koxinga; editing

posts/_metadata.json

@@ -8,6 +8,15 @@
     "tags": ["meta", "code", "project", "web", "markdown", "typescript_javascript", "css"],
     "archived": false
   },
+  "Koxinga Browser v1.0.0": {
+    "title": "Koxinga Browser v1.0.0",
+    "slug": "koxinga",
+    "filename": "koxinga",
+    "date": "05/03/2025",
+    "author": "jet/Prussia and prussianbluehedgehog",
+    "tags": ["project", "web"],
+    "archived": false
+  },
   "shimeji-book-club-1-3": {
     "title": "Shimeji Simulation Book Club: Chapters 1-3",
     "slug": "shimeji-book-club-1-3",
@@ -17,15 +26,6 @@
     "tags": ["manga", "commentary_analysis"],
     "archived": false
   },
-  "neet-admiration": {
-    "title": "NEETs are good, actually",
-    "slug": "neet-admiration",
-    "filename": "neet_admiration",
-    "date": "13/12/2025",
-    "author": "jet/Prussia",
-    "tags": ["neet", "lifestyle"],
-    "archived": true
-  },
   "haguro-book-review": {
     "title": "Book Review: A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect of Shugendo",
     "slug": "haguro-book-review",
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
     "filename": "dns_server_misadventures",
     "date": "05/04/2025",
     "author": "jet/Prussia",
-    "tags": ["dns", "web", "intranet", "complaint"],
+    "tags": ["dns", "web", "selfnet", "complaint"],
     "archived": false
   },
   "the-ming-wm-philosophy": {
@@ -285,7 +285,7 @@
     "date": "02/08/2023",
     "author": "jet/Prussia",
     "tags": ["code", "project", "web", "build", "docs", "typescript_javascript"],
-    "archived": false
+    "archived": true
   },
   "pilanimate": {
     "title": "PilAnimate Docs",

posts/bananopie.md

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 Bananopie was written with the aim of being the Python equivalent of Banano.js (but better :)) and furthering my understanding of the Nano/Banano protocol. I learned quite a bit about how blocks were constructed and whatnot. Very fun, would recommend.
 
+> There is a Typescript/Javascript equivalent, also written by me, [banani](https://banani.prussia.dev).
+
 Anyways, I think it's acheived that goal, and hopefully went a bit above and beyond in simplicity and powerfulness (it has some useful functions that Banano.js does not, like `send_all` and the old message signing, as well as local work generation).
 
