content

_data/badges.js

@@ -342,5 +342,10 @@ export default {
 			imageURL: "pixel-area-88-x77y77@2x.png",
 			linkURL: "https://pxlarea.com/x77y77",
 		},
+		{
+			altText: "I'm on powRSS",
+			imageURL: "powrss-88-31.gif",
+			linkURL: "https://powrss.com/blogs/nathan-upchurch",
+		},
 	],
 };

_data/blogroll.js

@@ -22,13 +22,6 @@ export default {
 					description:
 						"ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Bear is a privacy-first, no-nonsense, super-fast blogging platform. Bear's discovery feed lists trending articles from the Bear blogosphere.",
 				},
-				{
-					title: "Freethought Blogs",
-					feedUrl: "https://freethoughtblogs.com/feed/",
-					url: "https://freethoughtblogs.com/",
-					description:
-						"Freethoughtblogs is an open platform for freethought writers. We are skeptics and critics of dogma and authoritarianism, and in addition, we recognize that the nonexistence of deities entails a greater commitment to human values, and in particular, an appreciation of human diversity and equality. We are for feminism, against racism, for diversity, against inequity. Our network of blogs is designed to encourage independent thinking and individual autonomy — freethoughtblogs.com is a vehicle for giving vocal secularists a venue for discussion of their values and interests.",
-				},
 				{
 					title: "Hundred Rabbits",
 					feedUrl: "https://100r.co/links/rss.xml",
@@ -536,13 +529,6 @@ export default {
 					description:
 						"Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog relies on a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies’ ability to innovate and grow.",
 				},
-				{
-					title: "The Canary",
-					feedUrl: "https://www.thecanary.co/feed/",
-					url: "https://www.thecanary.co/",
-					description:
-						"The Canary is a anti-oppression, decolonised, and recolonised radical media outlet that publishes the truth without fear or favour. We publish stories that matter to ordinary people across the UK, whether the corporate and state media like it or not.",
-				},
 				{
 					title: "Usermag",
 					feedUrl: "https://www.usermag.co/feed",
@@ -665,6 +651,13 @@ export default {
 					description:
 						"annabelle kathleen marcile akers - aka lemon ice cream.",
 				},
+				{
+					title: "Luddlife",
+					feedUrl: "http://luddlife.bearblog.dev/feed/?type=rss",
+					url: "http://luddlife.bearblog.dev",
+					description:
+						"In a world drunk on productivity, we choose to stay sober. In an age that worships speed, we dare to move slowly. This is not a rejection of progress, but a reclamation of our humanity. This is Luddlife.",
+				},
 				{
 					title: "MediaActivist",
 					feedUrl: "https://www.mediaactivist.com/rss/",

_data/metadata.js

@@ -16,6 +16,10 @@ export default {
 			linkDisplay: "About",
 			linkURL: "/about/",
 		},
+		{
+			linkDisplay: "Badges",
+			linkURL: "/badges/",
+		},
 		{
 			linkDisplay: "Blog",
 			linkURL: "/blog/",
@@ -340,8 +344,8 @@ export default {
 			iconSVG: `<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xml:space="preserve" width="67.258" height="52.196" viewBox="0 0 17.795 13.81"><path d="M16.852 7.526c-.325.188-.324.436-.076.864.247.428 4.578 10.675 4.721 10.923.144.248.25.407.605.407.356 0 2.37-.012 2.623-.158s.397-.477.66-1.138c.265-.661.92-2.969.92-2.969s1.065 3.415 1.18 3.614c.115.2.188.351.427.351s2.417.024 2.714-.147c.298-.172.858-.641 2.008-4.178s1.915-8.008 1.733-8.324c-.182-.315-.446-.294-1.618-.524-1.171-.23-1.718-.417-1.876-.302s-1.53 7.796-2.005 7.799c-.307.002-.985-4.647-1.445-4.935s-2.774-.177-3.109.23c-.478.582-.305 4.906-.665 4.82s-2.384-7.302-3.493-7.418c-.62-.066-3.304 1.085-3.304 1.085" style="stroke-width:5.98699;stroke-linecap:square;paint-order:stroke markers fill" transform="translate(-16.598 -5.91)"/></svg>`,
 		},
 	],
-	weatherOnByDefault: false,
+	weatherOnByDefault: true,
-	weatherSymbol: "🌞",
+	weatherSymbol: "🎃",
 	webrings: [
 		{
 			name: "Fediring",

