Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them)

Composer and audio programmer in Rochester, NY // I like noise, obsolete media, electronics, and nostalgia // Lecturer in music tech and film/game scoring at SUNY Geneseo

Music: #Composer #ComputerMusic #ContemporaryClassical #ElectronicMusic #ExperimentalMusic #MaxMSP #Microtonal #MusicProduction #Musodon #NoiseMusic #SoundDesign #SuperCollider

Computers: #CPlusPlus #Debian #JavaScript #JUCE #Linux #macOS #Python #Rust #WebDev

Hobbies: #Blog #FountainPens #IndieWeb #Maker #SDR #Stationery

Public Key

npub1slencf2ag6w7a829c2xd689vwq4dcvt386752qgwv8n5a7l6hr7suwg7q8

NIP-05 Address

reillypascal@hachyderm-io.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsg0ueuy4w5d80wn4zu9rxarjk8q2kux9cna029qy8xre6wl0at3lg3a64cz

Author Public Key

npub1slencf2ag6w7a829c2xd689vwq4dcvt386752qgwv8n5a7l6hr7suwg7q8

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Last Notes

2025-05-30 20:55:59

I really dislike the brand name “Dribbble,” and I'm trying to decide what annoying way to pronounce it to express that dislike
Which one do you think?
#Shitpost
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/598/767/475/669/070/original/15403983771f98da.mp3

2025-05-28 23:11:23

For this month's IndieWeb carnival on “small web communities,” I'm thinking about lowering the barrier for web independence and freedom
I talk through some possibilities to make it easier to make your own site even if you don't have much/any coding experience:
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2025/05/may-2025-iwc/
#IndieWeb #Blog #Blogging #WebDev #HTML #CMS

2025-05-25 02:47:03

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@nprofile…pye9 I love how some people quoted in all this say that they “just” use AI for small tweaks or editing or brainstorming or something like that. I really don't care. As soon as you use AI for any part of a project, I stop being interested in it

2025-05-24 19:09:58

In my wiki/digital garden I have a collection of tutorials on webmentions including the basics — you can get up and running with only two lines of HTML! — using microformats to enrich your mentions; adding a webmention form; and parsing, displaying, and updating them with Eleventy, Netlify, and Bridgy.
Hope it can be helpful to someone!
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/digital-garden/tutorials/webmention-tutorial/
#Webmentions #IndieWeb #Microformats #Eleventy #11ty #Netlify #Bridgy #WebDev #HTML

2025-05-21 14:37:00

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@nprofile…0nz2 I remember that book and I like that idea

2025-05-21 14:36:19

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@nprofile…0nz2 tangentially related:
Ever since I realized “homeowner” contains ”meow,” the word always makes me think of getting a cat and saying I'm “putting the ‘meow’ in ‘homeowner’”

2025-05-21 14:33:25

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@nprofile…0nz2 very satisfying! My partner and I still rent, but we're starting to look into homeownership. We already have some tools, and it'll be nice to continue to build that set out

2025-05-12 07:41:53

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@nprofile…pye9 I've removed blogs from my reader because they used decorative AI images in their posts — AI to write the post is absolutely an immediate unfollow

2025-04-25 02:02:20

I updated my site dropdown menus so they only need CSS and (as far as I was able to ascertain) you can tab through with a keyboard!
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/
The secret seems to be using the CSS :focus and :focus-within selectors. I have a minimal CodePen example here (https://codepen.io/reillypascal/pen/PwwPewM?editors=1100), and here's the article where I got the idea: https://moderncss.dev/css-only-accessible-dropdown-navigation-menu/
#WebDev #HTML #CSS #Coding #Programming #IndieWeb #SmallWeb

2025-04-24 02:12:22

This site is the perfect representation of my cloud of choice to yell at
“…you have no fucking idea what a website is. All you have ever seen are shitty skeuomorphic bastardizations of what should be text communicating a fucking message. This is a real, naked website. Look at it. It's fucking beautiful.”
https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
#HTML #WebDev #SmallWeb #IndieWeb

2025-04-14 19:51:37

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@nprofile…pye9 The specific one I'm thinking of where it's delayed between the two is power user by Taylor Lorenz (https://pod.link/1733535260). The only other one I can think of at the moment that's mirrored between the two is surviving deep time from PBS Eons (https://pod.link/1610360633)

