Here’s a screenshot of a mind map of my current blog posting workflow:
It’s in need of a little automation and, to that end, I’m investigating what I can do on my Android phone.
Oh how I miss iOS’s Editorial and Launch Center Pro and URL schemes and…
Post inspired by @manton’s App.net posting.
I'm simply not going to list the deaths of well-known individuals during 2015/early 2016. Each has a place in my past, however small that place is. I have no doubt that all have enriched my life by some variable, though small, amount…
I led a happy childhood; not the rose-tinted view of a time ripe to be torn asunder upon discovering a dark secret much later in life, but a genuinely carefree time.
Allowed to play out; free rein to go as far as my and my childhood friends' imaginations would allow us, we had it all. My parents, both working class (not that it matters), made sure I always had enough to occupy me and that I was safe…
There's no doubt it was a different age.
The television then wasn't by any means new, but I remember our black-and-white set and the occasional moiré pattern leading me to think colour was, impossible as it sounds, just about to break through!
It never did.
The number of TV channels wouldn't have retained a modern consumer's attention for more than a few minutes. Throughout the entirety of my childhood we had three (3) channels to choose from! My parents picked our programming wisely, using the Radio Times & radio guide extensively.
There are too many things to list, but a brief conversation earlier reminded me of the magic of 1970s TV. Of particular significance, though I wouldn't expect many to understand why-for-me the unmasking of professional wrestler 'Kendo Nagasaki'; an amazing bit of television unlikely to be repeated today.
To fill the entertainment void between TV programmes and living our lives we listened to the radio; music, lots of it, and BBC Radio 4 for talk, news and of course drama.
We had a record player with a storage capacity of, er… ok, capable of playing 78s, 45s and 33-1/3 vinyl records. Amazing sounds from a black plastic disc, and especially the rich, unsurpassable bass and frequency range when played on my Auntie & Uncle's 'Radiogram'; from-memory almost identical to the one at the top of this 'Radiogram Days' page.
Incidentally, rather than me telling you what my parents and I listened to, just take a look at that page. It sums up the era perfectly.
Ok, to give you a clue, my parents had me later in life than the average. I listened to a vast range of music, first theirs and gradually as my tastes developed…
A range spanning my Dad's jazz to songs from the shows, rock & roll, classical to avant-garde, through the big band sounds to American easy-listening to…
Ok, given a huge range of influences I chose as my first single…
Elvis Presley's 'Suspicion' – I suspect because, faced by the unaccustomed freedom and the choice in the shop, I simply couldn't decide.
But then my teenage years arrived and with them the train-wreck of inevitability. Of course I stepped away from the earlier path set up by my mum and dad. Had to; to establish my sense of 'self', or something.
Music became an important part of my life. Unfortunately the path I chose through its many genres, styles, influences, wasn't the same as my mates, colleagues, family. No matter, it helped my sense of identity grow.
Yes, I was a bargain hunter, regularly rummaging in Woolworths' wire baskets to find the stuff no-one else wanted.
Earlier this evening, a little while before my Bluetooth headphones' charge finally ran out, I was at a loose end and searching for something 'different' to listen to.
Looking through the albums I'd queued up on Amazon Prime Music, Isao Tomita's Snowflakes Are Dancing stood out as something I'd grabbed to stream eventually, but at the right time. It's an album of Claude Debussy's music, Tomita's being a 1974 electronic variant – and one I remember listening to as a child, bought by my uncle when still brand-new.
It's one that captivates me still.
So why now?
As I mentioned earlier, it's the right season to reminisce; and though year-ends usually bring out the strongest emotions, this music has opened up a good-few links back to my dim-and-distant past.
Its all good; it made me who, and what, I am.
To everyone who contributed to the making of this blog post: thanks!
I have a new redirect from my vanity domain. The general structure, as of today, is:
Why 'ego'?
My first choice, 'id', would have misrepresented the blog a little; there's nothing visceral allowed to intrude, though my aim is to introduce its reader to the writer.
