Cory Dransfeldt

Weaving music data in and out of my personal website

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I started integrating music data into my personal website when I added Last.fm artist and album displays to my now page. Initially, I tried sourcing artist images from a few different services, knowing that Last.fm had updated their API to stop serving them. After a fair bit of searching I found that most services that supplied artist images covered only a small fraction of my library and often supplied the wrong image when there were multiple artists sharing the same name.

Building a bespoke now-playing web component

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I've long had a now playing element on the home page of my site that displays either what I've checked into on Trakt, the Lakers' record and who they're playing when a game is on or the last song I've listened to. After leveraging some new web components on my site, I decided to refactor the code powering this into a web component specific to my needs.

Automatic Mastodon post embeds

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I use Nicolas Hoizey's GitHub action to syndicate my web activity to Mastodon. Recently, I removed the display of webmentions from my posts after seeing Chris and Robb discuss some privacy concerns around them. Upon seeing David Darnes' mastodon-post web component, I've gone ahead and added it, conditionally, to the end of each of my posts.

Using B2 as a JSON data store

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My links page is powered by the Readwise Reader API but because there are, quite reasonably, rate limits in place, I've gone ahead and reduced the page count I fetch on each build and cached older link data from past builds in a B2 bucket.

Adding a light-dark theme toggle

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I dropped a light/dark theme toggle into the navigation of my site, replacing the prior reliance on the visitor's preference set at the OS level (though it does still consider this preference).

Setting up image transforms in Eleventy

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Eleventy added a transform option to process images in Eleventy v3.0.0-alpha.5 and Image v4.0.1 so, naturally, I had to set it up on my site. If you don't want to read this post, you can check out the full diff for the changes.

Renting your music means accepting that it will disappear

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

When I was using Apple Music I had a smart playlist that would surface music that was no longer available on the service and having to do that sums up one of the many problems with music streaming services. It's not really your collection — you're renting it and your collection only exists on that service. If it disappears, your collection disappears.

On getting tattooed

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I got my first tattoo over ten years ago. It was a few lines from Tom Waits' Coney Island Baby set on the inside of my left bicep as a dedication to my then fiancé and now wife of ten years. I was told recently that that's a really painful spot but, I suppose, I didn't know what I was getting into outside of having an artist recommended by a dear friend that I trust implicitly.

Check if images are available before optimizing in Eleventy

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I updated my image shortcode recently to leverage Lene Saile's shortcode in the ever-useful eleventy-excellent project. As part of making this change, I also wanted to address build issues I had been facing when attempting to fetch and display avatars in webmentions (in the interest of improving post page performance).

Browsing the mobile web sucks

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The mobile web isn't all bad, but so much of the experience is. I've absolutely loved the recent trend back towards personal websites and blogs but, outside of all of those little homes and passion projects, it's rough.

I don't want anything your AI generates

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I really don't. AI output is fundamentally derivative and exploitative (of content, labor and the environment).

You don't need a framework for that

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

You don't need a framework for any website primarily focused on presenting information to users.

Mobile web development with Codespaces

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I was on vacation recently and, because I'm exactly that nerd, I ended up wanting to add an npm package and postbuild step to this site.

Your attention is precious

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

It's finite, it's exhaustible and it ought to be held close and carefully guarded.

Link page improvements

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I made a few quick improvements to my links page.

Link blogging using Readwise Reader

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I use Readwise Reader's API to populate the links on my now page. These then get included in my follow feed that's syndicated out to Mastodon using a GitHub action authored by Nicolas Hoizey.

Your site, your home, your web

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

A lot has been said about the recent fracturing of the social media landscape and there's little that still needs to be said but, for all that's bad about social media and it's increasing unsteadiness, it's presented an opportunity for folks that are invested in the internet which is — well — just about everyone to look for new outlets for expression.

I found the music I love on the internet

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I was born in the late 80s and grew up in the 90s. My musical journey started with tapes. First it was The Traveling Wilbury's Vol. 1, my parents playing that until the tape snapped. That tape lived in an old brown van we had, the interior covered in shag carpet, a bench seat in back. Next up was Nirvana's Unplugged in New York that made it from my dad's old Chevy Nova to the Honda Civic that replaced it.

I removed Tailwind from my site

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I chose the starting template for this site in part because it used Tailwind and I'm not confident in my ability to design much of anything from scratch. As of last week (or so), that's all been removed.

2023 in review

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Here's my brief, altogether incomplete, review of 2023.