2025-04-10 23:42:19

Today I'm discussing my thoughts on “home-cooked” and “situated” software, and how that's inspired me to start a collection of useful script tools for myself.
🔗 https://reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2025/04/a-grimoire-of-shell-scripts/
#FOSS #Shell #Bash #Zsh #Coding #Programming #IndieWeb #WebDev

2025-04-06 16:21:00

I'm continuing my databending series of blog posts. Today we'll discuss how to use Python to easily glitch up MP3s, adding warbles, clicks, and other cool noise!
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2025/04/databending-part-3/
#Databending #Audio #MusicProduction #Glitch #SoundDesign #ExperimentalMusic #ElectronicMusic #NoiseMusic #Musodon

2025-04-02 17:40:44

I found this posted on the wall at the university where I teach. I love when students have a weird sense of humor like this.
#Shitpost #Memes #Teaching
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/269/583/670/529/990/original/d29e1d634199c9c6.jpg

2025-03-25 19:41:03

Just downloaded “Status” by @nprofile…zqvx from Faircamp! Some very cool electronic sounds, I like being able to get things directly from artists, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see it's available in Opus format — I was just thinking about that format recently
https://faircamp.meljoann.com/status/
#Musodon #Fedimusic #Faircamp

2025-03-15 22:15:14

This is a good reminder for me to add some more comments into my website's HTML
“Let’s build websites that are source-readable by humans and let’s help people learn how to build websites. I believe it will also help us build websites that are using the correct semantic HTML elements, are more accessible and are not just div soup.”
https://hamatti.org/posts/view-source-explorers-welcome/
#HTML #WebDev #IndieWeb #Coding #Programming

2025-03-05 17:46:51

"The results are predictably disastrous. Within hours of the feature's launch, the LA Times had to remove AI-generated content that attempted to defend the Ku Klux Klan. As The Daily Beast reported, columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote a piece reflecting on Anaheim's history with the hate group, but the AI 'insights' below the piece included a point that 'Local historical accounts occasionally frame the 1920s Klan as a product of "white Protestant culture" responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement, minimizing its ideological threat.'
And sure, local historical accounts do occasionally frame the Klan that way, so it’s not technically wrong. But I hope we can all agree that if there’s one group that doesn’t need a devil’s advocate, it’s the KKK."
https://www.readtpa.com/p/spicy-autocomplete-the-la-times-outsources
#AI #Journalism #AISlop #Enshittification

2025-02-28 19:10:15

“The verdict is in: OpenAI's newest and most capable traditional AI model, GPT-4.5, is big, expensive, and slow, providing marginally better performance than GPT-4o at 30x the cost for input and 15x the cost for output. The new model seems to prove that longstanding rumors of diminishing returns in training unsupervised-learning LLMs were correct and that the so-called ‘scaling laws’ cited by many for years have possibly met their natural end.”
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/02/its-a-lemon-openais-largest-ai-model-ever-arrives-to-mixed-reviews/
#AI #Slop #Tech

2025-02-26 04:17:40

I recently switched from iOS to Android (specifically GrapheneOS), and one thing I did genuinely like about iOS was the new option to mirror the screen on a Mac. Turns out you can do something similar with VNC! I have VNC Viewer on my laptop and droidVNC-NG (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.christianbeier.droidvnc_ng/) on my phone. Here's the result:
#Android #VNC #iOS #macOS
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/068/247/918/136/948/original/93c8de920e7c9d5e.png

2025-02-25 21:23:30

“A venture capital-backed ‘AI performance monitoring system for factory workers’ is proposing what appears to be dehumanizing surveillance of factories, where machine vision tracks workers’ hand movements and output so a boss can look at graphs and yell at them about efficiency.”
https://www.404media.co/optifyeai-ycombinator-startup-ai-factory/
#AI #YCombinator #VentureCapital #Startup #Surveillance #WorkersRights

2025-02-23 20:19:32

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@nprofile…pye9 I was able to view video! I'm on a Pixel 8a and GrapheneOS in case that's relevant.

