michel de montaigne was 37

content/post/2022/08/six-months-with-pi-hole.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Rob O'Leary's [VS Code - what's the deal with telemetry?](https://www.roboleary.
 
 All those pervasive advertising attempts are more and more depressing. In Belgium, digital media companies are experimenting with the disallowance of fast-forwarding ads in-between TV shows. Our strategy so far has been to record stuff we really want to watch and simply skip the junk---I'm sure we're not the only ones who do that. Very soon, that won't be possible anymore, and it very much pisses me off. 
 
-Annoying YouTube ads made us switch to re-buying classic DVDs, ripping those, and watching them via our NAS. [Ads are coming to Netflix](https://time.com/6175837/netflix-ads-coming/). This is just _baffling_. You pay a great deal of money (we don't have Netflix, I hate subscription services, but we'll reserve that rant for another post) to a giant tech company, and its grubby hands just got even more greedy? Are you kidding me? Again, our advertisement and capitalism-driven economy is getting more and more depressing. 
+Annoying YouTube ads made us switch to re-buying classic DVDs, ripping those, and watching them via our NAS. [Ads are coming to Netflix](https://time.com/6175837/netflix-ads-coming/). This is just _baffling_. You pay a great deal of money (we don't have Netflix, I hate subscription services, but we'll reserve that rant [for another post](/post/2023/01/terrible-software-as-a-service-pricing-models/)---edit, January 2023: there!) to a giant tech company, and its grubby hands just got even more greedy? Are you kidding me? Again, our advertisement and capitalism-driven economy is getting more and more depressing. 
 
 Installing a Pi-Hole only partially circumvents this: it simply blocks domains based off a community-maintained list. If Google serves ads from `ad.google.com` and it gets on a list, they simply revert to `goo.ga/ads`, which isn't on the list, which will get on the list, to which they revert to... It's a seemingly never-ending battle. Again, very depressing.
 

content/post/2023/01/fan-sites-vs-fandom-a-case-study.md

@@ -7,9 +7,9 @@ categories:
 
 I miss fan sites. I've already mentioned the possibility to [back them up](/post/2022/10/should-we-build-our-own-wayback-machines/) using something like ArchiveBox, but the fact remains, they're disappearing, and not a lot new are being made. Instead, fans turn to [Fandom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom_(website)), formerly called _Wikicities_ and _Wikia_, that hosts wikis on various entertainment ranging from games to movies, using the same MediaWiki engine as Wikipedia. It was acquired by TPG Capital in 2018---what you need to remember for now is the specific term "capital". We'll get back to that. 
 
-But first, remember those awesome dedicated nineties fan sites that came with marquee headers, custom backgrounds, and perhaps even background MIDI soundtracks? That came with interactive image maps explaining different parts of a fantasy world, an abundance of image assets taken right from the game/movie to help you feel at home? I'll point to some examples:
+But first, remember those awesome dedicated nineties fan sites that came with marquee headers, custom backgrounds, and perhaps even background MIDI soundtracks? That came with interactive image maps explaining different parts of a fantasy world, an abundance of image assets taken right from the game/movie/book to help you feel at home? I'll point to some stellar examples from the video game world:
 
-- [Flamestryke's Might & Magic VIII](https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/mm8/flamestrykes_mm8.html), hosted on Zimlab, an awesome [Wizardry fan page](https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/). 
+- Flamestryke's [Might & Magic VIII](https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/mm8/flamestrykes_mm8.html) and [Wizardry 8](https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/wizardry8/flamestrykes_w8.html) pages, hosted on Zimlab, an awesome [Wizardry fan page](https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/) in itself. 
 - [Mike's RPG Center: Baldur's Gate II](http://www.mikesrpgcenter.com/bgate2/index.html) and a lot of other great RPGs.
 - [Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together](http://luct.tacticsogre.com/), hosted on the equally cool [Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis](http://www.tacticsogre.com/) fan page. 
 - IS4's informative [Albion fan page](http://albion-hra.wz.cz/), in Czech and English. 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ For example, take a look at Flamestryke's [M&MVIII pages](https://www.zimlab.com
 
