Creativity Hacker

The Golem In The Shadows

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:37:06 +0000

A man may spend considerable effort searching for a solution, only to discover that he has already built one and simply forgotten.

A Letter Arrives But The Post Office Is Closed

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:55:33 +0000

Note From Col. Watson: Today’s session sprang, not from design or ambition, but from a small disaster: Professor Higgins had gone silent.

My benfactor returned to his Norwegian studies after tea this afternoon only to find his trusted tutor unresponsive, dead upon the floor, with an unanswered submission strewn across his chest. The Doctor felt this loss all the more keenly, as the Professor’s question had touched on an area of thin vocabulary, and he was eagerly awaiting his tutor’s pointed feedback.

Everything Else Is Wishful Thinking

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:19:40 +0000

I recently spent a pile of time trying to decide how plim should track debts: both the money you owe to others and the money they owe you. That covers everything from your mortgage to the $30 you loaned Dave at karaoke last Tuesday.

But a solution that covers all of them caught me by surprise — and made plim simpler in the process.

I Caught Me An Assistant!

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve finally lured a junior programmer down into my basement. He came for the promise of a few bucks and a little fun, and while he was poking around in my source code cellar, I quietly threw the deadbolt and locked him in.

He’s been there for a week and still hasn’t noticed. And you wanna know the best part?

We’re actually getting shit done.

Foundation Complete

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:42:38 +0000

In the last update, I described plim as a finacial rendering engine with a built-in time machine. What I meant was that it doesn’t just store a ledger of what your finances look like today - it keeps a record of everything that has happened, and when, so it can start from the beginning and replay those changes to compute what your finances looked like at any point in time.

Well that engine is done now, so let’s take a look.

Burning It Down to Serve You Better

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 20:28:24 +0000

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for a project is douse it in gasoline and set the whole thing on fire.

Not because you’ve lost faith in the destination, but because the current attempt is standing in the way of getting there.

Come on inside and I’ll explain what I’ve done.

FloodBoard - Learn to See the Game-Board Like a Computer

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:11:20 +0000

I like puzzle games, and one that I’ve always played in a rather mindless way, just to kill time, is the one called Flood It. Or Color Flood. But whatever you call it, it’s the one with a grid of random-colored squares where you start in one corner and keep flood-filling from there in different colors until you’ve flooded the entire board. The fewer moves you make, the higher your score.

But the more I’ve played it, the more curious I’ve become. What is the optimal strategy? Should you always flood as many squares as possible, or is it sometimes better to choose a smaller move to set up a bigger play? And if so, when?

Well, I don’t like just wondering about these things - I want to know. So I wrote a version of the game to help me find out. I call it FloodBoard.

MajorDomo - A Weather Servant

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 08:26:31 +0000

Weather apps are great at telling you the facts: temperature, wind, humidity, chance of rain… But they don’t tell you what you actually need to know in the moment:

“Should I grab the big coat, the light jacket, or nothing at all?”

Sure, I can see out the window whether it’s raining or not, but temperature? That’s hard to nail down at a glance.

Or at least, it used to be hard.

Now I have a servant for that.

Exploding the End of Fight Club

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:07:05 +0000

One of my favorite movies to discuss is Fight Club. Love it or hate it, if you’ve ever seen it, you probably have a theory about what it’s trying to say. And my favorite way to discover someone’s take is to ask them to explain a single line of dialogue. No matter what you think the movie is all about, your stance is almost always revealed by how you explain that one line.

But of all the explanations I’ve ever heard, I’ve never had anybody echo my own take. Which surprises me, because it’s the only one I can think of that explains all the facts.

Before we get into it though, I should warn you that there be spoilers ahead. Big ones. If you’ve already seen the movie and been down into that grubby basement, then come on in. But if you aren’t a member yet, then you can just piss off.

We don’t talk about Fight Club.

It's Alive!

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 06:45:14 +0000

After reviewing my archived experiments from a decade ago, I’ve decided to call that effort a “proof of concept” and go back to the drawing board for a full redesign.

Tormenting AI For Fun and Profit

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 13:30:00 +0000

I’ve come up with a fun way to practice written conversations in norsk—by taunting my AI practice partner.

If that sounds like fun, just step behind this curtain and I’ll show you the game.

The Rip-Cord Protocol

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:21:56 +0000

Every language course I’ve ever taken began with how to have a simple conversation, but I don’t think I’ve ever been taught what to do when those conversations break down. And they do break down. All the time. Especially for beginners.

This post recaps a conversation I had with ChatGPT about what I think is a crucial - yet often missing - first lesson in language learning: How to keep conversations moving when the bottom falls out.

I call it The Rip-Cord Protocol.

Veloci-Straptors

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 13:33:18 +0000

Quick to print, quick to deploy, and quick to remove, they’ll bind your cables and cords so tight that you’ll want to use them everywhere.

From Noise to Nuance

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 09:24:35 +0000

As I focus more specifically on ear-training, I’m noticing stages of progress in my ability to unpack the noise into recognizable chunks, but how many stages should I expect on this journey? And what do they look like?

Drømmekaosen

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 10:24:34 +0000

My wife and I were recently comparing our experience of dreaming and I was trying to explain the non-stop chaos of my sleeping life, but I couldn’t quite capture it. So recently I wrote down what I remembered immediately after waking up, and that worked. (She no longer tries to compete for weird. :-)

But the more interesting result was that I then tried to write it out again. In Norwegian.

Without looking anything up…

My First Back-channel Convo

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:40:21 +0000

Backchannel Game – Episode 1

Practice session using English input and Norwegian backchannel responses

This transcript demonstrates the first run of the Backchannel Game, a conversational exercise designed to train real-time Norwegian listening-side interaction. The AI tells a story in short English segments; the learner replies only in Norwegian. After each response, the AI continues the story and gives gentle corrections where needed. This format encourages natural context-based responses rather than memorized phrases.

How to Listen in Norsk

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:15:52 +0000

One day, I hope to get involved in an actual norsk conversation, and when I do, I want to be sure I’m a good listener. Fortunately that’s much easier than being the dominant speaker. But how do you practice foreign conversations without a language partner?

