+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 000
-title: First post
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: July 22, 2013
-tags: asphalt
----
-
-<p style="text-align: right">
-*[I am][1]*</p>
-<p style="text-align: right">
-*I was not
-then I came to be*</p>
-
-This is the first post. This is not an introductory post. It is not an attempt
-to familiarize the reader with the meaning, scope or purpose of The Tar Pit,
-nor is it particularly meaningful in respect to the blog -- indeed, as you
-might have already noticed, The Tar Pit is one of the many blogs on the
-Internet.
-
-This First post has one meaning, however: it marks the beginning of something
-which at this moment eludes the reader, maybe even the author himself. "Hello,
-world", it says, "here I am, and there's no turning back". Nothing more.
-
-This is actually the zeroth post.
-
-[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WqyOWYj5nE
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 001
-title: The Tar Pit: an introduction
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: July 25, 2013
-tags: asphalt
----
-
-<p style="text-align: right">*[Isn't this where we came in?][1]*</p>
-
-About eight years ago I started writing. I suppose that's an idea bound to
-arouse the intellect of your average guy in his late teens, although most of
-them have next to no subjects to approach. I myself had no idea what I was
-going to write about and I'll confess this has changed very little in these
-years. But I felt an urge to write, in very much the same way someone needs to
-pee after five beers. And I was motivated by two main ideas that I can
-remember.
-
-<!--more-->
-
-Firstly, I had started reading seriously since three or four years before. I
-hadn't read much else besides Romanian literature, which, mind you, can prove
-to be excruciatingly dull at times[^1], but I was interested in structure and
-in how to write after reading all these books, the same way I had been
-interested in how to make music after listening to rock and so on. I never
-claimed I could do it right, all I knew was that I had to try it.
-
-Secondly, I had found blogs as a way of expression on the Internet. I had
-started using computers shortly after learning how to read (at about five) and
-was spending most of my time mindlessly reproducing Basic code on a Z80
-Spectrum clone, so I could draw geometric shapes and the likes. At ten I
-already had a good idea of how to use a PC and at twelve I was browsing the
-Internet on dial-up on Friday evenings. Two years after getting my permanent
-Internet connection, blogs were looking mighty cool and Wordpress intrigued me
-so much I decided to give it a shot. I made a hosting account on some
-Geocities-like platform[^2], installed Wordpress and wrote my first post,
-entitled "Another Brick In The Wall...". It was an article about mostly
-nothing, but I didn't care; I thought I had become a blogger.
-
-However, that didn't stop me from writing other articles about something, some
-of it even interesting stuff. To be honest, I didn't care if it was interesting
-to anyone else, since all I felt was sharing my experiences with "the
-Internet", regardless of whether that "Internet" included anyone except myself.
-But I interacted with people, and I kept writing about stuff. And it felt good
-for a while.
-
-So why did I decide to start another blog? you might wonder. Well, I always
-felt pretty good about having a clean slate. Sometimes such changes are bad,
-other times they're beneficial and, finally, there are those times when change
-is necessary, and I happened to find myself in the latter situation. Sure, the
-new blog™ isn't going to be fundamentally different from the old blog™, but I
-felt there was no other way to go.
-
-There are also some technical reasons behind this decision, but I'll cover them
-in another post.
-
-*And what's with this "Tar Pit", anyway?*
-
-[^1]: The only novel taught in Romanian schools in the first eighth grades is,
-as far as I know, "Baltagul" ("The Hatchet"), written by one of the first
-Romanian communist writers, Mihail Sadoveanu. The novel attempts to make a
-parallel with the myth of Isis and Osiris, at the same time introducing
-traditional Romanian themes and motifs. I suppose the only reason they keep it
-in the curriculum is a dumb sense of nationalism.
-
- On the other hand, I spent the summer before my eighth grade reading Marin
- Preda's "Cel Mai Iubit Dintre Pământeni" ("The Earth's Most Beloved"),
- which, if nothing else, is a good read on the wrongdoings of the Romanian
- Communist regime. Also, the book's rather dubious philosophical content
- made a deep impression on me at the time.
-
-[^2]: Now as dead as Geocities itself.
-
-[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlR3wUPwJCg
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 002
-title: The Tar Pit: technicalities
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: July 27, 2013
-tags: asphalt, tech
----
-
-<p style="text-align: right">
-*[So I’ve erased myself, replaced my mind, it's a clean slate][1]*</p>
-
-I would argue that the tools used to create some arbitrary kind of art, or
-craft, are completely irrelevant. The argument is supported by past pieces of
-art, some of which were made in very rudimentary conditions, a fact which at
-the same time doesn't make them any less "artistic" than newer, more
-"sophisticated" creations. Some would even argue the opposite: that earlier art
-has more personality, since it involved more sweat and blood. This is of
-course bullshit, as there are many handcrafted works that look dull[^1] and
-some chaotic geometric shapes that can be described purely mathematically[^2].
