Dave The Web Guy
Unthinkable in 2024: I'm Going 100 Percent Blog
04/07/2024
Look at my social media postings across Facebook, Instagram, Threads and X.
The last postings you see at any of them are the very last you will see from me.
I want to go "100 percent blog" starting with this very posting. I want every impulse to blab and to experience any dopamine hits to result exclusively from this sole platform. And, I want that effort to live beyond experimental status.
I want to do this so hardcore, people who are used to seeing updates or what not through any of the social media outlets mentioned above, eventually, if ever, wonder what the heck happened to me.
"April-ish 2024?, wasn't that the last time Dave was around?"
I said I want to do this beyond anything resembling an experiment. But because in 2024's internet where all the world's power brokers want average people to forget about the liberty of the original world wide web, and thus this shouldn't "succeed", you as the wayward audience member should certainly view it as that.
Here we go then.
By Dave for Personal Blog.
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Getting Rid of Reach
07/11/2023
The following was originally posted to my local drama blog, BuffScan, but it equally applies to my personal blog here.
Following the implosion of Twitter in July 2023 I decided to activate a loosely devised strategy of eliminating "reach" as a driving component of BuffScan and all of my blogging projects.
Until then, Twitter had been viewed as the best social media platform to act as both a direct conduit to a critical mass audience and a bargain instant-publishing host that could effectively drop content onto the BuffScan blog through the service's ability to embed a timeline. The BuffScan Twitter feed was a superior mechanical compliment to a site like this without competing with it as the platform.
But with the shutting down of or the unexplained breaking down of Twitter's timeline embeds, I quit using Twitter for that purpose.
Fortunately, thanks to some personal engineering here on my personally-developed Battle Blog platform, and to the fediverse-oriented "Mastodon", I found ways to maintain "instant publishing" capabilities right from the firegrounds or crime scenes.
If there is a fire that I am in a position to report on, I have the means to put a picture of it up at this blog in seconds, right from my phone. Straight to the blog itself, or, if I prefer, straight to Mastodon thanks to its ability to allow timeline embeds -- the thing Twitter once did well but stopped. There's no loss of immediate publishing.
What can't be replaced however is reach. Which is to really say, I cannot rely on serendipitous exposure to thousands of people with each artifact of content that I produce. Exposure leads to discovery and content consumption, and in the best outcomes, leads to unsolicited shares and permanent subscribers.
For many bloggers and website producers reach has become the keystone objective and measure of their website's worth. Not achieving it, or not achieving it right away, has despirited many publishers into quitting the craft. Without an audience it is natural to ask what is the point.
But I am going to buck that line of thinking. First because of Twitter's demise, which proves you can't rely on social media in any form to become a defacto content machine for your production.
And second, because specifically not relying on "instant audiences" and "instant reach" as a blog producer, I am challenged to push more interesting content that make the publication stick on encounter.
Maybe a more eloquent way of putting it is that I want to fail because I am boring; too understaffed to produce meaningful content; perhaps talentless as a writer and editor, or quite more likely, all of the above.
I don't want to fail because I didn't copy/paste enough to a dozen social media channels, all while losing my publishing independence in the process.
My newfound strategy, after all, is what we did before social media. We relied on word of email (forwarding and listservs if you remember any of that), and most crucially, interlinking between individual producers. Your blog linked to my blog, and my blog linked to yours. And people sitting down at PCs with their cups of coffee and a desire to explore, clicked from one place to another, bookmarking whatever they thought fancied a future visit.
That's how a website or blog got its traction for "realzies" and I am blowing the dust off that old playbook to make it happen again.
Had it not been for Twitter's meltdown I'd have gone along with being buried by the reality that nobody "surfs the web" anymore. Nobody is interlinking between their web personas.
To get right down to it, nobody is linking at all. Hyperlinking has gradually morphed into a scary proposition that only hackers try to bait you with. Me sending someone a link to my latest blog entry via e-mail would only likely terrify a recipient into deleting the message straight away.
I think Death of Hyperlink, The Aftermath by Hossein Derakshsan spells out this reality well enough, and is a worthy read.
There's def going to have to be some unwinding of the past decade to make this work. But I'll take that chance. After what happened to Twitter, we know now that we can't rely on big tech to be the revolution in our little Information Age.
We the the real people with a thirst to communicate and explore have been that revolution the entire time. Twitter's crumble just snapped us -- well me -- back into the game.
I'll be following up with the new ways that you can follow this and my other blogs.
By Dave for Personal Blog.
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BuffScan Content Moving
04/15/2023
While I am not hosting a buffscan.com on a new host, I am nonetheless forwarding explicit visitors to the domain to its own slightly-different-than-the-one-that-lands-you-to-these-words URL. From now on, BuffScan content will now be effectively at its own website.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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I Blew It All Up
02/21/2023
I blew it all up.
