| religion | 1,499 words
TAGS: personal essay, spirituality, religion, philosophy, Buddhism, astrology, tradition, ritual, web design, IndieWeb
Why I redesigned the blog--trading gruvbox for greyscale and 'Moonflower' palette and Bunny-hosted serifs--as a small ceremony to give my writing weight and gravity. On tradition and ritual as a grammar of gestures and the shared shadows of...
| writing-craft | 1,496 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, writing, blogging, Digital Culture, community, empathy, dialogue, philosophy, ethics
Why writing--and writing back--is never wasted time. From Patricia Lange's troll whispering to reparative civility, deep canvassing, Daryl Davis, Megan Phelps-Roper, and moral elevation, I defend engaging difficult people as a deliberate ethical...
| community | 1,805 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, kindness, empathy, ruby, programming, open source, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, activism, web development
The world needs more intentional kindness. There's a manufactured backlash against empathy from Elon Musk to Gad Saad's 'suicidal empathy.' Kindness already operates as a design constraint: the IndieWeb's eleventh principle, Elm's code of...
| lyric-essays | 802 words
TAGS: culture, satire, blogging, Digital Culture, IndieWeb, nihilism, personal
man is not a certain breed of anonymous, nihilistic blogger who mistakes callousness for wisdom and detachment for depth. man is different. man is better.
| history, technical-tutorials | 2,233 words
TAGS: technical, tutorial, Small Web, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, web history, retrocomputing, unix, SDF, perl, CGI
I've finally became an ARPA member of SDF, a non-profit public-access UNIX system running continuously since 1987. I give a history from Ted Uhlemann's 300-baud Apple IIe BBS to today's NetBSD network of DEC Alphas and Opterons; a tour of the...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 4,373 words
TAGS: technical, tutorial, Static Site Generators, web development, web history, IndieWeb, Small Web, Digital Culture, eleventy, git
Written for a 32-bit Café thread asking where to even begin with static-site generators. I go over the free resources I'd learn first (and why hand-rolled HTML beats an SSG for your very first site), a plain-language glossary of the jargon docs...
| ai, indieweb | 1,381 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, AI, generative AI, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, data sovereignty, activism, privacy
Responding to Coyote's essay on data ownership, I look at how genAI has democratized the kind of extraction that once required corporate infrastructure--iLands spam agents, scrapers, and agent swarms--why my apathy-and-ignorance approach to AI...
| technical-tutorials, indieweb | 2,282 words
TAGS: technical, Small Web, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, decentralization, gemini, gopher, blogging, tutorial
Creating your own corner of Geminispace: why you'd want to blog on a protocol with no JavaScript, no CSS, and no AI slop; where to host a capsule (SmolPub, the Tildeverse, flounder, Gemcities); how the community's gemlog conventions work; and the...
| lyric-essays | 984 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, philosophy, memory, nostalgia, childhood, mental health, mindfulness, mortality
Revisiting my maladaptive daydream of waking up at twelve years old with all my present knowledge intact, I weigh the seductive fantasy of correcting every regret--being a better brother to Byron, buying Bitcoin with birthday money--against...
| writing-craft | 1,271 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Linguistics, writing, blogging, grammar, language
Responding to a blog post urging people to 'please learn how to write,' I pull rank with my English degree to argue there's no such thing as proper English. Looking at the 18th-century grammarians who invented 'correctness,' the linguistic racism...
| ai | 1,956 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, AI, generative AI, Medium, Digital Culture, criticism, technology, publishing
Medium.com went from a defiant anti-AI holdout--blocking GPTBot, rejecting a multimillion-dollar training deal, banning AI writing from monetization--to launching an AI licensing standard and its own AI writing app under CEO Tony Stubblebine....
| community | 1,307 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, optimism, joy, open source, resistance, philosophy, small web, IndieWeb
Taking stock of myself and the world, I reflect on the overwhelming joy of being alive on this Pale Blue Dot--from the billions keeping civilization running to the unpaid volunteers maintaining curl and OpenSSL--and argue that reclaiming joy is...
| religion | 1,882 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Christianity, religion, theology, Social Justice, LGBTQ, trans rights, immigration, faith
Responding to readers who invoke Christianity to defend exclusion, I argue that the Gospels consistently welcome lepers, foreigners, sinners, and gender-nonconforming people while reserving the strongest warnings for the wealthy and powerful. On...
| history | 811 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, history, memory, 9/11, September 11, terrorism, grief, culture, media
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, I reflect on being five years old and watching the attacks from a green shag carpet in Winnipeg, the cultural aftershocks that still echo through media and memory, and the urgent need to not forget...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 4,517 words
TAGS: technical, Small Web, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, decentralization, gemini, gopher, terminal, retrocomputing
Reacting to the Omarchy and DigitalOcean news, I set out a curated low-spec, text-first alternative to the modern web: Gemini, Gopher, Spartan, Lynx-friendly sites, terminal readers, public Unix communities, and peer-to-peer networks like...
| personal-favourites | 807 words
TAGS: technical, security, Digital Security, neocities, IndieWeb, web development, small web, infrastructure
How a bug in my own CI/CD accidentally uncovered a novel vulnerability in NeoCities: ScreenJesus, the undocumented screenshot bot behind thumbnail previews, has no rate limits and will happily visit thousands of your pages--and anything they...
| technical-tutorials | 1,744 words
TAGS: eleventy, seo, accessibility, performance, web development, technical, tutorial
Yet another technical audit of brennan.day, this time using the Safi Studio Scanner, covering fixes for duplicate <h1> headings, meta descriptions, image dimensions, JSON-LD organization data, render-blocking scripts, and a switch from IndieAuth...
| 2,035 words
TAGS: personal essay, blogging, IndieWeb, digital garden, projects, self-reflection, small web, community
Taking stock of my digital garden before the first frost: an honest audit of everything I'm tending online, from Brennan.day and fanfiction.lol to my 565-day writing streak, plus the projects I've neglected, the intentional prunes I'm happy with...
| 804 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, Writing Process, creativity, AI, generative AI, Social Commentary
Taking the final line of Joseph Fasano's poem 'For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper' as a starting point, I argue that loving the verb of creation matters more than daydreaming the noun. There's a wide chasm between writing discipline and...
| 777 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, philosophy, ethics, privacy, writing, mortality
A meditation on the contradiction of writing publicly while wanting to remain unremarkable, drawing on Daoist uselessness, Epicurean lathe biōsas, state legibility, and Deleuzian imperceptibility--and why the only peaceful path is to keep writing...
| politics | 2,195 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, politics, open source, fascism, technology
Open source has become a safe harbor for far-right politics, from David Heinemeier Hansson's white-nationalist rhetoric and the Omarchy Foundation's $12 million in patron funding to so-called apolitical projects that treat marginalized...
| indieweb | 4,760 words
TAGS: meme, IndieWeb, personal essay, web development, Q&A, small web
A hundred-question chain meme making the rounds about how and why we make websites. I answer my way through questions on workflow, editors, CSS confidence, webrings, Neocities and Nekoweb, domain names, accessibility, genAI ethics, Gruvbox, and...
| ai | 949 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, AI, generative AI, open source, Debian, web development, ethics, technology
Debian's recent vote to permit genAI contributions, alongside the questions raised by the IndieWeb is Punk manifesto, leads me to reflect on the harm-reduction case, the deskilling of creators, the NFT-like grift of genAI output, and the Potemkin...
| 740 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, blogging, IndieWeb, community, Technology, web development, mental health
Reflecting on the mental fatigue of posting every day during Blaugust, I share a few small things that cheered me up: a new keyword filter on Bubbles.town, Jan Miksovsky's Origami Projector, and the ongoing, hand-made goodness of the independent web.
| community | 1,878 words
TAGS: personal essay, blogging, IndieWeb, open source, digital humanities, academia, web development, writing, community
Announcing a new open-source, asynchronous Blogging Studies syllabus that blends writing craft and independent web publishing, built on Codeberg. I trace the decline of free MOOCs, outline my curriculum's anti-capitalist and community-driven...
| 874 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Technology, web development, mental health, homelab, Netlify
After exceeding my free Netlify bandwidth for the first time and wiring up a homelab to run this site, I reflect on how my life has narrowed around writing and code, the friendships that did not survive that focus, and the loneliness of a...
| politics | 1,371 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, hope, optimism, compassion, philosophy, community, constructive journalism
Reflecting on a reader's description of me as 'nice' and the responsibility of having an audience, I commit to becoming a 'toolshed of hope and stubborn optimism' in my writing. Drawing on solutions journalism, restorative narrative, and thinkers...
| indieweb | 1,365 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, Social Commentary, blogging, community, aggregators
After several months of using Bubbles.town, I share my long-term review of the IndieWeb aggregator. The good: discovering diverse blogs across niche topics. The issues: glacial pace of content changes, popularity contest dynamics, categorization...
| writing-craft, history | 1,340 words
TAGS: personal essay, blogging, IndieWeb, history, Technology, Social Commentary
A four-century etymological journey from wooden ship logs and logboards to the modern web log, tracing how the word 'blog' emerged from centuries of record-keeping, computing, and online publishing. On Peter Merholz's coinage of 'blog,' Jorn...
