builds loglog in Dockerfile

.editorconfig

@@ -5,6 +5,3 @@ indent_size = 2
 
 [*.{md,markdown,mdx}]
 max_line_length = 80
-
-[{Makefile,*.mk}]
-indent_style = tab

.gitignore

@@ -26,4 +26,3 @@ pnpm-debug.log*
 **/*.tfstate.backup
 
 *.sqlite
-DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN

Makefile

@@ -1,66 +0,0 @@
-include make/vars.mk
-
-submake_file = $(shell [ -f "$(module)/Makefile" ] && echo "$(module)/Makefile")
-install_submake_file = $(shell [ -f "$(module)/install.mk" ] && echo "$(module)/install.mk")
-
-define make_module_rule =
-.PHONY: make_$(module)
-make_$(module): $(module)/.env
-	$(if $(submake_file),\
-		$(MAKE) --makefile=$(notdir $(submake_file)) --directory=$(module))
-endef
-
-define module_env_rule =
-$(module)/.env: .env
-	cp .env $(module)/.env
-endef
-
-define install_module_rule =
-.PHONY: install_$(module)
-install_$(module): install_openrc_$(module) install_dyndns_$(module) $(if $(SUBDOMAIN_$(module)),install_tls_$(SUBDOMAIN_$(module))) $(install_submake_file)
-	$(if $(install_submake_file),$(MAKE) --makefile=$(notdir $(install_submake_file)) --directory=$(dir $(install_submake_file)) install)
-endef
-
-define reinstall_module_rule =
-.PHONY: reinstall_$(module)
-reinstall_$(module): reinstall_openrc_$(module) reinstall_dyndns_$(module) $(if $(SUBDOMAIN_$(module)),reinstall_tls_$(SUBDOMAIN_$(module))) $(install_submake_file)
-	$(if $(install_submake_file),$(MAKE) --makefile=$(notdir $(install_submake_file)) --directory=$(dir $(install_submake_file)) reinstall)
-endef
-
-define uninstall_module_rule =
-.PHONY: uninstall_$(module)
-uninstall_$(module): uninstall_openrc_$(module) uninstall_dyndns_$(module) $(if $(SUBDOMAIN_$(module)),install_tls_$(SUBDOMAIN_$(module)))
-	$(if $(install_submake_file),\
-		$(MAKE) --makefile=$(notdir $(install_submake_file)) --directory $(dir $(install_submake_file)) uninstall
-	)
-endef
-
-.PHONY: all
-all: $(ENV_RULES) $(MAKE_RULES) $(BUILD_RULES) $(PUSH_RULES)
-
-$(foreach module,$(ALL_MODULES),$(eval $(call make_module_rule)))
-$(foreach module,$(ALL_MODULES),$(eval $(call module_env_rule)))
-
-.PHONY: install
-install: install_tls install_nginx $(ENV_RULES) $(INSTALL_RULES) install_crontab
-
-.PHONY: reinstall
-reinstall: reinstall_tls reinstall_nginx reinstall_dyndns $(ENV_RULES) $(REINSTALL_RULES) reinstall_crontab
-
-.PHONY: uninstall
-uninstall: uninstall_nginx uninstall_dyndns uninstall_tls uninstall_joeac.net_service $(UNINSTALL_RULES) uninstall_crontab
-
-$(foreach module,$(ALL_MODULES),$(eval $(install_module_rule)))
-$(foreach module,$(ALL_MODULES),$(eval $(reinstall_module_rule)))
-$(foreach module,$(ALL_MODULES),$(eval $(uninstall_module_rule)))
-
-.PHONY: clean
-clean:
-	$(foreach module,$(MAKE_MODULES),$(MAKE) --directory=$(module) clean;)
-
-include make/container.mk
-include make/openrc.mk
-include make/nginx.mk
-include make/crontab.mk
-include make/dyndns.mk
-include make/tls.mk

README.md

@@ -2,103 +2,44 @@
 
 Joe Carstairs' public Internet presence
 
-To install:
+Structure:
-
-```sh
-wget -O- https://git.joeac.net/joeac/joeac.net/raw/branch/main/install.sh | sh
-```
-
-## DNS setup
-
-A/AAAA DNS records are added automatically by `make install`, but in order to
-get `mox` working as an email server, you'll have to manually add the following
-DNS records.
-
-Deliver mail for mail.joeac.net to mail.joeac.net:
 
 ```
-mail.joeac.net. MX 10 mail.joeac.net.
+/
+├── capsule    My Gemini capsule
+├── smtp       A local SMTP server
+└── website    My Website
 ```
 
-All emails from the email server will be signed with two DKIM keys. So that
+## Running with Podman
-clients can verify the authenticity of the messages, provide these keys as TXT
-records:
 
-```
+These instructions will probably work with Docker, too: just substitute `podman`
-2026a._domainkey.mail.joeac.net. TXT v=DKIM1;h=sha256;p=MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAvYfjrzmYgBtYofzBwI80aiW98+M2g6z+gd1Iwz9g0y30rPFNTctFn9GwBNuYBgZiZxB+sqjEbPMbr3li/R7i0A9t/KbNNJhkNC+4IjKJjk+jw1CXm4vXOUa4YSYWwy7NVYTH/QwZGz6fwjVM7YvDnnE4gG2NwrVx+AXlONt2R1G+qgV6HAIIvVi8T0yCjjqEc5B5bKlqk0XU9vSyUFJhhKnR/KNRe79C+H9GWJzcU7HUCmIHX04Xi0JeB/wm3weF1xjtGTsWyy5BmHHsfWGqSr2Dbg5o6AI5W0h4VkQ4QzdEYGVQ9ZBDyqFQwQFXLn0oHZjCD/vFzPOPdM5pxF/OgwIDAQAB
+for `docker` in all the commands.
-2026b._domainkey.mail.joeac.net. TXT v=DKIM1;h=sha256;p=MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAzcrk9FUt6AdrvnAP3KawuOTLw7uL5SJ+ZYmShuz41zwM6bPQteGSSwddFXIxcqVlJrdFahrK4KvHX/sw/hWVfZoPLDdwsGN5eI8cqQjNDE+JDu9BbPlTituva4Hkve0hbAKDqA8jmbcZg6aU7b44Kzq8UpWAlPO273Rq2tsbCBcITt8B3NFoeY9CSsZU1LqGl855GUtaNyhlPaAvfab3Q9/4wyusPhCHlBYaRK+ZzuSMs5KEOG6n4kbZfMVi2+4c/bPU5PdTuyvbSIEqjNH4TpfatE0I9ubGv0WbAzr5EZbv5+xtukZ/dIisPPMjn1AbjpSJYNYr2OYgey6+WvzRmQIDAQAB
+
+To run with Podman, first set up your environment variables. Copy `example.env`
+to `.env` and edit the values accordingly.
+
+Then, create the `remote_smtp_password` secret, storing the password for the
+remote SMTP server which will send the contact emails on behalf of the website.
+
+```bash
+sudo podman secret create remote_smtp_password /path/to/remote/smtp/password
 ```
 
-Specify the MX host is allowed to send for our domain and for itself (for DSNs).
+Now build and start the containers:
-~all means softfail for anything else, which is done instead of -all to prevent
-older mail servers from rejecting the message because they never get to looking
-for a dkim/dmarc pass.
 
-```
+```bash
-mail.joeac.net. TXT v=spf1 ip4:217.155.190.42 ip6:fdc9:6aec:7a18:0:2e0:4cff:fe61:9b17 mx ~all
+sudo podman-compose build && sudo podman-compose up -d
 ```
 
-Emails that fail the DMARC check (without aligned DKIM and without aligned SPF)
+## Running on the host machine
-should be rejected, and request reports. If you email through mailing lists that
-strip DKIM-Signature headers and don't rewrite the From header, you may want to
-set the policy to p=none.
 
