The Geekorium

My mate Kat recently posted - on her new ƂʆϘϭ - about her Summer of Flops: going on a tear watching movies that were financial or critical failures. In the post she mentions a “Zine” she wrote about the topic months ago and handed out on real actual paper to real life humans.

Zines aren’t a thing any more! Yet here Kat is, acting like they never went out of fashion - like blogs didn’t kill them before Facebook killed blogs. She even graciously sent me one, despite the soaring postage prices.

Zines are so old school. I remember being part of a group who wanted to put out a zine at Uni. I think they were so old-school then that we wanted to do a “digital zine” on the university web hosting. That was my fist experience with HTML, and I think it sparked something. I wish I could find those old files now to share just how bad it was, although the writing and art that the people in the group contributed was really very good¹.

Before that zine I thought that while an art career was never in my future, at least I might learn how to create art and start making it some day. Like music, I thought it was a skill you could pick up through practice, and like music, I thought that once you had the skill, you’d want to do it.

But I never wanted to practice, and ended up convincing myself that I just am not into art (or music), and don’t have it in my bones. Which is sad.

But recently I’ve been hit by a couple of examples like Kat’s zine that have made me consider that I may have cut myself off from learning what art even is.

CJ the X is a youtuber and musician that has done a number of videos that exalt art to a place I’d never thought to place it. In their video about the 7 Deadly Art Sins they breaks down the many reasons one might fail to commit art, and how the sins rob you and the universe of something singular that only you can provide.

You are a nonfungible individual.

We are the original bored apes. The boredom is the pain of existence, the club is the collective unconscious, and the yacht is NFTs. Your specific perception of the universe and the potentialities that lie under your skin, your little imagination lightning rod that detects like the ghosts of hitherto unrealized dreams, it is not replaceable!

There’s not going to be another one of you. So if you’re not going to put in the work to make that idle fantasy that could have been real real, it will not exist.

— CJ the X, 7 Deadly Art Sins

CJ the X talks about art in these terms in all their videos and despite myself I find it inspiring, even though I barely know what it means to be inspired.

The most creative times in my life have been writing code and writing two full stories I’ve felt proud of. I can’t convince myself that code is art, although I’d be open to arguments if anyone cared to make one to me, but if I squint hard enough I could call those two peices of writing “art”. One was a stage play I did when I took some extra year 12 classes one semester. The play is lost now - I can’t find the print out or the file backups - but it earned me the only A I ever got in highschool.

The other is a series I posted here about a ‘lil guy who is a badass space adventurer who dies in the second chapter. The story was fun to write because I constrained myself to writing tiny micro-chapters with a specific structure, but the story spiralled out and I stuffed it full of the tropes and sci-fi story beats I love, and it’s absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done.

But I didn’t finish it and post the end anywhere. I wrote the ending, and there were only a few tiny chapters left, but I never typed them up and published them and I still can’t identify why I didn’t just put them out there into the world to be their own thing. The Deadly Art Sin of greed - hoarding the final scraps so the story could be mine and only mine and I wouldn’t have to ask why no one else was enjoying it like I was.

So I’ve spent some time building out my own journaling software so I can keep writing these little posts and trying to do a art again, and I will post the remaining chapters and you can yell at me on mastodon if I don’t put them up soon.

Another good friend Ruben wrote about writers using AI images to acompany their posts. I admit I’ve been tempted to see AI image generation as a way to overcome my own lack of artistic talent and if I’d been at all active in the last two years may have actually used some on my own site. But as he says:

But to the writers specifically who are dumping garbage in their vegetable crisper, I’d implore you to reconsider. You don’t need them! Eschewing (gesundheit) an image entirely is preferable. Heck, even a stick figure or a bunch of shapes thrown together in LibreOffice Draw would be more useful and charming than anything these slop machines are puking onto your site and stinking up the joint. You—and by extension, your words—deserve more.

— Ruben Schade, Press button, receive slop

That snapped something in my brain and I vowed I’d put a little dinky art of my own on posts from now on. It’s why my come-back post included a very bad drawing of me at my computer, and why I didn’t just destroy the picture immediately when I finished it, but actually posted it on the internet for everyone to see. I’m not proud of my art, but it’s my art. And it won’t ever be perfect but I have to learn how to keep making it and giving it to the world.

Hi folks! It’s been a long time since I last posted, and a lot has happened. No more than has happened to anyone else over the same time and none of it is newsworthy, but the passage of time seemed like something that that should be at least acknowledged. Which seems redundant now that I type it out loud.

