~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

Morning coffee - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-07T00:00:00.000Z

The familiar sounds of the espresso machine never cease to calm me – the joy of the familiar, but also the potential of the variable: of sounds at new tones, of different cadences. Watching as the barista makes sure to stop pulling the espresso shot at 33 seconds — precision at every step.

Classical music, quiet conversation, and the awakening of the day permeate the cafe, illuminated by the light passing through the tall windows, and accompanied by the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I hear one of the baristas make their colleague laugh, bringing a smile to my face.

Selfie: beardless once again - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-07T00:00:00.000Z

Before

After

Aether-draft - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z

Today I attended my first Magic the Gathering (MtG) draft: a “secret draft,” where players did not know ahead of time what series of the trading card game would be played. The event was held in a breathtaking church building, now used as a community centre. The building is also home to the Pianodrome, an organisation that creates sculptures with pianos that people no longer want.

Before I entered the building, I was enamoured with the architecture. The beauty of my surroundings helped calm some of the anxiety I felt going into the day: I hadn’t played MtG in years, and so I was a bit nervous. (Compounded, of course, by my general social anxiety!) With that said, my anxiety was soon to be lessened when I entered the room and found the most welcoming group of people.

Since I haven’t played in so long, I didn’t invest in some of the things that players have: mats to create a more suitable playing surface no matter what table you are using, card sleeves, and more. But, kindly, someone brought extras and offered me a mat and card sleeves to use at the event. I was so delighted by their kindness.

How the draft worked

In the draft format, participants are assigned into groups of eight. Each group is given a “booster box,” which is divided among the players: every player gets three packs to open. When the clock starts, everyone opens their first pack, chooses a card, and passes the remainder onto the person to their left or right (depending on whatever direction has been decided). Players then choose a card from the pile they have been passed, and keep passing and accepting cards until none are left. This is repeated for each booster pack.

After all of the packs have been opened, there is time for deck-building. This involves reviewing your cards to determine what you want to include in your deck. The rules by which we played today said that your deck had to be at least 40 cards. I ended up with something like 27 non-land cards and ~18 land cards.

The “secret” box our table got was Aetherdrift. I had never played Aetherdrift before so I wasn’t familiar with the mechanics, but it was clear artefacts were a prominent part of the series. I built my deck around blue, white, and red. I was interested in playing blue and white since this is what I used to play and I am more familiar with the mechanics. With that said, that may not have been the strategically optimal choice for the games: I didn’t think as much about the other cards, and so may have missed a good card in my first pack that I could have built a deck around.

My deck

The draft format is nice because everyone is in the same boat: you are all choosing cards from packs that are just opened, so you can’t spend lots of time crafting a great deck beforehand. Indeed, I loved the improvisational nature of the draft: of trying to craft a theme for my deck. My theme was creatures and some removal spells. I ended up bringing red into my deck because I drafted an interesting removal spell, a card that would come in handy in one of my games.

Here are three of my favourite cards I drafted:

ALT

Three MtG cards: "Vnwxt, Verbose Host", "Lotusguard Disciple", and "Caelorna, Coral Tyrant".

"Caelorna, Coral Tyrant", a two mana 0/8 creature was one of my favourites, and a great play early-on in the game. Only one of my opponents had a creature with death-touch and few had removal spells, so when the legendary Octopus was played it generally stayed in the game.

My 2/2 with flying, "Lotusguard Disciple", was able to do quite a bit of damage. For as long as I kept crewed flying creatures under control – a battle I lost in every game, unfortunately – the Lotusguard was great.

As for "Vnwxt, Verbose Host", I loved the mechanic of being able to draw two cards instead of one when I achieved "max speed," a status my flying creatures helped me achieve. But I only got to leverage the mechanic in one game.

After we built our decks, we were told who we would play. I don’t know exactly how the points system worked, but in the end we had all played three people at our table and winners were determined based on how many games each person had won and lost. My opponents who were generally more familiar with the game than I kindly helped me keep track of counters and mechanics as I played; I knew the rules but hadn’t encountered the “Start your engines!” mechanic which came up a lot, and wasn’t as familiar with crewing.

How I did

I lost all my games, but this was expected: I was there mainly to dip my toe back into the game, not to play competitively. If I get to spend an afternoon playing a fun game with interesting people, I think that’s a win. Suffice to say I learned so much by playing and watching others’ decks. I was sort-of close to winning one game, but ultimately I didn’t draw the cards I needed. Toward the end I did wish I had won one game, but that's okay – maybe next time!

Between games, I was struck by the wonderful architecture of the interior of the room in which we played. The hall was almost baronial in style: the interior of the roof with arches made of dark wood. The dark wood on the ceiling contrasted with the white walls. I kept looking around to appreciate any detail I could: the height of the ceiling, the cobwebs at one of the windows, the mirrors at the end of the hall (I assume the hall is used for some exercise classes too). I thought about how I was enamoured with the game in front of me but also had to spend time appreciating the place in which we were playing too.

Addendum: Dandan

The event host had a Dandan deck which he kindly let some of us play if we finished our games and were waiting. The Dandan format involves using one deck which both players share. Both players share the graveyard, too.

