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🐻 Better Admonitions for Bear Blog

2025-12-23 15:23:00

I wanted to add nice admonition boxes to my Bear Blog, but pasting HTML div structures felt clunky. Even worse, I couldn't use Markdown to add formatting or links to these boxes without resorting to raw HTML, which even more felt like having tag-soup.

While adding buttons to my Markdown toolbar helped automate the process, it still didn't feel like a clean solution. Then I discovered how GitHub handles Admonitions using simple Markdown. Since that unfortunately doesn't work in Bear Blog, I hacked together a way to get that same Markdown-first experience.

I decided to repurpose the lower-level headings inside a blockquote. This keeps the content in pure Markdown while giving the browser enough "hooks" to style them as Info, Warning, or Caution boxes.

How it works

To use this, just add the H4, H5, or H6 headline inside your blockquote, and you are done. Below you can see, what you need to type and how it is rendered, based on the CSS you find below.

> #### Did you know?
> You can find more tips like this in my [archives](/blog/) or by following me on [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@fischr).

Did you know?

You can find more tips like this in my archives or by following me on Mastodon.

> ##### Spoilers ahead!
> The following section discusses the ending of the book in great detail. Read at your own risk.
Spoilers ahead!

The following section discusses the ending of the book in great detail. Read at your own risk.

> ###### Wait, before you copy-paste...
> Always make sure to backup your current CSS theme before applying new styles, just in case!
Wait, before you copy-paste...

Always make sure to backup your current CSS theme before applying new styles, just in case!

The CSS

Add the following CSS to your Bear Blog theme to transform those headings into beautiful, GitHub-style boxes.

/* ==========================================================================
   GitHub Style Admonitions (Info, Warning and Caution Boxes)
   ========================================================================== */

blockquote:has(h4), blockquote:has(h5), blockquote:has(h6) {
    border: none !important;
    border-left: 3px solid !important;
    padding: 0 0 0 12px !important;
    margin: 3rem 0 !important;
    background-color: transparent !important;
    border-radius: 0 !important;
    text-align: left !important;
    font-family: var(--font-face) !important;
    font-size: 0.9em !important;
    line-height: 1.5 !important;
    max-width: var(--width);
}

blockquote:has(h4, h5, h6) p {
    margin: 0 !important;
    padding: 0 !important;
}

blockquote h4, blockquote h5, blockquote h6 {
    margin: 0 0 4px 0 !important;
    font-size: 1rem !important;
    font-family: var(--font-face) !important;
    text-transform: none !important;
    font-weight: 700 !important;
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
}

blockquote h4::before, blockquote h5::before, blockquote h6::before {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 20px;
    height: 20px;
    margin-right: 8px;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-size: contain;
}

/* Info (H4) */
blockquote:has(h4) { border-color: #0969da !important; }
blockquote h4 { color: #0969da !important; }
blockquote h4::before {
    content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%230969da'%3E%3Cpath d='M0 8a8 8 0 1 1 16 0A8 8 0 0 1 0 8Zm8-6.5a6.5 6.5 0 1 0 0 13 6.5 6.5 0 0 0 0-13ZM6.5 7.75A.75.75 0 0 1 7.25 7h1a.75.75 0 0 1 .75.75v2.75h.25a.75.75 0 0 1 0 1.5h-2a.75.75 0 0 1 0-1.5h.25v-2h-.25a.75.75 0 0 1-.75-.75ZM8 6a1 1 0 1 1 0-2 1 1 0 0 1 0 2Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Info: ";
}

/* Warning (H5) */
blockquote:has(h5) { border-color: #9a6700 !important; }
blockquote h5 { color: #9a6700 !important; }
blockquote h5::before {
    content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%239a6700'%3E%3Cpath d='M6.457 1.047c.659-1.234 2.427-1.234 3.086 0l6.082 11.378A1.75 1.75 0 0 1 14.082 15H1.918a1.75 1.75 0 0 1-1.543-2.575Zm1.763.707a.25.25 0 0 0-.44 0L1.698 13.132a.25.25 0 0 0 .22.368h12.164a.25.25 0 0 0 .22-.368Zm.53 3.996v2.5a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-2.5a.75.75 0 0 1 1.5 0ZM9 11a1 1 0 1 1-2 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 0Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Warning: ";
}

