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  • Expressing Yourself On the Web: Jekyll & Github Pages

    Expressing Yourself On the Web: Jekyll & Github Pages

    This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Expressing Yourself on the Web

    Yesterday, in my series about expressing yourself on the web, I talked about Neocities and the expressing yourself in an old web way. Today, I’m going to write about using Jekyll & Github Pages to build a website.

    What is Github Pages?

    Github Pages is a service run by Github that allows users to launch web pages for free. It was launched to help open source projects have a place to communicate information about their projects.

    Github has limited preprocessing. Namely, processing Markdown and Jekyll projects. Hence why I’m recommending Jekyll to go along with Github Pages.

    What is Jekyll?

    A screenshot of the homepage of Jekyll.

    Jekyll is a ruby-based system to facilitate pre-processing static content written in Markdown. It allows you to use a command-line interface to compile a site into static content. Alternatively, you can use Github Pages to avoid the command-line interface and have Github compile the site for you.

    If you have a Mac, you can install Jekyll pretty easily using the Terminal. And I’ll explain how.

    What you’ll need to know to use Jekyll & GitHub Pages

    Honestly, you’ll need the HTML & CSS knowledge I mentioned in the Neocities review, but with this, you’ll also need to understand concepts related to Git and some Ruby knowledge wouldn’t hurt. So, if Neocities seemed a bit challenging for you, I wouldn’t recommend this approach either.

    How to install Jekyll on Mac and set up a website

    First, go into the Applications folder. Then, go into the Utilities folder. There should be an app labelled “Terminal”. Open it. You’ll need to copy and paste the following command into your terminal:

    gem install bundler jekyll

    Then, once that command has finished running, you’ll need to navigate to where you want to install the Jekyll site. For example, if you want to put the folder in your Documents folder, you’ll need to run this command.

    cd ~/Documents

    Then, run the following command, changing the text in bold into the name you want to choose for a site. No, you can’t use spaces in this version of the name so don’t ask.

    jekyll new my-awesome-site

    There you go! You’ll have a new Jekyll site on your computer. All you’ll have to do is commit it to GitHub with every change. You could do so through the command line, but you can also use the GitHub Desktop app.

    If you found this a bit too involved, the next option will probably be more your speed. If you found it too easy, then Thursday’s entry would probably make you happy.

  • Expressing Yourself on the Web: Neocities

    Expressing Yourself on the Web: Neocities

    This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Expressing Yourself on the Web

    In this week-long series on expressing yourself on the web, I want to talk about five separate services that allow you a platform you can use to express yourself on the web. Today, we’ll be talking about Neocities, a host of static HTML pages and popular with sites that use old-web tech.

    What can you build on Neocities?

    Honestly, if everything your website can do is done in the browser with no server processing, Neocities is okay for you. Though, you probably would need some knowledge of HTML and CSS. You can find free learning guides on Sadgrl’s website and Codeacademy. However, if you want a guided learning path, I’d recommend this track from Treehouse.

    Put simply, if you used something like Geocities back in the day (think 1990s to early 2000s), this is the service for you.

    If running WordPress is crossing your mind, Neocities is probably not for you. If you plan to use this to build a blog, don’t. Honestly, this service isn’t great for that. Also, any preprocessing is going to be out the door, so things like Markdown are not going to be interpreted into HTML for you.

    Having said that, though, the wide variety of sites that exists on Neocities is something to behold. As someone who actually used the old web, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic. Seeing all these websites use old web tech makes me irrationally happy. I, for one, would love to see more people building websites using this tech.

    What would I recommend this service for?

    Honestly, pages that you don’t intend to update often. Also, if you’re not uncomfortable with a text editor like Nova or VS Code. Alternatively, you can use some sort of WYSIWYG HTML generator.

    On the one hand, it is a free service. However, on the other hand, you’ll have to work to publish anything here. So, this service is perfect for smaller websites where you don’t mind updating things manually.

  • How to Not Pay Outrageous UPS’ Brokerage Fees

    How to Not Pay Outrageous UPS’ Brokerage Fees

    So, I bought myself a Freewrite Hemmingway Special Edition Smart Typewriter a couple of weeks ago. And on Wednesday, the amount of the fees I had to pay were posted on UPS’ tracking site. In short, they wanted to charge me the GST due and owing, plus nearly $120 in brokerage fees. In no uncertain terms, this is highway robbery.

