#I learned HTML and CSS when I was 12

[antheraea]

Flash Was Killed Because It Was Objectively Dangerous

I get it, I get the Flash nostalgia and the fondness for old Flash games. I was big on Neopets before they decided to ruin the art and make all the pets samey paper dolls to play dressup with (completely ruining the point of the far more expensive "redraw" colors like Mutant and Faerie and Desert). I have fond memories of Newgrounds games and I even managed to take a class for a semester in high school where I could learn flash.

But I also remember how terrible it was. And you should too.

Leaving aside all of the issues involving performance and inaccessibility (such as being easily broken by bog-standard browser actions like the back button, and its ability to modify web code AND OS code in real time likely broke a lot of accessibility tech too), Flash was legitimately one of the most dangerous web technologies for the end user. An end-user is you, or more specifically back then, child-you.

According to Wikipedia and its sources, Flash Player has over a thousand vulnerabilities known and listed and over 800 of these lead to arbitrary code execution.

What is arbitrary code execution? That's when someone can just run any commands they want on a machine or program that didn't intend it. A fun way to see this is in this infamous Pokemon tool-assisted speedrun where they manage to get an SNES to show the host's twitch chat in real time. It's not so fun though when it's someone stealing all the files on your computer, grabbing your credentials so they could clean out your Neopets account (yes, really, it was a pretty common concern at the time), and other nefarious works. Also, there was a time where it allowed people to spy on you with your webcam and microphone.

Oh and on top of all of this, Flash had its own "flash cookies", which could not be cleared by ordinary means and thus could be used to track users indefinitely, at least until Adobe slapped a bandaid over it by introducing yet another screen an ordinary person wouldn't know to use. (I assume this is how the infamous neopets "cookie grabbers" worked, so they could get into your account. This is mainly what I remember about using Flash back in the early 2000s lol) So it not only was a "stranger taking over your machine" concern, but a bog-standard privacy concern too, arguably a precursor to our current panopticon internet landscape, where greedy websites would track you because they could and maybe get some money out of it, facilitated by this technology.

When Apple decided to block it, it wasn't out of greed; Steve Jobs cited its abysmal performance and security record, among other issues such as an inherent lack of touchscreen support, and Apple cited specific vulnerability use-cases when blocking specific versions before they nuked it entirely. When Mozilla, who makes Firefox, decided to block it, it's not like they would've gotten money out of doing so, or by offering an alternative; they did so because it is fucking dangerous.

Your ire and nostalgia is misplaced. Flash was not killed by our current shitty web practices that ruin unique spaces and fun games. Flash was killed because both Macromedia (its original developers) and Adobe were incapable of making it safe, if that was even possible, and it was killed after third-parties, in an unprecedented gesture, collectively threw their hands up and said enough.

Well, that and HTML5 being developed and becoming more widespread, being able to do everything Flash can do without being a pox on technology. One could argue that you should bemoan the lack of Flash-to-HTML5 conversion efforts, but that requires asking a lot of effort of people who would have to do that shit for free...and if they have to run Flash to do so, opening themselves up to some of the nastiest exploits on the internet.

Nostalgia is a fucking liar. The games themselves I think are worth having nostalgia over (look, I still find myself pining for that one bullet hell Neopets made and Hannah and the Pirate Caves), but Flash itself deserves none of that, and absolutely deserved to be put in the fucking ground. You're blaming the wrong causes. It was terrible.

(specifics and sources found via its wikipedia page, which has a lot more than is mentioned here. and also my own opinions and experiences back then. lol)

[phrandallanton]

Hellu))

I looked at your neocities thingy, and I just wondered how you did that with the text boxes and the background and stuff. If you are willing to share, if you aren't, then sorry for wasting ur time)

I'm very new to coding (I suck) and "Penelope the cat" doesn't really help much T-T

Hi! Don't worry about asking, I'm always happy to help and give info on anything I know to the best I can! (Though to be completely honest, I too don't know much of HTML so... lol)

I used a <table> tag and the other tags that come with it. I also used boarder, boarder style, and background color, which would be in the CSS part of the code. Makes the boarder that's around it, The style that boarder will be in, and the background color of that table.Here's a website that explains it better then I can and also helps me out A LOT.

I heavily recommend this site, it's a life saver and will explain everything.

Also here is some CSS to help with the boarder and background!

Some other extra tips I'll throw in here:

I recommend using "Visual Studios". It's a free program and you can get a plug-in that allows you to see how your website looks without having to edit, go to the website, refresh, over and over. It also helps with coding as well, overall I'm loving it!

Now, by no means am I saying you should copy somebody else code and steal it. That's wrong. However, if you see something you like and want to know how it works, inspect the page and look at the code! I've learned a lot from doing this and it's help me figure out how things work too. Once again, do not straight up steal lines of somebody else's code. By that point you're not coding, you're copying, pasting, and stealing.

