Tag: posts about the blog itself

Version 2 of My Simple Sub Cipher

On 2025-10-12

Ok, less “version 2” and more like “version 0.4” but still, I can engage in a bit of version-inflation if I want.

In last night’s post about an simple inline substitution cipher to help “jumble”-slash-“hide” text so that spoilers or text otherwise hidden until user action takes place, I had only the most basic pieces worked out.

This morning I worked out a few more basic features:

I have built a very basic “Simple Inline Substitution Cipher” page to handle the creation of these materials.
The cipher now should be able to pass through double- and single-quotes without breaking the HTML or Javascript.
Rather than paragraph tags, using span tags. This should help with adding stuff like single- to few-word elements inline with the rest of the text and no longer requires every instance to be a full paragraph of text.
Spans are giving a “click me” type title.
Spans are given a class of “gentleSubCipher” to allow for CSS to better improve their usability.
Spans are now given a random five-character ID to immensely reduce the issue of multiple IDs match and causing potential breakage.

It looks something like this:

CsrS rS E wESrI VHEveAV SsPbr4T Pjj QsV "D8PQVS" E4z 'Sr4TAV D8PQVS' E4z QsV PQsVf 4Vb VAVvV4QS QsEQ sEyV wVV4 EzzVz.

There are still quite a few limitations:

Just to clarify, it is not and will not be secure.
It still does not ignore HTML elements within that span.
It simple cannot work with feed readers and I need to test how to make it work better with screen readers.
Accented characters still are passed through but that still is not quite a problem.
Multiple posts with it might result in a problem where version shifts break previous posts when seen the front page, category page, etc.

For the latter, the idea might be to create unique scripts per post. I’ll have to give it some thought and testing.

The next version will be building in some logic for ignoring HTML elements. That should be a bit trivial for the types of things I need to ignore, but we’ll have to see.

A Day in the Life: #17665

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-10-09

In Coding, Daily Life, Exercise

While I would call the current sky approaching noon as “Mostly Just Gray,” there have been a few moments where a color apparently called “blue” and an object that Wikipedia tells me is “the sun” have been visible. Such wonders!

It is actually supposed to be sunny and clear in Grimbergen this weekend, but also the temperature is going to drop again. Win some. Lose some.

One Hour Workout Results

See what it looks like when I use a flash to illuminate the darkness? At least it doesn’t look like I’m working out in the unlit part of the backrooms this time.

Went ahead after yesterday’s post and decided to push it up to a full hour and a bit more speed while retaining the resistance. Final result was around 28km. At an average of speed of…well, I’ll let you math nerds solve that.

I’m not 100% I can keep it up on a daily basis because it definitely flexes the leg a lot but it is also not that difficult. I was more concerned about having to pee starting around the 40 minute mark and just how numb my ass got sitting on the metal seat that long. Tomorrow’s a different day but if I am not overly sore or having trouble with mobility after today I might give it a try.

Dickens of a Blog Reclamation Continues Apace

I have been working on the tech behind fixing up as much of the older Dickens of a Blog as best as I can. The Poetry section is “working complete” which is to say that I have cleared out around half the poems and focused on highlighting the ones I really like, and gotten all of those updated, but there are no doubt others that can be linked.

I’ve been using a mix of WinSCP and Notepad++ to do a lot of heavy lifting. I can copy and paste chunks of HTML and CSS into the backend and then do some document wide find+replace actions to reaching a decently stable point.

I finished up a rewrite of “8 Space” this morning and for now I think I’ll take mostly a break for the day. Give myself something to look at that isn’t just more HTML and terminals.

Having that focus on a single aspect for a couple of days has helped me to figure out the mechanics a lot and I hope I can do a lot more in a shorter time in the future. And if I have to go and do more fixes in the future, the layout should be stabilized enough that I have a better chance of just automating it.

“Mail Bag” Maybe Incoming

I have a small stack of deliveries I’ve gotten recently and wanted to give a shout out to some of them but I need to figure out exactly how I want to do that. I think I’ll divide them up and give myself space to go through more of them one at a time. Or just skip it. I don’t know.

I really need to shower. I still am covered in an hour’s worth of sweat.

Also, look at my hair just give up on me. That’s one way to get out of having curly hair.

Hello, is this thing on?

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-10-02

In Blog Stuff, Creativity, Daily Life, Dougiverse

It is nice to talk to you again, Space Pilgrims.

The very last post I made to the old version of Dickens of a Blog was “I, This Thinking Thing”. That was August 2016. That means it has been over nine years since I’ve made a real post under that branding.

Today, I went through and created a new [possibly temporary] front page to the wyrmis.com site that looks a bit like this:

It mostly directs people to here, to The Doug Alone and to the [still very much so being finalized] Doug Talks Weird. Those two and this site are the new “Dougiverse” [pronounced “Dougie Verse”].

While Doug Alone has been brewing for over a year now, and Doug Talks Weird dates back to something like 2014 YouTube videos, I have spent a good amount of the past two weeks sorting and trying to rebuild my online identity so that I can start posting and sharing things without relying on “more traditional” social media. A strange sentence to type.

So Many Words to Say

I reached a point those nine years ago where I wanted to shut up for a minute. Then, around two-to-three-years later I kind of wanted to take it back. However, the time it would take to rescue the old blog — from younger-Doug’s rambles as much as younger-Doug’s hand-coded functions that had been left behind by something like ten years on a changing web — always made me shy away. I would post online here or there, share pictures here or there, but mostly I just withdrew.

However, I am at a time again where I would like to just have a spot to ramble. So this blog is here, now. It is not a replacement of the old one. It is more a continuation in a way that is a bit more responsive, a bit less intensive — I would sometimes have to go into the Python back-end of the old one and custom tweak things to keep posts working and had to remember dozens of custom commands, tools, and pieces — and hopefully a bit reader-friendly without so many baked-in Dougisms.

It Will Take Time

That being said, it will probably a week or two at least before the page even looks like it is going to look. I’m going to try and not sweat it too much.

As for today, I have just spent five hours getting everything set up to hit the point I can post this. I am an hour behind eating lunch and still need to do my daily work out and shower first. Well, maybe not first. I’ll figure it out.

Hopefully, I’ll see you soon.

–Doug Bolden