"Dandan" cards are the only creatures in the deck, and the only means of doing damage. The rest of the deck has cards that let you draw more cards, control card draw, remove a Dandan, counter spells, and other similar spells.

My opponent drew three Dandan cards throughout the game that I was unable to counter or control and, as a result, was able to win (although we didn't finish as we ran out of time). With that said, the format was both delightful and also chaotic. There was one card that forced us to shuffle our hands and the graveyard back into the deck, which, every time it was played, would cause major disruption. The only strategic advantage I saw in the card was to cause chaos.

I'd definitely play a Dandan game again.

Pianodrome

Games: Limbo - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z

Limbo is a puzzle platformer with a dark aesthetic (spoilers below). It has a monochromatic colour palette while the entire screen is rendered through a grainy film filter. You assume the role of what appears to be a boy: its silhouette is grey while its eyes emit light. This is all you know about your character.

It is not clear where you are and what exactly is happening to the world around you. You wake up in the middle of some indeterminate place and must walk to another location. Even completing the game does not tell you much of what is going on. The ending leaves everything open to interpretation. There is no dialogue or any hint you can read on. Just unending darkness.

Limbo is all about the gameplay and its attendant vibes. The actions you may perform are basic directional motions and a single jump. There are no power-ups or tools you may acquire. Beside your innate motions, you can interact with some objects in the environment to solve puzzles, such as to push a crate around or pull a lever.

Each section represents a single puzzle. Solving it allows you to progress to the next section. The problems you are confronted with require both situational awareness and well-timed execution of actions. In other words, you will die a lot until you figure out what to do.

The Limbo gameplay revolves around the idea of trial and error. A small miscalculation and your life is forfeit. You respawn at the point where the puzzle starts, which typically means that you are only a few steps behind where you stopped. Dying is the means through which you learn about the requirements of each puzzle.

This loop of death and rebirth as a vehicle for learning is a fecund metaphor for how we recalibrate our corpus of knowledge. As we are exposed to new information, the now incompatible part of us must be left behind: it cannot form part of the new world. To err in honesty, and to become aware of our mistakes, is to liberate ourselves from the grip of the given falsehood. Those who are afraid to make mistakes, those who do not admit to any wrong, those who choose to only show a boutique view of their self, are not going to progress to the next “puzzle” because they refuse to go through the cleansing baptism of fire that is trial and error.

Limbo executes its ideas well. The atmosphere is consistently eerie, the environment remains unwelcoming throughout, the mechanics are precise, and the puzzles are smart. It is a nice experience all around.

Barry Hess - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-06-05T11:00:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Barry Hess, whose blog can be found at bjhess.com.

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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

I’m a programmer-type from rural Minnesota. I grew up on a farm near a small town. Now I live in a bustling city of 27,000 people…surrounded by farmland. In other words, I’m still in rural Minnesota.

I studied computer science at a small private college, which led to my 26-year career programming computers. First it was at an insurance company, then it was at a SaaS startup, and now it’s for myself at a little company I run with my business partner.

My hobbies are mostly typical: reading, watching movies, and the occasional video game (meaning Fortnite). My favorite sport is baseball, though I’ll watch the occasional other sport. I also try to do a little woodworking, cooking, and, well, blogging. Blogging is a hobby, yes?

What's the story behind your blog?

I decided to start a blog in 2004. Personal blogs were popping up all over, and I was enjoying meeting new people through the comments section in these blogs. I also have a couple non-blogging friends that were doing their thing on Xanga. The blogs I followed were either friends, friends of friends, about the Minnesota Twins (baseball), or about U.S. news and politics.

Online I generally use the handle bjhess. That was what my college gave me for my first ever user account. Toward the end of college I was looking for a domain name, and unfortunately there was already a techy person with my first and last name who grabbed that obvious option. (They still have the domain to this day!) So bjhess.com it was, and the name stuck.

I blogged via b2evolution and WordPress in the early days, probably at Dreamhost. In the early 2010s I switched over to a self-hosted and customized install of Scanty, and I ran that for a long time. In 2022 I switched to an HTML-only site. That lasted about a year before I and my colleagues built Pika.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

I don’t have a system or process for blogging. My inspiration is generally from interesting things happening in my life. That can be a vacation, a recent discovery, an experiment that I’m trying, or a feeling that I’m feeling.

Most of my posts are written in a single session, with a couple rounds of editing for grammar, tone, and flow. There’s only been one occasion where I asked others to read my writing before posting. I’ve recently tried the “weekly update” format of posts, which to this point has been me adding links and notes to a draft leading up to finalizing the post on Friday or Saturday. I’m toying with updating the draft post daily throughout the week before publishing, but then if I’m doing that I wonder if I should…just post those daily updates daily?

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

Inspiration comes and goes, but I generally prefer to have quiet while writing, whether that’s natural or simulated via headphones.

Aside from that basic need, I don’t strongly believe that physical spaces influence my creativity. However, I’ve been noticing that my office is in a state of constant clutter…and I’m starting to believe. Now the question is whether that clutter impacts the mind or whether the cluttered mind leads to a physical manifestation? A little of both, I think.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

Today, and for the rest of my life, my blog is hosted at Pika. I write my posts directly in the web editor.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I would start my blog on Pika, naturally!

