/reader

The theory goes that we humans put a wheel in the hamster cage to provide the little guy with some stimulation, as they can't go running around the woods any more. But the experiment had some interesting findings:

Not only did the wild mice play with the wheel, but frogs, rats, shrews, and even slugs also interacted with it—suggesting that running on wheels might fulfill an innate desire to play rather than being just a captive behavior.

-- ZME Science

It seems that mammals have this innate desire to constantly stimulate their mind. Ipso facto, Michael states that "the internet is a hamster wheel". With a smartphone in your pocket, and services like YouTube Shorts, it's almost impossible to be bored in this day and age.

I wholeheartedly agree with Michael on this, and it's a term I intend to steal. I'm trying to be better with my smartphone usage at the moment, so will be able to step off the hamster wheel...hopefully. So far so good, but it's only been a couple of days.

Do you see the Internet as a hamster wheel?

Luckily, the Grizzly Gazette crew gave me the boost I needed. They recently published a useful Bear resource list. Well worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Old versions of themes I’ve made, linked through the Internet Archive or added to Grizzly Gazette, were included in the list. That felt like a good reason to finally check off a few things on my blog move to-do list.

I’ve now created a Bear themes and tools page where all my themes and some of my scripts are collected (with more coming).

All the themes have been updated to work on their own without depending on my other themes, which used to be the case for some of them. Same thing with the updated Bear photo gallery.

It was quite a joyride bringing them back to life. I think some of them still look very nice. I hope some of you find something useful there.

As for me, it’s back to working on new Bear stuff.

This script adds support for a few extra shortcuts:

• Select text → press Cmd/Ctrl + B → becomes **bold**
• Select text → press Cmd/Ctrl + I → becomes *italic*
• Select text → press Cmd/Ctrl + K → becomes `code`

You can also undo formatting using Cmd/Ctrl + U.

Installation

1. Copy the script below.
2. Go to Customise dashboard.
3. Paste the script under “Dashboard footer content”.
4. Save.
5. Enjoy.

Script

<script>
(() => {
  const isMac = /Mac|iPhone|iPad|iPod/.test(navigator.platform);

  const getTextarea = () =>
    document.querySelector('textarea#body_content') ||
    document.querySelector('textarea');

  const isFocused = (el) => el && document.activeElement === el;

  const setSel = (el, start, end) => {
    el.selectionStart = start;
    el.selectionEnd = end;
  };

  const wrap = (el, w) => {
    const v = el.value;
    const s = el.selectionStart ?? 0;
    const e = el.selectionEnd ?? 0;

    if (s === e) {
      const placeholder = w === "`" ? "code" : "text";
      const ins = w + placeholder + w;
      el.value = v.slice(0, s) + ins + v.slice(e);
      setSel(el, s + w.length, s + w.length + placeholder.length);
      return;
    }

    const left = v.slice(Math.max(0, s - w.length), s);
    const right = v.slice(e, e + w.length);
    if (left === w && right === w) {
      el.value = v.slice(0, s - w.length) + v.slice(s, e) + v.slice(e + w.length);
      setSel(el, s - w.length, e - w.length);
      return;
    }

    const sel = v.slice(s, e);
    if (sel.startsWith(w) && sel.endsWith(w) && sel.length >= w.length * 2) {
      const un = sel.slice(w.length, sel.length - w.length);
      el.value = v.slice(0, s) + un + v.slice(e);
      setSel(el, s, s + un.length);
      return;
    }

    el.value = v.slice(0, s) + w + sel + w + v.slice(e);
    setSel(el, s + w.length, e + w.length);
  };

  const unwrapAny = (el) => {
    const ws = ["**", "*", "`"];
    const v = el.value;
    let s = el.selectionStart ?? 0;
    let e = el.selectionEnd ?? 0;

    if (s === e) {
      let L = s;
      while (L > 0 && !/\s/.test(v[L - 1])) L--;
      let R = s;
      while (R < v.length && !/\s/.test(v[R])) R++;
      if (L === R) return;
      s = L;
      e = R;
    }

    for (const w of ws) {
      const left = v.slice(Math.max(0, s - w.length), s);
      const right = v.slice(e, e + w.length);
      if (left === w && right === w) {
        el.value = v.slice(0, s - w.length) + v.slice(s, e) + v.slice(e + w.length);
        setSel(el, s - w.length, e - w.length);
        return;
      }
    }

    const sel = v.slice(s, e);
    for (const w of ws) {
      if (sel.startsWith(w) && sel.endsWith(w) && sel.length >= w.length * 2) {
        const un = sel.slice(w.length, sel.length - w.length);
        el.value = v.slice(0, s) + un + v.slice(e);
        setSel(el, s, s + un.length);
        return;
      }
    }
  };

  document.addEventListener("keydown", (ev) => {
    const ta = getTextarea();
    if (!isFocused(ta)) return;

    const mod = isMac ? ev.metaKey : ev.ctrlKey;
    if (!mod) return;

    const k = (ev.key || "").toLowerCase();
    if (k === "b") { ev.preventDefault(); wrap(ta, "**"); }
    else if (k === "i") { ev.preventDefault(); wrap(ta, "*"); }
    else if (k === "k") { ev.preventDefault(); wrap(ta, "`"); }
    else if (k === "u") { ev.preventDefault(); unwrapAny(ta); }
  });
})();
</script>

Happy blogging!

