Journal Search - dreaming

I did it. I graduated from college with a bachelor’s in computer science. I have an… okay GPA — worse than I would like it to be, but considering everything, I think everything turned out okay in the end. I also got some silly certificate and a cool “emphasis” but none of those really matter.

Now I just need to get a job. And I don’t think that will happen.

I moved to an area that is absolutely not condusive to my current line of work. I would need to relocate again or get a remote job to find something good, and even then, the market is absolutely horrible right now. Everyone wants to fire. No one wants to hire. It’s going to take me a minimum of three months to find a decent job. I can’t wait that long.

So, here’s what I am going to do: I’m going to see if I can get some income. Work a minimum-wage service job for less than I made in college. From there, I can wait for the market to decide I matter. I’ll network constantly, looking for new opportunities. I’ll continue doing what I’m currently doing, working on this site and at FurSquared opens in a new tab , to continue to hone my skills and find more ways to network.

I’ll also be looking at solidifying one additional side project that I can slap on a portfolio. For example, I recently discovered the right way (for me) to use Notion: use the database tool to quickly organize personal data in a fast and intuitive way. I currently have on a second monitor (!!!) a kanban board full of the job applications I’m managing that I can easily turn into a Gantt chart to visualize when I need to take next steps. It’s lovely. But it has limitations. I can only look at one view at a time; I can’t combine them. Automations are locked behind a paywall. Everything is in the cloud in servers I do not control, which means if some big brain hacker wanted to see all the anime I want to watch for some reason, they might be able to find a way.

Ideally, I would want the automations to be something I can easily “script” using a language like Lua or Python (so more advanced automations can be made without having to push through a silly visual workflow). I would also have the views themselves be more customizable, also possibly with a scripting language. Finally, I can start everything as a local-only app w/ a basic SQLite database and eventually work my way to self-hosted paradise (so eventually I can make my own mobile apps for it!!) This may be a bit too over my head, especially considering a big reason why Notion works so well for me right now is because it’s right there and Just Works™… but there’s a little shit in the bottom-right corner that periodically animates itself to goad me to look at it, click on it, and remember it’s their stupid AI thing they desperately want me to use and I want that twink obliterated. So, the perfect reason to reinvent the wheel :3

Since it has been again a hot minute since I wrote a blog post, I’m going to make a new one real quick about my misadventures moving to a new setup and what I plan to do now that I am out of school.

So… yeah! I was looking for one track but accidentally came across a totally different one so here’s that one opens in a new tab . I also have literally no income so any donations to keep this site up and running would be amazing opens in a new tab . Hopefully this all goes well and I can finally break my YGS curse. Please.

As I said in my now entry, my hyperfixation has returned to this website. I do not control the hyperfixation, and I wish it would hyperfixate on class instead, but since this is still somewhat productive, I’m okay with it being here for now.

The main thing that I did was add my first “interactive” element: the accordion.

It looks like this!

When you click or tap on the box, it unfurls into a section that can contain literally anything I want… like an image of another accordion!

A screenshot of the "todo" accordion I currently have at the top of this page. Unchecked tasks include "Potentially add an extra 'new-tab' flag to MDX links (a space & '+'' after the link in the parentheses? that might be too complicated to implement nicely tho)" and "Set up a dev version of this site & start implementing the account system!". Checked tasks include "Make external links open in a new tab. This should be pretty easy to implement." and "Automatically insert an 'external link; icon on links that open in a new tab."

However, there’s a problem with this: it requires Javascript to function. I want my site to be completely functional without Javascript. So, there is a fallback for if JS is disabled.

A screenshot of that same "todo" accordion but with Javascript disabled. It just looks like a regular section of the page, but with a special icon showing that it was meant to be an accordion.

Now that I know how to make stuff like this and give them noscript fallbacks, I feel much more confident about “Phase 2” of my site (implementing a comments section and account system).

