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Sat, 15 Jan 2022 20:00:00 -0700

Media Review: Cowboy Bebop

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 20:00:00 -0700

The live-action Cowboy Bebop remake recently (2021) came out on Netflix (and then subsequently canceled), so I figured I would take the time to reflect on all of the time I’ve spent watching the series. One thing that I tend to do with series I enjoy are multiple watches, so if I only watch something once it either means that I haven’t had time to mentally process it the first time (Neon Genesis Evangelion comes to mind), or that it wasn’t good enough to elicit a rewatch.

I’m not doing a full literary analysis on the entire series (I did my share of those in high school) but I do want to break down and talk about some of the things that I found interesting enough to make this series one of my top 3 favorite anime of all time.

This is your first and final warning that this review will be spoiler heavy.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

In order of priority, watch if you…

Have never watched the series: Original Series (subbed)
Need more after completing the series: Movie (subbed)
Insist on dubs for some reason: Original Series (dubbed)
Don’t mind your burger with the ingredients shuffled, mustard instead of ketchup, and about half of it missing: Netflix Remake

Series Overview

The original series debuted in 1998 and was directed by Shinichirō Watanabe. A feature length movie followed in 2001, also directed by Watanabe. In 2021, Netflix debuted and then subsequently canceled a live action version, developed by Christopher Yost.

Personal Chronology

I first watched the dubbed original episodes in 2016 while I was in college. I had always heard it recommended as one of the great masterpieces but had never really considered diving into it. Of course, there was plenty of time in college to spend watching shows, so that’s what I did. Soon after completing the main series I also watched the movie. Some time later, I thought, well, the dubbed series seems to be highly recommended by the internet, let’s try that in 2020. Finally, the first (and only) season of the Netflix live action was released in November 2021, and I actually managed to watch it within a few days of it releasing (unlike some other Netflix shows). I have not read the manga but may eventually do so (and I will modify this review in the future with that if I do).

Subbed + Movie

I’m going to talk about both the original animated series and the follow up movie. They are both stylistically similar visually, but are thematically different enough to talk about separately.

Visuals

I found the visuals to be quite good given the fact that it was animated in 1998. However, watching nearly 20 years later proved to make it look quite outdated. Can’t be helped, I suppose.

I found the environments fascinating though. I really wanted to live in this universe that was presented, where everyone owns a personal spacecraft, and where interplanetary travel is quite literally as common as getting on a plane. While it’s set in 2071, it’s clearly more in the realm of the currently impossible, rather than something that might exist 80 years from when the show was created. Habitable environments on each planet, magic warp gates which speed up travel between planets to a few hours, and space stations all over the galaxy.

The use of different cultures as backdrops for specific planets was an interesting touch. Earth, completely destroyed and flooded. Mars, the birthplace of many of the characters (including Mr. Spike Spiegel) and seemingly the new “Earth” in the sense that everything happens there. Some planets had a snowy dingy theme while some had big vibrant cities. Some took the name of Earth locations (Tijuana from the series) and some just used the name for theming the area and characters (Morocco St. from the movie).

I did appreciate the use of space in the settings both in a literal and figurative sense. Literally, space allows the use of an extra dimension in fights that wouldn’t normally be possible except with a fighter jet. Interestingly, the personal spacecraft occasionally enter the atmosphere on different planets and act just like fighter jets, subject to the physics of an actual atmosphere. However, in the vacuum of space, you can travel any sort of which way and be totally in reason to do so. In a figurative sense, it allows for distinct separation of concepts and ideas. While each planet has many cities and locations, we only focus on a few. Space acts as the medium in between each location, and in only a few episodes are relevant to the story. I would’ve liked to have seen more things in space, as a lot of things seemed to take place in the cities.

Speaking of cities, a small nitpick is that gravity doesn’t seem to be affected any differently on, say, Mars over Earth. I suppose if you were born on Mars you’d be used to Martian gravity, but then wouldn’t you maybe be shaped differently due to biological constraints? I don’t know, we haven’t successfully sent anyone to Mars yet, so it’s hard to say. But hey, they have mag boots that can stick to surfaces (I guess Colin Furze style) so maybe they solved the gravity problem. And, one of the episodes features medicine to fund for treatment for blindness, but also a pill to solve the helium rich atmosphere.

Story

I found the story to be quite good overall. It’s a rather interesting premise: a ragtag group of bounty hunters have some adventures through the solar system and one dies at the end. But, I felt like it was too vague in some places. Background stories were a little light, although it was covered for all 4 main characters (even 5, if you include Ein). That IS better than you can say for most other shows, however even if the intended result is that the characters have a mysterious past, it ends up feeling like I’m missing out on something. You end up not caring so much though, because the rest of the story draws you in.

However, one of my main criticisms is that there are many filler episodes that really didn’t do much to develop the characters. I understand that it is at it’s core a Japanese TV show that runs for 26 episodes with a mid-season finale. However, these filler episodes do almost nothing to advance the main plot. You could maybe justify it by saying that they serve as comedic breaths of relief from the otherwise darker main plot, but I don’t buy it. One of them is literally just Ed finding psychotropic mushrooms and making the entire crew trip balls for the entire episode. Another is Spike crashing and repairing the Swordfish, which doesn’t do much except to serve as the standard jab at Americans but also the token sportsball episode.

A common phrase repeated by reviewers is the theme of “being unable to escape the past”. It’s a rather depressing theme, but rings quite true. Spike, forever haunted by ghosts of the syndicate and his past lover. Jet, left to be alone by his work partner(s), multiple times. Faye, unable to close on lost memories and lost places. Ed, abandoned by her father, again.

At this point, I have seen 4 different Shinichirō Watanabe works and DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT: in half of the ones I’ve seen, one or more main characters die at the end. While 4 is a very small sample size, it’s enough for me to expect something sudden and final at the end. If they don’t die, the characters go their separate ways, and never interact again, which you can consider as a death of the story as we know it.

Characters

The characters are as loosely connected as the episodes are. They have camaraderie but don’t have any sort of bond with each other. This bond, of course, is saved until the finale, when Spike leaves and Faye comes back and Jet is left alone? Or with Faye? This much is also unclear. It turns out they had camaraderie but didn’t want to admit it, but in a sense, also fits with the theme of the series.

Spike - I found him to have an mildly confusing backstory, as the show waited until end of mid-season and end of the entire season to flesh out his character. He’s an ex-syndicate member who did…what? And is looking for a lady for…reasons? He’s a neat character and has got good moves, but a few things I would have liked expansion on.

Jet - Pretty plain and simple. Ex-cop turned bounty hunter. The only thing that everyone goes back to. Surprisingly secondary to Spike. Maybe even tertiary, as Faye had a far more interesting backstory and involvement.

Faye - Surprisingly complex. For a lady who lost all her memories, she is constantly driven to discover her past, only to find nothing left. The subplot of her getting defrosted could have used some work. That part wasn’t quite explained and although I didn’t really need an entire episode on her starting her new life, it is more backstory than Jet or Spike combined.

Vicious - Extremely underdeveloped. What exactly is his role in the story other than to serve as an antagonist to Spike? And his relation to most other people, including the Syndicate for that matter? Some more expansion on Spike and his relationship in the syndicate would have been nice, outside of a 2 second clip of them fighting back to back.

Julia - Completely unexplained. Who is she? How did her and Spike meet? Why is the Syndicate involved? Why does Vicious want her to kill him? She shows up at the end and dies. An impactful moment but felt like a complete waste - obviously that was somewhat the point, but would have been more impactful if we knew more things about her.

Ed - Honestly, a side character that serves very little purpose. No character development, and disappears as quickly as she appeared.

Ein - Dog. The only smart one.