 The only two frustrations I had while writing Bananopie was not knowing whether certain things were big-endian or little-endian, since the Nano docs don't specify (I just tested against the output of Banano.js or wallets), and also dealing with Python's decimal precision fuckery.
@@ -261,4 +263,3 @@ class RPC:
   ...
 ```
 
-> There is a Typescript/Javascript equivalent, also written by me, [banani](https://banani.prussia.dev).

posts/koxinga.md

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+Recently, [Koxinga](https://git.elintra.net/stjet/koxinga), the text-based browser for [ming-wm](https://git.elintra.net/stjet/ming-wm) was bumped to version 1.0.0!
+
+The big new thing is support for forms with text inputs that send a GET request on submit. For me, this primarily means Wikipedia's search box is now supported. Yay!
+
+The interface and UX has been overhauled to be more similar to Malvim, the Vim-like text editor bundled with ming-wm. Some bugs and annoying things were fixed. The usual. Here are some fun images, the same ones in the README.md:
+
+![Stallman.org](/images/koxinga_within.png)
+![en.wikipedia.org](/images/koxinga_wiki.png)
+![news.ycombinator.com](/images/koxinga_hn.png)
+
+I plan to mostly use it to browse Wikipedia and HN, so I'm not too worried about the browser becoming useless^[0]^. It's quite unfortunate that so many sites cannot be simply rendered, or even don't work without Javascript. I really miss the many sites that basically only used the `<p>` tag, and maybe some `<b>` and `<img>` if the economy was good.
+
+You can still find a decent amount of these simpler sites, especially on university subdomains, where older professors (rightfully) simply don't see the point in going beyond basic readability, but there's obviously more of these sites going down every year than coming up. Though, things like neocities seem to be "cool" again, in certain circles. Most neocities sites wouldn't really be readable on Koxinga, but another recently popular site, bearblog.dev is perfectly usable with Koxinga.
+
+What is interesting is that unlike the other obstacles that anyone trying to use a simple browser (eg, the Cloudflare challenges, Javascript loading the content instead of it being in the static HTML, etc), there's no one to really blame. Modern web development is awful, but having only text-based sites (like in the Gemini protocol) is too restricting.
+
+So I don't think Koxinga is the ideal browser in an ideal world. I would have loved for it to support more complex formatting, I just don't really want to work that hard on it, and I'm not really sure how I would do all this complicated rendering anyways. It does what I want.
+
+...By the way, the ideal browser, in my opinion, would be [Lynx](https://lynx.invisible-island.net).
+
+===
+
+[0]: It is a great POC app for ming-wm, anyhow. Plus, the development process for Koxinga led me to add several things to ming-wm itself that I realised were kinda important, like font data caching for faster text rendering.

posts/manga_translation_one_rule.md

@@ -12,17 +12,23 @@ So, I will vainly (in both senses of the word) try to get all us translators on
 
 First, the intent of some localisations is to change or remove content from the source material, in order to avoid offending the non-Japanese audience's perceived sensibilities. A infamous example (though for an anime, not a manga) is the english version of Sailor Moon, which [removed violent or sexual scenes, and changed queer characters to be non-queer, accidentally making a lesbian couple into a pair of incestuous cousins instead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon#Westernization). More recently, lines or scenes perceived as misogynstic have been removed too. This can hardly even be called localisation, since it really is just censorship.
 
-Second, other localisations change things in order to make them foreign concepts understandable to non-Japanese people. **Good translations should do this!** The easiest way to illustrate this is by looking at how dialects are handled^\[0\]^. In "2DK, G Pen, Mezamashi Tokei" by Oosawa Yayoi, one the main characters speaks in a strong Hakata dialect. The excellent fan translation by Ropponmatsu, a Scottish dialect is used instead, and *importantly*, the translator explains that they substituted the Hakata dialect for the Scottish dialect. It's cute, and as the plot is divded between the character at work, where she speaks in standard Japanese, and at home, where she speaks in a dialect, the choice ends up working quite well. Similarily, the character ~~Ayumu Kasuga~~ Osaka in Azumanga Daioh speaks in a Osaka dialect, and is a bit of a "slow" character, which is portrayed as a American Southern dialect in both the dub of the anime and the manga translations. Now, the Osaka dialect is not a perfect analogue to a Southern dialect. When localising, you will find that these concepts rarely have perfect analogues. To avoid misleading readers, translators need to explain what decision was made, and why (which is what Ropponmatsu did). In Azumanga Daioh, they leave in that Osaka is from Osaka and speaks Osaka dialect. They do not change her into a character from the American South. Not having any localisation at all would make our translations only marginally better than machine^\[1\]^ or dictionary translations, and confuse readers.