March 2025:

The notion that the purpose of a system is what it does can be applied to the system that is our own existence, and for all important intents and purposes my system, with its increasing mechanicalness and hopelessness, does little more than merely endure each day, over and over and over again. It arguably matters that it does this, but it doesn’t mean anything that it does this.

April 2025:

The purpose of a system is what it does, and we ourselves are a system. Our purpose is what we do, and what we do is embody and enact the ongoing story of our being, in one way or another, for better or for worse.

October 2025:

What I’ve said all along is true: the system as designed (the purpose of a system being what it does) penalizes and punishes me for not knowing I was disabled and so trying my damndest to work and failing at it repeatedly.

January 2026:

If the purpose of a system is what it does, then the story of a person is who they are, and you are always you, no matter how much or how little that you doesn’t seem to resemble any of the prior ones that went into making it. We are always who we actually are; definitionally there is no other choice.

At some point during the long months of autistic burnout where I wasn’t writing as much as I wanted to because the cognitive paralysis was real, some blogger (whose post and identity I’ve since lost track of) made a reference to a James Clear quote I’d never heard.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

I’m not sure this even means anything. I’ve just been low-key obsessed over how such an idea would interplay and interact with the purpose of a system being what it does. Is the purpose of your system, then, to make you fall? I’ve no specific observation to make. I’m just putting the question out there.

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If you're a FeedLand user and have the technical ability to install a Docker app, even on a local computer not on the net, you could help the project by trying the new Docker version. Think of FeedLand as something like Mastodon or WordPress, server apps that we hope many people will install on their own. I am doing that now, with the blogroll on Scripting News and various news sites running in front of my own FeedLand instance. And the various instances can communicate with each other. Scott worked really hard to make setting up a new instance much easier than it was. It's an open source project, so you can feel good by helping. You're helping the web, and helping bootstrap a new feediverse. And if you have a few hours to give it a try, maybe much less, you would be doing a good thing.#

When I was a kid I had a penpal in Scotland. It was kind of interesting but after a while it became tiresome. One time I got a letter from my penpal with the usual stuff, school, sports, the Beatles, other kids, but this time there was no mention about how stupid the adults were. I found out why at the end in a PS. "Sometimes my mom writes these for me." Obviously I never forgot this. #

Here's proof that ChatGPT, intelligent or not, listens to me.#

I no longer even think of debating whether the AIs are intelligent. I might as well argue about your intelligence, or even my own. We have no idea what intelligence is or how to test for it. So if you think you're so intelligent and you say things like "AIs aren't intelligent" as if it were an indisputable fact, well I'm pretty sure that proves you are not actually very intelligent, which indicates how intelligent I am (not). And if you're worried about what happens if you stop insisting that AIs aren't intelligent, you can relax, nothing depends on what you or I or anyone else thinks about that, or pretty much anything. Have a nice day.#

Claude just said: "And going forward, whatever post the user lands on first, that's what you seed it with." The thing that caught my eye was "the user lands on first." UserLand was the name of my last company, the one that did Frontier, blogging, podcasting, RSS, XML-RPC, OPML, etc. And here we are again in the land of lands. The User Lands. ;-)#

...externalizing the internal in order better to examine and understand it

echoing my thoughts from a few years ago:

A blog is like a personal therapy session where other people can nip in and out to see where you're at. It's a space to think out loud, to share your thoughts with anyone who might want to listen – some of which might just resonate and grow beyond the confines of the receptacle (or, maybe, the exhibition case) into which you place them.

Robert Birming on not quitting blogging for the wrong reasons, writes:

“I spend all this time writing, creating, and sharing. For what? Does anyone even care? Why bother continuing?”

That’s the sad soundtrack playing in the background. That’s the need for validation hiding behind something that sounds reasonable.

Yes, I do spend time writing, creating, and sharing. But I do it because I love it, not to be recognized or to make a living from it.

He's written before about quitting but then always coming back to it. So, why quit in the first place if you're only going to start up again? I've taken breaks, and felt I needed to, but always come back.

Robert, however, is talking about hard quitting, deleting it all and having to spin up a new site when the urge pulls you back.

So many bloggers will tell you that they write to think, and it's only by seeing the words that they can truly get to grips with them.

This could be done in a journal app or completely offline, but there's something about making the words public that adds an extra element. It's not narcissism and not necessarily ego (in response to Bix) but something else.

It's a need or compulsion. It's something you can't really explain and makes absolutely no sense to non-bloggers, despite the frequency with which many post to social networks.

To not blog is a denial of part of yourself.