Unbridled Thoughts 2
Here I'll continue with my microblogging/journaling stuff. This one covers the first half of April 2026 (copied from my Substack).
If you want to see part 1: see Unbridled Thoughts 1
04/01/2026: Hello authors and artists. Clearly tech and its technologies are quite rough in the wrong hands. I do declare, take the power into your own hands! Imagine what good you could do. Forget earning money, just use it to help you and your friends save time and money. I’m here as a public service for anyone who wants to learn practical coding skills from an aloof human.
With a few lines of JavaScript, you can do amazing things!
Go further and make your own websites for your own community! Make them free! Make them small!
From great constraints comes great innovation (and economy).
Power corrupts. Scale corrupts. Profit corrupts.
Imagine benevolent software development as a selfless service.
Have you ever sat in front of your computer doing nothing? Have you ever sat in front of it wasting time? How about that doom scrolling? If you must stay in front of the screen so frequently, then why not devote part of that time to an activity that provides the stimulation of learning and the reward of puzzle-solving??
It exercises different pathways of your brain that help the other part of your brain. Don’t perpetually skip leg day. You need something else besides writing. If you must remain screen-oriented, software development may be up your alley. Say goodbye to writer’s block (and maybe hello to carpel tunnel).
May I please suggest you start by building a simple text website devoted to something you like. neocities.org has great resources to get you started and will host it for free. Please say hi sometime or reach out if you have questions.
04/01/2026: Pardon me, sir. If you are offering $1k in “free credits” I do not want to know what the unsubsidized bills will look like if I make the mistake of interacting with your venture.
04/02/2026: With so many people expressing their ideas through the filter of LLM chat tools and then publishing it as their words, I wonder how this literary inanity will affect the reading public’s ability to comprehend nuanced styles. If a diet is too heavy in one type of food, I wonder if it will cause an allergy to develop, or instead just a desensitization to the toxic aspects of that unhealthy food.
04/02/2026: I wonder what is with the hyperactive tendency to block any perceived dissent and to silo oneself in agreement. I’m out here trying to learn and discuss, respectfully. I feel reactions are often disproportionate to the actual nonexistent threat of a question or statement or opinion (that is likely to change) and antagonistic to public coherence and education.
I’m disappointed to notice that I’ve been blocked by a creator on here that I respect. I commented on one of their posts, suggesting their very opinionated and convincing directive may not be appropriate for everyone, as they claim. I attempted to offer my perspective, and all of my liked notes on their former notes are now inaccessible.
Is there no room here for alternative perspectives, that may help each other grow?
04/03/2026: Hello fellow Substackians. I’m writing a series called “Web Development for Artists” on my blog. There are 3 installments so far. It starts small and takes an easy, practical path to making an independent website. Please “enroll” (read the series for free) if you are interested in gently learning about the interworkings of the Internet.
I’m motivated by this sense that artists and authors think stepping into web development is initially more difficult than it is rewarding. I say it isn’t so! There are 1,000 reasons you should make a free website right this very instant, and I promise it can be immediately rewarding.
If you’ve never made a website, you may be interested to know there is a renaissance going on the indie web. It is a movement that I hope will divert more power for freedom of information and networking away from user-harming overpowered “profitable” platforms and back to the commonfolk.
I’m Grant. Please say hi sometime. I like to share resources and tools and ideas with anyone else who enjoys intrinsically-motivated learning and creation.
Also about me: I’m a queer, neurodivergent, cathartic dancer, computer scientist, idealistic educator, and self-appointed librarian of my “independent web library” that I’ve poured my soul into. I’d be thrilled if you stopped by sometime.
04/03/2026: I’m trying to improve my line drawing but I’m also secretly satisfied with the campy style that a lot of these faces end up with.
04/04/2026:
04/04/2026: I love feeling the spring grass under my feet. Fluffy squishy crunchy spongy.
04/04/2026: Deep, in nature.
A voice came from inside.
I heard it screaming loudly.
So loudly, I couldn’t think to hide.
The voice told me clearly;
clear as clear as day.
“Dance like this so we can find you”
a command, a roar, my name.