-```
+To run on the host machine, first, as before, set up your environment variables
-_dmarc.mail.joeac.net. TXT v=DMARC1;p=reject;rua=mailto:dmarcreports@mail.joeac.net!10m
+by copying `example.env` to `.env` and editing the values as appropriate.
+
+```bash
+npm run start
 ```
 
-Remote servers can use MTA-STS to verify our TLS certificate with the WebPKI
+Note that emails may not work locally without further setup. These instructions
-pool of CA's (certificate authorities) when delivering over SMTP with
+are of course woefully incomplete.
-STARTTLSTLS.
-
-```
-mta-sts.mail.joeac.net.  CNAME mail.joeac.net.
-_mta-sts.mail.joeac.net. TXT v=STSv1; id=20260705T153220
-```
-
-Request reporting about TLS failures.
-
-```
-_smtp._tls.mail.joeac.net. TXT v=TLSRPTv1; rua=mailto:tlsreports@mail.joeac.net
-```
-
-Client settings will reference a subdomain of the hosted domain, making it
-easier to migrate to a different server in the future by not requiring settings
-in all clients to be updated.
-
-```
-clientsettings.mail.joeac.net. CNAME mail.joeac.net.
-```
-
-Autoconfig is used by Thunderbird. Autodiscover is (in theory) used by
-Microsoft.
-
-```
-autoconfig.mail.joeac.net.         CNAME mail.joeac.net.
-_autodiscover._tcp.mail.joeac.net. SRV 0 1 443 mail.joeac.net.
-```
-
-For secure IMAP and submission autoconfig, point to mail host.
-
-```
-_imaps._tcp.mail.joeac.net.        SRV 0 1 993 mail.joeac.net.
-_submissions._tcp.mail.joeac.net.  SRV 0 1 465 mail.joeac.net.
-```
-
-Next records specify POP3 and non-TLS ports are not to be used. These are
-optional and safe to leave out (e.g. if you have to click a lot in a DNS admin
-web interface).
-
-```
-_imap._tcp.mail.joeac.net.         SRV 0 0 0 .
-_submission._tcp.mail.joeac.net.   SRV 0 0 0 .
-_pop3._tcp.mail.joeac.net.         SRV 0 0 0 .
-_pop3s._tcp.mail.joeac.net.        SRV 0 0 0 .
-```
-
-Optional: You could mark Let's Encrypt as the only Certificate Authority allowed
-to sign TLS certificates for your domain.
-
-```
-mail.joeac.net. CAA 0 issue "letsencrypt.org"
-```

capsule/.gitignore

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+.certificates
+content/logs/loglog.gmi
+tmp-build-loglog-*

capsule/Dockerfile

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+FROM alpine:3.23 AS agate
+RUN apk --update --no-cache add rust cargo \
+  && wget -O - https://github.com/mbrubeck/agate/archive/refs/tags/v3.3.20.tar.gz | tar -xz \
+  && cargo install --path agate-3.3.20/ \
+  && apk del rust cargo \
+  && rm -rf agate-3.3.20 agate-target
+
+FROM alpine:3.23 AS comitium
+RUN apk --no-cache add make go scdoc
+RUN wget -O - https://git.sr.ht/~nytpu/comitium/archive/v1.8.2.tar.gz | tar -xz \
+  && make --directory=comitium-v1.8.2 \
+  && mv comitium-v1.8.2/build/comitium /usr/local/bin/comitium \
+  && apk del make go scdoc \
+  && rm -rf comitium-v1.8.2
+
+FROM alpine:3.23 AS final
+RUN mkdir -p /var/app/content
+WORKDIR /var/app
+COPY .certificates .certificates
+RUN crontab -l > crontab.tmp \
+  && echo "0 */6 * * * /usr/local/bin/comitium refresh --data /var/app/comitium-data" >> crontab.tmp \
+  && crontab crontab.tmp \
+  && rm crontab.tmp
+
+RUN apk --no-cache add \
+  gcc # Dependency for agate \
+  busybox-openrc # Runs crond with rc-service
+RUN rc-service crond start && rc-update add crond
+COPY --from=agate /root/.cargo/bin/agate /usr/local/bin/agate
+COPY --from=comitium /usr/local/bin/comitium /usr/local/bin/comitium
+
+COPY comitium-data comitium-data
+COPY feeds.txt feeds.txt
+RUN while read feed; do \
+    comitium add --data comitium-data/ "$feed"; \
+  done <feeds.txt \
+  && comitium refresh --data comitium-data/
+COPY content content
+RUN /bin/bash ./build_loglog.sh
+
+CMD agate --content content/ --addr [::]:1965 --addr 0.0.0.0:1965 --lang en-GB

capsule/build_loglog.sh

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 TMP="tmp-build-loglog-$(date +%s%N)"
 LOGLOG="content/logs/loglog.gmi"
-LOGLOG_HEADER="templates/loglog-header.gmi"
+LOGLOG_HEADER="loglog-header.gmi"
 
 new_filename()
 {
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ read_log_to_tmp()
   CURRENT_POST_FILENAME=""
   while read line; do
     if [[ -z "$CURRENT_POST_FILENAME" ]]; then
-      if [[ "$line" =~ (\#+)\ *([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})(\.[0-9]+)?\ * ]]; then
+      if [[ "$line" =~ (\#+)\ *([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\ * ]]; then
         CURRENT_POST_HEADING="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
         DATE="${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
         CURRENT_POST_FILENAME="$(new_filename $DATE)"
-      elif [[ "$line" =~ \=\>\ +([^\ ]+)\ +([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})(\.[0-9]+)?\ +(.*) ]]; then
+      elif [[ "$line" =~ \=\>\ +([^\ ]+)\ +([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\ +(.*) ]]; then
         HREF="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
         DATE="${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
         NAME="${BASH_REMATCH[3]}"
@@ -35,16 +35,16 @@ read_log_to_tmp()
         echo "
 => $HREF $DATE $NAME
 
-From my $LOG.
+From my gemlog.
 
-=> /logs/$LOG.gmi My $LOG" \
+=> /gemlog My $LOG" \
          >> "$FILENAME"
       fi
     else
       if [[ "$line" =~ (\#+)\ *([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\ * ]]; then
         echo "From my $LOG.
 
-=> /logs/$LOG.gmi My $LOG" \
+=> /$LOG My $LOG" \
           >> "$CURRENT_POST_FILENAME"
         CURRENT_POST_HEADING="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
         DATE="${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ From my $LOG.
       elif [[ "$line" =~ \#.* ]] && ! [[ "$line" =~ ${CURRENT_POST_HEADING}\#.* ]]; then
         echo "From my $LOG.
 
-=> /logs/$LOG.gmi My $LOG" \
+=> /$LOG My $LOG" \
           >> "$CURRENT_POST_FILENAME"
         CURRENT_POST_HEADING=""
         DATE=""
@@ -69,10 +69,10 @@ trim_entries()
   ENTRY_DIR="$1"
   for entry in $ENTRY_DIR/*; do
     while [[ -z "$(head -n 1 "$entry")" && "$(wc -l "$entry" | cut -c1)" -ne 0 ]]; do
-      tail -n +2 "$entry" | tee "$entry" 1>/dev/null
+      tail -n +2 "$entry" | tee "$entry" 1>0
     done
     while [[ -z "$(tail -n 1 "$entry")" && "$(wc -l "$entry" | cut -c1)" -ne 0 ]]; do
-      head -n -1 "$entry" | tee "$entry" 1>/dev/null
+      head -n -1 "$entry" | tee "$entry" 1>0
     done
     if [[ -z "$(cat "$entry")" ]]; then
       echo "Removing entry $entry: $(cat $entry)"
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ trim_entries()
 append_entries_for_date()
 {
   DATE_DIR="$1"
-  DATE="$(echo "$DATE_DIR" | sed "s/.*\///g")"
+  DATE="$(echo "$DATE" | sed "s/.*\///g")"
   echo "## $DATE
 " >> "$LOGLOG"
   ENTRY_COUNT="$(ls $DATE_DIR | wc -l)"
@@ -126,6 +126,6 @@ for ((i=${#dates[@]}-1; i>=0; i--)); do
 done
 
 echo "Cleaning up temporary files..."
-rm -rf "$TMP"
+rm -rd "$TMP"
 
 echo "Done."

capsule/content/gemlog/2024-01-14.gmi

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Harari’s Sapiens on Religion
 
-Published on: 14 Jan 2024
+Published: 14 Jan 2024
 
 I’ve been slowly re-reading Yuval Noah Harari’s 2014 classic, Sapiens, which apart from being ridiculously over-scoped and hilariously under-evidenced, is proving delightfully entertaining.
 

capsule/content/gemlog/2024-07-16.gmi

@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ Some authors have managed to recognise the ambiguity of the term. Both King et a
 
 So it seems that although many academics have treated the term ‘hallucination’ as jargon, in actual fact, there is no widely agreed specific meaning of the word.
 
----
+<hr>
 
 I will slide in here with a quick side note. While some authors treated ‘hallucination’ as jargon for unfaithfulness or unfactuality, other authors contemporaneously managed to talk about these topics without using the word ‘hallucination’ at all. Here are some examples:
 

capsule/content/gemlog/2025-01-19.gmi

@@ -27,13 +27,13 @@ It also hasn't been any good for distinguishing between stuff I don't want to re
 Every morning, I open my terminal and run newsboat.
 
 => https://newsboat.org 
-=> /images/longlog/2025-01-19_newsboat.webp newsboat showing how many unread posts I have at a glance in the opening view
+=> ./2025-01-19_newsboat.webp newsboat showing how many unread posts I have at a glance in the opening view
 
 I know the unread count is pretty fresh, because I've set up a systemd service to run newsboat at startup to fetch the feeds.
 
 I press `l` twice to open a post. Then I press `n` to navigate to the next unread post until I run out of unread posts.
 
-=> /images/longlog/2025-01-19_newsboat-post.webp newsboat displaying a post
+=> ./2025-01-19_newsboat-post.webp newsboat displaying a post
 
 If I encounter something I want to read later, but don't have time right now, I press `b`, which runs a home-made bookmarking script. Here it is:
 
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ I can also run this script manually and pass it a URL of my choice at any time,
 When I want to read from my reading list, I run `readnow.sh`, which simply opens my reading list folder, `~/readlist/unread`, in my terminal file browser of choice: namely, ranger.
 
 => https://ranger.github.io 
-=> /images/longlog/2025-01-19_ranger.webp ranger showing the contents of my reading list with a preview
+=> ./2025-01-19_ranger.webp ranger showing the contents of my reading list with a preview
 
 Although ranger has a preview, I'll typically open the file up in my terminal web browser of choice, which is w3m (plus a couple of custom key-bindings).
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ I've configured this to be my preferred web browser in ranger by shifting it to
 
 Having configured my default web browser in my ranger config, all I need to do is press `l`.
 
-=> /images/longlog/2025-01-19_w3m.webp A post displaying in w3m
+=> ./2025-01-19_w3m.webp A post displaying in w3m
 
 No ads, no cookie popups, no giant banner images taking 2 seconds to load and shifting the content all over the place: just the text I want to read. Isn't it beautiful?
 
@@ -134,3 +134,4 @@ I still need to know:
 * What's the best way of sending and receiving comments/replies/reactions?
 
 TBC. Answers on a postcard please.
+

capsule/content/gemlog/2025-10-05.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
+# "381: how the church as we know it was made"
+
+The church which defines our world now is in a significant way the one which emerged out of sixty years of controversy from the Council of Constantinople in 381. I've been charting what happened, why, and the ongoing legacy.
+
+Published on: 5 Oct 2025 
+