The prototype version of my site with an accounts system should be coming out by mid-December. It will likely be hosted on a completely separate server (not on Hetzner lmao) and require manual approval to sign up. I’ll make sure to give you a little badge next to your name in the comments if you help me out with beta testing, though :3

Currently, my ideas for Phase 2 consist of the following:

• Accounts will not use passwords. There will be two authentication methods available: passkeys and single sign-on. SSO is the easier of the two, as it just refers to using another site to log onto this one (right now, Google, Microsoft, and Discord are the sites I’m thinking of using for SSO). Passkeys are more secure but not fully ready for prime-time and obscure in documentation. I’m implementing them partly as a challenge to myself and partly as a way to yell at everyone else “HEY!!! THESE ARE COOL!!! WE SHOULD USE THESE MORE!!!!” I’ll be sure to make a guide on how to sign up with passkeys and/or add passkeys to an existing account for those who are not in the know yet. Eventually, I will want to fully move my account system to only use passkeys, but I recognize that I can’t do that now with the current state passkeys are in.
• Even after the beta, I’ll likely have account signups operate under a manual approval / application system. Basically, you’ll have to prove to me that you aren’t a bot or a Nazi, and if I believe you, I’ll let you in. This is my way of preventing spam and exploitation of my site.
• I want the accounts system to be flexible enough to where they can be used for things other than just my comments section. If I ever make a forum on my site again, the forum will use these accounts. I also want accounts to have their own profile pages so if you see someone in the comments you think is cool, you can check out their profile and follow them on other places. I want the comments section to be its own sort of community, and stuff like profile pages helps reinforce that aspect of community imo.

Is this way too much effort for an obscure blog’s comments section? Yes. Is this just a way for me get more portfolio work done and justify it with a lofty humanitarian goal? Yes. But I think it will be worth it. It will be another thing to set my blog apart and hopefully encourage more people to check it out… and possibly give me money opens in a new tab .

Anyways HA IM NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU MUSIC TODAY, THE NUKETOWN EASTER EGG DROPPED AND IT’S GREAT opens in a new tab ok cya

I am slowly realizing that I will almost forever be struck with the YGS curse until I stop having things to tweak on my blog.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I want to make this site into another platform of sorts for smallweb tech people. On the other hand, I want to actually write blog posts once in a while. So… I think I may be putting that former aspect on hold until I get into a good rhythm with my… ugh… “content”. I hate that word so much.

Also I just now realized you can totally get away with just using HTML’s bult-in <audio controls> player for embedding audio into your site. So, I’m probably just going to do that for my narrated articles until I get enough complaints about it not having things like speed controls or etc. And there will always be the podcast feed for people who want more controls.

I just pushed a whole bunch of updates to the blog so I think my next blog post will be about all of that and how I feel about having had this site up for just about two months (I think). I need to write. Aaaaaaa.

I heard this in a Starbucks and I had a hell of a time looking it up so here it is for you to enjoy. opens in a new tab Thanks!

I survived my summer class. I think. I haven’t checked my grades yet but last I saw it I got a C. C’s get degrees. Especially when you do half of the classwork within three days holy mother of god how did i live

Right now, I’m in Kentucky visiting some very special people. I might make a blog post about the journey, but I’m not sure how much detail I want to give in a fully public space like this site. I’m also not sure how much detail I can really give in general. It’s pretty much just “I got an emergency lift to the bus stop, rode Greyhound for eight hours, I shat in a McDonalds, and that’s the story.” Actually now that I list all of that out I probably could make a decent sized post about all of that, hmm. Maybe I’ll do that. But now I’ve got so many ideas for blog posts but never really committing to any of them that I feel halfway to Malamaroo again. I need to square my sights on one idea and stick with it.

Now that I have a bunch of free time finally, I’m going to try working on the narrated article system for real this time. I want to make it work with and without Javascript: my site is currently fully functional without Javascript and I want to keep it that way for the two people who like that. I also want the UX to blend in nicely with the text-first minimal aesthetic I’ve got going on.

