67NyB45D

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5<channel>
6<title>The Latest from Luke</title>
7<description>Updates from Luke Smith. Throw this in your RSS feeder for instant updates!</description>
8<language>en-us</language>
9<link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
10<atom:link href="https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
11<image>
12<title>The Latest from Luke</title>
13<url>https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/luke.gif</url>
14<link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
15</image>
16
17<!-- LB -->
18
19<item>
20<title>Technology meme review stream</title>
21<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#technology-meme-review-stream</guid>
22<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2019 16:26:07 -0400</pubDate>
23<description><![CDATA[
24<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>
25
26<p>We will be leafing through a folder of technology memes are reviewing and responding to them.</p>
27
28<p>Don't even ask, I'm not uploading them!</p>
29]]></description>
30</item>
31
32
33<item>
34<title>Stream with Kris Occhipinti</title>
35<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#stream-with-kris-occhipinti</guid>
36<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 19:30:11 -0400</pubDate>
37<description><![CDATA[
38<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>
39]]></description>
40</item>
41
42
43<item>
44<title>Who needs a mouse to copy output? The extensibility of st</title>
45<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#who-needs-a-mouse-to-copy-output-the-extensibility-of-st</guid>
46<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 13:33:47 -0400</pubDate>
47<description><![CDATA[
48<p>Check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E9bO5ZURcs" target="_blank">this new video</a>. It could change everything ;-).</p>
49
50<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.
51This 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>
52
53<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>
54
55<p><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/st">Get my st build here.</a> It has all this built into it.</p>
56]]></description>
57</item>
58
59
60<item>
61<title>Send me all your suckless surf hacks!</title>
62<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#send-me-all-your-suckless-surf-hacks</guid>
63<pubDate>Sat, 04 May 2019 11:35:52 -0400</pubDate>
64<description><![CDATA[
65<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.
66If 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>
67
68<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>
69
70<p>luke@lukesmith.xyz</p>
71]]></description>
72</item>
73
74
75<item>
76<title>Looking for a comprehensive book on gardening and planting (best if #Lindy too)</title>
77<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#looking-for-a-comprehensive-book-on-gardening-and-planting-best-if-lindy-too</guid>
78<pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2019 19:45:56 -0400</pubDate>
79<description><![CDATA[
80<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>
81
82<p>
83The 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.
84I'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.
85</p>
86
87<p>
88I'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).
89It would be extremely handy to have such a book to leaf through and use as a reference.
90</p>
91
92<p>I suspect that there is one out there, probably a very #Lindy book too.
93That 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.
94</p>
95]]></description>
96</item>
97
98
99<item>
100<title>Luke 'Digest' for this week</title>
101<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#luke-digest-for-this-week</guid>
102<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2019 07:53:07 -0400</pubDate>
103<description><![CDATA[
104<p>I haven't been puttin up RSS feed links for my new releases in a couple days, but there have been several!
105If you've missed any of these episodes, be sure to check them out:
106</p>
107
108<ul>
109	<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYbJCqpPS4" target="_blank">A video on my torrenting setup with transmission</a></li>
110	<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ent5g6_gnik" target="_blank">"Why All Teaching Is Ineffective", self-explanitory</a></li>
111	<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>
112</ul>
113
114<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>
115]]></description>
116</item>
117
118
119<item>
120<title>Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal (also another Chad-piping video)</title>
121<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#everything-i-want-to-do-is-illegal-also-another-chadpiping-video</guid>
122<pubDate>Sun, 28 Apr 2019 09:49:15 -0400</pubDate>
123<description><![CDATA[
124<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>
125
126
127<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.
128Superficially, it might not sound too relevant to too many of my subscribers' interests, but I think you'll find it pretty important.</p>
129]]></description>
130</item>
131
132
133<item>
134<title>Layin' down Pipes like a Unix Chad</title>
135<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#layin-down-pipes-like-a-unix-chad</guid>
136<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:14:28 -0400</pubDate>
137<description><![CDATA[
138<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>
139
140<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>
141
142<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>
143]]></description>
144</item>
145
146
147<item>
148<title>ACSHUALLY... Some even better mutt-wizard changes!</title>
149<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#acshually-some-even-better-muttwizard-changes</guid>
150<pubDate>Sun, 21 Apr 2019 22:36:58 -0400</pubDate>
151<description><![CDATA[
152<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>
153
154<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>
155
156<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>
157
158<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>
159
160<p>Not quite sure why I didn't do this before, but now it should be even easier.</p>
161]]></description>
162</item>
163
164
165<item>
166<title>mutt-wizard 2.0 release (everything is better and easier)</title>
167<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#muttwizard-20-release-everything-is-better-and-easier</guid>
168<pubDate>Sun, 21 Apr 2019 15:58:27 -0400</pubDate>
169<description><![CDATA[
170<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>
171
172<ul>
173	<li>Access your mail on the command line without having to set anything up. It looks pretty and has sensible default settings.</li>
174	<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>
175	<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>
176	<li>Configs for neomutt, isync and msmtp automatically generated based on your server settings, which in many cases, mutt-wizard already knows.</li>
177</ul>
178
179<p>Here are some of the biggest changes in mutt-wizard that make it much better now:</p>
180
181<ul>
182	<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>
183	<li>You now have the option of <strong>not</strong> keeping mail offline, in case you don't want that.</li>
184	<li>Passwords are now saved with <code>pass</code>, which avoids some headaches.</li>
185	<li><code>dialog</code> is no longer used as user-interface.</li>
186	<li>More error handling, but also less errors.</li>
187</ul>
188
189<p>Check the link above to get it. Be sure to read the README for how to use it.</p>
190]]></description>
191</item>
192
193
194<item>
195<title>'The Right Side of History' is a Spook. On Whig History and Self-deception.</title>
196<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-right-side-of-history-is-a-spook-on-whig-history-and-selfdeception</guid>
197<pubDate>Sat, 20 Apr 2019 16:13:09 -0400</pubDate>
198<description><![CDATA[
199<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>
200
201<p>Every ideology convinces itself of its inevitability.
202In 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.
203Check it out!</p>
204]]></description>
205</item>
206
207
208<item>
209<title>Get all your email offline for archiving, mutt, etc: Using isync</title>
210<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#get-all-your-email-offline-for-archiving-mutt-etc-using-isync</guid>
211<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:58:07 -0400</pubDate>
212<description><![CDATA[
213<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.
214</p>
215
216<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>).
217This 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.
218My mail module in my status bar, which displays unread mail is based on this for example.
219</p>
220
221<p>In the video, I also briefly mention how to set up mutt to read this mail.
222It's actually as easily as setting the <code>folder</code> variable to the mail directory.</p>
223]]></description>
224</item>
225
226
227<item>
228<title>Is the terminal just for hipsters? Also, livestream soon.</title>
229<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#is-the-terminal-just-for-hipsters-also-livestream-soon</guid>
230<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2019 16:15:48 -0400</pubDate>
231<description><![CDATA[
232<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>
233
234<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>
235
236<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>
237]]></description>
238</item>
239
240
241<item>
242<title>Video on basic configuration of mutt/neomutt</title>
243<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#video-on-basic-configuration-of-muttneomutt</guid>
244<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2019 12:13:24 -0400</pubDate>
245<description><![CDATA[
246<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jMInHnpNfQ" target="_blank">New video on setting up mutt/neomutt.</a></p>
247
248<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.
249I might make some related videos in the future, mainly about using isync to backup email offline.</p>
250
251<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.
252</p>
253<ul>
254	<li><a href="https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">https://gitlab.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</a></li>
255	<li><a href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard">https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</a></li>
256</ul>
257
258<p>The Gitlab version is more recent, and uses <code>isync</code> as a backend with many improvements.
259The Github version I'll be taking out of commission soon, but it's better tested as of now.
260Check the README for information and try it out for yourself!</p>
261]]></description>
262</item>
263
264
265<item>
266<title>How to mount and access Android phones on Linux computers</title>
267<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#how-to-mount-and-access-android-phones-on-linux-computers</guid>
268<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2019 12:06:13 -0400</pubDate>
269<description><![CDATA[
270<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>
271
272<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>
273]]></description>
274</item>
275
276
277<item>
278<title>Pretty funny clip of Alex Jones harrassed by Boomer liberal</title>
279<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#pretty-funny-clip-of-alex-jones-harrassed-by-boomer-liberal</guid>
280<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 12:33:18 -0400</pubDate>
281<description><![CDATA[
282<p>
283As you may know, I occasionally listen to Coast to Coast AM, which is an American late-night conspiracy and paranormal radio show.
284Alex Jones was interviewed a couple days ago, and he got a pretty funny call-in listener harrass him.
285</p>
286
287<p>
288It'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>.
289</p>
290
291<p>
292Coast to Coast viewers can be pretty crazy, but this is definitely the craziest one I ever remember hearing!
293</p>
294]]></description>
295</item>
296
297
298<item>
299<title>Why prefer free and open source software?</title>
300<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-prefer-free-and-open-source-software</guid>
301<pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 12:09:57 -0400</pubDate>
302<description><![CDATA[
303<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>
304
305<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>
306]]></description>
307</item>
308
309
310<item>
311<title>Tagging Ogg or Opus files?</title>
312<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#tagging-ogg-or-opus-files</guid>
313<pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2019 13:17:06 -0400</pubDate>
314<description><![CDATA[
315<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.
316If 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.
317</p>
318
319<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>
320
321<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>
322]]></description>
323</item>
324
325
326<item>
327<title>Bibliographical references for LaTeX, groff and pandoc without the effort</title>
328<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#bibliographical-references-for-latex-groff-and-pandoc-without-the-effort</guid>
329<pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2019 12:23:33 -0400</pubDate>
330<description><![CDATA[
331<p> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksAfmJfdub0" target="_blank">New video out on how I autocreate bibliographic citations.</a>
332I like to abstrain from writing out references, not just for fear of error, but because with some multi-author papers, it can take forever.
333In this video, I show how to use an article's DOI to get its full citation perfectly from an online database.
334</p>
335
336<p>
337I'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.
338The links to the script in question are in the video description (too lazy to paste here :-)).
339</p>
340]]></description>
341</item>
342
343
344<item>
345<title>Exclusive Boomers Only Content!</title>
346<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#exclusive-boomers-only-content</guid>
347<pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2019 12:06:10 -0400</pubDate>
348<description><![CDATA[
349<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>.
350Note that if you refuse to use Patreon, you can still get the perks by donating and providing your email.
351</p>
352
353<ul>
354	<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>
355	<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>
356	<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>
357	<li>Chad leve: Mumble access, "Dispatches" series, and the ability to come onto livestreams and direct discussion</li>
358</ul>
359
360<p>
361See the video <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/ulciVZ-XbhM">here</a>!
362</p>
363]]></description>
364</item>
365
366
367<item>
368<title>Starting a Mumble server and 'Unaboomer Cabin' series</title>
369<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#starting-a-mumble-server-and-unaboomer-cabin-series</guid>
370<pubDate>Mon, 08 Apr 2019 15:25:27 -0400</pubDate>
371<description><![CDATA[
372<p>I'm going to start offering elite stuff to donators:
373<ul>
374
375	<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>
376	<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>
377	<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>
378	<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>
379</ul>
380
381<p>
382<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).
383</p>
384
385<p>
386If 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.
387<a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/donate.html">All donation methods are listed here.</a>
388That's a little more work for me though, so Patreon is preferred at this point.
389</p>
390
391<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.
392In 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.
393</p>
394
395<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>
396]]></description>
397</item>
398
399
400<item>
401<title>Before I get to deep into this... Does this exist already?</title>
402<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#before-i-get-to-deep-into-this-does-this-exist-already</guid>
403<pubDate>Sun, 07 Apr 2019 20:04:42 -0400</pubDate>
404<description><![CDATA[
405<p>I'm going to start giving perks, extra videos, personal vlogs and reviews and Mumble server access to people who support me monetarily.
406I 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.
407I'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.
408Obviously 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.
409</p>
410
411<p>
412I'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.
413If so, it will give them access to extra content.
414As far as I'm concerned, this would be <em>better</em> than Patreon just because it cuts out the Middle Man.
415</p>
416
417<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.
418I'm more thinking of if there is a service that can verify a payment.
419</p>
420
421<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>
422
423<p>By the way, thanks to all of you who answered my previous question about redirecting traffic from a particular source.
424Apparently you can refer to a <code>%{HTTP_REFERER}</code> in a RewriteCond. I knew it was something obvious!</p>
425]]></description>
426</item>
427
428
429<item>
430<title>Blocking links from certain websites on an Apache web server?</title>
431<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#blocking-links-from-certain-websites-on-an-apache-web-server</guid>
432<pubDate>Sat, 06 Apr 2019 15:04:39 -0400</pubDate>
433<description><![CDATA[
434<p>
435This might be a strange request, but I was looking for an elegant way to block or redirect traffic to my website from certain websites.
436I'm running an Apache webserver.
437</p>
438
439<p>
440I've been playing around with the documentation for htaccess etc., but can't find anything exactly like what I'm looking for.
441</p>
442
443<p>
444As 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?
445I'm not sure if it's possible without resorting to Soydet-tier server-side scripts, but I might be wrong.
446</p>
447]]></description>
448</item>
449
450
451<item>
452<title>Boomer vs. Doomer Livestream Starting Imminently!</title>
453<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-vs-doomer-livestream-starting-imminently</guid>
454<pubDate>Sat, 06 Apr 2019 11:58:00 -0400</pubDate>
455<description><![CDATA[
456<p>
457I'm doing a stream with <a href="http://www.rudyghill.com">Rudy Hill</a>, we'll be starting soon!
458</p>
459
460<p>
461<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8AqU9XyI4">The Link Is Here!</a>
462</p>
463]]></description>
464</item>
465
466
467<item>
468<title>Using shuf and $RANDOM for randomization in the command line</title>
469<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#using-shuf-and-random-for-randomization-in-the-command-line</guid>
470<pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2019 18:16:19 -0400</pubDate>
471<description><![CDATA[
472<p>I put out a video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJBCfpFT_E" target="_blank">here</a> on getting random numbers and randomizing files in the Linux command line. I talk about:</p>
473
474<ul>
475	<li>/dev/urandom/</li>
476	<li><code>$RANDOM</code> in bash</li>
477	<li><code>shuf</code> in GNU/Linux</li>
478</ul>
479
480<p>Check it out! I don't think I mentioned it, but <code>shuf</code> can also take standard input!</p>
481]]></description>
482</item>
483
484
485<item>
486<title>Boomer rants in woods about koding these days</title>
487<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-rants-in-woods-about-koding-these-days</guid>
488<pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2019 11:13:32 -0400</pubDate>
489<description><![CDATA[
490<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>
491]]></description>
492</item>
493
494
495<item>
496<title>Minor dunst ugliness/breakage on update in LARBS</title>
497<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#minor-dunst-uglinessbreakage-on-update-in-larbs</guid>
498<pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:34:15 -0400</pubDate>
499<description><![CDATA[
500<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 &lt;b&gt;, etc., this is because a new update to dunst.</p>
501
502<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>
503
504<p>Both the dunst config file and the statusbar scripts have been adjusted to the new changed.</p>
505]]></description>
506</item>
507
508
509<item>
510<title>Clear your RSS cache; error fix</title>
511<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#clear-your-rss-cache-error-fix</guid>
512<pubDate>Sun, 31 Mar 2019 21:00:42 -0400</pubDate>
513<description><![CDATA[
514<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>
515
516<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>
517
518
519<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>
520
521<pre><code>sed -i "s/\.html&lt;\/guid/&lt;\/guid/" yourrssfeed.xml</code></pre>
522]]></description>
523</item>
524
525
526<item>
527<title>GNU/Esotericism Stream in an hour...</title>
528<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#gnuesotericism-stream-in-an-hour</guid>
529<pubDate>Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:55:46 -0400</pubDate>
530<description><![CDATA[
531<p>Stream <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEnPA0qMazk">here</a> in an hour. Chatroom should be live now.</p>
532]]></description>
533</item>
534
535
536<item>
537<title>Don't document software! (If you want to avoid pain!)</title>
538<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#dont-document-software-if-you-want-to-avoid-pain</guid>
539<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2019 21:28:55 -0400</pubDate>
540<description><![CDATA[
541<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imrBnf94E78">New video up.</a></p>
542
543<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>
544
545<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>
546]]></description>
547</item>
548
549
550<item>
551<title>Not Related! LIVE: The Problem with Academic Statistics (in 1 hour; 2PM EDT)</title>
552<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#not-related-live-the-problem-with-academic-statistics-in-1-hour-2pm-edt</guid>
553<pubDate>Wed, 13 Mar 2019 12:58:17 -0400</pubDate>
554<description><![CDATA[
555<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>
556
557<p>
558Related 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.
559</p>
560]]></description>
561</item>
562
563
564<item>
565<title>Not Related! (LIVE) Coming soon (tomorrow?)...</title>
566<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#not-related-live-coming-soon-tomorrow</guid>
567<pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2019 20:05:36 -0400</pubDate>
568<description><![CDATA[
569<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!
570This is for a variety of reasons, but I've decided to switch it up for an episode tomorrow by recording LIVE, streaming on YouTube.
571</p>
572
573<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.
574I'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.
575</p>
576
577<p>Here's how it's going to work:</p>
578
579<ul>
580	<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>
581	<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>
582	<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>
583	<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>
584</ul>
585
586<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>
587
588<p><strong>The starting topic of the episode/stream:</strong></p>
589
590<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.
591All of these disciplines are in hot water.
592A 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 &lt; 0.05 and more).
593</p>
594
595<p>
596I'll go into the original history of modern statistics, as expounded by Ronald Fisher and his "adversaries" Neyman and Pearson.
597Their 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.
598</p>
599
600<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>
601
602<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>
603]]></description>
604</item>
605
606
607<item>
608<title>The Bible on the command line (tutorial)</title>
609<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-bible-on-the-command-line-tutorial</guid>
610<pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:58:06 -0400</pubDate>
611<description><![CDATA[
612<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>.
613I 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.
614</p>
615
616<p>My personal repos on this are below:</p>
617
618<ul>
619	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/kjv">A fork of `kjv` including the Apocrypha</a></li>
620	<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>
621	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/vul">The Clementine Vulgate Bible (Latin)</a></li>
622</ul>
623
624<p>Of course, this system isn't just useful for religious texts, but anything that is divided into books, chapters and verse.
625Feel free to implement the system in whatever way you like.
626</p>
627
628<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>
629]]></description>
630</item>
631
632
633<item>
634<title>In defense of 'Pseudo-science' in video form...</title>
635<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#in-defense-of-pseudoscience-in-video-form</guid>
636<pubDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2019 14:49:48 -0400</pubDate>
637<description><![CDATA[
638<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".
639</p>
640
641<p>
642A 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.
643It was an attempt to formally specify what constitutes true "science" versus non-science or "pseudoscience".
644</p>
645
646<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>
647]]></description>
648</item>
649
650
651<item>
652<title>Livestream starting in less than 30 minutes</title>
653<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#livestream-starting-in-less-than-30-minutes</guid>
654<pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 15:31:04 -0500</pubDate>
655<description><![CDATA[
656<p>YangGang website building stream is starting in less than 30 minutes.</p>
657
658<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRp59nDsOz8">The link is here.</a></p>
659
660<p>Send any last-minute Yang memes to <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>.</p>
661]]></description>
662</item>
663
664
665<item>
666<title>LARBS update to vifm/überzug may require manual intervention</title>
667<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#larbs-update-to-vifmuberzug-may-require-manual-intervention</guid>
668<pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 12:33:09 -0500</pubDate>
669<description><![CDATA[
670<p>I've just pushed updates to the voidrice and LARBS repos that officially change the default file browser from ranger to vifm.</p>
671
672<p>If you update via git, you might also need to manually run <code>yay -S python-ueberzug</code> to install &uuml;berzug from the AUR, otherwise image previews may stall and (obviously) not work.</p>
673
674<p>
675I mentioned &uuml;berzug'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.
676</p>
677
678<p>
679I'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 &uuml;berzug, I believe, Distrotube has talked about it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgxsduCO1pE">in this video last week</a>.
