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E-Wizard: Journal

Introduction

This journal is largely for stuff relating to this website, and any tangent I think of later on. Latest updates are always on the index page, which you can get to by clicking on "E-Wizard" in the H1 heading near the start of this page. More personal stuff used to go here, and is marked by having the day of the week (e.g. Monday, Tuesday...) in the title. Personal stuff now goes to my feels blog on Tilde Town.

Also I use epoch time as my 0. All dates are post epoch time unless stated otherwise. A Gregorian calendar conversion is available in the datetime attribute, if anyone needs it. I don't want to use any Christian calendar, though. I guess Julian calendar is an option, but my church exclusively used the Julian calendar so I associate that even more with Christianity.

Been working on my own HTML cleaner thing. Currently just makes my indentation more consistent and also generates a table of contents for each page. I plan to switch to an HTML preprocessor just because updating my page has become something I dread. The files are all just too big, but I think if I split them up it'd still be overwhelming. I've been using this thing on tilde called "feels," and I think something like that would help me write more on here. I do still like writing HTML though, so I won't use a static site generator because those usually make you write in their own special syntax or Markdown or something else that's not pure sweet HTML. This is also the first time I'm using Neocities' CLI, so I might as well go for it.

My CSS has a similar issue, so I've been brainstorming how to go about simplifying it. I like that I have defined sections throughout it. I'm going to sit down with a bunch of cutting edge CSS of 52 or whatever and throw cool stuff at it. Apparently there's nesting now? Sounds awesome. Anyway, so long as my HTML is solid, I really don't care if the CSS displays differently on older browsers. Different still looks good, and I've always disliked the concept of "normalize.css" precisely because I don't see why something has to look the same across every browser. I don't know. Maybe I'll change my mind when I get back into CSS preprocessors. Or get some sleep.

Removed a broken link, as best as I can on mobile anyway. Wow, I can edit my site on mobile and it's not that bad. Still pretty bad, though. I think, since I've already shown this site to IRLs twice, and might a 3rd time, that I might as well finally separate this site from any online identity that I want to keep for my onlines only. So I've changed my username some places.

Even if the two people I showed this site to remember the URLs (I hope not), it's not gonna hurt me or anything. Have to remember that the biggest threat I'm concerned about is getting outed as queer, and if I only show this to people who know that (and subsequently make them swear not to show it to anyone else), then it will be okay. The second biggest is, of course, data brokers, who should all get literally any other job.

I'm now also on Tilde Town!!! I'm trying to get better at using the command line now that I've switched my operating system from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. I made my desktop look like ye olden days of the early 2010s! Just look at Mint-X theme for Xfce, and you'll see what I mean.

I've been doing my updates from the Neocities web editor lately, because I just haven't settled in still. When I learn the Neocities CLI, I'll probably make more frequent updates.

There's a bug in iOS that won't change the background blend modes with the user theme. Because I have been unable to find a fix for that that I like in about a week, I have decided to take the background images down instead. I'm not too upset about the cloud background going away, since it wasn't obvious that it was a cloud, but I'll miss the opal background.

Gonna go add The Map is the Territoryto the resources page now.

Major style overhaul. Please go to the Credits page to see any attributions for all these assets. The last time I did a redesign was when I made everything a variable and started using Dracula theme. Now, I have started using this epic wizard theme, that I made myself.

I have also joined the queer-coded webring, accessible in this div. Forgive me for cutting this update short, I need to go see my neighbours.

Ah, bugs. The price of style. Here are a couple of known bugs. Thank youGorgonConverters and Kanguin (not on Neocities) for catching some of these.

I also asked GC if the header clashes too much with the new design, and ze said yes. I think my solution to that will be a JavaScript selector... yes, yes, I know, but trust me on this one. A JavaScript selector to toggle between the old theme and this theme. I think that this theme will be relegated to being available for JavaScript-enabled browsers only, because I think it's likely to present readability issues. I'm currently working on a toggle for that that won't sacrifice the theme toggles. I should be studying for my electro exam on August 8, but oh well.

The background images now only show up if you have JavaScript. This is because it's something that some people may need toggled off. I'm working on excluding the picture frames and columns from this. For now, the background images show up by default, since I have the script toggle the class name on load. Working on extending this functionality to the Yvette site.

Big but invisible changes happened to the stylesheet. I have decided to use @media queries to control the color schemes now. The old class-based system has been moved to the bottom, because I still enjoy toggling it. Coming soon: some way to save the theme?

I'm going to start removing the color selector from every page, and add it in with JavaScript instead. When I made the color selector, I didn't anticipate I'd do this kind of media query-based color set-up, and I don't like that the default selection on dark mode is still "light." Hey, I don't need to describe my plan in words! I can just do a mock-up right here!