+Second, other localisations change things in order to make them foreign concepts understandable to non-Japanese people. **Good translations should do this!** The easiest way to illustrate this is by looking at how dialects are handled^\[0\]^. In "2DK, G Pen, Mezamashi Tokei" by Oosawa Yayoi, one the main characters speaks in a strong Hakata dialect. The excellent fan translation by Ropponmatsu, uses a Scottish dialect instead, and *importantly*, the translator explains that they substituted the Hakata dialect for the Scottish dialect. It's cute, and as the plot is divded between the character at work, where she speaks in standard Japanese, and at home, where she speaks in her dialect, the choice ends up working quite well. Similarily, the character ~~Ayumu Kasuga~~ Osaka in Azumanga Daioh speaks in a Osaka dialect, and is a bit of a "slow" character, which is portrayed as a American Southern dialect in both the dub of the anime and the manga translations. Now, the Osaka dialect is not a perfect analogue to a Southern dialect. When localising, you will find that these concepts rarely have perfect analogues. To avoid misleading readers, translators need to explain what decision was made, and why (which is what Ropponmatsu did). In Azumanga Daioh, they leave in that Osaka is from Osaka and speaks Osaka dialect. They do not change her into a character from the American South. Not having any localisation at all would make our translations only marginally better than machine^\[1\]^ or dictionary translations, and confuse readers.
 
 **However, there is a difference between translating concepts and removing them entirely.** In many manga, a spoken word game called [shiritori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiritori) is played. No such equivalent exists in the western world. I have seen some translations change a game of shiritori into a different game entirely. That is wrong! This type of "localisation" doesn't help readers understand an unfamiliar concept, it just avoids doing so entirely. And in a practical sense, this will confuse the reader, especially if the omitted concept is referenced later, or there is some important information contained in it. Beyond that, it is not our place as translators to make drastic changes. We are not writing our own work, but trying to faithfully reproduce someone else's work in another language! Perhaps it is acceptable to change the words played into shiritori so that they start and end with the same letters, so readers have a vague (but not quite accurate) idea of what shiritori is. If that is done, the original words should be disclosed. And either way, there should be a TL note somewhere explaining what shiritori is.
 
-There are other examples of this misguided practice. Some translations do not indicate (whether by font, wording, or note) when a character is speaking in a certain level of formality. Bad! Some translations change Japanese names into local names. The Detective Conan manga calls Kudo Shinichi "Jimmy Kudo", and Ran Mori "Rachel Moore" (to be fair, they do this to maintain consistency with the english dub, so it's really the anime's fault). C'mon guys, I bet people can handle Japanese names. Some translations also change Japanese cultural references into western ones without noting they did so. Others change panel and page order so manga can be read left-to-right instead of right-to-left, messing up the artwork. Bad, bad, bad! Luckily, these practices are decreasing over time.
+There are other examples of this misguided practice. Some translations also change Japanese cultural references into western ones without noting they did so. Some translations do not indicate (whether by font, wording, or note) when a character is speaking in a certain level of formality. For these, the culprits at least have the thin veneer of an excuse. It can be a little difficult to explain these concepts to someone who isn't familiar, and even once explained, the reader won't truly "get it" like a native resident would.
 
-Shockingly, manga written by Japanese people are often set in Japan or have Japanese characters. Therefore, improper localisation which tries to deny to this origin, ends up removing key parts of characters or the plot, and looks down on readers. Good localisation familiarize unfamiliar concepts, enhancing the reader's understanding. Good localisation assumes the reader is curious!
+Some translations change Japanese names into local names. The Detective Conan manga calls Kudo Shinichi "Jimmy Kudo", and Ran Mori "Rachel Moore" (to be fair, they do this to maintain consistency with the english dub, so it's really the anime's fault). Some translations change Japanese foods into western ones. The most infamous case is the Pokemon english dub called what were clearly rice balls "jelly-filled donuts". C'mon guys, I bet people can handle Japanese names or the concept of a rice ball! Some change panel and page order so manga can be read left-to-right instead of right-to-left, messing up the artwork.
+
+Bad, bad, bad! Luckily, these practices are decreasing over time.
+
+What these misguided localisations are trying to do is not "translation", but rather "retelling". There is a time and a place for this; yes. But it would simply be wrong to present, as an example, the West Side Story as a translation of Romeo and Juliet.
+
+What is important to realise is that the cultural context is *part* of the story, you cannot remove it while preserving the story. Shockingly, manga written by Japanese people are often set in Japan or have Japanese characters. Good localisation familiarize unfamiliar concepts, enhancing the reader's understanding and enjoyment in the long run. Good localisation assumes the reader is curious!
 
 ## Jokes
 
-I often see jokes literally translated, so that they don't make sense at all, or even worse, removed. Needless to say, this is bad. I see this a lot on r/umamusume. This kind of thing is probably just the translator not being actually knowing Japanese (or being tired and missing a joke), so there isn't much that can be done about that, I guess.
+I often see jokes literally translated, so that they don't make sense at all, or even worse, removed. Needless to say, this is bad. This kind of thing is probably just the translator not being actually knowing Japanese (or being tired and missing a joke), so there isn't much that can be done about that, I guess.
 