/* Caution (H6) */
blockquote:has(h6) { border-color: #cf222e !important; }
blockquote h6 { color: #cf222e !important; }
blockquote h6::before {
    content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%23cf222e'%3E%3Cpath d='M4.47.22A.749.749 0 0 1 5 0h6c.199 0 .389.079.53.22l4.25 4.25c.141.14.22.331.22.53v6a.749.749 0 0 1-.22.53l-4.25 4.25A.749.749 0 0 1 11 16H5a.749.749 0 0 1-.53-.22L.22 11.53A.749.749 0 0 1 0 11V5c0-.199.079-.389.22-.53Zm.84 1.28L1.5 5.31v5.38l3.81 3.81h5.38l3.81-3.81V5.31L10.69 1.5ZM8 4a.75.75 0 0 1 .75.75v3.5a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-3.5A.75.75 0 0 1 8 4Zm0 8a1 1 0 1 1 0-2 1 1 0 0 1 0 2Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Caution: ";
}

Why this approach makes sense

Yeap, I'm aware that headings have semantic meaning. However, there are several reasons why this is actually a superior solution for a blog:

  • By using H4-H6, you stay entirely within the Markdown syntax. This allows you to use links, bold text, or even lists inside your boxes, without having to add messy HTML and ending up in even more complex tag-soup.

  • This solution keeps your Markdown source code clean and readable. You don't have to worry about broken HTML tags or complex snippets in your editor. Following the Bear Blog principle, this helps keeping the writing process as simple and clean as possible.

  • This approach is a win for both accessibility and portability. Screen readers and RSS readers often ignore custom CSS and rely purely on HTML structure. By using headings, your admonitions become meaningful "landmarks". A user can jump directly to a warning in their screen reader, and an RSS subscriber will see a bold, clear headline instead of a flat block of text that lost its styling.

trusting the little guys: issues with 'big tech' alternatives

2025-12-23 04:48:00

A while ago, my brother-in-law asked around friends and family if anyone wanted to join the (private) cloud/file service he spun up.

Practical, right? Many outside the corporate web believe in smaller services within friend groups, families, and local organizations as the way forward. Instead of trusting big companies who could (or rather, will) enshittify and become too big and bloated (Google, Meta, Microsoft...), we should trust smaller maintainers within our circles.

The offer made me ponder what I would upload to the file service, and how much I would trust my brother-in-law with the files. Not just the integrity, but the uptime, the availability when issues arise, how swiftly severe bugs or security issues would be patched, and the uncomfortable question about confidentiality: Should I only upload files I don't mind him to see, or should I trust him that he wouldn't look at them?1

That made me think: How much do we trust alternatives to big tech?

When we host our various things like emails, image backups, blogs, social media accounts etc. with these big companies, a certain professionalism is expected. You're dealing with a corporate entity, so you probably have the following expectations:

  • I'm a consumer, and I have consumer rights against this corporation. I don't feel bad about potentially suing them, because I'm suing the company, not one individual.
  • While messaging their support, they (or nowadays, their AI chatbot?) keep it professional and are available in a reasonable time.
  • I can lodge complaints and expect a fix fairly fast, and downtime is usually resolved within an hour or few.
  • No one person or one department has access to absolutely everything, and especially not unchecked. Lots of eyes, control mechanisms, logs, and separation, limited rights and access on a need-to-know basis.
  • People working there get paid for this, which affects how they treat the service or what they cannot risk doing.
  • There are internal consequences for non-compliance, and there are internal workflows on how to deal with specific cases the same every time; even just deletion requests or requests for personal information.
  • There are far too many employees, and far too many users; why should I, of all people, be interesting enough to have my privacy violated by an employee?
  • I have a right to request my data, and a right to data portability. Due to financial interest in keeping the company going, they're future-proofing.

