Tags: #Software #Writing

Commit messages are important. They provide a good understanding of the past, of the project's history. I do my best to craft good commit messages*, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.

So, when I come across commit messages like this:

Respect! I respect and look up to this muthafucka.

Damn, it's a blessing to be surrounded by smart colleagues. Working in a challenging environment is quite effective to up your game. This is better than getting a degree from an Ivy League university—and way cheaper.

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* The way software engineers write commit messages says a lot about the quality of the code they write. The author of the message showed above is, indeed, a pretty capable software engineer. Each time I have an issue/question related to the device's OS or the build system, I contact him, knowing he's going to provide solutions not excuses.

By the way, I did notice the small error in the commit message. Fair enough. Even the most experienced engineers make silly mistakes here and there in code as well. That's why we have code reviews as part of the software development cycle, which consist of having a peer reviewing and maybe testing your code. This is similar to peer reviews in academia, or proofreading + copy editing in professional writing. But, yeah, we don't always have someone else reviewing the commit messages, let's not overdo.

Smile and put on a happy face

The joker once said this sentence “smile and put on a happy face”. I think I miss being a kid and not really knowing what this means. When I saw the Joker movie in 2019, I was in a pretty bad phase of my depression and I remember just hearing this sentence eco in my head for the rest of the movie and for the few days after, and sometimes this eco comes back. This responsibility, this duty to seem happy even when we are not. Happy is the standard. If someone is not happy, there is a problem, and people start thinking that they are somehow ungrateful. “Why are you not happy, you know how many people wish they would have what you have”, they say. But how can I explain to them that I am not happy, because even though I am blessed I still face a lot of challenges. When I try to explain it, they will tell me: “It's not a big deal”, “Why are you so negative” and so on. And I just wanna shout “BECAUSE IT MATTER TO ME, AND IT HURTS ME”, instead I shut up, nod, smile and say “You're right I was worrying for nothing” and return to my silence. The fact is that this world is so focused on seeing things so black and white, that if it is not a matter of life and death, or at least from the common point of view, it is nothing important. But for me, when something bothers me enough to feel bad and not just numb it is a matter of life and death, and having to smile and put on a happy face just worsens everything. I would like to express myself, express my sadness as much as I express my happiness, express my indifference as much as I express my enthusiasm, express my numbness as much as I express my energy; I am instead left here with this mask, this smile and no one sees my tears. I wish it was different but it's not... so I smile and put on a happy face.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul, but I have a smile on my face

Everyone's sharing there Spotify Wrapped thingies at the moment, aren't they? I think I must have missed my pop-up on mobile, but desktop Spotify has made a nice Your Top Songs 2022 playlist for me which I think I might fall back to this month as there are some lovely things on it. It's 101 songs and nearly 9 hours long. Is that normal, the 101 songs thing? Anyway, sharing that feels a bit more me than

I actually flipped to Apple Music for most of this year before switching back to Spotify in the last few weeks. So I think there's a lack of variety which reflects how little I used it. I'm pretty sure there are things in here I only listened to once. There's a fair bit of Plaid, which isn't surprising – I love them. And some Coldcut and other Ninja Tune stuff which is no surprise having got back into that scene after Coldcut's Matt Black did weekly streams on the Coldcut Twitch channel during lockdown.

There's also a lovely lot of Skurken – discovery of the year, from my point of view. Unless it was the year before – time and all that. That discovery also comes by way of Mixmaster Morris, who popped up as a guest on a few of Matt's streams. Do listen to Freezer (Spotify link) if you haven't heard it. It might be my favourite piece of electronic music ever. (He has new material out, I believe. I must have a listen. In fact, I'm pretty curious about that whole label and how they do things – Touched Music.)

The big surprise is (as far as it looks at a glance) a total lack of Boards of Canada. I'm sure I'll fix that in 2023.

#music #spotify #playlist #lookback2022

“If I had a penny for everytime I started a new blog …” I would be just as poor, just with a handful of useless coins weighting up my empty wallet and pulling my trousers down. You know, with inflation and everything, I wouldn’t even be able to buy the cheapest chewing gum.

