Tag: blogging

What do I want this blog to be?

Hey, so, like, I’ve stopped posting here frequently. And when I do, I’m suuuuuuper cautious/self-critical. Maybe I should reconsider what this has become, vs. what I meant for it to be, vs. what I now want it to be.

What I had wanted: to think and write about technology, and how digital networks change the way we interact with other humans. I thought there could be interesting patterns to explore… but let’s be real. It was coming from a place of nostalgic yearning for ‘good old days’ when human connection was a chance to really connect, whereas now interactions are like our attention spans: fleeting, ephemeral, and mostly meaningless.

What it is: a place to hash out wokescolding. (If you are the kind of person who sincerely uses that term and would not apply it to me then I am not doing my job right.)

What I want it to be: Writing practice. A place to serialize thoughts that I want to share. Eventually, to take shape as a philosophical “project.” A place to learn how to share my thoughts, and use my power, in a way that can really make a difference. Or, I dunno, a cat blog?

Cat + log.
cat log

 

Using FreshRSS to “Like” blog posts via Webmention – on WordPress

Continuing Peter’s work on hooking up FreshRSS with Drupal to “like” posts, I wanted to do the same on my WordPress site. Knowing nothing about FreshRSS nor WordPress, and unable to peer into the FreshRSS database (the .sqlite file is encrypted?), I went the route (lol) less travelled by, and coded a FreshRSS plugin. Hey, turns out I didn’t need much MVC framework, once I grokked how the CustomCSS plugin worked.

I’m too tired to include a full walkthrough, because I’ve been at this since 8am. Here’s the code on Github. I had to hack FreshRSS so that it fired a hook after a successful “favourite”. I also noticed that poetry wasn’t showing up well on FreshRSS because of a workaround from five years ago, so I submitted my first blogging-related pull request.

After reading Ton’s description of setting up a network of test sites, I did my debugging on a pair of test subdomains. The sites that have been “Liking” each other all day are Crowley and Aziraphale. 😈😇

Cool Kid Clout

After getting frustrated with Commafeed and its refusal to actually refresh, I finally got FreshRSS installed. I insisted on making a subdomain (rss dot lefaive dot ca) and it took embarrassingly long to get configured correctly. (You have to add a CNAME record with the registrar as well as make and enable a vhost, and then make sure that the root directory is readable by your webserver sheesh Rosie what were you thinking).

the kid’s own rss feed reader

Next up: publishing my own reading list/OPML file, hooking up webmentions so I can “Like” from my RSS reader, and installing RSS Bridge so I can Instagram from home. #millennialNeeds

How to talk more?

As Peter Rukavina experienced with Sobey’s Sensory-Friendly shopping hours, you often don’t realize an inconvenience until it’s gone.

So this new anti-anxiety medication that I’m on seems to be having quite an effect already (it’s been a week). The other day I spoke, in public, and while speaking was able to adapt what I was saying and how I was saying it (tone, inflection pattens,…). I did this with an intuition of how I wanted to be in that interaction, and a newfound realization that I had multiple ways of presenting (myself, my thoughts). I was even able to hold space and expand on something that I realized required an explanation after I’d said it. I didn’t realize I’ve had an inner voice saying “shut up! nobody wants to hear you! nobody will get it! Stop talking!” until it was gone. 

So in the spirit of Ton’s article on How To Blog More?, I’m listing some strategies for being comfortable talking/blogging/generally, expressing. This is notes-to-self, audience me, expressed out loud. Not prescriptive.

  • Find some templates for contributing to conversations. “Yes, and…” is a good start. “I was thinking about…” is another. 
  • Keep it concise. I’m gonna struggle with this one because I really like the giant web of connections that my brain makes around any topic. 
  • When contributing to the conversation, consider that the ideas that you bring up are ideas you are directing the audience’s attention to. Make sure that they are where you want to direct attention. 
  • Respect everyone involved, including myself. (inner voice, take note)
  • It’s okay if it’s not complete, if it points in the direction you want to go. Value the dialogue. 

Elmine wrote a beautiful post about the value of communication, and making people feel heard. Ton and Peter are discussing the possibility of creating QSL cards (letterpressed, of course) to celebrate successfully sent webmentions. (I love it, I’m in, I just have to choose a non-doxxable address and figure out how where to put the h-card)

Speaking of, webmentions should be working now, thanks Ton for being my blogfather, checking your site’s logs while at the airport, and explaining to me that I had to link to a specific article, not the blog in general, for the webmention to go somewhere. Ton, is it bad form to webmention multiple of your blog posts in this one? Is that like spamming?

Press Pound to Publish

Who starts a weblog in 2019? This kid, apparently.

Who starts a weblog in 2019? This kid, apparently.

I’m sitting on my porch in Charlottetown on a sunny Sunday morning. It’s the first day I’ve worn shorts outside this season. Everything is fiercely green and the critters sing their existence from around the neighbourhood. Most I don’t know, but I can pick out squirrels, crows, and the grackles that have nested in our eves. Sam the cat kept me company on the porch while I set up a new VM, WordPress, Apache vhosts, and SSL certs – the method I’ve chosen to do this… new blog project thing. It’s not hard for me, I’ve set up websites before, but I find it hard to get through without a checklist – my brain doesn’t hold a stack well.

For the last two days I participated in a… human person meetup thing called an Un-Conference, hosted by Peter Rukavina. Among the amazing people, discussions, and activities, I heard a lot about blogging (and I apologize for not citing all the following thoughts appropriately, and they’re a bit disjointed because I’m following the cat around the yard now).

Blogging as a way to create community and make or maintain friends. Blogging as a way to think through things out-loud (Peter), to slow down and re-engage with the long-form, as a place to put down those thoughts that come when the mind has space to process (Steven), and to encourage thoughtful, meaningful discussions. Blogging as a way of crafting and owning a digital identity (Ton), and to craft tools and communities that support a social web that doesn’t rely on Those Platforms (IndieWeb, via Ton). As a place to share your own stories, and, albeit with some risk, to be vulnerable (Elmine). But that to maintain a blog, for a period like 20 years (!!) as Peter has, it helps if you’re writing for yourself.

So this is a project that I hope will improve my mental, social, and digital well-being. That will give me some brain space away from the constant distracted inattentive scrolling. That might make me better at wrapping themes into thoughts, and thoughts into stories, and stories into words. That might be a place to collaboratively make meaning, even though the world is burning. And maybe I’m finally old enough to do that thing cool people do.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go retrieve my favourite fearsome predator, who wandered off. The grackles are anxious, so I know she’s not far.