From 5a0d5c2bb7d700343adbef66185675215cc983e5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: mjfernez Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2023 23:31:16 -0400 Subject: HTML generation --- about/faq.html | 282 ++++++++++-- about/howami.html | 141 ++++++ about/whatami.html | 148 +++++- about/whereami.html | 229 +++++++++- about/whoami.html | 184 +++++++- about/whyami.html | 144 +++++- thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.html | 173 ++++++- thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.html | 308 ++++++++++--- .../tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html | 209 ++++++++- ...how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue.html | 180 +++++++- tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html | 504 ++++++++++++++++++--- tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html | 249 ++++++++++ tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html | 475 ++++++++++++++++--- 13 files changed, 2943 insertions(+), 283 deletions(-) create mode 100644 tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html diff --git a/about/faq.html b/about/faq.html index 87180cc..994d8a8 100644 --- a/about/faq.html +++ b/about/faq.html @@ -6,67 +6,279 @@ faq -

Frequently Anticipated Questions

Questions noone asked, but could maybe

Why bother running a Tor hidden service if you're gonna put your full name on it?

One, because I think hidden services are neat and I thought it'd be neat to make one. And two, if I really needed to be anonymous, I would probably self-host or find a hosting provider somewhere else, or reconsider using the Internet all together.

The hidden service has a benefit though, mostly to you. You don't need to expose your IP to me or to anyone else to access this site.

How come I can't access your main domain?

Honestly, I wouldn't know if my site is blocked elsewhere, but I may have blocked your IP for the following reasons:

Frequently Anticipated +Questions

Questions noone asked, +but could maybe

Why +bother running a Tor hidden service if you're gonna put your full name +on it?

One, because I think hidden services are neat and I thought it'd be +neat to make one. And two, if I really needed to be anonymous, I would +probably self-host or find a hosting provider somewhere else, or +reconsider using the Internet all together.

The hidden service has a benefit though, mostly to you. You +don't need to expose your IP to me or to anyone else to access this +site.

How come I can't +access your main domain?

Honestly, I wouldn't know if my site is blocked elsewhere, but I may +have blocked your IP for the following reasons:

You attempted to ssh to my server (I use fail2ban and employ private keys, I block all failed attempts)
You tried to pass some weird or malicious HTTP request (again, fail2ban)
You attempted to ssh to my server (I use fail2ban and employ private +keys, I block all failed attempts)
You tried to pass some weird or malicious HTTP request (again, +fail2ban)
Someone else on your IP tried to do one of those things

This is part of the reason why I run the site as hidden service since you can still read my nonsense anyway through that, but if you think this might be an error on my part, you can email me.

You wrote all this in vim? Why tho?

Neovim more lately, but yeah other than large projects, I prefer using vim for editing. Mostly because it's easy to edit consistently across servers and because I just spend so much of my time in the terminal lately that I'm used to it.

This is part of the reason why I run the site as hidden service since +you can still read my nonsense anyway through that, but if you think +this might be an error on my part, you can email me.

You wrote all this in +vim? Why tho?

Neovim more lately, but yeah other than large projects, I prefer +using vim for editing. Mostly because it's easy to edit consistently +across servers and because I just spend so much of my time in the +terminal lately that I'm used to it.

Why OpenBSD?

Honestly, I though the fish was cool.

I don't know the artist of that one unfortunately, I just found it on a forum.

Besides I've installed Debian lots of times so I figured, why not try something different? It's pretty cool as a server OS. Just a lot of homework. I'm sure it's good as a desktop/laptop one too, but it's not different enough for me to move all my data.

I don't know the artist of that one unfortunately, I just found it on +a forum.

Besides I've installed Debian lots of times so I figured, why not try +something different? It's pretty cool as a server OS. Just a lot of +homework. I'm sure it's good as a desktop/laptop one too, but it's not +different enough for me to move all my data.

For what it's worth, I use Debian sid for a daily driver.

Why bother making your site from scratch? It looks like crap

Eh. I feel like if what I say isn't interesting, prettying it up won't help keep attention that much. I like simple sites like this one. It forces you to poke around more. Poking around is a good thing.

Why does your RSS feed update me on old stuff?

Because I made it to set the publication date to the last write time of the file. Change is important and I do it often, because I'm often wrong.

Why is this site public domain? What does that mean?

This site is "licensed" under The Creative Commons CC0 or "No Rights Reserved" license. This means that any file accessible on my web server which I created (which is the text you are reading and the code that generates it) belongs to the public domain as far as legally possible and I reserve no right to it's re-publication, re-use, or re-distribution with no expectation of compensation. So if you find any use of the information I post here, or the little flask app I wrote to run the thing, you are free to use it without any fear that I'm going to slap you with a lawsuit. This does not include most of the images; I try to link credit where I can for those.

A lot of people might prefer a BSD or GNU style license for their code and I agree that there are many cases where that is the preferred option. But it doesn't make sense for me; at least not for a homepage like this. I'm not sure about other people, but most of my ideas are not my own; they come from reading a history book or doing a textbook exercise or an off-color joke. So without getting on a soapbox, I guess you can say the idea of "intellectual property" never made too much sense to me in general.

I get that people have to get paid. I get that people are afraid of someone else taking credit for their work. But for this site at least, I guess I just don't really care. If someone really finds some way to profit of some random guy's Linux tutorials and unqualified thoughts on the world I honestly think they deserve the credit not me. I have no idea how I'd do that; I'm not sure I'd even want to waste my time with all the marketing nonsense of the modern web. And on the second point, if someone "steals" my work it's not exactly hard to figure out it was published here first--a Google search will prove that. But even if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't mind. I'd be glad that this stuff is useful at all. That would be a nice surprise.

Not everything that is linked to on this site falls under the same guidelines, so be sure to respect that author's copyright; I tend to link stuff that is generally pretty free to use, though.

Why don't you highlight URLs you dinosaur?

Because I think it's kinda deceiving. It's one thing to highlight a word that leads to a place, since the user doesn't have expectation of where it's going to lead, they'll tend to hover to see where it's going. A full URL looks like it's going exactly where it's going. A user won't think twice about clicking on https://facebook.com/. They will if they see totally not a virus. If you're giving out the full URL anyway why bother linking it? Every browser in the world has double-click (or long-press) to highlight the URL automatically, then right-click, and open in new tab.

Why +bother making your site from scratch? It looks like crap

Eh. I feel like if what I say isn't interesting, prettying it up +won't help keep attention that much. I like simple sites like this one. +It forces you to poke around more. Poking around is a good thing.

Why does your +RSS feed update me on old stuff?

Because I made it to set the publication date to the last write time +of the file. Change is important and I do it often, because I'm often +wrong.

Why is +this site public domain? What does that mean?

This site is "licensed" under The Creative Commons CC0 or "No Rights +Reserved" license. This means that any file accessible on my web server +which I created (which is the text you are reading and the code that +generates it) belongs to the public domain as far as legally possible +and I reserve no right to it's re-publication, re-use, or +re-distribution with no expectation of compensation. So if you find any +use of the information I post here, or the little flask app I wrote to +run the thing, you are free to use it without any fear that I'm going to +slap you with a lawsuit. This does not include most of the +images; I try to link credit where I can for those.

A lot of people might prefer a BSD or GNU style license for their +code and I agree that there are many cases where that is the +preferred option. But it doesn't make sense for me; at least not for a +homepage like this. I'm not sure about other people, but most of my +ideas are not my own; they come from reading a history book or doing a +textbook exercise or an off-color joke. So without getting on a soapbox, +I guess you can say the idea of "intellectual property" never made too +much sense to me in general.

I get that people have to get paid. I get that people are afraid of +someone else taking credit for their work. But for this site at least, I +guess I just don't really care. If someone really finds some way to +profit of some random guy's Linux tutorials and unqualified thoughts on +the world I honestly think they deserve the credit not me. I +have no idea how I'd do that; I'm not sure I'd even want to waste my +time with all the marketing nonsense of the modern web. And on the +second point, if someone "steals" my work it's not exactly hard to +figure out it was published here first--a Google search will prove that. +But even if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't mind. I'd be glad +that this stuff is useful at all. That would be a nice surprise.