I also think you should learn the basics of HTML, and if you really want to make things then I say take the time to learn HTML. Personally for me, I love the look of broken ugly websites. Just some basic CSS will do for me! But if you're not like me, then yes, I think you should learn more then just the basics.

I'm sure there's some HTML nerds that can explain this way better then what I can so like I always say when it comes to learning stuff, look it up! The internet has unlimited free information, somebody 12 years ago on reddit probably asked the same question you did and the answer will be in the comments of that post. Always search for things!

[sophia-sol]

The progression of my work on my website over the last week or so, as documented on mastodon:

one

heeheehee I get to learn JAVASCRIPT now via the method of just diving right in there! (aka. downloading the zonelets starter pack to use for formatting my website, and digging into the script to see what I want to change!)

awww opening the zonelets css stylesheet and it feels so comfortably familiar! I love how much work I put into understanding css, via creating an ao3 personal theme!

also, seeing how these files all work together, the javascript and css and html, I understand the relationship between what you do with each of them far more. It makes sense to me now! the structure of building a site!

two

I'm learning things about filezilla…I'm learning things about website structures….I'm learning how bad ao3's html download files are.

three

I have one entire fic posted to my website! YESSSS!

I'm doing my best to divorce from ao3 my sense of what structure and language I should be using in the various preamble that goes with a given fic. I don't need to use the same categories of data, and I don't need to call things the same thing! and I don't even need to have the same sections on every fic if I don't want to, if something isn't relevant for that fic!!

four

I made one entire change to the javascript for my site, and it WORKED, I am so powerful 💪

five

I'm just so emotional about the people of the smallweb who code their little projects and then give them away freely - with instructions! - so that others of us can build our own little projects! My website, the main site and the linkding instance, couldn't be what it is without the help of many people, friends and strangers! 🥹

six

I keep going to my website and shrieking a bit internally. it looks like a website!!!

seven

for most programs, there's not enough customization, I can't make it behave in ways that are useful to me, and it's endlessly irritating

visual studio code: I got u bro

I'm actually intimidated by the notion of scrolling through all the customization options of vsc, damn!

eight

look how many fics I have posted on my website now!

this listing page still has some tweaking to do for maximum clarity of reading/skimming over the info, but this is still great progress!

I am a firm believer of the web design principle of "if people have to focus to figure out how to find the info they're looking for, the problem is with the design rather than the user" and I'm not out of the woods yet

nine

OKAY I think I've got my fandom list page looking a lot more clear now, via tweaking my use of whitespace! hooray!

ten

oh my god. I just realized. the "zap colours" and "zap stylesheets" bookmarklets I use semiregularly are…..snippets of code. that I now know approximately how to read! and could edit to get slightly different results, if I wanted to!!

the world opens up to you, when you learn things about coding!

eleven

things I want to add to my website:

theme-picker, so people who do better with dark mode etc can still comfortably browse my site

comments on fanwork pages and blog pages

table of contents on fic pages so you can easily jump down to the section you want to

all the rest of my fanworks - 12 fics are up but that's not nearly everything!

BIRD SHRINE.

and all of this is very doable! so exciting.

twelve

omg I submitted a feature request to linkding and LATER THE SAME DAY a fix is committed:

between this and the default guest profile stuff I am soooo excited for the next linkding release

thirteen

I've started to write up a podcast recs page for my website because I figured that would be cool content to have. but I forgot. how wordy I can be. and HOW many podcasts I listen to.

my original plan was just a list of podcasts. my second plan was to include a sentence or two about each one, as context.

my current document has multiple paragraphs per podcast. most podcast descriptions are between 150-200 words each. and I have so many podcasts to go!

fourteen

my list of fanworks by vibe is now posted to my site!

also posted: just my faves of my fanfics!

and a history of the fandoms I've been in!

fifteen

…and the next linkding release is OUT NOW. today! hot damn. ok. ok. I am not prepared, it's usually not this quick between releases!

I hope I have time soon to dig into this and get my instance updated!!

[xpc-web-dev]

100 days of code: Day 13

(23/12/2022)

I FINALLY FINISHED THE LOGIC.

I'm so happy and proud of myself, when I tried to study logic months ago, I gave up because I found it too hard and I thought I couldn't do it because I feel like an idiot.

After that I went back to Html, css , reading MDN documentation and watching tutorials I think now I was progressing. BUT not again, because I couldn't do it alone and even though a developer will ALWAYS use google to arrest every day, it's horrible to feel fake and not be able to do the minimum.

So it may seem like little to outsiders, but finishing the course and learning is very big for me. One more small step won to get to where I want to be.

So if you're an aspiring/junior mainly self-taught it's ok to start over from scratch to REALLY learn how to do things.

I'm excited for my next steps!

If you are reading this, I wish you are doing well in your studies, have a good day/night and happy holidays (drink water too)

[gekidasa]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for tagging me, @jaimebluesq!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 50!

