luke smith - sfeed_tests - sfeed tests and RSS and Atom files
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luke smith (452095B)
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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <!-- <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="rss.css" ?> -->
3 <!-- <?xml-stylesheet href="rss.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?> -->
4 <rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
5
6 <channel>
7 <title>The Latest from Luke</title>
8 <description>Updates from Luke Smith. Throw this in your RSS feeder for instant updates!</description>
9 <language>en-us</language>
10 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
11 <atom:link href="https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
12 <image>
13 <title>The Latest from Luke</title>
14 <url>https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/luke.gif</url>
15 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
16 </image>
17
18 <!-- LB -->
19
20 <item>
21 <title>Working on something big. Possible momentarily LARBS downage.</title>
22 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#working-on-something-big-possible-momentarily-larbs-downage</guid>
23 <pubDate>Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:13:43 -0400</pubDate>
24 <description><![CDATA[
25 <p>
26 You don't have to tell me that I haven't posted in a bit.
27 I've been working on something big: a service/community for users that I might be making money off of too.
28 It's been taking up some time, and I've had many things to do in real life recently hence my lack of videos.
29 </p>
30
31 <p>
32 I've been learning a lot, and have been nailing out some details, but hopefully I'll be publishing it all soon.
33 One little, tiny side effect is that there <em>might</em> be a chance of the LARBS script and the site going offline for very short periods: just for maybe a minute at a time.
34 This isn't a problem unless someone tries to download it right on the exact wrong time!
35 Just telling you you don't need to be alarmed and tell me, I know.
36 </p>
37
38 <p>
39 Additionally, I've gotten some emails congratulating me on hitting 100,000 subscribers today or recently.
40 That looks true.
41 Maybe I'll mention it on the YouTube channel when I start putting up videos again.
42 </p>
43
44 <p>
45 I guess I always have to tell new viewers that it's a normal thing that I go without putting up a video for a month or so.
46 They always go apoplectic.
47 I do it multiple times a year, relax.
48 </p>
49 ]]></description>
50 </item>
51
52
53 <item>
54 <title>Hedonism, Aceticism and the Hermetic Answer</title>
55 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/poetic.html</guid>
56 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz/poetic.html</link>
57 <pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:27 -0400</pubDate>
58 <description><![CDATA[
59 <h1>Hedonism, Asceticism and the Hermetic Answer</h1>
60 <p>The modern world more or less gives you the philosophical choice of either <dfn>hedonism</dfn> or <dfn>asceticism</dfn>.
61 You never really hear it in those terms, but that's how it is.
62 </p>
63 <p>
64 <strong>Hedonism living for pleasure.</strong>
65 Your default lifestyle is eating whatever, watching Netflix and playing video games irrespective of how late it is.
66 You watch porn, masturbate, have sex as much as you can and any consequences of any of this are just facts of life which you view as either out of your control or worth the suffering.
67 You might not use drugs because you are worried of the hedonistic damage it can cause, but you're at least <q>chill</q> with people who do.
68 At a basic level, modern society is hedonistic because it more or less openly holds as highest moral value what can stimulate people the most.
69 You know this is the case because anyone who <em>condemns</em> hedonistic behavior will immediately be judged as <q>judgemental.</q>
70 </p>
71 <p>
72 <strong>Asceticism is supposed to be the <q>smart</q> alternative.</strong>
73 Asceticism is rejecting pleasure, normal life and anything else enjoyable in the world as morally inferior to some higher non-physical ideal.
74 Buddhism, which rejects the physical world, has become a popular meme philosophy in the West and is highly acetic.
75 Vegans are acetic: they abandon basic life for their own principles and intense vegans will eventually start talking about "transcending" and "vibrations" and non-sense.
76 Asceticism come in many forms nowadays, but it is always a reaction to the indulgences of hedonism.
77 </p>
78 <h2>The Poetic Worldview</h2>
79 <a href="https://renaissanceastrology.com/hermestrismegistus.html">
80 <figure style="float:right;">
81 <img src="pix/gifs/hermes.png" alt="Hermes">
82 <figcaption>Hermes Trismegistus,<br>author of the Hermetic Corpus</figcaption>
83 </figure>
84 </a>
85 <p>
86 The Poetic Worldview is the solution.
87 Don't worry, it has nothing to do with poetry.
88 </p>
89 <p>
90 The Greek word that <em>poetry/poetic</em> comes from actually is just a generate word for <em>make, create, produce</em>.
91 The word "poetry" originally just meant something like "creative output."
92 </p>
93 <p>
94 This view is tied into early Platonism and monotheism.
95 The physical universe is a creation or manifestation or "the One" or "the Source" or really <dfn>God</dfn>.
96 God is the ultimate creator, and an individual is <strong>good</strong> insofar as <dfn>he reflects this creative tendency of God</dfn>.
97 We see it expounded in the Hermetic Corpus:
98 </p>
99 <blockquote>
100 <q>The other name of God is Father, again because He is the
101 that-which-maketh-all.
102 The part of father is to make.</q>
103 <cite><a href="http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/TGH-v2/th205.html">To Asclepius</a> (17), from the <a href="http://www.gnosis.org/library/hermet.htm">Hermetic Corpus</a></cite>
104 </blockquote>
105 <p>In the Poetic Worldview, <strong>the highest moral goal is creation</strong>.
106 That can be:</p>
107 <ul>
108 <li>affecting the world,</li>
109 <li>improving what is around you,</li>
110 <li>having children,</li>
111 <li>making money not to spend it on pleasures, but to make something new and great with it,</li>
112 <li>writing or making something useful or edifying for others,</li>
113 <li>clearing up misconceptions that get in other people's way in accomplishing these things.</li>
114 </ul>
115 <p>From the Poetic worldview, hedonism is evil because it is expending otherwise creative energy into nothing of consequence.
116 Racking up video-game achievements that no one will ever know or care of but you,
117 watching pornography, pursuing fleeting relationships,
118 impulsively wasting time browsing the internet and fiddling with social media.
119 </p>
120 <p>This passive and impulsive pleasure-seeking reduces someone's ability to live as intended, instead, they are prisoners to their lusts and conveniences:
121 </p>
122 <blockquote>
123 <q>But whatsoever human souls have not the Mind as pilot, they share in the same fate as souls of lives irrational.
124 For [Mind] becomes co-worker with them, giving full play to the desires towards which [such souls] are borne,—[desires] that from the rush of lust strain after the irrational; [so that such human souls,] just like irrational animals, cease not irrationally to rage and lust, nor ever are they satiate of ills.
125 For passions and irrational desires are ills exceeding great; and over these God hath set up the Mind to play the part of judge and executioner.</q>
126 <cite><a href="http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/TGH-v2/th225.html">About the Common Mind</a> (4), from the <a href="http://www.gnosis.org/library/hermet.htm">Hermetic Corpus</a></cite>
127 </blockquote>
128 <p>
129 Hedonism is additionally harmful because <em>it isn't even hedonistic</em>.
130 It's clumsy and self-destructive.
131 Spend your life from ages 16-23 playing videogames, masturbating and smoking weed and you have destroyed your capacity to enjoy life, sex and have normal interactions with normal people.
132 Your capacity for enjoyment ends and you fall into asceticism as a cope.
133 </p>
134 <p><strong>Asceticism is just as evil</strong> because it seeing this issue with the hedonistic lifestyle and tosses up its hands in surrender.
135 It internalizes the lie that wasteful and sinful living is somehow obviously funner—when they see they aren't actually having fun, they throw the whole world away.
136 </p>
137 <p>
138 <strong>Most ascetics are liars anyway.</strong>
139 They pretend to reject pleasure and worldly things, but they often just seek it in perverted or unconventional ways.
140 There are men who call themselves MGTOW (Men going their own way) who "swear off" women.
141 In reality, most of them are just desperate porn-addicted men who just can't get the girl they want.
142 </p>
143 <p>Contrary to all of this, having a Poetic view proposes that the more moral and also most enjoyable life is one where one is constantly creating something new out of what he is given.
144 In Hermetic thinking (and, well, Christian thinking) man must hold God as the idea to emulate.
145 Since God's principle feat is creation from nothing, our goal is to celebrate that creation by making something new and productive from the raw materials we have.
146 </p>
147 <p>Asceticism views the material world <em>as a mistake or illusion</em> which leads people to reject life itself.
148 The Poetic view is that the physical world is a <strong>reflection its spiritual state</strong>, and what you do in the physical world reflects your spiritual stature.
149 </p>
150 <p>The Poetic view is <em>somewhat</em> similar to Nietzsche's <dfn>Will to Power</dfn>,
151 which was an attempt to unite both human and material sciences under the idea that the ideal is maximizing one's
152 output on the external world.
153 Will to Power is a little more morally ambivalent though; it can include destruction, while Poeticism merely values creative power.
154 </p>
155 <h2>Distractions are literally evil.</h2>
156 <p>This is why <dfn>I highly condemn wasteful activities like videogames and pornography and social media</dfn>.
157 They are principally habits that divert your natural energies into something absolutely sterile.
158 <strong>Many people ask me <q>What can I do to be more productive?</q></strong> and I have to say that the most important thing is to <strong>remove inert distractions and habits</strong>.
159 </p>
160 <p>Due to bureaucratic workplaces and bureaucratic education, there are many modern people who <em>just don't know what it means to be productive</em>.
161 Most of their lives might be someone trying to fill their day with busywork.
162 Since the normal enjoyable ritual of creative output is unknown to them, this causes a kind of aimlessness and the <a href="files/unabomber.pdf">feelings of inferiority</a> that comes with that.
163 </p>
164 <p>
165 But in truth, you live at <strong>an ideal period</strong> in that you can have a highly impactful and ergo <em>poetic</em> effect on the world using internet technology and the higher material standard of living.
166 The only trick is to sidestep the distractions of hedonism that turns you into a passive consumer and the apathy of asceticism.
167 </p>
168 ]]></description>
169 </item>
170
171
172 <item>
173 <title>New documentaries and lectures on PeerTube</title>
174 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#new-documentaries-and-lectures-on-peertube</guid>
175 <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 16:10:06 -0400</pubDate>
176 <description><![CDATA[
177 <p>I've created a new channel on <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz">my PeerTube instance</a> called "Documentaries" where I plan to put up talks, lectures and documentaries.</p>
178
179 <p>The goal is just to provide my choice of decent TL;DR talks for you NEETs who have some time on your hands and want at least something to consoooom.
180 The standards on my PeerTube instance is a little higher than YouTube so less distracting noise...
181 </p>
182
183 <ul>
184 <li><a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/video-channels/documentaries/videos">Channel link</a></li>
185 <li>Channel RSS feed: https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/feeds/videos.xml?videoChannelId=982</li>
186 </ul>
187
188 <p>I've already put up four talks:</p>
189
190 <ul>
191 <li><a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/ed7290ac-a585-40b4-b65b-73b5744eacce">The Website Obesity Crisis</a></li>
192 <li><a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/733b53cb-b4df-4cb1-9615-045fbd6789dd">Sugar: The Bitter Truth</a></li>
193 <li><a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/94a9ef52-4217-48af-b474-4b14bfca7039">The Oiling of America</a></li>
194 <li><a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/672efcaa-1def-4c08-929f-0f14a31aac93">The Truth about Mobile Phones and Wireless Radiation</a></li>
195 </ul>
196 ]]></description>
197 </item>
198
199
200 <item>
201 <title>Only Mediocre Minds Nitpick (new article)</title>
202 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#only-mediocre-minds-nitpick-new-article</guid>
203 <pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2020 20:59:41 -0400</pubDate>
204 <description><![CDATA[
205 <p>I'm going to be writing some slightly more pictorial articles on my website with memes and such. I have a couple in the works and you can see the first here: <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/nitpick.html">Only Mediocre Minds Nitpick.</a></p>
206
207 <p>Yeah it's separate from my blog system. I'm going to mull over how to best do it all.</p>
208
209 <p>Either way, the message of that article is highly important! More to come!</p>
210 ]]></description>
211 </item>
212
213
214 <item>
215 <title>Internet has been cucking me</title>
216 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#internet-has-been-cucking-me</guid>
217 <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 09:24:20 -0400</pubDate>
218 <description><![CDATA[
219 <p>I had actually been planning to release videos every day this week, but I've been having severe internet issues.
220 The ISP in our town has been laying new wires as well and for whatever reason even the internet in town seems to be running slower.
221 I've had the same video uploading since noon Thursday (lol).</p>
222
223 <p>I'm always looking for a more permanent internet solution, but it looks like I might have to postpone by videos a little bit until I can get everything uploaded.</p>
224
225 <p>This has been one inconvenience.
226 When I lived in a larger town, I had 30 megs up and could wake up, come up with a video idea and record and have it uploaded before 10AM.
227 For the last year, uploading videos is a full or multi-day affair.</p>
228 ]]></description>
229 </item>
230
231
232 <item>
233 <title>Recommended libre/open source crypto wallet?</title>
234 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#recommended-libreopen-source-crypto-wallet</guid>
235 <pubDate>Wed, 12 Aug 2020 17:40:13 -0400</pubDate>
236 <description><![CDATA[
237 <p>
238 First off, congrats to all you Stinky Linkies who've become millionaires on your internet Monopoly money in the past weeks!
239 (I actually went ahead and added my Chainlink wallet to my donate page just because it might actually become a thing...)
240 </p>
241
242 <p>
243 What a retard I was for having a meme folder of Chainlink Pepes for months and it wasn't until it was nearly $9 that I bought!
244 Sad! Even if the price gets bogged, I'll still make some good money, so I'll live with it.
245 </p>
246
247 <img style="margin:auto;display:block" src="https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/pix/balloon-chainlink.png" alt="Apu with Chainlink" title="Ur life on chainlink">
248
249 <p>
250 Anyway, on a related note, unfortunately there are too many dirty normies who trade crypto who have no taste in software.
251 I've never been happy with the crypto wallets/services I use.
252 Most applications I've used are Bitcoin only.
253 </p>
254
255 <p>So if anyone is semi-passionate about their wallet, I'm looking for a better one.
256 The ideal credentials would be:
257 </p>
258
259 <ul>
260 <li>Libre/open source.</li>
261 <li>Can deal with a wide variety of cryptos and ETH tokens. The ones <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html">on my donate page</a> are the ones I generally care about.</li>
262 <li>Is heirarchical deterministic (i.e. one key (usually of words) can backup and restore the whole wallet with all currencies).</li>
263 <li>As private as possible: no centralized sign-in or something silly.</li>
264 </ul>
265
266 <p>Preferably also...</p>
267
268 <ul>
269 <li>Has some kind of exchange interface with sensible exchanges.</li>
270 <li>Has some kind of price monitoring.</li>
271 <li>Not written in a soydev language.</li>
272 </ul>
273
274 <p>I've been using Coinomi, which became closed source a while back due to people freeloading their services and some other issues.
275 </p>
276
277 <p>Of course, there is probably a way to generate a wallet on the command line and use it from there.
278 Theoretically if I was going to look how to do that up on YouTube, I would look on my channel, but I do not know how,
279 so if someone wants to red-pill me on an easy way to do without using some obvious program on the Linux command line,
280 feel free to tell me.</p>
281
282 <p>Actually, open season on any crypto-tips: if anyone has based recommendations for how best to buy/sell/withdraw in a cost effective manner
283 or anything else, feel free to share.
284 It wasn't until the past year or so that I had any crypto holdings, so I'm sure that there's a lot I don't know,
285 especially because most of the "resources" for crypto on the internet are literally paid shills or scammers.
286 </p>
287 ]]></description>
288 </item>
289
290
291 <item>
292 <title>Redesigning the website</title>
293 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#redesigning-the-website</guid>
294 <pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:29:28 -0400</pubDate>
295 <description><![CDATA[
296 <p>I've been redesigning the website again, trying to simplify it.
297 Before, I was going for a "personal introduction" with pictures on the mainpage, but now I'm going for something slimmer.</p>
298
299 <p>The biggest problem is always <em>fitting all the links I have so that they aren't annoying!</em>
300 While I lack most social media sites, it's a pain having so many video archives and other things to link...
301 I've decided to go with a classic dropdown menu (pure CSS, sorry JS-soydevs).</p>
302
303 <p>I do want to start writing up more guides and content on my website proper, and that might happen soon.
304 We'll see.</p>
305
306 <p>I might be changing around the aesthetics of the site a little bit more, but I think it has the general look I want.
307 I sort of need a new headshot.
308 I have a sketch of my drawn by a friend on the mainpage now just because I'm getting tired of all my profile photos.</p>
309 ]]></description>
310 </item>
311
312
313 <item>
314 <title>Open call for LARBS users</title>
315 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#open-call-for-larbs-users</guid>
316 <pubDate>Sun, 19 Jul 2020 20:56:23 -0400</pubDate>
317 <description><![CDATA[
318 <p>I was thinking of adding to the <a href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS website</a> some screenshots, but I thought it would be really lame if I just pulled up some htop windows and took some screenshots myself.</p>
319
320 <p>For those of you who use LARBS, if you have changed it a little or a lot, if you see yourself doing something "interesting" looking that could look like a good advertisement, just hit PrintScreen and <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">send it to me</a>.</p>
321
322 <p>Anonymize/blur whatever you want private on your own.</p>
323
324 <p>If I post a small gallery of these on a page on the LARBS website, give me a screen name or real name if you want it to be identified with you (being anonymous is, of course fine).</p>
325 ]]></description>
326 </item>
327
328
329 <item>
330 <title>Peertube migration is done! No obvious errors. Full video sync to happen soon!</title>
331 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#peertube-migration-is-done-no-obvious-errors-full-video-sync-to-happen-soon</guid>
332 <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:47:53 -0400</pubDate>
333 <description><![CDATA[
334 <p>Title says it all. <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz">videos.lukesmith.xyz</a> was only offline for an hour or so before I managed to migrate everything over.
335 If there are any errors in the meantime, feel free to tell me.</p>
336
337 <p>It looks like everyone's accounts have synced over and it still has all of its following instances. Great.</p>
338
339 <p>The next step is that I want to do a full sync with all my videos on YouTube including banned and privated ones. I'll be scripting that soon, so you might see literally hundreds of videos randomly being added to the instance in the next day or so.</p>
340 ]]></description>
341 </item>
342
343
344 <item>
345 <title>PeerTube will be down for migration today</title>
346 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#peertube-will-be-down-for-migration-today</guid>
347 <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 07:32:19 -0400</pubDate>
348 <description><![CDATA[
349 <p>My new PeerTube instance will be temporarily down today as I migrate to a new and much better server with plenty of storage space and bandwidth (and a better processor to boot).</p>
350
351 <p>I've already started the transfer, but I'll need to stop the current instance in an hour or so to make sure I can transfer the whole database without a problem and test it all.
352 That means that the video site (but nothing else) will go dark for a couple hours.</p>
353
354 <p>The new instance will still be at <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz">videos.lukesmith.xyz</a>.
355 Hopefully I will be able to move the whole database over without data loss, but if I fail to do that, it will just start a new instance and people can recreate accounts and re-follow my instance.
356 Hopefully that won't be necessary though.</p>
357
358 <p>And yes, I'll be able to transfer all my old videos over once this migration is complete.
359 PeerTube has some scripts that automatically mirror YouTube channels and I'll have plenty of hard-drive space.</p>
360 ]]></description>
361 </item>
362
363
364 <item>
365 <title>I'll be migrating to a superior server for Peertube</title>
366 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#ill-be-migrating-to-a-superior-server-for-peertube</guid>
367 <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:52:48 -0400</pubDate>
368 <description><![CDATA[
369 <p>As I say in <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/bd0ebff8-245c-4092-a1fa-b604086a460e">this video</a> (exclusively on Peertube 😉),
370 I did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrEwHn7XmRU">a video yesterday</a> about my new video site at <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz">videos.lukesmith.xyz</a>, which is a Peertube instance.</p>
371
372 <p>As I predicted, I wouldn't be able to tolerate the bandwidth needed on my puny Vultr server, so after the suggestions of many subscribers, I've decided on another company to host the Peertube instance (I'll still be using Vultr for all of my other VPS's for their other advantages).
373 </p>
374
375 <p>
376 A subscriber, Harambe (I'll just assume that's his real name) has agreed to fund the instance for the first few months, so thanks a lot to him.
377 Thankfully, it offers infinite bandwidth, (nearly) infinitely expandable space and is much cheaper than I anticipated.
378 It also has a beefier processor, which actually does make a difference when Peertube is trying to transcode your most recent upload all while serving a thousand people.
379 </p>
380
381 <p>Peertube does have <a href="https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/maintain-migration">some documentation on migrating your instance</a>, but my new server is currently also running Debian (the original Peertube server runs Arch). In the worse case scenario, I won't be able to migrate and that means people will have to reregister and comments will be deleted. Hopefully that won't be the case though.</p>
382
383 <p>
384 I'll need to set everything up again, but hopefully it will be done in a couple days before we meet the 1TB bandwidth cap.
385 If you want to donate to the maintain the instance and my management of it in the meantime (or well, all the other stuff I do online), you can always <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate">donate!</a>
386 I'm going to feel like a shill for asking, but I'm starting to take bigger financial investments with my channel and hope to be able to be fully YouTube-independent very soon.</p>
387
388 <p>I also may be able to mirror other people's videos, with a focus on people who have been recently banned or are in the threat of being banned on YouTube.
389 I was sad to hear that <a href="https://rooshv.com">Roosh Valizadeh</a> was banned from YouTube yesterday and while he is on D.live was <a href="https://nitter.net/rooshv/status/1282768776468078593#m">looking for a new platform to stream on</a>.
390 I've also noticed that Ryan Faulk (<a href="https://www.bitchute.com/thealthype/">the Alternative Hypothesis</a>) has privated his videos.
391 I don't have Ryan's email, but if anyone has his contact information, I might be able to offer some space.
392 (Actually both of these guys make long videos/streams, but it might be possible.)
393 </p>
394 ]]></description>
395 </item>
396
397
398 <item>
399 <title>I'll be returning to make videos on Monday. Check out Peertube.</title>
400 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#ill-be-returning-to-make-videos-on-monday-check-out-peertube</guid>
401 <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:22:09 -0400</pubDate>
402 <description><![CDATA[
403 <p>After a full month of doing videos pretty much every day, I decided to take a two week break early July.
404 In case you're new here, it's pretty normal for me to go weeks or months without a public appearance only to end that hiatus with a long video series.</p>
405
406 <p>I hope all of you have enjoyed making your own website: <strong>it will be probably the best technology investment you will make</strong>. You get a lot of freedom and knowledge in doing it. I'll be doing more videos about having your own website/server pretty soon, along with other videos.
407 If you haven't jumped on the bandwagon:</p>
408
409 <ul>
410 <li>I have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JRRnoQyjOfioJdDmu87DIJc">a playlist on all the basics</a> and I'll do more on how I manage my website soon.</li>
411 <li>I put out affiliate links to the registrar/VPS provider I use/recommend:</li>
412 <ul>
413 <li>Use <a href="https://www.epik.com/?affid=we2ro7sa6">Epik</a> as a registrar, prices are as cheap as they get and they have made sacrifices in the past to avoid suppressing political speech. In a day when registrars have started dropping domain names at the minor calls of the media, this is essential.</li>
414 <li>Use <a href="https://www.vultr.com/?ref=8384069-6G">Vultr</a> as a VPS provider. That link gives you a $100 one-month credit to play around with and if you stay with Vultr, your first $25 spent goes to me instead of them.</li>
415 </ul>
416 </ul>
417
418 <p>Additionally, I encourage you to check out <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz">my new self-hosted Peertube instance at https://videos.lukesmith.xyz</a> .
419 I want to see what kind of bandwidth I need.
420 If you want to watch the videos above on Peertube instead of YouTube: <a href="https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/playlist/e279cb01-cccf-44d6-b017-38cc6b5bbcf7?videoId=9aadaf2f-a8e7-4579-913d-b250fd1aaaa9">check it out here</a> 👈 instead of on YouTube.
421
422 <p>Now one important key to internet independence is what's called <em>federation</em>, i.e. "social media sites" that can be run on your own or your friend's server and can interact with other instances of that site. I'll talk about this in videos soon, but you might want to look it up if you don't know. Peertube is an example of a federated site. While you will only see my videos on my site now, I can "follow" other instances to make their content visible from my site. You can also join as a user on my instance for the time being—that might have to change in the future, so you might want to do it if you want.</p>
423
424 <p>Obviously if you're running a Peertube instance, come follow mine and back up/mirror videos if you want! I might follow some instances soon myself.</p>
425 ]]></description>
426 </item>
427
428
429 <item>
430 <title>A Guide to Using RSS to Replace Social Media</title>
431 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#a-guide-to-using-rss-to-replace-social-media</guid>
432 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2020 10:07:21 -0400</pubDate>
433 <description><![CDATA[
434 <p>I've just released a
435 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMH9w6pyzvU">video on RSS</a>, more or less talking about the basics.</p>
436
437 <p>RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the best way to keep tabs on things online. While social media sites have tried to replace it, it is still the best way to consoooome content, even on social media sites.</p>
438
439 <p>For all basic blogs and smart websites, RSS feeds will be obvious and sometimes your browser will automatically detect them, but here is how to get RSS for some common social media sites.</p>
440
441 <h3>YouTube</h3>
442
443 <p>Thankfully, YouTube still has RSS feeds, albeit very hidden ones:
444 for example, mine is <code>https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA</code>, where my channel ID (starting with <code>U</code>).
445 </p>
446
447 <p>
448 All YouTube channels have channel IDs that you can either see in their channel page URL, or which you can find by looking at their page source and looking for something like <code>channel_id</code>.
449 </p>
450
451 <p>To "subscribe" to a channel via RSS, just take that channel ID and put it in the format of mine I gave above. The main link goes directly to the video page and I usually stream/download them directly with mpv and youtube-dl.</p>
452
453 <h3>Twitter</h3>
454
455 <p><a href="https://nitter.net">Nitter.net</a> is a Twitter proxy that mirrors Twitter, but without Javascript soyware and spying.
456 Importantly, Nitter also openly displays links to RSS feeds they generate for accounts in the upper right-hand corner.</p>
457
458 <h3>Github/Gitlab</h3>
459
460 <p>Github and Gitlab offer RSS for repositories so you can watch activity.</p>
461
462 <p>Want to watch development of my dotfiles?
463 Just use
464 <code>https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/voidrice/commits/master.atom</code>.</p>
465
466 <p>As you can guess, replace my username and repo name with whatever you want to get a feed for that.</p>
467
468 <p>Note also that there is an option to get a "private feed" which lists even more things (who follows you and repository events you watch).</p>
469
470 <h3>Facebook (and basically every other site)</h3>
471
472 <p><a href="https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge">RSS-bridge</a> is the ultimate RSS feed helper and will not just give you RSS feeds for Facebook pages, but basically anything else.</p>
473
474 <p>This is software that can run on a server. You can just do an internet search for instances, then feed them a link you want an RSS for and RSS-bridge will autogenerate a feed.</p>
475
476 <h3>Podcasts</h3>
477
478 <p>Podcasts literally just are RSS feeds! That's why it's so easy to view them anywhere.</p>
479
480 <p>For example, my podcast <em>Not Related!</em> is syndicated by Libsyn and its RSS feed url is <code>https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss</code>.
481 If you want another Libsyn podcast, just replace "notrelated" with the podcast name on the site.</p>
482
483 <h3>My RSS feeds:</h3>
484
485 <p>This blog, a link to my youtube RSS and my podcast RSS.</p>
486
487 <pre><code>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml
488 https://lukesmith.xyz/youtube.xml
489 https://notrelated.xyz/rss
490 </code></pre>
491 ]]></description>
492 </item>
493
494
495
496
497 <item>
498 <title>Anyone done Peertube before?</title>
499 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#anyone-done-peertube-before</guid>
500 <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2020 18:10:57 -0400</pubDate>
501 <description><![CDATA[
502 <p>I get emails about Peertube semi-frequently.
503 <a href="https://joinpeertube.org/">Peertube</a> is software you can install on your server to make a kind of a YouTube site.
504 This would actually be a goal of mine:
505 to be able to host all of my videos, serve them and have a platform truly independent of YouTube (or at least the core of it).
506 </p>
507
508 <p>I've never bothered to join an instance because I can't necessarily trust individual terms or my bandwidth requirements are too big for most,
509 but I figure it's worth figuring out now and I'm fiddling around with a separate VPS for doing it myself.</p>
510
511 <p>I will admit that the installation process has been a pain.
512 I've come 99% of the way a couple times in the past couple of days, but there's always something missing or out of sync by the time I finish.
513 I've even degraded myself by deploying containerized versions of the program (soydev.jpg), but to no avail.
514 </p>
515
516 <p>Anyway, I was wondering if any body out there is passionate and knowledgeable about Peertube and could either help me set it up or has principled suggestions.
517 I'd like to get this done soon.</p>
518 ]]></description>
519 </item>
520
521
522 <item>
523 <title>I have my own search engine now</title>
524 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#i-have-my-own-search-engine-now</guid>
525 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:41:09 -0400</pubDate>
526 <description><![CDATA[
527 <p>I'm actually a bit ahead in making videos: tomorrow or the day after or so, I'll have a video coming out about <a href="https://searx.me">Searx</a> the decentralized meta-search engine which runs on free software and anyone can install and use.</p>
528
529 <p>There are already <a href="https://searx.space">many public instances</a> of Searx out there, but I've also decided to make my own at <a href="https://searx.lukesmith.xyz">searx.lukesmith.xyz</a>, so you can try that out if you want. It's hosted on this very server.</p>
530
531 <p>If I get <em>too much</em> traffic, I might close or more it, but I'll leave it up for now to see if the traffic isn't too inconvenient.
532 After all, if I'm the only one using the instance, it's easy enough for the engines it polls to determine it's just me that's searching!
533 </p>
534
535 <p><big><em>Absolutely no coomers allowed!</em></big></p>
536
537 <p>Again yeah, I've already made videos on Searx and the process of actually installing your own instance of it and they'll be out within the week.</p>
538 ]]></description>
539 </item>
540
541
542 <item>
543 <title>GNUtards unequivocally destroyed eternally</title>
544 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#gnutards-unequivocally-destroyed-eternally</guid>
545 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2020 09:09:35 -0400</pubDate>
546 <description><![CDATA[
547 <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wz9BkzU1zY">Important meme video.</a></p>
548
549 <p>"I use Linux as my operating system," I state proudly to the unkempt, bearded man. He swivels around in his desk chair with a devilish gleam in his eyes, ready to mansplain with extreme precision. "Actually", he says with a grin, "Linux is just the kernel. You use GNU+Linux!' I don't miss a beat and reply with a smirk, "I use Alpine, a distro that doesn't include the GNU coreutils, or any other GNU code. It's Linux, but it's not GNU+Linux."</p>
550
551 <p>The smile quickly drops from the man's face. His body begins convulsing and he foams at the mouth and drops to the floor with a sickly thud. As he writhes around he screams "I-IT WAS COMPILED WITH GCC! THAT MEANS IT'S STILL GNU!" Coolly, I reply "If windows was compiled with gcc, would that make it GNU?" I interrupt his response with "-and work is being made on the kernel to make it more compiler-agnostic. Even you were correct, you wont be for long."</p>
552
553 <p>With a sickly wheeze, the last of the man's life is ejected from his body. He lies on the floor, cold and limp. I've womansplained him to death.</p>
554 ]]></description>
555 </item>
556
557
558 <item>
559 <title>Le Shill Lion</title>
560 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#le-shill-lion</guid>
561 <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2020 11:52:35 -0400</pubDate>
562 <description><![CDATA[
563 <p>Redditors have been spamming my videos asking me to respond to the "controversy"/"fiasco" that Brave has been using affiliate links to certain sites openly for their intended purpose.</p>
564
565 <p>In March, a commit added additional links that added in suggestions to sites like Coinbase that included Brave's affiliate link.
566 This was merged into the upstream in April.
567 You can see the <a href="https://github.com/brave/brave-core/commit/e8fdde70a3ac2c25e6ccc567bc93c6d4059c2d72#diff-4e85e1d3377a3f7b7da27f16f88e9bd5">relevant git history</a>.
568 </p>
569
570 <p>These affiliate links have displayed openly in the url bar and in the autocomplete as options for months.
571 Mind you, Brave already had a built-in autocomplete/suggestions that recommend sites that you've never been to.
572 (This has actually always annoyed me to no end and there's no obvious way to turn off these recommendations to useless sites like the New York Times, LinkedIn or Google Calendar.)
573 </p>
574
575 <p>Yet in the past couple of days, some regular investigative journalists discovered what had been in front of their faces every time they typed in their url bar. A lot of people and pages melodramatically call this "link hijacking."
576 I wish they held those standards for any other program...
577 </p>
578
579 <p>The "controversy" is that when Brave added links to Coinbase and other sites will affiliate links, it includes those affiliate links into the autocomplete.
580 (With non-affiliate suggestions as well.)
581 Some non-intrusive affiliate pages would autofill as well (while intrusive pages like Coinbase's would only open if manually selected by the user).
582 </p>
583
584
585 <p>Really, what is Brave supposed to do?
586 It already recommends sites, including the sites with affiliate links and Brave is actually literally leading users to these sites anyway.
587 Using an affiliate link is the right way to do it: these companies want to know and incentivize people who share their sites.
588 Brave is already doing that.
589 It's not like it's costing the user anything.
590 The sites already know your browser anyway.
591 </p>
592
593 <p>Note that DuckDuckGo has done exactly the same thing and makes money from forcibly putting their affiliate links on Amazon and eBay search results.
594 </p>
595
596 <p>There are a lot of furry communists who think that anything involving money must be "shady" or untrustworthy.
597 The fact is, if Brave is not going to make money by shilling for NGOs and political non-profits like Firefox, or sell user data like Google, it should be making money on things like this.
598 <em>This is literally what affiliate links are for.</em>
599 I can't even pretend it's bad.
600 This is just dumb.
601 </p>
602 ]]></description>
603 </item>
604
605
606 <item>
607 <title>I'll have server downtime tomorrow.</title>
608 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#ill-have-server-downtime-tomorrow</guid>
609 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:02:15 -0400</pubDate>
610 <description><![CDATA[
611 <p>I'm going to make some more changes to my server. Expect my websites to be offline tomorrow, hopefully no more than a couple hours. I just want to make sure to get everything right. 😉</p>
612 ]]></description>
613 </item>
614
615
616 <item>
617 <title>Oooof! Big server downage!</title>
618 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#oooof-big-server-downage</guid>
619 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2020 17:03:37 -0400</pubDate>
620 <description><![CDATA[
621 <p>I was playing around with my server today, you know, the one where I host <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz">my website</a> the <a href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS website</a> <em>and</em> <a href="https://notrelated.xyz">the <em>Not Related!</em></a> website.</p>
622
623 <p>I ended up "accidentally" install a nginx server which obviously interferred with my preexisting apache server (well, at least because I was running a hand-holding distro that automatically turns everything on when you install something!). This caused a general crash of everything a couple hours ago.</p>
624
625 <p>It <em>would've</em> been an easy fix, but I decided instead to just wipe the whole thing and restart on a clean server, so that's what I'm doing. This time, I'm just running nginx.</p>
626
627 <p>Anyway, some things are still down and I'm going to dinner tonight, so it might be until tomorrow that I fix everything:</p>
628
629 <ul>
630 <li>The LARBS link at <code>larbs.xyz/larbs.sh</code> is offline until I figure out how to link stuff on nginx the way I did with <code>htaccess</code> on apache.</li>
631 <li>Some old links might not rewrite properly, similar to above. I think I have it removing .html at least on my personal site.</li>
632 <li>My personal files on my website are down since again they were Apache based.</li>
633 <li>My git server is down. I might just remake it on video because people always ask about it.</li>
634 <li>If you have the <em>Not Related!</em> link at the notrelated.xyz address, it might be down too: <code>https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss</code> will work instead; the one at notrelated.xyz was just a link to that one.</li>
635 </ul>
636
637 <p>Thanks to <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/emailwiz">that email script</a> I made a while ago I can receive emails, but it looks like I have to tinker with it a little more for isync. I guess that's for the best since I'll update the script for other people.</p>
638 ]]></description>
639 </item>
640
641
642 <item>
643 <title>On the swallowing patch in dwm</title>
644 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#on-the-swallowing-patch-in-dwm</guid>
645 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2020 06:08:27 -0400</pubDate>
646 <description><![CDATA[
647 <p>dwm has a somewhat unique patch called <a href+"https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/swallow/">swallow</a> which automatically positions a window opened from a terminal over that terminal that would otherwise be non-responsive, uncloseable and thus a big annoyance.</p>
648
649 <p>I show this patch and why it's needed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92uo5OBOKfY">in a new video I just released</a>: "Does your Window Manager Swallow?"</p>
650
651 <p>I'm also going to start putting my dwm videos into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JSrWHdm-Fb5khZpw2JXLImj">a playlist here</a> so if you want to keep up with them individually you can.</p>
652 ]]></description>
653 </item>
654
655
656 <item>
657 <title>Manjaro is good for noobs.</title>
658 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#manjaro-is-good-for-noobs</guid>
659 <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 11:52:05 -0400</pubDate>
660 <description><![CDATA[
661 <p>I put out a video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWowqM2S9VU">why I always recommend Manjaro for new users</a>. Get Manjaro at <a href="https://manjaro.org">manjaro.org</a>.</p>
662
663 <p>Manjaro has a couple of main benefits over other distros:</p>
664
665 <ul>
666 <li>While other distros idiotically try to containerize programs allow people to get either normie/proprietary software or very up-and-coming software, Manjaro can just use the AUR.</li>
667 <li>The frequent updates give Manjaro a substantial edge over Ubuntu and Linux Mint since it allows noobs to get quick updates to highly-active software areas like gayming.</li>
668 <li>On a minor point, pacman is better than apt-get on pretty much any metric.</li>
669 <li>Manjaro eases the transfer into Arch Linux, which is a typical rite of passage into mature Linux.</li>
670 </ul>
671
672 <p>Of course, reading the comments from new users, I am continually reminded that the real hurdle to getting the most out of Linux is a psychological one: most users want to replicate their Windows 10 setup perfectly and more than that, have the mindset of a passive consooomer for whom even the most inconsequential unexpected things on an operating system are a world-ending impossibilities and sources of frustration.
673 </p>
674
675 <p>There's a lot to say about that.
676 I spend a lot of time making videos to make life easier for other people.
677 One thing I've realized is that there are some people who get a lot more excitement out of complaining than having solutions to their problems.</p>
678
679 <p>I don't understand that psychology, but it's ubiquitous.</p>
680 ]]></description>
681 </item>
682
683
684 <item>
685 <title>Not Related! is officially back. New episode tomorrow morning.</title>
686 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#not-related-is-officially-back-new-episode-tomorrow-morning</guid>
687 <pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:50:39 -0400</pubDate>
688 <description><![CDATA[
689 <p>The madman has finally done it.</p>
690
691 <p>I've finally restarted <a href="https://notrelated.xyz">Not Related!</a>, my long lost podcast!</p>
692
693 <p><a href="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/notrelated/S02E00_-_Live_from_the_Wild.ogg">Download the new Season 2 introducion</a> episode.</p>
694
695 <p>
696 You can also see the episode <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_IR4UBdDmw">on YouTube</a>, although obviously the audio format is primary.</p>
697
698 <p>
699 I always shot for the perfect sweet spot between that signature "Big-Braned" content and a kind of non-pretentiousness: while the topics of <em>Not Related!</em> are always different, they're all in depth coverages of topics out of the typical realm of common knowledge and internet discussion, oftentimes found in somewhat abstruse study...
700 If I've wasted time in my life learning something, I might as well make it more accessible to others, even if part of that is just previewing it in audio format.
701 </p>
702
703 <p>Some had noted that a kind of a pattern emerged behind some podcast episodes: deflating some of the academic pretentions of institutionalized science.
704 That might continue in some episodes (definitely the first real episode, which will come out tomorrow morning), but I really only promise varied and unexpectedly interesting content.</p>
705
706 <p>
707 I've learned on the internet that you can never wait around and expect someone else to cover topics, so while I sort of quit the podcast out of tiredness, I view returning to it as a kind of duty.
708 I was happy with its content and direction.
709 </p>
710
711 <p>Anyway, blah, blah. <a href="https://notrelated.xyz/rss">Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed</a>. Listen or relisten to the older episodes too.</p>
712
713 <p>I read <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate">any kind of donation</a> during the middle-of-the-episode break, so if you have a smart comment or an innocent question about a previous episode, submit it with a donation and I'll read it.
714 Again, I've already recording the first real episode for the second season, but I might be recording #2 soon after.</p>
715 ]]></description>
716 </item>
717
718
719 <item>
720 <title>First episode of a full series on the basics of shell scripting</title>
721 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#first-episode-of-a-full-series-on-the-basics-of-shell-scripting</guid>
722 <pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:07:25 -0400</pubDate>
723 <description><![CDATA[
724 <p>I actually somewhat enjoyed doing the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XtNXutVto">"Vim Diesel"</a> hour long vim tutorial...</p>
725
726 <p>So I decided to do something I've been asked about over the years, and that is to do a series on very basic command-line/terminal/shell/bash usage.</p>
727
728 <p>I've put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4gE8k2RE_s">the first video in this series here</a> so check it out. Although it's very basic, covering the key commands and key-bindings on the terminal, you might learn something or another new or forgotten...</p>
729 ]]></description>
730 </item>
731
732
733 <item>
734 <title>Converting Facebook feeds to RSS?</title>
735 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#converting-facebook-feeds-to-rss</guid>
736 <pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2020 08:10:09 -0400</pubDate>
737 <description><![CDATA[
738 <p>I'm going to record a video today on RSS—one nice fact of RSS is that there are some services that can automatically generate RSS feeds of social media profiles, even those that have intentionally shirked off RSS to be able to further control content.</p>
739
740 <p><a href="https://twitrss.me/">https://twitrss.me/</a> is an example of this for Twitter, so you can subscribe/follow any Twitter account without Twitter being able to filter what you see (and importantly without having an account in the first place).</p>
741
742 <p>Unfortunately, despite looking several times, I've never found something like this for public Facebook pages, which I think a lot of people would find hard to live without.
743 There are a lot of normie/Boomer businesses whose only internet presence is their Facebook page.
744 Even in my case, there's a local grocery store that has weekly deals that I could only see by navigating to a public Facebook page, which I don't like doing: I'd rather the updates just appear in my RSS feed reader.</p>
745
746 <p>Anyway, if anyone knows of a free service that produces RSS feeds for Facebook pages, please tell me ASAP so I can include it in the video.</p>
747 ]]></description>
748 </item>
749
750
751 <item>
752 <title>Github sponsorship</title>
753 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#github-sponsorship</guid>
754 <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2020 16:03:34 -0400</pubDate>
755 <description><![CDATA[
756 <p>I went through the rigamarole of setting up Github Sponsors today.
757 Basically it's just a built-in funding mechanism using Stripe with Github.
758 So now people can donate to me from Github and support from/for specific projects.</p>
759
760 <p>Go to <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/">my Github page</a> and you'll see "Sponsor" buttons on my profile and all my main repositories. Hey, free software gotta pay <em>some</em> bills.
761 Or at least start the expansion cabin...
762 Did I mention I might be starting a business soon?
763 Maybe more on that later.</p>
764
765 <p>Anyway if you want platform independent ways to donate to me, including direct bank transfers and crypto currency, you can always just see <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz">https://lukesmith.xyz</a>.</p>
766
767 <p>I always feel like a shill to even say so (or to put the link in video descriptions), but then again, people still come up asking me how to donate. That's how. You have a lot of choices! Thanks for all who do donate; I'd hate to have to resort to selling bath water!</p>
768 ]]></description>
769 </item>
770
771
772 <item>
773 <title>I don't trust Wikipedia anymore. Also, a request for a Stallman meme!</title>
774 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#i-dont-trust-wikipedia-anymore-also-a-request-for-a-stallman-meme</guid>
775 <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2020 10:49:16 -0400</pubDate>
776 <description><![CDATA[
777 <p>I put up a video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Q7reJtiLU">why I don't use or trust Wikipedia anymore</a>.
778 It's gotten so bad over the years that I don't even trust it for little things.
779 I might do more on this later, because I think it's a weather-vane kind of issue, but that's my take on it now.</p>
780
781 <p>Obviously I don't trust it for news or politics, but I also can't trust it for specialized topics I'm familiar with: it doesn't very accurately represent academic issues in linguistics, philosophy or especially the history of thought.
782 This has totally undermined my view of the enterprise in total and I'll be relying on a constellation of smaller sites when I need "basic" encyclopedia information.</p>
783
784 <p>Also, for a thumbnail, I'm looking for any meme containing a depiction of Richard Stallman as either a crying wojak or a pink wojak.
785 I'm sure someone has this and I'm very busy today and can't look too much more after a cursory search... I'll be leaving the house soon...</p>
786 ]]></description>
787 </item>
788
789
790 <item>
791 <title>Help me livestream from the remote Unaboomer's Cabin!</title>
792 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#help-me-livestream-from-the-remote-unaboomers-cabin</guid>
793 <pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2020 19:33:52 -0400</pubDate>
794 <description><![CDATA[
795 <p>I want to have a way to stream from my home internet, which is beyond bad.
796 It is certainly at least good enough to upload audio: I've used some VOIP services perfectly,
797 but the issue is that <strong>YouTube and most other sites specifically require a video stream</strong> as well.</p>
798
799 <p>Probably the best solution would be something like streaming an audio feed to a server of mine, which is doable given my bandwidth, and on that server, combining it with a video feed which can then be fed to YouTube or other streaming sites.</p>
800
801 <p>If anyone can give me good specifics on this it would be highly appreciated. My eyes still glaze over when I hear about sockets and such, but there might be a more streamlined (bloated) solution as well...<p>
802
803 <p>I made a previous request for how to do a simple audiostream on my own server: most people recommended Icecast, which I've been playing around with. I might just go with that platform-independent solution despite the fact that it will probably lessen the viewership by a good bit! (Maybe that's a good thing?)</p>
804 ]]></description>
805 </item>
806
807
808 <item>
809 <title>New vids on shell scripting and substring removal</title>
810 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#new-vids-on-shell-scripting-and-substring-removal</guid>
811 <pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2020 07:26:31 -0400</pubDate>
812 <description><![CDATA[
813 <p>Yesterday and just a bit ago I put out two videos of extreme relevance if you want to script efficiently:</p>
814
815 <p>Now <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5phSVBEHhQ">the first</a> formally was about writing a network traffic module without dependencies, we talking about the file location of network information, shell arithmatic and some other efficiencies.</p>
816
817 <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXineadwG4E">The second video</a> is on an important trick for getting a substring from a string without having to call separate programs like <code>awk</code> or <code>cut</code>, and thus saving time.
818 That is, <em>substring removal</em>, which you've probably seen before. It looks something like this:</p>
819
820 <pre><code>echo "${fullfilename%.*}"</code></pre>
821
822 <p>That particular command will echo a file name removing its extension.
823 I explain the logic of what all the symbols mean and how to manipulate them in the video.
824 </p>
825 ]]></description>
826 </item>
827
828
829 <item>
830 <title>I'm going to be ending i3 support in LARBS very soon!</title>
831 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#im-going-to-be-ending-i3-support-in-larbs-very-soon</guid>
832 <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2020 16:51:30 -0400</pubDate>
833 <description><![CDATA[
834 <p>I'm <b>not</b> deleting any of the i3-related config files, I'll just be doing the following:</p>
835
836 <ul>
837 <li>Removing i3, i3blocks and other i3-only programs from the install list.</li>
838 <li>Removing the visual i3 option on the LARBS script that changed <code>~/.xinitrc</code> for you.</li>
839 <li>Consolidating the config files, mainly profile files to make things a little more elegant. I am also adding in a custom <code>dwm.desktop</code> file so GUI-cucks can log into dwm with their log-in screens.</li>
840 </ul>
841
842 <p>That last point might cause breakage in i3 builds that people keep up to date with git.
843 In case it hasn't been clear for the past year, I really want to move past i3. I haven't used it in months and am not reliable to troubleshoot problems on it.
844 </p>
845
846
847 <p>If you still want to use my i3 setup, you can still:</p>
848
849 <ol>
850 <li>Run LARBS.</li>
851 <li>Manually install i3/i3blocks afterwards.</li>
852 <li>Manually change what WM <code>~/.xinitrc</code> starts (if you don't use a login screen/display manager).</li>
853 </ol>
854
855 <p>I have basically not been maintaining i3 for months.
856 I accept PRs and fixes if offered, but not much more.</p>
857
858 <p>I might add a little extra i3 script to be run after LARBS that makes the changes necessary for i3... maybe.
859 I really recommend moving on to dwm though.</p>
860 ]]></description>
861 </item>
862
863
864 <item>
865 <title>Two factor authentication without a cell phone</title>
866 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#two-factor-authentication-without-a-cell-phone</guid>
867 <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 11:43:34 -0400</pubDate>
868 <description><![CDATA[
869 <p>I've thankfully developed a tendency to make side remarks about things in videos that I'm not sure or don't know about because often times people will fill me in on them.</p>
870
871 <p>Yesterday I complained about having to use a cell phone to do Two Factor Authentication (2FA) and asked for another way.
872 As it ends up, using a cell phone for 2FA is apparently just a bad, normie-friendly way to do it.
873 And we aren't normie friendly, anyway are we?</p>
874
875 <p>Many informed me that SMS protocol (i.e. texting) is actually a highly insecure way to do Two Factor Authentication.
876 I did also know that there are authenticator apps, but these are often talked about as if they are always cell phone applications.
877 Very not true.</p>
878
879 <p>In fact, <code>pass</code>, the password manager that I use (and I also require it for <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">mutt-wizard</a>) has an installable module <code>pass-otp</code> in most repositories that does just this without the need for a celular monitoring device and service, etc.</p>
880
881 <p>Install it, and let's say I want it to manage my <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/join/smith_5to1">coinbase</a> 2FA.
882 Well, go to Coinbase's website and click the option to add/change an authenticator app.
883 They'll give you a QR which you can download (I'll assume it's called 'download.png' here).
884 Then, use <code>zbar</code> (which you may need to install) to read the QR code image and pipe it into this <code>pass</code> command.
885 </p>
886
887 <pre><code>zbarimg -q --raw download.png | pass otp insert coinbase</code></pre>
888
889 <p>Now, whenever you run <code>pass otp coinbase</code>, you will get a 6-digit 2FA code.
890 After a few seconds, of course, it will change to another 6-digit code like other 2FA applications.</p>
891
892 <p>So this is pretty dope.
893 You could also start using this for scripting/API access if you know what you're doing.
894 One more thing I don't have to use my cell phone for.
895 I feel like a boomer for not knowing this before...
896 </p>
897
898 <p>Now the other thing I'd really want is the ability to access SMS protocol on a computer to receive text messages without (a) a cell phone and (b) cell phone service at my location.
899 The big issue for me is that I have no mobile service in my house (I have to walk out to the north side of my property to get texts). I don't have wifi-calling either.
900 Some people have submitted some suggestions and I'm still going through them, but we'll see.
901 I just wish normies could send me a message at a number they <em>think</em> is a normal cell phone, but I can receive on my computer without a cell signal.</p>
902 ]]></description>
903 </item>
904
905
906 <item>
907 <title>Full timecodes for the Vimtutor 'Let's Play'</title>
908 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#full-timecodes-for-the-vimtutor-lets-play</guid>
909 <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 08:16:49 -0400</pubDate>
910 <description><![CDATA[
911 <p>The YouTube premiere for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XtNXutVto">the Vimtutor Let's Play</a> just ended successfully.
912 It's a long vid, so if you want to see something specific, I made timecodes which I'll put here, but if you go to the video above, they'll be clickable in the description.</p>
913
914 <pre><code>0:00 Vim Diesel Let's Play Introduction
915 0:46 Playing stupid in movement/WASD for gamers!
916 1:46 Soydevs learn to exit vim with ZZ and ZQ.
917 3:44 Noob way to delete stuff and move around
918 4:34 zz, zt and zb to move the screen
919 5:25 i for insertion
920 6:07 Insert mode vs. Normal mode: The Magic of Vim
921 7:01 Most important tip of mapping caps lock as escape
922 7:49 How to go SANIC fast in vim with xset hacking! 🏃
923 9:33 Moving by paragraphs with {}
924 10:12 a, A and I for inserting text in different ways
925 12:22 Saving and exiting
926 14:20 Literally sorting every line in vimtutor alphabetically for no reasons (based!)
927 15:36 Deleting by text objects; operators and motions
928 20:48 Counts for motions
929 25:17 Deleting around and inside and () {} [], etc.
