New Year, kind of a very short fanfic. It's my first in over a year, and it sucks, but still better than nothing. Didn't expect I would show it to anyone, but my friends actually thought it was fun! Go figure.

January lived in bullet points:

Now to see what happens next. Looks to me like a perfect storm is coming for the world, and pretty soon at that.

2024-12-09

I spent part of November updating my page on diagramming languages, improving my knowledge and learning about a new one. Haven't done much with any of them lately, but it's a good skill to have.

Another thing I did lately was to bring over some links about interactive fiction and roleplaying games from my other site (as part of a cleanup over there). Those sections don't get enough love most of the time, so the refresh is welcome.

Then December rolled over, and national elections turned into a big ugly mess, that makes previous debacles seem tame. Oh well, at least we have a new parliament, for what it's worth. Once the spirits calm down, we'll see.

(That, and two deaths in the family happened literally a week apart. If I sound even more distraught than usual, this is why.)

To end on a positive note, I picked up yet another creative tool to play with and make nice stuff in a new medium. It's the second time this autumn, and helps a lot with morale. Can't wait to show off some stuff once I figure out the best way to do it. Cheers.

2024-10-24

This month two separate conversations reminded me of some stories I wrote. One is Behind Gray Blocks, my cyberpunk novelette from last autumn, that takes place in the weeks right before Halloween because that's when I started to write it. Doesn't get more seasonal than that. (Speaking of which: I'd like to see more Halloween movies, the same way we have Christmas movies: i.e. not (only) horror, or at least not gratuitous horror.) The other is Parole Planet, a short story I wrote more than eleven years ago and it's still one of my all-time favorites. Haven't touched that setting in a long while though, and generally don't feel like writing any fiction these days, but it's fun to think about it.

This month I also learned to program in Scheme for real, in other words not just fool around with the basics. Turns out it's much more usable in practice than its reputation as an academic language suggests. Active, welcoming communities are a bonus. Another tool that will come in handy sometime, by the looks of it. Just not right now.

Being bored, my next step was relearning Prolog, a language that used to interest me a lot, but only knew from old books, and that showed. Still extremely clunky for any kind of practical task, but one of those languages that change how you think about programming. Also far from dead and being actively developed, though it can take a little research to start getting a clear image of the current landscape. But that, too, is part of the fun. One more thing to put in my notes.

2024-09-08 Travels, trials and tribulations

August was a month with ups and downs. Its highlight was the three-day trip to visit our relatives. There was more of the family there, always a good thing. We traveled okay on the way back, except for the bus running into a traffic jam between towns and doubling the time to the train station. Heading out however? That was a nightmare. We've had worse along that route, but ugh. Securing any kind of transportation out of this city is an adventure. No wonder the population keeps growing (despite the notorious crowding).

And so it happens that we completely failed to go on the day-trip to the mountains that we've been dreaming of since winter. Oh well, maybe next summer.

Oh yeah, one other thing that happened in August was going from Debian 10 (which went out of warranty) to Debian 12 "Bookworm", via this little distribution called BunsenLabs Linux. Try it out, it does a lot of things right. The upgrade went without a hitch, and now I can enjoy up-to-date apps again. Guess they'll be old again in four years, but by then it will take a different OS to keep this old computer going, at the rate bloat is increasing even in the lighter Linux distributions. Maybe Haiku.

2024-07-19

I spent more than half of July trying to survive two bad heatwaves. That's not an easy feat. Makes it hard to do anything creative, in particular. Oh, and good luck avoiding the worst of it when you 1) have urgent things to do outside but 2) can't rely on weather forecasts to be somewhat accurate. Hint: four degrees Celsius can make a lethal difference when the temperature hovers around forty as it is.

Cue having to wash all the clothes I had on yesteday, after wearing them once. Oh, and the trip took too long, only to prove completely useless.

In happier news: while searching for something unrelated on Marginalia, I stumbled upon All The Tropes, a wiki hosted on the newly rescued Miraheze. Serendipity for the win! The internet still has much to offer if you go off the beaten path, though ironically even out there it's still just a few of us, and we keep running into each other. But what can we do.