One of the things keeping me from posting is just the sheer insanity of life. Things don’t so much get in the way as they make posting seem inadequate. How do you put mundanity mixed with chaos and frustration into words without boring people? How do you tease out the parts that made you happy without looking like you’re trying too hard.

And then there’s the site itself. Writing up Markdown and finding images and putting it all together in Hugo was never a fun way to write. I was tied to my desktop and although I tried to have a “workflow” the way Hugo changed from month to month meant every time I uploaded I had up to a half-dozen broken steps I’d need to work through to get it re-built.

So I ended up putting it off more and more, even though my drafts folder was growing (slowly - but growing), and now we’re here more than a year later and no updates.

This time I determined to build the website my way. It’s taken a minute but I now have a way to generate my site that’s built on technologies I understand and my own sweat and tears. More of that when I write up how it works and how and why you might want to try it, but for now - I welcome you to the new and improved The Geekorium!

I’m still dogfooding it as I go, and there are a couple of things I still know I need to do, as well as a few bugs I’m not aware of, but if I put it off until it’s perfect I’ll never release it.

You might see some items that look like this: {{< youtube xyzabc123 >}} or some links that still look like Markdown. Those are unfinished until I can port over the plugins I need to translate the Hugo exclusive tags. I have figures working, and my next goal is the youtube tags, but please be patient while I get them going.

You might also get old sites in your feed reader (if you’re still subscribed). I rewrote the Atom feed and it may not even work, so sorry if it makes your reader grumpy.

In the meantime I welcome feedback. I reached out to Georgie of Hey Georgie for design help and she graciously gave me some ways to make the site look better, but all bad decisions are my own. If you have any ideas for improvements I’m all ears, because I don’t really have an eye for design. You can get in touch via email at josh @ this.domain.au or on the fediverse at https://social.chinwag.org/@josh and if you notice any jank please let me know.

November will be this this site’s 20th anniversary. I hope this new format will make me more likely to keep it up-to-date. So here’s to 2025 and the new online me!

Where to begin!?

It’s been so long, but I don’t think of this site as over. As difficult as I find it, or as uninspired as I am, I can’t bring myself to call this a failed experiment and give up on it – the intention is always to return here again.

As always, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Or the existant. I find myself believing that I can hold off writing while I build a new site theme, or switch from Hugo, or create something from scratch that meets all my needs.

So this is a new post, on my old theme, on clunky Hugo, manually uploaded like it has been for years, and I’m going to try to keep writing even when I would rather do it in another way.

“So what brings me back?” – I don’t hear you ask – and I answer: “nothing in particular”.

I feel lonely I guess. And not for lack of friends or company IRL, but because I sorta impulsively “noped out” of social media completely in a way I’ve never done before and lost a bunch of connections I value way more than I even realised I did.

Mastodon and aus.social were my homes for a while and I have to stress it wasn’t anyone or anything there that killed it for me. I was in a fragile state of mind when I left and I just wasn’t coping with my own self-imposed idea of what I wanted to be in that space. I’m back on elsewhere now, just to keep up with the tiny number of people I truly miss, but if you want to reach out, reach out here from now on.

I’m giving myself a theme this year: “out of my shell”, and in short I mean to push a little outwards to some of the goals I’ve put on hold or felt I was too unskilled to try. I have felt myself becoming more insular over the last three years and it’s left me feeling powerless, and helpless. So I’m not making grand sweeping goals, but I am publishing a new post for the first time in over a year¹.

I do miss interacting with people, so if you see this post out there in the rss æther please drop me an email if you can be bothered², or one day I might have a more public social media account you can say hello to. One reason I want to revamp my site is to get comments or post-pingbacks working like the good old days so I can use this as my outlet and still hear back from people.

I hope your holiday and new year have been joyful and relaxing and I hope to hear from you as I hope you’ll hear more from me this year!

The very next day after our [successful chick sky-drop]({{< ref “observing-ness” >}}), one of the eggs our broody hen had been diligently sitting on hatched too, bringing on chickpocalypse.

chick·poc·a·lypse

/ ˈtʃɪk pɒk ə lɪps /

noun

A great and scary change brought about by the birth
(or purchase) of too many young domestic fowl at one time

In the space of two days we’ve jumped from five to eight chickens, and while we have some time to plan for it, this means one of two things:

1. We prepare to sell two or three chickens when they’re older
2. We prepare to keep two or three chickens when they’re older and I build another coop that can house 8 or more chickens at once.

As I have three children, option 1 was discussed, but never once taken seriously by anyone involved in the discussions, and now I need to learn how to build things with wood.

Hard hard can it be?

Here are some chickens:

Something really weird and special happened a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t and still don’t really know what I want to say about it. It was a big enough event though that I want to talk about it because it involves one of my favourite people in the world.

