gryfft's recent activity
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
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Comment on Albums based on a recurring musical phrase in ~music
gryfft LinkBit of a curveball recommendation: the multi-volume soundtrack for the webcomic Homestuck is chock full of repeating leitmotifs and remixes/references. An acquired taste, maybe, but the rabbit...Bit of a curveball recommendation: the multi-volume soundtrack for the webcomic Homestuck is chock full of repeating leitmotifs and remixes/references.
An acquired taste, maybe, but the rabbit hole goes deep. Incidentally, this is the true origin of the famous Megalovania (Toby Fox is one of the biggest contributors to the soundtrack.)
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Comment on Requesting resources for learning Ruby in ~comp
gryfft (edited )Link ParentThe poignant guide is, without exaggeration, singlehandedly responsible for my entire career. I did not think of myself as someone who could write computer programs, but I did think of myself as a...The poignant guide is, without exaggeration, singlehandedly responsible for my entire career.
I did not think of myself as someone who could write computer programs, but I did think of myself as a writer. why's guide talked about programming as a form of writing that happens to have an audience of machines and people.
Its surreal, it's silly, and it hands you this fully formed omnitool-- computer programming-- and treats it like a fun little toy you can play with in your garage. I'll always be thankful for the book and as time goes on I sympathize more and more with the complicated feelings he communicated about working in technology.
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Comment on Which covers did it better than (or put a fresh twist on) the original? in ~music
gryfft LinkFor a ton of ska covers of many, many songs, check out SkaTune Network. Just click any of the videos, they're all great. (He's doing a polka thing for April, too.)For a ton of ska covers of many, many songs, check out SkaTune Network. Just click any of the videos, they're all great. (He's doing a polka thing for April, too.)
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Comment on Ring camera is getting more and more annoying in ~tech
gryfft Link ParentI have a coworker who swears by Frigate.I have a coworker who swears by Frigate.
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Comment on The lost documentary about an impossible house in ~books
gryfft (edited )Link ParentSpoiler pieces-> pisces is a typo that recurs in HoL. The pieces/pisces 'mistake' occurs verbally in this video as well. The astrological grudge runs deep with the man!Spoiler
pieces-> pisces is a typo that recurs in HoL. The pieces/pisces 'mistake' occurs verbally in this video as well.he said
The astrological grudge runs deep with the man!
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Comment on The lost documentary about an impossible house in ~books
gryfft Link ParentThe book is about a "lost" documentary that never existed. It is pseudo-academic in tone, with multiple unreliable narratives woven together in meandering, often bizarrely-laid-out footnotes. This...The book is about a "lost" documentary that never existed. It is pseudo-academic in tone, with multiple unreliable narratives woven together in meandering, often bizarrely-laid-out footnotes. This video is part analysis, part adaptation of the work.
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Comment on The lost documentary about an impossible house in ~books
gryfft LinkYou may already be familiar with House of Leaves. If you are, then you should have a pretty good idea of whether you'll like this video. I think it adapts the content and themes well for 2026 and...You may already be familiar with House of Leaves. If you are, then you should have a pretty good idea of whether you'll like this video. I think it adapts the content and themes well for 2026 and examines the subject matter critically. I'm glad to have thoughtful essays like this to watch when it can feel like everything's gone to pisces.
If you aren't familiar with the source material, and you don't mind heavy spoilers, I think this may be an excellent introduction.
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The lost documentary about an impossible house
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Comment on The woes of writing markdown in ~tech
gryfft (edited )Link ParentNot necessarily, I think. If you can read the panels mostly left-to-right*, top-to-bottom, without having to put too much thought into it, it wouldn't count in my mind. Some comic books/graphic...Not necessarily, I think. If you can read the panels mostly left-to-right*, top-to-bottom, without having to put too much thought into it, it wouldn't count in my mind.
Some comic books/graphic novels certainly are ergodic literature; Meanwhile by Jason Shiga is one excellent example. It's a supercharged, semi-looping choose-your-own-adventure connected by illustrated tubes and physical tabs on the pages.
As a rule of thumb, I think if you ever have to hold the book upside down, hold it up to a mirror, or read sections in an arbitrary order based on your own choices, one is dealing with ergodic text.
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or right-to-left in manga -
Comment on The woes of writing markdown in ~tech
gryfft (edited )Link ParentThe common example back in my day was House of Leaves. The footnotes took on more than a life of their own, sending the reader forward and back through the book, as though navigating the titular...Ergodic literature is a mode of textual organization in which nontrivial effort is required for the reader to traverse the text, beyond ordinary eye movement or turning pages.
The common example back in my day was House of Leaves. The footnotes took on more than a life of their own, sending the reader forward and back through the book, as though navigating the titular labyrinthine house.
In Snuggle Squiggle's writing, most notably Weave Me Another Cocoon, one must often navigate the story's unfolding through notes hidden in clickable...
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<details> elements.(TIL how Tildes handles those, haha.)