Anyway... Is it just me, or has the Neon Kiosk been slowly breaking down?

2024-06-07

I spent the month of May learning Fortran. All my friends thought that was very cool, but most also think it's a retro curiosity, not a modern language one can use to get real work done in 2024, let alone one of the most popular today. That's how much perceptions matter.

In other news, I spent all spring battling a health issue. When I finally went to the doctor, it turned out to be a skin infection. That's going to take a month of treatment, but it's nothing that can't be fixed, and it's only pricy, not ruinous. We like to complain about healthcare in this country, but it's so much better than the horror stories I hear from elsewhere.

Tip: get out as much as you can, even if it's hard. Your immune system will thank you. People associate staying inside with being overweight and everything that falls from that, but as it turns out they're afraid of the wrong danger.

There's my new goal for the summer then. It was my goal anyway, only more ambitious now. We keep saying you can do certain kinds of work from anywhere. Too bad this "anywhere" is often unimaginative. And people do all kinds of things outdoors, in parks and such. Got to try it myself for a change.

See you around, at least virtually. Until then, don't let things get real bad.

2024-04-23

This month I got out more than usual. Spent more money than usual, too, both on necessities and otherwise. Tip: you have to make yourself a present now and then. Besides, like a good friend says: we don't do this every day. It still feels wrong to spend money, then ask for help keeping the website online.

There was good weather in early April, too good for the season. It was fun going out to see nice places old and new — the more things change, the more they stay the same, and life goes on; but the city feels too big now, while I grow tired too easily. All the noise and chaos aren't helping, either.

These days I write story fragments that don't go anywhere and sketch art pieces that never get fleshed out. At least working on my websites is going well.

2024-03-28

This month I switched tracks and spent most of my time studying. Studying what? Programming languages, of course. Still stuck in a programming mindset here. It just comes easier to me than other hobbies. And there's a lot to learn. Had to stop myself from turning this journal into yet another techie blog.

Then again, that's a good sign. It's spring, and my enthusiasm is back. I even started taking photos again. You can see some of them on my Mastodon profile. (Scroll down a bit.) How ironic that I'm doing this now, when my old phone has been relegated to a glorified compact camera, while last year it barely saw use.

Last but not least, I've uploaded a lot of code to Codeberg, where people can more easily interact with it. So far it's kind of slow, since the site hasn't reached critical mass yet. Then again, that's another reason to use it more. Come on over, try it.

2024-02-12

Three years ago, having a lot of time on my hands for obvious reasons, I made a whole range of new apps. Some of them I still use every day, like Clinklog 2; others such as AntiWiki deserved to see more use but sat forgotten for a while. And then there are experiments like Ripen Forth, that I used just enough to prove viable, only to set them aside soon.

This winter I'm on a grand campaign to revive all of them, brush them up and put them to good use. Talk about a U-turn.

There are several reasons for this: a renewed interest in blogs, RSS and small websites among the general public; the rise of community software forges like Codeberg giving me hope for the future. Last but not least, I'm older and more tired now: no more blazing new trails for a while. Let me build up what I already have.

Turns out, that's even more satisfying. Besides, we're talking a lot of improvements to make. That will keep my busy for a while. In fact I had to consciously take a break and update this journal at the usual six-week mark. Doubly so as the Neon Kiosk sits mostly closed these days. Someone has to keep the lights on.

Tell me you're still out there, will you, folks?

2023-12-28

This is now the next-to-last place where I post semi-regular updates (not counting social media because social media doesn't count). Since last time, I revived my personal wiki, and added a ton of stuff to it. Also did plenty of related work. Got many thoughts about it all. Many plans, too. Not so much energy, but winter's like that.

Speaking of which: it took me all autumn, but my latest story is finally complete, right in time for the holidays! Behind Gray Blocks brings back an old setting I created ten years ago. It's cyberpunk reimagined for Eastern Europe; mirrorshades not allowed! (Except once as a joke; I couldn't resist.) The result is well-anchored in a place and a season, and very satisfying in the end. So worth the trouble.

