You may or may not have noticed that I added a new feature to Jiggy’s Journal within the last month. That feature is the AMA (Ask Me Anything) page! It’s just another way to provide a little more open dialogue with you, the readers!
I got the idea to do this from a similar feature built into most blogs hosted over on Tumblr. Essentially, it encourages readers to submit questions, comments, suggestions, etc. that can later be addressed by the author in later posts, like this one! It’s also a way to provide a little more of an open dialogue with you, the readers!
I’ve only received two legitimate submissions so far (and a whole bunch of spam…), but the AMA page remains open and active. If you’ve got questions, I’ve got answers… Probably. Maybe. So here we go…
C.R. asks: What kind of filter do I need for the ice maker in my refrigerator?
I feel like it’s probably necessary to disclose that this question came from my sister, who is trying to troll me. Not because I’m any type of filter or refrigeration pro. I honestly don’t even know what brand of refrigerator she has.
Now that we have that out of the way, you’re in luck! I did a cursory Google search and found this inline water filter kit from PureWater Filters! Looks to be compatible with just about any kind of ice maker!
Bet you didn’t expect a real answer, huh? Also, just in case you’re curious, this is the kind we have. 😉
A. Nonnymus asks: Your cat Rufus is cute, but why is he a turd?
Huh, I wonder who would submit this type of question! How rude!
J. Law’s got the perfect reaction here.
Aaaaanyway, for anyone who isn’t familiar, Rufus is my sweet summer child. He’s very cute, very sweet, and very skittish. When we moved out here from Indiana in early 2023, it actually took him about two days before he would even exit his carrier. Even for food or water. That’s how scared he can get!
And with him being the very definition of a “scaredy cat,” he’s got a very strong fight-or-flight response. When he’s scared of something or someone, he usually runs away and hides from them. If he’s backed into a corner, though, he’ll hiss and start throwing claws. He’s still my “baby angel” around those of us he lives with, but he still runs or skibidi baps my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, who lived out here before we did. Mostly because he doesn’t know or feel as comfortable around them.
That explains why he’s allegedly such a turd. Anxiety. He fits right in with me!
One of my favorite photos of Rufus, because honestly, have you ever seen a more adorable kitty?
And that’s all for this round! Make sure you get your submissions in for the next round later this month!
Before 2019, I didn’t understand Twitch or live streams centered around gaming. At all.
I love video games, but the concept of watching someone else play them seemed completely foreign. You could reason that maybe this other gamer might have a different approach to parts of the game you were stuck on, or they were able to complete a puzzle that you weren’t entirely sure how to solve yourself. But even then, you could simply look up the solutions in a walkthrough — which, for years now, have been available both in print and online — or even find a video on YouTube guiding you through that one specific pain point before continuing onward. Watching a total stranger play video games, potentially for hours, just didn’t sound like an ideal way to spend time. It probably doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper for a lot of people.
So, how did I come to love and start streaming on Twitch? To paraphrase the very awesome and hilarious Elyse Myers: That’s a great question, I’d love to tell you!
Twitch Beginnings
By the mid-2010s, I found myself with a Twitch account. Initially, it was mostly so my immediate family and I could stream games like The Jackbox Party Pack to one another, but we quickly caught on that there didn’t seem to be a relatively easy way to prevent strangers from viewing what you were streaming. You would think that would signal the end of Twitch for us, but we found ourselves using the streaming service again in 2016. At the time, we were very obsessed with World of Warcraft, and frequently grouped up together to play as a party. Since our little family group is comprised of only six people, though, that meant we couldn’t typically complete dungeons or raids, which required parties of up to 40 people, though 10 and 25-man groups were the standard. Not unless we joined groups that were recruiting, but often led by nerds who were craving power and were willing to kick out the first person to make a mistake, or unless we made some new friends really fast. And if you think I’m the only introvert in my family of six, you’re sorely mistaken. That meant we were frequently left out of Warcraft‘s endgame content.
Then we heard about something happening over on Twitch. A few players who had practically become professionals at completing that very content were starting a little operation they were calling “Friendship Moose.” Essentially, they were taking their parties through the notoriously difficult raid dungeons and were live-streaming it on their Twitch channels. Not only that, but they were also giving away the chance to join them in their raiding parties and be carried through the content. The incentive? Players who completed the latest raid dungeon at a higher difficulty level were rewarded with the Grove Warden mount, an exclusive in-game moose the player could ride throughout the digital world of Azeroth. Handy and beautiful for sure, but it also served as a badge of honor. You see, when the next chapter of World of Warcraft was released — and its new, even more difficult endgame with it — the Grove Warden would become unavailable. Seemingly forever.
World of Warcraft‘s Grove Warden mount. Image from WowHead.
We were fervent mount and pet collectors in the game, but typically just accepted that all of the higher-tier spoils like the Grove Warden were out of our reach. We would just have to deal with feeling envious of those running around on their own. That was until Friendship Moose came along. Thankfully, I pushed my pride aside one night and was able to get into one of the raiding parties. And let me tell you: They label the higher-level difficulties as “Heroic” and “Mythic” for a reason. They are extremely punishing to players who are not accustomed to content at that difficulty. But I pushed through and did obtain my Grove Warden that night. All thanks to Friendship Moose.
And through Friendship Moose, I was also starting to see the value of Twitch. It isn’t just about “watching someone else play video games.” It’s about bringing people with a similar interest together and forging a community around it. And that had a certain kind of appeal to it.
