Kate Bush - Lionheart (1978)
An incredible prog rock album. Yes, I said “prog”—because that’s what this is and Kate Bush is one of the greatest prog rockers to ever do it. And what a voice! 
Ah yes, “peace”. After the leopards ate your face.
Considering what’s happening with Big Social, we need to consider the likelihood that #YouTube is compromised.
Which is why it’s time to start crowdfunding a general purpose English language #Peertube server that’s open for everyone.
Because right now, the top Peertube servers do not serve English speakers.
Love trawling through 45 bins because I always find these records from obscure punk bands.
This one by a band called Pebble from Vancouver, Canada. 
#Reddit is now banning entire communities for criticizing Elon Musk.
It’s now time to start banging the drum about #Lemmy, #Mbin, and #Piefed as Reddit replacements.
Because right now we really do need decentralized alternatives to Big Social.
Look, I know Trump keeps saying Canada should be the 51st state but that doesn’t mean it is.
We really do have borders here.
Hey Rust fans, why don’t you replace HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Rust?
I kid.
But also, I would pay good money to watch that happen. 🍿🥤
You can have separation of concerns with *one* generalist programming language.
And overhead will never not be a concern because with, more RAM, devs become less concerned with optimization.
There will come a day when “Hello world” in a web browser requires 64 GB of RAM.
One thing I hate about the Web? You need to know three separate programming languages, each with wildly different syntax, just to build something relatively simple: a webpage.
"But Chris, you don't need to know CSS or JavaScript! HTML will do just fine!"
Okay, how many times do you visit a website that only uses HTML? Almost never! It's almost always -- always! -- made in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
And about that JavaScript, I guarantee a good portion of it is made with a framework like React or Node.js. Why? Because JavaScript is such a pain, it now requires pre-written code just to build a structured foundation of that website.
I can already hear you piping up, "But Chris, the modern web is built on highly complex apps, not the static webpages made in the early 90s! Its complexity is a feature, not a bug. We've evolved better scalability and interactivity as a result"
All right, you know what else can output simple *text* to a file -- but also give you coloured backgrounds, and build you apps? BASIC. Here you go:
```
10 CLS
20 COLOR 15, 1
30 PRINT "Hello world!"
40 END
```
You see that? I just accomplished all that in four lines of BASIC code.
And you know what else is interactive? BASIC again:
```
10 SCREEN 12
20 CLS
30 PRINT "Do you want to see a bouncing ball? (Y/N)"
40 INPUT A$
50 IF UCASE$(A$) <> "Y" THEN END
60
70 X = 160: Y = 100
80 DX = 0: DY = 5
90
100 DO
110 CLS
120 CIRCLE (X, Y), 10, 14
130 Y = Y + DY
140 IF Y > 180 OR Y < 20 THEN DY = -DY
150 SLEEP 1
160 LOOP UNTIL INKEY$ <> ""
170 END
```
Wow! Just now I made a simple interactive program -- with graphical elements too -- with 17 lines of BASIC code.
Yet think about all the many, *many* lines of code that modern web devs use to make something as simple as that -- because I guarantee that a good many people would just use React to make something as simple as "Hello world!" or a basic interactive bouncing ball, and then use 100MB of RAM in the process.
Is JavaScript more scalable than BASIC? Well, I question how scalable something is when it requires *more* lines of code, even with a framework, and guzzles system resources like its Barney Gumble sitting by a barrel of beer.
Am I suggesting that the entire Web be built on some flavour of BASIC? No, not at all. BASIC is built for a local machine, whereas HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are made with a distributed environment in mind -- sending data to a variety of devices with differing screen sizes and resolutions, all with differing accessibility requirements. And even then, you have to consider security.
Believe me, I get it.
Nevertheless, what's simply ridiculous about the modern Web is that it requires so much overhead for what should be a simple thing, and the inefficiency is staggering. Why do we need to overengineer a basic project?
Why do we have this culture of excessive abstraction, bloated dependencies, and unnecessary complexity for something so *simple*?
And it should be a simple thing to build a basic functioning website. You should be able to learn it in one afternoon. You should also be able to accomplish this with one language, not three.
