baty.net
Good lord, just look at all the 3D-printed cameras! I had no idea.
(via 82MHz)
A blog about everything, by Jack Baty
Director of Unspecified Services.
Amateur photographer, blogger, and curious nerd.
Friday, April 3, 2026
Much of yesterday was swallowed by converting this blog from Hugo to Eleventy (Like Twitter, I'll probably never call it Build Awesome 🙄). I wondered if I'd wake up today feeling like I'd made a mistake. So far, I don't miss Hugo. It's only been a day, though. Whether I continue to like the design is another story. I meant for it to be basic and simple, then decided to put everything on the home page. I like the individual pages, but home is pretty messy. That's probably OK, since most people read this via RSS anyway.
Eleventy
It has been 0 days since I changed blogging platforms on baty.net.
That said, for $200 a month (or $20), you have a team of cybercriminals on tap that you can call at any time. You are now an absolute elite hacker, if you take time to learn some basics. Congratulations! Seeing state-level cyberweapons become a commodity is kind of a new thing, and I thought you should know about it.
It's a wild world out there. I'm a little nervous about it.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Today has been a whirlwind of indecision. It started with wanting to write a daily post (you're soaking in it), but I couldn't decide which blog to post it on. There are three good candidates. I'm choosing this one.
And then there's Emacs. I've spent a lot of time tidying up my config and it's still kind of a mess. It's starting to wear on me. Sometimes I want things to be clever and cool, but sometimes I just want it to be easier. I launched Obsidian yesterday, if that tells you how bad it is. Thankfully, I've come to my senses and I am typing this in Emacs. Phew!
I think it's time to stop worrying about where I put notes or in what format. I record my weight in daily Denote files. It's a simple line like "Weight: 208.2". I asked claude code to help me generate reports based on it, and in 10 minutes I had a fancy HTML page with dynamic charts and stats as well as the emacs lisp function to update it on demand. Kind of wild. Seems like these days I could parse just about anything and put it just about anywhere.
Spending time over at Coping Mechanism
Sometimes I like to use Ghost, okay?! Yes, I know, I know, but I've been doing it anyway.
See copingmechanism.com.
Sorry not sorry.
The return of my Everything RSS feed
After posting about having four blogs and a wiki, I felt guilty that things were scattered all over the place. There are a handful of people who actually want to follow all of my posts, and I've been making it difficult for them.
Four blogs and a wiki
Given my proclivity for tinkering with publishing tools, it should come as no surprise that I now have four active blogs and a wiki.
Leica Camera AG appoints new CEO to succeed Matthias Harsch - Macfilos
He highlights the priorities of his tenure as:
- Expansion of digital and connected imaging solutions
- Further development of the premium product portfolio
- Strengthening global sales and retail structures
- Intensifying partnerships in the fields of mobile imaging and optics
- Sustainable corporate governance and responsible manufacturing.
I don't know the guy, so he's probably great, but what do these even mean? Of course you want to sell more stuff, who doesn't? Anyway, I hope he does all of the above, I guess.
The Last Quiet Thing | Terry Godier:
What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn't a moral failure but the completely rational response to being made responsible for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking?
(via Gruber)
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Early AI photography tools like automatic masking and object removal were a miracle. Then came "Replace Sky" and it's been downhill ever since. The better generative AI gets and the easier it becomes to use, the more inclined I am to do the opposite and never touch the stuff.
What if I started posting from scratch at a completely different blog, but didn't tell anyone about it?
Who Will Remember Us When The Servers Go Dark?
...our tools observe us, creating forensic sensors recording behavioural anomalies without consent or awareness. They are a generative layer that projects state authority into everyday life. Every home becomes a node in a datafied evidentiary web, a site of ambient accountability. The technology of today shapes how the authority of tomorrow perceives and prosecutes you.
Cade Diehm
Friday, March 13, 2026
Whenever I test a new blogging tool or return to an old one, I'm reminded that there are things I need to relearn or rebuild. Everything has specific requirements. Doing this can be fun. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. Or, more precisely, it helps me pretend I'm accomplishing something. This Hugo blog has been feature-complete for a while. Creating and editing posts with Emacs is a no-brainer. I've got little functions and helpers and snippets for everything I need. So, while blogging using various platforms is fun and reduces boredom, it's anything but productive. I get tired of both Emacs and Hugo sometimes, but I'd love to stick with them and be done with it. If only, right?
...10 minutes later... https://baty.blog/im-so-moody-when-it-comes-to-blogging
The photo for this post was taken using a Leica M4. This one...
It had M3-style levers, a recent and expensive CLA by Sherry Krauter, custom framelines, and it worked perfectly. I sold it because I wanted the money for some stupid digital camera that I no longer have. This was a terrible mistake. Never sell a Leica unless you absolutely have to.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
It's a pain finding a photo for every daily journal post, but reviewing my catalog helps remind me that I enjoy photography and have made many photographs that are interesting to me. It acts as a tiny bit of inspiration each day. For today's photo, it's the guy in a suit talking on the phone while leaning against the wall. It was taken using my 1946 Leica IIIf, which is adorable.
Guess what. I thought about quitting Emacs again yesterday. Went so far as to re-install Obsidian. After a few hours of new-shiny-this-is-way-easier, I remembered I can't stand using Obsidian. I do this once every month or two and I never learn.
Speaking of being back. I'm doing a daily post here, today. I've been enjoying using Tinderbox to publish the daily blog again, but I'm so far into my Linux experiment that I get twitchy using software that limits me to using a Mac. At least when there are alternatives that I also enjoy using.
Why didn't I think of doing this with my HHKB? https://medium.com/lim-less-is-more/sonshi-style-a-style-of-putting-keyboard-on-laptop-67f0a825a53c
How crazy is this? WordPress running locally, in-browser.
Revamped the (Tinderbox) blog at daily.baty.net
I'm infatuated with the new version of my Tinderbox blog running daily.baty.net. I started over from scratch and it feels great not having to lug around a giant pile of legacy code and cruft and content. I'm writing this post in an Emacs buffer and I love doing it this way, but there's something to be said for the way Tinderbox lets me do it.
My first and last frames of Kodachrome
In 1982, after I got my first real film camera (a Canon AE-1 Program), I shot Kodachrome for a short time. Here's the first frame with the new camera. It's a flower in our back yard.
I hate this administration and everyone in it. That is all.
"We must not admire those who own great possessions, but those who have the strength to do without them. For it is not he who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor. The man who is not in need is not the one who has much, but the one who can go without much."
I sure wish I was that person.