In keeping with the spirit of the last post, iâve done a wee bit of autumn cleaning on the blogâs theme, including a dingus showing the phase of the moon at the time of each post.
Posts tagged as âmetaâ
The Satyrsâ Forest: Now with seasons!
Iâve always been enamoured with the idea of the website as a living, breathing place; not just a dumb, static object, like a book or a reel of film, but, well, a site, like an ancient oak that bears the scars of all whoâve scrawled their loved onesâ initials on it.
For The Satyrsâ Forest, iâve been slacking on that ideal. Sure, we have our annual tradition, and iâd change the theme to be more orange in autumn sometimes if i could be bothered, but never anything automatic â something that could outlive me if i dropped dead tomorrow. (Continuing with the forest metaphor, iâd toyed with the idea of a series of annual rings that would grow into different shapes depending on how active i was in updating the site, but quickly realised that my database just wasnât set up to support that kind of thing.)
I had the itch to tinker with the home pageâs design anyway, so i decided to finally implement something to solidly ground this site in the real world: seasonal themes! In daytime, there are four themes, one each for spring, summer, autumn, and winter, which shift throughout the year like an actual forest. There are also three complementing darker themes (spring and summer share one) which activate when itâs night here in Northumbria. That last part was important to me: i wanted the Forest to be like a real place, one that could, of course, be nowhere else but the actual location of the server, not just an ĂŚtherial construct where ânightâ happens whenever itâs past six on the viewerâs clock.
Finally, for the real old-heads, the âModus anciensâ theme replicates the look of the site as it appeared in 2020, when i was just starting out. Iâve always loved those neon purples, even if they donât fit the arboreal metaphor, and itâs a joy to bring them back.
Crawler problems
I donât know whose dumbfuck crawler is responsible for this, but whoever it is, can you please calm down? I welcome robotic visitors1, but they donât have to be so hyperactive. I promise you the data will still be there tomorrow.
Edit: The tidal wave has stopped, but i have started logging botsâ User-Agents
just in case whatever that thing is comes back. I hope theyâre happy with themselves.
Edit #2: Well, that was quick. Theyâre back⌠and theyâre not even using a âbotâ
User-Agent to identify themselves! Thatâs just bad manners.
Edit #3: Iâve implemented a basic rate-limiting system with a limit fast enough that it wonât affect my biological readers. Fingers crossed.
The first half of June is going to be pretty busy for me in meatspace, so there might be a paucity of updates for the month. Apologies in advance.
Lords of Misrule 2024 â let the misrule begin!
Itâs that time of year again, isnât it? When the days shrink and night begins to rule. A time for staying wrapped up inside with a cup of hot chocolate for some. But for us, dear readers â we know better by now, donât we? The time approaches for merriment, mĂŚnadism, and of course⌠misrule. Io Saturnalia, friends.
This is our fourth annual Satyrsâ Forest Lords of Misrule, where in the spirit of the season, i put you â yes, you â in charge of the site. If you write or put together anything, absolutely, positively anything, and email it to misrule@satyrs.eu, come Saturnalia (thatâs December the seventeenth through the twenty-third, for those who arenât up to date on their Roman calendar) iâll put it on the site, etched in stone for all to see. Temporary defacements of pages are also quite welcome.
I kindly ask the same things of you as years past: no political polemics, and nothing that would get me in legal trouble. Other than that, anything goes. A video essay on the occult implications of Gremlins 2. A rant about how birch trees used to be better back in the old days before Big Nature made them cringe. Whatever you, my lords of misrule, want.
Submissions are open from now until the fifteenth of December, 2024. Have fun, be merry, and donât be afraid to get weird with it!
âXanthe
The fall of Ithaca
A short website status update, since my ongoing writerâs block on a relatively simple interesting-place-visit post wasnât enough for the universe: Ithaca12, the beat-up old laptop on which this fine website is hosted, is poorly, and has a noticeable bulge coming up around the battery. Everything is backed up and iâm looking into a new, dedicated server machine, but if the site goes down all of a sudden, youâll know why.
Lords of Misrule 2023 â let the misrule begin!
Itâs been a long year. Thatâs the traditional thing to say, but honestly, itâs been quite a short year for me, and autumn has crept up without me even noticing. That can only mean one thingâŚ
Io Saturnalia!
Itâs time, once again, for our third annual Satyrsâ Forest Lords of Misrule, where in the spirit of the season, i put you (yes, you) in charge of the site.
If you write or put togeher something â absolutely anything* â and email it to misrule@satyrs.eu, come Saturnalia (December 17 to 23, for those who arenât up to date on their Roman calendar) iâll put it up on the site, on the blog and on its own dedicated permanent subpage, etched in stone for all to see.
As in years past, i ask only that you refrain from political polemics and anything that would get this noble forest in legal trouble. Other than that, the sky is the limit. A video essay on the occult implications of Gremlins 2? A rant about that new skyscraper that blots out the view of your favourite billboard? Anything goes. Whatever you â my lords of misrule â want.
You can submit your entries from today until the 16th of December, 2023. Have fun, and donât be afraid to get weird with it!
