COVID-19 - Mike's Site

Return to the glamorous world of self hostingWhile the AI apocalypse has annihilated self-hosters' ability to understand what a good app is (on

Some mediaI consumed some media that wasn't Minecraft lately! Some of it was entertainment, some bordered on

HyperCard nostalgiaBeyond the old good internet lies the root of it all, the Killer App (for creative professions like

Everything's all Fugazi, but not the right FugaziGreat news for all the skaters and punks out there, Vans shoes is entering into a collaboration with

AI Layoffs and sowing the seeds of your own destructionHere’s a list of companies who have done layoffs directly attributable to AI. Obviously most are in

Launchers are back, babyVia former Weblogs guy Brett Terpstra, here's Tuna. If you used Quicksilver back in the day,

Viva la RSSA fully soverign feed system - The Universe of Joshua BlaisA blog, notes, gallery, lifestyle and fully conglomerated posts

IT'S ALL COMPUTERIt was quite a few years ago that I decided I no longer wanted to deal with computers

Alan Lomax's recordings onlineVia Open Culture, who apparently posted this ages ago, here is a nearly-complete archive of Alan Lomax&

State of the homelab, spring 2026We've been living in temporary housing, so there are some things that just can't

All this for 2 bytesFound on Lobste.rs, here’s a student developer who asked the question “What if I stored data

The best gear acquisition I've made in years (in praise of the Behringer XR18)Buying synthesizers is exciting. Buying guitar pedals and amps is fun. Buying new software plugins can be a

Good things CAN happenMore than 3 years ago now, Neurosis went out — not with a bang or even a fizzle, but

Ah, noiseI was talking to a friend and remembered a particularly impactful show from years ago. I believe the

SubvertWhile I’m all-in on re-decentralizing the web, there are certain places where putting a lot

Oops (I did it again)Back on Ghost. I've been experimenting with using an iPad as my primary non-musical daily

Probably pretty typical thoughts on JapanWe just returned from 10 days in Japan, and though I've been a horrible weeb for

Goodbye, DoofI sit here in my temporary housing, embracing the coziness of fall weather and its attendant sweaters and

No really, what happened?I think if you'd asked me even a year and a half ago what I thought

What happened?I love those kinds of blog posts where people talk about how it’s been a long time

RIP Stone and WilsonIt's not often you lose two absolute titans in the space of a couple days, let

Games lately, new year 2025 editionHere's what I've been mashing my thumbs to for the past few months. Astro

One day, the sadness will endSo said David Lynch, via the Log Lady. Not today, though. I can't remember the last

The Sounds of JarreHere's an interesting thing from a few years ago. Comedian and musician Matt Berry interviews Jean-

The DAK catalogI had forgotten about the DAK catalog, but I used to love it. If you had met me

Ah, WebsitesRemember websites? Some friends and some people I don't know got together after the brief run

What am I playing?I do get the occasional time to play video games. Here's what I've been

Happy 85th Birthday to Wendy CarlosWendy Carlos created soundtracks for Tron, A Clockwork Orange, and many more. She introduced millions to the potential

A mysterious mystery, no longer mysteriousHere's some good and fun news on a day when we could use it. One of

It's democratic values, Charlie BrownThe problem with believing the things about America and democracy that we were taught in school is that

Believe it or not, we could still have the web we wantUnlike a lot of things in our modern world where capitalistic consolidation has seemingly taken the power away

Another Highwayman downMy mom loved to say she hated Kris Kristofferson. We used to go back and forth over that.

The tortured artist stereotypeI hate it, but it has to come from somewhere. Sometimes Van Gogh gets blamed for it and

Chappell Roan trying to change the gameA year after Billie Eilish justified her baggy clothing by saying she "didn't want people

I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sadTears for Fears is doubling down on using AI for the new live album cover. This is a

Live videoHere's my new-ish project SHIVERING at a show a few weeks back. We play few

When you can't be an early adopterThe beta version of the MPC version 3 software is out, and I can't install it

Font Awesome buys EleventyI don't really even know what this means. Font Awesome does seem to be a pretty

IT ProfessionalismI've now been self-hosting some stuff for a while. It started small, with an old

I saw a wiener dog todayHe was very grand, and super long. Just the kind you want to see when you want to

A world without Steve AlbiniApparently I'm only inspired to write when someone dies? But this is a tough one. Steve

RIP Gary FloydA few days before the earth-shattering news that Steve Albini had passed, we lost another great of

The pointIt's almost a little too on-the-nose: A gallery piece where women are permitted entry

4,000 of my closest friendsIf you were on the internet in the early days of the web, you probably remember Cat and

Multi editI think it's probably safe to say that Figma eroded their own trust with the whole

In service of the grooveMusically, I am many things, though my skills range from "not bad" to "technically, yes,

Apples to MPCsIf you've ever spoken to an electronic musician or a guitarist, you know that GAS (Gear

How all of this worksA former coworker from the blog era was complaining about WordPress recently and it made me think of

RIP Damo SuzukiAs you get older, more and more entire bands will be gone. The Band entered that realm last

Migration and lossAs this iteration of the blog enters its tenth year (and I believe it's on its

Zed's alive, babyPromised for a while, finally Zed arrives. It's written by some of the creators of Atom,

I knew I hated this gameFrom the Public Domain Review's top articles of 2023, here's the story of The

Horizon Zero DawnAfter undertaking a ridiculous repair job on our "new" Playstation 4, the logical choice was to

What a gasThere are zillions of one-horse towns across the US, and most of them have a minor story

Entering the last console generation the hard wayMy son's friend just straight up gave him a Playstation 4 a few weeks back. I

Has it really been that long?Not joking, I forgot how Eleventy worked.