This picture of me is literally the moment I realized what I had done. I had the wherewithal to capture the Dave Cam image at the time to within a few seconds.
I was casting a new iteration of Battle Blog for another project when I forgot to cite a different database name other than the one that I was casting anew from -- this one to be precise.
So, when I pressed the button to do it, it reconstituted away three years of posts -- about 120 of them I estimate -- while building out the new instance. Not to mention all the subscribed users and comments. Sparse both I assure, but each very, very valued nonetheless.
Though not recent enough, I did have a back up from just before Christmas which you can see that I managed to restore with. But, for my posts since about then, I had to refer to my RSS service for their text and rebuild that content manually.
All in all a good save though you'll find the latest posts are a little out of order as a result. And any comments on my most recent posts? Like I say, toast. :(
Now, there's going to be some confusion here because last night I issued out some proactive user accounts. These users got usernames for the site, a pre-fab password, and a big ol' welcome message. Now, if those same people, which thankfully only amount to a few intimates who probably won't even try taking advantage of the wonderful invite in any event, were to actually do so, they won't find that those accounts work. For you folks, it was a painful stretch in the first place to create them, so, if you wind up here, please just make your own accounts at this point. ;)
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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Random Life Update 1
06/12/2022
Here's what's been going on with my life for the past few months.
First, my friend Jim and I have ventured forth and started a podcast. It's called the Low Barrier Podcast which is titled to parody the reality that everyone is starting one. I mean, podcasts have been a thing for at least 10 years in general, but as of late, a lot of people are firing up microphones to join the fun.
To me, as saturated as the craft is, it's a lot like a more formalized and technically savvy version of 1970s CB radio fad. About 90 percent of the people, like Jim and I, talk about nothing with any kind of gravity. We are trying, like everyone else of course, to move into a sphere above by improving show quality and maintaining a consistency. We are now 11 episodes in and with much room for improvement in future episodes.
I'm also moving soon. It's to a new neighborhood literally blocks away from the Canadian border, so for the next two months or so I'm going to be engaged in box moves, some house repairs, and all the usual hassles, stress, and frustrations that come with it.
I am anguished about leaving the trendy neighborhood I've lived in for the past 3 years, but alas, most of the potential good time in it was ruined by the pandemic. Though, in any event, it became pretty clear to me that living in stairs-distance to all the area bars was leaving me nothing more than at risk of being arrested every weekend.
Originally I imagined myself as some sort of artisan joining the most eclectic neighborhood in Buffalo. In reality, I wound up the annoying drunk barfly even steep tips couldn't abate the bar tenders who had to deal with me.
I gave being hip at 50+ a chance and we'll just say, it didn't work out.
Now I'll have a chance to focus on supporting a home with someone I love and want to be there for, making up for some lost time I hope. Not to mention, all while enjoying my hobby of over-securing a large property with webcams. Because, yeah, I have that obsession and my new flat gives me a platform to express it with.
In fact, my move will require me to bring down the Buffcam overlooking Allen Street and Delaware Avenue. If you are someone with an interesting vantage point in the Allentown neighborhood, reach out to me to discuss how you can continue hosting the camera and keeping the view alive.
And, it looks changes may be in store on the work front, too, but it's too soon to tell how and in what capacity. Recent events there have expanded my range of support expertise and value, and I think it's going to lead to greater things if not more challenging ones.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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I'm Fine, Society Is Not
05/16/2022
Hi all, I was away from computers and the news for the entire period, helping a friend move, when this horrible thing happened. I am safe, but thank you for all the concern and messages.
You can imagine that something like this happening local to me would have had me all over it with respect to ground journalism and online ranting philosophies in wake of, the actual lack of which, raised alarm bells as to my well-being.
As it is, and probably for the better, I am just a horrified member of the regular audience digesting in what I can from the regular post-analysis news. I have seen some clips of the since-pulled videos of the shooter's livestream and find myself wanting to personally strangle the man responsible. The anger has no bottom on this one.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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New URL and Name for A Place to Paste
03/07/2022
The former "A Place to Paste" is now "A Tab to Paste".
The renaming has a bit to do with clumsiness in keeping up with my web domain registrations, but, it's all good.
It made me think about a better name that incorporates the best way to use the utility, which has always been to use it in a persistently open browser tab.
You can read the specific details about how to use this Dave the Web Guy utility here.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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Website Turbulence Ahead
12/28/2021
Update: The bulk of the transition is complete. At this point it's me fixing bugs and such that crop up during use only. All the known proactive stuff is complete! (Though I am working on enriching RSS more, sorry for any RSS noise).