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Learning to Love Twitch
By 2019, I found myself watching a few other Warcraft streamers who regularly went live with their adventures in Azeroth. It started to turn into a bit of fun. Getting to watch what other people were doing in the game while participating in chat, and very often playing the game myself on my second monitor. Getting to know the streamer and their community, along with occasionally even getting to play with them, was becoming one of my new favorite things to do in my spare time. I even started branching out into watching people who were doing other things like playing live music, making arts and crafts, programming software, or even just going live to chat with their audience! The Twitch channel that I’ve personally been subscribed to the longest, in fact, is a violinist who not only plays games live, but she’s also well-known for her live music streams playing the electric violin!
The desire to make an attempt at streaming to my own channel started to grow. I was beyond nervous to do it, though. I would venture to guess that a good majority of the most popular Twitch streamers are people who had established audiences before stepping into streaming. Mostly celebrities or popular YouTubers. If this wasn’t the case, then it’s likely that they grew their audience on Twitch from before the platform became completely oversaturated with ambitious new streamers that also want to get in it for the “big bucks.” Or… They just have an amazing skill or talent to draw people in. I was none of these things, though. I am just some dude who likes to play video games and vibe with fun people. Why would anyone bother turning on my channel? Nobody even knows who I am!
A moment clipped from one of my Palia streams, currently on my YouTube and TikTok channels!
But also… Nobody knows who I am. That weirdly made the concept less daunting. It wasn’t like going on the air and immediately being in front of several hundred people. There weren’t going to be a lot of people watching me right away, so it provided me a little bit of a safe space to figure out exactly what the vibes were going to be like for my channel. Nevertheless, thanks to my little gaming family and the various connections I had made on Twitch before streaming for myself, I was still able to reach Twitch Affiliate status by September 2019.
That was the exciting first step. It meant that viewers could start supporting me and my channel monetarily with a small subscription fee or by donating with “bits,” a type of currency you can purchase on Twitch with the sole purpose of using them to boost your favorite streamers. It’s also your first little bit of recognition from the platform that you’ve acquired at least 50 followers and an average of 3 concurrent viewers. To obtain the status of Twitch Partner and get the coveted purple checkmark next to your name (among other nice benefits), you have to do even more.
Overcoming Anxiety
I’m still not a Twitch Partner. I still don’t even have much in the way of a regular audience. There’s a handful of pals that I’ve made on the platform over the years that will swing by occasionally to hang with me and the family, but I still generally find myself with less than 10 viewers during any given stream. And I’ll be honest with you: That used to hurt a lot. Sometimes I would get depressed and even give up on streaming for long periods. My brain gremlins would rationalize the hiatuses by saying that hardly anyone would miss my content anyway. But I still eventually found my way back to it. I always missed the community and the connection that wasn’t there when I strayed.
When you suffer from generalized anxiety like I do, you know that those brain gremlins are always trying to make you believe the worst about yourself. And while sometimes they do manage to prevent me from showing my face on camera, it’s never permanent. Strangely, being live on Twitch has been a practice that has helped me become more comfortable with myself and more confident with public speaking. And in the process, I’ve also learned to stop stressing about the numbers. I would love for more people to discover my content and join us in the fun. And who wouldn’t love to build their entire career around it? But right now, I’m just having fun with it and enjoying the company of the 2 – 8 people who do join me on a good night. And if I manage to snag a new follower or earn a little pocket change at the same time, then that’s just a bonus.
You Should Stream, Too!
A question that often emerges in streamer communities is whether someone is “cut out” to be a streamer or not. In my opinion, I always say yes. If you’re interested in giving it a shot, then you should. Go for it! But there are some things that I think a budding streamer should know first:
Don’t do it for fame and money! It sounds like pretty standard advice, but a lot of people (kids and young adults especially) think that they can jump into the world of streaming or creating videos on YouTube and that it’ll be their express ticket to fame and fortune. There are many Twitch and YouTube channels that cash in some pretty hefty checks, but I would go out on a limb to say that a solid majority of new streamers burn out within a few months. Many of them never get a single viewer. You have to start somewhere, and unless you’re lucky enough to find that famed lightning in a bottle, you aren’t going to start big.
Network with other creators! You’re going to want some friends and allies in your corner who are in the same place you are. And your fellow creators and their communities are where you’re most likely to find them. Don’t just join in someone’s chat and start inviting people to your own stream. It’s actually considered poor etiquette to mention your stream or content at all unless directly asked. But joining in and making genuine connections with other streamers also increases the likelihood that they will also check out your channel.
This guy seems sleazy but he knows what he’s talking about!
Be consistent! This is the thing that I struggle with the most in almost any of my many projects. Developing a consistent schedule so that your audience knows when to tune in is very important. If you are consistently cancelling streams or your schedule is erratic, viewers might not bother trying to find you. And although yours truly needs to practice what he preaches (I’m the king of variety, honestly), it’s also not always good to stream a variety of different things. Variety might seem like the spice of life, but viewers who have come to watch you play Dead by Daylight might not be interested in sticking around for your crochet crafting stream.