Not everything that is linked to on this site falls +under the same guidelines, so be sure to respect that author's +copyright; I tend to link stuff that is generally pretty free to use, +though.

diff --git a/about/howami.html b/about/howami.html index 978c92c..1ae967f 100644 --- a/about/howami.html +++ b/about/howami.html @@ -6,12 +6,153 @@ howami diff --git a/about/whatami.html b/about/whatami.html index 15551ee..30002bf 100644 --- a/about/whatami.html +++ b/about/whatami.html @@ -6,16 +6,162 @@ whatami

In case of alien transmission...

It should be noted for the record I'm a human (homo sapiens sapiens), which by most estimates puts me firmly in the category of water-like object at ~60% of my total body mass, with the remaining matter compromised of various arrangements of carbon, oxygen, and potato chips.

It should be noted for the record I'm a human (homo sapiens +sapiens), which by most estimates puts +me firmly in the category of water-like object at ~60% of my +total body mass, with the remaining matter compromised of various +arrangements of carbon, oxygen, and potato chips.

diff --git a/about/whereami.html b/about/whereami.html index 766d72d..2ea1558 100644 --- a/about/whereami.html +++ b/about/whereami.html @@ -6,39 +6,238 @@ whereami -

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era +in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got +here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already +all these games going on that could make you act crazy, even if you +weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the crazymaking games going on +today are love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and +credit cards, golf, and girls' basketball.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, from A man without a country, emphasis my own -

Since you are on this page, you're presumably lost. That's ok. I don't really get all this stuff either. Let's start with some easy stuff.

You're on the Internet. Known to some as a series of tubes, but in reality much more complicated than it has to be. In basic sense, your computer called mine, and mine answered with directory full of pages.

The way you get here is through a device you have at home called a router, which literally does what the name implies--it routes signals to where they need to go to make things go beep. In the 60s and 70s, routers tended to be people-based and would spend their time plugging cables into and out of ports so calls could connect.

Since you are on this page, you're presumably lost. That's +ok. I don't really get all this stuff either. Let's start with +some easy stuff.

You're on the Internet. Known to some as a series of +tubes, but in reality much more complicated than it has to be. In +basic sense, your computer called mine, and mine answered with directory +full of pages.

The way you get here is through a device you have at home called a +router, which literally does what the name implies--it routes signals to +where they need to go to make things go beep. In the 60s and 70s, +routers tended to be people-based and would spend their time plugging +cables into and out of ports so calls could connect.

Image of a switchboard courtesy of Wikipedia contributors

Fortunately, we figured out that was dumb and made robots do the job for us. Internet companies, governments, and anyone else with enough money and influence bought huge routers and hooked them all up to talk to each other. Then they convinced us all to go out and buy a router from our ISP of "choice" so we could all send cat pictures to each other seamlessly. We got rid of phones, replaced our phone with our IP address and email, just to ironically end up back at phones again. All of our devices serve, or at least can serve, as a router in some way, and all these little robots talking to each other makes it so you can get lost on some person's home page.

In a way, you could say you've made it to a place my router took you to. Not my home router of course--that one sucks.

I'm mooching of someone else's, also known as a Virtual Private Server. These companies run whole bunch of servers, hook them up on a bulk connection and rent them out for people to run blogs about cats and porn sites.

I'm getting lost on your question though, so where are we exactly?

Precisely speaking, you are in a chrooted web server running on rented virtual machine in a server farm located roughly in New Jersey browsing the "about" directory on the "whereami.html" page.

Less precisely, all that means is you're looking at some files I left in a directory at this address, and paid some people to host for me since local ISPs tend to be ridiculously expensive if you want to do anything besides host some private servers for you and your friends and family.

But maybe most importantly, you've reached a webpage owned by another human being, not a corporation, or a bot, or a government, or work, or a network. All these files were loving crafted by yours truly in vim, in markdown and converted with pandoc to HTML because of laziness. The Internet I grew up with, though I didn't really appreciate it at the time, used to be filled with places like this. "Homepages" were a thing, or were just starting to be at least.

But as soon as it started it all got sucked up and commodified into social media; we somehow got coerced into profiles, templates, and standards to make us easier for ad companies to study. It's not even unreasonable to believe you're not even talking to real people on there, because there's a good chance of it now. Astroturfing is not a secret government conspiracy, it's just business as usual at this point. You used to be able to tell a human from a chatbot from the way they write. I don't know if the bots at this point are smarter, or if we've just been made so cynical and dumb by the process that we've given up.

Image of a switchboard courtesy of Wikipedia +contributors

Fortunately, we figured out that was dumb and made robots do the job +for us. Internet companies, governments, and anyone else with enough +money and influence bought huge routers and hooked them all up to talk +to each other. Then they convinced us all to go out and buy a router +from our ISP of "choice" so we could all send cat pictures to each other +seamlessly. We got rid of phones, replaced our phone with our IP address +and email, just to ironically end up back at phones again. All of our +devices serve, or at least can serve, as a router in some way, and all +these little robots talking to each other makes it so you can get lost +on some person's home page.

In a way, you could say you've made it to a place my router took you +to. Not my home router of course--that one sucks.

I'm mooching of someone else's, also known as a Virtual Private +Server. These companies run whole bunch of servers, hook them up on a +bulk connection and rent them out for people to run blogs about cats and +porn sites.

I'm getting lost on your question though, so where are we +exactly?

Precisely speaking, you are in a chrooted web server running on +rented virtual machine in a server farm located roughly in New Jersey +browsing the "about" directory on the "whereami.html" page.

Less precisely, all that means is you're looking at some files I left +in a directory at this address, and paid some people to host for me +since local ISPs tend to be ridiculously expensive if you want to do +anything besides host some private servers for you and your friends and +family.

But maybe most importantly, you've reached a webpage owned by another +human being, not a corporation, or a bot, or a government, or work, or a +network. All these files were loving crafted by yours truly in +vim, in markdown and converted with pandoc to HTML because of laziness. +The Internet I grew up with, though I didn't really appreciate it at the +time, used to be filled with places like this. "Homepages" were a thing, +or were just starting to be at least.

But as soon as it started it all got sucked up and commodified into +social media; we somehow got coerced into profiles, templates, and +standards to make us easier for ad companies to study. It's not even +unreasonable to believe you're not even talking to real people on there, +because there's a good chance of it now. Astroturfing is +not a secret government conspiracy, it's just business as usual at this +point. You used to be able to tell a human from a chatbot from the way +they write. I don't know if the bots at this point are smarter, or if +we've just been made so cynical and dumb by the process that we've given +up.

Who would really write all that garbage on Facebook anyway?

Don't mistake this for some pity nostalgia piece though. If you look hard enough--I promise you--that Internet of humans is still there. Here's a few places I like to poke around:

Don't mistake this for some pity nostalgia piece though. If you look +hard enough--I promise you--that Internet of humans is still +there. Here's a few places I like to poke around:

https://neocities.org/

https://1mb.club/

https://goodsites.tech/

and old not-so faithful:

https://www.wikipedia.org/

A helpful tip, CRTL+W will close any webpage you don't like. Not that you wouldn't like this page... you did read all the way here through all that pedantry didn't you?

A helpful tip, CRTL+W will close any webpage you don't like. Not that +you wouldn't like this page... you did read all the way here through all +that pedantry didn't you?

diff --git a/about/whoami.html b/about/whoami.html index 5431c1d..8e0ac63 100644 --- a/about/whoami.html +++ b/about/whoami.html @@ -6,12 +6,153 @@ whoami @@ -19,16 +160,43 @@

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

-- apparently no one -

TL;DR Above everything, I'm a lurker. And I mean that in the traditional forum/mailing list sense. You could put it a few ways and still be right: a reader, a people watcher, a listener, maybe a coward if you're cynical. But all in all, not anyone in particular really.

When I first came up with a writing a page with this title, it devolved into a kind of personal essay. The kind of unwelcome nonsense you no doubt encounter (and I no doubt supplied) in comment sections on the Internet or the paginated newsfeeds written by faceless names or in the rambling profiles that start with birth and forget where they're going around college. It seems to come easy to a lot of us.