2025-02-23 19:30:13

I hate it when someone announces a podcast that they're doing that looks interesting, but when I look into it there's no RSS feed, and it's just on YouTube/Spotify/another closed platform
It's my crochety, but very firm opinion that it's not a real podcast if there's no RSS. Switching to AntennaPod has been very nice — the interface only gives me what I need and nobody's trying to advertise anything to me — and it also makes it glaringly obvious when something doesn't have a proper RSS feed
I heard on this "The Vergecast" episode (https://www.theverge.com/c/24238422/podcast-etymology-term-history-tech-vergecast) that YouTube is becoming the most popular podcast platform, and that worries me for the openness of the medium
#Podcasts #RSS

2025-02-17 17:46:18

The music department printer has enough of a "personality" that it's been given a name:
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/020/468/746/053/638/original/b3031a442caa168d.jpg

2025-02-15 20:47:53

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If anyone has favorite F-Droid apps, I'd be interested to hear them! I'm currently using Moshidon and Fedilab for the Fediverse, for example, but I'd love to know more
#Android #GrapheneOS #Fedihelp #FOSS

2025-02-15 20:39:47

I've been wanting to switch from iOS to Android (with an aftermarket version of the OS) for a while, and I finally did! I have a Pixel 8a and GrapheneOS, it was very straightforward to set up, and I'm really liking it
#Android #GrapheneOS #DeGoogle #FOSS
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/009/812/219/729/622/original/1350abffab31943d.png

2025-01-21 16:02:51

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@nprofile…rrse nobody's asked yet, but I would probably be reluctant just because I tend to be anxious about keeping my stuff nice. If my partner wanted to use one, I would be OK with letting them do it, but again they haven't asked.
It seems very unlikely for somebody to try to borrow one without my permission since I keep them in a pouch when I leave the house with them, but I would definitely tell the person no and exchange it for one of the gel pens I carry.

2025-01-18 19:34:15

Is anyone interested in a guide on making your own website in as few steps as possible? I think it would be cool to write such as thing and publish it on my website.
The problem I'm hoping to address is that if someone wants to make a website without depending on e.g., Wix/Squarespace/WordPress, there are great coding textbooks, but they often have more than you need to get started and feel a bit intimidating.
I could make it as a series of posts that link to each other, with a post for each component of the process so people can pick and choose. The branching options could look like, e.g.
1. Want to avoid the command line? Here's how to write just the HTML/CSS you need and drag/drop it into e.g., Netlify
2. OK with the terminal? Here's how to push to GitHub and integrate that with e.g., Netlify
3. Want to automate the repetitive parts? Here's how to add in Eleventy with the least amount of extra info
I'm still fleshing out this idea, but I'm curious what people think
#IndieWeb #WebDev #Programming #HTML #CSS

2025-01-14 00:11:49

My mom got me a Pinecil soldering iron for Christmas! It took a while in the mail, but it just arrived today, and it works great. Excited to get back into electronics projects.
In addition to being a nice iron, the hardware and firmware are all FOSS!
#Electronics #FOSS #Pine64 #Maker
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/823/793/100/564/582/original/155e50a02b70a746.jpeg

2025-01-11 19:52:58

"It’s easy to forget how simple a website can be. A website can be just one page. It doesn’t even need CSS. You don’t need a content management system like Wordpress. All you have to do is write some HTML and drag that file to a server"
https://lmnt.me/blog/how-to-make-a-damn-website.html
#Website #WebDev #IndieWeb
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/811/462/297/416/198/original/0c466264eb369126.png

2025-01-03 20:29:25

“‘Going to see music not only makes more of an impact in terms of materially supporting artists. And there's nothing better than discovering music through going to shows,’ Pelly told me. ‘Or even just paying attention to who is playing in town, who your favorite bands are bringing on tour, going to see the openers, having a favorite venue and following its calendar. It's the best way to bust out of the echo chamber of digital music recommendations.’
Pelly added that if the book causes a reader to reflect on their relationship with music and to reconsider wanting to be more of an active participant in music than a passive consumer of streaming playlist, that would be ‘a pretty solid takeaway.’”
https://hellgatenyc.com/liz-pelly-spotify-mood-machine-lya/
#Spotify #Streaming #Music #Journalism #Enshittification

2024-12-26 17:53:37

New blog post! I talk about listening to shortwave radio signals, my emotive reaction to them, and composing music with them. John Cage and hauntings both make an appearance.
Thanks to @nprofile…53hs for feedback on a draft of the post!
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2024/12/radio-listening-musically/
#ElectronicMusic #ExperimentalMusic #MusicProduction #SDR #HamRadio