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 133,410

3. What fandoms do you write for? MDZS, fairly exclusively right now. Aside from that: Cardcaptor Sakura is the fandom I first wrote fanfic for. I’ve written some X/TB, Tenipuri, Kamen Rider, some others. But to be honest, in most fandoms I don’t write much, if at all.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

And I will stay with you / And you will keep me close, which I just call the Sangcheng Roommates AU. This has stalled for reasons, but I do want to finish it. It’s a fun concept.

When a secret isn’t really secret, a Touya/Yuki fic! It’s actually just Yukito and Fujitaka talking about Yukito and Touya’s relationship, Touya is barely in it 😂

Heart-opening flow, my sangcheng yoga au, the first sangcheng fic I ever wrote.

The Half-Eaten Peach Longs to be Filled with Cream. Okay, I love this one. It’s sangcheng, and it’s porn.

Stay, also sangcheng. Modern au, first time they have sex. Technically it has the same rating as number 4, but it’s nowhere near as filthy.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, I try to, because while I write fic for me, the reason I share it is in the hope of getting to have conversations with others that like the characters and ship as much as I do.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I mean, I don’t really do angst, but I suppose Yaguruma’s Hell because it’s Yaguruma thinking about how he’ll take Kageyama away and they’ll be together, and that’s just before, well. Spoilers for Yaguruma and Kageyama’s story in Kamen Rider Kabuto. It doesn’t actually go into the ending, it relies on you knowing what happens.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I really don’t know. I mostly write fluff, and most of them have happy endings.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I never have. I feel like mostly you don’t get hate if you don’t write for particularly popular ships in popular fandoms. Although, if I’d gotten into MDZS just 6 months or so earlier, I might have gotten hate by the infamous troll that went around harassing sangcheng fans.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sure do! And well… I suppose you could say I often write FLUFFY smut, because it’s about characters that have strong feelings about each other, but I’d also like to think I write fairly dirty smutty (but not particularly kinky). Probably the best example of what I mean is Hold the doors, which is a nielan fic about Lan Xichen giving his neighbor that he just met, Nie Mingjue, a blowjob. It has been described as both filthy and soft.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Nope, not my thing, as a writer or reader.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Also nope.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? Probably Touya/Yukito, because it’s about than the ship itself for me at this point. They’re what got me into CLAMP, and also what got me into shipping, and I made a fansite for them that was the first site I made of any kind and that is still online. They’re the reason I learned to code.

Or sangcheng. It maybe recency bias, but they've certainly gotten me to produce more fic than any other ship.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Isolated Incidents, a fic about Touya and Yukito kissing. It would have been fine if I had just made it a one shot about their first kiss, but instead I decided that it would have MORE, and that I'd explore the evolution of their relationship through different kisses. It was a good idea at the time, I'd just gotten actively back into CLAMP fandom, had recoded the Touya/Yukito shrine in modern HTML and CSS, and was rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura and writting short little fics for them again. But then December 2020 came, and I decided to read MDZS... and that pretty much took over my fandom life. There's MDZS fics I haven't worked on in quite a while, but since I'm still actively in this fandom, they aren't in "probably won't finish" territory.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I write amusing stories, and I’m not embarrassed to write smut. Also, I think I tend to have fairly defined voices for characters.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Consistency in the sense of sticking with writing a thing. Actual plot. Those go hand in hand. It’s very hard for me to write long fics for those reasons. I often have IDEAS for fics I really like, and I might sort of… loosely plot them out, but in no way enough to actually write most of them.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Unless you actually KNOW something of the language, just avoid it. You’ll probably make a fool of yourself otherwise.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Cardcaptor Sakura, Touya/Yukito.

20. Favorite fic you've written? I don’t have a favorite. Unsatisfying, I know.

Not tagging anyone,

Changed my mind! Tagging @mulberrylotus @telperintal @angie-s-g @revesdelimonade

Anyone else do it if you want to!

[kosmique]

Hi! Your work is absolutely incredible from a small web developer point of view and I was wondering how and where did you learn how to do all of those stuff? How to code that amazingly?

I did a few courses myself, but I still feel like I could never be capable of doing what you're doing.

hello!! first of all, thank you so much <3.

my story with code started about 12 years ago. at the time i was a fan of the brazilian version of RBD, so i created a blog to post updates about the group. in this, i took my first steps in html and css, but only when i came to tumblr, in 2014, i got 100% involved with the codes.

in the beginning i used the base that this blog provided to understand how the tumblr post blocks worked and besides this blog, i used w3schools too. i don't remember using more stuff, but i didn't take a course or anything like that. i was just a curious person with a lot of time to spare, so i did and absorbed a lot

i only made themes for myself so i don't care too much about how they look. however, when i decided to create a blog to post themes, i decided that i should find a coding style that i was comfortable with (and being older my sense of aesthetics got a little better).

so my key word is: patience. i don't think even the first theme i released publicly has anything to do with me, so it's more a matter of experience. of course you can do it that way too, and even better than me. just practice a lot, and look for the style of code that suits you best.

there is a very complete blog that i highly recommend if you want to create themes here, which is build themes. it's a guide to understanding the blocks of posts that exist here and i think it's a great way to start

[codingcorgi]

Overview of My Experience With my Java Project

I have done my course on Java this semester, and at the end we turn in a project we make that is of our choosing. I made a shopping helper application that tracks spending habits and how your recent shopping trips went. It's useful for keeping track of inflation too hehe.