TL;DR Above everything, I'm a lurker. And I mean that in the +traditional forum/mailing list sense. You could put it a few ways and +still be right: a reader, a people watcher, a listener, maybe a coward +if you're cynical. But all in all, not anyone in particular +really.

When I first came up with a writing a page with this title, it +devolved into a kind of personal essay. The kind of unwelcome nonsense +you no doubt encounter (and I no doubt supplied) in comment sections on +the Internet or the paginated newsfeeds written by faceless names or in +the rambling profiles that start with birth and forget where they're +going around college. It seems to come easy to a lot of us.

Now, I'm not so sure I've earned the right yet.

I'd rather just let my work (and my play) stand for itself, for whatever it's worth. You'll get it as you go I'm sure. That said, there are some things that probably help for context's sake:

I'd rather just let my work (and my play) stand for itself, for +whatever it's worth. You'll get it as you go I'm sure. That said, there +are some things that probably help for context's sake:

I'm born, raised, and hosted on the US East Coast. By most countries' standards, that means I have no sense of the world outside of my own country, which despite my best efforts, is probably true
I'm raised and hosted (not born) on free software (unless you count whatever my VPS is running). This server is running OpenBSD with nginx and httpd working together to host a small git repo and this flask app I threw together
I'm born and raised (not hosted) by Luddites, for the most part. And I don't mean that in entirely bad way. What I mean is I grew up around mostly people who didn't know and didn't care to know about advances in technology or the merging of that technology with culture. In fact, that might be the appropriate view to have in light of recent circumstances.
By trade, I'm best at data recovery and writing good documentation. I'm self-taught at programming software design so by most metrics, I'm probably not great at that, but I'm getting there. I love a good math problem, and though I only got a B in my college circuits class, I still find time to make some lights blink.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet lost. And in the process, sometimes find useful things; though I largely find nonsense, which has it's own value, but it's separate.
I'm born, raised, and hosted on the US East Coast. By most +countries' standards, that means I have no sense of the world outside of +my own country, which despite my best efforts, is probably true
I'm raised and hosted (not born) on free software (unless you +count whatever my VPS is running). This server is running OpenBSD with +nginx and httpd working together to host a small git repo and this flask +app I threw together
I'm born and raised (not hosted) by Luddites, for the most part. +And I don't mean that in entirely bad way. What I mean is I grew up +around mostly people who didn't know and didn't care to know about +advances in technology or the merging of that technology with culture. +In fact, that might be the appropriate view to have in light of recent +circumstances.
By trade, I'm best at data recovery and writing good +documentation. I'm self-taught at programming software design so by most +metrics, I'm probably not great at that, but I'm getting there. I love a +good math problem, and though I only got a B in my college circuits +class, I still find time to make some lights blink.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet lost. And in the process, +sometimes find useful things; though I largely find nonsense, which has +it's own value, but it's separate.

Here is as close to home as I'll get for now.

diff --git a/about/whyami.html b/about/whyami.html index e181213..954b926 100644 --- a/about/whyami.html +++ b/about/whyami.html @@ -6,17 +6,159 @@ whyami -

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any +different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, from A man without a country. diff --git a/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.html b/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.html index 05a7cb4..65f19d8 100644 --- a/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.html +++ b/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.html @@ -6,18 +6,169 @@ my-worst-habit

Overuse of parentheses, by far.

Why is this a bad thing? Parentheses, as read by most readers, tend to contain additional superfluous information when read. So naturally, the mind tends to pay less attention to what's inside (or at least my mind does). I also believe it represents some repressed psychological trauma, since a Professor once circled how many times I abused the double dash, "--", and I haven't quite felt comfortable using it since--unless it feels right. As a result, I've found a new punctuation mark to abuse.

The parentheses and double dash work all right in that last paragraph, but relying on it leads to bad habits, and usually, sentences that droll on for far longer than welcome. Consider the following example from Naked Lunch:

Why is this a bad thing? Parentheses, as read by most readers, tend +to contain additional superfluous information when read. So +naturally, the mind tends to pay less attention to what's inside (or at +least my mind does). I also believe it represents some repressed +psychological trauma, since a Professor once circled how many times I +abused the double dash, "--", and I haven't quite felt comfortable using +it since--unless it feels right. As a result, I've found a new +punctuation mark to abuse.

The parentheses and double dash work all right in that last +paragraph, but relying on it leads to bad habits, and usually, sentences +that droll on for far longer than welcome. Consider the following +example from Naked Lunch:

Doc Browbeck was party inna second part. A retired abortionist and junk
 pusher (he was a veterinarian actually) recalled to service during the
 manpower shortage. Well, Doc had been in the hospital kitchen all
@@ -42,12 +193,22 @@ family in use among the Indians of South America. They are usually
 administered by sniffing a dried powder of the plant. The medicine
 men take these noxious substances and go into convulsive states. Their
 twitchings and mutterings are thought to have prophetic significance.")

This is the only example I know that dares to put parentheses and a long quote within parentheses, unless we're counting math textbooks. In a way it works, since if information is ever superfluous, the history of sailors getting high on nutmeg fits that bill. A careful reader might easily pick up on that, but to everyone else, I think a full paragraph of text in parentheses signals the reader to scroll down in the hopes that the story continues.

But just in case you think I'm just picking on William S. Burroughs, here's an example I regrettably wrote to a coworker recently with some details removed:

This is the only example I know that dares to put parentheses +and a long quote within parentheses, unless we're counting math +textbooks. In a way it works, since if information is ever +superfluous, the history of sailors getting high on nutmeg fits +that bill. A careful reader might easily pick up on that, but to +everyone else, I think a full paragraph of text in parentheses signals +the reader to scroll down in the hopes that the story continues.

But just in case you think I'm just picking on William S. Burroughs, +here's an example I regrettably wrote to a coworker recently with some +details removed:

[...] As a precaution, I did review $NOBODY's recent
 $THING_I_WAS_ASKED_TO_REVIEW (if you would like a detailed report on
 that, I can pull that together for you).

Somehow, I managed to take the one point worth emphasizing (an entire sentence at that!) and de-emphasized it.

It's a habit I can't break. So please, if you are a caring reader, do complain when I overuse parentheses. I deserve it.

Somehow, I managed to take the one point worth emphasizing +(an entire sentence at that!) and de-emphasized it.

It's a habit I can't break. So please, if you are a caring reader, do +complain when I overuse parentheses. I deserve it.

diff --git a/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.html b/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.html index fd2336d..dc67e4d 100644 --- a/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.html +++ b/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.html @@ -6,6 +6,146 @@ random-python-idiosyncrasies @@ -82,78 +224,128 @@

Coding Style Guide

Coding Style Guide

The purpose of this document is twofold:

To ensure that anyone who might like to make my code better understands why I write python the way I do
To ensure I adhere to my own style because I'm terribly inconsistent
To ensure that anyone who might like to make my code better +understands why I write python the way I do
To ensure I adhere to my own style because I'm terribly +inconsistent

Being terribly inconsistent, the guidelines are not set in stone and if you have a good argument for doing things a particular, I don't really care.

BUT first and foremost, code must comply with PEP8 first. This is easy to automate. I like black since it's easy to use but there' plenty of advanced linters out there.

I usually invoke it like this to turn off forcing double quotes and force the line length to 72:

black -S -l 72 file.py

Being terribly inconsistent, the guidelines are not set in stone and +if you have a good argument for doing things a particular, I don't +really care.

BUT first and foremost, code must comply with PEP8 +first. This is easy to automate. I like black since it's easy to use +but there' plenty of advanced linters out there.

I usually invoke it like this to turn off forcing double quotes and +force the line length to 72:

black -S -l 72 file.py

That aside, I have the following idiosyncracies:

1) Strings are double-quoted. Keys and chars are single-quoted.

This is really just because I like how C does it. And Cpython's C-based so why not?

1) +Strings are double-quoted. Keys and +chars are single-quoted.

This is really just because I like how C does it. And Cpython's +C-based so why not?