-
-That is, tools are of little importance to the consumer, while they can make a
-big difference for the producer. Some hundreds of years ago people were writing
-using quill pens and parchments, while more recently Douglas Adams wrote on an
-Apple computer. While this makes no difference whatsoever to the reader, they
-helped the writers be more or less productive, given that quills and parchments
-are easier to use than clay tablets, although significantly slower than your
-modern keyboard. Sure, it's not that pencils are in any way "inferior" to
-computers; they're just different tools serving different purposes.
-
-<!--more-->
-
-## The eternal issues of Content Management Systems
-
-About nine months ago or so I felt that Wordpress was no longer the right tool
-for me. I had already known that it had its problems and I had used various
-palliatives that kind of worked, only not in the way I wanted.
-
-One of the smaller problems of Wordpress was its inner workings, that require a
-fully working, fully configured LAMP[^3] environment. There's not much to say
-about that, this kind of setup is now a de facto standard on the web. However,
-the really small stuff killed me. For example, pingbacks mysteriously stopped
-working without me even noticing once I changed the router in my internal
-network. The new router didn't support NAT loopback, while Wordpress was
-continuously making requests to the public IP address, making it impossible to
-reach itself[^4]. I solved the problem later by doing some DNS voodoo, but the
-fact remains that I was desperate about trying to fix a system that doesn't
-work reliably anyway[^5].
-
-Then there was that issue of spam. For a blog that got a comment per month or
-less, the old blog™ received a shitload of spam, so much that the (non-premium)
-Akismet queue couldn't handle it. This was frustrating me, since I was now
-spending more time doing moderation and checking for false positives than
-doing, you know, the important stuff.
-
-Finally, all these problems led to performance issues. After attempting some
-holistic server-side optimizations, I had to get a new server to ramp up
-loading time. I also tried some stricter security measures such as IP banning,
-but again, this incurred a lot of overhead from my side, and mind you, I can't
-say I find the idea of being a sysadmin too attractive.
-
-## The zen of static site generation
-
-About nine months ago, I realized that a static blog would solve all these
-problems and pose some others. On one hand, a static site loads fast, has a
-simpler design, which makes it a lot easier to configure and customize, and it
-eliminates comment spam by design. Since I'm into Haskell, Hakyll seemed like a
-good idea, even though there are other pretty good alternatives out there.
-
-On the other hand comments, I admit, are kind of a big issue. For a while, I
-looked into third party commenting systems, or writing my own, or even using
-the one from Wordpress, but I realized this would bring back the spam
-nightmares I had previously had with it. I also thought about proprietary
-alternatives such as Disqus, but Disqus is a service with terms that I don't
-necessarily agree with. So no, I wouldn't have them owning the comments of my
-readers.
-
-Therefore, I have given up comments altogether. Once the blog has a contact
-page, you'll have the option of commenting on my stuff by sending me an e-mail
-or a message on whatever social network I'm on. Moreover, feel free to link my
-posts to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatever social network you're on, and
-drop me an e-mail if you feel like I should give my input. Other than that, I
-don't really feel like turning back to comment moderation, I think that I
-should focus on writing and not much more.
-
-## Die Sprache
-
-I'll end this post by mentioning that I deliberately chose English as the main
-language[^6] for The Tar Pit. I'm not a native, nor a particularly good English
-speaker or writer, hence this gives me the occasion to improve my skills and
-evolve, which was pretty much [my motivation][3] from the beginning.
-
-I am also hoping that, being written in one of the most widely spoken languages
-on the web, the blog's more obscure content will reach a bigger audience. I'm
-well aware that this could change. Maybe Simplified Chinese will become the new
-hot trend in five years from now, which means I'll just have to learn it and
-use it in writing.
-
-*As for why The Tar Pit, stay tuned, you'll find out soon. Really soon.*
-
-[^1]: There are those that call themselves "slow artists", who find great
-pleasure in spending tens of hours in making intricate, beautiful patterns,
-which can nowadays be reproduced by a computer in a matter of seconds. Both are
-awfully symmetric, both lack personality, thus rendering the whole "automatic
-versus handmade" debate useless.
-
-[^2]: Fractals, dynamical systems in general.
-
-[^3]: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP
-
-[^4]: I documented this on [my previous blog][2] (in Romanian).
-
-[^5]: It's not that pingbacks are not reliable by themselves. It's that the
-XML-RPC protocol, or rather its implementation, is crappy. I agree that in
-theory pingbacks are a really cool idea meant to fire up discussions, but in
-practice they never seem to work quite right.
-
-[^6]: Maybe not the only one. I don't know, I guess we'll cross that bridge
-when we come to it.
