# contra dance (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover contra dance. Page: Feed: --- ## [Xavier Leahy coming to Canaan](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/xavier-leahy-coming-to-canaan) _2026-08-26 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Jam session tonight ## [Cornell Contra: venue change](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/cornell-contra-venue-change) _2026-08-21 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ String Theory is Tonight in Lansing ## [Session tonight, outdoor contra dance Sat](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/session-tonight-outdoor-contra-dance) _2026-08-19 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Some Finnish tunes on Sunday. Concert Sept 4th ## [Ode to the sunflower](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/ode-to-the-sunflower) _2026-08-16 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Canaan Concert Friday Sept 4th ## [Abundance of summer florals](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/abundance-of-summer-florals) _2026-08-14 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Music and dance events: O'Shanigans & Metku ## [Cécilia in Concert Sept 4th – High energy Celtic & Québecois](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/cecilia-in-concert-sept-4th-high) _2026-08-08 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Autumn Concert Lineup ## [Steamy summer hillsides](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/steamy-summer-hillsides) _2026-08-06 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ music and art events ## [Summer florals](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/summer-florals) _2026-07-29 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ a water scene and some human made text ## [Contra Dance in Binghamton Tonight](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/contra-dance-in-binghamton-tonight) _2026-07-24 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Calling by Hilton Baxter ## [Nordic Dancing in Dryden Saturday](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/nordic-dancing-in-dryden-saturday) _2026-07-15 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Family Friendly Scandinavian and Finnish Music & Dance Event ## [Trade Smarter With IBKR (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/2ekZ65dW7ZJq) _2026-07-15 · **Sponsored**_ Join Interactive Brokers through a referral and access low-cost global trading. ## [Weekly Jam Session](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/weekly-jam-session) _2026-07-07 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ Fiddle Tunes for Dancing every Wednesday ## [Paying for Software](https://chromamine.com/2026/07/paying-for-software/) _2026-07-07 · Harris Lapiroff_ It’s been said , “if you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.” This is overly simple ¹ but the core of truth is that if a company has a functional business model that’s not based on extracting and abusing user data, it’s less likely to do so. Incentives aren’t the only thing that matters, but they help! I wish this weren’t the world we lived in. I wish the excesses of… ## [Fireflies, lightning, & poppies](https://pelimanni.substack.com/p/fireflies-lightning-and-poppies) _2026-07-02 · Michael Ludgate · Michael Ludgate's News from The Canaan Institute_ 4th of July Celebrations ## [Dad](https://chromamine.com/2026/04/dad/) _2026-04-26 · Harris Lapiroff_ Jerry Lapiroff · February 11, 1947 – March 22, 2026 When I was an elementary schooler my father would read me such bedtime stories as Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” and Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” – stories well above my recommended reading level, in vocabulary and in their general vibes . He passed on to me an early love of literature and also a fascination… ## [Should you care about and use passkeys?](https://chromamine.com/2026/02/should-you-care-about-and-use-passkeys/) _2026-02-26 · Harris Lapiroff_ You’re relatively tech- and security-savvy. You might not always be at the cutting edge or use the most paranoid security measures, but you use a password manager, you know about two-factor authentication and use it on at least some of your accounts. You know not to reuse passwords. Lately, though, you’re seeing a lot of sites prompt you to create a “passkey” without a lot of explanation. Maybe… ## [Designing Christmas Ornaments for Vase Mode](https://chromamine.com/2025/12/3d-printable-vase-mode-christmas-ornaments/) _2025-12-20 · Harris Lapiroff_ Just want the files? Get them on Printables ↗ I designed a set of 10 Christmas ornaments that can be 3D printed in vase mode for Printables’ Winter Holidays Decorations contest . I knew when I started my design process that I wanted to design something that could be printed in vase mode. There were lots of ornaments posted to