930 28:28 LITERALLY TIME-TRAVELING IN VIM 😮
931 31:45 put or paste deleted text
932 33:26 Using the system clipboard in vim or really neovim to copy and paste with other programs
933 34:40 Replace command (mostly useless, lol)
934 35:34 c to actually replace things the right way
935 39:18 File status, using percentages to jump through the file, and gg and G
936 40:45 Searching for text with / and ? (for it backwards)
937 42:31 Using % to jump from parenthis and bracket pairs
938 44:00 Substitute strings like with sed
939 48:44 External commands and I learned vim on Windows lol
940 49:54 Captain Kirk and learning visual mode
941 52:52 THE MOST USEFUL VIM COMMAND: .!!! (PERIOD)
942 55:40 NO WAIT, THIS ONE IS THE MOST USEFUL
943 56:40 Replace mode
944 58:30 vim does have a spellchecker!
945 1:00:29 Now we learn copying and yanking
946 1:01:54 Setting variables
947 1:04:30 How a vimrc works and how to configure vim on startup, tab completion?
948 1:05:38 WE DID IT REDDIT!
949
950 DONATE NOW: https://lukesmith.xyz/donate 💰😎👌💯
951 WEBSITE: https://lukesmith.xyz 🌐❓🔎</code></pre>
952
953 <p>Enjoy! And thank you Kenneth for the Vim Diesel thumbnail!
954 He said it cost him a C- in art class, lol.</p>
955 ]]></description>
956 </item>
957
958
959 <item>
960 <title>A full commentary on vim while 'let's playing' vimtutor!</title>
961 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#a-full-commentary-on-vim-while-lets-playing-vimtutor</guid>
962 <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 06:46:35 -0400</pubDate>
963 <description><![CDATA[
964 <p>At the top of the next hour, I'll be releasing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XtNXutVto">a full-length video commentary and instructional on vim</a>.
965 I decided to record this yesterday somewhat flippantly: I got through the entirety of vimtutor adding extra information and tips along with commentary.
966 The whole thing ended up being one cut and slighty longer than an hour!
967 I'm releasing it as a premiere.</p>
968
969 <p>Note also I did a video yesterday talking about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5UEuWMlqRI">the ever-expanding ways</a> you can be monitored with cell phones and software.</p>
970 ]]></description>
971 </item>
972
973
974 <item>
975 <title>Ripping and spliting and tagging audiobooks and albums from YouTube</title>
976 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#ripping-and-spliting-and-tagging-audiobooks-and-albums-from-youtube</guid>
977 <pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2020 10:16:42 -0400</pubDate>
978 <description><![CDATA[
979 <p>Check out my <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice/tree/master/.local/bin">scripts folder</a> for two new uploads today (although I made them quite a bit ago).</p>
980
981 <p>First is <code>tag</code>, a simple wrapper for <code>opustags</code> and <code>vorbiscomment</code> that gives a easier interface for manually tagging .opus and .ogg files.</p>
982
983 <p>More notable, however is <code>booksplit</code>, which uses the script above to take a long audio file and a list of timecodes and automatically splits that file up into tracks/chapter files.</p>
984
985 <p>I use this when I can only find some audio content on YouTube and want to convert it to typical music files for listening offline, all with appropriate tags.</p>
986
987 <p>I just put up a video on all of this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_CcQhbwINU">here</a>.</p>
988 ]]></description>
989 </item>
990
991
992 <item>
993 <title>The advantages of dwmblocks...</title>
994 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#the-advantages-of-dwmblocks</guid>
995 <pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2020 15:09:13 -0400</pubDate>
996 <description><![CDATA[
997 <p>Just put up a video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP2QpHmcgyk">dwmblocks</a> which I've been using for a statusbar for a while now.</p>
998
999 <p>Get the build <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/dwmblocks">here</a>.</p>
1000
1001 <p>It has probably three main advantages over other paradigms for doing statusbars, especially in dwm:</p>
1002
1003 <ul>
1004 <li>It is fully modular and can use independent scripts.</li>
1005 <li>It doesn't just constantly update: while you can tell a module to update every 5 seconds, you can also tell it only to rerun a script when the program receives and external signal.</li>
1006 <li>It's clickable. I have each modular run different commands, programs, help panes, etc. for each kind of click.</li>
1007 </ul>
1008
1009 <p>On the last point, you can pretty arbitrarily add in new click sequences in your dwm build as well.
1010 I mention in the video that I have it so if I hold shift while left clicking, the an instance of vim with the module script opens up so you can edit it.</p>
1011 ]]></description>
1012 </item>
1013
1014
1015 <item>
1016 <title>New video showcase of my dwm build</title>
1017 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#new-video-showcase-of-my-dwm-build</guid>
1018 <pubDate>Mon, 25 May 2020 10:59:35 -0400</pubDate>
1019 <description><![CDATA[
1020 <p>I haven't been using my RSS feed to annouce videos recently, but I feel like I should be... 🤔</p>
1021
1022 <p>Anyway, I've released a video showcasing dwm <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnREqY-oyzM">here</a>. If you're reading this post right as I'm releasing it, it's been set as a premiere on YouTube to release at the top of the hour.</p>
1023
1024 <p>The title is naturally self-aware clickbait, the video is just a brief, updated explanation of the logic of dwm, similar to my original video a year or so ago on it, albeit catered to my build.</p>
1025
1026 <p>I also go into some of the stuff I've added recently that make it a drop in improvement over my old i3 dotfiles.</p>
1027
1028 <p>The dwm build is <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/dwm">here</a>, the status bar, which I'll do an idividual video on later is
1029 <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/dwmblocks">here</a>, and remeber that you'll need to install <code>libxft-bgra</code> for it to render color characters without crashing.</p>
1030 ]]></description>
1031 </item>
1032
1033
1034 <item>
1035 <title>Politics matters most to slaves.</title>
1036 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#politics-matters-most-to-slaves</guid>
1037 <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2020 19:56:35 -0400</pubDate>
1038 <description><![CDATA[
1039 <p>Now onto the second point I didn't get to <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#why-do-i-so-rarely-talk-about-politics-on-my-channel">in my post yesterday</a>: politics only matters so much when you're a slave. Or as I put it there, "You will need politics less than you think."</p>
1040
1041 <p>
1042 That is to say that if you live in a city where your every action is watched, if you use proprietary software and communicate only via social media services, if you have no marketable skills because you have some inert degree and questionably productive and definitely replaceable job and a large company, you need politics quite a great deal.
1043 </p>
1044
1045 <p>
1046 Your entire existence in the system is based on being a good boy within the established boundaries of what is deemed by the mass media to be socio-politically appropriate.
1047 <em>Maybe</em> you've gone into debt, but you <em>definitely</em> rely the whole "system" for all the basics.
1048 If you don't think you do, just ask yourself whether your life has changed for the better after the Coronachan Panic of 2020.
1049 </p>
1050
1051 <p>
1052 What's the alternative?
1053 Well, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRVmfx4EWI0">boomer rants viewers might see some of this coming</a>...
1054 </p>
1055
1056 <p>
1057 The fact of the matter is that both the daily ins-and-outs of politics and the overarching trends of politics matter very little the more independent your are of the system.
1058 Earlier, I always mumbled about how conservaboomers seemed a little too apathetic about the cultural changes being forced on them.
1059 This social engineering still is the most serious problem in all technologically-complex mass-media societies, but I must admit for people who choose personal independence and independence for their families and local communities, it is much less of a problem.
1060 </p>
1061
1062 <p>
1063 When I was plugged into the system, minorly red-pilled and generally peeved because I actually paid attention to the media as something other than to laugh at, I found the idea of Political "Exit" pretty cucky.
1064 How much sense does it make to leave the "political process" altogether?
1065 Sounds like giving up.
1066 </p>
1067
1068 <p>
1069 It sounds like giving up because the "political process" is something internal to the media system at large.
1070 That's why even when the political process does something the media doesn't like (like electing the Orange Boomer, for example), its actions are immediately rendered inert by fakery.
1071 </p>
1072
1073 <p>
1074 The actual solution is creating and participating in organic society, which still very much exists outside the purview of the media and NGOs and the like.
1075 People still need plumbers.
1076 No one is going to fire a plumber because he says trannies are mentally ill men in dresses—otherwise there'd be no plumbers. Or electricians, or builders or anyone who actually does anything productive.
1077 It'd just be HR, journalists and professors left...
1078 and some open source developers who write more codes of conducts than they do software.
1079 Do you think they'll be able to feed you?
1080 </p>
1081
1082 <p>
1083 Exiting the system is actually the opposite of surrender.
1084 Why would you think the solution is something like voting or even "owning the libs" or something publicly advertised as a solution?
1085 The actual solution is building an alternative.
1086 Or maybe <em>rebuilding</em> the alternative.
1087 </p>
1088
1089 <p>
1090 Do you really want to make your boss rich if you think he'd turn around and betray you because of a media witchhunt?
1091 It's better for you to be doxxed and fired now rather than wait 20 years for it, getting more ensconced in the insanity.
1092 Start becoming more independent now.
1093 </p>
1094
1095 <p>
1096 A lot of people LARP about what they're going to do when they take over "the system" by revolution.
1097 Revolution, the idea of abrupt enforced change, however, is fundamentally their idea and if you buy it, you're going to keep running your head into a wall.
1098 </p>
1099
1100 <p>
1101 Being independent, living out of the city and the Matrix, however, is simultaneously like transporting yourself back in time to when things were saner, but at the same time, transporting yourself into the future where "the system" has already collapsed and we're already rebuilding.
1102 Be a part of it now rather than later.
1103 </p>
1104 ]]></description>
1105 </item>
1106
1107
1108 <item>
1109 <title>Why do I so rarely talk about politics on my channel?</title>
1110 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#why-do-i-so-rarely-talk-about-politics-on-my-channel</guid>
1111 <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2020 23:16:33 -0400</pubDate>
1112 <description><![CDATA[
1113 <p>
1114 It's not a huge secret that I'm somewhere in the high echelons of the red-pill, however you define it.
1115 I'll openly talk about pretty any topic that people organically bring up in streams, or that I'm asked about, but I've never really made any kind of political content on my channel, aside from jokes and memes.
1116 That might be surprising because especially three years ago before the mass-bans and algoritm tampering, right wing political channels were a dime-a-dozen and an easily way to get views.
1117 <b>There are two main reasons</b> I never took part.
1118 Arguably "fear of being ZUCCed from YouTube" could be a possible third, but I have a kind intransigence that makes me relish me being banned.
1119 I'm also pretty tired of YouTube, and am increasingly questioning if using it is even a reasonable compromise...
1120 </p>
1121
1122 <p>
1123 So why do I not do political videos?
1124 Why do I not have a set list of deep facts that will blow you away and red-pill you?
1125 The two reasons:
1126 </p>
1127
1128 <ul>
1129 <li>Reason one: 道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。</li>
1130 <li>Reason two: You will need politics less than you think.</li>
1131 </ul>
1132
1133 <p>Okay, reason one there is just the first line of the Daode Jing.
1134 The Daode Jing is the basic book of Daoism (Taoism), and <em>Dao</em> (literally "Way") is an amorphous concept in Chinese thought that could be crudely comparable to Western concepts of "natural order/law" or maybe even "spontaneous order."
1135 <b>"Sounds gay,"</b> you say.
1136 So what does this famous first line mean and how is it relevant to why I don't talk about how to get red-pilled?
1137 I <em>would</em> say it's hard to translate, but even saying that would sound even more pretentious as if I actually know classical Chinese as a native language, but here's a rendering.
1138 </p>
1139
1140 <blockquote><em>The <em>Dao</em> (way) that you can follow isn't the true eternal <em>Dao</em>. A name that you speak, isn't its true name.</em></blockquote>
1141
1142 <p>An aside, it should be a capital offense to translate classical Chinese.
1143 It is so perfect and terse and everything autisitically limited to four elegant syllables that it's just criminal to mutilate it into another language, but we'll forgive it this time.</p>
1144
1145 <p>So what do I mean by quoting this?
1146 I mean that the journey to getting red-pilled is not something that can be explained.
1147 If I could just explain it, tell it to you, it wouldn't be the true story.
1148 It is a varied, and in each case, personal journey, that one goes on.
1149 </p>
1150
1151 <p>
1152 Although you've been lied to, it's not the lies that's the problem.
1153 As an adult, you can a lot of the times tell when the media is manipulating you, especially in the last past decade it's gotten so obvious even a Boomer could see it.
1154 But what you don't see is how when you were lied to (or told selective truths) as a child, you didn't have the same BS-detector, and that allowed a lot of deep-seated impressions about the world to be formed.
1155 So a lot of people who don't believe anything the media says now (rightly) are still mind-cucked.
1156 They accept the programming and differ on the details.
1157 </p>
1158
1159 <p>
1160 I will give you this hint.
1161 Basically all of your programmed emotional responses are your enemies.
1162 There was an old Moldbug blog post where he talked about even far after "awaking from his dogmatic slumber," he still was surprised that if he saw a group of Nazi LARPers, he would reflexively have a pang of emotional stress, but if he saw Stalinist LARPers, he wouldn't have the same kind of emotional reaction.
1163 I think everyone raised in the West has that same programmed reaction.
1164 You might know with your head that the communist death count is supposed to be higher and the suppression wider, but it doesn't click because you weren't made sensitive to it.
1165 </p>
1166
1167 <p>
1168 A good heuristic is whenever you see one of these emotional responses, especially an emotional response to a political term: democracy, equality, racism, feminism, literally all of them actually, <strong>your Pavlovian conditioning is telling you to avoid an intellectual area specifically because it is the ideological weak spot of the background propaganda of modernism.</strong>
1169 If it was not a weak spot, there would be no harm in you being allowed to calmly investigate it.
1170 People's thoughts are regulated in liberal democracy not by laws, but by psychological programming that goes off when someone is tempted to evaluate an idea they're not supposed to.
1171 Okay, actually I guess in Europe they're regulated by that and laws, and it's coming to America very, very soon now.
1172 </p>
1173
1174 <p>
1175 All of this is to say that breaking out of this programming is not so much of an issue of me or anyone else explaining a series of facts to you.
1176 道可道，非常道。
1177 That's what Laozi said.
1178 As cringe as it sounds, it is primarily a battle against yourself, or at least the part of yourself that has eaten up the tacit assumptions of modernism.
1179 <strong>Before you own the libs, you must own yourself.</strong>
1180 Laozi said that too.
1181 </p>
1182
1183 <p>
1184 In case quoting classical Chinese and talking in floating, general terms isn't getting across, I'll say that getting red-pilled is sort of mystical... literally.
1185 Of course, "mystical" in the old, original Greek sense.
1186 A "mystic" in Greek is just a synonym for an "initiate."
1187 Many cultic religions of two millennia ago where like modern Freemasonry: not a ideology one could just go and read about on Wikipedia, but one where people were slowly initiated in the thought and mindset of the religion over time.
1188 While people were born into Paganism, they were <em>initiated</em> into Gnosticism, Hermeticism or even early Christianity.
1189 The only difference is that you are being initiated <em>out</em> of the cultural bubble of modernism.
1190 Into what? It can vary person to person, experience to experience.
1191 You'll always be in some bubble, so don't be arrogant, but you will be out of the big bubble that's going to pop everywhere and is dominated by liberal cat-ladies, professors, sanctimonious NGO-members and journalists.
1192 </p>
1193
1194 <p>
1195 All of this is to say that it is simply impossible for me to provide you direct direction.
1196 Even direction might sound stupid before or after.
1197 Maybe I can lay out some random disorganized recommendations.
1198 </p>
1199
1200 <ul>
1201 <li>
1202 Years ago as young college student, I remember reading <a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/steven+pinker+blank+slate">Steven Pinker's <em>Blank Slate</em></a> (<a href="http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=blank+slate+steven+pinker">dl</a>) and thinking I was finally red-pilled.
1203 Now I think Steven Pinker is a moron (that book and only that book of his is good, the rest is beyond garbage).
1204 I've actually met many people for whom this book was the first step away from basic boomer-tier progressivism.
1205 I suspect that Pinker almost regrets writing this book because he's actually very basic in politics.
1206 He wrote it back before the elite recognized any threat of a resurgence of energy on the right.
1207 </li>
1208 <li>
1209 I think everyone knows that <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/files/unabomber.pdf">Uncle Ted's manifesto</a> is another favorite on my channel.
1210 I never read it until long after I needed it, but since it's a meme now I should recommend it explicitly.
1211 </li>
1212 <li>
1213 If you're prepped for harder stuff <a href="https://radishmag.wordpress.com/archive/">Radishmag</a> has it. This one <em>tries</em> to evoke that programmed emotional response in a devilish way, but it might be exactly the next step with plenty of actual original sources on historical articles to follow up with.
1214 </li>
1215 <li>
1216 Everything <a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/nassim%20taleb">Nassim Taleb</a> has written is good.
1217 He might be the only living author worth reading now in fact, which isn't saying <em>that</em> much considering our age, but Taleb is pretty based and has attracted a constellation of non-retarded people who employ the very useful concepts he's popularized: antifragile, Lindy, buttercuck... (okay maybe the last one he didn't coin himself, but I'm buttercucked and proud).
1218 Read his books before you even look up videos of him or shadow him on social media.
1219 His books are lucid, but you won't get it based on mere social media.
1220 He also has no patience for brainlets.
1221 </li>
1222 </ul>
1223
1224 <p>
1225 Also, you can be red-pilled too quickly and end up like that guy in the Matrix who looks like me and betrays his friends so he can be put back in the matrix to have nice juicy steaks again.
1226 Did he make an appearance in Runescape as well?
1227 </p>
1228
1229 <p>Anyway, I wrote more of this than I thought I was going to, and <strong>I never got to reason two!</strong>
1230 I'll write it tomorrow after church.
1231 You can read it once you get back from church providing it isn't banned where you live.</p>
1232
1233 <p>
1234 Speaking of church, for those interested in early Christian theology, or frankly Greek philosophy generally, notice how similar 名 <em>name/word</em> "míng" in the Chinese above is equivalent to <em>logos</em>.
1235 In fact, 名 is even used both in the particular sense "the name that you speak" as I render it, and in the universal abstract sense of <em>logos</em>.
1236 This pun, which doesn't exist in English without some explanation, does exist in both classical Chinese and Greek.
1237 More on that later.
1238 </p>
1239 ]]></description>
1240 </item>
1241
1242
1243 <item>
1244 <title>New website setup, also a statusbar module for network traffic</title>
1245 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#new-website-setup-also-a-statusbar-module-for-network-traffic</guid>
1246 <pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2020 13:01:22 -0400</pubDate>
1247 <description><![CDATA[
1248 <p>I've actually decided to change my website's index page, <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz">check it out</a>.
1249 I made it a bit more autobiographical and visual. Maybe I missed something important? Feel free to remind me.
1250 </p>
1251
1252 <p>
1253 There are images on the mainpage now, which means a little more bandwith used, but it's nowhere close to the odious things that soydevs do with massive 8MB background images.
1254 Even a really slow internet like mine should be able to load it all in a fraction of a second.
1255 </p>
1256
1257 <p>I want to move step-by-step back to the old simple days of the early internet, where personal webpages were actual webpages, not two lines of links to social media profiles over off-white bacgrounds and massive javascript to make sure the site load sufficiently slowly. Sooner or later, I'm going to make a LARBS-like thing for setting up a VPS with a good weserver. Already did it for an <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/emailwiz">email server</a>.</p>
1258
1259 <p>I haven't wanted to upload videos recently. I don't fake it.
1260 I will want to overview in a video all of the chages and features I've integrrated into dwm, but I'm not totally sure that I'm all the way done.
1261 Most of the binds on the middle and lower rows under the left hand I'm just not sure about!</p>
1262
1263 <p>By the way, yesterday or so I add an optional <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice/blob/master/.local/bin/statusbar/nettraf">network traffic module</a> to my statusbar scripts.
1264 I think I wrote it about as efficiently as it could be written (and no dependencies), but I was knew to figuring out how RX/TX info appears in a Unix system.
1265 Check it out and see if it can be improved.
1266 </p>
1267
1268 <p>
1269 Also, I'm thinking about, since I can make it clickable, adding some kind of network monitoring TUI program, ideally one that either gives visual information about network traffic over time, <em>or</em> (maybe better if it's done well) an application that lists connections made to different sites/IP addresses.
1270 If anyone has any recommendations, let me know,
1271 </p>
1272
1273 <p>EDIT: Oh and by the way, if my website looks funky right now, refresh your browser's cache (specifically of the stylesheet (style.css) on my site).</p>
1274 ]]></description>
1275 </item>
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280 <item>
1281 <title>Check out my dwm and dwmblocks builds (and say goodbye to i3)!</title>
1282 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#check-out-my-dwm-and-dwmblocks-builds-and-say-goodbye-to-i3</guid>
1283 <pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2020 19:33:52 -0400</pubDate>
1284 <description><![CDATA[
1285 <p>Firstly, I haven't actually really been updating my website and blog, maybe I will with some personal stuff that doesn't warrant a Boomer-Rant or two.</p>
1286
1287 <p>Anyway, after literally a year of using it, I've finally got a dwm build that I'm pretty happy with, <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/dwm">get it here</a>, and I also have <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/dwmblocks">a build of dwmblocks</a> which is a modular status bar which now basically has all the features of i3blocks for i3.</p>
1288
1289 <p>I encourage my blog/RSS-reading elite to check them out first to find any obvious lacunae before I do a video on them.</p>
1290
1291 <p>dwm is a way better experience than i3. I'll do a video on why I've been so happy with it.
1292 I know I just said I've been playing around with it for <em>a year</em>, but really I've always had a good build, now it's just notable enough to talk about.</p>
1293
1294 <p>Here are some traits/features:</p>
1295
1296 <ul>
1297 <li>The LARBS/dwm manual in pdf form is now actually just built into the dwm build. Just press <code>super+F1</code> when in dwm. You'll need zathura installed with a pdf module for it to appear.</li>
1298 <li>The statusbar now has color characters/emoji due to the libxft fix out there. Great! I always hated fontawesome...</li>
1299 <li>The statusbar is clickable now thanks to a streamlined version of the statuscmd patch by Daniel Bylinka <daniel.bylinka@gmail.com>. He actually contacted me himself suggesting the patch (which I was aware of), but quickly responded to my feedback, producing two new patches for dwm and dwmblocks (<a href="https://gist.github.com/danbyl/54f7c1d57fc6507242a95b71c3d8fdea">here</a>).</li>
1300 <li>I'm making the binds both usable and "logical" in a way. Maybe I'll mention this in the video. I'm also trying to add new binds by slimming down unnecessary ones.</li>
1301 <li>I've added only those layouts that I actually find most useful. There are a lot of meme-tier layouts on dwm which might be interesting, but I think are so practical. I've settled on 8 (bound to four keys) that I like, but I might slim that down or replace them if I find even better ones. I also have the fullscreen mode as well.</li>
1302 <li>Xresources/pywal compatibility</li>
1303 <li>A million other little things: gaps, a scrachpad, sticky windows... etc. etc.</li>
1304 </ul>
1305
1306 <p>Note that you will absolutely want to install <code>libxft-bgra</code> from the AUR to be able to run my build, since it allows color characters. If you aren't using an Arch distro, just install one and then get it from the AUR!</p>
1307
1308 <p>You'll also need the <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice/tree/master/.local/bin/statusbar">my statusbar scripts</a> for them to appear in the bar. These are the same that are used for i3blocks and as I said, they are just as clickable.</p>
1309 ]]></description>
1310 </item>
1311
1312
1313 <item>
1314 <title>Lincucks Fest has been canceled!</title>
1315 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#lincucks-fest-has-been-canceled</guid>
1316 <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:34:33 -0400</pubDate>
1317 <description><![CDATA[
1318 <P>Although I said around a month ago that I would be in Charlotte this year for Southeast Linuxfest, it looks like they have decided to cancel it! Sad!</p>
1319
1320 <p>If the world continues existence until 2021, I will still probably plan on going then.</p>
1321 ]]></description>
1322 </item>
1323
1324
1325 <item>
1326 <title>Font gone crazy in LARBS?</title>
1327 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#font-gone-crazy-in-larbs</guid>
1328 <pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2020 13:40:45 -0400</pubDate>
1329 <description><![CDATA[
1330 <p>An Arch update to <code>ttf-inconsolata</code> has temporarily broken the font.
1331 If you're a member of an Arch forum or IRC, I recommend notifying them/the developer of this.
1332 I don't have an account there.</p>
1333
1334 <p>
1335 Since Inconsolata is the default monospace in LARBS, I've been getting a lot of emails as to how to fix or patch this.
1336 Just change your default monospace font in <code>~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf</code> to another install monospace font.
1337 If you don't know what monospace fonts you have installed, list them with <code>fc-list | grep -i mono</code>.
1338 See our Github issue.
1339 </p>
1340
1341 <p><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS/issues/186">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS/issues/186</a></p>
1342 ]]></description>
1343 </item>
1344
1345
1346 <item>
1347 <title>What should be the default browser for LARBS?</title>
1348 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#what-should-be-the-default-browser-for-larbs</guid>
1349 <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:59:17 -0400</pubDate>
1350 <description><![CDATA[
1351 <p>I'll probably record a video on this tomorrow, but I might as well ask my blog audience first, <b>What should be the default web browser in LARBS?</b></p>
1352
1353 <p>Right now it's Brave, since that's what I do and it comes with a lot of features I consider basic already built in.
1354 The problem with nearly all web browsers is that it's pretty hard and annoying to put together "dotfiles" for them, a default profile that has sensible defaults.
1355 </p>
1356
1357 <p>
1358 Brave is especially nice because it comes with add-ons that block adds, redirect to HTTPS and add Tor and torrenting capabilities.
1359 But while sometimes Brave will prompt the user on first run for their preferred start engine, on some systems after running LARBS, it will just assume Google, which I absolutely want to avoid.
1360 </p>
1361
1362 <p>I'm sure you all have the agency to change your search engine to something more sensible, most use DuckduckGo (I prefer Searx), but when it comes to the default, the sileny majority is going to continue with the default idly, and I don't want to set them on the wrong path.
1363 Why even use Linux if you're just going to send everything straight to Google anyways?
1364 </p>
1365
1366 <h2>Possible browsers</h2>
1367
1368 <ul>
1369 <li>Brave – Again, great defaults, but Google might end up as the default search engine.</li>
1370 <li>Ungoogled-chromium – Possibly the safest bet, no cringe branding or bad policies, but it doesn't look like it has any search engine by default... That will be a big annoyance to novices.</li>
1371 <li>Palemoon – Manjaro i3 uses it, fast, good-looking, but it has an incestuous development team which has made... odd choices (`~/.moonchild productions/` makes me want to kms whenever I `ls -a`), but okay on privacy (weird startup screen, but could be worse). Bad/limited add-ons/extensions.</li>
1372 <li>Icecat – I'll admit it, two years, Icecat was absolutely unusable on pretty much all sites, but it looks like it's evened most everything out. Probably the best browser for raw privacy, but still probably the least usable since users have to keep in mind if they need to turn some script blocker off for a site, etc.</li>
1373 <li>qutebrowser – I haven't used it in years and I don't know if I want to get back into figuring it out for the third time, lol. I don't know where it is nowadays, but if I'm making normies use it, it's going to have to be able to play YouTube videos and without 400% CPU usage. qutebrowser does have the _massive_ advantage of __actually having dotfiles__ so I can easily change defaults.</li>
1374 <li>Waterfox – Well, a better form of Firefox on most fronts, but Bing is the default search engine.</li>
1375 </ul>
1376
1377 <h2>Premptive 'no' to the following</h2>
1378 <ul>
1379 <li>surf – Too much work for an individual, let alone managing one build to rule them all. There are cool suckless things you can do with it, but it's also just slow.</li>
1380 <li>Browsers I'm not familiar with (uzbl, luakit). I hear they're really cool, but for me to install it on other peoples' computers, I need to be organicly familiar with it. You'd have to convince me to use them individually first.</li>
1381 </ul>
1382
1383 <p>I'll also say, and I had never heard this take until I did my video on Brave, I obviously have no qualms about using a chromium-based browser. Apparently there are people out there who have the idea that source code is just magically evil if it was written by Google, even if it is 100% free and open source and well-audited.
1384 Anyway, share your opinions! What did I miss?</p>
1385
1386 <p>Email me what you think at <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a> and you might influence me before I record the video tomorrow morning.</p>
1387 ]]></description>
1388 </item>
1389
1390
1391 <item>
1392 <title>I'll be at Linuxfest Southeast June 12-14 in Charlotte, NC</title>
1393 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#ill-be-at-linuxfest-southeast-june-1214-in-charlotte-nc</guid>
1394 <pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2020 08:49:41 -0400</pubDate>
1395 <description><![CDATA[
1396 <p>I'll be at Linuxfest Southeast June 12-14, 2020 in Charlotte, NC. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6JXNZQwoYE">vid</a>).
1397 I'll probably be making some presentations as well.
1398 Although I missed the 2019 conference, I had gone in 2018 and it was a good experience.
1399 </p>
1400
1401 <p>If you're in the region, I recommend you come.
1402 I'll be commuting from a distance, but I expect it will be worth it.
1403 I met a lot of subscribers in 2018 (and there were many more who were too awkward to come up and greet me 😉).
1404 </p>
1405
1406 <p>Anyway, check out their website at <a href="https://southeastlinuxfest.org/">southeastlinuxfest.org</a>.
1407 I don't think they've opened sing-up for attendence, but I expect it to be in a month or so.</p>
1408
1409 <p>By the way, if you want to see my talk at the 2018 Linuxfest <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnCXJn2cRf4">the link is here: Linux Is the Wild West! And let it be that way!</a>.</p>
1410 ]]></description>
1411 </item>
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420 <item>
1421 <title>Big fix for the st/suckless 'Crash-On-Emoji' error</title>
1422 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#big-fix-for-the-stsuckless-crashonemoji-error</guid>
1423 <pubDate>Sat, 01 Feb 2020 16:53:04 -0500</pubDate>
1424 <description><![CDATA[
1425 <p>Suckless software has long been burdened by a peculiar error that causes crashes whenever trying to load a colored emoji.
1426 This has meant extreme annoyance for me and confusion for people who use my dotfiles.
1427 The only band-aid for this error has been just installing a font with good unicode coverage and hoping that monospace fonts dare not to print out colored emojis, and making a fontconfig that keeps it that way.</p>
1428
1429 <p>Recently, however, a fix has been posted to the AUR in the <code>libxft-bgra</code> package, which will hopefully become part of the Xft upstream soon.
1430 This will avoid the error, and allows unpatched st to view colored emojis without a problem.</p>
1431
1432 <p>I do a video on this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9qNXV01yzg">here</a>.</p>
1433
1434 <p>For those who use my dotfiles, update <em>everything</em>: the st build, the dwmblocks build if you use it, the dotfiles, etc. and install <code>libxft-bgra</code>.
1435 I had variously patched software to avoid these problems, but those patches have now been reverted to allow color emojis if you want them.</p>
1436 ]]></description>
1437 </item>
1438
1439
1440 <item>
1441 <title>New/old episode of Not Related! out: Every scientific paper you've read is wrong</title>
1442 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#newold-episode-of-not-related-out-every-scientific-paper-youve-read-is-wrong</guid>
1443 <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jan 2020 18:55:42 -0500</pubDate>
1444 <description><![CDATA[
1445 <p>That's only slightly a hyperbole.</p>
1446
1447 <p>I'm thinking about bringing back the podcast; it's probably the only old content I get <em>constant</em> requests to bring back. I'm already compiling stuff for a few new episodes for Season 2, which might actually include some joint episodes with people you may or may not know... We'll see!</p>
1448
1449 <p>Anyway, I finally finished and put up an episode I did in a stream months ago:
1450 <a href="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/notrelated/S01E08_-_The_Flaws_of_Academic_Statistics_the_Null_Ritual.mp3">The Flaws of Academic Statistics: the Null Ritual</a> which you can see
1451 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an0RFLzJ5Yo&list=PL-p5XmQHB_JQTeUxtGBI7sHCOOuY4qT-B&index=2&t=0s">on YouTube</a> as well.
1452 This episode is talks about some of the fundamental and acknowledged issues in how statistics is used in nearly all sciences.
1453 Nearly every science paper you've heard of in the popular press and in academia is built on flawed statistical footing.
1454 </p>
1455
1456 <p><a href="https://notrelated.xyz/rss">Add the podcast's RSS feed to your RSS reader!</a> You can also go to the podcast's webpage <a href="https://notrelated.xyz">https://notrelated.xyz</a> to get links to other services to get the episodes from (Spotify and Google if for some reason you do that stuff (just use RSS)).</p>
1457 ]]></description>
1458 </item>
1459
1460
1461 <item>
1462 <title>New video on new books</title>
1463 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2020.html#new-video-on-new-books</guid>
1464 <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:12:30 -0500</pubDate>
1465 <description><![CDATA[
1466 <p>I did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9cBFNbihFU">a video covering every book I got in 2019</a>.</p>
1467
1468 <p>Check it out, as
1469 some people often ask me what kind of books I tend to get.</p>
1470
1471 <p>You can also check out
1472 <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/library.html">my library page</a>
1473 at my website for a full inventory of my library if you have interest in that.</p>
1474 ]]></description>
1475 </item>
1476
1477
1478 <item>
1479 <title>Merry Christmas to all and a vid from the archives</title>
1480 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#merry-christmas-to-all-and-a-vid-from-the-archives</guid>
1481 <pubDate>Tue, 24 Dec 2019 13:14:01 -0500</pubDate>
1482 <description><![CDATA[
1483 <p>I've been on break for a while and am with family (and without my microphone and equipment), so I won't be putting out a video until after Christmas.</p>
1484
1485
1486
1487 <p>
1488 If you want to consoom some classic Luke Smith products in your downtime, YouTube, as is randomly does, has been re-recommending <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiMcX3Fa2Us">the video I put out quite some time ago on my experience living 2 full years without internet at home</a>.
1489 Come to think of it, I recommend you to watch it if you haven't, or haven't in a while.
1490 It touches on some themes we've been talking about recently on the channel.</p>
1491
1492 <p>
1493 Another older video you might want to see if you haven't is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjbyDU0WzYI">this one, on "upcummies" and the effects of social media</a>.
1494 </p>
1495
1496 <p>Anyway, I'm in Atlanta and will be back home probably the day after Christmas.</p>
1497
1498 <p>Merry Christmas to all, even (especially) to <a href="https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268">the haters and losers</a>!</p>
1499 ]]></description>
1500 </item>
1501
1502
1503 <item>
1504 <title>I'm thinking about using bspwm</title>
1505 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#im-thinking-about-using-bspwm</guid>
1506 <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2019 09:44:00 -0500</pubDate>
1507 <description><![CDATA[
1508 <p>Well my anprim internet just ruined another upload of a 3GB video... ;-) So I might as well give this little update to RSS/blog followers before I'm able to upload vids from a more stable location.</p>
1509
1510 <p>As I've said before, I saw thinking of making LARBS compatible with both i3-gaps and dwm.
1511 Both of them have their advantages: i3 is much more easy for newbs (and non-newbs, and non-weebs for that matter) to customize, while dwm's master and slave layout is pretty hard for me to give up despite the fact that its default statusbar is atrocious and comes with the non-unfounded fragility of some suckless applications.</p>
1512
1513 <p>On a whim, I decided to play around with bspwm over this weekend, and I've got to say that it has a lot of both... or really, it is so customizable that it can be extended to both.</p>
1514
1515 <p>
1516 If you don't know anything about bspwm,
1517 I'll direct you to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLZbk1-wwVA">a video by Wolfgang on bspwm, specifically comparing it with i3</a>
1518 (Although my informants tell me he is a GNOME-cuck or something nowadays or something ;-)—maybe I should try that?)
1519 </p>
1520
1521 <p>bspwm, unlike i3 and dwm is just a raw window manager (WM): it does not even have a unique status bar or keybinding system: you are expected to use a modular bar of your own choosing and a binding program like sxhkd to map what you need.</p>
1522
1523 <p>My setup is modular enough, in that I already have sxhkd for most my binds, including many scripts and even statusbar scripts that the change-over has been pretty quick.
1524 If I feel like bspwm is more stable and can get everything I want from i3 and everything I want for dwm, I might use it for good.
1525 </p>
1526
1527 <p>I've also dusted off the old polybar config, which I had barely modified before... and I've begun to add new modules, like those I made for i3blocks (which again is a pretty simple process due to the modularity of both).
1528 People always liked polybar more and many have been asking for it back, despite the fact that I did a post earlier this year or so on why I had stopped using it for LARBS' sake.</p>
1529 ]]></description>
1530 </item>
1531
1532
1533 <item>
1534 <title>Two more videos and important LARBS problem</title>
1535 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#two-more-videos-and-important-larbs-problem</guid>
1536 <pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2019 07:35:53 -0500</pubDate>
1537 <description><![CDATA[
1538 <p>I've put up two more videos in the past two days:</p>
1539
1540 <ul>
1541 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMSByvFHOro">Terminal vs. Bash vs. Command line vs. Prompt</a></li>
1542 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NJIj47Tusw">"Keep Politics out of Technology!" t. Boomer</a></li>
1543 </ul>
1544
1545 <p>Also, I've been unable to fix LARBS installs in the past several days for general business reasons and I need to test some things with respect to fonts.
1546 The main emoji font used by LARBS, ttf-symbola, has had its license changed and that is an upstream problem I need to find an alternative for.
1547 This is especially a problem because if unicode characters aren't rendering correctly, st especially has a tendency to crash when rendering them.
1548 If you install LARBS, run into this kind of problem and want to fix it, you'll have to find an alternative font yourself until I get the chance to find a permanent solution.</p>
1549 ]]></description>
1550 </item>
1551
1552
1553 <item>
1554 <title>I'm back! 6 new videos out and more coming...</title>
1555 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#im-back-6-new-videos-out-and-more-coming</guid>
1556 <pubDate>Sun, 01 Dec 2019 16:57:22 -0500</pubDate>
1557 <description><![CDATA[
1558 <p>I took advantage of my weeklong Thanksgiving break to get back in the loop of making some videos I've meant to for a while.
1559 In case you're too intelligent to use YouTube's subscribe feature, I'll link them all here.</p>
1560
1561 <p>Oh course, you can follow my YouTube feed directly with your RSS feed reader (i.e. without having to use YouTube subscription) via the url: <code>https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA</code>, but you knew that already ;).</p>
1562
1563 <ul>
1564 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACeQjDPOdDY">I DISAVOW the "Boomer" Meme (& LARBS Updates</a></li>
1565 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQx72j9Q3Y">HELP! LINUX NERDS keep BULLYING ME!!!</a></li>
1566 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH1GGI2Jpbs">Doing some real-world work in VIM!</a></li>
1567 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxA9Gyyu6Rg">Old ThinkPads are Computing Perfection (don't @ me)</a></li>
1568 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50p0Ao06cD0">Truly Great Black Friday for a Boomer Consoomer!</a></li>
1569 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82NBMvx6vFY">Only Linux Brainlets CAT into GREP!!!</a></li>
1570 </ul>
1571
1572 <p>I'll have more coming soon. K, keep yourself posted.</p>
1573 ]]></description>
1574 </item>
1575
1576
1577 <item>
1578 <title>Little neomutt fix for mutt-wizard users</title>
1579 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#little-neomutt-fix-for-muttwizard-users</guid>
1580 <pubDate>Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:26:02 -0500</pubDate>
1581 <description><![CDATA[
1582 <p>A recent update to neomutt is causing a warning message when neomutt is opened if you have used my <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">mutt-wizard</a> to set up your mail.
1583 I've already pushed a change that will fix it for new accounts, but you will have to manually make a change for accounts you have already added.</a>
1584
1585 <p>You should be able to fix the problem on installed accounts by running this:</p>
1586
1587 <pre><code>sed -i "s/^mailboxes =\w* =\\+ /mailboxes /" ~/.config/mutt/accounts/*</code></pre>
1588
1589 <p>The issue is that mutt-wizard has historically added "fake" mailboxes to mutt to make the account name appear in the corner of mutt.
1590 Due to an update, this is no longer possible. The above line deleted all those fake mailboxes in your config files. GNU utilities required.</p>
1591 ]]></description>
1592 </item>
1593
1594
1595 <item>
1596 <title>Video on the zsh or z shell, whatever the z stands for...</title>
1597 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#video-on-the-zsh-or-z-shell-whatever-the-z-stands-for</guid>
1598 <pubDate>Sat, 21 Sep 2019 15:06:14 -0400</pubDate>
1599 <description><![CDATA[
1600 <p>New video on zsh, as many have long requested.
1601 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLEo4OQ-cuQ">Watch/download it here.</a>
1602 </p>
1603
1604 <p>
1605 <a href="https://gist.githubusercontent.com/LukeSmithxyz/e62f26e55ea8b0ed41a65912fbebbe52/raw/2a93cca1ea82cecfc2bd6dcd2eff700a95c7581e/zshrc">Get my current zshrc here.</a>
1606 </p>
1607
1608 <p>I talk about some unique features of zsh that make it preferrable to bash (syntax highlighting and coloring, better tab completion), but also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2a7jJTh3kU">fish</a> and other shells.
1609 </p>
1610 ]]></description>
1611 </item>
1612
1613
1614 <item>
1615 <title>The Stallman stuff is cringe.</title>
1616 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-stallman-stuff-is-cringe</guid>
1617 <pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:59:17 -0400</pubDate>
1618 <description><![CDATA[
1619 <p>
1620 I put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWV3eC3Dr1Y">a new video</a> here about the Richard Stallman silliness.
1621 It probably means the end of the FSF in multiple tangible ways, although I suspect the organization will live on.
1622 If you know my view on things, I doubt it will seriously change things for better or worse.
1623 </p>
1624
1625 <p>
1626 As I say in the video, people who out of one mouth whine about the "SJW" takeover of technology, but have also have piled on Stallman are hypocritical.
1627 I don't really have any sympathy for Stallman either.
1628 If you live by leftist degeneracy, they'll be coming for you too eventually, and I'll be lolling.
1629 Stallman is just another guy who tried to "be reasonable" with people who are motivated singularly by <em>winning</em> and <em>getting what they want</em> in the public socio-political theater rather than by honesty and thinking things through.
1630 </p>
1631 ]]></description>
1632 </item>
1633
1634
1635 <item>
1636 <title>New crypto currency addresses</title>
1637 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#new-crypto-currency-addresses</guid>
1638 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:35:31 -0400</pubDate>
1639 <description><![CDATA[
1640 <p>As a note, I've changed by cryptocurrency donation addresses. You can see them on <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html#crypto">my crypto donation page</a>, but in short, they're now:</p>
1641
1642 <ul>
1643 <li>Bitcoin: 39Z2PRPXCiB7eFWQJPaoWChbAgmjmZYKRC</li>
1644 <li>Ethereum: 0x2f3D63580028b618f3204F01d156AB6A3E3470dB</li>
1645 <li>Litecoin: MSzeXUaBTAEdf6YEFK8NuFGcbbUvRqugUD</li>
1646 </ul>
1647
1648 <p>There are QR codes on <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html#crypto">the donate page</a> as well if you want to scan them visually.</p>
1649
1650 <p>I was just changing wallets for some optimization reasons. I've never bought any crypto myself, but I have accepted donations with it, but only a small handful.
1651 It was a little surprising to check them to see a significant rally: last time I checked several months ago, all my crypto wallets totalled to maybe $50, now they're $250+.
1652 We'll see how long that lasts though.
1653 </p>
1654
1655 <p>
1656 Either way, if you think crypto is going to rally or fall or do nothing, feel free to donate at any of the above addresses.
1657 If you want to donate with another currency, just say so and I'll add an address.
1658 I might list out a lot of them on that page in a bit because I do have other addresses, but I just haven't used them yet.
1659 </p>
1660
1661 <p>
1662 More big news soon though...
1663 Been working on some new projects, one of which I mentioned on Patreon earlier.
1664 </p>
1665 ]]></description>
1666 </item>
1667
1668
1669 <item>
1670 <title>You have 1 unread mail from the Unaboomer's cabin</title>
1671 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#you-have-1-unread-mail-from-the-unaboomers-cabin</guid>
1672 <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2019 19:59:46 -0400</pubDate>
1673 <description><![CDATA[
1674 <p>As I said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWpf4ZSAHBo">my most recent video several days ago</a>, I am moving (and now am completing moving) into a very rural place to a house/putative homestead which has due to memes been colloquially referred to as "the Unaboomer's Cabin". As I always say, it's not a cabin, but a full house, but this does mean pretty significant lifestyle changes for me and a new page for the channel as well. As I said in the video, I might not be able to easily upload videos for a short while until I get settled, but here are some updates:</p>
1675
1676 <ul>
1677 <li>I've moved my stuff to the house and am now going through a life's worth of papers, tools, books, furniture and everything else trying to decorate my house. In addition to my own stuff, there's a lot of furniture and other accouterments that came with the house and there is even more that my dad has been keeping in a nearby shed for extra storage. I'm collocating and organizing all of this</li>
1678 <li>I have more room than I've ever had, as you would hope. I have three (or depending on how you count four) bedrooms, one of which I'll be using as an office/studio. It will be nice for insomnia's sake to keep my electronics (which are internetless anyway) away from being a distraction in bed!</li>
1679 <li>I also have lots of land that I need to fully assess. My relative who lived here before didn't have so much of a garden, but did plant and maintain several useful plants (although some I don't even know!). There are definitely unattended grape plants/vines and some fruit-bearing trees.?</li>
1680 <li>It will be a day or two more before I'm done sorting all my stuff indoors and in the garage/workshop, but after that, the priority is making a garden. Many, including many of you suggested using raised beds, and I think I've decided to try them. It might be late to plant some things, but the growing season this far south is long, so I'll be consulting with some of my growing guides and people around for best practices.</li>
1681 <li>My internet is truly bad! I haven't even tried to upload videos yet, but text-based and (small) image based browsing is okay. Videos will buffer and will take a bit with youtube-dl. Luckily, I've designed my computer usage over minimizing bandwidth use for a day like this, but I still need to upload videos. I'll figure out the best way to do this soon. I also am going to need to get into the crawlspace to run an ethernet cord to my new office.</li>
1682 <li>I get no cell service in my house, and am further thinking of getting rid of my cell phone forever. There are other providers with better coverage here though, but I think I might go max-Boomer and just get a landline which obviously is infinitely more reliable.</li>
1683 <li>It was sad leaving my friends in Statesboro, but I will be going back at some point soon (there of course are things I left behind ;-) and other chores to do). It is nice all the things I do avoid here: like Zoomers blasting that Kanye/Lil Pump song every night at the club across the street. Won't miss that.</p>
1684 </ul>
1685
1686 <p>More updates and a video soon! I'm answering email a little more consistently now though due to the better workflow I have here though. I only have logged on maybe once or twice today though just for a bit because I'm still very busy.</p>
1687 ]]></description>
1688 </item>
1689
1690
1691 <item>
1692 <title>A script that automatically sets up your personal mail server</title>
1693 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-script-that-automatically-sets-up-your-personal-mail-server</guid>
1694 <pubDate>Mon, 27 May 2019 19:58:24 -0400</pubDate>
1695 <description><![CDATA[
1696 <p>My email should be back in commission as I've fully worked the kinks out of my new personal email server.</p>
1697
1698 <p>I have at least something to show for it that might be useful to people.</p>
1699
1700 <p>Long story short, after running into some nagging problems getting all the pieces to come together, I wrote a script in parallel that configured a Debian email server from the vanilla install with all the settings a normal human would need for personal email use.
1701 It installs and configures Postfix (SMTP), Dovecot (IMAP), Spam Assassin and OpenKDIM (so you don't get spammed yourself).
1702 Check it out on Github:</p>
1703
1704 <p><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/emailwiz">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/emailwiz</a></p>
1705
1706 <p>So now my email is working and in the end, I configured it without manually editing a single file!</p>
1707
1708 <p>Check the readme, but I encourage you to follow the steps and try it out on your own server if you've been looking to host your own email.
1709 The requirements are listed.
1710 I might do a video on this, maybe even tomorrow, so if anyone wants to get ahead of the curve and try it out and see if it works, feel free to give me feedback.</p>
1711
1712 <p>I suspect it will work on Ubuntu as well, but I don't have a server to try it out on.
1713 Even if it doesn't I'll be adding more documentation and comments to the script to make it a useful instructional to read.</p>
1714
1715 <p>Work with mutt-wizard obviously too and that's my new email setup.</p>
1716 ]]></description>
1717 </item>
1718
1719
1720 <item>
1721 <title>Email is still down</title>
1722 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#email-is-still-down</guid>
1723 <pubDate>Sun, 26 May 2019 15:51:48 -0400</pubDate>
1724 <description><![CDATA[
1725 <p>My email adjustments are lasting longer than expected. Right now, if you send an email to me, it will be sucked up into oblivion without an error message.</p>
1726
1727 <p>I am, as you may be able to guess, moving to a new (personal) email server. For a part of late yesterday everything was finally working, but there are some other components I'm working to add in that will again, make my email inaccessible.
1728 As anyone who has done a mail server before knows, there are a lot of annoying moving pieces that go into one, some I'm making sure that everything is just as I need it.</p>
1729
1730 <p>I'll give a public blog post when I'm done with everything just in case someone needs something. If you really need to contact me, you can contact me via my University of Arizona email (lukesmith@email.arizona.edu).</p>
1731 ]]></description>
1732 </item>
1733
1734
1735 <item>
1736 <title>Possible mail downage today</title>
1737 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#possible-mail-downage-today</guid>
1738 <pubDate>Fri, 24 May 2019 13:06:41 -0400</pubDate>
1739 <description><![CDATA[
1740 <p>I'm messing around with my email setup today, so there's a possibility that if you sent me a mail today, it might get lost. Be aware.
1741 Everything should be back to normal by tomorrrow.</p>
1742 ]]></description>
1743 </item>
1744
1745
1746 <item>
1747 <title>LARBS is going throught significant changes</title>
1748 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#larbs-is-going-throught-significant-changes</guid>
1749 <pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2019 16:09:13 -0400</pubDate>
1750 <description><![CDATA[
1751 <p>I'm making significant changes to my dotfiles repos and LARBS, so I wanted to give people a heads up about it.
1752 It's possible (probable?) that there will be some breakage (now and soon) because there are a lot of moving pieces that have moved around.
1753 Here are the changes coming soon:</p>
1754
1755 <ul>
1756 <li>There will be a new version of LARBS, which will eventually be the default if everything works smoothly.
1757 I will maintain the current version for Arch Linux using i3-gaps, but I will be adding another version for <strong>Void Linux that runs dwm</strong>.
1758 </li>
1759 <li>Reflecting some of the movements to mutal compatibility I moved keybinds from the main i3 config to <code>~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc</code> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ClckQzJTlk">as I discussed in my video today</a>) and moved some startup scripts to <code>~/.xinitrc</code>.</li>
1760 <li><code>~/.scripts/</code> in the repo is now <code>~/.local/bin/</code> to be XDG compliant and save you one extra element in your home directory.</li>
1761 <li>I've moved things around in <a href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/larbs">the LARBS repository</a> as well, and this could interfere with the <a href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS website</a> and how it redirects requests, but everything seems to be in order.</li>
1762 </ul>
1763
1764 <p>So every one of these developments bode well, but all can cause temporary breakage!