Verbal Emphasis

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 09:06:54 +0000

There are a cluster of words I’ve been more or less ignoring in norsk; words like “jo” and “vel.” They seem to come scattered randomly in sentences, shifting the nuance somehow, but I’ve been so busy focusing on what the nouns and verbs are doing that I haven’t unpacked all those dangly bits.

Today I decided to take the plunge, in another installment of Useful Conversations With ChatGPT…

Kaffe Kan Fikse en Tregmorgen

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 08:56:38 +0000

Join me for another installment of my “Conversations with Robots” series.

Shelter From The Storm

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:45:04 +0000

Have you ever tried learning a language by watching TV and ended up feeling like a leaf in a language hurricane? That’s me. I want to improve my listening skills, but every norsk series I’ve tried seems to be competing in the mumble-Olympics, recorded in a drainage culvert. Surely it’s not all like that, right?

Testing for Gold

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 07:27:40 +0000

For something as crucial as a financial tool, I want to be sure that plim is always extracting an accurate model of my finances from the data files I’ve download from my financial service providers. So, to ensure that new code never breaks that “ground truth,” I’ve added a simple golden file regression testing system, which gets automatically run every time I check in code changes with git.

By carefully curating a set of testing data that illustrates tricky situations and then hand-verifying that the model built from them is correct, I can ensure that plim will faithfully handle the weird cases, even when they occur in live data.

Frinorskliv - Magneter

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 20:09:37 +0000

Hvert skikkelig verksted trenger en måte for å oppbevare verktøy på. Jeg har tatt min tid og har funnet en effektiv løsning for mange av de mest nyttige av dem. Magneter.

Frog and Beetle Phone Case

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 08:09:55 +0000

One of my kids is a biologist studying frogs, and their partner has a passion for insects. So when my frog-nerd got a new phone and couldn’t find a case they liked, I had an idea. Why not create a custom “couples case” just for them?

What followed was quite an adventure to find an efficient and reliable way to print multi-color (and multi-material) veneers with my single-extruder setup, but I’m delighted with the results. And more importantly, so are the kids.

Adulting 101 - Three Simple Rules

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 22:16:43 +0000

As a parent to several adult children, one of my last official acts before sending each one out into the world has always been to give them a sort of “job description” for being an adult. With our last fledgling quickly approaching that milestone, this will be my last such talk, so I thought I’d take a moment to share my simple rubric.

Cartoons as Database

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 19:32:54 +0000

A while ago, I mentioned that, to manage production of multiple language versions of Unforgettable, I needed a more robust system for organizing the cartoons. They’re currently just in an Anki deck, which I still use for studying, so I was hoping to have it all by finding a robust database that would run on my phone, and that I could still use as my daily study tool.

Well, I never found that magical solution, and with the project preparing to kick into a higher gear now, I need to buckle down and find a way to manage the data and editorial workflows. So I’ve dropped the “phone-based” and “study tool” requirements, and suddenly the decision has become much easier.

Tusenlapper

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:52:30 +0000

It occurs to me that I frequently have interesting conversations with ChatGPT about the Norwegian language, but that I’m the only person benefiting from the resources I consume to generate it.

So in the interests of amortizing my carbon footprint, I’m going to start sharing those convos here. Let me know if you like the idea…

The Little Bird

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 17:01:09 +0000

If you know who Varys is, you’ll know he’s nothing without his “little birds.” They’re the ones who listen to the whispers of power and then tell him all about it.

Well, my varys needs some listeners too.

Cable Cog: Taming the Tangles

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 12:19:52 +0000

Whether it’s under my desk or in a storage box, a tangled mass of wall-wart cables always get my blood boiling. So in the interest of delaying my stress-related demise, today I came up with a solution.

Frinorskliv - Dag 447

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:50:26 +0000

Problemet for meg med å skrive på denne dagboken er alltid, “Hva skal jeg skrive om?” Men det er en tåpelig spørsmål. Jeg vil forbedre norsken min for å snakke om livet mitt, så åpenbart det er hva jeg burde skrive om. Og siden livet mitt er meste om prosjektene min, la oss prate litt om dem i dag.

Trump Saves NASA

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 05:05:43 +0000

The Whitehouse is jubilant today, hailing President Donald J. Trump as an unprecedented genius. After firing former NASA Chief Bert McMurdle and installing himself in the dual roles of lead administrator and chief scientist, the multi-talented Trump effected sweeping changes to the entire roster of programs under management by the agency. The first to reach completion, Project Artemis was concluded successfully today, and came in at an estimated total cost of only 12.5%, as compared to the budget originally approved by McMurdle.

Frinorskliv - Dag 427

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:18:54 +0000

WARNING: Clumsy Norwegian coming in 3, 2, 1…

Det har vært 427 dager siden jeg begynt å lære meg selv norsk, men jeg ikke har skrevet mye på norsk ennå. Så i dag skal jeg begynne å endre det. Velkomm til Frinorskliv - en serie hvor jeg skal øve norsken min i små biter og dele dem med verden. Med alle feil og mangler.

Varys - The Power Spy

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 22:18:41 +0000

For years I’ve protected my office server from the harsh indignities of sudden power failures by shielding it behind a traditional UPS battery backup. For more than a decade, this arrangement has kept my pixels glowing through half a dozen actual power outages, and any number of brown-outs and glitches. Over that same period, the internal battery has eventually died and been replaced twice. I don’t begrudge the battery for failing - it’s an ancient battery tech that has more in common with the battery in your car than the one in your cell phone - but the replacements are expensive.

So when the battery failed again this week, I decided it was time to re-evaluate.

FirstBox

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 08:52:45 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, I need a system for storing little parts efficiently, and to me that means three things:

all parts are organized into collections of similar items
all parts are stored securely, with minimal risk of spillage or cross-cubby contamination
Each collection is easy to find, easy to put away, and requires zero gameplay (think Jenga or Towers Of Hanoi) to access

Many existing storage solutions tackle numbers 1 and 2, but number 3 seems surprisingly elusive, so I set out to solve it myself. And my motivating requirement? The first box you touch should always be the box you need.

