Toots for mausmalone@mastodon.social account

Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-23 at 23:21

After entirely too long troubleshooting I figured out the problem was this one line. Apparently if a Nook runs across ANY malformed CSS it refuses to parse the entire CSS file. Forgetting to delete that one semicolon in the middle of the line invalidated all the styles for the entire book.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-23 at 20:05

Hobby writing update: cover designed, EPUB file generated, transferred to Nook.

Nook takes one look at my CSS and says "no thanks I'm just going to apply all my own styles instead."

Looks like I'm going to have to go back and add a whole shitload of '!important' to get it to actually respect my design choices.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-23 at 17:54

Little life hack: if you ever want a little quiet music with no lyrics to put on while you concentrate but you don't want to feed into the whole ad-driven attention economy, look up any classical composer on Wikipedia and there will be a few public domain recordings of their works.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Elgar

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-23 at 00:01

So I exported the book to EPUB and then, with a ton or regex, fixed all the garbage HTML that LibreOffice Writer spit out. It's ... uh ... done, I guess. Save for cover art, which is a pretty big undertaking.

Oh, yeah, it also needs a title.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-22 at 14:12

Hobby writing update: I think it's finally time to actually "publish" something and get it out there. I'm just kind of hoping that speaking it into the void here will compel me to actually do it.

That's still a project to undertake, though. I want to give it a final editing pass and also change some location names but then after that I have to figure out how to make a decent EPUB file and design a cover. Once all that's done I'll probably chuck it up on my website.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-21 at 20:55

Had a four-hour retreat (+1 hour break in the middle) at work today so yeah, I'm mentally checked out for the rest of the day.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-17 at 03:48

The reason for this really bland cover art is obvious, btw - it's so that the cover is easy to read even in a small thumbnail. Compare with Juxtaposition in the top left, which definitely does not read well in this format.

EDIT: Also, likely, the difference between working with Random House vs .. uh ... Open Road Integrated Media? Boy that just sounds fake.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-17 at 01:40

Currently reading Six Crystal Princesses by Piers Anthony. It's good so far if you like Xanth, which is a tongue-in-cheek fantasy world that's entirely based on puns.

What I hate is this printing. It's hardcover and it's big (about 6" by 9"/16 cm by 23 cm), which is a pretty clumsy size for a novel. And this cover is definitely a product of its time - a flat, bland collection of same-size text over a VERY generic and un-fun painting of a sexy woman (Vinia is like 13 in the story) standing still

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-17 at 01:03

When people say the Nintendo Switch hasn't had a price cut.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-15 at 04:00

Tonight I'm listening to the album "The Beginning Stages Of ..." by the Polyphonic Spree. Hugely nostalgic album for me. It's what I was listening to on my Zune on a crisp, clear November day while I sat outside my new apartment waiting for my then girlfriend, now wife, to arrive for our first night in our own place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGHYul6pOKE

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-13 at 16:12

I think the most common phrase I've heard at a doctor's office has got to be "Sorry, our computer system is down."

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-11 at 23:24

I don't think I've ever had a cat fall asleep on my chest like this. #caturday

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-10 at 02:57

I wonder how much of seasonal affective disorder is due to an endless onslaught of pharmaceutical ads showing smiling active people doing fun outdoor activities in sunny weather.

EDIT: I realize this is unrelatable content for many either because they live in a place that doesn't have pharmaceutical ads or they would never pay for cable TV.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-09 at 20:27

God I really wish it was feasible to just take the winter off and rest.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-08 at 03:15

Feeling like crap tonight so I'm comfort-watching the positive vibes of Evan Edinger and @mattgrayyes

EDIT: oof I'm way behind on Matt Gray is Trying ... should rectify that.

https://youtu.be/tFisA4pydIQ

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-05 at 02:38

LRT: I actually noticed that the other night when I took out the trash - now I know what the very bright thing near the moon was.

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-03 at 17:36

I should note that it's "surprisingly" hard to read because it's very firmly shounen manga. The subject matter is fairly light and there's furigana for younger readers.

As a foreign language learner, I have difficult with the small kanji (which I don't know well enough to imply from the surrounding text), the long chapters (I read VERY slowly) and the long exposition bubbles (I'm much more comfortable with conversation).

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-03 at 17:29

I've been reading #異世界チート魔術師 and it's /fine/. It's a pretty basic isekai cheat manga. It's not explicitly a comedy, but it has some funny moments.

I'm surprised by how difficult it is to read, though. Each chapter is relatively long (about 30 pages) and the print is VERY small sometimes.

Sure, I'm over 40 years old, but my eyesight is fairly good especially at close range - but if you give me a kanji with 10-15 strokes that's only 3mm tall I have a really hard time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai_Cheat_Magician

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Written by mausmalone on 2025-01-02 at 14:06

Instead of using my own resources to get my work done I'm going to use my work-issued laptop to do work in the new year.

My work issued laptop 30 minutes into the year:

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Written by mausmalone on 2024-12-31 at 01:09

I do love me some manga but this is one area where I feel like American comics do it right and Japanese comics do it wrong.

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