 When it comes to navigation, the same downside applies here: Fandom sites are strictly tied to the wiki system. To make matters worse, Fandom applies a completely useless big yellow border "helping" you navigate to other Fandom sites, which isn't the point of your visit. The top border also blocks off a bit of precious screen estate, but the best is yet to come: if you scroll down, you suddenly end up in a "fan feed" section, where completely pointless posts and images are placed in true social media style, screaming for your attention, that are unrelated to the current fan site. Explore the [Castlevania Fandom Wiki](https://castlevania.fandom.com/wiki/Castlevania_Wiki) and the [Albion World Wiki](https://albionworld.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page) and you'll understand:
 
-![](../fandom.jpg "On the Castlevania Fandom page: three bars of useless links and unrelated latest discussions.")
+![](../fandom.jpg "On the Castlevania Fandom page: three bars of useless links and the 'fan feed' section: unrelated latest discussions and sponsored links by BMW?")
 
 I know it's supposed to be an advantage of Wiki engines, but to me, on Fandom, I never quite find what I'm looking for at first glance and have to resort to the search bar. On the other hand, most fan sites are very much _glancaeble_---and are pleasant to glance at, due to the excessive deployment of silliness, both in text and in related imagery. 
 
@@ -39,11 +39,11 @@ To this, an excerpt from Let us Cling Together's [Wiki Fandom page](https://ogre
 
 > The Paladin is a class in Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber and a special class in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Usually defenders of the faith, or members of knightly orders, the paladin is set apart from his knight brothers in that he possesses magical ability. 
 
-Yawn. Almost every Fandom page I encounter is just so very boring! The informative-centered narrative style, clearly reminiscent of your average just-as-boring Wikipedia article, does everything but entice me as a fan. Most dedicated personal fan pages I encounter are written in the opposite way: sometimes, it's very personal, where the author shares their experience of the game, and sometimes, it blends in perfectly with the game world, like in the above case, where Zapan and Leonard are NPCs with their own personality. 
+Yawn. Almost every Fandom page I encounter is just so very boring! The informative-centered narrative style, clearly reminiscent of your average just-as-boring Wikipedia article, does everything but entice me as a fan. Most dedicated personal fan pages I encounter are written in the opposite way: sometimes, it's very personal, where the author shares their experience of the game, and sometimes, it blends in perfectly with the game world, like in the above case, where Zapan and Leonard are NPCs with their own personalities. 
 
 I don't know if a writing style is enforced on Fandom pages, but one thing to take into account is that for more popular pages, multiple people edit the contents, which is, to me, a disadvantage, as while it might be a better way to divide and conquer the work or keep information correct and up to date, any trace of personal flair is completely lost in the process.
 
-Perhaps Fandom maintainers know that Fandom derives its income from advertising and sold content, publishing most user-provided text under copyleft licenses---a sentence I copied from the Wikipedia article. That means it makes money on your back, your content, and your hard work. Yes, your text. If you keep it boring though, it won't sell well?
+Perhaps Fandom maintainers know that Fandom derives its income from advertising and sold content, publishing most user-provided text under copyleft licenses---a sentence I copied from the Wikipedia article. That means it makes money on your back, your content, and your hard work. Yes, your text. If you keep it boring though, I guess it won't sell as well?
 
 ## User Engagement
 
@@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ Read the [Inside Fandom 2022](https://about.fandom.com/news/fandom-unveils-four-
 
 Marketeers? Tapping into them? Uhh, I just wanted to look up where to find this mace in that game?
 
-If you're considering creating a site dedicated to a game or movie you love, perhaps think about doing it the way _you_ want instead of joining the Fandom club. We, as visiting fans and future consumers of your content, will be eternally grateful! 
+If you're considering creating a site dedicated to a game or movie you love, perhaps think about doing it the way _you_ want instead of joining the Fandom club. For the non-tech savvy, tools like [Neocities](https://neocities.org/) still exist! We, as visiting fans and future consumers of your content, will be eternally grateful! 