1765 If you run into a problem install LARBS, you will not be bothering me to email it to me.
1766 I would appreciate people to test it if you have a spare machine/VM as well, but I'm a little burdened right now.
1767 I'll be testing in a bit.</p>
1768
1769 <p>Note that the Void Linux/dwm version of LARBS is not supposed to be working yet. I'm still on the basic level with that. The Arch/i3 version hopefully should be still fine though.</p>
1770 ]]></description>
1771 </item>
1772
1773
1774 <item>
1775 <title>Luke's Digest: Mid May</title>
1776 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#lukes-digest-mid-may</guid>
1777 <pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2019 11:59:31 -0400</pubDate>
1778 <description><![CDATA[
1779 <p>Here's a brief list of updates in case you missed them:</p>
1780
1781 <ul>
1782 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnbmwxYi18I">"Bash is Bloated!"</a>: What's the difference between bash and POSIX sh and why is important for everyone serious about scripting and systems administration?</li>
1783 <li>/g/eaboos are SEETHING: cringe and blue-pilled Boomer defends known NSA honeypot systemd: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IglXPVJ98t0">first video in the woods</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ljfOCiP0XM">second more detailed video indoors</a>.</li>
1784 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ClckQzJTlk">How to bind keys in Linux univerrsally, independent of your WM/DE.</a> This is the first (public) video I've ever recorded in dwm. (<a href="https://patreon.com/lukesmith">Boomer patrons</a> will have access to the true first...</a>)</li>
1785 <li>I did a meme review live stream with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZrrEuHiQjN2CUo84g5tk7w">tripcode!Q/7</a>; Parts <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3srWoHZ9hU8">1</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn1hL5SKvgU">2</a></li>
1786 <li>In other news, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ayb1-4jeBw">YouTube retroactively marks <em>every</em> post with the word "cuck" in it as spam</a>. I've had to manually approve hundreds of comments from years ago dabbing on Wordcucks... The change is still ongoing and more and more comments are being flagged as spam.</li>
1787 </ul>
1788
1789 <p>In other news, I've deleted the section on my <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/programs.html">programs page</a> on my website talking about why I don't use dwm...</a>
1790 ]]></description>
1791 </item>
1792
1793
1794 <item>
1795 <title>Technology meme review stream</title>
1796 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#technology-meme-review-stream</guid>
1797 <pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2019 16:26:07 -0400</pubDate>
1798 <description><![CDATA[
1799 <p>A the (potentially last) one of my streams before leaving my stable internet connection, I'll be doing a stream with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZrrEuHiQjN2CUo84g5tk7w">tripcode!Q/7</a>.</p>
1800
1801 <p>We will be leafing through a folder of technology memes are reviewing and responding to them.</p>
1802
1803 <p>Don't even ask, I'm not uploading them!</p>
1804 ]]></description>
1805 </item>
1806
1807
1808 <item>
1809 <title>Stream with Kris Occhipinti</title>
1810 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#stream-with-kris-occhipinti</guid>
1811 <pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 19:30:11 -0400</pubDate>
1812 <description><![CDATA[
1813 <p>Me and <a href="https://filmsbykris.com">Kris Occhipinti</a> are doing a stream around now. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njkfK4iq9N8">Here's the link!</a></p>
1814 ]]></description>
1815 </item>
1816
1817
1818 <item>
1819 <title>Who needs a mouse to copy output? The extensibility of st</title>
1820 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#who-needs-a-mouse-to-copy-output-the-extensibility-of-st</guid>
1821 <pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 13:33:47 -0400</pubDate>
1822 <description><![CDATA[
1823 <p>Check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E9bO5ZURcs" target="_blank">this new video</a>. It could change everything ;-).</p>
1824
1825 <p>Jaywalker suggested adding a new ability to my st build: let the user choose a previously run command via dmenu and copy its output to the clipboard.
1826 This is something that you often want to do, but I never thought could be easily added to a terminal. He suggested using <a href="https://st.suckless.org/patches/externalpipe/" target="_blank">externalpipe</a>, which outputs all the visible text, which I already use to follow url links on the command line.</p>
1827
1828 <p>We worked on it a bit last night and this morning and came up with a little script that when run from st, will give you a dmenu prompt of all commands run, and once you choose one, xclip will copy that command and all its output to your clipboard to easily paste anywhere else for troubleshooting, sharing or for anything else.</p>
1829
1830 <p><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/st">Get my st build here.</a> It has all this built into it.</p>
1831 ]]></description>
1832 </item>
1833
1834
1835 <item>
1836 <title>Send me all your suckless surf hacks!</title>
1837 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#send-me-all-your-suckless-surf-hacks</guid>
1838 <pubDate>Sat, 04 May 2019 11:35:52 -0400</pubDate>
1839 <description><![CDATA[
1840 <p>I'm going to probably be doing a video on suckless sent relatively soon, showing it off and some of the patches on suckless's website.
1841 If you use surf, or have had any smart ideas in your own build of it, feel free to go ahead and mention them to me and I might give you a shoutout!</p>
1842
1843 <p>Usually I do a video on something, and obviously afterwards people will volunteer their ideas for the program, but this time, I want to be ahead of the curve. ;-)</p>
1844
1845 <p>luke@lukesmith.xyz</p>
1846 ]]></description>
1847 </item>
1848
1849
1850 <item>
1851 <title>Looking for a comprehensive book on gardening and planting (best if #Lindy too)</title>
1852 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#looking-for-a-comprehensive-book-on-gardening-and-planting-best-if-lindy-too</guid>
1853 <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2019 19:45:56 -0400</pubDate>
1854 <description><![CDATA[
1855 <p>Come June, I'll be moving to a rural environment with plenty of space, and as soon as possible, I'll be starting a garden that will hopefully be able to produce all the produce I need in perpetuity, although I obviously expect a lot of set-up time and effort.</p>
1856
1857 <p>
1858 The thing is, there are a lot of ins-and-outs and details that I just don't know about growing a garden: what is best to plant when, what plants reinforce others, how long does a plant take to get to maturity.
1859 I'd like a physical book reference with all the major details for growing the most common fruits and vegetables, possibly along with other information that I don't even know that I don't know.
1860 </p>
1861
1862 <p>
1863 I'm curious if there is "that book" out there for gardening and planting. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to email me it (luke@lukesmith.xyz).
1864 It would be extremely handy to have such a book to leaf through and use as a reference.
1865 </p>
1866
1867 <p>I suspect that there is one out there, probably a very #Lindy book too.
1868 That is, don't send me some meme book published two years ago by a quirky gardening YouTuber with a glossed and plastic cover printed by Amazon, send me what that tried-and-true dusty manual is loved by old pre-Boomers.
1869 </p>
1870 ]]></description>
1871 </item>
1872
1873
1874 <item>
1875 <title>Luke 'Digest' for this week</title>
1876 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#luke-digest-for-this-week</guid>
1877 <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2019 07:53:07 -0400</pubDate>
1878 <description><![CDATA[
1879 <p>I haven't been puttin up RSS feed links for my new releases in a couple days, but there have been several!
1880 If you've missed any of these episodes, be sure to check them out:
1881 </p>
1882
1883 <ul>
1884 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYbJCqpPS4" target="_blank">A video on my torrenting setup with transmission</a></li>
1885 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ent5g6_gnik" target="_blank">"Why All Teaching Is Ineffective", self-explanitory</a></li>
1886 <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCVdCS0t46I" target="_blank">A video on common misunderstandings of the "Chinese Room Experiment" as it's used to talk about problems of consciousness and cognition in humans and potentially machines</a></li>
1887 </ul>
1888
1889 <p>I will also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKkIqzvsdDY" target="_blank">be starting a stream at 9AM my time</a>. That's in about an hour of when I'm writing this. Not quite sure how long it will last, but we'll say it's to 'celebrate' the achievement of 50,000 subscribers.</a>
1890 ]]></description>
1891 </item>
1892
1893
1894 <item>
1895 <title>Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal (also another Chad-piping video)</title>
1896 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#everything-i-want-to-do-is-illegal-also-another-chadpiping-video</guid>
1897 <pubDate>Sun, 28 Apr 2019 09:49:15 -0400</pubDate>
1898 <description><![CDATA[
1899 <p>Late yesterday I put up a follow-up video to Friday's video on piping: the update is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_37upFE-qw">here</a>. I give a pratical example of two of the biggest pitfalls for cli newbies: problems with spacing and understanding streams. We write a command that gives you a choice of all videos in a directory from which you can select and watch one.</p>
1900
1901
1902 <p>I also just released a video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRNKjQg6y-c">"Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal"</a> on the book by Joel Salatin by the same name.
1903 Superficially, it might not sound too relevant to too many of my subscribers' interests, but I think you'll find it pretty important.</p>
1904 ]]></description>
1905 </item>
1906
1907
1908 <item>
1909 <title>Layin' down Pipes like a Unix Chad</title>
1910 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#layin-down-pipes-like-a-unix-chad</guid>
1911 <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:14:28 -0400</pubDate>
1912 <description><![CDATA[
1913 <p>New video up today: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E8sUNHdzG8" target="_blank">"Layin' down Pippes like a Unix Chad"</a>.</p>
1914
1915 <p>It's a simple demonstration of the elegance of pipe-based commands and drawing userinterface from them: using a single line of shell script, I produce a list of all manuals on the system, ask the user to choose one and pop up a pdf rendering of that manual page.</p>
1916
1917 <p>The specific use-case might be useful to some, but that's actually not the importance of the video. It's really an attempt to make the usefulness and intuitiveness of editing text streams clear.</p>
1918 ]]></description>
1919 </item>
1920
1921
1922 <item>
1923 <title>ACSHUALLY... Some even better mutt-wizard changes!</title>
1924 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#acshually-some-even-better-muttwizard-changes</guid>
1925 <pubDate>Sun, 21 Apr 2019 22:36:58 -0400</pubDate>
1926 <description><![CDATA[
1927 <p>I've actually just revised the mutt-wizard in another important respect; this isn't much on the backend, but actually makes it a lot easier to use and install.</p>
1928
1929 <p>Instead of being a script you just have to keep in your mutt folder along with companion files, you can now just clone the repo and permanently <code>sudo make install</code> it.</p>
1930
1931 <p>Instead of being an interactive loop, it's now a command you run like this: <code>mw init</code> once to initialize the files, then <code>mw add</code> to add an email account, etc. etc. That official mutt-wizard script, <code>mw</code>, is installed in your path now, along with <code>mailsync</code> allowing you to easily run them wherever and treat them like noraml programs.</p>
1932
1933 <p>Also, the template muttrc, mailcap and the domains.csv are held in <code>/usr/share/mutt-wizard</code> so you don't have to worry about them cluttering your personal mutt folder proper.</p>
1934
1935 <p>Not quite sure why I didn't do this before, but now it should be even easier.</p>
1936 ]]></description>
1937 </item>
1938
1939
1940 <item>
1941 <title>mutt-wizard 2.0 release (everything is better and easier)</title>
1942 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#muttwizard-20-release-everything-is-better-and-easier</guid>
1943 <pubDate>Sun, 21 Apr 2019 15:58:27 -0400</pubDate>
1944 <description><![CDATA[
1945 <p>Some of you had already tried out the new version of mutt-wizard on Gitlab, but I've now <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard" target="_blank">release it on the Github repository as well</a>. mutt-wizard has always be able to:</p>
1946
1947 <ul>
1948 <li>Access your mail on the command line without having to set anything up. It looks pretty and has sensible default settings.</li>
1949 <li>Optionally download, store and sync your email offline, so you can browse your email with no latency and read and write replies while offline.</li>
1950 <li>Securely encrypt all your passwords with GPG so you don't have dangerous plaintext floating around or to avoid typing your passwords in constantly.</li>
1951 <li>Configs for neomutt, isync and msmtp automatically generated based on your server settings, which in many cases, mutt-wizard already knows.</li>
1952 </ul>
1953
1954 <p>Here are some of the biggest changes in mutt-wizard that make it much better now:</p>
1955
1956 <ul>
1957 <li>The original mutt-wizard required three annoying steps for each account: (1) data input, then (2) the user manually running offlineimap and then (3) running the script again to finalize boxes. Wow that was dumb. <b>isync now enables all the configuration to happen in one quick sitting as fast as you can type your info in.</b></li>
1958 <li>You now have the option of <strong>not</strong> keeping mail offline, in case you don't want that.</li>
1959 <li>Passwords are now saved with <code>pass</code>, which avoids some headaches.</li>
1960 <li><code>dialog</code> is no longer used as user-interface.</li>
1961 <li>More error handling, but also less errors.</li>
1962 </ul>
1963
1964 <p>Check the link above to get it. Be sure to read the README for how to use it.</p>
1965 ]]></description>
1966 </item>
1967
1968
1969 <item>
1970 <title>'The Right Side of History' is a Spook. On Whig History and Self-deception.</title>
1971 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-right-side-of-history-is-a-spook-on-whig-history-and-selfdeception</guid>
1972 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Apr 2019 16:13:09 -0400</pubDate>
1973 <description><![CDATA[
1974 <p>I've put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybWUK1dGRm8" target="_blank">a new Lunchtime with Luke episode</a>, this one on the (dumb) idea that there is a natural and unavoidable trend to history.</p>
1975
1976 <p>Every ideology convinces itself of its inevitability.
1977 In this video, I talk about the myth of inevitability: in the Third Reich with Rosenberg's <em>Myth of the Twentieth Century</em>, in Marxism, in the "End of History" in Liberal Democracy and more.
1978 Check it out!</p>
1979 ]]></description>
1980 </item>
1981
1982
1983 <item>
1984 <title>Get all your email offline for archiving, mutt, etc: Using isync</title>
1985 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#get-all-your-email-offline-for-archiving-mutt-etc-using-isync</guid>
1986 <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:58:07 -0400</pubDate>
1987 <description><![CDATA[
1988 <p>New video up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR9zk3xz5SA" target="_blank">here</a>, where I talk about how to use isync (mbsync), which is a extensible program for downloading mail from any mail server or host to your computer.
1989 </p>
1990
1991 <p>I use isync in my daily email workflow to read mail locally with mutt (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4g-du1MIas" target="_blank">as I talked about in the video on terminal applications yesterday</a>).
1992 This not only acts as a backup, but allows email to be loaded and modified instantaneously, and I can run typical Unix commands on the mail directories that it creates.
1993 My mail module in my status bar, which displays unread mail is based on this for example.
1994 </p>
1995
1996 <p>In the video, I also briefly mention how to set up mutt to read this mail.
1997 It's actually as easily as setting the <code>folder</code> variable to the mail directory.</p>
1998 ]]></description>
1999 </item>
2000
2001
2002 <item>
2003 <title>Is the terminal just for hipsters? Also, livestream soon.</title>
2004 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#is-the-terminal-just-for-hipsters-also-livestream-soon</guid>
2005 <pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2019 16:15:48 -0400</pubDate>
2006 <description><![CDATA[
2007 <p>I put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4g-du1MIas" target="_blank">this video</a> an hour or so ago, answering some user questions on the terminal usage is so important, and why I often give instructionals for mostly cli/tui/terminal program.</p>
2008
2009 <p>I'll also be having <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl9JEsTSWwM" target="_blank">a livestream</a> at the top of the next hour! (about 45 minutes from when I'm writing this). Tune in!</p>
2010
2011 <p>I'll probably be having Rudy on the stream again. You can donate or send messages during the stream or whenever <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html" target="_blank">by going here</a>.</p>
2012 ]]></description>
2013 </item>
2014
2015
2016 <item>
2017 <title>Video on basic configuration of mutt/neomutt</title>
2018 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#video-on-basic-configuration-of-muttneomutt</guid>
2019 <pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2019 12:13:24 -0400</pubDate>
2020 <description><![CDATA[
2021 <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jMInHnpNfQ" target="_blank">New video on setting up mutt/neomutt.</a></p>
2022
2023 <p>I've actually done several mutt-related videos in the past, but none detailing the basics of how you actually go about configuring it from step 1.
2024 I might make some related videos in the future, mainly about using isync to backup email offline.</p>
2025
2026 <p>If you want to use mutt, but don't have the time to bother with it, I've made a mutt-wizard which I've actually been revising recently.
2027 </p>
2028 <ul>
2029 <li><a href="https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</a></li>
2030 <li><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</a></li>
2031 </ul>
2032
2033 <p>The Gitlab version is more recent, and uses <code>isync</code> as a backend with many improvements.
2034 The Github version I'll be taking out of commission soon, but it's better tested as of now.
2035 Check the README for information and try it out for yourself!</p>
2036 ]]></description>
2037 </item>
2038
2039
2040 <item>
2041 <title>How to mount and access Android phones on Linux computers</title>
2042 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#how-to-mount-and-access-android-phones-on-linux-computers</guid>
2043 <pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2019 12:06:13 -0400</pubDate>
2044 <description><![CDATA[
2045 <p>Short video out today, but one on a commonly asked question: how do you mount, access and sync an Android phone on Linux?</p>
2046
2047 <p>Check out the video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcmJg4OfKzs" target="_blank">here</a>. I'll show you how I use <code>simple-mtpfs</code>, and how I automate the process with dmenu.</p>
2048 ]]></description>
2049 </item>
2050
2051
2052 <item>
2053 <title>Pretty funny clip of Alex Jones harrassed by Boomer liberal</title>
2054 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#pretty-funny-clip-of-alex-jones-harrassed-by-boomer-liberal</guid>
2055 <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 12:33:18 -0400</pubDate>
2056 <description><![CDATA[
2057 <p>
2058 As you may know, I occasionally listen to Coast to Coast AM, which is an American late-night conspiracy and paranormal radio show.
2059 Alex Jones was interviewed a couple days ago, and he got a pretty funny call-in listener harrass him.
2060 </p>
2061
2062 <p>
2063 It's pretty short. I uploaded it so you can check it out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjVdvIVF_HY" target="_blank">here</a>.
2064 </p>
2065
2066 <p>
2067 Coast to Coast viewers can be pretty crazy, but this is definitely the craziest one I ever remember hearing!
2068 </p>
2069 ]]></description>
2070 </item>
2071
2072
2073 <item>
2074 <title>Why prefer free and open source software?</title>
2075 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-prefer-free-and-open-source-software</guid>
2076 <pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 12:09:57 -0400</pubDate>
2077 <description><![CDATA[
2078 <p>I've put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btHano6wHgA" target="_blank">this video</a>, where I answer a common question I get: Why should a normal person care about free/libre and open source software?</p>
2079
2080 <p>I put it as a response to an email I got, which makes some seemingly good points for not caring about the difference, so I state give a rejoinder and explanation.</p>
2081 ]]></description>
2082 </item>
2083
2084
2085 <item>
2086 <title>Tagging Ogg or Opus files?</title>
2087 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#tagging-ogg-or-opus-files</guid>
2088 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2019 13:17:06 -0400</pubDate>
2089 <description><![CDATA[
2090 <p>I actually mentioned this on the last stream with Rudy, but despite .ogg and .opus audio files being generally very compressed, while retaining good audio quality, I don't know of any simple command line tools for tagging them.
2091 If anyone does, keep me posted about them! I've tried most of the stuff in the Arch repos and the AUR, and I can't find something that doesn't require some GUI that loads the required library, or requires you to tag while encoding.
2092 </p>
2093
2094 <p>As I think Rudy said, ncmpcpp doesn't have the ability to tag these files either, and I suppose some other library is either required or unintigrated into it.</p>
2095
2096 <p>I've put this on <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html#oggtag" target="_blank">the Hacking Wishlist</a>, but hopefully the solution is something simple and obvious.</p>
2097 ]]></description>
2098 </item>
2099
2100
2101 <item>
2102 <title>Bibliographical references for LaTeX, groff and pandoc without the effort</title>
2103 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#bibliographical-references-for-latex-groff-and-pandoc-without-the-effort</guid>
2104 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2019 12:23:33 -0400</pubDate>
2105 <description><![CDATA[
2106 <p> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksAfmJfdub0" target="_blank">New video out on how I autocreate bibliographic citations.</a>
2107 I like to abstrain from writing out references, not just for fear of error, but because with some multi-author papers, it can take forever.
2108 In this video, I show how to use an article's DOI to get its full citation perfectly from an online database.
2109 </p>
2110
2111 <p>
2112 I'll also link <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO4T8JDNYG0" target="_blank">this video</a> that I mention (by Conner McDaniel) from which I lifted the idea of using Crossref's APIs to get bibtex citations.
2113 The links to the script in question are in the video description (too lazy to paste here :-)).
2114 </p>
2115 ]]></description>
2116 </item>
2117
2118
2119 <item>
2120 <title>Exclusive Boomers Only Content!</title>
2121 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#exclusive-boomers-only-content</guid>
2122 <pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2019 12:06:10 -0400</pubDate>
2123 <description><![CDATA[
2124 <p>I've just put out a brief video talking about <a href="https://www.patreon.com/lukesmith" target="_blank">the new chad-tier content levels on my Patreon</a>.
2125 Note that if you refuse to use Patreon, you can still get the perks by donating and providing your email.
2126 </p>
2127
2128 <ul>
2129 <li>Soydev level: Will be able to see some behind the scenes vids and if I bring back the forum, you'll be invited</li>
2130 <li>Zoomer level: Same as above, but also get access to my Mumble server and be able to chat with me and others there.</li>
2131 <li>Boomer level: Mumble access and the "Dispatches from the Unaboomer's Cabin" series, on my on-going process of going /innawoods/ (series starts April 15th)</li>
2132 <li>Chad leve: Mumble access, "Dispatches" series, and the ability to come onto livestreams and direct discussion</li>
2133 </ul>
2134
2135 <p>
2136 See the video <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/ulciVZ-XbhM">here</a>!
2137 </p>
2138 ]]></description>
2139 </item>
2140
2141
2142 <item>
2143 <title>Starting a Mumble server and 'Unaboomer Cabin' series</title>
2144 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#starting-a-mumble-server-and-unaboomer-cabin-series</guid>
2145 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Apr 2019 15:25:27 -0400</pubDate>
2146 <description><![CDATA[
2147 <p>I'm going to start offering elite stuff to donators:
2148 <ul>
2149
2150 <li>I've started a Mumble server, which allows people to talk to me directly via audio and text. People who donate $10 a month will get access to it.</li>
2151 <li>I'll be starting a "Dispatches from the Unaboomer's Cabin" series, covering my ongoing quest to move /innawoods/. The first episode(s) will go up at least by early next week. Donate $25 in a month to see the updates.</li>
2152 <li>People who are chad enough to donate $50 a month will get all that stuff, and also an invitation onto the livestream. So we can talk live on air and you can move the discussion without me brushing aside your $2 superchat ;-).</li>
2153 <li>There are many unreleased videos I've had over the years or other content that is more private or just not necessarily YouTube material. I'll be making a lot of one-off stuff available to different tiers.</li>
2154 </ul>
2155
2156 <p>
2157 <a href="https://www.patreon.com/lukesmith" target="_blank">Go to Patreon to join now.</a> The Mumble passwords will be up in a couple days (actually maybe later today if everything goes right).
2158 </p>
2159
2160 <p>
2161 If you don't have or don't want to get a Patreon, if you say you want one of the perks in the comment of a Paypal or Zelle donation (be sure to include your email too), I will give you that month's password.
2162 <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html">All donation methods are listed here.</a>
2163 That's a little more work for me though, so Patreon is preferred at this point.
2164 </p>
2165
2166 <p>I'll also say what I did in the Patreon post: I am looking at some open source equivalents to Patreon that can be run on my own server.
2167 In the future, I might switch to one of these if I can get them to do everything I need, but if I do, everything on Patreon will carry over, so don't sweat it.
2168 </p>
2169
2170 <p>I'll probably do a video saying all this tomorrow or the next day when I have the chance, but I wanted to offer it to RSS chads first of course.</p>
2171 ]]></description>
2172 </item>
2173
2174
2175 <item>
2176 <title>Before I get to deep into this... Does this exist already?</title>
2177 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#before-i-get-to-deep-into-this-does-this-exist-already</guid>
2178 <pubDate>Sun, 07 Apr 2019 20:04:42 -0400</pubDate>
2179 <description><![CDATA[
2180 <p>I'm going to start giving perks, extra videos, personal vlogs and reviews and Mumble server access to people who support me monetarily.
2181 I do have <a href="https://www.patreon.com/lukesmith" target="_blank">a Patreon</a>, which you can support me on, but I've never really done much more than start one, only posted for a brief period and just sort not delete it.
2182 I've never made a fuss about it and I've been at the same level of support for more than a year which is basically just some monthy groecery income, which is nice, but I'd like to start earning more and I have some stuff to offer now.
2183 Obviously I'm not a big fan of Patreon's past behavior, I will use them if needbe, but I was curious about a server-side equivalent.
2184 </p>
2185
2186 <p>
2187 I'd like this: a service I can host on my own website that allows users to log in and will verify that they've donated X ammount in the last month by Zelle or Paypal or whatever.
2188 If so, it will give them access to extra content.
2189 As far as I'm concerned, this would be <em>better</em> than Patreon just because it cuts out the Middle Man.
2190 </p>
2191
2192 <p>It isn't too difficult to make password-protected content on a webserver, nor is it too hard to create usernames and passwords for people.
2193 I'm more thinking of if there is a service that can verify a payment.
2194 </p>
2195
2196 <p>If there's nothing quite like this and I can't come across a quick way to do it myself, I'll just end up using Patreon.</p>
2197
2198 <p>By the way, thanks to all of you who answered my previous question about redirecting traffic from a particular source.
2199 Apparently you can refer to a <code>%{HTTP_REFERER}</code> in a RewriteCond. I knew it was something obvious!</p>
2200 ]]></description>
2201 </item>
2202
2203
2204 <item>
2205 <title>Blocking links from certain websites on an Apache web server?</title>
2206 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#blocking-links-from-certain-websites-on-an-apache-web-server</guid>
2207 <pubDate>Sat, 06 Apr 2019 15:04:39 -0400</pubDate>
2208 <description><![CDATA[
2209 <p>
2210 This might be a strange request, but I was looking for an elegant way to block or redirect traffic to my website from certain websites.
2211 I'm running an Apache webserver.
2212 </p>
2213
2214 <p>
2215 I've been playing around with the documentation for htaccess etc., but can't find anything exactly like what I'm looking for.
2216 </p>
2217
2218 <p>
2219 As an example, let's say I want to ban all traffic from R*ddit or 4gag and redirect links from those sites to an error page. How would I go about doing this?
2220 I'm not sure if it's possible without resorting to Soydet-tier server-side scripts, but I might be wrong.
2221 </p>
2222 ]]></description>
2223 </item>
2224
2225
2226 <item>
2227 <title>Boomer vs. Doomer Livestream Starting Imminently!</title>
2228 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-vs-doomer-livestream-starting-imminently</guid>
2229 <pubDate>Sat, 06 Apr 2019 11:58:00 -0400</pubDate>
2230 <description><![CDATA[
2231 <p>
2232 I'm doing a stream with <a href="http://www.rudyghill.com">Rudy Hill</a>, we'll be starting soon!
2233 </p>
2234
2235 <p>
2236 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8AqU9XyI4">The Link Is Here!</a>
2237 </p>
2238 ]]></description>
2239 </item>
2240
2241
2242 <item>
2243 <title>Using shuf and $RANDOM for randomization in the command line</title>
2244 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#using-shuf-and-random-for-randomization-in-the-command-line</guid>
2245 <pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2019 18:16:19 -0400</pubDate>
2246 <description><![CDATA[
2247 <p>I put out a video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJBCfpFT_E" target="_blank">here</a> on getting random numbers and randomizing files in the Linux command line. I talk about:</p>
2248
2249 <ul>
2250 <li>/dev/urandom/</li>
2251 <li><code>$RANDOM</code> in bash</li>
2252 <li><code>shuf</code> in GNU/Linux</li>
2253 </ul>
2254
2255 <p>Check it out! I don't think I mentioned it, but <code>shuf</code> can also take standard input!</p>
2256 ]]></description>
2257 </item>
2258
2259
2260 <item>
2261 <title>Boomer rants in woods about koding these days</title>
2262 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-rants-in-woods-about-koding-these-days</guid>
2263 <pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2019 11:13:32 -0400</pubDate>
2264 <description><![CDATA[
2265 <p>New video up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7lG4bont7g">here</a>, I talk about the Soydev problem, and how the evermore superficial general standard of programming knowlede among "devs" is counteracting developments in processing power.</p>
2266 ]]></description>
2267 </item>
2268
2269
2270 <item>
2271 <title>Minor dunst ugliness/breakage on update in LARBS</title>
2272 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#minor-dunst-uglinessbreakage-on-update-in-larbs</guid>
2273 <pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:34:15 -0400</pubDate>
2274 <description><![CDATA[
2275 <p>If you're using LARBS/my dotfiles and noticed that some of the statusbar info pages (accessible on right-click) are not properly parsing markup as bold, and thus are showing tags like <b>, etc., this is because a new update to dunst.</p>
2276
2277 <p>If it annoys you, it can be easily fixed by updating the dotfiles to some changes I just pushed to the <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/voidrice">voidrice</a> repo.</p>
2278
2279 <p>Both the dunst config file and the statusbar scripts have been adjusted to the new changed.</p>
2280 ]]></description>
2281 </item>
2282
2283
2284 <item>
2285 <title>Clear your RSS cache; error fix</title>
2286 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#clear-your-rss-cache-error-fix</guid>
2287 <pubDate>Sun, 31 Mar 2019 21:00:42 -0400</pubDate>
2288 <description><![CDATA[
2289 <p>It was only just reported to me that the GUIDs generated by my RSS feeds weren't directly correctly, and haven't been for a while. I've fixed the problem in the <code>lb</code> repository in the future, but to fix it retroactively, I've changed the problematic GUIDs of my previous blog entries.</p>
2290
2291 <p>So this probably means that many, many of my previous blog posts are now duplicated in your RSS reader. Clean out your RSS reader's cache to fix this.</p>
2292
2293
2294 <p>If you've been using <code>lb</code> and have noticed the same problem, just run this on your RSS feed to fix it in the same way:</p>
2295
2296 <pre><code>sed -i "s/\.html<\/guid/<\/guid/" yourrssfeed.xml</code></pre>
2297 ]]></description>
2298 </item>
2299
2300
2301 <item>
2302 <title>GNU/Esotericism Stream in an hour...</title>
2303 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#gnuesotericism-stream-in-an-hour</guid>
2304 <pubDate>Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:55:46 -0400</pubDate>
2305 <description><![CDATA[
2306 <p>Stream <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEnPA0qMazk">here</a> in an hour. Chatroom should be live now.</p>
2307 ]]></description>
2308 </item>
2309
2310
2311 <item>
2312 <title>Don't document software! (If you want to avoid pain!)</title>
2313 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#dont-document-software-if-you-want-to-avoid-pain</guid>
2314 <pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2019 21:28:55 -0400</pubDate>
2315 <description><![CDATA[
2316 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imrBnf94E78">New video up.</a></p>
2317
2318 <p>One irony of making things more clearly documented and sometimes even hand-holding is that it actually tends to increase the stress you go through!</p>
2319
2320 <p>I talk about this in this video, and my own experience for everyone, and especially those interested in making software and interacting with the people who use it.</p>
2321 ]]></description>
2322 </item>
2323
2324
2325 <item>
2326 <title>Not Related! LIVE: The Problem with Academic Statistics (in 1 hour; 2PM EDT)</title>
2327 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#not-related-live-the-problem-with-academic-statistics-in-1-hour-2pm-edt</guid>
2328 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Mar 2019 12:58:17 -0400</pubDate>
2329 <description><![CDATA[
2330 <p>Reminder that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IP5FrJghk8">there will be a live stream of <em>Not Related!</em> in an hour</a>. That's 2PM EDT (New York City time).</p>
2331
2332 <p>
2333 Related donations will be read at the midway point and at the end, then other donations will be read in a livestream portion not to be included in the audio episode that will be released.
2334 </p>
2335 ]]></description>
2336 </item>
2337
2338
2339 <item>
2340 <title>Not Related! (LIVE) Coming soon (tomorrow?)...</title>
2341 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#not-related-live-coming-soon-tomorrow</guid>
2342 <pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2019 20:05:36 -0400</pubDate>
2343 <description><![CDATA[
2344 <p>As <em><a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">Not Related!</a></em> fans will know well, I haven't made an episode in several months!
2345 This is for a variety of reasons, but I've decided to switch it up for an episode tomorrow by recording LIVE, streaming on YouTube.
2346 </p>
2347
2348 <p>The link will be <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IP5FrJghk8">HERE</a>. The chatroom will be open until then. I might stop in every so often in the wait.
2349 I've scheduled it for 2PM New York time tomorrow, but I <em>might</em> change that by an hour or two if I need to. Check back at that link for updates.
2350 </p>
2351
2352 <p>Here's how it's going to work:</p>
2353
2354 <ul>
2355 <li><em>Not Related!</em> episodes I typical arrange as 30 minutes of depthy content, followed by a brief break and donation reading, followed by another 30 minutes of content. The beginning of the stream will work like this.</li>
2356 <li>The podcast is still audio and will still be released as such. I might occasionally use a minor visual aid, but nothing that will make consuming the content via audio diminished. I'll probably just have the topic and a webcam in the video.</li>
2357 <li>Chat will be live, but I will not be actively reading it until the break and it will not appear on the video (it will, as all YouTube streams, appear on the edge).</li>
2358 <li>Related/serious donation will be answered in that in-between break time. Non-serious/meme/joke or just unrelated donations will be answered at the very end (this will not be included in the audio version of the podcast, unless I deem it high-quality discussion).</li>
2359 </ul>
2360
2361 <p>In this arrangement, we can have all the typical glory of a <em>Not Related!</em> episode while still "devolving" into a general purpose stream as time goes on. Obviously it can be interactive at the same time.</p>
2362
2363 <p><strong>The starting topic of the episode/stream:</strong></p>
2364
2365 <p>This episode/stream will be on the absolute(ly terrible) state of "statistics" as it is used in the "soft" sciences: psychology, neuroscience, medicine, econometrics, here in linguistics and many others.
2366 All of these disciplines are in hot water.
2367 A lot of people are aware that there is flimsy knowledge of statistics in a lot of non-specialist fields, but in this episode, I go to an even deeper problem: the "Null Ritual" (Gerd Gigerenzer's term), a statistical analysis procedure that is essentially required for publication, but is also a historical misunderstanding and mistake that has produced entire fields of people running statistical tests of unclear scientific and epistemological meaning, while also abiding by totally arbitrary conventions (p < 0.05 and more).
2368 </p>
2369
2370 <p>
2371 I'll go into the original history of modern statistics, as expounded by Ronald Fisher and his "adversaries" Neyman and Pearson.
2372 Their competing theories were motivated in entirely different ways, but have been distorted and confused over the decades, resulting in the hybridized "null ritual" we see today.
2373 </p>
2374
2375 <p>I'll also talk about how this contributed to the "replication problem", reminding one of Ioannidis's now well-known 2005 paper: "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False."</p>
2376
2377 <p><b>Do not read Wikipedia or even a textbook on anything related to this before the podcast! You will be misinformed!</b> Refer to Gigerenzer's 2004 article "Mindless Statistics" and the ensuing literature, but I should say that there is a very big gap between this specialist literature and the mostly cargo-cult understanding of the statistical methods that filter into textbooks and then into public repositories like Wikipedia, etc. This is why I think this topic is highly important to get out there!</p>
2378 ]]></description>
2379 </item>
2380
2381
2382 <item>
2383 <title>The Bible on the command line (tutorial)</title>
2384 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-bible-on-the-command-line-tutorial</guid>
2385 <pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:58:06 -0400</pubDate>
2386 <description><![CDATA[
2387 <p>I've put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCiJO8BaSSk">a video on getting/reading/searching the Bible, in English, Greek or Latin, on the command line</a>.
2388 I mentioned this on the blog a week or so ago, but I had forked <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/bontibon/kjv">this repository</a>, which included a very economical sh/awk script that can parse and interface with a tsv file to give you a very intuitive and light interface to the Bible or any other versified text you need.
2389 </p>
2390
2391 <p>My personal repos on this are below:</p>
2392
2393 <ul>
2394 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/kjv">A fork of `kjv` including the Apocrypha</a></li>
2395 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/grb">The Greek Bible with the Septuagint for the Old Testament and the SBL for the New</a></li>
2396 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/vul">The Clementine Vulgate Bible (Latin)</a></li>
2397 </ul>
2398
2399 <p>Of course, this system isn't just useful for religious texts, but anything that is divided into books, chapters and verse.
2400 Feel free to implement the system in whatever way you like.
2401 </p>
2402
2403 <p>By the way, yesterday, I put out a idle video on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyEljFoPnpU">a trip I made to George L. Smith Park</a>, nothing too deep, but I figured I might record and put it up.</p>
2404 ]]></description>
2405 </item>
2406
2407
2408 <item>
2409 <title>In defense of 'Pseudo-science' in video form...</title>
2410 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#in-defense-of-pseudoscience-in-video-form</guid>
2411 <pubDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2019 14:49:48 -0400</pubDate>
2412 <description><![CDATA[
2413 <p>I've put up a video entitled <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eoN7EqZWW4">"In Defense of Pseudoscience"</a>, a new episode of "Lunchtime with Luke".
2414 </p>
2415
2416 <p>
2417 A couple months ago, I wrote a brief blogpost to this effect, but in general, I've always rejected the entire invented problem of "the demarkation problem" which was the fuss of a lot of philosophers in the early 20th century.
2418 It was an attempt to formally specify what constitutes true "science" versus non-science or "pseudoscience".
2419 </p>
2420
2421 <p>I explain precisely why in the video, and provide some example of how "pseudoscience" is often the only real drive of scientific development.</p>
2422 ]]></description>
2423 </item>
2424
2425
2426 <item>
2427 <title>Livestream starting in less than 30 minutes</title>
2428 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#livestream-starting-in-less-than-30-minutes</guid>
2429 <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 15:31:04 -0500</pubDate>
2430 <description><![CDATA[
2431 <p>YangGang website building stream is starting in less than 30 minutes.</p>
2432
2433 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRp59nDsOz8">The link is here.</a></p>
2434
2435 <p>Send any last-minute Yang memes to <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>.</p>
2436 ]]></description>
2437 </item>
2438
2439
2440 <item>
2441 <title>LARBS update to vifm/überzug may require manual intervention</title>
2442 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#larbs-update-to-vifmuberzug-may-require-manual-intervention</guid>
2443 <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 12:33:09 -0500</pubDate>
2444 <description><![CDATA[
2445 <p>I've just pushed updates to the voidrice and LARBS repos that officially change the default file browser from ranger to vifm.</p>
2446
2447 <p>If you update via git, you might also need to manually run <code>yay -S python-ueberzug</code> to install überzug from the AUR, otherwise image previews may stall and (obviously) not work.</p>
2448
2449 <p>
2450 I mentioned überzug's ability to preview images <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bocb8diNJA8">in this video</a>, but I've found a solution to getting them to work in vifm and it is now default in LARBS.
2451 </p>
2452
2453 <p>
2454 I'll probably be doing a video on vifm sometime soon now, but if you want an explanation of the script which was written by the developer of überzug, I believe, Distrotube has talked about it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgxsduCO1pE">in this video last week</a>.
2455 </p>
2456
2457 <p>My video will probably cover this, basic info, colorschemes and more. It might be a somewhat long video, but people have been asking for it for a while.</p>
2458 ]]></description>
2459 </item>
2460
2461
2462 <item>
2463 <title>YangGang.us Website building livestream at 4:00 EST</title>
2464 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#yanggangus-website-building-livestream-at-400-est</guid>
2465 <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 08:09:47 -0500</pubDate>
2466 <description><![CDATA[
2467 <p>You may've already seen that I'll be having a livestream at 4:00 EST. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRp59nDsOz8">The link is here.</a>.</p>
2468
2469 <p>Since the Unaboomer website building stream didn't go public, I've decided to do another basic 1990's-tier plain HTML website stream, this one making <a target="_blank" href="http://yanggang.us">YangGang.us</a>, which will be a classic repository of YangGang memes.
2470 </p>
2471
2472 <p>
2473 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang is the newest, hottest meme as in our increasingly degenerate country, as he has abandoned all pretense and merely promised to give everyone $1,000 a month if elected president.
2474 This has inspired hope among the black-pilled and a $1,000 stipend can go a long way for NEETs and those who choose an /innawoods/ lifestyle.
2475 How can Orange Man even compete?
2476 </p>
2477
2478 <p>Send me any good YangGang memes you run across. Chances are I already have them, but send them just in case.</p>
2479 ]]></description>
2480 </item>
2481
2482
2483 <item>
2484 <title>My repos are now on Gitlab and will be updated there as well</title>
2485 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#my-repos-are-now-on-gitlab-and-will-be-updated-there-as-well</guid>
2486 <pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:03:13 -0500</pubDate>
2487 <description><![CDATA[
2488 <p>I've actually had a Gitlab since Github was bought by Microsoft, but I had never bothered using it and simply had it mirror my main repos.
2489 Since a lot of people actually do use it now, and some exclusively, I will actually be pushing all of my changes that I push to Github to Gitlab as well.
2490 I'll also be watching Gitlab for Issues and PRs, for those of you who use Gitlab and Gitlab only, so feel free to abstain from using Github entirely to communicate with me and my repos.
2491 </p>
2492
2493 <p>Subscribe to the RSS feed of my Gitlab events here: <code><a target="_blank" href="https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz.atom">https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz.atom</a></code> Or follow me?? I don't actually know if there's following on Gitlab. Sorry, Boomer here when it comes to technology. You might know that I never follow/subscribe to anyone on any site as a rule myself so I never keep track...</p>
2494 ]]></description>
2495 </item>
2496
2497
2498 <item>
2499 <title>Plumbing in Linux, Plan 9 from Bell Labs style</title>
2500 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#plumbing-in-linux-plan-9-from-bell-labs-style</guid>
2501 <pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2019 10:58:04 -0500</pubDate>
2502 <description><![CDATA[
2503 <p>I usually abstain from using the mouse, but I've noticed a lot of interest in <em>plumbing</em> recently, and have got a lot of emails about it.
2504 Plan 9 is a highly unique operating system, integrating the mouse directly into the most basic UI, and the right click importantly can "plumb" selected text.
2505 This can mean various things from opening or running the file corresponding to the text or something else, but as a design feature, plumbing is something worth playing around with on other operating systems.
2506 </p>
2507
2508 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/RlMxbQmMz_4">I've put out a video here on my current plumbing script.</a> It's part of my dotfiles now, mapped to <code>Super + C</code> since that's one of the lone leftover keys. I'm sure you could bind it to one of your many mouse buttons as well if you have one of those meme mouses.</p>
2509
2510 <p>
2511 Of course, this kind of plumbing is piecemeal compared to the Plan 9 orignal: it really is a kind of text handler mediated by dmenu, but it gets at part of the functionality. It can open files whose text is displayed on the terminal, it can search for text in the browser or on eBay or on OpenStreetMaps, or generate QR codes for text.
2512 You're welcome to suggest elegant ways to improve the script on <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/voidrice">the git repository</a>.
2513 </p>
2514 ]]></description>
2515 </item>
2516
2517
2518 <item>
2519 <title>A visit to the Georgia Guidestones</title>
2520 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-visit-to-the-georgia-guidestones</guid>
2521 <pubDate>Thu, 07 Mar 2019 12:33:37 -0500</pubDate>
2522 <description><![CDATA[
2523 <p>A couple days ago, I went by Elberton, Georgia, home of the notorious Georgia Guidestones.
2524 Just for fun, I filmed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHHRibortwE">a brief video there</a>.
2525 Check it out!
2526 </p>
2527
2528 <p>The Guidestones are a mysterious monument built only a couple of decades ago by unknown persons with inscriptions in several modern and ancient languages, also including astrological guides.
2529 They've often been attributed to the Rosicrucians, Luciferians or some other clandestine groups and have popped up in numerous conspiracy documentaries and commentaries.
2530 </p>
2531
2532 <p>As I mention in the video, I have a somewhat indirect connection to the monument, as a former professor of mine at the University of Georgia was hired to give the Greek and Sanskrit translations.
2533 I believe other UGA professors provided the other translations as well, but they were all commissioned by a unknown "Mr. Christian" to do so and no one really knows what's behind these stones.
2534 </p>
2535 ]]></description>
2536 </item>
2537
2538
2539 <item>
2540 <title>New Latin Vulgate Bible repository</title>
2541 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#new-latin-vulgate-bible-repository</guid>
2542 <pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2019 15:17:12 -0500</pubDate>
2543 <description><![CDATA[
2544 <p>A couple days ago, I put up <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/grb">this repository (https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/vul)</a> which is a command-line interface to the Greek Bible (the Septuagint and SBL New Testament).</p>
2545
2546 <p>Since I had gone ahead and done that, I decided I'd make and put up two other related repositories:
2547 </p>
2548
2549 <ul>
2550 <li>A fork of the original King James Version Bible interface that the repo above is based on. <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/kjv">Get it here.</a> My repo, compared to <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/bontibon/kjv">the original it's forked from</a> is the same, but with the Apocrypha also included.</li>
2551 <li>A similar program, but for the Latin Vulage Bible. <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/vul">Get it here.</a></li>
2552 </ul>
2553
2554 <p>I'll put up a video on these in a while so my non-blog/RSS viewers will know about them.</p>
2555
2556 <p>Enjoy!</p>
2557 ]]></description>
2558 </item>
2559
2560
2561 <item>
2562 <title>Boomer forest LARP episode 2/2</title>
2563 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-forest-larp-episode-22</guid>
2564 <pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2019 12:13:46 -0500</pubDate>
2565 <description><![CDATA[
2566 <p>Part 2/2 of my forest LARP has been released. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwByyneWOc">See it here.</a></p>
2567
2568 <p>
2569 There are actually still a couple more contentful videos from my vacation that will be coming out in the next couple of days.
2570 I'll probably do a review of my experience there too.
2571 I've noted it to those I know IRL, but I'm thinking about moving down to the place I visited for some different reasons. I'll discuss them soon.
2572 </p>
2573 ]]></description>
2574 </item>
2575
2576
2577 <item>
2578 <title>College stream starting now</title>
2579 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#college-stream-starting-now</guid>
2580 <pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 17:03:22 -0500</pubDate>
2581 <description><![CDATA[
2582 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJA42plup4">Livestream starting now.</a></p>
2583
2584 <p>
2585 Donations, <a target="_blank" href="donate.html">which you can give here</a>, will be read out on the stream.
2586 </p>
2587 ]]></description>
2588 </item>
2589
2590
2591 <item>
2592 <title>College tour livestream soon</title>
2593 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#college-tour-livestream-soon</guid>
2594 <pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 16:06:41 -0500</pubDate>
2595 <description><![CDATA[
2596 <p>
2597 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJA42plup4">I'll be starting a Livestream within the hour, linked here.</a> Will start 5PM East Coast US time.
2598 </p>
2599
2600 <p>
2601 I'll talk about the possibility of a college tour (or a tour outside of colleges) and some other things that I may be doing soon.
2602 </p>
2603 ]]></description>
2604 </item>
2605
2606
2607 <item>
2608 <title>Pacman for package management on Arch: All the basics and more</title>
2609 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#pacman-for-package-management-on-arch-all-the-basics-and-more</guid>
2610 <pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 11:40:52 -0500</pubDate>
2611 <description><![CDATA[
2612 <p>
2613 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dEuXTMzRKs">New video up on pacman, the Arch Linux package manager.</a>
2614 </p>
2615
2616 <p>
2617 One of the weird things that has happened since I <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PBqpX0_UOc">put out my video on installing Arch Linux</a> and since I release <a target="_blank" href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS</a> is that I get a lot of people who install Arch and LARBS without knowing anything about it!
2618 I suppose that's a good thing, but I've begun to get very basic questions from people who don't know the absolute basics of pacman.
2619 </p>
2620
2621 <p>The video above is a response to this.
2622 It covers installing, updating, searching for, listing and manpulating packages and other pacman settings, some of which maybe even veteran users might not be familiar with.
2623 </p>
2624 ]]></description>
2625 </item>
2626
2627
2628 <item>
2629 <title>Thinking about getting a document camera: Any suggestions?</title>
2630 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#thinking-about-getting-a-document-camera-any-suggestions</guid>
2631 <pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2019 08:20:33 -0500</pubDate>
2632 <description><![CDATA[
2633 <p>I'm thinking about getting a document camera for recording videos in the future that require writing on paper.
2634 I'd like it to have a USB interface that I can connect to my computer an screencast directly as if it were another webcam.
2635 </p>
2636
2637 <p>
2638 I honestly don't know what's out there, so if anyone is familiar with anything recommendable and not too expensive (I don't want to spend more than a hundred dollars or so), feel free to tell me your experience with any particular model.
2639 </p>
2640 ]]></description>
2641 </item>
2642
2643
2644 <item>
2645 <title>The downsides of bloated software: R Markdown and LaTeX</title>
2646 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-downsides-of-bloated-software-r-markdown-and-latex</guid>
2647 <pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2019 08:17:17 -0500</pubDate>
2648 <description><![CDATA[
2649 <p>I just released <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS2Iiql9nqo">a new video talking about the downsides to bloated software</a>.
2650 It's not just about lines of code or dependencies, but about potentiality for breakage and frustration.
2651 </p>
2652
2653 <p>
2654 Nowadays, the standard modus operandi for many """devs""" is to write programs to substrate over previous ones.
2655 Sounds sensible, but when everyone is doing it, we have nothing but an ever increasing mound of mutually-dependent programs for which even the most minor error can cause everything to come crashing down.
2656 </p>
2657
2658 <p>In the video above, give a particular recent example in my life, involving writing a book in R Markdown (compiled with a LaTeX engine), comparing that to the less bloated <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JRe2YeaMjPTKXSc5FqJZ_km">groff/troff</a>.</p>
2659 ]]></description>
2660 </item>
2661
2662
2663 <item>
2664 <title>Wow what a bad day for Fedorafriends! (Luke Smith BTFOS Logic MLG Epic Style)</title>
2665 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#wow-what-a-bad-day-for-fedorafriends-luke-smith-btfos-logic-mlg-epic-style</guid>
2666 <pubDate>Sun, 03 Mar 2019 15:04:04 -0500</pubDate>
2667 <description><![CDATA[
2668 <p>You know what, I released yet another video today, this one on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1czUp-MvWvE">"""rationality"""</a> or at least on how the term is clumsily understood.
2669 </p>
2670
2671 <p>
2672 I have a lot of videos slated for release soon and I honestly forgot about this one today, I suppose in conjunction with <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blog/new-git-repo-greek-septuagintnew-testament-on-the-command-line.html">my last post</a>, this constitutes a bad day for all Reddit-tier fedorafriends out there!
2673 </p>
2674
2675 <p>I talk about the limits to how people commonly misunderstand rationality and how we often find ourselves in destructive logical holes when we too blindly assume that the straight-jacket of formal logic corresponds to the world out there.</p>
2676
2677 <p>To go a little more in depth, check out <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/when-youre-too-rational-to-be-rational">one of my recent podcast episodes on the same topic</a>.
2678 There I talk about Kahneman and Tversky's Heuristics and Biases program and Ecological Rationality àla Gigerenzer.
2679 </p>
2680 ]]></description>
2681 </item>
2682
2683
2684 <item>
2685 <title>New Git repo: Greek Septuagint/New Testament on the command line</title>
2686 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#new-git-repo-greek-septuagintnew-testament-on-the-command-line</guid>
2687 <pubDate>Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:32:56 -0500</pubDate>
2688 <description><![CDATA[
2689 <p>I got an email this morning from a subscriber asking about command-line tools for Biblical textual criticism/study, specifically in Greek or Hebrew.
2690 Most of you know I'm terrible with email due to the sheer quantity I get, but for whatever reason, I saw this and was a little inspired to actually work it out.
2691 </p>
2692
2693 <p>
2694 Before this morning are were some good English tools, like <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/bontibon/kjv">this one on Github</a> (<code>kjv-git</code> in the AUR), but no to my knowledge, nothing really in the original language.
2695 <code>kjv-git</code> can return any (English) King James Version Bible verse, series of verses or whole book at your command, but there is no obvious equivalent in Greek or Hebrew.
2696 This is an annoyance because for anyone like me who occasionally needs a Bible verse or the original wording of a passage, you have to open up a browser and search for it in a bloated website written by a Soydev.
2697 </p>
2698
2699 <p>
2700 Anyway, this morning since I was skipping church for highly justified reasons, I forked the repository and painstakingly found and rearranged a plaintext Greek Septuagint (i.e. the Old Testament) and the SBL Greek New Testament so that they could be read by the same system.
2701 Took a lot of regexing, but you can get it for yourself here: <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/grb">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/grb</a>.
2702 Many Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books are included if you like the Bible: Expanded Universe.
2703 </p>
2704
2705 <p>I'll probably eventually record a video on it, but I'm travelling and didn't bring by mic/webcam to record, so I might do it next week.
2706 Before then, I recommend you check it out and find any glitches if there are any.
2707 </p>
2708 ]]></description>
2709 </item>
2710
2711
2712 <item>
2713 <title>Fuzzy finder (fzf), a 'dmenu' for the terminal</title>
2714 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#fuzzy-finder-fzf-a-dmenu-for-the-terminal</guid>
2715 <pubDate>Sat, 02 Mar 2019 10:08:15 -0500</pubDate>
2716 <description><![CDATA[
2717 <p>I'm sure some of you have run across this before, but after getting a lot of questions about it, I figured it might be worth it to do <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt33Hp-4RXg">a video on fuzzy finder (fzf)</a>.
2718 For long-time channel subscribers, fzf can be thought of as a dmenu-like program for the terminal, you can pipe an input and it allows the user to select one of those input lines by typing, then it prints it to standard output.
