Shifting Priorities

Over the past few years, my priorities have shifted from web and media development to my other career. This other job keeps me away from the computer and is physically and mentally demanding. With the purchase of land and a house, I’ve had less free time to spend here.

I’ve also had a personal website since 1998. I’ve shared and overshared with the general public too long. I am older and wiser now and sharing private aspects of my life is no longer necessary. It’s also not very interesting. My life is, in a word, mundane. No one cares. (It’s okay. I wouldn’t care either if I was a stranger peeking in.)

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Podcasting and Stuff

It’s been hard to maintain my podcast. I would keep making plans to record, and when the day would come, I would find something else to do with my time. Instead of telling myself that I am going to record, I am going to be realistic and say that I am officially cancelling my podcast.

You may find that the feed (if you’re subscribed via Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts) is no longer available. Old episodes will be removed at some point. We’ll pretend like they didn’t exist.

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Streaming

That didn’t work from day one and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t. I’m not planning to stream on a regular schedule. I may do it, but it will be unannounced and will only happen when I have free time.

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Online Presence

I am not disappearing but I am not going out of my way to promote myself or to overshare on this weblog. People who want to stay in contact with me are encouraged to do so, but I won’t force you.

My online business will live on. I need to have websites and stuff. Web domain registrations are relatively cheap so I’ll be around. I need to keep my technology skills sharp, so here I will remain.

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Chatting and Messaging

I haven’t been chatty for a long time. Many friends complain that I don’t talk to them. If you understood what kind of job I had, you’d understand that my time alone is very precious and extremely necessary. Typing is annoying, but if you want to try your luck, find me on Telegram.

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Social Media

I hate Twitter. I hate Facebook (but it’s a necessary evil for close friends and family). I hate Tik Tok. I hate Instagram. It doesn’t leave much choice, does it?

I do post on Mastodon.

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Things Do Change and Things WILL Change

I’m forever going to be interested in technology. That will never change.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if there will never be another podcast or if I’ll miraculously start trusting social media again. Who knows?

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General Housekeeping

In case you had an account here, it has been removed. Your login is no longer needed or necessary. You should have received an email about it. If you didn’t, take a closer look in your mailbox.

Redirection links (Cnoi.se links) will no longer work.

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Into the Future

Updating this weblog is no longer a priority for me. If you’re curious about what’s happening, follow me on Mastodon. As I said above, things may change. It’s hard for me to stay away from the web because as I’ve said numerous times: this is a therapy for me. Coding helps me forget about my problems, but it can also cause additional problems, such as things never being completely finished. I want to stay away from that as much as I can and focus my time and life on taking care of myself and my wonderful husband.

Until we meet again (or when I need therapy), take care of yourselves!

Ben

I didn’t know where I should post this, so I am posting it here. Podcasting hasn’t really been a priority for me lately, so I have cancelled my next planned podcast episode. That means that will try really hard to care enough to do another one before the end of the year. We will see whether that happens or not.

Moving to my own space that I don’t depend on my partner to share costs makes money a bit tight, so I’ve had to work a bit more. Working more makes me more tired and of course that makes me care a lot less. My hosting costs have gone up around 33% as well, so believe me, I have thought about abandoning everything. I decided against it because this is my therapy. Believe me, right now I need this more than I have needed it in years.

In the upcoming year, I want to focus less on podcasting and more on my other projects. I’ve also made the decision to wind down my IT consulting. I have this problem of wanting to do too many things at the same time, so I am stepping back in hopes that it will improve my mental health. It’s having a bit of a rough run right now, and instead of letting things get bad, I thought maybe I should try to enjoy living a bit more. It’s hard to do when you’re spending most of your time at work. Of course, if you love what you do, that’s good, right?

I like what I do. I don’t always love it, but I am happy with what I’m doing now. I’ve had a week off and heading back tomorrow.

Didn’t I just say that I needed to work more? Yes. I am working all my required hours in one clump, and then “relaxing” later. I am not broke. I am not having money problems, but my partner regularly informs me that we’re building a house next year and gets angry every time I think about doing anything for myself.

Oh well.

So this is a little bit of what I would have put in a podcast episode. Some people don’t like to read. I don’t blame you. And right now, I’m sick of hearing about peoples’ problems.

I’m gonna go for now. I am also rewriting the code to my website. It looks similar, but quite a lot is being removed… mostly code is being removed that isn’t optimised or is not being used. Whatever makes it function better. New media player. New feedback options. That kind of thing.

I’m outta here. Take care of yourselves.

If you’ve got an email address for me that ends in idiologic.com, now is the time to trash it.

If you need my “new” direct email address, please send me a request here.

Just a little note:

If you use WhatsApp to contact me, I’m going to stop using it in February. My preferred app to use is Telegram.

Why? WhatsApp is planning to share a lot of information with Facebook (such as your phone number, which I don’t want Facebook to have).

Eventually, I’m going to stop using Facebook products, but it’s going to take a while. I need to find some alternatives.

Hello everyone. This is just a quick little update on what’s happening with my projects! (Mostly website-related.)