Last but not least, I've been working on a little interactive zine about my experiences writing sci-fi, using a new (to me) authoring tool that should be better known. It's nothing new, only some stuff I had lying around, but people seem to like it anyway. Enjoy, and see you around.

2023-11-10

It's hard for me to write in autumn. You'd think it's the perfect season for writing: sitting inside with a warm drink, enjoying cold sunrays from a well-insulated window. But for the past few years I've had to push myself to actually do it. And I still have so many stories to tell! Oddly enough, in these times we're living. Or maybe that's the best time to tell more stories. Either way, it helps to have experience, and know some tricks: both can help you power through. Turns out, work is work after all. And when the unexpected happens, having a backup plan can't hurt either.

So it happens that in early October I started writing a story. It was intended as filler, but it turned out to have a life of its own. Well, except for having to pause that project in early November, because reasons. For once, instead of waiting, I used the momentum to work on another one. (Tip: there's more than one way to write, and it's okay to try different places.) That's Cold Neon: not a happy story at all, but one that needed to be told, also because reasons. Oddly enough, not due to current events, though it's very much on-brand this autumn.

The problem: when I tried to pick up my other WIP again, at first it read like something written by a different person. It took another attempt to get things going again. The intervening bout of illness might have served as a reset button, too, because now I'm in the right mood again. You know what that means? Two stories for the price of one! So it's all good after all.

2023-09-20

Autumn is here. On the plus side, weather is pleasant for a change, with afternoons just warm and sunny enough; but mornings are now chilly, and often cloudy. Doubly so as the equinox is only a month away, and days are getting noticeably short, so there's that, too.

I've been spending some time with friends on a little private forum, chatting about the Basic programming language in principle, but really mostly about Linux and code portability, with regular detours through graphics and user interfaces. It's sad how quickly people left old hardware behind, so people like me who still keep perfectly good machines have trouble finding software that runs correctly on them, if at all.

Then again, another problem in the modern household is lack of space required to set up a spare machine. Kind of hard to demonstrate their utility when people can't see them at work. Another widespread problem.

At least virtual machines are easy and convenient. You can still make (and run) old Windows apps, of which there's no shortage out there. Or DOS games! All of them can still be fun, instructional... or who knows, maybe even useful.

So that's been on my mind these days. Not sure what will come of it. Got nothing better to do anyway.

2023-07-02

These days, everyone is talking about a return to blogs and RSS, courtesy of the entire Web 2.0 crashing and burning at the same time. And I've been tempted to restart mine! But seeing how I struggle to update this journal every other month? Yeah, I know better. Maybe next year. Or the one after that.

In unrelated news, this June I relearned the Awk programming language. I actually used to know it at an advanced level twenty years ago. As in, "write a relational database app in it, and publish an article in a real magazine" advanced. But then I moved on. That was kinda sad. Been meaning to pick it up again for a while, and finally did it.

Turns out it doesn't work as well without a clear goal. But hey, it was a blast from the past, and may yet serve me well again.

Another thing I did was to try more Android apps, and make better use of those I already had installed. Logging into a pubnix from my tablet is magical. It certainly works much better than Android's own command line, which is restricted to the point of uselessness.

Other things don't work so well, for example RSS clients for Android are all subtly broken in various ways. Luckily I can just use Newsboat over SSH. See above.

Otherwise I've been going out more, eating fresh fruit, dealing with house repairs... life, basically. Things are moving again in my life, and that's a good feeling. Just got to keep at it this time.

2023-05-01 Wiki weekend

I switch among my too many hobbies all the time, to avoid burnout, but with each one in turn I go all in.

(Cue anime boy pointing at a butterfly: "Is this hyperfocus?")

So it happens that when I picked up my personal wiki again this weekend, for the first time in more than half a year, there were a lot of changes to be done. Adding entries; removing entries; reworking tags and more. Now it's better than ever, and I have a better idea of where to take it from here: a virtuous cycle in the making.

