When hobbies come together, nice things happen. Back in the end of 2020 I decided to move this blog. At the time I thought the free Oracle cloud tier would be inadequate for any serious work. Oh boy was I wrong!!!
One of the things I was expecting when I moved this blog, was to observe and notice attack patterns. I have to say, 99% of the attacks were and still are, generic and not targetted. Yes, I'm not important enough to be targetted, but I did expect to stop seeing random attacks at some point. Nope; wordpress and e-commerce all the way.
Software and infrastructure
This blog is written in Perl utilizing the Mojolicious Framework. There are multiple excellent blog engines built with Mojolicious out there, but I wrote my own as a fun experiment. The site is super stable, and excluding some database connection drops, it runs without glitches for almost 4 years now. I started an improvements / partial rewrite project back in 2022 which I was (and still am) planning to use for my other pet-project, my home's website. Don't ask why a house needs a website; it doesn't need to make sense, it's just a hobby.
Argentine Tango Enthusiast
In March this year, I was at a wonderful Tango Marathon. I very much enjoy dancing Argentine Tango and I became a bit more active again starting end of last year, when I got a little bit more time in my hands. It used to be common in Tango marathons to get specific marathon ribbons, used mostly for screening of the participants, as well as a reminder. I used to collect some of them, but I misplaced them and I cannot locate them any more. And then I stumbled upon an article about a research from Liverpool University, suggesting that physical souvenirs can help us hold on to happy memories better than, for example, photographs. I found it fascinating, and one thing led to another, which resulted in the idea of Tango Events and Memories.
Putting things together
Some tango events offer ribbons, some are offering branded merchandise such as t-shirts, and others are offering non-permanent goods, such as the tasty tea I was given in the Tango Marathon in March. But these are difficult to collect and keep track of, and there is not a single place where I can put all these together and happily remember my experiences. So I started evolving this blogsite's engine to become more of a portal. It was super easy; I have to say I did an excellent job in designing the software behind it because the transformation from blog to portal took less than 5-6 hours; including all the database updates in a way that the same engine can still be used, without any modifications, to run sites like this.
Tango Events and Memories
So here we have Tango Events and Memories, already having its own Facebook Page and with its own members' area. I have manufactured mementos, with unique serial numbers, to be available to Tango events participants. That serves the 'physical' part of the memory. But it is, after all, 2024, and the digital world collides with the physical one in so many ways! And so does the service. Tango Events and Memories is not merely a tango events list and aggregator. Many of these exist, and I'm confident every one has their preferred one. But my idea is to build a community site. A site where members can:
- Bookmark events they want to attend, adding them to their bucket list
- Have a public (if they want) profile, showcasing the mementos they have collected in different events
- Rate events they have participated in
- Review events (anonymously and only visible to the organizers) they have participated in
- Flag their offer for services, such as Dj, Catering, Photography, Accomodation, etc to events local in their country or city
... and more to come.
And in the meantime, a continuous meddling with the software that makes me better, keeps me interested and challenged, and brings two of my hobbies together.
I am very excited about this project, and cannot wait to see it how it will develop.