I used an API to fetch the local area tax rate based on US ZIP codes (sorry to everyone outside the US). I also used GSON to write JSON files to save progress, because sometimes we all have to step away right? It also saves the receipt as a .txt or .csv file.

It's in total 3282 lines of code and the sale types was the worst part giving so many errors due to my dumb ass not knowing how to do math, but other than that I honestly just hate UI with a passion, so that wasn't fun.

Overall despite my initial hatred of Java, I think I can safely say while it is annoying, I will probably be okay working with it again. I don't love it or hate it.

Now next semester is when I'll shine. C# should be a breeze, and hopefully I'll learn something new. HTML/CSS should be okay although I'm debating switching it out for .net (don't ask why C# and .net are in 2 different classes, idk either). C++ with Unreal engine will be the scary one for me since I've heard horror stories about C++.

On a small note I hope we use C# 12 and if I do .net I hope it's .net 8

[cyberneticlagomorph]

The only way for me to get long term projects completed, or even just started, is to make them my entire personality and hope that my hyperfixation latches on so I have the energy to get shit done

I know it's annoying

I'm very sorry, I mean that genuinely. Like I'm kinda embarrassed about it tbh.

Rn I'm learning html and css so I can build an entire website from scratch to publish my weird novel thing to (if you know you know)

I've already made cover art and a pateron for it, I'm 12 chapters deep in writing it, have a reasonably ugly home page and TWO (2) disclaimers for the work

No eta on when anything will actually be available to view just yet, unless you wanna beta read the raw text

I should probably make a tag for this sort of thing but idk what it would be

So uh

Sorry in advance for my everything the only way for me to get this done is to be excited about it and I'm really excited about it

[narwhalpanda]

15 questions/15 people

thank you @angry-velociraptor for tagging me! im usually horrible at filling these (i tell myself aw thats sweet, ill do it later and then ill NEVER get back to it) but today im determined to answer some questions >:3c

1. are you named after anyone?

nope, my mom had to change plans for my name last minute so that my birthday and name day didn't fall on the same day. but even the planned name still wasn't an homage to anyone

2. when was the last time you cried?

about two days ago watching the end of Search for Bob (CR1 oneshot) when Liev'tel asks the Raven Queen whether Vex and Keyleth will be happy. that got me good, dammit Liam and Matthew

but overall i am so easily moved to tears its ridiculous

3. do you have kids?

nu-uh

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

lately i've noticed that it's not always obvious to some of my friends when im joking/sarcastic without malice, so im trying not to unless im sure there cannot be a misunderstanding

5. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

their neutral facial expression (or how the look at me) and height i think?

6. what’s your eye color?

grey-blue, got that from dad's side

7. scary movie or happy endings?

im not much into movies but ive definitely watched more horrors than romantic comedies, so ill go with scary (ive got Mouth of Madness on my list rn)

8. any special talents?

not exactly a talent but id say im weirdly lucky when it counts

9. where were you born?

in czech republic, normal hospital baby

10. what are your hobbies?

drawing is my life long hobby, something i keep coming back to. lately ive become the filthiest of casuals of ttrpgs and im having a blast. also i have been housebound for past three months (icky leg injury) and in that time i got to come back to reading which has also always been my beloved activity, as well as pick up new things like painting minis (ive got little ranger/fighter/wizard mice miniatures and the are tiny and adorable af) and in past few days i got into neocities so im learning html and css to make my own little website and im having so much fun. id like to formally apologize to all my for the time abandoned hobbies, including but not limited to writing, embroidery, linocut and sewing, i swear ill get back to yall some time but now is just not that time.

11. do you have any pets?

currently not :c

12. what sports do you play/have you played?

ive played volleyball for ten years, i stopped playing when i went to college. after that ive done tai-chi for a year, then nothing for a loong time, then i finally decided to hit the gym and get some shoulders, which went great before i felt fit enough to try volleyball again and that is where my 3 month long icky leg injury comes from lmao. but when im healed id love to get fit again (not sure about the volleyball, im super scared but asasdgf it made me so happy to play again), it was brief but awesome, it really is so good for my body and brain to exercise regularly

13. how tall are you?