Seriously now. I kind like this place. It is simple, something wordpress once kind of was, but since they “updated” their editor, it is rubish. So cumbersome. This place also has a massive positive: it lets me use my own domain, without chargining me more than what I actually already pay for it (again, looking at you wordpress). And I can have up to three blogs, that is so neat. For now, I’ll only keep this one. (I also need to learn about adding static pages, I’m almost sure that is a thing I can do in here.)

Currently, I’m on trial. But the pro version is not expensive at all. But I will refrain from subscribing just now, I know very well how often I expend money with cheap stuff only to go red when they all accumulate. (Which reminds me, I need to cancel a Patreon.)

Ah right, one thing I wanted to say. I have a phoenix tattooed in my upper arm. Why a phoenix? Honestly, because it was the one design I still liked after three months (it was a proccess, maybe one day I talk about it). But hear me out, why phoenix? It represents a constant cycle of rebirth. Always starting over, always starting anew, never afraid of the end.

I can easily fit this narrative in many aspects and times of my life. I can also fit this narrative in the many blogs I started. I still wouldn’t be rich though. What if the fiery rebirthing proccess burning everything up :D

I guess that is it for now. This is marked to be available via fediverse. Not sure how it will work out. Time will tell I guess.

#Blog

OK. First bit of tweaking done to the CSS for both anticontent.net and interesting, lovely, useful. I noticed that clicked links in the middle of sentences were quite hard to spot. I'm personally a fan of links always appearing underlined and I'm reasonably sure this is good from an accessibility point of view, so that's what I've done.

For a second there, I pasted in the whole of the first bit of example link styling from w3school's links CSS page (with added link underlining thrown in) which would have amused me no end had it looked alright, but unfortunately it didn't. But while I was there I've made my hyperlinks red. But not red red. People that know me may be able to guess at the reasons for this particular shade, which is somehow evocative of the sweet silver song of the lark.

a { color: #D00027; text-decoration: underline; }

Edit: OK, looks like my next bit of CSS fiddling might be code block styling.

#css #notes #ynwa

The Church is limited in how the Word can be delivered, minutes, not hours. The world supports a life without religion. Live your faith, don't hide.

#ComeAndSee #FollowMe

Diamond alternatives are used in the absence of diamonds. When diamonds are getting too costly, then Diamond Alternatives are utilized in the market. People are also aware of Diamond Alternatives, but maybe the ratio is only 10%. But what are diamond alternatives?

Diamond alternatives names are as follows:

• Lab-grown diamond
• Moissanite
• Garnet
• Amethyst
• Peridot
• Emerald
• Sapphire
• Cubic Zirconia

Diamond alternatives are the option for diamonds, and they’re ready to use in jewelry, also. Diamond alternatives carry less price than diamonds, but they’re nearly similar in quality.

Diamond Alternatives are used in jewelry, psychological process, Spiritual Things, disease remover, and positivity creation.

A few months back I quipped a colleague for saying he doesn’t have time to time to pursue his hobby. In fact, I for sure know he has the time. It’s not hard to squeeze in 15-20 mins to start a new habit or hobby.

What he (and in most cases all of us) don’t have are attention and energy. Both these resources are far more limited than we think. What I think we should say is

I don’t have the attention required to get this done

I might have 8 hours to get all the work done. But I probably have 4 hours a day for work that requires focused attention. Any effort beyond my ‘focussed attention’ period means I’m physically present, and mentally I’d elsewhere.

Time and attention aren’t the same things. They're barely related.

[Photo courtesy from Unsplah]

Will Mistreta continues collecting OSRIC errata.

Newest additions include notes for:

• Know Alignment
• Water Breathing
• Lurker Above
• Phoenix
• Naga, Spirit
• Spider, Huge
• Squealer

I've added them to the A4 and letter versions available here.

#ADnD #OSRIC #OSR #Resource

Chalk it up to my limited knowledge of linguistics (that Modern Languages degree was several years ago), but I suspect that English is developing a plural indefinite article.

You know what a definite article is, right? In English it’s ‘the’.

The cat

The bus

The orange

etc. because it refers to a definite thing. It can also refer to a concept or uncountable noun. ‘Love’ vs. ‘the love’ if you like.

