I recently documented how I archived content from creators I subscribed to on Locals. I subscribed to VivaBarnes when they first joined the platform in 2020, and I also subscribed to Louder with Crowder when it switched to Locals from The Blaze. For years, I felt like both had done an excellent job of informing and/or entertaining their audience in some very difficult times. However, both have had their own controversies over the years. Over time, I gained less from the subscriber-only content. The quality of their work has degraded. My own research has found they’ve both been pushing their own narrative stories, sometimes directly opposed to the facts of the events they cover. I don’t regret supporting them, but I think I’ve exhausted the value I received from their videos. This month, my subscriptions end for the only two people I follow on Locals.
I subscribe to two channels on Locals, a creator funding platform that was bought by Rumble. Both of the people I subscribe to produce a lot of content, and there’s no way to consume all of it, especially with Local’s abysmal web interface. In the past, I’ve archived content from The Blaze. The Blaze had a well-designed frontend interface and easy to handle JSON response. This made it almost trivial to archive content. Locals renders most of their HTML on their servers. A considerable amount of scraping and parsing is required, in order to archive their content. I created a tool called arclocals; a Python application anyone should be able to use if they want to archive the content of people they subscribe to on Locals.
I’ve documented my long history of cellphones. My history of tablets is substantially shorter. I’ve been able to get significantly more life out of the various tablets I’ve purchased over the years. In this post, I’m going to show you every tablet I’ve ever owned. I’m only including devices without keyboards. I’ve had some x86 laptops, both personal and for work, that have screens which flip all the way around so they can be used as a 2-in-1. I’ve never really used these in tablet mode, so I’m leaving them out. For the most part I’ve only used tablets for reading novels, comic books and manga. They’re really great for reading, and maybe some light web browsing, but I’ve hardly used them for anything else. In this post I’ll cover the Acer Iconia Tab, Samsung Galaxy Tab S, Microsoft Surface Pro 2, a failed attempt to restore an Asus Google Nexus 7, and finally, the Google Pixel Tablet.
Years ago, I migrated from Google Voice over to a Voice/SMS service called Jmp.Chat. I host my address book using Radicale, an open source CardDav/CalDav server. In order to synchronize contacts between the two, I wrote dav-xmpp-sync, a Python application for CardDav to XMPP synchronization. It’s worked fairly well for a while. I recently did some maintenance: updating dependencies and adding support for SMS/Text groups. The v1.2.0 release is available via a Docker image, and is fully backwards compatible with the previous release.
A while back, I tried out a SlickMK, a split keyboard with an Ergodox layout. It took me a while to get use to its ortholinear layout. My frustration made me wonder if I had made the right choice. However, after getting a bit more comfortable with it, I moved it to my work computer. I eventually returned to the same typing speed I was use to on traditional, staggered layout keyboards. Recently, I decided to switch over my personal workstation to a split keyboard as well. I replaced my Royal Kludge 84 with a W-Ergo. It took a little while to arrive, but so far it’s proven to be a reliable and fun keyboard.
In the early years of the Internet, there was a social bookmarking service known as Del.icio.us, or “Delicious.” It allowed users to create and tag bookmarks. It had a Firefox extension that could synchronize bookmarks and tags between a user’s various web browsers and computers. Sadly, the browser extension stopped working as Firefox deprecated their old extension API and Delicious traded hands between various companies. My home directory is old enough that I still had the disabled Delicious extension data sitting within my Firefox profile. The data is in a standard sqlite3 format, and I wrote a Python script that extracts those old bookmarks and formats them as HTML.
On February 9th, 2024, I got a Blue Alert on my cellphone. In the past, the details of the alert were typically in the message itself. However, this time I got a link to tbi.pub/alert. Upon tapping on the link, the tbi.pub/alert redirected me to a Facebook page. My phone then prompted me to download the Facebook app. After clicking no, I was then asked to login, where it appeared that I couldn’t continue without an account. I had to go through two modals just to get to an alert. If the state of Tennessee is going through the trouble of having a web server with a redirect, why not just serve the alert information themselves, instead of directing everyone to a page with a terrible user experience, and third party data tracking?
Last year, I started composting. Grass clippings, kitchen food waste, leaves and unbleached shredded cardboard were fed to a pile at the back of my yard. The pile’s hunger was insatiable. Before the weather got too cold, I decided to build some compost bins. Moving the piles into a three-bin system over the winter should help break down the material into soil for my raised garden beds. Although I recently stained an unfinished a picnic table set, this is the first wood project I’ve built from the ground up.
Recently Steven Crowder ran an investigative piece alleging a high ranking female executive at BlackRock was connected to a forum used to exchange sexually explicit material involving minors. This allegation was based off of a single e-mail address, tied to the individual by means of several background check websites. This investigation was horrifically sloppy, and had no concrete evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. Crowder’s team has done amazing investigation work during the most controversial election of our time. However, this investigation was abhorrently bad. It was followed by a serious of other questionable investigations where Crowder went after the porn industry, and a small local school. As the show seems to drift further away from the topics many American conservatives actually care about, he also is facing more accusations from former staff members about his conduct as their employer. As someone who has been a fan of his content for years, I find it disheartening to see the quality of his show in a sharp state of decline.
Over the winter and spring, I played a mix of fighting and role playing games on a variety of systems. Starting with the Switch, I finally got through Xenoblade Chronicles. It’s a game I’ve gotten frustrated with and put down several times due to it’s focus on grinding and terrible combat mechanics. I’m glad I finished it to experience its well written conclusion, but still found it a slog. Wanting to play a shorter title, I picked up Eternights, a brawler, horror and dating sim all mixed into a short unpolished package. It was a brief but fun interlude that held me over until the PlayStation release I was waiting for. I also picked up a refurbished PlayStation Vita off of eBay. I sold my original Vita back in 2013, but really missed a lot of things about this handheld. My first game review on it is for Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus. Although I’ve watched a season and a half of the anime, this is the first game I’ve played in the Senran Kagura franchise. Finally, I picked up Unicorn Overlord for the PlayStation 5 on release day. It’s a tactical role playing game with amazing artwork, detail and music, that was a great conclusion to a winter of gaming.
Newer