[Warning: Nerd content and authorial navel gazing below.]
When I started my blog, I promised myself I might fret over things I write but I’d never spaz out over “content management”. I’ve done so. I’ve been so careful to avoid “content management” that I hate the term “content”.*
“Content” is the kind of vocabulary used by folks who can’t create but want to be “creation adjacent”. It emphasizes transmission over subject. It reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes where the kid tries to float a fancy cover page past a teacher who’s seen it all. “Content” considers everything equal and beneath the importance of the technology delivering the message. The medium of transmission should never surpass in importance the thing being transmitted! The glorious prose of Shakespeare, a fruitcake recipe, and the shit some thug scrawls on the side of a boxcar with spraypaint… these are not the same.
Anyway, there’s intent and there’s reality. I held out for years but could avoid it no longer. I’ve been forced to address some behind the scenes maintenance. This cost me $65 in software and 3 hours in hassle… and more will follow. Ugh! (I also pay a couple hundred to “self-host”. It’s worth it to be out of the wordpress.org sandbox but freedom ain’t free.)
Partly this is just deferred maintenance. Partly it’s a little bit of paranoia. I’m starting to wonder how much of everything is being used to train LLMs (counterfactually called AI). More importantly, how much I can opt out? I don’t have issue with AI (so long as it gets kneecapped whenever it comes up with even the slightest hint of a novel response there’s no “I” to go with the “A”). I do have issue with my dumb little blog going into the vat that made Frankenstein’s monster .
So… many posts may disappear. Don’t worry. What is not seen is still on archive on my private hard drive. Unless I screwed up my efforts this weekend. Yikes! That’s a loss I’d regret! Presumably, it’s still there. Theoretically, I can unearth it at will. Likely all I’ve done is avoid feeding the gaping maw of a LLM… maybe.
This is a delicate operation best done by a skilled practitioner of wordpress programming. I’m self-taught and my teacher was lazy. I’m coming at the wordpress database like a maniac with an axe. The whole thing may blow up!
If it does, I’ll come back… probably. Just be patient.
Thanks.
A.C.
P.S. In case you’re wondering, this burst of maintenance is good news because it’s related to squirrels. I’ve hammered out about half of another chapter. I’m about 9,000 words into a two chapter 25,000+/- word final stretch. The exciting conclusion isn’t written but it exists in my pointy head. Soon, though don’t hold your breath because I mean weeks and months not days and hours, the whole story will be finished. Huzzah!
*When tapping your feet to a Jimi Hendrix solo you don’t emote over the FM radio that received it or the FM station that broadcast it. Who gives a shit whether your radio is AC powered, bolted into your car, or handheld? What matters is that big booming power chord 32 seconds into Voodoo Child (Slight Return)! In a society that gets excited about the fucking radio, listen to the song!