You may notice that I end every non-default theme with "dark" or "light." This is because I keep small tweaks that should apply across all themes in the .dark-theme and .light-theme classes, like how to display my Python graphs (none are on the site anymore, but they'll be back eventually).

Also, finally migrated the original Buttonlike demo to the journal page. You can now see it on the Userstyles page, even though it isn't a userstyle.

Okay, I just did all that I said I would do later. Check out the browser console for a cool message.

Turns out the JavaScript link goes under the bulk of the document! That's why I kept getting all those null errors! Well, I added some snazzy new low-contrast themes, and they should be updated across the whole site now! And now that I have a cool bit of JavaScript going, I can add as many themes as I want! Pure CSS!

I'm also working on a bit of a secret project right now, but it's a piece of history that's very close to my heart and is inextricably tied into the origins of this website. Hope you like it when I release it!

Fixed my JavaScript!!! No more copy-pasting!! Well, except my website theme. Planning on resurrecting my old static site generator project, to use Python to keep my websites all in the same "template" so to speak. I know I said "manual until it hurts" but it sure has started to hurt! Just thinking about pasting in the link to the javascript file in every head element... urgh.

Anyway, you may now notice that this webpage has a table of contents now! This is to make it easier for people to navigate my website via keyboard. There's also a "settings" menu under the table of contents, where the theme toggle is! Changing the theme no longer makes the keyboard lose focus. Additionally, it makes it easier for me to add more themes in the future, like a high contrast theme, for example. I could even add more options like a font selector!

Also, I forgot that my website looks different on my main browser (Firefox) than on my test browser (Firefox Developers' Edition). The reason is because I set my default fonts to be fonts I personally like best. I encourage everyone reading this to go to their browser and set their own favourite fonts! I want my website to look different to everyone. Welcome to the free web!

Migrated a lot of older updates to my Journal because I wasn't using that page for much anyway. Left the ButtonLike thing intact because it is admittedly pretty cool. I'm currently working on updating all my pages to work with my new Theme Selector. The h1 element now contains a link, which you can click to return to the home page. Except on the home page, of course. I've also added a "Page Updates" sidebar to my template, so now I can let people know when a page was last updated in a better way.

Temporarily removed the "Am I Autistic" page because I still haven't done what I was intending to do with it. For reference, it used to be a page that was a lot of Python code for analyzing my scores on autism tests compared to the mean scores of autistic and allistic participants, using a very simple hypothesis test. Using a numerical score, I could translate my score into a Z-score, a measure of how many standard deviation my score is from the mean of a given group. Using the RAADS-R 2010 paper for example, the mean "social" score for the allistic (not autistic) group with no other diagnoses was 9.24, with a standard deviation of 7.70. This means that most autistic participants in the given study were within 7.70 points of 9.24. My score was 65, which is around 9.24 + 7.70 × 7.24. The 7.24 is my Z-score, and it means I am 7.24 standard deviations above the most common range of allistic social scores. This is not the whole story of my score, just the most extreme example. In any case, I still feel that putting something like that up online is a bit too much for me right now, so I will take more time fixing that page up than I strictly need.

Did not expect to be back so soon! But I found a cool button by Sealed on Neocities and I just had to put it up on my page. Also took down some buggy code (the text version of my button-like project).

While I was here, I fixed a lot of the indentation on this page in my text editor (Notepad++), and decided to un-hide my Link to Me section. Initially I had it hidden because it just felt churlish to have it up while I wasn't linking to anyone else. I do also have buttons ready to link to for other people, but I still haven't figured out how to display them in a way that's accessible and uses as little JavaScript as possible. Since the only method I can think of is toggling the class, displaying any moving buttons will have to wait until I fix my damn JavaScript. Right now it is a royal mess of copy-pastes, and I hate it. That, or just decide to only do static buttons for everyone, but the thing is even if I go that route I need JavaScript to toggle showing website names in plain text. Fuck, speaking of showing names in plain text, I should do that to the top running header thing too.

Ignore the bottom part. I found out the following information that has since rendered that last rant from March useless.

  1. The faculty minimum is 5% lower than I thought it was
  2. My faculty average is a full 5% higher than it was last term, thanks to my epic skillz in computational physics
  3. Ehh... still bothered about my lack of independence
  4. I am on the waiting list for an HRT consultation, so I no longer need to fret about the price or legality of DIY (free healthcare!)
  5. I didn't actually need to look for housing, because I ended up commuting instead. Still need to find some for next term, but at least I know I have options
  6. ... what did I mean by "no reason?" I had just given a whole bunch of reasons!
  7. Yeah I don't think the brainwashing will ever truly go away but at least I'm trying

Updated the Resources page to fix broken links. Changed a Youtube link to an Invidious link because fuck Google.