Like so:

string = "This is a phrase"
-word = "word"
-cur_char = 'a'
-newline = '\n' # note, two characters, but it's still ONE char out
-# keys are single-quoted to avoid confusion
-dictionary = { 'key'  "1245dqw3w431", 'return': newline }

The only exception is for strings with quotes in them (anything to avoid escapes, really)

quoted_string = (
-    '"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretsky"'
-    ' - Michael Scott'
-)

string = "This is a phrase"
+word = "word"
+cur_char = 'a'
+newline = '\n' # note, two characters, but it's still ONE char out
+# keys are single-quoted to avoid confusion
+dictionary = { 'key'  "1245dqw3w431", 'return': newline }

The only exception is for strings with quotes in them (anything to +avoid escapes, really)

quoted_string = (
+    '"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretsky"'
+    ' - Michael Scott'
+)

That brings me to my next point.

2) Long strings belong in parentheses

2) Long strings belong in +parentheses

As in:

longboi = (
-    "This is a really long string usefull when making help menus. Be\n"
-    "sure to leave s space at the end of each line, or add a new line\n"
-    "when needed.\n\n"
-
-    "Try your best to keep formatting accurate like this."
-)

3) Tabs are four spaces and spaces are ALWAYS preferred to tabs

longboi = (
+    "This is a really long string usefull when making help menus. Be\n"
+    "sure to leave s space at the end of each line, or add a new line\n"
+    "when needed.\n\n"
+
+    "Try your best to keep formatting accurate like this."
+)

3) +Tabs are four spaces and spaces are ALWAYS preferred to +tabs

Again, see PEP8.

4) Always add spaces between arithmetic, but never for brackets

4) +Always add spaces between arithmetic, but never for brackets

It's a pain to read:

1/(2*sqrt(pi))*exp(x**2)

1/(2*sqrt(pi))*exp(x**2)

Do this

1 / (2 * sqrt(pi)) * exp(x ** 2)

1 / (2 * sqrt(pi)) * exp(x ** 2)

The same goes for logic operators

true & false ^ true

5) EVERYTHING should be snake_case

This is python. Unless there's a compatibility thing (like a library's code was written that way, or it matches an API variable), snake_case is preferred.

user_input = int(input()) # variable
-MAX_INPUT = 1000 # constant
-def judge_input(_input, _max): # function
-    if _max > _input:
-        print("Too big!")
-
-judge_input(user_input, MAX_INPUT
-class Input_Judger: # a class
-    # etc etc

true & false ^ true

5) EVERYTHING should be +snake_case

This is python. Unless there's a compatibility thing (like a +library's code was written that way, or it matches an API variable), +snake_case is preferred.

user_input = int(input()) # variable
+MAX_INPUT = 1000 # constant
+def judge_input(_input, _max): # function
+    if _max > _input:
+        print("Too big!")
+
+judge_input(user_input, MAX_INPUT
+class Input_Judger: # a class
+    # etc etc

Example exception:

# this doesn't actually work, but you get the idea
-r = requests.get("www.debian.org")
-pageSize = r.json()['pageSize'] # camel case ok

6) If it's over 100 lines, you probably need a new file (and a class)

This is more of a general coding thing, but I've encountered so many 1000 line monster out there, I need to reiterate it. I understand how these things come to be, having made a few myself in the beginning. You get an idea and want to see it through in full. Like On the Road it comes out as a scroll Merlin himself would be proud of.

But coming back to the scroll in a week half-drunk and half-tired is not a situation you want to be caught in. You can always import any python code you write with a simple:

import filename

# this doesn't actually work, but you get the idea
+r = requests.get("www.debian.org")
+pageSize = r.json()['pageSize'] # camel case ok

6) +If it's over 100 lines, you probably need a new file (and a class)

This is more of a general coding thing, but I've encountered so many +1000 line monster out there, I need to reiterate it. I understand how +these things come to be, having made a few myself in the beginning. You +get an idea and want to see it through in full. Like On the +Road it comes out as a scroll Merlin himself would be proud of.

But coming back to the scroll in a week half-drunk and half-tired is +not a situation you want to be caught in. You can always import +any python code you write with a simple:

import filename

As long as it's in the same directory.

diff --git a/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html b/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html index 43b6364..79a4e2e 100644 --- a/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html +++ b/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html @@ -6,62 +6,241 @@ how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service -

This might sound spooky and complicated, but it's really not. If you want to host a small site or a small file share among friends, I honestly think Tor is one of the easiest and safest options to set up.

Getting a Tor hidden service running is so stupidly easy that it hardly deserves it's own article. Tor's website has a great guide right here. I figured I'd put my own spin on it by showing you show to host a temporary server to share some files with your friends. Please note the word temporary in that last sentence; running this way for a while is insecure and not a good idea. For a permanent solution, you'll want to host a real web server as explained here.

Like that article, I will only explain how to do this on Linux since it's way easier and, to be honest, I've never tried to do it on Windows. If you've never used Linux before, buy a Raspberry Pi and follow the basic install guide. If you're strapped for cash, run it in a virtual machine, or use Windows Subsystem for Linux.

- -

Once you have Debian/Ubuntu/whatever installed and it's updated to your liking, you can install Tor with:

This might sound spooky and complicated, but it's really not. If you +want to host a small site or a small file share among friends, I +honestly think Tor is one of the easiest and safest options to set +up.

Getting a Tor hidden service running is so stupidly easy that it +hardly deserves it's own article. Tor's website has a great guide right +here. +I figured I'd put my own spin on it by showing you show to host a +temporary server to share some files with your friends. Please note the +word temporary in that last sentence; running this way for a +while is insecure and not a good idea. For a permanent solution, you'll +want to host a real web server as explained here.

Like that article, I will only explain how to do this on Linux since +it's way easier and, to be honest, I've never tried to do it on Windows. +If you've never used Linux before, buy a Raspberry Pi and follow the +basic install guide. If you're strapped for cash, run it in a virtual +machine, or use Windows +Subsystem for Linux.

+ +

Once you have Debian/Ubuntu/whatever installed and it's updated to +your liking, you can install Tor with:

$ sudo apt install tor

Start (or stop) Tor with:

$ sudo service tor start

$ sudo systemctl start tor.service

You may need to enable the service first. I think this is done by default now, but it doesn't hurt:

You may need to enable the service first. I think this is done by +default now, but it doesn't hurt:

$ sudo systemctl enable tor.service

Configure Tor

You'll need to edit the file "/etc/tor/torrc" before your service can be available over Tor. Use vim, nano, or whatever you like to edit the file (as root!) and search for the following lines:

You'll need to edit the file "/etc/tor/torrc" before your service can +be available over Tor. Use vim, nano, or whatever you like to edit the +file (as root!) and search for the following lines:

#HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
 #HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80

Remove the '#' at the beginning of each and change the port to 8000 like so:

Remove the '#' at the beginning of each and change the port to 8000 +like so:

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
 HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:8000

Save and restart Tor for the changes to apply:

$ sudo service tor restart

Once you do this, you'll get a new onion address located in the directory noted above. Use cat to read the hostname file and copy it down somewhere. This is your ".onion" address:

Once you do this, you'll get a new onion address located in the +directory noted above. Use cat to read the hostname file and copy it +down somewhere. This is your ".onion" address:

$ cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname

Set up the server

Make some directory to hold your files.

$ mkdir -pv ~/files

If you're on WSL you can copy files from your C drive like so:

$ cp -vr /mnt/c/Users/username/Desktop/cats ~/files/

On a remote server (like a Raspberry pi) you can use scp instead (replace 'rapsberry' with the hostname or local IP of you Pi):

On a remote server (like a Raspberry pi) you can use scp instead +(replace 'rapsberry' with the hostname or local IP of you Pi):

$ scp -vr cats pi@raspberry:~/files/

Since we're only doing this temporarily, we don't care too much about security or where the files should go, but if you want to be careful, you can issue the following to set the directory to read only after you copy your files in:

Since we're only doing this temporarily, we don't care too much about +security or where the files should go, but if you want to be careful, +you can issue the following to set the directory to read only after you +copy your files in:

$ chmod -R 644 files

Change into the directory and run Python's built-in http server:

$ cd files
 $ python3 -m http.server

You'll see the server is being hosted on port 8000, which is what we chose in the config file earlier. Just leave it running, or send it to the background with Ctrl+Z and run "bg".