Molecular Vocabulary

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 12:31:02 +0000

Language is an extremely flexible tool. You can assemble words into messages that express an unlimited number of thoughts. Anything from “Where food?” to “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.”

But in everyday speech, we don’t typically use words to communicate. We actually assemble most of our day to day utterances using larger chunks of language. What are those chunks? And why do I think they can be used to supercharge your language studies?

Let’s take a look…

PronounceLab - Experiment 2

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:51:54 +0000

As discussed in Experiment 1, improving my pronunciation without a native speaker to correct me has been a challenge, but correction is not the only function a native speaker provides. They also provide something I’ll call adaptive modeling.

PronounceLab - Experiment 1

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:52:47 +0000

In my continuing quest for creative ways to drill my language skills, the one area I struggle with most is finding ways to evaluate my speech.

I listen to lots of Norwegian audio, and I’ve started reading books and film scripts aloud, so I’m getting plenty of practice at both listening and speaking, but I don’t get any feedback on my pronunciation and diction.

One day soon, AI will be able to converse with me on random topics and gently correct my norsk as we go, the way a native speaker might do, but we’re not there yet. I do intend to make use of live human coaches online, but not until I feel I’ve gone as far as I can with my own crazy methods first. Speaking of which…

Spinners of the Web

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 09:54:09 +0000

The internet is full of advice on how to spot AI-generated images, videos, articles, newscasts, etc. But IMO, that’s entirely the wrong conversation.

Forget “How do we spot them?” We need to be talking about how society is going to function when the answer is: You can’t.

A Better Word Than Pibling

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 22:02:12 +0000

Your grandmother and grandfather are your grandparents. Your son and daughter are your children. Your brother and sister are your siblings. But when it comes to uncles and aunts, English gives us no genderless term that includes both.

The closest we’ve got, is an ugly, hatchet-faced word, made by collapsing “parent’s sibling” into… (Wait for it…)

“Pibling.”

Quite frankly, “pibling” sucks. But I’ve got an idea…

Improving What3Words

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 19:28:02 +0000

What3Words is a cool service that takes clunky GPS coordinates like 52.1261450, -106.6589970 and turns them into phrases, like twisty.wedding.runs, that are much easier to both say and remember.

But I’ve got some ideas for how it could be even better.

Automatic Language Growth

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 18:19:42 +0000

While working on the ear training features for the FrankenTongues app, I stumbled across a reference to the Automatic Language Growth (ALG) model of language learning, and the moment I read it, I had to stop everything I was doing to investigate.

Because it resonates loudly with my own views on how we learn languages.

Grub's KOOLAID

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:03:19 +0000

Grub is a minimalist command-line tool intended to let solo programmers track issues and plans for their project. It maintains a single, human readable text file for each item, and keeps them in a folder that sits happily in your project directory, where they can be integrated cleanly into any revision control system.

Grub Needs KOOLAID

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 17:21:13 +0000

Even though it’s a 3-Easy project, I’m finding that Grub would still benefit from my new practice of having a KOOLAID file to encapsulate the project’s Zeitgeist. So before I post the repository to Codeberg, I need to write one.

And while I’m at it, I should include some screen captures of the existing displays, too.

Plim's Command Index

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 21:52:54 +0000

A list of the most important Plim commands and their purpose. This is not intended as an exhaustive list, nor is it meant to specify all the options and modes. The purpose of this file is to serve as a preliminary sketch of the foundational vision, in support of the KOOLAID file.

Crucial Plim Displays

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:02:01 +0000

While many of Plim’s displays will be defined fairly clearly by the data structures, a few are crucial to the success of the the app and should be given more considered attention.

Plim's KOOLAID

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 09:02:41 +0000

A concise recap of Plim’s bucket budgeting metaphor, with a description of each critical concept and data file in the system.

Looking For A New Home

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 12:08:32 +0000

There’s an important part of the system that I’ve yet to embrace: where to host the source code for my projects? In a recent post about Plim I codified the need to post code early and often, but neglected to say where that would be. This is the rumination where I’ll try to answer that question…

Principles for Progress

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 08:35:48 +0000

I started this project over a month ago, but then immediately got sucked into the frenzy of getting my web system finished. So now that Project WebSmith is almost complete, I can finally turn my attention back to Plim.

But I need to proceed cautiously.

New Road Trip, New Trial

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:34:48 +0000

I’m sitting in the car, waiting to begin another long road trip, and in keeping with recent practice, this will be another chance to test my hands-free learning tools. But in light of my current ALG experiment, there will have to be some changes to the plan.

The Very Slow Game Jam

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:54:40 +0000

When I was a teenager, my dad and I would play slow chess. His job involved regularly rotating shift work, which meant that we often went weeks at a time where our days didn’t really overlap. So, to stay connected, we kept a chess board in the kitchen. Every day, Dad would make a move on the board while eating after he got home, and I would make mine after school. It was a fun way to stay connected when our lives were otherwise out of sync.

We didn’t know it at the time, but we were also inventing what would become an important ritual between us.

Norwegian Crime Kids

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:15:24 +0000

With my recent experiments in ALG-style language study, I needed to shift gears in my Norwegian reading practice. Instead of reading adult-oriented books and using translation tools to help me over the rough parts, I’m embracing kids books and white-knuckling my way through them without a safety net - no dictionaries, no translations, just context and guesswork.

Today I finished my first one, and thought I’d share some notes about this new approach.

Deployment Delayed Due To Injury

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:27:57 +0000

Just as I was about to send the new site out into the world, I discovered that it was injured. Now I have to find the problem and fix it before I can launch, but that’s turning out to be trickier than expected.

Resuming After The Detour

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:48:38 +0000

It’s only been about a week, but in that short time I’ve had to change the core structure several times. I think, though, that I finally have my toys arranged in a tidy, predictable, and flexible system. This means I can now return to integrating the last major content block before I launch the site: the CaveTV Videos.

But what did I change? And how will those changes support future needs as well as current? Let’s talk about that.