I'd toyed with the idea of something 'clever' but difficult to verbally pass on, for example 'httpcolonslashdot', 'http', or simply 'dot'; but the likelihood that my site will be disseminated by literal word-of-mouth is remote indeed.
So, because I have one, 'ego' it is.
Don't bookmark it.
*There's not much of value to anyone, not really.
Twitter seems likely to announce an increase in its post character count, upwards from 140, sometime in the next few months. For many it'll be a welcome move, especially given that 140 characters is artificially restrictive – a holdover from the time Twitter ran on the back of SMS messaging.
140's all very well, encourages people to be concise, and gives just enough space for a status update or headline and link; but the fact that alternative services exist to increase the character count (after a quick redirect outside Twitter) means the time has come to grow the posts.
10,000 characters is of course a rumour, based on the same limit already existing within direct messages (I've not tried it.) Whilst it seems to me to be ridiculously excessive (I struggle to fill a 2048-character App.net personal message) is seems (Internet speculation) that only the first 140 characters of a Tweet will be shown in the standard timeline…
Phew, I'm glad they seem to be thinking of retaining the same level of scrolling I'd need to reach the top!
So, post length and the timeline out of the way, what's next to like?
Editing!*
Dropping an edit button into the laps of the majority of users is playing with fire. Most will admit the ability to edit a post must be included for 10k posts. I'm inclined to agree, but only because I can trust myself not to change the context of my posts after a 'negative' reply or one from a user I simply don't like.
An edit, by the way, is not the same as a delete and retweet; an edit preserves the flow of a conversation, a delete leaves a telltale gap.
Most users are content to post, to chat, to look at kitten pics. Most simply won't spot, nor care about, the 'Edited' indicator. Outrage is bound to follow.
My summary of a 10k limit: meh.
What I'd like to see is a Facebook Groups-like feature. No, not lists with every tweet public, but a community builder. Reduce the character count to a reasonable 4096 (a more sociable level) drop a shed load of metadata in each post, make me happy. Heck, I'd pay to remove the ads and user tracking across the rest of the web, but I can't see Twitter or especially Facebook relinquishing their monetisers.
Can you?
*I reserve the right to edit this post.
We have a dog. Ruby is lovely. Smelly, eats poo, she's as mad as a box of…
We have a cat. Mollie is lovely. Very ladylike, and even when she's shouting at me for being too slow getting her meals ready, delightful.
We have another cat. Loki is a right royal pain in the arse! He's coming up to 15 years old and, though showing signs of slowing down, is getting better at one thing…
Shouting, caterwauling, making frankly disturbing noises when he finds his soft toy and engages in very focused, er… 'behaviour' with it.
Ok, lots of annoying things. He's the last thing I hear at night and the first in the morning. It's got to the stage I want to launch him somewhere very, very far-away…
But no.
He's family.
App.net's @lukasros asked a couple of days ago:
"Hello people of App.net! What do you think about having another #ADNHackDay / #CommunityHackDay?
Pinging @matigo @33mhz @duerig @ryantharp @flashblu @adnfuture @pamdavis @jvimedia @cgiffard @blumenkraft and everyone else."
The weekend of January 30/31 has been proposed. And I'm vaguely excited!
"Vaguely" because, as you're probably already aware, I'm not a developer not even a hobbyist coder. It didn't stop me creating a thing that came to its ultimate* fruition only after the weekend I participated. But it was good to watch the evolution of stuff and, though I'd imagine there's no substitute for being in the same room as people working feverishly to complete a hack, it was good enough for me.
No, I don't know what I'm going to do, or what I'm capable of. And that's what the inspiration of a community of like-minded, though far better than me at their fields, people will imbue in me. Confidence. Or fear, too early to say.
Or… I'll just read the recap. Dunno yet!
*It's really not that good. And it has the niche-cubed appeal factor.
I have a Github Pages test blog, adapted from a repo I found on Github.com. It's there simply to allow me to figure out how Git & Github work, to refamiliarise myself with basic HTML (and with Jekyll/yaml code), and to extend my very rudimentary knowledge of CSS.
