10 april 2026
I wonder, is it a bad idea to offload some work to an external program?
Been thinking about putting together yet another SSG that has more flexibility with its output. I want to use pandoc to convert markdown to gemtext (there's a custom lua filter that outputs in gemtext here). I'm very likely to do this for my own personal use, or else this idea will just get stuck in development hell while I decipher how pulldown-cmark parses and converts to HTML. It's not that complicated, it's just being able to focus long enough to take what I learn from it and apply it.
Focus is been difficult to come by...
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3 april 2026
I remember during the early aughts, when I was in high school, I was learning to make my own website with PHP. One of the things I made was a PHP script that changed out the stylesheet based on the server's local time. Little did I know then that such a feature would be as widespread as it is now. I wish I had capitalized on it more but I doubt I was the only one that came up with the idea at the time.
Also, been tuning into the 24/7 livestream of Artemis II mission. The Translunar Injection burn, plus the previous burns got me thinking about Kerbal Space Program again. I installed it just now. I came across an old screenshot I took from 12+ years ago when I finally got a probe launched in orbit around Kerbin, the Kerbal's home planet. It was a nice blast from the past :D I wonder if I can get to that point more quickly and with less destruction of parts!
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29 march 2026
I don't write on my mataroa blog often but I had a whole spiel involving the concept of "forever game."
TL;DR? That's fair, this is my most concise take on it:
I hope the "forever game" concept dies in a fire.
I wrote the post around 4am so it kinda goes on...a bit like this post! :P
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28 march 2026
I finally got a physical copy of a Genesys sourcebook, "Shadow of the Beanstalk." I'm elated. Genesys--Star Wars RPG really--was the TTRPG system that pulled me into TTRPG in general.
But, I have a little bit of guilt. I told my friends since last Decemeber (2025) that I would run a one-shot of Shadowrun 5e. I did run another one with a single player and while it was fun, my impostor syndrome kicked in: "I doubt my friend had fun. I don't know what I'm doing."
I still haven't ran that one shot for two of my friends...but I want to run a game of Shadow of the Beanstalk. To be fair, I'm more familiar with the Genesys system so I'm a lot more confident in running a game of that than Shadowrun 5e. I know Genesys is a lot less complex than Shadowrun. Its dice mechanic (sans custom symbols) was adopted into Daggerheart.
Anyway, maybe this is the fire under my ass that I need to get going on that one shot. I'm a little annoyed at how much setup is required in Foundry VTT but them's the breaks when you choose to play with friends hundreds of kilometres away!
(Note: This was typed on a phone and I tried to fix as many typos I could catch. If something looks weird, that's why)
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25 march 2026
I applied to join cosmic.voyage a couple days ago. It seems like it's just one person managing it and I think he has an account here in tilde.town. But...I suck at waiting and I want to participate! I just hope sending an email without signing/encrypting it didn't hurt my chances :( It's not a process I've ever had to use. I'll probably have to learn in case I don't hear back in three months and I'll risk annoying the guy with another application email!
Another note, I finally broke out of my creative paralysis with the PocketQuest (ttrp) game jam. There is this solo journaling game I wanted to adapt the system of, Anamnesis. It's CC-BY 4.0 so I know I have permission to adapt and remix it. I already have an idea of how I want to approach it too. I'm excited :D
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21 march 2026
I've been trying out Emacs lately. I'm somewhere on the fence about it. The fact that it is actually an operating system I find...endearing? It's a weird thing to feel over a system of applications pulled together to create this one cohesive whole. On the other hand, it's a whole new way of learning how to interact with something that's primarily keyboard driven.
I grabbed DOOM Emacs, a configuration starter kit/framework that says to ease the learning curve of Emacs. And it does work as advertised but I'm not "fluent" enough to use Emacs vanilla. At least I learned enough to get rec-mode installed and edit my tarot journal, that I've stored as a recfile.
That's another thing I've been trying out: recutils. I found out about it through ~dozen's webpage, something about tarot.rec. I thought the concept of recutils was interesting and there are some potential project ideas that popped in my head with it. It seemed appropriate to try it out with a tarot (learning) journal. I draw a card about once a day, learn about it, and my take on how it could guide what's happening in my life.
So far, I've learned the Swords suit is rather dark and aggressive. Makes sense, it is a weapon. But I also realize the one round of shuffling I did may just not be enough!