+Athanasius defined the fourth century. Not that he was a god, or even a king, or that he always got his way. But he wrote the history books. His tale of an epic battle fought tooth-and-nail between Arian heretics and him and his loyal allies has come to be the standard account of how, over the course of the fourth century, the Church redefined what orthodoxy means and how it is declared and identified.
+
+The result was the Nicene Creed. It had been first written for a very particular polemical purpose in 325, but later found itself the centre of a strange theological revival, and was finally revised in a council at Constantinople in 381. In so doing, the bishops assembled a recognisable 'Nicene' tradition which is still one of the defining features of planet Earth.
+
+For better and for worse, the church as we know it has a capacity both for great humility, faith and submission to the mystery of God, but it also has a capacity for great intolerance. This is the church created in 381.
+
+To understand the church as we know it today, then, we need to understand the complex, confusing journey from 325 to 381.
+
+Athanasius' chronicle of that journey is temptingly simple. The only problem with it is that it isn't true. Indeed, his 'history' was never meant to function as an all-encompassing narrative of Church history, to be read for centuries ever after. His accounts function as polemics, meant to cajole, condemn and persuade his readers in his own time of his vision for their future.
+
+Nevertheless, whatever Athanasius' real significance in how his times unfolded, his witness is important. He fully inhabited his times, often in the middle of the fray. Whether or not we buy Athanasius' portrayal of himself as fighting the good fight, he was certainly a fighter. By looking through his eyes, then, we can get a perspective on how the Church as we know it came to be.
+
+So it makes sense to start with him. As a young priest in his native Alexandria, he became tangled up in a controversy which would come to define his career. A strong-minded and fearless young priest had begun to preach. His name was Arius.
+
+---
+
+According to the Egyptian tradition, Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, was the nineteenth in a direct line of succession from Mark the Evangelist himself. With a great deal of justice, he would have regarded himself as one of the most important Christian leaders in the world, and at least the equal of the bishop of Rome.
+
+Small wonder, then, that the insubordination that plagued his diocese bothered him. First Erescentius had started a schism, disputing the rule he used for calculating the date of Easter.
+
+Then there was Meletius. During the persecution under the Roman emperor Diocletian, Meletius had already rubbed a few people the wrong way: while other bishops were in hiding or in prison, he took the initiative to resolve problems and ordain priests without properly consulting the absent bishops' representatives. Perhaps it was intended kindly: it was seen as meddling. Now Meletius accused Alexander of being too soft on Christians who had caved into the threat of torture and made sacrifices to the pagan cults. When he decided Alexander was never going to match his high rigorist standards, he broke away, too.
+
+Alexander must have longed for the relatively good order of the Greek and Roman churches, where bickering subordinates were generally willing to let their bishop have the last say. The throne of St Mark was in trouble. If Christ's body wasn't to get chopped up any more than it already was, he needed to establish his personal authority.
+
+This was the context in which Arius, a young firebrand priest, steps onto stage right. He surely knew his own bishop's teaching: God is one substance and one essence, unchangeable, indivisible. Christ his Son is in every way God: God from God, light from light, true God from true God, eternally begotten of the Father before all ages. How else could Christ, by adopting human flesh, mediate the transcendent God to fallen humanity?
+
+But Arius didn't like this one bit. If God is unchangeable, how could he adopt flesh? That suggests he was not flesh, and then became flesh. And in any case, if the martyrs were right to give up their lives to know God, he must have the perfect, uncompromising transcendence which the martyrs so admired. But how can God adopt flesh, never mind suffer and die on a cross, without compromising that transcendence? Something had to give. For Arius, the solution was to modify the relationship between the Father and the Son.
+
+Arius accepted that Christ had to be in some sense divine, in order to mediate God to humanity. But he denied that he was quite as much God as God is. He has something like his Father's essence, not in a co-equal way, but rather in a derivative way. This makes sense of Father-Son language, which suggests the Father came first, and the Son came next, a derivative of the Father. So the Son is God from God, but not true God from true God. The Son was begotten in time, and is not eternal: only God the Father himself is eternal.
+
+At another time in another place, Arius might have passed for a creative, independent thinker without much notice. But Arius was directly contradicting Alexander just as the latter was desperate to assert his authority. It got ugly.
+
+Alexander called a council of local bishops in about 320. The council condemned Arius and removed him from his post as priest. In response, Arius went on the campaign trail, visiting bishops in Palestine and Asia Minor who he thought would be sympathetic to his theology. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Alexandria, triumphantly brandishing vindications from two councils, one in Jerusalem and one in Bithynia. He wasn't going to make it easy for Alexander.
+
+Luckily for Alexander, the Emperor Constantine had just united the eastern and western halves of the Empire. He had famously converted to Christianity after seeing the sign of the cross at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, and saw the bishops as means towards his mission of uniting the Empire under one government and one God. Constantine had been made aware of the dispute between Arius and Alexander, and he didn't want schisms in the church any more than Alexander did.
+
+He called a council in his own palace in Nicaea, paying the travel expenses and hotel bills of all the bishops in attendance. For those bishops, many carrying the scars of torture they had endured under Diocletian, it must have been a bewildering experience. Alexander was in attendance. His secretary was Athanasius.
+
+In 325, the council condemned Arius. To avoid anyone else following in his path, they produced a statement of faith, designed to exclude Arius' teaching, no matter who taught it. This statement of faith is now known as the Nicene Creed.
+
+The council also fixed the date of Easter to boot. Alexander must have been relieved.
+
+You might have thought that would have been the end for Arius. In fact, Constantine engineered his re-admittance into the church as soon as 328. Arius died in peace in 336. Constantine's mission wasn't to purge the church, but to unite the church. As long as all sides worshipped God and could live in peace, he wanted as many people as possible included. His mission was unity, not uniformity.
+
+Bishops like Eusebius of Caesarea in Syria got this. He had been provisionally excommunicated on suspicion of Arianism in 325, but was reconciled at Nicaea given the chance to explain himself and sign up to the Nicene Creed. No sooner had he done this, however, than he had started explaining to the faithful back home how they could carry on believing that the Son was not really eternal, even as the Creed was designed to exclude exactly such a claim. While Eusebius might seem duplicitous, at the time, this was exactly the kind of tolerant pragmatism that Constantine asked of the bishops: as long as they didn't cause more out-and-out conflict.
+
+Alexander didn't have long to enjoy the peace of Nicaea. He died just a few years afterward in 328. The throne of St Mark passed to Athanasius.
+
+---
+
+The peace didn't last long. Just as Athanasius was donning his mitre, Eusebius was plotting against Eustathius the bishop of Antioch, and engineered his deposition. In his defence, Eusebius accused Eustathius of the long-condemned heresy, Sabellianism. Then in 335, he followed up by deposing Marcellus, the bishop of Ancyra, at a council in Tyre.
+
+To defend his action, he wrote _Against Marcellus_, in which he accused Marcellus of being a Sabellian, too. Sabellius' heresy was (to borrow a modern term) modalism, the view that 'Father', 'Son' and 'Spirit' are mere titles, aspects, 'modes' of God, not in any real way distinct. He also accused Marcellus of adoptionism, another agreed heresy. Marcellus taught that the Son only became an aspect of the divine nature at the Incarnation, and that in the last day, Christ would hand over his kingdom to his Father.
+
+This action would cast a long shadow over the next half-century. Time and again, bishops allied to Eusebius' way of thinking, or 'Eusebians', would re-affirm their opposition to that 'heretic' Marcellus and his 'Sabellianism'. This is a crucial dynamic for understanding where theological factions drew up their battle lines, and for what compromises were needed in order to get to 381.
+
+Even the bishop of Alexandria wasn't immune from Eusebius' purge. Athanasius had vigorously defended his ally, Marcellus, at the council of Tyre in 335. Eusebius set about plotting his downfall. He dug up dirt. He accused Athanasius of using threats and bribes to get himself elected, and sending goons to beat up his political opponents. Once he'd found evidence of Athanasius meddling with the crucial Egyptian grain export that kept Rome fed, he had the emperor on side. Constantine convened a meeting in 336 and exiled him to the German frontier.
+
+---
+
+Or at least, that's how Athanasius tells it. Athanasius loves a plot: at the time, alleging a conspiracy was a classic rhetorical technique for painting your enemies as heretics.
+
+Eusebius was no stranger to rhetoric himself, and it's to his 337 best-seller, the _Life of Constantine_, that we owe our standard account of Constantine's reign. He regarded Empire and Church as allies in a joint mission, to unite the world under one government and one faith. To him, someone like Athanasius, constitutionally incapable of tolerating anyone who disagreed with him and willing to use gangster tactics to get his way, was a threat to this divine mission.
+
