Lo! A philomath's field notes & yearnings
Essays and longer writing
Andando pola terra, descubrín
paisaxes coma bosques, densos de humidade,
desertos dourados, sen fin,
e montes e vales ondulantes.
Os meus ollos enriqueceron.
Mais sobre todo, descubrín
as xentes desta terra,
os seus sorrisos e as súas esperanzas,
e que temos máis cousas en común
e que debemos romper as que nos dividen.
On the three versions of my about page, I’m running an experiment with dithering images using Bayer 8×8. I had an LLM make a tiny custom plugin for WordPress and the size results are below:
| Language | Dithering | Colors | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | Full | 428 KB | |
| English | Bayer 8×8 | 4 | 263 KB |
| Spanish | Bayer 8×8 | 3 | 146 KB |
| Galician | Bayer 8×8 | 2 | 176 KB |
It’s not completely fair. The original image is a .jpg at 1600×1200 pixels and the dithered versions are .png files downscaled to 1200×900. I might try making them .webp files. The colors are black #222222, gray #999999, yellow #F4E28A, and white #FFFFFF.
I’m not sure which one I’ll stick with and if I’ll opt to dither all images going forward or not. Adding gray allows more facial details in the first photo from Colca Canyon in Peru. The pure black and white feels like a DIY zine.
I’ve treated this page as an Instagram alternative to share some of my photos. But I’d honestly prefer to make this place more into a place of writing; adding a photo every six months or so isn’t really what I want to use this for. Maybe dithering images will persuade me to describe more with words rather than a random photo here and there. Which version do you like better? Comment below.
I do have an audio project that I’d like to start soon which combines language, WordPress, and podcasting together here, along with a participatory element. That should be ready to go in the summer.
Update: I also tried one with black, gray, and white, which is possibly my favorite.
“…é o que non se fala”.
Happy Galician Literature Day, Galicia and all the galegophiles.
You’ve given me another lifelong project in learning, studying, and speaking. You’ve also shown me how a language can hold the culture, history, identity, and soul of a place.
I don’t feel that same connection to my language, English, which dominates much of the world. I vicariously bask in your commitment, both personal and collective, to keeping it alive. And I try to remind myself, when I’m embarrassed that I might accidentally mix Spanish when trying to speak Galician, that “the only badly spoken Galician is the one that isn’t spoken”.
“A tódolos galegos que nos transmitiron o herdo da lingua, ós que non renuncian a ela e confían e loitan polo seu futuro. Os que foron e van arrequentando agarimosamente este ben co seu maxín, a súa intelixencia e o seu traballo.”
— Dedication of Gramática galega, Editorial Galaxia 1995
This Californian still struggles with winter. Instead of going inward, pressing pause on the outside world, and enjoying the slowness of things, I’ve found myself dealing with big things over the last few years; a breakup, a new town and melancholy, existential dread while watching the warmongering, immigration bureaucracy, etc.
This year isn’t any different, other than gaining some awareness that I can choose something different. I can go inside, allow myself to not immediately respond to that favor request from the other, wait an extra week to turn in that paper (it’s Christmas time in Spain after all, where everything is slowing down).
The temperatures drop to 0º and I gave myself permission to delete instagram, re-start mantra meditation, unsubscribe to the podcasts with their cháchara, journal more, turn the heater up a little more, and be kinder to my self.
I’m interested in writing more without the masks though I don’t know where to begin and how much to divulge. Let’s see what happens in next year.