Movie

I watched the movie not too long after and it was nice to see characters alive and working together. However, it was clearly made later (the 16:9 aspect ratio and modern city setting are quite obvious). There was a lot less of the space aspect than I would have liked, and mostly took place in city settings. Which, was a little disappointing given the possibilities a full movie could have brought. Heck, the Bebop was docked for 99% of it. The personal ships were only taken out as if they were cars or fighter jets, and this point is further driven home by the use of unflightworthy museum pieces to deliver the vaccine to save the day. But, it was at least a complete story from start to end and provide enough backstory for the antagonists to be not confusing.

Music

We can’t talk about Cowboy Bebop without talking about the music. I mean music is literally part of the NAME of the show. The music is oh so very good, and the fact that an entire band (The Seatbelts) was created just to make music for the show tickles me quite a bit. I also quite enjoy their live (1) versions (2). The musicians are quite talented in their own right (1) on their own (2), so it’s no wonder that the music is so well done. Tank! at this point is as iconic as the show itself.

Audience

I’m not as familiar with the different genres of anime but this is definitely aimed squarely at the Japanese audience. There are cultural nuances that I still don’t understand, and of course the voice acting and writing are all intended for Japanese television.

Recommendation

Watch it. People don’t call it a masterpiece for nothing. With it’s reputation, it’s no exaggeration that it was revolutionary for its time and still holds up today.

Dubbed

I never watched the dubbed series when it first aired on TV. I believe it aired on both Adult Swim and Toonami, but I never saw it in either place. I also believe a large portion of the Western audience saw it on both of these networks with the English dub, which is why several lines that aren’t in the direct translation are repeated by many fans. I was extremely confused when I watched the original series and saw none of these lines that were parroted, but it became clear once I watched the dubbed series.

This topic is also quite hot in the anime world, and fans often misquote Watanabe as saying the show has the best dubs (under the section “Gossip Evolution”).

Don’t get me wrong, for an early 2000s show, the dubbing is quite good. I believe the Netflix version uses a later dub, and when I watched it, I didn’t find it completely offensive. However, it has usual dub weaknesses of being overly expressive in an attempt to lip sync, rather than direct translations. I always wonder why studios don’t just use the translations and directly voice those instead? Might be a licensing or rights issue, but it’s jarring to expect certain words or phrases and never get them.

Audience

Intended for Western audiences, it provides an English version of the story as it was intended. Several key differences, but mostly the same.

Recommendation

Sure. If you insist on watching anime dubbed, watch the dub. It’s decent for a dub, and you basically get 99.9% of the same story. A couple words changed here or there doesn’t affect things THAT much.

Manga

Surprise section! If you’re seeing this I haven’t read it. If I do, I’ll update this with my review.

Audience

Apparently there are two series, and both are Shōjo.

Recommendation

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Live Action

Watching this is mostly what prompted writing this review. A lot to talk about here, so strap in. I will also be comparing the remake with the original.

Visuals / Sets

I quite enjoyed the visuals of the remake. It was like taking the original as you thought you remembered it and making it as HD as you remembered it to look, just like video game remasters. Going back to watch the original episodes, you can’t help but think, these backgrounds was a lot less detailed than I remember it being. Some creative liberties taken, but none I minded too much. The important bits like the different rooms in the Bebop and the personal ships are what were the most iconic and important. Bits like Annie’s bar (small shop in the original versus a nightclub in the remake) changed quite dramatically. That being said, Annie’s bar is likely a mashup between Annie’s shop and the nightclub that Gren performs at in the original. I did like the touch of using masks for the Syndicate leaders, rather than actual old dudes. That was quite appropriate, as well as the room they’re in. I would’ve liked to see more of them at the space casino, especially given that there are multiple plots in the original involving a casino but only the first episode in the remake. There was a lot less space than I would’ve liked in the remake, which is only slightly understandable given the time it was produced.

Visceral VFX was a little lacking. Punch and loud, but obviously fake. Not sure how this would’ve translated from anime either way, as in cartoons you can draw how much blood comes out however you want. But it was jarring enough to stand out. Felt cheap at times.

You can tell sets were heavily utilized as most interior shots have 3 walls, a top, and a bottom. While I don’t know if that’s just a side effect of the constraints of filming during a pandemic, the lack of budget for a green screen, or the lack of scenes that DON’T require an enclosed set, it stood out quite a bit considering I didn’t notice it at all in the original series. I have to mention space again here as in space, you can travel in infinite directions and have all the room in the world to maneuver. Not in the remake though.

The camera shots were questionable. Several Dutch angles, several unnecessary flips and rotations. This isn’t a music video, you’re making TV to watch. Several shot for shot remakes stand out, but they REALLY stand out as thematically they don’t fit in with the rest of it. Either remake it all, or recreate most of it shot for shot.

Actors / Acting

I felt that all of the actors were appropriately cast for the role they were given. Which is not necessarily equivalent to the role they are supposed to be playing. But, for the style and tone of the writing, they all fit extremely well.

Spike (John Cho) and Jet (Mustafa Shakir) were excellent picks, with only Jet’s lines being a little stiff at times. Faye (Daniella Pineda) brought energy that wasn’t in the original but was enjoyable bordering on slightly annoying (but I attribute that to the writing). Vicious (Alex Hassell) was a little out of left field but worked out quite well in the end as the dark broody type. Julia (Elena Satine) was the most questionable casting, but we’ll get to that in the writing. Ed (Eden Perkins) showed up for literally about 30 seconds at the very end. Ein is a Corgi.

It was slightly strange to have Vicious (Hassell, 41) be silver haired, while in contrast Spike (Cho, 49) with black hair. Although I will say, John Cho looks good for 49. In scenes with less makeup, you can see a bit of the age showing, but hard to tell otherwise.

Fight Choreography

I felt that the fight choreography wasn’t great. I do know that John Cho managed to injure himself during the filming process and that probably didn’t help much, but you could clearly see punches not landing. At least the camera angle should have been so it looks like they are at least somewhat contacting, otherwise it just looks like an awkward pantomime of what fighting is. I suspect that stunt doubles weren’t used partially because of budget and partially because of the pandemic-era filming as that would increase the number of people needed on set. But, I’m sure there were SOME production tricks you could have used to work around it.

Story / Writing

The story is what I had the biggest issue with in the remake. Which both is and isn’t surprising, given Netflix’s track history of remakes - however, this is the first that I’ve seen. I feel that a lot of people would not have minded a shot-for-shot recreation of the original series with live action instead. But, when you change entire plot points and characters and settings, now you’re asking for trouble. In my mind, the remake is fundamentally a different story than the original, but one that just happens to share settings and characters.

It’s especially obvious that this is an adaptation especially with the style of writing (very mainstream Western audience) and the plot points (introduction of extra characters and mashing some settings together). It removes the nuances and subtleties of a lack of detail and replaces it with in-your-face blatant statements, and ends up really dumbing it down.

On the point of plot, the remake only covers up to the mid-season finale of the original, with plot points shuffled together like a deck of cards, while some cards are hand selected from the other half of the deck, and randomly discarding some cards entirely.

Characters

Let’s talk characters.

The Spike/Vicious/Julia storyline is extremely strange. In the original series, Julia’s backstory is entirely unexplained. Julia’s relationship with Vicious is also barely implied in passing, and only serves as a driving motivator for Spike to try to go after. In the remake, we turn the whole thing upside down. Julia is now a greenhorn singer at Annie’s. Vicious acts like an angsty teen that picks her up and drops her off to go brood in a corner. Spike is the friend in the wings to pick up the pieces. When Spike leaves, she returns to Vicious and marries (?) him. And by the end of the remake, she chains Vicious to a post in a basement somewhere and she becomes the head of the Syndicate.

