Next feature: cross-posting to Twitter. Do I need a developer account and registered app to do this, or can I get my own user with tokens to use with the client config?

I've been mostly quiet about the presidential race because... to be honest I've been quiet about everything about #politics for a while.

I do want to write a bit about the process, and the President, and I will be posting more as the race goes on, but here are a few opening thoughts:

I'm embarrassed that our nation elected Trump, and I've spent the last 3 years trying to pretend it didn't happen. That I can simply ignore the state of things is a sign of my immense #privilege as a middle-class white dude who is very gainfully employed in tech in America, and I'm looking for more ways to use that privilege to lift others.

I want to vote for a woman (again), so I'm looking for ways to help out.

I will vote Biden if I absolutely must, and Bloomberg was wrong to ride the "white, non-Bernie, non-woman wave" rather than putting his $$$ behind one of the current Democratic candidates.

Right now I like Klobuchar and support Elizabeth Warren. I'm glad Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand ran, but they've dropped from the race due to lack of financial support.

In general, I really like the themes that we see in Klobuchar's and Warren's campaigns: hard work and planning, two things that are the antitheses of Trump's candidacy and presidency.

What is the difference between this:

Posted by Dave Winer with a theverge.com link, and this:

Posted by #goldfrog via the Twitter API with a link to this site?

Another aspect to creating my own blogging software: I can finally start implementing some of #indieweb principles I've been watching for a while.

One of those is POSSE (Publish Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) - which means everything you write starts on your own site, and content is syndicated to the appropriate kinds of sites as desired. This could include things like:

• Articles are syndicated via RSS (done, no brainer)
• Short posts (notes) are automatically or optionally published whole to Twitter, Mastodon, or the microblog of your choice
• Articles are automatically or optionally shared to a microblog site with a link back to your own site

Goldfrog + Twitter

While I generally find Twitter overwhelming and frustrating (not nearly as much so as the less-privileged do), I just finished adding a Twitter cross-poster to #goldfrog. I'll be implementing a Mastodon cross-poster in the next few days (/me waves @ toot.cafe), now that I've figured out and implemented the pattern.

The Twitter cross poster will send the title, some text, and a link back to the post. So, let's see if deploying the new feature worked. :D

A late feature I added to #goldfrog that I was really happy about: hashtags! I love them on social media, and since I included a tags fields in the blog schema... so I added some code that parses hashtags when posts are saved, and adds them to the post tags. I also added a tag search to the site, and I have a filter that auto-links hashtags to the tag search.

So be prepared to see lots of #hashtags in my posts now :)

#writetheweb 2020

https://t.co/Q8SIOtBxHG

IT'S ALIVE https://t.co/fJby78Jba0

@alfredapp Done. thank you thank you thank you.

@alfredapp Reloaded, no change. Examples:

• Graphic in /Applications, doesn't show

• Grapher, in /Applications/Utilities, does

• Firefix, in /Applications, doesn't show

• Find My, in /Applications, does

I can't even

@alfredapp Hangin need to reload too

@alfredapp FYI, rebuilt the metadata index, spotlight is now finding my apps, still no luck with Alfred 😭

@alfredapp Giving it a shot, thanks!

@alfredapp for example https://t.co/fNnr3IQcS3

Mac OS Catalina has completely an utterly broken @alfredapp for me, and I feel like my fingers are broken.

I'm at 4.07, I've reset the prefs for application location, I've used the "reload" command. Nothing. Apps are all in /Applications

For 2020, I'm writing a new blog app. It's just for myself, a toy to remind me why I love the web. It's called Goldfrog, and it sounds a bit like "Go, blog!"

Why in the hack, in this day and age, would I spend time writing my own #blogging software, when you can't sign up for a VPS anywhere without tripping over offers to help you set up Wordpress, or Ghost, or what have you?

A few reasons.

New Year, New You

2019 was shite-filled, and due to politics, the tech trashfire, and the friction of blogging through several variations of static, git-powered versions of this site, I simply stopped blogging. I've wanted to, but the effort killed the motivation before I could get some words out.

So I finally decided to write something myself, that did just the things I wanted #goldfrog is written in Go, because while I will love Python to my dying day, my brain needed a kick in the pants this year, which relates to my next point.

The Builder's High

Rands writes eloquently on the builder's high. With family engagements and work over the last few years my hobby coding has dropped to almost nil (None if I were writing Python).

I needed something to reboot my creative juices, and trying to write something I really wanted, that thought would be quick, in a new language, seemed like a good way to go (I did want it, it wasn't easy, and Go hates me. But I'm learning and that feels great!)