Invest in your tech! You can stream to Twitch from a cell phone and some gaming consoles, but generally speaking, you’re going to want to go all-in on a decent PC to manage the best possible stream. You don’t need something super high-end, but you’ll likely need to get something with a dedicated graphics card that was made in at least the last 5-10 years, especially if you’re going to be making gaming content. You will need a fast and reliable internet connection. You’re going to need basics like a good microphone, webcam, and some decent lighting. You might also benefit from a few extra peripherals like the Elgato Stream Deck. And you’re going to need to learn how to use a few pieces of software, primarily OBS. And all of that is just scratching the surface! But I strongly recommend not spending a huge fortune until you know that you love and are committed to streaming — just get the basics you can afford to get you up and running first.
Once you’re past the learning curve, you’ll come to find that streaming can be a lot of work behind the scenes, but can also be a lot of fun and completely worth the effort. And it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look or sound like to be successful. Content creators come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and creeds. To emphasize this fact and to promote diversity, Twitch even offers users membership to what they call “Unity Guilds.” Anyone can be a successful streamer. It all just depends on whether you’re dedicated enough. So to that I say:
Why not?
Build your channel and your community. It’s all waiting for you! And be sure to let me know when you do. I’d love to be your first follower. 😉
🍑
Hey! You! Yes, you! I used the peach emoji that “the kids” use in place of a butt to get your attention. Are there any Gen Z readers out there who can tell me if I’m doing this right???
Anyway, Jiggy’s Journal now has an AMA (Ask Me Anything) page! You got 🔥burning questions🔥 for me? Maybe a comment or suggestion? Check out the page here and submit everything that’s on your mind. Afterwards, I’ll respond in a future post!
The past several months have been a rollercoaster for dabbling in tech!
As most of you know now, I completed my Responsive Web Design certification over on freeCodeCamp back in January. I knew a little bit about designing static web pages with HTML and CSS from my younger days trying to make my LiveJournal or MySpace pages much more stylized, but there were a lot of new concepts that I wasn’t familiar with. I still struggle a little when it comes to Flexbox and positioning things exactly where I want them, but I got through the course and I felt really accomplished. So much so that I wanted to start building right away, so I coded my own website, started blogging again, and even started my own web server! You can read more about that and the trouble I’ve had with it over here.
Coding my website and watching it evolve as I learned more CSS tricks and even a small bit of JavaScript was a lot of fun and very educational. I completely understand now when seasoned pros at this stuff say that the best way to learn is by doing it independently. I also love blogging, writing, and creating content on the web. Even though my websites seem to change and vary and eventually disappear over time when I decide to start fresh or whatever, I’ll probably always have something similar somewhere on the internet. But let me be the first to tell you that installing and maintaining an instance of Ghost (the platform that powers this blog) was a struggle. Especially for someone with little to no knowledge of how the command line works. I’ve learned the whole process of cloning and pushing projects to GitHub, but that’s about it! What do you mean I have to make and move directories? What do you mean I have to edit a configuration file and set up my own transactional emails? What do you mean I have to expose ports on my server for things to work? That sounds dangerous!
I’m equally confused, J. Law.
With each new update of Ghost, I wound up breaking things and then spend hours trying to fix it. I had to uninstall and then reinstall the software three separate times. And don’t misunderstand me — Ghost is incredible. It is, by far, the best blog and email newsletter platform that I have ever used. And I’ve dabbled with quite a few over the years. The problem was me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I think that I bit off more than I could chew. I guess, by my flawed logic, I thought that managing my own personal server and hosting a bunch of different little things made me more of a tech enthusiast. In some ways, it kinda did. I learned quite a few new things. I even spun up an instance of Flarum to create a sort of chat forum on that server, which was a lot of fun and I really liked it, even though only one other person ever joined. I also wanted to spin up some wiki software for my family to privately use for important documents and information. But constantly breaking things and then spending hours trying to research the necessary fixes got tiresome really quickly.
I rolled this blog and the www.jiggyflyjoe.com/ website into one and the same and imported it back to Ghost's own hosting servers. And in the process, I feel like I freed up an enormous amount of time. I felt a little like a failure, but I was recently told that most developers don't self-host anyway unless they have to. And honestly, I felt that in my soul.
The good news is that we’re still here and this publication isn’t going anywhere now that it’s being hosted by the pros instead of me! And I can turn to other solutions for the private wiki, our planned media services, and maybe even still a forum at some point. I really love community building, and I keep telling myself that if I build it, they will come… But for now, if you want to join, you’ll have to join my community on Discord. Which, by the way, I had also been unknowingly giving out the wrong link to that community for years now. This one should actually work if you’re interested. You can also always find it through the Discord icon up at the top of the page and on the contact page! I’m still working on updating it across the board, so make sure you don’t click on any older links for it because it will take you nowhere. Into a scary, dark internet void.
The planet in question is currently called K2-18 b, and it’s only about 124 light-years away. Don’t get me wrong, 124 light-years is still a pretty big hike, but to put it in perspective, our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across. In cosmic terms, that’s like walking a few city blocks to visit your favorite coffee shop. The possibility of there being a planet that’s teeming with life that is that close to us could be huge. Especially when you consider that we’re just now detecting light and the potential biosignatures from over a century ago. How far could life or even a potential civilization evolve in that timeframe?
Max was from up north, right??
