As I mentioned a long time ago
I am using Pelican for publishing
my blog. I recently did an upgrade which broke the syntax highlighting, and
I thought I should take a short time to explain how to fix it because
I couldn't find a solution anywhere.
The problem: it used to be the case that you could write your code like this
and it would do what you'd expect:
```
:::python
print('Hello world')
```
But since some version this syntax is no longer valid, resulting in a plainly
visible syntax identifier and the wrong colors being used in the highlighting:
:::python
print('Hello world')
The solution is simple: change to the other style for writing code in Markdown,
like so (note the leading spaces):
:::python
print('Hello world')
And that solves the issue.
I shouldn't forget to mention that this change forced me to re-indent all of my
code samples: the reason I was using the triple backquotes format was because it
lets me indent at the 0-th column, while the new syntax forces me to indent
everything with four leading spaces. And you know what happens with Python
code when you accidentally miss four spaces, i.e., one indentation? It breaks
in marvelous and unexpected ways!
Ensuring that every single line of code was properly re-indented was not a
fun task, but a necessary one nonetheless.
Which brings me to my final point. I thought I was used to the whole
"indentation has meaning" thing, but I have to say: only after using Rust
at the end of last year
and going back to braces to delimit code blocks did I realize how much I've
missed them.
Remember this post where I complained
that the music industry won't take my money? Well, it's that time of year again.
As you may remember from following me on Mastodon,
I bought an Alexa, set it up in Spanish, and almost went insane
due to how bad it was. So I did what every normal person would do in this case
and I gifted to my mom.
This Alexa slept in an Argentinean drawer for a long time, until one day I
finally convinced my family to stop worrying about breaking it.
Today it works mostly as a voice-activated music player for my nieces.
We have established before that I am an idiot, and
because I'm an idiot I decided to set up Spotify (with a family plan) instead
of Apple Music. I already have a rocky situation with Spotify,
which is why I am not shocked at all to learn that, just like Amazon and Warner
before them, Spotify will not take my money:
- I cannot pay for my mom's plan because my card is German and the account is
not. And the device's IP is obviously in Argentina.
- I cannot use an Argentinean credit card, because I don't have one.
- I cannot use the other available methods because they require me to
physically go to a store in another continent.
- I cannot pay with a gift card - even suggesting this as a possible feature
will get your request closed without review.
- I can try to set the account to a German one, but as the tech support
representative would put it, "you can give it a try, however that is
something we are unable to guarantee that will work". Also, I fear this
may cause Alexa to start speaking in German, and my mom won't be amused by
that.
So once again I am trying to give a company money -- no, scratch that: I
am trying to give a company money THAT'S WORTH MORE THAN THE MONEY THEY WANT
(Argentinean pesos are not super hot right now), and yet they won't listen to
reason. The Spotify forums are full of threads
where the best answer you'll get is a "Community Legend" saying that
it sucks to be you.
The most likely end of this story is that I'll wire some money over
Western Union and one of my relatives will go to a store to pay the bill.
My time will be wasted, I'll lose some money in the exchange, my relative's
time will be also wasted, and Spotify will receive money in a currency that's
devaluating at a 10% monthly rate.
Great job, Spotify.