-
-[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAeqtw3KeQ
-[2]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/de-ce-nat-ul-e-o-idee-proasta "de ce nat-ul e o idee proastă"
-[3]: /posts/001-introduction.html "The Tar Pit: an introduction"
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 003
-title: The Tar Pit: about
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: July 29, 2013
-tags: announcements
----
-
-<p style="text-align: right">
-*Strangers passing in the street
-By chance two separate glances meet
-And I am you and what I see is me.
-And do I take you by the hand
-And lead you through the land
-[And help me understand][1]
-The best I can.*</p>
-
-The Tar Pit is discussed on [the dedicated page][2].
-
-[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGwPSPIhohk
-[2]: /about.html
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 004
-title: On art
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: August 1, 2013
-tags: cogitatio
----
-
-The first thing I need to point out, and indeed I do, like a fish needs water,
-is that art is purely a personal thing. There is no single definition of art,
-more like billions of them, and people believing otherwise are nothing but
-close-minded fascists. It's not only that artistic values vary from one culture
-another, but between two given individuals, even if they suckled from the same
-breast.
-
-That being said, what follows is my view of art; mine and mine only, and I find
-no pleasure whatsoever in knowing that others may or may not share it.
-
-<!--more-->
-
-The word "art" comes from the latin "ars", which means "skill", or "craft", and
-is closely related to "arma", which refers to joining, fitting together etc. So
-the roots of art lie in making tools, or using tools to make other (useful)
-objects and such similar activities. Contrary to popular belief, for a long
-while, art involved not only aesthetics, but also practical aspects: a good
-carriage was "a fine piece of art" not only because it looked good, but also
-because it served its purpose well and because it was the result of weeks,
-maybe months of hard work.
-
-In time, the meaning of the term shifted to what is nowadays known as "fine
-art", that is, works that are highly polished and refined by the hands and
-minds of the greatest masters of a particular field. Art is therefore not
-simply craft, but also the best there is.
-
-A second shift led to the view that art is not only the best, but it is also
-that which transmits emotions. This definition is hardly quantifiable, since
-subjective experience can, as I previously mentioned, vary greatly from one
-person to another, and thus art becomes purely a matter of taste and
-preference. So what is, in my opinion, art? It is two things.
-
-Firstly, it's a product of mind, hands and whatever else it is that created it.
-Art itself doesn't involve the process of creation and it has nothing to do
-with the person that created it. Trying to find the meaning of a piece of art
-in its creator is nothing more than egomania and mindless adulation. Surely,
-creators deserve praise and criticism for their art, but in the end it's the
-livened piece, not its author, who speaks. Furthermore, once it's created, the
-piece becomes completely separated from the creator, becoming subject to its
-consumers' scrutiny.
-
-This also implies that aspects related to the process of creation, for example
-the tools used, are completely irrelevant from the point of view of art, since
-consumers can in few cases judge the tools themselves. Besides, including
-creation into art would exclude non-humans from the artistic process, which is
-obviously wrong, since nature is one of the greatest artists in history.
-
-Secondly, art is that which leads to the "improvement" of mankind, whatever
-this so-called "improvement" might be. Electronic circuits, and computers in
-particular, are clearly art. The Internet is an incredible piece of art, not
-only due to the fact that it's bigger than what any single human could have
-ever achieved. These are simply "the best" and they convey the emotion of awe,
-which makes them fall into the standard definition of art. Engineering is an
-art and any attempt of the humanities to prove otherwise are not only
-misguided, but also malicious in nature.
-
-These two definitions are interesting due to the fact that they include
-computers as creators of art. It's absurd to try and find "personality" in a
-computer-generated work of art; it is also absurd to say that that which is
-generated by a computer is not art, even though it can compete in refinement,
-maybe even surpass the equivalent created by a human.
-
-However, my view does not and cannot integrate *some* concepts into the
-definition. For example, it doesn't allow for intellectual property. Since art
-only depends on the final product, then near-perfect copies have the potential
-to be as valuable as the original. Since art can be created by machines, art
-can be copied by machines. This, by the way, is something which upsets
-copyright holders, a thought which is a good starting point for another, which
-I may discuss at another time.
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 005
-title: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: August 4, 2013
-tags: gaming
----
-
-<p style="text-align: right">*Gabriel's mini-stereo isn't exactly
-high-fidelity. Then again, neither is he.*</p>
-
-Back in 1993, when all was fine and dandy and Sierra were still making awesome
-games, they launched the first game from the Gabriel Knight series, written by
-none other than Jane Jensen. I hadn't gotten to play it then, as I only got a
-PC about five years later. Actually I only played Gabriel Knight about a few
-months ago, which is pretty odd considering the bunch of awesome adventure
-games I had experienced before.