As a self-proclaimed “nerd,” I’ve watched, read, and played through endless sci-fi titles. While I tend to prefer the Star Trek adventures to those from the Star Wars franchise, there’s a lot of other stuff out there that I’ve loved, too. Roswell was one of my favorites in high school. The OG, of course, but the CW’s attempt at a reboot was decent from what I saw of it, too. Last year, my brother also finally got me to sit down and watch the remade Battlestar Galacticafrom 2004, and I completely understand now why it ranks on so many people’s “best of” lists. I love it and can’t believe I didn’t watch it sooner. Joss Whedon’s short-lived “space western” Fireflyand its film continuation are big favorites in our home, too. I’ve also played and loved No Man’s Sky, Stellaris, and The Outer Worlds, the latter of which I still need to complete one day.
These are all sagas that take place in space or adjacent to space and feature intelligent lifeforms from other worlds. Sometimes these lifeforms are allies, and sometimes they are adversaries. No matter which angle the story in question decides to take, it’s given me a lot to question and seriously consider over the years. If and when we make first contact with an alien species, how exactly will things go? If they do exist, which seems incredibly likely now, why haven’t they found us yet? There are a few popular theories, and I have thoughts.
Why should we be terrified?
I don’t want to be accused of being a fear-monger or anything, but there are plenty of reasons to be terrified about the universe and what could be out there.
Before venturing further into popular theories, I think we have to first consider something called the “Fermi Paradox.” In 1950, an Italian-American physicist by the name of Enrico Fermi posed the question, “But where is everybody?” That question highlights a discrepancy: the idea that advanced intelligent life in other areas of the universe is highly likely and that it should therefore be extremely common for us to detect it. Yet… we haven’t. Why is that?
The Great Filter
In 1996, economist and author Robin Hanson proposed the “Great Filter” theory as an explanation for the Fermi Paradox. The Great Filter suggests a hypothetical event or barrier that prevents intelligent life from advancing too far into the cosmos. It takes into account that, yes, intelligent life on other worlds is probable, but somewhere in their evolutionary advancement, something is making it improbable or maybe even fatal for them to achieve interstellar travel or communication. Perhaps advanced civilizations do arise on other planets, but are always doomed to destroy themselves.
The big question about the Great Filter is this: Is it behind us, or yet to come? Some argue that abiogenesis, the process where life emerges for the first time, could be where the Great Filter falls in the evolutionary chain. That would mean that we’re past the hard part, and could explain that it’s actually rare for any life beyond microbes to form elsewhere in the universe. We were the exception, and amazing discoveries could still be in our future!
But… what if the Great Filter is yet to come? It could mean that we still have yet to reach a step in the process that any other advanced civilization didn’t survive. And we may not either.
The Dark Forest
Another theory, and perhaps the most chilling to me personally, is that of the “Dark Forest.” Even though the concept predates its publishing, this theory derives its name from the 2007 novel The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (the second book in a series that inspired a popular show on Netflix). It suggests that perhaps there are many advanced, spacefaring civilizations in existence, but they are all silent and hostile. They maintain their cloak of obscurity because they are already aware of others and fear their destruction if detected.
Sci-fi author Greg Bear, describing this concept as a “vicious jungle” prior to its Dark Forest designation, wrote in his 1987 novel The Forge of God that the human species and its broadcasts into outer space are similar to a baby crying in a hostile forest filled with hungry wolves. “We’ve been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that’s why,” one character explains in the novel.
Similar to the Dark Forest theory is the “Berserker Hypothesis,” also known as the “deadly probes scenario.” I tend to find this hypothesis considerably more unlikely than the Dark Forest theory above, but it does still provide an entirely compatible explanation for the Fermi Paradox. The Berserker Hypothesis, which is named after Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker novel series, suggests that we have yet to detect intelligent life elsewhere in the universe because it has all been or is currently being systematically destroyed by a series of lethal, self-replicating probes. Could it just be a matter of time before Earth is visited by such a probe?
A few things in my mind when thinking about malicious machinery are not just the origins of the Cylons and their nefarious “plan” for humanity in Battlestar Galactica, but also the emergence and current prevalence we are seeing with AI and robotics here in real life. Could the creation of such technology lead us to eventual ruin? Will ChatGPT or Copilot one day take over Earth?
Tell me those aren’t some terrifying explanations for the Fermi Paradox!
The Zoo Hypothesis
Another one of the many explanations for the Fermi Paradox is the “Zoo Hypothesis.” While not quite as terrifying as the Dark Forest, it’s still a doozy that could have many different outcomes. This one suggests that extraterrestrial life may be common and is already very aware of us here on Earth. They have already observed us and are intentionally avoiding contact. As if the entire planet is a large wildlife preserve or zoo for them.
Earth and Vulcan unite!
There could be a few different explanations. For example, in the fictional future that Star Trek inhabits, the good guys in Starfleet are supposed to abide by a rule they call the “Prime Directive.” This prevents them from prematurely interfering with the natural evolution and development of alien civilizations. The aim is to prevent any unprepared race from being introduced to advanced technology, knowledge, or values before they are ready. Typically, once a civilization has demonstrated its ability to achieve faster-than-light travel or subspace communications, they were deemed ready to make “first contact” with Starfleet. The franchise’s best feature film (in my humble opinion, of course) is 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact, which depicts the iconic crew of the Starship Enterprise-E travelling back in time to prevent their cybernetically-enhanced nemesis, the Borg, from halting humanity’s historic first warp-capable flight—an event that eventually leads to first contact between humanity and their famed allies, the Vulcans.