+It's worth remembering that after Constantine died, Athanasius would be re-exiled by four more Roman emperors. In his lifetime, only Julian failed to exile Athanasius, and him only perhaps because he didn't have time in his whirlwind twenty-month reign. We also can't be sure how much influence Eusebius actually had in the expulsion of Athanasius and his allies: it coheres well enough with the emperor's anti-sectarian agenda that it might have happened with or without Eusebius' involvement.
+
+Perhaps Athanasius was a brute. Still, the Roman Catholic Church manages to venerate both Eusebius and Athanasius as saints. This may seem like a contradiction. But perhaps an ability to tolerate contradiction is precisely the legacy of 381.
+
+But we're not there yet. By 335, Eusebius had engineered the exile of Eustathius, Marcellus, and Athanasius. After Constantine died, he had to do it all over again, but by 339, he had persuaded his successor, Constantius, to re-assert his father's exiles of the three men. With the Empire once again split, Athanasius and Marcellus headed to Rome to re-group and re-think.
+
+---
+
+From Rome, Athanasius and Marcellus were safe for now from Eusebius' clutches, but also relatively impotent. In this period of exile in the 340s, in an effort to claw back his reputation, Athanasius developed the polemic which still defines the standard history of the fourth century. He invented a cunning label for Eusebius and his cronies: he called them 'Arians'.
+
+Eusebius rejected the label as ridiculous. Arius had been reconciled, and more to the point, had died in 336. For that matter, why would a bishop follow the teaching of a mere priest? Not only that, but the label ignored significant differences between Arius' and Eusebius' teaching. His verdict was clear: the label 'Arian' is a baseless slur, with no other purpose than to tar his reputation as a heretic.
+
+He was right, of course. But like it or not, Athanasius' theory of an Arian conspiracy began to win adherents, not least Julian, the bishop of Rome. Julian called a council to exonerate Athanasius and Marcellus. When the Greeks refused to turn up, he called a local council anyway and vindicated the two men. In the face of Greek obstinacy, Julian wrote east, pleading the bishops to take the 'Arian' threat seriously.
+
+In response, the easterners held a council in Antioch in 341, agreeing four creeds which powerfully condemned Marcellus' teaching, including the influential Dedication Creed. This includes assertions that Father, Son and Spirit are 'three in subsistence, one in agreement', that the Son was generated before time began, against Marcellus' teaching that the Father, Son and Spirit are aspects of God without division in subsistence, and that there only came to be a divine Son at his incarnation. They explicitly condemned Arius, Sabellius and Marcellus.
+
+So the divisions grew deeper. Without an emperor to compel the bishops to come together, there may not have been much chance of a rapprochement. But even if there were to be such an emperor, who's to say that their settlement would have satisfied the bishops?
+
+---
+
+Meanwhile, in the 340s and through the 350s, two further theological movements gathered steam: the homoians and the heterousians.
+
+The homoians, perhaps tired of the squabbles between the Athanasian and Eusebian factions, determined to sidestep their petty debates altogether.
+
+A key term of the theological disagreement was 'essence' or 'ousia'. Athanasius, in his lifelong battle to make sure Arius stayed dead, insisted that Father, Son and Spirit shared the same ousia. In contrast, Eusebius, with his anti-Sabellian polemic, needed to assert the real distinction between Father, Son and Spirit, and so asserted that each had a separate ousia. So the difference can be summed up as a counting problem. How many divine ousias are there? One or three?
+
+The homoians claimed that both sides were mistaken, simply because they used the word 'ousia'. There is no mention of ousia in Scripture, so, they claimed, we have no basis for asserting it of God one way or the other. All we can truly say is that Father, Son and Spirit are distinct but somehow alike. Whereof we cannot speak, there must we remain silent.
+
+This might have worked as a way forward, except that the heterousians provoked such a strong reaction that 'ousia'-talk was needed to refute them. Aetius, and his followed Eunomius, argued that since God is simple, and all generate things are divided, it follows that God is ingenerate. But the Son is generate: therefore Father and Son must be altogether unalike. They expressed this by saying that Father and Son are unlike in ousia. This teaching was swiftly branded 'neo-Arian', provoking a strong reaction. To counter the heterousian teaching, their opponents were forced to fight on their terms, and that meant using 'ousia'-talk.
+
+Thus enters Basil of Caesarea. He argued that if we abandon 'ousia'-talk, we will have no way of saying that the Father and Son have anything in common at all, which makes a nonsense of the idea that the Son brings humanity knowledge of his Father. Without like essence, they might as well be two completely different Gods. Therefore we have to say at least that they have like essence -- 'homoiousia'. But without direct access to perfect knowledge of the invisible God, we're not in a position to judge that they have exactly the same essence, so he stopped short of agreeing with the 'homoousia' of the Nicene Creed which Athanasius so treasured.
+
+Seeing the opportunity to make common cause against the homoians, Athanasius started to soften. He wrote an extremely charitable commentary on Basil's theology which emphasised their similarities and papered over their differences. Athanasius recognised that both he and Basil wanted to assert the unity of God while still preserving distinctions between Father, Son and Spirit. The two began to campaign against the homoian movement.
+
+But Basil got there too late. In 359, the emperor Constantine II called a council in Constantinople, and in 360 it issued a homoian creed with full imperial backing. Any campaign against the homoians would have to take place sub rosa.
+
+---
+
+In Athanasius' and Basil's long, slow campaign against homoianism, their weapon of choice was surprising: they dusted off the Nicene Creed of 325. Athanasius argued, against the homoians, that 'ousia'-talk, although not directly Scriptural, was essential in order to draw out the consequences of Scripture while ruling out Arian mis-interpretations.
+
+Thus Nicaea, conceived as a one-off meant to clean up the Arian controversy, found a new life as the anti-homoian movement -- or perhaps you could call it the Nicene revival? -- rallied around it.
+
+As the movement progressed, the formerly disagreeing bishops found ways to come together. An essential move was that made in Athanasius' _Antiochene Tome_ of 362. In it, he relented on his long opposition to there being three 'hypostases' or 'substances' in the Godhead.
+
+'Hypostasis' had for a long time been used interchangeably with 'ousia'. However, Athanasius claimed that perhaps God could have three hypostases, but only one ousia, at the same time. In so doing, he wedged apart a sharp technical distinction between 'hypostasis' and 'ousia' which previously wouldn't have made sense. Logical or not, it enabled the Nicene revival to have its cake and eat it. God is both one in ousia, protecting against Arianism, and three in hypostasis, protecting against Sabellianism.
+
+So the Nicene revival gained a new superpower: the power to use formerly synonymous terms to assert contradictions without blushing. This power to accept apparent contradiction as part of the unknowable mystery of God is perhaps the most important legacy of the period. Arguably, the church has been at its best when it has put aside the need to know everything, and embraced this spirit of tolerance, humility and faith.
+
+---
+
+For much of the 360s and 370s, the homoian emperor Valens had ruled over the eastern part of the Empire, while his big brother, Valentinian, ruled the west. In the late 370s, Valentinian and then Valens died within quick succession of each other. Valentinian's twenty-year-old son, Gratian, was left to clear up the mess. In 379, Gratian delegated rule of the east to Theodosius, who was to implement a decisively different religious policy than his predecessor, Valens.
+
+In 380, Theodosius issued an edict, saying that only those who agreed to the homoousios clause of the Nicene Creed could be considered 'catholic' Christians. The message was clear: the homoians were out, and the Nicenes were in.
+
+In 381, he called a council to Constantinople, and it (probably) issued the revision of the 325 creed which is still used in various versions in all the world's largest Christian denominations. There would be no more revisions, and it would become, then as now, compulsory reading for all those preparing to don vestments.
+
+One question is, why did the 381 creed differ in the ways it did from 325? Many of the differences, including the much-enlarged section on the Son, seem to have little controversial content: nobody was disputing that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, for example, though she makes her first appearance in the Creed in the 381 version. Some historians think this suggests that the 381 was based on a similar, but distinct creed from 325. This seems unlikely to me, given that about half the creed is in verbatim agreement with 325.
+
+However, a couple of edits stand out. There are some clear signs of anti-Marcellianism: 'his \[the Son's] kingdom shall have no end', the Son is begotten of the Father 'before all ages'. Perhaps a clear emphasis on the eternal relationship between the Son and the Father was part of the diplomacy needed to get the Eusebian faction on-side.
+
+The new details on the Holy Spirit are interesting too. They suggest a delicate compromise. Some bishops were reluctant to suppose that the Father and the Spirit have the same essence. On the other hand, others reckoned that they must share the same essence, given that they are equally deserving of worship. Thus the creed does not have a 'homoousios' clause for the Spirit, but does assert that the Spirit 'together with the Father and with the Son is worshipped and glorified'. With a spoonful of humility, both sides can be satisfied with that.
+
+The revised Nicene Creed was the focus point, the distillation of a growing theological movement, formed by the various anti-homoian bishops finding a way to keep true to their own convictions while respecting each other's red lines.
+