I also probably need to do some updates to the header, especially on mobile, as well as add some enhancements to the site for mobile in general. The header is slightly jank on my iPhone 12 mini and I think the best solution is to make a version of the header that feels “designed” for mobile like it does for desktop. I also have noticed that blog post images are a little wonky on mobile especially if I’ve resized them (what works on desktop does not work on mobile lmao), so I think what I’ll do is just disable that sizing if you’re on mobile… I need to figure out how to do that through JSX though.

So yeah, this next week or so is looking really bright both for my personal life and my projects. Hopefully you actually get to see some stuff from me other than journal entries within a few days.

and in case you didn’t catch my last “now” entry LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW opens in a new tab

I think I finally fixed my sleep schedule. For now. I’m actually really proud of myself for finally getting into a morning groove. I feel way better when I’m actually up in the mornings: waking up in the afternoon seems to lay some weird sort of lethargy on my day and it’s hard to motivate myself to get anything productive done.

I’m also about to finish my summer class catch up apocalypse. Got to read a bunch of cool stories written by fellow classmates, and imo no matter what grade I get, that alone makes this class worth it for me.

Currently sitting in my local Starbucks getting comfortable before starting back up on my work. I have some plans with an IRL friend later today, so hopefully that will be a good self-reward for making it through my summer class. I’ve been reeeeaaaally stir-crazy this summer and I can’t wait for it to end lmao. Once the fall semester starts up, there will be a lot more excuses to be out and about and I’ll feel like myself again.

I think during the free couple of weeks after this, I’ll start working on a couple of things that are holding me back from pursuing the next phase of my website:

• The narrated article implementation is long overdue. I’ll probably use it to double as my next blog post (I’ll talk about all the updates I’ve done to this website and go into detail on how I implemented the narrated articles & the podcast Feed… with the article itself coming out with narration on day one :3)
• Still, I want to get one more blog post under my belt on top of that. I think the idea I had for a blog post on Geminispace is the best lead to follow. I really really want to make an article exploring Geminispace, and following up on this hyperfixation might be my best chance to actually buck YGS Every Friday Syndrome, at least for a bit.
• This will also be a good opportunity to implement a couple of miscelaneous pages under an “extras” hub on the navbar (which, yes, is getting progressively longer and longer to the point where I might need to rework the header layout for mobile finally lol). I want to bring back the Battlefield 4 Chat Simulator (cause it would be funny), but I also want to add a page for cool Geminispace resources, a “starwall” where I shout out cool indie web sites that I find on my travels, and a “/slash” page where I compile multiple “slash pages” opens in a new tab into one big page (so I don’t have 50 billion little tiny pages that serve only one very niche purpose lmao). Next.js’s routing & middleware features, gob dless.

Finally, whoops, I ever even published my last journal & sharefeed update. To make up for that, I’m gonna add a ton of sharefeed posts this time around. One day, I should make a system that lets me set sharefeed posts in the future, and if I do so, they only show up on the feed once that date has arrived (basically a barebones scheduling system for sharefeed entries). That will make it a lot easier to deliver… “cOnTEnT” (ugh hate that word) on a consistent basis without having to have a superhuman noggin.

Here’s an album I’ve been listening too for a hot minute. opens in a new tab . Funny story about this one: I first discovered this band from a CD left in the CD player of my current car when I first got it. I’m glad I did lmao

I’m starting to do actual reseach for my next article, which, i lied, it’s actually going to be about Geminispace. It seems like everyone stopped talking about it after its boom a couple years ago, but it seems to be thriving in its own sense, with activity every day on places like Antenna and the Geminispace BBS.

I made a random post asking people for cool sites that show what you can do under the limitations of the Gemini protocol, and I got a bunch of responses. I even got a pretty detailed list with categories from someone who wished not to be documented on the web.

Still, that doesn’t mean that everything is sunshine and rainbows. Two days in and I already found someone promoting alt-right anti-Palestine behavior on Station, another bulletin board like platform for Gemini. It sucks that sort of stuff has popped up here, but one has to remember that even if this is the “smallnet”, this is still the internet. There will still be assholes.

Song recommendation numero tres. opens in a new tab . Hopefully I’ll have more to say tomorrow.