I think I’ve managed to work out a system to make RSS work. Basically I write my blog entries into a raw RSS file, and then run a little Python script to add ids, links etc. and generate an HTML page from that. It’s been a hassle to write (mainly due to timezones, which I’ve now decided to ignore) and if anyone’s interested in some highly-customisable blogging software that only requires FTP on your web host, get in touch, especially if you’re the kind of person who thinks its cool to hand-code your RSS.
Author: Andy Balaam
Prediction: corporate Linux
By Thursday 9th June 2015 30% of corporate desktop computers will be running operating systems (and desktop environments) which satisfy the Open Source Definition.
Guilty Expression
Having previously been the anonymous benevolent dictator of Guilty Expression I have decided to become non-anonymous and I’ll just have to make sure what I write there is either acceptable or I’ll have to log out before I write it. Guilty Expression is a web site for people who want somewhere to express the thoughts and feelings they have about God and Christianity that they can’t express in their church (if they have one) or with people in real life.
I set up the sire after talking to several of my friends who used to be church-going Christians, but were hurt in one way or another (by their church, or by God in the sense of things happening to them) and are now almost-Christians, or ex-Christians but who still think a lot about these things and want to talk about them without being branded unsound or a heretic. A couple of these people have very genuine relationships with God, which, by their very messed-up-ness are very real, but they obviously suffer from not being part of a community. GE is supposed to provide a way back in to talking to people like them and people who feel more confident in their faith (but are very tolerant of those who aren’t).
GE is also a place for Christians to complain about their churches and the attitudes of other Christians, and other people, and almost to let off steam about things in a way that does not have very bad consequences in terms of hurting people or causing division in their church or group.
We’ve had articles written by people of lots of different ages and backgrounds (from pastors to non-Christians) on loads of topics (from anorexia to the bible to science) and lots of different viewpoints.
My excuse for writing about it on what I hope to be a mainly technical blog is that it presents an interesting challenge in terms of how to build a community. The site is supposed to be for people who are feeling disposessed and out of it, and so they’re not likely to be looking for it. The vast majority of visitors and contributors to the site are people I have told about it personally, and it has spread a little from there by word of mouth. My being anonymous has not helped, because it has made it difficult for me to spread the word through my other web presences, and that ti why I’ve decide to own up. If you have any ideas about where it might be useful to spread the word, let me know by email.
If you’re interested in GE, go to the site: www.guiltyexpression.org and consider signing up for the mailing list to hear every now and then when a new article is published.
RSS
I really should provide an RSS feed. Does anyone know of a good reference on the simplest form of RSS that I can use to auto-generate some RSS from the HTML of this page? I’m prepared to do a little python coding to make it happen. Give me an email if so.
Speaking of giving me an email, wouldn’t it be great if I could have a proper blog that allowed comments? Well, I’d need a web host that allowed PHP or something, and that would cost money. If anyone knows of a good free hosting service (built on Free Software, preferably) let me know. I’ve registered on advogato.org but although I have finally managed to work out how to post to a blog, it doesn’t allow comments, so the only benefit it offers is an RSS feed, and the lack of control is not worth that to me yet. I may get frustrated with my home-grown HTML/FTP solution, but for the moment I’m quite enjoying it.
A real job
Getting used to working is an interesting thing. I haven’t been as tired as I thought I might be, probably partly because I got into a routine of getting up at 7am with my wife (she was working while I did my PhD). However, the weirdness of how much of a job is to do with social pressure is interesting. What I mean is that it takes a lot to get fired (in my job, anyway – I hope…) and you could probably get away with being pretty mediocre and keep your current salary. The things motivating you to do well and work hard are mainly desire for promotion (and within reason your salary will probably increase over time even if you’re mediocre) and social pressure. The main way in my work you are motivated is that if you don’t do what you were supposed to do one week, you have to survive a difficult moment on Monday when we have our status meeting.
Anyway, none of this is relevant to me because I am really motivated by how fun it is to be working with other people on something that I am reasonably good at, and also because I never have to read or write academic papers again.
Except, of course that I have my viva later this month, and I will have corrections out of that. But I’m trying not to think about it.