commit 4dacb35ec2941415a925aea51ec03c2c3aa046ee
Author: Yuval Langer <yuval.langer@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:06:06 +0300
First commit.
Diffstat:
2 files changed, 134 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/20221116153111-fairy_genocide.org b/20221116153111-fairy_genocide.org
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+:PROPERTIES:
+:ID: baa64561-223e-4f17-a825-c41760433116
+:END:
+#+title: Fairy Genocide
+#+AUTHOR: Yuval Langer
+#+filetags: :publish:ideas:story:war:fairies:pixies:genocide:magic:
+
+It had been a few months after the peace delegation had disappeared
+without a trace deep in the Human territories south of the Forest. The
+war with the Human was at a standstill and both parties had decided to
+attempt peace negotiations. Now news of atrocities started to pour
+in. Whole villages gone to the Human aggressor, with an odd survivor
+reaching the Forest capital, telling strange stories of powerful Human
+warlocks possessing spells capable of striking down all Fairies around
+them, even stranger was that those warlocks were children.
+
+--------
+
+The Serrate Leafs' General, Baron Rhubarb "Rub" Popkin, was well
+rested after a day and a half in the luxurious royal suite. The place
+was immense, fitted for Human proportions. He got up from his bed, the
+size of a Nutball field, and flew to the little drawers, normally used
+to store paper and envelopes, on top of the enormous desk where he
+stored his uniforms. He was far away from home, here in the Human
+capital, many hundreds of kilometres to the south of The Forest.
+
+"Today we will make history and stop this bloody bloody war," thought
+Rub.
+
+He met the rest of the delegation outside, all already mounted on top
+of their rabbits. He mounted his rabbit, Lazylegs, and they marched to
+a tent of gargantuan proportions where the ceremony was held,
+signalling the beginning of the peace talks.
+
+The ceremony started with music, loud and obnoxious, from loud and
+obnoxious instruments the size of a building. There have been an
+accompaning dance routine.
+
+"Flailing hills, these Humans," the General Baron thought.
+
+After the stage cleared he was invited to go to his seat at the
+table. A wooden chair with fine filligries, custom made for this
+occassion. It was badly proportioned and uncomfortable.
+
+"A little back ache for the safety of our people."
+
+The Human Myriads' Master, Monsieur Tepid Pool, had finally greeted
+the parties and made a little speech - the horrors of the century long
+war, the price both Human and Fairy had spent on this standstill
+military engagement, the lost years and lost lives and what could have
+been but will never be.
+
+It was Popkin's turn. A Human relay was assigned to him, relaying in
+his thunderous Human voice what Popkin had said in the regular
+loudness of his own voice. He talked of Fairy culture - their affinity
+to the woods, their cities in the treetops, their lives with the
+forest animals and the Gnomes of the burrows, absent from the
+delegation as they were still suspicious of Humans, the magic that
+made them a match to giant Humans.
+
+The relay repeated his words, of Fairy magic, and a small child in the
+audience shouted loudly:
+
+"Ay doon believe in magic!"
+
+The Human child was promptly shushed, but the damage was done. Popkin
+and his delegation suddenly screamed, zooming through the air,
+scattering in all directions, and eventually slowly fell like autumn
+leafs to the floor. Only their rabbit mounts were left of the
+delegation. Lazyleg slowly hopped to his master's body, like the rest
+of the rabbits hopping to theirs', and gently sniffed then nudged the
+lifeless body of Baron Popkin.
+
+From the stage, Tanisloff Gregorin - Top Commander of the Human
+military - considered the child with a wide grin and knew that the war
+was now far from over, but already won.
diff --git a/20221122002707-eww_is_the_opposite_of_eww.org b/20221122002707-eww_is_the_opposite_of_eww.org
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+:PROPERTIES:
+:ID: 9904fc16-7e52-4d32-ad87-21083474b4df
+:END:
+#+title: EWW Is Not Eww (also, info books are great)
+#+date: 2022-11-21
+#+author: Yuval Langer
+#+filetags: :publish:blog:clipboard_speaker:
+
+So I find it hard to read. Yes, some people are like that, but I have
+developed a technique to aid me on my readings. (only for English, not
+for my Mother Tongue Hebrew, but that's another topic.)
+
+It is all based on a little Python script I wrote called [[https://codeberg.org/yuvallangerontheroad/clipboard-speaker][Clipboard
+Speaker]].
+
+I mark a bunch of text, copy the text, and press a keybinding which
+starts the script. The script then reads the contents of the clipboad,
+then gives them to a text-to-speech engine that reads it. There are
+some additional minor complexities, but that is the main workflow.
+
+Now let me expand on that.
+
+The three keybindings I have set are, again, define through the Gnome
+configuration UI:
+
+- super-c - Takes the regular clipboard which is filled by usually
+ pressing C-c.
+- super-x - Takes the weird clipboard which is normally filled just by
+ marking text.
+- super-z - Stops the test-to-speech engine.
+
+Normally you would like to mark a bunch of text and press super-x,
+without first pressing C-c and then super-c, but sometimes that does
+not work. I do not know why, as in the case with Firefox.
+
+As an aside, Firefox has a Reader Mode which also has built-in
+text-to-speech functionality. It is admirable and I love that Mozilla
+chose to implement it, but I find it limited - one cannot control
+where each batch of text to-be-read starts and where it
+finishes. Usually whole paragraphs are chosen. Sometimes one wants to
+sit back while the text is zoomed in, but the paragraph slides off the
+viewport, so one cannot follow the text below a certain point.
+
+Anyway, I want to read in Firefox, so I mark a bit of text, then press
+C-c (text copied to clipboard) s-c (script takes clipboard contents,
+starts the TTS engine and passes the text). I mark text, C-c s-c, mark
+text, C-c s-c.
+
+Now, if I read something in eww, I have a cursor by default and I can
+comfortably move the point to the start of bit of text I want to read,
+press C-<SPC>, move point to the end of the bit of text, then press
+s-x. Easy.
+
+By the way, a fancy thing I have added to the script's functionality,
+is that the text-to-speech engine keeps receiving new text in its
+stdin every time I press s-x or s-c, so you can mark text, press s-x
+or C-c s-c several times and each of those bits of text would be
+played in order.