And that's it! You are now the proud owner of a tor hidden service. Take the hostname you copied down before and add ".onion" to the end and give it to your friends so they can browse the files in the directory through the Tor Browser.

Be sure to watch the program log though... lest they get up to no good.

You'll see the server is being hosted on port 8000, which is what we +chose in the config file earlier. Just leave it running, or send it to +the background with Ctrl+Z and run "bg".

And that's it! You are now the proud owner of a tor hidden service. +Take the hostname you copied down before and add ".onion" to the end and +give it to your friends so they can browse the files in the directory +through the Tor Browser.

Be sure to watch the program log though... lest they get up to no +good.

diff --git a/tutorials/vim/how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue.html b/tutorials/vim/how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue.html index 075d777..17f8c84 100644 --- a/tutorials/vim/how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue.html +++ b/tutorials/vim/how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue.html @@ -6,6 +6,146 @@ how-to-fix-neovim-nerdtree-rendering-issue @@ -85,22 +227,40 @@

The Actual Solution

I really like neovim since COC is integrated with it to work nicely. Plus, I like the defaults and the fact there's a lot of active development on extensions. I didn't use it for a long time because I needed NerdTree but every time I'd scroll the window, I'd get a mess.

I really like neovim since COC is integrated with +it to work nicely. Plus, I like the defaults and the fact there's a lot +of active development on extensions. I didn't use it for a long time +because I needed NerdTree but every time I'd scroll the window, +I'd get a mess.

The Problem

Now, yes, I know I'm a heretic for using the arrow keys and not just jumping around, but I thought it was weird I didn't see this issue anywhere else. Also, vim doesn't have this problem.

Now, yes, I know I'm a heretic for using the arrow keys and not just +jumping around, but I thought it was weird I didn't see this issue +anywhere else. Also, vim doesn't have this problem.

It's also not because of my meme tmux setup, the same issue happens in terminator, which I happened to have installed.

It's also not because of my meme tmux setup, the same issue happens +in terminator, which I happened to have installed.

The Attempt

There's a better way to do this, but I first figured just triggering a redraw on scroll would do the trick. You can do so by adding the following line to your init.vim file:

There's a better way to do this, but I first figured just triggering +a redraw on scroll would do the trick. You can do so by adding the +following line to your init.vim file:

au WinScrolled * redraw!

As it turns out, the "WinScrolled" event only exists in neovim, so this command won't work in plain vim (see :help autocmd-events for the list of events in each program).

As it turns out, the "WinScrolled" event only exists in +neovim, so this command won't work in plain vim (see +:help autocmd-events for the list of events in each +program).

The Actual Solution

After installing COC and running a healthcheck, I realized that my TERM variable was set to 'xterm'. I'm not sure if I did that intentionally to run something or if it's just a legacy thing I left in from Debian's default bashrc, but all I had to do was change it:

export TERM='tmux256-color'

After installing COC and running a healthcheck, I realized that my +TERM variable was set to 'xterm'. I'm not sure if I did that +intentionally to run something or if it's just a legacy thing I left in +from Debian's default bashrc, but all I had to do was change it:

export TERM='tmux256-color'

No more hacky autocommands!

If I had the foresight to test the issue in xterm first, I probably would have seen it right away....

If I had the foresight to test the issue in xterm first, I probably +would have seen it right away....

diff --git a/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html b/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html index c3290e9..2fcc26f 100644 --- a/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html +++ b/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html @@ -6,12 +6,153 @@ how-to-make-this-site @@ -19,21 +160,29 @@

Background
What is a web server and how do I run one? +
What is a web +server and how do I run one?
- Getting from localhost to the internet
- Getting from +localhost to the internet
How can I make this server available on the Internet cheaply and independently +
How +can I make this server available on the Internet cheaply and +independently
What's a "Domain Name"
Setup HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security
Setup +HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security
Perspective
References
- Terms of service for certain ISPs +
- Terms of service for +certain ISPs
  - Verizon
  - Optimum
  -
  You can get your device's local ip by typing "ipconfig" (Windows) or "ip a" (Linux). Typically it is listed first and will start with "192.168" or "10.0" but it depends on the manufacturer. Here's my output at home for example:
  +
  You can get your device's local ip by typing "ipconfig" (Windows) or +"ip a" (Linux). Typically it is listed first and will start with +"192.168" or "10.0" but it depends on the manufacturer. Here's my output +at home for example:
```
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
@@ -115,74 +350,199 @@
        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
 3: wlp5s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
     link/ether 82:e2:e4:c2:0c:a1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 98:de:d0:f3:d6:ea
```
  -
  The device "enp7s0" is my Ethernet adapter (starts with an 'e') and my current local ip address for the device is shown. If you use wifi, it will likely start with a "wl." Set the forwarding rule according to this value.
  -
  Now get your public ip address at this site https://who.is/ and share it with your friends. Watch in horror as they access all the files in the directory you launched the server!
  -
  How can I make this server available on the Internet cheaply and independently
  -
  TL;DR Expense scales with independence. It's possible to become your own service provider, get IP addresses from ICANN, your own hardware to host it, to host your cat pics; but it's also a lot of time, work and money to do all that (this guy did it apparently, and so did Null)
  -
  Most likely you'll want to rent someone else's server, usually a VPS.
  -
  Once you understand the basic installation above, you can now populate your site with content just by adding HTML files to your web directory. You can use an HTML editor to write these, or you can download a full content management system to help you. Here are some options I know about:
  -
  - You can just write the damn HTML and use apache or nginx
  -
  Note: you should run the examples to see how they work. You can either write the files yourself and open them in a web browser, or use an online HTML editor like this one
  -
  As you can see from the current state of this site, I'm not exactly exactly the most skilled web designer. But I struggled through the basics enough to get an idiot's sense of front-end web design, so that perspective might be useful if you have no clue where to start with this like I did.
  -
  The building blocks are very simple, but there's a lot of blocks. The HTML5 specification, which most browsers are built around, defines the semantics of elements that can should be rendered by a web browser. CSS similarly defines the attributes--or styles--that can be applied to those elements in a format specified here. I've never gotten deep into the weeds like professional designers do--and to be honest, I don't really want to. But I do like understanding how things work. And getting a unique custom HTML site is something anyone with a text editor and a web browser can get done in a weekend.
  +
  Note: you should run the examples to see how they work. You can +either write the files yourself and open them in a web browser, or use +an online HTML editor like this one
  +
  As you can see from the current state of this site, I'm not exactly +exactly the most skilled web designer. But I struggled through the +basics enough to get an idiot's sense of front-end web design, so that +perspective might be useful if you have no clue where to start with this +like I did.
  +
  The building blocks are very simple, but there's a lot of +blocks. The HTML5 +specification, which most browsers are built around, defines the +semantics of elements that can should be rendered by a web browser. CSS +similarly defines the attributes--or styles--that can be +applied to those elements in a format specified here. I've never gotten deep into +the weeds like professional designers do--and to be honest, I don't +really want to. But I do like understanding how things work. +And getting a unique custom HTML site is something anyone with a text +editor and a web browser can get done in a weekend.
  
  Web browsers render code
  -
  The specifications linked above are followed religiously by major web browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and Safari so that each symbol defined in the standard defines font, graphics, animations, layouts and all kinds of neat stuff you can stick in an HTML document. But what is that exactly?
  +
  The specifications linked above are followed religiously by major web +browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and Safari so that each symbol defined +in the standard defines font, graphics, animations, layouts and all +kinds of neat stuff you can stick in an HTML document. But what is that +exactly?
  
  HTML
  -
  An HTML file is just a text file that follows the format of HTML. HTML stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language" and is very much like standard programming languages in that it maps symbols to things you actually see in your browser. It is not a true programming language since you can't run it or compile it on it's own like a typical computer program. You need another program, a web browser, to make sense of it.
  +
  An HTML file is just a text file that follows the format of HTML. +HTML stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language" and is very much like +standard programming languages in that it maps symbols to things you +actually see in your browser. It is not a true programming language +since you can't run it or compile it on it's own like a typical computer +program. You need another program, a web browser, to make sense of +it.
  
