biteshelter

I am very bad at sticking to one topic per post. At the same time, I expect myself to have one clear topic per post. My drafts are many and my posts are few. Posting on Mastodon usually gets around this because my thoughts on a topic don’t have to be complete for me to feel like posting them, but (I rarely post there either and) my usual instance has been down. So, I’m back here.

Here’s what I’ve been working on.

Since I refuse to use LLM services personally, getting a job where these things are everywhere has been a whirlwind for me. There are so many little things that surprised me about how people here use and talk about LLMs. I learned how to download and host one locally so I could poke it around for a bit and figure out what the hell people are talking about. Unfortunately for me, setting up these things has some of the same draw as customizing a website or modding a video game. I ended up getting pulled into that for a bit. You can spend so much time comparing models, tweaking parameters, adjusting prompts… After the novelty wore off, I got tired of it pretty quickly and dropped it. Despite my temporary interest, my final opinion on these things is even more negative than before.

The good thing that came out of all that was the urge to double down on actually doing creative things. My Fandom Trumps Hate progress has been slow but I’m now at the last stage before my art is finished and ready to send to my bidder. The zine that I’ve horrifically over-scoped is also moving slowly, but it is moving.

I also made the self-gratifying decision of learning game development with a game engine specifically for Rust (Bevy). It is said to update with breaking changes about every three months. The concepts aren’t all new to me because I’ve worked with GLFW in C++ for game development, but I’ve never done any visuals in Rust and I’ve never even heard of ECS before. Maybe it’s a horrible choice. Maybe it’ll push me to do things with reasonable scopes and time frames, since they’re all learning projects for now. I just spent a couple hours the other night developing a system where you can click on a dialogue box to read the next bit of dialogue. Most game engines probably give you that out of the box. Still, I’m proud that I figured it out myself.

In the field of note-taking, I’ve been thinking about how to better incorporate fiction into my notes. I have no real place to save character notes or notes on my personal taste. My system was designed for studying. Stories appear intact in the input and output, but the process through mangles them and leaves them empty. They can’t be converted to a series of claims and principles and still emerge recognizable as a story. My previous struggle with this was my refusal to reserve a section of my notes specifically for dealing with fiction. The Zettelkasten system is not designed for sectioning. The idea is that not separating notes by topic makes it easier to draw conclusions across multiple topics. However, I’ve since accepted that (1) a single folder full of everything is horrible to look at and (2) some things simply have their own rhythm that can be better represented with a specialized structure.

So. I now have a new folder for fiction. I’m calling it “world-building” for now, and tagging its contents as various “story elements.” I expect either for the terminology to change or for me to forget it was ever a choice. So far, working with it has already been noticeably different from the usual ZK process. The ZK is about breaking down media and experience into evidence and theories, then collecting notes with recurring themes into a conclusion. This has been more like putting down a large outline, sectioning it into segments, and filling it in piece by piece. Top-down instead of bottom-up. The whole is the primary unit, instead of whole media only being the input and output with a sea of small notes in the middle. We’ll see how it goes for creating new things instead of just migrating old story notes (from memory, because I seem to have lost much of them).

As someone adjacent to IndieWeb and FOSS circles, I see discussions of tech adoption in my feeds often.

There are two arguments (or categories of argument) I’ve started collecting notes on because of how often I notice them. This is my attempt to process those notes. I’m curious to know what thoughts other people have on these ideas.

The first argument says that people naturally want to personalize tools that are part of their daily lives, and thus “healthy” personal computer usage includes using software and services that enable choice. The other argument says that people only use computers because they have to, so the tool’s effect on their lives should be minimized and thus streamlined as much as possible. That means avoiding customization and setting clear expectations for how software should be used.

The question this raises for me is: What does it mean for a computer to be personal right now? That is, what does a computer look like when it’s fit for the purpose of belonging to someone?

List three (or more) things you like about yourself. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

I like how many little creative passions I have. It’s given me a lot of appreciation for what interests other people have. Seeing people care about niche or obscure things is motivating to me. It makes for many unexpected but exciting moments.

I enjoy organizing information. My system of note-taking is probably way over-the-top for most peoples’ needs, and I’ve seen people burn themselves out trying systems like mine, but it’s what I enjoy. Tackling a buildup of unprocessed thoughts or lingering questions is calming to me. My ability to actually put things into practice could definitely use some work, but I’ve learned how to make notes that support me instead of becoming more work.

I’ve been making progress on my goal of exploring ways to get involved in my community. Dialogue facilitation has been one of my favorite things I’ve learned recently and I really didn’t know what to expect going into it. The experiences I had in 2025 gave me more confidence and curiosity. I look forward to trying more things this year and getting to reflect on what I learn from them.

My major project for the last couple of months has been a zine about some of my recent personal experiences. Lately, I’ve been feeling stuck trying to continue it.

I’ve previously mentioned on this blog that I struggle with things like identity and keeping in touch with people. While working on these things, I started putting together notes on the ideas that have been useful to me. The result was something with enough overlap and recurring points that I felt able to connect it into a model that roughly covers everything I’ve found effective.

Finding ways to put the model into practice has been helpful. However, since many of the concepts are related to plurality, neurodivergence, and queerness, I found myself in awkward positions trying to explain my experiences to people.¹ I figured it may be a good idea to compile these ideas into a single reference text. So, I started a zine.

Writing the zine has been difficult. The further I get into it, the more doubtful I am that it’ll be of any use. I started with some confidence because I knew that many of the guides I had been using before felt lacking to me. There were things I knew I wanted put into writing. After actually planning this thing out, I now feel overwhelmed by how much I don’t know, including whether putting this in a format for distribution is worth the effort. Even though there are a million self-help guides out there, and I’ve been helped by writings similar to this one, I feel like this project is a childish thing to be working on.