2719 </p>
2720
2721 <p>
2722 That opens up a world of possibilities, so I show some of my minor implementations in the video.
2723 Check the fzf website for a couple more suggestions, but I think you can come up with a lot on your own as well.
2724 </p>
2725 ]]></description>
2726 </item>
2727
2728
2729 <item>
2730 <title>Why you should learn Latin</title>
2731 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-you-should-learn-latin</guid>
2732 <pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2019 12:17:05 -0500</pubDate>
2733 <description><![CDATA[
2734 <p>There's nothing essentially magical about Latin, but I've recommended a lot of people learning it because for many different reasons, it straddles easiness and rigor, and opens fairly unexpected opportunities.
2735 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d-YsD8zN88">Watch the video here.</a>
2736 </p>
2737
2738 <p>I also talk about some of Latin's particular benefits to me, even aside from just learning other languages, but also give some recommendations as to how to learn it effectively.</p>
2739 ]]></description>
2740 </item>
2741
2742
2743 <item>
2744 <title>Boomer LARPs in Woods</title>
2745 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-larps-in-woods</guid>
2746 <pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:02:44 -0500</pubDate>
2747 <description><![CDATA[
2748 <p>I recorded some videos while I was gone last week and now that I have internet again, I'll be uploading the vacation.
2749 There are several screencasts and many new episodes of "Boomer Rants in Woods" and "Lunchtime with Luke".
2750 I'll probably be releasing one a day for a while.
2751 </p>
2752
2753 <p>
2754 First, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzuJM0h3Zo">29-year-old Boomer LARPs in Woods</a>. I walk through some family land through the river just for exploration. There's a chance in the future I might build something there or maybe move to this area. I'll talk more of my trip later.
2755 </p>
2756
2757 <p>By the way, due to some changes YouTube made to how videos are uploaded, my videos will not automatically be appearing on Bitchute for a bit. Hopefully Bitchute will adjust to the changes soon.</p>
2758 ]]></description>
2759 </item>
2760
2761
2762 <item>
2763 <title>You don't choose who you are</title>
2764 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#you-dont-choose-who-you-are</guid>
2765 <pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2019 22:43:07 -0500</pubDate>
2766 <description><![CDATA[
2767 <p>I put up a brief "Lunchtime with Luke" video earlier today. Links below.</p>
2768
2769 <ul>
2770 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdRJMuOFO88">YouTube</a></li>
2771 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/vdRJMuOFO88/">BitChite</a></li>
2772 </ul>
2773
2774 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JQBsNCDz048KDs52XrhmrZf">Lunchtime with Luke</a> is now an official playlist.</p>
2775
2776 <p>In this video, I talk about the term "Bugman" and give a brief Gestalt of what it means.</p>
2777
2778 <p>Really the deeper point I was making was the non-arbitrariness of identity.
2779 There are now forces overwhelming in society pushing people to disconnect from and reject their families, religions, traditions, culture and even their countries.
2780 </p>
2781
2782 <p>
2783 One of the falsest notions now common in modernity is the idea that "identity" is something chosen by unaffected personal whim.
2784 To the Bugman, "identity" is something chosen like a favorite color, and it offends their programmed ego to be told that they were born how and where and in the social context that they were, and all of that is immutable.
2785 </p>
2786
2787 <p>In reality, an "identity" that is chosen is not an identity at all, but a coping mechanism for those people who have lost touch.</p>
2788 ]]></description>
2789 </item>
2790
2791
2792 <item>
2793 <title>Some riverfront surveying</title>
2794 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#some-riverfront-surveying</guid>
2795 <pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 2019 22:47:51 -0500</pubDate>
2796 <description><![CDATA[
2797 <p>Today was my first full day of my weeklong outing, and I spent a lot of the time walking through the pines and on firelanes.
2798 I went to visit some family land by the river, which had been partially flooded with some residual marshland.
2799 There's a non-negligible chance that in the future I might be building a house on that parcel, albeit much further away from the river for fear of the occasional hurricane-based flooding.
2800 </p>
2801
2802 <p>I also visited the church cemetary where many of my ancestors are buried.</p>
2803
2804 <p>I did have the chance to record some material for videos, but I won't be able to upload it until I either get back or drive quite a while to get to an area with public internet.
2805 Out here, the main way people even have an internet connection is via satillite.
2806 Dial-up was common relatively recently.
2807 </p>
2808
2809 <p>
2810 I didn't mention it yesterday, but the "urbanization" of the area is somewhat jarring.
2811 I mean "urbanization" in the loosest sense (I'm not quite sure what to call it, perhaps "commercialization"), but a lot of the small towns in the area have started to produce Subways, McDonalds, chain gas stations and even a couple of Walmarts.
2812 The essence of the area hasn't changed that much, but it could mean the beginning of a potentially irreversable process.
2813 Still, where I am is imminently rural, without the hint of even a non-chain restaurant or a grocery store for miles and miles.
2814 </p>
2815
2816 <p>
2817 When I was young, my grandfather used to arrange for gasoline to be shipped to a tank on our property, but that was a long time ago.
2818 If you wanted to go "shopping", you'd have to drive more than an hour to get to Valdosta, which in the grand scheme of things is still a relatively small college town, although I much confess that that city has balooned in size and business in the 10 years since I did my first year of college there in 2008-2009.
2819 </p>
2820 ]]></description>
2821 </item>
2822
2823
2824 <item>
2825 <title>One week in nowhere</title>
2826 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#one-week-in-nowhere</guid>
2827 <pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2019 23:44:06 -0500</pubDate>
2828 <description><![CDATA[
2829 <p>As I mentioned in my last livestream, I'm spending this coming week in a remote, undiscolsed location with minimal internet connection.
2830 Earlier today I was Booming as usual back home, but I took a long drive to a family area several hundred miles away where I'll probably be for the next week.
2831 If you're reading this on or shortly after the 15th, it means I at least had the cell service to update the blog, but don't expect any videos this week (although I will be recording some for later release).
2832 </p>
2833
2834 <p>
2835 I decided to leave town because I can, and because I'd like to have free time to work on whatever strikes me.
2836 I always recommend building a "schedule" which is purposefully mostly empty: only then can you truly end up doing what matters.
2837 Perhaps I'll make some videos or record podcasts or work on my dissertations.
2838 We'll see.
2839 </p>
2840
2841 <p>
2842 You often forget, even when you live in a pretty small city what exactly true silence sounds like.
2843 Back where I live now, there is still the constant nightly buzz of Zoomers at the club listening to that damned Kanye/Lil Pump song 6 million times a night.
2844 Here during nightime, however, at first you hear nothing, and only after long exposure do you hear the distant packs of wolves and wild dogs howling at each other, or the bleating of a boar.
2845 When in non-rural areas usually most of what you hear is drowned out as the unimportant mess it is, if you go for a midnight stroll in a dark forest, every sound becomes meaningful, if not alarming. Even as I write this on the porch of the isolated house, a larger animal is rummaging gently in the bush just out of my field of view.
2846 I'm a little unnerved as it seems to be working its way slowly to me, perhaps trying to figure out the clacking of a ThinkPad keyboard and the brightness of the accompanying ThinkLight.
2847 </p>
2848
2849 <p>
2850 I thought about soiling an earlier night walk by recording a video, but while your eyes adjust to the only light, the moon, a cell phone can hardly make the adjustment and capture the actual appearance of anything, not least by blaring its electronic luminescene on everything.
2851 Anyway, I'm going to try to upload at least this post and turn of what remaining electronics I have here.
2852 </p>
2853 ]]></description>
2854 </item>
2855
2856
2857 <item>
2858 <title>Pre-/innawoods/ livestream now</title>
2859 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#preinnawoods-livestream-now</guid>
2860 <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:49:49 -0500</pubDate>
2861 <description><![CDATA[
2862 <p>Doing a livestream starting in 10 or so minutes (7PM New York time). Check my channel.</p>
2863 ]]></description>
2864 </item>
2865
2866
2867 <item>
2868 <title>How to Get a Domain Name for Cheap or Free</title>
2869 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#how-to-get-a-domain-name-for-cheap-or-free</guid>
2870 <pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2019 19:12:13 -0500</pubDate>
2871 <description><![CDATA[
2872 <p>Check out the new video out on how to get a domain name.
2873 I list out a couple different registrars in the description, feel free to recommend others if you'd like.
2874 Here's the vid:
2875 </p>
2876
2877 <ul>
2878 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkV1-BuRrpE">YouTube</a></li>
2879 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/tkV1-BuRrpE/">BitChute</a></li>
2880 </ul>
2881
2882 <p>By the way, you may've noticed that I haven't been releasing RSS posts as quickly as I used to when I put out new videos (and even missing some).
2883 There are some practical reasons for this, but in the future, I <em>might</em> go without posting video releases on the blog/RSS, unless I specifically feel like it.
2884 This blog is, after all, supposed to be just a blog.
2885 </p>
2886
2887 <p>
2888 I'm not sure, but to be extra careful, I recommend subscribing to my YouTube channel's RSS feed here: (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA">https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA</a>).
2889 Entry links will be the direct video links.
2890 </p>
2891 ]]></description>
2892 </item>
2893
2894
2895 <item>
2896 <title>Do you know the Via Negativa?</title>
2897 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#do-you-know-the-via-negativa</guid>
2898 <pubDate>Sat, 26 Jan 2019 11:09:19 -0500</pubDate>
2899 <description><![CDATA[
2900 <p>New video up on <em>Via Negativa</em>, which is about the closest I'll ever get to offering "self-help" advise.
2901 NEETs won't want to hear it anyway.
2902 </p>
2903 <ul>
2904 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBIqnTC1nk">YouTube</a></li>
2905 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/WjBIqnTC1nk/">Bitchute</a></li>
2906 </ul>
2907 ]]></description>
2908 </item>
2909
2910
2911 <item>
2912 <title>Some entry tips to using suckless programs</title>
2913 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#some-entry-tips-to-using-suckless-programs</guid>
2914 <pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2019 17:28:03 -0500</pubDate>
2915 <description><![CDATA[
2916 <p>I've just put up a video on some general tips I have for people who are looking to use suckless programs. </p>
2917
2918 <ul>
2919 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6saSpX4KQ">YouTube</a></li>
2920 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/3C6saSpX4KQ/">Bitchute</a></li>
2921 </ul>
2922
2923 <p>This is in response to a lot of the complaints I hear about suckless from people who are trolling their minds for reasons not to use it.
2924 I also saw that Distrotube had put out a video talking about trying suckless utilities out, so I wanted to give my personal recommendations.
2925 </p>
2926 ]]></description>
2927 </item>
2928
2929
2930 <item>
2931 <title>Audio problem fixed. Stream active immanently.</title>
2932 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#audio-problem-fixed-stream-active-immanently</guid>
2933 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2019 17:08:13 -0500</pubDate>
2934 <description><![CDATA[
2935 <p>I've fixed the audio problem in the original stream attempt. I'll go live in less than 30 minutes at the bottom of the hour.</p>
2936
2937 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5KKrAEiNC0">New link.</a></p>
2938 ]]></description>
2939 </item>
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944 <item>
2945 <title>Unaboomer/Geocities Livestream SOON</title>
2946 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#unaboomergeocities-livestream-soon</guid>
2947 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2019 16:10:47 -0500</pubDate>
2948 <description><![CDATA[
2949 <p>As the kick off to the creating-a-website series, I'm going to be having what was originally going to be an "HTML/CSS tutorial", but since everyone already knows HTML and CSS, it's going to be a light-heared Geocities-themed livestream where I construct an early-ninties-style webpage.
2950 </p>
2951
2952 <p>Typical livestream behavior expected as well.</p>
2953
2954 <p>For you Zoomers out there, Geocities was... oh well you'll figure it out. Just come to the livestream. I'll probably start in less than 30 minutes... We'll see.</p>
2955
2956 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXVR4FkHPc">LINK HERE. CHAT IS OPEN NOW!</a></p>
2957 ]]></description>
2958 </item>
2959
2960 <item>
2961 <title>A showcase video on fish as a shell</title>
2962 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-showcase-video-on-fish-as-a-shell</guid>
2963 <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:12:31 -0500</pubDate>
2964 <description><![CDATA[
2965 <p>I've put up a brief video on fish (the Friendly Interactive SHell).
2966 I'm not too opinionated about shells, I use vanilla bash myself, but there are definitely some things to really like or hate about fish.
2967 </p>
2968
2969 <ul>
2970 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2a7jJTh3kU">YouTube</a></li>
2971 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/C2a7jJTh3kU">Bitchute</a></li>
2972 </ul>
2973
2974 <p>I talk about fish's idiosyncratic (and not very POSIX) syntax, but also its perks: syntax highlighting, autocompletion of commands an command options, abbreviations and more.</p>
2975 ]]></description>
2976 </item>
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981 <item>
2982 <title>Anyone got ueberzug image previews working in vifm?</title>
2983 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-got-ueberzug-image-previews-working-in-vifm</guid>
2984 <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2019 12:39:26 -0500</pubDate>
2985 <description><![CDATA[
2986 <p>I was playing around with <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/seebye/ueberzug">ueberzug</a>, which is a possbly more consistent replacement for the w3m image preview.
2987 Give it an images and a location/dimensions for it and it will print it to the terminal.
2988 The preview will survive after multiple resizing, mouse away and anything else.
2989 Much more robust than w3mimg.
2990 </p>
2991
2992 <p>A brief example in bash. I recommend installing ueberzug via pip to ensure all the right dependencies.</p>
2993
2994 <pre><code>source "`ueberzug library`"
2995 ImageLayer
2996 declare -A command=([path]="pix/image.png" [identifier]="name" [action]="add" [x]="0" [y]="0" [max_width]="400" [height]="400")</code></pre>
2997
2998 <p>The above will print <code>pix/image.png</code> in the top left (0x0) and ensure it fits within 400x400 by resizing it.
2999 If you spawn a bunch more windows and move it around, the image is very consistent.
3000 </p>
3001
3002 <p>Now vifm does provide some built-in arguments for the size of the preview window and location, but despite a little tinkering, I couldn't actually get any previews to pop up.
3003 I tried in my build of st, urxvt and alacritty and none worked in vifm.
3004 </p>
3005
3006 <p>
3007 I could toy around with it a little more and figure it out, but if any of you guys have already done it, feel free to share your script/command to do it.
3008 Ideally I'd like vifm previews, but also an independent script that could simply print out an image argument to the command line.
3009 </p>
3010 ]]></description>
3011 </item>
3012
3013
3014 <item>
3015 <title>The 'Horrors' of the Linux Terminal...</title>
3016 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-horrors-of-the-linux-terminal</guid>
3017 <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2019 15:54:34 -0500</pubDate>
3018 <description><![CDATA[
3019 <p>I've put up a video briefly explaining the benefits, dare I say, <em>superiorities</em> of command line management as oppose to flopping around like a fish in GUIs.
3020 A lot of novice users are strangely afraid of the terminal, but as I say in the video, it's a much more efficient and direct way of getting things done on a computer, similar to giving orders to a Siri.
3021 Here are the video links:
3022 </p>
3023 <ul>
3024 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYDYSSOA2f8">YouTube</a></li>
3025 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/gYDYSSOA2f8/">Bitchute</a></li>
3026 </ul>
3027
3028 <p>Recorded another video in the website series today. Putting the pieces together. Now two videos done and will probably be released next week.</p>
3029 ]]></description>
3030 </item>
3031
3032
3033 <item>
3034 <title>Livestream now</title>
3035 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#livestream-now</guid>
3036 <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2019 19:12:10 -0500</pubDate>
3037 <description><![CDATA[
3038 <p>Livestream at the bottom of the hour. 7:30 East Coast US.</p>
3039 ]]></description>
3040 </item>
3041
3042
3043 <item>
3044 <title>Recent work</title>
3045 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#recent-work</guid>
3046 <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2019 12:22:55 -0500</pubDate>
3047 <description><![CDATA[
3048 <p>I neglected to mention on the RSS feed yesterday, but I put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JP0Jx41v7M">a new video</a> just talking about some channel progress and workflow.</p>
3049
3050 <p>I've actually already recording one of the videos for the "make your own website" series and I may have another done soon. Expect them some time next week.</p>
3051
3052 <p>I've also started putting together a review of my new <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/EnduraPro">Unicomp Endurapro keyboard</a>. There are actually a lot of things I want to put into it to give people a full view of it. I might finish this video either today or tomorrow.</p>
3053 ]]></description>
3054 </item>
3055
3056
3057 <item>
3058 <title>Luke steps on the Python snek</title>
3059 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#luke-steps-on-the-python-snek</guid>
3060 <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2019 10:26:46 -0500</pubDate>
3061 <description><![CDATA[
3062 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ5qYVGkxhc">New video up on Python</a>, talking about computer language speed and abstraction, but also why I don't use Python for scripting or much of anything.</p>
3063
3064 <p>This is partially in response to some responses I got when I committed microaggressions against Python the language <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2n5aGqou9E">in this video</a>.</p>
3065 ]]></description>
3066 </item>
3067
3068
3069 <item>
3070 <title>Anyone want to redo the CSS for my website?</title>
3071 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-want-to-redo-the-css-for-my-website</guid>
3072 <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2019 20:55:38 -0500</pubDate>
3073 <description><![CDATA[
3074 <p>I'm not a big color person and whenever I have to pick a theme for a website, it sort of annoys me.
3075 I don't like the current theme of my website, in fact, I've never liked <em>any</em> of the themes I've used so I was curious, before I start manually start retinkering with it until I find another scheme I tepidly can approve of,
3076 I was curious if anyone out there who has a knack for design would like to offer me a new .css stylesheet with a better colorscheme and other possible tweaks.
3077 </p>
3078
3079 <p>
3080 The current stylesheet is at <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/style.css">https://lukesmith.xyz/style.css</a>.
3081 I've added a couple of comments to make clear what novel thing is what.
3082 Feel free to send me new colors for everything, although I want a dark theme.
3083 Be sure that everything still werks, including the rolling blog page. I'll give it a couple days before I pick "a winner" unless I get one really quickly that's just perfect.
3084 </p>
3085
3086 <p>
3087 Do <b>not</b> offer to redo my website, especially if that means rewriting it with javascript code everywhere!
3088 I also do not want to have to move anything around unless there's just the best reason to: .css changes only.
3089 </p>
3090 ]]></description>
3091 </item>
3092
3093
3094 <item>
3095 <title>Suck on this, black-pillers!</title>
3096 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#suck-on-this-blackpillers</guid>
3097 <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2019 13:50:52 -0500</pubDate>
3098 <description><![CDATA[
3099 <p>New <em>Boomer Rants</em> video on why <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIcUBd-5fk">Pessimism is *literally* for losers.</a> ;-)</p>
3100 ]]></description>
3101 </item>
3102
3103
3104 <item>
3105 <title>Anyone want the domain name `currentyear.net`? Looking to sell.</title>
3106 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-want-the-domain-name-currentyearnet-looking-to-sell</guid>
3107 <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 19:42:27 -0500</pubDate>
3108 <description><![CDATA[
3109 <p>A couple years ago, I bought <a target="_blank" href="http://currentyear.net">currentyear.net</a> with the idea of turning it into a meme news site for fun.
3110 I obviously didn't end up doing it, so I'm thinking about parting with the domain name to anyone who thinks they might be able to put it to good use!</p>
3111
3112 <p>
3113 If anyone wants it, name a price and I'll sell it to you relatively cheap as far as domains go.
3114 If there are no takers within a couple of days, I'll probably put it on sale publicly with Namecheap for a good bit more than I'd settle for now.
3115 </p>
3116 ]]></description>
3117 </item>
3118
3119
3120 <item>
3121 <title>Hacking wishlist addition: Moving all before a match to end of file!</title>
3122 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#hacking-wishlist-addition-moving-all-before-a-match-to-end-of-file</guid>
3123 <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:00:33 -0500</pubDate>
3124 <description><![CDATA[
3125 <p>I've added <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html#sortmatchfirst">a new entry to the Hacking Wishlist</a>.
3126 This one I was racking my brain a little on last night, but couldn't find an elegant solution. It's probably obvious though.
3127 </p>
3128
3129 <p>
3130 I want a sed/awk command (probably awk, actually) that can take a stream and a regular expression and move all the lines before that regular expression to the end of the file.
3131 Sounds simple, but for whatever reason, I haven't developed a solution!
3132 I need to brush up my awk skills!
3133 </p>
3134 ]]></description>
3135 </item>
3136
3137
3138 <item>
3139 <title>Contemplating a brief series on creating a website</title>
3140 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#contemplating-a-brief-series-on-creating-a-website</guid>
3141 <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 13:09:33 -0500</pubDate>
3142 <description><![CDATA[
3143 <p>I've been contemplating doing a series on creating and maintaining your own website.
3144 The motivation is simple: too few people have their own platforms on the internet and are increasingly at the technical and frankly emotional mercy of social media sites, begging not to be "deplatformed".
3145 I talk about this <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYDwep9yI8A">in a new video</a>.
3146 </p>
3147
3148 <p>
3149 I'm already starting to think through how I want the series to look, it might only be two somewhat long videos, but I'll probably show people the kind of setup that I have with a VPS.
3150 Suggestions are welcome, so long as they are... reasonable.
3151 Also, in the process of making this video, I will probably be using real life hosts/registrars:
3152 <b>If anyone has anything bad or good to say about a registrar or host service, feel free to tell me</b>.
3153 I say this because if I use or bring up Namecheap (my VPS host) as an example in the video, that will probably bring new users/customers to them.
3154 I don't want to positively or even neutrally mention any host/registrar that has a bad record (for example, GoDaddy is a terrible host and I'll probably specifically note it).
3155 </p>
3156 ]]></description>
3157 </item>
3158
3159
3160 <item>
3161 <title>Adding transparency and removing whitespace from images automatically with imagemagick</title>
3162 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#adding-transparency-and-removing-whitespace-from-images-automatically-with-imagemagick</guid>
3163 <pubDate>Sun, 06 Jan 2019 15:05:42 -0500</pubDate>
3164 <description><![CDATA[
3165 <p>I've put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8pcvkRsx1g">a new imagemagick video</a>, where I briefly talk about how to quickly trim junk from images with the <code>-trim</code> option and basic usage of the <code>-transparent</code> option, which allows you to automatically choose a color to treat as transparent. Just a brief topic, but you can get a whole lot out of these little tools in terms of making image modification way faster.</p>
3166 ]]></description>
3167 </item>
3168
3169
3170 <item>
3171 <title>Why I don't do GNU/Linux 'evangelism'</title>
3172 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-i-dont-do-gnulinux-evangelism</guid>
3173 <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jan 2019 11:57:17 -0500</pubDate>
3174 <description><![CDATA[
3175 <p>I just released a video talking about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWGptIBApQo">why I don't do Linux "evangelism"</a>.
3176 This is part of the ever growing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JRlxgcaj-WxkAylXFuE0gyk">"Boomer Rants in Woods"</a> series.
3177 </p>
3178
3179 <p>
3180 I detail why in the video, but it ammounts to two main points:
3181 </p>
3182
3183 <ul>
3184 <li>People are egotistically attached to what operating system they use and treat you trying to convince them what to use as a personal insult. Trying to convince people usually ammounts to making them less open to change.</li>
3185 <li>Even when you can convince people that using Linux is "good" in an abstract sense, <em>they don't know how to</em> and usually end up trying to replicate their behavior on Windows/Mac OSX and become disappointed that they can't perfectly do so. I use my example of foobar2000 in the video.</li>
3186 </ul>
3187
3188 <p>
3189 The "solution" to these constraints is simple: if you want to get people to be more open to Linux, <em>show them what you can actually do on it</em>.
3190 This solves both problems.
3191 </p>
3192
3193 <p>While I certainly don't have my channel for Linux evangelism, I do feel like the channel has approached doing just that as time has gone on.
3194 I don't talk conceptually about Linux or *nix generally unless it's after showcasing some feature or explaining the efficiency of a design.
3195 This encourages people to actually understand Linux, how it's different from their common experience and encourages them that they might benefit from using it.
3196 </p>
3197 ]]></description>
3198 </item>
3199
3200
3201 <item>
3202 <title>Nassim Taleb on IQ, and what is IQ anyway?</title>
3203 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#nassim-taleb-on-iq-and-what-is-iq-anyway</guid>
3204 <pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2019 22:27:13 -0500</pubDate>
3205 <description><![CDATA[
3206 <p>I've been asked by several people to opine on Nassim Taleb's recent Twitter war against IQ as a concept.
3207 You can read a preliminary write up of his critiques on <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39">a Medium article he wrote</a>.
3208 Not too refined, but if you listen you get the point.
3209 I'll see if I can sum some of the ideas up:
3210 </p>
3211
3212 <ul>
3213 <li>IQ is a very effective measure of outcome... on the dumb side of the distribution, but not the "intelligent" side. People of measured IQs of 70 are well predicted to not get far in life. The difference between 70s and 100s is massive, but the difference between 100s and 130s is not on average.</li>
3214 <li>Because of the above, many very strong correlations between IQ and other things are spurious because IQ isn't really so predictive/causative at all levels.</li>
3215 <li>Thus, IQ tests are pretty much effective in that they can detect utter morons fairly well, but so can any other arbitrarily defined test; the IQ test isn't especially effective or some grand discovery.</li>
3216 <li>IQ tests have been designed to award a particular type of abstract thinking that is <em>not</em> generally helpful and can lead people to be oblivious, naïve, boring and dangerous. The Talebian <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577">IYI</a>.</li>
3217 </ul>
3218
3219 <p>
3220 On that last point, you might want to listen to <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/when-youre-too-rational-to-be-rational">the podcast I did on Gerd Gigerenzer's work</a>, which is related: we, especially psychologists, have this fetish for cargo-cult rationality, often when it leads us to be dumber/bigger chumps IRL.
3221 Taleb is also keenly aware of the sociological aspect of academia, the replication crisis, the wishful thinking and confirmation bias ubiquitous in the soft (i.e. non-) sciences.
3222 Many people will correctly call IQ or <em>g</em> "the most successful" finding of psychological sciences in the 20th century.
3223 I say "correctly" because everything else psychological "sciences" have found is either totally non-reproduceable or the result of smoke-and-mirrors, so, sure IQ is number 1 in a field of continual failure.
3224 </p>
3225
3226 <p>
3227 Anyway, on the topic, a lot of Boomers will deny any potential reality of IQ/g or any other kinds of cognitive tests out of a deep-seated faith in total human cognitive uniformity (otherwise that would make them literally Hitler).
3228 This isn't really Taleb's motivation: his, if I my psychoanalyze for a moment, amounts to a disappointment with the pseudo-rationalist "funcionary" thought-patterns that an IQ test favors being celebrated as a cognitive ideal, when in reality these mental habits aren't really so correlated with success outside of bureaucracy.
3229 Taleb certainly loves to dab on n*rds and I support his efforts.
3230 That and a conviction to sound understanding of statistics drive him.
3231 </p>
3232
3233 <p>
3234 Is "IQ" <em>utterly meaningless</em>?
3235 No I don't think so, nor do I think Taleb thinks so, but it's only a clumsy and introductory mosaic used to approach human cognitive differences and we shouldn't necessarily treat it as a mentalistic holon without careful caveats.
3236 As he puts it in the above Medium article:
3237 </p>
3238
3239 <blockquote>
3240 "If you renamed IQ, from "Intelligent Quotient" to FQ "Functionary Quotient" or SQ "Salaryperson Quotient", then some of the stuff will be true. It measures best the ability to be a good slave. "IQ" is good for @davidgraeber's "BS jobs"."
3241 </blockquote>
3242
3243 <p>
3244 "Autism Quotient" might be another candidate.
3245 IQ shows <em>something</em>, but I think a lot of Taleb's critique comes down to assumption that "high IQ" tendencies are not necessarily either good or indicative of intelligence in a meaningful sense.
3246 I think there is a strong correlation between IQ what we intuitively think of as "intelligence", but you must take that with Taleb's qualifiers mentioned above and the fact that for some cultural reasons (and pity), we think of autistic shut-ins and losers in high-school as being "intelligent" (thus the concept of IQ has affected what we think of as being smart).
3247 In the past, autistic shut-ins were understood to be utter morons and the ideal intelligent person might be an outgoing, socially-aware, but "irrationally" cautious, high-agency person with little attention to detail.
3248 If "IQ" measured <em>that</em> kind of person, which we could easily do, we would likely find some of the same correlations since like our "IQ" it rules out the extremely dull, but such a test might be likely to have better life-performance correlations as well.
3249 </p>
3250
3251
3252 <p>
3253 To sum up, I mostly concur with what Taleb says, but I also don't particularly mind using the term "IQ" in the way it's conventionally understood so long as it's not understood as some eternal metric of goodness.
3254 I did speak somewhat about the selection of cognitive ability, measured by IQ in <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com/the-agricultural-revolution-has-been-a-disaster-for-the-human-race">one of my other podcasts</a>, but my editorial stance was that that selection was not necessarily "good".
3255 Like Taleb says in the quote above, a person with a high IQ tends to be a good functionary, a good cog in the system. Perhaps to slavishly obey social orders one does necessitate some level of real intelligence, but that servile and autistic mentality not what true intelligence causes <em>per se</em>, nor should we celebrate than kind of mindset.
3256 </p>
3257
3258 <p>
3259 If anything Taleb says sounds like gibberish, I recommend you either to read his books (<em>Skin in the Game</em>, <em>Antifragile</em>, etc. etc.) or wait for his next inevitable book which I'm sure will include the IQ discussion.
3260 Taleb has a tendency to put things in superficially coarse phrasing online, but his books are lucid beyond comprehension.
3261 </p>
3262 ]]></description>
3263 </item>
3264
3265
3266 <item>
3267 <title>Why I don't use polybar anymore? (And on ricing)</title>
3268 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-i-dont-use-polybar-anymore-and-on-ricing</guid>
3269 <pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2019 22:01:25 -0500</pubDate>
3270 <description><![CDATA[
3271 <p>I occasionally get asked why I use my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKumet6b-WY">"ugly" status bar</a> which is a simple i3blocks with gaudy emojis rather than the more elegant polybar which I used in earlier videos, like say, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOW61luzF4">this one</a>, or bumblebee-status, which I used even earlier <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U3vRbF7v5A">here</a>.</p>
3272
3273 <p>First, right off the bat, I know a lot of people think of me as a desktop "ricer", i.e. someone who makes substantial changes to their computers for aesthetic purposes, but this really isn't the case. The only sense in which I care about my computer's appearance is its ability to present important things very obviously and the speed with which I can do whatever thing I'm doing on a computer. "Ricing" a term that comes from the automobile-modification world meaning "Race-Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement". A true ricer is all about making his computer elegant. I'm not. I care about efficiency and do have some minor aesthetic things (like transparency), but these are only to keep me from getting bored out of my mind. I even used solarized colors for a while which shows obviously I don't care <em>that much</em> about how a computer looks.</p>
3274
3275 <p>If you want a very good example of real ricing, I recommend you check out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQCiSOcYrI">this recent video by iBSD</a>, where he shows a AwesomeWM configuration theming it to Game of Thrones. That might sound absurd and pure flex, but check it out; it's very impressive.</p>
3276
3277 <p>But anyway, there are a couple specific reasons I don't use "the pretty" polybar:</p>
3278
3279 <ul>
3280 <li>On Arch Linux, there is no polybar binary and you must compile it from the AUR. No big deal for a user, but since I maintain <a target="_blank" href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS</a> and have hundreds of people weekly (sometimes daily) installing my system, this constant compiling of a system basic component on many different computers leads to <em>a lot</em> of problems, many of which I can't troubleshoot.</li>
3281 <li>Related to the above, polybar has a bad tendency to break on the updating/renaming of a library. It's the only package I know of that does this regularly.</li>
3282 <li>Polybar is <em>different</em> from and independent from the typical i3bar and lacks some of its abilities. Honestly one of the things that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the fact that you can't easily run a command to toggle/hide polybar. Additionally, you have to get use to restarting polybar on screen refresh and having an extra script for generating in the way you want on multiple monitors. Some of that is <em>good</em> in that it means customizeability on different monitors, but since I'm not a big fan of multi-monitor setups, it doesn't mean much to me.</li>
3283 <li>I do sort of enjoy the "ugliness" of </li>
3284 </ul>
3285
3286 <p>My reasons for bumblebee-status anymore are somewhat similar (with the additional fact that it's written in Python and tended to eat up system resources).</p>
3287
3288 <p>Anyway. I only write all this because I am sort of thinking of configuring a "prettier" statusbar, but since people ask about my previous choices I want to make it clear what I care about in system configuration.
3289 If you have any suggestions of a status bar that...
3290 </p>
3291
3292 <ul>
3293 <li>...exists in the main Arch repos,</li>
3294 <li>is configurable,</li>
3295 <li>light on system resources,</li>
3296 <li>has few (or no) dependencies,</li>
3297 <li>can be easily togged,</li>
3298 <li>and still can be made very pretty...</li>
3299 </ul>
3300
3301 <p>Please tell me.</p>
3302 ]]></description>
3303 </item>
3304
3305
3306 <item>
3307 <title>i fell Ior the suckless meme in image viewers too: sxiv</title>
3308 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#i-fell-ior-the-suckless-meme-in-image-viewers-too-sxiv</guid>
3309 <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2019 12:43:58 -0500</pubDate>
3310 <description><![CDATA[
3311 <p>I just put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYW9i_u5PYs">a video on sxiv</a>, "the simple X image viewer".
3312 I've switched from feh to it for several reasons:
3313 </p>
3314
3315 <ul>
3316 <li>You can designate arbitrary commands to run on images via a custom script. I set up commands to make images the wallpaper, move or copy them to directories and run imagemagick commands on them.</li>
3317 <li>.gif animations are supported, which feh can't do.</li>
3318 <li>It comes with a free thumbnail view as well, which can be very handy for sorting through images. I'm moving away from using ranger with its single image previews and this is a big plus.</li>
3319 <li>It can read from and write to standard input/output. As I say in the video, I don't quite know what to use this for yet, but it can be very handy in user scripts to provide a dmenu-like menu for selecting images for other commands.</li>
3320 </ul>
3321
3322 <p>
3323 I also mention that I <em>don't</em> know yet if sxiv can be used to set backgrounds.
3324 feh can, hence I still have it installed and use it for that, but if anyone knows how to make sxiv do the same, please tell me so I can save a dependency in LARBS. ;-)
3325 </p>
3326 ]]></description>
3327 </item>
3328
3329
3330 <item>
3331 <title>A Hacking Wishlist</title>
3332 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-hacking-wishlist</guid>
3333 <pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:43:29 -0500</pubDate>
3334 <description><![CDATA[
3335 <p>I've decided to put up a <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html">"Hacking Wishlist"</a>, which will be a running list of all the things I need or would like to know how to do, but don't yet know.
3336 I've started it with two big problems I've had for a while and am looking for any clues as to how to solve them.
3337 <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html">Check out the list!</a>
3338 </p>
3339
3340 <p>The first I need to solve is to make LARBS's pausing system and lock screen better, and the second I really want for mutt-wizard to make it easier for users to add new mail accounts.</p>
3341
3342 <p>
3343 I'll post updates as I add more entries to the list or me or someone else solves one.
3344 You can, of course, email your solutions to <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>.
3345 </p>
3346 ]]></description>
3347 </item>
3348
3349
3350 <item>
3351 <title>New Year and New Plans</title>
3352 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-year-and-new-plans</guid>
3353 <pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 22:05:01 -0500</pubDate>
3354 <description><![CDATA[
3355 <p>Hi everyone! I want to thank all who showed up for the New Years livestream, especially those who donated.</p>
3356
3357 <p>If I occasionally sound burnt out on making videos, I have to say that that's mostly illusion or temporary and I'm very glad with the success the channel has had in the past year.
3358 I hope to go a lot further, while not fundamentally altering the quality or realness of the channel.
3359 No irrelevant sponsors or special production team.
3360 </p>
3361
3362 <p>I forgot to say until deep into the stream, but the thing I have my eye on getting for the channel next is an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop">EOMA68 computer card</a> and casing.
3363 This is an upcoming and experimental kind of privacy/freedom-respecting computer that appeals to my non-consumerism and sense of efficiency: it's modular, utterly free/libre from the bottom up and designed with a mostly 3D printable case.
3364 I talked about the EOMA68 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHUDHqSeuM">in a video</a>, but haven't yet gotten my hands on one, despite thinking that it represents very positive movements in computer construction.
3365 Obviously I plan on testing and reviewing it for all of you; I'm optimistic about it.
3366 </p>
3367
3368 <p>
3369 The "actual computer" part is a severable card that is supposed to be hosted in different ports: a laptop shell or a desktop shell, etc.
3370 This reduces redundancy and easily separates the outward shell from the computer itself, both of which can be easily replaced if damaged or obsolete.
3371 The computer card itself actually has pretty unimpressive specs, but this early in the game, that's part of the fun.
3372 It is also lacking some typical ports (last time I did research on it, I don't believe there was an ethernet port, so you'd either need an ethernet adapter or wifi dongle).
3373 These deficiencies are related to the adherence to strict open hardware standards from what I can glean.
3374 </p>
3375
3376 <p>
3377 In the livestream, I raised enough money for the computer card itself (I'll be getting one with Parabola GNU/Linux), but also for the desktop casing and then some.
3378 I'll be buying these soon (together they are $120 and then taxes, etc.).
3379 I'd also like to buy the laptop casing which is either $450-500 depending on whether I can 3D print the parts myself, but we didn't quite raise that much.
3380 If you'd like to see me review the laptop casing as well, <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate">please donate</a> and I'll order it too!
3381 Honestly, I'd sort of like to start a crowd funding account just so people can see where there money is going to, I might do that.
3382 Either way, I'll be getting the desktop casing and the computer card before they ship out on February 1st.
3383 </p>
3384
3385 <p>Of course if you or someone you know is involved with the EOMA68, you could always send me a freebie and that money can go to the project next on the list. 😉</p>
3386
3387 <p>Anyway, I can't tell you what's next for my channel because part of it has always been its non-planned nature (otherwise it would be lame), but remember to keep tabs on <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml">the RSS feed</a>.</p>
3388 ]]></description>
3389 </item>
3390
3391
3392 <item>
3393 <title>Livestream now scheduled on YouTube and video requests?</title>
3394 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#livestream-now-scheduled-on-youtube-and-video-requests</guid>
3395 <pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:37:41 -0500</pubDate>
3396 <description><![CDATA[
3397 <p>I've set up the livestream <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgKQSLmvyB0">link here</a>.
3398 It should go live in around 6 hours: 6:30 EST.
3399 You might be able to use the chatroom in the meantime; I'm not sure myself, but you can try it out.
3400 </p>
3401
3402 <p>
3403 As I mentioned, I'll be playing some short, mostly inane meme videos during the stream on occasions.
3404 If you have any you'd like to recommend, send them to me now! Any topic, so long as they're <em>short</em> (3 minutes is really pushing it) and <em>actually entertaining</em>.
3405 </p>
3406
3407 <p>Send them via email without delay: <a target="_blank" href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a></p>
3408 ]]></description>
3409 </item>
3410
3411
3412 <item>
3413 <title>The New Year's Livestream will be on Atlantis time</title>
3414 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-new-years-livestream-will-be-on-atlantis-time</guid>
3415 <pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 07:47:27 -0500</pubDate>
3416 <description><![CDATA[
3417 <p>The New Year's livestream will be treating a timezone out in the middle of the Atlantic (UTC -2) as the "real New Year".
3418 That is, <b>we will be on the time of <a target="_blank" href="https://time.is/South_Georgia_and_South_Sandwich_Islands">South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands</a></b>.
3419 This is most convenient for me, but also pretty much avoids any personal conflicts most people will have with the climax of the New Year.
3420 I might start as early as 3 hours beforehand, or probably will at least open up the chat while preparing, so these are the times you can come in at:
3421 </p>
3422
3423 <ul>
3424 <li>For the Eastern US, that is 6PM to 9PM.</li>
3425 <li>For the Western US, that is 3PM to 6PM.</li>
3426 <li>Britain/Portugal: 10PM to 1AM.</li>
3427 <li>Most of Western Europe: 11PM to 2AM.</li>
3428 <li>For East Australia: 9AM to noon.</li>
3429 <li>Etc. etc. Just refer to the link above for the time I'm looking at. Don't trust my math.</li>
3430 </ul>
3431
3432 <p>I have no huge plans for the actual moment of the New Year, so feel free to come and leave whenever.
3433 I'll probably open up the chatroom relatively early.
3434 As I said, I'll probably mostly be reviewing the peak moments of 2018 on the channel, playing short meme videos and responding to viewer supercummies and such (<a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/support.html">gibs info here</a>).
3435 </p>
3436 ]]></description>
3437 </item>
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442 <item>
3443 <title>Year Review-End of Year Livestream Incoming!</title>
3444 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#year-reviewend-of-year-livestream-incoming</guid>
3445 <pubDate>Fri, 28 Dec 2018 14:28:57 -0500</pubDate>
3446 <description><![CDATA[
3447 <p>I'm in the process of moving into a place with much better internet, and as such, I'll be able to do livestreams! <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqCdd3z6R0U">As I say briefly in this video</a>, I'll be having an end-of-year livestream which will have the functionality of a typical livestream, but with some prep in the <code>/var</code> as well: a review of all the content and happenings on the channel in the last year along with topical meme videos.</p>
3448
3449 <p>I'll announce the exact time(zone) later on this feed. You can also feel free to send in suggestion videos as well.</p>
3450 ]]></description>
3451 </item>
3452
3453
3454 <item>
3455 <title>Merry Christmas! and Bitchute Update</title>
3456 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#merry-christmas-and-bitchute-update</guid>
3457 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2018 15:01:35 -0500</pubDate>
3458 <description><![CDATA[
3459 <p>While most of my family is napping after the Christmas dinner, I'm taking some time to back-up some videos on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukesmith/">my Bitchute channel</a> (feel free to subscribe). Yes, I have a Bitchute channel. Stop telling me to get one. I've had one for over a year now. If you had looked you would've found it!</p>
3460
3461 <p>If you don't know, Bitchute is a video channel based on the bit torrent protocol, meaning that while it is still a niche video site, it has the potentiality to <em>improve</em> quality and bandwidth with more viewership while traditional sites would rely on buying up a huge server farm.
3462 Bitchute also has a relatively firm commitment to non-censorship, a commitment which has cost them much, including access to PayPal, but they have never renegged.
3463 </p>
3464
3465 <p>
3466 Anyway, Bitchute automatically mirrors any new video on my YouTube channel, so it has all the videos I've put up since I started it, but is lacking those I made in early 2017, so I'm in the process of manually uploading them. If anyone knows an automatic upload system, feel free to tell me, but Bitchute's channel UI tends to lack those kinds of perks.
3467 </p>
3468
3469 <p>So anyway, you'll see some old (but new) videos popping up on my Bitchute, if you haven't seen them, now's your chance. Again, the link is: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukesmith/">https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukesmith/</></p>
3470 ]]></description>
3471 </item>
3472
3473
3474 <item>
3475 <title>What is 'the best' Linux distro?</title>
3476 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#what-is-the-best-linux-distro</guid>
3477 <pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2018 08:20:14 -0500</pubDate>
3478 <description><![CDATA[
3479 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bsNIdYw5Ak">New video out: "The TOP 1 LINUX DISTROS for 2019".</a></p>
3480
3481 <p>I've long found conversations about different Linux distributions tedious and meangingless.
3482 For people familiar enough with *nix systems, the superficial differences between distributions can be easily erradicated or changed by any basic system knowledge.
3483 "Distros are not desktop environments", as some people have started to say.
3484 I sort of got this ball rolling on YouTube at the start of my channel when I put out my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zpgQpdy_fI">How to Choose a Linux distro: Stop Thinking!</a> video and it was the first result for any "Linux" search for a while.
3485 </p>
3486
3487 <p>
3488 I certainly don't take any of it back, but as time has gone on, I'm starting to think that the distribution I've been using for all this time might be "the best" in some sense.
3489 It doesn't do anything <em>particularly good</em>, but avoids all the hassles that most distributions do not.
3490 It also puts users in a place where they can more competently deal with system problems in an intelligent way.
3491 </p>
3492
3493 <p>
3494 What distro am I talking about? Well, you probably already know, but <em>let's find out!</em> 👉
3495 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bsNIdYw5Ak">The TOP 1 LINUX DISTROS for 2019</a>
3496 </p>
3497 ]]></description>
3498 </item>
3499
3500 <item>
3501 <title>'Boomer Rants in Woods' series</title>
3502 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#boomer-rants-in-woods-series</guid>
3503 <pubDate>Sun, 23 Dec 2018 17:20:43 -0500</pubDate>
3504 <description><![CDATA[
3505 <p>I've officially created a new playlist for a certain genre of my videos: the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JRlxgcaj-WxkAylXFuE0gyk">"30-year-old Boomer Rants in Woods"</a> series.</p>
3506
3507 <p>
3508 Title self explanatory, although the Boomer-ranting-in-woods should be understood as a Gestalt that might include some videos that are not, strictly speaking, <em>rants</em>, some scenes that are not actually in <em>the woods</em> and additionally, I'm neither <em>actually</em> a Boomer nor 30-years-old.</p>
3509
3510 <p>For those of you who use YouTube playlists, you may now enjoy this one.</p>
3511 ]]></description>
3512 </item>
3513
3514
3515 <item>
3516 <title>Running commands whenever a file is changed with entr</title>
3517 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#running-commands-whenever-a-file-is-changed-with-entr</guid>
3518 <pubDate>Sat, 22 Dec 2018 09:12:34 -0500</pubDate>
3519 <description><![CDATA[
3520 <p>New video up on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAp_zWeI34">entr</a>, which is a very handy command that will monitor whatever files you give it on standard input and will run a requested command on them whenever they are saved/changed. While it's not a core utility, it's almost a must have for system administration and for those interested in autocompilation or automating other aspects of your system or development environment.</p>
3521
3522 <p>
3523 The main website of the project is <a target="_blank" href="http://eradman.com/entrproject/">here</a> which actually gives some pretty salient use cases, but I detail some I've used in the video a bit.
3524 I'm sure for a lot of people this is "what they've always been looking for" because it's a task not perfectly filled by the typical programs.
3525 </p>
3526 ]]></description>
3527 </item>
3528
3529
3530 <item>
3531 <title>I'M GOING TO USE THE NNN FILE BROWSER</title>
3532 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#im-going-to-use-the-nnn-file-browser</guid>
3533 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2018 11:43:00 -0500</pubDate>
3534 <description><![CDATA[
3535 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2n5aGqou9E">New video out on nnn</a>, which is a much lighter and faster equivalent of ranger for browsing files on the terminal.</p>
3536
3537 <p>nnn is quite speedy and has a design that will be somewhat unfamiliar to some, using only environmental variables for configuration, instead of either traditional dotfiles or suckless-like <code>config.h</code> with the intent of recompilation.
3538 Nonetheless, nnn has all the basics you need, lacking the bloat of ranger.
3539 I'll still be using ranger, as I've fallen into some of its more specific features, but nnn will probably be the best for some of you out there.
3540 </p>
3541
3542 <p>Source code is <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/jarun/nnn">here</a>, although it should be in the Arch default repos.</p>
3543
3544 <p>Also, check out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Vu7WPkoJo">my video on ranger</a>. I still always get the most questions about what ranger is, so here's the link again ;-)</p>
3545 ]]></description>
3546 </item>
3547
3548
3549 <item>
3550 <title>Do you hate Patreon and PayPal?</title>
3551 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#do-you-hate-patreon-and-paypal</guid>
3552 <pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 18:25:06 -0500</pubDate>
3553 <description><![CDATA[
3554 <p>Most people do. Luckily, for all the complaining, there is a simple replacement for it that cuts out the middle man altogether and transfers money directly and immediately between bank accounts.</p>
3555
3556 <p>You probably haven't heard of it, but there is a new money transfer system that most banks in the United States maintain called <b>Zelle</b>.
3557 It's really just a protocol for transferring money directly from account to account with just an email, so it works pretty much with the ease of PayPal.
3558 It is actually a service offered for free (no fees at all) by most American banks.
3559 </p>
3560
3561 <p><b>If you have any bank account in the United States, you probably already have Zelle and don't know it.</b></p>
3562
3563 <p>So for all those who want to donate to the channel but don't want to be bothered to use Paypal/Patreon, here's how to use it:</p>
3564
3565 <ul>
3566 <li>Log on to your online banking for whatever bank you have.</li>
3567 <li>Search for a "transfer money" or "Zelle" section.</li>
3568 <li>(You may have to confirm your email, but "setup" is automatic.)</li>
3569 <li>When asked for a recipient, just put in my email address: <big>luke@lukesmith.xyz</big></li>
3570 </ul>
3571
3572 <p>Benefits of Zelle:</p>
3573
3574 <ul>
3575 <li>It's managed by banks as a free tool for their customers, so it doesn't skim some money off the top of your donation.</li>
3576 <li>You don't need to sign up and create an account on some new website.</li>
3577 <li>You can send a single lump-sum donation if you hate PayPal, or set up recurring donations if you hate Patreon.</li>
3578 <li>Zelle, being owned by banks regulated up the wazoo is less likely to ZUCC you. I've never heard of anyone being ZUCCed by them in fact.</li>
3579 </ul>
3580
3581 <p>Again, you can donate <em>directly</em> to me, no charge using Zelle and my email:</p>
3582
3583 <p><big>luke@lukesmith.xyz</big></p>
3584
3585 <p>I'll be adding these directions <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/zelle.html">here</a> for reference.</p>
3586
3587 <p>I might actually do a video on this, just so more people know.</p>
3588 ]]></description>
3589 </item>
3590
3591
3592 <item>
3593 <title>Transparency/chroma keys in mpv or vlc?</title>
3594 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#transparencychroma-keys-in-mpv-or-vlc</guid>
3595 <pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 18:15:56 -0500</pubDate>
3596 <description><![CDATA[
3597 <p>As you may know, when I screencast, I record the entrety of my screen and when I have my face in the bottom right, it is a literal floating mpv window on my desktop.
3598 I don't use either video editing or OBS to produce this effect.
3599 </p>
3600
3601 <p>
3602 There is a little feature I've been thinking to add to this though, and that is using a green screen and chroma keying out the background, leaving only me.
3603 I don't know of a way to do this in mpv (or the commonly used alternative vlc), but I was curious if anyone had any experience automatically keying out some color in a video stream as that's sort of what I want to do.
3604 </p>
3605
3606 <p>
3607 This isn't necessary, and if I <em>really</em> wanted it, I could just use OBS, but I'm curious if there's an established way to do this.
3608 Email me at <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a> if you have a solution for this.
3609 </p>
3610 ]]></description>
3611 </item>
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620 <item>
3621 <title>Luke Smith in 1080p!</title>
3622 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#luke-smith-in-1080p</guid>
3623 <pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 13:22:15 -0500</pubDate>
3624 <description><![CDATA[
3625 <p>I want to thank again Henok S. for getting me and the channel the simple yet elegant ThinkVision T2224D monitor!
3626 I showcase it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfwerXTCb1c">here in a new video</a>!
3627 This is less of a gift to me than a gift to everyone who watches my channel because it means that my screencasts will be recorded in full wide 1080p HD, and not the awkward 1680x1050 resolution of the fatt TV monitor I used to use and then mutilated by the resolution requirements of YouTube into 1152x720!
3628 </p>
3629
3630 <p>
3631 You can see from the video (probably if you're watching in 1080p or even less) that the screen and webcam should be a good bit crisper since it's no longer going through that awkward conversion.
3632 On my side, the color of the monitor is also fantastic.
3633 Obviously you can't really see it, but it definitely makes a difference for me.
3634 </p>
3635
3636 <p>
3637 I deliberately also got an IPS panel and it looks great (I had to read up on screen technology a little when shopping around).
3638 I have an IPS on my X220 and had always noticed the much more vivid colors compared to other screens. It made me <em>prefer</em> to use the smaller laptop screen on occasions.
3639 The IPS panel is seriously great looking. It doesn't come over in photos how good it looks, so I can't directly show you, but it is very comfortable.
3640 I had to read up on different options, but it seems that IPS is pretty much the best unless you want more Hertz for video-gayming. I definitely love it.
3641 </p>
3642
3643 <p>
3644 The monitor I got was on the cheap side, a little over $100.
3645 There are more expensive equivalents, including other made by Lenovo, that often come with either speakers, USB ports, more ports for displays and other options, sometimes even webcams.
3646 I just wanted a monitor that was a monitor (and didn't want to make my benefactor feel obliged to buy an extortionate item ;-)).
3647 If I want to "expand" later, I can get a dual display with a fancier thing, but what I have is already great, and much better than before!
