photo of making a selfie from the self's perspective

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Good morning. What shall we wring our hands about, today?

August 12, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Lawn dart

Saturday, August 09, 2025

I am off social media for a bit. Whenever I feel myself doing nothing but scrolling or looking for likes or thinking of something ā€œlike-ableā€ to say, I know it’s time for a break. I’m not cross-posting to Mastodon at all anymore, either. So now, whenever there’s a lull in the action of my life, I feel lost. That’s 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 wasn’t worth it. Just for grins, I’m now theme shopping. ...

August 9, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Audio tape unwound on the floor

Friday, August 08, 2025

I’m realizing that my enthusiasm for Hugo reflects my current mood about Emacs. When I’m all-in with Emacs, Hugo is my favorite way to manage a blog. When I’m ā€œoffā€ Emacs, I find other ways to blog because my whole Hugo workflow is built using Emacs. The problem right now is that I’m oscillating rapidly between Emacs and not-Emacs, so I post in multiple places. It’s fun having options, but I dislike making decisions. šŸ˜µā€šŸ’« ...

August 8, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film photo of toddler

Thursday, August 07, 2025

I continue to overthink everything related to my blog(s). I want specific things for specific posts, depending on my mood that day. It’s exhausting. The dream of course is to have One Blog. I have 4 active sites right now. That’s more than one, for those who are counting. The new baty.photo blog that I’ve set up just for posts about photography feels like the right move. That one stays. I like using Ghost for that. ...

August 7, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty

Wednesday, August 06, 2025

I’m not even supposed to be here today.

August 6, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Old photo of barber shop interior

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

I’m a little tired of all of this. Blogging, I mean. I’ve been writing about the same things on repeat for 25 years. Aren’t we all sick of hearing about blogging tools and software and tech and bla bla bla? I am. Maybe I’ll open a barber shop, like my great grandfather did.

August 5, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film self-portrait in mirror

Sunday, August 03, 2025

I don’t feel much like writing full-on blog posts, so I keep spouting off little bits and bobs over on Mastodon instead. It’s not ideal. I mean, I just added the /notes feature here, so why not use that? I honestly don’t know. There’s something about it I don’t like. I made the font here a bit smaller and a bit less black. It looked chunky and amateurish to me, somehow. Anyway, it’s different now, which might be all I wanted.

August 3, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Photo of people standing under a flag and speaker (1950s)

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Why bother blogging when even I don’t feel like reading my posts? I guess I don’t understand why blurring my ā€œcontentā€ 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 don’t think I like it. I don’t feel like creating a whole thing every time I want to share whatever useless thought pops into my head. OTOH, I don’t 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? ...

July 27, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film self-portrait with Leica MP in mirror

Saturday, July 26, 2025

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 ā€œā€¦a sanitized version of reality.ā€ My question is, must every ā€œcommunityā€ always, no matter what, include content from every possible awful corner of the universe? If I wanted ā€œrealityā€, I’d go read about it, or visit just about every other timeline on the internet. I know shit is terrible, that’s why I’m hanging out in this nice space for a spell…as a respite. Is it not OK to want to be mildly entertained and amused for a little while? I mean, we don’t bitch about, say, The Disney Channel existing, do we? I don’t believe people have the right to demand that every space conform to every situation. ...

July 26, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film photo of slim tower and sky

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Too hot for chores, today, so I’m in my air-conditioned office, futzing with AI tools, server options, and my Emacs capture templates. For some reason, I can’t get a markdown-mode-hook to fire and call olivetti-mode when I open a Markdown file in an Emacs buffer. I’m using the exact method that works with org-mode files. It’s a small annoyance, but this is why I sometimes want to quit.

July 24, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film photo of boy and dog watching out screen door

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Posted: Roll 037 Ozzy died today. For a long time, I expected this to happen any minute. He didn’t exactly live a healthy lifestyle. After a certain point, though, it seemed like he might live forever. His ā€œBlizzard 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!

July 22, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Odd picture frames on wall

Sunday, July 20, 2025

With any luck, I’ll spend time today far away from the computer and very close to the lake.

July 20, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Light pole and sky with clouds

Friday, July 18, 2025

Don’t you wish I had only one blog? I do.

July 18, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
People in chairs, eating, at a reception. 1960s.

Thursday, July 17, 2025

I’m 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.

July 17, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Street sign reading Road Ends in front of trees

Monday, July 14, 2025

Firing up a new daily note every morning used to be a regular thing for me. Lately, it just gives me blank page anxiety. It’s possible that an ā€œI don’t feel much like bloggingā€ phase is starting. I know this because I don’t feel much like blogging. I have a doctor’s appointment today. Just a scheduled follow-up, but there’s a lot of pre-appointment guilt happening. My blood pressure is a little higher than we’d like, so in our last meeting I suggested that instead of upping my meds, that I eat healthier and exercise more. I’ve done neither of those, so my BP will still be too high and he’ll have to tsk-tsk me and prescribe something stronger. I hate having to take medications, but it’s my own damn fault. ...

July 14, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Children's blocks on carpet

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Reverting my blogging changes

July 12, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Just seeing if this thing still works.

June 29, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white photo of sleeping dog

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Daily notes. What are they for? I guess it’s like having a legal pad open on my desk, where I can write whatever I’m thinking about at any time. The problem for you, dear reader, is that you’re 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.

June 11, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Black and white film photo of Rolleiflex and Hasselblad on desk

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

If there are ā€œNotesā€ listed under this post, it means the thing I’ve been working on here is…working, I guess. (Update, they’re missing from the RSS feed. I’ll work on that later.) Trusting your own judgement on ā€˜AI’ is a huge risk: Something seemingly working is not evidence of it working. (Long, but worth reading). I dunno, seems to me that if it’s working, it’s working, but I suppose that’s his point. One can argue that AI is bad for the environment, or bad for artists, or stealing, and you’d have a point. But when you argue that ā€œWell, it doesn’t actually work. It can’t think!ā€ then that’s where we part company. Even though I agree with a lot of the article, it’s the kind of thing someone writes when they really really don’t wan’t something to be true. I swear I’m going to stop commenting on all this nonsense and go back to the super-cool homeopathic software I co-wrote (aka ā€œvibe-codedā€) today. You know, the one that’s working. I don’t need to prove anything to you. ...

June 10, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty
Rear of Nikon film camera

Thursday, June 05, 2025

Maybe I’d blog better if I was a more gooder writer.

June 5, 2025 Ā· Jack Baty