  Basic Format
  -
  All HTML files start with the following (note: the spacing does not matter, it's just spaced for readability):
  +
  All HTML files start with the following (note: the spacing does not +matter, it's just spaced for readability):
```
<html>
     <body>
     
     </body>
 </html>
```
  -
  You'll notice two tags here. An "html" tag, and a "body" tag, both of which are closed with "</html>" and "</body>" to signify where the sections end. The HTML document proper is anything between the HTML tags. The body of the document contains the actual content that the user sees. For example:
  +
  You'll notice two tags here. An "html" tag, and a "body" +tag, both of which are closed with "</html>" and "</body>" +to signify where the sections end. The HTML document proper is anything +between the HTML tags. The body of the document contains the actual +content that the user sees. For example:
```
<html>
     <body>
         <h1>My Great page</h1>
         <p>My great paragraph</p>
     </body>
 </html>
```
  -
  We've introduced two more tags here, both of which are closed within the body section. The "h1" tag defines a "Heading" which tells the browser to render the text big and bold, like a document title. You can define subheadings just by using a different number like "h2" instead of "h1." The second tag "p" defines a paragraph, which by default, renders the text normally. Check out how it looks so far by saving the above text in a file called "page.html" and open it in your browser.
  +
  We've introduced two more tags here, both of which are closed within +the body section. The "h1" tag defines a "Heading" which tells the +browser to render the text big and bold, like a document title. You can +define subheadings just by using a different number like "h2" instead of +"h1." The second tag "p" defines a paragraph, which by default, renders +the text normally. Check out how it looks so far by saving the above +text in a file called "page.html" and open it in your browser.
  
  Tables and Links
  -
  We can do a lot more than text of course. Let's walk through some more tags in this example:
  +
  We can do a lot more than text of course. Let's walk through some +more tags in this example:
```
<html>
     <body>
     <h1>My Great page</h1>
@@ -101,30 +285,76 @@
     </center>
     </body>
 </html>
```
  -
  We added a few things here, but it's the same pattern right? <open></close>.
  -
  We started by adding a "center" tag, which does what you think: it aligns the content to the center of whatever screen it's being viewed on. This is applied to the table and all the text within the table.
  -
  The next is the "table" tag which, you guessed it, arranges elements in rows and columns like a data table. The "table" tag always comes with two sub tags for the row and column: "tr" and "td." You always write the row first and put each "data" column inside (I'm guessing the "d" in "td" stands for data; I'm actually not sure). By default, "td" works a lot like "p" does--it'll just spit out whatever text you put in.
  -
  To spice things up though, I introduced a new element instead; probably the most important feature of HTML. The "a" tag lets you link to other documents on your site, or to any other URL in the world. On it's own, the "a" tag doesn't do anything special. We need to use the tag with an attribute--an extra word that comes after a--in order to make it work for us. A more basic example might be this:
  +
  We added a few things here, but it's the same pattern right? +<open></close>.
  +
  We started by adding a "center" tag, which does what you think: it +aligns the content to the center of whatever screen it's being viewed +on. This is applied to the table and all the text within the table.
  +
  The next is the "table" tag which, you guessed it, arranges elements +in rows and columns like a data table. The "table" tag always comes with +two sub tags for the row and column: "tr" and "td." You always write the +row first and put each "data" column inside (I'm guessing the "d" in +"td" stands for data; I'm actually not sure). By default, "td" works a +lot like "p" does--it'll just spit out whatever text you put in.
  +
  To spice things up though, I introduced a new element instead; +probably the most important feature of HTML. The "a" tag lets you link +to other documents on your site, or to any other URL in the +world. On it's own, the "a" tag doesn't do anything special. We +need to use the tag with an attribute--an extra word that comes +after a--in order to make it work for us. A more basic example might be +this:
```
<a href="https://example.com">Example</a>
```
  Which you'll see as:
  
  Example
  -
  The "href" attribute doesn't have to point to some other website; it can point to anything. For example, you might want to link to picture your cat (maybe hosted at "/var/www/cat.jpg"). You would do it like this:
  +
  The "href" attribute doesn't have to point to some other +website; it can point to anything. For example, you might want to link +to picture your cat (maybe hosted at "/var/www/cat.jpg"). You would do +it like this:
```
<a href="/cat.jpg">example</a>
```
  You can also link an email like this
```
<a href="mailto:email@example.com">example email</a>
 
```
  -
  Let's say you had a barebones site with 5 HTML files named: index.html, about.html, faq.html, cats.html, vidya.html. You can make a neat little navbar just using "a" tags like this:
  +
  Let's say you had a barebones site with 5 HTML files named: +index.html, about.html, faq.html, cats.html, vidya.html. You can make a +neat little navbar just using "a" tags like this:
```
<a href="/index.html">home</a>
  - <a href="/about.html">about</a>
  - <a href="/faq.html">faq</a>
  - <a href="/cats.html">cats</a>
  - <a href="/vidya.html">vidya</a>
```
  And Everything Else...
  -
  There are many other tags out there, many of which I don't know, and one which I mentioned before, but didn't explain yet: the "img" tag. In the earlier example with "cat.jpg" we linked to the image, but if we want to render it, we need to use "img" with it's main attribute "src." The "src" attribute works like "href" does as it points to the path where the image is. Note the "img" tag is also a bit different since it doesn't have a closing tag. This is intentional. Other tags were enclosing sections of text and content. This is simply inserting an element right into the document.
  -
  What you can do with the "img" tag, and what you can do with HTML tags in general, is limited only by the browser that's reading the HTML. The Mozilla Firefox "img" tag has a long page on all the different attributes and effects you can apply to images.
  -
  There are many places you can get all the common elements laid out for you, and it's important to bookmark those and refer to them frequently when you're thinking about designing your webpage. A common referral from search engines is https://www.w3schools.com/, which is a great resource. I personally like to look at the HTML elements reference of a common web browser like Firefox's so I know exactly which elements work.
  -
  If you're like me, a referral to a long reference manual can sometimes seem kind of daunting. So if you're feeling that way, here's a quick table of the HTML elements I tend to use a lot and how I use them for formatting text. I won't go into interactive elements like buttons and text input since that will involve another programming language like PHP, Javascript, or Python.
  -
  Shortlist of Text and Formatting Tags
  +
  There are many other tags out there, many of which I don't know, and +one which I mentioned before, but didn't explain yet: the "img" tag. In +the earlier example with "cat.jpg" we linked to the image, but +if we want to render it, we need to use "img" with it's main attribute +"src." The "src" attribute works like "href" does as it points to the +path where the image is. Note the "img" tag is also a bit different +since it doesn't have a closing tag. This is intentional. Other tags +were enclosing sections of text and content. This is simply +inserting an element right into the document.
  +
  What you can do with the "img" tag, and what you can do with HTML +tags in general, is limited only by the browser that's reading the HTML. +The Mozilla Firefox "img" tag has a long +page on all the different attributes and effects you can apply to +images.
  +
  There are many places you can get all the common elements laid out +for you, and it's important to bookmark those and refer to them +frequently when you're thinking about designing your webpage. A common +referral from search engines is https://www.w3schools.com/, which +is a great resource. I personally like to look at the HTML elements +reference of a common web browser like Firefox's +so I know exactly which elements work.
  +
  If you're like me, a referral to a long reference manual can +sometimes seem kind of daunting. So if you're feeling that way, here's a +quick table of the HTML elements I tend to use a lot and how I use them +for formatting text. I won't go into interactive elements like +buttons and text input since that will involve another programming +language like PHP, Javascript, or Python.
  +
  Shortlist of Text and +Formatting Tags
  @@ -199,14 +429,22 @@ The items in those lists <iframe>
  
  -Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from ipaddress.sh:
  +Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from +ipaddress.sh:
  