Now I know what to do;
I spin, I twist, and I dance like this.
I dance so my friends can find me.
I dance until I feel my heart grow.
We dance.
Dance.
Dance.
Dance like this so we can find you.
04/05/2026: I hear what sounds like a gaggle of girl children screaming and chanting in the distance. It is past 2 am. I don’t know what’s happening but there is a foggy full moon high in the sky and they sound absolutely wild, so I’ll assume something witchy is going on.
04/05/2026: Wyatt, Lisa, and Gary from Weird Science
04/05/2026: I’m working on the 4th installment of my series “Web Development for Artists” I’m trying to express an idea to emphasize the importance of manual repetition over copy-pasting. Does this excerpt make sense to you?
»»»»
A note about manual repetition and "code as a second language":
Remember in the movie "The Matrix" when someone tells Neo who is looking at alien characters running down the screen, that after a while, you don't even see code? That after a while, it just looks like a blonde, a brunette, or a red-head? I can attest to this phenomenon with various documents written in computer "code". In order to not be overwhelmed by the obscurity of an encoded document, all you have to do is treat it like a language learning exercise. Manual repetition when writing code is important and very valuable in the long-run! Otherwise, attempting to translate everything on the fly with references can get to be cognitively overwhelming and will cause any higher-level understanding to dissipate into incoherence pretty quickly.
04/05/2026: Busy Buzzy Bee…
Are you lost?
Or have you come just to see me?
Floating about.
You want to investigate my cardboard boxes.
Hovering over my screens.
You just want to see all the things.
Now you’ve come to kiss me.
Before you fly away again.
Busy Buzzy Bee.
04/05/2026: I want to do some casual front-yard socializing but also I don’t want to speak mouth words or do anything but march around the perimeter and dance on the grass and maybe put up a lean-to for watching Star Trek. If you see me you are invited to join in clowny silence.
04/06/2026: I don’t understand the chat feature. I can’t figure out how to get the orange chat notification off of a lot of my chats, no matter how much I click or read things. What is the point of a notification that doesn’t leave? Anyways I’ve left your chat out of frustration for the interface, not because you upset me.
04/06/2026: The Star Trek TNG onesie officer uniforms are lovely. Sometimes they have a skirt! They have a discreet back zipper for the opening and I wonder if the officers have a pair-up to zip-up buddy system program or maybe they have some futuristic zipper wands.
04/06/2026: Chett and Lisa from Weird Science (TV series)
04/06/2026: In the Pacific Northwest, I really enjoy marching and dancing in the yard when the sun comes out. It is a big part of my day on sunny days.
Wherever I march the grass stays pushed down, which gives it a neat flowing effect along the perimeters, with islands of unfettered growth where I don’t march. It is like a crop circle but on a smaller scale. I hate lawn mowers and smelly loud things so I’m glad this works well to keep things looking kempt.
This morning I’m thinking about making a tent in my front yard for the warmer weather. I can put it in the center island of voluptuous spongy grass, without disturbing my existing marked marching path.
I can drive an 8’ iron fence post into the center, then sheath it with a 2” PVC pipe that is 10’ long. Over that, I’ll drape the covering.
But what of the covering? These things don’t make themselves. I have black cotton canvas that is 60 inches wide. I can sew it into a rectangle that is 8’ by 16’, and then connect that rectangle along the long sides in order to make a cone. There will be extra flaps on the sides of the base that I can roll up neatly without cutting anything.
If you see me marching around my yard tent please feel free to join me in meditative silence. Sobbing is OK of course. Clowning may be necessary too. There is a lot to reflect on today and many lives that deserve intentional moments of silence. I think there are answers of real love in some depths of silence.
Whoops. Well I miscalculated the dimensions. When folding the long sides together to make a cone, of course half of 16 is only 8 and so the tent cover is still 8’ from reaching the ground. The rectangle needs to be 32’ by 16’ when making a cone tent covering for a 10’ pole.
04/06/2026: I thought I was going crazy, my sewing machine was behaving so unpredictably until things fell apart. It turns out I was sewing with the foot up! That explains this mess.