    UP clearly showing me that they wanted to charge me nearly $120 in brokerage fees, which is nearly double the amount of GST they wanted to charge me. Oh, plus the GST, for a grand total of $180.

    Needless to say, for something I paid $1,588 for (yes, I got the 2-year warranty too), I wasn’t thrilled about throwing down another $180. I recognize that I would have to pay GST and GST in Alberta is 5% with no PST. But, that doesn’t mean that I was okay with also adding an additional $120 on to that.

    You don’t have to pay duties on purchases made in or from the US, but you do have to pay GST on those purchases. This is thanks to CUSMA (which replaced NAFTA).

    How to avoid UPS’ Brokerage Fees

    In order to do this, you’ll need to first call UPS to get a B-15 letter. UPS can e-mail this letter to you. It’s called that because you’ll need to go to the CBSA, pay the duties, and get one of these.

    Form BSF715-1 from the Canada Border Services Agency

    Basically, need to pay the taxes at a CBSA Inland office. An inland office is able to collect these duties and issue a receipt like the one above. This form used to be numbered B-15, but is now BSF715 or BSF715-1. In order to get it, you need a copy of the shipping bill that the person who sent you the stuff sent. It includes the price of the goods and is important to calculate taxes and duties.

    At the Inland office, they’ll look at the invoice. They may ask you a couple of questions about the nature of the goods. I know that the officer had more than a couple questions about what a “Smart Keyboard” was. Once they make their assessment of how much duties are owing, you’ll go to the cashier. The office that I went to accepted credit and debit cards as payment, but I brought cash just in case. Once you pay, you’ll get that form I mentioned above.

    Afterwards, you send this form to the addresses UPS told you. Keep the original copy to show the driver. A good app to take a picture of the

    The Day Of

    You’ll want to make sure you can receive your package. But thankfully, everything went smoothly. The UPS driver even commented that I knew exactly what I was doing. But now, I have my new gadget and I’m going to be spending my next couple weeks giving this thing a test drive.

    So, in short, don’t pay UPS a shit load of money. Instead, go to the CBSA office (if you can), pay the taxes, and don’t pay UPS this insane cost. Honestly, I’m not looking forward to paying the shipping when I buy myself a new… writing chaise. But at least I know how to pay the duties myself the next time UPS has a delivery for me. And yes, sadly, Liberator uses UPS to ship orders. Needless to say, this is useful knowledge for me to handle a future order. And I hope this information is useful for you too.

  • A Review of Sprinter

    A Review of Sprinter

    A person writing at a table in a notebook/journal.

    So, for the past couple of days, I’ve been using the Sprinter distraction-free writing environment by Freewrite/Astrohaus. And so far, I think it’s an okay environment to give you a semi-distraction free writing environment.

    The Sprinter environment is rather simple. It’s a drafting tool with no formatting tools, no spell check, only one real way to go back and edit things (the backspace key). It is good for what it is: a way to birth your ideas into the world. Editing comes later. In this sense, Sprinter does its job.

    The Good

    Firstly, it’s free. And I don’t mean it in the same sense as the Danger Notes app is free, but it has ads once you finish each sprint. I mean it in the sense that it’s not only free but ad-free. You can use the environment as a completely distraction-free writing environment.

    Secondly, it allows you to sign up for Postbox, which is their own syncing service. I wanted to sign up for Postbox immediately because I had recently bought a Freewrite Hemingway Special Edition Smart Typewriter. Though, that’s a bit of a mouthful so I’m just going to call it the Hemingwrite. Postbox also allows you to set up a connection between it and Evernote, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. I chose Evernote because I have over a decade’s worth of notes in there.

    Thirdly, and most importantly, it gives you (to a certain degree) the space and freedom to just write. In just two days, I wound up writing 3,844 words across two projects I am working on.