+As a result of the context of 325, Athanasius' relentless anti-Arian polemic which kept that movement alive, and the 'neo-Arian' heterousian movement, the new Nicene tradition insisted on the full co-equal divinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This doctrine ensures Nicenes can affirm that Christ mediates true knowledge of the transcendent Godhead to humanity: the one who was born of Mary, suffered and died on the cross, was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven was true God from true God, of the same essence as his Father.
+
+To satisfy the Eusebian strain, which defined itself by opposition to Marcellus, the Nicene tradition included a commitment to a robust distinction between Father, Son and Spirit, and to the eternity of the Son: begotten of the Father before all ages, his kingdom shall have no end. As a result, Nicenes inherited a way of thinking about God's action in the world, as instrinsically co-operative without being divided.
+
+The biggest change between 325 and 381 was not the text, but what the text is used for. In 325, the Creed functioned to condemn Arius in order to heal the divisions his teachings had caused. In its second life, the Creed found an altogether new purpose: to serve as a common statement of orthodox faith. It started life as a way to define who was out. It ended up defining who was in.
+
+Where was Athanasius? Consider that when Athanasius was appointed bishop in 328, he was relatively young for a bishop at thirty-five. That means that in 381, he would have been the ripe old age of eighty-eight. In fact, he didn't make it that far: he died in peace in the countryside outside his native Alexandria in 373. If he had seen the outcome of 381, he might have regarded his life project complete. Perhaps he knew that with the new generation of bishops, the tide was turning for good, and died in peace. Perhaps not. Either way, his compromises, and his beloved homoousios, have left a permanent mark on the church.
+
+This is the legacy of 381. It is two-faced: any common statement of faith can be used to exclude. Indeed, in the late fourth century, both non-Nicene Christians and pagans found themselves the victims of increasing state-backed sectarian violence.
+
+However, 381 also bears witness to the power of humility and faith. Once we stop grasping at perfect knowledge we cannot attain, we can begin to appreciate the mystery of God. This is one legacy I hope we can carry forward into our century.
+

capsule/content/gemlog/index.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+content/logs/gemlog.gmi

capsule/content/index.gmi

@@ -2,13 +2,11 @@
 
 Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my capsule, gemini://joeac.net.
 
-=> /logs/longlog.gmi    My longlog (for long posts)
+=> /gemlog      My gemlog
-=> /logs/microlog.gmi   My microlog (for short posts)
+=> /logs        My logs
-=> /logs/loglog.gmi     My loglog (all my posts forgathered)
-=> /logs/index.gmi      An index of all my logs (don't visit this page)
 => /feed.gmi    My feed aggregator
 
-Here are some other ways to 'engage' with me on the so-called 'Internet':
+Here are some other ways to engage with me on the Internet:
 
 => https://joeac.net                                       Web
 => https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-carstairs-0aa936277/    LinkedIn

capsule/content/logs/gemlog.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+# joeac's gemlog
+
+Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my gemlog.
+
+If you're new around here, a gemlog or 'glog' is like a weblog or 'blog', but in Geminispace instead of on the Web.
+
+=> /gemlog/2026-03-28.gmi     2026-03-28    I'm a Protestant, why should I care about Vatican II?
+=> /gemlog/2026-03-21.gmi     2026-03-21    The structure of Genesis
+=> /gemlog/2026-03-04.gmi     2026-03-04    What is an agnostic?
+=> /gemlog/2026-02-16.gmi     2026-02-16    10 very short stories about the Reformation
+=> /gemlog/2025-12-11.gmi     2025-12-11    Why did the church become persecuting in the fourth century?
+=> /gemlog/2025-10-09.gmi     2025-10-09    Arianism
+=> /gemlog/2025-09-18.gmi     2025-09-18    Changing my ambitions
+=> /gemlog/2025-07-03.gmi     2025-07-03    Why Psalm 118 is the theme tune to Matthew's Gospel
+=> /gemlog/2025-06-23.gmi     2025-06-23    Figuring things out
+=> /gemlog/2025-05-04.gmi     2025-05-04    Does resurrection doctrine give us unique reasons to work for justice?
+=> /gemlog/2025-05-02.gmi     2025-05-02    Surprised By Hope
+=> /gemlog/2025-01-28.gmi     2025-01-28    A paradox about 'should'
+=> /gemlog/2025-01-24.gmi     2025-01-24    Why scientists need philosophers
+=> /gemlog/2025-01-19.gmi     2025-01-19    How I read things on the Internet now (no, of course I don't leave the terminal!)
+=> /gemlog/2024-12-17.gmi     2024-12-17    Questions I have about sex
+=> /gemlog/2024-07-16.gmi     2024-07-16    What do academics think LLM ‘hallucination’ means?
+=> /gemlog/2024-07-08.gmi     2024-07-08    Doctor Who, gayness and the church
+=> /gemlog/2024-06-13.gmi     2024-06-13    LLMs do not understand anything
+=> /gemlog/2024-05-02.gmi     2024-05-02    How I made YouTube work for me
+=> /gemlog/2024-04-14.gmi     2024-04-14    God Is Not Great
+=> /gemlog/2024-04-11.gmi     2024-04-11    Who consecrates the tabernacle? (Ex 29)
+=> /gemlog/2024-04-10.gmi     2024-04-10    Tracking pixels
+=> /gemlog/2024-03-30.gmi     2024-03-30    Why Easter is the best week of the year
+=> /gemlog/2024-01-14.gmi     2024-01-14    Harari’s Sapiens on Religion

capsule/content/logs/idealog.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# joeac's idealog
+
+Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my idealog. Sometimes, when I have an idea, I put it here. I'm not sure why you'd want to read this, to be honest. I'd recommend turning the computer off and going for a walk instead.
+
+This list is pretty short just now because I've just started it. Maybe it'll grow! You've got to start some time.
+
+## 2026-04-07
+
+I should write a post based on my dissertation proposal. Someone else might find my reflections on green apocalypse interesting. And it would be cool for me to look back at the end of the project.
+
+## 2026-04-06
+
+I should get a bunch of my pals together and go poetry busking. If we make any money we can go to the pub afterwards.
+
+## 2026-04-04
+
+I should write a post based on the essay I'm writing for my course, Science and Religion in Literature. I could try to explain to a general audience what's going on in the academic science and religion discourse right now, and my argument as to how Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy could address this.
+
+## 2026-04-01
+
+- My current diary is hand-made using a blank notebook and a bunch of felt-tip pens. It was fun to do, but also really time-consuming, and error-prone. Maybe I could write a script to produce the design in PDF? It'd probably go via HTML just because I know how to do things in HTML.
+- I should stop listening to radio and recorded music in my house. Music is played by people, not machines. So-called 'recorded music' is fake.
+- I should write a post about self-hosting a Gemini capsule.
+- I should write a post about self-hosting a Website.
+- I should write a post about owning a homelab.
+- I should write a post about biblical inerrancy.

capsule/content/logs/index.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# joeac's logs
+
+Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my logs.
+
+=> ./gemlog.gmi    My gemlog
+=> ./idealog.gmi   My idealog
+=> ./lovelog.gmi   My lovelog
+=> ./wishlog.gmi   My wishlog

capsule/content/logs/lovelog.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+# joeac's lovelog
+
+Hi, I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my lovelog! Sometimes, when I love something, I write it here. You can read this if you're curious about what I love.
+
+## 2026-04-09
+
+I loved this silly post by ew0k.
+
+=> warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2025-09-02-married-was-i-scammed.gmi Married! Was I Scammed?
+
+## 2026-04-05
+
+I loved the Easter homily at Sacred Heart of Jesus on Lauriston Street, Edinburgh. I loved it because I couldn't predict where it was going, which meant I had to listen and think. It got me thinking about scapegoating. I agree that there's something a bit morally gross about scapegoating, and I see the connection he made with the theory of penal substitution. I think the priest missed the Lev 16 connection, though, which I think is pretty important.
+
+## 2026-03-30
+
+I loved 'Batter my heart' by John Donne. I was surprised that I loved it more than 'Death be not proud' when I bought a collection of his poems today and read through the Divine Meditations. 'Death be not proud' may yet grow on me. I'd love to memorise a few of his Divine Meditations.
+
+## 2026-03-28
+
+I loved the art exhibition today at my church, Bruntsfield Evangelical. I was blown away by the hidden talents in the congregation – sorry for the cliché. I kept coming back to a few works in particular: Brooke's painting of the Samaritan woman at the well, Irena's multi-media interpretation of Ps 139 'you knit me together in my mother's womb,' Sam's prose-poem 'On Words,' and Maggie Shearer's landscapes. And this only scratches the surface. Today ignited my love for this congregation, made me passionately desire to have more art in my life, and inspired me to take up an interest in poetry again.
+
+## 2026-02-26
+
+I loved Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. If you ever intend on doing science, having sex or being human, you should read this book.

capsule/content/logs/wishlog.gmi

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# joeac's wishlog
+
+Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my wishlog. Sometimes, when I have a wish, I put it here. You can use this if you're curious what things I'm interested in. You may also use it if you're looking for gift ideas (that's very nice of you, you really shouldn't), though not everything on this list is buyable or makeable or even a thing.
+
+This list is pretty short just now because I've just started it. Maybe it'll grow! You've got to start some time.
+
+## 2026-04-06
+
+I'd love to get to know more myths and fairy tales. I'd love a good translation of the Odyssey, or a good telling of other Greek myths, or Neil Gaiman's Norse myths, or some sagas, or…
+
+## 2026-04-05
+