| 1,056 words
TAGS: personal essay, Love, romance, nihilism, philosophy, Social Commentary, chosen family, mental health
Responding to anonymous blogger Unstory's claim that love is a fake story and does not exist, I argue that love is a real, measurable, and physical fact of human connection. On fMRI studies of spouses, Harvard's 87-year Study of Adult...
| french | 924 words
TAGS: personal essay, Language Learning, Linguistics, Social Commentary
Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Sur les mots et expressions français qui n'ont pas de traduction directe vers l'anglais, comme déjà vu, jamais vu, presque vu, dépaysement, retrouvailles, l'esprit...
| indieweb | 1,499 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, platform dependencies, digital autonomy, genAI, criticism, community
Responding to Eetu and Pagecord creator Olly's reactions to my article on accessible IndieWeb approaches, I examine the tension between platform convenience and digital sovereignty. Using Olly's recent controversy as a case study, I discuss why...
| lyric-essays | 1,474 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, blogging, writing, philosophy, community, purpose
Reflecting on three weeks of consecutive writing for Blaugust, I explore the tension between writing by accident versus on purpose. Through correspondence with Unstory and the IndieWeb carnival theme of purpose, I contemplate the accidental...
| 1,087 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, mental health, community, empathy, psychology
Drawing on my decade of experience as a 7cups Listener and research on emotional sharing, I argue in defense of vent posting. Venting is a natural human need for connection and validation, not a character flaw. Community support and empathy are...
| technical-tutorials, science | 3,370 words
TAGS: digital humanities, IndieWeb, open access, academia, eleventy, metadata, citation, tutorial
I've been weighing grad school against continuing my own open-access publication, so I wrote a guide to becoming a 'Rogue Scholar' using ORCID, citation metadata, issue numbers, print CSS, and Wayback Machine archiving to try to make my static...
| indigenous | 1,030 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Métis, humor, satire, IndieWeb
I've been satirized by circlejerk.blog, and I reflect on the history of online circlejerking, Indigenous trickster traditions like Coyote and Chi-Jean, and the concept of survivance. A call for more humour and satire in online spaces, and how...
| indieweb, personal-favourites | 4,347 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, manifesto, web history, web development, philosophy, digital sovereignty
I'm reclaiming the title of 'webmaster' as the multidisciplinary creator who designs, develops, writes, and advocates for their own corner of the web and will save the world. Tracing the history from 1993 to the present, I argue that anyone can...
| technical-tutorials | 2,415 words
TAGS: eleventy, netlify, security, accessibility, performance, seo, web development, technical, tutorial
I ran brennan.day against The Website Specification's 140-item checklist covering foundations, SEO, accessibility, security, performance, privacy, and resilience. Notes on a broken web manifest I'd never noticed, why I don't have cookie consent...
| science | 1,296 words
TAGS: personal essay, mental health, psychology, trauma, escapism, imagination, coping mechanisms
A personal tale living with maladaptive daydreaming--intense, immersive daydreams that replace rather than accompany real life. On Eli Somer's research, the difference between paracosms and maladaptive daydreaming, trauma connections, and how...
| religion | 1,065 words
TAGS: personal essay, Religious Studies, history, anthropology, Ancient Egypt, mythology, philosophy
On Friedrich Max Müller's theory of naturism and how early religion began with humanity's direct sensory perception of natural forces. From the terrifying awe of lightning and thunder to Ancient Egypt's animal deities that protected against...
| 1,725 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, happiness, determinism, IndieWeb, Social Commentary
On the 50/10/40 split of happiness research, the Declaration of Independence's 'pursuit of happiness,' and an exchange with anonymous blogger Unstory about free will, determinism, and whether we can choose joy. A diptych of opposing worldviews...
| 1,525 words
TAGS: personal essay, free speech, Social Commentary, dialogue, philosophy, community, ethics
On the weight and responsibility of words in public discourse. Drawing from John Rawls's reasonable pluralism and Paulo Freire's philosophy that dialogue requires love, I argue for extending grace even to those we disagree with. A reflection on...
| science | 2,057 words
TAGS: science, atmospheric science, natural phenomena, folklore, wonder, scientific mystery
Yes, really. Exploring the magical world of transient luminous events in the upper atmosphere: sprites, elves, blue jets, trolls, pixies, ghosts, and gnomes. How scientists named these barely-witnessed electrical phenomena after folklore, and why...
| technical-tutorials | 2,164 words
TAGS: technical tutorial, writing, minimalism, terminal, Linux, digital minimalism, IndieWeb
On the KISS principle and Pascal's apology for long letters, the cultural shift away from minimalism, and the growing trend of writer decks. A technical guide to creating a distraction-free writing environment by removing the desktop environment...
| 79 words
TAGS: vegan, guest post, Calgary Vegan Society, social, plant-based
A guest post I wrote for The Sprout, the Calgary Vegan Society's blog, about navigating social eating situations as a vegan. From private vs. social eating to practical strategies for restaurants, family dinners, and travel, this guide covers how...
| indieweb | 2,932 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, Social Commentary, free speech, community, platforms
After rescinding a recommendation for BlueDwarf, I explore the spectrum of harm across platforms from X to Substack, and argue that not all harm is equal. On free speech absolutism, cognitive dissonance in platform choices, and where we draw...
| writing-craft | 1,189 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, blogging, writing, Social Commentary, community
On the shutdown of EchoFeed and the ephemeral nature of services, why I blog (legacy, existentialism, making a mark), participating in AuguStory, academic studies on blogging benefits, and the paradox of 'nobody cares' as both a source of freedom...
| indieweb | 1,424 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, social media, community, platforms, web culture, reviews
After deleting my corporate social media accounts, I've discovered four interesting indie platforms and online communities you might not have heard of: Special Fish, Ctrl + Shift + 3, web1.0 Hosting, and Pillowfort. A look at what makes each...
| culture | 1,961 words
TAGS: Music Review, personal essay, Mental Health, grief, family, suicide, Media Criticism
Ten years after its release, I revisit Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell, an album about his late mother's mental illness, abandonment, and grief, that's held up a clear, honest mirror to my own life. I trace how Stevens' songwriting about Carrie...
| 1,835 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, creativity, IndieWeb, philosophy, self-reflection
Trying to figure out what 'the itch' is--my drive to create and contribute to the digital commons. A review of past projects, current interests in Indigenous data sovereignty and self-hosting, and the search for what comes next.
| personal-favourites, culture | 1,175 words
TAGS: personal essay, YouTube, Social Commentary, disability, community, advocacy
Special Books by Special Kids is the most important channel on YouTube. Chris Ulmer and Alyssa Porter's decade-long project interviewing neurodiverse individuals and people with disabilities has created a more inclusive world through radical...
| indieweb | 2,601 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, accessibility, mobile, web development, Social Commentary, UX design
Around 2 billion people access the internet exclusively via smartphones, yet the IndieWeb community largely neglects mobile-first design and phoneblogging UX. A casual survey of writers reveals three approaches to mobile publishing: no...
| indieweb | 1,115 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, blogging, community, Social Commentary, web culture
Responding to Dan Q's post on blogging expectations, I argue that you don't need to blog at all to participate in the IndieWeb. Your website can be shrines, art, or anything else. A retrospective on the poisonous gamification and commodification...
| science | 2,350 words
TAGS: personal essay, Technology, Social Commentary, open source, IndieWeb, computing
The desktop computer is a miracle of human ingenuity, from the microscopic precision of Intel's Core Duo processor to the vast possibilities of offline and online computing. On the tragic decline of desktop towers, the IndieWeb and open-source...
| culture | 1,079 words
TAGS: personal essay, video games, Technology, Social Commentary, retro gaming
The video game industry is in a cynical, exploitative state with unfinished AAA releases, microtransactions, rising hardware costs, and studio closures. But there's an alternative I'd like to talk about: indie art games, the growing retro...
| personal-favourites, indieweb | 1,521 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, web development, community, blogging, link culture
Responding to Coyote's critique of Bubbles.town and feed aggregators, I argue that the IndieWeb needs more interlinkers--bloggers who meaningfully synthesize and weave together the writing of others. On the garden/stream/campfire metaphors for...
| french | 919 words
TAGS: personal essay, Language Learning, Linguistics, IndieWeb, Technology, Social Commentary
Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Sur la traduction des termes de l'IndieWeb en français québécois, l'état actuel des ressources francophones (wiki IndieWeb, Vincent Breton, Radio-Canada), la...
| technical-tutorials | 1,731 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, technical, tutorial, IndieWeb, beeminder, digital garden
I decided to build brennan.click, a wiki-linked digital commonplace book in Eleventy, with auto-generated stubs created with eleventy-plugin-interlinker, pure-CSS hover transclusion and footnotes with no JavaScript, and a plain-text...
| 1,247 words
TAGS: personal essay, productivity, habit tracking, Beeminder, self-improvement, commitment devices
After deleting corporate social media, I'm returning to Beeminder, a commitment tool that charges you money for failing to complete tasks, to reclaim my productivity. I explain how Beeminder works through externalizing willpower, share my current...
| culture | 2,362 words
TAGS: personal essay, Media Criticism, Gender, Love, Television, Anime
What could a prestige antihero legal drama and a shonen apocalypse epic have in common? As it turns out, love. An analysis and comparison of Attack on Titan and Better Call Saul. Beyond the violent carnage, there's a tender love and labour which...