    Fourthly, it gets you to commit to and explore ideas because, again, you’re disincentivized to go back and fix things. For example, I thought that I wanted to give my main character strawberry blonde hair but then, I had realized that a paragraph or two before, I gave her red hair. Now, if I were on Scrivener, I could have just gone back to that paragraph and fixed it. However, because I was in Sprinter, if I wanted to go back, I would have had to delete everything I had written from that point. In short, you’re sort of incentivized to commit to what you’ve written and move on.

    The Bad

    Now, time to get down to the bad. And the first bad thing is that sometimes, inexplicably, you can lose your whole draft. Now, thankfully, I had the wherewithal to set up Postbox pretty quickly upon getting the membership. This included syncing to Evernote. There was a time delay between when I lost the draft and when it would be removed from Evernote, so I had to act fast. I was able to grab a fairly complete copy of what I lost, copy and paste it into Scrivener and finish the sprint.

    Now, if you’re just saving this to Postbox, you’ll likely have a bad time. But, if you save it to a third party streaming service like Evernote, you’ll probably be able to recover your draft. But why should you have to be prepared like that?

    The Ugly

    Firstly, by default, you’re going to be using Folder A with no means of moving content between folders. Now, with any review of the Freewrite Smart Typewriter or Traveller, you’ll know that one of the things you get is a folder system that lets you sort drafts into three folders, A, B, and C. However, when you use Sprinter, everything saves into Folder A and I’m not entirely sure why.

    Secondly, and this is crucial, you’re (presumably) accessing it on your computer. And this leaves you open to notifications. While it is true you can disable most (or all) notifications by creating different focuses in OS X, this doesn’t stop Facebook from pinging in your browser if you have it in another tab. It doesn’t stop the other apps you have open from showing their red dots to try to get your attention.

    Also, if you want to use it as a drafting site to blog, you might find it difficult to use a more rigid template. After all, this is just a blank screen for you to put your text on. Copying and pasting don’t work in this environment.

    Sprinter, in Summary

    Overall, would I continue to use Sprinter? Long term, no. But until UPS sends me my new Hemingwrite, I think I’ll continue to use Sprinter to draft with the keen awareness to have Evernote at the ready to pop open just in case it eats another one of my drafts.

    Also, I earned an achievement for writing my first 1,000 words through the service. I hope that the image for this achievement has a transparent background so it’ll look nice whenever I get around to setting up dark mode on this site. 🙂

  • Learning French on Duolingo

    Learning French on Duolingo

    I'm on Section 3 of the Duolingo French course, which corresponds to the A1 level.

    So, I am currently learning French and while I’m not quite good yet, I feel like I’m making slight progress. However, I feel like I’m moving up the skill tree quite slowly. After all, I’m learning on Duolingo and I finally got around to finishing Section 2 of Duolingo’s French course. I also don’t feel like I’m getting a good sense of past tense/future tense, even though I am learning a few words (like pleuvoir) that describe something that’s going to happen.

    Now, I feel that the way I started did help me to learn a bit more with learning on Duolingo. The first bit of work I did was a French course in community college with a native French speaker from Africa. This helped me with my pronunciation and I feel like I focused a lot on that. This was critical for helping me to speak French better.

    Further, Section 3 (which I am currently on) is still the equivalent of CEFR level A1. However, I had an evaluation with someone from the local Alliance française in my town. They placed me on level A2.1. They did mention that I don’t have the past and future tenses solid. However, they think I know enough to be able to flourish in the A2.1 classes.

    So, what comes next, after Duolingo?

    Honestly, I’m not quite sure. According to their course, they can get me up to level B2 on the CEFR. Even though I do have aspirations to learn a couple more languages, I do want to be just as fluent in French as I am in English.

    So, what other languages am I planning to learn?

    Spanish

    The first result I got when I searched Pexels for "Mexico".

    Well, it depends on when I get to level B2 of French. Pragmatically speaking, Spanish would be useful. After all, I’m planning to have three surgeries in two Spanish-speaking countries (Mexico and Spain, in case you were curious). And I feel it would be incredibly critical to be able to speak to people in those countries.

    I also know that if I learned Spanish, I would be able to increase my reach. After all, I do want to be an educator on trans issues. To be able to do this effectively, I need to be able to communicate with more people. So, I would want to be able to communicate and relate to Spanish-speaking people. In other words, I have a mission-minded motivation to learn Spanish too.