  HTML Metadata
  -
  Everything we discussed so far was only about one section of the HTML document: the "body." We haven't touched the "head" at all. If we can put all our content in the body, what do we even need it for?
  -
  Even though (most) of the things in the head aren't rendered by the browser, it still provides useful information to the browser and to search engines indexing the site that can improve the user experience. The most common thing you'll see in the head section is the site's title, and something called "meta" tags. As usual, it's best to see an example:
  +
  Everything we discussed so far was only about one section of +the HTML document: the "body." We haven't touched the "head" at all. If +we can put all our content in the body, what do we even need it for?
  +
  Even though (most) of the things in the head aren't rendered by the +browser, it still provides useful information to the browser and to +search engines indexing the site that can improve the user experience. +The most common thing you'll see in the head section is the site's +title, and something called "meta" tags. As usual, it's best to see an +example:
```
<html>
     <head>
         <title>My Great page</title>
@@ -222,21 +460,51 @@ Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from ipaddress.sh:
```
  -Note that the "meta" tag works like the "img" tag did and has no closing tag. -The first tag in the head is the "title" tag. This is the title of document as it will appear when the page is opened in a browser tab. It is also the title that will show up in search engines. Otherwise, it has no effect on the content rendered. -Likewise, the proceeding "meta" tags also send info to the browser and to search engines for convenience. Most sites will have tags with the attributes "name" and "content" as set above. The first one we see sets the content type of the document. This is a bit redundant, but making it as well as the character set explicit is useful for older web browsers that need it. -Next up are some tags as a courtesy to search engines. The one named "description" is the short description you're familiar with from search engine results. The "keywords" are a comma separated list of word you want associated with the content of your site--this is again another hint to search engines when they add your site to their database. "Author" serves a similar purpose. -That last meta tag looks a bit funky, but it's purpose is to assist in scaling your website on all devices. For a standard browser on a desktop, it just sets the zoom of the text 100% (be default). On mobile, it will adjust accordingly. -As is the trend, "meta" is just a building block on which you can build a lot of functionality. Be sure to check the references at the end for a full treatment of the topic. +Note that the "meta" tag works like the "img" tag did and has no +closing tag. +The first tag in the head is the "title" tag. This is the title of +document as it will appear when the page is opened in a browser tab. It +is also the title that will show up in search engines. Otherwise, it has +no effect on the content rendered. +Likewise, the proceeding "meta" tags also send info to the browser +and to search engines for convenience. Most sites will have tags with +the attributes "name" and "content" as set above. The first one we see +sets the content type of the document. This is a bit redundant, but +making it as well as the character set explicit is useful for older web +browsers that need it. +Next up are some tags as a courtesy to search engines. The one named +"description" is the short description you're familiar with from search +engine results. The "keywords" are a comma separated list of word you +want associated with the content of your site--this is again another +hint to search engines when they add your site to their database. +"Author" serves a similar purpose. +That last meta tag looks a bit funky, but it's purpose is to assist +in scaling your website on all devices. For a standard browser on a +desktop, it just sets the zoom of the text 100% (be default). On mobile, +it will adjust accordingly. +As is the trend, "meta" is just a building block on which you can +build a lot of functionality. Be sure to check the references at the end +for a full treatment of the topic. CSS -In our last example, I left one tag left untreated, because it segways into yet another format of file closely linked to HTML: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). -The "link" tag in the metadata sections can link any external resource. It's commonly used to make a "favicon" for example, which is the icon you see in the tab of an open page. +In our last example, I left one tag left untreated, because it +segways into yet another format of file closely linked to HTML: +Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). +The "link" tag in the metadata sections can link any external +resource. It's commonly used to make a "favicon" for example, which is +the icon you see in the tab of an open page. <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico"> -In the last example, we instead make a reference to a CSS formatted style sheet. Like HTML, CSS is just a text file written in a specific syntax. CSS allows you to set attributes to all tags in a specific document and create a unifying style for all your pages. +In the last example, we instead make a reference to a CSS formatted +style sheet. Like HTML, CSS is just a text file written in a specific +syntax. CSS allows you to set attributes to all tags in a +specific document and create a unifying style for all your pages. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/main.css"> -As before, "href" points to the file to be linked. In this example, we place our CSS in a text file called "main.css" in the "static" directory of "/var/www/html". +As before, "href" points to the file to be linked. In this example, +we place our CSS in a text file called "main.css" in the "static" +directory of "/var/www/html". Add style without CSS -Before we make CSS files, I want to stress the point that all this stuff is defined in HTML. You can set these attributes directly in any tag we talked about in the last section. For example: +Before we make CSS files, I want to stress the point that all this +stuff is defined in HTML. You can set these attributes directly in any +tag we talked about in the last section. For example: <p style="color:red">this text is red</p> <p style="color:red;background-color:blue">this background is blue</p> <p style="color:red;background-color:blue;text-align:center">this text is centered</p> @@ -261,9 +529,14 @@ this text is centered rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:yellow;background-color:red;text-align:justify;width:100%" > And this links to sonichu -This is useful if you want to play around with one section of the text, but annoying if you want a style to apply to every paragraph. Instead, we tag a list of tags and set all their attributes using a CSS file. +This is useful if you want to play around with one section of the +text, but annoying if you want a style to apply to every paragraph. +Instead, we tag a list of tags and set all their attributes +using a CSS file. Basic Formatting -For any HTML tag, you can set an attribute that applies everytime it appears in an HTML document that links to the CSS file. A common formatting I use for paragraphs is: +For any HTML tag, you can set an attribute that applies everytime it +appears in an HTML document that links to the CSS file. A common +formatting I use for paragraphs is: p { margin-top: 1.5%; margin-bottom: 1.5%; @@ -276,16 +549,23 @@ this text is centered white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-all; } -I get pretty much all the attribute names just by looking them up here. But in order these lines: +I get pretty much all the attribute names just by looking them up here. But in +order these lines: -Add padding to the text lines to fill any empty space with space characters (this make the background look like a block) +Add padding to the text lines to fill any empty space with space +characters (this make the background look like a block) Increase the font size a bit more than normal -Set the background color gray, chosen from an HTML color picker +Set the background color gray, chosen from an HTML color +picker preserve white space, like the pre tag does break long lines, even in the middle of words Image Formatting -Images get more styles in CSS than I can document in detail, but one important bit you'll want to probably add to all images is the following. +Images get more styles in CSS than I can document in detail, but one +important bit you'll want to probably add to all images is the +following. img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; @@ -297,8 +577,11 @@ this text is centered automatically scales the height of the image on zoom automatically scales the width of the image on zoom
-The reason I like this is that when user's zoom on your image, or view on mobile, the image scales to fit the screen; it never gets cutoff or distorted. -In addition to this basic stuff, you can style your images heavily using the filter option like so: +The reason I like this is that when user's zoom on your image, or +view on mobile, the image scales to fit the screen; it never gets cutoff +or distorted. +In addition to this basic stuff, you can style your images heavily +using the filter option like so: img.gray { filter: grayscale(100%) } @@ -306,60 +589,124 @@ this text is centered -You can read lots more options for image formatting here and about the filter property here +You can read lots more options for image formatting here and about +the filter property here Making Custom Classes -Sometimes, you might want to apply an effect to some elements but not others. An example on this site, I dim the icons a bit so they can appear nice on dark theme browsers just as well. But I don't want to dim all images like in the following example: +Sometimes, you might want to apply an effect to some elements but not +others. An example on this site, I dim the icons a bit so they can +appear nice on dark theme browsers just as well. But I don't want to dim +all images like in the following example: img { filter: invert(50%); } -For one, that will only dim black-and-white images; anything else will just turn to mush like this: +For one, that will only dim black-and-white images; anything else +will just turn to mush like this: -Instead, I'd like it to just apply to select elements; I can do so by extending the tag with a class. On the CSS side: +Instead, I'd like it to just apply to select elements; I can do so by +extending the tag with a class. On the CSS side: img.icon { filter: invert(50%); } And to implement it in HTML: <img class="icon" src="/static/rss.svg" /> -Use the div tag to make sections -You can use the class property on any HTML tag, but you can also make general purpose classes that apply to a group of elements. Let's say you wanted to center a heading, a paragraph, and a picture, and constrain them to only part of the page, so that there's some margins on the left and right. We can put them all in one content section like this: +Use the div tag to make +sections +You can use the class property on any HTML tag, but you can +also make general purpose classes that apply to a group of elements. +Let's say you wanted to center a heading, a paragraph, and a picture, +and constrain them to only part of the page, so that there's some +margins on the left and right. We can put them all in one content +section like this: .content { text-align: center; max-width: 85%; } -Notice, no leading tag. This can be applied to any element, but usually we use a placeholder tag called "div." You can think of "div" like a divider for content of similar style. In the present example, we can use the class we made with a div tag: +Notice, no leading tag. This can be applied to any element, +but usually we use a placeholder tag called "div." You can think of +"div" like a divider for content of similar style. In the present +example, we can use the class we made with a div tag: <div class="content"> <h1>My cat</h1> <p>He's a cool cat</p> <img src="/cat.jpg" /> </div> Mobile Optimization -In early development, reading this site on my phone was a painful experience. Fortunately, in addition to some tricks above like the "viewport" meta tag, there exist parts of the CSS specification that allow you to directly manipulate your website based on properties of the user's device or web browser. -I won't go into as gory details as here or here, but for your basic smartphone, you can copy and paste this block: +In early development, reading this site on my phone was a painful +experience. Fortunately, in addition to some tricks above like the +"viewport" meta tag, there exist parts of the CSS specification that +allow you to directly manipulate your website based on properties of the +user's device or web browser. +I won't go into as gory details as here or here, +but for your basic smartphone, you can copy and paste this block: @media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) { // override your tags here body { font-size: 125%; } } -This basic example makes the text slightly bigger on smartphone screens, but you can change everything you need to. I typically find I need to adjust the padding or the margins since it seems mobile browsers add a little more style than a typical desktop web browser. -It's also a good idea in general to put percentages as the values for your CSS attributes, so that size is always defined relative to all the other elements. This makes functions like zoom work a lot better. You can for example put a pixel value like this: +This basic example makes the text slightly bigger on smartphone +screens, but you can change everything you need to. I typically find I +need to adjust the padding or the margins since it seems mobile browsers +add a little more style than a typical desktop web browser. +It's also a good idea in general to put percentages as the values for +your CSS attributes, so that size is always defined relative to all the +other elements. This makes functions like zoom work a lot better. You +can for example put a pixel value like this: body { font-size: 14px; } -But this binds the size to 14 pixels which may look great on desktop, but small on a smart phone. +But this binds the size to 14 pixels which may look great on desktop, +but small on a smart phone. How to look things up -This is a frowned upon, poorly taught skill that any person on this side of the century needs. As I said at the outset, the blocks are simple, but there are a lot of blocks. We've gone over a few that make the site you're looking at what it is. But you're going to need to seek out the rest on your own if you want to make your own unique designs. -Your browser is more powerful then I let on earlier. It does just render code, it can edit it too. You might be familiar with the developer console. Most browsers I know can access this just by right clicking anywhere on a page and hitting "Inspect" or "view in Developer Console," or something like that. At the very least, you should have the option to "view page source." You can view the HTML, CSS, and various other things that you're seeing on the webpage written out in code in the developer console. Double click a value and you'll notice you can change it. A really fun way to learn this stuff is messing with other people's websites--don't worry, it's totally okay to change the HTML! It only changes the document being rendered on your end. Once you refresh your changes are gone. Why don't you try it here? +This is a frowned upon, poorly taught skill that any person on this +side of the century needs. As I said at the outset, the blocks are +simple, but there are a lot of blocks. We've gone over a few +that make the site you're looking at what it is. But you're going to +need to seek out the rest on your own if you want to make your own +unique designs. +Your browser is more powerful then I let on earlier. It does just +render code, it can edit it too. You might be familiar with the +developer console. Most browsers I know can access this just by right +clicking anywhere on a page and hitting "Inspect" or "view in Developer +Console," or something like that. At the very least, you should have the +option to "view page source." You can view the HTML, CSS, and various +other things that you're seeing on the webpage written out in code in +the developer console. Double click a value and you'll notice you +can change it. A really fun way to learn this stuff is messing with +other people's websites--don't worry, it's totally okay to change the +HTML! It only changes the document being rendered on your end. +Once you refresh your changes are gone. Why don't you try it here? -The Internet itself is the greatest source of examples to learn this. Fancy websites tend to be inscrutable messes--largely on purpose, so you can't steal their design. But simple sites like this one are easy to break apart and grasp. If you scroll up, you'll notice some of the examples are copied and pasted exactly into this document! Don't be afraid to do a bit of copy and pasting when you see a design you like, just try to give credit where credit is due. -When you're done mindlessly clicking through source code though, and you want to get something done your way, you need to have a search engine handy, and preferably a few reference manuals handy. They're a bit scattered throughout this document, but if you've learned nothing else, these are the must haves: +The Internet itself is the greatest source of examples to learn this. +Fancy websites tend to be inscrutable messes--largely on purpose, so you +can't steal their design. But simple sites like this one are easy to +break apart and grasp. If you scroll up, you'll notice some of the +examples are copied and pasted exactly into this document! Don't be +afraid to do a bit of copy and pasting when you see a design you like, +just try to give credit where credit is due. +When you're done mindlessly clicking through source code though, and +you want to get something done your way, you need to have a +search engine handy, and preferably a few reference manuals handy. +They're a bit scattered throughout this document, but if you've learned +nothing else, these are the must haves: -Mozilla HTML and CSS -w3schools HTML and CSS -The official w3 docs HTML5 and All CSS specs +Mozilla HTML +and CSS +w3schools HTML and CSS +The official w3 docs HTML5 and All CSS specs References HTML -- cgit v1.2.3

