Mandaris

This is just a simple test of publishing with the latest version of Ulysses.

Some small header.

❯ hugo -D
Start building sites …
hugo v0.94.2+extended darwin/amd64 BuildDate=unknown
WARN 2022/07/05 18:19:20 found no layout file for "HTML" for kind "page": You should create a template file which matches Hugo Layouts Lookup Rules for this combination.

This is an image.

Foods

Food	Time	Mass
Burgers	Dinner	Massive
Pancakes	Any	Lots
Boogers	Kindergarten	N/A

While his two-implant system is still working, he doesn’t know how long that will be the case. “As long as nothing goes wrong, I’m fine,” he says. “But if something does go wrong with it, well, I’m screwed. Because there’s no way of getting it fixed.” -Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported - IEEE Spectrum

I never thought about something like this happening. I’m more familiar with the distopian fantasy featured in Repo! The Genetic Opera¹.

I’ve been thinking about this for a little bit of time after putting some effort into the Pure theme. Pure is a very nice theme that makes it very hard to read to content and using HTML5 semantics. I really think that most people will be happy with it.

But I’m not most people.

I like working on projects and tweaking a personal web design is one of those projects that don’t really have an “end”. It’s actually because of that fact that I decided to write down whether or not I should start another project to make a theme for Hugo/Micro.blog.

No

I have two main reasons not to create a new theme.

Focus on other projects

I’ve got responsibilities to other people and to myself at this point. There is always an opportunity cost when working on personal projects. Time spent in front of the computer moving elements around on a page can be hard to justify when you only have so many of them in the day. For example, I’m writing this now and I’ve clocked in about 15 minutes.

Not needed

To be honest, a lot of my writing goes to micro.blog in the form of small post. I think I average about a 800 - 1000 words a month. I’m already using the Pure theme mentioned earlier for users to see the longer post if I write them. Based off of my other designs, the one I’m thinking of making will be a lot like it except that I have different taste on things that most users will never, ever come across.

Yes

Of course, there are reasons to make a new theme as well.

Learn Something New

Web design is always changing terms of technology and taste. It’s important to keep learning in order to keep those brain cells moving.

No stress activity

Well, with a site that is here for my personal enjoyment, I don’t have a feeling that it needs to be perfect. It can just be that thing that I poke at.

Conclusion

I’ve decided to work on a new theme. Now… all I got to do is think of a name.

I was recently listening to episode 49 of the Hemispheric Views podcast and they had a brief segment on the gaming and I responded in the discord associated with the podcast, but wanted to add it to the blog for perpetuity.

Well… in a short defense of Apple Arcade, it has helped me with a small game addiction that I was having with a game called Empires and Puzzles. Empires and Puzzles is one of those free to play games with tons of little things that would make things soooo much better… but you have to pay for it.

I had started because of a recommendation from a friend (like most additions) and was paying a little here and there.

I’d try to break it by playing something else and a lot of other games (on the phone) have the same problem. The games that are good and you pay up front for can be expensive and it’s not a guarantee that you’ll like it after purchasing it. I did luck out with picking up games like Dead Cells and Hole Down.

Luckily, I never turned in to a whale¹, but I found myself paying something like $10 a month sometimes. Which honestly isn’t a lot but there is a difference between intentionally setting out to spend the money and feeling that you need to in order to help you meet your goals or in some cases enhance the experience of the guild/group of people you were playing with.

When I got Apple Arcade, I was able to find similar games to what I was playing or even better switch to different types when I’m bored. That feeling of newness cuts the rush of whatever loot box drive I might get with other games. Since the game is paid for by my subscription, I don’t get pestered by the latest offer or made up event. Some games, still have the mechanizations of having multiple kinds of in game money that you would need to make progress.

True, you might not get the AAA titles, but in a world with a lot of people on the phones, this is good. Apple have also added a lot of older games that they are re-releasing with the “+” so that I can continue playing those as well.

It really enhances the Apple One service for me and I don’t picture that I’ll be unsubscribing.

This was originally two messages that I put in discord, but I thought I’d put it on my blog for others to see.

I’ve been using the app “Due” to help me track things like medications for me and my dog as well as a wind down for work. The issue is that I’ve got 7 reminders for the day. Is there a way to sort these into folders? Should I put the effort into that because as I type it, it feels a little petty and sort of like pushing food around on a plate.

I haven’t really had the problem of tons of alerts when I open the application that some people are having. I think this is in part because the things that Due is reminding me of are usually pretty small and when I’m not doing it, the reminders (every 15 minutes) help. I also have them spaced out. For example, I have one for the dog at 6:00 and me at 6:15. Sometimes I’ll go into the app before hand to mark things off before they are due

Thanks to everyone who listened in. I’m still putting things together and I’m looking forward to the next episode.

The first step is always the hardest. I thought I would start with something small and see where it goes. I’m hoping to make at least 20 of these before the end of the year.

Going to get back into making podcasts and other kinds of media.

I gave Lillie her first bath of the new year.

Let me say this and there will be spoilers

I really, really liked the Matrix when if first came out. It was revolutionary in the effects and probably the first piece of media that ever outside of my high school required reading that asked me to question reality.

Although, I remember walking over to a local theater and watching it without knowing what it was about. I think I might have thought it was going to be a clone of Dark City. But now, the image of Neo dodging bullets has been parodied and copied so much, that I’m sure there are people who honestly don’t know where it came from.

Good times…

I remember watching the videos of people saying how the movie had changed their life. I remember how excited I was to find out that there was going to be a sequel¹. I even remember being excited by the video game²!

After all of it, I don’t look back and say it was a waste because it taught me that I have to have some standards on what I want when continuing a franchise. I’ve never gone back to see the movies again. Other than seeing the three main actors popup every once in a while and thinking about how one of the others was removed from the sequels³, I haven’t really thought about the movie franchise.

But then I heard rumors about a reboot.

At first, I heard that Michael B. Jordon was going to be cast as the new Neo.

Then I heard that star of the John Wick films, Keanu Reeves, was going to make an appearance!

Then I heard that Laurence Fishburne was Not going to be in it…

Wait… What?

Ok…

What about Agent Smith?

Nope.

Ok…

Carrie-Anne Moss?

Yes.

Alright, I’ll bite.

And I well… it bit me.

It was 2 hours and a half hours with some change and it seemed to drag on even longer.

It felt like it was trying to say something but didn’t know what words to say.

There are moments where it uses footage from the old trilogy and it feels like when one of your friends is telling everyone they are cool because their older brother is cool.

But this whole time, I’m thinking “why do I care?”.

Should I care about Neo? What about Trinity?

I don’t want to sound heartless, but although they had died in the original trilogy, they accomplished their life goals. I don’t know how many characters can say that. They ended the war between man and machines.

This is actually a first for me.

If a character comes back from the dead after accomplishing their story arch, should I invest in them emotionally?

To be honest with myself.

I did.

But after watching for 45 minutes, I never got the feeling that they were in danger.

I knew that the director had already said that the two main characters where reflections of her parents.

There was no way that they weren’t going to make it.

They were going to be together.

And thus every other character that you can identify makes it through as well.

It’s just a long wait until the end.

Ultimately, my wife said to me “It’s not the worse movie you’ve made us watch.”

Oh, and they cuss in this one.

So, that’s different.