< Notes...

On this one, which I use every once in a while to count the amount of notes per year, Lyse came up with a much more streamlined solution. Thanks, mate!

(for file in *.md; do \
    grep --max-count=1 'date:' "$file" | \
    sed 's/date.*\([[:digit:]]\{4\}\).*/\1/'; \
done) | sort | uniq -c

I have rewritten the Hugo shortcode I was using to rate movies and series, adjusting it so that it goes from 1 to 5 stars. No more fractional ones, which means I will need to pay closer attention now when rating.

I really have no idea what Nelson was/is doing on his Hugo blog, that was causing a space to be added after a link. I am not doing anything out of the ordinary here, and such thing doesn’t happen.

I am defeated by Hugo’s syntax highlighter. I don’t use code blocks much around here, but the few I have do not want to play nice, and show fonts with different sizes on desktop, and mobile. I haven’t been able to figure out, for the good of me, how to fix that weird behaviour. For now, the few code blocks I around have syntax highlighting turned off.

Update: 06 Oct 2025 @ 19:34:06

OMG! This guy is a saviour! In his own words:

“Lately, I’ve been coming across many blogs that have weird font-size rendering issues for code blocks on iOS. Basically, in a code snippet, the text-size would sometimes be much larger for some lines than others.”

Exactly my problem. Applied the fix he recommends and, boom, just like that, magic! Thank you, Nathan!

code {
    text-size-adjust: 100%;
    -ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;
    -moz-text-size-adjust: 100%;
    -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;
}

I have added the ability to use emoji as a note marker. For example, this one has a hammer and wrench emoji. It’s simply an entry on the front matter of the note. I will not abuse it, but I think it is going to be useful. If ends up not to be, removing it will be pretty simple, thanks to sed.

First there was Jekyll, then there was Hugo (which I use), with many others in between. Now it seems Astro is the latest kid in the block. Beautiful stuff can be done with it, if you don’t mind, and/or know, JavaScript. I might be too old for it.

I am starting to wonder if 17 pixels is a tad too small of a font size for these notes. Under macOS the font size looks fairly legible, but under Ubuntu it seems a tad too small. I will need to check, and make sure screen resolution is the same for both, before doing any further fiddling.

Update: 03 Oct 2025 @ 21:08:04

My main mistake is to use pixels for font sizes. This evening I will be changing them all to use rem/em instead. Still, everything will look smaller at higher resolutions.

I slightly changed the 404 page around here. It used to be Bernie, but he messaged and told me he was tired of it, and was quitting. So, I hired some birds. Just type some rubbish at the address bar after https://netbros.com/ and you will see.

I have automated the process that adds a notice and timestamp when I edit a note, when adding more content to it at a later time. It works great, as it uses the git lastmod timestamp. The unfortunate side effect was, all timestamps got reset because I actually modified all notes that had an UPDATE notice. 😩

This bash code is what I use to count the amount of notes per year, ever since I started babbling in here. I first move to the content/posts/ directory, then run it. It works great under macOS.

for file in *.md; do \
    head -n 5 "$file" | \
    grep 'date:' | \
    sed 's/date.*\([[:digit:]]\{4\}\).*/\1/' >> count; \
done && \
cat count | sort | uniq -c && \
rm count

I am trying to implement a workflow, so that I can use a graphical editor for creating new notes while in front of the computer, that is, not over an SSH connection. Let’s see how it goes.

Update: 02 Oct 2025 @ 16:49:20

Yup, it works quite well. I really don’t know why it took me this long to implement something as simple as this (I am using Obsidian now to create and edit notes if not over SSH). I guess I usually create notes on Terminal, on Bash, and didn’t have the need for anything else. Until now!

Ever since I moved from WordPress (ugh!) to Jekyll at the beginning of 2011, and then to Hugo, sometime in 2014, I haven’t had comments on any website I have dabbled with. I want to believe I have been happier that way. For a few I tried kudos here, using Tinylytics, but that didn’t last long.

Less is, truly, more.

Oh oh, should I worry? My brew upgrade just updated Hugo to v0.147.7. Last time I upgraded it everything broke loose. I figure I may as well test it, so this is it. If this post shows without errors, I should consider myself lucky, and clap twice.

I have found myself on Nicholas’ “shoes” in quite a few occasions. Those occasions on which Hugo has changed its codebase around, and things that used to work worked no longer. I have been tempted to switch, but then what? Grass is always greener on the other side, and what brought me to it (the other side, that is) will not be the last. Time and again I ended up going to Hugo’s community, and each time I found the fix I needed.

It is my very personal opinion that nothing beats Hugo when it comes to simplicity. Nothing extra to install, just a single binary. Beyond its simplicity, it’s extremely powerful.

I have been tyring to automate the setting of lastmod on Hugo to no avail. I want to capture in a note the last modified timestamp from git, as these notes reside in git repository, and use it within a note. No dice, so far.

Got it to work! It is not using the git timestamp, because it doesn’t really acccurately provide the modification time, but the commit time (two different things). Instead, I am setting the timestamp when the note is opened for edit.

