Dan J’s Website

It's obnoxious that this is even required—and who knows how effective it is to opt out of any of these companies. Are they trustworthy?—But it's worth taking a look, for the sake of your online hygiene.

I like Curtis's post about finding open alternatives to even excellent apps like Ulysses: in the longish run, I'd like to do the same. Bookmarking this for reference (and props).

I've had a tab for this 2014 Ars Technica article open for ages, let me collect the series here:

1. How to run your own e-mail server with your own domain, part 1
2. Taking e-mail back, part 2: Arming your server with Postfix and Dovecot
3. Taking e-mail back, part 3: Fortifying …

This is one of those things I find myself needing to do to keep my place tidy, and it's easy to let it slide if you don't know the process, and then the next thing you know you've had this stupid blue plastic bag lying in the corner of your entryway for months, and you don't realize it but it's slowly driving you mad.

So, better to just fold 'em up, put an elastic band around them, and put them in the closet:

1. Push the bottom in, like an "inverted taco"
2. Flatten the sides outward, so the bag, lying flat on its side, has a sort of "boat" shape
3. Fold the handles down onto the bag
4. Fold the sides of the bag over top of the handles, so the outline is now a rectangle
5. Fold one side over top the other, basically folding the rectangle in half
6. Now fold the handles at the top downwards, and then fold again, so you've folded it vertically in thirds
7. Now you've got the bag into a small rectangular shape; Put an elastic band around to keep it like that

(via youtube search)

This is an excellent episode. Tristan is eloquent about where the attention economy came from, and what we would need to do to counter its massive negative effects.

I got back into running recently, and am following this training guide, which basically starts you out mixing a little jogging with your walking, but steadily works its way up to running for one hour non-stop (after 13 weeks).

Slow and steady avoids injury, and all that. I need to combine it with plenty of stretching, though...

Also, in a depressing example of how fragile the web is, the link in that article to running form guidelines goes to a domain that no longer exists. 😒

Here's the Wayback Machine link: Benson's EPS - Basic Movements in Running

I've been making this dish on the regular. It's a little different from my usual slow-cooker chilli, and is great on rice, on a tortilla, or with tortilla chips.

Ingredients

• 2.5 lbs extra lean ground beef
• 1 cup minced onion¹
• 1 cup diced red bell peppers
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup minced cilantro
• 1 small tomato, diced
• 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup alcaparrado, manzanilla olives, pimientos, capers, or green olives (I've been using castelvetrano—I love the colour, and they have a mild taste)
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and pep to taste, just like every other recipe in the universe

Instructions (this is how I do it: for the instructions as given, check the link)

1. Brown the meat in dutch oven over medium-high heat
2. Drain the meat (or not?), add onions, garlic, and bell peppers and cook another 3-4 minutes
3. Add tomato, cilantro, tomato sauce, 1.25 cups water, olives (plus some brine from the jar), then the spices
4. Put dutch oven in 350°F oven for 1-1.5 hours (I usually take out and stir after an hour, then give it another half hour or so)
5. Once it's ready, taste and add salt/pep/more spices as desired
6. Discard bay leaves and serve
7. Makes about 5-6 250g servings

I use, but don't really like, CloudApp to share files (mostly images). The desired solution is:

1. Drag a file to an icon or something
2. The file is uploaded somewhere that it can be linked to via URL (ideally at a domain I control)
3. The URL goes on my clipboard and I can easily share it

If you pay for CloudApp, it does work with your own domain... but I kind of dislike having a third-party service for this at all.

The link above is to an old article from 2012, so there are almost certainly better solutions for self-hosting a file-linking thingamabob, but I'm bookmarking this as a start.

Example that may be relevant to building my own static CMS (if you have a static site generator, you need some trigger to regenerate the site in response to a Micropub call, if you want to be able to update the site from a Micropub client).