Dropping ReCaptcha and Replacing It With hCaptcha

I am dropping ReCaptcha in favor of hCaptcha because I’ve discovered that ReCaptcha has a nasty habit of tracking you. That’s typical of Google products, so I’m replacing it with a system that’s similar but will present you with a similar “choose the pictures” verification. The good thing is that for each qualified verification earns money. 100% of all the money that will be raised on my website by hCaptcha will go directly to the WikiMedia Foundation.

I’m also going to move the fonts I use to my server instead of relying on a link to Google.

You can actually avoid all the tracking stuff by using another browser such as Brave or Ghostery.

Menu and Side Panel Rewrite

You probably can’t tell, but on Complicated Noise, I’ve rewritten the menu serving code. Everything looks the same right now, but I’m going to make things a little simpler in the future. If you have issues, please let me know.

Contact Form Rewrite (in progress)

My registration system is going to start handling messages sent to me by the website. Again, you’ll notice a new form, but everything will work the way it’s supposed to.

Native file attaching will be supported this time around. They’ll still be scanned for nasties though.

New Music Available

Have an account and want to listen to ambient music? You’ll see it in the podcast guide in the bonus section. “Beach Fingers” has appeared with “Visible Form” coming sometime within the next few months.

You’ll have to have an account to listen to the early stuff. It’s not available to anybody else right now.

I’m also making a new section to my website with links to the stuff that won’t require an account, but for now, the bonuses do require a free account.

I should really think about domains before I actually register them. I’m adding a new one to our little family: cnoi.se.

I’m not moving everything or starting over, but will be working on using that to make URLs a lot shorter. The only one that works at the moment is just by going to cnoi.se to go to the regular website.

It’s only been a few hours since I’ve registered it so it’s not going to work for everybody just yet. It will though, eventually.

That’s my short little announcement for now.

Oh, and it’s not a way to track anybody, it’s just to save time and I guess to experiment a bit.

Hope you’re well!

I didn’t finish the last post I made about what I’m doing to the website. I think I might have left midway to do something–probably to play No Man’s Sky. I’m handling my addiction quite well. I’m back to working like crazy (full-time right now) but I’m still making a few changes to the site:

Built-In Feedback: Before I started working full-time again (believe me, this is just temporary), I started working on a feedback system for podcast episodes. I’m just finishing it up and putting it through a few rounds of testing. Over the next few weeks, you may notice that the links to my old website are gone and replaced with another commenting system. I’m keeping the Recaptcha stuff for now just for an extra layer of protection.

Podcast Feed: Along with those changes, I’m going to start generating my own feed code for new podcast episodes. This is done more for me so I don’t have to use several softwares just to update the feed. That was the reason why the latest episode was delayed, because I have to manually change it and sometimes I am just too tired and lazy. Why not do it automatically if I can do it that way?

Left Menu: I’ve simplified the menu that can appear on the left of pages (or the whole screen if you’re using a mobile device). It’s still not perfect, but I’ve reduced the size of the artwork/cover. At some point, I am going to make it an option to pop out the player so you can get more space on the menu.

Reward System: I go back and forth with this, trying to decide whether to keep it or not. As I’ve said before in my other weblog, I’m not seeking to get rich from this but I think it’s important to reward those who help promote my totally unprofessional podcast, streaming, or websites. I want to keep this, but I want to simplify it. A lot of the work I am doing here is more of a “proof of concept” kind of thing. You know, to see whether I can do it and for it to be tested. At some point, I want to help other podcast producers. Whether that happens or not, I don’t know yet.

Contact Options: I’m going to reduce these simply because I don’t want to have 300 links to services that I don’t use. I’ve removed Skype a long time ago because I’ve switched to using it only for phone calls to the USA. I’ll keep Telegram, Discord, Mastodon, and the contact form on my website. No Instagram? I don’t really use it. I don’t use Snapchat. I reserve Facebook for people I know personally. A lot of this change has been done, but I want to further simplify it.

Conclusion: I hope this transparency helps you understand what I’m doing and I really hope you’ll help me test things out and let me know if you see anything funny. I do need your help with testing things on this website because it’s built from scratch. I am not borrowing any code from anywhere. I want to get it right. 🙂

Again, thank you for being here. I appreciate it! I hope you stick around.

I’ve always got an excuse why I don’t post new podcast episodes, stream, or update my weblog and of course, today is no different. Things have been really busy lately.

I could lie and tell you that I haven’t just discovered No Man’s Sky but I won’t do that. That’s why I’ve been so busy. It’s why I haven’t been able to do anything else.

I’m going to be trying a few new things with what you hear and what you see. Here is what I’m thinking:

Podcasting: I’ve basically been struggling to find any motivation to record new podcast episodes. One of the real struggles of living in a rural area is that nothing happens. COVID-19 has made that even worse. You’d think that I’d have more time to blow because of it, but I don’t. I am considered “essential”. I don’t have an option to work from home. Besides work, nothing exciting has been happening.

Streaming: My work hours have been very unpredictable. Basically, I am on call on weekends. That’s when I think streaming game play works best. My dates have to be moved around a lot. I’m going to try to get it started soon. If you’d like to follow me on Twitch, go here.