All of these (whether they are actually realistic and enforceable or not) can give us a sense of security. A cold, sterile business relationship, like the one to our water provider.

If we want to switch away from these data-harvesting giants to smaller solutions, we are confronted with the fact that usually, it's a small group of people, or even just one person. Some try to build up a smaller service professionally, but many just do it on the side, as a hobby. A Mastodon or PixelFed instance, another social media alternative, or media sharing.

That poses some challenges and questions for the average user:

  • Do I still have consumer rights, even just rights like the GDPR, or not?
  • Would I be comfortable pursuing this person legally if shit went sideways or they abuse or leak my data? Can I even, if this is just an internet stranger with a nickname and an email address?
  • Can I expect a professional relationship about this service?
  • If this is just done on the side as a hobby or experiment, will the person actually continue it after the first few weeks? What do I do if I lose this?
  • Will they have the time and energy to continue to update it and care for it, and keep my data safe?
  • If I need a quick fix or tech help, would they be able to respond in a timely manner? Depending on what it is, it might be urgent.
  • Can I trust this person not to abuse their admin power and look into everything? Even if it's SFW, maybe I wouldn't want a stranger to click through my image files (... and use them for AI training or to make deepfake nudes I don't know about?).
  • Is data portability a thing at all with their service? Can I export the data in any meaningful and useful way?
  • Does the maintainer do any sort of future-proofing?

These concerns make smaller services feel less reliable and trustworthy.

A big corporation can (and will) obviously mess up as well and the data breaches and downtimes are a lot more impactful, but: The roles are clear, legal identities are divulged publicly if needed (like their data protection officer!), and someone is responsible for an issue. With a small group of strangers or even just one person online that you don't know, this is more opaque and there are not necessarily any consequences, quality control, workflows or customer service. There is often not even a real name offered that you can use for any sort of complaint or legal action.

I think I might have talked about this in another blog post or alluded to it, but there is a creator of a variety of indie web services that just refuses to delete my accounts since at least 2023. It started with just one I wanted gone, but nowadays I want all of them gone. After multiple fruitless attempts at asking for deletion via email and having no full account deletion in the settings page, I filed an official complaint at the Data Protection Authority responsible for my area.

Unfortunately, they were almost entirely useless, because as long as I do not have the full legal name of the person behind all those services, they say they cannot do anything. These fossils do not want to send out an email reprimanding them for being non-compliant despite processing the EU citizen's data and even taking money for it, they insist on sending an actual letter to the person's residence and don't want to put effort into getting that address from the hoster. Their feedback ended with the great advice that next time, I shouldn't sign up to websites that don't have a privacy policy, proper account deletion process, or a responsible person named. Well, geez, wish I could time travel and tell 2021 me that, who had rose-tinted glasses about indie web alternatives.

Nowadays, I indeed don't sign up, and I make sure to remind every project I see that necessitates user accounts to please fulfill at least the PP and the deletion process. I know I cannot make any of them share their full name if they don't want to.

Being better than the big players doesn't just involve not doing the excessive data harvesting they do, but also handling the little bit of data you get with care, and having processes in place that make dealing with user data easier and gives a lot of control to the user, and ideally, let them know who they're dealing with.

And that's where it really differs from case to case, because at Bearblog, I am really happy with how things are and have turned out so far, despite it only being one person. It is professional, I get amazing customer support, I know the legal identity, and I can find out exactly how data is collected and processed. Plus: There is an account deletion I can initiate on my own without having to message someone and hope for the best.

For comparison, it took Cohost (that was ran by a small group of people) about 4 months or so to delete my account that I had to request via email, and it took someone I know over a year. That means constantly checking back in whether the deletion has gone through and the profile is still up, and that is not only annoying, but it can also threaten the safety of people who get found by stalkers, family members and others. Some of these things are time-sensitive, and it's irresponsible and non-compliant to not have a better system in place.