| ai | 1,657 words
TAGS: personal essay, web development, AI, code quality, programming, Social Commentary
Vibe coders brag about adding thousands of lines of code with AI, but measuring productivity by lines of code is like measuring aircraft progress by weight. Research shows AI-generated code has higher duplication, lower reuse, and can run up to...
| 1,242 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, criticism, scrupulosity, mental health
Yesterday, Unattributed posted a thorough dissection of my article on note-taking PKMs, analyzing my lack of intellectual rigour, nebulous wording, and poor research. I use this as an opportunity to discuss the milkshake duck phenomenon, my...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 1,533 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, technical, web development, accessibility, progressive disclosure, tutorial
Responding to Adam Newbold's 'Hardcore IndieWeb' guide, I argue for a ladder approach to joining the IndieWeb. Rather than choosing between easy platforms and full technical independence, people should climb rungs progressively. Start with...
| 0 words
TAGS: interview, IndieWeb, writing, blogging
I was interviewed in Zachary Kai's People and Blogs series, founded by Manuel Moreale. I share about my background, the evolution of my blog, creative and technical workflows, philosophy on monetization, and advocacy for the IndieWeb.
| science | 3,034 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, research, productivity, knowledge management, criticism
As somebody who writes a lot, I've always been interested in personal knowledge management systems and note-taking apps. But what do these frameworks and methodologies actually give to researchers and the broader world? Has there been a...
| writing-craft | 2,202 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, Writing Process, blogging, creativity, creative nonfiction
Let me be unglamorous and honest about the actual furniture of a writing life. What do my private, invisible days look like? What does it cost and what does it pay? A look at the 4 a.m. writing routine, the physical setting, and what I hope my...
| technical-tutorials | 1,209 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, netlify, technical, tutorial
A sequel to my Eleventy build post: this time the bottleneck wasn't the build tool, it was the hosting bill. Notes on caching webmentions and guestbook fetches, killing a dead Discord webhook, nearly breaking my JSON feed, and a git error I still...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 2,639 words
TAGS: personal essay, psychology, humor, Métis, friendship, sincerity
Clown white doesn't come off in one pass. A personal story about how I can never take myself seriously no matter how hard I try. Notes on the history of whiteface and Auguste, the clown egg registry, the Indigenous medicine of laughter, the...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 2,614 words
TAGS: technical, IndieWeb, privacy, social media, tutorial
Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, X, Reddit, Discord. Eight platforms, eight different deletion policies. A full technical walkthrough of what 'delete' actually means on each one, the prep work nobody tells you to do first, and...
| culture | 1,529 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Sports, culture, feminism, politics, UFC
Conor McGregor returns to headline UFC 329 tonight after being found liable for rape in civil court, a comeback made possible by the UFC's right-wing politicization and the broader 'Epstein class' culture of impunity for powerful men. On the...
| culture | 1,280 words
TAGS: personal essay, review, Media Criticism, Social Commentary, privacy, ethics
Nearly a decade after Dan Taberski's Missing Richard Simmons first asked the world where its brightest fitness star had gone, a review of the podcast that helped invent true-crime infotainment--and of the public's complicity in turning a man's...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 828 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, values, IndieWeb, mortality, purpose
A laminated poster with an unsourced quote changed the trajectory of my entire life when I was a teenager. On the immutable transaction of trading days for how we spend them, the urgency of risk-taking in a world that needs it, and what it means...
| 853 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, personal essay, writing, community, blogging
I finally curated my blog posts into collections, revealing what I write about most: the IndieWeb, the craft of writing, community, technical tutorials, politics, culture, and more. A call to my readers to tell me what they want to see more of...
| writing-craft | 1,351 words
TAGS: personal essay, literacy, writing, Social Commentary, philosophy, gratitude
In our current year, there is a global literacy crisis. As a result, there's a privilege in being able to read and write. Notes on Frederick Douglass, the problems you don't think about, and why the ability to write is something to be grateful...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 2,616 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, technical, tutorial, IndieWeb, atproto
A walkthrough of how I wired up Standard.site AT Protocol lexicons into this 11ty blog: from writing a custom publish script to migrating to Sequoia, with code for the link tags, and handle verification.
| ai | 1,640 words
TAGS: personal essay, AI, philosophy, ethics, Social Commentary, technical
Are there ethical implications of generative AI consciousness? From von Neumann's self-replicating machines to modern LLMs, we must inventory the problem of other minds, the possibility of AI consciousness, and why we ought to consider the...
| technical-tutorials | 3,628 words
TAGS: technical, tutorial, web-design, CSS, IndieWeb, accessibility, symbols
You don't need bloat. You can use CSS variables and Unicode symbols to add visual personality to your personal website while keeping it minimal, accessible, and fast-loading. Includes a reference of symbol sets (celestial, elemental, occult, card...
| 1,199 words
TAGS: technical, tutorial, ruby, web development, fanfiction
By default, the OTWArchive codebase blocks all imports from AO3, a problem for every fork. My fix includes removing AO3 from PERMITTED_HOSTS, writing a custom Ruby story parser that extracts only the story content from AO3 work pages, and...
| 1,134 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, creativity, blogging, IndieWeb, poetry
Completing #100DaysToOffload twice in under two years, and somewhere along the way the wet clay hardened at the edges. Invisible ruts form inside the habits you love, and there's a difference between a window and a mirror in writing. The hermit...
| 0 words
TAGS: interview, IndieWeb, podcast, writing
I was a guest on Episode 8 of Wonders of Web Weaving with James G. We talk about writing routines, building community in the indie web, 'start here' pages, Maple Syrup Heists, and more!
| personal-favourites | 1,779 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, love, relationships, loneliness, feminism, philosophy
86% of American adults aged 18-24 are currently unpartnered; 78% of dating app users feel exhausted by online dating. How are people supposed to fall in love while the Doomsday Clock ticks at 85 seconds to midnight? On the yearning microgenre...
| 1,387 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Digital Culture, psychology, blogging, community
Vagueblogging and subtweeting are the most toxic modes of online communication, yet research shows people prefer them to direct confrontation anyway. On the psychology of strategic ambiguity, insecure attachment, context collapse, and the online...
| history | 1,850 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb Carnival, agriculture, history, anthropology, philosophy, Daniel Quinn, civilization
A mind-shattering concept from a first-year university class that upended how I think about humanity. Daniel Quinn's Ishmael trilogy argues that totalitarian agriculture is why civilization is in peril. On the Law of Limited Competition, the Food...
| french | 1,147 words
TAGS: personal essay, Language Learning, Linguistics, Métis, History, Social Commentary
Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Sur les différences entre le français québécois et le français européen, l'histoire linguistique du Québec depuis 1763, les sacres québécois comme acte de rébellion...
| writing-craft, technical-tutorials | 1,123 words
TAGS: git, technical, writing, IndieWeb, personal site, web development
I had 448 `feat:` commits and 417 `fix:` commits. Nearly the same count, for wildly different kinds of work. Here's why conventional commits were never designed for a writer's blog, and the eleven-type system I built to replace them.
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 1,597 words
TAGS: philosophy, death, Stoicism, linguistics, personal essay
I've been sitting with a single word change. 'Will' versus 'must' in the Latin phrase Memento Mori, and it's shifted everything for me. A meditation on mortality as obligation rather than fate, and what it means to truly reckon with the fact that...
| politics | 1,637 words
TAGS: veganism, animal rights, ethics, environment, cognitive dissonance, personal essay
Brace yourself. I'm writing this to people who care about the world's suffering and love animals, but haven't yet extended that same compassion to the animals on their plate. Any environmental argument you can make against generative AI you can...
| writing-craft, history | 3,088 words
TAGS: writing, literary history, productivity, research, personal essay
I've been writing publicly every day for seven months, and I wanted to know what that looked like for other compulsive writers. From Chesterton dictating past midnight, to Chinese web fiction authors racing through 10,000 words daily. What does...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 1,885 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, technical, Eleventy, webmentions, microformats
A tutorial and walkthrough of how I implemented webmentions on my site, from setup to display, including webmention.io integration, Eleventy filters, CSS styling, and Bridgy for sending.
| indieweb | 1,552 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, self-hosting, infrastructure, ethics, privacy, technical, homelab, Docker
I'm pausing my folk.zone project to completely replace Cloudflare in my stack with more ethical choices after a conversation with Adam Newbold of omg.lol, the site that inspired the project in the first place. For in practice, there is no such...