    Furthermore, I feel that Spanish would provide me a gateway to learning Hebrew. I know that statement would cause a few people to scratch their heads in wonder. However, it’s not that shocking. There is a Jewish language in the Diaspora called Ladino and it’s actually a language spoken by Sephardic Jews. Another name for it is Judaeo-Spanish. I also find it intellectually fascinating and a unique way to approach Hebrew.

    German

    The inside of a German train station.

    However, my intellectual curiosity is pulling me towards German. I’m incredibly curious about learning German because English is a Germanic language. I feel that learning German would give me a greater appreciation for and understanding of my native tongue. I also distinctly remember wanting to learn German when I was a kid. However, I honestly don’t remember why.

    Furthermore, I know that Yiddish has Germanic roots. I feel that increasing my knowledge in German would help me to learn Yiddish. And I feel that learning Yiddish, like learning Ladino, would help me to learn Hebrew.

    Japanese

    Akihabara

    Then, there’s also the weeb in me and as a result, Japanese is a contender for my next language. I’d like to be able to watch anime and read manga without dubs or subtitles. I also feel that it would give me access to more manga and anime. After all, I wouldn’t have to wait until some fan group dubbed or subbed a particular series. I remember waiting anxiously while a fan group of subbers were slowly releasing episodes of Bleach. It was excruciating and I’d love to be a bit more independent in this regard.

    So, what resources do I plan to use to perfect my French?

    Honestly, not sure. I’ve heard good things from Evan Edinger about Clozemaster. I also plan to read more French and Québecois news and listen to French-language podcasts.

  • Write The Truest Sentence That You Know

    Write The Truest Sentence That You Know

    That sentence was once written by Ernest Hemingway. No, not the “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” one. That is a screengrab from the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery. But it does loop so well, no?

    Now, I’m not sure I could ever write poetry. Best I could do is a limerick about a trans woman from Nantucket. But I know I have stories in me that can be told. I’m currently working on a couple of romance novels and a weird fiction story that I’m actually kinda proud of. I’m working to write them all by the end of the year.

  • Why I’m Sticking With Dvorak

    Why I’m Sticking With Dvorak

    Anyone who’s ever tried to use any computer I’ve had over the past decade has learned the hard way that I’m a Dvorak typist. In fact, I’ve been typing on the Dvorak keyboard layout for almost a decade now. I learned the Dvorak keyboard layout during the 2013 floods in Boulder County, Colorado. At the time, I was living in Longmont. I was stuck at home due to the rain. Transit wasn’t running at all, so I needed something to do to pass the time. So, I decided to whip out a keyboard map I printed from the Dvorak Zine and switch my new MacBook’s keyboard to Dvorak. No time like the present!

    Confession Time: Why I Needed To Learn the Dvorak Layout

    A bird perched atop a branch
    I bet this bird could hunt and peck.

    I used to hunt and peck when typing. Yes, I was someone who programmed for a living and was hunting and pecking. I learned a ton of bad habits when I was learning how to type, which is odd since I took a keyboarding class in high school. However, my typing speed was never that great. It was high time to fix that shit. Dvorak was my ticket to touch typing.

    And it worked. I’ve been touch typing ever since I spent a week learning the Dvorak keyboard layout. Now, the thing is… can I tell you where the “o” is on a Dvorak keyboard? Sure. Could I tell you if I weren’t allowed to move at all and/or I weren’t in front of a Qwerty keyboard? Not a chance. I’d be telling you from muscle memory. I know that my left ring finger would be the one to hit the “o” on the Dvorak keyboard, meaning that it would be the letter “s” on the Qwerty keyboard. It’s pure muscle memory.

    Enter Colemak

    A race.

    So, if I’ve found a tool that works for me, why bring it up? Point is, I’ve been aware of another alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. And I’ve given a little thought to switching to Colemak. But the thing is, my speed is pretty appreciable and based on the advice of others, I don’t think Colemak could help improve it any further. I know I could hit 70-ish WPM if I took a typing test without preparing right now.

