There have been a number of updates to Misintelligence recently, so here’s a quick recap, and some additional information.
Live Center
The Live Center was in the works for a long time, actually! The last push that made me finally implement it was the then-upcoming presidential election. I knew that there would be a lot to keep up with, and that my one loyal reader must have some way to keep up with the news as it comes in! So I got started, planning how on Earth I was going to implement this.
I tried to use a Telegram channel, but Telegram bots don’t have access to read the entire contents of channels, or at least the SDK I was using didn’t, but I don’t think the Telegram API supports it either. So I had to think of another option. Matrix was an obvious choice once I remembered it existed. It didn’t have websocket support, so I couldn’t forward the socket for live updates.
I’m using Vercel to host the API, and it’s open source! Enjoy!
Fun facts: I didn’t originally intend to add the graphic! I prepared ahead of time for pictures to be used, but I did have to deploy a hotfix because the images resized the Live column to take up most of the page!
Blogold Portal
This was actually the first time I’ve implemented a design (outside of logos and such)! Currently it only has four links, and only one of them works! The idea with this is it’s like the Google “apps” button that lets you go to Drive, Docs, etc., but it’s for my sites.
Election Styling & Button
The moving gradient that says “Election 2020” in the Misintelligence Explorer will be going away soon! Since everything is dying down now, I don’t need to hype it up anymore.
Satire Section
I’ve just added a textured purple banner that PLAINLY STATES that it is a satire/parody/joke on every article in this collection! There will be no mistaking the plainly labelled article as truth. You can read the entire article undisturbed, but if a reader somehow misses “This is a satire, parody, or joke article” AND the “/satire/” in the URL, that’s on them. You can find the first article of its kind in the Satires section here or behind the “Satire” button in the Explorer.
Telegram Comments
The original plan was to use Disqus for old posts and Telegram for anything newer than the Reflection on 9/11. However, Disqus, Ghost, and Jekyll threw a wrench in my plans. I had to figure out what all the old IDs were and set them on every page. That was a hassle I didn’t want to deal with when adding comments (which was about the same time I was implementing Live Center).
In the end, although the Disqus backend is still implemented, I chose to use Telegram for all posts.
The three comments I had on Disqus is not much of a loss, especially since I have them backed up.
Brand Refresh
The triangles I had needed tweaking, so I updated them a little bit. They’re rounder now. And in a different layout.