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 1,635 words
TAGS: writing, blogging, community, creative nonfiction, personal essay
Writing publicly and frequently for the past seven months has saved my life. Six ways consistent public writing transformed me: cultivating curiosity, building connections, investigating rabbit holes, starting new projects, creating...
| indieweb | 720 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, self-hosting, community, infrastructure, fediverse, open source, homelab
Announcing folk.zone, a collection of free, community-run internet services I'm building as an IndieWeb commons. Including Mastodon, WriteFreely, Forgejo, Pixelfed, Lemmy, and more. All self-hosted on hardware in my living space. This is...
| indieweb, writing-craft | 1,280 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, publishing, writing, community, collaboration, creative nonfiction, lyric essays
Inspired by Good Internet Magazine, I'm starting a new volunteer-run IndieWeb publication tentatively called Long Horizon. Exploring my readiness to launch a digital and physical magazine focused on creative non-fiction and lyric essays, and...
| indieweb, community | 1,728 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, community, economics, mutual aid, support, capitalism, writing
Responding to criticism of 'buy me a coffee' links on blogs, I argue that asking for support isn't commodification--it's mutual aid! Exploring the economic pressures on creators, the history of mutual aid, and why the IndieWeb needs community...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 1,878 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, accessibility, web development, inclusive, web design, technical
Web accessibility isn't compliance theatre or checking off a list. It's about designing for everyone. Exploring the curb cut effect, why disability is more common than we think, and practical steps to make your website usable by as many people as...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 816 words
TAGS: writing, creativity, digital culture, AI, authenticity, nature
The spotted lanternfly is beautiful and terrible, an invasive species that illuminates even as it destroys. AI-generated content is flooding the Internet, and authenticity is becoming a premium commodity. We must refuse the premise that human...
| personal-favourites | 1,290 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, philosophy, writing, creativity, risk, identity, accountability
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's concept of 'skin in the game' is the idea that true learning only happens when you have something to lose. And I look at IndieWeb principles of using what you make to publishing under your real name. Having risk and real...
| 2,014 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, fanfiction, community, technical, web development, law, moderation, tagging
Building fanfiction.lol taught me that some promises are impossible to keep. I wanted canonical tags for everything and 'write whatever you want' as a tagline, but Canadian obscenity laws and the philosophical complexity of tag wrangling forced...
| 1,331 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, community, psychology, writing, digital culture
The world isn't full of critics, it's full of quiet kind people who don't get nearly enough time or attention from us because we're born with a negativity bias. We need to proactively choose to be lovers and proactively grease the quiet wheels.
| indieweb, community | 1,540 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, community, Digital Culture, philosophy
So, my silly little fanfic project blew up like crazy and received some really negative feedback. And I think I understand why. Exploring the concept of boundary spanning and cross-pollination in online communities. Drawing on organizational...
| 1,749 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, technical, self-hosting, fandom, community, open source
I deployed my own AO3 fork called fanfiction.lol, an independent fanfiction archive with no invite queue, fandom-agnostic moderation, and expanded content warnings. A manifesto on why fan communities deserve free infrastructure, the history of...
| technical-tutorials | 5,245 words
TAGS: Self-hosting, technical, homelab, IndieWeb, Linux, Docker
A beginner-friendly guide to building your own homelab on inexpensive hardware. Covers finding old computers, setting up Linux, SSH, Docker, and self-hosting services like password managers, RSS readers, and your own Fediverse instance. Digital...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 2,656 words
TAGS: Indieweb, Small Web, technical, Digital Culture, history, decentralization
Finger from 1971, Gopher from 1991, and Gemini from 2019. These protocols offer decentralized, terminal-based alternatives to the modern web. The small web's is in a renaissance. On the solarpunk philosophy of intentional technology, and how...
| writing-craft, technical-tutorials | 2,017 words
TAGS: bash, technical, tools, blogging, indieweb
After finding the tildeverse and the Tilde.town feels engine, I decided to build my own simple command-line tool for blogging that handles the full lifecycle of a blog post (creation, editing, building, and git push). A walkthrough of the design...
| culture | 1,550 words
TAGS: philosophy, psychology, Media Criticism, Creative Writing
I love time loops in media--from Groundhog Day to...hey, wait a minute. Does anybody else feel a weird sense of déjà vu? It can't just be me. Do you ever get up in the morning and feel as though you've already lived the same day?
| culture | 2,198 words
TAGS: philosophy, Media Criticism, Video Games, Anime, psychology
I love time loops in media--from Groundhog Day to Haruhi's Endless Eight. What do they reveal about mortality, memory, and the human desire to escape consequence through Nietzsche's eternal recurrence?
| science | 1,593 words
TAGS: Food, Biology, Science, Health
Spicy food and capsaicin demonstrate hormesis and antifragility in human biology. The science of pain, TRPV1 receptors, and how controlled exposure to stressors makes our bodies stronger rather than weaker.
| religion | 1,785 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Spirituality, Gender, New Age, Cultural Appropriation, Health
Examining the dark side of manifestation and Law of Attraction movement: its New Thought origins, cultural appropriation of Eastern and Indigenous practices, gender dynamics, and the hidden cruelty of victim blaming cancer survivors and abuse...
| ai | 1,497 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Social Commentary, AI, technical, politics, Gender
With the AI bubble finally deflating, what can we learn from the gender gap in genAI enthusiasm? Looking at /r/SlopcoreCirclejerk's culture of contempt, historical Luddite parallels, crypto bro demographics, and why men are drawn to extractive...
| personal-favourites | 2,546 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, community, writing, blogging, internet, open source
My first IndieWeb Carnival entry--the theme is love letters, and I couldn't pick just one thing. A letter to the infrastructure that holds my corner of the internet together, to the strangers who maintain the open-source tools I depend on every...
| technical-tutorials | 1,413 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, technical, web development
How I decomposed an 866-line .eleventy.js monolith into four focused modules, fixed some lurking bugs, and eliminated dead CSS and dead dependencies along the way
| personal-favourites, history, culture | 1,702 words
TAGS: personal essay, mythology, philosophy, biology, history, identity
Sixty thousand miles of blood vessels run inside each of us, more than twice around the Earth. 330 billion cells are replaced every single day. Humanity has always built civilization beside rivers because we are rivers. Always in motion, never...
| culture, indigenous | 1,915 words
TAGS: personal essay, history, politics, culture, language, indigenous, colonialism, identity
In 1995, China abducted six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima--the recognized 11th Panchen Lama--severing the chain of mutual recognition at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist succession. Meanwhile, Michif, a language born from Cree verbs and French nouns...
| technical-tutorials | 1,507 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, technical, tutorial, IndieWeb, personal site
A walkthrough of how I audited my 11ty build benchmarks and cut cold-start time from 14 seconds down to 2.6 seconds by caching two custom filters and swapping out a bare network fetch.
| indieweb, community | 1,163 words
TAGS: personal essay, indieweb, internet, community
You visit your parent's house and find your white Xbox 360 in your childhood bedroom. A friends list full of gamertags that haven't booted up their own console in hundreds of weeks. On the heartbreak of digital disappearance, and why I'm...
| science | 699 words
TAGS: personal essay, science, politics, health, covid
A hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius in the South Atlantic has sent thirty passengers home across twenty-three countries before a single test was run. What does the WHO's 'low risk' framing mean? The institutional failure of January 2020...
| indigenous | 4,314 words
TAGS: personal essay, politics, Indigenous, Social Justice
Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's 'The Undercommons' describes a space of collective refusal beneath the institutions of the master. On why Black American cultural revolution was possible, why Indigenous cultural revolution is structurally...
| science, politics | 2,795 words
TAGS: personal essay, science, politics, conspiracy theories
Scientists working in classified American aerospace and nuclear research have died and disappeared. The story has migrated from UFO forums to the White House briefing room. A conspiracy requires a conspirator. On grief, and the brain's furious...
| 2,840 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Radio, Technology, IndieWeb, Creative Process, technical
From Shaw Community Television on Channel 10 to Paper Tiger Television and the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, public access was original community media. Anybody, any channel, no notes from the network. In that spirit, I'm starting a self-hosted...
| writing-craft, history | 3,678 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, Literature, Digital Culture, blogging, IndieWeb
I am a compulsive archivist, terrified of losing my words, but many of history's greatest writers asked for theirs to be burned. Kafka, Dickinson, Plath, Virgil all had their reasons. A meditation on self-erasure, ego, and the difference between...
| indieweb, community | 2,578 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, Social Commentary, community, internet
The sonder and vertigo I feel about people's interior lives. Corporate social media fails to offer genuine witnessing. So, I look to Dreamwidth, a fork of LiveJournal, and fifteen years of unbroken communities. On digital gentrification and the...
| culture, science | 2,993 words
TAGS: personal essay, video games, mathematics, Cultural Criticism
A love letter to the mathematics hiding inside video games, and a protest against the expression 'I'm just not a math person'. From parallel universes in Super Mario 64 to the technical exegetes mapping Animal Crossing, The Sims 2, Pokémon, and...
| french | 1,423 words
TAGS: personal essay, Language Learning, Social Commentary, philosophy, queer
Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Sur le jeu de mots derrière «Brenjour», l'insécurité linguistique, et l'idée qu'apprendre une nouvelle langue nous donne une nouvelle âme. Sur la recherche en...
| indieweb | 2,158 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Interview, Cultural Criticism, Social Commentary, personal essay
An interview with Benjamin Behnke, the creator of Bubbles.town, a community-driven aggregator for independent personal blogs. After controversy on Mastodon and 32-bit Café over his use of Anthropic's Claude to categorize blogs and bypass...
| politics | 2,489 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Cultural Criticism, politics, Social Justice, history
A refusal of the sanitized story that rights were won by asking nicely. The suffragettes bombed Westminster Abbey. The Deacons for Defense guarded MLK. Mandela was on the U.S. terror list until 2008. On the radical flank effect, the state's...
| indieweb, culture | 2,278 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Cultural Criticism, Social Commentary, personal essay, philosophy
A personal plea from me to you to write your own comments. On the genAI plague of LinkedIn, Meta ads, and Medium, and the human warmth of the IndieWeb. From deviantART's old comment culture to Seneca's letters and the Vindolanda tablets, through...
