Agora Road Travelouge (August Blogging)

andreixyz

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Maybe ChatGPT has some thoughts
Please stop using Chat Gepetto. The whole purpose of the thread is to push people to be more creative.

Come on, everyone. Bring your ideas to the table, even if they're crap. At some point they will be better.
 

HammerKoopa

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As for a name? I dunno. Maybe ChatGPT has some thoughts?
What a way to immediately take the fun away from the creative process.

The Agoralog sounds like a potential pick.
A variation on Traveler's Echos? mayhaps?

The Anthalogia? This would be an anthology of blog posts, after all. Maybe a bit on the pretentious side, but it sounds awesome.
Anthalogia needs to grow on me, feels like an uncomplete name? But i do love the Anthology concept for the name.

Voicedrew's Tales of the Digitally Bizarre sounded funny to me on the bus
 
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andreixyz

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Eden

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I finished! I'm so happy! I'd been chipping away at this one for months, yo. Did it come out as perfectly as I would have liked? No. (Do they ever?) But I think I got a good chunk of what I wanted to say across.

Wherever You Go

It's about... my feelings on traveling. Sometimes I feel like (exaggerated idea) that everyone is telling me to travel. That a life without travel is a lesser one. So I wrote this as a little bit of a dark side to all the rainbows and unicorn poop people hype it up to be. Hope you get something out of it, reader!



I don't have it in me for another one this month, unfortunately. But I wrote my "year-in-review" in August. would it be OK if I submitted that and this one? I know it wasn't explicitly written with the Travelouge in mind, but I don't want to be left out. :kawaiiNacho: Pwease.

I was very obsessed with this blog post in particular cause I was like "Bruh! A post about traveling for the travelogue! Obvs, yo!"
 
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Voicedrew

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I finished! I'm so happy! I'd been chipping away at this one for months, yo. Did it come out as perfectly as I would have liked? No. (Do they ever?) But I think I got a good chunk of what I wanted to say across.

Wherever You Go

It's about... my feelings on traveling. Sometimes I feel like (exaggerated idea) that everyone is telling me to travel. That a life without travel is a lesser one. So I wrote this as a little bit of a dark side to all the rainbows and unicorn poop people hype it up to be. Hope you get something out of it, reader!



I don't have it in me for another one this month, unfortunately. But I wrote my "year-in-review" in August. would it be OK if I submitted that and this one? I know it wasn't explicitly written with the Travelouge in mind, but I don't want to be left out.:kawaiiNacho: Pwease.

I was very obsessed with this blog post in particular cause I was like "Bruh! A post about traveling for the travelogue! Obvs, yo!"
Yup, no problem
 
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RisingThumb

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Please stop using Chat Gepetto. The whole purpose of the thread is to push people to be more creative.
What a way to immediately take the fun away from the creative process.

This is discounting generative AI tools as non-creative, and that they burgle fun. An equivalent is about digital vs analog tools. Is something non-creative or unfun as a result of being digital? Like Digital painting, or Digital writing, or Digital music? This happened between 1990-2010, and it was about a 10-20 year transitional period of people discounting it. It's like saying vaporwave music isn't "real" music as it's digital... A tool has no power, except in the hand that wields it. The hands which refuse to learn(even the Amish learn about our modern technology and selectively adopt good and bad parts), have no power- no tools help them because they don't help themselves. It's one thing to disavow a tool on its merits(see equivalent thread on AgoraRoad and blog by no56), it's another to disavow it on ideas of creativity and fun. As for creative, that's very vacuous. What do you think makes something creative? It's as difficult a question as defining art. It's quite self-righteous to say something isn't creative, nay, that it even pulls people away from creativity, isn't it?