And an indefinite article, meaning ‘one’ – and in many languages it’s the same word. In English it started out as ‘an’, related to ‘one’ and the ‘n’ was dropped before a consonant (yes it is that way round. Bite me).

A cat

A bus

An orange (very good example – it was originally ‘a norange’, compare the Spanish ‘naranja’.).

For a plural indefinite article, i.e. more than one cat or bus or orange but not any specific ones, we need to either use the noun bare (‘cats’, ‘buses’ etc) or ‘some’ – some cats are white vis-a-vis the clearly not-true cats are white.

In some languages there is a proper indefinite plural. Spanish and Catalan for example.

un gat – a cat

uns gats – some cats.

una dona – a woman

unes dones – some women. (French doesn’t do this btw despite being related).

But not “a women.”

But, you say, I have seen this. This precise case – “a women.” Also “a grandchildren,” which phrase I saw this morning – something along the lines of “I’m waiting for my son to give me a grandchildren that I can take to children’s shows.” You could just say ‘grandchildren’ or ‘some grandchildren,’ but while non-existent for now the offspring in question are somehow more precise than ‘grandchildren’ – they’re specific.

The indefinite plural is a strange beast, somewhere between singular and plural. “Would you talk like that to a women?” suggests that more than one woman may be involved, as is likely. And it isn’t really the same as ‘some.’ (or ‘not all’); it’s specific in its lack of specificity.

I suspect that instead of being upset when someone apparently spells ‘a woman’ as ‘a women’ (and it isn’t just men who do this, I’ve seen women do it) we should hail it as the possible upsurgence of a plural indefinite article.

Now I’m going to fire up Spotify (other streaming services are available) and listen to a podcasts.

I want to figure out how #tags work here, because they seem to be powerful little guys. Apologies if this post uses some tags gratuitously – it must seem like such a #pointless thing to do, and is #frustrating for readers, I'm sure.

I just don't have a lot of posts yet, because I'm learning about this blog, its possibilities, and where it can fit in alongside my #website, which already has its own very different style of blog. So I'm #abusing the few tags I've used thus far. I'll stop there for now. But I'm #NotGivingUp. I'll be back.

And I'm back :)

Tags are powerful, all right. Actually, did I read somewhere that tags should be all #lowercase? In which case, I'm #notgivingup.

Anyway, I wondered how to find the #rss feed address for a tag, and found Matt's reply to that very question in the forums:

Regarding RSS feeds for tags

RSS readers will automatically detect it if you give them the URL of this page (it’s included in the page’s metadata). But to manually get to the feed, you’ll just add /feed/ to the URL

Here's a frustrating RSS feed: https://write.as/johnarthurnichol/tag:frustrating/feed/

Tags as eBooks

If you have the #epub #addon, readers can #download, as an #ebook, a collection of your posts that share a tag. You just add .epub to the url of the tag page and that's the download link.

Here's a pointless epub to download: https://write.as/johnarthurnichol/tag:pointless.epub

Readers can download your whole blog as an epub, too. My blog makes for a very short ebook indeed, but you can download it anyway by clicking this link: https://write.as/johnarthurnichol/.epub.

Again, My Apologies

You know this stuff already. I know you know it. It's really for my own benefit that I'm putting the details here. I always, always forget #howto do things and, invariably, by the time I realise I've forgotten how to do something, I've also forgotten where I put the #instructions on how to do that something.

Now I just have to select the #howto tag in my own blog. I hope I'll #rememberthis ...

어느새 가을 공유 곡 포스트들의 마지막이지 뭐야? 그렇게 또 한 계절이 가고. 12, 1, 2는 겨울이라 보는데. 이제 곧 겨울이라니.

올해는 변화가 많았던 만큼 조바심도 많이 났다. 더 빨라야 할 것 같은 것들이 빠르지 않았고, 그런 생각을 할 시간에 행동했으면 이미 끝마쳤을 일들은 끝나지 않았다.

미래를 고려는 하되 그걸 갖고 고심하지는 않는 내가 되고 싶다. 겨울에는… 되겠는가? 되겠어?