+I had an unexpected craving to go back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a computer game I was obsessed with between the ages of about 16 and 18. I actually got as far as looking at prices for GPUs. I don't currently have a GPU in my computer, since I haven't played computer games for years. Playing Morrowind with enough mods to make it fun would require a GPU of some kind, though I find it really hard to judge what card would be appropriate. In the end, I remembered that I actually quite like not being addicted to computer games, and the sudden craving gradually faded.
+
+## 2026-04-04
+
+I wish I had a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. I'd love to memorise Sonnet 18.
+
+## 2026-04-03
+
+I wish I was better at languages.
+
+## 2026-04-02
+
+I wish there was a version of the Bible that was like the Authorised Version but with fewer errors.
+
+## 2026-04-01
+
+I wish I set aside time to read the Bible and read literature and sometimes write sonnets.

capsule/feeds.txt

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
-gemini://joeac.net/logs/loglog.gmi
+gemini://joeac.net/gemlog/
-gemini://joeac.net/logs/microlog.gmi --watch
 gemini://idiomdrottning.org:1965/sub
 gemini://spool-five.com:1965/gemlog/index.gmi
 gemini://jsreed5.org:1965/feeds/log.xml
@@ -8,9 +7,3 @@ https://www.inkandswitch.com/index.xml
 https://euhwc.co.uk/feed/
 https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCVfwlh9XpX2Y_tQfjeln9QA
 https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCfJxmjbygyA5KEdzzZv6Pbw
-gemini://eph.smol.pub/posts
-https://mwgmac.github.io --watch
-https://dieterhelm.co.uk/feed/
-https://extinctionrebellion.uk/feed/
-https://pluralistic.net/feed/
-https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p0gg4k6r.rss "Radical with Amol Rajan"

capsule/loglog-header.gmi

@@ -2,5 +2,3 @@
 
 Hi! I'm Joe Carstairs, and you've found my loglog; my log of logs; all my posts of every description, all gathered into one place. If you're really that interested in my posts, I would encourage you to strongly consider the benefits of touching grass.
 
-You should be aware that my build script seems to muck up the dates. Everything seems to be 2 months and 2 days off? I haven't got round to debugging and fixing this yet. Any theories, let me know.
-

common/longlog/2026-04-12.gmi

@@ -1,96 +0,0 @@
-# Green apocalypse (my dissertation proposal)
-
-I want you to panic: thus Greta Thunberg exhorted the delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.
-
-In her speech, Thunberg projected her audience into an imaginary crisis. The house is on fire. Try and escape – there is no way out. Fight the fire. Do it now. No cost too great.
-
-A crisis situation demands an immediate response, and renders inaction unintelligible. No one can recognise that their house is on fire and lie on the sofa watching TV. In a crisis situation, decision-making adopts a certain, necessary, urgent character.
-
-For the world leaders gathered in Davos, in contrast, continuing to set fossils on fire was a conceivable course of action. Climate change was not a literal crisis for them: in fact, climate change is not literally a crisis for anyone. That's not to say that it isn't real, or that it isn't really a big problem: all I mean is that it does not pose an undeferrable, immediate, existential threat to anyone, in the way that heatwaves, floods, and fires do.
-
-Thunberg’s speech exhorted her audience to imagine what it would be like if setting fossils on fire were as inconceivable as sitting watching TV while your house is on fire, and to act as if it were true. She created an imaginary crisis to try to persuade her audience to act in a certain way.
-
-The rhetoric of Thunberg’s speech echoes across our public fora. Political speech, newspaper articles, pop-science, scientific journals, novels, poems, films, and computer games abound with imaginary crises of this kind. The Woodland Trust is currently campaigning for local and national governments across the UK to declare a state of ‘nature emergency.’ This amounts to nothing more, and nothing less, than declaring official belief in an imaginary crisis.
-
-These imaginary crisis narratives fascinate me: I’m planning to write a dissertation about them over the next four months. Maybe I can persuade you that they’re worth caring about?
-
-These sorts of narratives are frequently labelled ‘apocalypses.’ Phrases such as ‘climate apocalypse’ and ‘environmental apocalypse’ are increasingly common. However, neither of these terms are quite adequate.
-
-Take ‘climate apocalypse.’ Climate change is often woven inextricably into other, diverse problems: deforestation, habitat loss, soil degradation, overfishing, plastic pollution, ocean acidification, capitalism, imperialism, democracy, hunger, war, justice. The word ‘climate’ suggests that weather patterns can be neatly sliced out of this thickly knotted web of concerns. Perhaps some specialist scientific literature does attempt this, but a lot of what I want to study is not that particular kind of scientific literature.
-
-The word ‘green’ is already associated with this whole web of concerns: think ‘green energy,’ ‘green tourism,’ ‘Green Party,’ ‘green agriculture.’
-
-The word ‘green’ is also more suitable than ‘climate’ because it is open. By using the word ‘green,’ I don’t have to arbitrarily exclude literature from consideration just because it doesn’t focus on weather patterns or some other fixed list of concerns. I also considered ‘eco-apocalypse,’ but ‘green apocalypse’ has the advantage that ‘green’ can be detached and function as a self-standing epithet, while ‘eco’ can only exist as a prefix in ordinary English.
-
-‘Green’ is also much more beautiful than ‘eco.’ (I dare you to disagree!)
-
-I am interested in hope. In order to face our big problems, we need hope.
-
-Hope is not merely a feeling. Hope means action. Hope is never easy. In easy situations, there is no need for hope. Hope means right action in difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, hope is also a feeling. Hope includes a conviction that not all is lost: that however rocky the road, good will win out in the end.
-
-The opposite of hope is despair. Despair means a conviction that all is indeed lost. Since all is lost, action is pointless. Despair means no action, means resigning to mere lamentation.
-
-A lot of folk complain that green apocalypse is no good, because it induces despair instead of hope. A woman on my degree programme told us that she once started an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science, but found it so depressing that she had to switch subjects for the sake of her sanity. Evidently, her Environmental Science department, despite apparently being experts in the field, either didn’t realise the importance of hope (improbable in my view), or were incapable of telling hopeful stories about the environment (relatable!). So, is the apocalyptic form at fault? Come to mention it, what is an ‘apocalypse?’
-
-Sometimes, the word ‘apocalypse’ has taken on a meaning close to the ‘disaster’ of the ‘disaster movie’ genre: a total catastrophe far outweighing any redemptive afterwards. This usage is exemplified in the phrase ‘nuclear apocalypse,’ as well as in the phrase ‘post-apocalypse’ to refer to a time after such a total catastrophe.
-
-However, ‘apocalypse’ has a deeper resonance, coming from its ultimate entry point into the English language: the Apocalypse of St John, also known as the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible. This work inspired nineteenth-century scholars to coin the word ‘apocalyptic’ in order to name a genre of literature, viz. the genre of literature to which the Apocalypse belongs.
-
-In Koine Greek, the verb ἀποκαλύπτω (ápokalýpto) was constructed from the verb καλύπτω (kalýpto), ‘to veil.’ Thus, in the Apocalypse itself, the word ‘apocalypse’ means ‘unveiling.’ The work is introduced as ‘the ἀποκάλυψις (ápokálypsis) of Jesus Christ.’ Something was hidden as if behind a veil, but has now been revealed in, or through, or by, Jesus Christ.
-
-Can apocalyptic literature inspire hope instead of despair? Surely, if we will find a model anywhere, we might find it here, in the Apocalypse itself? Could biblical scholarship help us to unveil the hope hidden here?
-
-While the Apocalypse had been relatively neglected by biblical scholars until about the 1960s, since then, academics have taken a keen interest in it. There was a particular flurry of activity in the 1990s. Then, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza helped to popularise the view which became widespread amongst biblical scholars that the Apocalypse was written in response to a crisis faced by the Christian communities of Asia Minor under the rule of the Roman Emperor Domitian.
-
-However, at a similar time, Leonard Thompson argued that there is no evidence that those communities were facing a crisis, and you don’t need to posit a crisis to explain the Apocalypse.
-
-In his view, John’s audience likely lived relatively peaceful, ordinary lives, but John’s rhetoric induces an imaginary crisis in order to get his audience to act in a certain way. He does this by revealing hidden ultimate realities behind the deceptively ordinary world of appearances. Having gone on an imaginative, visionary cosmic journey through space and time, revealing these hidden, ultimate realities, his audience can now return to their messy visible reality with a new orientation towards what really matters, enabling them to do what is right even when their real-world decision-making does not literally have the certain, necessary, urgent character which it would in a crisis.
-
-Perhaps this is one way that the Apocalypse grounded hope for its original audience, in the sense of ‘hope’ I explored above. The ultimate reality revealed in John’s vision is not optimistic: it acknowledges the reality of extreme suffering. But the ultimate good in John’s vision is rock-solid. God’s final victory over the beast is assured, even when the whore of Babylon drinks the blood of the saints by the gallon. All is not lost. This conviction underlies John’s appeal to his audience to live rightly even in their complicated reality with no obvious moral absolutes.
-
-So why does green apocalypse so often inspire despair instead of hope? I hope I will develop my ideas over the next few months, but I have at least one inkling.
-
-St John unveils a hidden reality behind the ordinary world of appearances. If this is to orient his audience towards hidden moral absolutes in their ordinary, very un-absolute everyday moral decision-making, this hidden reality must have a glimmer of ultimate value, something that cannot be compromised. In order to do this, he cannot be limited to mere scientific fact-speak. He has to reach beyond the grasp of facts, into the realm of myth: the realm of visions, dragons, lakes of fire, celestial cities. The point of these visions is not to name for us some definite future as it really appears, but to point us towards something which cannot be simply named in our language. It is this mythic quality which enables John to really reach behind the veil of ordinary reality, into the realm of ultimate things.