While at it, I finally got around to trying out the latest TiddlyWiki Classic version 2.9.3, almost a year after it landed. Hopefully they keep working on it.

Last but not least, I installed Tiddloid again after a while, to play with a modern version of TW. Helps me stay current, and it's something to do when feeling bored. Not to mention, the app is better at note-taking than pretty much all competition. Should have noticed that earlier.

Guess doing more research than usual is how you start to notice the shortcomings of your usual tools. Lesson learned.

2023-03-21

I always find it hard to write simple updates, but it's twice as hard when feeling like nothing matters.

I've been on a roll with programming languages again for the past month. Revived Ripen against all hope, and finally wrote the much-delayed native port of Babble. I'm very happy with both of them now, especially the latter. Still hoping to write another book on this subject someday, but it would take a lot of material I don't have yet.

In related news, it's probably time to write Console Form 2.0, because this version doesn't cut it anymore, and I use it all over my website. But first, bet I can write a light, simple documentation generator that can make itself useful without gigantic dependencies or complicated usage instructions.

So, lots of programming for the past month. Oh well, Maybe I'll have something more interesting to tell you all after Easter.

2023-02-22

This year I'm taking it easy.

No multi-month projects. No projects of any kind. No trying to market myself.

Still keeping busy, of course. In less than two months, I've done a few things:

  1. Translated a short story written last summer, and wrote another.
  2. Finished coding a game started last spring, and started another.
  3. Finally tried an alternate operating system, and joined the community.

Probably more things I can't remember right now. I don't exactly keep track.

That's kind of the point, really. Life should be lived, not bean-counted. You end up doing more in fact if you let go and simply spend your time well instead of agonizing over schedules. Productivity isn't only a misguided drive, it actually works backwards. Twice the trap.

We need to get off the hamster wheel, but it's hamster wheels all the way down, and it's all too easy to get caught in the gears. I still have to try.

2022-11-26

Did you know you can use PmWiki to publish an HTML journal? The requisite block markup was added a year or two ago, so it's not very old. Wish more people did that. I keep another journal myself (and one HTML blog) that I haven't submitted to the Kiosk; should probably write a filter so I can subscribe to others from Liferea without hammering the respective miso.town subdomains. An independent aggregator would also be nice, for that matter.

Some people complain that social media supposedly killed blogs. Others claim that blogging somehow ruined the old web. Yet a third group makes nice things like the ooh! directory. A link to it crossed my home timeline on Mastodon a few days ago, and that led me down a new rabbit hole. Turns out my enthusiasm for the medium is still intact, even if I'm on an extended break.

By the way: I spend way too much time on social media, which has made for a hectic month, due to ongoing events. But I don't regret it for a moment. Some people complain about too much meta discourse (then turn around and make more of it). Fine. Let me post about it here, in my own corner, for a few friends.

2022-10-20

The world is a dark scary place of late, and getting more so by the day. For years now, it's been hard for me to think nice thoughts. That's a bad state to be in.

I've let that seep into this journal as well, filling it with rants about things that ultimately don't matter: exactly what made me give up on the blog earlier this year. But what else? What matters these days?

I should let this place grow fallow for a while. I did it before, months at a time. Then again, that would leave the question unasked. And time doesn't wait for me.

2022-09-24 Popular fiction and cultural relevance

There's a type of person out there who's obsessed with erudition. You can spot this person by how they keep complaining about a supposed category of people whose knowledge of culture, they say, stops at Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Therefore, the argument goes, their own cultural output can only be impoverished.

Oh, really. By all means then, Mr. Cultured, show us your new literary efforts influenced by Umberto Eco and Ernest Hemingway. You don't have to be nearly as good; merely show us that you've done your homework. How about some sci-fi inspired by the likes of Ray Bradbury or Kurt Vonnegut? Okay then, fantasy in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin. Planetary romance drawing from Rocannon's World rather than A Princess of Mars.

Not that I see many fictional worlds based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom either, unless you count Tatooine. Oh wait. Repulsor barges, anyone?