the contest already, but very few in vase mode. I’ve written about vase… ## [Chord charts in InDesign](https://chromamine.com/2025/10/chord-charts-in-indesign/) _2025-10-29 · Harris Lapiroff_ Earlier this year, while designing the songbook for Emma ’s Magnolia Sun album, I encountered the challenge of creating “ chord over lyrics ” style chord charts. Emma provided me with a document of monospace-formatted lyrics with chords above each line, aligned exactly as she wanted them. She also wanted to indicate beats without chord changes – in this case using / marks, which is slightly less… ## [Make ChatGPT Less Human](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/make-chatgpt-less-human/) _2025-07-23 · Harris Lapiroff_ As of June 23, 2026, I am now mostly using Claude and I have refined my global prompt to: Keep responses concise, informative, and impersonal. Avoid the use of “I” and “you” pronouns. Avoid flattery. Responses should be that of a digital tool or system, not a conscious assistant. I like information delivered in structured formats like lists and tables when appropriate. If delivering factual… ## [WebC Quirks](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/webc-quirks/) _2025-07-15 · Harris Lapiroff_ Earlier this week I posted about rough edges I encountered using WebC . I wanted to follow up with specific technical details from the ones I documented in the process of converting my website to it. Disappointingly, when I’ve raised these issues in the 11ty/web GitHub repo or in the Eleventy Discord, I haven’t been able to get any feedback to resolve them or even a suggested pathway for… ## [Switching to WebC](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/switching-to-webc/) _2025-07-13 · Harris Lapiroff_ I’ve rewritten this blog’s templates in WebC . As with many architectural refactors, the site will largely look the same – with the exception of a few minor design tweaks I made in the process – but under the hood it’s using an entirely new template engine. What is WebC? WebC is a template language created by Eleventy creator Zach Leatherman and maintained under the Eleventy project. It borrows… ## [Non-custodial Crypto Payments & Escrow (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/8dyGqDcIfmfR) _2025-07-12 · **Sponsored**_ Accept multi-chain crypto with trustless escrow, instant confirmations, and no KYC ## [Using European adapters for loose airplane outlets](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/using-european-adapters-for-loose-airplane-outlets/) _2025-07-11 · Harris Lapiroff_ One minor travel annoyance I’ve regularly encountered is that airplane outlets don’t hold U.S.-style power plugs ( types A/B ) snugly. My devices come unplugged frequently during a flight. This is especially frustrating to manage in the awkward under seat area. While taking a couple trips to Europe this past year, I noticed that airplane outlets are international and found that type C/E/F plugs… ## [Share Links Thoughtfully With an iOS Shortcut](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/share-links-thoughtfully-with-an-ios-shortcut/) _2025-07-09 · Harris Lapiroff_ Jump to shortcut ↓ The web is full of links designed to track and surveil the people who share and receive them. With these links, corporations gather data about your interests and associate it with information they already have. They use it to construct a social graph, internally drawing connections between people who share links and those who receive them. I’m focusing on two techniques… ## [Mixins in Vanilla CSS](https://chromamine.com/2025/07/mixins-with-vanilla-css/) _2025-07-03 · Harris Lapiroff_ I’m in the process of a major technical rearchitecture of this website ¹ and as part of that restructure I’m foregoing the use of CSS preprocessor SASS in favor of vanilla CSS. Vanilla web technologies have improved significantly in the past decade. Reducing dependencies like SASS makes my code more portable and future-proof. Lots of features I used SASS for, such as variables and nesting , are… ## [My New Contact Page](https://chromamine.com/2025/05/my-new-contact-page/) _2025-05-07 · Harris Lapiroff_ Recently, as some of my friends are leaving or thinking about leaving Facebook, I’ve had more of them share forms to collect contact information from friends they might otherwise lose touch with. I think this is a great idea – to make our connections robust against the whims of social media platforms – and to that end I will happily fill out as many contact forms as my friends want to send me. I… ## [Signal is not appropriate for military communication, whether you use it well or not](https://chromamine.com/2025/03/signal-is-not-appropriate-for-military-communication/) _2025-03-26 · Harris Lapiroff_ First off, here are two things that are true and not contradicted by my writing that follows: The Trump administration is full of people who are incompetent, malicious, and