As you have probably surmised by now, the Zoo Hypothesis also has some darker applications. For example, a variant of the hypothesis includes one called the “Laboratory Hypothesis,” which was developed by former MIT Haystack Observatory scientist John Allen Ball. That variant posits that humanity is being actively subjected to experiments and that our planet is serving as one single laboratory. It’s totally possible in this scenario that the experiments are also for the greater good of our species, but honestly, the idea just makes us sound like a bunch of lab mice, doesn’t it?
But there’s also hope!
There are obviously a lot of reasons why we should be terrified of the existence of alien life. And none of the aforementioned theories even have to do with aliens just showing up and immediately deciding to exterminate us, Independence Day-style. Think too long and hard about these ideas, and you’ve definitely entered into nightmare fuel territory.
But listen—hope springs eternal and all that. So I also want to share some solid reasons why the discovery of intelligent life in the cosmos could actually be really great news. Assuming any advanced civilization were to make contact tomorrow and extend their hands (or tentacles??? 🤷) in friendship, we could possibly benefit from all of the following:
Advanced Knowledge! Even a tiny glimpse at alien science could propel us hundreds or thousands of years ahead of where we currently are in our own scientific and technological communities. I’m talking interstellar travel, medical miracles, clean energy, and even solutions to climate change, poverty, and world hunger. The possibilities would be endless.
Paradigm Shifts! Science and technology wouldn’t be the only areas of our society to be touched by alien life. Discovering proof that we’re not alone in the universe would lead to colossal changes both psychologically and spiritually. How would world religions integrate this new knowledge into their belief systems? Would humanity embrace a sense of comfort knowing we’re no longer isolated?
Galactic Peace! If an advanced alien race chooses to make contact with Earth, it stands to reason that they may also have discovered the key to overcoming violence and greed themselves. They could provide us with the ability to do the same.
Unified Earth! Once we’re presented with undeniable evidence that something bigger than us really exists, maybe we could finally push ourselves to unite as one. And then maybe the idea of a United Federation of Planets isn’t too kooky anymore.
Cultural Evolution! Being influenced by a foreign culture could conceivably revolutionize our own. Language, art, music, ethics, and the understanding of life as we know it could change overnight.
Personally, I’m thrilled to learn more about K2-18 b as scientists continue their investigation. You could probably say that I’m cautiously optimistic about what we could find. Described as an “ocean planet,” it seems pretty likely that any organisms living there are probably microbes, or what we might consider marine life at best. But there could also be forms of intelligent life there that we just can’t imagine yet.
I have been in a literal state of PANIC the last few days!
Since the widespread adoption of the internet in the ’90s, much of our society has developed a very co-dependent relationship with technology. And that relationship only seems to grow stronger as time marches on. It’s not just Snapchat and TikTok-obsessed teens that are driving the demand, either. Businesses large and small, schools and libraries, financial institutions, and even our government officials now leverage digital tools to complete and keep track of sales transactions, provide informative and educational material to the public or to their students, and communicate with or keep tabs on allies and enemies alike. And hey, don’t tell me you aren’t looking forward to streaming the latest episode of Yellowjackets every damn week. (I know that I am!!!)
Key art for the Showtime series Yellowjackets.
Staying connected is a necessity now for people all over the world. Yours truly is no different. And I had two major scares the past few days! Fortunately, they are both lessons learned and can perhaps serve as cautionary tales.
Server Trouble⚙️
As I’ve mentioned before, one of my latest pet projects has been building and tinkering with my own little web server. This publication and Ghost, the software that powers it, are hosted on said server. I’ve also used the server to host my website and started trying to throw up some other fun projects here and there. One of the projects that I was going to spin up was an instance of Nextcloud, a service that functions similar to Google Drive, only it’s completely private, under your oversight, and out of the hands of a mega-corporation.
The problem is that Nextcloud seems only willing to operate with an Apache server, while my server has solely been using Nginx. There do appear to be ways to make both of those things play nicely with one another on the same server, but it involves a good bit of technical know-how to change which ports the two are listening to on said server and, to be honest, I don’t know that I was doing it right. Plus, I was having difficulty getting Apache to start up at all while Nginx was running simultaneously. So, after several days of trying to tinker with things to get them just right, I finally threw up my hands and hastily decided to just completely uninstall Apache, Nextcloud, and all of their modules. All of it. Every single bit. Gone. Scrubbed. Done. It can be a project for a future version of me to figure out.
Computer errors are infuriating!
Later on that evening, I went to click on my bookmark to access the backend of this very blog only to find that it was serving up an error message. “Um, what??” were the immediate words out of my mouth. I didn’t recall having uninstalled or otherwise messed with any settings or files associated with Ghost. The entire clean-up spree of that mess was isolated to only Apache and Nextcloud. So I consulted my trusty sidekick, the internet, and eventually discovered that in the process of removing Nextcloud and all of its modules from the server, I also uninstalled the MySQL database that stores all of the content on Jiggy’s Journal. That meant that every single post, page, photo, link, settings, design options, and even my list of subscribers were all gone. And not just gone! Unrecoverable.
They were gone gone.
Thankfully, reinstalling MySQL and enabling Ghost to start working again behind the scenes was an easy process. I also had my subscriber list and the firsttwo posts from the blog backed up from when we moved away from Substack. Most of the settings and design options were also easy enough to get back in the right place. Perhaps my biggest saving grace was that I was able to reconstruct the posts that weren’t properly backed up from the versions that were emailed out to our subscribers. I wasn’t able to save most of the images or reference links that were originally included, but my written text was still available, and I was able to post them back up right away.
