This is (almost*) the entire contents of the site, all articles and blog posts from newest to oldest, with preview excerpts.
- You can see just the articles: on the Articles category page (not to be confused with the /Latest news page, which is more conversational than a list of posts and may include personal news about me in addition to site news)
- Just the blog posts: on the dedicated Blog or nearly-identicalBlog Posts category page.
*Individual movie reviews won't get posted on this page. I write too many of them, it would drown everything else out.
How to remove your email and phone number from voter registration (San Francisco county only)
May 15, 2026The county handles voter registration. San Francisco residents can remove info such as your phone number and email address with the form on https://sfelections.org/tools/regupdate/regupd.php. You can check your CA voter registration status at https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/
Burning Love
May 13, 2026I know why some artists burn all their material near the ends of their lives.
I know when I go, I'm tempted to take everything with me. You see some sort of value in anything I did, you should given me some sort of good cheer for it, something I could take some satisfaction from in return, while I was alive. Otherwise, when I go, it goes.
Not that I'm thinking about checking out anytime soon. Or that I'll definitely delete everything before I do.
Perhaps feeling a bit unappreciated, though. I don't do much for anyone's approval other than my own, but enough shows of disinterest from the world at large do occasionally drag even the most self-sufficient of spirits down a bit. And lately, there've been a few.
And as I round the further corners of middle age, still feeling, rather more keenly than I'd prefer, the difficulty…
Obsidian Annoyances
May 12, 2026Here's a CSS customization feature. Have fun getting it to work!
Have to leave the app to customize CSS. Why can't you save snippets in the app?? Overall, it feels like they intentionally make it as difficult and roundabout as possible to use.
And of course I followed the instructions, created the snippet in the secondary text editor Obsidian makes you keep around if you want to do things like this, quit the app, reopened it, and... it didn't work. Because, of course it didn't work. Why would following the instructions WORK, when it's so much more of a waste of time if it doesn't? I'm so glad they made this so complicated. This is so much harder than if they just had a place in the preferences to enter custom CSS, and, who doesn't love things to be as hard as possible?
Edit: After googling, I found
Indieweb Movie Club May 2026 announcement: Network (1976)
May 3, 2026Forgive the delay while I dithered whether to choose "Network" or subject you to a dizzying double-feature of "Resolution" and "The Endless", two little-known indie flicks (which I've only learned just this second were consecutive films from the same director and writer—do I know how to pick them, or what?) about desperate people traveling to remote locations in southern California where the time/space continuum doesn't work as expected.
I have decided to go with "Network", figuring mentioning the other two and leaving you to your own devices would be sufficient.
"Network" is my favorite movie, full stop.
This 1976 movie by Sidney Lumet ("12 Angry Men", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Serpico"), a pitch-black tragicomedy about a media conglomerate capitalizing on the unraveling mental health of one of its news anchors, predicted so many real-life media trends before they happened that it's astounding.…
This is a test.
April 29, 2026Once upon an Indieweb dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten CSS,
While I coded, nearly hacking, suddenly there came SYN ACKing,
as if packets gently attacking, attacking at my firewall ports,
"'Tis some webmention", I muttered, "SYN ACKing at my firewall ports,
only this and nothing less."
Eagerly, I wished the morrow, for in vain, I hoped to borrow,
from #Cafe, surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost IPv4—
For the rare and radiant spec whom the angels name IPv4—
This is only a test, please ignore.
Mastodon & BSky followers: I’m closing these current accounts—pls read for updated account info
April 27, 2026A note to the very small handful of people who read and occasionally even repost the website blog items and articles that I've been syndicating from my website, where I'm currently writing this, to a small clickable link on a Mastodon post or a somewhat more human-readable excerpt on Bluesky:
As of today I will no longer be syndicating my content to my current Mastodon and Bluesky accounts at @michaelkupietz.com@michaelkupietz.com on Mastodon and michaelkupietz.com.web.brid.gy on Bluesky. This will likely be the last post to those accounts.
The reason I have to retire those accounts is that they're controlled by the syndication service I was using, and I don't actually have full access to them myself. I'm turning off that service, so I can't use them at all.
But, as apparently a small handful of people do have an interest in occasionally seeing links to things I write delivered…
The Monster (2016)
April 26, 2026Slightly-better-than-it-should be tale of a mother and daughter breaking down on a lonely road and stalked by a monster. There's nothing here the experienced horror fan hasn't seen before—yet, for an assemblage of vaguely familiar horror tropes, it's a skillful assemblage, and the direction makes it stand out beyond what it might have been. Not a great movie by a long shot, but much better than it should be, but it's got a touch slower pacing and a few more character-driven elements than a b-grade horror movie usually does, both always a plus to me. And, pleasantly, it gets better as it goes along—the third act reflects back positively on the first two, as it goes for a slightly more quiet, thoughtful climax than the loud one many other movies of this sort would have gone for, even if it still never strays far from genre cliches.
And even…
Coffee Among The Top 4 Most Consequential EU Imports
April 22, 2026News that seems Indieweb-adjacent: according to a study reported on by investment strategist Joachim Klement, among commodity imports, only oil, LNG, and iron ore shortages have a higher impact on EU inflation than coffee shortages. https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/which-imports-really-matter-for-inflation
Source: Consonni and Magerman (2026) via Klement On Investing
No word on whether the effect is more pronounced in Scotland.
New WordPress Plugin: Kupietools Usernote Shortcode Plugin
April 19, 2026I've just posted an alpha of a small new WordPress plugin to my Github: KupieTools Usernote Shortcode.
Basically, I wanted to leave myself a note in a post, so I can see it on the front end when I view the post, but nobody else will. Now I can do this with [usernote]Note to myself here[/usernote]. It also allows specifying visibility by username or WordPress account role, like this: [usernote users="alice,bob" roles="administrator"]Note to Alice, Bob, and all administrators here[/usernote]
This is an alpha release, containing just the basic functionality I need this afternoon. In the future it will allow you to set defaults in a panel in the KupieTools admin settings page, like some of my other plugins. Right now you have to change them in the plugin code.
Paradise (TV series, 2025)
April 18, 2026Somewhat derivative but reasonably watcable sci-fi thriller. In a world that is "The Walking Dead" with an ecological apocalypse instead of a zombie one, the remains of the government live in an artificial underground town somewhere between "Wayward Pines" and "The Truman Show", where everybody just loves crappy '80s Top 40 music.
The first season is a straight government/secret agent whodunnit thriller with a slight spritz of sci-fi, the second is a little more expansive, showing more of the world and the lead-up to the ecological disaster (refreshingly, a fairly well-done global tsunami and weather crisis caused by a volcanic eruption in Antarctica, not the result of human foolishness.) I enjoyed the second season a little bit more, although they're both decent at worst...
...except...
...for the '80s music. It's intrusive, and initially, very annoying, particularly that many episodes end with gratuitous, grating "slowcore", alt-folk, or dreary…