3648 </p>
3649
3650 <p>So again, you can look foward to seeing my screencasts in 1080p and can thank Henok for that!</p>
3651 ]]></description>
3652 </item>
3653
3654
3655 <item>
3656 <title>grug like new notrelated episode</title>
3657 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#grug-like-new-notrelated-episode</guid>
3658 <pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:39:10 -0500</pubDate>
3659 <description><![CDATA[
3660 <p>New episode of <em>Not Related!</em> on the new perspectives in early human evolution, downloadable <a target="_blank" href="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/notrelated/S01E07_-_Human_Evolution_Revised_Timelines_and_Multiregionalism.mp3">here</a>!</p>
3661
3662 <p>Topics covered:</p>
3663
3664 <ul>
3665 <li>The constantly deeper origin of humankind in time (and why this will continue)</li>
3666 <li>A review of (a lot of) very recent scientific literature on the genetics and archeological cultures of early humans</li>
3667 <li>Out-of-Africa vs. Multiregionalism</li>
3668 <li>How much like us are Neanderthals?</li>
3669 </ul>
3670
3671 <p>Here is a list of the papers cited or alluded to:</p>
3672
3673 <ul>
3674 <li>Smith et al. 2018. Humans trived in South Africa through the Toba eruption about 74,000 years ago. Nature 555.7697. Pages 511-515.</li>
3675 <li>Richter et al. 2017. The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age. Nature 546.7657. Pages 293-29.</li>
3676 <li>Schlebusch et al. 2017. South African ancient genomes estimate modern human divergence 350,000 to 260,000 years ago. Science 358.6363. Pages 652-655.</li>
3677 <li>Hodgson et a. 2014. Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa. PLOS ONE 10.6.</li>
3678 <li>Groucutt et al. 2018. Homo sapiens in Arabia by 85,000 years. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2.5. Pages 800-809.</li>
3679 <li>Demeter et al. 2015. Early Modern Humans and Morphological Variation in Southeast Asia: Fossil Evidence from Tam Pa Ling, Laos. PLOS ONE 10.4.</li>
3680 <li>Westaway et al. 2017. An early modern human presence in Sumatra 73,000-63,000 years ago. Nature 548.7667. Pages 322-325.</li>
3681 <li>Pringle, Heather. 2011. Texas Site Confirms Pre-Clovis Settlement of the Americas. Science, New Series 331.6024. Page 1512.</li>
3682 <li>Raghavan et al. 2015. Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans. Nature 505.7481. Pages 87-91.</li>
3683 <li>Skoglund et al. 2015. Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas. Nature.</li>
3684 <li>Ferentinos et al. 2012. Early seafaring activity in the southern Ionian Islands, Mediterranean Sea. Journal of Archaeological Science 39. 2167-2176.</li>
3685 <li>Jaubert et al. 2016. Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. Nature 111.534. 111-114.</li>
3686 <li>Coop et al. 2008. The Timing of Selection at the Human FOXP2 Gene. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25.7. Pages 1257-1259.</li>
3687 </ul>
3688
3689 <p>
3690 Also, check out the new and improved simple HTML <em>Not Related.xyz</em> website <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">here</a>!
3691 </p>
3692 ]]></description>
3693 </item>
3694
3695
3696 <item>
3697 <title>Physiognomy is real! (A request)</title>
3698 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#physiognomy-is-real-a-request</guid>
3699 <pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2018 09:16:58 -0500</pubDate>
3700 <description><![CDATA[
3701 <p>
3702 You may've heard of <em>physiognomy</em>, which is the study of how people's
3703 physical appearances or faces relate to their psychology or personality.
3704 Physiognomy is interesting because it was one of those many fields brushed
3705 aside as "pseudo-scientific" ironically enough my the early 20th century bugman
3706 scientists who lacked the tools to study it (and were also afraid of something
3707 that could be perceived as wacist). Nowadays, however, with better
3708 experimental techniques and sometimes even the aid of artificial intelligence,
3709 there have arisen a lot of different experimental studies finding that
3710 physiognomy is very real as a correlation between body/facial structure and
3711 personality, but also that people are very good at judging other peoples'
3712 personalities from that structure.
3713 </p>
3714
3715 <p>
3716 This often trickles into the news media when we hear about faces being "gay" or
3717 "racist". We hear about how political persuasion correlates with body strength
3718 or religious zeal being readable from one's face. There are more subtle
3719 things, like a person's index to ring finger ratio that are registers of
3720 prenatal testosterone, thus correlating with all manners of things. And then
3721 there's left-handedness.
3722 </p>
3723
3724 <p>
3725 This shouldn't be a surprise for anyone.
3726 The nerd and the chad have separate personalities, but their different bodies and dispositions reflect them.
3727 One might cause the other, or be related for other reasons, but the correlations are there and everyone knows and recognizes them.
3728 </p>
3729
3730 <p>
3731 Anyway, for the podcast <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">NotRelated.xyz</a>, I'm planning on doing an episode on physiognomy.
3732 Yes, I know I haven't put out an episode in around month, but I've been unable to record due to factors out of my control ;-).
3733 I have this and two (sort of three) other episodes under construction and I think once I move to my new place January, I'll have <em>much</em> more recording time.
3734 </p>
3735
3736 <p>
3737 <b>I'm saying all this because I'm curious if people reading have any physiognomy data or even anecdotes.</b> I've compiled a lot of studies on this kind of stuff over time, but feel free to send me what you have.
3738 There's a big and speculative field out there, so I'd like to cover what people have found interesting even if I haven't found it myself.
3739 Do <b>not</b> send me news media links. Send me links to the papers that they're based on.
3740 </p>
3741 ]]></description>
3742 </item>
3743
3744
3745 <item>
3746 <title>My RSS feed is getting too big!</title>
3747 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-rss-feed-is-getting-too-big</guid>
3748 <pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:42:19 -0500</pubDate>
3749 <description><![CDATA[
3750 <p>I'm a completionist, so I've been in a habit of putting everything out there in full form.
3751 One of these things is my RSS feed, where I've never bothered to purge old entries.
3752 This was inevitable, but it's getting too big! Over 200 entries since last summer when I started it!</p>
3753
3754 <p>So pretty soon, probably today, I'll be removing old entries from the feed and backing them up somewhere else.
3755 I'll probably have a backup for the old RSS feed though.
3756 Of course, you'll still have everything if your RSS reader keeps a cache and you don't need to change the address or anything else.
3757 I just wanted to make this note, before I trim it down. It's about 215K now! Considering how many people access it and how often it's way too much of a bandwidth hog.</p>
3758 ]]></description>
3759 </item>
3760
3761
3762 <item>
3763 <title>Are you thirsty for some Social Media Upcummies?</title>
3764 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#are-you-thirsty-for-some-social-media-upcummies</guid>
3765 <pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:26:48 -0500</pubDate>
3766 <description><![CDATA[
3767 <p>New video up on the pervasiveness of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjbyDU0WzYI">upcummies on social media</a>. Don't know what an upcummy is? Watch the video and find out!</p>
3768
3769 <p>Social media isn't just a waste of time, but makes everyone around you mediocre. Drawn in by a slow trickle of pseudo-information and statistical noise, you constantly have the feeling that you're accomplishing something despite spendings Onaninist hours being conditioned and advertised to.</p>
3770
3771 <p>You can easily go without social media. I, as you may know, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiMcX3Fa2Us">went without direct internet access for 2 years</a>, and this YouTube channel is a partial product of that. Restricting your exposure to the hivemind will always make you more clear minded and make your time connected to the hivemind more productive.</p>
3772
3773 <p>Remember to smash that upcummy button too! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)</p>
3774 ]]></description>
3775 </item>
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780 <item>
3781 <title>Download any of my thumbnails easily</title>
3782 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#download-any-of-my-thumbnails-easily</guid>
3783 <pubDate>Sun, 16 Dec 2018 17:48:57 -0500</pubDate>
3784 <description><![CDATA[
3785 <p>Hi everyone. You could always use <code>youtube-dl</code> to download my videos and thumbnails, but out of sheer why-not, I've added a link to the fullsize thumbnail of every one of my videos into <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/videos.html">my video gallery</a>.</p>
3786
3787 <p>Just click on the "🖼" next to the video title and you'll get the thumbnail.</p>
3788
3789 <p>Also, I released a contentless video <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpzwIArBjyc">here</a> if you want to see it. Just because I've been doing videos pretty consistently the past few days and didn't want to break the pattern despite being very busy today.</p>
3790 ]]></description>
3791 </item>
3792
3793
3794 <item>
3795 <title>Video up on sed and regular expressions</title>
3796 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-sed-and-regular-expressions</guid>
3797 <pubDate>Sat, 15 Dec 2018 17:37:41 -0500</pubDate>
3798 <description><![CDATA[
3799 <p>New video up on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaGhpqRll_k">sed and regular expressions</a>.</p>
3800 <p>
3801 To introduce people or get them a little deeper into sed,
3802 I showcase a use case of my own: a simple sed command to trim a document instantly of all comments and blanklines for further processing.
3803 </p>
3804 <p>
3805 I also show my i3 status torrent module, which is just a sed command writ a little larger, replacing matches with emojis.
3806 If you want more basic Unix commands/bash videos, smash that MF like button and say so, because people have been asking for this kind of stuff and I'm curious how wanted it is!
3807 </p>
3808 ]]></description>
3809 </item>
3810
3811
3812 <item>
3813 <title>New st build additions: link handling and Xresources and pywal compatibility</title>
3814 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-st-build-additions-link-handling-and-xresources-and-pywal-compatibility</guid>
3815 <pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2018 16:04:36 -0500</pubDate>
3816 <description><![CDATA[
3817 <p>Since people don't austistically check my Github commits, I get a lot of questions about st (the simple terminal by suckless), my build and feature requests.
3818 Actually, a lot of people seem to think I'm still using urxvt...</p>
3819
3820 <p>Anyway, I've put up <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/9H75enWM22k">a new video on st here</a>, which is a complement to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmm7wl4JUI">my original video</a>.
3821 I talk about some of the additional features I've patched in, like reading variables, including font and colors from Xresources, more intuitive vim-like binds, and a binding that reads all urls on the screen and feeds them to dmenu for selection.
3822 The last feature can largely replace using <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgzpAjFgbCw">urlview</a> or urlscan, although it requires xurls (and dmenu).</p>
3823
3824 <p>To be clear, reading Xresources does make st compatible with automatic pywal colorschemes (if you don't know what wal/pywal is, I did a video on it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es79N_9BblE">here!</a>).
3825 I've actually had this in my st build for a while now, but I still get requests for this feature!
3826 </p>
3827 ]]></description>
3828 </item>
3829
3830
3831 <item>
3832 <title>My public blog script, `lb` is now much improved</title>
3833 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-public-blog-script-lb-is-now-much-improved</guid>
3834 <pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:53:32 -0500</pubDate>
3835 <description><![CDATA[
3836 <p>I know a couple of you guys out there use <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/lb">my blog script, lb,</a> for your personal blogs.
3837 Advertised as a "Blog & RSS system in less than 100 lines of shell script". It's minimal, easy to customize and I've been using it for months now.
3838 If you didn't see <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfAdzGmhik">the original video</a>, there's the link.
3839 </p>
3840
3841 <p>The script allows you to write blog posts that are then automatically syndicated in several locations of your choosing:</p>
3842
3843 <ul>
3844 <li>A rolling blog page: <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blog.html">lukesmith.xyz/blog.html</a></li>
3845 <li>A blog index page (can be placed in your index if desired): <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blogindex.html">lukesmith.xyz/blogindex.html</a></li>
3846 <li>All posts appear in the <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blog">blog/</a> directory, which can be accessible via Apache settings.</li>
3847 <li>RSS entries, containing the full blog post are added to your RSS feed of choice (e.g. <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml">lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</a>)</li>
3848 </ul>
3849
3850 <p>
3851 But yesterday I rewrote the script, actually making it shorter while adding some nice features.
3852 </p>
3853
3854 <ul>
3855 <li>The ability to revise already published articles</li>
3856 <li>Smarter URL creation. The old script made somewhat dumb urls.</li>
3857 <li>Use of the <code>.htaccess</code> file as a database to store filename-title correspondences and now publishing dates</li>
3858 <li>In the editing mode, only the text content, not the header or footer will appear in your editor. This is a side-effect of the fact above, since before, I had used the magic of script-kiddery to read from the buffer on publishing to determine the post's title. Now it's stored in <code>.htaccess</code> so that's not necessary.</li>
3859 </ul>
3860
3861 <p>
3862 The script is backwards compatible with the old script, although the commands have slightly changed (just run the command and it will tell you how) and if you've been working on unpublished drafts in lb 1.0, you must still publish them with lb 1.0.
3863 This backwards compatibility means that you can also revise old published blog entries without much of a problem.
3864 The only hiccup is the fact that if you revise a blog entry published with lb 1.0, when republished it will appear only with the new date.
3865 This should not be true of articles published by this lb 2.0.
3866 </p>
3867
3868 <p>To "install" the blog script, simply download it to the wanted blog directory and change the variables in it to seek the correct files (the RSS feed, blog file, blog index).
3869 You must add a comment line that looks exactly like this:
3870 </p>
3871
3872 <pre><code><!-- LB --></code></pre>
3873
3874 <p>to each file. That line is the point in the document after which new articles/RSS entries/list entries will be added.
3875 See the source files of my above linked pages for examples!</p>
3876 ]]></description>
3877 </item>
3878
3879 <item>
3880 <title>New video on i3 configuration and tiling window managers</title>
3881 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-video-on-i3-configuration-and-tiling-window-managers</guid>
3882 <pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 2018 10:00:22 -0500</pubDate>
3883 <description><![CDATA[
3884 <p>Check out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKviflL9XeI">this new video</a> where I talk about tiling window management for newbs, but I also talk about some of the additions to my dotfiles I've added in the past year and a half since I did <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOW61luzF4">my last video on i3</a>.</p>
3885
3886 <p>Additions include:</p>
3887
3888 <ul>
3889 <li>Several dmenu interfaces for USB mounting, display selection, emoji insertion and more</li>
3890 <li>More documentation for other users, including clickable statusbar info and a more complete Super+F1 guide</li>
3891 <li>Better backends for dropdown terminals</li>
3892 </ul>
3893
3894 <p>And more...</p>
3895 ]]></description>
3896 </item>
3897
3898 <item>
3899 <title>You can now donate Bitcoin!</title>
3900 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#you-can-now-donate-bitcoin</guid>
3901 <pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2018 12:26:56 -0500</pubDate>
3902 <description><![CDATA[
3903
3904 <p>I've finally taken the basic step of setting up a Bitcoin wallet, etc. after many requests from users.
3905 So you can donate Bitcoin using the address below:
3906 </p>
3907
3908 <p>1FjpZkeujhXLJM2FBQpusysALKoZHjbsmk</p>
3909
3910 <p>You can go to my <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/bitcoin.html">Bitcoin page</a> to see a QR code for it if you want.</p>
3911
3912 <p>If you want to donate "publicly" to be read out on the podcast, just send me a notification email with your name, comment and the donation amount for confirmation.</p>
3913 </body>
3914 ]]></description>
3915 </item>
3916
3917
3918
3919 <item>
3920 <title>Video on my vimrc and Vim Plug-Ins I use</title>
3921 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-my-vimrc-and-vim-plug-ins-i-use</guid>
3922 <pubDate>Mon, 03 Dec 2018 14:52:42 -0500</pubDate>
3923 <description><![CDATA[
3924 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/cTBgtN-s2Zw">I've put up a video going over some of the things I use in my vimrc.</a>
3925 When I put up that video yesterday, I got a lot of questions about different plug-ins and such, so I figure we're a little overdue for an actual video on my vimrc.
3926 </p>
3927
3928 <p>Check out some of my older now hidden videos on vim topics as well, some of which I mentioned in this video:</p>
3929
3930 <ul>
3931 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1XBUqbS68">Checking spelling in vim</a></li>
3932 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_rbfQqrm7g">Copying and pasting in vim</a></li>
3933 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4I_Ft-VLAg">Making vim snippets to write out syntax easily</a></li>
3934 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFEBw02aT8">Creating and using vim macros</a></li>
3935 </ul>
3936 ]]></description>
3937 </item>
3938
3939
3940 <item>
3941 <title>Lazy Sunday video on CPU, Temperature and Memory for general use</title>
3942 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#lazy-sunday-video-on-cpu--temperature-and-memory-for-general-use</guid>
3943 <pubDate>Sun, 02 Dec 2018 13:05:56 -0500</pubDate>
3944 <description><![CDATA[
3945 <p>This morning I recorded myself writing two brief status bar scripts that illustrate how to get, awk and sort basic Memory and CPU data on the Linux command line.
3946 I use just basic commands like <code>ps</code>, <code>awk</code> and others, but it might be useful for either newbies or those looking for ideas.
3947 You can see the video <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/MNwpdqD_I8Y">here</a>.
3948 </p>
3949 ]]></description>
3950 </item>
3951
3952
3953 <item>
3954 <title>Looking for a new colorscheme for my terminal. Recommendations?</title>
3955 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-a-new-colorscheme-for-my-terminal--recommendations-</guid>
3956 <pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 2018 15:07:32 -0500</pubDate>
3957 <description><![CDATA[
3958 <p>
3959 My st build now uses Xresources colors (including those set my pywal ofcourse) if available, but otherwise, it defaults to <a target="_blank" href="https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/">solarized colors</a>.
3960 For a default theme, the solarized colors are actually sort of wearing on me, and I'm looking for another sufficiently distinct, but also mostly generic colorscheme to use as a default.
3961 </p>
3962
3963 <p>
3964 If you have any suggestions, email me or <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/st/issues/23">post them here</a> in the Github issue I just made for it.
3965 </p>
3966 ]]></description>
3967 </item>
3968
3969
3970 <item>
3971 <title>Github Dotfiles and New i3 Video Soon</title>
3972 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#github-dotfiles-and-new-i3-video-soon</guid>
3973 <pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 2018 14:57:45 -0500</pubDate>
3974 <description><![CDATA[
3975 <p>In <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice">my Github dotfiles repo</a>, in the interest of repo size, I've removed the history of some "binary" files (.pdfs, etc.) from the repo history with <code>git filter-branch</code>.
3976 The repo used to be 20-40MB, but now it's down to about a tenth of that after that and some garbage collection.
3977 </p>
3978
3979 <p>
3980 One side effect has been that this has screwed up the (only two) pull requests on Github, but I assume it has had pretty radical effects if you're adjusting your fork "downstream" if you do something like that.
3981 I'm not a big Git n*rd ;-) so I may've been able to do this cleaner, but since it's my own personal dotfiles repo, I'm sure you'll forgive me.
3982 </p>
3983
3984 <p>
3985 Either way, I'll probably be doing a review of my dotfiles in i3 soon.
3986 It feels like I <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOW61luzF4">just did my last video of that type</a>, but it's been over a year with significant changes (some of which I've showcased in other videos).
3987 More importantly, I have thousands and thousands of new subscribers still continuing to ask the kinds of questions that that kind of video would answer.
3988 An unfortunate fact of YouTube is that it only recommends very recent videos, so people scarcely see videos past a certain age, despite how relevant they may be.
3989 </p>
3990 ]]></description>
3991 </item>
3992
3993
3994 <item>
3995 <title>GDP and income is a measure of fragility</title>
3996 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#gdp-and-income-is-a-measure-of-fragility</guid>
3997 <pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 19:20:49 -0500</pubDate>
3998 <description><![CDATA[
3999 <p>
4000 The common way of looking at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is that it's a metric of economic success: more GDP is more wealth.
4001 Wealth is good. "Poverty" (meaning low <em>per capita</em> GDP) is bad.
4002 Nowadays, pretty much everyone talks about "economics" like this as if this truism was scribbled on the back walls of the cosmos.
4003 </p>
4004
4005 <p>
4006 This is just looking at one side of the ledger in a kind of global double-entry accounting book.
4007 A logically equivalent way of looking at it is that <b>GDP is the metric of economic exchange required for survival in society as it exists</b>.
4008 You can say that some area "produced" $1B USD of output (sounds good), but you can just as easily say that $1B USD was required for that area to sustain itself (sounds bad).
4009 These two are simply logically equivalent.
4010 </p>
4011
4012 <p>
4013 Let's dive into the Gestalt: when you hear that a family of eight lives on less than a dollar per day (PPP adjusted), you might wonder how they manage!
4014 To <em>actually</em> do such a thing would require buying large bags of rice for the whole family, eat only that and live in free cardboard boxes.
4015 The reality is that that often uttered phrase means that they use less than $1 a day in the general economy, while the rest of their livelihood is "off-the-grid" or self-sufficient.
4016 They may grow food in a family farm, hunt for food, and most of their daily needs from cooking oils, to plates, to pottery, to soap are often made at home as well.
4017 There is still "an economy" but often one that is barter based or <em>socialist</em> in the real pre-socialist sense of the word: mediated by direct face-to-face social tit-for-tat between neighbors and friends, none of this mediated by currency being exchanged, thus it is not part of the GDP.
4018 </p>
4019
4020 <p>
4021 If you read about some Bangladeshi village where the only product is "textiles", that doesn't mean that everyone there makes textiles all day and, without a textile company, everyone would've starved to death.
4022 It means that the only on-paper, measurable global industry practiced there is textile manufacturing.
4023 Other villagers might farm, hunt, even do some kind of gathering in some places.
4024 They will produce the arts and crafts and live the way people live when you leave them alone.
4025 If your view of the world is mediated by GDP, you're only seeing the extremely small sliver that pops into existence when people exchange something involving legal tender.
4026 </p>
4027
4028 <p>
4029 This is extremely difficult for us modern bugpeople to understand because to be a bugman in a large city is to produce absolutely nothing on one's own and buy literally everything you need from the store.
4030 To us non-productive people, GDP means income which means survival.
4031 But the further out of Bugmanville you go, the clearer the vacuousness of GDP becomes.
4032 </p>
4033
4034 <p>
4035 A minor example.
4036 We had a large Thanksgiving feast near my uncle's house in very rural Florida.
4037 As it got cold in the night, we had a fire in a repurposed old sugar cane cooking vat artfully standing on used symmetrical cinderblock pieces.
4038 A bugman hipster might pay two hundred dollars or more for a similar looking "authentic" piece of equipment. Those $200 would be counted in the GDP.
4039 A bugman hipster might have also bought or rented chairs for the event, "contributing" more to the GDP, but my uncle, as part of the local wholesome church community, simply borrowed some from the church.
4040 Thus our event produced basically no GDP output in goods or services, despite being functionally equivalent to some similar but expensive and ergo "productive" "Friendsgiving" practiced by urbanites.
4041 In reality <em>we</em> are richer than the bugmen hipsters who blew hundreds of dollars on a faux-folksy party.
4042 In this case, we owned the firepit and had easy access and permission to the chairs, thus we are more economically flexible than they are.
4043 That GDP that they produced/expended is evidence of deeper reliance on the economic system.
4044 That GDP output is a marker of <em>fragility</em>, reliance on the conditions of the outside economy in the same way that a village of Bangladeshis who abandon their traditional way of lives to work on textiles are more fragile, despite being able to save up for iPhones.
4045 </p>
4046
4047 <p>
4048 Much of the increase in GDP across the world is simply the movement from local partially-social partially-under-the-table economies to economies mediated by taxable currency.
4049 An economically self-sufficient village with close social relationships and a barter economy has 0 GDP.
4050 A township of entrepreneurs and artisans you partially barter and partially use currency which they don't report has 0 GDP.
4051 All of these people are "in poverty" and "earn less than a dollar a day".
4052 And if you want to be truly self-sufficient, that means having a personal GDP of zero.
4053 </p>
4054
4055 <p>
4056 More than that, pretty much everywhere, GDP is a strong indicator of social upheaval.
4057 If you think that GDP is some eternal goodness, remember that <em>everything "good" about industrialization shows up in the GDP</em>, while at the same time, <em>everything bad about it will not show up</em>.
4058 Or, sometimes bad things are registered as positive economic growth: urbanization has caused mass-disease, and if that means a market for new medical services and pharmaceuticals, great!
4059 The GDP just went up!
4060 The Ganges is polluted due to the textile plant? That just means more opportunities for local entrepreneurs to sell bottled water!
4061 The GDP just went up!
4062 Are people being pushed out of fishing or other subsistence occupations because of it? Even better! Now they have no choice but to contribute to the GDP!
4063 With every passing year, in fact, more and more of the GDP is produced by dealing with the problems that our higher level of GDP have caused.
4064 </p>
4065
4066 <p>
4067 To be clear, I am not saying that (a) GDP is utterly useless and means nothing nor (b) that having 0 GDP and thus everyone is totally self-sufficient in a barter economy is best.
4068 I'm also not specifically arguing that industrialization is generally bad (I do think that, but my point here is irrelevant to it).
4069 Simply put, I'm sick of big-braned moderates posting basic-ass comments on my videos about how "X is good because it increases the GDP", or worse, "the GDP has been going up, so our ever increasing level of bugmanism is good".
4070 GDP is a bad justification for Whig history, and in areas of personal independence, it's not a good indicator.
4071 </p>
4072 ]]></description>
4073 </item>
4074
4075
4076 <item>
4077 <title>Note to newfriends: Don't share my content on 4chan!</title>
4078 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#note-to-newfriends--don-t-share-my-content-on-4chan-</guid>
4079 <pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:51:00 -0500</pubDate>
4080 <description><![CDATA[
4081 <p>
4082 Hi there! It appears you're new to 4chan.
4083 </p>
4084
4085 <p>
4086 Maybe you heard about it on Reddit or one of the other Content Aggregation sites you frequent.
4087 Since you're new, let me let you in on a little secret...
4088 You see, 4chan doesn't work like other sites.
4089 You don't get upvotes for sharing content and no 4chan user cares about e-celebs.
4090 </p>
4091
4092 <p>
4093 You see, maybe you really like the videos I put out on YouTube.
4094 Maybe they've really changed your life even.
4095 That's great!
4096 Unfortunately, it is not polite to share my videos on 4chan!
4097 Not polite to me, nor to 4chan users!
4098 </p>
4099
4100 <p>
4101 You see, on 4chan, anonymity is paramount and e-celebrities are frowned upon.
4102 Linking to my content unsolicited looks like an extremely cringey advertisement!
4103 If someone specifically asks for something that I have covered, this would be an appropriate time to link to one of my videos on 4chan, albeit without fanfare or specific personal glorification of me.
4104 However, uninvited links to my content, especially saying "Wow look what Luke Smith did" when no one asks is the highest form of faux pas.
4105 </p>
4106
4107 <p>
4108 Since 4chan is an anonymous message board, you also make me look bad because people might think I, in sheer desperation for views, am the one linking by videos for consumption on the board.
4109 I am very ashamed when I see my personality brought up my a cringey fan on 4chan.
4110 As I've become more popular, this evokes stronger and stronger feelings of jealousy among 4chan users.
4111 Thus sharing my content is not appropriate behavior there, although on other sites it might be fine!
4112 </p>
4113
4114 <p>
4115 Remember that everyone who matters on /g/ already watches my channel.
4116 Those who don't know about it could easily find my tutorials and other content on any topic by searching for them if needed.
4117 On 4chan, respecting other users' <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politeness_theory#Positive_and_negative_face">Negative Face</a> is a high priority unless you are simply shitposting, so please do not be overbearing, especially with respect to people with public internet presences like myself.
4118 </p>
4119 <p>
4120 Or as they user to say in the old days: lurk moar.
4121 Or at least go back to Reddit where you belong!
4122 </p>
4123 ]]></description>
4124 </item>
4125
4126
4127 <item>
4128 <title>I DAB ON ALL YOU NERDS</title>
4129 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#i-dab-on-all-you-nerds</guid>
4130 <pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:09:10 -0500</pubDate>
4131 <description><![CDATA[
4132 <p>New video up of the Boomer rants genre: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj7uMb662GM">Check it out</a>!</p>
4133 ]]></description>
4134 </item>
4135
4136
4137 <item>
4138 <title>Please be on the lookout for this phenomenon among pretentious Zoomers</title>
4139 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#please-be-on-the-lookout-for-this-phenomenon-among-pretentious-zoomers</guid>
4140 <pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 01:47:33 -0500</pubDate>
4141 <description><![CDATA[
4142 <p>
4143 I've noticed an as-of-yet undescribed linguistic habit among Zoomers (born from late 1990's) who fancy themselves big-braned.
4144 If you know the first thing about Labovian sociolinguistics, people who are similar in identity subtly pick up and standardize similar linguistic habits, often without noticing them.
4145 </p>
4146
4147 <p>
4148 To put it succinctly, some pretentious Zoomer males (of which there are many on YouTube) have a way of talking that I can only describe as sounding like they're talking with their mouths semi-full...
4149 It's some unique way of posturing their mouth, but I can't say what exactly this is articulatorily.
4150 </p>
4151
4152 <p>
4153 I want to compile more examples of this.
4154 I actually don't want to link specific examples of this because I'm curious first if other people have noticed this in certain personalities.
4155 If so, I recommend sending me links to ensure I'm not going crazy in noticing it; I've already compiled a small list of big-braned Zoomers with this style of talking.
4156 Full report later.
4157 </p>
4158 ]]></description>
4159 </item>
4160
4161
4162 <item>
4163 <title>How to find minimalist programs</title>
4164 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-to-find-minimalist-programs</guid>
4165 <pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2018 18:54:28 -0500</pubDate>
4166 <description><![CDATA[
4167 <p>I just put out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-06a36HsrI">a video on how to find some minimalist programs</a>.</p>
4168
4169 <p>Pretty simple, but I'll repeat the url recommendations here, some of which I'm sure you've seen:</p>
4170
4171 <ul>
4172 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/programs">My own list of programs that I use.</a></li>
4173 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://suckless.org/rocks/">The suckless website of programs that "rock"</a></li>
4174 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/mayfrost/guides/blob/master/ALTERNATIVES.md">A more comprehensive (and gradient) list of minimalist software</a></li>
4175 <li><a target="_blank" href="http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/">"Harmful" and "less harmful" programs from cat -v</a></li>
4176 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/List_of_recommended_GNU/Linux_software">Install Gentoo wiki recommendations</a></li>
4177 </ul>
4178 ]]></description>
4179 </item>
4180
4181
4182 <item>
4183 <title>Podcast syndicated on Spotify</title>
4184 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#podcast-syndicated-on-spotify</guid>
4185 <pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2018 12:29:17 -0500</pubDate>
4186 <description><![CDATA[
4187 <p>
4188 Just in case there are actually any subsribers of mine who use the DRM-content-restriction manager Spotify, you can now get my podcast on it, see <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6uiBcDPySNPQGRVOXb88sR">this link</a>!
4189 Obviously I don't condone using Spotify, but if you already use it and have clever rationalizations as for why you just have to ;-), you can now get the podcast through it as syndicating it there is costless and effortless to me.
4190 </p>
4191
4192 <p>
4193 There are, of course, better ways of getting the podcast, including RSS on the podcast website: <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">https://notrelated.xyz</a>
4194 </p>
4195 ]]></description>
4196 </item>
4197
4198
4199 <item>
4200 <title>Video up on zathura for reading pdfs, djvus, epubs and everything else</title>
4201 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-zathura-for-reading-pdfs--djvus--epubs-and-everything-else</guid>
4202 <pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2018 11:34:39 -0500</pubDate>
4203 <description><![CDATA[
4204 <p>
4205 A lot of people asked for a video on <em>zathura</em> the document reader after I mentioned I used in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=158bJFTETRI">in a recent video where I complained about the acursed Adobe Reader</a>.
4206 </p>
4207
4208 <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Iz4zdyRM4">Here it is!</a></p>
4209
4210 <p>Zathura is great because:</p>
4211
4212 <ul>
4213 <li>It's vim-based and the shortcuts can be easily configured.</li>
4214 <li>It is very small, modular and a very quick load and quite responsive.</li>
4215 <li>It provides keyboard access to zooming, bookmarking, indexes and everything in between.</li>
4216 <li>It autodetects changes in currently open files.</li>
4217 <li>It can read standard input, which I discuss a recent use case of mine.</li>
4218 <li>It can also function modally for giving presentations and other things.</li>
4219 <li>It's modular and can be easily expanded to read pdfs, djvus, postscript files, epubs, comic books, etc.</li>
4220 </ul>
4221
4222 <p>Check the video, and the program out!</p>
4223 ]]></description>
4224 </item>
4225
4226
4227 <item>
4228 <title>Battlestation repair video!</title>
4229 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#battlestation-repair-video-</guid>
4230 <pubDate>Fri, 23 Nov 2018 18:42:02 -0500</pubDate>
4231 <description><![CDATA[
4232 <p>
4233 I believe I mentioned in the most recent livestream that I'd be refinishing the top of my enormous workdesk, which has sustained substantial damage over the years.
4234 I've now put <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0a7GegepvI">the video of me doing just that up</a>.
4235 You can look at it as a kind of tutorial, but I was sort of learning as I went myself.
4236 </p>
4237
4238 <p>
4239 The whole process of refinishing, even my amateurish job, made the old desk look like new and I recommend you try it on your own degraded wooden furniture.
4240 It's a quite easy process.
4241 It really amounts to sanding the thing down with increasing grits of sandpaper, then spraying several coats of lacquer staggered by drying times.
4242 The end result is quite impressive given how disgusting the original was.
4243 </p>
4244 ]]></description>
4245 </item>
4246
4247
4248 <item>
4249 <title>Adobe Reader is LITERALLY Hitler</title>
4250 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#adobe-reader-is-literally-hitler</guid>
4251 <pubDate>Thu, 22 Nov 2018 11:45:30 -0500</pubDate>
4252 <description><![CDATA[
4253 <p>Happy Thanksgiving Amerimutts!</p>
4254
4255 <p>I had just released a video entitled <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=158bJFTETRI">Adobe Reader is LITERALLY Hitler.</a> Subject matter is self explanitory. ;-) Check it out! I talk about the worst computer program ever written.</p>
4256 ]]></description>
4257 </item>
4258
4259
4260 <item>
4261 <title>Not Related! Site under construction</title>
4262 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related--site-under-construction</guid>
4263 <pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:56:37 -0500</pubDate>
4264 <description><![CDATA[
4265 <p>
4266 I've decided to reengineer <a target="_blank" href="https://NotRelated.xyz">NotRelated.xyz</a> since I'm not the biggest fan of the slow-loading web page Libsyn generates by default. You can still get to it at the standard Libsyn address (<a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com">https://notrelated.libsyn.com</a>, but I'd rather keep the main domain to my own making.
4267 Plus, Libsyn is a pain for dealing with SSL/HTTPS despite charging me an extra $2 a month just to have an external site.
4268 Thanks, nnnnguys, but I think I'll do it myself now.
4269 HTTPS is now active on NotRelated.xyz (free of course) thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://certbot.eff.org/">certbot</a> (fekkin BASTE).
4270 </p>
4271
4272 <p>
4273 Only trouble now is I'm still deciding exactly what to do for the new site or how... ;-)
4274 Right now it's a semi-clone of my website format with relevant links, but that will change soon.
4275 I think I'll post user questions on a page, responding to them in text, even if I'm unable to respond to them in the podcast.
4276 I'll want to have a rolling index of podcast episodes, but I'm just racking my brain of how to do it automatically linking to the Libsyn podcast downloads or players.
4277 </p>
4278
4279 <p>
4280 <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">Visit the site now</a> and you'll see that I've linked some sites that <em>Not Related!</em> will be automatically syndicated on.
4281 This might not mean anything for my core subscribers who do everything by RSS and newsboat, but for normalfriends and Pajeets, there are links to Google Play, Soundcloud, the YouTube playlist, etc. where episodes will automatically appear.
4282 Gloria Deo that I don't have to do any of that manually.
4283 Syndication on Spotify and iHeartRadio is also underway.
4284 I'll probably even add it to iTunes next time I: (1) have access to a Mac computer (2) install iTunes (3) open up iTunes (which takes several days itself) and (4) configure it all.
4285 "It just werks" in action boys.
4286 If anyone has any clue how to add a podcast to iTunes just via the browser like a normal service, please tell me, but to my understanding, this isn't possible.
4287 Maccucks will still, unironically and unabashedly defend this.
4288 </p>
4289 ]]></description>
4290 </item>
4291
4292
4293 <item>
4294 <title>How do you do URLs or hyperlinks in a groff or troff document?</title>
4295 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-do-you-do-urls-or-hyperlinks-in-a-groff-or-troff-document-</guid>
4296 <pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2018 14:07:51 -0500</pubDate>
4297 <description><![CDATA[
4298 <p>A question for groff/troff veterans whose knowledge extends beyond mine. Subject explains it all.</p>
4299
4300 <p>
4301 I want to have typical clickable hyperlinks in a pdf document generated by groff, but I haven't found a way of doing this so far.
4302 If you know, your help is appreciated!
4303 Email here: <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>!
4304 </p>
4305
4306 <p>
4307 The use case is that I'm rewriting the LARBS guide (originally in R markdown) to groff so it can be easily an quickly built and updated a LARBS install
4308 (R is not installed by default and I don't want to have it and R markdown as a hard dependency just to build one document).
4309 I've had to recompile the R markdown .pdf every time I update the guide, thus causing for a pretty bloated git history, but making it recomile quickly on startup on each user's machine would be much better not just to make the git repo cleaner, but allows a quicker update in response to changes to the text source.
4310 </p>
4311 ]]></description>
4312 </item>
4313
4314
4315 <item>
4316 <title>Video on eqn: Formatting Math and Statistics in groff and troff</title>
4317 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-eqn--formatting-math-and-statistics-in-groff-and-troff</guid>
4318 <pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2018 20:13:12 -0500</pubDate>
4319 <description><![CDATA[
4320 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp0qgpeG6EY">New video out on eqn</a>, which is a groff/troff preprocessor that automatically formats mathematical expressions. It can be compared to LaTeX's math mode, but I actually enjoy the syntax much more.</p>
4321
4322 <p>In the vid, we go from basic math to square roots, summation, integrals, defining <code>eqn</code> macros and doing inline code.</p>
4323
4324 <p>You can get more info on the kinds of things you can get done with <code>eqn</code> with the cornucopia of documentation here: <a target="_blank" href="https://troff.org/papers.html#eqn">https://troff.org/papers.html#eqn</a>.</p>
4325 ]]></description>
4326 </item>
4327
4328
4329 <item>
4330 <title>Not Related!: When You're Too Rational to Be Rational!</title>
4331 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related---when-you-re-too-rational-to-be-rational-</guid>
4332 <pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:27:15 -0500</pubDate>
4333 <description><![CDATA[
4334 <p>I've just uploaded the newest episode of <em>Not Related!</em> which you can get <a href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/when-youre-too-rational-to-be-rational">here</a>!</p>
4335
4336 <p>
4337 The topic is the reality of what is actually "logical" in the brain and in human action.
4338 In your intro psychology classes, you'll likely be inundated with stories of the cognitive glitches that humans suffer from, most of which stemming from the prying research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the so-called <em>Heuristics and Biases</em> program.
4339 </p>
4340
4341 <p>
4342 But in this episode we briefly review this perspective, but also the rejoinder to it in the school of thought typically termed <em>Ecological Rationality</em>, specifically as described in Gerd Gigerenzer's <em>Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty</em>.
4343 From this perspective, many very human tendencies which will appear "irrational" in terms of formal logic are very reasonable in real life, and humans are equiped with an Adaptive Toolbox of mental heuristics to deal with complex problems.
4344 </p>
4345
4346 <p>Hear the twists and turns in this episode, and remember to subscribe to the <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">RSS feed for the podcast!</a></p>
4347 ]]></description>
4348 </item>
4349
4350 <item>
4351 <title>mutt-wizard ProtonMail Bridge compatibility</title>
4352 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#mutt-wizard-protonmail-bridge-compatibility</guid>
4353 <pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 2018 19:26:26 -0500</pubDate>
4354 <description><![CDATA[
4355 <p>
4356 I've had a lot of people ask if mutt-wizard can work with ProtonMail's encypted mail.
4357 The old answer was "No", but as <a target="_blank" href="https://protonmail.com/bridge/">ProtonMail Bridge</a> has become a thing, it's now possible to have your mail from ProtonMail offline, including in mutt.
4358 </p>
4359
4360 <p>
4361 <em>ProtonMail Bridge</em> requires a paid account to use, but if you have one, I encourage you to try it with mutt.
4362 I've just push a commit that <em>should</em> give mutt-wizard compatibility with ProtonMail and PM Bridge.
4363 Since I don't have an account with them, I can't test it, but I invite everyone who does to try it once you have Bridge set up and tell me if it works as expected ;-)
4364 </p>
4365 ]]></description>
4366 </item>
4367
4368
4369 <item>
4370 <title>Not-Quite-Livestream in preparation</title>
4371 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-quite-livestream-in-preparation</guid>
4372 <pubDate>Sun, 11 Nov 2018 16:42:23 -0500</pubDate>
4373 <description><![CDATA[
4374 <p>I'm preparing/uploading the Not-Quite-Livestream right now.
4375 I believe you can access the <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/K-FmqXbPpFQ">chatroom right now</a>!
4376 I'm in the chatroom myself now and I'll answer questions so long as it isn't TL;DR.
4377 Once the video has finished uploading and processing, it should play for everyone.
4378 </p>
4379
4380 <p>
4381 Hope you enjoy the experiment!
4382 I'm hoping to do real livestreams soon with my neighbor's wifi lmao.
4383 </p>
4384 ]]></description>
4385 </item>
4386
4387
4388 <item>
4389 <title>Quick tutorial on generating QR codes</title>
4390 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#quick-tutorial-on-generating-qr-codes</guid>
4391 <pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2018 14:27:35 -0500</pubDate>
4392 <description><![CDATA[
4393 <p>
4394 I've just put up a brief video on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/2WTljV8_9S8">making your own QR codes</a>.
4395 I guess everyone has <em>seen</em> QR codes, but not everyone has used them, but they're quite useful! I give a brief explanation in the vid.
4396 </p>
4397
4398 <p>
4399 For some reason, a lot of people use services on other people's computers to do this when you really just have to install <code>qrencode</code>, which is a pretty simple program to use.
4400 I illustrate it in the video for those of you too intelligent to just run <code>qrencode -h</code>.
4401 </p>
4402 ]]></description>
4403 </item>
4404
4405
4406 <item>
4407 <title>"Live"streams coming back!</title>
4408 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#-live-streams-coming-back-</guid>
4409 <pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2018 20:07:31 -0500</pubDate>
4410 <description><![CDATA[
4411 <p>I just put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npht_ISGL0g">a video on this</a>, but I'll put it in text for anyone who prefers it.</p>
4412
4413 <p>After a lot of requests, I'm going to start doing livestreams again.
4414 Problem is, until next January, I won't have consistent internet at my home to make that possible.
4415 So we can manage a little workaround:
4416 </p>
4417
4418 <p>
4419 I'm now, right now, taking "Super Chats" or donations from <a target="_blank" href="https://paypal.me/lukemsmith">PayPal</a> or <a target="_blank" href="crypto.html">different crypto currencies</a>.
4420 I'll record full responses to questions in the same way I would do a livestream.
4421 I'll probably also come with other content prepared.
4422 </p>
4423
4424 <p>
4425 Then, that full video, the length and style of a livestream will be uploaded to YouTube using the new "Premiere" feature, which allows a set release time and a chatroom just like in livestreams.
4426 Everyone can watch it together then, talking in the chat.
4427 Obviously I'll be in the chatroom as it plays for everyone simultaneously.
4428 </p>
4429
4430 <p>I'm planning to release this video <b>Sunday afternoon</b>.</p>
4431
4432 <p>That means if you want to donate to ask a question or pose a comment or point of discussion, donate (using the links about) ASAP.
4433 I'm not entirely sure when I'm going to be recording the video, but I suspect sometime Saturday.
4434 If you miss that window though, I'll read your donation and talk about what you want next time, so no problem.
4435 </p>
4436 ]]></description>
4437 </item>
4438
4439
4440 <item>
4441 <title>Big reshuffling of scripts in LARBS dotfiles</title>
4442 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#big-reshuffling-of-scripts-in-larbs-dotfiles</guid>
4443 <pubDate>Mon, 05 Nov 2018 17:57:04 -0500</pubDate>
4444 <description><![CDATA[
4445 <p>In addition to the changes I mentioned yesterday to LARBS,
4446 I've also just pushed some changes to the repository that sort all of the scripts into new directories for organizational purpose: a subdirectory for statusbar scripts (<code>statusbar/</code>), one for crons (<code>cron/</code>), etc.
4447 All of these directories are now added automatically to the path with this line in <code>~/.profile</code>:
4448 </p>
4449
4450 <p><code>
4451 export PATH="$(du $HOME/.scripts/ | cut -f2 | tr '
4452 ' ':')$PATH"
4453 </code></p>
4454
4455 <p>
4456 These changes shouldn't cause any problem so long as this line is added, but be sure to tell me if you get these changes and something breaks for you. I've been running it with these changes and have been without any hiccups.
4457 </p>
4458 ]]></description>
4459 </item>
4460
4461
4462 <item>
4463 <title>Some potentially relevant changes in LARBS today</title>
4464 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#some-potentially-relevant-changes-in-larbs-today</guid>
4465 <pubDate>Sun, 04 Nov 2018 17:58:57 -0500</pubDate>
4466 <description><![CDATA[
4467 <p>I've been cleaning out a whole lot of old crud on my computer, and some of this is making its way into my dotfiles.
4468 To make sure you know what I'm moving around, I'll put a notice here. Especially if you fetch or pull the new changes, be away of what's below so you don't get confused.</p>
4469
4470 <ul>
4471 <li><code>~/.scripts/shortcuts.sh</code> has now lost the <code>.sh</code> to keep with the style of the other scripts. It also no longer downloads template files if not present (this was a holdover of when it was part of its own repo).</li>
4472 <li>Similarly, the <code>~/.scripts/folders</code> and <code>~/.scripts/configs</code> files that the script used have moved to the home directory, to <code>~/.key_directories</code> and <code>~/.key_files</code>. The name change of the later reflects that I now use this file and the shortcut script to just to text documents I'm working on, not just config files. In the short future, I'll have other scripts reading these files as well. I haven't really added any lines to the public copies though, as I still expect them to be very user-dependent.</li>
4473 <li>The <code>dmenuunicode</code> script I showcased in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCEXY46t3OA">a recent video</a> has undergone a small addition that will also copy the unicode character's code value to primary selection while the character itself is copied to the clipboard. There are times when this can be very useful when it's necessary to get code. The input file for this script has also been moved to <code>~/.emojis</code> and now was many more emojis, including flags 🇺🇸.</li>
4474 <li><b>Importantly, I am also cleaning out now unused configs files that I do not maintain.</b> Since this is a git repo, obiovusly nothing is lost to time, but the dotfiles for polybar, qutebrowser, rofi and other programs I don't use anymore won't be there by default on LARBS unless I hear an outcrying to the contrary. I know I got many people using polybar and qutebrowser, but qb's settings are constantly changing, so I can't be expected to keep up and polybar has always been riddled with compilation problems. (Since users need to compile it anyway, it's been a thorn in my side for LARBS as well in the past.)</li>
4475 </ul>
4476 ]]></description>
4477 </item>
4478
4479
4480 <item>
4481 <title>Possible email downage today</title>
4482 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#possible-email-downage-today</guid>
4483 <pubDate>Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:38:59 -0400</pubDate>
4484 <description><![CDATA[
4485 <p>I'm reconfiguring some DNS and server settings involving email today and it might result in emails not making it to me or getting lost.
4486 If everything goes right, there should be no downtime, but otherwise, you might have to resend your email tomorrow. Assume everything will be fixed by then.
4487 </p>
4488 ]]></description>
4489 </item>
4490
4491
4492 <item>
4493 <title>Bibliographies and references automatically with refer in groff</title>
4494 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#bibliographies-and-references-automatically-with-refer-in-groff</guid>
4495 <pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2018 11:33:31 -0400</pubDate>
4496 <description><![CDATA[
4497 <p>
4498 New video up on how to automatically format references in groff/troff, using <code>refer</code>. <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/yTQbi_E_Gys">Check it out here!</a>
4499 You now should be able to get your term papers done in groff pretty easily! 😉
4500 </p>
4501
4502 <p>As we talked about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfOwRYmb5bQ">in the last video</a>, <code>refer</code> is considerably faster than formatting your references with biber in LaTeX.
4503 <code>refer</code> is pretty well customizeable on the command line and in-text, but there's a lot more to the program than is just in the man; feel free to share what things you run across.
4504 </p>
4505
4506 <p>
4507 I don't think I said so in the video, but <code>refer</code> is mostly intended to work with the <code>ms</code> and <code>me</code> macro set.
4508 I haven't tried it on others, but it may have some level of functionality, despite being intended for papers and such.
4509 </p>
4510 ]]></description>
4511 </item>
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516 <item>
4517 <title>Okay, now THIS is epic. (groff correction)</title>
4518 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#okay--now-this-is-epic---groff-correction-</guid>
4519 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 17:02:03 -0400</pubDate>
4520 <description><![CDATA[
4521 <p>Feel free to ignore the post about groff that I made a bit ago about escape sequences for accented characters in groff! Ends up in reality, it's even easier and /comfier/!</p>
4522
4523 <p>
4524 One of you emailed me soon after noting that you can simply give groff the <code>-k</code> option which will automatically run the file through <code>preconv</code>, a program that automatically converts unicode characters to code readable by groff/troff with no extra work and no ugly formatting!
4525 Now THIS is ebin.
4526 Thanks again, Efe, for this emendation.
4527 You still can do it in the way I mentioned, but would you really want to when its this easy?
4528 <p>
4529
4530 <p>
4531 Remember also, that while I'm doing videos on groff, I'm probably one of only several dozen who have tried to navigate the scant groff/troff documentation in the past decade.
4532 That means if you go reading either the man or the much more copious documentation in a book or hard-to-find online information, you'll very quickly find or notice something I (or anyone else) <em>hasn't</em>.
4533 Feel free to post whatever you find or email me about it, chances are, I might be just as pleasantly surprised as you.
4534 </p>
4535 ]]></description>
4536 </item>
4537
4538
4539 <item>
4540 <title>Looking for LARBS-user submissions!</title>
4541 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-larbs-user-submissions-</guid>
4542 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:50:21 -0400</pubDate>
4543 <description><![CDATA[
4544 <p>I'm bringing back the official LARBS website: <a target="_blank" href="https://larbs.xyz">LARBS.xyz</a>, which for the past few months has only redirected to my main site, with one pitiful informational page.
4545 LARBS.xyz proper is now up again, and I'm going to be beautifying it and adding content.
4546 </p>
4547
4548 <p>
4549 As you may know, a recurring joke on the channel is this constant torrent of new users constantly asking "how did you get your computer to look like that".
4550 While a lot of you use LARBS, I'd guess that most of the people flippantly subscribed to the channel don't know about it, despite it being the answer to most of their questions.
4551 </p>
4552
4553 <p>
4554 In an effort to redo the LARBS website for me to advertise it, <b>I'm looking for LARBS users to send me screenshots of them using my dotfiles, or any derivatives of them to put as examples on the site</b>.
4555 Maybe you've kept the dotfiles mostly the same, maybe you've switched out the status bar, redone the colors and bindings, use your own fork of LARBS to deploy your own dotfiles, it all works.
4556 I want people to have an idea of how LARBS has positively affected users' setups regardless.
4557 </p>
4558
4559 <p>
4560 So send me (<a target="_blank" href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>) a simple scrot shot, but also <b>feel free to send a "testamonial"</b> if you'd like, even a meme-tier one.
4561 I just want stuff that will give people an idea of what they're getting into in using LARBS.
4562 </p>
4563 ]]></description>
4564 </item>
4565
4566
4567
4568 <item>
4569 <title>Accented and other unicode characters in groff/troff</title>
4570 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#accented-and-other-unicode-characters-in-grofftroff</guid>
4571 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 14:41:24 -0400</pubDate>
4572 <description><![CDATA[
4573 <p>I've already gotten a lot of questions about this, and while I might do a video on it later, I might as well put the answer here for those who are interested.</p>
4574
4575 <p>By default groff and troff have no such compatibility with accented characters, which, if you had the misfortune of being born to a language besides the glorious American tongue, makes writing quite documents in groff difficult.</p>
4576
4577 <p>Obviously there are many ways of bridging this gap, some you could easily invent on your own, but there are indeed built in escape sequences for most characters needed for other languages in the Latin alphabet.</p>
4578
4579 <p>Check out the documentation <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/html_node/ms-Strings-and-Special-Characters.html#ms-Strings-and-Special-Characters">here in the GNU manuals</a> on escape sequences not only for adding accents to characters, but also for needed symbols in other languages like the German ß, the Spanish ¿ or Icelandic/Old English þ and ð.</p>
4580
4581 <p>If you're like me and you don't want to bother typing such silly escape sequences out, you could always automate their appearance in vim whenever you type the corresponding character. Below I have the lines for the acute characters.</p>
4582
4583 <code>
4584 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap á \*[']a</br>
4585 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Á \*[']A</br>
4586 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap é \*[']e</br>
4587 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap É \*[']E</br>
4588 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap í \*[']i</br>
4589 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Í \*[']I</br>
4590 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap ó \*[']o</br>
4591 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Ó \*[']O</br>
4592 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap ú \*[']u</br>
4593 autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Ú \*[']U</br>
4594 </code>
4595
4596 <p>You can add what you want.</p>
4597
4598 <p>
4599 Be also sure that vim is properly detecting your filetype, adding <code>autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.ms,*.me,*.mom set filetype=groff</code> beforehand will do the trick for .ms, .me and .mom files.