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Comment on The woes of writing markdown in ~tech
gryfft Link ParentThanks for reporting that! She's updated to fix that issue and said it was ok if I pass along her explanation of what happened with the CSS -Thanks for reporting that! She's updated to fix that issue and said it was ok if I pass along her explanation of what happened with the CSS -
a few weeks ago i added
display: gridto the body, which interacted very strangely with the code blocks on this post, causing the article body to display several screen widths to the right of the initial viewpoint. i only saw this when proofreading the post on the day of its publication. adding an overly hastywidth: 40emto main seemed to mostly fix this. this is what causes the scrolling regression on mobile.
removingdisplay: gridfixes both errors. with a bit more tinkering, i can mostly achieve what it was meant to accomplish withdisplay: flex+ a few more rules -
Comment on The woes of writing markdown in ~tech
gryfft LinkThe Woes of Writing Markdown (And the wishes of SquiggleMark) is an essay about some of the technical and artistic challenges inherent to writing ergodic text using markup language. I posted her...The Woes of Writing Markdown (And the wishes of SquiggleMark) is an essay about some of the technical and artistic challenges inherent to writing ergodic text using markup language. I posted her story Weave Me Another Cocoon last year, and it's a fantastic example of how art can push the limits of a medium and the machinery that supports it.
But the real superpower of pandoc is that, much in the way switching to neocities escapes the prison-roads of locked down platforms, switching to pandoc escapes at once the restrictions of both rich text and standard markdown.
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Even writing raw HTML isn’t as powerful as what pandoc lets you do, because pandoc has a convenient interface for reading and writing the AST that it translates all its inputs and outputs to.
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If you aren’t familiar with my work, then when I said I loved the details disclosure element, or that I’m experimental writer doing creative things, you could have brushed it off as a cute yet idle exclamation or an otherwise meaningless remark. If you aren’t familiar, then gaze upon Weave Me Another Cocoon and let its depths ensnare you.
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And that, finally, is what this year started me down the road to writing my own markdown parser.
Snuggle Squiggle's website is a work of art in its own right too.
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The woes of writing markdown
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Comment on A "Real BMO" local AI Agent with a Raspberry Pi and Ollama in ~tech
gryfft LinkUpdate! Some improvements to BMO's voice and some hardware comparisons/benchmarking. The update video continues to show the author's thoughtful and careful approach to using AI in an ethical,...Update! Some improvements to BMO's voice and some hardware comparisons/benchmarking. The update video continues to show the author's thoughtful and careful approach to using AI in an ethical, non-exploitative way.
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Comment on US Supreme Court strikes down Donald Trump's tariffs in ~society
gryfft Link ParentWhile I agree with your underlying frustration, I believe the bitter truth is that there is truly no way for the 30-40% to learn any lesson whatsoever. No matter how extreme or obvious the lesson,...But apparently like 30-40% of my compatriots need to do so -- potentially repeatedly -- so they may learn the lesson.
While I agree with your underlying frustration, I believe the bitter truth is that there is truly no way for the 30-40% to learn any lesson whatsoever. No matter how extreme or obvious the lesson, no matter how much one's personal wellbeing or one's family is affected, said 30-40% would sooner burn themselves and the rest of us to death than learn anything, ever. They will always, always, always, always double down.
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Comment on The Funny Men in ~creative
gryfft LinkI don't think you meant to leave this line in the final post; or perhaps you did. Either way, reading it reminded me what a strange time it is to be alive.Here you go! I’ve rewritten the text to avoid direct reference to the theme:
I don't think you meant to leave this line in the final post; or perhaps you did. Either way, reading it reminded me what a strange time it is to be alive.
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Comment on The mega-rich are turning their mansions into impenetrable fortresses in ~finance
gryfft Link ParentNo your comment is great I think you just unintentionally duplicated some text and while reading it I had a moment of thinking I accidentally scrolled back up or something. 😅Sorry for the noise...No your comment is great I think you just unintentionally duplicated some text and while reading it I had a moment of thinking I accidentally scrolled back up or something. 😅Sorry for the noise comments
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Comment on The mega-rich are turning their mansions into impenetrable fortresses in ~finance
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Comment on A "Real BMO" local AI Agent with a Raspberry Pi and Ollama in ~tech
gryfft LinkIf you aren't familiar with Adventure Time, BMO is a fictional character who is a sort of sentient game console. This struck me as a more fun and lighthearted take on AI than I've seen in a bit,...If you aren't familiar with Adventure Time, BMO is a fictional character who is a sort of sentient game console.
This struck me as a more fun and lighthearted take on AI than I've seen in a bit, with some real DIY charm and thoughtfulness.
From a craft standpoint it's a beautiful build. From a tech standpoint, it really goes to show what kind of systems a non-specialist can put together these days with freely available resources.
My friend Snuggle Squiggle writes stories that are pretty far from mainstream. Hard magic systems, deep worldbuilding, and a tendency toward xenofiction (nonhuman protagonists and societies.)
https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org/
(She does all her own writing and coding personally by hand.)