2025-10-07
With pretty minimal wrestling, I was able to write in Markdown page support for this site. Part of the rendering logic already parses extensions to route Python and static HTML rendering, so pretty effortless overall. Much love to markdown-it-py for doing the heavy rendering. Pretty neat!
Currently in the middle of sprinting towards a writing deadline this week. Writing for paper instead of hypertext I've found to be surprisingly freeing for a collection of reasons. Lining up links and footnotes no longer becomes a formatting concern. As much as I enjoy writing in 2ch post embeds with language toggles, there are less detours in that vein with compatability and progressive degredation not knowing if someone will be reading your article on a website, in reader mode, or with a feed aggregator. I've also discovered newfound appreciation for graphical editors, having spent most of my time wrangling markup and toggling between preview views. Maybe my attitudes about this will evolve again if I find myself publishing a book written with LaTeX.
Besides the usual cycles, I've been digging back into digital art with more gusto. Jon Rafman has ventured into AI personalities, which feels simultaneously disappointing and also a little too late conceptually to generate any measure of awe. 9-eyes continues to be entertaining regardless. Mindy Seu, probably most known for the Cyberfeminism Index though also curios like an ASCII town, has a new book about the sexual history of the internet with proceeds going to those cited. More interesting is the live component, described as a lecture performance of recitation, but which from what I can tell is more like a kink sermon with Instagram Reels as holy scripture. I hope it's as strange to experience as it sounds.
DLsite is launching direct bank payments. Looking back towards Itch et al, Japanese companies continue to show more resiliency and willingness to develop creative solutions where global platforms have otherwise thrown up their hands or shrugged. It again bears my repeating that you can't be a harbor for artists if you aren't charging offensive instead of always playing reactive defense.