My sister went and did something foolish, and got herself made a full blown minister of the Australian Uniting church. As in, she’s actually an honest-to-god reverend. And like, she can put that on forms she fills out (see below).

Title:      Reverend
First name: Cazbutt
Last name:  Nunn

Growing up, I admired my father for becoming a minister, and although I didn’t think I could ever actually do it, I often thought it might be the path I might take one day - carrying on some sort of family tradition¹. When I left my faith, that was a small dream I left behind as well, and although I didn’t want it any more, I still missed it.

To see Carlynne take up the mantle now makes me happy to see that dream become a reality somehow in a silly sort of way.

Which isn’t to say that my sister’s faith and chosen path are anything like my father’s. Carlynne isn’t so much following tradition as she is taking tradition firmly by the shoulders, walking it firmly to the door, and asking it politely to leave.

The ordination ceremony itself was a rich and beautiful celebration of Carlynne’s journey so far. It was an honor to have been invited and to have been able to attend. Afterwards, my sister’s band Terry Towelling and the Tank Tops played a full set while the church family at Brunswick catered a lovely party to both celebrate and say farewell.

What I loved most about the day was this: religion might not be my thing, and the (nebulous, worldwide) church might have a lot of explaining to do, but when I think of my sister as a minister it just makes so much sense to me. What I recognise when she dons the Alb is that my own silly childhood fantasy of becoming a minister was always about my own status - about the title - being able to put reverend on the form.

When I look at my sister’s road to ordination, I instead see a truly humble servant who only wants to meet people where they are. She has already spent much of her adult life learning to accept people how they are just because they’re human. It’s a trait I admire so much in her, and I’m overjoyed when I see her keep embracing it, using it.

The world has always been pretty fucked up, and too often we hear about the people who take their positions and leverage their power to look after themselves, leaving it just a little more fucked than it was before. What I love about my sister and the path she’s chosen is that she really will leave it a little less fucked than how she found it. This step is just another on that road.

Congratulations The Reverend Carlynne @mygirlbetty. You’re a Starasaurus and I love you and I’m proud of you. Keep making the world more awesome.

I took the kids and Mil to Cleland Wildlife Park today. It’s one of my favourite places in Adelaide, and I’ve made some fun memories with the kids and various grandparents over the last ten years.

Today I thought we’d do something different. We’ve got a year-long membership we’ve barely used in this last 12 month period, so entry is free, and it was such a lovely sunny autumn day, I thought it might be nice to just chill out and try a new role-playing game I’ve been wanting to play with the kids. So we spent the morning and early afternoon printing, coloring¹, cutting, and sticking and had a go at the first campaign in Hero Kids, a really simple role playing game (like dungeons and dragons).

This is the whole family’s first RPG - I’ve watched a couple of games in my time, but never participated - and my first attempt at being GM(Game Master). We didn’t get very far - turns out stopping to explain rules and pat potoroos can eat into game time - but I think the kids had fun. Ammy played a healer, Evie played a rogue and Merry played a warrior. Mil was a Warlock with water powers. The basic gist of the game is that the characters themselves are kids so that the players can relate to them and get involved in the adventures.

I’m looking forward to putting more time into it. The kids all have great imaginations, so I think they’ll really take to it. And I had to promise to take them all back to Cleland soon because we barely got to see any animals this time.

Six years ago I wrote a post sitting in a park watching my daughter play. I called it “The Life“ and the feelings in it spring from what seem to be an eternal longing inside me to live other people’s more “glamorous” lives. For instance, I listen to a lot of different podcasts and I find myself wishing I could “do that”. Whatever that might be.

For instance, if I’m listening to an adventure drama, I’ll wish I could write something as engaging as The Red Panda and capture people’s imaginations.

Or if I’m listening to two guys chatting I start imagining what interesting conversations I could have with my favourite people to share with the world.

If I’m listening to a something educational, I’ll try and figure out what subject I know enough about (or could learn enough about) to be as engaging as Hardcore History.

Ultimately though, what they all share in common is the underlying model of making cool stuff and being your own boss. I don’t know why this appeals to me so much, but it does, and always has. I don’t really know where I acquired this romantic notion that self-employment in some creative endevour is what would make me happiest, because frankly the idea of putting myself in charge of anything sounds like a terrifyingly stupid idea.

