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A blog about everything, by Jack Baty

Director of Unspecified Services.
Amateur photographer, blogger, and curious nerd.
Black and white film photo of toddler

Thursday, August 07, 2025

I continue to overthink everything related to my blog(s). I want specific things for specific posts, depending on my mood that day. It’s exhausting. The dream of course is to have One Blog. I have 4 active sites right now. That’s more than one, for those who are counting. The new baty.photo blog that I’ve set up just for posts about photography feels like the right move. That one stays. I like using Ghost for that. ...

Cloudy 69.1 | Low 65.7, High 90.5

Wednesday, August 06, 2025

I’m not even supposed to be here today.

Partly Cloudy 81.0 | Low 59.2, High 84.4

How much more is there to say?

I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I’m just not feelling it lately, ya know?

August 6, 2025
Old photo of barber shop interior

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

I’m a little tired of all of this. Blogging, I mean. I’ve been writing about the same things on repeat for 25 years. Aren’t we all sick of hearing about blogging tools and software and tech and bla bla bla? I am. Maybe I’ll open a barber shop, like my great grandfather did.

Mist 64.9 | Low 60.3, High 87.6
Black and white film self-portrait in mirror

Sunday, August 03, 2025

I don’t feel much like writing full-on blog posts, so I keep spouting off little bits and bobs over on Mastodon instead. It’s not ideal. I mean, I just added the /notes feature here, so why not use that? I honestly don’t know. There’s something about it I don’t like. I made the font here a bit smaller and a bit less black. It looked chunky and amateurish to me, somehow. Anyway, it’s different now, which might be all I wanted. ...

Fog 59.4 | Low 60.4, High 86.4
Screenshot of baty.photo home page

Baty.photo

I’ve rejiggered the Ghost blog I was using for this site into a dedicated photography blog. There’s a lot of cruft scattered about, and I’m using the default theme for now, but it’s a start. The idea is that it will help me focus on photography, which is something I want to do, but haven’t been doing. Sometimes I need a nudge, so baty.photo is a nudge. See Why do I need a separate site for photography? for a bit more detail. ...

July 28, 2025
Notebook with fountain pen

Pen and Notebook frustrations

Ongoing issues with choosing to journal using fountain pens.

July 27, 2025
Photo of people standing under a flag and speaker (1950s)

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Why bother blogging when even I don’t feel like reading my posts? I guess I don’t understand why blurring my “content” behind semi-transparent UI controls is any better than hiding it behind easily-distinguished UI controls. The content itself is unusable either way, so why not make the controls easier to see/use? What do we think about about the whole /notes implementation here? I don’t think I like it. I don’t feel like creating a whole thing every time I want to share whatever useless thought pops into my head. OTOH, I don’t much like putting everything into these daily posts, either. Not on this blog, in this format, anyway. On the other hand, why not just do it here? Problem is already solved, right? ...

Mist 73.0 | Low 70.3, High 92.7
Black and white film self-portrait with Leica MP in mirror

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Can you imagine much easier things would be if I… Used (only one) digital camera Put my photos in one big Lightroom Classic catalog Or maybe just used my iPhone with Apple Photos I saw a post where someone complained that the timeline for some community was “…a sanitized version of reality.” My question is, must every “community” always, no matter what, include content from every possible awful corner of the universe? If I wanted “reality”, I’d go read about it, or visit just about every other timeline on the internet. I know shit is terrible, that’s why I’m hanging out in this nice space for a spell…as a respite. Is it not OK to want to be mildly entertained and amused for a little while? I mean, we don’t bitch about, say, The Disney Channel existing, do we? I don’t believe people have the right to demand that every space conform to every situation. ...

Partly cloudy 71.1 | Low 72.1, High 84.0
Black and white film photo of slim tower and sky

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Too hot for chores, today, so I’m in my air-conditioned office, futzing with AI tools, server options, and my Emacs capture templates. For some reason, I can’t get a markdown-mode-hook to fire and call olivetti-mode when I open a Markdown file in an Emacs buffer. I’m using the exact method that works with org-mode files. It’s a small annoyance, but this is why I sometimes want to quit.