Star Wars makes people dream like few other things, that's just it. Jealous? Well, why don't you try to figure out how it pulls that off. Hint: it's not the pew-pew boom-boom part.

In a similar way, my one novel so far came after a long journey of understanding that started with Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov, of all things. But it has nothing to do with shiny robots. Rather it's about freedom, work and forgiving.

The most important things we have to say in life are simple. That's just it.

2022-09-17 Sparkling personal websites

I'm of two minds about digital gardens as a concept. It sounds kind of snobbish, doesn't it. They're little more than sparkling personal websites. Always under construction. Hardly a new thing.

That said, some ideas I picked up while reading about it are proving useful. Helps with this bad habit of mine: collecting links into big lists that then remain disorganized and unlabeled, so that a while later I'm all, "what is this doing here again?" Plus, unbroken lists of links that go on and on are fugly and hard to use.

My big takeaway from this whole "digital garden" thing has been to do something with those links. Add little quotes. Weave them into stories. Arrange them nicely, and use the language of web pages to create visual variety.

Took me a while to find my stride, but look at my new and improved web directory. It doesn't get much better than the history section. Feels good, too.

Now my next problem is this: the solidity of static, handcrafted web pages comes at a cost. I need to find a balance again. And balance is always tricky. But then, that's part of the fun.

2022-08-29

I may have discontinued the blog, but my habits haven't changed. Still up to my usual shenanigans, such as periodically checking out the CMS market. This time, HTMLy, an entry I previously overlooked because it didn't fit my needs at the time. Turns out it's otherwise worth considering due to a combination of qualities:

Of the latter, two in particular stand out to me:

Otherwise it's a simple app: no rich text editor (but you get Markdown), and no editing the sidebar unless you customize the theme. That looks easy to do, if a little convoluted, but I've been wrong before. Either way, HTMLy ships with half a dozen themes, and a few more can be found on the site. One user is created at install time, while others must be added manually. Plugins seem to be supported, but none are available. For some people (and use cases), this simplicity will be welcome, and that's reason enough to keep it in mind. Enjoy!

2022-08-19

Artificial intelligence being fake is a red herring. We get attached to (mostly) remote-controlled robots. People made so much fan art of the Opportunity rover. Even fan comics. I doubt if there was a single space enthusiast who didn't cry for real at its last tweet.

We treated the Opportunity rover like a faithful dog, and it deserved every bit of love, dammit! Not because we were under any delusion, or because it was somehow able to appreciate that. (Sadly, the poor machine wasn't.) What our little Martian envoy offered us was meaning.

Corporate AI is trying so much harder to be cute... then you look in a mirror and it has no reflection. We wish there was a ghost in the machine, but there's only a void, trying to suck our soul because it lacks one of its own.

2022-08-11

Exactly ten years ago, in 2012, I wrote a number of cyberpunk stories. People dismissed them as being too pessimistic. Things couldn't possibly get that bad, they said. Scientists / politicians will find solutions, they said.

I gave up in disgust and never continued the series. Can you guess what's happening these days? All those things I predicted, that's what:

How come I was so precise? They weren't my predictions. Experts from all fields were shouting from the rooftops that all these things were coming. I could easily see the signs all around me once they pointed it out. Others... chose to be "incurable optimists". Alright then.

2022-07-25 Outliners, anyone?

I finally found the right app for keeping some random old notes I've had lying about since forever. It's called TreeSheets, and works pretty great if you give it a chance. I didn't at first, instead reviewing another called TreeLine, that I ended up never touching again. Settled for an older text-based program called hnb for a while, but it just has too many quirks. Even made a couple outliners of my own along the way, that I'm still using for other purposes. But for those pesky notes, nothing quite worked right, until Bouncepaw reminded me of TreeSheets. Turned out I still knew how to handle the basics from first time, it's that well designed. The seemingly daunting menu system can be unpacked easily enough, too.

Ought to start a web page about outliners one of these days. Maybe even a whole wiki that would also include note-taking apps and so on.