4600 </p>
4601 ]]></description>
4602 </item>
4603
4604
4605 <item>
4606 <title>LaTeX OWNED EPIC STYLE by LOGICAL UNIX COMPLIANCE of groff and refer</title>
4607 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#latex-owned-epic-style-by-logical-unix-compliance-of-groff-and-refer</guid>
4608 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:51:04 -0400</pubDate>
4609 <description><![CDATA[
4610 <p>
4611 I just put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfOwRYmb5bQ">a brief video</a> comparing the efficiency of formatting a document with references in LaTeX via biber vs. using groff/troff via <code>refer</code>.
4612 </p>
4613
4614 <p>
4615 Check it out yourself, but needless to say, groff gets the job done just as well in a small sliver of the time LaTeX takes.
4616 <code>refer</code> as a preprocessor, simply reads a groff file, checking for inserts of <code>refer</code> syntax and edits the stream adding the bibliography details from a database file that groff can read.
4617 As expected in stream manipulation, it all happens basically instantaneously, much faster than TeX's method of puking out build files to be read by subsequent commands.
4618 </p>
4619 ]]></description>
4620 </item>
4621
4622
4623 <item>
4624 <title>New addresses for Crypto: Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash</title>
4625 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-addresses-for-crypto-ethereum-litecoin-and-dash</guid>
4626 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:55:23 -0400</pubDate>
4627 <description><![CDATA[
4628 <p>I've had some requests to put up some addresses for other cryptocurrencies, so on my <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/crypto.html">donate Crypto page</a>, you'll now see addresses for Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash in addition to the typical Bitcoin.
4629 </p>
4630
4631 <p>
4632 Due to some changes in how I do my crypto, there's actually a different Bitcoin address there too and I'll be moving all the old funds to the new address. You can donate to either, but I'm only including the new address on the page.
4633 </p>
4634
4635 <p>
4636 I might put up some QR codes for each address later if some people have to have them.
4637 </p>
4638 ]]></description>
4639 </item>
4640
4641
4642 <item>
4643 <title>Easy emoji use with dmenu</title>
4644 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#easy-emoji-use-with-dmenu</guid>
4645 <pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2018 15:08:22 -0400</pubDate>
4646 <description><![CDATA[
4647 <p>I've just put out <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/UCEXY46t3OA">a video on some dmenu tips</a>, including a simple system for inputting emojis.
4648 Check it out, and if you have any dmenu/fzf hacks of your own feel free to share.
4649 </p>
4650
4651 <p>
4652 Incidentally, this post also serves as a test of <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/lb">my blog system</a> to see if it can handle titles with emojis in it. Let's find out!
4653 </p>
4654 ]]></description>
4655 </item>
4656
4657
4658 <item>
4659 <title>Macros in groff and troff and other basic formatting</title>
4660 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#macros-in-groff-and-troff-and-other-basic-formatting</guid>
4661 <pubDate>Sun, 28 Oct 2018 09:46:41 -0400</pubDate>
4662 <description><![CDATA[
4663 <p>I've put up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ_TXZB4Gm4">another video on groff/troff</a> where I briefly talk about more basic formatting with the ms macros, but also how to create and implement macros of your own.</p>
4664
4665 <p>
4666 Since it's hard to get good documentation on groff/troff, I'll also provide some links: check out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.troff.org/">https://www.troff.org/</a> for general information. A user also posted <a target="_blank" href="https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/utp/UnixTextProcessing.pdf">a very useful .pdf</a> which is a general guide to Unix test processing, but contains decent chapters not just on groff/troff, but also on its preprocessor programs like <code>eqn</code> (equivalent of math mode in LaTeX) and <code>pic</code> (equivalent of tikx).
4667 </p>
4668 ]]></description>
4669 </item>
4670
4671
4672 <item>
4673 <title>groff/troff: When LaTeX and Pandoc are bloat</title>
4674 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#grofftroff-when-latex-and-pandoc-are-bloat</guid>
4675 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2018 16:15:31 -0400</pubDate>
4676 <description><![CDATA[
4677 <p>
4678 I've just put up a video, the first of several on groff/troff. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8EKH_fjmXA">Check it out here.</a>
4679 troff (groff is the GNU version) is a unix utility for document formatting and type-setting which is built into your system and substantially faster, more minimal, and more manipulatible on the command line than TeX or compiling via R markdown or pandoc.
4680 </p>
4681
4682 <p>
4683 I've been playing around with it for a while now and am continually impressed with how easy it is.
4684 Its adherence to UNIX principles makes extending it extremely easy, and in future videos I'll talk about the many ways you can extend it (again, already bulit into your system), including adding images, tables, and refernces in a way similar to Bibtex.
4685 </p>
4686
4687 <p>
4688 I hope the video piques your interest and there will be extensions coming out very soon. ;-)
4689 </p>
4690 ]]></description>
4691 </item>
4692
4693
4694 <item>
4695 <title>When I bring back the forum, what should its name be?</title>
4696 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#when-i-bring-back-the-forum-what-should-its-name-be</guid>
4697 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2018 01:37:31 -0400</pubDate>
4698 <description><![CDATA[
4699 <p>
4700 Some people have already noticed that I revitalized <a target="_blank" href="https://forum.lukesmith.xyz">forum.lukesmith.xyz</a>.
4701 They've noticed because there are people who are periodically F5ing it still.
4702 Yes. The forum is coming back. I've actually already put a lot of preparation and elegant features into it already that I'll talk about when its fully open.
4703 Right now, it's not yet open to the public, but it will be soon.
4704 I'll update you when that happens via RSS, and might even put up a video.
4705 </p>
4706
4707 <p>
4708 A more pressing matter is what I should call the forum. Here are a couple of options, feel free to email your suggestions to me or your opinions on one:
4709 </p>
4710
4711 <ul>
4712 <li><b>Luke's GNU/Forum</b> (the tried-and-true old name)</li>
4713 <li><b>Uncle Luke's Cabin</b> (sounds somewhat ghey, but I think most people get the proper reference)</li>
4714 <li><b>Uncle Luke's GNU/Cabin</b> (combo of those two, I'm leaning to this right now)</li>
4715 <li>Some kind of play on <em>Not Related!</em>, although I don't mean to imply the forum will be about just it.</li>
4716 </ul>
4717
4718 <p>
4719 Note that the URL is still forum.lukesmith.xyz and unless I get a totally brilliant name for a new name that's worthy of a separate domain, I don't see that changing.
4720 I might link forum.notrelated.xyz to it though.
4721 </p>
4722
4723 <p>
4724 I will say I plan on branding the site with my name.
4725 Some people suggested in the past I should give the forum a generic /g/ related name to make it accessible to people outside of my channel.
4726 Frankly here's no point in pretending it isn't anything my <em>my</em> forum, especially since the topics unified under that might have little relationship with each other except in the sublimated way that the topics on my channel are related at a sublimated level.
4727 I'm not against rebranding it without my name in the future, but at the beginning, the unifying force between all my users is me and it wouldn't make sense to base the branding on something that only a subset of the users have in common.
4728 </p>
4729 ]]></description>
4730 </item>
4731
4732
4733 <item>
4734 <title>Video review and overview of the Slice Battery for ThinkPads</title>
4735 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-review-and-overview-of-the-slice-battery-for-thinkpads</guid>
4736 <pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:34:24 -0400</pubDate>
4737 <description><![CDATA[
4738 <p>I recently bought a Slice Battery for my ThinkPad X220, which is a pretty useful tool for all-day cordless use of your ThinkPad. You can get one of these new for around 100 USD, but check out<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cruhiZD2Unw">my video on it</a> for the physical and practical specifics.</p>
4739
4740 <p>It can definitely be useful for many potential workflows and has been very useful for myself so far, but I don't see myself using it every day. I talk about what I do and don't like about it in the video, so check it out.</p>
4741 ]]></description>
4742 </item>
4743
4744
4745 <item>
4746 <title>Looking for Land for Uncle Luke's Cabin</title>
4747 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-land-for-uncle-lukes-cabin</guid>
4748 <pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2018 09:46:47 -0400</pubDate>
4749 <description><![CDATA[
4750 <p>I just put out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Tp-UWFnp8">a brief video</a> talking about my recent progress/process in looking for rural land in southern Tennessee. For all those interesting in my goal of self-sufficiency and the recurring battle against bugman-hood, check it out.</p>
4751 ]]></description>
4752 </item>
4753
4754
4755 <item>
4756 <title>Livestream for those who missed it</title>
4757 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#livestream-for-those-who-missed-it</guid>
4758 <pubDate>Sat, 13 Oct 2018 08:03:03 -0400</pubDate>
4759 <description><![CDATA[
4760 <p>We had an actually somewhat long <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmP8j3qAmk">livestream</a> last night, as I had nothing much to do in my hotel room.
4761 Thanks to all the Super Chatters (I totally forgot I had super chats now, so I should do streams more often to git some money...). Here are the top d'nators:
4762 </p>
4763
4764 <ul>
4765 <li>$29 Opinion discarded</li>
4766 <li>$10 Apocalypse Lemon</li>
4767 <li>$10 Robert Smith</li>
4768 <li>$10 Nate Edwards</li>
4769 <li>$5 Dominick Allen</li>
4770 <li>$4 Yawning Gull</li>
4771 <li>£2 Dink Dinkleberg</li>
4772 <li>€1 Daniel Gómez Bellido</li>
4773 <li>$2 YouTube</li>
4774 <li>$2 LibertarianBot</li>
4775 </ul>
4776
4777 <p>Come to think about it, I might start actually doing topical serious streams on things related to the podcast, or respond to feedback in them. We'll see about this.</p>
4778 ]]></description>
4779 </item>
4780
4781
4782 <item>
4783 <title>Trip up Country and Looking for Land</title>
4784 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#trip-up-country-and-looking-for-land</guid>
4785 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2018 23:38:09 -0400</pubDate>
4786 <description><![CDATA[
4787 <p>
4788 This coming weekend, I'll be taking a partially-family-related-partially-personal trip up to Indiana with some crucial stops on the way.
4789 The only complication is that I don't own a car, so my four-state trip will be mediated by bus, meaning I'll be paying much less than I would be for gas or a plane and I'll have plenty of time for uninterrupted reading and work. I've also bought a ThinkPad slice battery that I'll be picking up right before, so I can try that out as well.
4790 </p>
4791
4792 <p>
4793 Anyway, why I'm going to Indiana isn't important for you, but as many of you know, I've been in the market for land recently, and have been planning on buying a remote plot for building a large cabin or small house for a long-term home or short-term place for vacation and storage.
4794 On my way back from my trip, I'll be stopping in Tennessee to look at some parcels.
4795 I don't want to spend more than $20,000 for land, and I'd like to get at least 5 acres for that (ideally less and more of course).
4796 I'm already doing the math for how much it will cost to build a house to my specifications, but a lot is going to be a function of what kind of land I can get
4797 </p>
4798
4799 <p>
4800 I've picked Tennessee because it's still relatively close to my family, but is politically and regulatorily much better than Georgia.
4801 There's low property tax, no state income tax, relatively free homeschooling and apparently less zoning/building restrictions in most places.
4802 Georgia on the other hand is literally a 56% state nowadays (well according to Wikipedia, 55.9% actually), which means sooner or later it will be a blue state.
4803 Of course, even if blue in a presidential election, it would probably only be a generation later before this filters down into local elections, which realistically means over-regulation and extreme managerial state is still fairly distant. Still, since I have the choice of where to put roots down, it's an easy one. I have thought of places further north: Kentucky or West Virginia, but the proximity to Georgia is still a minor plus for me. I don't know how the situation is going to be in Tennessee by the time my children have to think about this, but I'll be working for it to be good.
4804 </p>
4805
4806 <p>
4807 I'll also enjoy the milder climate in Tennessee. I honestly just want to be where I don't need an air-conditioner for most of the year.</p>
4808
4809 <p>Anyway, if everything works out, there might be a house-building, property-maintenance and bushcraft portion of my channel before too long. I can't say when, but if I find something good, I might be moving into the area and renting a place while I work on my new home. Another hopeful result of this would be reducing my economic needs to nearly nothing by self-sufficiency, enough that I could even life exclusively off my online income... or less.</p>
4810 ]]></description>
4811 </item>
4812
4813
4814 <item>
4815 <title>Episode on the 10,000 Year Explosion and Pandora's Seed</title>
4816 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#episode-on-the-10000-year-explosion-and-pandoras-seed</guid>
4817 <pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2018 19:25:08 -0400</pubDate>
4818 <description><![CDATA[
4819 <p>New <em>Not Related!</em> episode out: <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/the-agricultural-revolution-has-been-a-disaster-for-the-human-race">"The Agricultural Revolution Has Been a Disaster for the Human Race"</a>. <a href="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/notrelated/S01E05_-_The_Agricultural_Revolution_Has_Been_a_Disaster_for_the_Human_Race.mp3">Direct download link.</a></p>
4820
4821 <p>
4822 We talk about a lot of things, mainly how agriculture and economic modernization has made us soyboys and brainlets, but get ready for the red-pills on mouth-breathing, child mortality, IQ, mutational load and much more.
4823 </p>
4824
4825 <p>Remember to add <a href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">the RSS link</a> if you haven't already.</p>
4826 ]]></description>
4827 </item>
4828
4829
4830 <item>
4831 <title>Not Related! episode will be up soon</title>
4832 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related-episode-will-be-up-soon</guid>
4833 <pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2018 17:54:35 -0400</pubDate>
4834 <description><![CDATA[
4835 <p>A note for those waiting patiently. I've been unexpectedly busy this week after my break week and while I've recorded an hour of content for <em>Not Related!</em>, I had to stop in the midst for something else. Hopefully I'll have it done and up either later tonight or tomorrow. I'm already working on another episode that I want to finish early next week as well.</p>
4836 ]]></description>
4837 </item>
4838
4839
4840 <item>
4841 <title>Video up on Bash settings and aliases</title>
4842 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-bash-settings-and-aliases</guid>
4843 <pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2018 12:10:00 -0400</pubDate>
4844 <description><![CDATA[
4845 <p>New video up on what kind of settings and aliases I use and don't use for my bashrc/profile: check it out <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/_UrDsbs0-OE">here</a>.</p>
4846 ]]></description>
4847 </item>
4848
4849
4850 <item>
4851 <title>Break week</title>
4852 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#break-week</guid>
4853 <pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:24:22 -0400</pubDate>
4854 <description><![CDATA[
4855 <p>I've been taking a week off from some things, including <a href="http://notrelated.xyz">Not Related!</a> to do some reading and research and maybe even bulk up. I'll have a new episode of the podcast (mostly planned out) out next week and I think I'll do a screencast over the weekend.</p>
4856
4857 <p>
4858 You may've noticed I haven't done a livestream in a while, but I'm thinking to start again.
4859 I'm not entirely sure how my internet up connection is here, but I might be doing a stream next Tuesday or Wednesday around midday around Amerimutt time.
4860 </p>
4861 ]]></description>
4862 </item>
4863
4864
4865 <item>
4866 <title>Any Paleo-Anthropologists or geneticists reading? On the Toba Population Bottleneck</title>
4867 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#any-paleoanthropologists-or-geneticists-reading-on-the-toba-population-bottleneck</guid>
4868 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2018 12:20:15 -0400</pubDate>
4869 <description><![CDATA[
4870 <p>
4871 There's an often repeated idea out there that humans went through a population bottleneck about 70,000 years ago, shrinking to a group of only several thousands. This bottleneck is typically attributed to the Toba Eruption.
4872 This is something you've probably heard <em>ad nauseam</em> in every popular science depiction of human prehistory, I sure have.
4873 I won't give specifics because I don't want to bias you, but in doing research for a future podcast episode, I began to doubt this idea and tried to pry into its actual origins to see what the actual evidence of it was.
4874 </p>
4875
4876 <p>
4877 I was surprised to learn that the idea didn't actually come from some scholarly consensus, but is a still very controversial idea originally posited by a journalist Ann Gibbons of <i>Science</i>.
4878 Now anyone who knows me knows that I am the absolutely last to write off an idea or theory because it's posited by a lay(wo)man out of the academic system, but in the case of a <em>journalist</em> (that class of people whose ratios of what-they-know to what-they-think-they-know are extremely low), my initial doubt feels a little vindicated.
4879 </p>
4880
4881 <p>
4882 I've been groping through some scientific literature on the subject, there are indeed some mainstream supporters, but from what I can tell, the evidence for it is very scant, at least far too scant to warrant its commonplace presentation in popular science.
4883 As well, it seems that a lot of people in other fields base some of their assumptions on this idea, not knowing its non-universality, thus giving their theories a shaky foundation.
4884 </p>
4885
4886 <p>I bring this up because I'm curious if anyone reading has had specific, semi-direct knowledge or experience with the feeling in the field.
4887 As I said, I'm gradually reading the literature on it already, but I'm curious to know an insider's view (or at least the view of someone well-informed on it).
4888 Is this idea well-accepted?
4889 Is the circumstantial evidence for it considered up to snuff?
4890 Are there good reasons to think it's <em>not</em> true?
4891 Email me what you think.
4892 </p>
4893 ]]></description>
4894 </item>
4895
4896
4897 <item>
4898 <title>Democracy: The Rule of NPCs</title>
4899 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#democracy-the-rule-of-npcs</guid>
4900 <pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2018 19:15:47 -0400</pubDate>
4901 <description><![CDATA[
4902 <p>
4903 <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com/democracy-rule-of-the-npcs">New episode of Not Related!</a> out. Entitled "Democracy: Rule of the NPCs". Link to the RSS feed: <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss</a>.
4904 </p>
4905
4906
4907 <p>In addition to talking about Schumpeter's previously mentioned book, we also talk about Bryan Caplan's <em>The Myth of the Rational Voter</em> and James Burnham's <em>The Machiavellians: The Defenders of Freedom</em>.</p>
4908 ]]></description>
4909 </item>
4910
4911
4912 <item>
4913 <title>R.I.P. Lincucks! Some comments on recent events</title>
4914 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#rip-lincucks-some-comments-on-recent-events</guid>
4915 <pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2018 21:24:14 -0400</pubDate>
4916 <description><![CDATA[
4917 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwn3gIipCjU">A video on the recent Linux code of conduct controversy.</a></p>
4918
4919 <p>Next episode of <em>Not Related!</em> will be recorded tomorrow.</p>
4920 ]]></description>
4921 </item>
4922
4923
4924 <item>
4925 <title>Yes, I'm doing a video on it...</title>
4926 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#yes-im-doing-a-video-on-it</guid>
4927 <pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2018 13:59:23 -0400</pubDate>
4928 <description><![CDATA[
4929 <p>I've been getting non-stop emails about the Linux Code of Conduct thing and Linus leaving the project. A video on it is uploading (will take a while, many GB).</p>
4930 ]]></description>
4931 </item>
4932
4933
4934 <item>
4935 <title>SSL cert failures with Gmail accounts (mutt-wizard)</title>
4936 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#ssl-cert-failures-with-gmail-accounts-muttwizard</guid>
4937 <pubDate>Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:41:55 -0400</pubDate>
4938 <description><![CDATA[
4939 <p>This actually isn't a mutt-wizard-specific problem, but I've been getting a lot of questions about it since mutt-wizard relies on offlineimap and ergo OpenSSL. Long story short, if you have updated Arch Linux recently, your new version of offlineimap/OpenSSL might give you a certificate error when attempting to sync with a Gmail account.</p>
4940
4941 <p>To solve this, do one of the following:</p>
4942
4943 <ul>
4944 <li>Downgrade to an earlier version of offlineimap/OpenSSL</li>
4945 <li>Add <code>ssl_version=tls1_2</code> to the remote Gmail repository in <code>~/.offlineimaprc</code>.</li>
4946 <li>Sit and wait for a fix.</li>
4947 <li>Stop using Gmail :varg: (my favorite ;-))</li>
4948 </ul>
4949
4950 <p>See the <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard/issues/85">Github Issue</a> that GrimKriegor opened on the mutt-wizard repo about this, with links to the relevant sources.</p>
4951 ]]></description>
4952 </item>
4953
4954
4955 <item>
4956 <title>Le Purity-Spiral Nationalism</title>
4957 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#le-purityspiral-nationalism</guid>
4958 <pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 01:23:12 -0400</pubDate>
4959 <description><![CDATA[
4960 <p><a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz/albions-seed-and-an-ethnic-history-of-america">New episode of Not Related!</a> out on <em>Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America</em>.</p>
4961
4962 <p>
4963 The general argument of the book is that America, as it exists ethno-culturally has never been one unit, but four loosely competitive and highly distinct cultures, directly rooted in particular British origins.
4964 On the surface this book is a dense and well-researched ethnography, but deeper than that, it has a lot of hot take-aways for American socio-political life.
4965 It was a fascination back when it was published, but as people are beginning to be more real about the position of racial and cultural identity in politics, it's a book and argument that you're starting to here about more and more.
4966 </p>
4967
4968 <p>
4969 I say so a couple times in the podcast, but this is a book far more expansive than what I can sum up in a measly 90 minutes for you, so if the podcast piques your interest, check the book out yourself! You'll get a good mind for it in the episode, but this is one of those books that transcends one simple thesis statement in scope.
4970 </p>
4971 ]]></description>
4972 </item>
4973
4974
4975 <item>
4976 <title>THICC podcast episode coming</title>
4977 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#thicc-podcast-episode-coming</guid>
4978 <pubDate>Sun, 09 Sep 2018 23:35:35 -0400</pubDate>
4979 <description><![CDATA[
4980 <p>I've been unofficially aiming to release a <em>Not Related</em> episode every week at the end of week, but the THICC book I'm covering this time required a lot of prep, and it's not out yet as you can see! It will be out tomorrow.</p>
4981
4982 <p>I've already recorded <em>an hour and twenty minutes</em>, which requires a lot of stopping and rerecording and audio fixes.
4983 As I'm still acclimating to recording this takes a lot of time, but as I improve my process, I'm hoping to record episodes in one run without splicing necessary.
4984 </p>
4985
4986 <p>Anyway, just saying this because I haven't forgotten about it and I've been working a lot. I'll have yet another episode out later in the week.</p>
4987 ]]></description>
4988 </item>
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993 <item>
4994 <title>Terry Davis has died.</title>
4995 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#terry-davis-has-died</guid>
4996 <pubDate>Sat, 08 Sep 2018 09:51:50 -0400</pubDate>
4997 <description><![CDATA[
4998 <p>You may have heard already, but it appears that Terry Davis is confirmed to have died last month in what seems to have been a suicide. I just put up a brief video on this <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs_fEkU8Qco">here</a>.</p>
4999
5000 <p>You can still go to his site at <a target="_blank" href="http://templeos.org">TempleOS.org</a> which has the downloads to Temple OS and a brief update after his death.</p>
5001 ]]></description>
5002 </item>
5003
5004
5005 <item>
5006 <title>We need to start studying NPCs scientifically</title>
5007 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#we-need-to-start-studying-npcs-scientifically</guid>
5008 <pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2018 19:39:44 -0400</pubDate>
5009 <description><![CDATA[
5010 <p>
5011 The talk of the meme-o-sphere recently has been on NPCs (non-player characters), not in video games, but in real life.
5012 Originally, "NPC" arose as a term of abuse approximating "normie" or "brainlet", but there have been some who are realizing that it might have more truth to it than anticipated.
5013 </p>
5014
5015 <p>
5016 For a while now, a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3yrw2i/i_never_thought_with_language_until_now_this_is/">post from le Reddit</a> has been circulating from a somewhat disturbed user divulged that he only recently began thinking in language, saying that his life before "mindless" and "soul-less" and described himself as "barely even conscious".
5017 One might also be reminded of the quip of James Huneker on Chopin's Étude Op. 25, Num. 11 (better known nowadays by being quoted by Douglass Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach) that "small-souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should avoid it".
5018 Of course, listeners of the biggest-braned podcast <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz">Not Related!</a> will remember in <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz/the-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind">the episode on the Bicameral Mind</a>, we talked on Julian Jaynes's theory of consciousness, in which consciousness is not something inherent to our biological inventory, but a kind of mental habit we develop, partially based on the metaphors of language and our need in society.
5019 Different societies and cultures are liable to create different levels of consciousness in people.
5020 </p>
5021
5022 <p>
5023 There seems to be circumstantial evidence everywhere that the internal worlds of others just are not quite the same as ours.
5024 There's a huge scientific and epistemological problem though: how can we empirically and objectively verify the nature consciousness, an aspect of mental life which is by its nature accessible only subjectively?
5025 </p>
5026
5027 <p>
5028 I dont think this question is answerable in the scientific mindset we currently have.
5029 More interesting as a hint would be a deeper understanding, albeit indirect of what other people's inner worlds are like.
5030 I'm sort of curious to hear what <b>your</b> inner life is like, and how you experience "thinking" if it's something unique.
5031 </p>
5032
5033 <p>
5034 I'll do my part and share with others my mental life.
5035 I do have internal speech and am not an NPC and am indeed conscious.
5036 My internal speech is a little bit different from how I hear others describe theirs.
5037 Sometimes, usually when I'm thinking very slowly and deliberately, I think at only slightly faster than enunciated English in real life.
5038 Most of the time, the "speech" is quite different: the best way I can describe the experience is as if you "hummed" the intonation of English to yourself without opening your mouth (this is not something I literally do, but how I experience it in my head). This mild humming occurs at a speed significantly faster than normal speech and though it provokes the same "meaning" and cognitive scaffolding as language does. It's not an annoying or abrasive humming, I should say: it's more like if someone is gently (though quickly) talking in the other room.
5039 This hummed speech "feels" like English, but when I slow it down because it just gave me a great idea that I want to write down, I realize that there sometimes aren't actually English words or English syntax that directly capture what I was thinking.
5040 </p>
5041
5042 <p>I should say, when I say that it "feels" like English, I mean that, as someone who knows a lot of different languages and has an intuitive grasp of etymology, I have distinct, almost synesthetic feelings that correspond to words of different origins. When I experience what linguists call "tip of the tongue phenomena" (when you forgot a word but can remember what it means and how it starts), I also can recall the approximate etymology. What I mean is that this humming speech has the same feeling as English words do.
5043 </p>
5044
5045 <p>
5046 I'd probably say that most of my mental time does <em>not</em> use this kind of internal speech.
5047 It's not that I'm unconscious, but because I usually think about more abstract and non-linear things with interlocking, organic shapes.
5048 This is a little closer to how some savants describe their mental life, but I suspect it's a lot more common than that, not just because I have it, but it seems to be the kind of thing that people would take for granted.
5049 The typical description is that invisible shapes of different "meanings" come together and connect, or hydraulic organic machinery interacts in such a way to give you the correct answers to math problems or some advanced mental decision whose actual mechanism is opaque to you.
5050 The thing is, while I experience this, it's something I'm only an observer of, and while I say that the shapes have "meanings", that's sort of my assumption, because if you could display my cognitive theater on a screen, I couldn't point out what is what with my conscious mind.
5051 I think this is some kind of felt vision into the structure of intuition more than anything else.
5052 </p>
5053
5054 <p>As a minor detail, I also have no cognitive "me". Or at least not unless I want one.
5055 What I mean by that is that people will often describe themselves in their imaginations as seeing in the first person, or seeing themselves in third person (as if watching themselves on TV).
5056 These are sometimes called the "I" and "me".
5057 I can easily imagine myself, say, taking a walk and seeing myself walking from above, but that's not something I regularly do without prodding.
5058 Whenever I imagine myself doing something, I see everything from my own eyes unless deliberately trying to do otherwise.
5059 </p>
5060
5061 <p>
5062 Anyway, in the future, as I read more of the literature, I might be interested in doing an episode on "NPC" and people's inner lifes.
5063 If you have a mental life that is notable or distinct, feel free to email me a brief explanation. I'm curious to see what's out there.
5064 </p>
5065 ]]></description>
5066 </item>
5067
5068
5069 <item>
5070 <title>Alex Jones, increasingly BASED, now even more banned from everything</title>
5071 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#alex-jones-increasingly-based-now-even-more-banned-from-everything</guid>
5072 <pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2018 19:34:15 -0400</pubDate>
5073 <description><![CDATA[
5074 <p>Well-known and loved water-filter merchant Alex Jones was banned from Twitter, in a move that shocked no one.
5075 After a sustained campaign of harassment from Bluechecks, Twitter finally gave in and banned him and his site <a target="_blank" href="https://infowars.com">InfoWars.com</a>, thus depriving Twitter of Super Male Vitality and other high-energy supplements.</p>
5076
5077 <p>Thankfully, the straw that broke the camel's back was absolutely based.
5078 The rationalization for the ban was the fact that yesterday Alex posted videos haranguing a CNN journalist who had worked tirelessly to get him and others banned and deplatformed.
5079 The journalist was shook to say the least, visibly timid and obviously wishing he was a turtle so he could retract his head into his shell.
5080 After several minutes of straight roasting (peppered with some attempted "comebacks" from the journo), Chuck Johnson (the guy noted for being banned from Twitter back when no one got banned) joined in as well, the video later ending with a close up of the journalist's eyes, tearing up and silently distraught.
5081 </p>
5082
5083 <p>
5084 Journo-bugmen and pseudo-intellects in universities have been subjecting Americans to a non-stop humiliation-fest and struggle session since at least the 1960s.
5085 These people are literally paid by corporations and government organizations to demean, destroy and "deconstruct" the lives of the people that pay their bills.
5086 They circulate baseless folklore and conspiracy theories about non-bugmen.
5087 They live obliviously and smugly sit and design what they want the world of others to look like.
5088 They talk tough and snidely on news stations and in university, but as soon as you shine the light on them, they curl up in shame.
5089 Their pretenses only exist in their isolated world where they can't be debated, made fun of, humiliated or held accountable.
5090 They're also just dumb.
5091 </p>
5092
5093 <p>Alex's unpardonable sin is subjecting one of these chosen beings, one of these Excelsites to mockery.
5094 Alex deserves a lot of credit for making this joker tear up.
5095 Hopefully you're going to see a lot more of it too from more people.
5096 If rational debate worked, Someone like Charles Murray would've won it for us decades ago. It doesn't, and now everyone hates Charles Murray. Even people on the real right.
5097 The real solution is Chad Nationalism, Day of the Swirly, all that.
5098 Buglibs are not serious people. Don't take them seriously. Bugmen only exist because we allow that psychological type to fester.
5099 One might want to reread Uncle Ted's section on "the Psychology of Modern Leftism" as a reminder.
5100 </p>
5101
5102 <p>As it comes to Infowars, of course, using platforms and social media is for brainlets anyways. Big-branes always subscribe directly to RSS feeds. Here are Infowars'; slap them in your RSS feed reader:</p>
5103
5104 <ul>
5105 <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.infowars.com/feed/custom_feed_rss">https://www.infowars.com/feed/custom_feed_rss</a> (Articles)</li>
5106 <li><a target="_blank" href="http://xml.nfowars.net/Alex.rss">http://xml.nfowars.net/Alex.rss</a> (Alex Jones's show)</li>
5107 </ul>
5108
5109 <p>I'm too woke for Infowars myself, but when they were originally banned from YouTube and everything else, the first thing I did was put these feeds into newsboat in raw solidarity. I'll read an article or two that sound funny and not too Boomer-con. Of course I mean no disrespect to Alex's highly esoteric (essentially Gnostic) understanding of the elite's cosmology and eschatology, which is actually unironically spot on.</p>
5110
5111 <p>The greatest part is that for the shitlib hivemind, it's just not enough!
5112 Bugman brainlets are not scREEEsching about Alex being even allowed on the site in the first place.
5113 </p>
5114
5115 <p>By the way, <b>stop using Twitter!</b>
5116 Twitter, more than any other social media company is on the verge of financial ruin. Do your part and don't use the site unless via RSS feeds.
5117 There are a couple of okay people on Twitter, but most everyone worth following has left or been banned a long time ago.
5118 </p>
5119 ]]></description>
5120 </item>
5121
5122
5123 <item>
5124 <title>NotRelated.xyz Website is now up!</title>
5125 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#notrelatedxyz-website-is-now-up</guid>
5126 <pubDate>Tue, 04 Sep 2018 12:08:58 -0400</pubDate>
5127 <description><![CDATA[
5128 <p>The podcast now has its own domain at <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz">notrelated.xyz</a>, which is a bit easier to remember than the libsyn subdomain for those who aren't familiar with libsyn.
5129 </p>
5130
5131 <p>
5132 For people who care, <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz">notrelated.xyz</a> does <em>not</em> have SSL/https and I probably won't set it up because, frankly, I don't see it as necessary (I mean I have it for my main domain, but I don't even see <em>that</em> as very necessary). If I change my mind on this, I'll tell you.
5133 Of course if you just have to have SSL/https, you can still use the libsyn address to access either the podcast webpage at <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com">https://notrelated.libsyn.com</a> or the RSS feed at <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss</a>.
5134 </p>
5135 ]]></description>
5136 </item>
5137
5138
5139
5140 <item>
5141 <title>My diet following the memes</title>
5142 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-diet-following-the-memes</guid>
5143 <pubDate>Sun, 02 Sep 2018 23:44:33 -0400</pubDate>
5144 <description><![CDATA[
5145 <p>Abiding by an ideological "diet" is pure autism. It's peak dystopian, actually. Identifying with some meme diet you've become rationally convinced of is like identifying by the music you listen to or some autistically-differentiated political label. It's something people only do in a bugman society when they've been deprived of their real identity.</p>
5146
5147 <p>
5148 Nonetheless, I occasionally get questions about what I eat and as I go on, my functional diet changes, but interesting patterns emerge.
5149 Nowadays you've had meme diets from Atkins to Paleo to this new keto meme; all of them circulate around the idea that the food pyramid is a lie, and meats and fats are severely underrated.
5150 In my experience, I'm very inclined to agree.
5151 In fact, one of the realities of nutrition "science" is that a lot of the jack-booting, tone-setting and "advocacy" has always been done by either Jehovah's Witnesses or vegetarians, two parties who have ideological motivations to downplay the good of meat and to overplay the good of "slave foods" like cereals and starchy staples.
5152 I'm not bothered by their ethical pretenses, but it's a whole nother thing to pretend that they're based in the reality of what's good for humans aside from pietisms.
5153 </p>
5154
5155 <p>
5156 First, for my younger viewers, you'll realize as you get "old" (as you leave puberty at least around 25), your digestive abilities and metabolism change.
5157 The young digestive system is much more plastic and durable than someone in the late 20s and on. You've probably heard that you'll put on weight more easier if you eat pizza, true for most people, but for me, I've found that it's increasingly difficult even to properly <em>digest</em> greasy pizza, junk food, sugars and everything processed and terrible about the modern world.
5158 As you get a little older, you really can <em>feel</em> the debilitatingly negative hormonal effects of carbo-loading. You get acid-reflux and indigestion more too. Domino's is a one-way ticket to diarrhea.
5159 Hell, a couple weeks ago in a silly attempt to put on empty weight, I bought and ate a meek-and-mild <em>Cheerios</em> knock-off and let's just say that came out looking about the same as they went in.
5160 </p>
5161
5162 <p>
5163 Don't worry, I'm not falling apart. The solution has been easy.
5164 Stop eating processed foods. Stop eating sugar. And Stop eating the Virgin Bottom-of-the-Food-Pyramid. Just eat meat.
5165 </p>
5166
5167 <p>
5168 I don't eat <em>only</em> meat now, but I abandoned the pretense and can acknowledge that meals are nothing more than a serving of meat with some other mostly decorative foods.
5169 I have some vegetables and fruits here and there, and I do go out to eat and get a sandwich (with bread of course) every once in a while.
5170 I'll say that I've realized that I can detect a little digestive difference between meat treated with antibiotics and that without. Might be confirmation bias, but I prefer untreated or organic meat and will buy it if it's not too much more expensive. Typical meals include:
5171 </p>
5172
5173 <ul>
5174 <li>Chicken thighs/legs covered in garlic powder, garlic salt, thyme and rosemary. 20 minutes on oiled tray in a 425F oven.</li>
5175 <li>Steak. Rare, duh. Cooked on the range with an entire diced onion (which becomes caramelized) and about a third of a green pepper. Occasionally topped with cheese that I grate (yup, I use cheese blocks because I'm an artiste)</li>
5176 <li>Whole chicken, decorated internally and externally with shards of onions, garlic and sometimes potatoes. Washed with egg white. Thyme, rosemary. Covered with foil and ovened for maybe 40 minutes.</li>
5177 </ul>
5178
5179 <p>Oh and I use olive oil for all of these. None of that Cucknola oil BS. I'm also not big on salt.</p>
5180
5181 <p>And by the way, stop believing Nutrition Facts autism.
5182 The reality of nutrition "science" is that the body is a machine far more complex than we understand.
5183 The idea that our body needs precisely that 100% of all of those substances that the American government proclaimed back in the 70s is ridiculous.
5184 For the same reason, sorry, but eating something with another random protein (like le soy) isn't a substitute for the actual nourishment of meat. My scientific proof is the diminished physical and hormonal state of vegans.
5185 Some people will tell them they need B12 or something else, but it's far beyond that.
5186 Regardless "diet" foods/sodas are the same. They only exist so they look good on the nutrition facts. They produce equivalent tastes and fill your stomach with things that you're body can't digest and turn into calories/energy. In a sane society, that would be identified as being something way worse than the thing they're supposed to be replacing.
5187 </p>
5188 ]]></description>
5189 </item>
5190
5191
5192 <item>
5193 <title>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy UP</title>
5194 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#capitalism-socialism-and-democracy-up</guid>
5195 <pubDate>Sat, 01 Sep 2018 23:18:55 -0400</pubDate>
5196 <description><![CDATA[
5197 <p>New episode of the podcat out: check out <a target="_blank" href="notrelated">the website</a> and subscribe to the <a target="_blank" href="nrrss">the RSS feed</a> if you haven't already.</p>
5198
5199 <p>This episode is on Joseph Schumpeter's classic book <em>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy</em>. I cover about 4/5ths of the books content, all of it expect Schumpeter's takes on democracy, but that part I'm thinking to include in an episode on democracy generally (along with yet another biggeder-braned and more recent book on democracy (don't ask which, you'll find out)) either later this week or next week!</p>
5200
5201 <p>I give two potential time slots because there's another book which, due to recent events in the e-celeb world, I want to cover and get out there ASAP (not tellin' which yet!). But this book itself is a sizeable tome of 900 or so pages, which I've of course read before, but want to reread for good prep! The order in which I finish prep for one or the other episode will determine to order of release ;-)</p>
5202 ]]></description>
5203 </item>
5204
5205
5206 <item>
5207 <title>Cell Phones and the Bronze Age Collapse (1177 BC)</title>
5208 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#cell-phones-and-the-bronze-age-collapse-1177-bc</guid>
5209 <pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2018 15:24:45 -0400</pubDate>
5210 <description><![CDATA[
5211 <p>First off, I put up a brief video talking about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fv7hN5q1N0">why I don't like using cell phones</a>, it seems it's already gotten some good feedback, so check it out if you haven't already. Cell phones are devices that encourage a kind of superficiality of mind and habit, and are not nearly as useful as we think they are. Having a truly free-as=in-freedom and privacy-respecting cell phone is, by large part, impossible.</p>
5212
5213 <p>There's also been a lot of great feedback on the first episode of <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/notrelated">,Not Related</a>, which I'll go over in the next episode. I've got my prep mostly ready, I don't want to divulge the exact topic, yet. I think I'll let each episode be a surprise. I've also bought <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.xyz">NotRelated.xyz</a>, but as of now it will just direct to my own homepage.</p>
5214
5215 <p>By the way, since the first podcast, there was a book I mentioned in passing, Eric Cline's <em>1177 B.C.: The year Civilization Collapsed</em>. It popped in my head while recording, so I mentioned it, because I had heard very good things about it, but I decided it'd be a little hypocritical to even name-drop it without reading it ;-), so in the time since the episode, I got and read through in full and a half.</p>
5216
5217 <p>I'll say it's definitely good and worth reading. A little repetitive, but in a way that facilitates retention. If you're interesting in the period or want to get a wider view of it after the <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com/website/the-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind">Bicameral Mind</a> episode, it might be a good starting point for a historical view. There's an audiobook of it floating out there too.</p>
5218 ]]></description>
5219 </item>
5220
5221
5222 <item>
5223 <title>The Real Bronze-Age Mindset!</title>
5224 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-real-bronze-age-mindset</guid>
5225 <pubDate>Thu, 23 Aug 2018 22:54:49 -0400</pubDate>
5226 <description><![CDATA[
5227 <p>Be sure to subscribe to the podcast RSS feed: <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">http://notrelated.libsyn.com</a> and you can check out the automatic blog <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com">here</a>. I'll be posting podcast updates on my personal RSS feed regardless just for completeness sake, but will gradually keep them to their own magisterium.
5228 </p>
5229
5230 <p>The newest podcast episode (direct link <a target="_blank" href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/notrelated/S01E01_-_The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind.mp3">here</a>) is on the <em>true</em> Bronze-Age Mindset, well, sort of. It's on <b>Julian Jaynes</b>' theory of the <b>"Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"</b>, which amounts to arguing that humans before the Bronze Age Collapse were, in fact, not conscious among many other wild, yet surprisingly justifiable things.</p>
5231
5232 <p>
5233 I'll also have a YT video equivalent of the podcast, which will be available tomorrow morning at <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/lgnMyF-o0sQ">https://youtu.be/lgnMyF-o0sQ</a>.</p>
5234 ]]></description>
5235 </item>
5236
5237
5238 <item>
5239 <title>Full MSMTPRC support added to Mutt Wizard</title>
5240 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#full-msmtprc-support-added-to-mutt-wizard</guid>
5241 <pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:48:04 -0400</pubDate>
5242 <description><![CDATA[
5243 <p>
5244 After a recent commit, <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">mutt-wizard</a> will now also generate an msmtprc file based on your settings. While mutt-wizard has had partial, expandable msmtp compatibility, it now all comes by default. This will increase some compatibility with some accounts and will give you more options in sending mail if you want to set personal msmtp settings. Remember to install the relevant msmtp package on your distro before sending mail!
5245 </p>
5246
5247 <p>
5248 Obviously the wizard will safely store your password and decrypt it only when necessary, just like with offlineimap.
5249 If you want msmtp compatibility but you've already run mutt-wizard, I recommend removing your old accounts in the dialog menu and readding them (this <em>won't</em> delete you offline email so you won't have to redownload it so long as you keep the email's account name the same).
5250 I encourage you to try it, partially because if there are errors, I'd like to find out soon! ;-)
5251 </p>
5252 ]]></description>
5253 </item>
5254
5255
5256 <item>
5257 <title>Mfw soydevs would use PHP for this</title>
5258 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#mfw-soydevs-would-use-php-for-this</guid>
5259 <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 22:36:38 -0400</pubDate>
5260 <description><![CDATA[
5261 <p>If you check my website regularly, you may've noticed that I added a "Recent blog entries" subheading on the main page. Each time I add a new blog entry, it'll be updated to show only the most recent five. I was asked how I do this, given that my site is static, but honestly it's the easiest thing in the world, but I'll give you a hint in case it isn't obvious.</p>
5262
5263 <p>
5264 As background, I edit my website by keeping a mirror offline on my computer, then I use rsync commands (via scripts or bash aliases) to either update individually changed files, or all files. The script that updates all files also checks for other things. For example, if my CV which is in another folder has been updated, it will copy the new udpate to the website directory before uploading everything.
5265 </p>
5266
5267 <p>The "Recent blog entries" part is also handled by this "update all script". Using a <code>grep</code> command, I search my blog list file for the first five blog headers, which will be the most recent entries, and I change the formatting into a list (which is actually a single line of HTML for ease) with a <code>sed</code> command. Then, with <code>sed</code> again, I search for the previously created line, delete it and replace it with the new five entries.</p>
5268
5269 <p>As for the specific commands, you can figure them out yourself ;-). Point is, a lot of people have this domain-dependent thinking when approaching web-based file management as if core utils are unusable and we have to rely on server-side scripts even to do basic things. This is a bad mindset that causes incalculable harm on the web. Obviously core utils aren't going to get you true dynamically generated sites, but you can get most use cases out of plain HTML and should try to do so whenever possible.</p>
5270 ]]></description>
5271 </item>
5272
5273
5274 <item>
5275 <title>Intro podcast episode up and RSS feed available.</title>
5276 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#intro-podcast-episode-up-and-rss-feed-available.</guid>
5277 <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 22:14:52 -0400</pubDate>
5278 <description><![CDATA[
5279 <p>i've put out a preliminary episode for the podcast, you can go ahead and subscribe to the RSS feed at <a target="_blank" href="http://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">http://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss</a>.</p>
5280
5281 <p>I'll also be mirroring the episodes on YouTube and the first one is out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4fR8BQUYsQ">here</a>. Obviously I suggest using the RSS feed though just because I'
5282 ve gone through all the trouble of setting up a system to logically tag all the files for all you autistes who just have to have it that way ;-).</p>
5283
5284 <p>I'm using Libsyn to syndicate my podcasts as you can see by the links. I have a very high opinion of libsyn, especially compared to other platforms like YouTube, as libsyn has a relatively unblemished record of non-censorship. It will cost me money to upload on it monthly, so if you enjoy the show, please feel free to donate or the money will have to come out of my pocket.</p>
5285
5286 <p>If you have a good sense of what I'm shooting for in this podcast and have recommendation of your own, feel free to say so! As I say in this 0th episode, I plan on answering emails in the middle of the show and reading PayPal donations.</p>
5287 ]]></description>
5288 </item>
5289
5290
5291 <item>
5292 <title>I've deleted my Twitter</title>
5293 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#ive-deleted-my-twitter</guid>
5294 <pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2018 11:53:04 -0400</pubDate>
5295 <description><![CDATA[
5296 <p>I've deleted my Twitter. Even when I had originally joined the site, it was considerably past its prime, mainly due to its voluntary amputation of all accounts worth following, but it's now become intolerable to even browse.
5297 The site is now a wasteland ravaged by the Eternal Bluecheck, that self-gaslighting conspiracy theorist constantly amped up by the Boomer left media and on the prowl for pearls to clutch and evens to can't.
5298 An engineered monster, now laying waste to their allotted space.
5299 </p>
5300
5301 <p>
5302 This could be fun for trolls, which I'm not anyway, but even trolling these untouchable elites is now "hate speech" and thus immediately banable.
5303 There's an esoteric insurgency on Twitter, as esotericism is the only possible cloak to protect against the now routine purges, but it's not enough for me to continue on the site which is utterly useless.
5304 Twitter is simply a dead site run by jesters in suits and there's no reason to even stave off its collapse by getting them any hits.
5305 I encourage every one else to delete their account if, for some reason, you're still on it. You can use <a target="_blank" href="https://twitrss.me">twitrss.me</a> to get an RSS feed for a Twitter account you want to follow it and get its updates in newsboat or your own RSS reader. This is actually always how I've "followed" accounts so Twitter doesn't know who I'm actually following.
5306 </p>
5307 ]]></description>
5308 </item>
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313 <item>
5314 <title>Minor blog addition</title>
5315 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#minor-blog-addition</guid>
5316 <pubDate>Sat, 11 Aug 2018 19:28:10 -0400</pubDate>
5317 <description><![CDATA[
5318 <p>As an experiment, I've added to my blog system (<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/lb">lb</a>) an extra element, only amounting to a small edition of code. This is an additional (more traditional) blog index page, which you can see <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blogindex.html">here</a>.</p>
5319
5320 <p>It's pretty simple and really just prepends new entries to the top just like the rest of the blog system does for your RSS feed and the <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blog.html">rolling blog file</a>. The titling by month is not automatic, so each month, you'd have to add a new heading though. Not sure if I want to bother automating that.</p>
5321
5322 <p>It does add the date to the title as well, which is automatic, but I didn't add it to older entries since I revising that would be a little more difficult.</p>
5323
5324 <p>I've pushed these changes to the Github, but they're still liable to change a little bit. You can feel free to update your local repo or not, as it won't affect the rest of the system whether you use this feature or not.</p>
5325 ]]></description>
5326 </item>
5327
5328
5329 <item>
5330 <title>Podcast series to begin shortly</title>
5331 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#podcast-series-to-begin-shortly</guid>
5332 <pubDate>Sat, 11 Aug 2018 19:15:29 -0400</pubDate>
5333 <description><![CDATA[
5334 <p>I've been contemplating for a while to do a podcast series, partially at the desires of viewers and I think it's now going to happen. The general format is going to be on weekly topics, at the beginning focusing on particular books of political, scientific or other note. I originally was searching around for a co-host, but honestly couldn't find anyone I particularly liked for the job. I'm open to one in the future, but I think I'm setting myself on a detailed monologue format for now.</p>
5335
5336 <p>I've gotten specific requests for books and topics, but it's going to follow only my own instincts in the beginning, focusing mostly on unsung but potent works. The first week, I've pretty much settled on Julian Haynes' <em>The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind</em> followed by (in no particular order) Schumpeter's <em>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy</em>, Feyerabend's <em>Against Method</em>, Hutton's <em>Race and the Third Reich</em> and Nassim Taleb's growing corpus, typically called <em>Incerto</em>.</p>
5337
5338 <p>I'm also open to having non-book based topics or perhaps talking about fiction works. Say, the works of Lovecraft or Dick or Borgres.
5339 Now this isn't supposed to be a bookclub, or a learning experience for me though. I want to focus on works and topics I've been familiar with for years, otherwise it would be pretty silly to put out content.
5340 It would sort of like those people who do "distro" reviews after playing around on a Linux distro for 10 minutes.</p>
5341
5342 <p>Anyway, I'm still divided on what to call the podcast, but I might just call it <em>No Relation</em> as a joke and allusion to the now famous <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPD35ETwuk">one episode podcast my roomate and I did</a> last year, and considering it has <em>No Relation</em> to the original.</p>
5343 ]]></description>
5344 </item>
5345
5346
5347 <item>
5348 <title>Now THIS is Bash AUTISM!</title>
5349 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#now-this-is-bash-autism</guid>
5350 <pubDate>Sun, 05 Aug 2018 19:50:12 -0400</pubDate>
5351 <description><![CDATA[
5352 <p><a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/LbSBVf46lG0">A new brief video</a> and follow-up to the last video. I correctly prophesied that there were more decent optimizations to the script from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgeFi4PwOg">the last video</a>. Specifically, I briefly talk about <code>tee</code>, a UNIX utility which is lesser-used, but allows us to take an input and output it to multiple places, potentially performing further modifications on each of the separate streams. We save DOZENS of milliseconds in our unrelenting autismal quest for efficiency.</p>
5353 ]]></description>
5354 </item>
5355
5356
5357 <item>
5358 <title>Don't be a Bash BRAINLET!</title>
5359 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#dont-be-a-bash-brainlet</guid>
5360 <pubDate>Sun, 05 Aug 2018 13:08:53 -0400</pubDate>
5361 <description><![CDATA[
5362 <p>In a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgeFi4PwOg">new vid</a>, I talk about the importance of good design, and what that means in your typical shell script. I take the example of the <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice/blob/master/.scripts/shortcuts.sh">shortcut-sync script</a> I use to keep my bash, ranger and qutebrowser aliases synced and autogenerated. Originally when I wrote it, it was terribly designed, looping through a file and outputting to files six different times per line, adding up for a staggeringly long 1.5 second runtime for a 45 line script! The newer, better version (see the above link to Github), uses streams in the proper way to produce nearly instantaneous completion.</p>
5363
5364 <p>It's a pretty good example of how good (or bad) design principles can add up hugely on a system. It's almost mind-boggling to think about the difference that well-written and efficient code can make even for typical users as you add up the hundres of thousand or millions of lines of code we end up running every day.</p>
5365
5366 <p>A lot of people will repeat the typical mantra that we "need more programmers" for the modern economy. I have to say I've always hugely disagreed with this. A lot of the effort spent in the industry is maintaining the unmaintainable and playing whack-a-mole with the problems that bad design creates. We'd be better off with a smaller contingency of programmers and tweakers mindful of efficiency and machine resources. This is definitely something I've realized directly while I've started using UNIX operating systems.</p>
5367 ]]></description>
5368 </item>
5369
5370
5371 <item>
5372 <title>Minor hack: Pausing all mpv videos on any screen</title>
5373 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#minor-hack-pausing-all-mpv-videos-on-any-screen</guid>
5374 <pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2018 23:12:03 -0400</pubDate>
5375 <description><![CDATA[
5376 <p>For a while I had been looking for a command to pause all mpv video instances on my computer. I have a lock script which, while locking, automatically pauses the audio from my mpd, but I had wanted a way to pause all mpv instances as well, otherwise I would have to do the potentially annoying task of getting to the right workspace and hitting pause manually. I could find a lot more "complicated" solutions where you have to start mpv on a particular socket, but I ran across a much easier and universal possibility:</p>
5377
5378 <code>xdotool search --class mpv | xargs -I % xdotool key --window % comma</code>
5379
5380 <p>Which is a pretty funny command, but works exactly how I want. If you're not familiar with xdotool, this one-liner just searchs for all <code>mpv</code> instances and sends the key <code>,</code> to each of them, which by default moves the video back by a frame and pauses it.