    Point is, Dvorak is doing what I need it to do for me. I type pretty well and I do so without having to look at the keyboard except if someone hypothetically asked me why I’m hitting the wrong keys and yet, typing the right words. But usually, I’m too fast for people to notice that sort of thing. The fact that randos typically can’t just walk up and use my laptop is an added bonus.

    I’m not looking to be a speed demon. I’m just looking to start writing novels.

  • Mastodon, ActivityPub, the Fediverse, the Fall of Twitter, and Free Speech

    Elon Musk finally bought Twitter and as anyone with eyes has predicted, the site is going to hell in a handbasket. Despite claiming to be a “free speech absolutist”, he has blocked several journalists, people who parodied him, rival social media platforms like Mastodon, and anyone who he simply doesn’t like. Meanwhile, he’s decided to unblock and protect transphobes, white supremacists, and other such monsters. And while I don’t approve of his completely reckless and irresponsible behaviour, it is his platform.

    And now, it’s our choice as to whether or not we want to be on it or not.

    Not your server, not your platform

    Here’s the thing people don’t get. Twitter is a privately-owned proprietary platform, so nothing that they do could be considered an infringement on free speech. Not before Elon’s takeover and certainly not afterwards. Twitter owes no obligation to you. Twitter, as a private business, can do business with anyone they wish. This is the crux of the problem with all the big social media platforms. At whim or will, they can ban a person’s account and, barring certain exceptions, you just have to deal with it.

    This is why open social media networks, like Mastodon, have been gaining traction. Mastodon is different as it’s not just one network nor does it use a proprietary standard. Anyone can join a Mastodon instance and if they don’t like their instances, they can move their content from one instance to another. Or, in other words:

    And even better, sites like Mastodon use a standardized framework known as ActivityPub.

    What is ActivityPub?

    ActivityPub is a standard. And this is what makes it freer than any network like Facebook. Whereas Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are walled gardens, ActivityPub is an open standard. Combined with federation, you can post a wide variety of content that can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms. This site is now using ActivityPub through a WordPress plugin which broadcasts an ActivityPub stream. Now, you can follow this blog on Mastodon, CalcKey, or any other ActivityPub-enabled platform. Just follow me at @daria.bloodworth@daria.bloodworth.ca on your preferred instance of choice and you’ll get my blog. Just as if you follow me at @daria, you’ll get my social posts. And that’s because these sites “federate” with each other.

    And it is my hope that soon-ish, I can create better federation between this site and other ActivityPub platforms like Pixelfed, Peertube, and BookWyrm and move off of (or reduce my dependency on) sites such as Instagram, YouTube, and GoodReads.

    What the hell is federation?

    Federation is interconnectivity between services. Just like how e-mail services “federate”, ActivityPub “federates” in a similar way. You put the user’s username first (in my case for Mastodon, it’s daria), then an “@” symbol, and then the server name (in my case, it’s “equestria.social”), so it’s @daria.

    Why the hell should I care?

    Put simply, you should care because this is the way you get your free speech. Private companies like Twitter and Meta have no obligation to you. And with the walls closing in, you should get out now.

    https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1604531265419591681

  • Kent Hovind: A Song of Whales and Pine Trees

    Kent Hovind: A Song of Whales and Pine Trees

    So, I’ve recently had two debates with pseudoscience charlatan grifter, Kent Hovind. And the second one was just so toxic, that I’ve decided never to debate Kent Hovind again. To give you an idea as to why, I’m posting a video compilation made by Atheist Jr. to explain the problems with debating Kent Hovind, particularly as a trans woman.

    But I would like to make a statement about what happened in the debate when Kent decided to ask my boyfriend about my genitalia. This is so wrong for two separate reasons, first of all – I’ve never met Kent in person nor do we have that kind of relationship. He has no business knowing what genitalia I have. Secondly, he didn’t ask me – he asked my boyfriend. Which is very disrespectful on so many levels. First, we circle back to the first problem – Kent has no business to know this. Secondly, asking my boyfriend is just fucking weird. If my boyfriend answered that stupid, irrelevant question, I would not be thrilled with him. Also, it denies my agency. Which points to another part of the debate, Kent’s blatant transmisogyny.