Wait, what? Where was ANY of this in the original series? I get that this is an adaptation, but this is very jarring and unexpected. Not only that, but it wasn’t even really presented until near the end, so it clearly wasn’t that important to begin with. But this changes the entire motivations of Spike AND Vicious…from the lack of description in the original series. Julia kind of just exists in the original, shows up at the end, and dies. That’s honestly her entire purpose - to serve as something that Spike cannot get back.

On the other hand, the added context and backstory to Spike and Vicious working together in the Syndicate I actually liked quite a bit. That was something that ended up being the 5 second clip of them fighting back to back in the original.

Jet’s backstory was irrelevant at best and completely unnecessary at worst. In order to add SOME character to Jet, the writers decided to give him an ex-wife, a husband who was his old boss, and a kid. None of these were in the original, and it’s clearly something only Western writers could come up with. I felt that the original backstory of “ex-cop turned bounty hunter” was honestly, good enough. Why complicate things? Why add extra subplots of trying to find a toy for your kid? That really took me out of it. Shots of houses in what is obviously an actual (Earth) neighborhood with planets CGI-ed into the sky? No, thank you.

Faye had a lot more character this go around, which was both good and bad. Good, in that she was a lot more interesting to follow, but bad in that some of it felt unnecessary. There were definitely points shoehorned in from the original (mysterious VHS backstory, which, I would argue could’ve been cut and the story would’ve been fine), and weird other seemingly unnecessary story beats (why did she randomly have a lesbian experience with the mechanic? It didn’t really help the plot move at all…and when did she become a lesbian to begin with?).

Writing

Speaking of story beats, let’s talk about the writing. Hoo boy, the writing.

Clearly intended for Western audiences, it’s loose and informal, as mainstream productions seem to be leaning towards nowadays. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is a stark contrast to the original where the performance was mostly done by voice and not by facial or body language. However, there were a LOT of jokes added to the remake. The original basically didn’t have any, and this shift in tone sets the remake apart quite a bit. From a somewhat serious space neo-noir story to a scifi comedy with some story mixed in, it’s quite a difference.

It kind of felt like the writers read an IMDB summary of each episodes major plot points and then kinda skimmed the original episodes and tried to write new ones. But what they ended up doing was plagiarizing the original points and slapping together as many plot points together as they could, without considering how that would affect the overall story. The “different directors per episode” thing definitely didn’t help this aspect any. Subtlety is not a word in the writers' dictionary.

I keep mentioning shoehorning in plot beats from the original series, and while that statement is true, the writing also managed to include that in actual dialog. One that stood out the most was the use of one of the most iconic phrases from the original series that shows up on the end card of the finale and isn’t even voiced - “You’re gonna carry that weight”. For some reason, the writers decided to use that in the middle of episode 7 or 8 - I can’t remember the exact number, but it’s very much not the season finale, and most definitely does not apply to it’s context, which I think was Faye yelling at Jet. It diluted the entire phrase, which is something I can really say about the writing of the entire series, but is one of the clearest examples I can think of.

And finally the ending. It was weak and obviously setting up for a sequel. However, now that the series is canceled, it leaves a lot of open ended questions that should not have been left open. Questions, that definitely did not exist in the mid-season finale of the orignial series. Ones like, what’s Julia going to do now that she’s in charge? How are they going to mess up Spike’s death? Is Vicious ever going to be released from the basement? Are they still going to go on a literal mushroom trip?

Music

I will say, the fact that the showrunner insisted on getting the Seatbelts and Yoko Kanno back to perform the music for the remake is probably one of it’s only redeeming qualities.

Audience

This is aimed directly at Western audiences. In contrast to the dub, which used the original material, this is more of an adaptation, with hints of similarities to the original series. The writing all point to more mainstream Western tastes.

Recommendation

A solid “it depends”/no. If you watched the original series and don’t want to see it “ruined”, skip it. If you want to see about half of the original story with some very different plot points and written for Western audiences but in live action, watch it. If you are watching this series for the first time and absolutely can’t sit through 26 episodes, watch this.

Conclusion

Watch the original series. It’s good. If I can blab about it for about 4500 words, you should watch it. Watch the movie if you really want to see the characters again for some classic action. Watch the live action if you really don’t have time for the original and don’t mind that the plot takes a complete detour at points.

Short Story: Desert Watch

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 20:00:00 -0700

Desert Watch

Johnny Lee was bored. “Why am I getting paid to sit out here and watch over nothing?” he muttered to himself, as he took a swig from his canteen. Tonight’s patrol was as uneventful as any other patrol during the past 6 months.

Johnny had enlisted in the military after graduating college, seeing it as an opportunity to get away from persistent family members and to maybe use his degree for something useful. At first, he was excited to travel the world, but that excitement quickly faded once he learned how boring working in those places would be. Especially, he thought, in the middle of a desert.

You see, the desert is the perfect place to hide things. At the sun’s peak in the sky, it is the brightest and hottest. Animals hide out of sight while the sun is up, but when it becomes cooler and darker, the landscape teems with life. So, it seems fitting to be the place to hide secrets, away from prying eyes. The first time Johnny set foot onto the compound, he was amazed. He was there! He was at THE place he couldn’t tell anyone about, or that it exists, but anyone with Google Maps could point it out to you.

The night’s briefing was simple. Begin securing the installation at 1800 and patrol the perimeter from 2000 to 0600. Blackout from 0100 to 0400. Under no circumstance should you exit your patrol vehicle. This meant driving around with night vision goggles, and hoping you don’t accidentally run over some desert wildlife in your Jeep. Johnny liked simple briefs - it meant he could take it easy.

At around 0030, Johnny was at the wheel of the Jeep. His partner had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, having stayed up far too late the night before playing “not beer” pong in the barracks. Well, as long as the commander doesn’t catch us, Johnny thought. The radio was abnormally quiet, but Johnny concluded that the control center was too busy throwing darts to radio periodic updates.

1 AM. The radio suddenly crackled to life and a tired voice said: “All patrols, lights out. Radio silence until 0350. Use STRAWBERRY for emergencies.” Johnny glanced at his radio. A small red triangle blinked at him. The people on site liked to nickname everything, and they had named the emergency button the strawberry. He glanced back at the main compound, and watched as the outside lights progressively turned off until none remained on. He turned off the headlights of his Jeep and put on his night vision goggles.

1:30 AM. It was unusually dark outside. The moon was nowhere to be seen, and a thin layer of clouds rested in the upper atmosphere. Johnny stared past a desert shrub into nothingness. The wind picked up outside.

2 AM. Johnny took off his night vision goggles to wipe the moisture off the lenses. His Jeep’s air conditioning was on the fritz, and seeing as he was unable to open his window due to the sand blowing around, a wipe with his shirt would do the trick. His partner mumbled something and flopped in the other direction.

2:30 AM. A greenish glow appeared over the horizon, but Johnny was too busy counting the number of wildlife creatures to notice. 3 different types of desert mice and 2 different snakes!

3 AM. The greenish glow crept up behind the Jeep. Johnny tapped the sides of the goggles and squinted at the snake currently enjoying its dinner, noting that he needed to get them recalibrated when he returned to the supply depot.

3:30 AM. The Jeep was filled with a pale green light. The triangle shaped light blinked slower and slower.

4 AM. A desert mouse scurried underneath a rock. 4 round indents were left in the sand where a Jeep once stood. The sun peeked over the mountain range. The wind settled.

Post Script

Hey, thanks for reading! I wrote this little thing while procrastinating on my main big story. I’ve got other short story ideas, so keep an eye out.

"I could do better"

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:00:00 -0700

“I could do better.”

One of my pet peeves. Full disclosure, this is me ranting for an entire blog post.

I was having a conversation with my family members after dinner. The conversation drifted towards (for some reason) Mexican drug cartels. Mostly in the technical sense, where they are able to smuggle drugs across the border in a bunch of novel fashions. Including, but not limited to, submarines, drones, inside of vehicles, etc. A fascinating case in engineering ingenuity. But then he said:

“I could do better.”