680</p>
681
682<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>
683]]></description>
684</item>
685
686
687<item>
688<title>YangGang.us Website building livestream at 4:00 EST</title>
689<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#yanggangus-website-building-livestream-at-400-est</guid>
690<pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2019 08:09:47 -0500</pubDate>
691<description><![CDATA[
692<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>
693
694<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.
695</p>
696
697<p>
698Presidential 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.
699This 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.
700How can Orange Man even compete?
701</p>
702
703<p>Send me any good YangGang memes you run across. Chances are I already have them, but send them just in case.</p>
704]]></description>
705</item>
706
707
708<item>
709<title>My repos are now on Gitlab and will be updated there as well</title>
710<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#my-repos-are-now-on-gitlab-and-will-be-updated-there-as-well</guid>
711<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:03:13 -0500</pubDate>
712<description><![CDATA[
713<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.
714Since 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.
715I'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.
716</p>
717
718<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>
719]]></description>
720</item>
721
722
723<item>
724<title>Plumbing in Linux, Plan 9 from Bell Labs style</title>
725<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#plumbing-in-linux-plan-9-from-bell-labs-style</guid>
726<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2019 10:58:04 -0500</pubDate>
727<description><![CDATA[
728<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.
729Plan 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.
730This 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.
731</p>
732
733<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>
734
735<p>
736Of 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.
737You're welcome to suggest elegant ways to improve the script on <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/voidrice">the git repository</a>.
738</p>
739]]></description>
740</item>
741
742
743<item>
744<title>A visit to the Georgia Guidestones</title>
745<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-visit-to-the-georgia-guidestones</guid>
746<pubDate>Thu, 07 Mar 2019 12:33:37 -0500</pubDate>
747<description><![CDATA[
748<p>A couple days ago, I went by Elberton, Georgia, home of the notorious Georgia Guidestones.
749Just for fun, I filmed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHHRibortwE">a brief video there</a>.
750Check it out!
751</p>
752
753<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.
754They've often been attributed to the Rosicrucians, Luciferians or some other clandestine groups and have popped up in numerous conspiracy documentaries and commentaries.
755</p>
756
757<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.
758I 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.
759</p>
760]]></description>
761</item>
762
763
764<item>
765<title>New Latin Vulgate Bible repository</title>
766<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#new-latin-vulgate-bible-repository</guid>
767<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2019 15:17:12 -0500</pubDate>
768<description><![CDATA[
769<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>
770
771<p>Since I had gone ahead and done that, I decided I'd make and put up two other related repositories:
772</p>
773
774<ul>
775	<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>
776	<li>A similar program, but for the Latin Vulage Bible. <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/vul">Get it here.</a></li>
777</ul>
778
779<p>I'll put up a video on these in a while so my non-blog/RSS viewers will know about them.</p>
780
781<p>Enjoy!</p>
782]]></description>
783</item>
784
785
786<item>
787<title>Boomer forest LARP episode 2/2</title>
788<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-forest-larp-episode-22</guid>
789<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2019 12:13:46 -0500</pubDate>
790<description><![CDATA[
791<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>
792
793<p>
794There are actually still a couple more contentful videos from my vacation that will be coming out in the next couple of days.
795I'll probably do a review of my experience there too.
796I'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.
797</p>
798]]></description>
799</item>
800
801
802<item>
803<title>College stream starting now</title>
804<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#college-stream-starting-now</guid>
805<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 17:03:22 -0500</pubDate>
806<description><![CDATA[
807<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJA42plup4">Livestream starting now.</a></p>
808
809<p>
810Donations, <a target="_blank" href="donate.html">which you can give here</a>, will be read out on the stream.
811</p>
812]]></description>
813</item>
814
815
816<item>
817<title>College tour livestream soon</title>
818<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#college-tour-livestream-soon</guid>
819<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 16:06:41 -0500</pubDate>
820<description><![CDATA[
821<p>
822<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.
823</p>
824
825<p>
826I'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.
827</p>
828]]></description>
829</item>
830
831
832<item>
833<title>Pacman for package management on Arch: All the basics and more</title>
834<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#pacman-for-package-management-on-arch-all-the-basics-and-more</guid>
835<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 11:40:52 -0500</pubDate>
836<description><![CDATA[
837<p>
838<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dEuXTMzRKs">New video up on pacman, the Arch Linux package manager.</a>
839</p>
840
841<p>
842One 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!
843I 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.
844</p>
845
846<p>The video above is a response to this.
847It 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.
848</p>
849]]></description>
850</item>
851
852
853<item>
854<title>Thinking about getting a document camera: Any suggestions?</title>
855<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#thinking-about-getting-a-document-camera-any-suggestions</guid>
856<pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2019 08:20:33 -0500</pubDate>
857<description><![CDATA[
858<p>I'm thinking about getting a document camera for recording videos in the future that require writing on paper.
859I'd like it to have a USB interface that I can connect to my computer an screencast directly as if it were another webcam.
860</p>
861
862<p>
863I 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.
864</p>
865]]></description>
866</item>
867
868
869<item>
870<title>The downsides of bloated software: R Markdown and LaTeX</title>
871<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-downsides-of-bloated-software-r-markdown-and-latex</guid>
872<pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2019 08:17:17 -0500</pubDate>
873<description><![CDATA[
874<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>.
875It's not just about lines of code or dependencies, but about potentiality for breakage and frustration.
876</p>
877
878<p>
879Nowadays, the standard modus operandi for many """devs""" is to write programs to substrate over previous ones.
880Sounds 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.
881</p>
882
883<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>
884]]></description>
885</item>
886
887
888<item>
889<title>Wow what a bad day for Fedorafriends! (Luke Smith BTFOS Logic MLG Epic Style)</title>
890<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#wow-what-a-bad-day-for-fedorafriends-luke-smith-btfos-logic-mlg-epic-style</guid>
891<pubDate>Sun, 03 Mar 2019 15:04:04 -0500</pubDate>
892<description><![CDATA[
893<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.
894</p>
895
896<p>
897I 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!
898</p>
899
900<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>
901
902<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>.
903There I talk about Kahneman and Tversky's Heuristics and Biases program and Ecological Rationality &agrave;la Gigerenzer.
904</p>
905]]></description>
906</item>
907
908
909<item>
910<title>New Git repo: Greek Septuagint/New Testament on the command line</title>
911<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#new-git-repo-greek-septuagintnew-testament-on-the-command-line</guid>
912<pubDate>Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:32:56 -0500</pubDate>
913<description><![CDATA[
914<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.
915Most 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.
916</p>
917
918<p>
919Before 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.
920<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.
921This 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.
922</p>
923
924<p>
925Anyway, 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.
926Took 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>.
927Many Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books are included if you like the Bible: Expanded Universe.
928</p>
929
930<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.
931Before then, I recommend you check it out and find any glitches if there are any.
932</p>
933]]></description>
934</item>
935
936
937<item>
938<title>Fuzzy finder (fzf), a 'dmenu' for the terminal</title>
939<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#fuzzy-finder-fzf-a-dmenu-for-the-terminal</guid>
940<pubDate>Sat, 02 Mar 2019 10:08:15 -0500</pubDate>
941<description><![CDATA[
942<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>.
943For 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.
944</p>
945
946<p>
947That opens up a world of possibilities, so I show some of my minor implementations in the video.
948Check the fzf website for a couple more suggestions, but I think you can come up with a lot on your own as well.
949</p>
950]]></description>
951</item>
952
953
954<item>
955<title>Why you should learn Latin</title>
956<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-you-should-learn-latin</guid>
957<pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2019 12:17:05 -0500</pubDate>
958<description><![CDATA[
959<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.
960<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d-YsD8zN88">Watch the video here.</a>
961</p>
962
963<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>
964]]></description>
965</item>
966
967
968<item>
969<title>Boomer LARPs in Woods</title>
970<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#boomer-larps-in-woods</guid>
971<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:02:44 -0500</pubDate>
972<description><![CDATA[
973<p>I recorded some videos while I was gone last week and now that I have internet again, I'll be uploading the vacation.
974There are several screencasts and many new episodes of "Boomer Rants in Woods" and "Lunchtime with Luke".
975I'll probably be releasing one a day for a while.
976</p>
977
978<p>
979First, <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.
980</p>
981
982<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>
983]]></description>
984</item>
985
986
987<item>
988<title>You don't choose who you are</title>
989<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#you-dont-choose-who-you-are</guid>
990<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2019 22:43:07 -0500</pubDate>
991<description><![CDATA[
992<p>I put up a brief "Lunchtime with Luke" video earlier today. Links below.</p>
993
994<ul>
995	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdRJMuOFO88">YouTube</a></li>
996	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/vdRJMuOFO88/">BitChite</a></li>
997</ul>
998
999<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-p5XmQHB_JQBsNCDz048KDs52XrhmrZf">Lunchtime with Luke</a> is now an official playlist.</p>
1000
1001<p>In this video, I talk about the term "Bugman" and give a brief Gestalt of what it means.</p>
1002
1003<p>Really the deeper point I was making was the non-arbitrariness of identity.
1004There are now forces overwhelming in society pushing people to disconnect from and reject their families, religions, traditions, culture and even their countries.
1005</p>
1006
1007<p>
1008One of the falsest notions now common in modernity is the idea that "identity" is something chosen by unaffected personal whim.
1009To 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.
1010</p>
1011
1012<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>
1013]]></description>
1014</item>
1015
1016
1017<item>
1018<title>Some riverfront surveying</title>
1019<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#some-riverfront-surveying</guid>
1020<pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 2019 22:47:51 -0500</pubDate>
1021<description><![CDATA[
1022<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.
1023I went to visit some family land by the river, which had been partially flooded with some residual marshland.
1024There'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.
1025</p>
1026
1027<p>I also visited the church cemetary where many of my ancestors are buried.</p>
1028
1029<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.
1030Out here, the main way people even have an internet connection is via satillite.
1031Dial-up was common relatively recently.
1032</p>
1033
1034<p>
1035I didn't mention it yesterday, but the "urbanization" of the area is somewhat jarring.
1036I 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.
1037The essence of the area hasn't changed that much, but it could mean the beginning of a potentially irreversable process.
1038Still, where I am is imminently rural, without the hint of even a non-chain restaurant or a grocery store for miles and miles.
1039</p>
1040
1041<p>
1042When 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.
1043If 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.
1044</p>
1045]]></description>
1046</item>
1047
1048
1049<item>
1050<title>One week in nowhere</title>
1051<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#one-week-in-nowhere</guid>
1052<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2019 23:44:06 -0500</pubDate>
1053<description><![CDATA[
1054<p>As I mentioned in my last livestream, I'm spending this coming week in a remote, undiscolsed location with minimal internet connection.
1055Earlier 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.
1056If 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).
1057</p>
1058
1059<p>
1060I decided to leave town because I can, and  because I'd like to have free time to work on whatever strikes me.
1061I always recommend building a "schedule" which is purposefully mostly empty: only then can you truly end up doing what matters.
1062Perhaps I'll make some videos or record podcasts or work on my dissertations.
1063We'll see.
1064</p>
1065
1066<p>
1067You often forget, even when you live in a pretty small city what exactly true silence sounds like.
1068Back 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.
1069Here 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.
1070When 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.
1071I'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.
1072</p>
1073
1074<p>
1075I 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.
1076Anyway, I'm going to try to upload at least this post and turn of what remaining electronics I have here.
1077</p>
1078]]></description>
1079</item>
1080
1081
1082<item>
1083<title>Pre-/innawoods/ livestream now</title>
1084<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#preinnawoods-livestream-now</guid>
1085<pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:49:49 -0500</pubDate>
1086<description><![CDATA[
1087<p>Doing a livestream starting in 10 or so minutes (7PM New York time). Check my channel.</p>
1088]]></description>
1089</item>
1090
1091
1092<item>
1093<title>How to Get a Domain Name for Cheap or Free</title>
1094<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#how-to-get-a-domain-name-for-cheap-or-free</guid>
1095<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2019 19:12:13 -0500</pubDate>
1096<description><![CDATA[
1097<p>Check out the new video out on how to get a domain name.
1098I list out a couple different registrars in the description, feel free to recommend others if you'd like.
1099Here's the vid:
1100</p>
1101
1102<ul>
1103	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkV1-BuRrpE">YouTube</a></li>
1104	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/tkV1-BuRrpE/">BitChute</a></li>
1105</ul>
1106
1107<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).
1108There 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.
1109This blog is, after all, supposed to be just a blog.
1110</p>
1111
1112<p>
1113I'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>).
1114Entry links will be the direct video links.
1115</p>
1116]]></description>
1117</item>
1118
1119
1120<item>
1121<title>Do you know the Via Negativa?</title>
1122<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#do-you-know-the-via-negativa</guid>
1123<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jan 2019 11:09:19 -0500</pubDate>
1124<description><![CDATA[
1125<p>New video up on <em>Via Negativa</em>, which is about the closest I'll ever get to offering "self-help" advise.
1126NEETs won't want to hear it anyway.
1127</p>
1128<ul>
1129	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBIqnTC1nk">YouTube</a></li>
1130	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/WjBIqnTC1nk/">Bitchute</a></li>
1131</ul>
1132]]></description>
1133</item>
1134
1135
1136<item>
1137<title>Some entry tips to using suckless programs</title>
1138<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#some-entry-tips-to-using-suckless-programs</guid>
1139<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2019 17:28:03 -0500</pubDate>
1140<description><![CDATA[
1141<p>I've just put up a video on some general tips I have for people who are looking to use suckless programs. </p>
1142
1143<ul>
1144	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6saSpX4KQ">YouTube</a></li>
1145	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/3C6saSpX4KQ/">Bitchute</a></li>
1146</ul>
1147
1148<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.
1149I also saw that Distrotube had put out a video talking about trying suckless utilities out, so I wanted to give my personal recommendations.
1150</p>
1151]]></description>
1152</item>
1153
1154
1155<item>
1156<title>Audio problem fixed. Stream active immanently.</title>
1157<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#audio-problem-fixed-stream-active-immanently</guid>
1158<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2019 17:08:13 -0500</pubDate>
1159<description><![CDATA[
1160<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>
1161
1162<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5KKrAEiNC0">New link.</a></p>
1163]]></description>
1164</item>
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169<item>
1170<title>Unaboomer/Geocities Livestream SOON</title>
1171<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#unaboomergeocities-livestream-soon</guid>
1172<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2019 16:10:47 -0500</pubDate>
1173<description><![CDATA[
1174<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.
1175</p>
1176
1177<p>Typical livestream behavior expected as well.</p>
1178
1179<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>
1180
1181<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXVR4FkHPc">LINK HERE. CHAT IS OPEN NOW!</a></p>
1182]]></description>
1183</item>
1184
1185<item>
1186<title>A showcase video on fish as a shell</title>
1187<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-showcase-video-on-fish-as-a-shell</guid>
1188<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:12:31 -0500</pubDate>
1189<description><![CDATA[
1190<p>I've put up a brief video on fish (the Friendly Interactive SHell).
1191I'm not too opinionated about shells, I use vanilla bash myself, but there are definitely some things to really like or hate about fish.
1192</p>
1193
1194<ul>
1195	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2a7jJTh3kU">YouTube</a></li>
1196	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://bitchute.com/video/C2a7jJTh3kU">Bitchute</a></li>
1197</ul>
1198
1199<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>
1200]]></description>
1201</item>
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206<item>
1207<title>Anyone got ueberzug image previews working in vifm?</title>
1208<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-got-ueberzug-image-previews-working-in-vifm</guid>
1209<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2019 12:39:26 -0500</pubDate>
1210<description><![CDATA[
1211<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.
1212Give it an images and a location/dimensions for it and it will print it to the terminal.
1213The preview will survive after multiple resizing, mouse away and anything else.
1214Much more robust than w3mimg.
1215</p>
1216
1217<p>A brief example in bash. I recommend installing ueberzug via pip to ensure all the right dependencies.</p>
1218
1219<pre><code>source "`ueberzug library`"
1220ImageLayer
1221declare -A command=([path]="pix/image.png" [identifier]="name" [action]="add" [x]="0" [y]="0" [max_width]="400" [height]="400")</code></pre>
1222
1223<p>The above will print <code>pix/image.png</code> in the top left (0x0) and ensure it fits within 400x400 by resizing it.
1224If you spawn a bunch more windows and move it around, the image is very consistent.
1225</p>
1226
1227<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.
1228I tried in my build of st, urxvt and alacritty and none worked in vifm.
1229</p>
1230
1231<p>
1232I 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.
1233Ideally I'd like vifm previews, but also an independent script that could simply print out an image argument to the command line.
1234</p>
1235]]></description>
1236</item>
1237
1238
1239<item>
1240<title>The 'Horrors' of the Linux Terminal...</title>
1241<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#the-horrors-of-the-linux-terminal</guid>
1242<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2019 15:54:34 -0500</pubDate>
1243<description><![CDATA[
1244<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.
1245A 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.
1246Here are the video links:
1247</p>
1248<ul>
1249	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYDYSSOA2f8">YouTube</a></li>
1250	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/gYDYSSOA2f8/">Bitchute</a></li>
1251</ul>
1252
1253<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>
1254]]></description>
1255</item>
1256
1257
1258<item>
1259<title>Livestream now</title>
1260<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#livestream-now</guid>
1261<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2019 19:12:10 -0500</pubDate>
1262<description><![CDATA[
1263<p>Livestream at the bottom of the hour. 7:30 East Coast US.</p>
1264]]></description>
1265</item>
1266
1267
1268<item>
1269<title>Recent work</title>
1270<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#recent-work</guid>
1271<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2019 12:22:55 -0500</pubDate>
1272<description><![CDATA[
1273<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>
1274
1275<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>
1276
1277<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>
1278]]></description>
1279</item>
1280
1281
1282<item>
1283<title>Luke steps on the Python snek</title>
1284<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#luke-steps-on-the-python-snek</guid>
1285<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2019 10:26:46 -0500</pubDate>
1286<description><![CDATA[
1287<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>
1288
1289<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>
1290]]></description>
1291</item>
1292
1293
1294<item>
1295<title>Anyone want to redo the CSS for my website?</title>
1296<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-want-to-redo-the-css-for-my-website</guid>
1297<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2019 20:55:38 -0500</pubDate>
1298<description><![CDATA[
1299<p>I'm not a big color person and whenever I have to pick a theme for a website, it sort of annoys me.
1300I 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,
1301I 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.
1302</p>
1303
1304<p>
1305The current stylesheet is at <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/style.css">https://lukesmith.xyz/style.css</a>.
1306I've added a couple of comments to make clear what novel thing is what.
1307Feel free to send me new colors for everything, although I want a dark theme.
1308Be 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.
1309</p>
1310
1311<p>
1312Do <b>not</b> offer to redo my website, especially if that means rewriting it with javascript code everywhere!
1313I also do not want to have to move anything around unless there's just the best reason to: .css changes only.
1314</p>
1315]]></description>
1316</item>
1317
1318
1319<item>
1320<title>Suck on this, black-pillers!</title>
1321<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#suck-on-this-blackpillers</guid>
1322<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2019 13:50:52 -0500</pubDate>
1323<description><![CDATA[
1324<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>
1325]]></description>
1326</item>
1327
1328
1329<item>
1330<title>Anyone want the domain name `currentyear.net`? Looking to sell.</title>
1331<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#anyone-want-the-domain-name-currentyearnet-looking-to-sell</guid>
1332<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 19:42:27 -0500</pubDate>
1333<description><![CDATA[
1334<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.
1335I 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>
1336
1337<p>
1338If anyone wants it, name a price and I'll sell it to you relatively cheap as far as domains go.
1339If 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.
1340</p>
1341]]></description>
1342</item>
1343
1344
1345<item>
1346<title>Hacking wishlist addition: Moving all before a match to end of file!</title>
1347<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#hacking-wishlist-addition-moving-all-before-a-match-to-end-of-file</guid>
1348<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:00:33 -0500</pubDate>
1349<description><![CDATA[
1350<p>I've added <a href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html#sortmatchfirst">a new entry to the Hacking Wishlist</a>.