169 cm, which i think is about 5'6"

14. favorite subject in school?

geography and literature. i wish i remembered more from both high school and uni, man, it was cool to know things about these

15. dream job?

my dream job used to be book editor or librarian. now... ive worked as a librarian for two years now, on two different posts, and i really like the job, tho i eventually wish to do something that is paid a bit better and/or more creative. id like some fun job sometime in my life. but who wouldnt :D

tagging: @lawful-goof @mu-mumie @zraloci-cpr @picachews @zelvuska (feel no obligation you know how it goes :3)

[bernadinesweetspot]

Day 2: My First Game Jam!

At the end of my last blog post, I had decided I wanted to achieve two things today:

1. implement some CSS;

2. expand and randomise sections of text.

I feel like I can safely say I met both of those goals today!

Most of the morning and afternoon were taken up by reading through CSS documentation, mainly using W3 schools as reference. I then put what I had learned (or relearned... lots of my knowledge of CSS and HTML coding came from my college years, which I can admit was about... 12 years ago~) into a simple stylesheet that my twine game can use.

This involved thinking about certain design aspects. Whilst I could easily decide on what fonts would be used for headers vs text, the sizing of borders and styling of hyperlinks, I had not yet chosen what colour palette I wanted to use for my game.

I frequently use pinterest as a low effort mood and idea board, and I already had a board that I had saved plenty of my favourite colour schemes in. These have mainly been used as inspiration for bitsy games or games that use less than 8 channels of colour. However, when browsing the ones I had saved over the years, I found none had that post box aesthetic (whatever that actually is...). so I searched for palettes with a post box/mail type theme.

I limited it down to three options, but I most liked the last palette I had referenced (it's always the same, it's the last one you try!). This probably wont be my final colour palette, but it's been nice to not have to think about it again, and should I wish to change the hex values, I know exactly where and how to make those changes.

After mucking about with CSS, I switched over to randomising my text segments. This was easily than I had imagined, only using the either() function in sugarcube. Now each point defining passage has a 50% chance of having different text in the storyline! I hope that with this change, my game could be a bit more replayable.

Randomising my suspicious scores alongside my happiness meter proved a bit more tricky... and I wish I could tell you how I fixed it but I don't quite know what I did?

At some point I was super embarrassed because I had a functional game before, which then changed to a non-functional game and when trying to troubleshoot why, I was greeted with a  whole ass page of + 4 repeating. I wish I got a screenshot but I also am grateful I no longer have to look at an entire screen of + 4 + 4 + 4 over and over and over...

Finally, after losing some steam since it is currently midnight over here, I jiggled around my twine wysiwyg passages into a more readable format. This wasn't particularly hard but my fiance had a good point about flow chart readability, and I trusted his opinion due to his history and experience with other pieces of software that depended on flow charts (for example, Magic).

Other than that, I might call it a day! What I'd like to do tomorrow is:

Refining score probabilities using maths (will likely need a helping hand to make gameplay balanced);

Adding more functionality and random text segments;

Creating a new level wherein your suspicion meter could advance you to a promotion? Unsure... stay tuned!

Over and out!-

[kjeffcoatsvad]

Process Blog 3/17/23

Poster Progress

Over the last two weeks we have been working on our Same/Difference poster. Since my last post I decided to make my poster animated! To do this I used procreate to animate it. I've learned a lot about animation from doing this poster. I drew all of the frames in procreate and exported the file as an mp4.

My original animation I did over spring break was mainly me learning how to animate the faces/eyes. I wanted it not to look seamless. I wanted the animation to look kinda like a flip book animation. I also slowed down the frame rate to around 8 frames per second. this is lower than the recommend frame rate of 12, but I feel like the lower frame rate gives it an aesthetic that works for this poster.

Tuesday's online submission.

Since finishing up. Tuesday's submission I was suggested to put more interactions/emoji's on the poster. I wanted the animation to be at least 7 to 8 seconds long. I also played around with animating the letters. I wanted them to look like they were being drawn in during the animation, but I think it takes away from the rest of the poster.

Thursday's In Progress Comp

This comp from Thursday's class is kinda where I wanted to be. I need to add a couple more emoji's coming from the right side to balance it out. I think that will also give me some more frames to play with. I'm probably going to stagger it slightly so that there is not too much going on the screen at one time.

The goal for the weekend is to get this project to the point where it can be submitted.

The Weekly Read

This week our chapter covered typography on screen. The chapter touched on rendering type, reading on the screen, selecting typefaces, the factors of legibility of type on screens, Web design technology, and structuring web pages. Honestly I've been experiencing a lot of the perks of being able to use typography on screen. The amount of times I've open Illustrator and played around with different fonts is too many to count. It makes mockups with type faces an ease, but I also have experienced some downsides with type on screen. During the last project I made hand drawn type, and it looked great on the screen, but when I printed it the detailing of the project did not register on the printer. It just looked muddy when it printed. So there are totally challenges when printing digital type, especially when it is hand drawn. Going more into the rabbit hole, I'm not every organized, The section about structuring web pages was very interesting. Right now I'm taking an intro to web development class. The class is basic JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. This semester I have learned how to make web pages, but I have not learned how to make web pages with good design. So that interested me a lot.