I want to continue this project despite my doubt. I know that I’m still proud of my first zine even though I consider it highly flawed. It seems likely that this zine will end up similarly: Even if the process is difficult, I’ll learn from it and be proud that I made something. I’m less willing to bet on other people being interested in it, but there’s a chance for that, too. I hope trying to focus on this being helpful for myself before worrying about readability or distribution will keep me motivated. I’d still like to get a sense of who I should consider sharing the zine with when the time comes, but the main priority is making sure I actually write it.

1: I help with intergroup dialogue facilitation sometimes.

The release of the new Logseq app, introducing the database version of Logseq, is supposedly right around the corner. The current app has been basically abandoned up until recently in order to develop the new app, so the fact that a release is coming up is exciting and relieving. There have been many doubts about the likelihood of the new app making it to release. However… as I think about migrating to a new app, I’m not sure I want to continue using Logseq at all.

My initial belief was that the database version would completely replace the Markdown version. In that case, the only supported syncing solution would be through the upcoming subscription service. Since I self-host my file syncing using SyncThing, I thought that this would be incompatible with my current setup. This doesn’t actually seem to be the case. Apparently the new app will support an alternate mode for Markdown files that can be synced as before.

This should have been a relief, because it means my notes and setup should transfer cleanly, but the scare left me with some lingering concerns about the future of Logseq and my notes.

( Read more... )

I’ll try out the new app when it releases. Even if it’s a smooth transition, I don’t know if it’s a good choice in the long run. I’ve been using Obsidian for the past few days and it’s going well. Converting notes from Logseq is a pain,² but I’ll probably have to do it eventually, so this might be the right time to start.

2: I have a main vault where I’ve recreated my workflow in a more Obsidian-compatible way, and a second vault for testing converted notes before merging them in.

Backing up my Raspberry Pi has been more complicated than I expected. The idea was to duplicate my desktop’s backup process. I still think that process will work, but getting everything started has been a struggle.

The first hurdle was using SSH to connect to the Pi. I thought I could use system commands to initiate SSH from my Python script, but trying to pass in passwords to that was a huge pain. Python doesn’t really support SSH out-of-the-box, so I had to get an external library to deal with that. Using SSH worked out much better once I stopped being so stubborn about avoiding external libraries.

After that, I was able to start a backup on the Raspberry Pi itself. The next issue was getting that backup anywhere else. It kept timing out when trying to back up to a remote server since everything needs to be backed up for the first time. The Restic documentation gives instructions on how to set more forgiving timeout settings, but it turns out that this option doesn’t exist on the version of Restic that I have. So, the next hurdle is updating Restic.

Debian only offers the new Restic package in its testing and unstable repositories. There’s a “backport” repository, but Restic isn’t in it. I can enable the testing and unstable repositories in my system settings, but the packages won’t be guaranteed to work because my system is made up of packages from the stable repository. If I want to use the timeout setting, I’ll have to compile Restic either from a Debian repository or the original source code. I did try compiling from the testing repository, but it was missing a dependency that I don’t know how to fulfill.

It looks like I’ll only be backing up the Raspberry Pi locally for now.

In your own space, create a fanwork.

This is a follow-up to Minecraft as a Medium, since I mentioned that I wanted to expand on my thoughts regarding the video "The Unfulfilled Potential of Minecraft."

The video focuses on the foundational framing that Minecraft uses to encourage or discourage certain actions. Minecraft as a game is built on ideas of extracting resources from the natural world without much reason to preserve the environment. Minecraft worlds are mostly nonreactive to player behavior. Negative consequences are things to be defeated or otherwise overcome.

LSOO offers an idea for an alternate frame: one where parts of the world interact with each other, so that the player has to work with nature instead of simply using it. The description of this given in the video would require a large change from how the game currently functions. Survival strategies would have to change drastically, and the idea of "Minecraft" would be fundamentally different. Despite this, many players have sought ways to bring these exact changes into their world. More than just a reactive world, these players want a world that appears to live on even without them.

As I mentioned in my last post about writing, the Zettelkasten method has been both a blessing and a curse. It's a great tool for putting together something to talk about, but it's also a never-ending writing project in itself. My approach to it has been to limit its growth. Realistically, that was never going to work. A useful Zettelkasten is a growing Zettelkasten. So, here's what I've recently learned about maintaining it.

The point of all of this was to have somewhere to note that the process I described previously only works for things I am currently learning. The lack of knowledge limits my main points to something manageable for a single piece of writing. I needed a card about my writing process where I could link together the conclusions from the blog post with that new information. There turned out to already be a "writing process" card in my Zettelkasten, which described a similar but outdated process that could be a useful reference in the future.

While creating the new card, I realized my current writing process mirrors my graph updates. I guess that's another way that a Zettelkasten is a writing project. Now I'm wondering if this less-straightforward method of updating a Zettelkasten, where something is created when cards are allowed to conflict with one another, may be helpful for less-straightforward types of writing.

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story.

As far as I can remember, my introduction to transformative fandom as a concept was through My Little Pony fan music. Rainbow Factory and some YouTube comments led me to gorefics. Sweet Apple Massacre is the one that stuck with me the longest, but I remember going back to MLP fandom for a little while and reading Cheerilee's Garden. Those were probably pretty defining moments in developing my fannish interests, even if it took me a while to come around to it.

I'm now realizing that I should probably make a rec list for Minecraft-related videos.

Here are some things I've been up to recently.

Aethy is being transferred to a new admin and a new web host, but I've already migrated to Denden and I think I'll stay there. It's more furry-leaning. I might keep my Aethy account as a side account, though. It'll stay inactive until I decide.