content/post/2023/01/michel-de-montaigne-was-37-when.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+title: Michel de Montaigne Was 37 When...
+date: 2023-01-24T16:23:00+01:00
+tags:
+  - philosophy
+  - montaigne
+categories:
+  - learning
+---
+
+His first daughter was born in the Chateaux de Montaigne. Michel Eyquem---his real name; the chateaux was acquired by his great-grandfather---and his wife Françoise de la Cassaigne crossed paths thanks to a fixed marriage, as was customary among the wealthy in that time. 
+
+Life as a parent turned out to be very cruel: Michel and Françoise had six daughters, of which only the second, Léonor, would survive infancy. In Montaigne's _Essays_, he rarely mentions them, and if he does, he does so dismissively, as if nothing that bad happened, it was just "misfortune". He must have either had a really strong back or simply decided to skip writing about parenthood and children all-together. Which he didn't, as he dedicated one essay, _Of the education of children_, completely to the subject. It was also Michel's job to produce boys to carry on the family name, which he failed to do.
+
+Two years before becoming a parent, he got bored of the active---and according to him also very corrupt---life as a lawyer in Bordeaux. Instead, Montaigne decided to devote the rest of his life to the _real_ challenging life questions, or in other words, philosophy. Not that this grand idea didn't go as planned: at one point during his tour throughout Europe, the king of France demanded his immediate return in order to pick up the role of mayor of Bordeaux to temper the uneasy mood there, which he of course couldn't refuse.
+
+Montaigne's philosophical views on child education are still quite relevant today: he argues that children should develop their own interests, abilities, and virtues, through questioning and analyzing, not simply through memorizing information by solely learning from books, as was common during that time. If you were fortunate enough to get any education at all, you studied the classics, and by studying, memorization of quotes and "good practices" was the purpose. Questioning what one is reading is out of the question (heh). Instead of force-feeding children stuff, as a teacher, one
+
+> [...] should have his pupil taste things, select them, and distinguish them by his own powers of perception.
+
+Another interesting aspect of the essay is the criticism of typical classrooms: multiple students and one teacher, which, according to Montaigne, greatly inhibits individual learning capacities. Instead, we should turn to private tutors and let them guide the children and help them discover the truth. As a fan of Cicero and the skeptics himself, he wrote that it's not good enough to know how they acted and lived: it should also be taught how to apply that knowledge to themselves and the world. Oh, and studying philosophy leads to happiness. Of course it does. 
+
+The more I read about Montaigne, the more I ask myself whether or not he lived by his own rules, as Cicero did. Cicero was one of the richest men of Rome, but wrote that we should live in poverty and be happy. Montaigne wrote about child education, yet did not attempt to put his words to practice when it came to his own daughter(s). Instead, when Montaigne was 47, he decided to visit Germany and various spas in Switzerland and Italy---without wife and child. Not entirely without family, though: his youngest brother Bertrand, 20 at the time, would join in, together with the husband of one of his sisters, and the teenage son of one of the neighbors and a friend? They can go, but Léonor, by then nine years old, couldn't? A nobleman was supposed to travel with a big company to show off his wealth, although in the Essays, Montaigne claimed he hated to put on that show. 
+
+Sure, his kidney stone illness was flaring up, and it was believed that Italian warm spas did wonders---which they didn't---but still, I wonder: how did he pull that off? "Honey, I'll be gone for seventeen months, take good care of the kids and the winery, will you?" It's well-known that Montaigne didn't share his bed with his wife (except to procreate), but I can't imagine simply leaving your children in favor of philosophical interest. In the 1570s, taking a trip to Italy was dangerous (he was robbed) and took weeks. It wasn't exactly one cheap flight away. Perhaps _Of the education of children_ was already written and a small army of private tutors were paid a year in advance to keep Léonor busy. Perhaps that reflection was made after returning from the trip and witnessing the repercussions of his absence.
+
+---
+
+I love reading about Michel de Montaigne; it's my favorite philosopher because he's witty but still very much down-to-earth. One of his favorite activities, for example, is sitting with his hands on his lap (read: doing nothing). He was burdened with political tasks he'd rather avoid but couldn't completely because of his heritage, and his philosophical opinions are concrete, not abstract and theoretical, like other philosophers of his time he loved to scoff at.
+
+There's another reason why I love Montaigne. Michel de Montaigne Was 37 When... his first daughter was born. In a few months, we'll be expecting our first child. I'll be 37 when our first daughter will be born. I am over the moon, yet at the same time, very anxious: things will change---no wait, _everything_ will change. Voices in my head make me worry about raising a child in this selfish capitalist world, and those same voices constantly make me question the bigger than average age difference. 
+
+Fortunately, Montaigne will be there to keep me company. To keep me grounded. To help me put things into perspective. To help me pull up a chair, and now and then put my hands in my lap, and just sit there.