Tilder Disease

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:53:22 +0000

One thing you won’t find on this site is any TL;DR summaries. That’s by choice. I can see their value when browsing a site (like Reddit) where the culture is all about short-beat conversations. In that world, hitting a longer entry mid-scroll feels like hitting a bridge abutment on the Autobahn. But do we really want all our discourse to be reducible to the textual equivalent of a sound bite?

FlipStand - An Adjustable and Retractable Bike Rack

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 24 May 2025 10:04:17 +0000

I needed a way to organize bikes in a garage or shed when they weren’t being ridden. This is not for winter storage, so I wanted the bikes to remain accessible - just tidier. I also wanted my solution to be adjustable for wheels of different widths, and easy to flip out of the way when they’re not being used.

What I ended up with was simple, cheap (less than $4 per bike!) and extremely easy to build. I didn’t end up using any 3D printed parts, but this feels 3D-adjacent, so I’m including it here anyway.

Ears Don't Have Fingers

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 19 May 2025 15:32:18 +0000

While conducting my road tests recently, I had a bit of an epiphany: my Norsk reading skills went from zero to B2 level (advanced intermediate) in 3 months, but after spending a similar amount of time focused on training my ear, I’m still at A1. I think it’s time to change gears…

Looting The Battlefield

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 16 May 2025 09:22:11 +0000

I’ve been experimenting for months on different ways to convert podcast content into a form I can use in Frankie. I’ve found several solutions, but along the way, I’ve left the resulting file tree in absolute chaos. I’ve got files in a dozen directories and an equal number of formats. There are fragments of scripts and clips and tools scattered throughout the hierarchy like bodies left to rot on a medieval battlefield, but there’s also no consistency, little documentation, and worse, still no definitive process.

Well it’s time to loot those bodies, gather the useful bits into a proper plan, and bury whatever is left.

Road Trip Trials

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 13 May 2025 09:42:03 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed the peaceful thinking time afforded me by trips across the long, flat (and straight!) expanses of Canada’s prairie highway network, but as the family’s primary driver, my productivityy en route has always been limited to “thinking about stuff.” One of the dream use-cases for Frankie is to give me a second way to be productive.

So when plans formed last week to make one of those trips this week, I started scrambling. Frankie itself wasn’t quite ready, but the media files were. Could I whip up a way to test my proposed workflow without Frankie?

How Time Works In Plim

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 10 May 2025 19:34:22 +0000

To me, budgeting is fun - until something goes wrong - and then it’s like herding fish. Money is always in constant motion, so it’s hard to look at just a single frozen moment - to examine all the parts and see how they fit together - before everything changes again.

Funds go in and out of your accounts a hundred times a day. You get pay deposits, cash withdrawals, you buy stuff on credit or with cash, you pay bills. Then there are the transactions that happen without you even being involved, like automatic bill payments, subscription services, charitable donations… And let’s not even talk about our kids and spouses out in the world spending more money while you’re still in the basement trying to get a handle on what they spent yesterday.

The Ethics of Blogging

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 08 May 2025 05:51:21 +0000

Creating online communities is easy; but doing it ethically is not.

Over the last few decades, we’ve developed many hacks and tricks - a playbook, if you like - for tempting communities of like-minded humans to gather into online echo chambers, where they can be manipulated in demographically unified buckets. So before I go too far, I need to ask myself an important question: Is blogging inherently evil? Or is it possible to thread this needle without crossing over to the dark side?

Critical Failure

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 07 May 2025 07:45:55 +0000

The more tech you allow into your life, the more time you’ll spend fixing tech.

Sigh. Yesterday I discovered that there’s a crucial component in this whiz-bang site management system that I had not considered. How did I discover it? Because it failed. So now progress on all other fronts has to take a back seat while I figure out how to either repair or replace it.

And the tech in question? A tiny Raspberry Pi.

Baby Steps FTW

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 05 May 2025 11:49:34 +0000

It’s funny how hard it can be to defuse old habits. Historically, my approach to writing code has always been to plan out a good architecture and then implement the framework first, knowing that any time spent building a decent infrastructure first can pay off enormously over the life of the project. But as part of my new policy of leaning into my distractible attention span, I’m embracing a more “rapid prototyping” workflow. Unfortunately, somebody forgot to inform my subconscious about the new plan.

Tolerant Gate Latch

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 22:54:44 +0000

The side gate into our yard has always been tricky. Due to geometry constraints, the only place to mount the latch pin was on a slightly wobbly post, and that wobble makes it hard for the latch to get a positive grab. So any time somebody goes through that gate, there’s a significant chance it won’t close properly behind them. And since it’s almost exclusively service people using that gate (meter reader, Amazon deliveries, etc.) it can take us a while to notice when it gets left open.

This week, however, it was the dog who noticed. So after spending a stress-filled half hour tracking her down on our busy street, I decided it was time to address the problem.

Obsidian-fu

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:52:45 +0000

Refactoring the shadowmaker has become a bigger headache than I had originally anticipated, but it’s for the long-term health of the system, so I’m sticking to my guns. This weekend added further drama when I finally stopped running away from frontmatter and embraced it for all my metadata. Sure, scattering #ch-command directives throughout the body of the notes was insane, but fixing it is going to mean more than just adding a few metadata fields. I may have to completely change the way I use Obsidian.

Modal Frank

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:13:41 +0000

I’ve been wading through the refactoring swamp on a couple of other projects lately, and it appears to be contagious. Today I decided to pull Frankie’s CLI reader apart and put it back together again. All in service of the new lesson layout.

Ontology-2.0

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 10:56:15 +0000

While trying to integrate the many episodes of CaveTV into the site, I realized that the ontology was getting cramped. It needs to be revised to better distinguish between internal projects, external brand identities, multiple deliverables within a brand, and distinct showrooms.

What follows is the scheme we devised for what the abstractions are, how they should be tagged in Obsidian, and how the files will be managed within Hugo.

About The New Site

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:36:31 +0000

Welcome to the new Creativity Hacker. If you remember the old site, things will look very different this time around, but there’s method beneath the madness. Follow me down below the fold to find out how I’m organizing things this time around. And more importantly, why.