[innuit-opp]

Creating my own Tumblr theme

I spent the entirely of last summer, and most of the fall working with web development. I spent time learning JavaScript frame works and working with HTML and CSS. I basically only stopped working on it recently, maybe last week.

All that being said, I am still bad at CSS, especially positioning. I learned to make things easier with Tailwind, since a theme is basically all styling Tailwind and its conversion to standard CSS.

I first tried to make a Tumblr theme almost 10 years ago at this point. I watch a video, saw the person open JavaScript and then turned the video off and starting watching whatever dumbass shit I used to watch when I was 12. I'm older now and learn a lot about web development as I said.

I figured the smart thing to do would be create a basic layout of the project in Tailwind (told you I'd be using that), this is what I came with

Not the greatest thing, but I think its good for my purposed. I might pick a new color pallet, this one looks terrible. I'll keep updating the post

[segemarldoodles]

Dumb, long winded web design grumbling below the cut

So I'm trying to add a row to my website for articles I've written, no problem right?

It keeps left justifying, because its normally hidden by javascript, so it doesn't inherit the css properties correctly. The entire hidden row was doing the same thing, so I threw on a margin.

And can I just say, I have no idea why the template I've been using all these years uses a fucking 14 pixel margin, like why not an even 15, why not 12, everything else in the entire layout is divisible by 12, but they just randomly chose to use 14px for the side margin?!

Anyway as you can see the second row with the articles still wasn't inheriting the margin, so I throw the margin on that row specifically.

Now it's twice the distance in as the rest of the images.

The idiotic solution to the problem?

I had to give it a margin of 0px otherwise it was just ignoring that it should have a margin at all.

This is why I hate css and prefer to just hardcode all of my variables, because if I'd just done all the scripting inline like I learned way back when html 2 was the standard, I wouldn't have had this issue in the first place.

[cherryblossomgold]

[mowisha]

Project # 1: Portfolio Site and Blogsite Theme

Stage 1: Illustrations (09-30-21)

here's a quick timelapse. my photoshop actually failed multiple times when I was doing this vector but eh, everything worked out in the end. I know that I should've Adobe Illustrator and saved it as SVG, but I don't have the application and I'm not familiar with AI that much huhu. PNG will do for now.

Stage 2: Prototype and Layout Design (09-30-21)

Creating the UI Design on Figma. I've been loving the color green lately so I decided to use it as the primary color for my site! Made the prototype for mobile and tablet viewing as well, including dark mode (which i won't be doing btw)

Stage 3: CODING -- HTML (10-04-21)

Got distracted for the next 4 days (smh!) But I started coding the site today. Looking pretty good

Stage 4.0: CSS and Responsiveness -- Header Section (10-05-21)

I implemented using SASS for this site for the first time ever and it made coding the CSS sososososo much easier!

I spent a lot of time making sure that everything looks nice in every size of the screen! Making the page responsive was what took me a lot of time to finish this section because this will be the first time that I was gonna make a responsive website. Turned out okay, I'm kinda proud of it! 💕

Also, ended up using Haikei for the back wavy SVG background. I liked this one better :) Also learned that there was something called aspect-ratio, took me a lot of time to understand this because I didn't search about it lmao. Trial and error for the sizing!

Stage 4.1: Portfolio Section (10-06-21)

I forgot to record the trouble I had with aligning the contents in the 'portfolio' section but I spent a lot of time trying to align them every time I resize the screen. Turns out, I just had to add one line of code haha. You learn something new every day

Ended up not following the prototype for this section. The original plan was for a box to appear every time I hover the image but realized that how will that work on mobile? So I ended up following this tutorial instead!

Stage 4.2: About and Toolbox Section (10-06-21) (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Spent HOURS trying to get this right, I even made a box model to follow but none of it worked lmao. I ended up putting everything on the trash and went to sleep hahaha

(10-07-21) ┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ) -- Ended up using this code from StackOverflow hahaha.

Stage 4.4: Contact and Footer Section (10-12-21)

A/N: Okay I know, I slacked off for the past 5 days before continuing this project but I got a new dog, got vaccinated, enjoyed my last few days in this town, and I've planned what I was gonna do with my life this month since I'm moving back to Baguio in a week. Life has been uhhhh asdasdas. Oh and I've been watching mechanical keyboard vids for more hours than I really should instead of working my shit together. Anyway...

I also had a hard time aligning this huhu I'm really sorry for being a noob and being a slow coder but yep! Done! Although the contact form doesn't actually work lmao. Apparently, I need to have a backend but I'm too lazy for that huhu.

Stage 4.5: Darkmode (10-13-21)

Tried to do this but I had a hard time aligning the dark/day mode logo on the right and for it to appear whenever the size gets smaller. I know I gave up too soon but I just want this project to be over, it has taken me too long. I'll save this part for next time, I'm sorry.

