FeedCity: IWC NUR 2026

with words, wonder
08 Feb 19:54 • James' Coffee Blog

Why I love my favourite words

Every so often, I use the word delightful in conversation. That is delightful! I try not to use “delightful” too often, but I do like to bring it into a discussion every now and again. It is one of my favourite words. The word delightful, like the word awe, makes me feel a c...

with words, wonder
08 Feb 19:39 • James' Coffee Blog

Design and missing categories

Ever since I moved to using Ghost as the tool for publishing my blog posts [1], I have forgotten to add categories to some of my blog posts. My old system had a few if statements that would automatically select a category. If none of the rules triggered and I did not choose a...

with words, wonder
08 Feb 19:12 • James' Coffee Blog

Noticing

Last weekend, I went to the National Gallery of Scotland. This time, I started my trip on the bottom floor where all the Scottish art is on display. A few minutes after entering the gallery, I was captivated by paintings of Nature and of Edinburgh. I noticed that one wall was...

with words, wonder
08 Feb 18:51 • James' Coffee Blog

Clouds

I have been waking up with anticipation every morning recently. I say “good morning, world”, and then anxiously peek through the edge of the curtains. I hope for the blue sky. This last week has been rainy and grey. I tried to understand why but the meteorology went over my ...

ArtLung
08 Feb 18:18 • Joe Crawford

We are in a web renaissance now.

James mentioned the other day on his website a conversation we had during a Co-Unworking Zoom. To whit: It is perhaps because of this that, when I asked Joe yesterday “How can we achieve a web renaissance?”, he replied “I think we’re already in it.” Renaissance means “rebirth.” It’s not a quantifiable term. It’s a...

ArtLung
08 Feb 05:45 • Joe Crawford

15 seconds.

Before the session. Today I took off on a wave and after it broke I ended up underneath it for 21 seconds. I think it’s accurate to say that I was “held down” for 15 seconds of that time. I did not like that. There’s a sign in the window of a lifeguard tower that...

with words, wonder
07 Feb 14:09 • James' Coffee Blog

Debug mode

One of the areas of the Artemis codebase that I update the most is the logic that relates to the list of posts published by authors to which a user is subscribed. Because Artemis works with so many different formats of information – web feeds like RSS or h-feed, Mastodon post...

with words, wonder
07 Feb 13:39 • James' Coffee Blog

Staging banners

When I run the Artemis codebase, one of the first things it does is look for an environment variable that indicates what “environment” the application is running in. There are two modes: development and production. If no mode is specified, development mode is set by default. ...

Dan’s Polaroids
07 Feb 11:51

07.02.2026

My black V-shaped guitar on my black desk. Guitar string
packaging and tools around it. — Restringing the guitar for tonight's gig in Aachen.

with words, wonder
07 Feb 09:42 • James' Coffee Blog

Redirecting YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md to /YYYY/MM/DD/slug with Nginx

Earlier this week a reader pointed out that posts listed on my date archive pages were linking to the wrong URLs. For example, the link for /2026/01/25/kind-software would instead be /2026-01-25-kind-software.md. This was caused by my static site generator using the markdown ...

ArtLung
06 Feb 17:39 • Joe Crawford

HWC Loops! (San Diego Edition)

In 2024 I wrote about loathing and fearing web video (Unfrozen Caveman Web Video). And while video does often cause me unhappiness, I do enjoy playing with it. I’ve got videos of bodysurfing and my reels. It’s got me using stuff like ffmpeg and Procreate Dreams to do fun stuff. This short animated AVIF file...

Dan’s Polaroids
06 Feb 17:24

06.02.2026

Handlebars of a holland bike. In the background a path with
vegetation on both sides and a motorhome on the left. — Cycling in the rain. And the Polaroid got messed up in my pocket.

ArtLung
06 Feb 16:33 • Joe Crawford

Friday Music

And the end of this video of the band Blusher coverings Kesha’s “Your Love is my Drug” they start to cover ABBA’s “S.O.S.” and I find myself really wanting to hear more of that. I’ll be seeking out other work by Blusher. Triple J is Australian public radio of a sort and does fine work....

with words, wonder
06 Feb 16:09 • James' Coffee Blog

Reducing Artemis’ deployment downtime with blue-green deployments

Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain, runs as a systemd process. When I want to update the software, I deploy the new code to the server and then restart the systemd process. This has a significant downside: while the Artemis process is restarting, the software is unavaila...

with words, wonder
06 Feb 15:39 • James' Coffee Blog

Does your website run on green energy?

A few weeks ago I did a day-long training Carbon Literacy Project training course through my university. When I was taking the course and considering ways I can reduce my carbon footprint, I started thinking about technology. I don’t know much about calculating emissions from...

with words, wonder
06 Feb 15:39 • James' Coffee Blog

Background technology

A while ago, I purchased an Aranet 4 indoor CO2 monitor. The device has sat on my desk ever since. I started thinking about the Aranet monitor this week because I noticed that, for the first time, the battery was low and needed to be changed. The Aranet is a useful device. W...

with words, wonder
06 Feb 14:48 • James' Coffee Blog

Calendars and web readers

For the last few weeks I have been thinking about the intersection of calendars and web readers. Author's note: You can skip the next paragraph if you're not interested in the technical aside. What started this thinking was a technical interest. With h-feed, you can publish...

with words, wonder
06 Feb 11:54 • James' Coffee Blog

The expanse of web weaving

Last year, one of my goals was to learn more about design. I wanted to apply what I learned to making web pages. The Non-Designer’s Design Book was an influential resource toward the end of the year. While not specifically about web design, the principles within the book – co...

with words, wonder
06 Feb 11:24 • James' Coffee Blog

Build the web you want to see

The Autumn/Winter 2025 edition of the good internet magazine is out! I contributed a piece, Build the web you want to see, in which I reflect on the last five years of James' Coffee Blog and some of what I have learned in that time. I have been thinking about the question "how do we make the web better?" for the last few months, and perhaps the best answer I have right now is for us all to keep building the web we want to see. It is perhaps because of this that, when I asked Joe yesterday "How can we achieve a web renaissance?", he replied "I think we're already in it." Thank you to Xandra for all of the work that she puts into making the good internet magazine happen. I am delighted that this project exists and, especially after reading StartingAMagazine.psd, am more aware than ever that projects like this don't just happen: we make them happen.

Dan’s Polaroids
06 Feb 09:33