    You see, maybe I don’t act like how Kent thinks women should act. This might have something to do with the fact that he is on wife number four. But I’m a big believer in egalitarian relationships. I believe egalitarian relationships are much more healthy than the kind of hierarchical relationships that Kent has with his wife. As a result, I would never ask my boyfriend to ignore blatant criminality (as Kent asked of Mary Tocco and Cindi Lincoln). I would never encourage my boyfriend to commit crimes on my behalf (as Kent asked of Jo Hovind). This is unacceptable behaviour that degrades instead of edifies your partner and I would want no part of it.

    For a man who has been married four times (theoretically), Kent Hovind knows about as much about love as he does about evolution. But, I think this relates to a deeper question: why did I do this? Why would I subject myself to this when I knew going in that Kent would not be honest?

    Kent Hovind and the Call of the Void

    Kent Hovind represents an intellectual black hole. He spouts any number of vacuous, irrelevant crap and just runs rough shod over any interlocutor with an almost impressively bad gish gallop that he’s been using for decades. Facts won’t get in the way, you won’t change him, so why would people choose to debate this carnival barking clown?

    Put simply: it’s the call of the void. It’s that same instinct that might call someone to do something we know hurts us. It’s why bungee jumping and parachuting are so popular. And there is no person who resembles a void better than Kent Hovind. He is a vaccuum of ethics and knowledge by which, even the people surrounding him tend to lack either.

    His Dinosaur Adventure Land is an equally interesting void. A place full of criminals and shoddy construction out in the middle of nowhere Alabama. That last part might not be entirely intentional, given the fact that he was forced off the original Dinosaur Adventure Land property by his son, Eric. Pensacola, by stark contrast, has a lot more people and a lot more ways to flee/run to the outside world. Repton, Alabama, by comparison, is much, much more isolated. It’s a veritable Jonestown.

    So, needless to say, debating Kent Hovind is a stupid idea. Debating him on his own turf where he can break out the Flavor Aid and cyanide if shit doesn’t go his way is profoundly more stupid… which is probably why no one who doesn’t buy Kent’s crap has taken him up on his offer to visit DAL. But it is tempting. Even knowing the danger. Even knowing the risk. It’s the call of the void. And if nothing else, Kent Hovind represents a void.

    So, why am I stopping?

    Put simply, I’m just not as interesting a debate as I thought I’d be. The value of debating someone like Kent Hovind is not to get him to learn anything. That’s just not going to happen. Kent has the same bullshit script as he did before he went to prison almost two decades ago. The only value in debating Kent is to paint him in a corner, to throw him off his script and see how he reacts. Others have been more successful at this than I. As a result, I simply see no value in engaging Kent anymore.

    A couple weeks ago, I had a video chat with Atheist Jr. on the topic of debating Kent Hovind. Even then, I knew that I would never get Kent to actually learn anything, that the things that can be gained from debating Kent would be to spark doubt in the minds of his followers or for purely entertainment value if you can get Kent off his script. I wanted to do both. The latter, I think I failed at. The former… I can’t say for certain. These things don’t exist in a vacuum and it could be possible that I could get someone to start thinking, but I’m not sure if it worked. Maybe one day, I might get an e-mail from someone who saw that debate and started their road to breaking free of Kent. I don’t know.

    But, I made the attempt. And now, I’m going to focus on writing once again and publishing amazingly smutty fiction for you fine folks. Maybe a story about an elderly preacher in the middle of nowhere finding the young buck of his dreams?

    See y’all on the trail,

    Daria Bloodworth

  • Bringing the Get Noticed Theme Back to Life

    Bringing the Get Noticed Theme Back to Life

    This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Building My Author Website

    As I mentioned in my previous post, I talked about building my author brand. Needless to say, I need a website to communicate with any potential fans I might (hopefully) get. And, ideally, it wouldn’t be some cookie cutter WordPress theme used by every other site. I have a few ideas and points of inspiration to draw from. Currently, I’m working on bringing back the Get Noticed Theme, but modernizing it a bit for the modern world and WordPress. In this post, I will explain why I’m using the Get Noticed theme as a base for my new author website. Then, I reveal my inspiration and give you some ideas about what I’m going to change with the theme.

    (more…)