Strangers are simply a hit or miss. Could be a creep that reads all your DMs to other people on the instance, or not. What about a friend? If your friendship breaks apart, do you lose the service and the data accumulated on there? If it's a family member and something really bad happens with your data and account, do you want to risk the family peace by holding them accountable? Honestly, no one wants to set up a formal contract for something like this as it feels silly, and many won't. So what basis do you have?

If you are lucky, the indie project you want to use has open‑source code, transparent incident logs, and community reviews and PRs that serve as proxies for professionalism and quality control, but in my view, that is rather uncommon.

I don't want to badmouth smaller alternatives, as I am still a big fan of them and rely on them. I just want to discuss these fears and risks, and some of my good and bad experiences. I want them to thrive and do better in these topics. Trust sadly isn't purely rational, and familiarity, perceived competence, contracts, incentives, and consequences play important roles.

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  1. For the record, I trust him not to look at them, but it's still a thought I had, since I never had to decide that before.

i'm tired of hacker news slop

2025-12-23 03:49:00

This might rustle some jimmies, but I don't really care. I'm tired of seeing these hacker news posts getting blasted onto trending, half the time they far surpass anything anyone posts purely on this platform.

I'm not mad at the people who post something tech-related and it happened to get cross posted as was the case with Ava some time back. I'm talking about the posts that are primarily optimized for the hacker news platform. It never fails too, it's always glazing AI/LLMs.

I don't mind tech posts, I like seeing the odd tech stuff that people post, helpful code snippets, etc. I'm just tired of seeing AI circle jerking on this platform.

I'm not calling for Herman to suppress these posts, that would be silly of me and kinda cringe. I'm just screaming at a cloud with the displeasure I and some of my friends on this platform have aired.

The fun thing about this platform is just seeing the mundane thoughts of regular people. Not shilling some buzzword for clicks.

I swear to god if I hear "paradigm shift" with AI one more time I'm gonna fucking lose it...

If you're amongst those people who writes this sort of AI glazing shit and would like to email me your strongly worded email at your displeasure of my post. Don't bother. I won't read it. It will go right into the trash. I didn't value your opinion before, and I certainly won't value it now.


Pirate is wearing grey oversized Goofy tee and green plaid PJ bottoms.
Pirate is feeling tired
Pirate is listening to his 2000s alternative music playlist on iPod.
Pirate is playing Bioshock on the XBOX 360


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silly social media features i thought of

2025-12-22 07:32:00

These aren’t genuine proposals to fix social media sites, but thought experiments that I wonder about in terms of how it would affect online discussion culture. Wouldn’t mind seeing it on alternative platforms that want to try out something new or weird, though.

Idea 1

Social media site where you can’t leave a comment on a link submission until 12h have passed.

  • Arose out of the realization that the immediacy of being first to comment something ruins things.
  • People wanna be the first one to get the highest visibility, upvotes and attention, but those who rush to be first are only reading the title or only skimming for 20 seconds at best, which creates confusion and misinformation. Lots of people’s arguments in comment sections are already refuted in the original post or link, or they would know if they clicked around on the linked site.
  • A cooldown period would enable more deep reading and time to think about the contents before writing a hot take.
  • I know it would cut down on comments and post engagement, but is that necessarily bad if you are trying to build a good site that doesn’t make money off of toxic engagement? If you really want to comment on something, you’ll go back to do so. On a slow site, which would be preferable anyway, it would still be on top 12h later.
  • Maybe that mechanism would make people realize that 99% of stuff probably doesn’t warrant a comment from them (especially since so, so many online comments just reiterate what was already said!) and that they’re fine letting it go after sitting through the initial discomfort of not being able to comment.
  • ==Problem:== You might not have seen it 12h ago, and could immediately comment if you see it late enough. Wondered if it should be “12h after seeing a post” instead. Would unlock the post at different times for everyone though, and don’t know if that’s good.

Idea 2

Social media site where you only ever see one comment underneath a post that you can engage with, not all of them.