 Besides that, I think most translators handle jokes reasonably well. Most people handle puns by thinking of a similar pun in English and substituting it. To me, this is perfectly reasonable. Puns are normally "throw away" jokes, so the exact pun is *usually* not important. In many cases, a good pun cannot be found, so a TL note is left explaining the pun.
 
@@ -48,14 +54,20 @@ At this point, you've probably noticed my preferred solution to most problems, t
 
 Translator notes add nuance and clarification without making the dialogue too wordy and clunky. Translator notes educate the reader about cultural context or even plot context. Translator notes provide a window into the mind of the translator - what decisions they made, and why. Without translator notes, readers who don't know Japanese and don't have access to the source material will mistakenly believe the author/characters said something they never did, or even worse, not understand what is going on at all. If that happens, we as translators have failed.
 
-What I assert that our job is to smoothly and correctly translate the author's intent, I do not mean we do not leave any of our own influence on the work. That is impossible, since there is no deterministic algorithm for translation. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. We have to make decisions about every phrase and line. Hopefully, those decisions make it so non-Japanese readers can experience the manga in a very similar way as Japanese readers do. But, those readers should be made aware of those decisions.
+While I assert that our job is to smoothly and correctly translate the author's intent, I do not mean we do not leave any of our own influence on the work. That is impossible, since there is no deterministic algorithm for translation. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. We have to make decisions about every phrase and line. Hopefully, those decisions make it so non-Japanese readers can experience the manga in a very similar way as Japanese readers do. But, those readers should be made aware of those decisions.
 
 Hence, translator notes are essential.
 
+## Holistic Translation
+
+All these bad translations stem for a single misunderstanding of what is *actually being translated*. What is being translated is not just the plot, not just the words, not just the feelings of the character. Rather, it is all that, plus cultural context, and many other components, all considered *together*, considered *holistically*.
+
+Now, different works and different translators will weigh these factors differently. For some stories, it might be critically important for the plot to be extremely precise, and other aspects might need to be slightly sacrificed to ensure that. There is still much room for great, and reasonable disagreement on what the weightings should be for all the factors, or whether a certain translation correctly reflects that weighting. These are more "subjective" disagreements, matters of taste. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to take seriously translations which do not start from the basic premise that all aspects of the original work must be holistically considered, and that unweighting certain contexts requires extremely careful, serious thought.
+
 ===
 
 Footnotes:
 - \[0\]: I used to be of the opinion that sfx should not be localised, but I have changed my mind. Old me was wrong. English readers do not know that "ガタガタ" is the sound of something shaking or clattering, and even if they could read it as "gata gata", it wouldn't really help. I think the best way to handle sfx is to write, in small text next to the sfx, the meaning of the sfx. Unfortuantely, in some manga, there is no space, and having a TL note underneath the panel does not always work (eg, multiple sfx), so in that case cleaning the sfx and replacing with the English equivalent is appropriate. Honestly, leaving the sfx as the original is quite common and acceptable too, but providing a localisation is better.
-- \[1\]: For obvious reasons, I have been thinking a lot about AI lately, mostly against my will. It really sucks that entire classes of art and craftsmanship are being wiped out. Regular translation has already been gutted, and I'm a bit scared for when it comes for scanlation too. Some people are probably already using it to translate... augh. Interestingly enough, the world's greatest piece of literature since the Epic of Gilgamesh, Shimeji Simulation, seems to have something to say about this. I want to eventually write an analysis (what a fancy word...) about it. Hopefully Shimeji Simulation will help me cope.
+- \[1\]: For obvious reasons, I have been thinking a lot about AI lately, mostly against my will. It really sucks that entire classes of art and craftsmanship are being wiped out. Regular translation has already been gutted, and I'm a bit scared for when it comes for scanlation too. Some people are probably already using it to translate... augh. Interestingly enough, the world's greatest piece of literature since the Epic of Gilgamesh, Shimeji Simulation, seems to have something to say about this. I want to eventually write an exegesis (what a fancy word...) about it. Hopefully Shimeji Simulation will help me cope.
 - \[2\]: Translating to Toki Pona, which has only a few sentence structures, and 120~ words, is a good way to practice how to rephrase a line without losing the essence or important nuances, in my experience. If you try to translate too literally, the sentence will be too long and confusing, so you are forced to simplify.
 

posts/meta.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Anyways, once I decided to start completely rewriting the blog, I established so
 ## Code
 Hedgeblog (oh, that's what I'm calling it by the way) is made of three components: Makoto (Markdown to HTML parser), Ryuji (templating language), and Saki (build system).
 
-You can find the code on [Github](https://github.com/jetstream0/hedgeblog).
+You can find the code [here](https://git.elintra.net/stjet/hedgeblog).
 
