isoblog
inane ramblings
2026
Trying to Escape Discord: 2026 Edition
In light of recent developments, here's this knee-jerk and ever-evolving write-up on every alternative to Discord I could come up with that's halfway worth considering.
duckduckgo.com Custom Cans Single 4 Pin Mini XLR Pinout
In which I once again suffer the consequences of my decision to buy custom headphones, and document my findings this time so as to suffer a bit less in future. In other words, I reverse-engineered the connector pinout my modded DT770 uses, made a diagram, and posted it here. Hi, future me!
Building a Cooler Body or: How to Get Estrogen In Alberta 2026 Updated Guide (No AHS)
A log of the process I went through to get estrogen in President's Choice Brand Texas, with a lot of gritty details that I would have liked to know going in. Obvious content warning for medical topics in this one. Also, the original publish date is my HRT anniversary.
2025
How to get Rosy Maple Moths in Skyfactory 5
Documenting a janky, incomplete solution I came up with to integrate the Create: Estrogen mod with Skyfactory 5's bespoke nonesense to get some moths in my world "legitimately".
Building a Very Regular Bed
I just moved and the new digs are kinda lacking in square footage. In this one, I design and build a loft bed from scratch to try to fix that.
Revealing All My Deepest Blogging Secrets (Blog questions challenge)
In probably the least challenging challenge I've ever been challenged with, I answer a list of blog-centric question prompts that's been making the rounds in the blog-o-sphere.
Revisiting "AI"
I'm still not very fond of the subject of the current tech hype cycle, but my thoughts on the matter have developed some nuance since I last posted about it.
Fighting LLM Scrapers With Nepenthes And Fail2Ban
A comprehensive explanation of (and guide to replicate) my new and improved anti-scraper defenses.
I've Just Moved Hosting Providers
I've just migrated all my self-hosted stuff onto a new type of hosting solution with a new provider, and apparently I had a lot more to say about it than I thought. I promise my next post will be about something other than a computer.
2024
Holiday Special: My First Computer
Reminiscing about the first computer I ever owned, which taught me everything I know, and in a just world would be turning 10 years old this Christmas.
Building a Relatively Sensible Server
The wacky DIY NAS I built out of my old gaming laptop last year isn't working as well as I hoped. Follow me as I strip it for parts and construct a better one, properly this time.
How to Set Up Pi-Hole (On a Le Potato)
How to set up Pi-hole, a network-wide DNS-level ad-blocker, on the particular discount Raspberry Pi I did it on.
You Should Learn To Make Cables
I saved $140 by splicing together my own audio cables, and you can too!
Admins Can Read Your DMs
Yes, the admins of your fediverse server can read your DMs. No, that's not actually a problem.
Building a Completely Normal Server
I spent the past few months making full use of all my physical engineering talents to build a NAS that is completely normal, and not weird at all, and involved an amount of 3D modeling, 3D printing, and hacksawing that is entirely typical of most home computer builds, all in the name of reusing an old laptop.
My Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Distro Hop
A chronicle of my brief journey from EndeavourOS to Fedora to back to EndeavourOS, and wrestling with a VPN client that sees itself as above such trifling matters as "functioning".
How to Make Youtube Videos Buffer All The Way Like The Old Days (In Firefox)
Alternate title: Common Firefox W
I Don't Like AI Art
My actual thoughts on AI, in case seeing an AI-generated article in your RSS feed didn't get the vibe across.
The Invaluable Contributions of AI Tools to Humanity: A Look at the Unparalleled Benefits
AI tools offer unparalleled benefits to humanity, enhancing efficiency, healthcare, education, environmental sustainability, customer experiences, scientific research, and social accessibility. Despite ethical concerns, responsible development ensures that the positive impact of AI far outweighs potential downsides.
2023
The Unity Runtime Fee and Proprietary Software
Unity's new Runtime Fee is yet another data point on the pile against ever trusting for-profit software companies.
Blacklisting Websites in SearXNG
How to permanently banish geeksforgeeks.org from your search results in the event you're using a self-hosted SearXNG instance and can't just install uBlacklist.
Stop Using Chromium
An article about why you should quit using Chromium-based browsers, originally published as a standalone website for the purpose of automatically redirecting Chromium users to it.
Discord - So Your Favourite Chat App Sucks Now
Why Discord sucks, and how to find something that doesn't.
How to Automount Drives On Boot in Linux
How to configure a Linux system to automatically mount drives on boot by editing /etc/fstab.
How to Block User Agents With Nginx
How to configure Nginx to tell Cloudflare and their shitty centralized Fediverse server to go fuck themselves. And other unwelcome stuff too, I guess.
2022
deeptwisty.com 2nd anniversary - A History of This Bullshit
An abridged history of my presence on the World Wide Web, from my first customized Tumblr pages to now.