5381 So now I've just added this line to my lock script, so if I ever am watching something and want to leave my computer and lock it, I don't have to worry about manually pausing mpv which may be on another screeen.
5382 Also, while I've always had <code>Super+p</code> mapped to "pause/unpause mpd audio", I've mapped <code>Super+Shift+P</code> to "pause mpd and all mpv instances", running this one-liner along with the true mpd pause command.
5383 </p>
5384 ]]></description>
5385 </item>
5386
5387
5388 <item>
5389 <title>Video on cronjobs for managing my system</title>
5390 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-cronjobs-for-managing-my-system</guid>
5391 <pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2018 22:55:45 -0400</pubDate>
5392 <description><![CDATA[
5393 <p>I just released <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgSxYvFWjUY">a brief video on cronjobs</a>, how to make them for new users, including the syntax, but also some of the jobs that I have run on my machine (also about the minor annoyance of specifying displays for some graphical commands).</p>
5394
5395 <p>I didn't start using cronjobs until only a couple months ago, but now I've fully integrated them into my system. As I state in the video, I do my updating via cron by havine a <code>pacman -Syuw --noconfirm</code> command run every two hours to check for and download package updates (it also gives me a preview of the number of updateable packages on my i3blocks bar). I then finalize the update when I want, but don't have to watch the downloading happen. If you want, you could just as easily remove the <code>-w</code> and have the updating done all automatically if you don't feel like you need to see what's new.</p>
5396
5397 <p>Any suggestions on new cronjobs are welcome!</p>
5398 ]]></description>
5399 </item>
5400
5401
5402 <item>
5403 <title>LARBS is about done</title>
5404 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#larbs-is-about-done</guid>
5405 <pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2018 15:22:00 -0400</pubDate>
5406 <description><![CDATA[
5407 <p>Holy crap, I've probably installed and reinstalled LARBS 50 times in the past couple days as I've ironed out the last kinks. I've totally rewritten <code>larbs.sh</code> twice (arguably three times) this week, but the result is fantastic.
5408 The script runs smoother than ever on the user side (a full installation takes less than 10 minutes now) and I've autistically separated the code into functions for portability and customizeability.</p>
5409
5410 <p>And boy is it.
5411 Aside from the script now being composed of easy to manipulate functions, <code>larbs.sh</code> now reads in a separate programs file (in .csv format) and can take a custom dotfiles repo as well.
5412 You can feed it a .csv like <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS/blob/master/progs.csv">this one</a> and it can parse the list and install the programs in whatever way it needs to.
5413 E.g. in the setup now, untagged programs are in the main repo, programs tagged with <code>A</code> are AUR programs and <code>G</code> programs are git repositories installable with <code>make && sudo make install</code>. Depending on the tag, LARBS will run a different install command as needed.
5414 Note that the last column (which is a description of the program in a verb phrase) appears at runtime to describe the program while it's installed.
5415 A nice little addition.
5416 </p>
5417
5418 <p>So you can easily setup a your own LARBS now.
5419 Since I said I was going to do real-life videos on bash scripts, I might do an explainer on this one, since I'm sure it might be generally edifying, but also very useful for people who want to extend the scripts.
5420 </p>
5421
5422 <p>Check it out: <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS">LARBS on Github</a>.</p>
5423 ]]></description>
5424 </item>
5425
5426
5427 <item>
5428 <title>Scripting in action</title>
5429 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#scripting-in-action</guid>
5430 <pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:22:52 -0400</pubDate>
5431 <description><![CDATA[
5432 <p>At the request of viewers, I might be putting out a series of videos on shell scripting in the wild. You can see the first video of this <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOpeXETS2z0">here</a>. I cover a small script I use for mounting USB drives on Linux, as opposed to using some fancy (bloated?) daemon or other service.</p>
5433
5434 <p>It's probably part of my sense to not trust anything I didn't write myself ;-)</p>
5435 ]]></description>
5436 </item>
5437
5438
5439 <item>
5440 <title>How let your root user use your main dotfiles</title>
5441 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-let-your-root-user-use-your-main-dotfiles</guid>
5442 <pubDate>Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:24:13 -0400</pubDate>
5443 <description><![CDATA[
5444 <p>When you have a single-user system, or one with only one user with sudoer access, I always used to hate that every time I became root, I'd lose the settings set in my bashrc and aliases, my vimrc and preferred directory shortcuts.
5445 About 6 months ago, I had the crazy idea to change the root user's home directory from <code>/root</code> to <code>/home/luke</code> so root would look in my main directory for all its dotfiles.</p>
5446
5447 <p>I was initially worried that this could cause some vulnerabilities, it might still, but I have to say that it's been <b>hugely</b> convenient and hasn't given me any problems in all these months, so I recommend trying it out. All you have to do is open <code>/etc/passwd</code> and change the directory on the line starting with <code>root:</code> to your typical home directory.</p>
5448
5449 <p>So whenever you log in as root, you'll still have access to all your rc settings, and will be in your familiar home folder.
5450 I didn't think of it before, but you'll also have fewer log files to have to sort through.
5451 For example, if I once worked out a compilcated shell command and am trying to look it up in my <code>.bash_history</code>, I used to have to check <code>/home/luke/.bash_history</code> <em>and</em> <code>/root/.bash_history</code> if I couldn't remember if I ran it as myself or root.
5452 Now, however, both accounts use the same history file for bash, and also other programs.</p>
5453
5454 <p>So anyway, I recommend trying it out. I'm sure I'll get a couple emails about how it could be potentially dangerous, but the convenience has been huge and I've had no problems, although I might not recommend doing this on your webserver to hedge against unknown vulnerabilities.</p>
5455 ]]></description>
5456 </item>
5457
5458
5459 <item>
5460 <title>Download any Academic Article Free: A One-Liner</title>
5461 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#download-any-academic-article-free-a-one-liner</guid>
5462 <pubDate>Sat, 28 Jul 2018 10:55:04 -0400</pubDate>
5463 <description><![CDATA[
5464 <p>You may know of <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub">Sci-Hub</a>, an excellent service by Alexandra Elbakyan that opens pay-walled academic articles for free public use.</p>
5465
5466 <p>The typical use of the service is to go to the main site (right now <a target="_blank" href="http://sci-hub.tw">http://sci-hub.tw</a>, it changes often due to piracy accusations), give it a link to an academic article and it will pop up a new window allowing you to download it.</p>
5467
5468 <p>This is way too much keypressing and clicking for me, and I want an browser-free way of doing this. Instead I made a line like the following to put in your <code>bashrc</code> to run a link through sci-hub and automatically download it.</p>
5469
5470 <code>
5471 shdl() { curl -O $(curl -s http://sci-hub.tw/"$@" | grep location.href | grep -o http.*pdf) ;}
5472 </code>
5473
5474 <p>Then you can simply download an article by passing the link of its preview or abstract, e.g.: <code>shdl https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-017-0133-5</code> and it will download to your current directory.</p>
5475
5476 <p>I have this as part of my <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice/blob/master/.scripts/linkhandler">linkhandler</a> script, which I have my RSS reader newsboat run on desired entries in my RSS feeds. Specifically, I subscribe to many RSS feeds for academic journals, and now with this script, if I see an article I want to read, I can just run my linkhandler script and download them immediately without laboriously having to open the browser to copy the url and then paste it into sci-hub, etc. Note that in my linkhandler script, I have it detect if the link is of an academic publisher (which is a modifiable variable) and that the Sci-Hub link is also a separate variable because, as I said, it occasionally changes and I want it to be distinct.</p>
5477 ]]></description>
5478 </item>
5479
5480
5481 <item>
5482 <title>Macs, "PCs" and the Power of Public Relations</title>
5483 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#macs-pcs-and-the-power-of-public-relations</guid>
5484 <pubDate>Wed, 18 Jul 2018 12:52:58 -0400</pubDate>
5485 <description><![CDATA[
5486 <p>One of the strangest turns-of-phrase that Apple has tried to hoist on the public is the term "PC" to mean all non-Apple computers.
5487 Even without delving much deeper, this is one of the most bizarre choices; Apple Mac computers are not just PCs, but they were arguably <em>the first</em> PCs—you would think that Apple would be proud of more or less inventing the idea of a Personal Computer.</p>
5488
5489 <p>Regardless, what is the <em>point</em> of the term PC to Apple advertising? Why did they run that classic series of commercials contrasting Macs and "PCs"?
5490 At a basic level, PC is just a catch-all exonym, that is, a term for all computers outside of a designated group.
5491 In reality, there's really nothing common to computers made by Lenovo, Dell, Asus and every other company that aren't also held in common with Apple computers.
5492 The only thing in common, at least, is the <em>lack</em> of the characteristic Apple weirdness (no other company is going to get rid of all their computers' important ports, for example).</p>
5493
5494 <p>Regardless, I noticed the actual public relations use of the term "PC" after I did my video on Macs—this term works wonders in the mind of an Mac fan.
5495 That is, nearly every dogmatic Apple user would call me a "PC fanboy"!
5496 <em>PC fanboy...</em> what could that possibly mean?</p>
5497
5498 <p>At first I thought most hate mail was coming from people who didn't watch 10 or so seconds in when I said that I used Linux (deliberately to avoid inane comments like this).
5499 I assumed that "PC" meant "a machine running Windows", which is clearly not what Mac-users thought the term to mean: it was <em>all</em> non-Mac computers. I'd guess that my old TI-84 calculator is a "PC" by that metric.
5500 This is a total inversion of what the term "fanboy" means of course. You can be a Mac fanboy: Apple Mac products, while sometimes different, all share the exact same design principles and are all owned by one company notorious for its quasi-cult like public relations.</p>
5501
5502 <p>While on the other hand, "PC fanboy" doesn't really mean anything—there's no common denominator or design or principle behind all non-Apple computers (again, aside from the fact that they don't do the manifestly stupid things that Apple does).
5503 A "PC fanboy" in practice just means someone who doesn't like Macs, but that's where the magic is for Apple advertising—Mac users have always been lampooned as cult members, but the term PC is an attempt redirect the claims of irrational devotion backwards.
5504 It doesn't have to make sense generally, but it makes sense in the head of an Apple fanboy: non-Mac computers are all the same and if you don't like Macs, you must just have some terrible emotional problem with them for no reason (this is the gist of most of the hatemail I get on this anyway).</p>
5505
5506 <p>Since I made my video on Macs, I don't dislike Macs any more than I did before, but I am continually losing respect for Mac users.
5507 I could've just as easily done a video on why I don't use Windows, but God knows that Windows users don't have the same genre of pathological attachment to the brand they use.
5508 That's not to imply that all comments from Mac users even disagreed with me, but the vocal members of the hivemind have certainly put a smug anime girl face on me from time to time.
5509 </p>
5510 ]]></description>
5511 </item>
5512
5513
5514 <item>
5515 <title>New st patches: Xresources and pywal compatibility</title>
5516 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-st-patches-xresources-and-pywal-compatibility</guid>
5517 <pubDate>Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:09:57 -0400</pubDate>
5518 <description><![CDATA[
5519 <p>When I did <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmm7wl4JUI">my original video on st</a>, AKA the suckless <a target="_blank" href="https://st.suckless.org/">simple terminal</a>, a lot of other people decided to migrate over, but there are a couple of features that I hadn't added to my build, or people were confused how to add. Now, partially in preparation for LARBS, I've added some more features, including the fact that the terminal colors now use your Xresources colors by default, enabling the use of <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/dylanaraps/pywal">wal/pywal</a> for creating universal colorschemes. (If you don't know what this is, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es79N_9BblE">I did a video on it a couple months ago</a>.)</p>
5520
5521 <p>You can now check out my patched version of st <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/st">right here</a>, and it will have all the best patches applied by default now.</p>
5522
5523 <p>I think it's at the point where I consider st just about the best possible terminal for me (and probably for most all people). I occationally get requests to submit by build to the AUR, which I might do, but I can definitely say that you can safely use my build and get all the features you expect from a terminal while it still being bugless and minimal as any good suckless software should be.</p>
5524
5525 <p>Well actually, on bugs, there is one little, minor annoyance in the program and that's that ranger image previews disappear when you mouse away from the given window.
5526 While there is a patch for st 0.7 which gives it sixel compatibility, due to its *le bloat* it hasn't been accepted into the program, and aside from that, I don't think ranger is built to work with sixel itself either so far.
5527 Either way, I still consider st largely "the best", but being able to patch in something like this would make it closer to "perfect". With the features and bindings I have in my build, I find it a little sad when I have to use another terminal.</p>
5528 ]]></description>
5529 </item>
5530
5531
5532 <item>
5533 <title>In Defense of "Pseudoscience"</title>
5534 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#in-defense-of-pseudoscience</guid>
5535 <pubDate>Mon, 09 Jul 2018 11:41:49 -0400</pubDate>
5536 <description><![CDATA[
5537 <p>If you keep up with my random asides in videos and elsewhere, you might know that I'm extremely disappointed with the current state of institutionalized science.
5538 The post-war era was a disaster for scientific epistemology, in fact, epistemology and science commentary mostly became an exercise to exclude one's enemies by technicality.
5539 Academia became an enormous state-funded enterprise, and the best way to ensure that your research program got funding before your rivals was to develop advanced reasoning to exclude their methodology altogether from science.
5540 </p>
5541
5542 <p>Thus the term "pseudoscience".
5543 In former centuries, there was no such division between "science" and "pseudoscience".
5544 Researchers wrote tomes on subjects which were amalgams of hard analysis and what we would now consider baseless or unwarranted speculation.
5545 Each were understood for what they were, all ideas were on the table for analysis.
5546 </p>
5547
5548 <p>The thing is, all academics—at least all remotely intelligent ones—quietly harbor fringe beliefs.
5549 If you push any of them in private, or with vindicating evidence, they'll quickly bounce to support their deeper intuition.
5550 One example that comes to mind is geologist Robert Schoch, who after a little empirical prodding, became a vocal supporter of the idea of a prehistoric dating of the Sphinx, and then later other Mesolithic civilizations.
5551 Nowadays he brushes shoulders even with the ancient aliens crowd, and why shouldn't he?
5552 Once you've earned the designation of "pseudoscientist", you might as well go full-bore and have fun.
5553 </p>
5554
5555 <p>The other best-kept secret is that by definition, "pseudoscience" drives advancement in "real science".
5556 All new ideas start out as baseless speculation—Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, based on the trivial and child-like realization that South America sort of fits into Africa, was mocked as pseudoscientific by Americans for decades. Now it's science.
5557 I wouldn't doubt if Schoch's Sphinx water erosion hypothesis will be similarly vindicated, partially by the many Mesolithic constructions found since then.
5558 </p>
5559
5560 <p>
5561 In linguistics and archeology, we have a recent "pseudoscientist" in Marija Gimbutas.
5562 Gimbutas unearthed many female idols/dolls from pre-Indo-European Europe and jumped to far-reaching, "pseudoscientific" conclusions: Old Europe was a feminist utopia, there was no violence and complete harmony, etc.
5563 Because Gimutas's politics were socially unassailable, you don't hear "pseudoscientist" around her much, but that's certainly the word on everyone's lips.
5564 If pseudoscience is what Schoch is doing, it's certainly what she was doing.
5565 Regardless, this pushed her into making specific claims about the origin of Indo-Europeans, that they originated from the Kurgan (Yamnaya) culture, a claim that has now become consensus due to further archeological, linguistic and nowadays even genetic research.
5566 </p>
5567
5568 <p>
5569 I've seen first hand that there are really two types of personalities in science.
5570 On one had, there's the conventional and petty academic who is "detail-oriented" and "rigorous" in some sense that means religiously adherent to theoretical priors.
5571 These people will only truly fight for something when they're on the side of consensus or when the issue is of no social importance.
5572 On the other side are the "pseudoscientists", or in other words, the people who actually have something interesting to say.
5573 </p>
5574 ]]></description>
5575 </item>
5576
5577
5578 <item>
5579 <title>Video on copying and pasting from Vim</title>
5580 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-copying-and-pasting-from-vim</guid>
5581 <pubDate>Thu, 05 Jul 2018 15:21:27 -0400</pubDate>
5582 <description><![CDATA[
5583 <p>A quick little video on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_rbfQqrm7g">how to copy and pasting using the system clipboard</a> in Vim. It's simple enough, but people ask me about this a whole lot. Some brief instructions about registers generally as well.</p>
5584 ]]></description>
5585 </item>
5586
5587
5588 <item>
5589 <title>i3blocks reloaded</title>
5590 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#i3blocks-reloaded</guid>
5591 <pubDate>Wed, 04 Jul 2018 13:15:30 -0400</pubDate>
5592 <description><![CDATA[
5593 <p>I've put up a video expanding on my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKumet6b-WY">i3blocks status bar</a>, partially in preparation for the LARBS tutorial videos.</p>
5594
5595 <p>I've implemented many new features, including signaling for a lower footprint bar, and some other bells and whistles. I also go through where everything is in the system for people using my configs.</p>
5596 ]]></description>
5597 </item>
5598
5599
5600 <item>
5601 <title>Monetized with Super Chats</title>
5602 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#monetized-with-super-chats</guid>
5603 <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jun 2018 13:34:39 -0400</pubDate>
5604 <description><![CDATA[
5605 <p>I took a long (several hour) walk to clear my head this morning, and came back to a pleasant surprise: YouTube has finally (after five or six months of review) monetized my channel.
5606 I don't have the slightest idea how much money I'll actually end up getting from this, but I hope it's decent enough.
5607 </p>
5608
5609 <p>
5610 Of course, my studious core of viewers all will be using ad-blockers. The one I usually recommend is <a href="https://adnauseam.io/">Ad Nauseam</a>, which is not just a blocker, but a dazzler. If you don't like ads, don't feel like you need to permit them from my channel to get me more revenue. I'm sure there are plenty other who will be watching them without.
5611 I only monetized after polling my audience at the old forum (some 80% just told me to monetize) and if you're part of that remaining 20%, just block them as you usually would.
5612 </p>
5613
5614 <p>The other nice detail is that I can now allow "Super Chats" in livestreams.
5615 If you don't know, that's when users can pay money to have their chat message plastered prominently in the chat window for a period proprtional to their donation.
5616 I think chats in my livestreams are off decent enough size that people would be willing to get some of these.
5617 But then again, now doing le bloodsports seems like a much more appealling prospect. Any takers?
5618 </p>
5619 ]]></description>
5620 </item>
5621
5622
5623 <item>
5624 <title>Redesign of Website</title>
5625 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#redesign-of-website</guid>
5626 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:11:47 -0400</pubDate>
5627 <description><![CDATA[
5628 <p>I've reformatted <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/">my personal website</a> a bit, and I've readded <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/videos.html">the video gallery</a> page which I had on my last site.
5629 YouTube is terrible about showing older videos to users, so it's nice having <em>my own</em> archive of things displayed logically.
5630 If I don't do that, I literally get oblvious questions all the time asking me to do a video on things I did a video on last week.
5631 I can hardly even blame summerfriends for that since if you're a new viewer, you have no good way of knowing what kind of stuff I've made videos on on YouTube because they never recommend non-recent videos and they have no good UI for looking someone's video history.</p>
5632
5633 <p>That's actually one of the ironies about YouTube.
5634 For all they complain about there being a drought of advertisers, they put out all the incentives for people to put out more and more junk videos constantly.
5635 It's easy to see from my side the enormous bias YouTube gives to videos that are 72 hours old, but after those 72 hours, very few people will ever see any given video unless it absolutely goes viral.</p>
5636 ]]></description>
5637 </item>
5638
5639
5640 <item>
5641 <title>A Journey to Athens</title>
5642 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#a-journey-to-athens</guid>
5643 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:04:34 -0400</pubDate>
5644 <description><![CDATA[
5645 <p>I've still been looking for apartments in Georgia or thereabout and yesterday I took a full-day trip back to Athens (Georgia of course) to scout out apartments. After a full day and after seeing about a dozen places, I have to admit that I didn't find anywhere too much up to snuff, even given the fact that I don't need to be particularly close to the university.</p>
5646
5647 <p>I may be back there again within a week or so, but I'll concede that I was debating whether I actually want to live there again.
5648 I'm really not in the mood to put down a year's rent anywhere, even if it's only $5000 or so, unless I can get a really great place, but I suppose the real problem is a change in my mindset.</p>
5649
5650 <p>In brief, I don't feel like I want to put down money for something that isn't going to last; the bugmanhood of renting an apartment is extremely unappealing.
5651 The better alternative now seems like just buying a parcel of land with the little money I've saved up.
5652 My goal is 5+ semi-remote acres for less than $20,000, which is doable. I have a couple placing I'm looking at now, but am always looking for more.
5653 I just want land that I am extremely free in building restrictions and zoning (preferable none), and that I can have a permanent setup on: possible growing and self-sustaining utilities.
5654 I've done a lot of math and think that I can get a decent cabin built (my myself) for less than $5,000, probably closer to $3,000, but maybe with $2,000 of unforeseen costs ;-)</p>
5655
5656 <p>The other thing on the ledger would be me buying a car (or more likely, a pick-up) because I haven't needed a car since honestly 10 years (my old car finally died about two years ago).
5657 Granted, if anyone reading this around Georgia has a used pickup truck in good shape they're willing to get rid of, feel free to contact me ;-)
5658 Don't rip me off though, I have a YouTube channel!
5659 </p>
5660 ]]></description>
5661 </item>
5662
5663
5664 <item>
5665 <title>First Imagemagick Videos</title>
5666 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#first-imagemagick-videos</guid>
5667 <pubDate>Sun, 17 Jun 2018 09:13:23 -0400</pubDate>
5668 <description><![CDATA[
5669 <p>I've put up two videos on imagemagick today and yesterday covering some of the basics from making canvases and composites and basic effects. You can check the first out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETumamLjFbg">here</a> and the second <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbXHbHrfrIs">here</a>. Imagemagick is one of the most useful programs out there, and can be a huge boon for automated imageprocessing and also making little modifications (like resizing and minor adjustment).</p>
5670
5671 <p>I'll be doing more like this just because of imagemagick being such a huge and useful world. Specific ideas are welcome.</p>
5672 ]]></description>
5673 </item>
5674
5675
5676 <item>
5677 <title>Updates about Money and Patreon</title>
5678 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#updates-about-money-and-patreon</guid>
5679 <pubDate>Sat, 16 Jun 2018 20:31:52 -0400</pubDate>
5680 <description><![CDATA[
5681 <p>First, as a reminder, I do indeed have <a target="_blank" href="https://patreon.com/lukesmith">a Patreon</a> and encourage people to join. As stiff of a veneer I pretend to have when it comes to money, I won't pretend that there is a great psychological effect to getting new patrons and bigger pledges. Now that I'm dissertating, if I can start making decent money on YouTube, it will affect a lot how much free time I'll have if I can live with on part-time work. If you don't like Patreon as a platform, donate via <a target="_blank" href="https://liberapay.com/LukeSmith">Liberapay</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://paypal.me/lukemsmith">Paypal</a>.</p>
5682
5683 <p>I said so a couple days ago in a part of another post, but I'm switching my Patreon to being based "by creation" rather than "by month" so people get charged by content rather than time. As longer viewers know, sometimes I have to take several weeks off, while other times, I'm making videos every day.
5684 <b>If you're already a patron on Patreon, you might want to change your settings.</b>
5685 Specifically, everyone has been grandfathered in from the monthly donation scheme with those settings.
5686 If you want to pledge by creation now, you'll have to adjust the per unit donation and your maximum. </p>
5687
5688 <p>Of course <a target="_blank" href="https://liberapay.com/LukeSmith">my Liberapay</a> is, by its nature set to on a weekly basis, so if you want a clearer time-based donation system, try them out. Liberapay, unlike Patreon, does not skim money off the top for themselves, so if you're thinking about using one of them for time-based donations and don't have any account yet, go with Liberapay.</p>
5689
5690 <p>By the way, Patreon says I'm making $180 per video, which isn't accurate. It's really more like $180 per month plus about $10 or so for the first few videos; it simply adds in the monthly donators to that number. If I could actually make near $200 per video or more, I could basically retire and do this full time ;-).</p>
5691 ]]></description>
5692 </item>
5693
5694
5695 <item>
5696 <title>Video on GIMP basics</title>
5697 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-gimp-basics</guid>
5698 <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2018 10:36:55 -0400</pubDate>
5699 <description><![CDATA[
5700 <p>I've put up a video on the basics of GIMP, which you can see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m8Oaz8XWVI">here</a>.</p>
5701
5702 <p>I may do more in the future, but even better, I'm going to be doing some videos on Imagemagick (I already have one recorded which I'll release over the weekend). For those who don't know, Imagemagick is a core system for image creating and editing that accessible on the command line. It's hard to full express how useful IM is, so the first video will be just on one of my implementations of it.</p>
5703 ]]></description>
5704 </item>
5705
5706
5707 <item>
5708 <title>Consciousness, bicamerality and book reviews</title>
5709 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#consciousness-bicamerality-and-book-reviews</guid>
5710 <pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 21:47:25 -0400</pubDate>
5711 <description><![CDATA[
5712 <p>After a good bit more reading, I've given up on <em>Hamlet's Mill</em>, and not lightly. I usually view it as a kind of shame to stop reading a book before finishing, but I frankly don't feel like it's worth it at this point. The book is far too circumambulative to actually communicate its deeper point, but I get the feeling that it's that way out of a desire on the authors' part to avoid criticism with lack of clarity.</p>
5713
5714 <p>From what I can gather (after reading several hundred pages of deep, dank, quasi-poetic prose), it's a general argument that many classic mythological stories (those stories in different cultures that <em>Hamlet</em> is based on) are a kind of folkloric embedding of knowledge of axial procession (the fact that the earth's axis wobbles every several tens of thousands of years). This point is only alluded to or barely said, and only very circumstantial arguments are made for it, at the request of readers to squint their eyes to blurry the argument to make it sound more convincing than it really is.</p>
5715
5716 <p>Instead, I've started reading Julian Jaynes' <em>The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind</em> for the third time. It's one of my favorite reads, no so much because I find it so convincing, but because it's that pleasurable mix of ancient aliens-tier imagination and speculation with at least passable science, neurology, linguistics and other research. This was an enjoyment I hoped to replicate in reading <em>Hamlet's Mill</em> actually.</p>
5717
5718 <p>I've been hinted that I might start doing book reviews at the request of many subscribers, and I might pick <em>Bicameral Mind</em> to be the first candidate after I finish it again. I put up a poll of commonly requested books on the forum, and Taleb's <em>Antifragile</em>, Herrnstein and Murray <em>Bell Curve</em> and an unspecified book by Nietzsche got the most votes, but I'll probably end up doing everything on the poll anyway.</p>
5719 ]]></description>
5720 </item>
5721
5722
5723 <item>
5724 <title>Linux is the Wild West! Talk is now out</title>
5725 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#linux-is-the-wild-west-talk-is-now-out</guid>
5726 <pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 13:54:29 -0400</pubDate>
5727 <description><![CDATA[
5728 <p>I've uploaded my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnCXJn2cRf4">Linuxfest talk at this link</a>. Check it out. Southeast Linuxfest sends their apologies for not recording my face, but luckily I brought all the equipment for recording on my own machine.</p>
5729
5730 <p>Again, the talk was pretty packed with a lot of standers, especially considering the late time; it was great presenting and meeting all the people I did. I might be going next year as well if I have the time and hope to see all of you again (with many others).</p>
5731
5732 <p>Linuxfest also had set tables for lesser donnors to advertise their wares. At least one group was livestreaming throughout the event, and I figure that might be an option for me in the future. (I've also thought about merch, but it always strikes me as contrived and a little too consumerist.) I'm not actually sure how much they charge for the tables, but it's crossed my mind to crowdfund the money. That's probably something to think about in the future though.</p>
5733 ]]></description>
5734 </item>
5735
5736
5737 <item>
5738 <title>Linuxfest 2018 review</title>
5739 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#linuxfest-2018-review</guid>
5740 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 10:43:34 -0400</pubDate>
5741 <description><![CDATA[
5742 <p>A brief video on my experience at Southeast Linuxfest, check it out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhwSoZAHo-c">here</a>.</p>
5743 ]]></description>
5744 </item>
5745
5746
5747 <item>
5748 <title>Syncthing video, also Patreon changes</title>
5749 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#syncthing-video-also-patreon-changes</guid>
5750 <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jun 2018 09:36:10 -0400</pubDate>
5751 <description><![CDATA[
5752 <p>New video out on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bHdcfVzrgk">Syncthing</a> for keeping files in sync.</p>
5753
5754 <p>I've said this on Patreon already, but I'm going to be moving to a "per creation" payout on Patreon rather than the "per month" payout. I figure that'd (1) be more fair to people when I go another month like the last one where I don't put much out and (2) give some incentive for me to put stuff out regularly when I'm not moving cross-country or something. I'll treat all contentful videos as "paid" videos, meaning that I won't charge patrons for meta-videos or personal updates. For example, I'll be putting one out today or tomorrow on Liunxfest, etc.</p>
5755 ]]></description>
5756 </item>
5757
5758
5759 <item>
5760 <title>The Secrets in Hamlet's Mill</title>
5761 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-secrets-in-hamlets-mill</guid>
5762 <pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:40:48 -0400</pubDate>
5763 <description><![CDATA[
5764 <p>A week or so ago, I heard about, for the first time, the book <em>Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth</em>. The subtitle should communicate the gist. After ordering it online, it arrived this afternoon and I've gotten five chapters in (barely a fifth of the way through the whole thing).</p>
5765
5766 <p>I was attracted to the book as part of my general sympathy for the idea that pre-classical and primeval knowledge and myth is, to use a silly word <em>scientific</em>, or at least true in a astronomical or quasi-metaphorical level. That's certainly the intended argument of the book, but it certainly labors under that Moldbuggian tendency to beat around the bush quietly, hoping that the deeper argument will eventually sneak up and hit its reader on the head. While the book is definitely designed to be a slow burn, one positive aspect is authors' repeated insistence of the imperfectness of translating early writings and myths, partially on linguistic grounds, but even more so due to the severely underestimated difference between the modern and primeval mindset.</p>
5767
5768 <p>I'll also say that in addition to this book, I've also bought <em>Pandora's Seed</em> (Spencer Wells) and the notable <em>Forbidden Archaeology</em> (Michael Cremo), both of which I'll hopefully be going through this week. The latter book I bought with not too much expectation of seriousness, but out of raw curiosity. It argues an extremely ancient origin of mankind based on reinterpretation of archaeological evidence, its author being what could be described as a Vedic Creationist. I don't expect to be convinced or even unannoyed by the book, but I'm always interested in circumstantial evidence for an earlier date for human evolution, especially given the constant pushing back of the accepted date.</p>
5769 ]]></description>
5770 </item>
5771
5772
5773 <item>
5774 <title>Lol Linuxfest</title>
5775 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#lol-linuxfest</guid>
5776 <pubDate>Sun, 10 Jun 2018 00:12:46 -0400</pubDate>
5777 <description><![CDATA[
5778 <p>I've been at Southeast Linuxfest the past two days. I'll probably do a full review later, but here are some highlights so far.</p>
5779
5780 <ul>
5781 <li>My subscribers are not nearly as weird as I anticipated, and seem to be actually less weird than the average Linux user.</li>
5782 <li>There actually were some girls Linuxfest (although no obvious <font color="green">>girls</font>).</li>
5783 <li>My talk was pretty crowded; standing room only. It also generated a lot of good discussion. I polled the audience and about half of them knew me (usually the younger ones).</li>
5784 <li>Some boomer guy began to unironically "Interject" to my use of the term "Linux" as I used it in the talk ;-)</li>
5785 <li>I even had a very young fan (as in utterly prepubescent fan) besting even Pewdiepie's fans in youth. He asked for an autograph and picture.</li>
5786 <li>Linuxfest was generally well-organized but there were some huge oversights. The rooms were only equipped to handle HDMI inputs. This basically ruined Michael Tunnell's presentation which was right before mine (and probably others) since they couldn't record from his laptop. Poor guy had to use some useless Chromebook (which its distinct lack of keys) to try to preview kdenlive. They couldn't record from mine either, but I'm not going to let that happen, so I just went Harambe Mindframe and connected to the screen VGA input, bypassing their recording rig and recorded the talk on my own machine. This is something that the speakers should not have to be worrying about.</li>
5787 <li>People got a little peeved by the organizer's keynote, because it went way, way over on time, and then was followed by another talk that ruffled some vocal SJW feathers (basically a critique of witch-hunting codes of conduct). This is just what I gleamed from people, all of whom were really tired after a long day, because I sat these talks out.</li>
5788 </ul>
5789
5790 <p>Anyway, it's been nice meeting all of you who have/had come! Again, I might do a video update after the whole thing is over.</p>
5791 ]]></description>
5792 </item>
5793
5794
5795 <item>
5796 <title>Exile in Suburbia</title>
5797 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#exile-in-suburbia</guid>
5798 <pubDate>Thu, 31 May 2018 18:24:26 -0400</pubDate>
5799 <description><![CDATA[
5800 <p>While I'm looking for a new apartment or land to live on, I've been living in the Atlanta suburbs (or 'boondocks' in some people's definitions) again. After a couple days of rest after the grueling move/drive across country, I'm getting used to the 40 minute walk to the closest town and the extreme lack of people of my demographics (both age and race).</p>
5801
5802 <p>I found a local bookstore today and bought a copy of Cochran and Harpending's <em>The 10,000 Year Explosion</em>, a book I had read a while ago, but never bought. It's actually my style to only buy books after reading them and liking them at libraries. I'm rereading it now.</p>
5803
5804 <p>I've also been going thru A.J. Ayer's <em>Language, Truth and Logic</em>, which was largely one of the key books in spreading Logical Positivism to the English-speaking work. Intellectually-subtle viewers may know that I'm not a big fan of Logical Positivism—in fact I'm sort of reading it to have a strawman to attack in my dissertation. You never know though; I find it very difficult to enunciate my distaste of it. The vocabulary isn't quite out there to do so with a popular (or un-popular) audience.</p>
5805
5806 <p>Since I plan on my dissertation being in large part philosophy of science and then some, I'll have to overcome this lack of vocabulary, and might do so partially with the aid of my YouTube channel.</p>
5807 ]]></description>
5808 </item>
5809
5810
5811 <item>
5812 <title>Whomst lives in Georgia?</title>
5813 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#whomst-lives-in-georgia</guid>
5814 <pubDate>Sun, 27 May 2018 18:05:00 -0700</pubDate>
5815 <description><![CDATA[
5816 <p>Friendship ended with Arizona; now Georgia is my best friend.</p>
5817
5818 <p>I just finished my move from Arizona, which is more relieving than I can possibly express. Classwork is done, and the only possible reason I'll ever be returning to that quite literal hell-hole is for when I defend my dissertation and my graduation ceremony.</p>
5819
5820 <p>The thing is, while I've moved from Arizona, I haven't really moved anywhere in particular; I'll be living with family and friends until I decided where I want to live exactly. Here are my options:</p>
5821
5822 <ul>
5823 <li>Just go full innawoods right now, buy land (in Georgia or Tennessee) with my money and get started. The disadvantage is that I don't have as much money as I'd like to get a choice parcel, and this would also interfere with my dissertation (perhaps it doesn't matter of course).</li>
5824 <li>Partial innawoods. I have some family in Florida with remote land and farmhouses. I could ask to live their and watch the property, maybe practice for real innawoods hours in the meantime. No money required other than my food, unless the relevant family member wants nominal rent.</li>
5825 <li>Move to an apartment in a practical place to work on my dissertation. This would probably mean a college town where they have a library and bus system (probably Athens, where the University of Georgia is, where I've lived before and have friends, but I don't particularly like the place). Work on the dissertation and finish in a year, then go elsewhere.</li>
5826 <li>Move into Atlanta, get an internship at an NGO, become a bugman (joke choice).</li>
5827 </ul>
5828
5829 <p>Other data:</p>
5830
5831 <ul>
5832 <li>I don't own a car anymore and don't want to buy one unless I go innawoods. I'll need a truck if I do. Having a car while living in a city is a waste.</li>
5833 <li>I'll <em>possibly</em> still be getting some amount of money from the University of Arizona for online work. This means that I'll have an income stream. I want to treat this income as going directly into the innawoods fund though.</li>
5834 <li>If I actually ever get monetized (it's been 5 months of "review"), I might actually be making workable money on YouTube (possibly enough for rent somewhere). Patreon/Paypal is small now, but a lot more than nothing and sort of pays for my groceries and such.</li>
5835 </ul>
5836
5837 <p>Anyway, the title of the post is "Whomst lives in Georgia?" because I'm curious. I know some subscribers live in Athens, and if there are a lot there, or a lot in Kennesaw or another college town, that might be a reason to move there, so we can have IRL meetups or stuff or I can do stuff at university events, etc. Feel free to respond to <a target="_blank" href="https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/showthread.php?tid=82">the thread on this on the forum</a> or if you don't want to dox yourself, just mail me (<a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>). </p>
5838 ]]></description>
5839 </item>
5840
5841
5842 <item>
5843 <title>Series on Old Norse and Language Learning?</title>
5844 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#series-on-old-norse-and-language-learning</guid>
5845 <pubDate>Wed, 23 May 2018 18:23:48 -0700</pubDate>
5846 <description><![CDATA[
5847 <p>One request I get a whole lot is to talk about how to learn a language, or one harder, a language using only a book. I could just "talk" about it, but I figure doing it real time might be a lot better. I taught myself Latin this way nearly 10 years ago, and now use my Latin knowledge all the time academically. Part of my knowledge of Chinese also comes from my particular method of learning.</p>
5848
5849 <p>Anyway, I want to record myself going through an introductory language-learning book, verbally externalize my thoughts to make it clear how I interpret what I see. Obviously I have a lot of initial knowledge about languages generally, but as it comes up, I'll mention and explain all the needed concept and why they're relevant.</p>
5850
5851 <p>The language I've chosen to learn is Old Norse/Old Icelandic, which, as it happens, is very close and mutually intelligible with modern Icelandic with some minor differences. WhyOld Norse? (1) It's an ancient language that can be useful for my own understanding of historical linguistics, and the development of Germanic languages, (2) it still has some older linguistic properties that will keep viewers informed of a more highly inflected language, but (3) it also has a vocabulary similar to English, which will minimize the rote memorization aspect of learning it.</p>
5852
5853 <p>The book I'll probably be going through is <em>Old Icelandic: An Introductory Course</em> by Valfells and Cathey. I'll either have a physical copy or a pdf of it, which ever ismore convenient for recording. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to give me them! Again, the point of the series isn't supposed to be just on Old Norse/Icelandic, but on language learning generally, so everyone is welcome to watch! ;-)</p>
5854 ]]></description>
5855 </item>
5856
5857
5858 <item>
5859 <title>Stream soon</title>
5860 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#stream-soon</guid>
5861 <pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2018 10:23:59 -0700</pubDate>
5862 <description><![CDATA[
5863 <p>I'll be doing a stream in a bit, probably within the hour. Keep your eyes peeled on YouTube.</p>
5864 ]]></description>
5865 </item>
5866
5867
5868 <item>
5869 <title>Forum now has HTTP & SSL (Lunduke BTFO once again)</title>
5870 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#forum-now-has-http--ssl-lunduke-btfo-once-again</guid>
5871 <pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 20:03:14 -0700</pubDate>
5872 <description><![CDATA[
5873 <p>I've finally put HTTPS on <a href="https://forum.lukesmith.xyz">the forum</a> for security's sake. I appreciate that people have been signing up already anyway. I'll probably reannounce it on the channel when I do a live stream probably tomorrow.</p>
5874
5875 <p>You may've noticed that there was also some server downtime, that was actually relevant to the SLL upgrade. I stupidly miswrote something and broke my Apache server for a minute or two. All fixed now though.</p>
5876 ]]></description>
5877 </item>
5878
5879
5880 <item>
5881 <title>How I Write Accent Marks and IPA Characters in Vim</title>
5882 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-i-write-accent-marks-and-ipa-characters-in-vim</guid>
5883 <pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 13:54:58 -0700</pubDate>
5884 <description><![CDATA[
5885 <p>I just released a brief video on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPvvOEiiF28">how I put special characters into vim.</a>. There is a built in system (with control-k) for inputting special characters, but it's not as manipulatable as I'd like. Instead, I have two little vim files that coin functions to enable/disable deadkeys (for diacritics) or extra shortcuts for characters in the International Phonetic Alphabet.</p>
5886
5887 <p>The deadkey function turns ', ", :, ` and other symbols into deadkeys that place diacritics onto different characters. The IPA function is similar, but allows a sequence of semicolon plus two letters to correspond to an IPA symbol. E.g., if I want to type 'ʃ', I just type ';sh.</p>
5888
5889 <p>The links are in the video description (the files are in the voidrice repository as usual). The system is pretty customizable, and you can easily add whatever characters you need, potentially imitating the toggling commands I have there already.</p>
5890 ]]></description>
5891 </item>
5892
5893
5894 <item>
5895 <title>Video on the blog system</title>
5896 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-the-blog-system</guid>
5897 <pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 09:43:03 -0700</pubDate>
5898 <description><![CDATA[
5899 <p>I just put up the video on the blog system, if you're interested. Check it out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfAdzGmhik">here</a>.</p>
5900
5901 <p>Again, the link to the Github repo is <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/lb">here</a>. Enjoy!</p>
5902 ]]></description>
5903 </item>
5904
5905
5906 <item>
5907 <title>Guests now allowed on forum; Perks for supporters.</title>
5908 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#guests-now-allowed-on-forum-perks-for-supporters.</guid>
5909 <pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 09:14:04 -0700</pubDate>
5910 <description><![CDATA[
5911 <p>Now that the forum is being reborn, I've openned up one of the subforums, the <a target="_blank" href="http://forum.lukesmith.xyz/forumdisplay.php?fid=5">tech support</a> one to non-registered posters. This makes it so people without an account can come and ask questions.</p>
5912
5913 <p>Additionally, I'm going to give perks to people who support me/the channel on Patreon. For now, it's going to be for anyone who gives any ammount of money, but I make increase the required input in a bit. Perks will include a gold-plated name, access to a private forum, and possibly other abilities like bigger avatar size and such (that's not implemented yet).</p>
5914 ]]></description>
5915 </item>
5916
5917
5918 <item>
5919 <title>More tinkering today</title>
5920 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#more-tinkering-today</guid>
5921 <pubDate>Sat, 19 May 2018 13:36:26 -0700</pubDate>
5922 <description><![CDATA[
5923 <p>I'm changing a couple lines in the blog script (<code>lb</code>) that beautify the standalone pages, giving them UTF-8 encoding, actual titles and the website's stylesheet. While the standalone pages were originally an afterthought, I'm sure someone will like using them. I'll also probably put a video up about the blog system anyway<p>
5924
5925 <p>I've also been working on the forum today, and I'll also be putting up an update to the mutt-wizard which will hopefully fix compatibility with certain sites. Originally, I made the apparently improper and pessimistic assumption that some providers don't use +INBOX as the inbox location, encouraging me to writing a very skiddie line in grep to filter out all non-inbox boxes to smartly guess the true inbox. This caused the system to detect people's "Contacts" or "SMS" folders as their inbox in some cases.</p>
5926
5927 <p>I'll be fixing this soon so that it always just assumes that "+INBOX" is the real thing, which I think will lessen the errors people have.</p>
5928 ]]></description>
5929 </item>
5930
5931
5932 <item>
5933 <title>Check Github for the blog system</title>
5934 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#check-github-for-the-blog-system</guid>
5935 <pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 15:13:06 -0700</pubDate>
5936 <description><![CDATA[
5937 <p>I put my new blog system on Github. Again, just a little 70-ish line script that generates HTML and RSS/XML code automatically from a post; it'll get me a lot for very little, and obviously doesn't involve any silly databases.</p>
5938
5939 <p>Check out the link at <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/lb">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/lb</a>. Play around with it if you're interested in it for your own purposes. I might do a video on it in a bit, and I'll be refining it as needed.</p>
5940 ]]></description>
5941 </item>
5942
5943
5944 <item>
5945 <title>Excuse the RSS mess!</title>
5946 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#excuse-the-rss-mess</guid>
5947 <pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 10:38:11 -0700</pubDate>
5948 <description><![CDATA[
5949 <p>As I said, in a post before, I'm figuring out a new blogging and RSS feed paradigm which has been 95% done for several days, barring those little annoyances. I've been moving things around, including the GUIDs for RSS entires, so you may be seeing double, triple or quadruple entries in your RSS feed reader.</p>
5950
5951 <p>Feel free to purge your RSS feed cache to fix this. You won't lose anything since I have everything on my RSS feed (I'm not one of those people who has a rolling 15 entry RSS feed).</p>
5952 ]]></description>
5953 </item>
5954
5955
5956 <item>
5957 <title>New Forum Up and Under Preparation</title>
5958 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-forum-up-and-under-preparation</guid>
5959 <pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 09:23:55 -0700</pubDate>
5960 <description><![CDATA[
5961 <p>My subscriberbase has been pretty consistently dogging me to put the forum up. I figured I might as well just start a new forum with updated myBB software now. The old forum was a good trial run, but with newer software and now on my own server, there are more possibilities for a longterm forum.</p>
5962
5963 <p>So check out <a target="_blank" href="http://forum.lukesmith.xyz">forum.lukesmith.xyz</a> and go ahead and register the name you want and start posting if you'd like. As a minor warning, I don't have https for the forum yet, but that will come pretty soon.</p>
5964 ]]></description>
5965 </item>
5966
5967 <item>
5968 <title>On my new blog system</title>
5969 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#on-my-new-blog-system</guid>
5970 <pubDate>Mon, 14 May 2018 15:09:10 -0700</pubDate>
5971 <description><![CDATA[
5972 <p>For the past day or so, I've been "writing" a blog "system". Really it's only about 100 lines in shell script, which sure as hell beats installing WordPress and having huge databases on the server.</p>
5973
5974 <p>I want to have one rolling blog page, automatic RSS feed updates and maybe even standalone pages, so that's what I wrote. I also want to be able to link to individual blog entries on the rolling page, so I have it automatically label each header for the use of interior urls.</p>
5975
5976 <p>If you're reading this, wherever you're reading it, it's been successfuly.</p>
5977
5978 <p>Really all the script does is let you write a HTML draft entry, and when you're done, it appends it to the rolling page and converts its information into an RSS feed entry and appends it to your RSS feed. "Append" is probably the wrong word though, since it's not being added to the end, but in front of other entries.</p>
5979
5980 <p>Anyway, I hope to be able to have a fully functioning and synced blog and RSS feed, without the hassle or bloat, now I'm pretty confident that I'm right about at it. The only thing I haven't implemented (and might not) is the ability to change and delete posts from the RSS/rolling blog/standalone page directory. I'm the kind of person who doesn't believe in revision though, so maybe I'll slide without that.</p>
5981 ]]></description>
5982 </item>
5983
5984 <item>
5985 <title>New turbo-minimalist site</title>
5986 <guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-turbo-minimalist-site</guid>
5987 <pubDate>Mon, 14 May 2018 14:53:20 -0700</pubDate>
5988 <description><![CDATA[
5989 <p>I've decided to severely trim down my website, not in content, but in frills. We'll see how this works out, and if it does, I plan on keeping it this way with maybe minor beautification.</p>
5990
5991 <p>At a surface level, my site is just going to be two main HTML pages: the <a target="_blank" href="http://lukesmith.xyz/index.html">main page</a> and <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html">a blog/updates page</a> which I have made automatically (This also includes RSS updates).</p>
5992
5993 <p>One of the other things I've made use of is an Apache server's capability to display directory contents in and index page. You've probably seen things like this, see one of mine at <a target="_blank" href="http://lukesmith.xyz/talks/">talks/</a>. You can also give these pages CSS and descriptions for the files, which I've decided to take advantage of. It seems like a much better way of organizing files on your website and making them accessible than doing it manually in HTML.</p>
5994 ]]></description>
5995 </item>
5996
5997 <item>
5998 <title>Why Vim Doesn't Need a Mouse (video)</title>
5999 <guid isPermaLink="false">vimmouse</guid>
6000 <pubDate> Fri, 11 May 2018 10:52:21 -0700</pubDate>
6001 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQCRVkSFFEc</link>
6002 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief video on why vim doesn't use the mouse, and how to do "mouse-like" things like selection and movement.</p>]]></description>
6003 </item>
6004
6005 <item>
6006 <title>I'll be at Linux Fest Southeast next month. Come and see me!</title>
6007 <guid isPermaLink="false">linuxfestintro</guid>
6008 <pubDate> Sun, 06 May 2018 13:16:41 -0700</pubDate>
6009 <link>http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org/</link>
6010 <description><![CDATA[<p>I mentioned this in a video or two, but I'll be presenting at Southeast Linuxfest in Charlotte, NC on June 9. Feel free to come if you're in the Southeast. There are actually going to be a lot of talks all weekend, but mine is currently slated for June 9th (Saturday), the last talk of the day.</p>
6011
6012 <p>I should be in town for the full duration of the conference though. I'll also probably be recording the talk as well. I think the conference managers have recorded them in the past, but I want to be sure of the audio quality. Either way, it'll end up on YouTube. That said, for those in neighboring or nearby states, I think it'd be worth your time to come, not just for me, but for all the talks, tutorials, sessions and groups there to choose from. Check out their website for more: <a href="http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org/">http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org/</a></p>]]></description>
6013 </item>
6014
6015 <item>
6016 <title>What a waste of time!</title>
6017 <guid isPermaLink="false">timewaste</guid>
6018 <pubDate> Fri, 04 May 2018 09:17:05 -0700</pubDate>
6019 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6020 <description><![CDATA[<p>Welp I've spent about a week moving my websites to a VPS (several attempts at different services actually). I've only just now finally had some success. I originally was going to try Digital Ocean, but they don't offer good email service. I tried setting up an email server myself, but the amount of work and number of details needed to get everything to work is an order of magnitude more than just running a web server.</p>
6021
6022 <p>So I'm actually using a Namecheap VPS now, which is the registrar of my domains anyway. I thought this would make transferring my hosting easy (It wasn't). Namecheap has atrocious documentation and their site is extremely slow and non-responsive (thankfully their hosting servers/VPSs aren't). Regardless, I've gotten my website working (with https) and my email with their email service after several days of making DNS changes blindly and checking the results on update 24 hours later.</p>
6023
6024 <p>On a side note, SSL is one of the more difficult things to configure manually. While there are tools like Let's Encrypt, they can often be a pain to get working with different hosts and especially when you're like me and want wildcard certificates for your multiple sites. I really do not understand why hosts don't automate this process for most use cases (actually I do, because most of them get money off of selling partial automation).</p>
6025
6026 <p>Anyway, the looming issue is the forum. Host Gator automatically installed the (outdated) myBB backend for the forum, so I've never done the process myself manually. I'm going to have to figure that out soon enough, which will require me to get some mySQL database up and running (again, I've never done this before).</p>