A Deeper Think On Lesson Layout

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 10:26:22 +0000

As I continue to use Frankie in more ways and with different types of content, I’m beginning to see some friction points. Some are just a function of the limited graphics of the TUI interface I’m using at this phase of the project, but some are about the actual information layout itself. Before I start tinkering with it, I want to talk my way through it. And that means: It’s rubber duckie time again!

Packaging Lesson Plans

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:26:35 +0000

As mentioned here, I recently got some exciting features working in console mode, but now I have to get them working on my phone. Getting the new code there should be easy enough - I can just pull the git repo - but delivering the lesson content is going to be a bit more complicated.

Cutting The Monster Into Pieces

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 16:52:45 +0000

Now that I’ve identified a useable hosting candidate, my final test of their service will be to roll out a full implementation of the websmith deployment scheme. But in contemplating how I’m going to do that, I’ve realized that I may not have broken the project into distinct repos properly. So I’m going to figure it out by explaining it to the rubber duck. (Meaning you. :-)

The American Dream is a Funhouse Mirror

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 22:05:05 +0000

Over on TrustCafe, James Young was trying to make sense of the broken American system that is being twisted out of all recognizable shape by the current Republican regime. He asked simply, “How did my country get here?”

I replied with my own take on the question, and then realized that my answer fit perfectly into this new blog stream that I’ve been thinking about.

Dear Guests, I Am Your Host - Maybe

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:00:57 +0000

With most of the content and features now working, it’s time to choose a hosting partner. Given recent politics, I’m inclined to limit my search to Canadian providers, but I’m not willing to compromise on the few services and features I require. First on the list to explore was HostPapa.

Shopping Online Is Greener

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:51:46 +0000

For years I’ve felt guilty about my use of online shopping. All those little packages coming from big Eastern cities, all the way across the continent, to be driven to my door by a harried little man in an overworked Honda. Surely that’s wasteful compared to me just going to the local bigbox outlet and buying it in person, right? Well, I recently had a thought that has me questioning that logic.

Random Body Parts Singing Together At Last

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:36:05 +0000

FrankenTongues began with some very specific features in mind - features that I couldn’t find in other tools - and it’s taken a while to get here, but today was the day I finally got to play with two of the biggest.

In Praise of Project Hopping

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:28:45 +0000

Squirrel! Over the last day or two, the spotlight of my attention has been distracted by something shiny - getting new content ready for the FrankenTongues project. It’s content to feed a feature I’ve been wanting for some time now, and today I’ve been reacquainting myself with Frankie’s code so that I’ll be able to do something useful with that content when it’s ready. In the process, I’ve noticed that my memory for details no longer has the stamina for juggling so many projects. I can’t remember how things are organized or why things were done the way I did them, even though it was only a month ago that I did it.

But surprisingly, I think this could be a good thing.

Hearing is Believing

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 18:55:27 +0000

There are times when implementing a new feature seems daunting - when the perceived difficulty of the task at hand hangs so ominously over your future-view that you seriously question whether you’ve got the stamina to get through it. But today I heard the sweet sound of success, literally, and can finally breathe a little easier.

Missing Modes

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 20:42:27 +0000

As my Norwegian text skills get better, I’m increasingly annoyed that my acoustic conversational skills are not, but it’s because I still haven’t found a practice method or tool that suits me. So today I’m putting some more concrete thought into what I actually want.

Soft-serve Sci-Fi

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:47:03 +0000

Over the course of my lifetime, science fiction has gone from a niche-market storyform aimed at geeks and propeller-heads to a cultural juggernaut consumed by the masses. So you would think that, as a one-time card-carrying member of the Junior Space Ranger’s Adventure Club, I would be delighted by the scifi-rich world I now find myself living in.

But I’m not.

Countdown To Launch

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:20:28 +0000

This pipeline has come a long way since I first started it a week or two ago, and I’ll continue changing things, even after launch, but there’s not quite enough ready yet to go live. What follows is a list of my remaining “must have before launch” features .

Healing the Existential Malaise

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 19:35:07 +0000

In all the hubbub of getting the project section going, I’ve been ignoring the more bloggish portion of the site. But after putting together the Countdown To Launch, it became impossible to ignore it any longer. So this is my inaugural blog post, in which I’ll try to guess what the hell I intend to blog about.

Review of Typoman

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 19:26:47 +0000

The video gaming world became toxic to me 20 years ago when I started getting motion sick every time I played. Maybe the game engines changed or maybe it was something in my head, but an entertainment medium I had previously loved suddenly became off limits, just as my children were beginning to discover it. But today was different.

A Few Tricky Bits

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:17:24 +0000

For the last week, I’ve been modifying the checklist rather than posting individual progress updates, but with that list narrowing now, its worth checking in and discussing the thornier bits that remain.

Gitified

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 08:40:31 +0000

The first sign in my workflow that things are starting to come together on a project is when I start getting nervous that the next change I make will break it. After all, it can’t really be thought of as “coming together” if there’s nothing to break yet, right?

WordFreäk

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 07:34:53 +0000

In order to split the cartoons into beginner and intermediate volumes, I need a way to classify the relative difficulty of the keywords. How am I going to solve that?

It's the cartoon, dummy!

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 04:27:19 +0000

I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to decide how to organize the data for this series. It all started as flashcards in the Anki system. Every day I would create a few new cards and study some of the older ones. It was great, because I could keep track of a cartoon image, a caption, and both the English and Norwegian headwords all in one place. But now I’m seeing some issues.

Banishing The Demon

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 23:13:28 +0000

The more time I put into getting this new site ready, the more possibilities I see for turning it into my central (and only) communications portal. But could this be more? Could this finally be an end to the demon of my “telescoping effort” conundrum?

Updates vs Problem Logs

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 23:08:09 +0000

The rules of engagement for the new Creativity Hacker site are still evolving, and today I’ve identified a use-case distinction that I haven’t got a specific solution for: status updates vs issue journaling.