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15 – All those dead tunes – SKYGAZE

https://open.spotify.com/track/57L1sYkWCuaBlg5JT8N8wk?si=3ayYXqaGSxy1ujZQ1q0L9w

Artlist에서 찾은 곡이다. 너무 좋잖아… 뾰로롱에 꽂힌 나의 트렌드는 가을에도 계속된지라, 이 노래가 그리도 좋게 느껴지는 것 같다. 그리고 이 코드도… 내가 좋아하는 코드. 이름은 모르는 코드.

개인적으로 소리 위주의 곡을 꽤 좋아함. 사람 목소리가 아닌 소리. 이거 이어폰 꽂고 들으면 소리 움직이는 방향도 재밌다. 귀 간지러움 효과 최고!

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16 – Clouds – GESS

https://open.spotify.com/track/0G5haXzYfPmo6t7TcyxKuc?si=Pirj2qHESLqBYWpoaEO7Hg

좀 트렌디합니까? 예?

2019년 노래이지만 내가 공유하는 곡 중에 트렌디한 편인 것 같다. 두둥실, 좋고. 시려워지는 가을에 아련하다.

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17 – Dear Boy – Avicii

https://open.spotify.com/track/4yTeQK2XThWYeEW8D72XmU?si=giY9HaYqQZmlzvKTrJ5KgQ

처음 나왔을 때부터 좋아했던 노래. 충격적이게도 거의 10년이 되었다. 믿을 수가 없어!

아무튼 얘를 좋아하는 이유는 가사가 너무 사랑스러워서다.

So bold and fine I've known you for some time Whole life changed while Bones like yours and mine Go dance in the woods and Down we go, down, down Oh boy, you're mine Do you remember old times?

Oh dear boy, I wanna follow you You're a wild boy, I am a wild girl too Oh dear boy, it's so hollow without you In a world with everything but it won't do Oh dear boy, I wanna follow you You're a wild boy, I am a wild girl too Oh dear boy, so shallow in the blue It's our time for everything and I call you

Sweet love of mine, destruction ain't a crime For those who find love as a game like you and I Go dance in the waters of all the tears we have cried Oh boy, we're fine, do you remember our time?

Oh dear boy, I wanna follow you You're a wild boy, I am a wild girl too Oh dear boy, it's so hollow without you In a world with everything but it won't do Oh dear boy, I wanna follow you You're a wild boy, I am a wild girl too Oh dear boy, so shallow in the blue It's our time for everything and I call you

Girl은 워낙 나이를 가리지 않고 여자들한테 많이 써서 좀 이상할 지경인데 (나 아세요? 누구더러 걸이래. 누님이라고 불러라. 아니, 마님이라고 불러라.) boy는 성인 남자들에게 잘 안 쓴다.

근데 왜? 특히나 사랑의 맥락에서. 다 큰 사람도 사랑하는 사람한테는 어린아이일 텐데. 그게 좋은 거 아닌가. 그래서, 가사가 귀엽기도 하고 짠하기도 해서, 이 노래를 좋아한다.

나는 이성애자 여자인 관계로, 내가 사랑하는 사람은 당연히 내게 boy다. 영원히. 123살이 돼도!

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18 – SUNFLOWER GIRL – Tobey Lynn

https://open.spotify.com/track/4jKySfy1yg9USFbSNRbYdZ?si=BMDeDAUsQ8yw8qHQgaX_Kg

포근… 목소리가 너무 매력적이다.

스포티파이에 현재 7,655명의 monthly listeners를 갖고 계신 분. 괜히 뭔가…! 뿌듯하고…! 여러분? 들어보세요.

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이로서 가을이 간다. 게다가 포스트 쓰는 날도 마침 11월 30일이네. (캘리포니아 시간.) 아아아아 님은 갔습니다.

내년이 되기 전에, 12월 내로, 정신 수양을 좀 해야겠다. 지금 내가 겪고 있는 “문제”는 정말로 다 내 안에 있는 문제다. 그게 지금처럼 명확했던 적이 없다.

내가 원하는 걸 좀 더 솔직하게 쳐다볼 필요가 있다. 가질 수 없더라도, 갖고 싶었던 적이라도 있는 채로 죽는 게 낫지 않나… 갖고 싶은데 안 갖고 싶다고 거짓말하다가 죽지 말고.

#고막사람