Oops! No Prompts!

So I'm a bit late to the #Bloganuary party this year. But no worries, so is everybody else– but especially WordPress. They began the challenge in 2022– with resounding success, from what I gathered from this blog post.

The goal is to post daily for the month of January. While using their Daily Prompt tag wasn't necessary, people in WordPress' online community are wondering where they went. And apparently they were absent last year, too! I guess the CEO is too busy being a jerk or something (and here's an article as to what I'm referencing).

For the record, I do like Fancying France's idea of "Bloguary." And I'm thinking... Blogrch. That is just hilarious. Hey, y'all, I'm getting an idea here...

But yes, I sometimes browse oodles of moogles and open-ended questions to get the ball rolling, sometimes. (And also, to do a lot of reading! I can get inspired that way, too.) I got all the drafts, but if I used them all up in a month I'm not pacing myself. Also no I do not have 31 drafts! I think. Should I count the "An idea of 1 or 2 sentences that never go anywhere" ones...?

1. But First, What Did I Learn Recently?

This is always a good subject to blog about. We're learning something new almost every day!

Just a few days ago I learned about the Bozo Bit. You have two flavors: the original "only a Bozo would think this weak-ass copyright protection would stop anyone except another Bozo," and the more modern(?) application of "you just said some dumbass shit, so I'm going to ignore your goofy ass from here on out."

Oh yeah. For the younguns: Bozo's a clown.

Anyway, that is the opposite intent of what Jim McCarthy talked about in his book, Dynamics of Software Development. In fact, a lot of people specifically state that you do not Flip the Bozo Bit, because everyone has something to contribute to a project, no one is perfect, and cooperation is a team effort. And to that, I agree. We gotta figure out ways to work together sometimes. Nuance and so forth.

But Imma flip it when someone starts talking about how great AI is or why reverse racism is real.

...It was only later, I realized, that it was just "Mute/Block/Agree to Disagree/Otherwise Disengage and continue living your life" with extra steps. But hey! I learned a little more about retro computing in the early Apple Era. This forum post has a cool writeup on the Bozo Bit in the wild, too.

We are just meaty computers. Meditate on that.

2. What Did I Relearn Recently?

Backups. Make 'em. Do it often. Seriously. Folx in IT have told me, in various different ways: "if you don't have something backed up in two other places, it must not be that important to ya."

Because let me tell you the frustration and (mild) panic I had when I my note-taking app of choice had technical difficulties for days, my last backup was a few months old, and I haven't transitioned the most recent rough drafts to my polishing phase. That'll teach me to stick to only one!

See also: redundancies. Have a fallback program or method when the primary one is on the ropes. And be aware that your fallback, when all else fails, is a text file on a USB stick.

3. So Where Do You Find Your Prompts, Anyway?

Oh, everywhere; everything but an app. There's all sorts of social tags, communities, and mailing lists, but sometimes I do the ol' "do a search right quick and browse a page or two." Today's was one put together by TheCoffeeMonster. There aren't any for 2026, but there's more than enough work they've put in!

Some standouts to me (to round this out so I'm up to six different prompts/topics) are...

4. What is a convenience you cannot go without?

Android Auto. That life of wrestling with your mobile device as the adhesive finally gives out and the damn thing falls and rolls under your brake pedal, or the vent clip blocking a crucial stream of AC? I cannot return to that, y'all!

It's gonna be a difficult transition if Android ever pisses me off enough for me to move away from it (the ""official"" Android OS or whatever that allows AA). I know Apple has their version of that, too, but it's highly unlikely that I'll own a device to use that.

5. Would you rather have a longer morning, afternoon, or evening?

Oh, this is a tough one. It's a tossup between longer mornings or evenings. I feel like my evenings need to be longer, because I'm a night owl and there's so much I can get done– or I just have the time to further decompress and be alone. On the other hand... mornings seem to go by so fast. It's never enough time to full get into gear before the day starts.

6. What do you think about completely going off social media for 1 week?

I actually used to do this whilst (and post-) college! Around the fall, I just tell people I'll see 'em in a week and fuck off. In that time I keep to myself, sometimes working on personal projects or catching up on things. I'd still journal, but they would be private (with a not-private roundup when I return if anything interesting happened).

Mind you, this was in 2009 til about my first Twitter account in idk lol. Thanks to the rectangular tiny computer in my pocket it feels a lot harder to do nowadays. But maybe it's something I should take up again. Y'all know I play too much.