Theme Update

After running a theme I created that was inspired by my Amazon Kindle, I've brought back my retrowave infusion. While it seems the same as some of the past iterations, under-the-hood, its parts move in more-or-less the same manner as the past. That said, I TOTALLY integrated my CSS var approach for pretty much everything! I'm thinking of creating stylesheets for holidays!

I'm proud of a particular bit of code for standardization, something I ran the ball with once I discovered I could throw a variable inside of a variable. I was gonna post a code snippet below, but why not just check it out yourself!

www.INTJBill.com/style.css

It's the first time I've employed HSL colors, for in the last (cough cough) four decades, I've only used HEX (with some RGB along the way)...

Sidebar: Hey, it's a span covering the '90s, '00s, '10s and today! Meh if I'm a radio DJ, I'm queuing up the '60s, '70, '80s and the '90s.

...I made the color conversion out of its practicality: I wanted to reduce color variability while also allowing me to easily add tints and shades of a single color thereby giving me flexibility AND keeping things consistent to when I throw on a holiday theme!

I tried to keep a responsive mindset, so the HTML tables and iframes don't leave the display to go on their own Hero's Journey, but only insofar that my phone perspective doesn't look wonky—honestly, I have little interest in supporting mobile devices. I mean, what am I doing? Doing this for 286's? What, am I gonna have to account for a CGA palette? OK, so yeah, I just might have a hangup with @media max-widths!

My Crystal Ball

Something that hit me today: soon, there will come a future when we we'll see our phones as '90s era beepers; anything running electricity will be an IoT device with its own camera and mic. You'll NEVER need to take a photo or video of yourself because it'll always be available at the best of angles!

The tech is already out there now, it just needs to reach ubiquity / critical mass. And as no one cares about privacy, everyone will LOVE and espouse its advantages, just like they do with today's phones! You have nothing to hide! Think of the children! Think of your safety! Think of citizen non-compliance! Governments will champion the tech for with power, they are a fat man at an all-you-can-eat buffet! Oh, we covet the dystopian delights of tomorrow, today!

Ahh, I can be so delightfully (and darkly) cynical!

...and right.

In my last post, I did a thing I rarely do on this site: talk politics. Oh sure, it employed a novel metaphor, but it's a topic I touch rarely, for in practice, people who fume about the way things ought be done tend to not actually do anything about improving processes! Now, if the pundits did fix things, the whole market about fuming over politics would collapse, so there's a hoard of incentive to NOT change!

This amuses me! I can be so delightfully cynical! But, that's enough of politics! The dreamer inside of me is passionate for SO much MORE!

Sadly, a few days into my Black Rifle Coffee Company subscription, I had to opt out; I guess I'm just revisiting 2020 in another context because I'm bumping up into the same quality of service! See, I ordered on Sunday...it's now THURSDAY and I'm still stuck here at the barista counter with that ever-so-unsatisfying "unfulfilled" status. The thing about coffee is that it's a COMMODITY, right? Product differentiation is SO narrow that I can trip over a substitution! For that matter, with the Bass Pro Shop and online order combined, $70 can make a FUN shopping trip at Upton Tea Imports, a company who chomps on the bit to play hot potato when an order comes in.

My Billy Idol dancing with himself cynic might just get a sense that Black Rifle isn't run by former veterans insofar as they are run by former road crew talkers—you know, the ones that stand around and brag on their hunting trip last weekend while traffic is ALL snarled around them!

(sigh) The thing is, I want to support them, but they gotta meet me there. Shipping boxes should be opened and if its sold on their site, product should already be ready to be pulled. Hey, I grew up and worked in commercial printing from age 11 into college—you've GOT to get those orders out! Never did take a family vacation in all of those years...

...this might explain why, not once, but TWICE in my twenties, I quit my job and on the very next day, I was flying over the Atlantic to explore Europe for a few weeks (though I suspect it is due to something SO much MORE...).