04/07/2026: I like to build functional installations with wood and paracord and fabric and 3D printed implements that I design. Maybe I’ll photograph them sometime, but for now I’m thinking about the knots I use. There are a few knots I use a ton:
- poacher’s noose
- alpine butterfly loop
- trucker’s hitch
Do you use knots a lot? What are your top knots? If not, how do you not knot?
04/07/2026: Gary, Lisa, and Wyatt from Weird Science TV series. Ink on plastic.
04/07/2026: Guinan and Piccard
04/08/2026: Hola.
Netflix had been my language-learning medium for the last couple years, but we don’t have it now. I like that a lot of the dubbing was done in Mexico so I could learn the general dialect and accent that is appropriate for communicating there.
Can you please suggest some accessible audio books that are read by Mexican vocal performers? I prefer children’s books but am open to philosophy or nonviolent fiction as well.
Muchas gracias.
04/08/2026: I ordered two weights of undyed cotton canvas and some jute burlap and am very excited for it all to arrive.
The lighter canvas looks very comfortable actually I might try to extend my sewing skills outside of the industrial realm and make a vest or apron or something with it.
04/08/2026: Alright I’ve published the 4th installment of my “Web Development for Artists” series. If you are interested in a very gentle introduction to hobby web development, please check it out! It is available free for everyone.
04/10/2026:
04/11/2026: May we present these experimental seed starting appliances. It has 3 parts: a tiny water tank, an area for the seed to germinate and take hold, and a part that pushes into the ground.
04/12/2026: I’m working to build a tool that will make it easier for non-technical people to create independent personal image gallery websites that they can host for free, instead of having to showcase their photos on addictive platforms.
As a prerequisite, I had to make a tool that can easily convert a batch of images from their native formats into the efficient WebP format.
I finished the batch image converter tool this morning. It is now included with the “Community Resources” links at the King Book web library.
Please check it out if you ever need to convert a bunch of images for publishing to the web.
04/12/2026: Waddles, mid waddle
04/15/2026: I just read an article from someone who presents themselves as a lifelong expert, advising everyone to never click external links or visit independent websites for security reasons. What they’ve said follows the pattern of superficially convincing, but truly empty slop nonsense. They incorporate obscure, anecdotal, fantastical observations about “hacking” in the voice of someone who has very limited experience but doesn’t know it. Like someone talking in a 90’s teen movie about hacking. Most of what they have said is inflammatory paranoid nonsense, extrapolated from the foundations of the most basic common-sense computer security.
Anyways FYI: just because someone includes false expertise and technical information that goes over the head of most people, does not mean that their argument has any valid root in reality.
Websites are generally safe to visit. The browser anticipates and mitigates any known vectors for code-level malicious activity. If some savant who has discovered secret vulnerabilities decides to target you, there isn’t much you can do but avoid connecting with them until the attack is made nonviable by security updates. Visiting a website is one of the least-viable vectors for falling prey to an attack, aside from methods that rely on pure social engineering. It is impossible to avoid all malicious situations, but simply visiting external links carefully is unlikely to increase your risk of exposure any more than other activities. Of course there are a few domains to avoid that are known to be rife with malicious attempts to get people to divulge sensitive credentials.
Social engineering vulnerabilities should not be conflated with software-level security vulnerabilities. Each is its own distinct class of weapon; just because they are sometimes used together does not mean that they are interdependent.
Never visiting any unknown websites out of this overly generalized security concern is an incoherent thing to advise. How would you even do that? Decide to never see another new website? Do you even know what you are trying to avoid? Obviously giving your private information out should always be done carefully, be it here or on any website. The only thread of truth throughout this person’s non-expert rant is that you shouldn’t enter your login credentials into domains where you didn’t register those credentials.
It is frustrating to see that this author has apparently used AI to convince themselves that what they are saying is valid, or at least to present it in a psuedo-expert way, and now they have the confidence to spread this nearly-plausible misinformation.
That's all from me, for here. LMK if you have any burning thoughts too. Check out the rest of April 2026 as we continue the microblogging and oversharing series in Unbridled Thoughts 3 (coming soon)
<3 Grant