1351This one I was racking my brain a little on last night, but couldn't find an elegant solution. It's probably obvious though.
1352</p>
1353
1354<p>
1355I 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.
1356Sounds simple, but for whatever reason, I haven't developed a solution!
1357I need to brush up my awk skills!
1358</p>
1359]]></description>
1360</item>
1361
1362
1363<item>
1364<title>Contemplating a brief series on creating a website</title>
1365<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#contemplating-a-brief-series-on-creating-a-website</guid>
1366<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2019 13:09:33 -0500</pubDate>
1367<description><![CDATA[
1368<p>I've been contemplating doing a series on creating and maintaining your own website.
1369The 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".
1370I talk about this <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYDwep9yI8A">in a new video</a>.
1371</p>
1372
1373<p>
1374I'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.
1375Suggestions are welcome, so long as they are... reasonable.
1376Also, in the process of making this video, I will probably be using real life hosts/registrars:
1377<b>If anyone has anything bad or good to say about a registrar or host service, feel free to tell me</b>.
1378I 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.
1379I 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).
1380</p>
1381]]></description>
1382</item>
1383
1384
1385<item>
1386<title>Adding transparency and removing whitespace from images automatically with imagemagick</title>
1387<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#adding-transparency-and-removing-whitespace-from-images-automatically-with-imagemagick</guid>
1388<pubDate>Sun, 06 Jan 2019 15:05:42 -0500</pubDate>
1389<description><![CDATA[
1390<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>
1391]]></description>
1392</item>
1393
1394
1395<item>
1396<title>Why I don't do GNU/Linux 'evangelism'</title>
1397<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-i-dont-do-gnulinux-evangelism</guid>
1398<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jan 2019 11:57:17 -0500</pubDate>
1399<description><![CDATA[
1400<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>.
1401This 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.
1402</p>
1403
1404<p>
1405I detail why in the video, but it ammounts to two main points:
1406</p>
1407
1408<ul>
1409	<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>
1410	<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>
1411</ul>
1412
1413<p>
1414The "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>.
1415This solves both problems.
1416</p>
1417
1418<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.
1419I don't talk conceptually about Linux or *nix generally unless it's after showcasing some feature or explaining the efficiency of a design.
1420This encourages people to actually understand Linux, how it's different from their common experience and encourages them that they might benefit from using it.
1421</p>
1422]]></description>
1423</item>
1424
1425
1426<item>
1427<title>Nassim Taleb on IQ, and what is IQ anyway?</title>
1428<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#nassim-taleb-on-iq-and-what-is-iq-anyway</guid>
1429<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2019 22:27:13 -0500</pubDate>
1430<description><![CDATA[
1431<p>I've been asked by several people to opine on Nassim Taleb's recent Twitter war against IQ as a concept.
1432You 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>.
1433Not too refined, but if you listen you get the point.
1434I'll see if I can sum some of the ideas up:
1435</p>
1436
1437<ul>
1438	<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>
1439	<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>
1440	<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>
1441	<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, na&iuml;ve, boring and dangerous. The Talebian <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577">IYI</a>.</li>
1442</ul>
1443
1444<p>
1445On 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.
1446Taleb 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.
1447Many people will correctly call IQ or <em>g</em> "the most successful" finding of psychological sciences in the 20th century.
1448I 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.
1449</p>
1450
1451<p>
1452Anyway, 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).
1453This 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.
1454Taleb certainly loves to dab on n*rds and I support his efforts.
1455That and a conviction to sound understanding of statistics drive him.
1456</p>
1457
1458<p>
1459Is "IQ" <em>utterly meaningless</em>?
1460No 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.
1461As he puts it in the above Medium article:
1462</p>
1463
1464<blockquote>
1465"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"."
1466</blockquote>
1467
1468<p>
1469"Autism Quotient" might be another candidate.
1470IQ 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.
1471I 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).
1472In 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.
1473If "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.
1474</p>
1475
1476
1477<p>
1478To 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.
1479I 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".
1480Like 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.
1481</p>
1482
1483<p>
1484If 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.
1485Taleb has a tendency to put things in superficially coarse phrasing online, but his books are lucid beyond comprehension.
1486</p>
1487]]></description>
1488</item>
1489
1490
1491<item>
1492<title>Why I don't use polybar anymore? (And on ricing)</title>
1493<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#why-i-dont-use-polybar-anymore-and-on-ricing</guid>
1494<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2019 22:01:25 -0500</pubDate>
1495<description><![CDATA[
1496<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>
1497
1498<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>
1499
1500<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>
1501
1502<p>But anyway, there are a couple specific reasons I don't use "the pretty" polybar:</p>
1503
1504<ul>
1505	<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>
1506	<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>
1507	<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>
1508	<li>I do sort of enjoy the "ugliness" of </li>
1509</ul>
1510
1511<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>
1512
1513<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.
1514If you have any suggestions of a status bar that...
1515</p>
1516
1517<ul>
1518	<li>...exists in the main Arch repos,</li>
1519	<li>is configurable,</li>
1520	<li>light on system resources,</li>
1521	<li>has few (or no) dependencies,</li>
1522	<li>can be easily togged,</li>
1523	<li>and still can be made very pretty...</li>
1524</ul>
1525
1526<p>Please tell me.</p>
1527]]></description>
1528</item>
1529
1530
1531<item>
1532<title>i fell Ior the suckless meme in image viewers too: sxiv</title>
1533<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#i-fell-ior-the-suckless-meme-in-image-viewers-too-sxiv</guid>
1534<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2019 12:43:58 -0500</pubDate>
1535<description><![CDATA[
1536<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".
1537I've switched from feh to it for several reasons:
1538</p>
1539
1540<ul>
1541	<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>
1542	<li>.gif animations are supported, which feh can't do.</li>
1543	<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>
1544	<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>
1545</ul>
1546
1547<p>
1548I also mention that I <em>don't</em> know yet if sxiv can be used to set backgrounds.
1549feh 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. ;-)
1550</p>
1551]]></description>
1552</item>
1553
1554
1555<item>
1556<title>A Hacking Wishlist</title>
1557<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2019.html#a-hacking-wishlist</guid>
1558<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:43:29 -0500</pubDate>
1559<description><![CDATA[
1560<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.
1561I'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.
1562<a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/wishlist.html">Check out the list!</a>
1563</p>
1564
1565<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>
1566
1567<p>
1568I'll post updates as I add more entries to the list or me or someone else solves one.
1569You can, of course, email your solutions to <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>.
1570</p>
1571]]></description>
1572</item>
1573
1574
1575<item>
1576<title>New Year and New Plans</title>
1577<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-year-and-new-plans</guid>
1578<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 22:05:01 -0500</pubDate>
1579<description><![CDATA[
1580<p>Hi everyone! I want to thank all who showed up for the New Years livestream, especially those who donated.</p>
1581
1582<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.
1583I hope to go a lot further, while not fundamentally altering the quality or realness of the channel.
1584No irrelevant sponsors or special production team.
1585</p>
1586
1587<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.
1588This 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.
1589I 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.
1590Obviously I plan on testing and reviewing it for all of you; I'm optimistic about it.
1591</p>
1592
1593<p>
1594The "actual computer" part is a severable card that is supposed to be hosted in different ports: a laptop shell or a desktop shell, etc.
1595This reduces redundancy and easily separates the outward shell from the computer itself, both of which can be easily replaced if damaged or obsolete.
1596The computer card itself actually has pretty unimpressive specs, but this early in the game, that's part of the fun.
1597It 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).
1598These deficiencies are related to the adherence to strict open hardware standards from what I can glean.
1599</p>
1600
1601<p>
1602In 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.
1603I'll be buying these soon (together they are $120 and then taxes, etc.).
1604I'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.
1605If 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!
1606Honestly, 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.
1607Either way, I'll be getting the desktop casing and the computer card before they ship out on February 1st.
1608</p>
1609
1610<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>
1611
1612<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>
1613]]></description>
1614</item>
1615
1616
1617<item>
1618<title>Livestream now scheduled on YouTube and video requests?</title>
1619<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#livestream-now-scheduled-on-youtube-and-video-requests</guid>
1620<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:37:41 -0500</pubDate>
1621<description><![CDATA[
1622<p>I've set up the livestream <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgKQSLmvyB0">link here</a>.
1623It should go live in around 6 hours: 6:30 EST.
1624You might be able to use the chatroom in the meantime; I'm not sure myself, but you can try it out.
1625</p>
1626
1627<p>
1628As I mentioned, I'll be playing some short, mostly inane meme videos during the stream on occasions.
1629If 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>.
1630</p>
1631
1632<p>Send them via email without delay: <a target="_blank" href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a></p>
1633]]></description>
1634</item>
1635
1636
1637<item>
1638<title>The New Year's Livestream will be on Atlantis time</title>
1639<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-new-years-livestream-will-be-on-atlantis-time</guid>
1640<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2018 07:47:27 -0500</pubDate>
1641<description><![CDATA[
1642<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".
1643That 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>.
1644This is most convenient for me, but also pretty much avoids any personal conflicts most people will have with the climax of the New Year.
1645I 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:
1646</p>
1647
1648<ul>
1649	<li>For the Eastern US, that is 6PM to 9PM.</li>
1650	<li>For the Western US, that is 3PM to 6PM.</li>
1651	<li>Britain/Portugal: 10PM to 1AM.</li>
1652	<li>Most of Western Europe: 11PM to 2AM.</li>
1653	<li>For East Australia: 9AM to noon.</li>
1654	<li>Etc. etc. Just refer to the link above for the time I'm looking at. Don't trust my math.</li>
1655</ul>
1656
1657<p>I have no huge plans for the actual moment of the New Year, so feel free to come and leave whenever.
1658I'll probably open up the chatroom relatively early.
1659As 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>).
1660</p>
1661]]></description>
1662</item>
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667<item>
1668<title>Year Review-End of Year Livestream Incoming!</title>
1669<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#year-reviewend-of-year-livestream-incoming</guid>
1670<pubDate>Fri, 28 Dec 2018 14:28:57 -0500</pubDate>
1671<description><![CDATA[
1672<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>
1673
1674<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>
1675]]></description>
1676</item>
1677
1678
1679<item>
1680<title>Merry Christmas! and Bitchute Update</title>
1681<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#merry-christmas-and-bitchute-update</guid>
1682<pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2018 15:01:35 -0500</pubDate>
1683<description><![CDATA[
1684<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>
1685
1686<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.
1687Bitchute 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.
1688</p>
1689
1690<p>
1691Anyway, 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.
1692</p>
1693
1694<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>
1695]]></description>
1696</item>
1697
1698
1699<item>
1700<title>What is 'the best' Linux distro?</title>
1701<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#what-is-the-best-linux-distro</guid>
1702<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2018 08:20:14 -0500</pubDate>
1703<description><![CDATA[
1704<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bsNIdYw5Ak">New video out: "The TOP 1 LINUX DISTROS for 2019".</a></p>
1705
1706<p>I've long found conversations about different Linux distributions tedious and meangingless.
1707For people familiar enough with *nix systems, the superficial differences between distributions can be easily erradicated or changed by any basic system knowledge.
1708"Distros are not desktop environments", as some people have started to say.
1709I 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.
1710</p>
1711
1712<p>
1713I 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.
1714It doesn't do anything <em>particularly good</em>, but avoids all the hassles that most distributions do not.
1715It also puts users in a place where they can more competently deal with system problems in an intelligent way.
1716</p>
1717
1718<p>
1719What distro am I talking about? Well, you probably already know, but <em>let's find out!</em> 👉
1720<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bsNIdYw5Ak">The TOP 1 LINUX DISTROS for 2019</a>
1721</p>
1722]]></description>
1723</item>
1724
1725<item>
1726<title>'Boomer Rants in Woods' series</title>
1727<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#boomer-rants-in-woods-series</guid>
1728<pubDate>Sun, 23 Dec 2018 17:20:43 -0500</pubDate>
1729<description><![CDATA[
1730<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>
1731
1732<p>
1733Title 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>
1734
1735<p>For those of you who use YouTube playlists, you may now enjoy this one.</p>
1736]]></description>
1737</item>
1738
1739
1740<item>
1741<title>Running commands whenever a file is changed with entr</title>
1742<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#running-commands-whenever-a-file-is-changed-with-entr</guid>
1743<pubDate>Sat, 22 Dec 2018 09:12:34 -0500</pubDate>
1744<description><![CDATA[
1745<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>
1746
1747<p>
1748The 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.
1749I'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.
1750</p>
1751]]></description>
1752</item>
1753
1754
1755<item>
1756<title>I'M GOING TO USE THE NNN FILE BROWSER</title>
1757<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#im-going-to-use-the-nnn-file-browser</guid>
1758<pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2018 11:43:00 -0500</pubDate>
1759<description><![CDATA[
1760<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>
1761
1762<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.
1763Nonetheless, nnn has all the basics you need, lacking the bloat of ranger.
1764I'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.
1765</p>
1766
1767<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>
1768
1769<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>
1770]]></description>
1771</item>
1772
1773
1774<item>
1775<title>Do you hate Patreon and PayPal?</title>
1776<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#do-you-hate-patreon-and-paypal</guid>
1777<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 18:25:06 -0500</pubDate>
1778<description><![CDATA[
1779<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>
1780
1781<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>.
1782It'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.
1783It is actually a service offered for free (no fees at all) by most American banks.
1784</p>
1785
1786<p><b>If you have any bank account in the United States, you probably already have Zelle and don't know it.</b></p>
1787
1788<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>
1789
1790<ul>
1791	<li>Log on to your online banking for whatever bank you have.</li>
1792	<li>Search for a "transfer money" or "Zelle" section.</li>
1793	<li>(You may have to confirm your email, but "setup" is automatic.)</li>
1794	<li>When asked for a recipient, just put in my email address: <big>luke@lukesmith.xyz</big></li>
1795</ul>
1796
1797<p>Benefits of Zelle:</p>
1798
1799<ul>
1800	<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>
1801	<li>You don't need to sign up and create an account on some new website.</li>
1802	<li>You can send a single lump-sum donation if you hate PayPal, or set up recurring donations if you hate Patreon.</li>
1803	<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>
1804</ul>
1805
1806<p>Again, you can donate <em>directly</em> to me, no charge using Zelle and my email:</p>
1807
1808<p><big>luke@lukesmith.xyz</big></p>
1809
1810<p>I'll be adding these directions <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/zelle.html">here</a> for reference.</p>
1811
1812<p>I might actually do a video on this, just so more people know.</p>
1813]]></description>
1814</item>
1815
1816
1817<item>
1818<title>Transparency/chroma keys in mpv or vlc?</title>
1819<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#transparencychroma-keys-in-mpv-or-vlc</guid>
1820<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 18:15:56 -0500</pubDate>
1821<description><![CDATA[
1822<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.
1823I don't use either video editing or OBS to produce this effect.
1824</p>
1825
1826<p>
1827There 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.
1828I 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.
1829</p>
1830
1831<p>
1832This 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.
1833Email me at <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a> if you have a solution for this.
1834</p>
1835]]></description>
1836</item>
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845<item>
1846<title>Luke Smith in 1080p!</title>
1847<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#luke-smith-in-1080p</guid>
1848<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 13:22:15 -0500</pubDate>
1849<description><![CDATA[
1850<p>I want to thank again Henok S. for getting me and the channel the simple yet elegant ThinkVision T2224D monitor!
1851I showcase it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfwerXTCb1c">here in a new video</a>!
1852This 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!
1853</p>
1854
1855<p>
1856You 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.
1857On my side, the color of the monitor is also fantastic.
1858Obviously you can't really see it, but it definitely makes a difference for me.
1859</p>
1860
1861<p>
1862I deliberately also got an IPS panel and it looks great (I had to read up on screen technology a little when shopping around).
1863I 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.
1864The 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.
1865I 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.
1866</p>
1867
1868<p>
1869The monitor I got was on the cheap side, a little over $100.
1870There 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.
1871I just wanted a monitor that was a monitor (and didn't want to make my benefactor feel obliged to buy an extortionate item ;-)).
1872If 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!
1873</p>
1874
1875<p>So again, you can look foward to seeing my screencasts in 1080p and can thank Henok for that!</p>
1876]]></description>
1877</item>
1878
1879
1880<item>
1881<title>grug like new notrelated episode</title>
1882<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#grug-like-new-notrelated-episode</guid>
1883<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:39:10 -0500</pubDate>
1884<description><![CDATA[
1885<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>
1886
1887<p>Topics covered:</p>
1888
1889<ul>
1890	<li>The constantly deeper origin of humankind in time (and why this will continue)</li>
1891	<li>A review of (a lot of) very recent scientific literature on the genetics and archeological cultures of early humans</li>
1892	<li>Out-of-Africa vs. Multiregionalism</li>
1893	<li>How much like us are Neanderthals?</li>
1894</ul>
1895
1896<p>Here is a list of the papers cited or alluded to:</p>
1897
1898<ul>
1899	<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>
1900	<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>
1901	<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>
1902	<li>Hodgson et a. 2014. Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa. PLOS ONE 10.6.</li>
1903	<li>Groucutt et al. 2018. Homo sapiens in Arabia by 85,000 years. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2.5. Pages 800-809.</li>
1904	<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>
1905	<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>
1906	<li>Pringle, Heather. 2011. Texas Site Confirms Pre-Clovis Settlement of the Americas. Science, New Series 331.6024. Page 1512.</li>
1907	<li>Raghavan et al. 2015. Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans. Nature 505.7481. Pages 87-91.</li>
1908	<li>Skoglund et al. 2015. Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas. Nature.</li>
1909	<li>Ferentinos et al. 2012. Early seafaring activity in the southern Ionian Islands, Mediterranean Sea. Journal of Archaeological Science 39. 2167-2176.</li>
1910	<li>Jaubert et al. 2016. Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. Nature 111.534. 111-114.</li>
1911	<li>Coop et al. 2008. The Timing of Selection at the Human FOXP2 Gene. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25.7. Pages 1257-1259.</li>
1912</ul>
1913
1914<p>
1915Also, check out the new and improved simple HTML <em>Not Related.xyz</em> website <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">here</a>!
1916</p>
1917]]></description>
1918</item>
1919
1920
1921<item>
1922<title>Physiognomy is real! (A request)</title>
1923<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#physiognomy-is-real-a-request</guid>
1924<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2018 09:16:58 -0500</pubDate>
1925<description><![CDATA[
1926<p>
1927You may've heard of <em>physiognomy</em>, which is the study of how people's
1928physical appearances or faces relate to their psychology or personality.
1929Physiognomy is interesting because it was one of those many fields brushed
1930aside as "pseudo-scientific" ironically enough my the early 20th century bugman
1931scientists who lacked the tools to study it (and were also afraid of something
1932that could be perceived as wacist).  Nowadays, however, with better
1933experimental techniques and sometimes even the aid of artificial intelligence,
1934there have arisen a lot of different experimental studies finding that
1935physiognomy is very real as a correlation between body/facial structure and
1936personality, but also that people are very good at judging other peoples'
1937personalities from that structure.
1938</p>
1939
1940<p>
1941This often trickles into the news media when we hear about faces being "gay" or
1942"racist". We hear about how political persuasion correlates with body strength
1943or religious zeal being readable from one's face.  There are more subtle
1944things, like a person's index to ring finger ratio that are registers of
1945prenatal testosterone, thus correlating with all manners of things. And then
1946there's left-handedness.
1947</p>
1948
1949<p>
1950This shouldn't be a surprise for anyone.
1951The nerd and the chad have separate personalities, but their different bodies and dispositions reflect them.
1952One might cause the other, or be related for other reasons, but the correlations are there and everyone knows and recognizes them.
1953</p>
1954
1955<p>
1956Anyway, for the podcast <a target="_blank" href="https://notrelated.xyz">NotRelated.xyz</a>, I'm planning on doing an episode on physiognomy.
1957Yes, 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 ;-).
1958I 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.
1959</p>
1960
1961<p>
1962<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.
1963There'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.
1964Do <b>not</b> send me news media links. Send me links to the papers that they're based on.