-
-<!--more-->
-
-<span class="imgright"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-007.png">
-<img class="thumb"
-src="/images/2013/08/gk-007-thumb.png" title="Mr. Knight and some guy"/></a></span>
-So then it was, long after playing the first two games from the Broken Sword
-series[^1], that I gave GK a try: a random guy in a random city (New Orleans)
-is having weird dreams about weird rituals, then wakes up in his boring,
-typical American room. It seems that our Gabriel owns a rare book store, his
-only employee an Asian American chick (Grace Nakimura) who on a first look
-seems to be either frigid or just some stuck up bitch. Up until now, it sounds
-like your typical American cliché.
-
-To drive the cliché further, this Gabriel Knight guy is also a writer, and he's
-got a friend (Det. Mosely) who's a cop who's investigating a weird ritualistic
-murder that just by some weird coincidence took place on the edge of the city.
-Gabriel's ass is itching, so he decides to investigate the murder mostly all by
-himself, which is just great if you're a guy with no prior detective
-experience. In other words, even more cliché.
-
-<span class="imgleft"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-009.png"><img class="thumb"
-src="/images/2013/08/gk-009-thumb.png" title="One of the rare player deaths in the game. Not as frustrating as it might seem."/>
-</a></span>
-Fortunately, the story gets interesting when Gabriel starts to delve into New
-Orleans' Voodoo history, which, as far as I can tell from the point of view of a
-non-specialist, is very well documented within the game. A lot of the high
-points of the game are entirely made up of Voodoo lore, exploring the subject a
-lot deeper than other adventure games involving more "exotic" cultures, from
-what I've played[^2].
-
-Another aspect that kept me hooked was the "little" things, elements of the
-story, that come up as the story advances, from short poems to the daily
-astrological forecast. Symbols are often present where you least expect them and
-all these things are tightly integrated so that they give the player a more
-book-like experience, an experience which is also enhanced by the narrator's
-rather peculiar voice. This is more so relevant as the narrator doesn't just
-give a piece of information, but she gives it in a non-dull, non-mechanical
-manner.
-
-<span class="imgright"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-008.png"><img class="thumb"
-src="/images/2013/08/gk-008-thumb.png" title="When the saints go marching in."/>
-</a></span>
-Most of the voice actors are top notch: Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn
-and Jim Cummings are a few names. The acting didn't cease to give me that
-annoying Hollywood-like feeling at the beginning, but it either faded away in
-time or I got used to it. Besides that, the graphics are up to par with other
-adventure games in the early '90s and the music (by Robert Holmes, Jane
-Jensen's husband) adds greatly to the atmosphere.
-
-Frankly, I feel ashamed that I haven't played the game earlier. It's not my
-favourite adventure, but it's original enough that I find it hard to compare
-with others, older or newer, and I feel that I must give it its own separate
-place in my book.
-
-<a href="/images/2013/08/gk-003.png"><img class="thumb"
-src="/images/2013/08/gk-003-thumb.png" title="The Voodoo museum."/>
-</a>
-<a href="/images/2013/08/gk-013.png"><img class="thumb"
-src="/images/2013/08/gk-013-thumb.png" title="Beautiful winter landscape."/>
-</a>
-
-[^1]: Arguably the only games from the Broken Sword series.
-[^2]: The Broken Sword games are one example.
+++ /dev/null
----
-postid: 006
-title: The Tar Pit on Github
-author: Lucian Mogoșanu
-date: August 7, 2013
-tags: announcements
----
-<p style="text-align: right">
-*[Hello, Mirror, so glad to see you my friend][1]
-It's been a while*</p>
-
-I am a firm believer in the ideas of Open Source and Free Software, and in the
-fact that they can drive the world forward. Closed source software obeys the
-Rules of Market: it is born (as a Product), grows, matures, gets old and then,
-finally, it dies, and it is then that it becomes lost for all eternity. Open
-source software, on the other hand, is in a sense organic: it is born (as an
-unpolished piece), grows, matures, gets old, but is never lost, as the almighty
-Source will always be there for someone to compile it, or at least reverse
-engineer it and then make use of it in some other way.
-
-Thus I believe that Github is one entity that can help drive the world forward,
-which is why [I am publishing][2] not only The Tar Pit's content, but also its
-plumbing, on Github. Have fun with it!
-
-[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJta8qGNnXw
-[2]: https://github.com/spyked/thetarpit.org
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 000
+title: First post
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: July 22, 2013
+tags: asphalt
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*[I am][1]*</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*I was not
+then I came to be*</p>
+
+This is the first post. This is not an introductory post. It is not an attempt
+to familiarize the reader with the meaning, scope or purpose of The Tar Pit,
+nor is it particularly meaningful in respect to the blog -- indeed, as you
+might have already noticed, The Tar Pit is one of the many blogs on the
+Internet.
+
+This First post has one meaning, however: it marks the beginning of something
+which at this moment eludes the reader, maybe even the author himself. "Hello,
+world", it says, "here I am, and there's no turning back". Nothing more.
