Sunday, May 12, 2024
Hi! I'm Jack đ
In which I mambo dogface to the banana patch
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I've decided to write it as "Howm" with an initial capital. Howm is an acronym, but I've never seen it capitalized as "HOWM". I don't like it all lowercase, since it feels like it should be treated as a proper noun, so I'm going with "Howm". ↩
QR codes and index cards?
When I write a quote or note on an index card, I try to record some version of a reference. Most often this is just a title, author, and date of the article or book. When I need to revisit the source, I then need to look it up based on what I'd written on the card. This is fine for physical books, but I had an idea today that could make it easier for digital sources.
What if I put a QR code pointing to the source right on the index card?1
I have a little Niimbot label printer that can print QR codes. I just paste the URL, and it generates the QR code automatically. What I don't love about it is that I have to get out my phone to make the labels and the app is pretty awful. And trying to run the iOS app on macOS is an exercise in frustration2.
Here's my first run at this:
The QR code could contain anything, really. Not only URLs. I could encode a link into an Obsidian vault, or the path to an Org-mode file, etc.
I'm not sure yet if this is a terrible idea or not, but I feel like it's worth a try.
Today's software installations
So far today, (as of 9:57 am) I have installed three apps that I had deliberately avoided installing on the new Mac Mini.
MailMate because I just quit Hey but still wanted something different to play with. I've used MailMate on and off since sometime in 2013 I think. It's a powerful, flexible, text/Markdown-first email app.
TheBrain because I'm still looking for the "Everything" app, and in my experience, TheBrain has been the best at that. If I'd never stopped using it, I'd be able to find every single thing and everything associated with that thing.
Bike Outliner because sometimes I just want a quick outline without all the fuss of Tinderbox or Org-mode. Bike is nice for that.
I've already stopped using Hey email
After a time away from Hey email, I impulse subscribed again. And once again, after a short time, I already don't want to use it. I have reasons.
When Hey (hey.com) email was first launched, I signed up immediately. It was a fresh take on email and it felt nice. Hey either resonates with you or it doesn't. With me, it did. I paid for a year or two, and used it (on and off) for a long time. I never fully adopted my jbaty@hey.com email address because, well, I know me. Also, I already have an email address.
I still think Hey is a good service. Its opinionated way of dealing with email is clever and useful. However, I can't get over the fact that it doesn't use normal IMAP. This means there's no way into my email other than using the Hey web interface or iOS app. It's fine, but makes me feel trapped. Email is one of the few remaining things we have that doesn't lock us in.
Linking to emails is something I do all the time. Links to Hey emails are easy to make, since they're just web URLs, but I don't trust using them in my notes because once again, I know me, and those links will be dead once I, inevitably, go back to using "normal" email.
There's something about the web UI of Hey that introduces more friction than I like. It's fast enough, but it just feels a teeny bit janky. I can't explain it, but it wears on me.
A smaller, but irritating aspect of using Hey is that one of the guys who runs the place can't seem to stop saying stupid shit in public. I try to allow people plenty of leeway when it comes to differing opinions, but his keeps getting worse and the smug, know-it-all-ness of it bugs me.
And honestly, I don't get that much email these days, so a fancy workflow for processing it is overkill.
So, I've stopped forwarding my email to Hey and am back in my usual Fastmail->Apple Mail combination. If I get bored, I can always install the wonderful Mailmate or something like it to play with.
Howm reminds me of TiddlyWiki
Something I've always liked about TiddlyWiki is that I'm never forced to decide where something goes or what it's named. I can simply click on the new tiddler button, type something, and hit save. Links, tags, or other organization can be applied later, but none are required.
The Howm Emacs package works similarly. By default, Howm1 notes are organized in YYYY/MM/ folders and file names are automatically created based on the current time, e.g. 2024-05-07-130712.txt. I don't have to think about them.
It's nice to just make a new note and not care where it goes. I sometimes get twitchy about not having useful file names. "What about accessing your notes outside Howm?" First, I never do that. Second, there's grep, Spotlight, or any other text editor that can search a folder full of plain text files. This is not something I need worry about. In fact, it's slightly better than with TiddlyWiki, since to find something in TiddlyWiki, I need a web browser to open the wiki and search. There's only one useful way in. Of course that's never a problem, but still.
This is fine:
I continue to be surprised by how quickly Howm has become an important part of my workflow. I should write about how the combination of Howm and Denote fit into my process.
A Nope page
In the spirit of /Now and /Uses and /Hello pages, I've created a /Nope page.
It's for keeping track of things I don't like or want to do. It's a work in progress, but it'll probably see more updates than my now page đ
But what if something something?!...
In a post from Andreas:
Well, of course itâs great, even fantastic - for Adobe. They can lure you in with low prices, then gradually make the subscription more expensive, and then move the features you use to the âpremiumâ tier where you have to pay even more. Not to mention that they can remove features on a whim if they feel like it, or charge you even more if you want to keep them. And if you want to keep access to your files, you have to be subscribed until the end of time - ânice pictures you have there! Itâd be a shame if you couldnât open them because you decided to opt out of our subscription model, wouldnât it?â
I dislike subscriptions. I rage-quit everything Adobe a few years ago in a huff about subscriptions and, well, I don't love Adobe. However, I'm once again paying a subscription to Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.
