Dusted off the Jack Tries Linux blog

Remember that time I was trying Linux “for real” and even created a blog to write about it? It was more an excuse to play with the clever BSSG blogging engine, but still. Well, I’m doing it again. This time with Omarchy, so I dusted off the BSSG blog and pushed a quick update. But, but, Omarchy! | Jack Tries Linux. Don’t expect much. This usually lasts about 3 days before fizzling out, but it’s always a fun-but-frustrating 3 days. ...

September 11, 2025
SANSUI AU-6900

Sansui AU-6900 Integrated Amplifier

New old stereo gear is wonderful

September 5, 2025
Film cameras on my desk

It's just that I prefer film

Sometimes I think I should quit shooting film. But I never do.

August 30, 2025

The Mylio conundrum

I’ve tried to make Mylio work a few times. Maybe this time it will.

August 28, 2025

Where have I been this week?

In case you’re wondering, I’ve been posting over on the wiki and daily.baty.net this week. I was in the mood for a change of venue. Also, I kind of got spooked by a small surge in traffic here. For someone who posts in public every day, I still don’t like being watched. So, I write in places that fewer people know or care about. It’s weird, I know.

August 27, 2025

The Grindification of Hobbies (Alistair on YouTube)

YouTube video about how hobbies aren’t fun anymore

August 22, 2025

I think I need a workflow intervention (aka Stop Leaving Emacs)

Rambling about a little loop I find myself going through with Emacs vs Not Emacs

August 21, 2025
Curio screenshot

Curio 32

Every year I renew my subscription to Curio, even though I haven’t used it much recently. I renew mostly to support development of one of the nicest, most thoughtful apps on macOS, but another reason is that George continues to add truly useful and interesting features year after year. I don’t know how he does it. Check out the Curio 32 Release Notes for details. Standouts for me are multiple project windows and improvements to Journal sections. I don’t need another journaling tool, of course, but I often consider it. ...

August 20, 2025
Black and white self portrait

Roll 046 (2025) / Ricoh GR1

The Ricoh GR1 looked sad in the “broken camera” drawer, so I loaded it up with a roll of HP5 and gave it a shot. It worked just fine. This time. Sometimes the LCD stops working. Sometimes the viewfinder gets blocked by something loose inside the camera. Usually it’s both those things, but this time I got through the roll without issue. It’s a great camera when it works. ...

August 20, 2025
Black and white film self portrait

Roll 045 (2025) / Rolleiflex 2.8D

I enjoy using the Rolleiflex so much that I am able to ignore how difficult it can be to focus and how sometimes it flares badly.

August 19, 2025
Black and white film photo of woman in dress in pier

Roll 044 (2025) / Olympus Stylus Epic

The Stylus Epic, HP5, and light leaks at the beach

August 16, 2025

Rewriting my emacs new-post function as a shell script

I wanted a more generic version of my emacs lisp function for creating new posts. Claude helped me write it.

August 16, 2025
Black and white photo of me at computer from 2000

25 years of blogging

My blog turns 25 years old today

August 10, 2025

New mouse and (boring) keyboard

Switching between the MacBook Air keyboard and the HHKB keyboard can be off-putting. I have loved using the HHKB for years, but I’ve lost patience for the function layer and missing arrow keys. My pinky hurts too often. I’ve been using an Apple Magic Keyboard and Logitech MX Master 3, and, while I love the mouse, the keyboard was boring, but fine, except the spacebar would intermittently fail to register. That’s annoying. ...

August 8, 2025

Claude summarizes my last 30 days of blog posts

I asked Claude to summarize my recent blog posts. Claude knows me.

August 8, 2025

Save screenshots as JPG on macOS

I take a lot of screenshots using the built-in screen capture tool on macOS. By default, these are saved as PNG files, which are unnecessarily ginormous for my purposes, so I always convert them to .jpg files. Today I learned that the default format can be changed: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg killall SystemUIServer Better.

August 8, 2025

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

Your host, in action

Captured in the act

July 29, 2025
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