It's a good thing I don't have steady visitors to this website to pick up on the instability wrought by my numerous web hosting manuevers of late.
But, should you notice, be aware that for the remainder of this week, 12/28 through 1/2, the website will be up, down, and all around, as I work to resituate it with a new hosting service.
Short story is, I tried to serve the site on the cheap through shared hosting. I try this every couple of years thinking for sure that shared hosting as a methodology must surely have evolved new management processes to ensure speed and stability. The dream of saving money for what stands as little more than a personal hobby is too alluring, and I take the bait.
Then, after a few weeks or months, the brick walls I hit while the shared resources of the not-actually-anymore-evolved-than-the-last-time-I-tried, choke and sputter, chases me back to a VPS. Overhead of the actual monies and the time involved in setting everything back up -- again --, included.
The only upshot of this reckless nonsense I put myself through is that, it's just plain old fun. Plus, the reset is a chance to weed out and tighten up things in the process.
Ah well, so, if you land here and the page doesn't load or something, try again later. The URLs are going to change a little too. Good thing I don't monetize anything.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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Ported Earl Pin Astrology
10/09/2021
I seem to recall about a year ago I was on track to become a highly regarded astrologer under the persona of Earl Pin Astrology.
I wonder whatever happened to that.
Well, in any event, as with my the other WWW properties that I am consolidating into this one, I just ported and merged all content from Earl Pin Astrology to this blog.
You can now continue to enjoy my apparently yearly astrologically-themed postings under the category tag of EarlPinAstrology.
As well, I have a dedicated "page" at this website which links out to the other channels and kind of sort of replaces the WWW dedicated website once associated with Earl Pin.
The consolidation project continues as I will now focus on Tampa Rail and Wilkes-Barre Rail.
By Dave for for Earl Pin Astrology.
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Porting Posts
10/02/2021
So here I go again!
Once again I am juggling my hosting arrangements so that I can web publish more affordably but also more efficiently.
That means for a bit, you're going to see some fresh posts here that are actually old posts from blogs that I previously ran under individual presentations. I am porting over key entries and then deleting those presentations, redirecting any domains to equivalent pages and entry categories at this blog.
I could go into the database and meticiously change the data so that the posts rendered in a more proper flow, but I did that once for a similar dance years ago, and man, it just wasn't worth it. Once the migration is over all those posts just wind up stateless in the archive anyway.
I have just completed the port of BuffScan, which means there is now a BuffScan page within this blog's presentation. Look for the same approach for Earl Pin Astrology, Wilkes-Barre Rail, and Tampa Rail.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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One Minute Webcam is Alive!
07/31/2021
A few months ago I contemplated how to pursue my passion for dotting the world with webcams. My first problem, aside from absolutely no-one demanding, if not avoiding, this sort of thing on the face of it, was how to package such a product. Turns out the tech community solved that problem with Rasberry Pi barebone computers, and specialized software.
This is a fresh static image from Allen Street and Delaware Avenue, in Buffalo, NY.
So I ordered one and went through the relatively simple assembly and configuration for use as a webcam, then began looking around for a place to not so much pilot the the unremarkable tech, but rather the concept.
It took a few months after the assembly before I lucked into a situation that enabled me to deploy the first pilot camera which overlooks my own eclectic neighborhood, the Allentown district. It's the perfect place to start!
If you are interested in a similar camera in your home so that anyone in the world can click in and watch you and your family, or if you have a business or venue of any sort for the same, review my pitch page at One Minute Webcam and get in touch. I am looking to launch a second as quickly as I can!
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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Blogging Like It's 1999
12/31/2020
For 2021 I want (am?) to experiment blogging as if it were 1999. That means, blog "stream of consciousness", and without the usual barriers or filters.
I've pointed out repeatedly over the years how people first discovered self-expression online, then, rapidly chilled as they came to realize how much of what we would now call "over sharing", might grind up against their interests in the real world.
Chilling factors are why plates of food and videos of attractive women dancing, flow abundantly online but not stuff that would persistently and effectively offend a corporation or an entrenched political body, or any entity of power and profit. Nobody, including yours truly (let's be clear), wants to take the chance they'll figuratively or literally be left dead in a ditch like Carmine Pecorelli because of what they write and expose.
What the corporate-consumer oriented web wants from you is your money, not your revolutions. And this is fine with most people. Revolutionaries have to eventually appreciate that an overwhelming number of people just want to respectably live in the world, not rock it. At least too violently. They and the "money world wide web" comprise the biggest stakeholder in our digital culture for better or for worse.
Intimates might be offended, career chains might be shaken, local personalities so commented upon outside their usual control they might seek to "fix a wagon", and so on and so on.