+
+This is actually the zeroth post.
+
+[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WqyOWYj5nE
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 001
+title: The Tar Pit: an introduction
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: July 25, 2013
+tags: asphalt
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">*[Isn't this where we came in?][1]*</p>
+
+About eight years ago I started writing. I suppose that's an idea bound to
+arouse the intellect of your average guy in his late teens, although most of
+them have next to no subjects to approach. I myself had no idea what I was
+going to write about and I'll confess this has changed very little in these
+years. But I felt an urge to write, in very much the same way someone needs to
+pee after five beers. And I was motivated by two main ideas that I can
+remember.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+Firstly, I had started reading seriously since three or four years before. I
+hadn't read much else besides Romanian literature, which, mind you, can prove
+to be excruciatingly dull at times[^1], but I was interested in structure and
+in how to write after reading all these books, the same way I had been
+interested in how to make music after listening to rock and so on. I never
+claimed I could do it right, all I knew was that I had to try it.
+
+Secondly, I had found blogs as a way of expression on the Internet. I had
+started using computers shortly after learning how to read (at about five) and
+was spending most of my time mindlessly reproducing Basic code on a Z80
+Spectrum clone, so I could draw geometric shapes and the likes. At ten I
+already had a good idea of how to use a PC and at twelve I was browsing the
+Internet on dial-up on Friday evenings. Two years after getting my permanent
+Internet connection, blogs were looking mighty cool and Wordpress intrigued me
+so much I decided to give it a shot. I made a hosting account on some
+Geocities-like platform[^2], installed Wordpress and wrote my first post,
+entitled "Another Brick In The Wall...". It was an article about mostly
+nothing, but I didn't care; I thought I had become a blogger.
+
+However, that didn't stop me from writing other articles about something, some
+of it even interesting stuff. To be honest, I didn't care if it was interesting
+to anyone else, since all I felt was sharing my experiences with "the
+Internet", regardless of whether that "Internet" included anyone except myself.
+But I interacted with people, and I kept writing about stuff. And it felt good
+for a while.
+
+So why did I decide to start another blog? you might wonder. Well, I always
+felt pretty good about having a clean slate. Sometimes such changes are bad,
+other times they're beneficial and, finally, there are those times when change
+is necessary, and I happened to find myself in the latter situation. Sure, the
+new blog™ isn't going to be fundamentally different from the old blog™, but I
+felt there was no other way to go.
+
+There are also some technical reasons behind this decision, but I'll cover them
+in another post.
+
+*And what's with this "Tar Pit", anyway?*
+
+[^1]: The only novel taught in Romanian schools in the first eighth grades is,
+as far as I know, "Baltagul" ("The Hatchet"), written by one of the first
+Romanian communist writers, Mihail Sadoveanu. The novel attempts to make a
+parallel with the myth of Isis and Osiris, at the same time introducing
+traditional Romanian themes and motifs. I suppose the only reason they keep it
+in the curriculum is a dumb sense of nationalism.
+
+ On the other hand, I spent the summer before my eighth grade reading Marin
+ Preda's "Cel Mai Iubit Dintre Pământeni" ("The Earth's Most Beloved"),
+ which, if nothing else, is a good read on the wrongdoings of the Romanian
+ Communist regime. Also, the book's rather dubious philosophical content
+ made a deep impression on me at the time.
+
+[^2]: Now as dead as Geocities itself.
+
+[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlR3wUPwJCg
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 002
+title: The Tar Pit: technicalities
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: July 27, 2013
+tags: asphalt, tech
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*[So I’ve erased myself, replaced my mind, it's a clean slate][1]*</p>
+
+I would argue that the tools used to create some arbitrary kind of art, or
+craft, are completely irrelevant. The argument is supported by past pieces of
+art, some of which were made in very rudimentary conditions, a fact which at
+the same time doesn't make them any less "artistic" than newer, more
+"sophisticated" creations. Some would even argue the opposite: that earlier art
+has more personality, since it involved more sweat and blood. This is of
+course bullshit, as there are many handcrafted works that look dull[^1] and
+some chaotic geometric shapes that can be described purely mathematically[^2].
+
+That is, tools are of little importance to the consumer, while they can make a
+big difference for the producer. Some hundreds of years ago people were writing
+using quill pens and parchments, while more recently Douglas Adams wrote on an
+Apple computer. While this makes no difference whatsoever to the reader, they
+helped the writers be more or less productive, given that quills and parchments
+are easier to use than clay tablets, although significantly slower than your
+modern keyboard. Sure, it's not that pencils are in any way "inferior" to
+computers; they're just different tools serving different purposes.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+## The eternal issues of Content Management Systems
+
+About nine months ago or so I felt that Wordpress was no longer the right tool
+for me. I had already known that it had its problems and I had used various
+palliatives that kind of worked, only not in the way I wanted.