 ### Makoto
 Makoto is the Markdown-to-HTML parser, made with no dependencies. It was made around two months before Ryuji and Saki, and is meant to be more of a standalone thing. This is the sole npm dependency of the project. I `npm install`ed it instead of just copying the file over mostly because I published Makoto to npm and wanted to make sure it worked. Also, it has a different license, documentation and stuff.

posts/neet_admiration.md

@@ -1,47 +0,0 @@
-I think NEETs get a bad rap. Really, I'll go even further and say NEETs deserve some admiration, in the same way that monks do.
-
-Not being in education, employment or training isn't inherently bad, we know that. Most of us aspire to be NEETs in a sense, when we hopefully one day retire (please, please, let us retire).
-
-What pisses people off is the age when NEETs become NEETs, which is several decades before the common retirement age. The sentiment is then that they are lazy parasites on society, while the elderly have earned their NEET-hood.
-
-But is this not a double standard?
-
-The trust fund millionaire, who hasn't worked a day in their life, while not exactly respected, is not viewed as negatively as a NEET.
-
-A better example may be a 20-something year old entrepreneur, who exits after their startup is sold, with a bajillion dollars, and retires. These people are lauded in the newspapers, and there are many people aspiring to be like them. Sure, they have worked, but was their work truly that many times more valuable than someone who can only retire in their 60s?
-
-So it is clear now that standard for whether NEET-hood is acceptable or not is based on money.
-
-But if the NEET has the financial or practical means (eg, a vegetable garden) to maintain their NEET-hood, how is it any different?
-
-Well, obviously, the argument goes, many NEETs live off of welfare, or family handouts, giving nothing back, and are therefore parasites. But the NEET is not extorting any money, or stealing. The government, or family, are willingly lending support, in the same way a community gives alms to a monk.
-
-Though, many monks provide spiritual services to alms-givers, or at least giving alms spiritually benefits the alms-giver in some way. This is not a very convincing argument to someone not sharing the same religion as the monk, of course.
-
-Some monks create works of art, such as sculpture or literature. They also do work, just not as part of employment. They probably have religious duties, like rituals or prayers, and physical chores like cleaning or taking care of a small garden.
-
-So if a NEET does the same, either creating works of art or doing chores, are they not similar? Can we not justify them too?
-
-I think we can, anyways. While being a NEET is not quite the same as a bum, [Utah Phillips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Phillips) was a vagrant trainhopping bum for several years, and I would say he ended up providing great value to a lot of people, including me. Just as one example. It wasn't like he "recovered" from or disavowed being a bum, it was a key component of his successes.
-
-NEETs, again similar to monks, typically live a simple and poor lifestyle. To be satisfied with what you have is quite admirable in my eyes. Being poor is not easy.
-
-A common framing of the media and others is that NEETs are an economic problem, because they are not creating value for society in the typical way. Sure, this is true. If the whole nation became monks many problems would arise too. But this is not the fault of the NEETs. NEETs are a symptom of a sick society. Just as monks increase when there is war, famine, or general instability, NEETs are increasing because the world kinda sucks, y'all.
-
-Given my admiration for NEETs, why not become one?
-
-I've thought about it.
-
-I somewhat believe people have an obligation to society, that we should pay through work, so that is part of it. But there is no doubt that people can be of service to society while still being a NEET. Further, it is arguable whether most jobs are indeed really making value for society. So that is pure cope on my part.
-
-The truth is I do not have the balls or bravery to do it. I do somewhat care about how people I know perceive me. This is unsarcastically unfortunate. I would characterise myself as much less materialistic than typical, and I don't wish I was uber wealthy, but I am scared of being in poverty, still. These are the same exact reasons why I wouldn't become a monk, or a drifter or some sort.
-
-To have the courage and lack of greed to be a NEET, or, if it was not by choice, the courage to accept the situation and still be happy, is something that we can strive for, at least to some extent.
-
-===
-
-Some addendums:
-
-- This should almost go without saying, but not all NEETs are noble, there are surely some who do nothing, hate their situation, and abuse others. But that's pretty much true for any group of people, I guess
-- My main criticism of NEETs, is the tendency to be hikikomoris. I mean that in the strictest definition; that is, not going outside. I'm pretty sure this is not healthy over a long period of time. It is not that I am against refusing social interactions, or generally isolating oneself. I simply believe that mentally it is better to go outside, go on a walk, and see nature, like how traditional ascetics
-- Being a monk is also not always a life-long vow, again like NEET-hood, depending on the religion and tradition

posts/recommended_blogs.md

@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@ A very short (so far) list of blogs/sites I read when HN's been reloaded for the
 - [Matt Lakeman](https://mattlakeman.org): travel and pop history
 - [Richard Stallman](https://stallman.org/articles): digital and human rights
 - [Lwn.net](https://lwn.net/Archives): linux and open source
+- [Gleanings in Buddha-fields](https://nembutsu.cc)

posts/saki_docs.md

@@ -109,4 +109,4 @@ builder.serve_templates(renderer, [
 ]);
 ```
 