There are a couple of things I spelled out in that post six years ago that I thought would make me happier:

to pad[^padpun] out my digital lifestyle with all the trimmings

I’m pretty content with my trimmings right now. I have enough disposable income to get “stuff” that makes my inner geek/child happy, and to get some fun stuff for my own kids that my own parents could never afford for me.

sit in a park and read and write

I still sit at a desk.

never fix another jammed printer or reset another password

I hear talk of mythical beings who enjoy their day jobs

This I’ve achieved! This is where I have to point out how fortunate I’ve been to get to a point in my career where I absolutely thoroughly love what I do. I used to weigh up taking a day off almost daily in previous roles and jobs, but where I am right now it never occurs to me. That isn’t something I take lightly, and I am grateful to everyone who has helped push me into this position.

just make giant run-on sentences that would make Zombie_Plan and Rubenerd proud.

Not run on sentences, but I’m pretty proud of the size of some of my SQL queries.

[^padpun]:Actually the original post had a pun that I won’t reward by making twice

What a crazy 8 weeks.

In case you hadn’t picked up the news on the grapevine, I’m a daddy again! Twice more!

So, funny story… 8 weeks ago, one of the twins ruptured their membrane (Mil’s waters broke essentially), and Mil was told she would be staying at hospital until they were born. When the membrane is broken, the most dangerous thing that can happen is for the mother or the baby to get an infection, so they keep the mother hospitalised so that they can assess it regularly and jump on it the minute there’s any sign.

At that time, we were 22 weeks along, and the doctors were very careful to warn us that unless the babies stayed in Mil until 24 weeks, we might lose both of them. We tried to stay positive and Mil moved in.

After a scare at 23 weeks that the babies were coming, we were pretty wrecked, and didn’t really feel like sharing too much with the wider world. We all dropped out of life for a little while, so if we missed any other amazing news, we’re very sorry.

At 27 weeks our little boy couldn’t help himself and literally started pushing his way out. Mil was rushed into surgery and both babies were born pretty quickly on the 1st August, only 1 day after Amelynne and my birthday! I kind of wish they’d come the day before - stupid leap-year.

Well today they’re finally 30 weeks old and tomorrow is their three week birthday!

Merrick Hector Nunn is my strong boy. His lungs have had some problems since birth because he was the one who lost his fluid, but he’s doing pretty well considering the complications that caused. The doctors say he’s on track though, and he’s absolutely lovely.

Evany Louisa Nunn is my sweet girl. She was a bit smaller than Merrick at birth, but has done so well since she was born that she’s almost as big as he is now! She’s holding her own so well, that we’ve finally been able to give her some cuddles this last week.

Sorry it’s taken us so long to pass on this important news. We’ve been so wrapped up in it all, and scared for their safety and overwhelmed by the speed of it that it’s been difficult to put it all down. They’ll both be staying in hospital until at least their due date in late October/early November so we’re in a sort of limbo-world at the moment - born, but not officially ours to keep!

I’m so glad I finally get to tell you all. We’ve been so scared to say anything, but now they’re here, I’m really proud to announce them officially.

So welcome Merrick and Evany! Thank you all for your support and understanding. We look forward to introducing them to you all in real life soon¹.

The ever-lovely Mil has been feeling pretty crap of late, more so than usual. It’s really weird. Sort of a sickness. In the morning [^actually, it’s all the time].

I don’t know what it is. The thought of food makes her nauseous, and even odder, she’s getting bigger. I wouldn’t call her fat, but there’s definitely some tummy on her.

We went to the doctor to get an opinion, and they sent us for some scans. Scan A clearly shows some sort of growth:

They tell us that it’s perfectly normal that Mil would feel the way she does. But the last time this happened, I’m pretty sure she held up better than she has.

Clearly, this is not normal.

We had the doctors check again. Sometimes they miss things you know, and we wanted to make sure it was nothing more sinister.

I’m glad we did, because when we checked again, Scan B shows the growth has clearly doubled!

The doctors have told us not to worry, it’s still all perfectly normal.

BUT HOLY CRAP BUCKETS WE’RE HAVING TWINS YOU GUYS!

All jokes aside, how amazing is that!? There are actually two little people in there! They’re twelve weeks old [^so I can finally say something], beautiful and healthy and Mil and I couldn’t be happier. Of course, we were only expecting one this time, so we’re expecting two to be a little more difficult, but we know we’re surrounded by lots of people who love us very much and everyone we’ve told so far has been enormously supportive and wonderful.

I’m very excited (despite my introduction) and I’m so happy I get to share it with everyone. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive already.

Now I’m off to start a Kickstarter campaign to buy one of these:

Teeheehee.

If any of you have any tips about how to actually do this, please let me know…

ruby
amelynne grace nunn
mum
daddy
sophie
doc
corduroy
morris
sheepy
billie
.
Typing practice with Amelynne.

Can you forgive me?