RIP Ryuchi SakamotoIt seems so recently that YMO’s Yukihiro Takahashi passed, and now we lose another of the great

Get things done or die tryingNerds, creatives, and knowledge workers in general seem to gravitate toward productivity schemes and methodologies. If you'

Blog enters the 21st centuryI don't even know what that means. I think things have gotten over-complicated, but the

Building a useful homelabA while back I started getting nervous about hosted services. Google starting to limit storage, Amazon killing off

RIP Burt BacharachAre these the only posts I write anymore? Talk about a legend right here, Burt Bacharach shuffled off

RIP Yukihiro TakahashiThis one is a little late. But here's a guy who was the vocalist and drummer

In praise of Jellyfin (so far)Lately I've been doing more fighting with Plex (slogan: "Pay $5 a month to use

Music I liked in 2022I always do this, but honestly it was not a huge year for me in terms of listening

Real ones we lost in 2022If the memes and jokes are to be believed, 2022 wasn't any more of a picnic

RIP Terry HallI feel like I've been posting a lot of these RIP things lately. The Specials were,

I can't have nice thingsYes, Lite XL happened this year and it's been great on Linux but is a little

RIP Angelo BadalamentiFirst Julee Cruise, now Angelo Badalamenti. One was estranged, one was presumably still a close friend. But either

In praise (and defense) of the Novation CircuitsPretty regularly on the Novation Circuit subreddit, a question like this or a comment expressing the same general

Witchin'Old games for an old guy

Is this really it?The number of occasions I've heard masses of people say they're going to walk

One year with ObsidianIt occurs to me that I wrote this post about trying Obsidian about a year ago. In that

WhoopsWhen moving site hosts to save a buck I seem to have screwed some things up. I'

"Disappointing"At least once a year we try to get out to Cape Disappointment on Washington's Long

Dark days aheadI wish I had any idea what to do. The dems' plan is "vote!" but

RIP Julee CruiseNot much else to say. An iconic voice inextricably tied to something I love, though her feelings on

RIP Dave SmithLess than 3 weeks after making an appearance at Superbooth and looking healthy and enthusiastic, Dave Smith is

Yes, Virginia, there is a Microsoft version of thatWhy I'm excited for Loop

Lite XLLove the contradictory name. I don't necessarily want to get on the Electron hate train, but

Yes, this, etc.My quest for simplicity has led to some people doing some pretty interesting stuff. Even more appealing to

365 days of type 9 from TRUI don't think much about cool typefaces these days, I'm generally just looking for

Another day, another blog redesignBeen thinking about doing this ever since I did the last one. It never quite came out the

Utopian thinkingNow this is something interesting. Obviously we've gotten pretty far away from the fundamentals of the

The FBI Guide to Internet SlangPentagram does a snarky thing with a fun type design. Like Bierut, I wonder if any of these

Problems I'm glad I'm not dealing withEric Meyer on the CSS Working Group's attempts to add conditionals to CSS. My most recent

Is this it?Framer Sites looks wild. Framer already generates pretty good HTML, and this seems to represent the final few

I salute you, MMT-8Few pieces of gear are, on their own, really inspiring. Even the worst gear has its merits, but

Bob Moog and usability heuristicsHere's a rare intersection of my interests. This is actually a great article for UX folks

A better way to keep notesI'm definitely not alone here but finding the perfect toolset is a slight neurosis of mine.

Figma organization for busy designersEDIT TO THIS POST: Figma has a much more native way of handling this now. It's

Typora for WindowsI've now been on Windows at work for 3 years and finally found a notes solution

The great un-googlingThey said it couldn't be done — removing yourself from Amazon. In truth, it mostly can'

New device: Behringer TD-3It's pretty safe to call Behringer "much-maligned." Obviously they have a tendency to

Adee: Figma a11y testing toolThis is pretty cool. Figma core features and plugins continue to narrow the gap between designing and building.

Creating (more) music during the pandemicI suppose I was fortunate, really. My band's drummer, who also wrote maybe 70% of the

Cranking the engine back upI think I'm going to maybe do some blogging again? I've always had trouble

Can UX be remote?Jakob Nielsen answers a question that's on a lot of people's minds right now.

Pedal boredLike any mediocre guitarist, I spend a lot of time rethinking my tone and my pedalboard. Like any

When you "have" to do a focus groupMost UX researchers will parrot the line that focus groups are terrible, and even if they are parroting,

ScottThis one is tough. Mark Hollis recently passed, and that was difficult to process but in the musical

#COVID-19

Can UX be remote?