markjgsmith

2024/04/15 #

• cat << EOF > My current linkblog format

  In case you were wondering why the links on the linkblog have the links repeated, once in the title and once in the domain link. Figured I'd write a quick blog post.

  For some examples see todays links here.

  Originally I used to have just the domain link. That was for the first 10 years. I would try to create a custom bit of text for each link, but I found that the article title was often better. It started to feel like a bit tedious to always find something original. Then a few years ago, about the time I moved off of Heroku, as part of the redesign I started using the new format, very much inspired by several javascript newsletters I read regularly.

  All the newsletters tend to use this format. I find that it's quite effective. There's something that's very appealing about getting a peak at the page on the other side of the link, but also followed up by descriptive text written by the newsletter author. As well as my own personal preferences, I figure they have likely done market research, they are link sharing experts after all.

  I already have the domain links operational so figured, I'd keep them. They get added automatically. Occasionally this comes in handy when I want to break from the format for whatever reason.

  One of the cool thing with the latest version of my static site generator is that it supports render pipelines, so I can put EJS syntax directly in the link's markdown file. That way I can easily access the file's frontmatter from inside the markdown file body text, and that's where the url is stored, so there isn't any duplication.

  That's the reasoning behind the current linkblog link format.

  EOF

• cat << EOF > Typos and missing urls

  I make quite a bit of spelling mistakes in my posts. It's annoying. I know. It also happens quite often that I forget to add a url to a link. I wish it wasn't the case. There's no spelling highlighter in my text editor.

  I write mostly offline, then sync it up when I am online. That means I often don't have the url available to me at the time of writing. I try to add thrm before I sync up, but sometimes I forget, sometimes I'm in a rush. But I do eventually get them updated.

  All this to say that if you find a link that's missing a url then check back later. And please ignore the typos. Both the links and typos will often get fixed in the next daily build.

  EOF

• Strange day of synchronicities. The number 2 is trending bigtime. Both things that double and things that 1/2. There was a moment earlier this evening when in the space of a few minutes there was a flurry of dopplegangers and main characters all turning up one after the other. Just wanted to make a note of that here.

  Several linked incidents again at food places today. One place at lunch time they took my money and tried to give the food to a short man in a white shirt. Btw, the last cold I got happened after another incident with a bloke in a white shirt at the same food place. Anyway this time, the way I reacted, motioning to give me my food was then replicated in two other places in retaliation. It's the same old tricks, they blame you for the thing they do to you, then punish you for speaking out.

  The thing is, if you say nothing, they also punish you. That happened to me the day before. Either way you get blamed and mutilated.

  It's difficult to describe this stuff. It's for sure co-ordinated. The later places made references to the previous incidents.

  Just another day of intimidation in plain sight. Likely, based on past experience, starvation and thirsting will follow, with food and water goading, and sleep depravation. #

• Mysterious truck convention - The latest trend is for large trucks, smaller trailers, and even huge 16 wheelers to park directly on front of where I'm sitting. I can't tell you how unusual this is. It's been happening for about a week. The drivers often make comments directed at me. #

• Nose fully blocked, both nostrils ;(

  Still coughing quite a lot, with flem, worse in the evenings and during the night. Right side og body still painful. More painful again in the evenings. #

Today’s links:

• Eastern Europeans buy up property in the West as Putin steps up ‘war on nerves’ - Sign of the times. Folks throughout eastern Europe are buying western european properties, especially in Spain, as a backup plan in case the Ukraine war spreads to other countries. edition.cnn.com #

• WhatsApp trials Meta AI chatbot in India, more markets - This will make available generative AI tech without WhatsApp chats for about 500 million people. Globally WhatsApp has 2 billion users. That's a lot of people. Meta also announced the release of its latest open source language model Llama 3. techcrunch.com #

• Bluesky lifted its ban on heads of state signups - I find this mildly amuzing. How different the rollouts of social networks are compared to the early daysvof Twitter. I feel a bit bad that the heads of state missed out on Bluesky's showing-everyones-ass-phase. Hopefully they'll find another way to welcome them. www.theverge.com #

• New Post: My current linkblog format markjgsmith.com #

• New Post: Typos and missing urls markjgsmith.com #