Blackmoor Vituperative

I wish Americans were a little less fixated on 18th century concepts of political science, civic engagement, and natural philosophy.

I celebrate Epicurus’ Birthday on the third Monday of February, in honor of the philosopher Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. His school was the first of the ancient Greek philosophical schools to admit women as a rule rather than an exception.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia — “peace and freedom from fear” — and aponia — “the absence of pain” — and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods do not reward or punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

(From Epicurus, Wikipedia)

I have created a color scheme for Minimal Theme for Obsidian. I mainly use Obsidian on my Boox Tab Ultra tablet, which is an e-ink device. My intention is to create a very high contrast theme that is easily legible on an e-ink device like the Boox, while also being attractive enough for desktop or color tablet use.

The theme is nowhere near as colorful as most themes. If you like everything to be a different color, this theme is probably not your cup of tea.

This is written as a CSS snippet, but my hope is that the author of Minimal will eventually allow this theme to be added to the core Minimal color schemes. Obsidian really needs a clear, readable color scheme for e-ink devices. That’s what I want, in any case.

I have posted the CSS file to my github page. If pasted into the theme.css file in Minimal (between gruvbox and macos), the code looks like this…

.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light{--color-red-rgb:145,28,28;--color-orange-rgb:145,28,28;--color-yellow-rgb:145,28,28;--color-green-rgb:21,83,83;--color-cyan-rgb:21,83,83;--color-blue-rgb:21,83,83;--color-purple-rgb:126,32,126;--color-pink-rgb:126,32,126;--color-red:#911c1c;--color-orange:#911c1c;--color-yellow:#911c1c;--color-green:#155353;--color-cyan:#155353;--color-blue:#155353;--color-purple:#7e207e;--color-pink:#7e207e}.theme-dark.minimal-kalos-greyscale-dark{--color-red-rgb:253,245,245;--color-orange-rgb:253,245,245;--color-yellow-rgb:253,245,245;--color-green-rgb:235,250,250;--color-cyan-rgb:235,250,250;--color-blue-rgb:235,250,250;--color-purple-rgb:252,245,252;--color-pink-rgb:252,245,252;--color-red:#fdf5f5;--color-orange:#fdf5f5;--color-yellow:#fdf5f5;--color-green:#ebfafa;--color-cyan:#ebfafa;--color-blue:#ebfafa;--color-purple:#fcf5fc;--color-pink:#fcf5fc}.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light{--base-h:0;--base-s:0;--base-l:100%;--accent-h:240;--accent-s:60%;--accent-l:10%;--bg1:#fbfbfe;--bg2:#f8f8fd;--bg3:rgba(255,255,255,.5);--ui1:#0a0a29;--ui2:#18185f;--ui3:#000;--tx1:#000;--tx2:#222;--tx3:#3d3d3d;--hl1:rgba(105,105,217,.5);--hl2:rgba(169,169,233,.5)}.theme-dark.minimal-kalos-greyscale-dark,.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light.minimal-light-contrast .mod-left-split,.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light.minimal-light-contrast .titlebar,.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light.minimal-light-contrast .workspace-drawer.mod-left,.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light.minimal-light-contrast .workspace-ribbon.mod-left:not(.is-collapsed),.theme-light.minimal-kalos-greyscale-light.minimal-light-contrast.minimal-status-off .status-bar{--base-h:0;--base-s:0;--base-l:0;--accent-h:240;--accent-s:100%;--accent-l:100%;--bg1:#050514;--bg2:#0a0a29;--bg3:rgba(0,0,0,.5);--ui1:#fbfbfe;--ui2:#18185f;--ui3:#fff;--tx1:#fff;--tx2:#fdfdfd;--tx3:#fafafa;--hl1:rgba(105,105,217,.5);--hl2:rgba(169,169,233,.5)}.theme-dark.minimal-kalos-greyscale-dark.minimal-dark-black{--ui1:#000}

If there’s not a blog called “Write Or Die”, there should be.

I have stopped sharing links to wildlife being cooked to death in the oceans, or catastrophic polar melting, or the fact we are in what future generations will regard as the early months of World War 3, etc. to Facebook. Even so, the slow-motion apocalypse (a phrase I coined and began using in 2013, although others independently did the same, some even earlier) continues its relentless approach.

I am a little surprised that World War 3 hasn’t officially started yet. My entire youth, the threat of Communist expansion was like a black cloud on the horizon, and the threat of nuclear war was ever-present. But Russia invades Ukraine, and the West can barely muster a strongly worded letter in response.

This does not bode well for Taiwan and Pakistan, but I have no input on any of it.

Meanwhile, sea life is being cooked to death in the oceans, and natural disasters and wet-bulb events are becoming more common on land. I assume the Republican death cult is still blaming homosexuals while simultaneously dismissing it as a hoax.

If Canada ever opens its borders to American refugees fleeing north from the climate crisis and the theofascist takeover of the South and the western flyover states, I think we should apply ASAP.

If I had it to do over again, I’d try to care less about what people think, and care more about what people feel.

I celebrate Epicurus’ Birthday on the third Monday of February, in honor of the philosopher Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. His school was the first of the ancient Greek philosophical schools to admit women as a rule rather than an exception.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia — “peace and freedom from fear” — and aponia — “the absence of pain” — and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods do not reward or punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

(From Epicurus, Wikipedia)

“The struggle between profitless simplicity and profitable complexity is eternal in the world of software.”
— https://world.hey.com/dhh/they-re-rebuilding-the-death-star-of-complexity-4fb5d08d

I started my career in programming during heydays of Java Enterprise Edition (J2EE). This was late 90s/early 00s, and there was a rich ecosystem of enterprise vendors hawking application servers, monitoring tools, and boxes upon boxes of other fancy solutions. These tools were difficult to learn, expensive to license, and required an a…

David Heinemeier Hansson, Creator of Ruby on Rails

Interesting article about containers, cloud, etc., by the fellow who created Ruby On Rails.

I bought myself a rainbow metallic Zomchi “safety razor”. I have never owned or used a safety razor before, and I was pretty afraid to start. Still, generations used these, so how hard could it be?

It was much easier than I feared. I held it at a thirty degree angle (or as close as I could), pressed lightly but consistently (as much as I could), and shaved. It took a few passes to get my face smooth, and some areas still seem a bit stubbly, but I think I did pretty well on my first try.

The razor is even prettier than the image in the listing. It is made of three pieces, which have excellent “fit and finish”, as the kids say. Assembly and replacing the blade was pretty straightforward. I think I would have to be pretty careless to cut myself while changing the blade, but I was attentive and careful, even so.

I am pleased with this. It wasn’t expensive, and it’s a solid little razor that feels good to use.

"Because nothing says 'privilege' quite like offering unsolicited advice to an entire generation."

Most of the time, the brand doesn’t matter. Don’t waste your money. Buy store brands when you can.

However, no one makes English muffins like Thomas’ English Muffins. They are the English muffins to buy.

Bays are also quite good.

• 1 Thomas English muffin
• 1 slice Canadian bacon
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp butter

Microwave egg at 50% for 2:30.

Season to taste.