1965</p>
1966]]></description>
1967</item>
1968
1969
1970<item>
1971<title>My RSS feed is getting too big!</title>
1972<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-rss-feed-is-getting-too-big</guid>
1973<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:42:19 -0500</pubDate>
1974<description><![CDATA[
1975<p>I'm a completionist, so I've been in a habit of putting everything out there in full form.
1976One of these things is my RSS feed, where I've never bothered to purge old entries.
1977This was inevitable, but it's getting too big! Over 200 entries since last summer when I started it!</p>
1978
1979<p>So pretty soon, probably today, I'll be removing old entries from the feed and backing them up somewhere else.
1980I'll probably have a backup for the old RSS feed though.
1981Of 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.
1982I 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>
1983]]></description>
1984</item>
1985
1986
1987<item>
1988<title>Are you thirsty for some Social Media Upcummies?</title>
1989<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#are-you-thirsty-for-some-social-media-upcummies</guid>
1990<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:26:48 -0500</pubDate>
1991<description><![CDATA[
1992<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>
1993
1994<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>
1995
1996<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>
1997
1998<p>Remember to smash that upcummy button too! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)</p>
1999]]></description>
2000</item>
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005<item>
2006<title>Download any of my thumbnails easily</title>
2007<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#download-any-of-my-thumbnails-easily</guid>
2008<pubDate>Sun, 16 Dec 2018 17:48:57 -0500</pubDate>
2009<description><![CDATA[
2010<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>
2011
2012<p>Just click on the "🖼" next to the video title and you'll get the thumbnail.</p>
2013
2014<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>
2015]]></description>
2016</item>
2017
2018
2019<item>
2020<title>Video up on sed and regular expressions</title>
2021<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-sed-and-regular-expressions</guid>
2022<pubDate>Sat, 15 Dec 2018 17:37:41 -0500</pubDate>
2023<description><![CDATA[
2024<p>New video up on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaGhpqRll_k">sed and regular expressions</a>.</p>
2025<p>
2026To introduce people or get them a little deeper into sed,
2027I showcase a use case of my own: a simple sed command to trim a document instantly of all comments and blanklines for further processing.
2028</p>
2029<p>
2030I also show my i3 status torrent module, which is just a sed command writ a little larger, replacing matches with emojis.
2031If 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!
2032</p>
2033]]></description>
2034</item>
2035
2036
2037<item>
2038<title>New st build additions: link handling and Xresources and pywal compatibility</title>
2039<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-st-build-additions-link-handling-and-xresources-and-pywal-compatibility</guid>
2040<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2018 16:04:36 -0500</pubDate>
2041<description><![CDATA[
2042<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.
2043Actually, a lot of people seem to think I'm still using urxvt...</p>
2044
2045<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>.
2046I 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.
2047The 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>
2048
2049<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>).
2050I've actually had this in my st build for a while now, but I still get requests for this feature!
2051</p>
2052]]></description>
2053</item>
2054
2055
2056<item>
2057<title>My public blog script, `lb` is now much improved</title>
2058<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-public-blog-script-lb-is-now-much-improved</guid>
2059<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:53:32 -0500</pubDate>
2060<description><![CDATA[
2061<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.
2062Advertised as a "Blog &amp; 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.
2063If you didn't see <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfAdzGmhik">the original video</a>, there's the link.
2064</p>
2065
2066<p>The script allows you to write blog posts that are then automatically syndicated in several locations of your choosing:</p>
2067
2068<ul>
2069	<li>A rolling blog page: <a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/blog.html">lukesmith.xyz/blog.html</a></li>
2070	<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>
2071	<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>
2072	<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>
2073</ul>
2074
2075<p>
2076But yesterday I rewrote the script, actually making it shorter while adding some nice features.
2077</p>
2078
2079<ul>
2080	<li>The ability to revise already published articles</li>
2081	<li>Smarter URL creation. The old script made somewhat dumb urls.</li>
2082	<li>Use of the <code>.htaccess</code> file as a database to store filename-title correspondences and now publishing dates</li>
2083	<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>
2084</ul>
2085
2086<p>
2087The 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.
2088This backwards compatibility means that you can also revise old published blog entries without much of a problem.
2089The 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.
2090This should not be true of articles published by this lb 2.0.
2091</p>
2092
2093<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).
2094You must add a comment line that looks exactly like this:
2095</p>
2096
2097<pre><code>&lt;!-- LB --&gt;</code></pre>
2098
2099<p>to each file. That line is the point in the document after which new articles/RSS entries/list entries will be added.
2100See the source files of my above linked pages for examples!</p>
2101]]></description>
2102</item>
2103
2104<item>
2105<title>New video on i3 configuration and tiling window managers</title>
2106<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-video-on-i3-configuration-and-tiling-window-managers</guid>
2107<pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 2018 10:00:22 -0500</pubDate>
2108<description><![CDATA[
2109<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>
2110
2111<p>Additions include:</p>
2112
2113<ul>
2114	<li>Several dmenu interfaces for USB mounting, display selection, emoji insertion and more</li>
2115	<li>More documentation for other users, including clickable statusbar info and a more complete Super+F1 guide</li>
2116	<li>Better backends for dropdown terminals</li>
2117</ul>
2118
2119<p>And more...</p>
2120]]></description>
2121</item>
2122
2123<item>
2124<title>You can now donate Bitcoin!</title>
2125<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#you-can-now-donate-bitcoin</guid>
2126<pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2018 12:26:56 -0500</pubDate>
2127<description><![CDATA[
2128
2129<p>I've finally taken the basic step of setting up a Bitcoin wallet, etc. after many requests from users.
2130So you can donate Bitcoin using the address below:
2131</p>
2132
2133<p>1FjpZkeujhXLJM2FBQpusysALKoZHjbsmk</p>
2134
2135<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>
2136
2137<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>
2138</body>
2139]]></description>
2140</item>
2141
2142
2143
2144<item>
2145<title>Video on my vimrc and Vim Plug-Ins I use</title>
2146<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-my-vimrc-and-vim-plug-ins-i-use</guid>
2147<pubDate>Mon, 03 Dec 2018 14:52:42 -0500</pubDate>
2148<description><![CDATA[
2149<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>
2150When 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.
2151</p>
2152
2153<p>Check out some of my older now hidden videos on vim topics as well, some of which I mentioned in this video:</p>
2154
2155<ul>
2156	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1XBUqbS68">Checking spelling in vim</a></li>
2157	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_rbfQqrm7g">Copying and pasting in vim</a></li>
2158	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4I_Ft-VLAg">Making vim snippets to write out syntax easily</a></li>
2159	<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFEBw02aT8">Creating and using vim macros</a></li>
2160</ul>
2161]]></description>
2162</item>
2163
2164
2165<item>
2166<title>Lazy Sunday video on CPU, Temperature and Memory for general use</title>
2167<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#lazy-sunday-video-on-cpu--temperature-and-memory-for-general-use</guid>
2168<pubDate>Sun, 02 Dec 2018 13:05:56 -0500</pubDate>
2169<description><![CDATA[
2170<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.
2171I 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.
2172You can see the video <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/MNwpdqD_I8Y">here</a>.
2173</p>
2174]]></description>
2175</item>
2176
2177
2178<item>
2179<title>Looking for a new colorscheme for my terminal. Recommendations?</title>
2180<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-a-new-colorscheme-for-my-terminal--recommendations-</guid>
2181<pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 2018 15:07:32 -0500</pubDate>
2182<description><![CDATA[
2183<p>
2184My 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>.
2185For 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.
2186</p>
2187
2188<p>
2189If 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.
2190</p>
2191]]></description>
2192</item>
2193
2194
2195<item>
2196<title>Github Dotfiles and New i3 Video Soon</title>
2197<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#github-dotfiles-and-new-i3-video-soon</guid>
2198<pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 2018 14:57:45 -0500</pubDate>
2199<description><![CDATA[
2200<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>.
2201The repo used to be 20-40MB, but now it's down to about a tenth of that after that and some garbage collection.
2202</p>
2203
2204<p>
2205One 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.
2206I'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.
2207</p>
2208
2209<p>
2210Either way, I'll probably be doing a review of my dotfiles in i3 soon.
2211It 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).
2212More importantly, I have thousands and thousands of new subscribers still continuing to ask the kinds of questions that that kind of video would answer.
2213An 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.
2214</p>
2215]]></description>
2216</item>
2217
2218
2219<item>
2220<title>GDP and income is a measure of fragility</title>
2221<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#gdp-and-income-is-a-measure-of-fragility</guid>
2222<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 19:20:49 -0500</pubDate>
2223<description><![CDATA[
2224<p>
2225The common way of looking at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is that it's a metric of economic success: more GDP is more wealth.
2226Wealth is good. "Poverty" (meaning low <em>per capita</em> GDP) is bad.
2227Nowadays, pretty much everyone talks about "economics" like this as if this truism was scribbled on the back walls of the cosmos.
2228</p>
2229
2230<p>
2231This is just looking at one side of the ledger in a kind of global double-entry accounting book.
2232A 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>.
2233You 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).
2234These two are simply logically equivalent.
2235</p>
2236
2237<p>
2238Let'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!
2239To <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.
2240The 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.
2241They 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.
2242There 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.
2243</p>
2244
2245<p>
2246If 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.
2247It means that the only on-paper, measurable global industry practiced there is textile manufacturing.
2248Other villagers might farm, hunt, even do some kind of gathering in some places.
2249They will produce the arts and crafts and live the way people live when you leave them alone.
2250If 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.
2251</p>
2252
2253<p>
2254This 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.
2255To us non-productive people, GDP means income which means survival.
2256But the further out of Bugmanville you go, the clearer the vacuousness of GDP becomes.
2257</p>
2258
2259<p>
2260A minor example.
2261We had a large Thanksgiving feast near my uncle's house in very rural Florida.
2262As 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.
2263A 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.
2264A 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.
2265Thus 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.
2266In reality <em>we</em> are richer than the bugmen hipsters who blew hundreds of dollars on a faux-folksy party.
2267In this case, we owned the firepit and had easy access and permission to the chairs, thus we are more economically flexible than they are.
2268That GDP that they produced/expended is evidence of deeper reliance on the economic system.
2269That 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.
2270</p>
2271
2272<p>
2273Much 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.
2274An economically self-sufficient village with close social relationships and a barter economy has 0 GDP.
2275A township of entrepreneurs and artisans you partially barter and partially use currency which they don't report has 0 GDP.
2276All of these people are "in poverty" and "earn less than a dollar a day".
2277And if you want to be truly self-sufficient, that means having a personal GDP of zero.
2278</p>
2279
2280<p>
2281More than that, pretty much everywhere, GDP is a strong indicator of social upheaval.
2282If 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>.
2283Or, 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!
2284The GDP just went up!
2285The Ganges is polluted due to the textile plant? That just means more opportunities for local entrepreneurs to sell bottled water!
2286The GDP just went up!
2287Are 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!
2288With 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.
2289</p>
2290
2291<p>
2292To 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.
2293I'm also not specifically arguing that industrialization is generally bad (I do think that, but my point here is irrelevant to it).
2294Simply 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".
2295GDP is a bad justification for Whig history, and in areas of personal independence, it's not a good indicator.
2296</p>
2297]]></description>
2298</item>
2299
2300
2301<item>
2302<title>Note to newfriends: Don't share my content on 4chan!</title>
2303<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#note-to-newfriends--don-t-share-my-content-on-4chan-</guid>
2304<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:51:00 -0500</pubDate>
2305<description><![CDATA[
2306<p>
2307Hi there! It appears you're new to 4chan.
2308</p>
2309
2310<p>
2311Maybe you heard about it on Reddit or one of the other Content Aggregation sites you frequent.
2312Since you're new, let me let you in on a little secret...
2313You see, 4chan doesn't work like other sites.
2314You don't get upvotes for sharing content and no 4chan user cares about e-celebs.
2315</p>
2316
2317<p>
2318You see, maybe you really like the videos I put out on YouTube.
2319Maybe they've really changed your life even.
2320That's great!
2321Unfortunately, it is not polite to share my videos on 4chan!
2322Not polite to me, nor to 4chan users!
2323</p>
2324
2325<p>
2326You see, on 4chan, anonymity is paramount and e-celebrities are frowned upon.
2327Linking to my content unsolicited looks like an extremely cringey advertisement!
2328If 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.
2329However, uninvited links to my content, especially saying "Wow look what Luke Smith did" when no one asks is the highest form of faux pas.
2330</p>
2331
2332<p>
2333Since 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.
2334I am very ashamed when I see my personality brought up my a cringey fan on 4chan.
2335As I've become more popular, this evokes stronger and stronger feelings of jealousy among 4chan users.
2336Thus sharing my content is not appropriate behavior there, although on other sites it might be fine!
2337</p>
2338
2339<p>
2340Remember that everyone who matters on /g/ already watches my channel.
2341Those who don't know about it could easily find my tutorials and other content on any topic by searching for them if needed.
2342On 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.
2343</p>
2344<p>
2345Or as they user to say in the old days: lurk moar.
2346Or at least go back to Reddit where you belong!
2347</p>
2348]]></description>
2349</item>
2350
2351
2352<item>
2353<title>I DAB ON ALL YOU NERDS</title>
2354<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#i-dab-on-all-you-nerds</guid>
2355<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:09:10 -0500</pubDate>
2356<description><![CDATA[
2357<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>
2358]]></description>
2359</item>
2360
2361
2362<item>
2363<title>Please be on the lookout for this phenomenon among pretentious Zoomers</title>
2364<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#please-be-on-the-lookout-for-this-phenomenon-among-pretentious-zoomers</guid>
2365<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2018 01:47:33 -0500</pubDate>
2366<description><![CDATA[
2367<p>
2368I've noticed an as-of-yet undescribed linguistic habit among Zoomers (born from late 1990's) who fancy themselves big-braned.
2369If 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.
2370</p>
2371
2372<p>
2373To 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...
2374It's some unique way of posturing their mouth, but I can't say what exactly this is articulatorily.
2375</p>
2376
2377<p>
2378I want to compile more examples of this.
2379I actually don't want to link specific examples of this because I'm curious first if other people have noticed this in certain personalities.
2380If 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.
2381Full report later.
2382</p>
2383]]></description>
2384</item>
2385
2386
2387<item>
2388<title>How to find minimalist programs</title>
2389<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-to-find-minimalist-programs</guid>
2390<pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2018 18:54:28 -0500</pubDate>
2391<description><![CDATA[
2392<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>
2393
2394<p>Pretty simple, but I'll repeat the url recommendations here, some of which I'm sure you've seen:</p>
2395
2396<ul>
2397<li><a target="_blank" href="https://lukesmith.xyz/programs">My own list of programs that I use.</a></li>
2398<li><a target="_blank" href="https://suckless.org/rocks/">The suckless website of programs that "rock"</a></li>
2399<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>
2400<li><a target="_blank" href="http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/">"Harmful" and "less harmful" programs from cat -v</a></li>
2401<li><a target="_blank" href="https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/List_of_recommended_GNU/Linux_software">Install Gentoo wiki recommendations</a></li>
2402</ul>
2403]]></description>
2404</item>
2405
2406
2407<item>
2408<title>Podcast syndicated on Spotify</title>
2409<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#podcast-syndicated-on-spotify</guid>
2410<pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2018 12:29:17 -0500</pubDate>
2411<description><![CDATA[
2412<p>
2413Just 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>!
2414Obviously 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.
2415</p>
2416
2417<p>
2418There 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>
2419</p>
2420]]></description>
2421</item>
2422
2423
2424<item>
2425<title>Video up on zathura for reading pdfs, djvus, epubs and everything else</title>
2426<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-zathura-for-reading-pdfs--djvus--epubs-and-everything-else</guid>
2427<pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2018 11:34:39 -0500</pubDate>
2428<description><![CDATA[
2429<p>
2430A 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>.
2431</p>
2432
2433<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Iz4zdyRM4">Here it is!</a></p>
2434
2435<p>Zathura is great because:</p>
2436
2437<ul>
2438	<li>It's vim-based and the shortcuts can be easily configured.</li>
2439	<li>It is very small, modular and a very quick load and quite responsive.</li>
2440	<li>It provides keyboard access to zooming, bookmarking, indexes and everything in between.</li>
2441	<li>It autodetects changes in currently open files.</li>
2442	<li>It can read standard input, which I discuss a recent use case of mine.</li>
2443	<li>It can also function modally for giving presentations and other things.</li>
2444	<li>It's modular and can be easily expanded to read pdfs, djvus, postscript files, epubs, comic books, etc.</li>
2445</ul>
2446
2447<p>Check the video, and the program out!</p>
2448]]></description>
2449</item>
2450
2451
2452<item>
2453<title>Battlestation repair video!</title>
2454<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#battlestation-repair-video-</guid>
2455<pubDate>Fri, 23 Nov 2018 18:42:02 -0500</pubDate>
2456<description><![CDATA[
2457<p>
2458I 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.
2459I've now put <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0a7GegepvI">the video of me doing just that up</a>.
2460You can look at it as a kind of tutorial, but I was sort of learning as I went myself.
2461</p>
2462
2463<p>
2464The 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.
2465It's a quite easy process.
2466It really amounts to sanding the thing down with increasing grits of sandpaper, then spraying several coats of lacquer staggered by drying times.
2467The end result is quite impressive given how disgusting the original was.
2468</p>
2469]]></description>
2470</item>
2471
2472
2473<item>
2474<title>Adobe Reader is LITERALLY Hitler</title>
2475<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#adobe-reader-is-literally-hitler</guid>
2476<pubDate>Thu, 22 Nov 2018 11:45:30 -0500</pubDate>
2477<description><![CDATA[
2478<p>Happy Thanksgiving Amerimutts!</p>
2479
2480<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>
2481]]></description>
2482</item>
2483
2484
2485<item>
2486<title>Not Related! Site under construction</title>
2487<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related--site-under-construction</guid>
2488<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:56:37 -0500</pubDate>
2489<description><![CDATA[
2490<p>
2491I'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.
2492Plus, Libsyn is a pain for dealing with SSL/HTTPS despite charging me an extra $2 a month just to have an external site.
2493Thanks, nnnnguys, but I think I'll do it myself now.
2494HTTPS is now active on NotRelated.xyz (free of course) thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://certbot.eff.org/">certbot</a> (fekkin BASTE).
2495</p>
2496
2497<p>
2498Only trouble now is I'm still deciding exactly what to do for the new site or how... ;-)
2499Right now it's a semi-clone of my website format with relevant links, but that will change soon.
2500I 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.
2501I'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.
2502</p>
2503
2504<p>
2505<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.
2506This 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.
2507Gloria Deo that I don't have to do any of that manually.
2508Syndication on Spotify and iHeartRadio is also underway.
2509I'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.
2510"It just werks" in action boys.
2511If 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.
2512Maccucks will still, unironically and unabashedly defend this.
2513</p>
2514]]></description>
2515</item>
2516
2517
2518<item>
2519<title>How do you do URLs or hyperlinks in a groff or troff document?</title>
2520<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-do-you-do-urls-or-hyperlinks-in-a-groff-or-troff-document-</guid>
2521<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2018 14:07:51 -0500</pubDate>
2522<description><![CDATA[
2523<p>A question for groff/troff veterans whose knowledge extends beyond mine. Subject explains it all.</p>
2524
2525<p>
2526I 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.
2527If you know, your help is appreciated!
2528Email here: <a href="mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz">luke@lukesmith.xyz</a>!
2529</p>
2530
2531<p>
2532The 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
2533(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).
2534I'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.
2535</p>
2536]]></description>
2537</item>
2538
2539
2540<item>
2541<title>Video on eqn: Formatting Math and Statistics in groff and troff</title>
2542<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-eqn--formatting-math-and-statistics-in-groff-and-troff</guid>
2543<pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2018 20:13:12 -0500</pubDate>
2544<description><![CDATA[
2545<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>
2546
2547<p>In the vid, we go from basic math to square roots, summation, integrals, defining <code>eqn</code> macros and doing inline code.</p>
2548
2549<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>
2550]]></description>
2551</item>
2552
2553
2554<item>
2555<title>Not Related!: When You're Too Rational to Be Rational!</title>
2556<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related---when-you-re-too-rational-to-be-rational-</guid>
2557<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:27:15 -0500</pubDate>
2558<description><![CDATA[
2559<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>
2560
2561<p>
2562The topic is the reality of what is actually "logical" in the brain and in human action.