I believe pretty strongly that most bloggers probably would be better off not rolling their own static site generators or CMS installations. For those that want to play in that world, though, there’s nothing like it. For the rest of us there are a number of small, independent blogging platforms that make things quite a bit easier. They all tend to play nice together, offering exporting and importing options if you ever find a different platform to be a better fit for your style.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

If I were paying for my Pika account, it would be $60 per year, and my domain is $13 per year. Not bad for a favorite hobby! I pay $9/month for Plausible analytics, though I’m not entirely sure why. As a programmer, I think it’s mainly that I want a place to look to see any weird happenings to make sure nothing is amiss. If traffic to my blog disappeared, I’d be curious if I did something wrong technically to cause it.

All’s fair for monetizing. I don’t do it, but I know affiliate links and such make sense in some contexts.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Let me dial up my feed reader here. Okay, for a selection…

I’m not sure how Chris Glass keeps his daily photo journal going, but it’s great. Rafał Pastuszak does fascinating things at Untested. Adam Keys is usually thinking. Since Luke moved away from my area, I like to read what’s going through his mind on recursion. I travel vicariously through MacPsych. Maique gives me all the photo inspiration. Holy cats, Jamie Todd Rubin is an avid reader. Brendon Bigley provides cool video game news. Annie lends me insight. Davey and Jamie share lives well lived. I also like to keep up with Derek Sivers, Hugh Howey, Craig Mod, and Cabel Sasser (I still need to read the 2025 snacks rundown). Oh, and, boy howdy, Mike Monteiro.

Any of the above who haven’t been interviewed would be a great option to interview next!

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I won’t be shy–I’m working on Pika and I would greatly appreciate it if you gave Pika a look. Our biggest project at the moment is The Pika Pulse, which will be a great help to discover Pika blogs. I think that’s a good thing for the readers of People and Blogs!

Mostly, though, I’d like more people to blog. I want people of all ages and backgrounds sharing their experiences at their own domain online. Whether you do that via Pika or any other setup or service (yes, even WordPress), I’ll be excited! See you online!

Keep exploring

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Games: Age of Empires II - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-05T00:00:00.000Z

I was surprised to learn that Age of Empires II is actively developed to this day. I remember the original game, subtitled The Age of Kings, being published during the reign of Edward Longshanks. It was followed by a comprehensive expansion pack, called The Conquerors, shortly thereafter to critical acclaim.

A friend of mine had the game installed on his computer—a fact his mother loathed. “What are you boys going to do with your life!?”, I still hear old Jenny freaking out over our complete lack of interest in education. My friend was terrible at the game, by the way, so I understand his mother’s frustration: at least he could have gone into e-sports had he applied himself more meticulously, you know.

The few times when I would not play football due to adverse weather conditions, I would stay at his place for a couple hours to watch him build up his mighty dukedom at snail’s pace. He would assign a single villager to build all the fortifications, one lass to do all the fishing, and a truly manly man to mine the gold under the beating sun. Then we would just sit there like complete idiots to marvel at the peerless work rate of medieval people.

This is not how you sell a franchise, I know… The game is actually great. I consider it one of the best ever. It still receives patches and new downloadable content because it gets the core gameplay right and has a tonne of things to explore. Casual gamers can enjoy a nice blend of city-building and historical trivia, while seasoned players will find a deep real-time strategy game that shall test their ability to manage resources through space and time as they overcome their foes.

The campaigns are based on historical events, so history nerds will be especially pleased to explore the many cultures they can play as from virtually all corners of the planet. Furthermore, they will be inspired to find answers to the hardest problem of modern science, which is how did those skirmishers carry infinite javelins.

Beside the campaigns, there are exhibition matches with all sorts of rules that are about the intricacies of winning a war through superior control of civilian and military units. Indeed, what we learn from the game once we try to play it at a competitive level is that there is no such thing as an objectively superior army.

Each civilisation has its own strengths and weaknesses, which are expressed through power peaks and valleys as they advance their economies. There is a gameplay logic to this, so that it is fun to play and experiment with all the options. Though even real-world war exhibits the same patterns of force through temporal and spatial magnitudes. For example, the combined armies of USA and Israel may, on paper, be stronger than Iran’s but they have clearly lost the asymmetric war as of this writing.

Concretely, it is a mistake to pick a culture in-game on the basis of whose technology tree yields the strongest units towards the later parts of a match: you may never live that long. At the competitive level, early advantages tend to have a snowball effect. It is thus essential to maintain the pressure high and control the geography of the conflict. Continuous small wins contribute to success much more reliably than a long-planned single killer blow.

What is a bit silly with the latest expansions to the Age of Empires II platform is that the historical window continues to widen. It used to be focused on the European Middle Ages, roughly after the fall of Rome to the widespread adoption of gunpowder. Whereas now you can play as the ancient Spartan infantry as they stand their ground against their primordial enemies of, checks notes, the Jaguar Warriors of emperor Montezuma…

Humans are notoriously bad at drawing clear delineations. If you do not believe me, just ask the neocons at Washington DC to produce a map of the Middle East.