Partly cloudy 90.0 | Low 74.7, High 94.6
Black and white film photo of boy and dog watching out screen door

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Posted: Roll 037 Ozzy died today. For a long time, I expected this to happen any minute. He didn’t exactly live a healthy lifestyle. After a certain point, though, it seemed like he might live forever. His “Blizzard of Ozz” tour in 1981 was one of the of the first concerts I saw. I remember leaning my head into a speaker cone, because LOUDER!

Partly cloudy 81.0 | Low 55.2, High 85.3

Searching my Obsidian vault in Emacs using Xeft

The other day, I converted my entire TiddlyWiki into an Obsidian vault, just to see if I could. Since I still spend most of my time in Emacs, I thought it would be nice to search the vault from there. The post, From Obsidian to Emacs, by Mike Hostetler, mentioned using the Xeft package, so I thought I’d try it. Here’s my config: (use-package xeft :ensure t :defer t :config (setq xeft-recursive t) (setq xeft-database "~/.deft.db") (setq xeft-directory "/Users/jbaty/Documents/Notes/Vault/") (setq xeft-ignore-extension '("png" "jpg" "jpeg")) (setq xeft-extensions '("md")) (setq xeft-title-function #'file-name-nondirectory)) Xeft relies on Xapian for searches, so a module needs to be downloaded or built locally. I didn’t have any luck with the downloaded version, so I deleted the package, started over, and had it compile locally. The trick there was entering the prefix “/opt/homebrew” during installation, since I’d already installed Xapian using Homebrew. ...

July 22, 2025
Odd picture frames on wall

Sunday, July 20, 2025

With any luck, I’ll spend time today far away from the computer and very close to the lake.

Overcast 69.1 | Low 65.8, High 83.1

Creating Hugo posts using hpost (from Mike Hall)

Creating a new blog post for Hugo couldn’t be simpler. One simply creates a new Markdown file in the correct folder, making sure it contains the proper YAML front matter, and…OK, it’s not that simple. Normally I use a small lisp function in Emacs for creating posts, but that doesn’t help me on days that I don’t feel like using Emacs1. Another option would be to use the built-in hugo commands, but for some reason I never think of that. Probably because it requires that I cd to the right place and tell it what to name the file. ...

July 18, 2025
Light pole and sky with clouds

Friday, July 18, 2025

Don’t you wish I had only one blog? I do.

Clear 57.0 | Low 54.7, High 77.5

Tim Minchin - Confirmation Bias

If he’s a bit manic for you, here’s part of the transcript that I’ve reformatted a bit: ...if you're a progressive, don't do this. Don't go on to the internet and go, "Hey fellow progressives, like maybe we should consider having, you know, a little - just just chill out a bit and have a bit of humility and realise that not everyone's had the opportunity to read the books we've read and not everyone's, you know, learned the lessons that you've learned. Maybe we should apply the Principle of Charity and not assume that anyone who disagrees with us has a nefarious intent and try and hear the best version of the argument, not the worst. And maybe we just need to-" They go, “Don’t you police my tone, you straight white male! Check your privilege!” ...

July 17, 2025

Org-mouse Emacs package

org-mouse is a built-in package for Org mode that lets one do some handy things using the mouse in Org files. Things like checking checkboxes and toggling subtrees. (use-package org-mouse :after org) Or just (require 'org-mouse) Clicking in [ ] Do this thing to complete it is easier than navigating to the line and hitting C-c C-c for each item. There’s no shame in using a mouse, even in Emacs. I sometimes prefer to sit back, grab the mouse, and click things. ...

July 17, 2025
People in chairs, eating, at a reception. 1960s.

Thursday, July 17, 2025

I’m editing this in (Neo)Vim because I feel like living in normal Vim bindings for a minute, without the grief I cause myself trying to use evil-mode in Emacs.

Overcast 64.0 | Low 62.6, High 73.4

Why do I keep trying Obsidian?

I know I won’t like Obsidian this time, either. Yet, I keep trying.

July 16, 2025

Glass.photo Series

What if I used Glass for my film roll posts, instead?

July 14, 2025
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