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What's Happening In The Now

  • 📖 Writing: [The Textbook Case: Part 2] (procrastination blows)
  • 🖥️ Tinkering: Website housekeeping
  • 🎮 Playing: Fallout 4 w/ Sim Settlements
  • 😴 Practicing: Not sleeping (still awesome at it)

Same shit, different day(s). I recently wired hVmark functionality into this page to replace the hard-coded HTML that was used before. The implementation isn't as... obtuse as /nexus, so it's a lot more accessible on this side, which is important for a page that's meant to be intermittently edited.

AMENDMENT: It's been a bit since I wrote the above, and I gotta say... hVmark has made things so much easier. To whoever created hVmark: Thank you, good sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

Subtennial Incoming...

The HisVirusness YouTube Channel is almost at 100 SUBSCRIBERS. It's pretty surprising, but if you notice the first upload on the channel (and how many times it's been reuploaded by others since then), it starts to make a little more sense as to how we got here.

It's nothing to shake a stick at, and honestly, I'm going to feel further compelled to start making more original content on there. Not to say I'd be on a regular schedule, but at least putting in more effort than I currently am... which is none.

I do have some ideas (one of those, of course, is outlined displayed above), so Stay Tuned For More Bullshit. However, temper your expectations. After all, this does wrap back around to me pushing myself to start what I finish. And to be totally frank, I'm willing to have gaps between uploads if it means other projects in the pipeline are done, or at the very least actively being worked on.

It is pretty exciting, though. Wonder how long until I get ✓ verified ✓. I had a chance to way back when, but I stupidly turned it down.

Working The Resume (So I Can Resume The Working)

I've been working on my resume and I have to say... I'm really loving Markdown. I can see why it's been so widely-adopted in multiple spaces: It's portable, easy to pick up for non-tech people, and easy to parse.

...I'm still going to use hVmark for the site, though. I do stick by its design when it comes to what I'm doing, and I think my implementation of soft line breaks is a lot better, in my humble opinion.

But yeah, the gig economy only does so much. I need steady scratch coming in. So, if you happen to see me on LinkedIn or whatever, don't be afraid to say hi.
And then promptly offer me a job. Seriously. I need work.

money-please.gif

True Late-Stage Capitalism

Speaking of income...

A few years ago, I would design one-off shirts for myself as fun little weekend projects. I lived near One Hour Tees at the time, so I would design a shirt, order it, and a couple of days later, take a nice walk to go pick it up. I got Employee Of The Month at the job I was working during that time, and I asked my manager if I could make a shirt for myself to celebrate. After some deliberation, I was given the go-ahead. Only problem was, they weren't prepared for the effort and the competence that was going into designing and fabricating that shirt.

The resulting product looked like legit company merch. I wore it once, and was promptly asked to never wear it there again. I guess it stirred up some confusion and sour feelings.

...I wore it one more time a couple of weeks before we'd go our separate ways.

Anyway, I haven't done anything like that in years, and I want to get back into product design. Also, let's be real: Merch was inevitable. So, what better time than the present to set things in motion?

First design: the base HisVirusness logo. Obvious first steps. Partnered with Spreadshirt, a platform I used back in the mid-to late 2000s for dropshipping custom merch. And their modern system has stuff I was not expecting, like pictures of stock photo models wearing an approximation of the merch, generated in real time. And looking at all the models, there was only one that I had to use...

Husky dude with a beard, wearing a shirt that looks like the fabric is made out of static. This is exactly how my merch is meant to be worn.
Husky dude with a beard, wearing a shirt that looks like the fabric is made out of static.
This is exactly how my merch is meant to be worn.

Check out the merch here. I'm not gonna make a habit out of hounding visitors to spend money, that's not what this is about.
...However, there will be nudges here and there. Subtle ones. Probably.

After all, what's an art gallery without the merch table?

Chrome Is Fxcking Up!

If you're on mobile and reading this in Chrome (or a Chromium-based browser), odds are you're in reader mode because the site looks tiny and zoomed out. This is a very recent phenomenon.

For some reason, Chrome is no longer respecting text scaling based on viewport (or, at least, it's not respecting mine). For months, everything rendered fine without needing the usual "viewport" meta tag in the header (which actually breaks the layout here). But now, Chrome has decided to stop cooperating.

And no, I'm not going to “fix” it. This site was designed desktop-first; working on mobile was always a bonus, not mission critical. The site still loads, and you can still read and navigate, but I'm not going to bend over backwards just because Google quietly changed behavior.

If you're on Firefox Mobile, you're fine. Everything seems to be working normally. Netscape ftw.

[ https://hisvirusness.com/now ]