2563In 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.
2564</p>
2565
2566<p>
2567But 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>.
2568From 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.
2569</p>
2570
2571<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>
2572]]></description>
2573</item>
2574
2575<item>
2576<title>mutt-wizard ProtonMail Bridge compatibility</title>
2577<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#mutt-wizard-protonmail-bridge-compatibility</guid>
2578<pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 2018 19:26:26 -0500</pubDate>
2579<description><![CDATA[
2580<p>
2581I've had a lot of people ask if mutt-wizard can work with ProtonMail's encypted mail.
2582The 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.
2583</p>
2584
2585<p>
2586<em>ProtonMail Bridge</em> requires a paid account to use, but if you have one, I encourage you to try it with mutt.
2587I've just push a commit that <em>should</em> give mutt-wizard compatibility with ProtonMail and PM Bridge.
2588Since 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 ;-)
2589</p>
2590]]></description>
2591</item>
2592
2593
2594<item>
2595<title>Not-Quite-Livestream in preparation</title>
2596<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-quite-livestream-in-preparation</guid>
2597<pubDate>Sun, 11 Nov 2018 16:42:23 -0500</pubDate>
2598<description><![CDATA[
2599<p>I'm preparing/uploading the Not-Quite-Livestream right now.
2600I believe you can access the <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/K-FmqXbPpFQ">chatroom right now</a>!
2601I'm in the chatroom myself now and I'll answer questions so long as it isn't TL;DR.
2602Once the video has finished uploading and processing, it should play for everyone.
2603</p>
2604
2605<p>
2606Hope you enjoy the experiment!
2607I'm hoping to do real livestreams soon with my neighbor's wifi lmao.
2608</p>
2609]]></description>
2610</item>
2611
2612
2613<item>
2614<title>Quick tutorial on generating QR codes</title>
2615<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#quick-tutorial-on-generating-qr-codes</guid>
2616<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2018 14:27:35 -0500</pubDate>
2617<description><![CDATA[
2618<p>
2619I've just put up a brief video on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/2WTljV8_9S8">making your own QR codes</a>.
2620I 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.
2621</p>
2622
2623<p>
2624For 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.
2625I illustrate it in the video for those of you too intelligent to just run <code>qrencode -h</code>.
2626</p>
2627]]></description>
2628</item>
2629
2630
2631<item>
2632<title>"Live"streams coming back!</title>
2633<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#-live-streams-coming-back-</guid>
2634<pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2018 20:07:31 -0500</pubDate>
2635<description><![CDATA[
2636<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>
2637
2638<p>After a lot of requests, I'm going to start doing livestreams again.
2639Problem is, until next January, I won't have consistent internet at my home to make that possible.
2640So we can manage a little workaround:
2641</p>
2642
2643<p>
2644I'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>.
2645I'll record full responses to questions in the same way I would do a livestream.
2646I'll probably also come with other content prepared.
2647</p>
2648
2649<p>
2650Then, 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.
2651Everyone can watch it together then, talking in the chat.
2652Obviously I'll be in the chatroom as it plays for everyone simultaneously.
2653</p>
2654
2655<p>I'm planning to release this video <b>Sunday afternoon</b>.</p>
2656
2657<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.
2658I'm not entirely sure when I'm going to be recording the video, but I suspect sometime Saturday.
2659If you miss that window though, I'll read your donation and talk about what you want next time, so no problem.
2660</p>
2661]]></description>
2662</item>
2663
2664
2665<item>
2666<title>Big reshuffling of scripts in LARBS dotfiles</title>
2667<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#big-reshuffling-of-scripts-in-larbs-dotfiles</guid>
2668<pubDate>Mon, 05 Nov 2018 17:57:04 -0500</pubDate>
2669<description><![CDATA[
2670<p>In addition to the changes I mentioned yesterday to LARBS,
2671I'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.
2672All of these directories are now added automatically to the path with this line in <code>~/.profile</code>:
2673</p>
2674
2675<p><code>
2676export PATH="$(du $HOME/.scripts/ | cut -f2 | tr '
2677' ':')$PATH"
2678</code></p>
2679
2680<p>
2681These 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.
2682</p>
2683]]></description>
2684</item>
2685
2686
2687<item>
2688<title>Some potentially relevant changes in LARBS today</title>
2689<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#some-potentially-relevant-changes-in-larbs-today</guid>
2690<pubDate>Sun, 04 Nov 2018 17:58:57 -0500</pubDate>
2691<description><![CDATA[
2692<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.
2693To 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>
2694
2695<ul>
2696	<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>
2697	<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>
2698	<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>
2699	<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>
2700</ul>
2701]]></description>
2702</item>
2703
2704
2705<item>
2706<title>Possible email downage today</title>
2707<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#possible-email-downage-today</guid>
2708<pubDate>Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:38:59 -0400</pubDate>
2709<description><![CDATA[
2710<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.
2711If 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.
2712</p>
2713]]></description>
2714</item>
2715
2716
2717<item>
2718<title>Bibliographies and references automatically with refer in groff</title>
2719<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#bibliographies-and-references-automatically-with-refer-in-groff</guid>
2720<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2018 11:33:31 -0400</pubDate>
2721<description><![CDATA[
2722<p>
2723New 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>
2724You now should be able to get your term papers done in groff pretty easily! 😉
2725</p>
2726
2727<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.
2728<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.
2729</p>
2730
2731<p>
2732I 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.
2733I haven't tried it on others, but it may have some level of functionality, despite being intended for papers and such.
2734</p>
2735]]></description>
2736</item>
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741<item>
2742<title>Okay, now THIS is epic. (groff correction)</title>
2743<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#okay--now-this-is-epic---groff-correction-</guid>
2744<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 17:02:03 -0400</pubDate>
2745<description><![CDATA[
2746<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>
2747
2748<p>
2749One 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!
2750Now THIS is ebin.
2751Thanks again, Efe, for this emendation.
2752You still can do it in the way I mentioned, but would you really want to when its this easy?
2753<p>
2754
2755<p>
2756Remember 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.
2757That 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>.
2758Feel free to post whatever you find or email me about it, chances are, I might be just as pleasantly surprised as you.
2759</p>
2760]]></description>
2761</item>
2762
2763
2764<item>
2765<title>Looking for LARBS-user submissions!</title>
2766<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-larbs-user-submissions-</guid>
2767<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:50:21 -0400</pubDate>
2768<description><![CDATA[
2769<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.
2770LARBS.xyz proper is now up again, and I'm going to be beautifying it and adding content.
2771</p>
2772
2773<p>
2774As 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".
2775While 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.
2776</p>
2777
2778<p>
2779In 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>.
2780Maybe 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.
2781I want people to have an idea of how LARBS has positively affected users' setups regardless.
2782</p>
2783
2784<p>
2785So 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.
2786I just want stuff that will give people an idea of what they're getting into in using LARBS.
2787</p>
2788]]></description>
2789</item>
2790
2791
2792
2793<item>
2794	<title>Accented and other unicode characters in groff/troff</title>
2795<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#accented-and-other-unicode-characters-in-grofftroff</guid>
2796<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 14:41:24 -0400</pubDate>
2797<description><![CDATA[
2798<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>
2799
2800<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>
2801
2802<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>
2803
2804<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>
2805
2806<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>
2807
2808<code>
2809autocmd Filetype groff inoremap á \*[']a</br>
2810autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Á \*[']A</br>
2811autocmd Filetype groff inoremap é \*[']e</br>
2812autocmd Filetype groff inoremap É \*[']E</br>
2813autocmd Filetype groff inoremap í \*[']i</br>
2814autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Í \*[']I</br>
2815autocmd Filetype groff inoremap ó \*[']o</br>
2816autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Ó \*[']O</br>
2817autocmd Filetype groff inoremap ú \*[']u</br>
2818autocmd Filetype groff inoremap Ú \*[']U</br>
2819</code>
2820
2821<p>You can add what you want.</p>
2822
2823<p>
2824Be 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.
2825</p>
2826]]></description>
2827</item>
2828
2829
2830<item>
2831<title>LaTeX OWNED EPIC STYLE by LOGICAL UNIX COMPLIANCE of groff and refer</title>
2832<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#latex-owned-epic-style-by-logical-unix-compliance-of-groff-and-refer</guid>
2833<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:51:04 -0400</pubDate>
2834<description><![CDATA[
2835<p>
2836I 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>.
2837</p>
2838
2839<p>
2840Check it out yourself, but needless to say, groff gets the job done just as well in a small sliver of the time LaTeX takes.
2841<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.
2842As 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.
2843</p>
2844]]></description>
2845</item>
2846
2847
2848<item>
2849<title>New addresses for Crypto: Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash</title>
2850<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-addresses-for-crypto-ethereum-litecoin-and-dash</guid>
2851<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:55:23 -0400</pubDate>
2852<description><![CDATA[
2853<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.
2854</p>
2855
2856<p>
2857Due 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.
2858</p>
2859
2860<p>
2861I might put up some QR codes for each address later if some people have to have them.
2862</p>
2863]]></description>
2864</item>
2865
2866
2867<item>
2868<title>Easy emoji use with dmenu</title>
2869<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#easy-emoji-use-with-dmenu</guid>
2870<pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2018 15:08:22 -0400</pubDate>
2871<description><![CDATA[
2872<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.
2873Check it out, and if you have any dmenu/fzf hacks of your own feel free to share.
2874</p>
2875
2876<p>
2877Incidentally, 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!
2878</p>
2879]]></description>
2880</item>
2881
2882
2883<item>
2884<title>Macros in groff and troff and other basic formatting</title>
2885<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#macros-in-groff-and-troff-and-other-basic-formatting</guid>
2886<pubDate>Sun, 28 Oct 2018 09:46:41 -0400</pubDate>
2887<description><![CDATA[
2888<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>
2889
2890<p>
2891Since 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).
2892</p>
2893]]></description>
2894</item>
2895
2896
2897<item>
2898<title>groff/troff: When LaTeX and Pandoc are bloat</title>
2899<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#grofftroff-when-latex-and-pandoc-are-bloat</guid>
2900<pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2018 16:15:31 -0400</pubDate>
2901<description><![CDATA[
2902<p>
2903I'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>
2904troff (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.
2905</p>
2906
2907<p>
2908I've been playing around with it for a while now and am continually impressed with how easy it is.
2909Its 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.
2910</p>
2911
2912<p>
2913I hope the video piques your interest and there will be extensions coming out very soon. ;-)
2914</p>
2915]]></description>
2916</item>
2917
2918
2919<item>
2920<title>When I bring back the forum, what should its name be?</title>
2921<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#when-i-bring-back-the-forum-what-should-its-name-be</guid>
2922<pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2018 01:37:31 -0400</pubDate>
2923<description><![CDATA[
2924<p>
2925Some people have already noticed that I revitalized <a target="_blank" href="https://forum.lukesmith.xyz">forum.lukesmith.xyz</a>.
2926They've noticed because there are people who are periodically F5ing it still.
2927Yes. 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.
2928Right now, it's not yet open to the public, but it will be soon.
2929I'll update you when that happens via RSS, and might even put up a video.
2930</p>
2931
2932<p>
2933A 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:
2934</p>
2935
2936<ul>
2937	<li><b>Luke's GNU/Forum</b> (the tried-and-true old name)</li>
2938	<li><b>Uncle Luke's Cabin</b> (sounds somewhat ghey, but I think most people get the proper reference)</li>
2939	<li><b>Uncle Luke's GNU/Cabin</b> (combo of those two, I'm leaning to this right now)</li>
2940	<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>
2941</ul>
2942
2943<p>
2944Note 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.
2945I might link forum.notrelated.xyz to it though.
2946</p>
2947
2948<p>
2949I will say I plan on branding the site with my name.
2950Some 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.
2951Frankly 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.
2952I'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.
2953</p>
2954]]></description>
2955</item>
2956
2957
2958<item>
2959<title>Video review and overview of the Slice Battery for ThinkPads</title>
2960<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-review-and-overview-of-the-slice-battery-for-thinkpads</guid>
2961<pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:34:24 -0400</pubDate>
2962<description><![CDATA[
2963<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>
2964
2965<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>
2966]]></description>
2967</item>
2968
2969
2970<item>
2971<title>Looking for Land for Uncle Luke's Cabin</title>
2972<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#looking-for-land-for-uncle-lukes-cabin</guid>
2973<pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2018 09:46:47 -0400</pubDate>
2974<description><![CDATA[
2975<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>
2976]]></description>
2977</item>
2978
2979
2980<item>
2981<title>Livestream for those who missed it</title>
2982<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#livestream-for-those-who-missed-it</guid>
2983<pubDate>Sat, 13 Oct 2018 08:03:03 -0400</pubDate>
2984<description><![CDATA[
2985<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.
2986Thanks 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:
2987</p>
2988
2989<ul>
2990	<li>$29 Opinion discarded</li>
2991	<li>$10 Apocalypse Lemon</li>
2992	<li>$10 Robert Smith</li>
2993	<li>$10 Nate Edwards</li>
2994	<li>$5 Dominick Allen</li>
2995	<li>$4 Yawning Gull</li>
2996	<li>£2 Dink Dinkleberg</li>
2997	<li>€1 Daniel Gómez Bellido</li>
2998	<li>$2 YouTube</li>
2999	<li>$2 LibertarianBot</li>
3000</ul>
3001
3002<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>
3003]]></description>
3004</item>
3005
3006
3007<item>
3008<title>Trip up Country and Looking for Land</title>
3009<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#trip-up-country-and-looking-for-land</guid>
3010<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2018 23:38:09 -0400</pubDate>
3011<description><![CDATA[
3012<p>
3013This coming weekend, I'll be taking a partially-family-related-partially-personal trip up to Indiana with some crucial stops on the way.
3014The 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.
3015</p>
3016
3017<p>
3018Anyway, 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.
3019On my way back from my trip, I'll be stopping in Tennessee to look at some parcels.
3020I 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).
3021I'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
3022</p>
3023
3024<p>
3025I've picked Tennessee because it's still relatively close to my family, but is politically and regulatorily much better than Georgia.
3026There's low property tax, no state income tax, relatively free homeschooling and apparently less zoning/building restrictions in most places.
3027Georgia 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.
3028Of 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.
3029</p>
3030
3031<p>
3032I'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>
3033
3034<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>
3035]]></description>
3036</item>
3037
3038
3039<item>
3040<title>Episode on the 10,000 Year Explosion and Pandora's Seed</title>
3041<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#episode-on-the-10000-year-explosion-and-pandoras-seed</guid>
3042<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2018 19:25:08 -0400</pubDate>
3043<description><![CDATA[
3044<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>
3045
3046<p>
3047We 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.
3048</p>
3049
3050<p>Remember to add <a href="https://notrelated.libsyn.com/rss">the RSS link</a> if you haven't already.</p>
3051]]></description>
3052</item>
3053
3054
3055<item>
3056<title>Not Related! episode will be up soon</title>
3057<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#not-related-episode-will-be-up-soon</guid>
3058<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2018 17:54:35 -0400</pubDate>
3059<description><![CDATA[
3060<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>
3061]]></description>
3062</item>
3063
3064
3065<item>
3066<title>Video up on Bash settings and aliases</title>
3067<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-up-on-bash-settings-and-aliases</guid>
3068<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2018 12:10:00 -0400</pubDate>
3069<description><![CDATA[
3070<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>
3071]]></description>
3072</item>
3073
3074
3075<item>
3076<title>Break week</title>
3077<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#break-week</guid>
3078<pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:24:22 -0400</pubDate>
3079<description><![CDATA[
3080<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>
3081
3082<p>
3083You may've noticed I haven't done a livestream in a while, but I'm thinking to start again.
3084I'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.
3085</p>
3086]]></description>
3087</item>
3088
3089
3090<item>
3091<title>Any Paleo-Anthropologists or geneticists reading? On the Toba Population Bottleneck</title>
3092<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#any-paleoanthropologists-or-geneticists-reading-on-the-toba-population-bottleneck</guid>
3093<pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2018 12:20:15 -0400</pubDate>
3094<description><![CDATA[
3095<p>
3096There'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.
3097This is something you've probably heard <em>ad nauseam</em> in every popular science depiction of human prehistory, I sure have.
3098I 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.
3099</p>
3100
3101<p>
3102I 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>.
3103Now 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.
3104</p>
3105
3106<p>
3107I'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.
3108As 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.
3109</p>
3110
3111<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.
3112As 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).
3113Is this idea well-accepted?
3114Is the circumstantial evidence for it considered up to snuff?
3115Are there good reasons to think it's <em>not</em> true?
3116Email me what you think.
3117</p>
3118]]></description>
3119</item>
3120
3121
3122<item>
3123<title>Democracy: The Rule of NPCs</title>
3124<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#democracy-the-rule-of-npcs</guid>
3125<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2018 19:15:47 -0400</pubDate>
3126<description><![CDATA[
3127<p>
3128<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>.
3129</p>
3130
3131
3132<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>
3133]]></description>
3134</item>
3135
3136
3137<item>
3138<title>R.I.P. Lincucks! Some comments on recent events</title>
3139<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#rip-lincucks-some-comments-on-recent-events</guid>
3140<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2018 21:24:14 -0400</pubDate>
3141<description><![CDATA[
3142<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwn3gIipCjU">A video on the recent Linux code of conduct controversy.</a></p>
3143
3144<p>Next episode of <em>Not Related!</em> will be recorded tomorrow.</p>
3145]]></description>
3146</item>
3147
3148
3149<item>
3150<title>Yes, I'm doing a video on it...</title>
3151<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#yes-im-doing-a-video-on-it</guid>
3152<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2018 13:59:23 -0400</pubDate>
3153<description><![CDATA[
3154<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>
3155]]></description>
3156</item>
3157
3158
3159<item>
3160<title>SSL cert failures with Gmail accounts (mutt-wizard)</title>
3161<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#ssl-cert-failures-with-gmail-accounts-muttwizard</guid>
3162<pubDate>Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:41:55 -0400</pubDate>
3163<description><![CDATA[
3164<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>
3165
3166<p>To solve this, do one of the following:</p>
3167
3168<ul>
3169	<li>Downgrade to an earlier version of offlineimap/OpenSSL</li>
3170	<li>Add <code>ssl_version=tls1_2</code> to the remote Gmail repository in <code>~/.offlineimaprc</code>.</li>
3171	<li>Sit and wait for a fix.</li>
3172	<li>Stop using Gmail :varg: (my favorite ;-))</li>
3173</ul>
3174
3175<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>
3176]]></description>
3177</item>
3178
3179
3180<item>
3181<title>Le Purity-Spiral Nationalism</title>
3182<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#le-purityspiral-nationalism</guid>
3183<pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 01:23:12 -0400</pubDate>
3184<description><![CDATA[
3185<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>
3186
3187<p>
3188The 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.
3189On 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.
3190It 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.
3191</p>
3192
3193<p>
3194I 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.
3195</p>
3196]]></description>
3197</item>
3198
3199
3200<item>
3201<title>THICC podcast episode coming</title>
3202<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#thicc-podcast-episode-coming</guid>
3203<pubDate>Sun, 09 Sep 2018 23:35:35 -0400</pubDate>
3204<description><![CDATA[
3205<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>
3206
3207<p>I've already recorded <em>an hour and twenty minutes</em>, which requires a lot of stopping and rerecording and audio fixes.
3208As 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.
3209</p>
3210
3211<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>
3212]]></description>
3213</item>
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218<item>
3219<title>Terry Davis has died.</title>
3220<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#terry-davis-has-died</guid>
3221<pubDate>Sat, 08 Sep 2018 09:51:50 -0400</pubDate>
3222<description><![CDATA[
3223<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>
3224
3225<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>
3226]]></description>
3227</item>
3228
3229
3230<item>
3231<title>We need to start studying NPCs scientifically</title>
3232<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#we-need-to-start-studying-npcs-scientifically</guid>
3233<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2018 19:39:44 -0400</pubDate>
3234<description><![CDATA[
3235<p>
3236The talk of the meme-o-sphere recently has been on NPCs (non-player characters), not in video games, but in real life.