So I'd like 2021 to be an expose' of sorts on where exactly the interests of the real world and the idealism of a single unimportant person collide. I'd like to blog in the uncomfortable space that existed in that era of "why would anyone care about what I write" nativity, somewhere in the late 90s and mid-2000s.
In doing so, I consider a number of different spaces I have to really be careful to achieve that balance.
Work/Job/Career
The worst thing that can happen to someone who craves blabbing and being the overall "information maverick" is to be employed by anything even remotely touching a Microsoft Excel quarterly report. What you do and say is of vital interest to the employing agency because, especially now with advanced social media platforms, you represent a possible apologetic PR campaign to the media in the event that you screw it up by such examples as preaching proudly the tenets of racist principles or becoming a highly regarded online BSDM expert. You wouldn't want a racist out there representing you, after all, and neither does your company or employer in general.
I of course am not a "racist" -- and know nothing about "BSDM", but nowadays it seems, simply being brave enough to carry an esteemed (if not idiotic) principle of any sort is, alone, enough to represent risk. Strong opinions and thought leadership beyond such matters as earning your paycheck or football games are sedation targets for their veracity, not necessarily their content.
In blogging, people today are more jolted and alarmed by the fact that a person has one, than what a person says on one.
Vice: Porn and Boozing
If I really want to get down to the nitty-gritty and detail everything that I do, as an example, does that mean talking about my digital love life or the copious amounts of whisky I might drink? Or all the other troubles that a perfectly well-adjusted and happy person might otherwise find easy to avoid.
How to tastefully and acceptably write about "just being human" is a real stickler because to skip vice and pretend it isn't there deflates the authenticity of the entire genre. I don't want a blog that just highlights my donations to the United Way or "plates of food" pictures ala Instagram. But at the same time I don't want to amplify myself as a creep merely for having the honesty to suggest that, at some level, I might be a creep, however non-exceptionally.
The biggest fear I have with this is not some condemnation of my character, which, were I actually engaging of any of vice activity (none of this should be construed as an admission to anything!), would certainly be shameful and uncomfortable. Rather, it's the envy of the audacity that I claim for respect while concurrently dumping my dirty laundry over the heads of my subscribers. What sort of narcissistic ego-driven ass admits to their stink so freely and is offended then by blowback? We can't do that, some audience members would say. And rest assured, accordingly, they could become angry and resentful.
Personal Relationships
It's no secret to anyone that I have very few "relationships" outside of work -- and even there I tend to be "greyrocked" or I merely interact as a customer service rep to the higher IT process. There's nothing substantial enough to deem personal.
Growing up to the point I am at now I simply did not invest enough in personal relationship development or, perhaps more crucially, negotiation, though there may or may not be good reasons for that - let's not assume that this is not just and right. Weakness and fear are maybe just two reasons, but I'm also just pretty good at weeding out "deep nonsense" in order for me to survive, progress, and be happy.
While most may hold me to some deficiency for this stance, I feel some people are just born this way and feel stronger and more empowered by social solitude. My favorite fantasies involve manning an arctic science lab for years, or, doing a stint on the space station. Go figure. Were it not for my need and willingness to help people and mean something to their happiness and development - not to mention repair a .PST for them or two as needed, things that require I stay on the grid, I really would be a woodsy hermit.
As such, as incredible as it sounds, this is one area likely immune from potential damage. There will be little that I post that will offend anyone or push them away more than they already are. The open expression might only improve my personal relationships in fact.
Non-Digital 2021 Goals
I have some other ideas for 2021. I am seriously contemplating a new car, and, for sure, am finally getting some damn artwork on the walls of my apartment. As the COVID vaccine begins to reinvigorate the world again, I'll do what I can to support some of these local art studios as a patron. The neighborhood I live in is renowned for these but my enrollment has been seriously hampered by the pandemic.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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Earl Pin Astrology Launches
09/20/2020
The first real blog (aside from my personal blog, this one, which serves as the development iteration) to use Battle Blog 3.0 is Earl Pin Astrology.
I use it to talk about astrological topics which is a subject I've been interested in for years though, despite so, this interest has been rather dormant since about the time I was 20-something or so when chart analysis and interpretation were a daily thing for me.
Since about that time I quietly kept up on interesting articles and practices but didn't overtly carry on about it so much or offer to chart anyone other than the occasional love interest or family member.
My interest renewed in light of the apparent cultural resurgence in astrology, making it relevant again. At 50+ now, I find myself in social circles with an iota of something to say with any depth that actually impresses people when the topic comes up. Who'd have figured?
I am proud to marry my interest in blogging and astrology to produce the first real Battle Blog 3.0 presentation. Look it over, register, and also consider subscribing to the YouTube channel which I plan to use to address any commentary that arises from the discussion.
By Dave for for BuffScan.
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