_includes/footer.njk

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 <footer>
 	<div class="footerContainer">
 		<p>
-		<br>Made by humans, not AI. Featured on <a href="https://blogroll.org/">blogroll.org</a>, <a href="https://blogs.hn/">blogs.hn</a>, <a href="https://blogscroll.com/">blogscroll.com</a>, <a href="https://bukmark.club">bukmark.club</a>, <a href="https://earlyweblinks.com/">earlyweblinks.com</a>, <a href="https://feedle.world/">Feedle</a>, <a href="https://indieblog.page/">indieblog.page</a>, <a href="https://octothorp.es/domains/https%3A%2F%2Fnathanupchurch.com">octothorp.es</a>, <a href="https://pxlarea.com/x77y77">pixel_area</a>, and <a href="https://powrss.com/blogs/nathan-upchurch">powRSS</a>.
+		<br>Made by humans, not AI. Featured on <a href="https://blogroll.org/">blogroll.org</a>, <a href="https://blogs.hn/">blogs.hn</a>, <a href="https://blogscroll.com/">blogscroll.com</a>, <a href="https://bukmark.club">bukmark.club</a>, <a href="https://earlyweblinks.com/">earlyweblinks.com</a>, <a href="https://feedle.world/">Feedle</a>, <a href="https://indieblog.page/">indieblog.page</a>, <a href="https://minifeed.net/blogs/kF8I4jvS">Minifeed</a>, <a href="https://octothorp.es/domains/https%3A%2F%2Fnathanupchurch.com">octothorp.es</a>, <a href="https://pxlarea.com/x77y77">pixel_area</a>, and <a href="https://powrss.com/blogs/nathan-upchurch">powRSS</a>.
 		{% if metadata.copyrightNotice %}
 					<br><span class="copyright-notice">{{ metadata.copyrightNotice }}</span>
 		{% endif %}

