The Kraxn Blog
art, music, and tech.
A Kraxn is Viennese slang for an old jalopy, junker, or rattletrap. As a young lad, my grandmother regularly used this word to describe her vehicle. Eventually we developed own our vernacular, and Kraxn became synonymous for any old but useful tool. Amongst those I am close to, I still use this term – so its only fitting that kraxn become the name of this blog.
Likewise, blogs are now crusty old tech that are rapidly replaced by various aspects of social media. These platforms have wrapped their tentacles around our attention. They enslave many to put on their best public face, reverberate inside others echo chambers, or force them into using unwanted/unwarranted technology. A blog, though an older technology, can give users an anonymous voice and control over technology.
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Kraxn.io was a blog I kept from late 2018 to early 2020. This includes my art (for example, Sketch-A-Day), music samples, a little bit of technical writing, as well as thoughts on existence. I originally wanted to keep it anonymous, but know I am fine with this blog being associated to vonnagy.com now. Because I used this for Sketch-A-Day, it also showcases my best blogging effort – blogging consecutively or one year!
For more technical details, I used textpattern for the first iteration of this blog, and luapress for the second iteration before importing everything here into wordpress. There is much to be said about both systems, I am only begrudgingly going back to wordpress now. Textpattern is a very minimal blogging system; it still uses a mysql database, but everything else is ‘hackable’ in the best sense of the word. It doesn’t have as many plugins as as wordpress, however, you’ll be doing your own tweaks to everything (but this can be fun). Its actively maintained and has a decent community.
On the other end, Luapress is a dynamic website generator. You essential write your blog post in markdown. Its great for writing – but a little more daunting if you want to use media (photo galleries are a bit of a pain). It is fast, simple, stable, and so long as you are focused on writing, its a great tool. Unfortunately, its no longer being maintained, so though it is stable, you’ll have to hack your way through the source code to get things done your way. I also used luapress on my asylon.org website.
So this will be the final home of Kraxn.io – here are the complete posts from my blog from 20 August 2018 – 03 April, 2020:
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Trumpet (5/11/2019) - Apologies to Terry Gilliam
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Spy (5/10/2019) - I spy through the blinds…
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Queen (5/9/2019) - A naked molerat queen, a vertebrate species that has the same social structure as bees, ants, and termites
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Violin (5/8/2019) - charcoal sketch of a violin. The air holes are a misplaced pun for sex and ‘violins’.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Note (5/7/2019) - Note from Trin to Neo.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Lemon (5/6/2019) - Lemon Yellow Sun.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Marble (5/5/2019) - Although sued to oblivion, Montreal based Marvel clone ‘Marbel’ had fleeting success. It produced offshoots of Capitaine Canada – a crime fighting, toque wearing nudist; Copperman a more malleable version of Ironman, and Slackwidow, a freeloading spy from Belarus.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Sneakers (5/4/2019) - D’shire Sneakers – Hobbit Footware. If a journey of a thousand miles starts with a step, why not take a leap. Frodo Baggins: Adventurer, Hobbit, wearer of D’shires.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Astronaut (5/3/2019) - Meh sketch of an astronaut.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Chips (5/2/2019) - “Jeenyusses Love Chups” – Alvun Eyensteen. Eet like a Jeenyus. Eet Chups. 1986 Nu Zulland Bored of Education.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Piano (5/1/2019) - I started the piano and when halfway done, I noticed the perspective was off. I didn’t want to start over so I got physical with it.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Cowboy (4/30/2019) - True Cowboy Facts – Both the world’s tallest and loudest cowboy, Jimmy Barnes is an imposing cowpoke. Standing at 2.57 metres (8’5”), his figure looms over his native home in Wonglepong. Jimmy’s thunderous voice is used to herd kangaroos and scare off nosey tourists. yes.. couldn’t help but think of this meme:
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Baseball (4/29/2019) - I cheated a bit here, this was the sketch I did for our Outlier Cartel beer Suragga!
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Barbeque (4/28/2019) - Deer roasting marshmallows on its antlers
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Beard (4/27/2019) - Octopus beard / Octobeard?
- Sketch of the Day Theme: da vinci (4/26/2019) - True Artist Faces #429: It was recently discovered that da Vinci’s Vetruvian was inspired by a night of binge drinking: On Leonardos dare, hi friend Diego leaped naked in the snow and started to creat snow angels.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Mexico (4/25/2019) - True Mexico Facts: #8 On the 25th of April 2016, the chef of a small vegan burrito stand in Mexico city mistook psilocybin mushrooms for regular field mushrooms. Upon sampling the burritos, customers began to see tiny wrestlers perform astounding acrobatic feats on their food. Other side effects included the hugging of strangers and of […]
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Nose (4/24/2019) - The original DoggyRumpCam – get familiar with Canis familiaris! Only 19.99! Now with 16x Zoom! Know who’s been sniffing your dog’s bum! Find out where your dog has been pooping!
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Shell (4/23/2019) - hermit crab shell on stairs.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Sunglasses (4/22/2019) - a meh picture of a woman with sunglasses
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Easter (4/21/2019) - A weird bunny looking a Easter crosses
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Peace (4/20/2019) - Used from yesterday’s sketch, patron saint of Gardening: Saint Fiacre
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Plant (4/19/2019) - daisy in train tracks sketch, pencil.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Farm (4/18/2019) - A cloud farm.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Compass (4/17/2019) - A good luck cat with a compass.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Poison (4/16/2019) - There once was a man named Pierre Whose outhouse was in disrepair Through the grubby old shack Poison ivy grew through the cracks Where one would place their derriere
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Wax (4/15/2019) - Pinocchio with a candle wax nose
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Orchestra (4/14/2019) - Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten
- Sketch of the Day Theme: India (4/13/2019) - True India Facts # 1010: Goa, 13 April 1976: Dikshit Daav tries his monther-in-laws vindaloo for the first time. He later becomes the founder of the modern face yoga movement.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: win (4/12/2019) - Most dinners do not have chicken winners.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: beach (4/11/2019) - From a photo I took in Port Waikato: https://vonnagy.com/2009/04/12/sinking-feeling/
- Sketch of the Day Theme: Lily (4/10/2019) - Dog chewing on lillies
- Sketch of the Day Theme: television (4/9/2019) - television outdoor chandeliers. I had a neighbour who repurposed old televisions as outdoor lighting.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: telescope (4/8/2019) - 8th April 1999: Charlie Knott’s internship came to an abrupt end when he looped a gif of the ‘Deep Impact’ asteroid at NASA’s Near Earth Object telescope facilities.
- Sketch of the Day Theme: China (4/7/2019) - True Chinese Fact # 269: Every month the Zhang family restaurant collects stray dogs throughout the city of Yulin. Though outsiders assume they will be on the menu, the fact is that the Zhang family finds loving homes for the misfit pooches.