  • Which one you see is random on first click, but then consistent for all other times you click on it as it is saved to your account.
  • This ‘match’ stays until the post is archived. Then, everyone gets to see all comments and conversations.
  • Logged out users get a random one each refresh.
  • Reasoning: Big comment sections are overwhelming: You can get in there and beef with hundreds of people and have multiple conversations in different sub-threads and child comments at once, and I don’t think that’s good. Imagine in real life, just 100 people in the room all talking at each other at the same time. It’s too big, too much. No deep conversation possible because so many people quickly butt in with flippant short responses and will never fully read your comment or your replies.
  • So, what about a link post on a Reddit/HN type of platform, and you see it got 1.300 comments, but when clicking on it, you get to make one top level comment, but also get matched with only one other top level comment? Means you’d have a conversation about the link content with two other people: One is responding to you (if you chose to comment and they chose to engage with you) and one is with another person that posted. There’s no huge sea of people, no people just butting in and derailing.
  • ==Problem:== Would probably feel like censorship to people if most others on the platform will never get to see their comment, as most won’t go back to an archived post to read it all. The interactions that do happen might feel more personal, but there will be less interaction overall.

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Nights

2025-12-22 02:29:55

I always had a fascination for the nights, I feel like they can be traced back to a decade ago, when I was part of a Scouts group.

It was one of my first times going for camping, I was a kid and very scared of going there by myself at the time, but I went with my group plus a few others. and when it started getting dark, with the shadows of the trees covering the place, I needed to deliver something to someone over there, can't recall what it is, but when I went on my way, I saw the sky. It was absolutely beautiful.

I never saw the night being so blue, full of stars and even making out constellations while illuminating the floor so brightly that I never thought possible in my years living in the city, but it was an incredible sight. I only saw it for 30 seconds or so, but it stuck with me ever since.

Another good memory I have while being a Scout was when we reunited with all the scouts of the area near us, and we did a massive circle where we talked, ate food and played hide and seek in the darkness. It was massively fun, and I mean it, even if i was awfully tired from the long trail we needed to go to get there at first.

Ever since I quit being a Scout, I've been trying to chase that high from the nights, but because I live in the city, there's massive pollution from the lights, which makes most stars not be visible, and the sky pitch black.

Sometimes I would like to go walk in the night at least, and see how it all looks from there, but the city I live in is dangerous, so that's automatically discarded, even if I wish it wasn't so.

Life may try to get in the way of my memories, making it seem like all I'm doing is for naught, that it's just not worth it anymore, but then I remember that night, those moments, and it fills me with wonder that I thought I lost long ago.

Even if I may never see night like that again, even if all the stars die eventually, even if I die, I'll take that night view and those memories deep to my heart, because there is beauty in our world, natural beauty that's awaiting to be discovered, and it'll always be there waiting for us.

Even if sometimes it feels the opposite way, the world we live in is beautiful and it makes me glad to be alive, although all that beauty is often hidden.

  • Anubi "Moonie" Arts.

what has changed since quitting the dead web

2025-12-21 05:12:00

Ahoy there.

For about a year now, I have been anti-social media, I've deleted all my accounts and really only use Reddit as a resource for niche subjects (best game in XYZ series to start with, etc.)

I've been trying to figure out what to call this sect of the internet, the clear web, the normie web, the dead web, the corpo web. I'll stick with the dead web for now since I view that space as, well dead. The term to encompass the corporatized parts of the internet.

I wanted to catalog some of the personal changes I've noticed in myself since quitting all social medias earlier this year

becoming re-sensitized.

CW: mentions of suicide and violence. If not in a good head space, I recommend skipping to the next section.

I've notice that my sensitivity to things has increased. I used to be someone who wouldn't even flinch at a beheading video. Gore, violence, porn, distressing encounters, and other forms of hyper-stimulus on the internet were ultimately nothing to me for a while.

Since quitting, I've regained a certain sense of disgust or emotion towards things I see online again. For example, I was watching a micro-documentary on YouTube about MySpace, and in it was talking about a teenage girl who hung herself due to cyberbullying that stemmed from the platform. The documentary showed the audio from the 911 call from the mom; hearing the agony in her voice knowing the scene she witnessed sent a chill down my body that I haven't felt in a very long time. Granted, I probably also feel it extra being a parent.