As for fun being robbed, I actually agree. It's incredibly frustrating to get a particular output you want, while knowing that if you knew other skills you could fix it yourself. It's also not a physical skill, so you don't have a physical analogue response and analogue consequences which is part of what's so rewarding about anything physical. This produces fun, as a midpoint between challenge and skill. BUT! How fun something was, doesn't equate to the output you get from it. Consider Beethoven's deafness. Definitively not fun, but out of it the ninth was created, a definitively high quality piece of work. And Wipeout? A really fun game that has a lot of artistic expression? Its main menu is a 5000 line crunch-time slop, that was likely not fun for its developer. I don't particularly see how fun is a pre-requisite to good creative output. It can be a pre-requisite to it being worth your time though.

Another point, if you have no skin in the game, and haven't used AI tools, or haven't used a particular tool- it's very easy to express opinions on them, but these opinions lack force. Mathematics has no symbols for confused ideas, neither do opinions when you're drowning in angry confusion.
"Anthalogia" sounds like someone failed spelling class.

from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anthology :



On the other hand, the cover design looks great!

PS: I added a new article to my submission in my original comment.
Agreed, I think Anthologia is better. The cover design does look great! Can you see if there's a higher quality version of the camel? Maybe @IlluminatiPirate has original high quality sources for the camel, or someone knows who originally created. Currently has JPEG artifacts. Failing to find a high quality version, it'll be best to clean up the edges where there's whites, and mask artifacting... maybe with some sort of filter... like Chromatic Aberration?
EDIT: Is this a higher quality camel for you to use? Or was it what you originally used?

Looking forward to seeing the finished RSS feed for this month! I'm curious to know, will there be a site or something for the travelogue/anthologia? Hats off to you @Voicedrew for setting this all up! Spearheading community projects like this deserves some good kudos! :drinkBleach: :SataniaThumbsUp:
 
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HammerKoopa

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As for fun being robbed, I actually agree. It's incredibly frustrating to get a particular output you want, while knowing that if you knew other skills you could fix it yourself. It's also not a physical skill, so you don't have a physical analogue response and analogue consequences which is part of what's so rewarding about anything physical. This produces fun, as a midpoint between challenge and skill. BUT! How fun something was, doesn't equate to the output you get from it. Consider Beethoven's deafness. Definitively not fun, but out of it the ninth was created, a definitively high quality piece of work. And Wipeout? A really fun game that has a lot of artistic expression? Its main menu is a 5000 line crunch-time slop, that was likely not fun for its developer. I don't particularly see how fun is a pre-requisite to good creative output. It can be a pre-requisite to it being worth your time though.
That is the exact point, being worth your time. Either through fun, or fun as in the gratification of the journey. Your own example of Beethoven, no shit being deaf was not fun, but putting ones heart and soul into a beautiful piece of music and see it come to fruition is "fun". Wipeout, yeah crunch-time is ass, but as someone who makes a living writing code, the small victories along the way as a cool function comes together and gives the output you desired, you get that sense and feeling of growth that at least helps the gauntlet that is crunch time bearable.
The fun comes through the emotions and the trials of whatever creative endeavor you partake in, and I'd argue it is just as important as the end result as both come together by the end. Taking your time through a hike or a trail to arrive to a destination gives the same result as taking a cab to it whilst looking at your phone, ordering fast food the same result as a home cooked meal, but the overall experience is completely modified.

Another point, if you have no skin in the game, and haven't used AI tools, or haven't used a particular tool- it's very easy to express opinions on them, but these opinions lack force. Mathematics has no symbols for confused ideas, neither do opinions when you're drowning in angry confusion.
For one, I am one for AI tools, I've worked with them and dwelled into their inner workings. I've read n°56's post on his website as well and I found myself agreeing with it. For they are indeed tools which are only compared to the power of the hand that wields it, and as such the same is when they are wielded lazily, I stand by that now and I stood by that during the digital vs traditional art debates that used to happen back in the day. A perfect circle done free handedly with traditional art will always be more impressive that the one created with the circle tool on MSpaint, and the one done by hand with a drawing tablet will be more impressive than the one on paper with a drawing compass. An AI tool wielded properly can make incredible results after hours of tweaking a prompt, same as it can produce some the most uninspired slob I've ever seen. Just like with any other tool or artform.