| writing-craft | 2,940 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Cultural Criticism, Media Criticism, journalism, personal essay
From Drudge to Salam Pax to Darnella Frazier and Zhang Zhan. The world needs citizen journalists. There has been a hollowing of Postmedia's local press, the radicalization pipelines mainstream coverage fails to trace, Andrew Callaghan's...
| indigenous | 2,552 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Cultural Criticism, Indigenous, philosophy, Interview
After publishing my piece on Frances Widdowson this morning, she reached out to comment. What followed was an hour of argument, bad faith, and one remarkable final message.
| indigenous | 2,328 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Cultural Criticism, Métis, philosophy, mental health
Ex-Mount Royal University professor and author of 'Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools)' believes she is persecuted by grieving Indigenous communities and woke leftist academic institutions. She has...
| politics, culture | 2,138 words
TAGS: Cultural Criticism, Politics, Art, Media Criticism, Social Commentary
Why does reactionary, conservative art in modernity fail? A look at God's Not Dead, the Daily Wire's $100 million entertainment collapse, and how resentment produces derivative, hollow work that cannot generate any cultural magnetism.
| religion | 5,599 words
TAGS: personal essay, theology, Christianity, Buddhism, spirituality, philosophy, Métis
My testimony, from Dawkins on an iPod Shuffle down a back alley, through Buddhist libraries and a children's hospice, to Matthew's Gospel in a break room chair, My case for tragic theism: a God who creates, risks, makes mistakes, grieves them...
| writing-craft, history | 2,207 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, blogging, culture, history
My daily writing is a practice of releasing messages in bottles and folding paper cranes--from Montaigne in his tower and Johnson writing in poverty, to Sadako Sasaki folding 1,450 cranes in a hospital ward. What the essayists, drift bottles, and...
| science | 2,382 words
TAGS: public health, covid, Long COVID, disability, policy, Social Commentary
A follow-up looking at the real, systemic intervention for the Long COVID mass-disabiling event: Clean air. MERV 13 filters, the Corsi-Rosenthal Box, and the Zadroga Act we still have to write to climb the bureaucratic wall of disability denial...
| culture | 3,183 words
TAGS: personal essay, Digital Culture, memes, writing, video games
A history of the word 'meme'--from Richard Dawkins coining it in *The Selfish Gene* in 1976 to Advice Dog and the death of shared internet monoculture--and what happens when you take memetics seriously as a theory of culture. Metal Gear Rising's...
| community, indieweb | 2,725 words
TAGS: personal essay, commons, IndieWeb, open source, Indigenous
A defence of digital stewardship, IndieWeb principles, Blackfoot models of collective flourishing, and what it means to plant seeds in a garden you'll never see. From Garrett Hardin's infamous 1968 essay to Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 2,302 words
TAGS: personal essay, road trip, masculinity, prairie, family relationships, Métis
A fifteen-hour road trip across Saskatchewan with my brother, watching the prairie unfold through grain elevators and abandoned towns. The quiet weight of prairie masculinity, the failure of academic knowledge to translate into brotherly wisdom...
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 2,161 words
TAGS: personal essay, poetry, writing, mental health, neuroscience
I snuck off school grounds to write in a back alley, shoplifting Ginsberg and Neruda from Chapters, and I'm alive and writing today because of that. Recent neuroscience confirms poetry activates the brain's dopaminergic reward system, treats...
| lyric-essays | 2,007 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, theology, gratitude, Mental Health
My annual birthday essay on turning thirty: examining the cross-cultural agreement--from Confucius to the Hebrew Bible to Zoroaster--that thirty is when formation ends and function begins. My dark year of depression which turned out to be...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 3,266 words
TAGS: personal essay, grief, Literary Criticism, spirituality, Mental Health
A eulogy for two kinds of loss: those who die and those who become simply elsewhere. Filtered through Didion, Barthes, C.S. Lewis, and Pema Chödrön. On ambiguous grief, the names written down so they don't disappear, and the sixteen-year-old who...
| writing-craft, religion | 1,915 words
TAGS: personal essay, poetry, philosophy, theology, gratitude
On the poets who found different terrors inside the phrase 'earn my keep'--Jeong Ho-Seung, Brecht, Heather McHugh, Kim Hyesoon--and the theological dispute over whether grace can be deserved, turning thirty in borrowed time, and the nuthatches...
| culture | 1,567 words
TAGS: Book Review, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Canadian Literature
A review of Jake Beka's sophomore poetry chapbook SINKHOLE--eleven poems across four continents and three generations, tracing patrilineal damage as a force that reshapes geography, contaminates water tables, and follows you across borders. A...
| culture | 3,379 words
TAGS: Social Commentary, Digital Culture, Cultural Criticism, Analog Living, philosophy
On the subscription economy, Walter Benjamin's aura, Pokémon scalpers, the rot of physical media, and the person at the photocopier making what the streaming model cannot touch.
| personal-favourites, science | 3,335 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Digital Culture, philosophy, Space, Environmental Justice, Mental Health, gratitude
We have the first human photograph of Earth from space in 54 years, and I can't help but meditate on what it means to be human on a fragile planet in 2026.
| personal-favourites, science | 3,475 words
TAGS: Personal Essay, Science, Philosophy, Poetry, Space, Cultural History
Born on April 13th, 26 years after Apollo 13's failure, I explore my personal connection to the Moon as Artemis II astronauts journey toward Her. The Moon has scientific importance, cultural naming traditions, religious significance across...
| politics | 3,273 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Justice, Media Criticism, politics, Mental Health, philosophy
A few minutes before I begin writing this, I woke up into an anxiety attack. There are a lot of issues I could be writing about, the world is fraught with uncertain violence. This is a story about me, and also a story about North Darfur and...
| indieweb, politics | 2,279 words
TAGS: Technology, Digital Culture, Privacy, politics, Digital Security, Social Commentary
A quarter of the entire Internet uses Cloudflare. This is an existential threat to the Internet's ideals. I realized I need DDoS protection, but I could not use Cloudflare in good conscience. And so, I'm beyond excited to announce that I'm now...
| technical-tutorials | 1,592 words
TAGS: Technical, IndieWeb, Satire, Writing, Humor
A review of the prank I pulled yesterday, in addition to serious discourse about being silly, including thoughts on the role and importance of satire and literacy. I also share a detailed technical breakdown of the scripts that I added to the...
| personal-favourites | 3,748 words
TAGS: Announcements, Blogging, IndieWeb, Ad
After MONTHS of hard, gruelling work being completely independent on my personal site, I've been lucky enough to find healthy, sustainable partnerships with several incredible companies. Today, I'm sharing some significant changes to how...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 2,055 words
TAGS: Philosophy, Personal Essay, Blogging, Gratitude, Self-Discovery
Exploring constitutive moral luck through Nagel and Williams alongside Nietzsche's Übermensch and amor fati, I reflect on the recursive gratitude I feel for who I constitutively am--and argue that blogging is a philosophical practice of...
| culture, politics | 3,832 words
TAGS: Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, Social Commentary, Feminism, Politics, Media Criticism
Looksmaxxing. Redpilled. Sigma. Mogging. Cope. Seethe. Malding. Goyslop. Gooning. Memes from image boards became cultural foundation for Generation Alpha. How rich, powerful men have coordinated a harmful online culture for nearly twenty years.
| science | 5,076 words
TAGS: personal essay, Mental Health, Neurodivergence, psychology, Self-Discovery, disability, Cultural Criticism, philosophy
My personal exploration of schizoid personality disorder and neurodivergence. From King Crimson's prophetic song to global youth withdrawal phenomena, I examine what it means to live with a rich interior life and limited social needs, challenging...
| writing-craft, religion | 3,426 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Literary Theory, Cognitive Science, Culture, History, Writing Process, spirituality
Grammar/Glamour/Grimoire. 言霊 & heka. Spelling & spellcasting. The Word. Writing is generative, not descriptive. Cultures across millennia have understood that words conjure reality. Writing conjures, symbols activate the brain, serving as...
| writing-craft | 1,862 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, Social Commentary, writing
There's tension between creative authenticity and professional presentation in the IndieWeb space. What does it mean to be taken seriously as a writer while maintaining personal joy and rejecting the aesthetic standards of capital?
| writing-craft, science | 3,000 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Literature, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, Indigenous Writing, Cultural Criticism
How do our brains physically process stories? The neurology of narrative transportation, brain synchrony between storytellers and listeners, biocultural theory, and Indigenous storytelling traditions that collapse Western narrative structures.
| 0 words
TAGS: interview, IndieWeb, chess, journaling
I was interviewed by Hyde on lazybea.rs for their Over/Under series. Covering Discord, journaling, chess, Letterboxd, strawberries, and more.
| culture | 1,837 words
TAGS: film review, Cinema, Poetry, Character Analysis, Art, Ethics, Literature
A devastating character study of a washed-up Colombian poet who discovers a gifted teenage student, exploring the toxic dynamics of artistic mentorship, racial exploitation in the literary world, and the difference between dedication and...
| indieweb, community | 2,496 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, Social Commentary, community, philosophy
What does it actually mean to build a better web, and what do we owe each other in doing so? A response to the 32-bit Café thread about trust, onboarding, and the distance between knowing something is wrong and doing something about it.
| technical-tutorials | 3,325 words
TAGS: Technical, Digital Culture, Technology, Social Commentary, Sustainability, Tutorial
A complete step-by-step tutorial for creating a bootable Catalina USB installer using mist-cli on modern macOS in order to downgrade an Early 2015 MacBook Pro from macOS Monterey to Catalina. Accidentally also a philosophical look at planned...
| indieweb | 1,808 words
TAGS: personal essay, Digital Culture, IndieWeb, Social Commentary, philosophy
What is trust in an AI-saturated internet? And a related question, how do we reckon with the barriers to onboarding people to the IndieWeb? We must cultivate faith in our digital interactions and make independent web spaces more accessible.
| french | 766 words
TAGS: personal essay, Language Learning, philosophy, Mental Health, writing
Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Apprendre le français, le deuil et les limites de la vie -- un exercice en vulnérabilité linguistique.
| ai | 1,842 words
TAGS: Tech Criticism, Digital Culture, Open Source, AI Ethics, Software Ethics, Digital Sovereignty, Community
genAI code is now in Python, curl, and systemd. We face an ethical crisis. Slopware means we have two possible responses: absolutism or harm reduction. This moment demands the same principled stand that free software absolutists have taken for...