I said, could you? Could you really?

Because with unlimited time and resources, sure, I’m sure anyone could “do better”. In this case, however, it’s a cat and mouse game. Better techniques of detecting where the drugs are hiding are used, and the cartels have to come up with another way to smuggle drugs. But could you really, “do better”? If your goal (as a cartel) is to make as much money as possible, your solution doesn’t need to be 90% good. It doesn’t even need to be 50% good. It just needs to work enough to move enough volume to make a profit. Sometimes that’s a fast and dirty solution, and sometimes you burn ever being able to use that solution ever again. But what is “your” solution? How would you perform this task, or any task for that matter, given the constraints? And why haven’t you done it yet? (also, drugs are bad and this is not an endorsement k thanks)

The point of this post is not to talk about drug cartels, but about “doing better”.

You always hear people say they can do better, but where are the results?

Another example. When Facebook first came out, I remember a bunch of people on the internet saying, “oh, I could build that”. Okay, and? Where is your Facebook? People are STILL trying to build new social networks today! And failing, might I add. Facebook, nowadays, has a 15 year head start, so it’s a little harder. But, at least they did it (even if it’s not good). What about all the people who claim that they can do it, and have nothing to show for it?

I see this all the time at work as well. People in meetings all day. I don’t know what they do. They talk and talk and talk. Nothing comes out. Where are the results? What exactly is it you do all day?

My pet peeve is when people complain about something rather than doing something about it. YOU say you can build a better Facebook. Cool. Show me that you can do it. You don’t need to prove anything to me. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone, actually. But saying “yeah, I could do it” without actually doing it is a waste of everyone’s time. Who are you kidding?

Complaints are in the same vein. And I get it, sometimes you just need to complain to complain. And it’s healthy to get it out. But actionable complaints, like this door always squeaks (lubricate hinges or replace parts) or this room is too hot (turn on the A/C or get a fan) always kind of get on my nerves a bit. There is a solution here? Just do it? Nobody said it would be cheap, easy, or quick…but there is a solution. If you just sit there and complain, and do nothing about it then nothing will be accomplished, and you’ll just be upset.

This goes without saying of course (but I’m going to say it anyway) that this applies to me as well. I’m staring at my ever growing list of project ideas and, I want to get to all of them, but there is not nearly enough time in the world to do them all. There’s one on there that has existed for about 7 years…and it’s still not done. And I know this. But it frustrates me to not have any progress to show for these projects. So, I try to do something about it. Every now and then I’ll pick up a project and do something about it. Learn a new tech stack. Refresh design patterns. Redesign a layout. Write some documentation. Do SOMETHING to show some progress. And you should too.

I increasingly find myself looking at my project list and going, yeah, I could do a little prototype this weekend. And I end up enjoying the time I spent doing it. Getting some progress done on the project is a bonus! It’s much easier to stomach a large project if you can bite off a little bit at a time, well, at some point it’ll start to look like something, and maybe that’ll motivate you to keep going. I’ve found that the closer it looks like to an actual “thing” the more motivated I am to work on it.

Saying things is good, it gets the idea verbalized and on it’s way to a full on result. And, it’s an easy way to get a sanity check. Do an elevator pitch. Whatever it is. But the important follow up step that a lot of people or companies seem to forget is the actual part where you follow up on what you said you would do. So many companies push out some boilerplate statement when big events happen. But do we really need Gatorade telling us that racism is bad? And, ok, yes, Gatorade, I agree with you - but what are you going to do about it? (according to their tweet, they donated money - good!) But what about all of the other brands? Why are you, The Brand, making this statement? To get kudos? If you don’t actually back your words with actions, you will forever be remembered as the company who made a big deal out of something only to use it as a marketing opportunity. The same goes for pride month when every single brand turns their logo into a rainbow. Cool. That does nothing. (In fact, in some cases they still contribute against those causes because it helps their bottom line) In fact, a bigger marketing opportunity would be to NOT change your avatar, and then putting out a statement with proof that you donated some amount of money to organizations that help the cause. People are tired of hearing about it, but if you actually did something about it, they’ll go, oh! Great! Not every moment has to be a good marketing opportunity. Just sayin'.

YOU SAY you’re going to build the next big thing. And you keep saying it but nothing to show for it. Cool. Show us something. Anything. A sketch, a roadmap, something.

YOU SAY you’re going to clean your room eventually. Same. Let us know when it’s done.

YOU SAY you’re going to increase moderation and help your users. Cool. Show us that you did it.

YOU SAY you’re going to support your creators. Cool. Show us when you’ve done it.

YOU SAY you’re going to push diversity and inclusion. Cool. Do it.

YOU SAY you support racial equality and justice. Great. Show us what you did to help.

Actions speak louder than words.

Don’t tell. Show results.

Website Updates

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 16:19:32 -0700

I seem to only make blog posts whenever I have something to talk about/redesign my website.

I’m tempted to write more eventually, but you’ll notice that the site looks a little different.

I just switched to Hugo after not wanting to deal with Jekyll anymore, and also I wanted a simpler layout. The theme is Codex and although it’s a little barebones, I quite like it. Hugo takes a little bit of getting used to, and I’m not sure I quite understand how the templating works. But, I’ll keep poking at it.

There’s a few things missing that I would like to implement but also need a bit more time in researching:

dark mode - currently, it’s fine…in the daytime
“hidden” posts - I shuffled around the posts and I need to look into how to do that, but those are considered “archived” for now
RSS feed - this is really only used for IFTTT, which, at time of writing, is very likely broken - so I need to figure out how to fix it, but based on the last website update I did, I still haven’t implemented webhooks as part of the deployment process

In other news…

I have a podcast (that has no schedule).
I’ve been working on a short story since last year - TBD when it gets finished (I will probably write a blog post about it eventually).
I have an endless swath of other projects in a text file that grow forever and ever.

I really do want to write more (and I have definitely some ideas I want to expand on), but…excuses, excuses.

See you again when I redesign my website again next year.

Black Square

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 15:48:00 -0700

Originally posted on Twitter and Facebook.

If you posted a black picture of a square and provided no additional information/support (and maybe even used the “wrong” hashtag), congratulations: you’ve done the equivalent of forwarding a chain email like in the late 2000’s

Let’s break it down:

Chain emails are designed to be low friction (low effort), take up your time and energy, appear harmless, and gather large lists of “gullible” people quickly and without prejudice.

Let’s see…check, check, check, and check.

Low effort: you post literally nothing, and provide nothing

Takes up time and energy: you have essentially DDoSed an entire hashtag to the point of unusability - check any social media site

List of gullible people: just trawl the hashtag, find all the black squares with no descriptions, and collect those accounts into a list. This is how chain emails work - anyone who forwards it on is labeled gullible and therefore more likely to be susceptible to more things like it in the future, and it’s an easy way to collect email addresses to boot. Same with those Facebook statuses that tell you to repost or blah blah blah will close your account or whatever. Anyone who sees or searches for these statuses can easily gather up lists of people who can be targeted in the future.

Appears harmless: yes, of course the cause you’re supporting is good! That’s good! But consider how your post affects other people. Consider that maybe sending that email to 10 other people maybe doesn’t actually get Bill Gates to send you $1M. Consider that maybe the default expected behavior for people is “not racist”. When paired with inaction, it does nothing of value.

Now, this comes with a few additional kickers in this certain instance:

Instant gratification: sure, you’re showing support, but provide nothing of substance.

Lack of access to information: Again, check the hashtag - literal millions of posts filled with NOTHING.

If this wasn’t a misinformation campaign on purpose, you can bet money that bad actors are taking notes on how to drown out actual useful information, by reducing the signal-to-noise ratio to all noise with something that’s easily spread and preys on apathy. I would not be surprised if it WAS a misinformation campaign, designed to drown out useful information.