Edit: Forgot to reply to the actual thread lol

Agreed, I think Anthologia is better. The cover design does look great! Can you see if there's a higher quality version of the camel?
Definitely! Anthologia has got a better ring to it

So far all the entries I've been reading have been really interesting and worthwhile reads and it is a really fun project to have been able to witness! Great job @Voicedrew
I have me first entry done, and I am working on the second one to have it before the deadline, to include them together in the next update of me website. Probably going to make it by the skin of me ass. It is weird writing a blog post for the first time after so long, to be honest what I wrote just feels like the ramblings of a pretentious madman. But I hope it'll do!
 
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AI can be used for inspiration too.
even when results are bad, it can give you colors and shapes, and ideas, still
 
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HammerKoopa

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andreixyz

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No embedded content right now, but the basic version of the August Travelogue now
CSS:
rss {
    line-height: 40px;
}

item {
   margin-right: 20px;
}

description {
    display:block;
}

link {
    font-size: 80%;
}

adding the above should make it look a bit clearer. just a suggestion.

1693695771410.png
 

Voicedrew

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CSS:
rss {
    line-height: 40px;
}

item {
   margin-right: 20px;
}

description {
    display:block;
}

link {
    font-size: 80%;
}

adding the above should make it look a bit clearer. just a suggestion.

View attachment 73904
Thanks, yo

I was pretty confused as to why my CSS was shitting the bed.

I'm going to try to get it displayed in a table next.
 
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RisingThumb

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Thanks, yo

I was pretty confused as to why my CSS was shitting the bed.

I'm going to try to get it displayed in a table next.
Alternatively as a list view:
CSS:
/* Center the list, make it not too wide for desktop users + small margin for phone users */
rss {
    width: 100%;
    max-width: min(800px, 98vw); /* For desktop users, 800px. For phone users 2vw (0.02 of the viewport) used */
    margin: auto; /* Centering */
}
item {
    display: list-item;
    list-style-type: none; /* Optional if you want bullet points. Consider disclosure-closed */
    margin-bottom: 0.2rem; /* Optional */
}
item title {
    display: block; /* Put each title and link on separate line. Consider also "display: flex" for fine tuned ordering of elements*/
}
Produces something that looks more like this.
1693709461178.png

It's missing one thing in particular. An email address or some more meaningful way to contact the "webmaster" of this page so that broken links and other problems can be pointed out. Additionally the file type for this URL is .xml.

Can you also make the feed have .rss as the filetype(or symlink it so you have .xml and .rss files)? The reason for this, is any operations, extensions etc that operate on RSS feeds or try to detect URLs to open them in an RSS feed reader, based on the file extension miss this.. Your browser will autodetect it's RSS and display it correctly, because the W3C spec is absurdly large, but for smaller extensions and external programs they can't expect as many edge cases on this.

Additional tags that might be useful for subscribers to the RSS feed:
Code:
You should be defining the namespace as well, so all the RSS tags are pulled correctly
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:"atom:http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">

<language>en-us</language>
<generator>If you used an RSS feed generator. If you're doing it by hand, wow </generator>

When this RSS feed was last built/updated. You should define this, as it lets some
RSS feed readers easily skip reading your RSS if there's no updates.
<lastBuildDate></lastBuildDate>

<webMaster>Person to email on technical issues</webMaster> see above for justification. Broken links etc


And to the items, I would suggest adding
<author></author>

RSS feeds detect new items on guids if defined. To stop unnecessary reading, define guids with the same link
<guid isPermaLink="true"></guid>

and <pubDate></pubDate> tags

These are the obvious changes I'd make above ^. You can see a full list of RSS tags here, I'd pick and choose what's suitable and what's worth maintaining in the RSS feed.

Hopefully given you some direction for immediate and obvious low hanging fruit improvements
 
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