content/blog/small-acts-of-murder-shame-religion-and-what-we-owe-each-other.md

@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+---
+title: "Small Acts of Murder: Shame, Religion, and What We Owe Each Other"
+description: "Thoughts on regret, murder as a spectrum of harm to quality of life, and arriving at a moral philosophy."
+date: 2026-10-10
+tags:
+  - Atheism
+  - Life
+  - Moral Philosophy
+  - Religion
+synopsis: "Thoughts on regret, murder as a spectrum of harm to quality of life, and arriving at a moral philosophy."
+imageURL: /img/remorse-albert-sterner.webp
+imageAlt: "Remorse, by Albert Sterner. An illustration of a figure collapsed on a bed with their face in the pillow."
+---
+Years ago, I broke up with someone abruptly. She and my friend were over. The
+two began arguing. Upset, she ran outside into the rain. My friend commented
+that she was being ridiculous, that I should break up with her. I'm not usually
+so impressionable as to take such an action based on an offhand comment, but I
+had been feeling a little uncomfortable in this new relationship. While she was
+pleasant, kind, and beautiful, the relationship had mostly been physical and I
+was troubled that she hadn't told me much about herself—although I had been
+asking. I was young and new to relationships, with all of the anxiety that
+accompanies inexperience. I found her standing at the end of the street,
+crying. If this happened today, I'd say something reassuring. I'd comfort her,
+bring her inside, and explain how I had been feeling at a better time. Instead,
+I looked into her tearful eyes and ended it then and there. I was young,
+inexperienced, and scared. I really just wanted to get to know her better.
+Instead I hurt her in a cruel way. By entering into a relationship, she
+entrusted me with the power to hurt her. I abused that trust. To this day I
+burn with shame when thinking back on the memory.
+
+I tend to think of murder as a spectrum upon which loss of life is the extreme
+end. Economic slavery imposed by capitalism demands large amounts of time from
+finite lives to enrich a wealthy few. Systemic bigotry erodes quality of life
+every day. Individual actions turn small moments into unhappy memories. Life
+can be impacted in innumerable ways both systemic and interpersonal—beyond
+simply cutting it short, the extreme end of a spectrum of harm. Especially to a
+materialist, this view lends a new gravity to harms of all sizes. Each action
+or inaction that causes pain to another represents a permanent mar on another's
+experience, a sliver of one precious existence worsened or ruined. No matter
+how trifling, each represents an injury to life itself.
+
+I don't believe in objective morality, either. In the view of this atheist and
+anti-theist, the universe is indifferent to suffering. There's no "good book"
+with all the answers. This being the case, morality becomes a logical exercise:
+if we hold every sentient life as precious and irreplaceble, how do we model
+our behaviors and our society so as to maximize the quality of each?
+Unfortunately, grappling with this question is the work of a lifetime.
+
+I was raised to believe that morality came from a book. God doesn't want us
+drinking coffee, hence drinking coffee is immoral. Most religions cover the
+basics—plus a few wacky and harmful inclusions—but the topic of morality is too
+complex for any tome to do justice. Further, religion fails to offer a sound
+logical framework for thinking about morality. As a result, followers think
+they're doing fine if they're following at least most of the instructions, and
+in some popular traditions there's repentance to boot. This doesn't tend to
+work out very well
+[even in the short-term](https://www.azquotes.com/quote/702126), but when the
+scales fall from the eyes of the faithful and they break free of magical
+thinking, they are left morally adrift: with no way of considering how they
+ought to interact with others beside their personal feelings.
+
+Developing a personal moral philosophy is not a simple matter. None of the
+great philosophers seem to have arrived at a complete answer, so what hope has
+the average person when they discover their entire worldview was bunk? Many
+important conversations were skipped in favor of indoctrination, so those freed
+from the mental shackles of religion find themselves behind their secular peers
+in terms of moral development and understanding. Couple that with years spent
+living in a reactionary environment, and it makes for a lot of catching up to
+do while also trying to survive in a capitalist society barely less indifferent
+to sentient life than the vacuum of space.
+
+Despite all of this, I sometimes find the recollection of the suffering I've
+caused difficult to bear. It is some comfort to know that, like most, I never
+meant to cause harm. Most of us do our worst when we think we're in the right,
+don't know better, or simply aren't thinking at all. But the tragedy of harm is
+its irrevocability. Just as the ways I have been hurt live on in me, I can
+never erase the painful memories I've caused.
+
+If we owe each other one thing and nothing else, it is to respect each-other's
+time, both in quantity and quality. We're not born knowing how. It takes a
+lifetime of listening, learning, experience, and practice—hurting others all
+the while. Even with every effort, fallablility is simply part of the human
+condition. One of the few sound pieces of advice I received as a Mormon child
+was to consider scenarios that ask you to make a moral decision, and decide now
+what you will do when they occur. It may not be so easy to choose in the
+moment, so make the decision before it becomes difficult. This system isn't
+perfect, but you can certainly consider the kind of person you want to be and
+how you want to affect others. Hopefully you get it right. Hopefully, with
+time, your ideals become instinct. Hopefully, you maintain the cognitive flexibility such that they are never rendered immutable.
+
+Perhaps, as
+[terror management theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory)
+would have it, this way of entwining morality with mortality itself is a means
+of assuaging death anxiety. Maybe the idea is that, if we must walk into
+oblivion, we should do it hand in hand with smiles on our faces, rather than
+pecking at each others eyes like hens in a battery cage. Surely, as nature
+demands that we spend our lives scraping for its necessities while it awaits
+our demise like a circling vulture, our principal aim ought to be to free
+ourselves from this cruel status quo? To make possible the full development of
+our personalities? To experience, together, the fullness of what it is to be
+conscious in freedom from want and suffering? Why shouldn't life itself be at
+the root of our thinking around morality? After all, we owe each other
+everything. From the earth that made our existence a possibility, the bees that
+pollinate our food, the person who laundered the linens we were born on, who
+introduced our parents, who stitched our shoes, who taught us to read, who
+shared our first kiss… our obligation to everything and everyone around us is
+infinite. The idea that any sentient being is beneath moral consideration must
+be put to rest. We owe each other—and we each are owed—everything!
+
+In light of this overwhelming debt, the preciousness of sentient life,
+sometimes I don't know what to do with the weight of my shame. Although I have
+no children, I often recall a quote by Mitch Albom on parenthood:
+
+> All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine
+> glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a
+> few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.
+
+This idea can surely be extended to encompass all human relationships, given
+adequate time. Maybe it is the best we can do to take our guilt, with both
+sorrow and gratitude, as a pattern for our own pair of white gloves to help us
+handle the lives about us with due care. Since my life has become more stable I
+have had the time and headspace to consider the past. I find myself hoping that
+the most I have left with others are fingerprints, that the pain I have caused
+is mostly a small part of a larger happy memory. When I consider the type of
+person I'd like to be, it is one who shares in the sorrow he causes. I can take
+solace in the fact that I am at least this.

content/changelog/index.md

@@ -7,6 +7,16 @@ h1: Changelog
 includeTOC: true
 ---
 ## 2026
+### October
+* 2026-10-14
+	* Removed Creazilla from [/links](/links) as it is now peddling AI slop.
+* 2026-10-10
+	* Updated [/links](/links) to include a [forum section](/links/#forums-active).
+* 2026-10-07
+	* Updated [blogroll](/blogroll).
+* 2026-10-01
+	* Updated footer.
+	* Updated [/badges](/badges).
 ### September
 * 2026-09-30
 	* Updated footer.

