Blog

This is a list of all my blog posts. I write blog posts whenever I feel like it. If you wish, you can also get site updates here. but these are only published when I update the site, any of my software. If you happen to be an RSS feed kind of guy, you can get one of those here.

Anything very important will be posted on the regular blog.

A one-sided chat with my readers

by Jacob • 2024-07-16 • Personal, Update • CC-BY-SA 4.0

I thought I would start something new. You know, a one-sided chat with my readers. That is, if I've still got any. I don't really know at this point. I haven't made any blog post since early May, when I unveiled the docpp C++ project. Actually, that's not true. If you look at my catalog right now, it would appear that way, but I've actually removed a few blog posts. That's the first thing I wanna talk about.

Releasing a new project: docpp - a C++ library for generating HTML, CSS and XML

by Jacob • 2024-05-06 • C++, Project, Release, Update, News • CC-BY-SA 4.0

No, this is not the project I was hinting at in a comment I posted on my last blog post. I'm still working on that one, rather this is a byproduct of that project, because I happened to get side-tracked. It is a project I do plan on using in the future though, so it wasn't all for nothing. So, here it is. docpp. It stands for Document-Plus-Plus. Maybe. That's up to you.

Vaxry did nothing wrong

by Jacob • 2024-04-09 • Opinion, Drama, FOSS, FreeDesktop, Vaxry, Wayland • CC-BY-SA 4.0

Alright, so today I'd like to talk about a conflict between Hyprland developer Vaxry, and freedesktop.org, specifically Lyude from the Code of Conduct team over there. I just want to give you my thoughts on the whole thing.

The achievement matters, not the achiever

by Jacob • 2024-03-19 • Politics, Opinion, Free Speech, Rights, Internet, Social Media • CC-BY-SA 4.0

If you know me, you know that I am all for a society where everyone gets to say exactly what they want to say. If you want to be politically correct, sure. If you want to be an edgy 4channer and speak your mind in public, you should be free to do so, provided you don't harass people personally. This is necessary in a society that I would deem truly free. People aren't forced to listen to your opinions and ideas, but you should be free to state them, without facing persecution. If not, citizens will over time lose their rights and democracy.

Why Reddit is garbage by design

by Jacob • 2024-03-05 • Reddit, Social Media, Opinion, Politics • CC-BY-SA 4.0

If you don't know how it works, every post and comment has an upvote and a downvote button, and every user has an arbitrary karma statistic which is visible for everyone to see, because it's prominently displayed on their profile. For each upvote, you gain a certain amount of karma, and likewise for each downvote, you lose a certain amount of karma. Because of this, there is an incentive for users to post something that is likely to affirm people's existing beliefs rather than challenge them, because of course then they will likely get more upvotes as opposed to downvotes from people's anger. This creates sort of a echo chamber where popular ideas and views are shown prominently on the site, while less popular ideas are pushed down. This, of course, has negative effects on all kinds of posts.

Rant: Why suckless sucks.

by Jacob • 2023-10-16 • suckless, Minimalism, Free Software, Rant, Opinion • CC-BY-SA 4.0

As you guys may know, I am a huge fan of suckless software such as dwm, st and dmenu, not to mention the suckless philosophy. But with that said, I have never agreed with suckless on everything, and some parts of their philosophy is very frustrating.

I used Windows for a week.

by Jacob • 2023-09-24 • Microsoft, Windows, Opinion, Challenge • CC-BY-SA 4.0

A friend challenged me to run Windows 11 for a full week. How could I possibly refuse? Now that a week has passed, it is about time to talk about the experience and what it is like to use.

Is Gentoo a waste of time?

by Jacob • 2023-09-11 • Gentoo, Linux, Opinion, Linux • CC-BY-SA 4.0

I can't believe I've had a blog for as long as I have, and still haven't talked about Gentoo. So here goes.

Rant: Why is UEFI still so bad?

by Jacob • 2023-08-29 • UEFI, BIOS, Rant, Opinion • CC-BY-SA 4.0

In case you don't know, I use an ASUS motherboard and I've used Gigabyte and MSI boards too in the past. One problem they all have in common is the BIOS or UEFI menu. It's always awful, and I'm going to talk about why that is.

Shell script tricks - Get better at shell scripting

by Jacob • 2023-07-16 • Shell script, Programming, Tips, Educational, Opinion • CC-BY-SA 4.0

Today I'm going to talk about some dumb things people do in shell scripting, and I'm also going to tell you a better way to do it, as well as a cool trick.

Use the XDG Base Directory specification

by Jacob • 2023-07-04 • XDG, FreeDesktop, Specification, Opinion, Programming, Linux • CC-BY-SA 4.0

Alright, so as you guys know I have been very critical of Freedesktop in the past. Some of that I think is justified, some maybe less so. Today I'm going to talk about the complete opposite though. The XDG Base Directory specification, or what is in my opinion one of the best things Freedesktop have come up with.