3237Originally, "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.
3238</p>
3239
3240<p>
3241For 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".
3242One might also be reminded of the quip of James Huneker on Chopin's &Eacute;tude Op. 25, Num. 11 (better known nowadays by being quoted by Douglass Hofstadter in G&ouml;del, Escher, Bach) that "small-souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should avoid it".
3243Of 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.
3244Different societies and cultures are liable to create different levels of consciousness in people.
3245</p>
3246
3247<p>
3248There seems to be circumstantial evidence everywhere that the internal worlds of others just are not quite the same as ours.
3249There'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?
3250</p>
3251
3252<p>
3253I dont think this question is answerable in the scientific mindset we currently have.
3254More interesting as a hint would be a deeper understanding, albeit indirect of what other people's inner worlds are like.
3255I'm sort of curious to hear what <b>your</b> inner life is like, and how you experience "thinking" if it's something unique.
3256</p>
3257
3258<p>
3259I'll do my part and share with others my mental life.
3260I do have internal speech and am not an NPC and am indeed conscious.
3261My internal speech is a little bit different from how I hear others describe theirs.
3262Sometimes, usually when I'm thinking very slowly and deliberately, I think at only slightly faster than enunciated English in real life.
3263Most 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.
3264This 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.
3265</p>
3266
3267<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.
3268</p>
3269
3270<p>
3271I'd probably say that most of my mental time does <em>not</em> use this kind of internal speech.
3272It's not that I'm unconscious, but because I usually think about more abstract and non-linear things with interlocking, organic shapes.
3273This 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.
3274The 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.
3275The 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.
3276I think this is some kind of felt vision into the structure of intuition more than anything else.
3277</p>
3278
3279<p>As a minor detail, I also have no cognitive "me". Or at least not unless I want one.
3280What 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).
3281These are sometimes called the "I" and "me".
3282I can easily imagine myself, say, taking a walk and seeing myself walking from above, but that's not something I regularly do without prodding.
3283Whenever I imagine myself doing something, I see everything from my own eyes unless deliberately trying to do otherwise.
3284</p>
3285
3286<p>
3287Anyway, 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.
3288If 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.
3289</p>
3290]]></description>
3291</item>
3292
3293
3294<item>
3295<title>Alex Jones, increasingly BASED, now even more banned from everything</title>
3296<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#alex-jones-increasingly-based-now-even-more-banned-from-everything</guid>
3297<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2018 19:34:15 -0400</pubDate>
3298<description><![CDATA[
3299<p>Well-known and loved water-filter merchant Alex Jones was banned from Twitter, in a move that shocked no one.
3300After 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>
3301
3302<p>Thankfully, the straw that broke the camel's back was absolutely based.
3303The 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.
3304The 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.
3305After 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.
3306</p>
3307
3308<p>
3309Journo-bugmen and pseudo-intellects in universities have been subjecting Americans to a non-stop humiliation-fest and struggle session since at least the 1960s.
3310These people are literally paid by corporations and government organizations to demean, destroy and "deconstruct" the lives of the people that pay their bills.
3311They circulate baseless folklore and conspiracy theories about non-bugmen.
3312They live obliviously and smugly sit and design what they want the world of others to look like.
3313They 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.
3314Their pretenses only exist in their isolated world where they can't be debated, made fun of, humiliated or held accountable.
3315They're also just dumb.
3316</p>
3317
3318<p>Alex's unpardonable sin is subjecting one of these chosen beings, one of these Excelsites to mockery.
3319Alex deserves a lot of credit for making this joker tear up.
3320Hopefully you're going to see a lot more of it too from more people.
3321If 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.
3322The real solution is Chad Nationalism, Day of the Swirly, all that.
3323Buglibs are not serious people. Don't take them seriously. Bugmen only exist because we allow that psychological type to fester.
3324One might want to reread Uncle Ted's section on "the Psychology of Modern Leftism" as a reminder.
3325</p>
3326
3327<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>
3328
3329<ul>
3330<li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.infowars.com/feed/custom_feed_rss">https://www.infowars.com/feed/custom_feed_rss</a> (Articles)</li>
3331<li><a target="_blank" href="http://xml.nfowars.net/Alex.rss">http://xml.nfowars.net/Alex.rss</a> (Alex Jones's show)</li>
3332</ul>
3333
3334<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>
3335
3336<p>The greatest part is that for the shitlib hivemind, it's just not enough!
3337Bugman brainlets are not scREEEsching about Alex being even allowed on the site in the first place.
3338</p>
3339
3340<p>By the way, <b>stop using Twitter!</b>
3341Twitter, 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.
3342There are a couple of okay people on Twitter, but most everyone worth following has left or been banned a long time ago.
3343</p>
3344]]></description>
3345</item>
3346
3347
3348<item>
3349<title>NotRelated.xyz Website is now up!</title>
3350<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#notrelatedxyz-website-is-now-up</guid>
3351<pubDate>Tue, 04 Sep 2018 12:08:58 -0400</pubDate>
3352<description><![CDATA[
3353<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.
3354</p>
3355
3356<p>
3357For 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.
3358Of 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>.
3359</p>
3360]]></description>
3361</item>
3362
3363
3364<item>
3365<title>You can now donate Bitcoin!</title>
3366<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#you-can-now-donate-bitcoin</guid>
3367<pubDate>Mon, 03 Sep 2018 11:17:21 -0400</pubDate>
3368<description><![CDATA[
3369<p>I've finally taken the basic step of setting up a Bitcoin wallet, etc. after many requests from users.
3370So you can donate Bitcoin using the address below:
3371</p>
3372
3373<p>1FhhM4KgEzKizGsDRyT49JANYwqMU6AeKx</p>
3374
3375<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>
3376
3377<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>
3378]]></description>
3379</item>
3380
3381
3382<item>
3383<title>My diet following the memes</title>
3384<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#my-diet-following-the-memes</guid>
3385<pubDate>Sun, 02 Sep 2018 23:44:33 -0400</pubDate>
3386<description><![CDATA[
3387<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>
3388
3389<p>
3390Nonetheless, I occasionally get questions about what I eat and as I go on, my functional diet changes, but interesting patterns emerge.
3391Nowadays 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.
3392In my experience, I'm very inclined to agree.
3393In 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.
3394I'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.
3395</p>
3396
3397<p>
3398First, 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.
3399The 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.
3400As 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.
3401Hell, 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.
3402</p>
3403
3404<p>
3405Don't worry, I'm not falling apart. The solution has been easy.
3406Stop eating processed foods. Stop eating sugar. And Stop eating the Virgin Bottom-of-the-Food-Pyramid. Just eat meat.
3407</p>
3408
3409<p>
3410I 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.
3411I 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.
3412I'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:
3413</p>
3414
3415<ul>
3416<li>Chicken thighs/legs covered in garlic powder, garlic salt, thyme and rosemary. 20 minutes on oiled tray in a 425F oven.</li>
3417<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>
3418<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>
3419</ul>
3420
3421<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>
3422
3423<p>And by the way, stop believing Nutrition Facts autism.
3424The reality of nutrition "science" is that the body is a machine far more complex than we understand.
3425The idea that our body needs precisely that 100% of all of those substances that the American government proclaimed back in the 70s is ridiculous.
3426For 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.
3427Some people will tell them they need B12 or something else, but it's far beyond that.
3428Regardless "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.
3429</p>
3430]]></description>
3431</item>
3432
3433
3434<item>
3435<title>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy UP</title>
3436<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#capitalism-socialism-and-democracy-up</guid>
3437<pubDate>Sat, 01 Sep 2018 23:18:55 -0400</pubDate>
3438<description><![CDATA[
3439<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>
3440
3441<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>
3442
3443<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>
3444]]></description>
3445</item>
3446
3447
3448<item>
3449<title>Cell Phones and the Bronze Age Collapse (1177 BC)</title>
3450<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#cell-phones-and-the-bronze-age-collapse-1177-bc</guid>
3451<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2018 15:24:45 -0400</pubDate>
3452<description><![CDATA[
3453<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>
3454
3455<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>
3456
3457<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>
3458
3459<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>
3460]]></description>
3461</item>
3462
3463
3464<item>
3465<title>The Real Bronze-Age Mindset!</title>
3466<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-real-bronze-age-mindset</guid>
3467<pubDate>Thu, 23 Aug 2018 22:54:49 -0400</pubDate>
3468<description><![CDATA[
3469<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.
3470</p>
3471
3472<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>
3473
3474<p>
3475I'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>
3476]]></description>
3477</item>
3478
3479
3480<item>
3481<title>Full MSMTPRC support added to Mutt Wizard</title>
3482<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#full-msmtprc-support-added-to-mutt-wizard</guid>
3483<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:48:04 -0400</pubDate>
3484<description><![CDATA[
3485<p>
3486After 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!
3487</p>
3488
3489<p>
3490Obviously the wizard will safely store your password and decrypt it only when necessary, just like with offlineimap.
3491If 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).
3492I encourage you to try it, partially because if there are errors, I'd like to find out soon! ;-)
3493</p>
3494]]></description>
3495</item>
3496
3497
3498<item>
3499<title>Mfw soydevs would use PHP for this</title>
3500<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#mfw-soydevs-would-use-php-for-this</guid>
3501<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 22:36:38 -0400</pubDate>
3502<description><![CDATA[
3503<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>
3504
3505<p>
3506As 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.
3507</p>
3508
3509<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>
3510
3511<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>
3512]]></description>
3513</item>
3514
3515
3516<item>
3517<title>Intro podcast episode up and RSS feed available.</title>
3518<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#intro-podcast-episode-up-and-rss-feed-available.</guid>
3519<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 22:14:52 -0400</pubDate>
3520<description><![CDATA[
3521<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>
3522
3523<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'
3524ve 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>
3525
3526<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>
3527
3528<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>
3529]]></description>
3530</item>
3531
3532
3533<item>
3534<title>I've deleted my Twitter</title>
3535<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#ive-deleted-my-twitter</guid>
3536<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2018 11:53:04 -0400</pubDate>
3537<description><![CDATA[
3538<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.
3539The 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.
3540An engineered monster, now laying waste to their allotted space.
3541</p>
3542
3543<p>
3544This could be fun for trolls, which I'm not anyway, but even trolling these untouchable elites is now "hate speech" and thus immediately banable.
3545There'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.
3546Twitter 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.
3547I 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.
3548</p>
3549]]></description>
3550</item>
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555<item>
3556<title>Minor blog addition</title>
3557<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#minor-blog-addition</guid>
3558<pubDate>Sat, 11 Aug 2018 19:28:10 -0400</pubDate>
3559<description><![CDATA[
3560<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>
3561
3562<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>
3563
3564<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>
3565
3566<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>
3567]]></description>
3568</item>
3569
3570
3571<item>
3572<title>Podcast series to begin shortly</title>
3573<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#podcast-series-to-begin-shortly</guid>
3574<pubDate>Sat, 11 Aug 2018 19:15:29 -0400</pubDate>
3575<description><![CDATA[
3576<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>
3577
3578<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>
3579
3580<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.
3581Now 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.
3582It would sort of like those people who do "distro" reviews after playing around on a Linux distro for 10 minutes.</p>
3583
3584<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>
3585]]></description>
3586</item>
3587
3588
3589<item>
3590<title>Now THIS is Bash AUTISM!</title>
3591<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#now-this-is-bash-autism</guid>
3592<pubDate>Sun, 05 Aug 2018 19:50:12 -0400</pubDate>
3593<description><![CDATA[
3594<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>
3595]]></description>
3596</item>
3597
3598
3599<item>
3600<title>Don't be a Bash BRAINLET!</title>
3601<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#dont-be-a-bash-brainlet</guid>
3602<pubDate>Sun, 05 Aug 2018 13:08:53 -0400</pubDate>
3603<description><![CDATA[
3604<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>
3605
3606<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>
3607
3608<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>
3609]]></description>
3610</item>
3611
3612
3613<item>
3614<title>Minor hack: Pausing all mpv videos on any screen</title>
3615<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#minor-hack-pausing-all-mpv-videos-on-any-screen</guid>
3616<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2018 23:12:03 -0400</pubDate>
3617<description><![CDATA[
3618<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>
3619
3620<code>xdotool search --class mpv | xargs -I % xdotool key --window % comma</code>
3621
3622<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.
3623So 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.
3624Also, 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.
3625</p>
3626]]></description>
3627</item>
3628
3629
3630<item>
3631<title>Video on cronjobs for managing my system</title>
3632<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-cronjobs-for-managing-my-system</guid>
3633<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2018 22:55:45 -0400</pubDate>
3634<description><![CDATA[
3635<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>
3636
3637<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>
3638
3639<p>Any suggestions on new cronjobs are welcome!</p>
3640]]></description>
3641</item>
3642
3643
3644<item>
3645<title>LARBS is about done</title>
3646<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#larbs-is-about-done</guid>
3647<pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2018 15:22:00 -0400</pubDate>
3648<description><![CDATA[
3649<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.
3650The 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>
3651
3652<p>And boy is it.
3653Aside 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.
3654You 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.
3655E.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 &amp;&amp; sudo make install</code>. Depending on the tag, LARBS will run a different install command as needed.
3656Note 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.
3657A nice little addition.
3658</p>
3659
3660<p>So you can easily setup a your own LARBS now.
3661Since 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.
3662</p>
3663
3664<p>Check it out: <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS">LARBS on Github</a>.</p>
3665]]></description>
3666</item>
3667
3668
3669<item>
3670<title>Scripting in action</title>
3671<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#scripting-in-action</guid>
3672<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:22:52 -0400</pubDate>
3673<description><![CDATA[
3674<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>
3675
3676<p>It's probably part of my sense to not trust anything I didn't write myself ;-)</p>
3677]]></description>
3678</item>
3679
3680
3681<item>
3682<title>How let your root user use your main dotfiles</title>
3683<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-let-your-root-user-use-your-main-dotfiles</guid>
3684<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:24:13 -0400</pubDate>
3685<description><![CDATA[
3686<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.
3687About 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>
3688
3689<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>
3690
3691<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.
3692I didn't think of it before, but you'll also have fewer log files to have to sort through.
3693For 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.
3694Now, however, both accounts use the same history file for bash, and also other programs.</p>
3695
3696<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>
3697]]></description>
3698</item>
3699
3700
3701<item>
3702<title>Download any Academic Article Free: A One-Liner</title>
3703<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#download-any-academic-article-free-a-one-liner</guid>
3704<pubDate>Sat, 28 Jul 2018 10:55:04 -0400</pubDate>
3705<description><![CDATA[
3706<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>
3707
3708<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>
3709
3710<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>
3711
3712<code>
3713shdl() { curl -O $(curl -s http://sci-hub.tw/"$@" | grep location.href | grep -o http.*pdf) ;}
3714</code>
3715
3716<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>
3717
3718<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>
3719]]></description>
3720</item>
3721
3722
3723<item>
3724<title>Macs, "PCs" and the Power of Public Relations</title>
3725<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#macs-pcs-and-the-power-of-public-relations</guid>
3726<pubDate>Wed, 18 Jul 2018 12:52:58 -0400</pubDate>
3727<description><![CDATA[
3728<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.
3729Even 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&mdash;you would think that Apple would be proud of more or less inventing the idea of a Personal Computer.</p>
3730
3731<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"?
3732At a basic level, PC is just a catch-all exonym, that is, a term for all computers outside of a designated group.
3733In 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.
3734The 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>
3735
3736<p>Regardless, I noticed the actual public relations use of the term "PC" after I did my video on Macs&mdash;this term works wonders in the mind of an Mac fan.
3737That is, nearly every dogmatic Apple user would call me a "PC fanboy"!
3738<em>PC fanboy...</em> what could that possibly mean?</p>
3739
3740<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).
3741I 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.
3742This 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>
3743
3744<p>While on the other hand, "PC fanboy" doesn't really mean anything&mdash;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).
3745A "PC fanboy" in practice just means someone who doesn't like Macs, but that's where the magic is for Apple advertising&mdash;Mac users have always been lampooned as cult members, but the term PC is an attempt redirect the claims of irrational devotion backwards.
3746It 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>
3747
3748<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.
3749I 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.
3750That'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.
3751</p>
3752]]></description>
3753</item>
3754
3755
3756<item>
3757<title>New st patches: Xresources and pywal compatibility</title>
3758<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-st-patches-xresources-and-pywal-compatibility</guid>
3759<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:09:57 -0400</pubDate>
3760<description><![CDATA[
3761<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>
3762
3763<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>
3764
3765<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>
3766
3767<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.
3768While 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.
3769Either 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>
3770]]></description>
3771</item>
3772
3773
3774<item>
3775<title>In Defense of "Pseudoscience"</title>
3776<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#in-defense-of-pseudoscience</guid>
3777<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jul 2018 11:41:49 -0400</pubDate>
3778<description><![CDATA[
3779<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.
3780The 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.
3781Academia 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.
3782</p>
3783
3784<p>Thus the term "pseudoscience".
3785In former centuries, there was no such division between "science" and "pseudoscience".
3786Researchers wrote tomes on subjects which were amalgams of hard analysis and what we would now consider baseless or unwarranted speculation.
3787Each were understood for what they were, all ideas were on the table for analysis.
3788</p>
3789
3790<p>The thing is, all academics&mdash;at least all remotely intelligent ones&mdash;quietly harbor fringe beliefs.
3791If you push any of them in private, or with vindicating evidence, they'll quickly bounce to support their deeper intuition.
3792One 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.
3793Nowadays he brushes shoulders even with the ancient aliens crowd, and why shouldn't he?
3794Once you've earned the designation of "pseudoscientist", you might as well go full-bore and have fun.
3795</p>
3796
3797<p>The other best-kept secret is that by definition, "pseudoscience" drives advancement in "real science".
3798All new ideas start out as baseless speculation&mdash;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.
3799I wouldn't doubt if Schoch's Sphinx water erosion hypothesis will be similarly vindicated, partially by the many Mesolithic constructions found since then.
3800</p>
3801
3802<p>
3803In linguistics and archeology, we have a recent "pseudoscientist" in Marija Gimbutas.
3804Gimbutas 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.
3805Because Gimutas's politics were socially unassailable, you don't hear "pseudoscientist" around her much, but that's certainly the word on everyone's lips.
3806If pseudoscience is what Schoch is doing, it's certainly what she was doing.
3807Regardless, 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.
3808</p>
3809
3810<p>
3811I've seen first hand that there are really two types of personalities in science.
3812On 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.
3813These people will only truly fight for something when they're on the side of consensus or when the issue is of no social importance.
3814On the other side are the "pseudoscientists", or in other words, the people who actually have something interesting to say.
3815</p>
3816]]></description>
3817</item>
3818
3819
3820<item>
3821<title>Video on copying and pasting from Vim</title>
3822<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-copying-and-pasting-from-vim</guid>
3823<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jul 2018 15:21:27 -0400</pubDate>
3824<description><![CDATA[
3825<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>
3826]]></description>
3827</item>
3828
3829
3830<item>
3831<title>i3blocks reloaded</title>
3832<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#i3blocks-reloaded</guid>
3833<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jul 2018 13:15:30 -0400</pubDate>
3834<description><![CDATA[
3835<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>
3836
3837<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>
3838]]></description>
3839</item>
3840
3841
3842<item>
3843<title>Monetized with Super Chats</title>
3844<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#monetized-with-super-chats</guid>
3845<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jun 2018 13:34:39 -0400</pubDate>
3846<description><![CDATA[
3847<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.
3848I don't have the slightest idea how much money I'll actually end up getting from this, but I hope it's decent enough.
3849</p>
3850
3851<p>
3852Of 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.
3853I 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.
3854</p>
3855
3856<p>The other nice detail is that I can now allow "Super Chats" in livestreams.
3857If 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.
3858I think chats in my livestreams are off decent enough size that people would be willing to get some of these.
3859But then again, now doing le bloodsports seems like a much more appealling prospect. Any takers?
3860</p>
3861]]></description>
3862</item>
3863
3864
3865<item>
3866<title>Redesign of Website</title>
3867<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#redesign-of-website</guid>
3868<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:11:47 -0400</pubDate>
3869<description><![CDATA[
3870<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.