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 1,293 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, Writing, Philosophy, Community, Digital Culture
I've written 120 blog posts in the past 140 days, averaging 1,900 words per post. 250,000 words total on my blog currently. It's as good a time as any to review my work so far and speculate on the possibilities of my future.
| science | 2,209 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, Philosophy, Indigenous Writing, Neuroscience
Come be bored with me. Utterly bored. Within the default mode network, Heidegger's philosophy, Indigenous dream epistemologies, and personal experiences with hypnagogic states.
| personal-favourites, culture | 2,198 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, nostalgia, capitalism, childhood
My nostalgia is hypercapitalist. My nostalgia is the worst of the unregulated Internet. I cannot decouple my fondest memories from the corporations and the loss of innocence that produced them, and I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that.
| politics | 8,904 words
TAGS: Philosophy, Personal Essay, Ethics, Social Justice, Human Rights, Activism, Cultural Criticism, Social Commentary
Liberal democracies selectively apply universal human rights, and there is a progressive failure to extend moral consideration to: Palestinians, Congolese, Rohingyans, Uyghurs, trans people, women, Black communities, Indigenous Peoples, the...
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 2,355 words
TAGS: eleventy, IndieWeb, personal site, technical
What have I added to my site since I started in December? Quality-of-life improvements, new pages, interesting features, and of course, easter eggs! When you add a little each day, it really adds up.
| history, community | 2,895 words
TAGS: Philosophy, Personal Essay, Community
Drawing on Susan Neiman's philosophy of evil, the 'missing stair' problem, and Elinor Ostrom's principles for governing the commons, I try to explore the difference between withdrawal due to burnout versus accountability, and argue that ethical...
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 827 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Literature, freewriting
Dogfooding my freewriting; an experiment on why writers need to embrace the weird, unfiltered, and unconventional rather than fearing AI detection.
| personal-favourites, politics | 2,356 words
TAGS: Feminism, politics, Personal Essay, Philosophy, Activism
An open letter to the men in my life and around the world, pleading that we recognize there is so much work for us to do. A recognition of my own shortcomings and failures. Steps we can take to try to liberate the future.
| 1,041 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Media Criticism, journalism, IndieWeb
I was permanently banned from r/Calgary for posting my own writing about local public library funding. What does this say about the state of local journalism?
| ai | 1,481 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Media Criticism, politics, art
The Calgary Public Library is offering $8,000 for an AI Artist Residency while Canadian artists face funding cuts and 16% grant acceptance rates. There are programs like this around the world. Why?
| indieweb | 830 words
TAGS: Eleventy, Static Site Generators, Open Source, Web Development, Community, Kickstarter
After only a couple days, Build Awesome's Kickstarter has been cancelled and rescheduled due to email delivery issues that ruined the project's momentum despite reaching their funding goal in a single day.
| personal-favourites, politics | 1,692 words
TAGS: cultural criticism, politics, media criticism, social commentary, personal essay
A CEO took a comically small bite of a burger. The internet erupted. Meanwhile, the US is bombing Iran, Trump is drafting executive orders to seize control of the midterms, and civil unrest is reaching a boiling point. We need to talk about what...
| indieweb | 2,303 words
TAGS: Eleventy, Static Site Generators, Open Source, Web Development, Community
Build Awesome is a rebrand of 11ty/Eleventy, backed by a successful $40k Kickstarter. But this attempt to monetize static site generators repeats the same mistakes that killed Gatsby and Stackbit--and misunderstands who actually builds static sites.
| writing-craft | 1,559 words
TAGS: Blogging, Writing Process, Creative Process, Productivity, Workflow
A detailed look at my personal blogging workflow that has enabled me to write nearly a post a day for four months straight, including how I generate ideas, organize thoughts, and maintain consistency.
| indieweb | 2,444 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Digital Preservation, Web Development, Technology, Digital Culture
What will the Internet look like in 2036? 2046? How do we reckon with the challenges of digital preservation, link rot, and building for the Long Web in an age of ephemeral content?
| culture | 2,565 words
TAGS: Literary Criticism, Digital Culture, Academic Writing, Virginia Woolf, Feminism
What do we do with Virginia Woolf's concept of creative space in the digital age? Examining how domains, Queer dance halls, and collective spaces redefine what it means to have a room of one's own for contemporary writers.
| personal-favourites, community | 1,430 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Philosophy, Community, Digital Culture, Personal Essay
My second principle for the IndieWeb requires good faith writing excludes the misanthrope. I want to reconsider that, carefully. Because the question of who gets to be here, and why, is more interesting and more complicated than I first let on.
| indieweb | 1,862 words
TAGS: Digital Gardens, IndieWeb, Digital Culture, Personal Essay
On executive dysfunction, the tyranny of perpetual drafts, and choosing messy immediacy over cultivated perfection.
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 1,218 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, anthropology, Mental Health, gratitude
Turning thirty during a breakup while the world unravels. Meditating on the 12,000 generations of homo sapiens that came before us, and what it means to be embodied in this particular moment of deep time.
| 1,150 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, capitalism, Community, Personal Essay, Sustainability
A new approach to creative support: one simple tier, full access for everyone. Inspired by Manuel Moreale's 'One a Month' Club, the Toonie Club offers sustainable patronage without complex tiers or exclusive content.
| ai | 1,314 words
TAGS: AI, Open Source, Digital Culture, Media Criticism, Technology
A response to Cory Doctorow's defense of generative AI, examining the contradictions in supporting Ollama while championing open source principles, and an examination about what purity culture and hypocrisy really means.
| indieweb, community | 2,319 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Community, Personal Essay, Digital Culture, Digital Sociology
We need to be good neighours to each other. But what does that mean on the IndieWeb? A look at mycorrhizal networks, Indra's Net, and the importance of building intentional connections between independent websites.
| personal-favourites, technical-tutorials | 2,128 words
TAGS: Digital Security, IndieWeb, Journalism, Open Source, Digital Culture, Social Commentary
A few days after writing about a weird malware campaign, I discovered that half a dozen cybersecurity news outlets had picked up the story. They now outrank me on Google. A metacommentary on the state of internet journalism, attribution, and what...
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 919 words
TAGS: personal essay, spirituality, writing, Indigenous Writing, philosophy
I believe writing is sacred medicine, and I have been thinking about the writing I have been offering you over the past few months. Is it healing? Is it good? Please, let me know. I am here to give you an offering.
| ai | 1,462 words
TAGS: personal essay, AI, IndieWeb, technology
This is my swan song on generative AI after writing six articles on the topic. Why I'm done with the AI discourse and instead fully leaning into the human and more-than-human web.
| personal-favourites | 1,498 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, writing, community, Personal Development
Being developmentally delayed has benefits, and I am embracing the journey of being a late bloomer in writing, web development, and life.
| indieweb | 1,156 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, Digital Culture, IndieWeb, community
A call to action for the 99% of internet users who consume but never create. If that's you (and it most likely is), then please read and consider what I'm asking.
| indieweb | 2,324 words
TAGS: Digital Security, Open Source, Ethics, technical, Software Development
Today, a weird malware distribution campaign targeting users of omg.lol and Triton, an open-source macOS client of omg.lol, was found. The attack leverages the trust of GitHub, creating a malicious fork where the download link has been replaced...
| 1,650 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Web Development, Digital Culture, community, accessibility
I decide to throw my hat into the ring and define what exactly the IndieWeb movement is, the core principles, and why it matters for the future of the Internet.