-If a real world example is preferable, [this blog uses Saki](https://github.com/jetstream0/hedgeblog/blob/master/index.ts) to build as a static site.
+If a real world example is preferable, [this blog uses Saki](https://git.elintra.net/stjet/hedgeblog/src/branch/master/index.ts) to build as a static site.

posts/shimeji_book_club_1_3.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 The prussianbluehedgehog group has recently finished translating chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Shimeji Simulation into [Toki Pona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona). You can read their translation [here](https://manga.prussiafan.club/manga/shimeji-simulation). For those of you who can't read Toki Pona^\[0\]^, there is an excellent (also fan) translation on Mangadex in English (not made by prussianbluehedgehog).
 
-You'll notice that Tsukumizu (the author and artist) makes a large amount of literary references. Certainly enough to have a... book club! Yay! Read with us, it'll be fun!!!
+Anyways, reading the manga, you'll notice that Tsukumizu (the author and artist) makes a large amount of literary references. Certainly enough to have a... book club! Yay! Read with us, it'll be fun!!!
 
 Here, I'll write some brief reflections on the referenced books in the first 3 chapters, followed by thoughts about how it relates to the manga. If you read any of these books and would like to share your own feelings, please email us^\[1\]^.
 
@@ -9,20 +9,20 @@ Here, I'll write some brief reflections on the referenced books in the first 3 c
 
 This novella by Ernest Hemingway was read by Shimeji, and can be prominently seen in the second-to-last panel of the 4th page of the chapter 1. In the subsequent panel, Shimeji thinks sadly about the marlin getting eaten.
 
-"The Old Man and the Sea" is fundamentally about the universal human experience of giving it your all and being in a worse position than before; of getting beaten down for no good reason at all. The titular old man, Santiago, hasn't caught any fish in a long time. This is bad, because he is a fisherman. He goes far out to sea, and snares a ridiculously large marlin on his hook. He fights it for several days and nights. When he finally reels it in, some blood in the water alerts swarms of sharks, which despite the best efforts of the old man (he kills several), bite off all the flesh. When he returns to shore with the skeleton, tourists don't even know what creature the skeleton is from.
+The Old Man and the Sea is fundamentally about the universal human experience of giving it your all and being in a worse position than before; of getting beaten down for no good reason at all. The titular old man, Santiago, hasn't caught any fish in a long time. This is bad, because he is a fisherman. He goes far out to sea, and snares a ridiculously large marlin on his hook. He fights it for several days and nights. When he finally reels it in, some blood in the water alerts swarms of sharks, which despite the best efforts of the old man (he kills several), bite off all the flesh. When he returns to shore with the skeleton, tourists don't even know what creature the skeleton is from.
 
-On the book itself, is it good? The prose is simple, and maybe a little tiresome to read. But somehow, Hemingway uses this to make you feel exactly what the old man is feeling. I felt the pain the old man felt when the line cut into his hands, or his hands cramped. I felt his fatigue every night, and his despair when the sharks ate his catch. It became my favourite book the second I finished it^\[2\]^. It still is. So yeah, it is good, Very Good.
+On the book itself, is it good? The prose is simple, and maybe a little tiresome to read. But somehow, Hemingway uses this to make you feel exactly what the old man is feeling. I felt the pain the old man felt when the line cut into his hands, or his hands cramped. I felt his fatigue every night, and his despair when the sharks ate his catch. It became my favourite book the second I finished it^\[2\]^. It still is. So yeah, it is good, Very Good. You will be convinced of Hemingway's exceptional talent. He's a fucking genius.
 