3871YouTube is terrible about showing older videos to users, so it's nice having <em>my own</em> archive of things displayed logically.
3872If 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.
3873I 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>
3874
3875<p>That's actually one of the ironies about YouTube.
3876For 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.
3877It'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>
3878]]></description>
3879</item>
3880
3881
3882<item>
3883<title>A Journey to Athens</title>
3884<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#a-journey-to-athens</guid>
3885<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:04:34 -0400</pubDate>
3886<description><![CDATA[
3887<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>
3888
3889<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.
3890I'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>
3891
3892<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.
3893The better alternative now seems like just buying a parcel of land with the little money I've saved up.
3894My 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.
3895I 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.
3896I'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>
3897
3898<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).
3899Granted, 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 ;-)
3900Don't rip me off though, I have a YouTube channel!
3901</p>
3902]]></description>
3903</item>
3904
3905
3906<item>
3907<title>First Imagemagick Videos</title>
3908<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#first-imagemagick-videos</guid>
3909<pubDate>Sun, 17 Jun 2018 09:13:23 -0400</pubDate>
3910<description><![CDATA[
3911<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>
3912
3913<p>I'll be doing more like this just because of imagemagick being such a huge and useful world. Specific ideas are welcome.</p>
3914]]></description>
3915</item>
3916
3917
3918<item>
3919<title>Updates about Money and Patreon</title>
3920<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#updates-about-money-and-patreon</guid>
3921<pubDate>Sat, 16 Jun 2018 20:31:52 -0400</pubDate>
3922<description><![CDATA[
3923<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>
3924
3925<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.
3926<b>If you're already a patron on Patreon, you might want to change your settings.</b>
3927Specifically, everyone has been grandfathered in from the monthly donation scheme with those settings.
3928If you want to pledge by creation now, you'll have to adjust the per unit donation and your maximum.  </p>
3929
3930<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>
3931
3932<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>
3933]]></description>
3934</item>
3935
3936
3937<item>
3938<title>Video on GIMP basics</title>
3939<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-gimp-basics</guid>
3940<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2018 10:36:55 -0400</pubDate>
3941<description><![CDATA[
3942<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>
3943
3944<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>
3945]]></description>
3946</item>
3947
3948
3949<item>
3950<title>Consciousness, bicamerality and book reviews</title>
3951<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#consciousness-bicamerality-and-book-reviews</guid>
3952<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 21:47:25 -0400</pubDate>
3953<description><![CDATA[
3954<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>
3955
3956<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>
3957
3958<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>
3959
3960<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>
3961]]></description>
3962</item>
3963
3964
3965<item>
3966<title>Linux is the Wild West! Talk is now out</title>
3967<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#linux-is-the-wild-west-talk-is-now-out</guid>
3968<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 13:54:29 -0400</pubDate>
3969<description><![CDATA[
3970<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>
3971
3972<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>
3973
3974<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>
3975]]></description>
3976</item>
3977
3978
3979<item>
3980<title>Linuxfest 2018 review</title>
3981<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#linuxfest-2018-review</guid>
3982<pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 10:43:34 -0400</pubDate>
3983<description><![CDATA[
3984<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>
3985]]></description>
3986</item>
3987
3988
3989<item>
3990<title>Syncthing video, also Patreon changes</title>
3991<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#syncthing-video-also-patreon-changes</guid>
3992<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jun 2018 09:36:10 -0400</pubDate>
3993<description><![CDATA[
3994<p>New video out on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bHdcfVzrgk">Syncthing</a> for keeping files in sync.</p>
3995
3996<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>
3997]]></description>
3998</item>
3999
4000
4001<item>
4002<title>The Secrets in Hamlet's Mill</title>
4003<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#the-secrets-in-hamlets-mill</guid>
4004<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:40:48 -0400</pubDate>
4005<description><![CDATA[
4006<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>
4007
4008<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>
4009
4010<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>
4011]]></description>
4012</item>
4013
4014
4015<item>
4016<title>Lol Linuxfest</title>
4017<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#lol-linuxfest</guid>
4018<pubDate>Sun, 10 Jun 2018 00:12:46 -0400</pubDate>
4019<description><![CDATA[
4020<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>
4021
4022<ul>
4023<li>My subscribers are not nearly as weird as I anticipated, and seem to be actually less weird than the average Linux user.</li>
4024<li>There actually were some girls Linuxfest (although no obvious <font color="green">&gt;girls</font>).</li>
4025<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>
4026<li>Some boomer guy began to unironically "Interject" to my use of the term "Linux" as I used it in the talk ;-)</li>
4027<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>
4028<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>
4029<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>
4030</ul>
4031
4032<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>
4033]]></description>
4034</item>
4035
4036
4037<item>
4038<title>Exile in Suburbia</title>
4039<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#exile-in-suburbia</guid>
4040<pubDate>Thu, 31 May 2018 18:24:26 -0400</pubDate>
4041<description><![CDATA[
4042<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>
4043
4044<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>
4045
4046<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&mdash;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>
4047
4048<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>
4049]]></description>
4050</item>
4051
4052
4053<item>
4054<title>Whomst lives in Georgia?</title>
4055<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#whomst-lives-in-georgia</guid>
4056<pubDate>Sun, 27 May 2018 18:05:00 -0700</pubDate>
4057<description><![CDATA[
4058<p>Friendship ended with Arizona; now Georgia is my best friend.</p>
4059
4060<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>
4061
4062<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>
4063
4064<ul>
4065    <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>
4066    <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>
4067    <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>
4068    <li>Move into Atlanta, get an internship at an NGO, become a bugman (joke choice).</li>
4069</ul>
4070
4071<p>Other data:</p>
4072
4073<ul>
4074    <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>
4075    <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>
4076    <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>
4077</ul>
4078
4079<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>
4080]]></description>
4081</item>
4082
4083
4084<item>
4085<title>Series on Old Norse and Language Learning?</title>
4086<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#series-on-old-norse-and-language-learning</guid>
4087<pubDate>Wed, 23 May 2018 18:23:48 -0700</pubDate>
4088<description><![CDATA[
4089<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>
4090
4091<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>
4092
4093<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>
4094
4095<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>
4096]]></description>
4097</item>
4098
4099
4100<item>
4101<title>Stream soon</title>
4102<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#stream-soon</guid>
4103<pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2018 10:23:59 -0700</pubDate>
4104<description><![CDATA[
4105<p>I'll be doing a stream in a bit, probably within the hour. Keep your eyes peeled on YouTube.</p>
4106]]></description>
4107</item>
4108
4109
4110<item>
4111<title>Forum now has HTTP &amp; SSL (Lunduke BTFO once again)</title>
4112<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#forum-now-has-http--ssl-lunduke-btfo-once-again</guid>
4113<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 20:03:14 -0700</pubDate>
4114<description><![CDATA[
4115<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>
4116
4117<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>
4118]]></description>
4119</item>
4120
4121
4122<item>
4123<title>How I Write Accent Marks and IPA Characters in Vim</title>
4124<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#how-i-write-accent-marks-and-ipa-characters-in-vim</guid>
4125<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 13:54:58 -0700</pubDate>
4126<description><![CDATA[
4127<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>
4128
4129<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>
4130
4131<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>
4132]]></description>
4133</item>
4134
4135
4136<item>
4137<title>Video on the blog system</title>
4138<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#video-on-the-blog-system</guid>
4139<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 09:43:03 -0700</pubDate>
4140<description><![CDATA[
4141<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>
4142
4143<p>Again, the link to the Github repo is <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/lb">here</a>. Enjoy!</p>
4144]]></description>
4145</item>
4146
4147
4148<item>
4149<title>Guests now allowed on forum; Perks for supporters.</title>
4150<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#guests-now-allowed-on-forum-perks-for-supporters.</guid>
4151<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2018 09:14:04 -0700</pubDate>
4152<description><![CDATA[
4153<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>
4154
4155<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>
4156]]></description>
4157</item>
4158
4159
4160<item>
4161<title>More tinkering today</title>
4162<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#more-tinkering-today</guid>
4163<pubDate>Sat, 19 May 2018 13:36:26 -0700</pubDate>
4164<description><![CDATA[
4165<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>
4166
4167<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>
4168
4169<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>
4170]]></description>
4171</item>
4172
4173
4174<item>
4175<title>Check Github for the blog system</title>
4176<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#check-github-for-the-blog-system</guid>
4177<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 15:13:06 -0700</pubDate>
4178<description><![CDATA[
4179<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>
4180
4181<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>
4182]]></description>
4183</item>
4184
4185
4186<item>
4187<title>Excuse the RSS mess!</title>
4188<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#excuse-the-rss-mess</guid>
4189<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 10:38:11 -0700</pubDate>
4190<description><![CDATA[
4191<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>
4192
4193<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>
4194]]></description>
4195</item>
4196
4197
4198<item>
4199<title>New Forum Up and Under Preparation</title>
4200<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-forum-up-and-under-preparation</guid>
4201<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2018 09:23:55 -0700</pubDate>
4202<description><![CDATA[
4203<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>
4204
4205<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>
4206]]></description>
4207</item>
4208
4209<item>
4210<title>On my new blog system</title>
4211<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#on-my-new-blog-system</guid>
4212<pubDate>Mon, 14 May 2018 15:09:10 -0700</pubDate>
4213<description><![CDATA[
4214<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>
4215
4216<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>
4217
4218<p>If you're reading this, wherever you're reading it, it's been successfuly.</p>
4219
4220<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>
4221
4222<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>
4223]]></description>
4224</item>
4225
4226<item>
4227<title>New turbo-minimalist site</title>
4228<guid>https://lukesmith.xyz/2018.html#new-turbo-minimalist-site</guid>
4229<pubDate>Mon, 14 May 2018 14:53:20 -0700</pubDate>
4230<description><![CDATA[
4231<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>
4232
4233<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>
4234
4235<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>
4236]]></description>
4237</item>
4238
4239<item>
4240<title>Why Vim Doesn't Need a Mouse (video)</title>
4241<guid isPermaLink="false">vimmouse</guid>
4242<pubDate> Fri, 11 May 2018 10:52:21 -0700</pubDate>
4243<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQCRVkSFFEc</link>
4244<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>
4245</item>
4246
4247<item>
4248<title>I'll be at Linux Fest Southeast next month. Come and see me!</title>
4249<guid isPermaLink="false">linuxfestintro</guid>
4250<pubDate> Sun, 06 May 2018 13:16:41 -0700</pubDate>
4251<link>http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org/</link>
4252<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>
4253
4254<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>
4255</item>
4256
4257<item>
4258<title>What a waste of time!</title>
4259<guid isPermaLink="false">timewaste</guid>
4260<pubDate> Fri, 04 May 2018 09:17:05 -0700</pubDate>
4261<link>https://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4262<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>
4263
4264<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>
4265
4266<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>
4267
4268<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>
4269]]></description>
4270</item>
4271
4272<item>
4273<title>Updates on downtime and server transfer/email</title>
4274<guid isPermaLink="false">transfernamecheap</guid>
4275<pubDate> Tue, 01 May 2018 12:59:08 -0700</pubDate>
4276<link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/thread-537.html</link>
4277<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>
4278</item>
4279
4280<item>
4281<title>Moving to a VPS, some downtime</title>
4282<guid isPermaLink="false">vpsmove</guid>
4283<pubDate> Sat, 28 Apr 2018 14:55:59 -0700</pubDate>
4284<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>
4285
4286<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>
4287</item>
4288
4289<item>
4290<title>Playing around with i3 blocks (video)</title>
4291<guid isPermaLink="false">i3blocks</guid>
4292<pubDate> Mon, 23 Apr 2018 08:04:29 -0700</pubDate>
4293<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7_9Xdbsem4</link>
4294<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>
4295</item>
4296
4297<item>
4298<title>Some tips in a vim project (video)</title>
4299<guid isPermaLink="false">vimsublimeslave</guid>
4300<pubDate> Sun, 22 Apr 2018 11:49:26 -0700</pubDate>
4301<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hraHAZ1-RaM</link>
4302<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>
4303</item>
4304
4305<item>
4306<title>Arch Install Part 2: Setting up a graphical environment and users (video)</title>
4307<guid isPermaLink="false">arch2</guid>
4308<pubDate> Sat, 21 Apr 2018 14:27:39 -0700</pubDate>
4309<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSHOb8YU9Gw</link>
4310<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>
4311</item>
4312
4313<item>
4314<title>Video on newsboat and RSS feed (video)</title>
4315<guid isPermaLink="false">newsboat</guid>
4316<pubDate> Wed, 11 Apr 2018 09:42:50 -0700</pubDate>
4317<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFCRqs822w</link>
4318<description><![CDATA[<p>A little video on newsboat and RSS feeds. Welcome, if you're just now getting into RSS feeds!</p>]]></description>
4319</item>
4320
4321<item>
4322<title>dmenu is more than an "application launcher"! (video)</title>
4323<guid isPermaLink="false">dmenu1</guid>
4324<pubDate> Sat, 07 Apr 2018 11:37:53 -0700</pubDate>
4325<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9m723tAurA</link>
4326<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>
4327</item>
4328
4329<item>
4330<title>wtf i hate linux now! Mac OS is best, and other comments.</title>
4331<guid isPermaLink="false">aprilfools2018</guid>
4332<pubDate> Sat, 31 Mar 2018 22:25:03 -0700</pubDate>
4333<link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/thread-426.html</link>
4334<description><![CDATA[<p>I gave the forum a little makeover</p>]]></description>
4335</item>
4336
4337<item>
4338<title>tripcode!Q/7 fixes my X220</title>
4339<guid isPermaLink="false">tripcodex220video</guid>
4340<pubDate> Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:47:26 -0700</pubDate>
4341<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1f8raveZo</link>
4342<description><![CDATA[<p>Watch tripcode!Q/7's video repairing my X220. It's all there!</p>]]></description>
4343</item>
4344
4345<item>
4346<title>Oral defense next week</title>
4347<guid isPermaLink="false">oralssoon</guid>
4348<pubDate> Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:01:12 -0700</pubDate>
4349<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>
4350
4351<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>
4352
4353<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>
4354
4355<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>
4356</item>
4357
4358<item>
4359<title>LiberaPay now added (It's better than Paypal and Patreon)</title>
4360<guid isPermaLink="false">liberapay</guid>
4361<pubDate> Thu, 22 Mar 2018 09:52:16 -0700</pubDate>
4362<link>https://liberapay.com/LukeSmith</link>
4363<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>
4364
4365<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>
4366</item>
4367
4368<item>
4369<title>Luke Smith and Noam Chomsky (and my position in the field)</title>
4370<guid isPermaLink="false">meetnoam</guid>
4371<pubDate> Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:47:18 -0700</pubDate>
4372<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>
4373
4374<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>
4375
4376<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>
4377
4378<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>
4379
4380<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>
4381
4382<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>
4383
4384<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>
4385]]></description>
4386</item>
4387
4388<item>
4389<title>Linguistics Isn't 60 Years Old!:Pāṇinian Approaches to Language</title>
4390<guid isPermaLink="false">paninisimin</guid>
4391<pubDate> Thu, 15 Mar 2018 17:53:51 -0700</pubDate>
4392<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yZ91YUdRfY</link>
4393<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>
4394</item>
4395
4396<item>
4397<title>New LARBS format; 2.0 coming soon.</title>
4398<guid isPermaLink="false">larbscoming</guid>
4399<pubDate> Sat, 10 Mar 2018 19:36:15 -0700</pubDate>
4400<link>https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/larbs</link>
4401<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>
4402
4403<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>
4404
4405<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>
4406</item>
4407
4408<item>
4409<title>I've been unironically playing the best game ever again: Deus Ex</title>
4410<guid isPermaLink="false">deusexinstall</guid>
4411<pubDate> Fri, 09 Mar 2018 12:59:44 -0700</pubDate>
4412<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>
4413
4414<p>Don't expect me to end up becoming a game streamer, especially with (&gt;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>
4415</item>
4416
4417<item>
4418<title>Suckless sent of video creation?</title>
4419<guid isPermaLink="false">sentvideos</guid>
4420<pubDate> Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:44:19 -0700</pubDate>
4421<link>https://tools.suckless.org/sent/</link>
4422<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>
4423
4424<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>
4425
4426<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>
4427
4428<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>
4429</item>
4430
4431<item>
4432<title>Arch Linux: Is it a meme? (video)</title>
4433<guid isPermaLink="false">archisameme</guid>
4434<pubDate> Thu, 08 Mar 2018 11:56:22 -0700</pubDate>
4435<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO9R_WFs9Zc</link>
4436<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>
4437</item>
4438
4439<item>
4440<title>mutt-wizard Now Has an Autosync and Notification Option!</title>
4441<guid isPermaLink="false">muttwizsync</guid>
4442<pubDate> Tue, 06 Mar 2018 10:28:20 -0700</pubDate>
4443<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</link>
4444<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>
4445
4446<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>
4447</item>
4448
4449<item>
4450<title>Clean out your RSS feed cache!</title>
4451<guid isPermaLink="false">rssfeedclean</guid>
4452<pubDate> Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:01:27 -0700</pubDate>
4453<link>https://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4454<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>
4455
4456<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>
4457</item>
4458
4459<item>
4460<title>Quantifier Scope Is All Just Fun and Games! (video)</title>
4461<pubDate>Mon, 05 Mar 2018 16:50:57 MST</pubDate>
4462<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w_PMpQiGL0</link>
4463<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>
4464<guid isPermaLink="false">funandgames</guid>
4465</item>
4466
4467<item>
4468<title>From Arch Linux to Parabola: How-To and System Management! (video)</title>
4469<pubDate>Sun, 04 Mar 2018 20:51:30 MST</pubDate>
4470<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jx-5Zp28VQ</link>
4471<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>
4472<guid isPermaLink="false">arch2para</guid>
4473</item>
4474
4475<item>
4476<title>NEWS: Arch Linux Install and Config; and X220 Repair (video)</title>
4477<pubDate>Fri, 02 Mar 2018 23:25:54 MST</pubDate>
4478<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ke9ZNC9a5k</link>
4479<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>
4480<guid isPermaLink="false">tripcode</guid>
4481</item>
4482
4483<item>
4484<title>BRAINLET Luke Destroys his ThinkPad X220!!! (Press F) (video)</title>
4485<pubDate>Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:40:23 MST</pubDate>
4486<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X1LUlnhIAI</link>
4487<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>
4488<guid isPermaLink="false">destx220</guid>
4489</item>
4490
4491<item>
4492<title>Easy, No BS Slide Presentations with SENT! (suckless) (video)</title>
4493<pubDate>Sun, 25 Feb 2018 11:28:15 MST</pubDate>
4494<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCLCl96eNaI</link>
4495<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>
4496<guid isPermaLink="false">sucklesssent</guid>
4497</item>
4498
4499<item>
4500<title>You're not "Autistic." You're normal. (video)</title>
4501<pubDate>Mon, 19 Feb 2018 11:42:49 MST</pubDate>
4502<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAsxztU189k</link>
4503<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>
4504<guid isPermaLink="false">autistic</guid>
4505</item>
4506
4507<item>
4508<title>Now You Can Auto-Configure Mutt and OfflineIMAP! (video)</title>
4509<pubDate>Sat, 17 Feb 2018 23:08:29 MST</pubDate>
4510<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsEJz9f9VMQ</link>