bad at their jobs, whose primary qualifications are sycophancy. Signal is an excellent secure messaging app for most people, who are not coordinating military operations. With that out of the way, I’ve seen a Facebook post… ## [Caller's Box Configurator](https://chromamine.com/2025/03/callers-box-configurator/) _2025-03-05 · Harris Lapiroff_ Many contra dance callers use The Caller’s Box , a phenomenal dance choreography database from Chris Page and Michael Dyck. For those of us who primarily call gender free dances, though, using it requires mental translation from gendered role terms to gender neutral ones. I’ve created a browser plugin, Caller’s Box Configurator , to fix this. Caller’s Box Configurator (Firefox) Caller’s Box… ## [Bluesky friends, consider bridging to the Fediverse!](https://chromamine.com/2025/02/bluesky-friends-consider-bridging-to-the-fediverse/) _2025-02-07 · Harris Lapiroff_ TL;DR: Bridging your Bluesky account will allow me and others who use the Fediverse (including Mastodon ) to interact with you on Bluesky. If you don’t need to read a whole thing to persuade you, you can bridge your account right now by following @ap.brid.gy on Bluesky. Otherwise, read on. As I and others have been exploring our social media horizons beyond the legacy options of Twitter/X,… ## [My New Newsletter](https://chromamine.com/2025/02/my-new-newsletter/) _2025-02-05 · Harris Lapiroff_ You can now sign up to get my blog posts in your email inbox by subscribing with this form. Email Address Subscribe And as an initial test, to ensure that this mic is on ( tap tap skreeeEEEEEEE ), later today, I’ll send out this blog post to all subscribers. This email has now been sent! What? The content of this newsletter will be my blog posts, more or less as they are here. It’s another option… ## [Converting an old iMac to a 5K display](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/converting-an-old-imac-to-a-5k-display/) _2025-01-30 · Harris Lapiroff_ Last year my 2015 (or possibly late 2014) iMac died after a decade of service. Around the same time I acquired a new Mac mini. Unlike the iMac, the Mac mini doesn’t have a built-in monitor. I needed to acquire a new one. Unfortunately even newer displays in my price range would be a quality-of-life step down from the iMac screen I was migrating away from. New 5K monitors are $800+ and better… ## [Against the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/against-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism/) _2025-01-29 · Harris Lapiroff_ In December 2023 the Massachusetts State Legislature considered adopting the flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism. I wrote to members of my state government to implore them not to do so. I was reminded of it again last week when I heard that Harvard University, down the road from me, had adopted the IHRA definition . I was reminded again today when I heard reporting that the Trump administration… ## [CLI-first decentralized GPU compute (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/wZuK4RC54o3L) _2025-01-28 · **Sponsored**_ Pay workers or run your GPU for FFmpeg transcode and AI inference. ## [If your bank calls you, don't give them anything](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/dont-give-information-to-your-bank-if-they-call-you/) _2025-01-14 · Harris Lapiroff_ I just got a fraudulent call from someone pretending to be my bank, so I thought I’d share this tidbit of security wisdom that I hope a lot of people already know, but just in case you don’t: Don’t share personal information with your bank if they called you first. If they ask you for any personal information, especially “to verify,” this is a very good sign that it is not actually your bank and… ## [My New Bed](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/my-new-bed/) _2025-01-10 · Harris Lapiroff_ Last year I decided it was time to replace my bed frame. My previous frame was some forgotten Ikea model that I’d inherited from a housemate nearly 10 years prior and it had been with me through two moves. It was all metal, very sturdy, and simple to assemble – four pieces that slotted into each other without screws, plus a mid-beam and wooden slats. But in recent years I’d become dissatisfied… ## [Changing the color of a character in Adobe Illustrator with scripting](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/changing-the-color-of-a-character-in-adobe-illustrator-with-scripting/) _2025-01-09 · Harris Lapiroff_ I’ve been working on a CD album insert for Emma as a design project. It has a lot of song lyrics and for compactness we’ve replaced line breaks in the lyrics with slashes: I thought it would be nice if the slashes played their role as more muted visual elements rather than looking like prime elements of the content, so I decided to color them all gray. This was a tedious thing to do manually… ## [Dance Calling By The Numbers, 