+
+One of the smaller problems of Wordpress was its inner workings, that require a
+fully working, fully configured LAMP[^3] environment. There's not much to say
+about that, this kind of setup is now a de facto standard on the web. However,
+the really small stuff killed me. For example, pingbacks mysteriously stopped
+working without me even noticing once I changed the router in my internal
+network. The new router didn't support NAT loopback, while Wordpress was
+continuously making requests to the public IP address, making it impossible to
+reach itself[^4]. I solved the problem later by doing some DNS voodoo, but the
+fact remains that I was desperate about trying to fix a system that doesn't
+work reliably anyway[^5].
+
+Then there was that issue of spam. For a blog that got a comment per month or
+less, the old blog™ received a shitload of spam, so much that the (non-premium)
+Akismet queue couldn't handle it. This was frustrating me, since I was now
+spending more time doing moderation and checking for false positives than
+doing, you know, the important stuff.
+
+Finally, all these problems led to performance issues. After attempting some
+holistic server-side optimizations, I had to get a new server to ramp up
+loading time. I also tried some stricter security measures such as IP banning,
+but again, this incurred a lot of overhead from my side, and mind you, I can't
+say I find the idea of being a sysadmin too attractive.
+
+## The zen of static site generation
+
+About nine months ago, I realized that a static blog would solve all these
+problems and pose some others. On one hand, a static site loads fast, has a
+simpler design, which makes it a lot easier to configure and customize, and it
+eliminates comment spam by design. Since I'm into Haskell, Hakyll seemed like a
+good idea, even though there are other pretty good alternatives out there.
+
+On the other hand comments, I admit, are kind of a big issue. For a while, I
+looked into third party commenting systems, or writing my own, or even using
+the one from Wordpress, but I realized this would bring back the spam
+nightmares I had previously had with it. I also thought about proprietary
+alternatives such as Disqus, but Disqus is a service with terms that I don't
+necessarily agree with. So no, I wouldn't have them owning the comments of my
+readers.
+
+Therefore, I have given up comments altogether. Once the blog has a contact
+page, you'll have the option of commenting on my stuff by sending me an e-mail
+or a message on whatever social network I'm on. Moreover, feel free to link my
+posts to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and whatever social network you're on, and
+drop me an e-mail if you feel like I should give my input. Other than that, I
+don't really feel like turning back to comment moderation, I think that I
+should focus on writing and not much more.
+
+## Die Sprache
+
+I'll end this post by mentioning that I deliberately chose English as the main
+language[^6] for The Tar Pit. I'm not a native, nor a particularly good English
+speaker or writer, hence this gives me the occasion to improve my skills and
+evolve, which was pretty much [my motivation][3] from the beginning.
+
+I am also hoping that, being written in one of the most widely spoken languages
+on the web, the blog's more obscure content will reach a bigger audience. I'm
+well aware that this could change. Maybe Simplified Chinese will become the new
+hot trend in five years from now, which means I'll just have to learn it and
+use it in writing.
+
+*As for why The Tar Pit, stay tuned, you'll find out soon. Really soon.*
+
+[^1]: There are those that call themselves "slow artists", who find great
+pleasure in spending tens of hours in making intricate, beautiful patterns,
+which can nowadays be reproduced by a computer in a matter of seconds. Both are
+awfully symmetric, both lack personality, thus rendering the whole "automatic
+versus handmade" debate useless.
+
+[^2]: Fractals, dynamical systems in general.
+
+[^3]: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP
+
+[^4]: I documented this on [my previous blog][2] (in Romanian).
+
+[^5]: It's not that pingbacks are not reliable by themselves. It's that the
+XML-RPC protocol, or rather its implementation, is crappy. I agree that in
+theory pingbacks are a really cool idea meant to fire up discussions, but in
+practice they never seem to work quite right.
+
+[^6]: Maybe not the only one. I don't know, I guess we'll cross that bridge
+when we come to it.
+
+[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAeqtw3KeQ
+[2]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/de-ce-nat-ul-e-o-idee-proasta "de ce nat-ul e o idee proastă"
+[3]: /posts/001-introduction.html "The Tar Pit: an introduction"
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 003
+title: The Tar Pit: about
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: July 29, 2013
+tags: announcements
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*Strangers passing in the street
+By chance two separate glances meet
+And I am you and what I see is me.
+And do I take you by the hand
+And lead you through the land
+[And help me understand][1]
+The best I can.*</p>
+
+The Tar Pit is discussed on [the dedicated page][2].
+
+[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGwPSPIhohk
+[2]: /about.html
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 004
+title: On art
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: August 1, 2013
+tags: cogitatio
+---
+
+The first thing I need to point out, and indeed I do, like a fish needs water,
+is that art is purely a personal thing. There is no single definition of art,
+more like billions of them, and people believing otherwise are nothing but
+close-minded fascists. It's not only that artistic values vary from one culture
+another, but between two given individuals, even if they suckled from the same
+breast.