Goldfrog

A bit more about Goldfrog: the single feature I wanted was a posting form on the home page, right up front. Various Userland products had had this, and it always felt right.

Second to this was an "Edit" link next to every post, wherever it was found on the site.

Finally, my main technical "innovation": My content is still stored on the filesystem as Jekyll-compatible Markdown files. However, build times via Jekyll or Hugo are fairly slow for my 2800+ posts (since 2000, baby) and I hate that. So #goldfrog indexes all posts in a sqlite database on disk. Post creation and edits go to the DB and to the filesystem, so I can still periodically sync the changes to the git repo I have checked out there. But all the list views, archives, tag pages, and search functionality go to the DB, and are really fast.

The Setup

This is really the app I've wanted for a long time.

• It's hosted on a Linode "nano"
• The app builds on CircleCI and the binary is pushed to an S3 bucket.
• I've got ansible playbooks that setup the VPS pretty much from scratch with Nginx fronting Goldfrog.

Next

I really need to get my logging story fixed, and I've got some idea on adding basic metric tracking to the app.

RT @ethank: You know what I could use? A return to good blogs (K10K, Slashdot). That was fun.

R.E.M. recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of 1994's MONSTER, an album that french-fried expectations of both critics and fans of R.E.M., after the success of the rich, string and mandolin-y flow of '92's Automatic For The People.

Me? I loved AFTP so completely. I have multiple singles and special releases, including the one in an actual wooden box with vellum prints of the band (back when packaging was a thing). I was living in the states when MONSTER was released, and I recall rushing to play it for my small group of friends, who honestly looked at me like I was insane. Monster was SO different, so raw, simultaneously in your face and hiding behind a flash facade. Grinding electrics, stripped back thumping percussion, and Michael Stipe alternatively crooning or growling.

The first track, and first single, Whats the Frequency, Kenneth? -- I was hooked from the first guitar, and Buck's possibly-recorded-backwards-then-played-forwards solo left me agape. My CD copy of the single is scratched now beyond believe, but treasured.

Crush with Eyeliner's droning guitar wah, backed by Mike Mill's walking bass lines #chefskiss she's three miles of bad road

Make your money – King of Comedy introduced voice-crushing compression on Stipe's and Mills' vocals, perhaps for the first time? I was all "whuuuh whoa"

I don't sleep I dream, dreamy piano, atmospheric distortion, and a more tom-driven drum background that keeps the song less driven than almost rolling forward. Also featuring Stipe – Stipe's falsetto – on lead vocals.

Star 69 starts fast, stays fast, and still Mike Mills lays down interesting bass lines throughout. The title makes sense to us olds, ask your mother. squirrelies didn't chew the wire

"I don't know, why you're mean to me", starts Strange Currencies, a slow, rising tune that doesn't so much confront as much as wish. Stipe brings his plaintive, meaningful voice to this and I'm there for it. During a bridge, playing the strings above the bridge of his guitar, Buck adds a childish, toy-like section that is both sweet and creepy.

Tongue is a full falsetto crooner from Stipe, over a (likely Mills-provided) Hammond organ. Not my favorite track on the album, but I won't skip it either.

Bang and Blame is a pretty full rocker, still with Bill Berry's steady but tom-heavy drums keeping the song rolling more than driving. The guitars, with a long, echoey reverb, are more accent than impact.

Nice tag at the end, too.

I Took Your Name is another guitar-heavy rocker, with the wah and distortion cranked to 11. Another one that's not a fave, but I usually won't skip it. It definitely has its moments. There was some confusion, some confusion, as to who's to blame

Let Me In – another song I will often put on repeat, Let Me In is Stipe's, and the bands', tribute to Kurt Cobain. The guitar is heavy, droning, omnipresent. I believe in concert Mike Mills sometimes played Cobain's left-handed sky blue guitar for this track. Stipe's voice is almost reverent, plaintive, then powerful as he sings out his love for Cobain.

Circus Envy – another WTF tune that is really fun to listen to even while SMH at the crawling, self-loathing lyrics. Put pepper in my coffee I forgot to bark ON COMMAND

You – I woke up in a sleeping bag, with no where else to run I love you crazy just keep on I love you madly just keep on I love this album just keep on

#goldfrog is coming along - archive pages done and image uploading works. I think the image upload feature is a nice addition and doesn’t add a lot of complexity

RT @radiomorillo: 💥NEW BLOG POST💥

I wrote about the ways a grad school library science course helped me finally understand database design…

RT @ddprrt: Tabs vs spaces https://t.co/r5SVjdCh0e