Also I'm 21 now. Might see my best friend of 8 years in the fall. Scratch that, I'm going to do that. I'm the master of my own fate.

I still feel weird about people seeing this site without explicitly seeking it out. I'm not sure I'm a fan of this "follow" feature at all. I know I'm being irrational, but it is a little. Hm. I don't know why I have such a block when it comes to this site but not my social medias. I guess because Neocities inherently requires more effort and that means I get rambly. Also because I literally wrote essays on here while out of my mind and archived them on the wayback machine, so this place reminds me of some betrayals I've been through even though (or perhaps because) I haven't used it much.

P.S: I figured out that I can simply delete update posts from my profile, and the Activity page will not bump my website. This is as it should be.

Well, I found out my cumulative average is only 3% higher than the faculty minimum I need to be in good standing. That's been rough. Even outside of that, I've just felt so awful today. I feel completely unprepared for being an independent adult, and I'm worried my life is going down the drain as a result. I'm 20 years old and still no closer to transitioning than when I was a little kid. Fucking hell. I can't even do DIY because I'm worried about law enforcement, even though I know where I can get it in this country so that it doesn't go through customs. I feel so anxious for no reason. I'm also worried because I have to go back to in-person university for next year, and people are already looking for housing. How the fuck do I look for housing? And on top of that, I still feel bad for being an apostate. And for procrastinating on my assignment. Fuck.

Well, I finally did it! I ditched VSCode in favour of Notepad++ ! My reason for it is simple: fuck Microsoft. Fuck their telemetry bullshit. Fuck everything about them. Additionally, fuck autocomplete. Autocomplete is so annoying that it actually slows me down more than it helps me. Sometimes I want to type my end quotation by hand . Actually, all the time. Autocomplete is directly opposed to my goal of keeping this Manual Until it Hurts . I also removed it from my Resources/Cool links page, because fuck them.

I also added a theme toggle to my page. Go look at the source code. So far it's actually two different buttons masquerading as one, because when I tried to use just one button it had some issues, and I figured this was way easier. I got the drive to do it after piloting a custom style toggle on my upcoming Yvette page. The styles on the original website are... not great for reading, to put it lightly.

I'm thinking of adding classifications to my websites, based on completeness. I also really wanna publish the Yvette page even though there's not much on it yet. I should at least wait until I've cleaned up the chat-logs!

I know I said a while back I've been using Sass , but I stopped. I've had a much easier time keeping track of things just by keeping my CSS fairly simple, or at least as simple as I can get it. Don't get me wrong, I would still use Sass if some complex behemoth project came about, but I just haven't needed to lately. Please read Manual Until it Hurts at IndieWeb for more info. I've saved so much time by not automating things that it's ridiculous. No more fiddling with DIY Markdown to HTML converters. Someone please remind me to add a Glossary section for all these abbreviations...

I also rearranged my site. Instead of the homepage having three sidebars, it has one. This is because of the logical structure of the site; I wanted to keep non-repeating information in the main tag, to better show that it's, well, the main point of this page. What would my index page even be without links to my other projects? Pretty fucking boring . If you're reading this from the archive, hi!

I kept the buttons and my contact info in an aside, because those are more "at a glance" things that you would only care about if you're hunting for buttons, or you want to talk to me for whatever reason. It's still important! They're just more specific uses. I guess this update log fits that criteria as well, but it's main to me and that's what matters.

I made a stylesheet to help people make 88x31 pseudo-image buttons. I'm calling it Button-Like CSS . All you have to do is put a div in, add some text in the div (to serve the same function as alt text), give it the buttonlike class and any one of the bicolor , tricolor , tetracolor , or pentacolor classes. I'm looking to add more, and maybe make a JavaScript widget to help people define colours for themselves.

Example 

<div class="buttonlike pentacolor" 
	style="--btn-color-1: #5BCEFA; --btn-color-2: #F5A9B8; 
				 --btn-color-3: #FFFFFF; --btn-color-4: #F5A9B8; 
				 --btn-color-5: #5BCEFA">
	Transgender flag</div>
Transgender flag

I completely scrapped the old CSS and replaced it with this. I used an actual colour palette for it, Dracula , although I currently have my code editor set to be Solarized Dark instead! At the time I am writing this, it is fairly bright in my room, so I'm gonna switch to Solarized Light, hang on.

Screenshot of HTML in VSCode using Solarized Light.
Ah, much better.

I've also added some nifty sidebars, but they will only display as sidebars when the screen width is high. I'm still trying to work out what I can do with the left sidebar, which shows up at the top on mobile. Would it be bad to move it to the bottom with its twin? But then my desktop layout won't be laid out in the same order as the document! Oh, the humanity.