I’m very fortunate that everything wound up being saved after all. But the idea of this publication, which I’m still just starting to get underway, being wiped away without my consent was highly alarming. You may notice some small changes in the blog’s main page and some other areas, but everything should be back in place now. It should also be common knowledge and practice at this point, but the lesson to learn here is this:
⚠️ Do NOT update, install, or uninstall files or software unless you have backed things up first!
This will be something that I do regularly going forward, regardless of how fed up I might be with the server being cantankerous.
Palia Pains🌿
I’ve been playing the life-sim video game Palia since early December. I’ve had the game for quite a while, especially since it’s the right price (FREE!), but I didn’t start playing it regularly until December. I was on the lookout for a “cozy” game that I already owned that had some winter or holiday-themed celebrations going on to fit in with what I was going for on my Twitch streams at the time. Palia wound up fitting the bill since they had their “Winterlights” events happening. So, in the process of getting festive, I also wound up getting… Well, a little bit addicted to the game, too.
I’ve been playing fairly regularly for the past several months. I managed to get my sister, followed by the rest of our immediate family, interested in playing as well. It turns out that when something is this entertaining and the cost of entry is nothing, it’s actually pretty easy to convince people to give it a try! Who knew?
Key art for the video game Palia.
Palia has been plagued by many issues lately, however. While the game is widely available for free and very fun and playable, it is still technically in a “beta testing” phase, so finding bugs and other things that are broken is pretty common. Especially since its last update on March 25th, where a large portion of the playerbase is reporting that the game completely crashes when transitioning between areas. I’ve personally experienced the game crashing a number of times myself, but I’ve typically been able to send a report to the developers and then either re-open the game or just move on.
Things were different today. Something you should know in advance is that my PC has extremely limited storage space left on its hard drive, so a majority of my games and files related to them are stored on a portable hard drive with 4 TB of storage. At some point earlier this evening, while I was in the middle of trying to obtain some in-game resources that I needed for my home plot on Palia, the game locked up on me, indicating that it was about to crash. This time, the game never closed and just sat there doing nothing. I was also having difficulty getting other things to work, so I opted to do a hard restart of the entire computer.
And then… Nothing.
The case of my PC lit up like it was starting and the internal fans started running, but my monitors were completely blank. Just a black screen of nothingness. I tried two more hard reboots to see if maybe it hadn’t finished processing something, but nothing was happening. It seemed like my PC was just dead in the water. And that’s when panic set in.
I don’t have a super high-end computer, but it was a fairly pricey one when I purchased it in 2019. A comparable machine today would be even more expensive. And without my computer, I’m cut off from a wide variety of things that are currently sustaining me. I would no longer be able to effectively stream to Twitch or YouTube, I wouldn’t be able to access and write to this blog/email newsletter or any of the rest of my server or web projects, I wouldn’t be able to continue my developer education at freeCodeCamp, I wouldn’t be able to game with friends or family online anymore, and my ability to continue the ever-frustrating search for a job or source of revenue would be extremely limited. Sure, I still have a laptop and my smartphone with which I could use to access information and perhaps “stay in touch,” but neither of those devices has the necessary power or capacity to do these things efficiently.
Enterprise Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) has some serious questions for me.
However, my nephew saved the day when he was able to get my PC back up and running. I often jokingly refer to him as our “Chief Engineer.” This is because he’s a genius at networking and getting our devices to power on. I love and am learning about software and web development, but hardware issues are kind of my blind spot. Plus, he’s also a fellow Trekkie, so bestowing him a starship-related title feels appropriate. He recalled that computers can sometimes have issues if they’re trying to process too much information at startup, so he started unplugging various USB devices from the machine. That turned out to be the trick! My PC started up immediately. I thought it would be smooth sailing from here on out!
Nope!
Things weren’t fixed yet. Upon going to sign back into Palia to try and finally get my game objectives completed, I was surprised to find that Steam didn’t seem to think that I even had the game installed. In fact, numerous titles from my collection were missing. All titles that were installed on my external 4 TB hard drive! Eventually, I discovered that the drive wasn’t being recognized by Windows at all anymore and, upon unplugging it from my system entirely, it had no more issues restarting properly. After a few more hours of troubleshooting and running Western Digital‘s diagnostic tools, I believe the crux of this issue is that my PC was in the middle of a read/write process with Palia on my external drive when it seized up on me. It was likely my hasty decision to do a hard reboot that broke things and left the drive in an error state. I also recall having Windows Update download new drivers for Western Digital devices a couple of nights ago as well, but I’m not sure if it played a hand in my dilemma at all.
After the diagnostics determined that the drive was still okay and healthy, Windows started recognizing it again and everything was good in the long run. Also, I could have lived without the drive if necessary. It would have sucked, because it was FOUR TERABYTES of storage that contained a lot of game data, but I could do some organizational gymnastics and reinstall whichever game titles were necessary. No big deal. Thankfully, now it seems that I won’t need to. So the next lesson we can all learn here from my stupidity is:
⚠️ Do NOT reboot your system or disconnect drives or devices from it while it is still processing!