Be smart when sharing things, and don’t just do things because it’s easy and they make you feel good, do things because it may actually help.

Resources: blacklivesmatters.carrd.co

Website Updates (and more!)

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 23:00:00 -0700

Phew, my last blog post was from 2 years ago? Let’s fix that.

Some news: I’m working on an online markdown editor. Hopefully this allows for more frequent writing. I’ve always wanted to sit at a coffee shop or something and just write away. Blog posts, short stories, who knows! I have this Chromebook and I’d like to use it more. It just sits in the corner and collects dust unless I want to be away from my desktop. And hey, might as well make mnml useful for me (rather than just using Word or Google Docs), and allow me to either publish/post/draft up posts for this blog. I just have to figure out how to handle backend/posting and we’ll be good to go.

In other news, I just learned how to automate website building with TravisCI, Jekyll, and Github Pages. Might have to look more into this capability in the future.

I’ve got 5 or so posts in the pipeline (which I accidentally deleted but luckily was able to retrieve with Recuva). They are in varying states of polish and completion. And misinformation. Especially the security one. Especially after I received Security+ certification.

Now that I think about it, I’ve not been able to automate posting about new blog posts. I think Webhooks+IFTTT needs a second looking into.

Car Wishlist

Sat, 28 May 2016 20:00:00 -0700

This was originally going to be a standalone post but I need to test my IFTTT recipe first. I also wrote this a while ago, but I needed something to post.

I haven’t done a wishlist post in a while (or any post for that matter), but instead of studying for finals like a rational human being, I decided to write down a list of things I want in my future car. That being said, I’ve had this list in my head for a long time but have never actually wrote it down - I figured if I got it out of my head and onto a page, I’d be able to focus on other things and be able to look back onto this post later as a reference instead of being constantly reminded of it.

Things with a ? indicate things that would be nice to have but either isn’t currently developed enough or is lacking in one way or another. So here we go.

Phone Connectivity

I know there are head units out there that support, say Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, but none of those two things do exactly what I want to do. I want to be able to connect my phone to my car, have music from my phone play in the car, select songs and get feedback from apps running on my phone (eg. Waze or Google Maps). So with today’s market it seems like Bluetooth connectivity with steering wheel controls is the way to go.

LED…things

I really like LEDs. I think they look nice and are usually very clean. They usually last longer than bulbs and can sometimes be brighter than regular bulbs. So why haven’t we seen it on everything? LED technology has definitely improved over the last few decades and is probably going to be cheaper to manufacture at some point. Just throw it in everything and I’ll be a happy camper. Brakelights, turn signals, interior lights, whatever.

Projector Headlights

Speaking of lighting, why not use projector type headlights for everything? I’m actually considering retrofitting my current headlights as a fun summer project, but I don’t really see the disadvantage, especially when done correctly. Better night visibility, cleaner light output. But, this is a wishlist.

Self-Driving?

This one…I’m mixed. It certainly would be nice to be able to just get in the car and then get out at your location, but I like driving. Not like racetrack driving, but casual driving. The automotive equivalent of someone who plays Bejeweled and calls themselves a “gamer”. I’m assuming at this point that safety autopilot type features are already standard on most vehicles.

Electric Vehicle?

I spent a significant portion of my evening reading Wait But Why posts on Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, and I have been convinced (for quite some time now), that electric is the way to go in the future. Seeing as Tesla’s Model 3 is set to be revealed in a few weeks, isn’t set on being sold until 2017, and I plan on driving my current car until it’s pretty much dead (which might be 5-10+ years out because Honda), I’d say that the Model 3 is probably in the (long long distance) sights for a next car. I could actually care less about any of these other features at that point. Especially at it’s supposed price point, what’s the disadvantage? I probably wouldn’t be making super long hauls in a car anyway. But you never know.

Gas Mileage?

Kind of a moot point if it’s electric. Say it isn’t. My current car does 24/31 and it’s from 2003. I’d say that’s actually pretty good, when compared to some cars today, 13 years later. Not a Prius though.

RWD? AWD?

Speaking of Tesla, what about drivetrains? I’ve only driven FWD cars my whole life and have never experienced RWD or AWD. It’d be nice to experience but the only reason that it has a ? is because of MPGs. Usually RWD (AWD especially) suffer from lower MPGs due to inefficiencies in bringing the power from the front to the back. And unless my next car is going to have the engine in the trunk, this isn’t going to work as I like to save money on gas. This gets thrown out the window when you bring in EVs, since there’s practically no difference in front or rear drive, just in torque at that point (and battery size).

Remote Windows

This is the biggest thing I want. It’s indescribably important, and I’m 90% sure that none of the cars of the market today have this feature. My car from 2003 does and it’s the best thing in warm weather which is fairly common as I live in Southern California. The ability to lower your windows to let hot air out before getting in and NOT wasting gas by turning the engine+A/C on is so nice, and I’m concerned that my next car won’t be able to do so. Heck, even my mom’s car from 2012 can’t do it (yet my dad’s car from 2012 can).

Y’know what? Just give me a Tesla Model 3 and we’ll call it a day.

Website Updates

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 15:24:29 -0700

A fresh coat of paint!

I’ve switched my site design several times since the last post, and this time it’s even simpler!

First off, Material Design Lite tidies up the site look as a whole.

Secondly, I’ve switched the entire site’s functionality over to Jekyll, that way I can use Github Pages to host it, rather than rolling my own server. I have been using my own (or, rather, Nathan’s server), for a while, but I wanted super speed and super caching (especially with the inclusion of images). This required some stretching and pulling of my existing template, along with learning how Jekyll works, but in the end I have a flat-file based blog+website system that seems pretty solid.

Thirdly, I’ve archived past posts that I don’t exactly feel comfortable with publically. If you had the URLs you are still able to access them as I am still in the middle of moving posts over but you will not see them in the posts below.

Also, I’m probably going to continue tweaking my site until I like it and I continue adding features and such. (pagination might be on the list, along with some other things that I haven’t thought of yet.)

Lastly, I’ll probably be encouraged to blog more just because I want to use this shiny new thing.

How to First Apartment Essentials

Tue, 12 May 2015 19:48:29 -0700

So this was the first year I lived in an apartment by myself and I wanted to create a list of essentials that I found particularly helpful to have the first time living in an apartment. Sorted by living spaces.

Kitchen

Medium pot - Very versatile, can be used to heat soup, cook sauce, boil water for pasta, and so on.
Medium frying pan - Again, very versatile, can be used in more than one way (be creative!).
Water filter - Don’t buy a 24pack of water bottles, it’s bad for the planet. Instead, invest in a water filter (eg. Brita) and some sort of canteen/stainless steel/Nalgene equivalent and ta-da! Free* water! (*unless you have to pay for utilities)
3x each, minimum [Plate, Bowl, Fork, Spoon, Knife, Chopsticks] - Here’s the logic - one for now, one just in case, and one when you’re too lazy to do the dishes. By the time you reach the third one, you should be able to (forced, really) to wash the dishes.
Tupperware containers - Really, any reusable plastic and/or glass container. Great for keeping leftovers. (and if you go home you can always snag some food and eat it later)
Toaster oven - Pretty useful, you can heat anything frozen (it will take longer but will be cooked more consistently), bake small items and probably better than a microwave.
Microwave - Yeah, I know I just said “better than a microwave” but it is handy to have options. I tend not to use it too often though. But it is convenient when you’re heating, say, leftovers. I wouldn’t heat it in the toaster oven.
Cooking utensils - I mean, all you really need is a spatula. Maybe one of those draining spoons. A cutting knife.
Cutting board - (Suggested by Michael) Some places do not have a cutting board. Mine does but I would certainly not use it. Bring your own.
Rice cooker - Ok, so there’s a version of a rice cooker which has one button, “Cook” and is basically a giant metal bowl with the rice bowl inside of it. This is the one you want, not the one with the buttons and the clock and the whatever. You can use this to steam stuff along with cooking rice. Don’t forget the rice paddle.
Aluminum foil - (Suggested by Lily) Useful for storing food as well. Also you do need something for lining that toaster oven.
Paper towels - (Suggested by Lily) Get the huge pack from Costco and never run out of paper towels.