In my last post, I referenced my NAS server and FLAC rips. I didn't address the weight that might lie ahead: ripping HUNDREDS of CDs in a context when my favorite ripper, Exact Audio Copy has no native Linux version. I've read of the success of using WINE to run it, but it's the sort of thing that I really want to run native. That said, even in the best of conditions, it's about 5-15 minutes for each each CD. Pull out your Mr. Hailey Handy-Dandy Number Cruncher and the math will tell you that ripping stack after stack of CDs is a BIG timesuck.

Management of large collections is always an unwieldly thing. Gotta keep the ID3 metatags clean and consistent! And while having customized categories are fun, I used to have to remember what hard drive I kept genres—accessibility was always an issue, which made it feel pretty cool when I used to access my home collection while at work in 2002.

And the thing is, all of this was culturally bleeding edge—or at least consistent to being a geek at the turn of the millennium! CDs became an archived file thing as opposed to something to flip through in a car. I had an INCREDIBLE collection: people would make requests and like any DJ, boom, there it was!

Fast-forward to today and that capability is ubiquitous through a streaming service with a monthly rental fee with an extra helping of overt manipulation; we give up control for ease.

Today, it's more of a question of time investment. Lessen the choice = lessen the involvement. Back then, I did what I did because it extended my opportunity. Am I only seemingly keeping pace with what's out there? That would be a decidedly deplorable option, albeit require my subjugation to a system with a flurry of tangents of what that would entail.

And at what point does my reaching back to the old ways the 1998 equivalent of running a turntable with the BeeGee's...though there's something so delightful about that era, the perfect genre to get up, out and move!

Again, it's a question of timesuck. Do I give up freedom so that I can be freed from having to make a choice? Thus, this leads to evaluation of needs vs. wants. And then sometimes we don't invest a moment to consider practice vs. theory: what is the role that this widget plays and how necessary is its existence? Do we tack on expense just to retain its (never-applied) use, reminiscent of the cable TV model of having access to 100s of channels while only watching five, maybe? Or does choice matter?

Something I might ask: perhaps I ought to reconsider my revulsion of social control and dark ideology of what's cool these days because I MUST BUY INTO THE SYSTEM AND SUBMIT FOR APPROVAL TO OUR GRACIOUS OVERLORDS...

...and yet, I want to lead a simple life. Free. Left to just be. See, I haven't changed: when I think of the world, I think of America with everything beyond her borders to be a soul-surge adventure.

When I think of America, I think of the 80s, a time of exploration and new tech, not just another version update of the SAME piece of software released 20 years ago where we're stuck in a Bill Murray Groundhog Day of Windows ME releases. It was the time of Reagan: we were the powerhouse of freedom, the fruit of a singular moment in history when a group of people started a country that was something new—not run by a despot. We were a free people who finally beat the Communists after a protracted resolution to World War II. We actualized that when people had freedom with all the curves, rises and drops of choices therein, life was just better!

These days, there's just more despotism. A government that grabs more societal control over economics and peddles propaganda of fear mongering.

When I think of America, I think:

"...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

But, what do I see? Forced masking (lost individuality), pedagogical control of lies and identity badges, the vipers of propaganda slithering for our submission to the state. Makes for great dystopian fiction, but for reality? The masses cheer wildly over it—well, when they aren't catatonic in the national pastime of FaceDownTime with cell phones or filtering their selfies on platforms that limit choice.

Something I once heard a long time ago...far, far away...

In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized...for a safe and secure society.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

For what? To feel safe? From what—safe from choice? It sure ain't from the effects of fat butt disease! Safe from the ONE thing that separates us from the animal kingdom? We do not have claws or sharp teeth; we are not poisonous or thorny; and we are slow and do not fly. No, we are the masters of thought. Why do we so willingly give this up to feel safe—regardless to its validity?

Well, look: chase after a command economy. Control your citizens. And when you realize and prove once again that it just doesn't work—just like the Soviets and the entire Soviet bloc did, you'll come back to freedom.

I haven't changed; I'm still that guy I always was...

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