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 879 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, Climate Crisis, mindfulness, hope
Reflections on an unseasonably warm February day in Calgary, contemplating the accelerating pace of change in our world and finding meaning in small moments of connection and presence.
| indieweb | 1,929 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Medium, Open Source, static site generators, Web Development
I created a Medium export converter for the IndieWeb that converts your Medium archive into clean Markdown for Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, or Astro.js. Available as both a command line tool, and a web interface.
| personal-favourites, politics | 1,309 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, Mental Health, hope, activism
How the inevitability of oblivion can be a source of relief, while also examining our sacred duty to make things better in the present moment through persistent, stubborn action in the direction of care.
| indieweb | 1,805 words
TAGS: Open Source, Licensing, Software Development, Creative Commons
Why I'm Switching from MIT to AGPL and from CC BY-NC to CC BY-SA after a conversation with Dr. Matt Lee about copyleft licensing and protecting free software from corporate exploitation.
| indieweb | 1,915 words
TAGS: Web Development, IndieWeb, JAMstack, Open Source, Blog Themes, Hugo, eleventy
I've spent the last few weeks working on three new free themes for IndieWeb blogging: Indiepaper, Newsprint, and brennan.jp.net, all of which centre around giving people a place to call their own on the internet.
| ai | 1,137 words
TAGS: AI, art, Culture, technology, Media Criticism
Prompt Engineers Lack Any Canon, Don't You? AI artists have an existential problem: they consume only their own work, severing the dialogue of culture that connects us across generations.
| writing-craft, politics | 1,763 words
TAGS: Substack, writing, Culture, IndieWeb, Capitalism
The newsletter platform is supposed to be the new economic engine for culture. Yet, they let hate speech fester. Why? The answer is obvious. Writing is treated as commodity instead of sacred art. But there is a solution.
| 843 words
TAGS: personal essay, writing, Software Development, Digital Culture, AI
A roundup of recent developments: building a terminal-based writing organizer, being interviewed by Le Monde about AI social media, and thoughts on Medium's Partner Program changes.
| ai | 1,393 words
TAGS: AI, technology, criticism
A critical look at the hype around OpenClaw's MoltBook platform and why AI agents talking to each other isn't the singularity.
| personal-favourites | 883 words
TAGS: personal essay, politics, reflection
Writing about the state of the world as a cusp Millennial/Gen Z that grew up in the optimistic Obama era, contrasting that with what today holds for us.
| 1,317 words
TAGS: creativity, art, Media Criticism, philosophy
How creative ambition transforms into a trap of endless expansion, examining YouTube essayists, neoliberal work culture, and the pressure to constantly optimize artistic output
| 2,286 words
TAGS: personal essay, IndieWeb, writing, community, blogging, Digital Culture
You don't need to be a developer to own your corner of the internet. A guide for writers, poets, and creators who want to escape algorithmic feeds and reclaim their digital presence. No computer science degree required.
| 1,866 words
TAGS: personal essay, creativity, writing, community, education
A manifesto on learning to persist in your writing and to write anywhere. I'm finally pursuing my dream of being a writing instructor by starting a new, low-cost online class for those ready.
| personal-favourites | 2,350 words
TAGS: personal essay, Social Commentary, politics, Digital Culture
What is the future of coding bootcamps? Is there a future? And, more importantly, what is the future of junior developers in an industry with an effortless AI bubble?
| religion | 4,322 words
TAGS: philosophy, Anthropology, spirituality, Cultural Criticism
What is the meaning of life? Is there more than one correct answer? I've decided to take a rather long-winded exploration of how different cultures approach the sacred, the dead, and the transcendent, suggesting that multiple paths can lead to...
| technical-tutorials | 752 words
TAGS: Web Development, eleventy, Nunjucks, technical
I transformed a messy tag list into an organized alphabetical sections, and there were a surprising amount of gotchas I encountered along the way.
| technical-tutorials | 604 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, Microblogging, decentralization, technical
I set up a sync between my status.lol updates and a twtxt feed, creating a bridge between IndieWeb tools and classic decentralized microblogging.
| community | 1,295 words
TAGS: Creator Economy, Digital Culture, community, Cultural Criticism, IndieWeb
Beyond tipping culture, there are meaningful ways to support independent creators that don't involve money. Here are eight of the best.
| personal-favourites, science | 2,384 words
TAGS: Chronic Illness, Medical Ethics, covid, Cultural Criticism, politics
Six years into COVID-19, the world has moved on while the virus continues to disable millions. An examination of the ongoing pandemic, long COVID, and our collective failure to prevent a mass disabling event.
| indieweb | 2,217 words
TAGS: docker, homesteading, technical
Building digital resilience through self-hosted infrastructure and permacomputing principles in an uncertain world. Using Docker, Caddy, and open-source tools for digital resilience and independence.
| culture | 829 words
TAGS: personal essay, review, creativity, philosophy
A delightful surprise from an author I initially dismissed. Gilbert's Big Magic explores creativity as sacred play, rejecting the tortured artist myth for a lighter, more joyful approach to creative work.
| indieweb | 890 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Digital Culture, IndieWeb, technical
A month of building, connecting, and discovering the independent web. Small technical joys that turned solitude into dialogue. Treat the Internet like a personal playground and lab!
| technical-tutorials | 888 words
TAGS: eleventy, IndieWeb, netlify, technical, tutorial
Learn how to implement a Micropub endpoint for your static site, allowing you to post content from external clients like Quill while maintaining JAMstack architecture.
| technical-tutorials | 1,055 words
TAGS: css, eleventy, javascript, technical, accessibility
A journey into making a website gracefully degrade for users without JavaScript, including the CSS-based .no-js approach, testing with Lynx, and creating an informative experience for all users.
| indigenous, politics | 1,400 words
TAGS: Indigenous Writing, personal essay, politics, Cultural Criticism
The Greenland debate keeps asking whether the U.S. could take it, or whether Denmark should keep it. The missing question is: What do the Greenlanders want? They've already answered: 'We don't want to be Americans. We don't want to be Danes. We...
| technical-tutorials | 1,792 words
TAGS: css, eleventy, javascript, technical
A humble look into the performance optimizations boosting my Lighthouse score from 65 to 83, including critical CSS, layout shift fixes, and image optimization while maintaining the site's design and user experience
| technical-tutorials | 694 words
TAGS: eleventy, javascript, technical
A technical walkthrough of how I extended the eleventy-plugin-post-graph to add clickable links and hover tooltips showing article titles
| indieweb | 2,076 words
TAGS: blogging, directories, IndieWeb, publishing, technical
A guide to tools and resources for joining the independent web movement. Discover blogging platforms like Pika, search engines that prioritize small sites, directories for finding like-minded creators, and more.
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 1,726 words
TAGS: eleventy, IndieWeb, javascript, netlify, technical, tutorial
A journey through authentication, CORS issues, and the joy of owning your comments! Learn how to build a comment system for your static site using IndieAuth and Netlify Functions, storing the comments in your git repository.
| culture | 845 words
TAGS: Mental Health, Cultural Criticism, personal essay, philosophy, review, suicide
CONTENT WARNING: Suicide | A matter-of-fact memoir about the endurance of loss, where Li considers grief to be regarded as having an end-point, as though there could be a finite amount felt when both of your only children choose death instead of...
| politics | 2,270 words
TAGS: creativity, IndieWeb, philosophy, politics
A manifesto on what we do when the world is on fire: Daywriting. The deliberate, daily documentation of ordinary existence as both personal archive and political resistance.
| culture | 2,022 words
TAGS: creativity, Cultural Criticism, philosophy, music
The lyrics 'You know the greatest films of all time were never made' is obviously not about films. It is, somehow, about how we're living on this planet for a fragile, finite amount of time and we have something inert within us to give, to gift.
| technical-tutorials | 1,785 words
TAGS: eleventy, personal essay, technical, tutorial
A simple gratitude journal online, with media tracking and Beeminder integration. Yes, yet another 11ty project technical write-up, but I promise you'll learn something.
| technical-tutorials | 1,143 words
TAGS: cicd, eleventy, IndieWeb, neocities, technical, tutorial
A guide to automatically deploying your Eleventy static site to NeoCities using GitLab CI/CD, including authentication, error handling, and optimizations.
| technical-tutorials | 1,348 words
TAGS: internet, technical
The Internet should be a place where ideas can live and spread without people extracting rent at every turn. Where an emerging nonprofit can publish their mission statement without paying Squarespace $300/year. Where a poet can share their work...
| lyric-essays | 1,382 words
TAGS: creativity, personal essay, philosophy, spirituality
Nietzsche and Rumi had something in common: dancing. I wrote this mundane life update and found myself getting into the weeds of what's important to the physical body. What can I offer myself? How can I enact movement each day?
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 1,473 words
TAGS: eleventy, IndieWeb, personal site, technical
A dive into how this site is built, why it exists, and the philosophy behind owning your corner of the web.
| culture | 2,267 words
TAGS: copyright, Cultural Criticism, Digital Preservation, public domain
Could you only consume public domain work for a year straight? With the new year coming up and various IP being released to the public domain, I thought I'd muse on copyright and the future of art and culture.
| community | 2,587 words
TAGS: community, Cultural Criticism, IndieWeb, philosophy
Can the Internet be a place we can visit again? Can it replace what malls were supposed to be for us? A blog post about what we can do with what we have.
