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Consumption

This post is not directed at any particular person.

Numerous times today I’ve seen people referring to “consuming media” or “media consumption.”

It is weird and kind of disturbing how the language of the corporate world has invaded every day speech.

We’re not “consumers.” We are human beings!

I don’t consume media. I read books. I listen to music. I watch movies.

I’m not crazy about the term “content” either. Content is shit churned out by content mills and AI. It has no value. When a human being creates something of value, even it it’s only of value to them, it’s demeaning to call it “content”. I write articles and blog posts. I shoot and edit videos and podcasts. My stuff is all unique and the product of human creativity with thought and intent put into it. It’s not there to make someone click on something. It isn’t “content”. It’s my creative work.

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Don’t Annoy Me

I went to one of my old spots to skate yesterday. The little ditch I’ve been skating since I was 14.

​As I started to skate, the dog behind the fence on the south side of the ditch started going apeshit. It was annoying. I figured if it annoyed me that much, and the dog was that annoyed, then the neighbors of the dog owner would probably be annoyed as well.

I feel bad for dogs that just live in the backyard. When we lived in Lockhart, Texas, that was common. Dogs are emotional creatures and I think just sticking one in the backyard is abuse. At any rate, I don’t like being the cause of an innocent dog’s distress, even if it’s a dog that would love to kill and eat me.

I took a couple of runs and then left.

It left me feeling kind of uninspired, so I just went home and made plans to go skate a really good ditch in Fort Worth on Sunday (2 days from now) with my friends Dale and Carter. Feeling very inspired for that!

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Read This #1

I am converting my Read This page into a category, so it will have a subscribe-able RSS feed for links I want to share.

Below are the links I already had on the page. You should read them.

Is it Time to Revisit RSS? – of course it is

The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

The Gospel of the Public Library

The Colonization of Confidence – a great article about human creativity and the shit of tech-bros.

The bliss of good enough— an ode to my moka pot – from fromjason.xyz

Where have all the websites gone? – from fromjason.xyz

The Bullshit Web – by Pixel Envy

PERSONAL WEB, PERSONAL SOVEREIGNTY – from StarBreaker.org

HTML for people  – the people’s guide to learning HTML and telling social media to fuck off (my words, not theirs!)

The open web as gift economy (Part 4) – from Tracy Durnell’s Mind Garden

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nekoweb, skateboarding, and punk rock

I wrote this recently on my experimental blog on nekoweb. I think it really applies to personal blogs and sites in general.

Before I get started, this post refers a lot to a talk Ian MacKaye did at the Library of Congress over ten years ago. If you have about an hour and twenty-seven minutes, watch it. It’s a fascinating talk. I first watched this video about 8 years ago and it made a big impact on me. Every time I watch it I find that it applies to even more areas of endeavor.

If you don’t know who Ian is, clicky clicky.

However, rather than watching the whole thing now…

…watch these short clips – first the one about skateboarding and then the one where he talks about what punk really is…

…because even if you aren’t a skateboarder and aren’t into punk rock, chances are this is going to be relevant to you if you are on nekoweb.

OK. Have you watched the clips? Good. Because, you see, nekoweb and virtual places like it are, in fact, punk rock. They are that open space that Ian is talking about. Places like this – nekoweb – are inhabited the same way physical spaces were inhabited by punk rock in its early days. The same energy is here! The strongly raised middle finger to the corporate web. The creativity! The freedom to be a freak! (and I mean that only in the most positive way)

I’ve seen this phenomenon called numerous things. IndieWeb. Small Web. But I think it goes beyond “not being part of the corporate web.” It’s a fucking rebellion againt bland, safe, conservative, monetized, commoditized, bullshit, evil corporatism in general, and that is huge! THAT IS IMPORTANT.

I’m a librarian. The academic area of my profession has long been known as Library Science. My degree is Master of Library and Information Science. When I went to grad school, the school was called the School of Library and Information Science.About 10 or 15 years ago they changed it to the School of Information. Last month it was announced that it was being merged with some other schools dealing with computing. The University of North Texas is actually putting the term “Artificial Intelligence” in their library school’s name.

