
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Good morning. What shall we wring our hands about, today?
Good morning. What shall we wring our hands about, today?
I am off social media for a bit. Whenever I feel myself doing nothing but scrolling or looking for likes or thinking of something ālike-ableā to say, I know itās time for a break. Iām not cross-posting to Mastodon at all anymore, either. So now, whenever thereās a lull in the action of my life, I feel lost. Thatās the feeling I want to get rid of. I spent time this morning working (with Claude Code) on displaying full content on the current daily post, but it ended up fighting what the theme wants, so I decided it wasnāt worth it. Just for grins, Iām now theme shopping. ...
Iām realizing that my enthusiasm for Hugo reflects my current mood about Emacs. When Iām all-in with Emacs, Hugo is my favorite way to manage a blog. When Iām āoffā Emacs, I find other ways to blog because my whole Hugo workflow is built using Emacs. The problem right now is that Iām oscillating rapidly between Emacs and not-Emacs, so I post in multiple places. Itās fun having options, but I dislike making decisions. šµāš« ...
I continue to overthink everything related to my blog(s). I want specific things for specific posts, depending on my mood that day. Itās exhausting. The dream of course is to have One Blog. I have 4 active sites right now. Thatās more than one, for those who are counting. The new baty.photo blog that Iāve set up just for posts about photography feels like the right move. That one stays. I like using Ghost for that. ...
Iām not even supposed to be here today.
Iām a little tired of all of this. Blogging, I mean. Iāve been writing about the same things on repeat for 25 years. Arenāt we all sick of hearing about blogging tools and software and tech and bla bla bla? I am. Maybe Iāll open a barber shop, like my great grandfather did.
I donāt feel much like writing full-on blog posts, so I keep spouting off little bits and bobs over on Mastodon instead. Itās not ideal. I mean, I just added the /notes feature here, so why not use that? I honestly donāt know. Thereās something about it I donāt like. I made the font here a bit smaller and a bit less black. It looked chunky and amateurish to me, somehow. Anyway, itās different now, which might be all I wanted.
Why bother blogging when even I donāt feel like reading my posts? I guess I donāt understand why blurring my ācontentā behind semi-transparent UI controls is any better than hiding it behind easily-distinguished UI controls. The content itself is unusable either way, so why not make the controls easier to see/use? What do we think about about the whole /notes implementation here? I donāt think I like it. I donāt feel like creating a whole thing every time I want to share whatever useless thought pops into my head. OTOH, I donāt much like putting everything into these daily posts, either. Not on this blog, in this format, anyway. On the other hand, why not just do it here? Problem is already solved, right? ...
Can you imagine much easier things would be if I⦠Used (only one) digital camera Put my photos in one big Lightroom Classic catalog Or maybe just used my iPhone with Apple Photos I saw a post where someone complained that the timeline for some community was āā¦a sanitized version of reality.ā My question is, must every ācommunityā always, no matter what, include content from every possible awful corner of the universe? If I wanted ārealityā, Iād go read about it, or visit just about every other timeline on the internet. I know shit is terrible, thatās why Iām hanging out in this nice space for a spellā¦as a respite. Is it not OK to want to be mildly entertained and amused for a little while? I mean, we donāt bitch about, say, The Disney Channel existing, do we? I donāt believe people have the right to demand that every space conform to every situation. ...
Too hot for chores, today, so Iām in my air-conditioned office, futzing with AI tools, server options, and my Emacs capture templates. For some reason, I canāt get a markdown-mode-hook to fire and call olivetti-mode when I open a Markdown file in an Emacs buffer. Iām using the exact method that works with org-mode files. Itās a small annoyance, but this is why I sometimes want to quit.
Posted: Roll 037 Ozzy died today. For a long time, I expected this to happen any minute. He didnāt exactly live a healthy lifestyle. After a certain point, though, it seemed like he might live forever. His āBlizzard of Ozzā tour in 1981 was one of the of the first concerts I saw. I remember leaning my head into a speaker cone, because LOUDER!
With any luck, Iāll spend time today far away from the computer and very close to the lake.
Donāt you wish I had only one blog? I do.
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.
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
Just seeing if this thing still works.
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. ...
Maybe Iād blog better if I was a more gooder writer.