-
-Where green apocalypse fails, it is often failing by failing to provide a rock-solid, rock-bottom reality for us to hold on to. Often, it does the very opposite, pointing us towards ordinary, visible realities, like polar ice caps and rare species, while at the same time emphasising how fragile they are. No wonder such narratives are so alienating! As long as green apocalypses limit themselves to the plain kind of language favoured by science – so-called ‘fact-speak’ – they will thus forever be condemned to inspire despair.
-
-Where green apocalypse succeeds, it succeeds by delving into the riches of myth-speak. I think a promising example of this is ‘The Lost Words,’ with words by Robert MacFarlane and illustrations by Jackie Morris.
-
-=> https://www.thelostwords.org/ ‘The Lost Words’ Website
-
-In ‘The Lost Words,’ apparently ordinary characters from the British environment – as ordinary as dandelions, acorns, and ferns – are depicted in beautiful illustrated portraits on gold leaf, in the manner of a religious icon. In the pages in-between, illustrations of fields, thickets, and moors are scattered with a jumble of golden letters, waiting to be assembled. Each icon is accompanied by an acrostic poem. Consider ‘Bramble’:
-
-=> /images/longlog/2026-04-12_bramble.webp ‘Bramble’ icon
-
-> Bramble is on the march again,
-> Rolling and arching along the hedges,
->     into parks on the city edges.
-> All streets are suddenly thick with briar:
->     cars snarled fast, business over.
-> Moths have come in their millions,
->     drawn to the thorns. The air flutters.
-> Bramble has reached each house now,
->     looped it in wire. People lock doors,
->     close shutters.
-> Little shoots steal through keyholes,
->     to leave – in quiet halls,
-> Empty stairwells – bowls of bright
->     blackberries where the light falls.
-
-Picture it! The human world tied up, people pushed out. Bramble barging through, conquering cities, streets, houses. Bramble is on the march again. It is decisively not fact-speak. It is imaginative – myth-speak, perhaps?
-
-You could also study ‘Weasel,’ who ‘acts on land like spark on tinder – / Scorches grass, turns fields to pyre, sand to glass, tree to cinder.’ Or there is willow, the wise one, who will never, can never, share willow-wisdom with us: ‘you will never know a word of willow – for we are willow and you are not.’
-
-My thoughts are not quite there yet, but I sense there’s something here. We’re not just being given a scientific account of bramble, weasel, willow. We’re being given more than that – a mythic account, peeling back ordinary reality to find something more precious behind. Can this refocus our eyes on what really matters? Can this transcend eco-anxiety? Can this ground hope instead of despair?
-
-To recap, in the dissertation I’m about to write, I intend to address the question: how can green apocalypse ground hope instead of despair?
-
-This question is topical, since green apocalypses have already been repeatedly accused of grounding despair instead of hope.
-
-This question is also novel, since most critics imply that the solution to the problem is to stop telling green apocalypses, whereas my question presumes that it is possible to inspire hope without abandoning the apocalyptic form.
-
-Since I have fixed the concept ‘apocalypse’ into the scope of my project, the Apocalypse of St John, very literally the defining work of the apocalyptic genre, is a necessary focus point. My subject matter is not just any old green stories, it is particularly those green stories which are ‘apocalyptic,’ that is, those which are rather like the Apocalypse.
-
-Therefore, my project amounts to an attempt to explain (at least) one way in which the Apocalypse might have once grounded hope instead of despair, and then to explore how green stories can do something similar today.
-
-I’ll be handing this in on the 5th of August. Wish me luck!

common/microlog/2024-06-04.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-ChatGPT 3.5 gives bad answers half the time, and programmers miss the mistakes almost half the time. Be careful out there, folks.
-
-=> https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3613904.3642596 Is Stack Overflow Obsolete? An Empirical Study of the Characteristics of ChatGPT Answers to Stack Overflow Questions

common/microlog/2024-06-05.1.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Cory Doctorow writes incessantly about the harms of monopolised markets. This essay is particularly good, because he collects many of monopolists’ greatest hits from recent years. Do keep reading to the end. It just gets better.
-
-=> https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification Cory Doctorow: autoenshittification

common/microlog/2024-06-05.2.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-‘Once you find yourself in the position of being someone’s father you’ll quickly realize that you’re not actually raising anyone here, you just happen to be the veteran in the trenches alongside them, showing them the ropes and hoping they’ll survive and turn out okay.’
-
-=> https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2024/06/05/parenting Parenting

common/microlog/2024-06-05.3.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Catherine Carr did a fantastic job of unveiling how teenage boys are experiencing masculinity in Britain today. Plenty here to surprise, shock and inspire.
-
-=> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yshl Boys

common/microlog/2024-06-05.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Colin McGinn makes the case for primary and secondary moral values, just as there are primary and secondary qualities, apparently thereby managing to assert both moral realism and anti-realism at the same time without contradiction.
-
-=> https://www.colinmcginn.net/primary-and-secondary-values Primary and Secondary Values

common/microlog/2024-06-07.1.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Jay Hoffman spots some striking parallels between the current AI hype and the dot-com bubble.
-
-=> https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/beware-the-cloud-of-hype Beware the cloud of hype

common/microlog/2024-06-07.2.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Cory Doctorow, writing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that to save news media, we need to dismantle ad-tech monopolies, ban surveillance advertising, open up app stores and have an end-to-end web.
-
-=> https://eff.org/saving-the-news Saving the News from Big Tech

common/microlog/2024-06-07.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-A superb tribute to the building and analysis of the failures of the planning system. This was published in my free local newsletter, and is worthy of any broadsheet newspaper.
-
-=> https://broughtonspurtle.org.uk/news/gone-not-forgotten 154 McDonald Road: Gone but not Forgotten

common/microlog/2024-06-14.1.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Chris Ferdinandi has a hot take here. I would be keen to test this idea out one day: push the limits of how much complex state you can manage within the light DOM.
-
-=> https://gomakethings.com/state-based-ui-is-an-anti-pattern State-based UI is an anti-pattern

common/microlog/2024-06-14.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Yuck, yuck, yuck. Makes me glad I’m not on Instagram. For people already stuck there, though, this just sucks. Highly recommend either opting out of AI training or quitting Insta, if only to give the twits the middle finger they deserve.
-
-=> https://www.fastcompany.com/91132854/instagram-training-ai-on-your-data-its-nearly-impossible-to-opt-out Instagram is training AI on your data. It’s nearly impossible to opt out

common/microlog/2024-06-17.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Did you know that most organisations store less than 100GB, and almost all analytics is run on the last 24h of data? I didn’t. Though take it all with a pinch of salt: the guy’s writing on his company blog which sells traditional data warehouses.
-
-=> https://motherduck.com/blog/big-data-is-dead Big Data is Dead

common/microlog/2024-07-16.1.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-ve got many inter-dependent flags. If you have independent flags, re-writing those as enums will just end up with you re-implementing the boolean type for every parameter, and not getting much profit, I reckon.
-
-=> https://www.luu.io/posts/dont-use-booleans Don’t use booleans

common/microlog/2024-07-16.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Who doesn't like a classic David-and-Goliath hacker story? Also, if you're American, please <a href="https://www.breakupticketmaster.com">break up TicketMaster</a>. If you're in the UK, it's not quite as bad, but <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5519473540f0b61401000087/final_report.pdf">it's still really bad</a>. Use alternatives where you can.
-
-=> https://conduition.io/coding/ticketmaster s Rotating Barcodes (SafeTix)

common/microlog/2024-07-17.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Pretty convincing to me. The biggest potential weakness in his argument is his claim that none of the most common reasons why devs disagree on story points exposes anything which ought to be resolved in an estimation meeting. If you can provide other common reasons besides the ones Dave considered, you could rebut his argument. I don't feel experienced enough to judge this myself.
-
-=> https://blog.scottlogic.com/2024/07/05/story-points-are-wasting-time.html Story points are wasting time

common/microlog/2024-07-18.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Read the interviews. Economists give interesting, and diverse, opinions on the economic potential of LLMs.
-
-=> https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit/report.pdf Goldman Sachs Top of the Mind, Issue 129

common/microlog/2024-10-11.1.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-I posted on the Scott Logic blog a while ago about how the word 'hallucination' doesn't accurately capture how LLMs work.
-
-=> https://blog.scottlogic.com/2024/09/10/llms-dont-hallucinate.html t 'hallucinate'