+
+That being said, what follows is my view of art; mine and mine only, and I find
+no pleasure whatsoever in knowing that others may or may not share it.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+The word "art" comes from the latin "ars", which means "skill", or "craft", and
+is closely related to "arma", which refers to joining, fitting together etc. So
+the roots of art lie in making tools, or using tools to make other (useful)
+objects and such similar activities. Contrary to popular belief, for a long
+while, art involved not only aesthetics, but also practical aspects: a good
+carriage was "a fine piece of art" not only because it looked good, but also
+because it served its purpose well and because it was the result of weeks,
+maybe months of hard work.
+
+In time, the meaning of the term shifted to what is nowadays known as "fine
+art", that is, works that are highly polished and refined by the hands and
+minds of the greatest masters of a particular field. Art is therefore not
+simply craft, but also the best there is.
+
+A second shift led to the view that art is not only the best, but it is also
+that which transmits emotions. This definition is hardly quantifiable, since
+subjective experience can, as I previously mentioned, vary greatly from one
+person to another, and thus art becomes purely a matter of taste and
+preference. So what is, in my opinion, art? It is two things.
+
+Firstly, it's a product of mind, hands and whatever else it is that created it.
+Art itself doesn't involve the process of creation and it has nothing to do
+with the person that created it. Trying to find the meaning of a piece of art
+in its creator is nothing more than egomania and mindless adulation. Surely,
+creators deserve praise and criticism for their art, but in the end it's the
+livened piece, not its author, who speaks. Furthermore, once it's created, the
+piece becomes completely separated from the creator, becoming subject to its
+consumers' scrutiny.
+
+This also implies that aspects related to the process of creation, for example
+the tools used, are completely irrelevant from the point of view of art, since
+consumers can in few cases judge the tools themselves. Besides, including
+creation into art would exclude non-humans from the artistic process, which is
+obviously wrong, since nature is one of the greatest artists in history.
+
+Secondly, art is that which leads to the "improvement" of mankind, whatever
+this so-called "improvement" might be. Electronic circuits, and computers in
+particular, are clearly art. The Internet is an incredible piece of art, not
+only due to the fact that it's bigger than what any single human could have
+ever achieved. These are simply "the best" and they convey the emotion of awe,
+which makes them fall into the standard definition of art. Engineering is an
+art and any attempt of the humanities to prove otherwise are not only
+misguided, but also malicious in nature.
+
+These two definitions are interesting due to the fact that they include
+computers as creators of art. It's absurd to try and find "personality" in a
+computer-generated work of art; it is also absurd to say that that which is
+generated by a computer is not art, even though it can compete in refinement,
+maybe even surpass the equivalent created by a human.
+
+However, my view does not and cannot integrate *some* concepts into the
+definition. For example, it doesn't allow for intellectual property. Since art
+only depends on the final product, then near-perfect copies have the potential
+to be as valuable as the original. Since art can be created by machines, art
+can be copied by machines. This, by the way, is something which upsets
+copyright holders, a thought which is a good starting point for another, which
+I may discuss at another time.
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 005
+title: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: August 4, 2013
+tags: gaming
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">*Gabriel's mini-stereo isn't exactly
+high-fidelity. Then again, neither is he.*</p>
+
+Back in 1993, when all was fine and dandy and Sierra were still making awesome
+games, they launched the first game from the Gabriel Knight series, written by
+none other than Jane Jensen. I hadn't gotten to play it then, as I only got a
+PC about five years later. Actually I only played Gabriel Knight about a few
+months ago, which is pretty odd considering the bunch of awesome adventure
+games I had experienced before.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+<span class="imgright"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-007.png">
+<img class="thumb"
+src="/images/2013/08/gk-007-thumb.png" title="Mr. Knight and some guy"/></a></span>
+So then it was, long after playing the first two games from the Broken Sword
+series[^1], that I gave GK a try: a random guy in a random city (New Orleans)
+is having weird dreams about weird rituals, then wakes up in his boring,
+typical American room. It seems that our Gabriel owns a rare book store, his
+only employee an Asian American chick (Grace Nakimura) who on a first look
+seems to be either frigid or just some stuck up bitch. Up until now, it sounds
+like your typical American cliché.
+
+To drive the cliché further, this Gabriel Knight guy is also a writer, and he's
+got a friend (Det. Mosely) who's a cop who's investigating a weird ritualistic
+murder that just by some weird coincidence took place on the edge of the city.
+Gabriel's ass is itching, so he decides to investigate the murder mostly all by
+himself, which is just great if you're a guy with no prior detective
+experience. In other words, even more cliché.