So yeah, things to improve:

+ dark mode + contact form

Bonus Stage:

I actually made this the other day while I was procrastinating at coding hahaha. So I think I'll be working on this tomorrow so I can finally make this blog public to everyone.

Kind of the same layout, but still different? Ya feel me, fam? I will also be changing the logo and links to handwritten PNGs to make it feel more personal yknow

Update (06-30-22)

Update: Took a break for how many months, because I moved to a new city, adjusted, focused on work and making extra incomes, and doing my hobbies huhu but I'm back!

I did design a new website to add to my portfolio earlier this year on Figma but ended up halting it, too because I volunteered for 2 months to campaign for VP Leni for presidency. She ended up not winning and it did hurt a lot but at least I met a lot of new people and I'm proud to say that I stood my ground and fought for what I believe is right. It definitely was a time of my life. ANYWAY!!! Back to the website.

I actually started a few days ago, but I updated my Sass because apparently, the one that I was using hasnt been updated for 3 years now. Anyway, Sass stopped working and I had to use @use and @forward but I wasted a olot of time trying to fix it so I decided to stop using Sass and just transfer everything to regular CSS. My website worked again. Took me time to adjust with the syntax of CSS again, and I think I'll just stay and use pure CSS this time to avoid confusion and easy implementation between html, css, and javascript.

Goods news, again. I fixed the typewriting effect and dark/light mode!

Other than the contact form that's not really working, I'm basically done, I just need to add more to my portfolio site and I'll put this site on live and I'm gonna use tumblr to host it. :) Next project is to code this blogsite so I can link it on my portfolio and social media!

Stage 5: Coding the Blogsite (July 4-5, 2022)

OH MY GOD AAAAA. I know I've been putting this project on the side for almost a year now. I've wasted so many months because I just didn't have the motivation because I thought I couldn't do them but I get to finish them in a span of like 1-2 days. Why do I doubt myself so much, I have so much potential. Anyway, this blogsite is now live and I'm so happy about it. I'll make a separate post for it.

Next step is convert the codes for my portfolio site so it can be rendered by tumblr again, connect my other project designs to the portfolio corner and probably apply for a company and (HOPEFULLY???) finally get hired!!

I'm still contemplating whether to move to Mania for office word or just stick to WFH because I really don't wanna waste so much time on traffic in the city. I'm blabbering now. Goodbye hahaha

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

tl;dr political rant post:

it had been my goal from 12 years old to do an arts degree in philosophy (yes what a nerd- thanks to my dad playing a Great Courses philosophy dvd one morning in 2007 and my dad always taking me to the botanic gardens/the uni some weekends).

i graduated from my arts degree in 2018, with a major in english and a minor in philosophy. i was so, so lucky to even get into my communications & media degree (at first i was originally going to do marketing communications, advertising & PR)... but i realised that i was not made for business subjects- despite my mark101 tutor telling me she thought i had knack for marketing- something under this policy that i wouldn’t undertake due to the price hike for commerce/business degrees. nor was i made for a media degree. so i changed to arts & humanities.

although under this atrocious policy, english subjects are made “cheaper”- why on fucking should the rest of someone’s arts/humanities degree be so much more expensive, all depending on the fields they choose???? so you’re telling me, if i was instead to enter undergrad this year to do my english degree... that my english major would be subsidised, but my philosophy minor would be at double the cost (along with the few first year business and communications&media subjects i did), unless i forced myself to pick maths or science subjects that i would most definitely fail, no matter how much work i’d put into them??? or there’s languages- but much like maths/science- there’s the problem with my handwriting that stopped me trying french and even japanese (ironically, since it’s know for its ~painstakingly neat and orderly~ script- but my handwriting is still messy, disorderly and confusing asf).

*please note that most of this next section is just me being highly spurious and cynical. it’d probably work out fine*

but you’re also telling me that under this policy that i’d also probably have to forego my reasonable adjustments in those subjects (yes i still have trouble with my handwriting to this day) mostly because a lot of software still won’t let you write out maths problems properly or i’d have to spend twice as long trying to get a graph to work in excel or idek matlab (please teach me maths nerds)???? and most maths working out is probably better handwritten or whatever??? and that’s besides the point that i still can’t use excel at all 😂.

so with these classes then, would i be battling from day one of first year with professors to let me use a computer during exam periods (unless of course they use online/take home exam methods like philosophy)???? probably (im being very suspicious here because i don’t know how science/maths etc faculties work).

although i did get this once with one particular english professor; who used the excuse that he didn’t know how to set a computer up for exams because he had been on “sabatical for 4 years” or whatever and so “didn’t know the policies anymore”.... so then according to him it was apparently “the students job to do it.... especially since you’re in third year, miss williams”..... however, i was promptly then told by EVERY uni offical that i approached for help to do it for me.... and my other professors across my course that had done it for me, that it was in fact the PROFESSORS job/responsibility to set it up, and not the student’s??? like. help your students fuckwit professor grant??? honestly. anyway. aside from my personal struggles in the english department: let’s proceed. (this was a real incident btw).