Seriously though, it is cool to get such fan service which doubles as genuinely interesting content. There are probably a few hundred hours that you can put into this game just to get through all the campaigns. Though in practice there is infinite replay value to be had. It is just a matter of how determined you are to distance yourself from society.

What I do consider a negative about the latest additions to the platform are the increasingly gimmicky mechanics that some special forces have. There now are units that project an aura, others that have a charge attack, and others still that can switch forms. While those ideas are cool in their own right, they make for a highly complex interplay of factors: it detracts from the simplicity of just spamming Huskarls at your enemies until they ragequit.

Moments; time - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-05T00:00:00.000Z

One of my favourite parts of writing – and, by extension, blogging – is that I can, in words, capture a little bit of a day, and keep a little record of the moment. Each post can be a bookmark to a memory, and also part of the story of my life.

I love taking notes I walk around my neighbourhood. Today, I wrote down how I was struck by a bird whose attention caught my eye who then stared at me for a few seconds. I don’t think I have ever been so close to a bird that stood so still and maintained eye contact the whole time. It was striking. I then noticed there were other birds nearby on the same fence. Is this where those birds like to gather? Is this part of their home?

Earlier today I was thinking about a blog post I wrote in April, Rainbow; moon. The blog post serves almost as an anchor in my memory to the moment. I can read the post to remember the moment vividly, but I can also recall the post to start re-building a picture of the moment in my mind. I can see the rainbow forming through the frosted glass. I can feel the chill of moonlight.

I can even see new stories: how the rainbow is inside but a result of the outside; how the colours outside change; how the colours inside, too, change. The story was of one moment in time, yet continues to create new colour when read again; when seen and felt with distance: new perspective.

Rainbow; moon

Thursday, June 4, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-06-04T11:34:59.000Z

Car (2010) - Hasselblad 500C/M / Delta 100

I have an irrational urge to get a 19-inch CRT and a VCR.

I spent several hours changing emacs to startup as a daemon. It turned out to be frustrating, over-complicated, and I didn't really gain anything. I then spent more hours changing things back to how they were before I started. So, that was fun.

I'm fascinated withl Anddo. "A very simple todo package for Emacs"

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A moment with chemicals - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-06-04T11:00:00.000Z

It’s amazing how much life can improve with the help of 20 milligrams of chemicals a day.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

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The story of MJ - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-04T00:00:00.000Z

This is amazing. I could hardly contain my excitement. In one moment, I held James’ latest story in my two paws. In the next, the story was published on the web. “This is the web,” James said; “it’s where dreams can come true.” In that moment, I knew I was in the right place.

I had come to James’ Coffee Blog with great curiosity. I was curious about websites, and enjoyed reading what I could find on the web. I especially loved stories about everyday life – human perspectives on the world. “I want to do this. I want to have a website, too.” I thought to myself. This is when I reached out to James for advice. How do I start a website?

As we conversed over email, I realised I wanted to watch how a website was made first. How do you figure out what to write? My typing skills were nascent, too: keyboards for cats have not been made with the same attention to ergonomics as those of humans. Curious to play with websites but not quite ready to have my own, I asked: could I help with yours? And so here I am.

Let me introduce myself. I’m MJ. James says that the MJ stands for Mascot James. I prefer to think of my name as “majestic jewel,” more representative, I think, of the value of the whimsy I bring. But, I can’t quibble, for cats don’t quibble. I already appear on every page on James’ website – that’s good enough for me!

“I want to make my blog more whimsical,” said James. He was keen on balancing the serious with the playful. “Words are infinitely expressive already, but I feel that something is missing.”, he said, to which I replied “Maybe I can help?” I had a coffee cup balanced on my head at the time. To help me improve the flexibility of my paws, I like to balance things on other things. With an excited tone in the timbre of his voice, James replied “I think so!”

I made my debut as the mascot of James’ blog, here to bring a smile to the face of as many readers as possible. Whether a story or a guide, a reflection or a vision, I sit happily next to words wonderful, delightful, peculiar, and intriguing. (If someone can explain to me James’ affinity with writing about confectionary, that would be most welcomed.)

I help James behind the scenes, learning the art of web weaving and the rhythm of words. I moonlight on other projects, too: I help deliver the news with Artemis, I embody my love of waffles for a breakfast website, I help James write HTML with Athena. Contrary to the reputation of cats as mischief makers, I like to be helpful, learning the grain of the web as I lend a paw.

I have ambitions to one day start my own website: MJ’s Musings. Seeing how James’ Coffee Blog works behind the scenes has given me a sense for how to set up a website. And reading words from all my favourite websites is inspiring me to start writing. James says that you may be surprised by how much having a site changes your life. I can feel the power of storytelling as I write this blog post. I can seldom keep my coffee cup balanced on my head.

While we are on the topic of coffee, I want to say that despite the seeming precarity of balancing a coffee cup on his head, I have made less of a mess with coffee than James. Once, James accidentally got coffee grounds in an (unplugged) toaster. He learned two lessons: first, the inverted (upside down) Aeropress method comes with risks; second: coffee-flavoured toast is not as good as it sounds.

