HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY, DONALD DUCK!

neocities/indie webmastery resources

since a lot of people are getting into indie web stuff nowadays, I figured I'd post my collection of webmastery resources I've accumulated here!

full list under the cut, you can also view the list and other resources on my resource page (which contains resources for other things too, not just webmastery or programming). This post will probably be updated when I find more stuff too

Font selector code HTML - the HTML portion of code I made to implement a working font selector on my website

Font selector code JavaScript - the JavaScript portion of code I made to implement a working font selector on my website

freeCodeCamp - free coding courses and certifications

The Odin Project - full stack web development curriculum, open source

Developer Roadmaps - community-made roadmaps for self-taught developers

GTmetrix - shows how fast your site loads and gives recommendations on how to improve load times

Cappuccicons - free icons, alternative to Font Awesome

XP.css - CSS framework mimicking the look of Windows XP operating systems

Indieseek.xyz - an indie web directory

Archetype - experiment with font and spacing options and see a live preview of what they'd look like on a webpage

Porkbun - cheap domain and web hosting provider with free WHOIS privacy (not having your private information publicly available and linked to your domain name which normally happens when you buy a domain unless you pay a fee) included with every domain

Whatruns - free browser extension for Firefox that tells you what a website uses to run

Inclusive Components - a blog about designing inclusive and accessible web interfaces, with example code

WAVE Web Accessibility Tool - scans a webpage and identifies potential accessibility improvements

ACA 80x15 web badge maker - make a web badge

Sadgrl's 88x31 button maker - make a button for your website

A Field Guide to Web Accessibility - an informative guide about web accessibility

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List - huge list of tools that assist in helping create accessible websites

SCM Music Player - customizable music player for your website

Resources - Bechnokid's resources, tutorials, and code snippets, including making an RSS feed reader for status.cafe and implementing Freezeframe JS (so animated GIFs don't play by default until hovered over or until the user clicks a button, important for accessibility)

Mobile Friendly via CSS - a tutorial by Dannarchy on making your website mobile-friendly

Website Carbon - calculates your website's carbon footprint, recommend pairing this with GTmetrix for specific recommendations as optimizing how fast your website loads will generally reduce its carbon footprint

Native Neocities Hit-Counter - a tutorial by Dannarchy on making a native Neocities hit-counter for your website

Cbox - free chatbox for your website

You Don't Need JavaScript - a collection of ways to do things typically done with JavaScript, without JavaScript

Creating your own website - a guide by 32-Bit Cafe

Zonelets - a simple, free blogging engine

Melonking's intro to the web revival - a series of blog posts on building a website for beginners

Code snippets - useful HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets from Kalechips

Other people's collections of webmastery resources (not all of these are just webmastery):

sadgrl.online

Yesterlinks

Tinytools directory

32-Bit Cafe's massive resource list

awhe's cool links

30 seconds of code (free code snippets)

Milan's ultimate resource list (not just programming)

doqmeat's links

the garden of madeline's web resources page

Okay, I think that's all the links for now! If you have any questions on this stuff feel free to send me an ask btw, I'm happy to help :D

Nights and Mornings

The next week....

The dawning horror of realising you are both night people.

QOTD below.

QOTD: What do Gyro and Donald not like in each other?

They adore each other in many regards, but when it comes to Donald's impatience and temper, plus self-loathing-fueled envy, Gyro finds himself more concerned for Donald. It's not always comfortable to watch the lengths Donald might go for a crumb of public validation. On Donald's part, he is unhappy that Gyro stretches himself out thin often, and for so little pay from Uncle Scrooge. Despite chiding him to not overwork, Gyro wants to be useful and disregards his advice. Donald always sticks up for his partner, but it creates some strain when Gyro once again retreats into the workshop for days trying to meet the quota.

For Day 2: Conflict of @donro-week

Family

movie night

QOTD: Of course the Duck and Gearloose families will support this relationship. HDL probably are hyped that Donald has a tech bf who can show them how to build cool stuff. And while they seemed to be somewhat indifferent towards Daisy (who was very hot-and-cold to Donald), they like that Gyro makes their uncle genuinely very happy. Scrooge would be all for it, so he can score a "family discount" from Gyro's workshop. As if he doesn't pay the poor guy enough. Newton enjoys this arrangement since he's buddies with HDL at school. They get to carpool! And hang out a lot! Plus, he is probably a huge Paperinik fan and Donald is "Paperinik's best friend"... so...

Day 5: Family for @donro-week

Meet The Crescent!

I'm excited to present my Pokemon Mystery Dungeon team for Wayfarer ARPG, The Crescent! The team is comprised of Alvus, the contrast Sobble, and Stella, the inverted Snivy.

You can read more about their stories on their Adventure Log on AO3! You can also send asks about them, and receive in-character replies.

Alvus and Stella share a little bit of history, as Alvus temporarily worked for House Elysia, of which Stella is the youngest child. They befriended each other then, but Alvus did not come to only make friends. They wanted to steal one of House Elysia's rare artifacts known as the Lunar Disc, said to grant extraordinary powers, in order to become stronger. They were successful in their goal and soon left the house, their theft completely undetected.

But Stella could not forget her friend. She managed to track them down and convince Alvus to travel together. Despite Stella being oblivious to their crime, Alvus agreed to travel with her. Now, Alvus has to figure out how to use the Lunar Disc without Stella catching on...

If you want to participate in Wayfarer, the group will have an open beta on March 1st! You will need a ToyHouse to register.

It's great you've been motivated to write the book again! What helped you get back into it? Your prior comment on how the craft of writing is undervalued in this digital age left an impression. I feel we are on the cusp of an era promising some wild, alarming possibilities. It's easy to feel anxious or lose hope. I worry my approach to making a living will be rendered obsolete in the next decade, and be forced to adapt to a new world using old skills. I always did prefer paper books to digital.

