229 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
229 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Various Updates
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date: 2020-11-18
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tags:
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- personal
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- consulting
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- docker
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- nixos
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---
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Immigration purgatory is an experience. It's got a lot of waiting and there is a
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lot of uncertainty that can make it feel stressful. Like I said
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[before](/blog/new-adventures-2020-10-24), I'm not concerned; however I have a
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lot of free time on my hands and I've been using it to make some plans for the
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blog (and a new offering for companies that need help dealing with the new
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[Docker Hub rate
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limits](https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/download-rate-limit/)) in the future.
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I'm gonna outline them below in their own sections. This blogpost was originally
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about 4 separate blogposts that I started and abandoned because I had trouble
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focusing on finishing them. Stress sucks lol.
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## WebMention Support
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I recently deployed [mi v1.0.0](https://github.com/Xe/mi) to my home cluster. mi
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is a service that handles a lot of personal API tasks including the automatic
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post notifications to Twitter and Mastodon. The old implementation was in Go and
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stored its data in RethinkDB. I also have a snazzy frontend in Elm for mi. This
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new version is rewritten from scratch to use Rust, [Rocket](https://rocket.rs/)
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and SQLite. It is also fully
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[nixified](https://github.com/Xe/mi/blob/mara/default.nix) and is deployed to my
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home cluster via a [NixOS
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module](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/services/mi.nix).
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One of the major new features I have in this rewrite is
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[WebMention](https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/) support. WebMentions allow
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compatible websites to "mention" my articles or other pages on my main domains
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by sending a specially formatted HTTP request to mi. I am still in the early
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stages of integrating mi into my site code, but eventually I hope to have a list
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of places that articles are mentioned in each post. The WebMention endpoint for
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my site is `https://mi.within.website/api/webmention/accept`. I have added
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WebMention metadata into the HTML source of the blog pages as well as in the
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`Link` header as the W3 spec demands.
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If you encounter any issues with this feature, please [let me know](/contact) so
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I can get it fixed as soon as possible.
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### Thoughts on Elm as Used in mi
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[Elm](https://elm-lang.org/) is an interesting language for making single page
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applications. The old version of mi was the first time I had really ever used
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Elm for anything serious and after some research I settled on using
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[elm-spa](https://www.elm-spa.dev/) as a framework to smooth over some of the
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weirder parts of the language. elm-spa worked great at first. All of the pages
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were separated out into their own components and the routing setup was really
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intuitive (if a bit weird because of the magic involved). It's worked great for
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a few years and has been very low maintenance.
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However when I was starting to implement the backend of mi in Rust, I tried to
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nixify the elm-spa frontend I made. This was a disaster. The magic that elm-spa
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relied on fell apart and _at the time I attempted to do this_ it was very
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difficult to do this.
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As a result I ended up rewriting the frontend in very very boring Elm using
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information from the [Elm Guide](https://guide.elm-lang.org/) and a lot of
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blogposts and help from the Elm slack. Overall this was a successful experiment
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and I can easily see this new frontend (which I have named sina as a compound
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[toki pona](https://tokipona.org/) pun) becoming a powerful tool for
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investigating and managing the data in mi.
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[Special thanks to malinoff, wolfadex, chadtech and mfeineis on the Elm slack
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for helping with the weird issues involved in getting a split model approach
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working.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
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Feel free to check out the code [here](https://github.com/Xe/mi/tree/mara/sina).
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I may try to make an Elm frontend to my site for people that use the Progressive
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Web App support.
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### elm2nix
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[elm2nix](https://github.com/cachix/elm2nix) is a very nice tool that lets you
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generate Nix definitions from Elm packages, however the
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template it uses is a bit out of date. To fix it you need to do the following:
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```console
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$ elm2nix init > default.nix
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$ elm2nix convert > elm-srcs.nix
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$ elm2nix snapshot
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```
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Then open `default.nix` in your favorite text editor and change this:
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```nix
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buildInputs = [ elmPackages.elm ]
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++ lib.optional outputJavaScript nodePackages_10_x.uglify-js;
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```
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to this:
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```nix
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buildInputs = [ elmPackages.elm ]
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++ lib.optional outputJavaScript nodePackages.uglify-js;
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```
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and this:
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```nix
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uglifyjs $out/${module}.${extension} --compress 'pure_funcs="F2,F3,F4,F5,F6,F7,F8,F9,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9",pure_getters,keep_fargs=false,unsafe_comps,unsafe' \
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| uglifyjs --mangle --output=$out/${module}.min.${extension}
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```
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to this:
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```nix
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uglifyjs $out/${module}.${extension} --compress 'pure_funcs="F2,F3,F4,F5,F6,F7,F8,F9,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9",pure_getters,keep_fargs=false,unsafe_comps,unsafe' \
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| uglifyjs --mangle --output $out/${module}.min.${extension}
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```
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These issues should be fixed in the next release of elm2nix.