(via Indieweb wiki on Micropub)

This thread links to a bunch of people's work on communicating with the ErgoDox (or, more generally, QMK) from code. ErgoDox tweeted this in response to me asking if there was some way to integrate the keyboard's LEDs with e.g. HomeKit... ultimately, I want to control the keyboard lighting the same way I control the Philips Hue lamp on my desk.

Something to hack on someday.

(via @ErgoDoxEZ on twitter)

These look delicious. Time to buy a waffle iron!

Ingredients for 8 waffles

• 1 cup raw oats, blended into flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup 2% cottage cheese
• 3 eggs + 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 can (15oz) pumpkin purée (or baked sweet potato)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (optional, but recommended)
• Spray olive oil

Steps

1. Fire up the waffle iron.
2. In a high powered blender or food processor, oats and blend until you create flour. Set in a bowl and mix with baking powder.
3. Add cottage cheese to the blender and blend until it becomes soft, creamy and smooth with little to no curds. Add it to the bowl with the flour along with the eggs. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together until the batter is thick, yet still runny. Note: if you’d like to make pancakes instead, simply add in another egg white and/or add tablespoons of almond milk until the batter is slightly more runny.
4. Add the batter to the waffle iron and cook until your desired readiness, about 3 to 6 minutes. If you’re making these for weekly meal prep, allow the waffles to completely cool before wrapping them in plastic wrap and placing them in the freezer.
5. Enjoy with fresh berries and your choice of syrup or agave.

(via Fit Men Cook)

You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them.

-- Tim Ferriss, Tribe of Mentors

Important article by Cory Doctorow about "adversarial interoperability" - the concept of building a system that interoperates with an existing system for the purposes of competing with it—what it is, why it matters, and what's happened to it.

In short: alt. took over from Usenet in a way that federated social networks are struggling to take over from facebook and twitter.

(via... I can't remember; EFF's newsletter, probably)

Short video about Dustin's writing process: he does a shit-ton of outlining on cards ahead of time, which I think is what Joe wanted me to see an example of.

(via Joe Nassise)

"What’s your advice for aspiring writers?"

Keep writing, and don't walk away when you're discouraged. Finish your projects.

I still feel like an aspiring writer. I'm self-published. No one shook my hand and told me I'd make a most excellent author, and that's a scary thing. I took a leap.

I spent years toying around with unfinished manuscripts. You know what got me out of that rut? I decided enough was enough, and I committed to a publish date. Even now that I've published my writing, I still use pre-orders not just as a marketing tool, but to force myself to finish my projects. Maybe it's the former journalist in me, but I need deadlines.

So, try giving yourself a deadline. But don't make it a soft deadline in your head. Commit to sending your work somewhere: to a beta reader, a friend, a book agent or online to Smashwords or Amazon Direct Publishing.

Try writing novellas instead of the great American novel to start out. Finish a shorter piece, and you'll figure out some of the formula for finishing a longer one. You'll also prove to yourself that you can finish it.

Then comes the hardest part. You have to set it free.

Good luck!

I came across this person when searching for my own author name. At least in terms of pronunciation, they're awfully similar. 😂 Anyway, I really like her advice, quoted above.

There's no good reason I should build my own site generator, instead of just using Jekyll (as I am at the time of writing this post.)

No good reason, other than I want to, other than I miss software development and, more specifically, have never really done a big software …

A favourite post from one of my favourite tech bloggers, Scott Hanselman. I keep this in mind when trying to decide how the URLs on this IndieWeb site should work.

Critical hub for learning about tools and services that respect / protect your online privacy.

SBI is a home for generating new knowledge and understandings of how Indigenous nations and communities are impacted by gender and sexual violence, and how they may continue to work towards healing and freedom from such violence.

I saw this site linked to somewhere, and wanted to bookmark it for future investigation. I feel woefully ignorant of indigenous issues (and intimidated by the thought of countenancing them, let's be honest). At least let me not ignore resources when they're dropped in my lap.

My man Antony Johnston's take on organizational techniques that work for him. I want to get more organized, seems a good time to read this old article again.