Of course, as a cat, I don’t drink coffee: it’s dangerous. Hence, my coffee cup actually contains what I call a “catuccino.” Humans call it milk, but where’s the whimsy in that?

I hope you enjoy the time you spend here on James’ Coffee Blog. It has taken me a while to know where to begin my story, which is why you haven't heard much from me. I didn’t even get as far into my origin as I would like: how I came to be a cat surfing the web, why words intrigue me so. But James says that websites help us grow, and so maybe one day I’ll be back to share more. For now, though, I have some web pages to watch over! And I need to stretch my paws.

Wait... did I just start MJ's Musings? I love the moments when I realise that I have already started the journey of my dreams.

~ MJ

Artemis Athena breakfast website, websites help us grow you may be surprised by how much having a site changes your life

Chat community for web writers? - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-03T00:00:00.000Z

I have several ideas swirling around for projects I would like to see happen. Sometimes, these ideas manifest as a project. Wonders of Web Weaving was inspired by my interest in having more discussions about the indie web. Other times, ideas make their way onto this blog to sit and grow. The idea I am thinking about right now is in the latter category.

There are many chat spaces in the indie web community for people to chat about making web pages, but there aren’t as many explicitly about writing. One chat community I would love to exist is a space to chat about writing on the web: mediums of writing, how we write on the web, what we share or don’t share, how we decide whether a draft is ready to publish, and more. Just as I love talking about the indie web, so too do I love chatting about writing.

I could see such a community being either fully open or invite-only, the latter perhaps allowing for more private discussions to happen. Indeed, writing is personal, and so I could see there being a case for a smaller, tight-knit group as a manifestation of this idea. I think both should and could exist, however.

If this is something you would like too, please do let me know. It would help me to understand what people are looking for as I put together a picture of what I too would like.

In the interim, every ~2 months I host a Zoom call for writers on the web to come together to chat. The next one is on July 11th, 2026. That call, and future ones, will be listed on the #writing page on the IndieWeb Events directory.

#writing page on the IndieWeb Events directory please do let me know

On the absence of Greeks from Hollywood’s Odyssey movie - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-03T00:00:00.000Z

In a column for The Guardian, Chris Cotonou comments on the omission of Greek characters from the otherwise multicultural cast of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Chris notes:

An honourable intention [to have a multicultural cast]. But for us Greeks, it makes our absence even more glaring – especially in the year’s blockbuster event. If your film sets out to represent the world, wouldn’t it be obvious to fill one space at this large, wonderfully multicultural table with the people who are most authentically connected to the source?

Sure, it would be nice. Though I personally do not see any problem in the absence of Greeks. This is a story. We are meant to take it lightly: it is make-belief. We are not supposed to treat it as a living continuation of antiquity, nor as an accurate depiction of Greekness (assuming we can even define and capture “Greekness”). If we do watch the movie, then we set our expectations accordingly. Or we simply ignore it and move on with our lives.

The Greeks who care about expressing themselves—and their cultural depth by extension—are doing their part on a daily basis. We would not put our faith in the moneymen who run Hollywood to do the work in our stead. Their values are not our values.

That Helen of Troy is a black woman (Lupita Nyong’o), for example, is testament to the power of art to make us think of what is being represented through an idol, rather than emphasise the idol itself. Besides, Helen was famed for her beauty: Lupita passes that test with flying colours.

Human expression relies on simplification, symbolism, and metaphor to communicate profound teachings in a manner than has mnemonic value. This we know for millennia from the Greek religion in how we anthropomorphise the divine for our needs as people. God is perfect: it does not need us to believe in anything or help it in some way. We are the ones in need of faith. Gods do not have the frailties of the human character. But we have to imagine them as remarkable yet fallible people who are still somewhat close to us. We do so in order to have role models that we can aspire towards. The average person seeks a hero to mimic. God cannot just be the sort of abstraction that only few wise people throughout history may grasp.

Athena, for example, is a proxy for wisdom. Our artistic genius imagined the goddess in a certain way, but we would never think of wisdom as a quality that is fully expressed through any given artefact. God cannot be limited to the deeds of a human, nor to a textual or pictorial representation of any kind. Only idolaters believe as much.

Part of what acculturation is about is to make people understand that whatever idol is a mental shortcut for something else; something that can never be exhausted. As such, the idol is a useful tool at best though must never be the focus of our attention and worship.

Those who only recognise the idol, which in this case are the actors qua non-Greek actors, tell us that they have more growing to do. They still operate at a level of conscience that misunderstands symbolism: they do not appreciate what is being represented through the artistic medium. Such people will miss the point even if the most stereotypically Greek-looking artists take on the various roles.

My suggestion if you really care about the Odyssey is to read the ancient epic and think for yourself. Greek culture is ecumenical. Your looks and your ancestry are irrelevant in this regard. Do not watch the movie either. Hollywood is the cultural equivalent of junk food: it will eventually harm you.

