A <a href=“https://indieweb.org/blog_carnival” rel=“ugc”>blog carnival</a> sees everyone write a blog post about a topic. We chose the topic (see below) through a <a href=“https://lobste.rs/c/m9pndn” rel=“ugc”>vote</a>. On the 24th of September, I will <a href=“https://lobste.rs/c/gfkq3p” rel=“ugc”>post</a> the carnival thread here where you can link your article and discuss others. If you PM it to me before the 17th of September, I will read, hopefully summarize and weave it into the top post. (As this is like <a href=“https://youtu.be/fsrHJGgLV-g?si=xLKPgYe9E2BH8NcV&t=48” rel=“ugc”>Christmas</a> in the Nightmare Before Christmas - I have never participated in one and just hope it’ll be nice and fun! Any better ideas?) Smashing together the <a href=“https://lobste.rs/c/bohigm” rel=“ugc”>winning</a> topic and similar ones: What have you made for yourself? In the tradition of early hackers, what have you made (be it software, tools, hardware, practices) for yourself, solving your own problems first and foremost, or shaping your computing environment to better suit your needs? All the things you traditionally wouldn’t mention to other people, but might raise an eyebrow some an interested passer by. I would personally prefer creation than customisation, so hopefully more emphasis on things like custom keyboards (rather than assembly from kit), or new software you have made (rather than dotfiles or ricing), but if you lean towards the boundaries of that I’d still be interested in particularly novel or highly polished/cohered customisation. Examples from outside of the community could include: <a href=“https://drobinin.com/posts/how-i-accidentally-became-puregyms-unofficial-apple-wallet-developer/” rel=“ugc”>Building an unofficial PassKit application to get into your gym more easily</a> Even if not useful for others! Most people want to blog about things that are useful. Topics which other users would find interesting / valuable to their work/lives. This inverts that to ask for the most useless topics. Things which don’t normally get talked about. What is your least favourite/the most “cursed” part about it? There’s no such thing as perfectly perfect. Even the best things have glaring flaws. What is one of your favourite things? What is the best part about that thing? What is the worst part? Sometimes as hackers, we create things that are horrible and awful and should never be made, but mostly do it just to see if it can be done at all. Tell the story of one time you did that. What was the problem you solved? Why did the traditional options not work? What did you learn about the problem, your solution, or anything else along the process?