-The book and Shimeji Simulation share many thematic similarities. Both explore how we should respond to adverse situations. Hemingway, through his book, clearly has an opinion: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated", or in other words, don't give up! Your efforts justify itself, regardless of the results. You cannot be miserable if you refuse to consent to be miserable. A semi-stoic philosophy. Shimeji Simulation, on the other hand, (imo) is more open ended, and explores many responses, including nihilism (most obvious in Mogawa) and the milder apathy (Shimeji), though both are ultimately rejected by the characters. Both brilliantly stir an emotional reaction, and both convey the feeling that we are not alone in feeling the way we do.
+The book and Shimeji Simulation share many thematic similarities. Both explore how we should respond to adverse situations. Hemingway, through his book, clearly has an opinion: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated", or in other words, don't give up! Your efforts justify itself, regardless of the results. You cannot be miserable if you refuse to consent to be miserable. A stoic-seeming philosophy, though it could be seen as a Catholic/Nietzsche-like view of "suffering builds character". Well, stoic views might not disagree with that either. I guess the key difference is that the Catholic/Nietzsche perspective glorifies suffering in a way that stoicism does not. Catholics might compare suffering to that of the Christ, or martyrs. Nietzsche also seems to embrace suffering as a path to greatness. Seeking out suffering and bearing it almost becomes a proof of virtue. Stoicism appears to agree that reactions to suffering are important, but disagrees in that suffering itself is not desirable, just inevitable. Shimeji Simulation, on the other hand, (imo) is more open ended, and explores many responses, including nihilism (most obvious in Mogawa) and the milder apathy (Shimeji), though both are ultimately rejected by the characters. It seems closer to stoicism than any Catholic of Nietzschean attitude, but it isn't quite that either. Regardless of the underlying philosophy, both Shimeji Simulation and The Old Man and the Sea brilliantly stir an emotional reaction, and both convey the feeling that we are not alone in feeling the way we do.
 
 Both (but especially Shimeji Simulation, with the hole digging machine and Shimeji's older sister's inventions) are now especially important to read and reflect on, with the rise of "AI" and the general trend of ownership turning into rentership. With these worries already posing an existential threat to human livelihoods, creativity, and meaning, how do we manage?
 
-That is obviously a complicated question, and one for another time^\[3\]^. I personally found both the old man's grit, and Shimeji's indifference to death admirable.
+That is obviously a complicated question, and one for another time^\[3\]^. I personally found both the old man's grit, and Shimeji's indifference to death admirable, though I'd have to think about "why".
 
 ## Chapter 2: The Catcher in the Rye
 ### Cynicism vs. Apathy
 
-"The Catcher in the Rye", by J.D. Salinger, can be seen very faintly as a book Shimeji is reading in the last panel of chapter 2.
+The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, can be seen very faintly as a book Shimeji is reading in the last panel of chapter 2.
 
 This book is alright. It seemed to me like the protagonist, Holden, an angsty American teenage boy, was supposed to be at least somewhat sympathetic, but I did not think so. I found him and his narration mildly annoying. To the book's credit, it covers themes that for whatever reason, don't seem to be present in other similar coming-of-age genre books, such as alienation, uncertainty, and confusion. I guess since the book is written from the perspective of Holden, the annoying style shows his emotions and frame of mind well.
 
@@ -41,12 +41,14 @@ It is a children's book, it did popularise surreal fiction, and it does have imm
 
 I took most of it at face value, though clearly the author put in some critiques (for example, the Duchess' obsession with everything neededing to have a moral, is probably a jab at childrens' education at the time).
 