This is also now something that I will keep in mind moving forward. I hope that all of you have learned something new as well! 🫠
Jiggy’s Journal recently experienced technical trouble, and some content was damaged. Fortunately, I was able to reconstruct said content from the emailed versions, but many of the reference links and animated GIFs in this post were lost. My apologies for the inconvenience!
For the last few weeks, I’ve been putting the final touches on a web project that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And it may not seem like it, but Jiggy’s Journal is actually part of it!
To explain the entire story, I probably need to rewind quite a bit. And to be fair, this got pretty lengthy! So if you already know me and a large part of my most recent chapters, I’ve toggled the “previously on…” portions of today’s episode. 😉
From Indiana to Kansas🗺️
You might recall that I’m originally from a small town just outside of Indianapolis, IN. It was small in the sense that my high school’s graduating class in 2003 had just over 200 students, but it never truly felt small because it still only took me about 25-45 minutes to get into downtown Indy depending on traffic. Fast forward to a few years ago when my sister, who lived in an actual small town in a pretty rural part of Kansas with her husband and my nephew, started having some scary health issues. Our father did a couple of stints in the hospital, too. We all collectively decided it was probably in our best interests if all of us were in the same area. Not only would we be around to bolster each other’s quality of life, we also just generally would be around to see each other more. And since their return to Indiana was not in the cards, we packed up in early 2023 and relocated. It’s where I live today.
I was relieved that my employer at the time was willing to allow me to continue working for them remotely once we made the move, but ultimately, it didn’t work out. They had tried transitioning me to a more “call center” type of work. Ordinarily, I am excellent at customer service and even enjoy being able to help people, but dealing with angry people who were demanding answers to some of the company’s services that I had nearly zero knowledge of wound up being my kryptonite. I resigned and shipped their laptop back to them. And then experienced a health crisis of my own.
Emergency Pitstop💉
In mid-2023, only weeks after I had left my job, I started experiencing some abdominal pain. I’m really good about eating things that aren’t great for me, so some stomach rumbles weren’t uncommon, but this seemed to persist and it didn’t want to go away. We were initially convinced that it might have been a UTI, but just to be on the safe side, my brother-in-law took me to a clinic to get everything checked out. The staff at that clinic wound up suggesting that I report to the nearby hospital ER instead. That ER staff wound up admitting me after doing some imaging.
Putting it mildly, I was terrified. Up until this point, I had never had anything result in hospitalization. No major injuries or illnesses. At most, I’d had routine outpatient procedures done, but nothing that would require me to stay overnight. When they told me I was then on my way to emergency surgery to remove my appendix, I was VERY alarmed. I even asked my brother-in-law to bring my dear old dad to see me. Mostly to help calm me down, but also just in case it was the last time he ever saw me. Dramatic? Probably. Especially since I have seen enough Grey’s Anatomy to know that an appendectomy—fondly referred to on the show (and I’m hoping in real life because it’s adorable) as an “appy”—is one of the first surgeries that new surgeons get to perform on their own because it’s so basic and routine. I was likely in good hands—or fine enough hands, at the very least. But I still wanted my only living parent there. Like a toddler still wants his blankie.
After I was rid of the surgery pain and the drain of nastiness they had installed in my stomach, I really just had to deal with the other major diagnosis I received while at the hospital: Diabetes. It’s not entirely surprising since nearly my entire immediate family is diabetic. But it did mean a whole new world of having to manage it. Even though Ozempic is all the rage now, daily injections and having to limit your consumption of sugar and carbs are still not fun. Once I had recovered from the appy and started on my diabetic meds, I knew it was time to face reality: I needed a new job.
I came to find that, after working in office administration and customer service for the same company for over eight years, the job market has kinda dried up. You can still find thousands upon thousands of job openings listed on Indeed and LinkedIn, but most never even respond to your application because they are “ghost jobs” that aren’t even actually hiring. Also presenting a problem is the fact that I’m living in a much less populated area than I was before. In most circumstances, the jobs just don’t exist here. And you can basically forget trying to find a remote job unless you have very specific skills or you want to do call center work, which is exactly what I had already tried to get away from.
So later in the summer, I went to work retail at the only local big box store. The pay was better than I expected it to be (although still terrible), but I figured that I could run a cash register for 8 hours a day. It didn’t sound like rocket science, so why not? Plus, we got a meager employee discount! And health insurance, which was now obviously necessary. And I genuinely liked most of my co-workers! It was great to actually get acquainted with other people in the area since I didn’t know anyone here aside from my family. Even the customers were nice for the most part! That was particularly surprising since I had come from a job where most clients were already angry at us before they even picked up the phone. I was initially hired as part-time help, but my manager offered me full-time hours after only a few weeks and eventually asked if I’d be interested in learning how to work at the customer service desk, so I guess I was doing a decent enough job.
In retrospect, I probably should have declined the service desk position. It was there that I really started experiencing the ugly and sometimes horrifyingly ignorant side of customer service again. Sure, there were plenty of pleasant people, but a majority of the work done at the service desk was with customers who were deeply unhappy about one thing or another. And in recent years, I’ve learned that I’m someone who will generally match the energy of those around me. I think most people are like that. It’s probably where the old adage about luring flies with honey instead of vinegar comes from. If you come to me with a friendly demeanor, I’m much more inclined to assist you than if you’re a total Karen. Shit, I’m practically thrilled to help you if you’re kind to me. So, in most cases, it probably isn’t the greatest idea to have me assist someone who wants to get in my face and yell about how I’m “just a f**king cashier” and that he didn’t like my attitude. (Actual true story, by the way!)