Bathroom

Shower caddy - Don’t need to buy some fancy shelf for your shower/bath when you can just hang it!
Toilet brush/Plunger - I don’t need to explain this one, do I?
Floor/bath mats - It’s nice.
Shower slippers - Coming from a dorm you should already have them. I share a shower so I already have them, but I would recommend one anyway.
Toilet paper - (Suggested by Desiree) The huge pack from Costco. Never run out of toilet paper, ever. At least, probably for a year.

Bedroom

A good mattress - You’re going to be sleeping in it, so make sure it’s comfortable. I got this nifty memory foam mattress from IKEA, and it came vacuum sealed and rolled up, so it was nice and compact which helps since I live on the 3/4th floor. Open the bag, let it air out and BAM! Mattress!
- Optional: Bed frame - I don’t personally have one but it would be nice to have one for some people. I don’t mind so my mattress just sits on the floor.
A good desk - You’re going to be doing work here a lot so make sure it’s a good one. I brought my desk from home. Some IKEA desk from about 10 years ago. (It was something I could carry up 3 flights of stairs easily.)
A good chair - You’re going to be sitting in it at said desk. Make sure it’s comfortable.
Hanging closet organizer - The one I have is made of a soft material and you can buy the box/shelf thing for each compartment, but I didn’t and just use it as it. Useful if you don’t have a storage solution already.
A good pillow - (Suggested by Isaiah) Again, you’re going to be sleeping on it. Make it a good one!

Living Room

I don’t have much of a living room, so I don’t find it very “essential” to have living room items. That being said, a small folding table and some folding chairs do the trick for me. I can eat there, friends can hang out, or it takes up space. Whatever works.
Lamps - I mean it helps.

Misc.

Trash cans - Get more than one and put them in many places (bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, etc.). Grocery store bags make excellent trash bags.
Command™ Strips/Hooks - You’ll need this more than you’ll think you need them.
Baking soda - Gets rid of odors, cleans, what more do you need? Handy to have around. Get the big bag from Costco.
A good vacuum - (Suggested by Lily) It gets dustier than you think.

Remember, this is an “essentials” list, which means the bare minimum yet useful items. If you have any additions, feel free to contact me and I’ll add it to the list!

Tech Simplified: RAM, Hard Drives, and CPUs

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 19:18:29 -0700

I often get asked by my friends to explain technology to them, and seeing as the majority of the world does not understand HOW computers work, I use analogies to help. In this installment, I’ll briefly explain how RAM, Hard Drives, and CPUs work.

We begin by imagining a lake, completely frozen. This lake is filled with ice, and represents your hard drive. Ice represents your data. A hard drive is a place where you store data for long periods of time, just like how a lake stores ice for long periods of time.

One of the few basic operations of a CPU, or a Central Processing Unit, is adding two numbers together. Processor speed (2.4GHz, for example) is actually the number of times a second that the CPU decides to do any sort of calculation. For this analogy, we’re going to take a chunk of ice and melt it and that is a single computation. In this case, CPU speed is like being able to melt ice faster.

If you’re wondering why CPU speed matters when you buy a new phone or computer, it’s because it’s able to perform calculations faster, or in our case, melt the ice faster. If you bought a hairdryer it would melt the ice at a certain rate. If you bought a flamethrower, it would definitely melt the ice at a faster rate, but costs more. This is why people look at CPU speeds.

Now, melting an entire lake is terribly inefficient and slow. You definitely don’t want to do that all the time, ESPECIALLY if you only need to melt some of the ice, and not all of it. So what do you do?

We take SOME of the ice and put it in a container. Now, we can melt a smaller amount of ice faster, as well as only melting the ice that we need. This container represents our Random Access Memory, or RAM for short.

How to GitHub CDN

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 21:55:29 -0700

I found out how easy it was to use GitHub Pages to create your very own free CDN for static files.

Assuming you followed How to Website, you should now have a working domain name with CloudFlare enabled.

So if you have lots of STATIC content like CSS or SOME JavaScript files, you can host them on a global CDN for free, courtesy of GitHub Pages.

YMMV: I found that putting my application JS for AngularJS on CDN actually made my browser crash. So only static files that can be loaded independent of the page should be put on the CDN. I would also not recommend using this for images because there are better services to use (imgur, minus, etc.).

GitHub Pages provies a free hosting solution at http://yourusername.github.io - you can upload an index.html page to your repository and it will show up. Fine, easy.

But you can also upload JS and CSS files….which you can then link to from your website! And if your server is slow, a CDN will take the load off of your server.

Make sure your GitHub Pages is set up correctly.
1. Create a new repository called yourusername.github.io (yes, with the .github.io) and clone.
2. Add any files you want to have delivered from the CDN to the repo and push.
3. Create a new file named “CNAME” in the root of your repo and add the direct URL of your CDN. We will redirect it in the next step. (For example, I use “cdn.thinkaliker.com”). At this point your GitHub,io URL will redirect to your nonexistent subdomain.
Redirect CloudFlare to point your CDN location to GitHub Pages.
1. Create a new CNAME entry.
2. Use “cdn” or whatever you want (must be same as in CNAME file above).
3. Add your yourusername.github.io to the value fields as an alias.

And that’s it! After this, every time you need to update or add any files, simply push to GitHub, and it will work immediately!

How to Website

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 20:24:29 -0700

I wanted to do a technical write up of sorts, so I thought I’d walk through the process of what I did to set up my website, from domains to servers to CloudFlare. I’ll try to explain each step as I did and what some alternatives could be. Any questions? Feel free to tweet at me @thinkaliker.

YMMV.

Overview

Get Domain
1. Free TLD
2. Paid TLD
3. SLD
Get Server
1. Free Server
- Shared Hosting
- GitHub Pages
1. Paid Shared Server
2. VPS
3. Dedicated
Get CloudFlare
Get WordPress
Other Content
????
Profit

1. Get Domain

The most important part of your website is your domain name. It’s what uniquely identifies you on the internet as a destination to visit. Well, that’s partially true, that’s what an IP address is for (that’s also partially true). So, we need to pick a good domain name!

a. Free TLD

First, I went with a free domain. I figured, I can start a website without paying for anything. This was the initial goal. DotTK is where I got a free top-level domain to use all over the internet. Be warned, .TK addresses are notorious for being used for spam and malware because they are easily obtainable and free for use with anything.

The domain name control panel is where you will provide information such as IP addresses, name servers or redirections. Because I will be using CloudFlare I have skipped this step and selected name servers. This will be important in the CloudFlare section.

b. Paid TLD

I finally decided that buying a domain from Google Domains would be worth it. Keep in mind that buying a domain does not equal buying a server to host your website. It just gives you an address that your house will be built at - you still need to build a house and put stuff in it. Similar situation, provide IP addresses or use custom name servers - CloudFlare will come into play, and will be managing our DNS records. I did take the opportunity to redirect adam@thinkaliker to my regular email, and it works great.

c. SLD

Firstly, I would recommend anyone who would like to create a website to shy away from second-level domains. They are usually free, from what I’ve seen but do not create the same sense of professionalism or SEO-ness (if you want to be snobby about it) as any top-level domain. A majority of the time they lack in features, such as DNS manipulation or anything at all, really. If you’re in a country where this is the norm (.co.uk for example), obviously this is the societal norm and you’ll be fine. No one bats a second eyelash at those SLDs but at least now you know what they are!