2024-12-07 21:44:17

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@nprofile…l25h seeing all the Spotify Wrapped stuff was making me feel both cranky and a bit left out, so I did my own "Not-ify Wrapped" blog post: https://reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2024/12/music-listened-this-year/
It's on my own site, and it's all recordings that I've purchased this year

2024-11-25 19:00:40

I'm *really* liking Eleventy for my blog (https://reillyspitzfaden.com/blog/). I had wanted to have my blog posts on multiple pages, and I thought it was going to be difficult, but it ended up being really simple. The only thing that tripped me up is that I needed the `reverse: true` option, which I didn't see in the documentation section on paginating blogs.
#Eleventy #11ty #Blog #IndieWeb #WebDev #Programming #Coding
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/545/133/332/204/877/original/cd4be7d8a1a243bc.png

2024-11-11 22:56:04

I did my first proper nib replacement! I got this Nahvalur Original Plus as a gift and I like the piston filler a lot, but the stock nib didn't flow well.
I got this broad one from Pen Realm, removed the nib and feeder from the screw housing, and put this new nib and its feeder into the old housing. I like the result a lot better.
Inks: Sailor Seki and Robert Oster Sydney Lavender
Journal: Good INKPressions notebook with Tomoe River 68gsm paper
#FountainPens #FountainPen #Stationery #BuJo
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/466/786/584/600/747/original/b2ca4c8b70ec010e.jpg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/466/786/583/229/673/original/37d948ae5773f59a.jpg

2024-10-07 20:06:43

This is why I have a non-smart TV and a Raspberry Pi running Kodi as my streaming box:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/streaming-industry-has-unprecedented-surveillance-manipulation-capabilities/
#Privacy #FOSS #RaspberryPi #Kodi #SmartTV #Streaming #TV #Tech

2024-08-09 18:31:12

#Shitpost #Memes #Linguistics #Language #Cats #Cat
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/933/487/922/038/701/original/77fc8d1f922be3eb.jpeg

2024-07-22 13:48:48

"The United Nations' top court filed a ruling Friday that echoed what Palestinian advocates have been saying for decades: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, including its settlements in the West Bank, is illegal and must end."
https://theintercept.com/2024/07/19/icj-ruling-palestine-israel-occupation-settlements/
#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #ICJ #Genocide #Apartheid #FreePalestine

2024-07-21 23:04:37

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@npub156n…mvgw I'm definitely one of them! My partner actually made a Chappell Roan "big mouth billy bass" style fish to put on our wall (https://hachyderm.io/@reillypascal/112825867358601214)

2024-07-21 18:21:50

My partner made a foam fish into Chappell Roan and we're mounting it on the living room wall
#ChappellRoan #Crafts #ArtsAndCrafts #Cursed #Shitpost #Meme #Memes
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/825/867/195/828/324/original/5e5cb4941f7cc0be.jpeg

2024-06-09 22:27:16

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@npub1gzd…wfsq I was very excited to see this in my YouTube subscription box today!

2024-06-06 19:29:00

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@npub16nf…q6as I would love to befriend a wild crow someday

2024-06-06 19:26:50

"We are working on a bloody movie here, and NO, you don’t suddenly have the right to any of the work we are doing on it because we pay you to use photoshop."
https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/06/change-to-adobe-terms-amp-conditions/
#Photoshop #Adobe #Enshittification #Privacy #AI

2024-06-03 19:00:24

"The CEO of Spotify thinks music is made for free and is his to sell, promoted as ‘content’. Please always try to buy records (‘vinyl’), cds, T-Shirts and go to gigs where you can afford to support bands you love."
#Streaming #Spotify #PayMusicians #MusicNews #Music #PhysicalMedia
https://www.nme.com/news/music/music-fans-and-artists-hit-back-as-spotify-ceo-claims-the-cost-of-creating-content-is-close-to-zero-3761004

2024-06-03 02:47:05

#LGBT #LGBTQ #Queer #Pride #PrideMonth #Capitalism #Meme #Memes #Shitpost
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/550/391/215/286/619/original/3199a1712ae44a59.jpg

2024-05-30 00:52:03

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@npub1dm5…5sqe that's super cool! I remember doing something similar as a kid. My mom had made some deckles with window screen/wood, and we would grind up colored construction paper to get different colors for the pulp.

