Chell as Hypertext https://chellipse.xyz Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 UT "Champions have mayonnaise in their hair", https://chellipse.xyz/running.html or "The virtue of carcinogenic dogs"

I believe in the power of running.

I literally cannot conceptualize why or how anyone who intends to do literally anything of relevance in their life could ever justify not running

— Me, while running across the Golden Gate bridge

If you don't run everyday how will you know when your will is growing weak? If you are not someone for whom >= 15 minutes a day of zone >= 3 cardio is just matter of fact, how do you expect to ever do any of the actually hard things in life?

Will you delay doing those dishes?
Will you second guess sending that email?
Will you tell your crush how you feel, now? (or 20 years later?)
Will you see your real self in the mirror?

Running is a good litmus-test because, at least for me, it's a pretty direct measure of my will power on any given day. Only 3km can feel hard on a bad day, and even terribly out of shape, effortless on a good day.

If you are suffering from a will power drought, the answer is not a scarcity mindset. This will only lead to a self-reinforcing cycle. Your animal brain evolved for an environment long past, it will often lie to you, do not listen when it does.

On June 13th '26 I ran 12km halfway across San Francisco and then across the Golden Gate bridge. When I'd finally reached the bridge, I was listening to Gothic Lolita Propaganda by Yousei Teikoku.

Staring down into the water as the sun set, I thought about falling into a gas giant.

At North Vista Point I purchased a carcinogenic dog from a street vendor and went to stare off at the San Francisco skyline while consuming it. The wind was at my back, my hair had long gone rats-nest from humidity and being the length where it's never quite receptive enough to a hair band, as I scarfed down that carcinogenic dog, mustard<->mayonnaise ended up in my hair and across my face as my hair whipped every which way.

I want us all to fight and bleed like we're going to die tomorrow. I want the beer to flow like water. I want every day a microcosm of existence.

Photo taken June 13th '26 just before I ran across the Golden Gate bridge
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
That samsara was created awesome.
That we were born champions.
And we will not die hungry.
Carcinogenic dogs forever.
— Chell as Hypertext.
]]> Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 UT https://chellipse.xyz/running.html Chell L. {Why, How} my site works {this way,} https://chellipse.xyz/site_system.html In the past I found that static site build systems, such as Hugo, added complexity and rigidity which wasted more time than they saved, and ultimately made me more annoyed than anything else. This is my answer, and my thinking.

Transcription, Compilation, and Deployment

Pages are transcribed in the markup language org. I could talk about all the features of org I like, however that is another whole post and inextricably tied to why I like emacs in general. It is the language of my notes, and thus natural. These org documents are compiled via a posix shell script using pandoc. The script generates the footer and passes it to pandoc. Once org files have been compiled to html, hrefs are patched via sed. Deployment is achieved by rsync-ing the target directory to my server.

Thoughts

The quality of an abstraction can be measured by its compositionality. An abstraction exhibiting compositionality can be applied to a superset of the problems it was designed to solve. To compose is to program.

The command-line is a classic example of compositionality, having survived since CTSS was developed at MIT in '61. An abstraction so ubiquitous its now passed into the realm of paradigm1.

Pandoc is a good abstraction over document formats. I believe there is a high probability that future problems with this site will be susceptible to a composition which includes Pandoc. For example, more code-oriented writing, Pandoc supports codeblock syntax highlighting as shown:

unsigned NetbufferChecksum(void) {
  unsigned c;
  int i, l;

  c = 0x1234567;

  // FIXME -endianess?
#ifdef NORMALUNIX
  return 0; // byte order problems
#endif

  l = (NetbufferSize() - (int)&(((doomdata_t *)0)->retransmitfrom)) / 4;
  for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
    c += ((unsigned *)&netbuffer->retransmitfrom)[i] * (i + 1);

  return c & NCMD_CHECKSUM;
}

// -- John Carmack, Doom '93

Often when compositionality is eschewed it is for short term programmer ease2, instead of composing simple programs we configure complex systems. Configuration based systems are forced to anticipate every problem the user will have. The delineation between composition and configuration isn't always obvious, I define it by whether the tool is prescriptivist or descriptivist about your problems.

My emacs configuration is more composition than configuration, a set of programs written by myself and others composed together to solve a set of problems I have while using the computer. Contrast this with the way static site generators are often configured, where if you one day need to write latex in an article and have it rendered, if the system doesn't already support that things will be difficult. You may even give up on writing that maths post all together, in favor of letting the system describe what your problem is.

Future Directions

With usage I expect the patterns I actually write in will make abstractions past the per-document compilation paradigm obvious. Whether this looks like appending "posts" to be displayed in reverse chronological ordering, or a more graph oriented wiki system, is currently unclear.

A similar system consistent with my tastes here is hakyll, which I will likely try at some point. However currently this serves my priority of having something exist at all, and ultimately these concerns are primarily only relevant to me, currently the only engineer tasked with maintaining this website.

  1. A paradigm is an abstraction encompassing enough that it defines adherents' perception of the world.↩︎

  2. It is horrifying to me how willing people are to give up their agency to avoid a small amount of thinking.↩︎

]]> Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 UT https://chellipse.xyz/site_system.html Chell L. songs https://chellipse.xyz/songs.html Abstract

My favorite band is The Silversun Pickups. I would suggest you start with their album Swoon. Otherwise, here's an unordered non-exhaustive list of some of my favorite songs, constrained by only allowing a single occurance for each artist.

Without further ado

  • Kissing Families, Silversun Pickups
  • The Biggest Lie, Elliot Smith
  • Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac
  • Wait, Take That
  • Chip, The Real McKenzies
  • The Ghost, Bayside
  • Оно выделяло тепло, AIGEL
  • At Doom's Gate, Doom (1993) OST
  • Darwinism, Halsey
  • Kill V. Maim, Grimes
  • purgatory origami, Mixed Matches
  • Ravestar, Funeral
  • Darkness, Sweet Trip
  • Я Тебя Не Отдам, Serebro / DJ SPIZDIL (hardstyle mix) / eto (nxc edit) link
  • Otherside, Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Personal Jesus (2006 Big Band Version), Richard Cheese
  • This Love Is Over, Ray LaMontagne
  • blindfold, Lucas Lex
  • Numb, Linkin Park (Meteora is a good album OK)
  • Trapped, Boards of Canada
  • Damaged Goods, Yeasayer
  • Alberto Balsalm, Aphex Twin
  • Concept 1, Kodomo
  • Codex 5 English, Kattenmatte link
  • Confused Porn, infinite bisous
  • kong.swtwrd [219], travongle
  • Hacker, Death Grips
  • Starless, King Crimson
  • Maximum Profit, Gloria Tells
  • Say You Will, Kanye West
  • I'm On Fire, Soccer Mommy
  • 500 Miles, Inside Llewyn Davis ST
  • Endless Love, DVRST
  • Uprising, Muse
  • Cannibal Queen, Miniature Tigers
]]> Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 UT https://chellipse.xyz/songs.html Chell L.