â Xanthe
</hiatus>
Welcome back, ladies and gentlefolk! Iâve been trapped labouring in a Colombian salt mine for the past four months, but after a daring escape which my lawyers have advised me not to speak of, iâve returned to safety to provide you all with yet more contentÂŽâ˘.
Some links iâve had sitting around gathering mothballs to start you off:
- One Adel Faureâs collection of ascii art
- Tedâs pawpaw page
- I am, admittedly, a big sop, but this 3D reconstruction of the city of Tenochtitlan made me cry a little. All the things weâve lost!
- Tom Scott visits Englandâs first longbarrow in a thousand years â file under âPagan interestâ, of course; in general, i just love to see modern revivals of our ancient traditions
- See It. Say It. Sorted.
A minor pause
Hello. Youâve probably figured this out by now, but my personal life has been getting quite busy at the moment, and postings on the site will be taking a back seat until, hm, letâs say the end of June or thenabouts. Donât call it a hiatus â itâs just a minor pause.
Please enjoy these filler photos in the meantime:
Lords of Misrule 2022 â let the misrule begin!
This is a copy of the main page for this event.
The cycle of a year is a wonderful thing. Trees grow and wilt, rivers ebb and flow, and every winter, GĂŚa blankets Herself in a snowy coat. All across Europe, people gather together, huddling around, exchanging gifts. Most would call it Christmas.
For us? Well⌠Io Saturnalia!
Itâs time for the second annual Satyrsâ Forest Lords of Misrule! In the spirit of the topsy-turvy season, iâm putting you in charge of the site.
If you write or put together something â absolutely anything â and email it to misrule@satyrs.eu, come Saturnalia (thatâs December 17 to 23, for those who arenât up to date with their ancient festivals) iâll put it up on the site, both on the blog and on its own dedicated, permanent subpage, etched in stone for all to see.
Like last year, i would ask that you refrain from political polemics or anything that would get this noble forest in legal trouble. Apart from that, anything goes. Your granâs chocolate cake recipe? An impassioned defence of Freddy Got Fingered as an ironic masterpiece? Hell, iâll even let you vandalise one of the permanent pages for a bit if you ask me to. Whatever you â my lords of misrule â want.
You can submit your entries from today until the 16th of December, 2021. Have fun, and donât be afraid to get weird with it!
â Xanthe
One thing iâd like to do at some point, i think, is find a way to synchronise or link up the WordPress comments here on the blog with the jury-rigged PHP comments on the main site. Much as i admire the single-style, chronological blog format, it can be terribly limiting at times â iâd love to be able to post simultaneously here and there and not have people worry about missing out on the discussion.
Walking down e-memory lane
Sometimes i like to go back in the Wayback Machine and take a trip down memory lane, and see how this place has evolved as i hone my HTML-craft â especially pertinent given the forestâs rapidly approaching fifth birthday. I thought you might like to take a look as well.
I am not good at computer
Non-techies, you can safely ignore this post and go on with your day. But, tech people, if youâre still reading⌠a little help for an ignorant soul, please? đ
Iâm planning to add a comment section to the main part of my website. The problem is, of course, that iâve barely ever touched PHP and Sql before, let alone tried to make something like a comment system, and as such, i have no fucking idea what iâm doing.
Iâve got a design figured out â see above â and a rough idea of what the database will look like:
- postId: Integer, generated by adding some random digits to the end of a Unix timestamp
- timestamp: Integer, just a Unix timestamp of when the comment was submitted
- commentLocation: Unicode string, max. 32 chars?, indicating on which comments section the comment was posted
- displayName: Unicode, max. 128 chars?, is what it says on the can
- emailAddress: Unicode, max. 128 chars?, used to generate the avatar via Gravatar and maybe filter spam if it comes to that
- website: Unicode, max. 128 chars?, used to⌠link to the commenterâs website
- commentText: Unicode, max. 4096 chars?, the actual text of the comment; will be processed as a subset of Markdown
- planet: Unicode, max. 16 chars?, any comment for which the response isn't earth will get thrown out
So, erm⌠any suggestions? Improvements? Ways of not getting my site hacked? Polite ways of telling me that this was a terrible idea? are welcome in the comments below.
Update: sidenotes are back!
Itâs a meta one, this; you can safely ignore this post if youâre just here for the trudges through increasingly-obscure north-eastern locations and hauls of links to websites which arenât this one.
That being said, sidenotesi are now back and functioning again! My apologies for the delay.
Your regularly scheduled programming will be resuming soon, with a walk down a stream which turns into an unexpected microcosm of local history. Iâm sure all the Americans in my audience are thrilled.
Chrimbo updates
Iâve mentioned a number of Christmas traditions i keep up here in the past, and thought you all might have wanted some updates.
I, alas, lost the Pogues Game on the very first day â i was putting on âDriving Home for Christmasâ and failed to notice that The Algorithm had queued the song of my nightmares up for me next. (I proceeded to lose again on the night before Christmas, this time at the hands of Bradley Walsh.)
Youâll be pleased to hear that our annual exchange of Christmas gifts on Minecraft went all according to plan this year. Someone built me a little shrine to do as i pleased with, which was quite nice of them.
Finally, iâve added the annual haul of records to the database for your perusal⌠but mostly for my own reference. :-)