The academics of Library Science are missing it. Totally missing it. They have such a boner for AI and the money it represents that they don’t even know that THIS is actually the most interesting thing happening with regard to information! The same way record industry execs had no idea that punk rock would change the world, the academics seem unaware that this vibrant subculture is growing — a subculture that holds their values in contempt. This is where the creativity will reside in the future. It’s where it has always resided. In the shadows. I once said “the best skateboarding happens in the shadows” with regard to real skateboarding compared to corporate marketing “street league” bullshit skateboarding. My friend Chris really liked that quote, but the truth is the best of everything happens in the shadows, away from the spotlight. The pinks walk by without even noticing, because they never learned to see the world through a different lens.

Nothing interesting or beautiful ever comes from “the corporate”. The pinks are great at co-opting, stealing, commodifying for the un-clued-in masses, but they never create anything really great. Corporate skateboarding is shit. Corporate music is shit. All the best stuff always comes from a true counterculture.

Congratulations, beautiful weirdos! You are in the right place!

The biggest threat to cool things is discovery by the masses and the subsequent theft/commodification/marketing of that thing. It will be interesting to see what happens with the small web with regard to service like this. I think that ultimately just renting your own server space and building your own thing is probably best.

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January 1, 2026

I’m having coffee. Later we’ll take the dog for walk in the nature preserve. Then I’ll do some reading and writing.

I made a goal last night of watching no YouTube videos in 2026. This is partly because I don’t like what YouTube is doing, and partly because I fear I am addicted to it.

But this morning I realize it’s  bigger than that. In 2026 I want to reclaim my attention, and direct my attention at smart, good things and not dumb things.

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Happy New Year

Growing up my family didn’t really celebrate New Year’s. I think because it is a drinking holiday, and we didn’t drink. It might also have something to do with the fact that my parents were teachers, and after traveling to Louisiana for Christmas visits, by the time New Year’s came around they were exhausted and didn’t really give a fuck. That actually seems plausible.

So at most we would watch Dick Clark’s Rockin New Year’s Eve show on TV (or was it called New Year’s Rockin Eve? I’m not going to take the time now to look it up.)  Then we’d go to bed, and I’d wake up the next morning and maybe watch a  parade with no Underdog float lazily flying down the street with a look of great confidence and resolve on its face.

Stolen image of Underdog float at the Macy's parade
Stolen image of Underdog float at the Macy’s parade

As a sidenote, this year we watched some Thanksgiving Day parades. Most of the televised coverage was essentially commercials for various different musical groups and shows. It sucked. Have people forgotten Underdog?

As an adult I’ve come to really appreciate New Year’s Eve as the one holiday that’s actually adult-oriented. I don’t drink, and never have, and really don’t appreciate the connection with alcohol at all. But I do appreciate the idea that there is one holiday in the year that doesn’t cater to children. OK – maybe drunk children? But mostly it’s for adults.

Tonight, rather than spend the whole evening watching the festivities from around the world, we’re going to spend at least a couple of hours watching a live stream on Twitch of our friends’ band playing. It’s their New Year’s Eve virtual show. It will be fun. One of the many great #blessings of the pandemic was streaming entertainment done live by real people. It really helped everyone stay connected. While I do appreciate not being terrified of the virus all the time now I also recognize that the pandemic spurred a lot of creativity. The social isolation wasn’t easy and certainly had its detrimental effects, but I have to say it was the one time in my adult life when I didn’t feel the pressure to rush around like an idiot all the time. People had time.

I didn’t really have any official New Year’s resolutions last year. I had it in the back of my mind, or maybe the front, that I was going to do more game-mastering for my two campaigns. This was challenging because I’m involved in a lot of different things. But with great intention I dialed back my other activities and focused on my gaming. And I did in fact succeed in this goal.  I’m very happy about this because I enjoy running my games, and I especially enjoy being with my gaming group, both in person at the table and online. They are very important people to me. Most of us are old friends, and those who are new are just as important. Our gaming group is more than just a gaming group. We lift each other up when we need it.

I also made great progress this year  in freeing myself from the pernicious twin Cults of Productivity and Optimization. I spent time sitting on the couch with my wife and our dog and our cat listening to music. Just listening. Listening to wonderful music on the Big Stereo and enjoying being alive here on this planet with the person most important to me and our sweet little companions. I will continue this.

Anyway, happy New Year you animals.

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Thank you

Last year I removed all the tracking code from this site. I had already removed Google Analytics and replaced them with Fathom, an ethical analytics provider, but decided it was not really important to know how many people were reading this blog.