The offing of ol' Chuckie Kirk was something I normally wouldn't have flinched at, but against my better judgment I watched the video and it fucked me up for a while. If I saw this video 2 years ago, I probably woulda went "damn!" then moved on.

I now am acutely aware that I do feel things again for what I see online and take steps to avoid it. It's interesting seeing how much my attitude has changed about seeing things that are particularly distressing.

less mental dread.

For a while, when I was on social media frequently, I would get inundated with all the worst. Every day I was reading of what the Dipshit in Chief was doing this time, some tragedy unfolding, some human rights violation. It was taking a toll on me.

There is little to gain from being THIS aware to what is going on in the world. I didn't lose my awareness that things suck in the world right now, but it's also not healthy to be constantly reminded of it every day.

tighter sense community.

I feel a greater sense of community in online spaces, niche/indie web circles feel close. I cherish my friends at the Gazette, and it's truly amazing what even this little community does.

The discord server for it has grown so much with so much fun things to interact with (question of the day channel, a hall of fame channel for when one of us says something funny, other stuff, a file sharing system, etc.). I have never met these guys in real life (hell I barely know what 90% of them look like), but I consider them just as much my friends as anyone else I know IRL.

Since quitting social media, I've found these niche spaces the best places to connect with other people. As much as I wish my IRL friends lived closer to me, I am content with my "European friends" (as I say shorthandedly when explaining who I'm talking to to my wife) and my friends in other spaces (like my classic Halo group).

remembering humanity.

Another thing I've noticed since quitting social media is how... normal people are? Like, you see online and it's just endless talk about politics this and drama that. When you step outside and talk to people, there's a surprising amount of people who are seemingly just as removed from this other world as I am. They have their opinions, sure, but it rarely ever comes up.

Politically, people IRL are much more moderate. If you base your view on say conservatives from what you see on the conservative subreddit, you'd think they're a bunch of blundering morons. However, I know quite a number of conservatives (often by proxy of them being parents of friends) and they seem just as pissed at the current administration as I am. Hell, my best friend's dad, a lifelong Republican, went to No Kings and it wasn't to counter protest.

It can be almost jarring seeing how stark of a contrast reality seems compared to what you see online, then it hit me. The internet is mostly bots now. So, it's hard to tell if the really stupid things people are saying on reddit or youtube comment sections ever came from actual people. Every now and then I see the cracks even in these echo chambers. Going back to the conservative subreddit, there are some that believe Trump had little to do with Epstein's trafficking (as foolish as I think it is). However, they're admitting that it's harder and harder to hold on to that with each day.

It makes me hopeful that these people will eventually come around. Even if they don't it still at least makes it seem like people are waking up a little bit. The red hat-wearing MAGA nut is becoming a smaller and smaller minority. Even my next-door neighbor who flew a Trump flag every day outside his house and even had a cutout of Trump on his lawn has taken down both and they have stayed down.

In all this, I think it's important to remember that real life isn't the internet. People are so much more varied than we might think from these comment sections from hyper-curated feeds.

final notes.

I feel different, happier, now than I did prior to quitting the corporatized web. I don't really miss any of it. It took way more from me than it ever gave. Even when it claimed to connect people, it was far from that.

I do somewhat miss social media, at least how it started and the idealized vision of what it could have been. I remember playing CarTown with my dad on Facebook, and posting stupid stuff to my Facebook profile. I could see what mundane things my classmates were doing.

It's funny, we used to mock people for posting the most mundane aspects of their life on social media, but nowadays it seems like we are craving that level of uninteresting content in the midst of chaos.

In a world where you are seeing the war-torn faces of children and the evil of modern geopolitics, it makes you yearn to see someone's boring dinner in your feed.


Pirate is wearing Bluey pajama bottoms and shirt
Pirate is feeling relaxed
Pirate is reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Pirate is playing Gears of War 2


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