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19 march 2026
I got an email from Vercel earlier today pointing out changes to their ToS and privacy policy. Surprise, surprise, they're going to start using their users' data to train their agentic models. I will say, it's nice of them to give us a way to opt-out, but Hobby plans are default to opt-in while Pro plans are opt-out by default.
Look, I get it, Hobby plan users are using their services for free. I can't hate Vercel for wanting to squeeze some value out of people who aren't paying but by stealing their code to train their models, I can't in my right mind respect them or even stay with them anymore. I've deleted all my projects, and my account from them. It wasn't a difficult decision, though. I stopped using Vercel years ago. I held onto it in case Netlify didn't work out.
Yes, it's good that they let us know ahead of time, and yes, it's nice they gave us the option to opt out anyway. I think I've reached a point where I realized I'm going to have to check my settings to make sure no one else tried to sneak in AI training opt-in into my account. I don't think I like any one company enough to be okay with them training off of my data, whatever form that data takes.
It doesn't help that I'm lazy x_x and having to get rid of stuff from places I had been for a long time feels kind of bad, not gonna lie.
I won't lie, I'm also on the fence about using AI. I think I'm largely okay with people using it locally, rather than relying on companies. I don't like giving these parasitic companies justification to build out their AI datacenters like they will literally die if they don't.
So, yeah. Those are my thoughts on it so far. I think AI can be useful but where we are right now as a people, we're just not ready. It seems the majority of us don't have the self-control to do much beyond chasing the next big money-maker. I feel bad for the academics that worked on projects that brought AI where it is now. I doubt they wanted it to be corrupted this way.
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18 march 2026
I figured out how to "host" a bare repo of my project on tilde.town. Don't worry, it's not the only copy I have of the bare repo :P
I know I could request a gitea account, but I feel like I should do that if I'm working on something for the town. Plus, I want to try using git without a forge, especially for projects that are in their research/discovery phase. All in all, I'm happy to have the space here to play around like that :)
I might try and make the bare repo available through my pages here, for the fun of it, when I have projects that I want to make public!
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17 march 2026
I started working on yet another static site generator. Initially, I wanted one that can output both HTML and gemtext. But as I thought about it more, the more I realize I actually want to make a "protocol agnostic" generator. One that isn't tethered to just making HTML or just gemtext, or only both. I want it to have the flexibility in case another protocol grabs my interest.
So yeah, started work on it. Or rather, I started getting a better feel for the libraries I'm using to power this thing. It doesn't help that I've felt out of practice with Rust. I had other projects I wanted to work on but I couldn't help but feel like I'm wasting time. Especially since I'm not sure I would use it myself these days. This generator, however, I know I'll use. Maybe others will want to use it too.
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15 march 2026
Feeling some strong sense of impostor syndrome after looking through what some of the townies are like. Probably gonna chill out on staying in touch for a bit, but I'll still be poking about in my home directory as I slowly figure out how I want to set up my webpage and gemini capsule in here.
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13 march 2026
Having one of those annoying days where it feels like I have a lot I want and need to do but I don't have enough time. I would like for my brain to stop tricking me into some anxiety spiral, thanks.
Ignore this, testing some ttbp html changes.
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12 march 2026
It started with a desire to not hog a good chunk of the forum's space with things that may not matter to anyone else but me. So I put it into my public_html and next thing I know, I'm trying to cook up a half-decent CSS so it's not a pain to read the text!
I forgot how rewarding it is to write CSS by hand. I haven't done the whole "design a webpage from scratch" in a while. Been out of the webdev game for a few years.
It's nice, even though it might not be as visually exuberant as some of my fellow townies or their preferences xD
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6 march 2026
A game on my steam wishlist since 2023 came out of Early Access today, "Desynced." I don't know how long they've had a demo for but I'm finally trying it out. Looks like I got another game to add to my library, for slightly more discount because it's bundled with a game I already have, yay!
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5 march 2026
I have a confession to make. I've signed up for an account here more than a year ago. I think it took more than a month to get the actual account and I suppose my interest waned with that time. I didn't want to lose the opportunity to check this pubnix out so I accepted the invite anyway.
Regardless, here I am, exploring the space and being nosey :P I do want to start a gemini capsule here too and I do hope I can run CGI scripts within that protocol. Not a big deal if it doesn't, I like that #tildetown is pretty lively!
Aww, no CGI scripts for my gemini capsule...oh well! I might still want to do something with this space anyway!
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