Got a midterm to do today. And another midterm. And then I have to do the assignment for which I haven't done the readings yet. Also my fucking building is testing the fire alarm and the damn water is off.

Ok, end of the day. I did the midterm, but I spent most of the day working on my site. Added a cool new one, about using statistical analysis to determine whether I'm autistic . VSCode stopped responding on me a few times. Two of my webpages have failed the W3C HTML Validator , so that's a bummer. One of them was only a single warning about a table, which is fine because I don't want to add blank td elements. The other one was partly because I pasted a table from somewhere else that used the obsolete align attribute, but more embarassingly because I pasted code from looking at my Jupyter Notebook in Inspect Element, and then changed a div to a code element, without checking whether it can be used this way. Spoiler: Element pre not allowed as child of element code in this context. (Suppressing further errors from this subtree.) Also I was very meta earlier by wrapping the word "code" in code tags.

I also dug up an old button I made, a little gif of a hand holding a transgender symbol with blue fire in the orb. I think it's pretty cool, but it still says "Electronic Wizard" on it instead of just "E-Wizard" like it's supposed to, and I don't have the version with layers so I can't just change it easily. I'll have to trace over it, I guess.

I've mostly been working on my stylesheets for making Discord responsive to smaller screens , improving the way Tumblr works on mobile browsers , and some smaller ones for a narrower measurements chart on FreeSewing and allowing people to expand the UQuiz trending bar .

It hasn't all been successes, though I wouldn't call anything a failure either, just a work in progress. I made code in JavaScript for converting those span gradients into nice CSS gradients that use CSS variables, at least on Tumblr. The advantage of using CSS variables is that I can ensure the text will be readable no matter which theme the user wants to use, and the advantage of using a single span tag for a single gradient and styling it with CSS is that, well, it's more semantically correct. I also saw some post on Tumblr about how using those span tag gradients was inaccessible to users of some screenreaders. At least Windows screenreader (Narrator) can interpret the gradients correctly, but I've had some issues with navigating while using Windows.

Aside from that, I've been playing a lot of Bitburner . It's a fun way to motivate me to learn more of the algorithmic side of programming in general. So far I've made a nice little worm that infects people's machines and spreads out to connected machines, and a nice little hacknet node manager that auto-upgrades the cheapest thing as soon as I get the money. Just remember to always use await ns.sleep(Int) in your infinite loops, or you'll crash something! I did that at least twice now, and had to open up new containers (Firefox feature) for that game to ditch the freeze.

Well, I'm writing this at so of course it's actually . Also I just figured out how to enable word-wrap on VSCode Alt + Z . I also learned about how to use the kbd element! Here's the Mozilla Developer Network page about the keyboard input element.

Today was supposed to be my first day back to in-person university. Key: was supposed to be . No, my university didn't retract their decision. I didn't go to school today because I didn't have any classes. Why not? Well, I'm only in two courses and they run Tuesdays and Thursdays. Why only two? Better yet, why two and not one?

Let me tell you the sordid story of my academic spiral. Ehh, I'll do it tomorrow. My keyboard is really loud and it's . Also VSCode is getting really annoying with the auto-complete prompts. I recently read manual until it hurts and I'm trying to take it to heart, anyway. No more auto-closing tags. Muscle memory kept me closing them manually anyway, leading to shitty soup.

I have a feeling tomorrow's gonna be a long day.

P.S: TIL the nav element is supposed to be unique. I learned this by using the Functional Accessibility Evaluator , which I found from this article: What we found when we tested tools on the world's least-accessible webpage . Side note, should I mark the UK's website as transphobic on Shinigami Eyes ?

Also I really wanna re-do my whole website now. The CSS needs an update since I recently got obsessed with command terminal color palettes. I'm currently using Dracula on Discord and Tumblr but using Solarized on VSCode.

I've been working on my Tumblr theme lately, you can check it out on Tumblr . Warning! It's still not done, and I'm working on fixing contrast issues with the gradients. I've started using Sass to pre-process my style-sheets, and it's been a real blessing. I especially like the @extend keyword. Also, I've been doing more heavy JavaScript work, which you can see on my blog. Right now I have scripts to remove inaccessible gradients formed with span tags; add "Untitled" as a title to, well, untitled posts; and most recently to toggle between light and dark mode. I'm actually using CSS variables for that! You can check out my code in Inspect Element; the Toggle code is not minified (but the other two scripts are). I'm planning on putting this all on GitHub or over here so anyone can see what I've done.

Please go directly to the Resources page, since it's my favourite remaining page on this site and is the only one I've updated recently.