I have to admit, I do wonder from time to time.

Anyway, if you read this blog, subscribe through RSS, or whatever, thank you.

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Writing

When people ask me what I like to do, besides skateboarding, RPGs, and Aikido, I tell them reading and writing.

I think it surprises some folks to find out that I write a lot. I write every day. I this this and other blogs. I write tabletop RPG stuff for my campaigns. I’ve been keeping a physical, paper journal for nearly 20 years.

I write a lot. Almost compulsively. I have a few readers (I think), but since I stopped using analytics on my sites I have no idea unless someone comments or writes me an email.

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Noise

I’ve been reading the Minutes to Midnight blog for a year or two now.

Simone recently wrote an article called Noise. Then he wrote More About Noise. As you’ll see in the 2nd article, this topic seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people. I was one of those who emailed him about the first article.

More and more I find myself affected by noise of all sorts. So many things want my attention, and I only have so much I can healthily give. Only so much that I want to give. And yet the world and the internet often feel like a parasite attached to my frontal lobe, drawing out my attention — my focus – faster than it can be replenished.

It’s an addiction. Plain and simple.

I often joke that people are terrified of being alone only their own thoughts. But honestly it’s not a joke. It’s the truth. With the smartphone you can be connected all – the – fucking – time to the Beast. You think you are getting something, but you’re not. You are giving something.  Something that is limited in quantity and precious beyond compare. Your time and attention. Maybe your sanity too.

I had hoped by now to have a plan of action for 2026 for really altering my tech ownership and use. Simplification. Intention. Awareness. As I just wrote those three words I realized that maybe that is my plan. My ongoing plan. Evaluating what devices I use, and what is on them. Evaluating what digital services I use. Evaluating the software I use. Evaluating where and how I store my own data. Do I continue using the “cloud”? Is that really needed? How much of it is noise? Probably a lot.

There’s a lot to think about.

A few years ago I read a number of books about Zen. I have never really “practiced”, though I feel like aikido shares some principles with Zen practice. Maybe that’s why Zen really spoke to me. I read about Zazen, the practice of the Zen form of meditation without a goal. No “success”. You just sit there quietly, staring at a blank wall, and let your thoughts pass through your mind without really doing anything with them. My understanding is that you learn that thoughts are “just what your brain makes”, and it can make a lot of them. You observe them. You don’t act on them. You just let them happen. It seems like what you come to find is that most of them are, in fact, noise.

We already have enough noise in our heads already, generated by our own brains. We don’t need to add the noise of everyone else’s brain to that bedlam.

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Tech Stuff

iCloud vs Google Stuff

I’ve been using iCloud more and more the last couple of weeks. I’m pretty addicted to Google Drive and Docs, but for most likely completely ridiculous reasons I consider Google to be worse than Apple in the “doing evil in the world” department. Both are big evil corporations. I get that. For whatever reason I feel like Apple is “the evil I can live with.”

Using Notes and even Pages from iCloud works really well. The challenge is that so many people are on the Google platform while relatively few are on iCloud. That makes it harder to share documents with, for instance, podcasting partners.

Hardware

I’m sitting at the car dealership writing this post on my very nice Asus C34 Flip Chromebook. It really wasn’t much less expensive than a MacBook Air. I’m kinda determined not purchase any new computers for the next year. The Chromebook honestly gets the job done, and I can use iCloud from it no problem.

It just occurred to me that what I’m actually struggling with is consumerism…read on…

So, I LOOOOVE my iPad Mini. A couple of weeks ago, for the first time, I plugged my Apple Keyboard (that I normally use with my MacBook Pro in my home “office) into the iPad and tested it doing some writing. It was actually a really nice experience. The iPad just makes everything look great, and the keyboard worked so well with it. So I’ve been shopping for wireless keyboard/mouse combos for the iPAd. But here’s the thing…that’s dumb for me. A laptop (like this Chromebook) is much better for on-the-go writing. Having a keyboard like that just for my iPad would be a waste of money even while it might scratch my consumerist/materialist itch.

It’s weird the things we (I) attach value to. Do I get more personal gratification from working with what I have, or from buying flashy new stuff and being the guy with all the cool stuff? I’m not really sure. This is what happens when someone has disposable income. Yes? Yes.