Update: 19 Feb 2026 @ 12:54:44

Nah, I ended up scrapping the above, too much work, and for what? I am using the commit timestamp, and that’s that.

Statistics on “Notes…” since I started them, including this one:

002 2022
400 2023
153 2024
052 2025

That 2023 sure was a prolific year, wasn’t it?

Regarding this, I am also considering a format change. Leaning more towards a “bullet blog”. What is a bullet blog?

• Well, something like this, where one writes the things one wants to write using a bulleted list (maybe specially styled for the purpose?).
• More than one thing can be writen, either at once (when post is made), or added (by editing it) throughout the day.
  • Sometimes bullets can be children to parents, depending on their relationship. This isn’t needed, but it is there if suits purpose.
• Some entries might not have bullet entries at all. It is totally optional.

Feeling the desire to change these notes website altogether. I am not sure to which direction. Comes to prove that we, humans, never settle. Let’s see.

I decided to “Tonsky-rise” Notes today, because I grew a bit bored of the black and white. First “big” change in a while. Let’s see how long it lasts. 😂

I have added so many little things to “Notes” over time, that I am feeling a bit guilty. Can it be, still, considered minimalistic? I hope so!

While in the topic of disliking things, but this time technology themed, I can’t stand PHP. That is an acquired dislike, as I used to use it until 2011 (WordPress). That year I moved to Jekyll and later on, in 2017, to Hugo which I still use today.

I have added a subtle way to provide feedback here, using the very easy to setup, simple, and awesome Tinylytics. Now that I have done it, I am having second thoughts. Do I really want it? I sure don’t know, so they (blue hearts) are here now, but they might not be tomorrow. Yeah, true ambivalence.

Update: 20 Feb 2026 @ 18:22:26

Feedback is anonymous. I see the same as you see: a number next to the emoji, nothing else. If you have JavaScript disabled you see nothing, and so do I.

At which point a seemingly neverending web page will take too long to load—or it will stutter? I am currently paginating at 80 notes per page, but the original (which entised me to start “Notes”) sets no limit. I figure it will be limited by the operating system, or web browser, or by processor and memory constrains. Or all of the above.

I am having a hard time perfectly aligning the icon at the begining of the timestamp on each note—timestamp that is also the permanent link for it—and it’s driving me nuts. To the point that I am seriously considering getting rid of it all together. Why was I made so fastidious?

Added the beginning of a “uses” page, which is linked at the bottom, on the footer. I am not sure I want to add links at the top—like a menu—or just keep Notes simple, as I have it now. Probably the later.

I have fiddled a little, and added OpenGraph support to these notes. It is still kind of ugly, but less so than it was before. Baby steps, right? Now I will not be afraid to share them on Messages.

If you have JavaScript enabled in your browser (who doesn’t these days?!), old anchor links will now work, instead of what I previously stated. I will not be creating anchor links anymore, but old ones in use elsewhere will work.

I have managed to break links a bit further, and it is no longer possible—nor the old ones will work—to create anchor links within the paginated index. On the upside, I am not touching URIs ever again!

Fiddled a bit more with Notes, because I can’t stay still. Hopefully still looks simple, and minimalist. That has always been my aim.

I saw that hugo v0.114 was out, so I had to upgrade (from 0.112, nonetheless). Let’s see if it breaks things, or not. I think I said it before, but Hugo drives these notes.

I did it again, I am breaking URIs here. After 100 notes, the main page will paginate, which will break internal references, and external links. Hopefully this is the last time I do this. Good thing there is only one incoming link, that I know off. I can now fix the internal ones, as there are not too many. 😅

Cool URIs don’t change, but I am starting to worry about the size (66.6KB as of this note) of this index page. Maybe my URIs are destined to be uncool. 😂

CommonMark’s ability to set classes and identifiers is amazing. Hugo (which I use to generate this notes) is using it. They work like so, in CommonMark markdown:

Hello world.
{.foo .bar #foh}

Which, in turn, will render and HTML code like this:

<p class="foo bar" id="foh">Hello world.</p>

Now all you have to do is define the class and id on your CSS, or whatever. Neat, right?

Having grown tired of seeing “Added or edited a note, or tweaked something.” on the commit logs for these notes, I have now tweaked the new note script to ask for a commit message. This is the maiden voyage, let’s see if it works.

Update: 04 Oct 2025 @ 17:18:14

It works! Added editing old notes too. Considering migrating from the vi editor to Typora for any note with media in it.

For as much as I hate doing this, I believe—unless I find a way further down the line to bring in the old entries—this is a fresh start here. Why? Because the way I was crafting these little notes would not scale. At certain point I used Hugo, then wiped it by mistake (because I do idiotic things sometimes), and then I concocted this Frankenstein of a Bash script. The end result is a file that doesn’t allow for easy editing, nor it is portable. So, here we are.

This time I am starting over—again—with Hugo. Everything in life is ephemeral, and this is no different.