blog posts

• an ode to gitsync

  Since I moved this site to Hugo, I’ve been using an app called GitJournal to post from my phone. I have a beautiful desk setup with a clacky mechanical keyboard that’s a joy to write on, but the simple fact is that I’m a lazy shit and want to update my blog from the couch. It’s all mostly worked fine, with some headaches. I originally intended to use GitJournal to store my Github repo to my phone’s filesystem and then point an Obsidian¹ vault at that.

  1 Dec 2024
• Reflections on elections

  2016 was the first year I was eligible to vote in a presidential election. I was away at college, so I completed an absentee ballot, and, like most, felt confident in what I thought would be the result. I was no big fan of Clinton’s — I voted for Bernie in the primaries — but the other option was laughable: I couldn’t believe that a major political party put such a clown up as their candidate, and I thought the electorate was smart enough to see him for the fraud (and fascist) he was.

  7 Nov 2024
• Automattic's Write Brief is, unsurprisingly, full of shit

  Automattic recently launched their Write Brief AI assistant for folks using Jetpack with WordPress.¹ It is automatically available to anyone using wordpress.com, which I verified by logging into my 14-year-old account.

  28 Aug 2024
• what's this? (and how it works)

  Welcome to esotericbullshit.net, the new home of my blog and web stuff.

  Previously, this blog was hosted at bearblog under the domain cassie.land. Now, I’m using the SSG Hugo to create the site, which deploys to Github Pages for hosting.

  28 Aug 2024
• I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it

  Spoilers to follow.

  I wrote in my week notes:

  The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler. Handler’s Adverbs is often what I cite when folks ask what my favorite book is, and I loved Watch Your Mouth, too. I need light reprieves from The Odyssey, too, so this seemed an excellent time to round out my reading of Handler’s bibliography. I’m about halfway through and enraptured by the narrative voice. It’s pretentious, as a story narrated by a precocious high school senior should be, without being cloying, and with Handler’s charming humor throughout. I love it so far and have faith that the feeling will continue. I normally hate books set in high school, but this one takes me back to my high school self — somehow, in a good way, which I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.

  17 Aug 2024
• smooth runs the water where the brook is deep

  Write a blog post about words of wisdom your younger self would have appreciated hearing. (via blogprompts)¹

  I’m trying out doing blog prompts in an effort to populate this blog with more than just weekly round-ups and to get more comfortable writing about personal things.²

  8 Aug 2024
• Moving to a rack mount setup

  I wrote a post a few months ago cataloguing moving my home server from the old NZXT case I had leftover from my old PC into a Rosewill chassis that would let me, eventually, move to a proper rack setup. This past Prime Day, I purchased a Riveco 15U rack and then some sliding rails to go along with it, with the hope of finally moving the loud and hot NAS into the basement where it belongs.

  2 Aug 2024
• breaking silences

  Last time I updated this blog, I wrote about silences in my professional career. These past few weeks, I feel I am doing the work to break mine.

  20 Jun 2024
• Your silence will not protect you

  I’ve talked before on this blog about being a teacher and how passionate I am about my work; the time I spend with my students — which should be paramount and where all my energy goes — comes naturally. I often remark that I feel like I’m doing a stand-up comedy routine¹ while teaching because my goal is not only to instruct but to develop joy in learning, in reading, in writing.

  14 Apr 2024
• Moving my home server to a new chassis

  I have a home server (running Unraid) that I use to backup computers, as media storage, and to run various apps. It’s mostly been cobbled together from used parts I found for cheap, and it generally followed Serverbuild’s NAS Killer 4 guide. It runs like a dream, and putting it together is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. More recently, with streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, etc. cracking down on password sharing, it has become my pathway to shedding some monthly subscriptions and owning my own media.

  10 Mar 2024