Generally speaking, my tried-and-true method of working through any mental block is to develop a bigger and better perspective. Yes, we are on the cusp. When a dramatic change descends upon people, it's normal for the first reaction to be an overreaction, especially if you are among the directly impacted such as writers/authors.

Looking back at similar historical moments, the early predictions were rarely accurate because they were anxious overreactions. No matter how big the potential for change, the process of change eventually runs up against a wall of stasis, in the form of people's deeply ingrained memories, beliefs, values, and habits. (You've brought up a great example as one of many people who still prefer paper books despite the convenience, cost-savings, and widespread availability of ebooks.) Thus, in the end, though change is inevitable, it is never as fast and dramatic as people fear.

Additionally, modern culture has a short attention span, and the novelty has already started wearing off as people get more familiar with the flaws and limitations of AI. AI is not something you can rely on and trust for final answers on important matters. Mostly, it is there to remove the burden of tedious mental work, which frees up time and energy for more meaningful tasks. One reason human beings still dominate the world is their ability to "domesticate" and neutralize threats, and the process has already begun with AI.

Yes, generative AI threatens to flood society with meaningless content at best and harmful misinformation at worst. The answer to the false and the meaningless isn't to give up on truth and meaning, is it? If you believe it is a matter of grave existential importance, then the answer is to do more to ensure that truth and meaning prevail.

I want old aros so badly. I want a history. I want a future. I want tales of lives that I understand. I want to see myself in a future where I’m happy and comfortable.

But I don’t have that, so I’ll have to build it.

very excited for this event!

This blog finally has a banner and tumblr icon! What do you think Donald and Gyro are talking about under the stars?

Be sure to put :iconDonro-Week: in your bio to use this stamp!

Banner and icon were made thanks to the efforts of @sikyurame and @dandyfelines

whats that defunct land quote again? every part of the film making process is awful, but not making film is even worse? idk something like that. anywah im being completely normal about art rn ::))

An old Wigglytuff x Chatot flipnote from 2017.

with regards to learning it may be important to know about IEOD(illusion of explanation depth) which may sometimes lead us to believe we understand more about the world than we think this can be especially true for those with an intuitive preference i write this because I've fallen for it too I hope this helps

I have discussed such learning problems in previous posts. After spending many years teaching, tutoring, and coaching students from a variety of backgrounds, in a variety of subjects, it never ceases to amaze me just how little people understand about learning. I believe that basic knowledge of learning theory is necessary for optimizing the learning process, if one hopes to be a good student of anything.

With so much information at the fingertips, it's more important than ever that people are mindful about how they learn. Being in the role of "student" is hard because you're a newbie and you're ignorant and you don't know the best way to tackle a big subject. Without a good teacher or an expert to guide you, you might come to rely on dubious sources of information, misinterpret what you read, misapply the ideas, or hit a seemingly insurmountable block/plateau.

Unfortunately, there are not enough good teachers to go around. Unfortunately, many teachers in public education are tasked with "babysitting" rather than teaching, to the detriment of learning. As a result, too many students get to high school, i.e., into adulthood, without a solid foundation of study skills.

Just recently, I was helping a twelfth grade student with essay writing. Being a good student, they couldn't understand why they kept getting low marks in writing despite putting a lot of effort into the assignments. Turns out, they kept submitting summaries of the literature when the teacher was explicitly asking for analysis of the literature. When I brought this problem to their attention, they were even more confused, because they thought they had been doing analysis all along. They had no clue that there was a difference between summary and analysis, so they were incapable of getting to the level of depth that the teacher was demanding.

One of the first things I often have to do with students is explain the difference between lower order vs higher order learning. Lower order learning is usually enough to pass the class throughout K-12 or achieve basic competency. Higher order learning moves people into expert territory. Without a clear vision of what they should be aspiring to, students tend to get stuck in lower order learning.

The difference between lower and higher order learning is neatly summarized by Bloom's Taxonomy, a conceptual framework for evaluating cognitive/intellectual ability. It breaks down the learning process into six categories/levels: 1) remember, 2) understand, 3) apply, 4) analyze, 5) evaluate, 6) create. Since it's hard to quantify exactly what's happening in a student's mind during learning, this framework helps by asking concrete questions about what the student can or cannot do.

My student got stuck at level 2 when the average requirement for the class was 4. They gave me a sample essay that their teacher considered to be "excellent" and it was easily at 5. While they could "feel" that there was a difference between their own essay and the excellent essay, they weren't able to articulate the difference at all.

One learning problem that people, Ns especially, often suffer is that they tend to get ahead of themselves, which is related to illusion of explanation depth. It's basically trying to run before walking. For example:

they believe "gist" is enough and dismiss details

they conflate knowing (theory) and doing (real world)

they judge/conclude without proper analysis

they try to create without mastering the basics

The above problems arise when a person doesn't realize how much they don't know (and in the case of an unhealthy personality, they refuse to acknowledge it). My student (N) is a good example. They believed that being able to do level 2 stuff (paraphrase, summarize, interpret, give examples) qualified as level 4 "analysis" and that this meant they had "mastered" the material. They simply didn't know any better or that more was possible. It wasn't until I explained to them the differences between lower and higher order learning that they began to realize how low-level their writing actually was.

I've talked before about the differences between a good student vs a good learner. A simple way to think about it: A good student is preoccupied with proving how much they know, so they are mainly motivated by extrinsic rewards or egotistical gain. By contrast, a good learner is preoccupied with how much they don't know, so they are mainly motivated by intrinsic rewards or intellectual humility that naturally breeds intellectual curiosity.