Hi, I’m Jack š
Amateur photographer, blogger, and curious nerd.
Welcome to my blog about everything, since 2000.
Creating a new blog post for Hugo couldnāt be simpler. One simply creates a new Markdown file in the correct folder, making sure it contains the proper YAML front matter, andā¦OK, itās not that simple. Normally I use a small lisp function in Emacs for creating posts, but that doesnāt help me on days that I donāt 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. ...
Donāt you wish I had only one blog? I do.
If heās a bit manic for you, hereās part of the transcript that Iāve 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, āDonāt you police my tone, you straight white male! Check your privilege!ā ...
org-mouseĀ 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. Thereās no shame in using a mouse, even in Emacs. I sometimes prefer to sit back, grab the mouse, and click things. ...
Iām 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.
I know I wonāt like Obsidian this time, either. Yet, I keep trying.
What if I used Glass for my film roll posts, instead?
Firing up a new daily note every morning used to be a regular thing for me. Lately, it just gives me blank page anxiety. Itās possible that an āI donāt feel much like bloggingā phase is starting. I know this because I donāt feel much like blogging. I have a doctorās appointment today. Just a scheduled follow-up, but thereās a lot of pre-appointment guilt happening. My blood pressure is a little higher than weād like, so in our last meeting I suggested that instead of upping my meds, that I eat healthier and exercise more. Iāve done neither of those, so my BP will still be too high and heāll have to tsk-tsk me and prescribe something stronger. I hate having to take medications, but itās my own damn fault. ...
Reverting my blogging changes
I like to have Make and Model information available in film scans, and use exiftool for this. I have a lisp function in Emacs that does this, but sometimes Iād like to do it from a terminal instead. So I asked Claude for help. The result was camera-exif-tui. Itās a tiny Go app that launches a TUI that allows me to select a make/model and a folder full of image files. It calls exiftool and updates the images with the selected camera info. ...
Here are some (probably) unnecessary things Iāve been doing.
Just seeing if this thing still works.
The new M4 MacBook Air arrived, and it changed how I have things set up around here.
It seems Iāve finally actually āReduced & Simplifiedā something.
I wanted a different view into my org-journal history, so I imported it into Day One Plain text is great, but has limits. Iāve been journaling in plain text (.org) withĀ org-journalsince 2018. Itās just a bunch of .org files in a folder. Itās great, and, you know, future-proof. Before Org-Journal, I usedĀ Day OneĀ for journaling as far back as 2011. Day One is pretty, powerful, and available everywhere. There are āon this dayā and ātodayā features that I find useful. It integrates smoothly with the Photos app, and it stamps entries with the current location and weather conditions. Add fast sync on all devices with end-to-end encryption, and it makes for a darn nice journaling setup. ...
Baty.net is going to move back to Ghost, I think. Yāall will Iām sure get a chuckle out of it and Iām happy for you. :) Iāve noticed that when running both Ghost and Hugo blogs, when I want to post something, my default is to reach for Ghost. Itās just easier overall. Plus, I can have that sweet, sweet @jack@baty.net Fediverse handle that I loved but didnāt want tied to my blogging platform. ...
Joan Westenberg, in The Cult of Hard Mode: Why Simplicity Offends Tech Elites: ā¦hard mode is where status lives. This is exactly what Iāve been thinking about lately. It hurts to hear it out loud. Read the article, but here are a few quotes that reminded me how far down the complexity rabbit holes Iāve traveled. And under it all is the same impulse: make it harder than it needs to be, so I can feel smarter than I am. ...
Daily notes. What are they for? I guess itās like having a legal pad open on my desk, where I can write whatever Iām thinking about at any time. The problem for you, dear reader, is that youāre subjected to all of it. I feel a little guilty about that. Not guilty enough to stop doing it, of course. I am a different person every day. Too different.
If there are āNotesā listed under this post, it means the thing Iāve been working on here isā¦working, I guess. (Update, theyāre missing from the RSS feed. Iāll work on that later.) Trusting your own judgement on āAIā is a huge risk: Something seemingly working is not evidence of it working. (Long, but worth reading). I dunno, seems to me that if itās working, itās working, but I suppose thatās his point. One can argue that AI is bad for the environment, or bad for artists, or stealing, and youād have a point. But when you argue that āWell, it doesnāt actually work. It canāt think!ā then thatās where we part company. Even though I agree with a lot of the article, itās the kind of thing someone writes when they really really donāt wanāt something to be true. I swear Iām going to stop commenting on all this nonsense and go back to the super-cool homeopathic software I co-wrote (aka āvibe-codedā) today. You know, the one thatās working. I donāt need to prove anything to you. ...
When a simple app ācleanupā on my Mac Mini went way WAY too far.