common/microlog/2024-10-11.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-In case you'd forgotten: content moderation is still carried out by appalling worker exploitation. This is not news, but nonetheless an excellent and suitably chilling essay on the topic. Be aware that the essay describes some deeply traumatic content.
-
-=> https://www.noemamag.com/the-human-cost-of-our-ai-driven-future The Human Cost Of Our AI-Driven Future

common/microlog/2024-11-11.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-A pretty good case for avoiding the word 'just' in software engineering. I admit I've been guilty, too.
-
-=> https://sgringwe.com/2019/10/10/Please-just-stop-saying-just.html just'

common/microlog/2024-12-17.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Alexander Pruss has a bizarre, but at first blush convincing, argument that complementarians about gender don’t have to appeal to morally significant intrinsic differences between men and women.
-
-=> https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2024/11/sexual-symmetry-and-asymmetry.html Sexual symmetry and asymmetry

common/microlog/2024-12-20.gmi

@@ -1,4 +0,0 @@
-Handy for the next time you develop a CLI or TUI. Also handy as a user: now I know about readline key bindings, which are everywhere apparently.
-
-=> https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/11/26/terminal-rules "Rules" that terminal programs follow
-=> https://readline.kablamo.org/emacs.html Readline key bindings

common/microlog/2025-01-01.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post about self-hosting a Website.

common/microlog/2025-01-23.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-There was no long-term price inflation from 1200 (when these data begin) until 1550. WHAT?!
-
-=> https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/research-datasets s 'Millenium of Macroeconomic Data'

common/microlog/2025-01-28.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-I just donated $40. These guys are promising to do whatever it takes to make sure the AT Protocol is genuinely owned by everyone.
-
-=> https://freeourfeeds.com Free Our Feeds

common/microlog/2025-11-01.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post about owning a homelab.

common/microlog/2025-12-10.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post about biblical inerrancy.

common/microlog/2026-01-01.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should stop listening to radio and recorded music in my house. Music is played by people, not machines. So-called 'recorded music' is fake.

common/microlog/2026-02-01.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-My current diary is hand-made using a blank notebook and a bunch of felt-tip pens. It was fun to do, but also really time-consuming, and error-prone. Maybe I could write a script to produce the design in PDF? It'd probably go via HTML just because I know how to do things in HTML.

common/microlog/2026-02-26.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I loved Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. If you ever intend on doing science, having sex or being human, you should read this book.

common/microlog/2026-03-28.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I loved the art exhibition today at my church, Bruntsfield Evangelical. I was blown away by the hidden talents in the congregation – sorry for the cliché. I kept coming back to a few works in particular: Brooke's painting of the Samaritan woman at the well, Irena's multi-media interpretation of Ps 139 'you knit me together in my mother's womb,' Sam's prose-poem 'On Words,' and Maggie Shearer's landscapes. And this only scratches the surface. Today ignited my love for this congregation, made me passionately desire to have more art in my life, and inspired me to take up an interest in poetry again.

common/microlog/2026-03-30.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I loved 'Batter my heart' by John Donne. I was surprised that I loved it more than 'Death be not proud' when I bought a collection of his poems today and read through the Divine Meditations. 'Death be not proud' may yet grow on me. I'd love to memorise a few of his Divine Meditations.

common/microlog/2026-04-01.1.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post about self-hosting a Gemini capsule.

common/microlog/2026-04-01.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I wish I set aside time to read the Bible and read literature and sometimes write sonnets.

common/microlog/2026-04-02.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I wish there was a version of the Bible that was like the Authorised Version but with fewer errors.

common/microlog/2026-04-03.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I wish I was better at languages.

common/microlog/2026-04-04.1.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post based on the essay I'm writing for my course, Science and Religion in Literature. I could try to explain to a general audience what's going on in the academic science and religion discourse right now, and my argument as to how Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy could address this.

common/microlog/2026-04-04.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I wish I had a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. I'd love to memorise Sonnet 18.

common/microlog/2026-04-05.1.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I had an unexpected craving to go back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a computer game I was obsessed with between the ages of about 16 and 18. I actually got as far as looking at prices for GPUs. I don't currently have a GPU in my computer, since I haven't played computer games for years. Playing Morrowind with enough mods to make it fun would require a GPU of some kind, though I find it really hard to judge what card would be appropriate. In the end, I remembered that I actually quite like not being addicted to computer games, and the sudden craving gradually faded.

common/microlog/2026-04-05.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I loved the Easter homily at Sacred Heart of Jesus on Lauriston Street, Edinburgh. I loved it because I couldn't predict where it was going, which meant I had to listen and think. It got me thinking about scapegoating. I agree that there's something a bit morally gross about scapegoating, and I see the connection he made with the theory of penal substitution. I think the priest missed the Lev 16 connection, though, which I think is pretty important.

common/microlog/2026-04-06.1.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I'd love to get to know more myths and fairy tales. I'd love a good translation of the Odyssey, or a good telling of other Greek myths, or Neil Gaiman's Norse myths, or some sagas, or…

common/microlog/2026-04-06.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should get a bunch of my pals together and go poetry busking. If we make any money we can go to the pub afterwards.

common/microlog/2026-04-07.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should write a post based on my dissertation proposal. Someone else might find my reflections on green apocalypse interesting. And it would be cool for me to look back at the end of the project.

common/microlog/2026-04-09.gmi

@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-I loved this silly post by ew0k.
-
-=> gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2025-09-02-married-was-i-scammed.gmi Married! Was I Scammed?

common/microlog/2026-04-11.1.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I went through my work diary from semester 1, and remembered that I came up with a few fun and productive ways of digesting what I'd learned! I wrote a very personal and temporary catechism, summarising important opinions that I had formed, I wrote down a list of quality questions I'd encountered, and I wrote a couple of stories/essays for my longlog. I should totally do all these things again: Semester 2 Edition.

common/microlog/2026-04-11.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I should make sure that folk on my Website know how to subscribe to my logs, and how to get to my Gemini capsule. That is, I should write a guide to RSS and a guide to Gemini, and make them accessible from my homepage.

common/microlog/2026-04-13.gmi

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-I wish I had a few more fountain pens. Dreadfully useful things.

common/microlog/2026-04-14.1.gmi

@@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
-‘Losing Eden’ by Lucy Jones left me feeling hopeful, inspired. But I can’t imagine what I shall do, and it’s driving me nuts. What I really want is to form a joy brigade at Bruntsfield Evangelical that goes outside regularly, to ‘touch nature from the inside.’ But I tried that before, and no one signed up, and I have no idea how to persuade people to sign up to things, or what sort of thing I could run instead that people would sign up to. And now I feel depressed. I feel I want to do something, and I can do something, but no one will back me up, presumably because there’s something wrong with me.
-
-That’s how I felt about noon. To burn some energy, I went to walk to the shops and back, and long before I knew what I was doing, I found my toes dangling in the Braid Burn. It was a very particular spot. Last time I came here, I pretty much wrote a sonnet in my head, and came back and wrote it down. Today I did not have many words in my head, but I was astonished at how delicious the light looked through the leaves and the warm bed of wildflowers I couldn’t name.
-
-When I came back, I was still fizzing with frustrated energy. I didn’t realise hope could be such a terrible emotion. On a whim, I got Edward Thomas off the shelf, and browsed through his poems, including ‘Lob’ and my favourite, ‘Adlestrop.’
-
-By that point, I’d calmed down enough to get back to my work. I read ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree, with illustrations by Angela Harding. It also made me feel hopeful. They have a story about a diamond in the rough, a shining city on a hill in a land still cloaked in darkness, a suggestion that homo sapiens could be a keystone species. I was close to tears three times while reading it.
-
-After I finished, I went outside in the rain into my tenement’s shared garden. I’ve been there exactly once before: in January last year, when I was viewing the flat. I looked once, and decided it was dark, lifeless and dull: not worth going back to. I was so wrong! I’m plotting to try taking my morning pot of tea in the garden some day when it’s dry. I don’t feel angry any more.