June 30, 2020

I figured out how to handle images with Emacs Org Mode and related formatting to make this blog a little more lively with images: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/images-and-xhtml-export.html https://orgmode.org/manual/Images-in-HTML-export.html#Images-in-HTML-export

I figured out how to use thumbnails with the ‘mogrify’ command from ‘imagemagick’ will become SUPER useful later as I make more and more useful tutorials on this site with just .org mode sites for specific topics: https://imagemagick.org/Usage/thumbnails/

Here’s the relevant ‘mogrify’ command: mogrify -format png -path thumbs/ -thumbnail 100x100 (name of image)

For example, I created a thumbnail for later use in the weather portion of this blog post: mogrify -format png -path thumbs/ -thumbnail 300x300 weatherCommandScreenshot1.png

I also stole this ‘Dark Solarize’ theme from this GitHub page and used it for my own blog page as well: https://github.com/saccohuo/export-themes/blob/master/org-css/solarized-dark.css

I also combed through the National Weather Service (NWS)’s Apache server, and found the following locations to be useful for myself and for my family’s purposes.

They’re GIF’s of the National Weather Service’s doppler radar so you can check if its going to rain or precipitate in your area.

This is the NWS’s Apache server where you can comb through each of the ‘.png’ images or gif’s present to find out your area: https://radar.weather.gov/lite/N0R/

NOTE: I THINK they’re based on airport codes, but let’s just say I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out which ones are relevant, and it wasn’t easy since Scranton for example doesn’t have a major airport connected to the National Weather Service, so you kind of have to look at the doppler for a nearby city instead.

Here’s some useful weather doppler gifs I plan on re-hosting on this site at a later point with a CRON job on a related “Weather” tab on the site for family to use:

On that same note, you can also just utilize the ‘curl’ command on Linux to grab your local weather information.

Here are two example screenshots in which I’m using the following command, ‘curl wttr.in’, which will obtain the latest weather information for Nashville, TN:

In terms of re-designing this blog portion of the site, I plan on re-designing this blog portion of my site with the Org-Mode based themes from this guy’s GitHub as I REALLY like the “ReadTheDocs” theme he’s got: https://github.com/fniessen/org-html-themes

Before I used to use the “Ox-TWBS” plugin for Emacs to export this blog into a Twitter Bootstrap CSS styled site. However, after moving into Doom Emacs, I realized I should play around with the default styling a bit for this blog, so I plan on exploring this a bit further.

Speaking of re-design, I STILL need to fix those the “Images” section on this site as I think its just a matter of not having the correct permissions to allow a user to view my old artwork.

I’m in the process of wiping my desktop drive so I can install Devuan on it, and just test out Linux distros in VM’s to find some cool setups with some Window Managers. It’s more so that I can possibly move to an Arch based distro without systemd sometime later this year, but didn’t want to blow up the desktop computer itself like my last attempt with just an Arch install with Steam.

Speaking of Steam and ‘muh games’, I plan on really only buying games for my Nintendo Switch and to keep computers as just that. I think Desktops are cool for making music or possibly to aid in emulating older games, but past that, playing games on a Desktop computer is a bit of a waste of time. I’d rather be building some cool stuff with that same time.

Also, I’m kind of tired of playing a game on a console, I know when to put it down. However, when I had the latter on Steam, I could quickly forget the time, and kind of regret it later. Anyway, the cryptocurrency bros ruined the PC market anyway, so there’s no point in building high end machines unless you plan on running VM’s. Even for that use case scenario, you don’t even need a top tier video card as well. You would just need to make sure you have a decent CPU and RAM. I do plan on getting a librebooted computer though, so I’m not sure how long my wanting to do VM’s on a regular basis will last in that case.

These things I wish I knew before, but at least I have an ok Desktop computer for today’s standards to just run VM’s on, and to later become a cool media server or something. I’ve been using it for emulators and have been having a good time with it. I plan on making some demos with Audacity, and then remaster tracks within Reaper with MIDI for that newer band I’m going to create called “Sieges”, which will be a Dungeon Synth band. I’m still debating if I should just release it on the Bandcamp platform, or just host it on my own site, with a custom CSS style sheet to mimic Bandcamp since all I would have to do is to just allow people to hit play in some kind of web based music player. I wouldn’t charge for the music either, and will most likely do donation incentives through Patreon or something similar.

I also kind of debate making Linux tutorial type videos for sites like Library or BitChute, and not necessarily YouTube since YouTube is just become more and more censored as the years go on. I’d rather be on a platform where I’m welcome than be banned for being conservative or something. However, I might take up Luke Smith’s philosophy to maybe just use YouTube until you get banned just to piss them off or something for being on their platform regardless as its still sort of the world’s marketplace in the truest sense at the moment.

I’m gonna try deploying Searx sometime later today as a private instance so that should be fun as well. Feels good to put the power back into my hands, and to take back all of that free telemetry ad money from Google and DuckDuckGo.

Also, I plan on ripping this CD I got the other week since I couldn’t find it on Bandcamp or Spotify anymore (though I don’t use Spotify at all, it used to only be available on there for a long time): https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/9525344?ev=rb

Probably the most funniest, down to earth album you will ever hear in your life. I don’t know why, but I liked it a lot as this guy is so honest, but its “so bad, it’s good” if that makes sense.

I’m gonna try finding a CLI based CD ripper on these good command-line based blogs: https://kmandla.wordpress.com/software/ https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/

Have fun for now, stay well!