Also on the hardware front…my $5000 ridiculously maxed-out late 2019 MacBook Pro has been declared by Apple to be obsolete, as they will no longer support machines with the old Intel chips going forward. A couple of months ago I stupidly “upgraded” to MacOS Tahoe and my computer immediately starting having problems with things like charging, waking up properly, etc. Power management issues. There were some other odd behaviors too. So over the last two weeks I 1)downgraded back to Catalina, the OS it came with, and 2)upgraded back up to Sonoma, which is 2 OSs behind Tahoe. It seems to be working well again. We’ll see. I and a bit skeptical, as there is still one thing it is doing that seems wrong. Will have have to re-downgrade to Catalina and leave it there? Maybe.

I bought this machine when it was clear I would be working at home during the pandemic and I needed a badass machine for video/audio work. It was the right decision at the time, but I’ll never spend that much on a computer again. In a little more than a year I hope to be retired, and I will not need a powerhouse machine for work.

Also – just to let y’all know – Tahoe is stupid. Most new OSs are stupid. Bloated, stupid, useless things — like Trump. No one needs the UI to be animated. No one needs fucking AI built into their shit. All this has me seriously taking another look at Linux, which of course I’ll abandon after expending some energy fretting about it.

Speaking of AI

I still see no valid use for AI outside of extremely technical uses, like medical research or something like that. Using AI to edit one’s writing is simply weak. Using it to “brainstorm” ideas for anything is weak – use your own brain. I understand that the genie is out of the bottle with regard to this, that the Tech Bros have already managed to infect the educational systems with this rubbish, but that won’t stop me from hating it. I have become that guy. I have a friend who is very into AI art. He’s a trained artist and has a degree in digital art. I understand why he finds this all fascinating. I just don’t think it is needed. Give me a shitty hand-drawn picture with heart any day.

This blog

October 6, 2026 will be the 2oth anniversary of this blog. Honestly, I am kinda tired of WordPress. I’m tired of the theme(s) I’ve been using for many years, but all the new themes available are…shit. And I don’t feel like creating my own theme. That’s not how I want to spend my time right now. The advantages of WordPress are…

  • I can log in from any computer and work on this blog, and publish
  • Since WordPress installation runs on my virtual server space on dreamhost, it is independent of any other hosting company. I like that. I have access to everything, and that means I have real control of my stuff.
  • It works

The downsides of WordPress…

  • The theme suck, and they are really hard to change. They are much more complex than they were 20 years ago. This one I’m using is one of about three that look like blogs and not like catalogs.
  • Since WP is based on PHP and MySQL it isn’t simple to move to another host, should I wish to do so. YES – I could. I am technically adept enough to do it. But still it is nice to just drag and drop static files.

At this point, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. I’ll keep with it.

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Yet another new web project

A couple of friends and I are working on a web-zine. The idea is to create a website as the homepage of the zine, and each zine is done as separate issues. Not an ongoing blog. A zine, with discrete issues. I’m fiddling around with it here…

The Cookies of Discontent

As part of this project I am building the site “old-school.: No content management system. No commenting system. Not even an RSS feed. Just hand-coded html pages done in a text editor, server-side includes, and CSS. An email address people can use to comment if they choose to do so. I feel like interactions like “likes” are bullshit. They’re cheap. If someone really wants to comment, then email us. No associate social media sites. We’ll notify a few friends of the project, and that’s it.

It’s been a lot of fun to work on this.

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Thankfullness Report 2025

I am thankful (or whatever) for…

  • My wife, who makes me happy in more ways than I can possibly ever articulate
  • Out cat, Lefty, who at the now-tender age of 16 is loyal and also driving me crazy
  • Our dog, Riley, who is just such a good boy
  • Aikido – which reminds me to try to be a better person every day
  • Skateboarding – without which I’d be a very different person
  • Libraries – which gave me a career I am proud of
  • My gaming group – surely the best group ever and really my closest friends
  • Growing up in a peaceful home that provided security and love
  • Medical science for saving my wife’s life
  • My community, which is diverse and wonderful
  • My extended family
  • My extended in-law family
  • My situation in life, most of which was simply a matter of luck
  • Music, which we enjoy seeing live and on the big stereo
  • The fact there this is something, rather than nothing. It didn’t have to be that way.
  • My other friends. I am lucky to have so many. They are all valued.
  • Books and reading