-What stood out to me most was Alice's reactions to the strange situations she found herself in. While she wasn't a stoic^\[6\]^ (she cries a small lake of tears), she seems to adjust surprisingly well. As children, the world defies our idea of how it ought to be, or how we are told it is; so maybe this is not much different for her. When reading Shimeji Simulation, I noticed the characters seemed similarly nonchalant and adaptive, at least relative to their situation of the fabric of reality changing completely. Shimeji may have been apathetic from the start, and never had that firm an attachment to the previous reality, but the nonchalantness is true for everyone. The world of Shimeji Simulation seems to be one much more laid-back and less stubborn than ours.
+What stood out to me most was Alice's reactions to the strange situations she found herself in. While she wasn't a stoic^\[6\]^ (she cries a small lake of tears), she seems to adjust surprisingly well. As children, the world defies our idea of how it ought to be, or how we are told it is; so maybe this is not much different for her. When reading Shimeji Simulation, I noticed the characters seemed similarly nonchalant and adaptive, at least relative to their situation of the fabric of reality changing completely. Shimeji may have been apathetic from the start, and never had that firm an attachment to the previous reality, but the nonchalantness is true for everyone. The world of Shimeji Simulation may be one much more laid-back and less stubborn than ours.
+
+Then again, is the world of Alice or Shimeji so different to ours? Yes, obviously on a mundane level our world doesn't have talking rabbits, or perpetual motion machines. But absurd, surreal things happen all the time in our world. By and large, most people don't seem to be too freaked about it.
 
 ===
 \[0\]: Why not? How unusual. [wasona](wasona.com) is a great way to learn
 \[1\]: xrussianfanclub \[at\] xrotonmail \[dot\] com, xrussia \[at\] xrussia \[dot\] dev, except change all x's to p's
-\[2\]: Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" must too, be recommended
+\[2\]: Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" must too, be recommended. Thematically, it feels quite similar. "The Sun Also Rises", also by Hemingway, is quite different, but also good. That book almost seems like an earlier stage of an evolution into the themes of other two books. By that, I mean that the themes of emptiness and disillusionment with the hedonistic life ("The Sun Also Rises") seem as if they could naturally progress to the acceptance of struggle (in the other two books). Curiously, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea" were in fact written decades after "The Sun Also Rises".
 \[3\]: Hemingway ended up killing himself after suffering from injuries and sickness. I fear this may be insensitive, but I wonder if he would have considered this contrary to the values expressed in "The Old Man and the Sea". I don't know, but I don't fault him for doing what he did
 \[4\]: There are many instances, but the title of the book being Holden's mishearing of a poem proves to me Holden's childlike nature
 \[5\]: I normally like puns and wordplay (Shimeji Simulation has tons!), but I only found one or two funny...

posts/the_ming_wm_philosophy.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-> [ming-wm](https://github.com/stjet/ming-wm) is a window manager for Linux, that writes directly to framebuffer, instead of X windows or Wayland. It is 100% keyboard operated, and retro-themed. Documentation (including where the "philosophy" was originally "published" can be found [here](https://github.com/stjet/ming-wm/tree/master/docs).
+> [ming-wm](https://github.com/stjet/ming-wm) is a window manager for Linux, that writes directly to framebuffer, instead of X windows or Wayland. It is 100% keyboard operated, and retro-themed. Documentation (including where the "philosophy" was originally "published") can be found [here](https://github.com/stjet/ming-wm/tree/master/docs).
 
 ![example 1](/images/ws1.png)
 ![example 2](/images/ws3.png)

posts/wikipedia_rabbitholes.md

@@ -219,3 +219,11 @@ Here's a very incomplete (and maybe actively updated) list of ones that led to m
 - [Mun (religion)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mun_(religion))
 - [Vaqueiros de alzada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaqueiros_de_alzada), nomads in northern Spain
 - [Muslim conquest of Persia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Persia)
+- [Priscillianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillianism), ascetical heretical 4th century Christian sect
+- [Ole Miss riot of 1962](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Miss_riot_of_1962)
+- [Myoe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My%C5%8De), Japanese buddhist monk who cut off his ear
+- [Kyowa-go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyowa-go)
+- [Four-bar linkage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-bar_linkage)
+- [Tiberius Julius Alexander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Julius_Alexander), Jewish Roman general who put down Jewish rebellions, and who had Philo as an uncle
+- [Barlaam and Josaphat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam_and_Josaphat), Christian saints who probably based on the Buddha
+- [Mandaeism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism), a surviving Gnostic religion venerating John the Baptist