2024-05-19 04:01:07

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@npub1u27…3qfq his most recent idea for a "better Internet" was blockchain nonsense, so I don't see him actually doing anything good with it
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/20/me-we-project-liberty-frank-mccourt

2024-05-17 16:56:46

"This whole AI cycle was fueled by fantasies, and when people stop falling for them the bubble starts to deflate. In The Guardian, John Naughton recently laid out the five stages of financial bubbles, noting AI is between stages three and four: euphoria and profit-taking."
https://disconnect.blog/ai-hype-is-over-ai-exhaustion-is-setting-in/
#AI #AIHype #AIBubble #Tech #TechNews

2024-05-17 04:56:35

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@npub10cs…5prq I've listened to Shannon's music and it's really cool! I'll have to go check out Rose's

2024-05-17 04:51:55

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@npub10cs…5prq I both love the simulation and I love how every time I see the thumbnail it looks like the tip of an elephant trunk

2024-05-15 19:41:56

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@npub1437…ranm looks like fun! I love megaphones — this piece of music actually uses them as instruments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYiG2DDVS7Y

2024-04-28 17:11:11

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@npub1437…ranm what's the discussion about forking ActivityPub? I haven't heard about that

2024-04-22 01:30:24

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@npub1dm5…5sqe every time I see a traffic cone I immediately think of VLC

2024-04-19 15:25:44

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@npub1h8s…cvp3 super cool! Would it be possible to get an RSS feed for the newsletter? I really like RSS for getting my news

2024-03-23 19:59:35

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@npub18vj…5zzl nice! I really like using algorithmic methods, but I've shied away from number sequences because the ones I'd seen tend toward infinity. Cool to see that there are actually ones that keep small numbers!

2024-03-22 00:49:56

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@npub1h8s…cvp3 I'm pretty new on the Fediverse, and I'm really happy to see that you're on here! Love your stuff

2024-03-07 21:48:35

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@npub1wk2…3v23 @npub1h4d…vng6 this is super cool and I definitely want to read it! I've been wanting to try developing stuff that uses ActivityPub, and I find having everything in one big textbook makes the learning process much less daunting

2024-02-19 17:35:24

The CEO of Bluesky is named Bluesky
#bluesky #wikipedia #SocialMedia
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/959/337/211/189/121/original/8873e54cf3ed8504.png

2024-02-12 17:55:42

Here's my current collection of fountain pen inks. I've been collecting them for about a year (and some of them were presents from my partner and family). They make me happy.
#fountainpens #fountainpen #ink #fountainpenink #stationery #hobby #collection
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/919/781/136/713/733/original/086eb3cdea0177a7.jpeg

2024-02-10 21:57:45

Hi everyone! I'm a composer & audio developer. I also like fountain pens, mechanical keyboards, software-defined radio, leftist politics & learning new things.
My music tends toward the glitchy, noisy, microtonal side of things, and I like to use Max/MSP and incorporate audio samples from my software-defined radio hobby. You can find my music at my site, SoundCloud & YouTube:
https://reillyspitzfaden.com/
https://soundcloud.com/reilly-spitzfaden
https://www.youtube.com/@reillyspitzfaden
#Introduction #Introductions #NewHere

2024-02-08 20:54:47

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@npub1m36…ermh it sure is! I make glitchy electronic music in addition to liking fountain pens

2024-02-08 20:52:16

I just got a really pretty new fountain pen! It's a Hongdian N7 "Peacock" with a medium nib and piston filler.
Notebook is Tomoe River 68gsm from Goulet, and the ink is Robert Oster Sydney Lavender.
#fountainpen #fountainpens #bulletjournal #bujo #hongdian #peacock #pen #pens #stationery #writing
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/897/837/025/214/072/original/b2d2f1b8c12309c8.jpg

2024-01-02 20:36:52

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@npub1y5h…7m3c @npub156n…mvgw as someone with an interest in ancient history and linguistics, and thus Proto Indo-European, I very much agree. I've unfortunately seen some white supremacist stuff in that area, and it's important to kick them out rather than ceding ground.