Now I have a lot of hope for WebAssembly. I also think HTMX is pretty darn cool. But what also needs to change is the *culture* of Web development: *everyone* and *anyone* should be able to build a webpage.
People laugh when I say Markdown is a programming language.
But at this point, it is. Certain flavours of Markdown can be used to make PDFs, HTML 5 slides, and even entire websites. R Markdown is a case in point.
Title of my next book: “Hack your way to inefficiency”.
I’m trying this. 
All those Americans who voted for Trump because he was “better” for Gaza than Biden/Harris—yeah, about that…
GOD DAMN I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS REPLY!!!
WHOEVER THIS IS KILLS ME!
I’M DEAD!
😵 
Growing up, my parents definitely didn’t understand me.
They thought I was too far out—too wild, too crazy. The problem? They said I listened to the devil’s music.
Looking back, what exactly was so devilish about it? Kenny G? Michael Bolton? John Tesh? I mean, I get it—this wasn’t their music. My parents were all about Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica. You know, wholesome, family-friendly tunes about war and death. But The Rippingtons? That was apparently a step too far.
They said it was music for Satan. They said this was the soundtrack of hell itself.
And I have to ask—what’s so dark and unholy about the soothing strains of a tenor saxophone? What’s so evil about just wanting to *chill*?
Was I edgy? Maybe. Maybe part of it was rebellion. In hindsight, if I had just listened to it alone in my room like some kind of saxophone cryptid, maybe they wouldn’t have had a problem. Maybe I was a bit of a snot-nosed kid, throwing my little forbidden jazz parties, inviting all my friends over just to put on some Dave Koz and Spyro Gyra.
But do I regret it? Not a chance. Those parties were *off the hook*. Man, the good times I had… I will never forget the time I was at the pool, this sweet young honey looked into my eyes and said:
“Chris, can you play me a little bit of that clarinet?”
And just as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the clouds in fiery shades of orange, pink, and purple, I looked into her eyes—and I let it *swing*.
That should have been my moment. That should have been the highlight of my high school years.
But just as I was about to transcend, to ascend into the smooth, my dad came storming up to the poolside—nose ring flaring, a vein literally pulsing out of his skull. That leather jacket, baking in the 30-degree Celsius heat, had pushed him to the brink of madness.
And he roared, spit flying from his mouth like a rabid beast:
**“SON, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! WE’RE NOT GONNA HAVE THAT DEVIL MUSIC IN OUR HOUSE!”**
And just like that—he killed the vibe. He killed the mood.
And he killed my one chance.
That’s right—my one shot at making it with the smooth kids.
I will never forgive him for that moment.
Devil’s music? Ha! I’m sorry, Pops. I guess I really was just too edgy for you.
#Tapestry by @chockenberry@mastodon.social was just released today!
I have installed it, and it looks impressive.
I’m also happy to report is works seamlessly with #Akkoma, though it calls it #Mastodon — which I’m absolutely fine with. 🙂
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/tapestry-by-iconfactory/id6448078074 
I don’t mean Apple Invites replaces Facebook, but it replaces a key function of Facebook: events.
But believe me, Apple won’t be stopping at events. This is just them putting their foot in The door. nostr:note1ntf88y8f5f8gxqz5h0l0838rna9rzwwdpz0qlua2epxk092gwgqsudmerw
Well, I never saw this coming. #Apple is building its own #Facebook competitor.
That’s right, Apple is building its own social network that competes head-to-head with #Meta.
And no, it’s not federated. But it exists.
WHAT?! 😮
#Threads just took a page out of #Bluesky’s book and implemented a custom feeds feature.
So basically, Threads now has Bluesky’s major selling point—which is choose-your-own-algorithm.
Man, I wish Threads would open source this feature so other #ActivityPub-enabled software could take advantage of this. But maybe someone else *cough*Mastodon*cough* could make this happen. 
Just tested the FiiO CP13’s ability to output to my car stereo.
I cranked the volume knob to its highest and heard no distortion.
And the device performs well when the car is in motion. 