Custom Reinforced Drywall Anchor

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:24:37 +0000

Years ago, I learned (the hard way) that coat hooks attached to drywall using standard cone-shaped anchors function more like a drywall zipper than a garment hanger. But as part my recent home renovation, I wanted a more artistically arranged sequence of floating hooks - too close together to use the studs - so I thought I’d try a more secure anchor. And I wondered if I could 3DP something to do the job.

Shelf Sketch

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 19:43:39 +0000

After a couple of unsatisfactory attempts, I’ve landed on this design. (Shown in place on one of the carts, which are already built.) The idea is that there will be slots in the workstation top to receive the shelf legs, giving a secure fit, but also allowing the shelf to be easily removed when the workstation is needed for other duty.

Skunk Cards

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 18:27:40 +0000

As I waltz my way around the chaotic orbits of HappySkunk, WebSmith, and Maranginator, I’m getting an ever-clearer picture of how each of the systems will work with the others. One of the keys will be to design an attractive promo card for each day’s challenge; something that carries the necessary details, encourages people to share them, and gets full value from that sharing, if it happens.

How to Play Maranga

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 13:23:43 +0000

The goal of Maranga is simple enough: Take a bag of 100 random letters and organize them into real words until you’ve used them all. Sounds simple, right? But “simple” is not the same as “easy,” and beginners will find plenty of challenges just getting the bag emptied.

What are those challenges? First, you only get 7 tiles at a time, so your options are limited. As the game progresses, you’ll have more tiles to work with, but those early moves can be tricky, depending on which letters come out first.

Maranginator - The Un-Newsletter

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 11:01:14 +0000

I’ve said before that I’m aiming to make Creativity Hacker my only online presence, and in addition to “no social media,” I also mean, “no newsletter,” but I still want to run some sort of regular puzzle club for Maranga users. Here’s how I’m going to make that happen.

The Note and Tag Pipeline

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 09:59:59 +0000

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this new site is being designed with a streamlined workflow that will let me manage it as a normal part of my existing note-keeping system, but what I haven’t done yet is explain how it works.

Closing in on 500

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 09:40:20 +0000

With much of my attention on WebSmith lately, Unforgettable has slowed a little but it hasn’t stalled. The more nouns I add, the harder it is to find the next one, but I keep finding them. And I keep reviewing and improving the ones I’ve got. Current tally is 472 cartoons, with only 22 in the “needs work” pile. At this rate, I hope to be finished the writing phase and get it off to an editor by the end of March.

Cousin of the Skunk

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 07:39:26 +0000

After trying a few different schemes for generating bag names, I’ve made some further decisions about how the system will work. Not as automated as I’d hoped, but not as manual as I’d feared…

Comment System

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 03:17:49 +0000

Disqus was a disappointment. I last looked at it a couple of years ago, and found it to be serviceable then, but it seems to have taken a slide onto the slums of the web, and is now covered in ads and unresponsive web pages. Not the kind of image that makes me think they’ll value the privacy of my guests. But I’ve found a different solution…

Flaytime Again

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 02:07:50 +0000

Trying to keep this one short. My current site theme looks good now, but it ignores most features in the base theme: lightbi. So now it’s time to go to lightbi school and see if I can figure out how to achieve my sketch in a more compliant way.

Observant followers will note that this is much simpler than the previously shared sketch. Mostly because I’ve decided to lean away from visual candy in favor of simplicity and efficiency.

Refactoring Shadows

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 22:40:12 +0000

Remember that time I said that setting up a git repo is one of the first signs of life in a coding project? Well one of the next signs is when you’ve learned enough about the tools you’re building to see that you’ve been doing it wrong…

Happy Skunk Lifts Dishwasher

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:55:29 +0000

This guy looks happy, and he should, because he’s the newly selected poster boy for the system that will generate new Maranginator game bags. Confused? Me too. Come on inside and let’s figure out what I’m talking about.

About The Comment System

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:40:55 +0000

Having had my web site hacked a couple of years ago, I abruptly lost all enthusiasm for running one, so after I locked it down, I took a few years to think about what to do. In that time, I’ve realized that for 98% of what I truly want my website to be, there is zero reason to give anybody access to changing the site from within the site itself. Even I don’t have such powers. And by not letting anybody change anything, the site can be remarkably secure against hackers. Not 100%, but much, much closer than any system that includes interactive editing features as part of the design.

Frustrating Searches Be Gone

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 19:44:15 +0000

Earlier I mentioned how frustrated I’ve been getting with lag in LingQ when I’m trying to read. It’s one thing to have occasional delays when loading a new lesson to study, but when you’re reading a novel and getting that delay for Every. Single. Sentence. you just want to pull your hair out by the roots.

Maranga FAQ

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 19:11:05 +0000

Why is word X not accepted?

Maranga’s dictionary was created by merging many different word game dictionaries, so anything acceptable in those will be acceptable here. But even so, some words and some variants are simply missing from those dictionaries.

English is a flexible language that permits us to construct new words using the rules of precedent and analogy. If the word elevate can be extended to elevation, then surely the word differentiate can be extended to differentiation by the same logic. But dictionaries are written by flawed humans who don’t always capture every constructable variation of a word they choose to include. And if that variant doesn’t appear in any dictionaries, it won’t appear in Maranga’s either. We considered adding such words to our dictionary as we discover them, but quickly realized that it would be a fool’s errand. No matter how many we add, there will always be more that we don’t catch. So instead of becoming a full time dictionary writing studio, we decided to leave that job to the experts.

Unforgettable Intro

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:44:40 +0000

Hi. My name is Ogg and I’m a caveman. Okay, well, I used to live in a cave. Sadly, it froze (long story) and I waited there for absolute ages until the science dudes finally thawed me out. But they had to tear open my cave to get me out, so now that they’re finished studying me, I don’t actually have a home anymore. Which is kind of why I’m writing this book.

Collapsement Achieved

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:47:18 +0000

The navbar now implements a collapsing list of projects. It was just a matter of implementing a standard Bootstrap drop-down navmenu, but having never done it, took me a while to sort out. (Hint for those who follow: Be sure you’re reading the Bootstrap docs for the version of Bootstrap you’re actually using. :-)

Finding the Framework

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:20:03 +0000

As mentioned, I’m searching for a simpler way to manage my blog with minimal server-side requirements, easy posting workflow, and integration with both my phone and my usual note-talking infrastructure: Obsidian wiki. But lets get more specific.