+
+<span class="imgleft"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-009.png"><img class="thumb"
+src="/images/2013/08/gk-009-thumb.png" title="One of the rare player deaths in the game. Not as frustrating as it might seem."/>
+</a></span>
+Fortunately, the story gets interesting when Gabriel starts to delve into New
+Orleans' Voodoo history, which, as far as I can tell from the point of view of a
+non-specialist, is very well documented within the game. A lot of the high
+points of the game are entirely made up of Voodoo lore, exploring the subject a
+lot deeper than other adventure games involving more "exotic" cultures, from
+what I've played[^2].
+
+Another aspect that kept me hooked was the "little" things, elements of the
+story, that come up as the story advances, from short poems to the daily
+astrological forecast. Symbols are often present where you least expect them and
+all these things are tightly integrated so that they give the player a more
+book-like experience, an experience which is also enhanced by the narrator's
+rather peculiar voice. This is more so relevant as the narrator doesn't just
+give a piece of information, but she gives it in a non-dull, non-mechanical
+manner.
+
+<span class="imgright"><a href="/images/2013/08/gk-008.png"><img class="thumb"
+src="/images/2013/08/gk-008-thumb.png" title="When the saints go marching in."/>
+</a></span>
+Most of the voice actors are top notch: Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn
+and Jim Cummings are a few names. The acting didn't cease to give me that
+annoying Hollywood-like feeling at the beginning, but it either faded away in
+time or I got used to it. Besides that, the graphics are up to par with other
+adventure games in the early '90s and the music (by Robert Holmes, Jane
+Jensen's husband) adds greatly to the atmosphere.
+
+Frankly, I feel ashamed that I haven't played the game earlier. It's not my
+favourite adventure, but it's original enough that I find it hard to compare
+with others, older or newer, and I feel that I must give it its own separate
+place in my book.
+
+<a href="/images/2013/08/gk-003.png"><img class="thumb"
+src="/images/2013/08/gk-003-thumb.png" title="The Voodoo museum."/>
+</a>
+<a href="/images/2013/08/gk-013.png"><img class="thumb"
+src="/images/2013/08/gk-013-thumb.png" title="Beautiful winter landscape."/>
+</a>
+
+[^1]: Arguably the only games from the Broken Sword series.
+[^2]: The Broken Sword games are one example.
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 006
+title: The Tar Pit on Github
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: August 7, 2013
+tags: announcements
+---
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*[Hello, Mirror, so glad to see you my friend][1]
+It's been a while*</p>
+
+I am a firm believer in the ideas of Open Source and Free Software, and in the
+fact that they can drive the world forward. Closed source software obeys the
+Rules of Market: it is born (as a Product), grows, matures, gets old and then,
+finally, it dies, and it is then that it becomes lost for all eternity. Open
+source software, on the other hand, is in a sense organic: it is born (as an
+unpolished piece), grows, matures, gets old, but is never lost, as the almighty
+Source will always be there for someone to compile it, or at least reverse
+engineer it and then make use of it in some other way.
+
+Thus I believe that Github is one entity that can help drive the world forward,
+which is why [I am publishing][2] not only The Tar Pit's content, but also its
+plumbing, on Github. Have fun with it!
+
+[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJta8qGNnXw
+[2]: https://github.com/spyked/thetarpit.org
let pages = ["about.markdown", "contact.markdown",
"404.markdown", "403.markdown"]
-- tags
- tags <- buildTags "posts/*" $ fromCapture "tags/*.html"
+ tags <- buildTags "posts/**" $ fromCapture "tags/*.html"
-- content
match "index.html" compileIndex
match "css/*" compileCss
- match "posts/*" $ compilePosts tags
+ match "posts/**" $ compilePosts tags
match "images/**" $ compileImages
match (fromList pages) compilePages
create ["archive.html"] compileArchive
compileIndex = do
route idRoute -- TODO: make a "copy to root" route?
compile $ do
- posts <- loadAll "posts/*" >>= fmap (take 5) . recentFirst
+ posts <- loadAll "posts/**" >>= fmap (take 5) . recentFirst
let indexCtx =
listField "posts" postCtx (return posts) `mappend`
defaultContext
compileArchive = do
route idRoute
compile $ do
- posts <- loadAll "posts/*" >>= recentFirst
+ posts <- loadAll "posts/**" >>= recentFirst
let archiveCtx =
listField "posts" postCtx (return posts) `mappend`
constField "title" "Archive" `mappend`
teaserField "teaser" "content" `mappend`
bodyField "description"
applyTeaser = loadAndApplyTemplate "templates/teaser.html" feedCtx
- posts <- loadAllSnapshots "posts/*" "content"
+ posts <- loadAllSnapshots "posts/**" "content"
>>= mapM applyTeaser
>>= fmap (take 7) . recentFirst
renderRss tarpitFeed feedCtx posts
projects / thetarpit.git / commitdiff