Hi Rex fans¹! The last week has been all over the place for me, with a scheduled holiday from work then the passing of my Grandma. The week of chapters I had banked up ran out and I didn’t end up publishing anything for Thursday or Friday. I’ve got new stuff for Monday though, so prepare yourselves! Spoiler: Rex has hands!

Space Flight 704 - New chapters every weekday at 7pm!

It starts here.

I read an article the other day that actually made me want to cry a little bit.

It’s an old Washington Post article from 2007 about violinist Joshua Bell, who as an experiment/stunt played for 43 minutes in a rush-hour train station for about 1000 people that passed through that morning. He was playing a $3.5 million dollar violin, and the best seats in his performance tonight will set you back $213.61, but on this day he played for free to anyone who stopped to listen. He played Chaconne by Bach, “considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master”.

{{< youtube myXOrVv-fNk >}}

The sad part is that about five people in 1000 actually bothered to stop and listen. Roughly five people made time in their schedule to stop and pay attention to the fact that this was a master, playing a Stradivarius for free on the street. And I totally get it. One gent had to be at work in five minutes, so he let himself stay and listened for three. Another was a violinist himself and could tell that there was something special about this particular busker. Another was a woman who worked as a shoe-shiner - he was the only performer she didn’t complain about to management.

Actually, sadder still was the fact that every child who passed through wanted to stop and listen. And every parent they were with hustled them on without a glance at the violinist.

Saddest yet is that I know that if I had been there, I probably would have done the same. I like to think that I would have been the guy to at least spare a minute. Or maybe the one parent who didn’t drag his kid away from the amazing music that neither of us will hear the like of again. I’m afraid that I would miss it completely and be the guy who “had no memory that there had been a musician anywhere in sight”.

I knew after reading this that I wanted to be different. I want to notice things that others miss. My sister has a little side-blog where she captures something every day that she loves. I don’t want to copy that, and I want to capture more than just pictures, but it certainly inspiring. Then while I thought about it, my 31st birthday came and went, and my sister¹ got me the book above. It’s called How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. While it wouldn’t have been my first choice of book, as it doesn’t involve space battle or time travel, it fits the bill perfectly for maybe getting me out of my own little head. What I need is something to force me to see things I take for granted, and perhaps over time, I won’t need to be forced to do so.

So while the book is about taking notes and writing things down in the moment, I’m going to experiment and learn and explore and as I go, transcribe the things I do and learn and what-have-you onto the net, to share what I’m learning and doing and make myself do it. I will do it over on Explore with screenbeard on tumblr, and when I’m finished fold it back in here.

My first explore is up there now. Go to it.

This post was going to start out negative, calling for nominations for “Unaustralian of the Year”. And whilst typically Australian, its not a particularly celebratory way to see the year out.

So instead I want to spend December gathering stories about people who have been exceptional this year. I want to know about the hard working mums who are cooking dinner, washing clothes and potty training a 2 year old all at the same time, every day.

Tell us about the guy at the end of your street who climbed up a tree to save a cat and saw an old lady having a heart attack while crossing the street, so he rushes down and sprints to her side to carry her to safety, call 000 and start resuscitation, all before that lout in the Ute comes this close to driving over her face.

Introduce the people near by you who make your life excellent, or who help people they don’t know, or who generally deserve a medal, but medals are expensive and not given out by a General for “Valor in the Face of Interrupted Sleep”.

Share with us how people you know have been beautiful, hard working, loyal, brave, inspiring or delicious.

I want you to write a comment to nominate someone you think deserves a mention for being Bloody Good Bloke or a Top Sheila. Tell us why they deserve it. Then, if you read a story from someone that you like, give the comment a thumbs up so I can come back and post about the people you vote for.

Lets end this year on a positive note, giving thanks for the people in our lives who inspire us, make us happy, or put others before themselves.

It’s been so long since I did anything round here, I feel like I’m treading on an ancient burial ground just coming by, let alone defiling the place by writing.

So…

What’s up?

I’m sitting under a lovely big tree in a park, watching my girl play on a slide with her Grandma nearby. I’m reading feeds on Reeder on my iPhone, and writing this in the Wordpress app. I’m wishing this could be my profession. All this iPad chatter has me wishing I had money to squander, to iPad¹ out my digital lifestyle with all the trimmings and sit in a park and read and write, and never fix another jammed printer or reset another password, and just make giant run-on sentences that would make Zombie_Plan and Rubenerd proud.

I hear talk of mythical beings who enjoy their day jobs. But I’m an atheist, so I don’t believe in fairy stories like that.

I do enjoy my life though. My baby girl is spinning on the play equipment now, and a breeze is touching my face and I am content.