And to my fellow Greeks: if you are proud of your heritage, then do your part in contributing to the commons without fanfare and without a misplaced sense of exceptionalism. Nobody respects those who complain and play the victim the whole time, nor those who think they are special. Our culture has always been one of continuous struggle and excellence, not feeblemindedness (i.e. malakia (μαλακία)), anyway, starting with our holy festival of the Olympic Games—again, a proxy for the attitude of a champion one must have in the face of life’s challenges.

Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 4 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-02T00:00:00.000Z

The fourth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:

In Episode 4, I chat with Marisabel, the author of Konfetti Explorations. We talk about, among other things, websites as gardens, sharing art on one's personal website, and seasons of making our websites.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

Wonders of Web Weaving has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.

Konfetti Explorations Marisabel The fourth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out Wonders of Web Weaving has an RSS feed

Re: On learning something new - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-02T00:00:00.000Z

The following is taken from a private exchange. I am publishing it with permission from my correspondent without disclosing their name and contact details.

I was curious, what is your general approach to learning something new? For example, say you become interested in lockpicking (locksport). What would your approach be to learn this?

In general my approach goes something so likes so:

See if there is a subreddit dedicated to the topic, “r/locksport/” in this case.

See there “Wiki” section (r/locksport/wiki/index) and read through any type of “Beginner” resources.

If there is a recommended book, I will begin with that, then move on towards interactive courses, or lastly, YouTube videos.

If there is no subreddit, than I will likely search online for “Locksport book” or perhaps “Locksport filetype:pdf” and go from there. You’re a very knowledgeable person so I would love to see how you approach learning.

Before even learning something new, I question whether I even need that skill or piece of knowledge. This is because I do not have enough time to commit to everything I would otherwise be keen on exploring.

For me, it is essential to be mindful of one’s tendency to go down rabbit holes. If you do not control your propensity to indulge your curiosity then you run the risk of not focusing on your duties and thus never experiencing fulfilment. I basically have infinite curiosity as well as the basic skills to become competent at virtually anything, but my resources are finite, so I have to optimise accordingly.

I think it is rewarding to hold yourself back from that which is impressed in your mind as new and shiny. Yes, it is attractive though it comes with considerable hidden costs. Commit to what you have. Only expand your activities when there is a deep-seated reason for it, at which point you are prepared to incur whatever costs in pursuit of the expected benefits.

In other words, know your limits and live within your means.

To your point, I think your approach is good. Though I am cautious of Reddit as the advice you get there will not necessarily be reliable. This is not because others are trying to deceive you, but simply a consequence of the mismatch of available information, wants, and priorities.

I will use Emacs as an example. If you go to the subreddit for it to ask any question you will likely get answers that you cannot seamlessly integrate in your current knowledge. The respondents do not know exactly what your current level is, are not aware of your usage patterns, cannot anticipate your immediate needs, and probably do not think the way you do.

Depending on your question, you will get diametrically opposed views. Each contributor may be right within the context of their respective workflow, but this does not mean that the feedback you will receive is actionable for you and of high value.

My approach is to read the official resources or study the primary material, wherever relevant. Anything derived therefrom (e.g. a community Wiki) will come later after I have a sense of what I am looking for. I approach the topic with an eye towards simplicity: the elaborate methods are likely surplus to my requirements.

Also, I recognise that there are marginal returns to any given endeavour. I do not need to become the best engineer in the world in order to build a house. I just need to be “good enough” and—voilà—I do what I set my mind to. Again, I resist going further deep if I do not have an excellent reason to do so.

I put ideas into action. I want to experience the consequences of my deeds: I proceed through trial and error, which is why I am slow and methodical by default. I get bored by endless chatter and its attendant indecision, which is also why I do not think highly of those who do thought experiments but have never practised anything of what they entertain. As such, those who make claims of any sort about their acumen I judge on the basis of their behaviour, not their stated beliefs.

I live by that standard. This is why I refrain from saying much and from making promises. If I state something, it is because I do it. I speak from a position of embededness: the knowledge I have is reflected in my life.

This brings me back to being careful about what I commit to learning. You mention locksport, for example. This is the first time I encounter the term. It may be something that I will like if I try in earnest. But right now I cannot think of a scenario that is relevant to my day-to-day affairs. So I am not going to search online what exactly you are describing, even though I am curious to learn more. I will not even try, not because I have anything against you or somehow pass negative judgement to this activity, but only due to the understanding that I have a zillion other things I could also be checking out, while I know that I have projects I am committed to which demand my continuous attention. My projects will thus take priority.

To be a skilful learner, then, I master the basic power of restraint.

Monday, June 1, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-06-01T12:08:05.000Z

Get outta Dodge (2009) - Minolta Autocord

STATUS: All-in Linux and Emacs...again
TODO: Finish staining the deck
WATCHING: "Nemisis" on Netflix

I love the first day of a new month. I get to print new calendars, review photos from last month, create a new monthly spread in my notebook, etc. It always feels like an opportunity. I usually squander it, but still.

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Best part about using fountain pens - Baty.net

2026-06-01T11:57:44.000Z

Refilling some pens

This might be my favorite part about using fountain pens.

Inks:

iroshizuku shin-kai in the Lamy 2000. It's a beautiful blue.