2024](https://chromamine.com/2025/01/dance-calling-by-the-numbers-2024/) _2025-01-06 · Harris Lapiroff_ This post contains javascript content and must be viewed on site . ## [Bluesky's Enshittification Risk](https://chromamine.com/2024/12/blueskys-enshittification-risk/) _2024-12-05 · Harris Lapiroff_ September 15, 2025: As of recently the Blacksky project seems to have successfully launched independent implementations of the core parts of the ATProto stack (a personal data store, a relay, and an app) that allow someone to interact with Bluesky users while not using Bluesky. Another effort, Northsky , is underway as well. At the moment, Bluesky still controls the overwhelming majority of the… ## [Notes on Upgrading to Eleventy 3.0](https://chromamine.com/2024/11/notes-on-upgrading-to-eleventy-3.0/) _2024-11-21 · Harris Lapiroff_ My blog is now generated by Eleventy 3.0, which was released last month. The upgrade process took me a few hours split over two evenings and I took a few notes. This probably isn’t an interesting write up for hardly anyone – but if you have any of the same 11ty concerns I do, you may find a solution in here. I started out by following the instructions in the excellent Upgrade Helper docs . When I… ## [Set and Link Contras](https://chromamine.com/2024/11/set-and-link-contras/) _2024-11-16 · Harris Lapiroff_ It occurred to me recently that I don’t think there are any contra dances that feature a set and link figure. This is a figure from Scottish Country Dancing ¹ which follows this sequence (for the purpose of this description I assume dancers are in contra dance formation becket, on the side with their partner): Couples face the other couple across the set, taking convenient hands with their partner… ## [URLs are better than handles](https://chromamine.com/2024/11/urls-are-better-than-handles/) _2024-11-14 · Harris Lapiroff_ One micro-idea that occurs to me in our new era of fragmented social media is maybe we should bring back the primacy of URLs in place of social media handles. Instead of: Instagram: @harrislapiroff I’ll use instagram.com/harrislapiroff/ Bluesky: harris.social.coop.ap.brid.gy I’ll use bsky.app/profile/harris.social.coop.ap.brid.gy Mastodon: @harris@social.coop I’ll use social.coop/@harris The… ## [Try Mastodon](https://chromamine.com/2024/11/try-mastodon/) _2024-11-13 · Harris Lapiroff_ In the wake of the 2024 U.S. election, a bunch of my friends are abandoning other corporate social media options and flocking to Bluesky . I may as well put in a pitch for Mastodon as well. I won’t say it’s better than Bluesky. There’s things I really like about Bluesky’s approach. I find the AT Protocol intriguing. I genuinely hope it succeeds. I’ll only say that it is still a venture capital… ## [Get Notifications For All Card Transactions](https://chromamine.com/2024/10/get-notifications-for-all-card-transactions/) _2024-10-24 · Harris Lapiroff_ One thing I think is a best practice is receiving notifications on your phone for all credit and debit card transactions. Doing so allows you to see if someone billed you the wrong amount in-the-moment after a sale, and notice fraudulent transactions immediately . Noticing fraudulent transactions as soon as possible is of particular importance. Credit card fraud is common. Fraud liability… ## [Taking The Grand Taxi From Tangier To Chefchaouen](https://chromamine.com/2024/10/taking-the-grand-taxi-from-tangier-to-chefchaouen/) _2024-10-20 · Harris Lapiroff_ In my travels in Morocco for the past week, I’ve mostly stuck to destinations that I can reach by train and the occasional short petit taxi (more on this name later) trip to get to a Medina or Riad . I’m not a driver (yet) and even if I were, I think I’d be fairly uncomfortable driving in Morocco. From landing in Casablanca, I travelled to Rabat and Fès – all three cities available on Morocco’s… ## [You can use Web Components without the shadow DOM](https://chromamine.com/2024/10/you-can-use-web-components-without-the-shadow-dom/) _2024-10-05 · Harris Lapiroff_ I’ve been hearing a lot lately about Web Components , a set of fairly recent web technologies seemingly poised to replace some of the role frameworks like React have filled for much of the past decade. As far as I can tell React and Web Components have overlap on solving this problem: Create fragments of web UIs that can be reused across a project or multiple projects. React also covers a couple… ## [L'Shana Tova](https://chromamine.com/2024/10/lshana-tova/) _2024-10-02 · Harris Lapiroff_ I am trying, today, Rosh Hashanah, to think about the sweetness of the new year. All I can think of is the bombs being dropped far away, funded by my taxes, exploded in my name. It feels unfair that Israel should be able to take this from me. I don’t want my celebration of Jewish holidays to be predicated on what Israel is doing. I often say that my Judaism has nothing to do to Israel. My…