Can’t sleep so I just fixed how the blog permalinks look; who wants to see ‘…/index.php/…’?
Next up, fixing the image appearing with the post into the fediverse.
Permalinks
Social sharing
Here’s the first automatic blog post to Mastodon with, I hope, restricted commenting features. (I removed the ability to comment some time ago, so I’m not sure what will happen next. I hope it means comments stay on Mastodon).
Socials
Somehow, after a long social media hiatus mostly spent on Reddit, I found myself back on Mastodon (a Twitter replacement for me) and Lemmy (maybe a Reddit replacement one day). And, probably as a content consumer rather than an active poster, on BlueSky (a newish Twitter alternative). And for a few days, I’ve been using Pixelfed (a photo sharing service I’ll be using instead of imgur).
Bluesky is literally (not figuratively) the only social network my wife has ever shown any interest in, and only because of the rapid rise in popularity throwing mentions of it into multiple TV news broadcasts and news aggregators. There’s no way she’ll sign up, but anyway…
I’m currently ‘bridging’ the gap between Mastodon and Bluesky using the ‘Bridgy Fed’ service https://fed.brid.gy/. The theory is that posts I make on either network, and some of the interactions prompted by them, can be viewed on both networks and…
It’s just magic isn’t it. It’s probably how the web should be working by default at this point nearly 28 years after I first got online.
Basic security
One of the basic requirements of me using the free ‘IP2Location’ WordPress plugin for my blog is that its authors ask for attribution, which is fair. So here it is:
I just installed and configured the country blocking plugin from https://www.ip2location.com. I found it after a quick web search led me to this page: https://blog.hubspot.com/website/wordpress-plugin-to-block-countries.
The setup procedure is pretty simple: install it from the WordPress dashboard, sign up for a free account at IP2Location to install the database and stuff, and setup the block rules for countries or IP addresses.
(I didn’t want to pay Wordfence to extend their so-far excellent monitoring and blocking service, at least not yet).
DEVONthink
I’ve moved all of my notes and bookmarks from the Obsidian writing/knowledgebase app into the similar DEVONthink document manager.
Although I’ve known of it for years I’ve resisted DEVONthink mainly because of its cost.
Over those years I’ve spent time with Microsoft OneNote (cross-platform & web), Drafts (iOS & Mac) and Obsidian (cross-platform). But, just as for personal use I’ve previously moved from the Omnifocus task manager to pretty much everything else – and always back again – I have the feeling I should probably have trialled this when I first found it.
One of DEVONthink’s strengths is its ability to simultaneously synchronise with a number of document stores. I’m considering (if my shared web hosting plan allows) attempting to store one copy as WEBDAV, with one in a Dropbox folder.
At least there’s no appreciable lag using iCloud – opening Obsidian could take literal minutes.
And I’m collecting RSS feeds into it instead of using a dedicated reader. RSS, yeah.
Chicken soup
(Impromptu earlier, but was eventually very tasty.)
Ingredients:
- The remains of a roasted chicken, preferably with some meat and skin left on;
- Roasted potatoes;
- Cooked carrots;
- Cooked broccoli;
- Slice of bread, white squishy;
- Vegetable stock cube;
- Jalapeño chilli jam (best measured from a squeezy bottle);
- Tomato ketchup, squeezy;
- Rosemary, from a spice pot;
- Salt, to taste;
- Pepper, a tiny amount.
Preparation:
- Boil half a pan of water in a kettle,
- Dump the chicken into the saucepan,
- Cook it to a rolling boil then let simmer for a while,
- When the colour of the liquid evens out then sieve the solids out from the pan over another, separate out the meat and return it and the liquid to the main pan, and discard the bones, skin & cartilage*,
- Add the stock cube and rosemary to the main pan and continue to simmer,
- Add the potato, carrots & broccoli and boil until simmering again, then then turn down the heat,
- Add the bread (to thicken), making sure it’s thoroughly mixed in,
- Add the chilli jam and ketchup, both a single circular squirt,
- Er…
- Eat!
*Tried at this point it’s a bit weak and watery, but at least it tastes of chicken.
Earth Hour
From https://www.earthhour.org:
Switch off & Give an hour for Earth this Saturday, March 23rd at 8:30 pm your local time. Together, let’s create the Biggest Hour for Earth!
The Worldwide Fiund for Nature (WWF), 2024 website main page headline.
We participated.
The thing is, if you want to save energy and set a trend it doesn’t really matter when you do it, as long as it’s done.
Food (what a week)!
On Sunday (Mother’s Day over here) my wife and daughter1 had a Chinese takeaway, and not wanting anything off that menu daughter2 suggested we have a kebab from my favourite place (recent food hygiene rating 1/5, delivery time abysmal, great food though).
Donner, chicken, beef chunks, salad, sweet chilli sauce, wrapped in a naan bread. It was my first in a year (I’ve been good following a health scare). Awesome, absolutely perfect.
It was my mother’s in law’s birthday early this the week. We went out to a local chain restaurant and I had an 8oz steak (steak for the 5th time this decade), fries, not enough breadcrumbed spicy prawns but that’s not a biggie, and sweet potato fries on the side.
The steak was ok.
Dessert: oh yes. Apple pie and ice cream.
Yesterday the new technical author asked if anyone in the department wanted her to order breakfast on Fridays. “TAKE MY MONEY!!!”, I said.
So today, just after 10am, I had a spam and bacon (British back) on buttered toast. I’d forgotten to add ‘ketchup’ to the shared spreadsheet she set up but heck, it’ll wait until next week.
Last week my boss (I’ve known him for 30 years) asked if he could walk round to the ‘expensive’ cafe with me and sample one of the beef & bacon burgers (on a brioche bun with salad and ketchup) I’ve been buying myself.
He bought mine today. And it was very, very good.
And we had visitors at work today, so I got a chance at the leftover buffet. All I could manage was a few cucumber sticks. Crunchy.
It’s the little things in life, isn’t it.
(But I’m definitely not weighing myself for a little while).
Oops, I did it again
Randolph, so long and thanks for all the fish your patience hosting my site & email over the years.
This is my blog, at a new host. Replacement pictures to come later.
Link to 2018 post “Killed“.
Onion
I planted and grew an onion, and harvested it (I think this is the word despite some misgivings based on the scale of this operation) a few days ago.
It started out about 2-1/2 months ago as 2 stems and roots split from one onion which was going off. One stem eventually flowered and was subsequently eaten by our local wildlife, but I somehow got one to grow.
I’m probably going to prepare and eat it later today, or sometime this week.
And here it is!
Needs to be said: my wife planted and nurtured the tomatoes, with a little help from me (building the planters and filling them with soil & compost last year). The onion though, my tending consisted of occasional watering once a week and repositioning it when the stem drooped.
Now I was going to use this as a metaphor for and then mention stuff that’s happened to me in the last 5 years since I involuntarily absented myself from the pnut.io social network – enjoying its 7th anniversary today. But naah, this blog post will stand alone as a metaphor for growing plants without a clue!