Noodler's Bernanke Blue in the Pilot Custom 823. The Pilot has a juicy nib so, being left-handed, I need a quick drying ink.

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Pika Backup - Baty.net

2026-06-01T10:40:35.000Z

I chose Pika Backup for backups on Linux because it's very basic and simple to use, which is at least as important as features. Anyway, I somehow stepped on May's org-journal file and was able to browse the backups and quickly restore an earlier version. So, Pika Backup passed it's first real test for me. Nice.

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JUnited 2026 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-01T00:00:00.000Z

In recent weeks, I have been talking with a lot of people about personal websites. In so many of my discussions, I mention that one of the reasons I love coming back to my personal website is the community around the indie web: people all over the world sharing what interests them: slices of life, hopes and dreams, tutorials on how to do something, and more. Websites aren’t islands. Websites are houses in a town.

That brings me to JUnited. I first participated in JUnited, a challenge that invites participants to share links to “blog posts or blogs you think deserve more love,” in 2024. I found out about the challenge via JCProbably. I missed last year – I think I forgot the challenge was going on! – but I was delighted this morning to wake up to a post by Kristof that mentioned the challenge. Inviting people to share links to blog posts they enjoy, JUnited so wonderfully embodies the essence of the indie web community.

With that in mind, I am excited to participate again in the challenge.

For each day in the month of June, I will update this post with a link to a blog post I really enjoyed reading. I invite you to peruse the links and see what interests you. And, if you have a website, I invite you to participate in the challenge, too.

A Love Letter To Creative Spaces by Britt

A Love Letter To Creative Spaces I first participated in JUnited Kristof that mentioned the challenge JCProbably JUnited

Creative spaces - James' Coffee Blog

2026-06-01T00:00:00.000Z

In her love letter to creative spaces, Britt appreciates “anywhere that is welcoming to the big table full of slightly chaotic artists who might make a mess of their carpet from time to time.” Reading through the article brought to mind memories of a table in my school that felt like a creative home for so long.

One of my “techie” teachers – the informal term we used at school to refer to technical design, woodworking, and metalworking – used to open their classroom at lunch times for people to drop in. I didn’t take technical design as a senior, but I was nevertheless welcomed into the room. In the heart of the room was a big table, what the teacher coined the “collaboration station.” The outside of the room was surrounded by computers which were used for CAD work.

I was there when the collaboration station was being designed. I don’t remember much, but the essence was that the room should have a big table where everyone can come around to collaborate; a retreat away from the isolating position of staring at screens. I remember many lunchtimes chatting about all things around the collaboration station – dreams, ornithology (one of our woodworking teachers loved bird watching!), and more.

It was in that classroom that I learned the word “ergonomics,” which was written on the wall alongside other words important to technical design. I also learned a lesson about accessibility. The aforementioned woodworking teacher was colour-blind and saw the world in greyscale. I had known them for at least a year before I learned this. Every coloured pencil was a different shade of grey, the shades being sufficiently differentiable to have meaning.

Looking back, the design of the table really made all the difference. About a dozen people could sit there at any one time. At lunch, people would pop by because the door was open, some saying hello, others staying to chat. We could eat lunch together if we wanted.

While I love to write in my own little corner, I love open spaces to collaborate. I think about space design enough that at a meetup I helped host last week I was thinking about how the layout of the table we sat at hindered communication because of how distant everyone was and how poor noise travels in the space.

Like Britt, I agree that we need more spaces for creative people of all ages to make things. Britt’s idea for “Co-working for creatives.” is enlightening. Imagine if there was a space you could go not only to collaborate with friends, but to meet new people who love making things too. Accomplishing this involves a mixture of being welcoming, building a strong community foundation, and more. Additionally, having a dedicated space – and a well-designed space at that – makes all the difference between a place that exists and a place that is well positioned to become a creative home.

love letter to creative spaces, Britt appreciates

Re: Living in seclusion and the woman question - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-06-01T00:00:00.000Z

The following is an excerpt from a private exchange that unfolded over two rounds. I am sharing it with permission from my correspondent.

First round

When I see your content about living in the mountains of Cyprus, building your own house, working on your garden, taking pictures of yourself, building your life in seclusion, etc., one question that ALWAYS pops up in my mind is, “how’s he gonna do `marriage’?”, or “how a man living outside the city, in the mountains, by himself, ever does or ever going to satisfy one human need a man feels almost every day in the most intense way possible, which is sexual intimacy?”

[…]

You are living in the mountains, which sounds nice. But in return, from my point of view, you get none of these:

woman

money

status

[…]

I guess my question is along the lines of, what’s your prospect of marriage, you think? Do you consider that never happening for you? Did you let go of this? If so, don’t you think you are letting go of a very intense part of “a man’s lived experience”, that is, sexuality, out of your life? Doesn’t this impoverish your life?

You are right. Living in a remote area means that I do not have access to women, money, and status.