2022-07-02

Roughly two decades ago, I spent some time playing with AIML, a simple computer language for making chatterbots. People who knew me well engaged with my creation in a hurry, in bad faith, and dismissed it, despite being warned that it was a beginner's early attempt. Nobody seemed interested in a chatterbot at the time, for any reason.

Fast forward a few billion dollars in marketing money from megacorporations, everybody loves the likes of Siri and Alexa. Worse, you have so-called software engineers believing these things are actually self-aware. And then you have all the people acting surprised, as if the Eliza Effect didn't have a name and a Wikipedia article. This hasn't been news for over half a century!

Look. I'm a sci-fi writer. We'll get there. We should think about it early. It's cool. Until it's not. But for now be lucid, will you?

2022-06-27

A few days ago I became aware of the new HTML Journal spec by m15o, a new way to easily format blogs for aggregation. My first reaction was to turn my nose, because it goes against accessibility best practices for use of headings in web pages, and also because it relies on ISO dates, which some people dislike.

Except it turns out that's not true: an informal poll quickly received unanimous support in favor of the format. Go figure! As for the other issue, it's still valid HTML5, and trying to "help" screen readers often makes things worse. Hopefully a future update will allow the use of level two headings for entries, as is proper. (Update: fixed as of 2022-07-05.)

Besides, it's so much easier to make a new entry here than with any SSG.

2022-05-10

My problem with SolarPunk is, a sustainable future has no room for grand halls of brass and crystal filled with exotic plant life. Hopefully we won't all be dirt-poor farmers living in huts either (I dread the prospect), but we'll still have to tone it down. Like, way down.

In fact my biggest fear is that a sustainable future has little room for anything like modern computing. There's nothing sustainable about microchip manufacturing. Or even TTL chips. Or even discrete transistors. All those rare metals.

Some people put their hope in extending the useful life of existing devices, but that's a slow death, or rather it would be slow if they weren't designed to break down quickly. We're hosed.

2022-05-07

It's been a while since my last tour of the wiki community, and things look... mixed. On the one hand, CommunityWiki seems well and truly dead, though of course wiki deaths are much like those of superheroes. On the other hand, I just discovered Melanocarpa, Bouncepaw's digital garden. Plenty of things to like there. I had no idea pipepunk was a thing, even though many of my stories feature scenes that belong in the genre, or thereabouts. And while my personal wiki has been dormant, I've been editing others, maybe more than before. So there's hope.

2021-12-20

As a kid in school, it seemed obvious to me that some teachers were mean to us simply because they could; because we couldn't get away, or tell anyone, so we were designated victims. In other words, they were overgrown bullies.

As an adult, I know for a fact that it was 100% true.

Nobody in a position of authority, no matter how small, can be trusted one iota. That includes myself. And I'm only ever able to avoid causing too much harm in my position of authority, at least the kind that can't be fixed, in two ways: one, due to close oversight, and two, because like the Tin Man in Oz, I'm keenly aware that I have no heart and can all too easily hurt someone without noticing.

2021-12-15

Ever ate sunflower seeds straight from the flower head? I have, while sitting on the fence between a wheat field and a concrete plant, with another kid I didn't know. It didn't matter. Sums up my childhood pretty well, really. On one side, a pack of stray dogs; on the other, the constant rumble of concrete mixers making the ground shake as they drove by. Sounds dangerous? Funny how I was only ever hurt by other people.

Nowadays the whole area is still a perpetual construction site, but the wheat is long gone. And bread just got more expensive.

2021-11-30

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny prominently feature the Pattern: a long, tortuous path that folds in on itself, but you have to walk all of it from end to end: no cheating, no going back, and no stopping. If you succeed, entire worlds become open to you; but fail, and you won't get another chance. It's hard; at times it will feel like trying to walk through a solid wall. But persist, and you'll make progress. Even if it doesn't feel like it for the longest time.

A similar sentiment is expressed in Gattaca, when the main character is confronted by his brother: you can't go back. Going back is simply not an option.

Romanian fairy tales, too, teach the same lesson. And many videogames as well.