2. Get server

Now that we have a street address, we need a house. So we need a place to put our actual content, our website. We have several options here, ranging from free to not free.

a. Free Server

Well I’m cheap. So I thought, hey, what’s a free solution? After lots of googling and reading reviews I ended up with some hosting company called ServersFree. Yeah, I know, their website looks really sketchy but I don’t have a better option. Maybe Hostinger but they’re UK based. Which honestly might be better than “I don’t know where you are” based. There is also a GitHub option, which may work out better for you. Or a VPS, which is what I will eventually get.

i. Shared Hosting

A free shared hosting solution would be a hoster like ServersFree. The way this works is that the hosting company has, say, 50 servers and 50 unique IPs, one per server. Each server runs virtualization software such as cPanel which allows the server to host hundreds of websites per server. The way this is accomplished is the server software will allocate a certain amount of bandwidth and hard drive space to each website. When you point your computer at that server’s IP, it will do two things: fail miserably and attempt to look for a website. The unique identifier for the website is the domain name - and this is what the server uses to figure out which webpage to serve to you. Accessing the IP directly won’t help because it won’t have any clue where you want to go. However the IP given IS A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER, just not in the way that the shared server may understand it.

ii. GitHub Pages

GitHub pages is another solution which may work out. I’m actually going to do a separate writeup on GitHub pages so be on the lookout for that in the near future. If you use GitHub pages you can basically skip the rest of this write-up. I cover it in GitHub CDN. (2016 edit, I’m now using Github Pages! There are also other alternatives like GitLab, Heroku, and OpenShift that I won’t cover.)

b. Paid Shared Server

Mostly the same as the shared section above, except these are paid for. A caveat is that these servers are generally very limited - some come with shudder SquirrelMail, some come with MySQL databases, some don’t come with anything but a hard drive and some bandwidth. Obviously paying more will get you more stuff in terms of features, but you are SHARING the physical hard drive and server with many other customers.

c. VPS

A VPS is a very interesting combination of a shared server and a computer. It is quite literally a virtual computer hooked to the real life internet. It can do anything you want, like a computer, and can serve up anything you want - a server if you will. These are virtualized because like a shared server, they are usually virtual machines running on a bigger server in a data center somewhere. These are usually way more expensive than a shared server because of the costs needed to run one (usually a beefier server is needed). If you like to run programs that connect to the internet all the time, this is a good choice because that’s literally it’s entire job.

d. Dedicated

OK, now you’re just showing off. These are usually fairly expensive and is exactly as it says. It’s your very own server in a data center somewhere with it’s own IP and everything. If you can get one, good for you, you’re probably doing a lot cooler things than I am.

3. Get CloudFlare

So, what’s all the buzz about DNS and name servers and IP addresses? This is where CloudFlare will tie everything together. What is CloudFlare? People use it for many things, it can speed up loading time of your website by caching stuff, it can provide a small layer of protection from attackers, and it can handle your DNS records. I’m going to be using it for a bit for all three.

No matter what step you took for the last two bullet points, these step will always be the same.

Sign up for CloudFlare - accounts are free
Add a new site - put in your shiny new domain name here. NOTE: if you are using Google Domains be sure to transfer your old DNS records because it has mail forwarding information that you need to ensure that email forwarding works from Google Domain’s control panel.
Take note of the Name Servers that CloudFlare provides to you. They are unique to your specific website and may be different for different websites you add onto your CloudFlare account.
Go back to your domain control panel (dotTK, Google Domains, etc) and put in your CloudFlare name server info there.
Edit your DNS records on CloudFlare.
1. Go to your server hosting control panel and look for something that looks like “Server IP” or something similar. THIS IP IS A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER. The actual IP of the physical server may be different, and we will need it for WordPress. It is very important that you understand the differences and know which to use.
2. On CloudFlare, add a new DNS entry. Make it an “A” entry and type in your domain name. Enter that server IP into the value slot.
3. Typically you account for “thinkaliker.com” and “www”, these are common DNS entries.
4. For any additional servers you may want under this domain name, just type the subdomain you want into the name slot and the IP of the server into the value slot.
Click “I’m done” - it make take a few hours or even a day for the changes to propagate throughout the internet. Feel free to flush your DNS cache to see if the changes have gone through. But without actual content this isn’t really useful.
There’s other settings you can play around with in CloudFlare but the default settings are OK for now.

4. Get WordPress (optional)

So now you have all your website stuff pointing in all the right directions. Perfect. Let’s add a blog! These instructions are going to be very specific, so if you used something different try to substitute what you have with what I have written.

FTP access - my hoster uses FTP to get files from my computer onto the server. Grab your favorite FTP client (MobaXterm, FileZilla, WinSCP, etc) and connect to the IP address of the server.
1. On ServersFree it is the “IP Address”. This is the IP of the physical server. Not your unique identifier.
2. Pro tip: set up a DNS alias (“A” record) to take care of this for you! Add one with the name “server” or “ftp” or something and add the IP address indicated. Now you can connect to ftp.thinkaliker.com and bam!
3. Depending on your hoster and your FTP client, you may need to provide a “Remote Path”. On shared hosters it is typically “/public_html/”.
Download WordPress obviously. Extract somewhere because you’ll need it in a second.
Log into the server and copy your extracted WordPress files onto the server. Wow, has it been a second already?
1. I wanted my blog under thinkaliker.com/blog, so I created a new folder “blog” and copied the contents of the WordPress installation into that folder. If you want it as your actual website then just copy it into the root folder. 2.If you want it on a subdomain, for example blog.thinkaliker.com, you will most likely need a separate server to host it on. Simply add it to the CloudFlare DNS record.
Navigate to wherever you put your blog (eg. thinkaliker.com/blog). WordPress will now ask you a bunch of questions, including access to a MySQL database.
1. In the ServersFree control panel, scroll down and click the MySQL databases icon.
2. Create a new database with whatever name you want and a password you can remember.
3. Your database should now be created. Go back to WordPress and put in all relevant information.
That should be it! WordPress should take care of the rest.

You may need to double check in WordPress settings that the URL of the blog is correct (eg. It should say thinkaliker.com/blog and not just thinkaliker.com if you put it in a folder.)

5. Other Content

Congratulations! You should now have a fully functioning blog at least. “But Adam,” you say. “I want a real website!”.

Ah, but this part is up to you.

Like hands on web design? Don’t know where to start? Start with Bootstrap. Lots of tutorials and handy documentation. And it’s a really good framework. Responsiveness is good.

Just want something to look nice? I recommend html5up. Lots of nice looking templates that you can modify and make your own.

Have no idea? Move your WordPress site to the main folder and customize from there!

Need a good way to edit your website? I have personally used Brackets and Adobe Dreamweaver (coincidentally both by Adobe but Brackets is open source), but sometimes Notepad, Sublime Text or even Vim will work, as long as you have FTP access to the server.

6. ????

“I’m not seeing my changes! Why does the site not change when I upload files to it?"

Good question. It’s because we enabled CloudFlare, and it will cache your content for a certain amount of time. I personally find that enabling CloudFlare’s Development Mode works pretty well, just be sure to Shift+F5 your browser so that your browser cache is refreshed as well.

“I’m using ServersFree and I want to change domains! What do?"

Unfortunately, what I’ve found is that these shared hosting servers tend to lock your content to a single domain name. The best thing to do is to create another server under your account with your new domain and copy all of your stuff over. You’ll need to update your CloudFlare DNS records to point at the new IP (again, unique IP not server IP).

7. Profit

Hey, thanks for reading! Again, if you have any questions/corrections/additions/complaints/friend requests/concerns feel free to tweet at me on Twitter. Or any of my other social media. ~~I mean, you could leave a comment below but the chances of me seeing it are pretty slim.~~ (I haven’t figured out commenting yet, coming later in 2016!)