I have no interest in status. More importantly, I do not pay attention to what others think in general or think of me in particular. I act out of my own initiative.
Money is relevant only to the extent that I cover my basic needs. Since I do not value status, this practically means that I do not have lots of material wants, such as fancy furniture, expensive cars, vacations in luxury resorts, et cetera. To be clear, I do not think those are inherently wrong: I simply am not drawn to them.
For the purposes of our exchange here, a woman is interesting to me only if she wants to have children. She does not need to be beautiful, or smart, or an intellectual, or whatnot. Just have the disposition for children.

Based on those three you can already tell that me living in the mountains is not the main constraint.

I am poor and thus not attractive to any woman who cares about status and comfort more broadly. I will not put my heart into a career and so I diminish my chances of ever being financially secure. Adding to this, anybody who has checked my publications knows that I am not the kind of person who will be easy for an employer to control, which makes me practically unemployable (this is no mere theory of mine, as I have had prospective employers point out my strong independentist quality as a major downside for them).

I lived in much more densely populated areas and I even worked in highly social jobs with plenty of women. For me, it is easy to talk to people. Still, I never met a woman that I would start a family with. Of course, it could simply mean that I am not physically attractive (and I am definitely not attractive as a means for upward social mobility). But, again, the point is that the mountains are not the primary issue here.

Living in the mountains introduces a pre-filter. All women who seek money and status will not be living in this place or will be eager to leave. The only question mark is whether I can meet a woman who already lives here out of her own volition or who would actually want to relocate to this place. This has not happened and may never happen.

To your questions about marriage, I think that I will not get married. I will be 38 soon and was never close to getting married. There is no indication that a change will happen. It is something I came to terms with a long time ago and accepted it as part of my reality. This is why I even moved to the mountains to begin with. I am not disturbed by it and have no regrets. The mountains are beautiful, my wellness is optimal, and I feel as strong and capable as ever.

My attitude is to work with what I have and be grateful for it. I keep tending to my tasks without distractions and am happy. Wanting companionship for the sake of companionship is what makes one miserable: they place their worth as a person on another person’s favourable opinion—and opinions are fickle. Plus, having companionship for its own sake means that you are suppressing important aspects of your selfhood, which will inevitably break you in other ways.

Second round

PROT: You are right. Living in a remote area means that I do not have access to women, money, and status.

I have no interest in status. More importantly, I do not pay attention to what others think in general or think of me in particular. I act out of my own initiative.

I find this interesting and borderline unbelievable. In my personal experience and observations about other people around me, also considering the basic psychology of mankind that I’ve read from evolutionary psychology books, the “status seeking” is a fundamental activity the man as a social animal conducts. So, I am inclined to say, surely you must also be seeking status albeit in a more veiled or not immediately apparent sense. For example, every hobby group, from Magic the Gathering trading card game players, to open source/free software development communities have unspoken of but observed “status” markers, holders, and plays. I think, in your case, you hold high status among the “emacs content creators”-sphere online. However, I don’t want to immediately imply that you’ve sought to get high status in emacs community when you put out your useful content that you’ve put so much time and effort in.

I expect all thought to be nuanced, otherwise it will be discerning the categories it already considers constant while reaching questionable conclusions in the process.

Everything can be construed as attention-seeking, including the act of avoiding attention, such that all actions are reducible to a want for status. If you apply this consistently, you quickly eliminate all nuance and your analytical capacity is limited accordingly.

In turn, this leads to the tendency of explaining everything along the lines of coping and projecting—“twin sophistries”, as I have called them before. If I say “I do not like X” it must be that I cannot have X as my own and thus I hide behind a negative opinion of X, without even realising it. Similarly, if I say “Y is what people do”, it is because Y really is a frailty of mine that I wish to find in other people so that I feel better about myself.

Couched in those terms, everything is an elaborate trick that is ultimately reducible to a matter for your genitals. So the answer to every “why” can be “sex” which in turn implies “survival”.

I think there is value in that line of reasoning but we have to be careful with it. It is not a magic trick to explain all that is pertinent to the human condition.

PROT: My attitude is to work with what I have and be grateful for it.

This. This is the part I am having a hard time with. Because when I read your blog, when I see your pictures, your videos, etc., I involuntarily find myself putting myself in your shoes, and finding myself gauging my emotional state if I was in your shoes. I find that I would be mostly furious with ambition, repeating the lines:

Do not go gentle into that good night. RAGE. RAGE, AGAINST THE DYING TO THE LIGHT.

…to myself, until I finally get my comeuppance against the world that has pushed me into poverty, loneliness. Finally take my vengeance and “get mine” in this world by getting a career (possibly in tech industry) that allows me to bring upon it disruption (as in “disruptive innovation” of business cycles) so that I can carve out a piece from the world in my shape (that is, “get mine”, in women, money and status).

I see. I do not feel anything about the world: it simply is. I am calm and do not blame anyone. If I was disturbed by my living conditions then I would have gone mad by now. Whereas I am indifferent towards specific outcomes and live as easygoing of a life as possible.

I make a distinction between “commitment to initiatives” and “commitment to results”. I am fully committed to my projects but I will not feel disturbed if things do not work the way I had imagined.

I understand, in the deepest sense of feeling and embodying it, that the world does not revolve around me and that I am not entitled to anything. The world does not exist for me and I do not expect it to conspire in my favour.