Word Search

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:16:27 +0000

One language learning tool that really worked for me (for a while) was LingQ. I especially like the ability to studying language materials one sentence at a time. But as I’ve gotten more fluent, I’ve come to find the implementation increasingly frustrating.

Another Horse Gets Changed

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 05:34:29 +0000

Over in the web system project, I recently talked about deciding to change horses, in terms of the underlying tech I was selecting. And now I think I’m going to do the same thing here.

Headline Grabber

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 03:44:42 +0000

Similar to the Ad-hoc Text problem, another technique I use for improving my Norwegian is to start each day by scanning Norsk news headlines. But can I make it even easier to use?

Collapsing Menus

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:12:51 +0000

As I continue to explore the lightbi theme, I’m noticing that it doesn’t implement collapsing menus. You can define a hierarchical page structure in the config file (explicitly) but it doesn’t get displayed in an elegant, “click to reveal” kinda way. Worse, I need a mechanism that discovers the structure dynamically, not by hard coding in the config. But fortunately, I might have found a solution.

The Blessing (and Curse) of New Tools

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 19:04:15 +0000

When you invest time in any process, you quickly learn to appreciate the difference between a tool for the job and the right tool, and so far, Hugo is knocking it out of Right Tool Stadium, but there is a downside.

Hands-Free Practice

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 18:25:06 +0000

One of the things that inspired me to start FrankenTongues was the lack of tools I could find to use while exercising. Most systems require both your hands and your visual attention - holding a book or tapping a screen - so they’re out. Pimsleur kinda worked, but I want something at a higher language level, and I want to be able to create my own lesson content. So after taking a week off to just enjoy Frankie’s new ebook reading feature, I’m now ready to add another one. And this one’s going to be entirely hands-free.

About My Policies

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 17:17:17 +0000

Privacy

I collect no information other than what you choose to share in the comments. Since those are public, be aware that whatever you say here, you are saying to the world.

Autofeeds Without Clutter

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:39:29 +0000

I need to be able to create some projects, such as my daily Maranga challenge, that will get a new post every day, but I don’t want those auto-pages filling up my Obsidian notebook system. Here’s how I’m planning to manage that.

About Contacting Me

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:38:32 +0000

If I already know you, you can ignore Sydney here. Let’s reconnect. Just send me a note using one of the methods below and I’ll get back to you pronto.

I’m also delighted to hear from fans, followers, and anyone who sincerely wants to chat about interests we have in common. Just tell me a bit about that shared passion and I’ll respond.

Tricky Shadow

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:28:06 +0000

Creating that Jeff-to-Nikola translator wasn’t too bad, but I did run into a headache trying to figure out how to structure my shadow files to conform to what Nikola is looking for. I read somewhere that Nikola could be told to search through the content directories recursively and that it happily consumed metadata in YAML format, so that’s what I set up.

The Context Cavalry Comes Over The Hill

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:51:39 +0000

Earlier I mentioned that I didn’t have the on-phone search function working yet. What that meant under the hood was that it was working in the lab but that I hadn’t pushed it to my phone to actually try it yet.

Cover Concepts

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:24:03 +0000

One of my favorite parts of any project is designing the “face.” Whether it’s the logo for an app, the thumbnail for a video, or the beauty shot to show off a 3D model, I love splashing elbows deep into the pool where concept and creative presentation collide. It’s my first chance to really think about how the public will encounter my project for the very first time and make sure they get a good first impression. No pressure.

Controlling Images

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 09:14:54 +0000

I’m trying to keep the web system simple. At the moment, I can write one of these updates in about 3 minutes. It’s a great way to summarize my progress and think through next steps, then push them out to the public stream for anyone who might be following along.

Ad-hoc Text

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:32:41 +0000

One technique I often use to improve my Norwegian is to create “study blocks”. From a few sentences to a few paragraphs, each block focuses on a specific aspect of the language I want to explore. For example, I have one that demonstrates a spectrum of common adverbial intensifiers that range from slightly (litt) to extremely (ekstremt). But after comparing the text for such a block, how do I then get it into Frankie?

Countdown To Nuchal

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:14:34 +0000

With the website inching ever closer to completion and the terrifying prospect of it being released into the wild, it’s time to splash some reality water on my face with respect to the next great challenge: Maranga.

About Social Media

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 05:31:30 +0000

I spent decades on social media, right from the very beginning, and in that time, watched them drift from exciting virtual communities into soulless commercial marketplaces. What finally drove me away wasn’t a single post or policy change - it was recognizing the slow erosion they’ve inflicted on how we think, and how we treat each other.

You know that AI Apocalypse we’ve all been dreading? Turns out it wasn’t algorithmic intelligence we should have been worried about - algorithmic greed will do the job long before real AI ergos its first cogito sum.

About The Old Site

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 05:21:39 +0000

For those who are wondering about the old site, you may recall that I got hacked a while ago, and, frankly, my enthusiasm for continuing to wage that particular battle evaporated overnight. What to do, what to do?

Play-testing Local Translations

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 05:04:02 +0000

It’s been a month now since I last used LingQ. I didn’t actually intend to switch - it just kinda happened - which must surely count as some kind of validation. But as much as I’ve enjoyed Frankie’s lower-friction experience, it is not completely smooth. And today I begin on the next step.

SunPucks

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 04:02:54 +0000

The reading lights above our bed burned out long ago, but since they were hardwired into the cabinetry, replacing them was a complicated chore that I put off for years. So when I finally decided to tackle it as a Christmas present for my wife, I wanted to do more than just restore the lights - I wanted to turn them into an experience to remember.

Refining The Skunk

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 03:02:56 +0000

In a previous post, I worked out the general process by which I’ll be creating the daily challenge bag names for Maranginator, but now I have to sketch out an implementation with specific tools, algorithms, and processes. Furthermore, the Maranga newsletter is just one of several content streams I’m envisioning, and I want this system to be able to handle all of them.

