This blog now looks different because I caught up to the latest version of the theme and static site generator software.

This will make no difference to those of you subscribed via RSS.

Carry on.

It’s quite simple. Twitter alternatives like BlueSky still do not federate (interoperate with the Fediverse). This can mean but one thing: they want to keep it a walled garden, while paying lip service to “open source.” Which also means but one thing: at some point they will inevitably enshittify, driving users of good conscience (UoGCs) away.

The imaginitive play value of a toy is inversely proportional to its realism.

I’m painting the ceiling. White. Flat white. Wet it doesn’t look much different from dry. Dry it doesn’t look much different from the primer it’s covering. I’m looking hard for imperfections, areas I missed. Never mind the gouge or the dried paint chip now permanently embedded, those I can’t fix with another coat.

It’s been three years. The third anniversary. Before, when I heard someone say “you don’t know unless you went through it,” I didn’t believe them. Now I do.

I never wanted that experience.

It takes an exceptional actor to do a really good American dialect. There is a “General American” dialect that news and radio hosts and announcers practice, but it is largely nonexistent in nature. :) Most accents are regional. Even if the actors get dialect right, usually their resonance/placement is a bit off and that’s a red flag for me. It’s a bit hard to describe, but when you study accents and dialects, you don’t start with the vowel sounds but you start with what drives the differences between dialects (in English at least), which is where the speaker focuses the placement of their sounds. It’s a bit difficult to describe in text, but imagine that much American English comes from a place more forward in the mouth than British English, and Australian English is a bit like Cockney - a mix of forward and rear placement - but with more nasality. Highland Scottish is way in the back of the throat, but the lowlands are further forward.

If I can’t be happy, at least I can be useful.

Today I share my success with configuring SMS messaging on FreePBX (running Asterisk) through VoIP.ms. Now I can text to and from other numbers using my landline SIP phones through my self-hosted PBX at home. If you don’t know what any of that means, then this probably isn’t for you.