Misc

Whenever I change blogging platforms or domain names or simply post to several places, I feel a twinge of guilt. How will my “audience” feel about the changes? Does it confuse things? I sometimes get comments like, “I have trouble finding things you’ve written because they’re all over the place.” I don’t get a lot of traffic, but it’s also not zero traffic, so I feel some responsibility. But why? I am not writing for money or influence or popularity. I write to better understand what I’m thinking about, and sometimes share the result. I write so that I have a record of those things. I write, almost entirely, for me. ...

The new Saxon album is really good.

⚠️ This blog is no longer running Kirby, but I left this here just in case. I’ve recently whittled my servers at DigitalOcean down to a single 2GB instance running Caddy. When I started playing with Kirby, I tried getting it running there, but had issues with php-fpm and Caddy not playing well together, so I spun up a hosted instance at (link: https://fortrabbit.com/ text: Fortrabbit). Running Kirby doesn’t require a database or anything fancy, just a web server and PHP, and it bugged me that I couldn’t get it working, so yesterday I tried again, and finally figured it out. I’m writing this down so that I don’t lose it. ...

As much as I love Tinderbox, I’m wondering if it will continue to make sense long-term as a blogging engine. I get along great with most of Tinderbox’s features, but export is one that has eluded me for going on 20 years. I can muddle my way through, but it’s always a challenge. This blog’s export templates have become complex enough that I don’t want to touch anything, for fear of breaking something. The HTML/CSS is aging and janky, but the thought of updating it is daunting. I mean, look at this thing… ...

I’ve settled on WordPress for this blog. (“settled” is a fluid word for me, but let’s assume I mean it for now). However, I prefer to do most of my writing in Emacs and Org mode. To help with this, I’ve configured org2blog and I’m writing this post with it. I’m using org2blog pretty much right out of the box. Just a single blog configuration with the following tweaks: ...

One valid criticism of using paper for notes is that searching through notebooks is rather difficult. With my poor handwriting, scanning for certain information in a wash of squiggly lines can be painfully slow. For a couple of months now I’ve been going back through my notes periodically and highlighting key words and phrases. I’ve found that if I emphasize the most relevant bit of each note, I can find most things fairly quickly. It also helps when simply perusing old notes. Usually, I want to skip anything “meta” like which pen I’m using or the regular “Why am I still using paper?” fluff. Zipping over the highlighted phrases makes quick work of it. ...

I keep this blog around so that I have somewhere to post images and maybe a little background as well as the ever-popular gearhead nonsense. So why do I so rarely post anything? I don’t post often because a blog dedicated to photography makes me feel that each post needs gravitas. Each post needs to be worth something. Relevance. Well that’s obviously not working, so I’d like to behave a bit more frivolous about things around here. Maybe I’ll post single images with a caption and that’s it. Maybe I’ll let you know what I’m thinking about cameras in general, or a specific camera I’ve been using or wanting to use. ...

My dad (right) stands in front of bar while in the Navy. (France 1963)

As an antidote for my usual spiral of sitting at a giant screen full of a dozen windows, staring, clicking, staring, clicking, etc. I thought I’d try living on my iPad for a while. I’m not an iPad person, even though I’ve used one since the day they were released. I just don’t understand how anyone thinks they can be anywhere near as productive on an iPad as on a “real” computer. Stockholm Syndrome or something, I always figured, but smarter people than I are doing it, so who’m I to judge? ...

Riccardo Mori has a few comments on the beta of Safari 15 showed up. Here’s one: In other words, what a browser needs is horizontal breathing room, instead we have Apple doing things backwards, sacrificing horizontal space to give us what, 28 more vertical pixels? ...

Yesterday I was asked something about a project I’d worked on two years ago. At that time I’d used Curio to help manage the project. I opened the Curio project and within thirty seconds of just looking at the workspace I had a handle on the project and easily found an answer to the questions I’d been asked. Whenever I revisit something that I’d created in TheBrain or a mind map or Curio or Tinderbox, I find the spatial layout of the information to be instantly useful. ...

Unless I’m doing some crazy non-standard layout, I’m not a fan of using WordPress’ Gutenberg editor. Mostly I just want to type some simple text and add a link or two. Last year I bought a license for Iceberg which is a lightweight Gutenberg replacement that feels more “normal”. I stopped using it because there was a kind of uncanny valley effect, but after several frustrating days wrestling Gutenberg, I’m trying Iceberg again. Here’s what this post looks like in Iceberg ...

I’m almost certainly using Zotero wrong. Instead of for citations and research, I’m using Zotero as a bookmarking tool and read-later service, and it’s working really well. Is no one else doing this? I’ve used many tools meant for saving links for later, from del.icio.us to Pinboard to Instapaper to Pocket to Raindrop. All of them are fine. Some focus on social bookmarking, some on archiving, some are meant as “read later” services. And all of them are prettier than Zotero. And yet… ...

It’s been a while since I bought a new fountain pen. This is about the Pilot Custom 823. Literally every review I’ve read says the same things: “It’s not a looker, but what a great writer!” I can only resist that kind of consensus for so long, so I bought one. I have the “smoke” color with a fine nib. I ordered it from JetPens for $270. I’d say this puts it well into significant purchase territory, so I was very excited when it arrived. I’ve been journaling quite a lot recently and was looking forward to spending time with what reviewers call one of the best every day writers. ...

The more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered Thomas Paine I would be wise to keep this in mind.

It’s good being able to celebrate again. I brought the Q2 Monochrom with me to the party. Shot about 20 images. This is the only one I kept. ...

I see office vs remote is very much on the menu (thanks media for using your platform to ruin our day ????) <p> The key should be *choice* </p> <p> Some people prefer to work at home<br />Some people prefer to work at an office </p> <p> It's up to managers to put on their adult pants and facilitate both. </p> <p> &mdash; Andy Bell (@piccalilli_) <a href="https://twitter.com/piccalilli_/status/1402971819431370753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a> </p> ...

Riccardo Mori: But this review was underwhelming and, as I commented on Twitter, with unusual fanboyish tones I’ve never really detected in his past product reviews. I notice that when someone agrees with a review, it’s “thoughtful and detailed.” When one disagrees, however, it’s “a brief from Apple’s marketing department”.

Keith James, Macfilos: Perhaps because life in the third decade of the twenty-first century, for those of us in technologically developed countries, seems to involve almost total submersion in an ocean of digital devices, I suspect I am not the only one who enjoys occasionally being cast away on an island of mechanical wonder, where devices involve moving parts more than moving electrons. ...

I spent the weekend helping a friend assemble and place a lift for his speedboat. It was a job for four people, but we only had two. This meant some extra planning and heavy lifting. Eventually, we succeeded. It was a fun challenge.