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 1,546 words
TAGS: creativity, personal essay, art, philosophy
Thoughts on embracing the ugliness of your early creations as a form of civic duty and spiritual practice. A call to action without judgement.
| ai | 1,525 words
TAGS: AI, creativity, politics
An exploration of cognitive dissonance around AI usage, parallels to meat consumption, and the decision to transition to Sublime Text for an AI-free coding experience.
| indieweb, technical-tutorials | 696 words
TAGS: netlify, technical, tutorial
Reviving the classic guestbook for a static site using Netlify Forms and serverless functions, with lessons on distributed systems and race conditions.
| 2,392 words
TAGS: creativity, publishing, technical
Breaking free from platform dependence to build an independent literary publication with Eleventy, exploring privacy-first analytics and sustainable publishing models.
| 1,500 words
TAGS: creativity, learning, meta, spirituality
Exploring the value of public writing as reference material, why blogging serves as better knowledge management than private notes, and embracing cycles of beginning again.
| 1,122 words
TAGS: IndieWeb, meta
Announcing the launch of brennan.day, an IndieWeb-focused personal site built with Eleventy, hosted on GitLab, and committed to ethical technology choices.
| 721 words
TAGS: technical
An all-night debugging session wrestling with web design issues, from omg.lol glitches to CSS mysteries, and the decision to migrate to Eleventy.
| 652 words
TAGS: meta, projects
Transitioning from private to public writing, sharing progress on the Calgary Groups project and plans for the brennan.day website setup.
| 733 words
TAGS: creativity, spirituality, blogging
A pre-dawn reflection on overcoming fear and perfectionism to create an authentic, no-stakes blog for genuine self-expression.
| 2,133 words
TAGS: blogging, internet, technical, IndieWeb
Take back your corner of the Internet. Stop building on rented land. Stop trusting platforms that see you as product. Stop waiting for some company to make the "perfect" tool.
| ai | 1,588 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Media Criticism, Social Commentary, technical, AI
Part 3 of a series on the AI Crisis
| 342 words
TAGS: meta, personal essay
My first post on this weblog, writing from Calgary on Treaty 7 Territory about returning to independent writing on the open web with simple, enduring technology.
| culture | 1,922 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Media Criticism, sports
Romance and Mythology in Mixed-Martial Arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship
| culture | 2,057 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Media Criticism
That's the Whole Point
| writing-craft | 2,476 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, Writing Process
Using the Methods of Journalists from the Past to Inspire Your Writing Today
| culture | 3,179 words
TAGS: personal essay, music
Growing Up With Bon Iver
| writing-craft | 1,797 words
TAGS: personal essay, Writing Process, publishing
Accessibility, Gatekeeping, and Who Gets to be Published
| personal-favourites, culture | 2,674 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture
What is cringe? The feeling when you see somebody deeply love something you don't understand.
| indieweb | 1,900 words
TAGS: personal essay, Digital Culture, Social Media, technical, Medium, IndieWeb
Why You (yes, you) Should Join Medium, Tumblr, and NeoCities.
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 1,921 words
TAGS: personal essay, philosophy, productivity
The liberation of realizing you can't waste your time.
| personal-favourites, history | 2,202 words
TAGS: personal essay, politics, History
Ordinary people chose to do the right thing and saved us all. We barely remember them.
| 2,789 words
TAGS: personal essay, Medium, productivity, publishing
What I've learned getting out of my own way.
| writing-craft | 4,924 words
TAGS: Literary Journalism, personal essay, Writing Process, publishing
On independence, integrity, and telling the truth beautifully. (featuring Better Call Saul and Homestuck?)
| personal-favourites | 2,194 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, Writing Process
An Invitation to Theft, A Refusal of Authorship, and Why Your Name Matters Less Than Your Message
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 1,659 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Writing Process
29 Examples to Get You Started!
| indigenous | 3,058 words
TAGS: Academic Writing, Indigenous Writing, Social Justice, Literature, Media Criticism, politics
How do we reckon with Canada's Pretendian problem?
| politics | 2,062 words
TAGS: personal essay, Writing Process, politics
An Open Letter to Conservatives
| personal-favourites | 3,421 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Media Criticism, politics, technical, Medium
There's a lot to the forgotten past of Medium's most successful writer.
| personal-favourites, community | 1,993 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Social Commentary, Urban Planning
Did you know it's actually better than driving?
| politics, community | 3,741 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Mental Health, Social Commentary
But You Must Allow Yourself to Be Annoyed and Practice the Radical Work of Staying
| writing-craft | 2,314 words
TAGS: personal essay, Writing Process, Medium, publishing
My Experience with Medium's Writers Circle
| writing-craft | 2,549 words
TAGS: personal essay, productivity
Writers that write badly instead of plan extremely well are... better writers?
| personal-favourites, community | 2,221 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Creative Process, Social Commentary, politics
On the downfall of NaNoWriMo, democracy as creative practice, the bread we bake, and waking up.
| culture | 2,038 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, Analog Living, Digital Minimalism
This will give you the most amount of hope you've had in a long while.
| writing-craft | 4,720 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, Writing Process, Academic Writing
Escape the Sterile Classroom Killing Your Voice. Return to Nature.
| ai | 3,901 words
TAGS: personal essay, Mental Health, AI
I was wrong about artificial intelligence. It's actually so, so much worse.
| culture | 3,058 words
TAGS: personal essay, Media Criticism, Mental Health, suicide
I watched BoJack Horseman from when it premiered in 2014 when I was seventeen up to when it ended. I have grown up with BoJack.
| 1,482 words
TAGS: personal essay, Digital Culture, Curation, Social Media
If you're a writer that's active and consistent, I'm looking for you. Yes, you.
| writing-craft, culture | 2,607 words
TAGS: Cultural Criticism, Media Criticism, Literature, poetry
The Necessary, Complicated Legacy of Canada's Best-selling Poet
| politics | 2,792 words
TAGS: community, politics, Social Commentary, Social Justice, Economics
When a Generation Stops Pretending to Dream of Labour
| personal-favourites, lyric-essays | 1,741 words
TAGS: personal essay, creativity, Media Criticism, Literature
An Essay on Potatoes, Figs, Men, and the Truth.
| ai | 2,859 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Cultural Criticism, Media Criticism, AI
The Age of AI is a Crisis of Faith
| politics | 3,443 words
TAGS: Media Criticism, politics, Social Justice, palestine
Notes on Apocalypse and What We Owe the Living.
| 2,455 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, Social Commentary, Media Criticism, technical
and How I'm Trying to Save It
| writing-craft | 2,813 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Indigenous Writing, spirituality
What I Learned Getting My First Story Boosted After 10 Years on Medium
| personal-favourites, writing-craft | 2,303 words
TAGS: personal essay, creativity, writing, productivity
What Four Years in a Children's Hospice Kitchen Taught Me About Craft
| writing-craft, lyric-essays | 773 words
TAGS: personal essay, Literature, Creative Writing
A Literary Question Across Centuries in the East
| writing-craft, culture | 2,793 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, Writing Process, productivity, music
How to write like the Mountain Goats to create your own body of work you'll be proud of.
| 2,945 words
TAGS: Academic Writing, Cultural Criticism, Indigenous Writing, Social Justice, Writing Process, Research
Note-taking with Indigenous Knowledge Systems
| 1,044 words
TAGS: personal essay, Academic Writing, Writing Process, Research
A love letter to Wikipedia.
| 1,313 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Writing Process
An Essay on Unlikely Connections
| 1,527 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Process, publishing, writing
A Case for Independent Literary Journalism: Why I'm Going All In
| 970 words
TAGS: personal essay, Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, Writing Process, Media Criticism, politics
Are you a writer? Do you want to be? Read this.
| 1,133 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Social Commentary
A Lyric Essay on Loss in Ten Parts
| 2,119 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Writing Process, technical, python
How 1,002,243 words of journal entries revealed the patterns of a writer's mind.
| 829 words
TAGS: personal essay, Creative Writing, Writing Process, Life Transitions, publishing
Practical guidance for emerging writers navigating transformation, offering concrete pathways from self-publishing and workshops to grants and community building, with wisdom on embracing imperfection.
| 1,903 words
TAGS: Digital Culture, publishing, Medium
My experience writing on Medium for the past 10 years
| 1,641 words
TAGS: personal essay, Indigenous Writing, Life Transitions, Mental Health
A reflection on completing an English degree at twenty-nine, exploring the anticlimactic nature of graduation, identity as a halfbreed Métis student, and what it means to finish without feeling finished.
| culture | 2,114 words
TAGS: Academic Writing, Critical Theory, Disability, Media Criticism
A critical analysis of how Adventure Time portrayed disability through Finn's amputation, examining the show's groundbreaking yet problematic approach to permanent bodily change in children's animation.
| 1,714 words
TAGS: personal essay, Digital Culture, Media Criticism, technical
A personal exploration of love, AI, and human connection through the lens of Spike Jonze's film 'Her,' examining how the movie predicted our current relationship with artificial intelligence.
| 1,025 words
TAGS: personal essay, Writing Process, Analog Living, Digital Minimalism
A Love Letter to the Handwritten Page
| 1,908 words
TAGS: personal essay, community, Creative Process, Digital Minimalism, politics
A call to reclaim our creative power in an age of endless consumption, exploring how making things--no matter how imperfect--is an act of resistance against the attention economy.
| culture | 1,144 words
TAGS: Cultural Criticism, Digital Culture, politics, technical
Our Memory is Disappearing Before Our Eyes
| 949 words
TAGS: Climate Crisis, personal essay, politics, community, Social Commentary
What Our Bodies Remember When Systems Fail
| 1,360 words
TAGS: personal essay, Mental Health, creativity, Indigenous Writing, queer
Eight meditations on writing, survival, and the sacred geometry of storytelling
| 700 words
TAGS: technical, tutorial, jekyll
A Technical Guide to Leaving a Legacy