Attitude Update

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 01:40:43 +0000

I’ve been working lately on the system for showcasing completed projects and have been wrestling with the whole naming scheme conundrum. Today I made some key choices, and it affects more than just names. I’ve changed the way I think about products too.

New Landing Page

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 01:07:16 +0000

Today started with a bit of AI exploration looking at a bunch of layout concepts for the look of the new website’s landing page. Lots of weird and head-scratching proposals were made, but this one has some stickiness to it. I had been thinking that the featured article would be on the left, and the smaller “other” article boxes would be on the right, but now I’m digging this proposal, with the feature right in the middle of an expanded banner section.

Casting a Shadow

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 23:35:49 +0000

Yesterday I took a step forward on this wiki-to-web journey and today I’m going to take a half step back. My initial impulse was to get Nikola to process the wiki and build a web site from a subset of its many pages, but the wiki is not a pretty picture — it’s a sprawling spaghetti mess that more closely resembles a pulsing, flashing Rorschach animation rendered by my short attention span.

What's In A Book

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 21:45:47 +0000

Designing the printed book has slowed down lately as I’ve wrestled with practical issues. How many pages? How many cartoons per page? How big should the pages be? Soft cover or hard? Full color or black and white? But I think I made progress today.

Reconfigurable and Flexible

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:21:35 +0000

Since the studio needs to be both flexible (in terms of the project types it supports) and easily reconfigurable (in terms of its layout) there’s no way a single workbench is going to cut it. Instead, I need a collection of mobile stations that can be combined into different physical configurations as needed, plus be modified easily to support different kinds of tools and media. Oh, and I also want high-density yet easily moveable storage. And I think I’ve got a solution…

Deployment Test

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:53:11 +0000

The plan is to deploy this site to a robust HTML-only server, which will keep costs down and security high, since there won’t be any programmatic interfaces on the site itself that can be hacked. My deployment engine of choice is simple: I’ll be using git push. But before I sign up for a hosting account and start pushing my brains out the door on an automated basis, I wanted to test that procedure on a smaller scale, here in the lab.

RSS Switchboard

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:27:30 +0000

I’ve mentioned that this will be my primary (and possibly only) presence on the web. But if it’s going to support all the different things I want to do, it’ll have to be pretty powerful. After implementing a basic “everything” feed, I sat down and sketched out what a more nuanced system might look like.

Retirement Planning

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:13:48 +0000

So far, the emphasis has been on managing active projects, but what happens with a project when its active development phase is over? It either goes on stage, or into a box.

About Following Me

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:11:11 +0000

Take Back Control of What You Read

The internet used to be a place where you decided what you wanted to read. You visited sites you trusted, you followed writers you respected, and then you read their stuff at your own pace. But these days, most people get their information from social media and algorithmic feeds—streams of content carefully tuned to maximize the platform’s benefit, not yours. And if you don’t read something right now, it’s lost forever in the ever-churning sea of “new.” That’s not an accident - it’s designed that way to keep you hooked.

Well, I’m not interested in playing that game. So here’s what I’m doing differently.

Changing Horses

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 17:51:59 +0000

After spending half a day diving deeper into Nikola’s theme engine and the archive of available themes, I’ve had second thoughts about hitching my cart to the Nikola pony. It’s perfectly functional, but to get anything close to the layout I’m aiming for, I would have to build an awful lot of the front end myself. For both the desktop and mobile contexts. And if I’m being honest, I don’t have much interest in that particular adventure. I’d rather adapt something that’s already close. So here I go, back into the static site generator dating market.

Why Good Enough Isn't

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 17:08:06 +0000

When I first started creating these cartoons, I was using them for my own learning and it didn’t matter if they were a bit rough around the edges. They worked, and that was good enough for me. But now that I’ve decided to actually publish them, everything has changed…

Some Horses Are Unridable

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:22:56 +0000

The whole point of Web UI themes, IMO, is to save the casual user from having to write their own. And after spending the afternoon customizing the Lightbi theme, I’ve realized that it’s nice, but not close enough. Yes, I could get it to work, but I don’t want to work that hard - not on web skinning - so I went shopping for a new horse. Again…

About and Gallery

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 12:55:20 +0000

A couple of powerful features added today that will eventually let me do some cool stuff, but none of those actual cool things added yet.

Vocabulary Titles

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:53:42 +0000

I’ve been working on my Norwegian noun cartoons for several months now, and I’ve amassed quite a few of them. 390 at present, and I’ll probably hit 500 before I run out of steam. So far, it’s just been me, sitting in my office, reviewing a few cartoons each day on my own, and maybe adding a few new ones when I trip over another noun I should probably know, but I had always planned to share them. Originally I was thinking in terms of flashcards, but then today I realized that the collection would make a great book.

Why Cartoons Are Memorable

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:09:18 +0000

There are four effects I think I’ve identified that make this system more effective than others I’ve tried. Let’s look at what they are and why I think they’re so effective.

The Regatta Savant

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 06:57:28 +0000

25 years ago, my dad bought a 16’ sailboat for the family cottage and, with no previous experience, taught himself how to sail it. Almost certainly on the spectrum, he spent every sunny day tinkering with his rigging and studying sailing physics, just to eke out a bit more speed. He’d even go out on calm days to see if he could get it to move. So you can imagine how delighted he was when the cottagers on our lake decided to hold a regatta.

Go home, Norsk. You're drunk.

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 07:10:13 +0000

My journey with learning Norsk hit an unexpected landmine today, all because of our new curtains.

Having learned a decent amount of French in school, I’m passingly familiar with the notion of gendered nouns. So the masculine, feminine, and neuter categories in Norwegian weren’t a problem. And learning that many people collapse the feminine and masculine into a single common gender came as a welcome simplification. But then we bought the damned curtains.

3D Pranking Story

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 05 May 2024 07:26:52 +0000

My son-in-law is a rabid LA Kings fan. Knowing this, my daughter bought him this nifty memento, which he keeps on the wall of his man cave so he can point to it and crow whenever they score. Very annoying. It was a situation begging for a bit of creative adjustment…