would i be at a significant disadvantage to other students by not being able to use a computer during maths exams or science exams because of the drawing of diagrams and graphs and “showing your working”???? hell yes. would i want the professors in that department to probably condescendingly telling me all the time to “present my work neater and more precisely”? FUCK NO. it’s exactly why i avoided every maths and science subject in undergrad- even including the astronomy subject that i wanted to do- because it also meant that fellow students had to read my handwriting for practicals etc as well, that i wasn’t entirely keen on either. but i did not need the harsh reminders of “be more precise and infallible in your work presentation” that i’d had at school constantly for 11 years of maths lessons; affecting my mental health and performance in a subject during a uni semester.

moreover, that’s besides the fact that i’d flat out fail the “year 12 band 4 maths” requirements- unless they want to waive those- for first year maths/science subjects (at least basing it on my local uni).... considering that i actually skipped out on maths completely in year 12 by doing a TVET/tafe/technical college course in live theatre, production and events (which no surprises here, actually included maths anyway 😅).

because, fuck. is ANYONE seeing a trend in my study choices here? hell, i almost did a commerce/business dual degree with a tafe diploma in event management for crying out fucking loud. and you’re telling me that’s also doubled in price?? it’s obvious that i was interested in the arts & humanities and business subjects from the get-go. but under this policy- i’d be charged double for having my interest in event management, instead of say, biology (which is a subject that if it weren’t for mark scaling in my final hsc exam- i would have failed completely)??? utterly ridiculous.

i even contemplated doing a double degree with law at one point (or doing a legal studies major/minor- which is now a course at my local uni, but was not while i was there). however, law course fees have also doubled under this new policy. leaving that out of reach for me, despite that a double degree with law was out of reach for me anyway..... since my mark average was 65% and not at least 75% lol. but as if those marks averages will actually matter under this new policy.

under this bullshit policy, i’d be forced to take science/maths or even teaching (another field i had to avoid, since people can’t read my writing on a whiteboard from a distance half the time either.... besides the fact that i’m not really the ~teacher type~) subjects- all so that my degree price overall will be ”reduced”..... meaning that i would have to trade out my philosophy minor for something in maths/teaching/science (or maybe creative arts- since those fees stayed the same roughly)... instead of sticking to what i was good at: philosophy and other humanities/social science fields like sociology and history????

i understand that many people will snub me with saying “oh why did you even BOTHER going to uni if you were THAT indecisive about what you wanted to do?” which is something i’ve seen many older people saying on posts about this policy. but hell, i was 19 FUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN I STARTED UNI, FOR GODS SAKE. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING INDECISIVE ABOUT MY DIRECTION IN LIFE! because, newsflash fuckwits: not everyone has a defined career goal at 19. hell, i still don’t have one at almost 25..... since i’ll admit here, that i flunked out of my postgrad library course.... because i realised that i simply couldn’t cope with learning simple HTML, CSS and javascript coding for website design & user experience design 😂 (again help me computer wiz friends). yes, believe it or not, librarians have to know that today. and most people think that it’s just all about books (okay that was me, but i was wrong). also, if you’re wondering: postgrad library courses aren’t affected, thank god. but my point is, aren’t we meant to fuck up and pick the wrong things in life sometimes??? aren’t we meant to be indecisive about our choices in our late teens up until our mid 20s???

but now you’re telling students that their very first year of uni is practically set out for them, even for arts/humanities degrees (im not counting properly prescribed degrees such as engineering/science/communications & media (they had prescribed majors and prescribed first year subjects, which is why i left it. because i felt trapped in the prescribed marketing et al major etc); all because the government is telling them that “oh to make your first year cheaper: (A.) get good marks.... so that we don’t cancel your HECS place and (B.) pick subjects outside of the arts/humanities like science/maths/tech related subjects so that you don’t pay a whopping $14,500 for your first year of uni and will be more likely to be “job ready”. whatever the actual fuck “job ready” really means. and this all as if there ISN’T enough pressure for a 18/19 year old to succeed in their first year of uni already.

although, the one thing i’ll say is that my one year advanced diploma in marketing that i did in 2014, was $16,500. i still haven’t made any moves to pay it off. but it was constantly in the back of my mind during uni, both undergrad and postgrad. it was there as a reminder to pick cheaper subjects, so as to not greatly increase my combined hecs debt and vet-fee help debt; which is now sitting at $42,500. which under this new policy is the new price of ONE arts & humanities undergrad degree. i’d hate to be going into uni next year at 19 years old (or any age really) with that price tag on my degree.

anyway. that’s the end of my non-sensical rant. morrison and the rest of the libs etc can go fuck themselves.