6027 ]]></description>
6028 </item>
6029
6030 <item>
6031 <title>Updates on downtime and server transfer/email</title>
6032 <guid isPermaLink="false">transfernamecheap</guid>
6033 <pubDate> Tue, 01 May 2018 12:59:08 -0700</pubDate>
6034 <link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/thread-537.html</link>
6035 <description><![CDATA[<p>The link is to a forum thread on the topic. I've had a lot of trouble configuring email manually, so I'm going to get a VPS + email server from namecheap instead. I should be able to receive email alright at the time being and the forum will be up.</p>]]></description>
6036 </item>
6037
6038 <item>
6039 <title>Moving to a VPS, some downtime</title>
6040 <guid isPermaLink="false">vpsmove</guid>
6041 <pubDate> Sat, 28 Apr 2018 14:55:59 -0700</pubDate>
6042 <description><![CDATA[<p>I'm in the process of moving the entire website/LARBS/the forum to a VPS, due to the annoying practices of my former host, HostGator. Expect some downtime or certificate errors. My main website and this feed should be done (that's the easy part).</p>
6043
6044 <p>Hopefully I'll have LARBS.xyz finished today as well, but the forum might take another day, just because I have to go through the rigmarole of installing myBB manually on my new server which I haven't done before. That said, I managed to figure out how to install/run/configure an Apache server this morning so I figure myBB can't be much more difficult.</p>]]></description>
6045 </item>
6046
6047 <item>
6048 <title>Playing around with i3 blocks (video)</title>
6049 <guid isPermaLink="false">i3blocks</guid>
6050 <pubDate> Mon, 23 Apr 2018 08:04:29 -0700</pubDate>
6051 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7_9Xdbsem4</link>
6052 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've had some wanderlust for having a more configurable status bar, so I got back into i3blocks. I manages to create some custom blocks, including one for unread emails and one for a weather report. Check it out and maybe you'll get some ideas yourself.</p>]]></description>
6053 </item>
6054
6055 <item>
6056 <title>Some tips in a vim project (video)</title>
6057 <guid isPermaLink="false">vimsublimeslave</guid>
6058 <pubDate> Sun, 22 Apr 2018 11:49:26 -0700</pubDate>
6059 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hraHAZ1-RaM</link>
6060 <description><![CDATA[<p>A little vid on some vim tips and how to customize a workflow for your particular tasks. The content is mostly on how I turned raw file names into easily adjustable links for a personal task.</p>]]></description>
6061 </item>
6062
6063 <item>
6064 <title>Arch Install Part 2: Setting up a graphical environment and users (video)</title>
6065 <guid isPermaLink="false">arch2</guid>
6066 <pubDate> Sat, 21 Apr 2018 14:27:39 -0700</pubDate>
6067 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSHOb8YU9Gw</link>
6068 <description><![CDATA[<p>A follow up on the Arch install video, talking about how to install a graphical environment and other basic setup tips.</p>]]></description>
6069 </item>
6070
6071 <item>
6072 <title>Video on newsboat and RSS feed (video)</title>
6073 <guid isPermaLink="false">newsboat</guid>
6074 <pubDate> Wed, 11 Apr 2018 09:42:50 -0700</pubDate>
6075 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w</link>
6076 <description><![CDATA[<p>A little video on newsboat and RSS feeds. Welcome, if you're just now getting into RSS feeds!</p>]]></description>
6077 </item>
6078
6079 <item>
6080 <title>dmenu is more than an "application launcher"! (video)</title>
6081 <guid isPermaLink="false">dmenu1</guid>
6082 <pubDate> Sat, 07 Apr 2018 11:37:53 -0700</pubDate>
6083 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9m723tAurA</link>
6084 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been playing around with dmenu a little recently, and the way it was intended to be used! In this video, I show some little scripts that exploit dmenu's extensibility to get a lot of functionality out of this little suckless program.</p>]]></description>
6085 </item>
6086
6087 <item>
6088 <title>wtf i hate linux now! Mac OS is best, and other comments.</title>
6089 <guid isPermaLink="false">aprilfools2018</guid>
6090 <pubDate> Sat, 31 Mar 2018 22:25:03 -0700</pubDate>
6091 <link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/thread-426.html</link>
6092 <description><![CDATA[<p>I gave the forum a little makeover</p>]]></description>
6093 </item>
6094
6095 <item>
6096 <title>tripcode!Q/7 fixes my X220</title>
6097 <guid isPermaLink="false">tripcodex220video</guid>
6098 <pubDate> Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:47:26 -0700</pubDate>
6099 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1f8raveZo</link>
6100 <description><![CDATA[<p>Watch tripcode!Q/7's video repairing my X220. It's all there!</p>]]></description>
6101 </item>
6102
6103 <item>
6104 <title>Oral defense next week</title>
6105 <guid isPermaLink="false">oralssoon</guid>
6106 <pubDate> Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:01:12 -0700</pubDate>
6107 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been preparing for my oral defense in my doctoral program and some other things recently, adding up to one of the more full months I've had in a while. (So if you're curious why I haven't been putting up as much as usual, that's why). For those who don't know what this means, I wrote two qualifying papers as required for my PhD, and afterwards, our department requires an oral defense of both of them, in front of a committee of my choosing from the department.</p>
6108
6109 <p>For those who want to know, my committee is Mike Hammond, Tom Bever, Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, Simin Karimi and Robert Henderson. The only one who non-linguists may be familiar with is Massimo, notorious for his book "What Darwin Got Wrong" with Jerry Fodor, but a couple of the others might have a Wikipedia article or talks on YouTUbe if anyone is interested.</p>
6110
6111 <p>Anyway, after passing this, I'll be officially allowed to start on my dissertation (and after finishing that, I'll be doing another defense of that). I was sort of thinking of recording this defense for public consumption, although I don't think I'm strictly speaking allowed to, as the event is supposed to be private. (I think this has traditionally been just for the privacy of the defender, which I obviously don't care about).</p>
6112
6113 <p>After this is over, I'll the ABD (all but dissertation, as they say) and will have more time on my hands.</p>]]></description>
6114 </item>
6115
6116 <item>
6117 <title>LiberaPay now added (It's better than Paypal and Patreon)</title>
6118 <guid isPermaLink="false">liberapay</guid>
6119 <pubDate> Thu, 22 Mar 2018 09:52:16 -0700</pubDate>
6120 <link>https://liberapay.com/LukeSmith</link>
6121 <description><![CDATA[<p>A lot of people said that they'd like to fund the channel/me, but are (understandably) nervous about Patreon and Paypal. I've now added a <a href="https://liberapay.com/LukeSmith">LiberaPay account</a>, which is a much freer and privacy respecting platform, which also doesn't take a slice off the top fo every transfer.</p>
6122
6123 <p>If you don't trust Patreon or Paypal (which you shouldn't really), throw your support in via LiberaPay. It'd honestly be better generally to get channel funding there anyway!</p>]]></description>
6124 </item>
6125
6126 <item>
6127 <title>Luke Smith and Noam Chomsky (and my position in the field)</title>
6128 <guid isPermaLink="false">meetnoam</guid>
6129 <pubDate> Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:47:18 -0700</pubDate>
6130 <description><![CDATA[<p>Noam Chomsky and I finally formally met this evening at Simin Karimi's Noruz Party. We've run into each other in the halls from time to time, but this was the first time we officially spoke. This sounds like a somewhat bloggish thing to mention, and knowing me, I felt no overwhelming need to speak with him, but Tom Bever insisted on introducing us.</p>
6131
6132 <p>Tom introduced me in too glowing terms, a nice, yet not so meaningful gesture considering Noam is more than half deaf nowadays, especially in the bustle of the party. People had actually be lining up to see him; it looked sort of like people paying respect to a mafia don, but Tom unceremoniously pushed aside everyone else and invited me to talk to Noam directly.</p>
6133
6134 <p>We spoke a bit about my projects on prosodically driven syntax and the quantifier scope project, and he entreated me to talk to him later to get more in depth. He didn't divulge if he knew about me, granted, he's definitely heard of me from Tom and others in the department and we've spoken on email chains, but I'm not sure what or if he could've been expected to remember considering that he's less involved than the other faculty.</p>
6135
6136 <p>I still don't plan on going into the field, but there was an aura of momentousness to the event. A couple people were taking pictures of us and I got a couple comments afterward that remarked on the potential significance of our first meeting.</p>
6137
6138 <p>Either way it is sort of funny. Someone mentioned to me a bit ago that a lot of the grad students in the field know Arizona as "the place where Luke Smith is", which is hilarious for many reasons, and would probably be upsetting for a lot of the syntacticians here, but most strange now that Noam is here (a lot of people assume he's still at MIT since it's only been a year or so). I've never been plugged into academic politics, I don't actually plan on publishing before I leave the field and I've never even been to the LSA, but between the YouTube channel and targeted pressure from several people, I have a level of notoriety unexpected by me.</p>
6139
6140 <p>So the disaster scenario for "some people out there" is that something comes of this: that I become in the popular eye "the Linguist" that at least some normal people know about, or even worse, some kind of next logical step from Chomsky, catapulted to prominence in a way similar to how Noam's political rabble-rousing popularized him. And of course the elephant in the room is the political differences: there's a huge irony in some kind of mantle being passed from a Jewish anarcho-communist who grew up on a kibbutz to a goyish low-church Borderer who voted for Trump and has only barely managed to slip into the cracks of academia given his political disposition. If I were to obtain a well-known position in academia, I would be doing a lot of good for the re-enfranchisement of the White Right in the opinion-molding class.</p>
6141
6142 <p>That's not to say that my ascendancy in the field is even probable if I do stay, but the mere fact there's greater than a 2% chance of it would certainly have surprised me 15, 10, 5 or even 2 years ago. The only question is what aspects of my life am I willing to give up to continue to stoke the fires of this potentiality, or if I can continue to tolerate this lifestyle. On one hand, I've put up with every lie, manipulation, character assassination and "technicality" that could be thrown at me from this department, mostly without flinching, and my detractors are starting to sound like boys-who-cried-wolfs. On the other hand, a cabin for my family in the woods generally sounds like a better lifestyle.</p>
6143 ]]></description>
6144 </item>
6145
6146 <item>
6147 <title>Linguistics Isn't 60 Years Old!:Pāṇinian Approaches to Language</title>
6148 <guid isPermaLink="false">paninisimin</guid>
6149 <pubDate> Thu, 15 Mar 2018 17:53:51 -0700</pubDate>
6150 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yZ91YUdRfY</link>
6151 <description><![CDATA[<p>A guest lecture I gave in Simin Karimi's "Major Works in Syntax" class, a very brief talk about the Indian/Paninian tradition in linguistics. She expressed interest in having me again, so there might be a Part 2 to this focusing on mostly Medieval European thought.</p>]]></description>
6152 </item>
6153
6154 <item>
6155 <title>New LARBS format; 2.0 coming soon.</title>
6156 <guid isPermaLink="false">larbscoming</guid>
6157 <pubDate> Sat, 10 Mar 2018 19:36:15 -0700</pubDate>
6158 <link>https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/larbs</link>
6159 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've developed a more robust framework for implementing LARBS that will make it considerably easier and more elegant to manage packages. Now all packages are read in one single csv file and are processed based on whether the user chose their package group and whether the package is in the main repos or only in the AUR (this detection is now done automatically).</p>
6160
6161 <p>There's also now a (mostly) ncurses based interface during installation and, if it means anything, I've considerably reduced the size of the script seeing that the deployment method is now less <i>ad hoc</i>.</p>
6162
6163 <p>I'm hoping to "officially" re-release the scripts very soon, in fact, after this they may not actually change much at all until I do, all is needed is a little testing. You're welcome to try it yourself now and see the results.</p>]]></description>
6164 </item>
6165
6166 <item>
6167 <title>I've been unironically playing the best game ever again: Deus Ex</title>
6168 <guid isPermaLink="false">deusexinstall</guid>
6169 <pubDate> Fri, 09 Mar 2018 12:59:44 -0700</pubDate>
6170 <description><![CDATA[<p>I installed Deus Ex (yes, of course the original) on my Arch Desktop, just for laughs and because I wanted to quickly replay and get tired of it. Installation on Linux wasn't too difficult since there's an OpenGL renderer from the Mac port, and aside from that all I needed to install was some lib32 pulseaudio/alsa things. It runs really smooth and clean on a Linux machine if it means anything.</p>
6171
6172 <p>Don't expect me to end up becoming a game streamer, especially with (>proprietary software), but it was fairly refreshing to play a game with genuinely good storyline and development again. Obviously it lacks the features of a modern game, but back then video games were far enough away from real life so that you could rely on your imagination to fill in the gaps, which arguably makes for a better experience.</p>]]></description>
6173 </item>
6174
6175 <item>
6176 <title>Suckless sent of video creation?</title>
6177 <guid isPermaLink="false">sentvideos</guid>
6178 <pubDate> Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:44:19 -0700</pubDate>
6179 <link>https://tools.suckless.org/sent/</link>
6180 <description><![CDATA[<p>A little bit ago I talked about how I've been using suckless <a href="https://tools.suckless.org/sent/">sent</a>, which is a minimalist presentation format. It lacks features aside from the basics: text on slides (which is automatically sized for each one) and the ability to have images (only one per slide, again, autosized).</p>
6181
6182 <p>I've always looked for a more effective way to make meme videos, by which I mean the videos like my distro-hopping or Mac videos, where I more or less narrate a stream of memes and some text. Traditionally I did this in Blender, but that could be very time consuming, taking several days of constant work to put out a 10 minute video.</p>
6183
6184 <p>It actually hit me that sent would be a very good replacement for Blender (strangely enough), in that I can just write a presentation, put in images, etc., load it in sent, and record my screen while narrating. I.e., no video editing/tweaking/compiling or work time other than assembling my "script" for the video, in the different memes and text I'll be talking about.</p>
6185
6186 <p>I think I'll try this out pretty soon. Hopefully I can get in a place where I can put videos like that out relatively commonly.</p>]]></description>
6187 </item>
6188
6189 <item>
6190 <title>Arch Linux: Is it a meme? (video)</title>
6191 <guid isPermaLink="false">archisameme</guid>
6192 <pubDate> Thu, 08 Mar 2018 11:56:22 -0700</pubDate>
6193 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO9R_WFs9Zc</link>
6194 <description><![CDATA[<p>Here I talk about some misunderstandings about Arch Linux and some reasons it's worth using. It's not the best distro (there is none), but I keep coming back to Arch for a couple reasons.</p>]]></description>
6195 </item>
6196
6197 <item>
6198 <title>mutt-wizard Now Has an Autosync and Notification Option!</title>
6199 <guid isPermaLink="false">muttwizsync</guid>
6200 <pubDate> Tue, 06 Mar 2018 10:28:20 -0700</pubDate>
6201 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</link>
6202 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've added a new options to the mutt-wizard which will automatically add a cronjob that runs a script that smartly syncs offlineimap at the interval you want if there's an internet connection.</p>
6203
6204 <p>It also checks to see if new mail has been downloaded, and if it has, will provide a brief little notification ding! Enjoy!</p>]]></description>
6205 </item>
6206
6207 <item>
6208 <title>Clean out your RSS feed cache!</title>
6209 <guid isPermaLink="false">rssfeedclean</guid>
6210 <pubDate> Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:01:27 -0700</pubDate>
6211 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6212 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've cleaned up and added all the frills to my RSS feed to maximize the compatibility with different readings. The temporary downside is that long-time users will probably have to clean out their RSS cache for my feed, otherwise you'll see lots of duplicate entries!</p>
6213
6214 <p>Don't be afraid, everything will still be here, but you can fee free to clean out your RSS cache and reload to clean everything up!</p>]]></description>
6215 </item>
6216
6217 <item>
6218 <title>Quantifier Scope Is All Just Fun and Games! (video)</title>
6219 <pubDate>Mon, 05 Mar 2018 16:50:57 MST</pubDate>
6220 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w_PMpQiGL0</link>
6221 <description><![CDATA[<p>A presentation I gave a couple weeks back to prospective graduate students on a recent linguistics project. I argued that quantifier scope is extra-linguistic, not determined by the narrow syntax and am building, with some colleagues a general account of quantifier scope in Game Theoretic terms.</p>]]></description>
6222 <guid isPermaLink="false">funandgames</guid>
6223 </item>
6224
6225 <item>
6226 <title>From Arch Linux to Parabola: How-To and System Management! (video)</title>
6227 <pubDate>Sun, 04 Mar 2018 20:51:30 MST</pubDate>
6228 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jx-5Zp28VQ</link>
6229 <description><![CDATA[<p>In this video I go through how to migrate an Arch Linux install to Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, which is a 100% free software distribution! Check it out!</p>]]></description>
6230 <guid isPermaLink="false">arch2para</guid>
6231 </item>
6232
6233 <item>
6234 <title>NEWS: Arch Linux Install and Config; and X220 Repair (video)</title>
6235 <pubDate>Fri, 02 Mar 2018 23:25:54 MST</pubDate>
6236 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ke9ZNC9a5k</link>
6237 <description><![CDATA[<p>tripcode!Q/7, who also makes YouTube videos, volunteered to try to fix my X220, so I'll be sending it to him next week. Also, two major Patreon incentives were met last month: the Arch Linux install and the Arch Linux graphical environment setup! Expect those within a week or so!</p>]]></description>
6238 <guid isPermaLink="false">tripcode</guid>
6239 </item>
6240
6241 <item>
6242 <title>BRAINLET Luke Destroys his ThinkPad X220!!! (Press F) (video)</title>
6243 <pubDate>Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:40:23 MST</pubDate>
6244 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X1LUlnhIAI</link>
6245 <description><![CDATA[<p>Check the video out! When fixing my X220 I made some bad electrical contact and fried the screen connector. What does this mean for the channel? Let's find out!</p>]]></description>
6246 <guid isPermaLink="false">destx220</guid>
6247 </item>
6248
6249 <item>
6250 <title>Easy, No BS Slide Presentations with SENT! (suckless) (video)</title>
6251 <pubDate>Sun, 25 Feb 2018 11:28:15 MST</pubDate>
6252 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCLCl96eNaI</link>
6253 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been playing around with sent recently, which is a good way to immediately make slide presentations. Check it out!</p>]]></description>
6254 <guid isPermaLink="false">sucklesssent</guid>
6255 </item>
6256
6257 <item>
6258 <title>You're not "Autistic." You're normal. (video)</title>
6259 <pubDate>Mon, 19 Feb 2018 11:42:49 MST</pubDate>
6260 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAsxztU189k</link>
6261 <description><![CDATA[<p>I wanted to talk about a mindset I get a lot from some of my subscribers. Sure, a lot of it is just making fun, but some people get hard on themselves for having hobbies or not socializing how they think they should be. I address this in this video.</p>]]></description>
6262 <guid isPermaLink="false">autistic</guid>
6263 </item>
6264
6265 <item>
6266 <title>Now You Can Auto-Configure Mutt and OfflineIMAP! (video)</title>
6267 <pubDate>Sat, 17 Feb 2018 23:08:29 MST</pubDate>
6268 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsEJz9f9VMQ</link>
6269 <description><![CDATA[<p>Video out on the now completed mutt/offlineIMAP wizard. Try it yourself! It will give a fully featured terminal email setup with offline backups for offline browsering and safe password storage.</p>
6270
6271 <p>I also put out a brief video on how to generate a public/private key pair in GnuPG <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMGIlj7u7Eo">here</a>, which is needed for the auto-confige script.</p>]]></description>
6272 <guid isPermaLink="false">muttwiz</guid>
6273 </item>
6274
6275 <item>
6276 <title>Working on a email wizard for mutt and offlineIMAP configs</title>
6277 <pubDate>Sat, 10 Feb 2018 08:31:10 MST</pubDate>
6278 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h-Qr_Ricik</link>
6279 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief video showing what I have so far on the mutt auto-config.</p>]]></description>
6280 <guid isPermaLink="false">muttwizprep</guid>
6281 </item>
6282
6283 <item>
6284 <title>Working on a mutt wizard</title>
6285 <pubDate>Fri, 09 Feb 2018 23:55:54 MST</pubDate>
6286 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</link>
6287 <description><![CDATA[<p>I think I'll put a video up on this tomorrow, but I'm starting to put together an ncurses script that will automatically configure mutt, offlineIMAP, notmuch, and everything else you need for a fully featured offline terminal email service, all with basically no user effort beyond putting in their email and password.</p>
6288
6289 <p>If you're a mutt user, you can help me by sending me your email server settings if they're not already in the autoconf/domains.csv file.</p>]]></description>
6290 <guid isPermaLink="false">muttwiznot</guid>
6291 </item>
6292
6293 <item>
6294 <title>We Have a Forum! (and on the Future!)</title>
6295 <pubDate>Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:41:35 MST</pubDate>
6296 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MC3wR63FHs</link>
6297 <description><![CDATA[<p>I hope you enjoyed the brief week of no newfriends on the forum. In this video I announce the forum to the wider channel and talk about some of my plans in the near future.</p>]]></description>
6298 <guid isPermaLink="false">forumvid</guid>
6299 </item>
6300
6301 <item>
6302 <title>How to Actually Get Good at GNU/Linux (video)</title>
6303 <pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2018 09:46:52 MST</pubDate>
6304 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNuz-Trx0a4</link>
6305 <description><![CDATA[<p>A daily reminder on the importance of RTFMing!</p>]]></description>
6306 <guid isPermaLink="false">man</guid>
6307 </item>
6308
6309 <item>
6310 <title>i3: Managing Windows and Webcams for screencasting</title>
6311 <pubDate>Tue, 06 Feb 2018 09:00:07 MST</pubDate>
6312 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkqxYZ7-sQM</link>
6313 <description><![CDATA[<p>A little vid on window management in i3wm, where I show how I manage my webcam and keep it with the properties I want.</p>]]></description>
6314 <guid isPermaLink="false">i3webcams</guid>
6315 </item>
6316
6317 <item>
6318 <title>Dropdown Terminals and Scratchpads in i3wm! (video)</title>
6319 <pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2018 10:29:15 MST</pubDate>
6320 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-l7DnDbiiU</link>
6321 <description><![CDATA[<p>I talk about how to configure and customize i3wm/i3-gaps scratchpads and dropdown terminals.</p>]]></description>
6322 <guid isPermaLink="false">i3dropdown</guid>
6323 </item>
6324
6325 <item>
6326 <title>Mac Users: Don't Say T*rx on My Channel (T*rxroaches BTFO!) (video)</title>
6327 <pubDate>Sat, 03 Feb 2018 09:52:12 MST</pubDate>
6328 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUCuMqBlSqE</link>
6329 <description><![CDATA[<p>I banned the word "torx" on my comment section to clean up some mess. Why? Watch to find out!</p>]]></description>
6330 <guid isPermaLink="false">torx</guid>
6331 </item>
6332
6333 <item>
6334 <title>Forum is now open to public (but only YOU know!)</title>
6335 <pubDate>Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:34:09 MST</pubDate>
6336 <link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/</link>
6337 <description><![CDATA[<p>I mentioned making a forum for subscribers and I've been working on it a little for the past few days. The link is at <a href="https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/">https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/</a>. I haven't posted this on YouTube or Twitter yet, but I'll go ahead and tell all of you who follow my RSS feed now.</p>
6338
6339 <p>Registration should be free and open and you should be able to post on the boards I've made so far, so feel free to, if fact, please do and go ahead and find any bugs, start dialogue etc. If everything works out, I'll probably announce it on the channel next week.</p>]]></description>
6340 <guid isPermaLink="false">forumrss</guid>
6341 </item>
6342
6343 <item>
6344 <title>LARBS preparing for release</title>
6345 <pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 11:55:53 MST</pubDate>
6346 <link>https://larbs.xyz</link>
6347 <description><![CDATA[<p>If you track my Github, you may've noticed I've been making some bigger changes to my LARBS and voidrice repositories, preparing for a re-release of LARBS with more fanfare, and more tutorial videos to go along with it (I've also updated https://larbs.xyz to HTTPS since that's a more legit concern).</p>
6348
6349 <p>There have been a lot of little improvements, and I'm hoping to have a lot of the small kinks worked out before then.</p>
6350
6351 <p>There is one thing I'd really like and don't know if it exists, and that is a kind of mutt config generator or wizard, that will automatically detect your email provider's servers and set the more annoying settings by itself. I've put some documentation up about how to configure mutt so far, but I really wish there were a way to make it easier for users.</p>
6352 ]]></description>
6353 <guid isPermaLink="false">larbssoon</guid>
6354 </item>
6355
6356 <item>
6357 <title>RSS readers: You can now use HTTPS!</title>
6358 <pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 21:59:34 MST</pubDate>
6359 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
6360 <description><![CDATA[<p>Just as a note, you can feel free to use https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml as the feed URL in your feed reader as I've finally gotten SSL/HTTPS for my website.</p>]]></description>
6361 <guid isPermaLink="false">https</guid>
6362 </item>
6363
6364 <item>
6365 <title>What programs do I use?</title>
6366 <pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 10:51:07 MST</pubDate>
6367 <link>https://lukesmith.xyz/programs.html</link>
6368 <description><![CDATA[<p>I get a lot of questions about what particular programs I use for this or that. For people who don't want to troll every video of mine to find the answers, I put up a little page on my website (in link) that lists all the main stuff I use.</p>]]></description>
6369 <guid isPermaLink="false">programsiuse</guid>
6370 </item>
6371
6372 <item>
6373 <title>Dataframes in R: Columns subsets and more! (video)</title>
6374 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Jan 2018 09:55:20 MST</pubDate>
6375 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDzVtu24dbk</link>
6376 <description><![CDATA[<p>A video on how to create modify and extract data from columns and rows in R. We talk about some of the more extensible functions that are like advanced loops in one command!</p>]]></description>
6377 <guid isPermaLink="false">rdataframes</guid>
6378 </item>
6379
6380 <item>
6381 <title>Playing Around with Functions in R (video)</title>
6382 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Jan 2018 09:54:37 MST</pubDate>
6383 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgRvPNo6HaY</link>
6384 <description><![CDATA[<p>A video on some of the basic functions in R, summaries, means, simple plots and more!</p>]]></description>
6385 <guid isPermaLink="false">rfunctions</guid>
6386 </item>
6387
6388 <item>
6389 <title>Stats in R: Basics of a Beefy Calculatory (video)</title>
6390 <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jan 2018 16:42:06 MST</pubDate>
6391 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlCWQrKQQI4</link>
6392 <description><![CDATA[<p>Here's the first in a series on R, the mathematical/statistical programming language!</p>
6393
6394 <p>Here I talk about the basics: the arithmetic, variables and the logic of vectors in R, and how R differs from typical programming languages.</p>]]></description>
6395 <guid isPermaLink="false">rintro</guid>
6396 </item>
6397
6398 <item>
6399 <title>Selecting terminal URLs with URLview (video)</title>
6400 <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jan 2018 21:37:49 MST</pubDate>
6401 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgzpAjFgbCw</link>
6402 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief video on URLview, which makes urls on the terminal easy to follow!]]></description>
6403 <guid isPermaLink="false">urlview</guid>
6404 </item>
6405
6406 <item>
6407 <title>Hard Reset on the Voidrice Repository</title>
6408 <pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2018 23:13:23 MST</pubDate>
6409 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice</link>
6410 <description><![CDATA[<p>After several months and 70-something commits, I decided to hard reset and recommit my voidrice repository. Nothing's gone of course, there are a lot of forks and mirrors out there and I'm recommiting the files as they are today.</p>
6411 <p>This might sound like a strange thing to do, but the repo files were getting huge (around 20MB for a repo for less than 2MB of files). I tried all the typical options, garbage collecting, even tree filtering, but couldn't reduce the size, and a small size is what I need for LARBS.</p>
6412 <p>The main reason it got so big was when I naïvely included an enormous font system with the repo a while back to make it more accessible to Parabola users. I didn't realize how much of a pain it would be to deal with for its ease.</p>
6413 <p>I'm planning a bigger, fuller release of LARBS, so I want to have everything clean and accessible. I may upload the old bloated repository as well on Github, maybe a "voidrice classic" and keep it as it is now, but there's a lot I've learned about system management so I like the clean feeling.</p>]]></description>
6414 <guid isPermaLink="false">hardreset</guid>
6415 </item>
6416
6417 <item>
6418 <title>st: suckless's Simple Terminal (video)</title>
6419 <pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2018 15:40:09 MST</pubDate>
6420 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmm7wl4JUI</link>
6421 <description><![CDATA[<p>I actually got a worthwhile suckless terminal configuration going. Check out the video, and also <a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/st">my git repo</a> with my particular build.</p>
6422 <p>It has transparency and scrollback, and a lot of helpful bindings, but also all the typical perks of st: excellent unicode compatibility and general non-bugginess.</p>]]></description>
6423 <guid isPermaLink="false">st</guid>
6424 </item>
6425
6426 <item>
6427 <title>An Intro to R Markdown (video)</title>
6428 <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jan 2018 17:34:22 MST</pubDate>
6429 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5a0JWIF-0</link>
6430 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief intro R markdown. I talk about what it does and how to compile it in vim, with a lot of its features like inline code and different output formats..</p>]]></description>
6431 <guid isPermaLink="false">rmarkdownintro</guid>
6432 </item>
6433
6434 <item>
6435 <title>The Virgin LaTeX vs. the CHAD R Markdown (Video)</title>
6436 <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jan 2018 07:50:16 MST</pubDate>
6437 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWScm5WI3fo</link>
6438 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been using R markdown as a general document formatting paradigm. It has all the perks of LaTeX but is much more manageable and with much more transparent syntax.</p>
6439 <p>I'll be putting up another video on it soon!</p>]]></description>
6440 <guid isPermaLink="false">chadrmarkdown</guid>
6441 </item>
6442
6443 <item>
6444 <title>Returning to Arizona</title>
6445 <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2018 17:18:11 EST</pubDate>
6446 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6447 <description><![CDATA[<p>I'll be returning to Arizona and all my equipment tomorrow and hopefully will be fully cured of the flu I've had the past week. After that, I'll have more videos coming out, probably in the typical 'spree' release schedule.</p>]]></description>
6448 <guid isPermaLink="false">returningarizona</guid>
6449 </item>
6450
6451 <item>
6452 <title>URXVT, Basics and Configuration (VIDEO)</title>
6453 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 20:43:13 EST</pubDate>
6454 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaBf_yFHps8</link>
6455 <description><![CDATA[<p>A video on urxvt, including the basics, transparency with i3 and perl scripts that do all of the magic for you.</p>]]></description>
6456 <guid isPermaLink="false">urxvt</guid>
6457 </item>
6458
6459 <item>
6460 <title>Linguistics Videos! (Coming Whether I like it or not!)</title>
6461 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:16:57 EST</pubDate>
6462 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6463 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been rehired by the linguistics department (so I'm now working for both them and Information Sciences) and part of my assignment next semester will be making video lectures for an introductory lingusitics course.</p>
6464 <p>One of the reasons I got this assignment is my history on YouTube, and given that, I'm going to <em>actually</em> end up making the linguistics videos I've been promising here and there.</p>
6465 <p>The initial content will probably be very introductory, but if I get momentum in making the videos, I'll probably expand the range past what my assignment is.</p>]]></description>
6466 <guid isPermaLink="false">linguisticsvids</guid>
6467 </item>
6468
6469 <item>
6470 <title>Yup! Vim has a spell-checker. (VIDEO)</title>
6471 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 23:38:41 EST</pubDate>
6472 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1XBUqbS68</link>
6473 <description><![CDATA[<p>A video on vim's built-in spellchecker, along with all the default bindings and possibilities, and how to use dictionaries from other languages, etc.</p>]]></description>
6474 <guid isPermaLink="false">vimspell</guid>
6475 </item>
6476
6477 <item>
6478 <title>Video on Net Neutrality</title>
6479 <pubDate>Mon, 18 Dec 2017 23:54:52 MST</pubDate>
6480 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgbeB79Dss0</link>
6481 <description><![CDATA[<p>Well, my check from Comcast cleared a little late, but now I've finally taken to defending Pajeet Pai's "corporate takeover of the internet". Reddit-friends on suicide watch.</p>]]></description>
6482 <guid isPermaLink="false">netneut</guid>
6483 </item>
6484
6485 <item>
6486 <title>sc-im: A Vim-inspired Excel replacement!</title>
6487 <pubDate>Sat, 16 Dec 2017 09:24:05 MST</pubDate>
6488 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8_gazN7h0</link>
6489 <description><![CDATA[<p>Thanks to a viewer, Michael Novella for showing me this! It's a pretty sweet terminal spreadsheet editor with vim-like bindings. Lots of fun and a good potential replacement for LibreOffice calc.</p>]]></description>
6490 <guid isPermaLink="false">sc-im1</guid>
6491 </item>
6492
6493 <item>
6494 <title>ThinkPad T420 Overview</title>
6495 <pubDate>Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:42:34 MST</pubDate>
6496 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPOLYXi2tGg</link>
6497 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief overview of the ThinkPad T420, one of the best ThinkPads for new ThinkPad users. Sturdy, modern yet still with the classic design.</p>]]></description>
6498 <guid isPermaLink="false">t420</guid>
6499 </item>
6500
6501 <item>
6502 <title>"Which ThinkPad Should I Get?"</title>
6503 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 17:58:22 MST</pubDate>
6504 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La3sb5y7e-k</link>
6505 <description><![CDATA[<p>New video up on ThinkPads: the different kinds, what's popular, what's free and what's a meme.</p>]]></description>
6506 <guid isPermaLink="false">whichthinkpad</guid>
6507 </item>
6508
6509 <item>
6510 <title>Shortcut sync for bash, ranger and qutebrowser</title>
6511 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 16:00:51 MST</pubDate>
6512 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxlJAGiRY0o</link>
6513 <description><![CDATA[<p>See the link; I had come up with the idea for a script a while ago, but I figured it was worth redoing and making a little more robust. The idea is to keep the same aliases across qutebrowser, ranger and bash for cding to or moving/downloading files to certain directories. Check out the video or the Github repository for more info.</p>]]></description>
6514 <guid isPermaLink="false">shortcut2</guid>
6515 </item>
6516
6517 <item>
6518 <title>ThinkPad week is on!</title>
6519 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:30:18 MST</pubDate>
6520 <link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
6521 <description><![CDATA[<p>I teased doing a series on ThinkPads a couple weeks ago, but other work bogged me down. Now that classes and end of the semester administrivia are over, I'm going to have a big lump of videos coming out in the next couple days—Expect them! And it's not just ThinkPads!</p>]]></description>
6522 <guid isPermaLink="false">thinkpadweek</guid>
6523 </item>
6524
6525 <item>
6526 <title>Battlestation and Apartment Tour Part II</title>
6527 <pubDate>Thu, 23 Nov 2017 10:21:11 MST</pubDate>
6528 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYBY7jKzv4</link>
6529 <description><![CDATA[<p>My current apartment, bigger and more liveable, still no anime!</p>]]></description>
6530 <guid isPermaLink="false">battle2</guid>
6531 </item>
6532
6533 <item>
6534 <title>Some channel announcements!</title>
6535 <pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2017 22:26:24 MST</pubDate>
6536 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-Bwr814wc</link>
6537 <description><![CDATA[<p>Bitchute, Patreon, my to-do list and much more! Check it out!</p>]]></description>
6538 <guid isPermaLink="false">bitchutepattodo</guid>
6539 </item>
6540
6541 <item>
6542 <title>Make the Internet Decentralized Again!</title>
6543 <pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2017 09:16:26 MST</pubDate>
6544 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtkicw97zSo</link>
6545 <description><![CDATA[<p>I'm reuploading some portions of my interview with Michael Perilloux. They'll be popping up over the rest of the week. In this segment, we talk about efforts to decentralize the internet again.</p>]]></description>
6546 <guid isPermaLink="false">decentralized</guid>
6547 </item>
6548
6549 <item>
6550 <title>Markdown and Pandoc for Easy Presentations...</title>
6551 <pubDate>Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:52:23 MST</pubDate>
6552 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dum7q6UXiCE</link>
6553 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've started to use Markdown and Pandoc to get my briefer presentations done. I strongly recommend it.</p>
6554 <p>You can avoid the main of LibreOffice and the encumbering syntax of LaTeX/Beamer all in one.</p>]]></description>
6555 <guid isPermaLink="false">pandocpres</guid>
6556 </item>
6557
6558 <item>
6559 <title>On EOMA68 comuters</title>
6560 <pubDate>Mon, 20 Nov 2017 23:14:02 MST</pubDate>
6561 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHUDHqSeuM</link>
6562 <description><![CDATA[<p>Since people have expressed interest, I did a little video on the EOMA68 to advertise the thing. You can get one that ships out next summer.</p>
6563 <p>It's one of the few computers with actual innovation behind it, and really propose a decntralized alternative.</p>]]></description>
6564 <guid isPermaLink="false">eoma68on</guid>
6565 </item>
6566
6567 <item>
6568 <title>Limitations cause greatness!</title>
6569 <pubDate>Sat, 18 Nov 2017 22:56:25 MST</pubDate>
6570 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6571 <description><![CDATA[<p>Alright, it's that time of year where I have to start finalizing my research projects, which means I'll be really hard-pressed for time. If that means anything, it's that I'll probably be producing <em>more</em> content than usual.</p>
6572
6573 <p>I'm the kind of person who when in a pinch goes the extra mile, which is good now just because I've been putting out a whole lot less content than I had wanted this semester. Good news is (a) I now have the will to do more hardcore video editing and (b) I found a way to cheat!</p>
6574
6575 <p>That said, I do have a lot of personal work to finish, two qualifying papers, a paper on the evolution of rationality, a corpus of Latin and probably some other stuff I've forgotten. For me that just means more limitations, and thus more motivation for output I'll probably also put out videos on my academic projects, but only as a little bonus.</p>
6576
6577 <p>First things first, I have a series on de-Googling coming soon, with a couple videos coming out next week.</p>]]></description>
6578 <guid isPermaLink="false">limitationscause</guid>
6579 </item>
6580
6581 <item>
6582 <title>On Purism Laptops</title>
6583 <pubDate>Mon, 06 Nov 2017 23:33:07 MST</pubDate>
6584 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwcOpf30SfY</link>
6585 <description><![CDATA[<p>I give my 2 cents on Purism laptops. My subscribers give their 2 cents on my now shaved head.</p>]]></description>
6586 <guid isPermaLink="false">purismlaptops</guid>
6587 </item>
6588
6589 <item>
6590 <title>My book library: the autistic thing I've done this weekend...</title>
6591 <pubDate>Sun, 05 Nov 2017 17:25:11 MST</pubDate>
6592 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz/library.html</link>
6593 <description><![CDATA[<p>I created a catalogue of all of my books for online viewing, for those who want to see them for reviews. This is also sort of a personal thing, so I can have records before my collection becomes too large.</p>]]></description>
6594 <guid isPermaLink="false">libraryhtml</guid>
6595 </item>
6596
6597 <item>
6598 <title>Block Ads, Tracking, Porn and whatever else with /etc/hosts</title>
6599 <pubDate>Sat, 04 Nov 2017 09:53:58 MST</pubDate>
6600 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPfpCVW7ZvM</link>
6601 <description><![CDATA[<p>New video up on creating your own firewall with /etc/hosts. An extremely easy way to limit the potentially malicious IPs your machine can connect to.</p>]]></description>
6602 <guid isPermaLink="false">blockadsporn</guid>
6603 </item>
6604
6605 <item>
6606 <title>Luke on Golden Age</title>
6607 <pubDate>Mon, 23 Oct 2017 23:03:49 MST</pubDate>
6608 <link>http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/10/23/golden-age-episode-4-software-freedom/</link>
6609 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've made an appearance on Social Matter's podcast "The Golden Age".</p>
6610 <p>Host Michael Perilloux and I talk about software freedom, decentralization and privacy in the context of the Restoration and Neoreactionary politics.</p>
6611 <p>Check the podcast out <a href="http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/10/23/golden-age-episode-4-software-freedom/">here</a>, and then <a href="http://socialmatter.net">SocialMatter.net</a> for even more.</p>]]></description>
6612 <guid isPermaLink="false">lukegoldenage</guid>
6613 </item>
6614
6615 <item>
6616 <title>10,000 subscribers!</title>
6617 <pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2017 21:34:41 MST</pubDate>
6618 <link>https://youtube.com/c/lukesmithxyz</link>
6619 <description><![CDATA[<p>A big day! I've hit 10,000 subscribers. I had no idea that anyone outside of a couple weebs on 4chan would ever actually see my channel...</p>
6620 <p>I've come a long way. My two most popular videos (distrohopping and Apple/Mac) were both made before I had <em>100</em> subscribers, now I have a hundred times that, and both those videos are individually at over 130,000 views.</p>
6621 <p>Looking back at my system of a year ago I can't help shaking my head either; I've improved so much and have brought a lot of people with me on this year-long (but ongoing) journey!</p>]]></description>
6622 <guid isPermaLink="false">10000subs</guid>
6623 </item>
6624
6625 <item>
6626 <title>Housecleaning...</title>
6627 <pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2017 02:56:51 MST</pubDate>
6628 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz/videos.html</link>
6629 <description><![CDATA[<p>YouTube does a bad job of making older content on your channel accesible to new viewers. To partially counteract that, I've decided to put a gallery of all my YouTube videos (with thumbnails) on my website for browsing, indexed by topic.</p>]]></description>
6630 <guid isPermaLink="false">housecleaning</guid>
6631 </item>
6632
6633 <item>
6634 <title>The Podcast is Really Happening</title>
6635 <pubDate>Sun, 15 Oct 2017 22:17:46 MST</pubDate>
6636 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPD35ETwuk</link>
6637 <description><![CDATA[<p>Last month, my colleague Ryan and I put out a brief introductory podcast episode, planning a series on academic affairs. We never planned out how frequent these would come out, and due to a series of life effects, it might look like it was a one time thing.</p>
6638 <p>The feedback we got though was overwhelming and encouraging, especially given how little most of my subscribers probably cared about the issues before hand. I also had a lot of grad students in the field email glowingly. Even better was the "negative" attention we got, mostly from the Old Guard and the typical pearl-clutchers in our department. The very gall of us to serve as faces to the universal discontentment.</p>
6639 <p>Ryan was witness to a particularly embarrassing encounter with a certaie professor absolutely apoplectic about the podcast, and recounted it to me with much gusto, variegated with uncontrollable laughter.</p>
6640 <p>Needless to say, the more episodes are in the tubes. We're enjoying where this is going already.</p>]]></description>
6641 <guid isPermaLink="false">podcast</guid>
6642 </item>
6643
6644 <item>
6645 <title>Out of Town: LARBS coming soon</title>
6646 <pubDate>Fri, 29 Sep 2017 10:32:45 EDT</pubDate>
6647 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS</link>
6648 <description><![CDATA[<p>I'll be out of town for the weekend on personal reason, away from my microphone, etc. So don't expect videos until Tuesday! Around then, I will probably be finishing up the LARBS (see link) which I plan on releasing then. That will make a lot of things easier for a lot of people (including me).</p>]]></description>
6649 <guid isPermaLink="false">outoftownlarbs</guid>
6650 </item>
6651
6652 <item>
6653 <title>No Relation! EP1: Noam Chomsky Joins Us in Hell (Arizona)</title>
6654 <pubDate>Sun, 17 Sep 2017 09:09:21 MST</pubDate>
6655 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPD35ETwuk</link>
6656 <description><![CDATA[<p>Starting a new podcast with my colleague Ryan Smith (no relation).</p>
6657 <p>To christen our first episode, we discuss Noam Chosmky joining us at the University of Arizona and our general disenchantment with the generative program.</p>]]></description>
6658 <guid isPermaLink="false">norel1</guid>
6659 </item>
6660
6661 <item>
6662 <title>Automatic Ricing Script Part 2. (COMING SOON)</title>
6663 <pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2017 21:43:33 MST</pubDate>
6664 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6665 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've decided to remake install scripts for Arch/Parabola since they were pretty popular last time, and I've made some pretty big changes since then.</p>
6666 <p>Expect them sometime this week. It actually saves me a lot of time doing this, and is a lot of fun making the documentation [autism intensifies].]]></description>
6667 <guid isPermaLink="false">newlarbssoon</guid>
6668 </item>
6669
6670 <item>
6671 <title>Some busy work and imminent plans</title>
6672 <pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2017 13:42:54 MST</pubDate>
6673 <link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
6674 <description><![CDATA[<p>I have some real-world work to do this week, I have to finish writing a website and have to do some data analysis for a study, probably in R. If that ends up being interesting, I might actually just post a stream of it.</p>
6675 <p>Otherwise, this week I'll probably put up a Battlestation video, and possibly the first of a linguistics-themed podcast.</p>]]></description>
6676 <guid isPermaLink="false">imminentplans</guid>
6677 </item>
6678
6679 <item>
6680 <title>Reworking the website backend</title>
6681 <pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 22:06:17 MST</pubDate>
6682 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6683 <description><![CDATA[<p>I had some free time this afternoon, so I decided to optimize by website backend. I've started to compile my website offline with a bash script that preemptively loads the required php commands. That's a marginal economy on the server-side, but mostly just an excuse to get something done.</p>]]></description>
6684 <guid isPermaLink="false">websitebackend</guid>
6685 </item>
6686
6687 <item>
6688 <title>My mpd/ncmpcpp Setup</title>
6689 <pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 23:46:23 MST</pubDate>
6690 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZIEdI9TS2U</link>
6691 <description><![CDATA[<p>A brief overview of mpd and ncmpcpp and my setup with them.</p>
6692 <p>As always, dotfiles are on Github.</p>]]></description>
6693 <guid isPermaLink="false">mpdncmpcpp</guid>
6694 </item>
6695
6696 <item>
6697 <title>Why I Went 2 Years with No Internet at Home</title>
6698 <pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:03:51 MST</pubDate>
6699 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiMcX3Fa2Us</link>
6700 <description><![CDATA[<p>A lot of people have asked about this on some of my videos... from 2015 to a month ago, I lived without internet at my home. This video is on why I recommend it.</p>]]></description>
6701 <guid isPermaLink="false">2yearwointernet</guid>
6702 </item>
6703
6704 <item>
6705 <title>Muh RSS</title>
6706 <pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:02:05 MST</pubDate>
6707 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6708 <description><![CDATA[<p>I've been neglecting my RSS feed recently, considering it's a pretty robust syndication platform, I plan on remedying that.</p>
6709 <p>This might take the form of me starting a formal blog... I haven't yet, but I already have a WP server configured and might be employing it soon.</p>]]></description>
6710 <guid isPermaLink="false">muhrss</guid>
6711 </item>
6712
6713 <item>
6714 <title>Video out on how I manage my website</title>
6715 <pubDate>Sun, 27 Aug 2017 17:38:27 MST</pubDate>
6716 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkWYxyqh3Y</link>
6717 <description><![CDATA[<p>Check out the link for details. I talk about my new paradigm for editing my website. I do plan on writing up a guide for newbies about how to start their own websites. There'll be an accompanying video too, since that's what people watch.</p>]]></description>
6718 <guid isPermaLink="false">managewebsite</guid>
6719 </item>
6720
6721 <item>
6722 <title>Mastering my website</title>
6723 <pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 21:10:55 MST</pubDate>
6724 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
6725 <description><![CDATA[You can't see any changes on my actual website, but I've just implemented a totally new paradigm for editing and updating it.</p>
6726
6727 <p>I hate the internet. I like not being connected. But I pretty often have ideas for what to add to my website when I'm outside of the WWW.</p>
6728
6729 <p>Traditionally, I just had to remember what I wanted to change and do it when I came back into the realm of wifi, but now I'm just keeping an entire "repository" of my website on my computer here.</p>
6730
6731 <p>I can edit it offline, and when I get back to a reliable connection, I "push" the changes with rsync via ssh.</p>
6732
6733 <p>There are other huge advantages to this as well. I don't have to worry about maintaining another vimrc on the serverside, and I don't have to worry about the lag common over ssh. Plus, I have an extra little backup in case of disaster with Host Gator.</p>
6734
6735 <p>All in all, a good development.</p>]]></description>
6736 <guid isPermaLink="false">masteringwebsite</guid>
6737 </item>
6738
6739 <item>
6740 <title>Finally using Vid.Me, lol</title>
6741 <pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 15:19:18 MST</pubDate>
6742 <link>https://vid.me/LukeSmith</link>
6743 <description><![CDATA[I've had some backups of earlier videos on <a href="https://vid.me/LukeSmith">Vid.Me</a> for a while, but with all the ZUCCing going on with Google and YouTube, I figure it's best to keep more recent back ups as well.
6744
6745 <p>Thankfully, Vid.Me always for pretty easy migration of YouTube videos, without me having to reentrer metadata, so it should be pretty easy to upkeep everything.]]></description>
6746 <guid isPermaLink="false">vidme</guid>
6747 </item>
6748
6749 <item>
6750 <title>Video on calcurse, also news to come</title>
6751 <pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 13:44:57 MST</pubDate>
6752 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvc-pHjbhdE</link>
6753 <description><![CDATA[New video out on calcurse, expect actually more content soon. I'm hoping at least two videos per week.
6754
6755 <p>Probably today or tomorrow I'm going to be putting out a video on recent events in my life. Long story short: I was fired. I'm going to be posting a Patreon link to make up for some of the lost money, but leaving the (((university))) is a long-overdue development.]]></description>
6756 <guid isPermaLink="false">calcurse</guid>
6757 </item>
6758
6759 <item>
6760 <title>i3wm video is out!</title>
6761 <pubDate>Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:49:52 MST</pubDate>
6762 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOW61luzF4</link>
6763 <description><![CDATA[Here it is, new i3 video, going over my revamping of my configs and other notes, especially for new subscribers.]]></description>
6764 <guid isPermaLink="false">i3wmchad</guid>
6765 </item>
6766
6767 <item>
6768 <title>Battlestation Video (Part 1)!</title>
6769 <pubDate>Sun, 30 Jul 2017 14:36:10 MST</pubDate>
6770 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np5rFh0FcfU</link>
6771 <description><![CDATA[New video up on my computer setup in my current appartment. I go over all the basics, but no so much the books or my other computers. I'lll do that in Part 2, which I'll release next month when I move into my new place.]]></description>
6772 <guid isPermaLink="false">battle1</guid>
6773 </item>
6774
6775 <item>
6776 <title>Am I *done* configuring i3?</title>
6777 <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2017 11:57:17 MST</pubDate>
6778 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice</link>
6779 <description><![CDATA[I've push some minor changes and cleaning up to my i3 configs. Several months ago, I was always making huge changes all the time, but now I daresay that I've nearly *perfected* what I'm aiming at...
6780
6781 <p>Changes will still come, but only trickle in as they come to me. By in large, I feel like I've converge on what I've been looking for when I started ricing.
6782
6783 <p>Expect a video on my i3 configs soon. There will be overlap with previous vids, but I feel like this one is much more refined now.]]></description>
6784 <guid isPermaLink="false">donei3</guid>
6785 </item>
6786
6787 <item>
6788 <title>Wallpapers now public</title>
6789 <pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:17:34 MST</pubDate>
6790 <link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/wallpapers</link>
6791 <description><![CDATA[After a lot of requests, I've decided to upload all of my wallpapers into a Github repository. Check out the link for the full deal.]]></description>
6792 <guid isPermaLink="false">wallpapers</guid>
6793 </item>
6794
6795 <item>
6796 <title>Corebooting/Librebooting Soon</title>
6797 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:09:34 MST</pubDate>
6798 <link>https://paypal.me/LukeMSmith</link>
6799 <description><![CDATA[I've settled back home after an abnormally long trek across country. Now that I have, I've started to accumulate the tools I'll need to begin Librebooting or Corebooting machines via Rasberry Pi.<p>
6800
6801 Some materials are still shipping, and I'm not 100% sure how long it will take for preparation, but I'm hoping to have at least a video Corebooting my X220 up by the time our classes begin this time next month. ]]></description>
6802 <guid isPermaLink="false">corelibre</guid>
6803 </item>
6804
6805 <item>
6806 <title>How to Go Pro on YouTube!</title>
6807 <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2017 19:59:15 MST</pubDate>
6808 <link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g66Jhxi-gg0</link>
6809 <description><![CDATA[For the 5,000 subscribers mark. I also think I'll use this as a channel greeter for non-subscribed users. Next in terms of actual content, I'm thinking of a video detailing ffmpeg and possibly a partially satirical video on distros.]]></description>
6810 <guid isPermaLink="false">gopro5000</guid>
6811 </item>
6812
6813 <item>
6814 <title>New RSS feed</title>
6815 <link>http://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
6816 <pubDate>Tue, 13 Jun 2017 10:09:35 MST</pubDate>
6817 <description><![CDATA[I'm starting this RSS feed to aggregate all my updates on different sites. I figure this is one of the more robust ways of publising content, despite the fact that only oldfags might actually use this.]]></description>
6818 <guid isPermaLink="false">first</guid>
6819 </item>
6820
6821
6822 <item>
6823 <title>5,000 subscribers mark and returning home</title>
6824 <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2017 13:34:58 MST</pubDate>
6825 <link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
6826 <description><![CDATA[It looks like I've hit 5,000 subscribers several days ago. I haven't been able to add new videos recently, due to some summer travels and me taking a general break. I'll be returnung to Arizona within the week though, and will add some more videos then. Possibily a 5,000 subs celebration vid in the meantime...]]></description>
6827 <guid isPermaLink="false">5000subs</guid>
6828 </item>
6829
6830 </channel>
6831
6832 </rss>