A new Notes section

One of the reasons for my Ghost/ActivityPub experiment was to try to better integrate both short and long posts. Since that didn’t pan out, I started thinking about how I might manage it with Hugo. It turned out to be relatively easy. I added a /content/notes folder. Then I made a tweaked Hugo list template that doesn’t render a title and instead displays the entire post content rather than just a summary. And finally, I added a custom RSS feed just for notes. ...

May 29, 2025 Â· 142 words
Me, judging you for not using Flickr

Letting Flickr host my blog's images

Flickr is still the best place to host and share images, I don’t care what anyone else says. After migrating content from Hugo to Ghost (and back again) this past week, I’m reminded of the mess I’ve made over the years. I’m leaning toward letting Flickr host my blog’s images. You might be thinking, “But Jack, that’s a third-party dependency! What if Flickr goes away?” Fair question, and one that has prevented me from going with Flickr on my blogs. For more than 20 years. And you know what? If I’d have been using Flickr all this time, I’d have 20 years of working links instead of the broken mess I’ve made by changing platforms and hosts and whatnot all the time. ...

May 28, 2025 Â· 220 words

What happened to Ghost?

I don't know what the over/under was on my Fedivers-via-Ghost experiment, but yeah, it’s paused.

May 28, 2025 Â· 302 words
Older woman with toddler

Roll 217 (Leica MP)

It’s been great having the MP back from DAG. Sometimes I feel like it’s too much camera ($$$-wise), but then I use it and realize it’s the exactly right amount of camera. Papa showing Lincoln how it works Lincoln showing papa how it works

May 28, 2025 Â· 44 words

I need the internet out of my head

I’ve stopped being able to think for myself. I need you all to get out of my head for a minute.

May 26, 2025 Â· 259 words
My garage workbench

Roll 216 (Rolleiflex 2.8D)

May 25, 2025 Â· 0 words

Too much rope

I had a couple of drinks last night and opened my laptop and accidentally launched Obsidian and thought, “Oh, I remember. This is pretty cool! I should use this for everything.” so this morning I’m staring at Obsidian wondering what now? But why not just bail on the Obsidian app and drop back into my beloved Emacs? I’ve been asking myself that question all morning. Ostensibly, I simply felt like a change of venue this morning, and Obsidian seemed as good as any. But there’s something larger lurking under the surface. ...

May 24, 2025 Â· 247 words

Living in Ghost, day 2

So, how’s it going now that you’ve committed, Jack?

May 24, 2025 Â· 574 words
Self-portrait

Self-portraits with the Rolleiflex

Putting the new Rolleiflex through its paces by subjecting it to some self-portraits of me

May 23, 2025 Â· 85 words

Roll 214 (Rolleiflex 2.8D)

Took a walk with the new Rolleiflex this afternoon

May 22, 2025 Â· 104 words

What if I didn't change anything

This week has been a whirlwind of blogging changes. Or, more accurately, a whirlwind of me thinking about blogging changes. I’m fascinated by the new ActivityPub features being built into Ghost. This would let me be part of the “Fediverse” without needing to belong to any specific instance of anything. I could blog and post to social media from the same place. People could follow me there, and I could follow them. ...

May 22, 2025 Â· 249 words

Domains, Identity, and Inertia

You may have noticed that I’ve been toying with the idea of moving my main blog to Ghost at https://copingmechanism.com. This all started because the folks developing Ghost have been working on implementing ActivityPub features directly into Ghost, and I like the idea of blogging and reading/posting to social media in one place. Mastodon is cool, but “belonging” to an instance can carry more meaning than I care for. I’m not interested in self-hosting Mastodon or GoToSocial or anything like that, so having it come along for “free” with Ghost makes it a tempting option. ...

May 20, 2025 Â· 351 words

Jim Nielsen on working with multiple computers

I’m not the only one who thinks it’s too much work.

May 19, 2025 Â· 44 words

I've made things too complicated again

Remember my “Reduce and Simplify” goal for 2024? That was a good idea, eh?

May 7, 2025 Â· 488 words

Folder Preview

Folder Preview is a quick look extension for previewing the contents of folders on macOS. It’s $1.99 and worth every penny. (via Andrew Canion)

May 7, 2025 Â· 24 words

Set point at first heading when opening Org mode file

I recently discovered Org mode’s speed keys option and it’s pretty great. One caveat with speed keys is that they only work if the point is at the very beginning of a heading. To help with this, I (with Claude’s help) created a small lisp function and hook to move the insertion point to the beginning of the first heading whenever I open an Org mode file. I’m recording it here in case it’s useful to anyone else. ...

May 7, 2025 Â· 160 words

Nick Cave on everyday beauty

The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. It tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful. Nick Cave, “Faith, Hope, and Carnage”

May 5, 2025 Â· 67 words

Some time over at Coping Mechanism

I’m still mad at Hugo, so I’m spending time in Opposite Land. Blogging with Ghost, that is. My old theme (Kyoto) was zipped up in an archive folder, so I dusted it off and will post over there until I’m bored with it: Coping Mechanism.

April 30, 2025 Â· 45 words

From BMW to Honda

I bought a new car today. Before we get to that, I’d like to tell you about my old car. Ever since I’ve been able to drive, I’ve been fascinated by BMWs. Reading Car and Driver magazine from cover to cover was a monthly routine. Car and Driver loved BMWs. BMW was marketed as “The Ultimate Driving Machine” and I believed it. In 2019 I was shopping for used car. I walked into the local CarMax intending to buy a Jeep Grand Cherokee. As we were walking around the lot, I spotted a black 5-series BMW and thought it would be fun to take a look. I asked how much they wanted for it, and it turns out that BMWs depreciate wildly in the first few years, because the price for the 2016 BMW was comparable to the Jeep I had my eye on. In other words, it was within my budget. ...

April 28, 2025 Â· 707 words

Consolidating my email handling in Emacs

If I were to only have one computer, I’d use notmuch for email in Emacs. I might also import non-email stuff as notmuch messages so I can search everything in one place. But, I now have 3 computers; 2 running macOS and one running (Fedora) Linux. Notmuch takes too much of my energy to keep synced between machines. So what about Mu4e? Mu4e is probably the “nicest” Emacs package for managing email, but it still requires a local synced copy of all my messages. This means configuring mbsync on all machines, etc. ...

April 23, 2025 Â· 211 words