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Recent Changes on Home for Fiction

August 5, 2024

Important Note: There are some more recent developments that occurred in the wake of the text below. Besides the recent changes described in this post, I decided to make the Home for Fiction apps Patreon-only content again. Yes, I admit it: I have been defeated. I was naive to think this could work, simply as a result of Disney-magic and people’s understanding. To put it plainly, I simply can’t afford to pay for the server resources required. It’s either this or nothing.

Everything below this point should be seen as a snapshot of history and might not reflect current reality.

You might have noticed some minor changes on Home for Fiction lately. Or then again, you might have not, and the only person reading this is me. Ironically enough, this very element (meta- time!) is part of the reason there have been such changes.

Among these recent changes, the most conspicuous must be the disappearance of comments and the lack of a link to the support page that used to decorate the header.

Moreover, if you’ve found this post coming from the common app interface (just try to visit any of the Home for Fiction apps), you have realized that all Home for Fiction apps are nowadays limited to a fixed number of users per day. Each user is also limited to a few boots per hour.

I want to explain all this – though, somewhat egotistically, not to you; the intended audience is I alone, as it has always been. Writing this post is only meant as a vehicle for putting my own thoughts in order and understanding something new. But if it’s informative to you, great!

recent changes Home for Fiction. Image of unimpressed cat.
Here’s an unimpressed cat to go with this post…
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Simple Analytics that Respect Privacy: a How-To Guide

July 29, 2024

A programming post for today, but with a little twist. We’re not making a story planning program or an interactive fiction “game”. In a way, we’re not even making anything concrete – though I will share with you some code samples. Instead, we’ll take a more theoretical look at what I term simple analytics, with respect for privacy in the foreground.

As you perhaps recall, I recently revamped both the main Home for Fiction site and the blog itself. Doing so, one of the things I wanted to do was to completely eradicate all forms of privacy-invasive analytics. So I threw out Google Analytics as well as Jetpack analytics for WordPress.

Let’s take a look why and, mostly, what could one do if they’d like some simple form of stats/info that respects users’ privacy. I’ll also throw in a story about grandpas’ underwear for good measure – trust me, there is a connection hidden in there!

simple analytics; image of chair on Greek island
Simple analytics, Greek style!
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Review of I Fear My Pain Interests You by Stephanie LaCava

July 22, 2024

I picked I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava, looking for a literary-fiction story with strong psychological undertones. What I got instead was “the next Great American Novel“, but let me be upfront: I mean this in the worst possible manner, using it entirely ironically.

Indeed, my motivation behind writing a review for this novel was very simple: I absolutely loathed it. This is the kind of pointless drivel you’d expect from 15-year-old edgelords thinking they’re writing avant-garde literature. I know, I used to be one.

Another fun fact: I almost gave up on the novel at the 90% mark, which would’ve been an amazing thing to do, but I sadly had to finish it since I’d decided to write this review.

Of course, that I hated I Fear My Pain Interests You is not very… interesting to you. But why I hated it might be, because it reveals a lot about how and why literature is written nowadays – in the US (see earlier note) and places copying the US.

i fear my pain interests you; image of woman screaming
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