4511<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>
4512
4513<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>
4514<guid isPermaLink="false">muttwiz</guid>
4515</item>
4516
4517<item>
4518<title>Working on a email wizard for mutt and offlineIMAP configs</title>
4519<pubDate>Sat, 10 Feb 2018 08:31:10 MST</pubDate>
4520<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h-Qr_Ricik</link>
4521<description><![CDATA[<p>A brief video showing what I have so far on the mutt auto-config.</p>]]></description>
4522<guid isPermaLink="false">muttwizprep</guid>
4523</item>
4524
4525<item>
4526<title>Working on a mutt wizard</title>
4527<pubDate>Fri, 09 Feb 2018 23:55:54 MST</pubDate>
4528<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard</link>
4529<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>
4530
4531<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>
4532<guid isPermaLink="false">muttwiznot</guid>
4533</item>
4534
4535<item>
4536<title>We Have a Forum! (and on the Future!)</title>
4537<pubDate>Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:41:35 MST</pubDate>
4538<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MC3wR63FHs</link>
4539<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>
4540<guid isPermaLink="false">forumvid</guid>
4541</item>
4542
4543<item>
4544<title>How to Actually Get Good at GNU/Linux (video)</title>
4545<pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2018 09:46:52 MST</pubDate>
4546<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNuz-Trx0a4</link>
4547<description><![CDATA[<p>A daily reminder on the importance of RTFMing!</p>]]></description>
4548<guid isPermaLink="false">man</guid>
4549</item>
4550
4551<item>
4552<title>i3: Managing Windows and Webcams for screencasting</title>
4553<pubDate>Tue, 06 Feb 2018 09:00:07 MST</pubDate>
4554<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkqxYZ7-sQM</link>
4555<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>
4556<guid isPermaLink="false">i3webcams</guid>
4557</item>
4558
4559<item>
4560<title>Dropdown Terminals and Scratchpads in i3wm! (video)</title>
4561<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2018 10:29:15 MST</pubDate>
4562<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-l7DnDbiiU</link>
4563<description><![CDATA[<p>I talk about how to configure and customize i3wm/i3-gaps scratchpads and dropdown terminals.</p>]]></description>
4564<guid isPermaLink="false">i3dropdown</guid>
4565</item>
4566
4567<item>
4568<title>Mac Users: Don't Say T*rx on My Channel (T*rxroaches BTFO!) (video)</title>
4569<pubDate>Sat, 03 Feb 2018 09:52:12 MST</pubDate>
4570<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUCuMqBlSqE</link>
4571<description><![CDATA[<p>I banned the word "torx" on my comment section to clean up some mess. Why? Watch to find out!</p>]]></description>
4572<guid isPermaLink="false">torx</guid>
4573</item>
4574
4575<item>
4576<title>Forum is now open to public (but only YOU know!)</title>
4577<pubDate>Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:34:09 MST</pubDate>
4578<link>https://forum.lukesmith.xyz/</link>
4579<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>
4580
4581<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>
4582<guid isPermaLink="false">forumrss</guid>
4583</item>
4584
4585<item>
4586<title>LARBS preparing for release</title>
4587<pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 11:55:53 MST</pubDate>
4588<link>https://larbs.xyz</link>
4589<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>
4590
4591<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>
4592
4593<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>
4594]]></description>
4595<guid isPermaLink="false">larbssoon</guid>
4596</item>
4597
4598<item>
4599<title>RSS readers: You can now use HTTPS!</title>
4600<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 21:59:34 MST</pubDate>
4601<link>https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
4602<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>
4603<guid isPermaLink="false">https</guid>
4604</item>
4605
4606<item>
4607<title>What programs do I use?</title>
4608<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 10:51:07 MST</pubDate>
4609<link>https://lukesmith.xyz/programs.html</link>
4610<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>
4611<guid isPermaLink="false">programsiuse</guid>
4612</item>
4613
4614<item>
4615<title>Dataframes in R: Columns subsets and more! (video)</title>
4616<pubDate>Sat, 27 Jan 2018 09:55:20 MST</pubDate>
4617<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDzVtu24dbk</link>
4618<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>
4619<guid isPermaLink="false">rdataframes</guid>
4620</item>
4621
4622<item>
4623<title>Playing Around with Functions in R (video)</title>
4624<pubDate>Sat, 27 Jan 2018 09:54:37 MST</pubDate>
4625<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgRvPNo6HaY</link>
4626<description><![CDATA[<p>A video on some of the basic functions in R, summaries, means, simple plots and more!</p>]]></description>
4627<guid isPermaLink="false">rfunctions</guid>
4628</item>
4629
4630<item>
4631<title>Stats in R: Basics of a Beefy Calculatory (video)</title>
4632<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jan 2018 16:42:06 MST</pubDate>
4633<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlCWQrKQQI4</link>
4634<description><![CDATA[<p>Here's the first in a series on R, the mathematical/statistical programming language!</p>
4635
4636<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>
4637<guid isPermaLink="false">rintro</guid>
4638</item>
4639
4640<item>
4641<title>Selecting terminal URLs with URLview (video)</title>
4642<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jan 2018 21:37:49 MST</pubDate>
4643<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgzpAjFgbCw</link>
4644<description><![CDATA[<p>A brief video on URLview, which makes urls on the terminal easy to follow!]]></description>
4645<guid isPermaLink="false">urlview</guid>
4646</item>
4647
4648<item>
4649	<title>Hard Reset on the Voidrice Repository</title>
4650	<pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2018 23:13:23 MST</pubDate>
4651	<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice</link>
4652	<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>
4653		<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>
4654		<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>
4655		<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>
4656<guid isPermaLink="false">hardreset</guid>
4657</item>
4658
4659<item>
4660	<title>st: suckless's Simple Terminal (video)</title>
4661	<pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2018 15:40:09 MST</pubDate>
4662	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmm7wl4JUI</link>
4663	<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>
4664		<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>
4665<guid isPermaLink="false">st</guid>
4666</item>
4667
4668<item>
4669	<title>An Intro to R Markdown (video)</title>
4670	<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jan 2018 17:34:22 MST</pubDate>
4671	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5a0JWIF-0</link>
4672	<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>
4673<guid isPermaLink="false">rmarkdownintro</guid>
4674</item>
4675
4676<item>
4677	<title>The Virgin LaTeX vs. the CHAD R Markdown (Video)</title>
4678	<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jan 2018 07:50:16 MST</pubDate>
4679	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWScm5WI3fo</link>
4680	<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>
4681		<p>I'll be putting up another video on it soon!</p>]]></description>
4682<guid isPermaLink="false">chadrmarkdown</guid>
4683</item>
4684
4685<item>
4686	<title>Returning to Arizona</title>
4687	<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2018 17:18:11 EST</pubDate>
4688	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4689	<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>
4690<guid isPermaLink="false">returningarizona</guid>
4691</item>
4692
4693<item>
4694	<title>URXVT, Basics and Configuration (VIDEO)</title>
4695	<pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 20:43:13 EST</pubDate>
4696	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaBf_yFHps8</link>
4697	<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>
4698<guid isPermaLink="false">urxvt</guid>
4699</item>
4700
4701<item>
4702	<title>Linguistics Videos! (Coming Whether I like it or not!)</title>
4703	<pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:16:57 EST</pubDate>
4704	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4705	<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>
4706		<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>
4707		<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>
4708<guid isPermaLink="false">linguisticsvids</guid>
4709</item>
4710
4711<item>
4712	<title>Yup! Vim has a spell-checker. (VIDEO)</title>
4713	<pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 23:38:41 EST</pubDate>
4714	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1XBUqbS68</link>
4715	<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>
4716<guid isPermaLink="false">vimspell</guid>
4717</item>
4718
4719<item>
4720	<title>Video on Net Neutrality</title>
4721	<pubDate>Mon, 18 Dec 2017 23:54:52 MST</pubDate>
4722	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgbeB79Dss0</link>
4723	<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>
4724<guid isPermaLink="false">netneut</guid>
4725</item>
4726
4727<item>
4728	<title>sc-im: A Vim-inspired Excel replacement!</title>
4729	<pubDate>Sat, 16 Dec 2017 09:24:05 MST</pubDate>
4730	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8_gazN7h0</link>
4731	<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>
4732<guid isPermaLink="false">sc-im1</guid>
4733</item>
4734
4735<item>
4736	<title>ThinkPad T420 Overview</title>
4737	<pubDate>Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:42:34 MST</pubDate>
4738	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPOLYXi2tGg</link>
4739	<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>
4740<guid isPermaLink="false">t420</guid>
4741</item>
4742
4743<item>
4744	<title>"Which ThinkPad Should I Get?"</title>
4745	<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 17:58:22 MST</pubDate>
4746	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La3sb5y7e-k</link>
4747	<description><![CDATA[<p>New video up on ThinkPads: the different kinds, what's popular, what's free and what's a meme.</p>]]></description>
4748<guid isPermaLink="false">whichthinkpad</guid>
4749</item>
4750
4751<item>
4752	<title>Shortcut sync for bash, ranger and qutebrowser</title>
4753	<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 16:00:51 MST</pubDate>
4754	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxlJAGiRY0o</link>
4755	<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>
4756<guid isPermaLink="false">shortcut2</guid>
4757</item>
4758
4759<item>
4760	<title>ThinkPad week is on!</title>
4761	<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:30:18 MST</pubDate>
4762	<link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
4763	<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&mdash;Expect them! And it's not just ThinkPads!</p>]]></description>
4764<guid isPermaLink="false">thinkpadweek</guid>
4765</item>
4766
4767<item>
4768	<title>Battlestation and Apartment Tour Part II</title>
4769	<pubDate>Thu, 23 Nov 2017 10:21:11 MST</pubDate>
4770	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYBY7jKzv4</link>
4771	<description><![CDATA[<p>My current apartment, bigger and more liveable, still no anime!</p>]]></description>
4772<guid isPermaLink="false">battle2</guid>
4773</item>
4774
4775<item>
4776	<title>Some channel announcements!</title>
4777	<pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2017 22:26:24 MST</pubDate>
4778	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-Bwr814wc</link>
4779	<description><![CDATA[<p>Bitchute, Patreon, my to-do list and much more! Check it out!</p>]]></description>
4780<guid isPermaLink="false">bitchutepattodo</guid>
4781</item>
4782
4783<item>
4784	<title>Make the Internet Decentralized Again!</title>
4785	<pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2017 09:16:26 MST</pubDate>
4786	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtkicw97zSo</link>
4787	<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>
4788<guid isPermaLink="false">decentralized</guid>
4789</item>
4790
4791<item>
4792	<title>Markdown and Pandoc for Easy Presentations...</title>
4793	<pubDate>Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:52:23 MST</pubDate>
4794	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dum7q6UXiCE</link>
4795	<description><![CDATA[<p>I've started to use Markdown and Pandoc to get my briefer presentations done. I strongly recommend it.</p>
4796		<p>You can avoid the main of LibreOffice and the encumbering syntax of LaTeX/Beamer all in one.</p>]]></description>
4797<guid isPermaLink="false">pandocpres</guid>
4798</item>
4799
4800<item>
4801	<title>On EOMA68 comuters</title>
4802	<pubDate>Mon, 20 Nov 2017 23:14:02 MST</pubDate>
4803	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHUDHqSeuM</link>
4804	<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>
4805		<p>It's one of the few computers with actual innovation behind it, and really propose a decntralized alternative.</p>]]></description>
4806<guid isPermaLink="false">eoma68on</guid>
4807</item>
4808
4809<item>
4810	<title>Limitations cause greatness!</title>
4811	<pubDate>Sat, 18 Nov 2017 22:56:25 MST</pubDate>
4812	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4813	<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>
4814
4815		<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>
4816
4817		<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>
4818
4819		<p>First things first, I have a series on de-Googling coming soon, with a couple videos coming out next week.</p>]]></description>
4820<guid isPermaLink="false">limitationscause</guid>
4821</item>
4822
4823<item>
4824	<title>On Purism Laptops</title>
4825	<pubDate>Mon, 06 Nov 2017 23:33:07 MST</pubDate>
4826	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwcOpf30SfY</link>
4827	<description><![CDATA[<p>I give my 2 cents on Purism laptops. My subscribers give their 2 cents on my now shaved head.</p>]]></description>
4828<guid isPermaLink="false">purismlaptops</guid>
4829</item>
4830
4831<item>
4832	<title>My book library: the autistic thing I've done this weekend...</title>
4833	<pubDate>Sun, 05 Nov 2017 17:25:11 MST</pubDate>
4834	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz/library.html</link>
4835	<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>
4836<guid isPermaLink="false">libraryhtml</guid>
4837</item>
4838
4839<item>
4840	<title>Block Ads, Tracking, Porn and whatever else with /etc/hosts</title>
4841	<pubDate>Sat, 04 Nov 2017 09:53:58 MST</pubDate>
4842	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPfpCVW7ZvM</link>
4843	<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>
4844<guid isPermaLink="false">blockadsporn</guid>
4845</item>
4846
4847<item>
4848	<title>Luke on Golden Age</title>
4849	<pubDate>Mon, 23 Oct 2017 23:03:49 MST</pubDate>
4850	<link>http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/10/23/golden-age-episode-4-software-freedom/</link>
4851	<description><![CDATA[<p>I've made an appearance on Social Matter's podcast "The Golden Age".</p>
4852		<p>Host Michael Perilloux and I talk about software freedom, decentralization and privacy in the context of the Restoration and Neoreactionary politics.</p>
4853		<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>
4854<guid isPermaLink="false">lukegoldenage</guid>
4855</item>
4856
4857<item>
4858	<title>10,000 subscribers!</title>
4859	<pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2017 21:34:41 MST</pubDate>
4860	<link>https://youtube.com/c/lukesmithxyz</link>
4861	<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>
4862		<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>
4863		<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>
4864<guid isPermaLink="false">10000subs</guid>
4865</item>
4866
4867<item>
4868	<title>Housecleaning...</title>
4869	<pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2017 02:56:51 MST</pubDate>
4870	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz/videos.html</link>
4871	<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>
4872<guid isPermaLink="false">housecleaning</guid>
4873</item>
4874
4875<item>
4876	<title>The Podcast is Really Happening</title>
4877	<pubDate>Sun, 15 Oct 2017 22:17:46 MST</pubDate>
4878	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPD35ETwuk</link>
4879	<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>
4880		<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>
4881		<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>
4882		<p>Needless to say, the more episodes are in the tubes. We're enjoying where this is going already.</p>]]></description>
4883<guid isPermaLink="false">podcast</guid>
4884</item>
4885
4886<item>
4887	<title>Out of Town: LARBS coming soon</title>
4888	<pubDate>Fri, 29 Sep 2017 10:32:45 EDT</pubDate>
4889	<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/LARBS</link>
4890	<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>
4891<guid isPermaLink="false">outoftownlarbs</guid>
4892</item>
4893
4894<item>
4895	<title>No Relation! EP1: Noam Chomsky Joins Us in Hell (Arizona)</title>
4896	<pubDate>Sun, 17 Sep 2017 09:09:21 MST</pubDate>
4897	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPD35ETwuk</link>
4898	<description><![CDATA[<p>Starting a new podcast with my colleague Ryan Smith (no relation).</p>
4899		<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>
4900<guid isPermaLink="false">norel1</guid>
4901</item>
4902
4903<item>
4904	<title>Automatic Ricing Script Part 2. (COMING SOON)</title>
4905	<pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2017 21:43:33 MST</pubDate>
4906	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4907	<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>
4908		<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>
4909<guid isPermaLink="false">newlarbssoon</guid>
4910</item>
4911
4912<item>
4913	<title>Some busy work and imminent plans</title>
4914	<pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2017 13:42:54 MST</pubDate>
4915	<link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
4916	<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>
4917		<p>Otherwise, this week I'll probably put up a Battlestation video, and possibly the first of a linguistics-themed podcast.</p>]]></description>
4918<guid isPermaLink="false">imminentplans</guid>
4919</item>
4920
4921<item>
4922	<title>Reworking the website backend</title>
4923	<pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 22:06:17 MST</pubDate>
4924	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4925	<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>
4926<guid isPermaLink="false">websitebackend</guid>
4927</item>
4928
4929<item>
4930	<title>My mpd/ncmpcpp Setup</title>
4931	<pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 23:46:23 MST</pubDate>
4932	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZIEdI9TS2U</link>
4933	<description><![CDATA[<p>A brief overview of mpd and ncmpcpp and my setup with them.</p>
4934		<p>As always, dotfiles are on Github.</p>]]></description>
4935<guid isPermaLink="false">mpdncmpcpp</guid>
4936</item>
4937
4938<item>
4939	<title>Why I Went 2 Years with No Internet at Home</title>
4940	<pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:03:51 MST</pubDate>
4941	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiMcX3Fa2Us</link>
4942	<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>
4943<guid isPermaLink="false">2yearwointernet</guid>
4944</item>
4945
4946<item>
4947	<title>Muh RSS</title>
4948	<pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:02:05 MST</pubDate>
4949	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4950	<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>
4951		<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>
4952<guid isPermaLink="false">muhrss</guid>
4953</item>
4954
4955<item>
4956	<title>Video out on how I manage my website</title>
4957	<pubDate>Sun, 27 Aug 2017 17:38:27 MST</pubDate>
4958	<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkWYxyqh3Y</link>
4959	<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>
4960<guid isPermaLink="false">managewebsite</guid>
4961</item>
4962
4963<item>
4964	<title>Mastering my website</title>
4965	<pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 21:10:55 MST</pubDate>
4966	<link>http://lukesmith.xyz</link>
4967	<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>
4968
4969		<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>
4970
4971		<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>
4972
4973		<p>I can edit it offline, and when I get back to a reliable connection, I "push" the changes with rsync via ssh.</p>
4974
4975		<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>
4976
4977		<p>All in all, a good development.</p>]]></description>
4978<guid isPermaLink="false">masteringwebsite</guid>
4979</item>
4980
4981<item>
4982	<title>Finally using Vid.Me, lol</title>
4983	<pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 15:19:18 MST</pubDate>
4984	<link>https://vid.me/LukeSmith</link>
4985	<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.
4986
4987		<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>
4988<guid isPermaLink="false">vidme</guid>
4989</item>
4990
4991<item>
4992<title>Video on calcurse, also news to come</title>
4993<pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2017 13:44:57 MST</pubDate>
4994<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvc-pHjbhdE</link>
4995<description><![CDATA[New video out on calcurse, expect actually more content soon. I'm hoping at least two videos per week.
4996
4997<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>
4998<guid isPermaLink="false">calcurse</guid>
4999</item>
5000
5001<item>
5002<title>i3wm video is out!</title>
5003<pubDate>Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:49:52 MST</pubDate>
5004<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOW61luzF4</link>
5005<description><![CDATA[Here it is, new i3 video, going over my revamping of my configs and other notes, especially for new subscribers.]]></description>
5006<guid isPermaLink="false">i3wmchad</guid>
5007</item>
5008
5009<item>
5010<title>Battlestation Video (Part 1)!</title>
5011<pubDate>Sun, 30 Jul 2017 14:36:10 MST</pubDate>
5012<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np5rFh0FcfU</link>
5013<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>
5014<guid isPermaLink="false">battle1</guid>
5015</item>
5016
5017<item>
5018<title>Am I *done* configuring i3?</title>
5019<pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2017 11:57:17 MST</pubDate>
5020<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/voidrice</link>
5021<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...
5022
5023<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.
5024
5025<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>
5026<guid isPermaLink="false">donei3</guid>
5027</item>
5028
5029<item>
5030<title>Wallpapers now public</title>
5031<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:17:34 MST</pubDate>
5032<link>https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/wallpapers</link>
5033<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>
5034<guid isPermaLink="false">wallpapers</guid>
5035</item>
5036
5037<item>
5038<title>Corebooting/Librebooting Soon</title>
5039<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:09:34 MST</pubDate>
5040<link>https://paypal.me/LukeMSmith</link>
5041<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>
5042
5043Some 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>
5044<guid isPermaLink="false">corelibre</guid>
5045</item>
5046
5047<item>
5048<title>How to Go Pro on YouTube!</title>
5049<pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2017 19:59:15 MST</pubDate>
5050<link>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g66Jhxi-gg0</link>
5051<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>
5052<guid isPermaLink="false">gopro5000</guid>
5053</item>
5054
5055<item>
5056<title>New RSS feed</title>
5057<link>http://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml</link>
5058<pubDate>Tue, 13 Jun 2017 10:09:35 MST</pubDate>
5059<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>
5060<guid isPermaLink="false">first</guid>
5061</item>
5062
5063
5064<item>
5065<title>5,000 subscribers mark and returning home</title>
5066<pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2017 13:34:58 MST</pubDate>
5067<link>https://youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz</link>
5068<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>
5069<guid isPermaLink="false">5000subs</guid>
5070</item>
5071
5072</channel>
5073
5074</rss>