Frequently Anticipated Questions

Questions noone asked, but could maybe

Why bother running a Tor hidden service if you're gonna put your full name on it?

How come I can't access your main domain?

Frequently Anticipated +Questions

Questions noone asked, +but could maybe

Why +bother running a Tor hidden service if you're gonna put your full name +on it?

How come I can't +access your main domain?

You wrote all this in vim? Why tho?

You wrote all this in +vim? Why tho?

Why OpenBSD?

Why bother making your site from scratch? It looks like crap

Why does your RSS feed update me on old stuff?

Why is this site public domain? What does that mean?

Why don't you highlight URLs you dinosaur?

Why +bother making your site from scratch? It looks like crap

Why does your +RSS feed update me on old stuff?

Why is +this site public domain? What does that mean?

Coding Style Guide

1) Strings are double-quoted. Keys and chars are single-quoted.

1) +Strings are double-quoted. Keys and +chars are single-quoted.

2) Long strings belong in parentheses

2) Long strings belong in +parentheses

3) Tabs are four spaces and spaces are ALWAYS preferred to tabs

3) +Tabs are four spaces and spaces are ALWAYS preferred to +tabs

4) Always add spaces between arithmetic, but never for brackets

4) +Always add spaces between arithmetic, but never for brackets

5) EVERYTHING should be snake_case

5) EVERYTHING should be +snake_case

6) If it's over 100 lines, you probably need a new file (and a class)

6) +If it's over 100 lines, you probably need a new file (and a class)

How to spin up a temporary hidden file share with Python

How to +spin up a temporary hidden file share with Python

Configure Tor

Set up the server

The Problem

The Attempt

The Actual Solution

Contents

Background

What is a web server and how do I run one?

What is a web server +and how do I run one?

Getting from localhost to the internet

Getting from localhost +to the internet

How can I make this server available on the Internet cheaply and independently

How +can I make this server available on the Internet cheaply and +independently

Can I run a web server at home

Can I run a web server at +home

So what should I do

What's a "Domain Name"

Setup HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security

Setup HTTPS and +TLS, for some sense of security

Perspective

References

Terms of service for certain ISPs

Terms of service for certain +ISPs

Verizon

Why?

How to use a web browser

How to use a search engine

How to read and find +scholarly articles

How to use Wikipedia

How to find articles +with Google Scholar

Advanced Topics

How to use tor to browse +anonymously

Web browsers render code

HTML

Basic Format

Tables and Links

And Everything Else...

Shortlist of Text and Formatting Tags

Shortlist of Text and +Formatting Tags

HTML Metadata

CSS

Add style without CSS

Basic Formatting

Image Formatting

Making Custom Classes

Use the div tag to make sections

Use the div tag to make +sections