My time in retail clearly came to an abrupt ending in the spring of last year. The rude customers started getting to me mentally. I just didn’t want to get up and go force myself to get berated by strangers anymore. I wasn’t doing much better physically. My legs were practically dead from mostly standing in one spot cashing people out all day every day. It’s been almost a year since I left that job and I still feel like I permanently have that Meredith Grey walk. And that’s not even to mention the time that I literally passed out while on shift behind that service desk. The reasoning is still technically a mystery, but I suspect that low blood sugar had something to do with it since I hadn’t eaten beforehand. I stopped taking care of myself and it was beginning to show. So I stepped away.
Outgrowing Academics🍎
The whole job search here continues to elude me. As I stated in the previous sections, it has been almost a year since I left the retail gig, and I haven’t found another source of income. I’ve sent out probably hundreds of applications and gone to a couple of interviews, but nothing else has panned out. Thankfully, my family has kept me afloat and away from being forced into actual bankruptcy and homelessness, but I know that that can’t last forever. That’s ultimately why I decided to go back to the root of what interests me: Technology!
I went to college back in Indiana for a short while to study Software Development. I’ve always been more of a “creative” type of person, but I’m objectively awful at the more “artsy” fields. I’ve had a few successes with projects in computer graphics and photography, but I was terrible in actual high school art classes. I can’t draw to save my life and don’t even ask me to paint or watercolor. We’ll just wind up with a big mess. So I needed to be able to pour my creative side into something practical and developing software by writing code seemed perfect! Not only was I constantly thinking of cool ideas for apps and web services that I already used, but I’ve been obsessed with video games since I was a small child. Developing my own video game or working in the gaming industry sounded amazing to me. So I started out learning about networking, databases, and even writing a little bit of code in Python! I was having a blast!
Those official studies came to an abrupt end when my advisor suggested that I change my major. The Software Development program had several math courses on top of the remedial algebra courses they were already making me take as part of my general education requirement. And if you know me, you know math is my nemesis. I even made my sister tally up my score for me during a family game of Yahtzee! just this weekend. Math is not a friend of mine. I can write computer code, but math? I don’t know her. So I did eventually change my major to Visual Communications, where I spent a few more semesters wasting a boatload of money but genuinely enjoying my time in classes like Photography, Video and Sound, and Intro to Computer Graphics. I loved taking all of those courses and I learned a lot about skills that I could put to good use in my existing hobbies like content creation and streaming on Twitch. But honestly, at this point, I was just floating in the wind with school. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore aside from just taking a bunch of classes that sounded fun.
After the move to Kansas, I transferred my studies to the University of Kansas (KU) and became a virtual Jayhawk for a year. Going from a two-year to a four-year university meant even more rigorous studying and it seemed like they were padding my schedule with required courses that were still wasting my time and were, quite frankly, kinda boring me. So I decided to step away from my formal education entirely after that first year here.
Back to Basics💁
And here we are now! Where I’m finding myself both unemployed and a college dropout. Don’t I sound like a real winner?
I’m continuing to send out my résumé and fill out job applications online in case I can manage to snag one of those elusive remote positions. I’m told that they do exist, despite my best efforts. In the meantime, I’ve decided to pick up where I left off with my web and software education without the rigid institution behind it. I’ve very slowly but carefully been working my way through freeCodeCamp’s completely free certification courses. I’ve been having a bit of trouble wrapping my brain around JavaScript, so in the meantime, I’ve also taken on a few other tech-related projects. That includes building out my very own server!
This publication—Jiggy’s Journal, the Ghost instance that powers it, and even the automated emails subscribers get from it—are all now living pieces of www.jiggyflyjoe.com/! And trust me, there has been a massive learning curve with trying to figure out how to do all of that. Including several little snafus with the domain and its nameservers that had me yanking my hair out for days. I was thrilled when I finally got everything up and running. It was a big achievement for me! I even decided to write and code my little main page with information about me and links to all the places you can find me. Now, when you navigate to www.jiggyflyjoe.com/, the page you are greeted with is 100% hand-made by me!
Screenshot of jiggyflyjoe’s website on desktop.
The page is written entirely in HTML and CSS, so it is admittedly a little “basic” compared to what I used before to simply drag and drop elements on a digital canvas over on Carrd. But as someone aspiring to work in the tech or gaming industries, I figured a website fully made and configured by my own hands was probably mandatory. And hey, its design and interactivity and overall awesomeness can and will eventually grow as I continue to learn, right?
The possibilities are endless with what else I can self-host on my server, too. My nephew has already been deeply invested in digitizing our large DVD collection that is otherwise just collecting dust. Perhaps I could spin up a media server? Maybe just a private file management service for me and the family? Perhaps we could migrate from our current family chat app to a private one on the server? I could always try my hand at hosting a forum for my web visitors, too! Trust that I’m always on the lookout for a new project! Plus, I’ve still got those JavaScript lessons on the back burner that I really need to get back to before they start bubbling over!
The “TL;DR” of it all is this: I may not currently be in school or have a job, but I’m still learning and doing actual work. I’m spending my days beefing up my employable skills as much as I possibly can. I can only hope that eventually, the right opportunity comes calling.