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## New Character in the Blog Cutouts
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As I mentioned [in the past](/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30), I am looking into
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developing out other characters for my blog. I am still in the early stages of
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designing this, but I think the next character in my blog is going to be an
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anthro snow leopard named Alicia. I want Alicia to be a beginner that is very
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new to computer programming and other topics, which would then make Mara into
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more of a teacher type. I may also introduce my own OC Cadey (the orca looking
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thing you can see [here](https://xeiaso.net/static/img/avatar_large.png)
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or in the favicon of my site) into the mix to reply to these questions in
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something more close to the Socratic method.
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Some people have joked that the introduction of Mara turned my blog into a shark
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visual novel that teaches you things. This sounds hilarious to me, and I am
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looking into what it would take to make an actual visual novel on a page on my
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blog using Rust and WebAssembly. I am in very early planning stages for this, so
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don't expect this to come out any time soon.
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## Gergoplex Build
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My [Gergoplex kit](https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergoplex) finally came in
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yesterday, and I got to work soldering it up with some switches and applying the
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keycaps.
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I picked the Pro Red linear switches with a 35 gram spring in them (read: they
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need 35 grams of force to actuate, which is lighter than most switches) and
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typing on it is buttery smooth. The keycaps are a boring black, but they look
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nice on it.
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Overall this kit (with the partial board, switches and keycaps) cost me about
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US$124 (not including shipping) with the costs looking something like this:
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| Name | Count | Cost |
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| :------------------------- | :----- | :---- |
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| Gergoplex Partial Kit | 1 | $70 |
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| Choc Pro Red 35g switches | 4 | $10 |
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| Keycaps (15) | 3 | $30 |
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| Braided interconnect cable | 1 | $7 |
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| Mini-USB cable | 1 | $7 |
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I'd say this was a worthwhile experience. I haven't really soldered anything
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since I was in high school and it was fun to pick up the iron again and make
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something useful. If you are looking for a beginner soldering project, I can't
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recommend the Gergoplex enough.
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I also picked up some extra switches and keycaps (prices not listed here) for a
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future project involving an eInk display. More on that when it is time.
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## Branch Conventions
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You may have noticed that some of my projects have default branches named `main`
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and others have default branches named `mara`. This difference is very
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intentional. Repos with the default branch `main` generally contain code that is
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"stable" and contains robust and reusable code. Repos with the default branch
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`mara` are generally my experimental repos and the code in them may not be the
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most reusable across other projects. mi is a repo with a `mara` default branch
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because it is a very experimental thing. In the future I may promote it up to
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having a `main` branch, however for now it's less effort to keep things the way
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it is.
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## Docker Consulting
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The new [Docker Hub rate
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limits](https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/download-rate-limit/) have thrown a
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wrench into many CI/CD setups as well as uncertainty in how CI services will
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handle this. Many build pipelines implictly trust the Docker Hub to be up and
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that it will serve the appropriate image so that your build can work. Many
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organizations use their own Docker registry (GHCR, AWS/Google Cloud image
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registries, Artifactory, etc.), however most image build definitions I've seen
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start out with something like this:
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```Dockerfile
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FROM golang:alpine
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```
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which will implicitly pull from the Docker Hub. This can lead to bad things.
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If you would like to have a call with me for examining your process for building
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Docker images in CI and get a list of actionable suggestions for how to work
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around this, [contact me](/contact) so that we can discuss pricing and
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scheduling.
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I have been using Docker for my entire professional career (way back since
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Docker required you to recompile your kernel to enable cgroup support in public
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beta) and I can also discuss methods to make your Docker images as small as they
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can possibly get. My record smallest Docker image is 5 MB.
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If either of these prospects interest you, please contact me so we can work
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something out.
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---
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Here's hoping that the immigration purgatory ends soon. I'm lucky enough to have
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enough cash built up that I can weather this jobless month. I've been using this
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time to work on personal projects (like mi and
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[wasmcloud](https://wasmcloud.app)) and better myself. I've also done a little
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writing that I plan to release in the future after I clean it up.
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In retrospect I probably should have done [NaNoWriMo](https://nanowrimo.org/)
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seeing that I basically will have the entire month of November jobless. I've had
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an idea for a while about someone that goes down the rabbit hole of mysticism
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and magick, but I may end up incorporating that into the visual novel project I
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mentioned in the Elm section.
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Be well and stay safe out there. Wear a mask, stay at home.
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