Why? First, because the product is, overall, more appropriate for me than the alternatives. And second, in seven years of subscribing to the Adobe "Photography" plan, none of the things Andreas mentioned have happened. The price is the same (I'd happily pay double). They've only ever added features (I don't remember a single feature being removed. Has there been any?) If I cancel my subscription, I still have 100% access to my files (I just can't make additional edits).
I'm not trying to single out Andreas. His post just reminded me that these "What if...?!" doomsday scenarios have guided way too many of my decisions. What if [SOME APP] stops being developed? What if Apple behaves even more badly? What if some "proprietary" (usually sqlite, so not really) database becomes corrupted? What if I can't read [FILETYPE] in 50 years?
Of course these things can happen, but how often do they? Basically never, has been my personal experience. And if they do happen, there's almost always a reasonable way out.
Why suffer using something we don't love, on a just-in-case, instead of something we do love and find immediately more useful, because "what if!?"
Re-calculation
I still keep an actual calculator on my desk, and use it regularly. I find it easier and more "stable" than using either a calculator app or even the built-in calculator in Raycast.
I bought the Casio shown above years ago because it had a large screen and doesn't use batteries. It's fine, but there are a couple of things about it that bother me.
First, there's no "On" button. Ok, there is, but it's buried under the AC button. Bugs me.
The On button issue is bad enough, but that's not why I hate the Casio. I hate the Casio because when I turn it off, the screen reads "CASIO" for a few seconds before actually turning off. It's like watching a little ad each time. I hate it, so I bought a new calculator.
This is the re-issued version of the iconic, Dieter Rams designed Braun ET66 (1987). I recently watched the Dieter Rams documentary, "Rams" (2018), which reminded me of the Braun, so I thought this model would be a fine choice.
I like it. It's simple, clear, does what I need, and looks good doing it. And it doesn't shout its own name every time I turn it off. Much better.
Adding when I should be removing
I love software. I love learning what software can do. I love setting up workflows using all the fun software I've learned about. The problem is that this leads to chaos and complexity. Every time.
You're probably wondering what made me think of this. Well, yesterday I was exhausted from fighting with Obsidian and Emacs, so I installed Bear. You see what I mean? I spent an hour this morning importing stuff from Obsidian and cleaning up tags, etc. Bear is so nice and simple and absolutely does not lend itself to tweaking.
Problem solved! Not really.
What about daily notes? What about templates? What about complex exports? Why is folding so cumbersome? Where are the backlinks displayed again?
Sigh. I really appreciate Bear, but can I live in it? Probably not. I love simplicity, but can't abide constraints. I'm screwed, I guess.
Using the Apple Extended Keyboard II
Look what I found in the garage:
It's my old Apple Extended Keyboard II from 1990 or 91. I last used this one in 2015.
The AEKII uses an ADB port, so I had to dig out my ADB->USB-A adapter (save everything!). I'm typing this post on the keyboard right now. The Alps switches are as great as I remember, and might be my all-time favorite switches.
Beyond the great switches and nostalgia, using the keyboard leaves a bit to be desired. First off, it's enormous. It takes nearly all of my felt deskpad and leaves barely enough room for a mouse. And speaking of the mouse, the size of the keyboard means that the mouse is over 12 inches away from my right hand. Reaching for it is a whole thing.
Another quirk is that the little home row nubbins are on the D and K keys. On newer Apple keyboards, they are on the F and J keys. I can't tell you how many times I've had to delete a bunch of gibberish and reorient my hands while typing this.
I could get used to the size, but the AEKII's Caps Lock key can't be mapped to Control because it physically locks down when pressed. It thinks it's a manual typewriter, I guess. This is a deal-breaker.
Even though it'll probably end up back in the box soon, it's fun using a 34-year-old keyboard that still works and is, in many ways, better than anything made today.
Kirby changes
A few months back I decided to use the Kirby CMS control panel right on the server. That way, I can edit a post, click Save, and it's out there. Also, managing the differences between local files and server files was getting confusing. For example, I had to be careful not to step on the redirect plugin's data, which meant adding exceptions to git and my Makefile. I became frustrated so gave up and went server-only.
I've changed my mind again.
I don't like having the canonical version of my site's files "out there" on the server. Kirby doesn't use a database, so backups are simple, but I still would rather have everything "here" and then push the finished product to the server for, well, serving.
So I made the decision to rebuild my local copy, install PHP and Herd on the new Mac Mini, and go back to simply rsync-ing stuff from here to there. In the process, I removed the redirect plugin and put the redirects in the Caddyfile instead. I don't get fancy 404 logs in the panel this way, but I do get them via GoAccess directly on the server, so I'm ok with that trade-off.
I'm writing this in a local instance of Kirby's panel, so if you're reading this, it worked.