Helping People

Sat, 17 Jan 2015 06:48:29 -0700

I like helping people. It feels good to help people.

I do believe that everyone should help people. And not in the sense that you have to go out and do 50 thousand hours of volunteer work or donate $1 million but the little things. (I mean you can donate tons of money and do lots of volunteer work too, no one’s stopping you).

I like making people happy. It makes me happy to see people happy. It’s the little things, making a (usually stupid) joke, hanging out, keeping company, whatever. It makes me sad when people are sad and it’s the worst when I can’t do anything about it.

There’s the super obvious thing of doing stuff like trash cleanup and stuff, but that’s more of helping the environment or whatever. It’s still a good thing to do, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t get as much personal satisfaction. But as an Eagle Scout it’s kinda out of habit now.

But if I can help someone by giving them some advice or making some absolutely stupid off-hand comment which makes them laugh, then I will be satisfied.

I’m not really sure why I wanted to write this down. I kept thinking about it and wanted to get my thoughts out somewhere. Maybe I’ll do a technical write up next or something.

Maybe I should vlog.

Wishlist 2015

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 09:37:29 -0700

I made a wishlist last year, and ended up buying a lot of the items on the list, so I figured a new wishlist was in order.

To clarify: this wishlist is things I wish to have but not necessarily want given to me. If you insist on getting me something for some odd reason you can use the Amazon wishlist.

In case I forget or didn’t write it here, I have an Amazon wishlist.

Physical Items

Various internet shirts (yup, still. Can never have too many awesome designed shirts)
Server hosting [$???/mo] (I can’t rely on free servers all day although not having to pay is nice - preferably US based)
Various car upgrade parts (I have an Amazon wishlist somewhere - LED ALL THE THINGS)
Still want a good mic but maybe one I can take around or something
XKCD’s What-If book
XKCD’s Up goer 5 poster
TODO: update this later

Unmonetizable items

Good grades would be nice
Less distractions
More time
Android 5.0 on my phone (HTC/T-mo plz)
A girlfriend? Haha funny joke 10/10

Wishlist 2014

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 22:18:29 -0700

2016 Edit: I figured I’d keep this in as a time capsule to see what I wanted in 2014.

At this exact moment, I can’t concentrate on homework, it’s Saturday night, and I have a headache. So what better time to make a wishlist? Sorted from least to most expensive and not sorted by practicality.

I’ve always been asked for what is something I want, and I’ve never been able to give anyone a definitive list. Until now.

Variety of t-shirts from the internet (it would take too long to list)
Sennheiser MX 470 Earphones/Sennhesier MX 985 (because my free 2 year old earbuds are slowly dying) [~$35/~$180]
2/3 domain names + hosting [$$/year?] (I have things that require hosting!)
Bluetooth mouse (haven’t researched this one yet, but it’s for my tablet, so cheap ok)
Condenser Microphone (haven’t looked into this one either, for computer recording)
Shotgun Microphone (while we’re talking about mics here…for the DSLR, of course)
CODE 104 Cherry MX Clear Mechanical Keyboard (or the normal 104 key with Clears) [~$150+Shipping]
Pebble/Pebble Steel [$150/$249] / LG G Watch [$229]
DLSR (video would be good, hotshoe microphone capability would be too)
Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P (with dual GFX cards) [~$1100] OR MSI GS60 Ghost Pro [~$1900] (customized by XOTICPC)
Google Glass (one day…one day) [$1500]
Subaru BR-Z [$25000] (…yes, it’s a car, I know)
A house (….yeah not yet)
A job (wouldn’t that technically cost negative money?)

I'm in college!

Sun, 13 Oct 2013 11:52:29 -0700

Hey! I’m in college now!

That means I’ll have less time to do stuff on my own, but I’ll hopefully be learning more things in the process.

I’ve met some cool peeps here already, and I’m having a good time in general.

I don’t really have anything else to say, and I’ll probably update this post if I think of anything else.

A lil bit of Minecraft history

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 10:19:29 -0700

Welcome! I’m going to tell you the history behind the Minecraft multiplayer server that I play on, AuroraServer! But the story isn’t quite that simple. It all started on Reddit…

Creeps Era

September 2011. A man named Bodie started drawing the “Creeps Comic”, a webcomic based on Minecraft. (Comics are still available to view, by the way). At some point, he decided to post them to Reddit. Many people (myself included) stumbled upon them, and after looking around the Creepscomic website, Bodie had set up a “Creepscomic Fan Server”, a small public server for fans of the comic and himself to mess around on. I joined around March 2012, along with my IRL friends fhorn4444 and CanadianTrees. The server grew slightly in population, until it was now a “small” public server. A small large spawntown named “Castillo” was created, along with other small townships such as “Eastwatch” and “Arcoon” were born.

April 2012. Bodie decided to take a break from Minecraft and step back from being in the admin position. So, we needed another person to step in to run the server. Enter ailisezooey. Ailise volunteered to take over the server, and Bodie agreed. Nothing changed for the most part, until our hoster suddenly announced that it was shutting down permanently. We scrambled to figure out how to organize ourselves, and resorted to IRC and Reddit for communication. Ailise quickly found a new hoster and decided to start our world fresh again.

Ailise Era

Everyone joined the new server, for the most part, and things were going smoothly. New towns were built like “Nysa” and “Tempest”. A new subreddit and website were implemented, which contained a blog and forums.

Feburary 2012. Suddenly, something snapped. Ailise had taken the server offline, along with the website, leaving nothing but a letter of apology and a download link for the old map. The members panicked, but quickly organized communication via IRC and Reddit, along with creating a torrent for the old map. Goldenflame2 volunteered to host a new server, and a new era began again.

AuroraServer Era

Because we were not sure of the status of the old map, we started fresh again. Ailise reappeared, providing the old server as a creative world, but most members stayed on survival. Eventually Ailise stopped the old server and everyone was now on the new server, the AuroraServer.

Currently the AuroraServer is still a somewhat “small” server, however most of the members seen on Creeps stuck with it and are still here today. The spawntown “Bandaron” has been built and a new website has been created. (You should totally check it out, I’m not biased, at all). More is coming, and we hope to gain new members soon! TL;DR: We’re a stubborn bunch of players who stick together and we’re still here, so join us!

Website Updates

Fri, 13 Sep 2013 16:22:29 -0700

I updated from Bootstrap 2.x to 3.0, and I will say it does look better. I updated the AuroraServer website as well, and it definitely works a lot better. I’m definitely liking Bootstrap the more I use it. Highly recommend it. (http://www.getbootstrap.com)

I reconfigured my links page so that they were how I originally intended (I don’t know why I didn’t think of tables in the first place, or why I didn’t bother to check if Bootstrap had tables), and added a fancy YouTube subscribe button.

Aside from that, not much has changed…so yeah

If you want to see what the old homepage looks like, let me know and I’ll send you a screenshot. I might post it later, actually.

Website Updates

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 22:18:29 -0700

So I redid my website design.

Sure, it was a fun experiment to do, but it wasn’t really expandable and the more I tried to add to it, the more crowded and messy looking it got.

So I scrapped it completely and moved over to the framework provided by Twitter Bootstrap.

It’s a handy little system with built in layouts that are simple to use, and well documented.

I’m probably going to keep tweaking and modifying the look of my website until I’m happy with it.

PyroCMS pissed me off for not being well documented at all and the updated system so…WordPress time!

First Post

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 22:08:29 -0700

Oh hey! Welcome back!

I mean me, I’m back!

Phew, I don’t even want to start.

Basic run down, because I’m tired of writing this post every time I have to switch hosters.

OVH vKS -> Host1Free -> Box.lc

VPS -> VPS -> Hosted

Wolf CMS -> Pixie CMS -> PyroCMS -> WordPress

Done.

Questions? Talk to me somewhere else.