content/links/index.md

@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ Here are some links to pages and resources that I believe are worth sharing. If
 ## Creative Resources
 ### General
 * [Creative Commons Search Portal](https://search.creativecommons.org/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—The Creative Commons (CC) Search Portal helps you search CC licensed works across multiple platforms. Includes music, web, images, 3D models, video, and more.
-* [Creazilla](https://creazilla.com/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—A huge collection of media files under a Public Domain license including photos, illustrations, scanned art images, vectors, videos, and audio files.
 * [Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Free stock photos, illustrations, vector graphics, videos, music and sounds effects.
 
 ### Graphic Design
@@ -97,6 +96,14 @@ Here are some links to pages and resources that I believe are worth sharing. If
 ## Ethics / Vegan Resources
 * [Cruelty Free Kitty](https://www.crueltyfreekitty.com/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Find products that were not tested on animals.
 
+## Forums (Active)
+* [32bit.cafe](https://discourse.32bit.cafe/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Indieweb / smallweb, webweaving, and general discussion.
+* [Basenotes](https://basenotes.com/forums/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—The world’s longest-running fragrance forum.
+* [Dogs on Acid](https://www.dogsonacid.com/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Drum and Bass music.
+* [Fragrantica](https://www.fragrantica.com/board/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Perfume and fragrance.
+* [Ouddict](https://www.ouddict.com/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Oud, artisanal perfumes, and incense.
+* [Quxnet](https://quxnet.net/){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—Quxnet is designed after the old web, focused on text content, good conversation, and privacy without modern web distractions. It's a small community, so it thrives on participation, not spectators.
+
 ## Free/Libre Software
 * [Free Software Foundation](https://fsf.org){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—A nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom.
 * [GNU](https://gnu.org){rel="octo:octothorpes"}—An operating system that is free software—that is, it respects users' freedom.

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-10_10:59.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Moonlit Night
+manufacturer: Les Encens du Monde
+date: 2026-10-10 10:59:00
+time: 10:59 AM
+---
+

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-12_09:19.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Shirakawa (White River)
+manufacturer: Shoyeido
+date: 2026-10-12 9:19:00
+time: 9:19 AM
+---
+

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-12_13:45.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Omokage
+manufacturer: Okuno Seimeido
+date: 2026-10-12 13:45:00
+time: 1:45 PM
+---
+

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-13_08:49.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Tobiume
+manufacturer: Baieido
+date: 2026-10-13 8:49:00
+time: 8:49 AM
+---
+I picked up a box after reading about it on [rauchfahne.de](https://blog.rauchfahne.de/en/2026/09/03/baieido-tobiume-en/); I'm glad I did!

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-13_10:04.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Sumire
+manufacturer: Tennendo
+date: 2026-10-13 10:04:00
+time: 10:04 AM
+---
+

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-14_11:09.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Kinkaku (Golden Pavilion)
+manufacturer: Shoyeido
+date: 2026-10-14 11:09:00
+time: 11:09 AM
+---
+A classic.

content/now-burning/Now Burning_2026-10-14_13:08.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+title: Floral World Freesia
+manufacturer: Shoyeido
+date: 2026-10-14 13:08:00
+time: 1:08 PM
+---
+Surprised at how nice this is.

content/status/Status_2026-09-22_15:30.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+date: 2026-09-22 15:29:39
+emoji: ❤️
+comment: I think that love is yearning for the well-being of another as if it were your own, and despair when you cannot deliver it.
+---

content/status/Status_2026-10-05_11:11.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-05 11:10:34
+emoji: 💉
+comment: "Today in “capitalism is the most efficient way to distribute resources:” [a new study](https://www.facs.org/media-center/press-releases/2026/15-million-americans-live-in-a-county-with-no-general-surgeon/) from the American College of Surgeons and the UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center finds that 15,000,000 Americans don’t have access to a general surgeon in their county."
+---

content/status/Status_2026-10-07_16:12.md

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-07 16:11:58
+emoji: 😫
+comment: "“I think you should use AI to…”
+Why? Why are you telling me, the person who does the work, what tool to use? Am I not fast enough? I'm on a salary and we have no deadline. Is my writing not good enough; am I simply too stupid? If this were the case, I wouldn't be employed here. Do you want to rob me of the joy of doing the thinking and creative work that keeps me from being bored out of my mind during the workday? Do you want to push me out by force of sheer depression? Why?"
+---