The theme I chose for the site purports to be responsive to screen orientation and size: landscape with a sidebar, portrait a top bar.
But no.
When viewed on my 4.6 inch phone in portrait orientation it looks quite nice. When viewed in my 7 inch tablet in landscape orientation it also looks quite nice.
App.net's @hazardwarning was kind enough to alert me to a worrying thing:
When viewed on her tablet in portrait orientation, the sidebar obscures half of the content; an effect I can replicate it on my tablet. When I view the site on my phone in landscape, the same behaviour is very much in evidence.
Ahhh… a challenge!*
I'm pretty sure I can fix it if I restore the original 'hyde.css' file in \public\css; a file I edited (inexpertly, it has to be said!) in a successful attempt to reduce both sidebar impact and vertical white space.
*Damnit, I very nearly inserted a smiley face then!
In a new departure, I'm experimenting with a blog post to call ADN to choose our #ThemeMonday theme for January 2016.
For more information, see the ThemeMonday page.
So here we go, please think what you'd like to see this month and tell us all. Seasonal themes, silly , sexy or serious themes; it's your ADN to shape as you will. Make the most of this opportunity!
Please reply to ADN post thread when you see it.
Thanks!
Dateline: Right now!
I just ate a couple of slices of a Hawaiian pizza I bought for my girls.
(pause for effect…)
And I liked it.
Yes, I introduced a foodstuff (pineapple) positioned diametrically opposite to my views on the addition of fruit to savoury meals. One I'd purchased outwith the normal weekly shop…
Heck, I even carried the thing up the icy path from the village!
I'm not averse to foodstuffs prepared in challenging ways but pineapple is one of those polarising fruits; tolerable in isolation, downright wrong on a pizza. Or with gammon.*
It would appear that 2016 is shaping up to be a year of experimentation, even compromise.
*Gammon with egg FTW!
Blogging is simultaneously simple and complex. The simple bit is writing something interesting. Or simply writing. The complex bit is, er… a bit complicated, obviously.
I write for myself, my most critical audience. I attempt to let the stream of consciousness flow from my brain to my fingers without much impediment. Choosing the topic helps immensely here; I made the decision years ago not to stray too far into religion, politics, world affairs, security, race, sports, and things I obviously know nothing about.
I have failed, and will fail, at my attempts at self-censorship. 'Contentious' is not my middle name.
Given those apparently insurmountable obstacles to popularity it's a wonder anyone reads my blog. Really.
In the place of writing for wider appeal I write about myself, family, experiences likely to be shared with a not-me reader, and stuff.
I write and post at a time that suits me; catering to my closest readership. I pick titles that serve to remind me of the content behind. Or is it below?
In late November 2015 I started to blog daily, responding to the installation and early use of a daily journal app on my phone. My daily streak lasted a whole and previously unprecedented month; which was nice. After that miss I've done well; another streak is ongoing.
It's not about streaks; it's about enjoyment, a process, a journey. Getting there, wherever there is, is almost incidental.
Focus on the minutiae of blogging for a moment – the technical aspects of the sport – is something I've mastered in the past, a couple of times with WordPress and, more recently, with Jason Irwin's 10Centuries (10C) blogging platform. Ok, so there's not much to fiddle with using Jason's service; so I fiddled with CSS anyway.
Right now, prior to the 4th generation of 10C going live, I'm messing about with Github Pages – it's a surprisingly rewarding process getting things to work.
Blogging and administering via Git (even with help from the Github.com web interface) isn't for everyone, though with suitable Git apps it's really quite easy after a while, especially using a good Markdown editor.
I've refrained from asking Jason to add a Git repo posting method into his already complex mix. The ability to post via an ADN private message, or via the 10C Web interface or using Evernote or, in v4, Microsoft's OneNote, probably gives existing and potential users enough options to gain wider appeal.
(Other services exist, YMMV.)
I am Baz. I am still not a blogger.