Journal

I have a routine that I go through on the 1st of every month, during which I always tell myself that, "This one will be different.", but in the end they're all the same.

I'm so mad at Emacs right now. It's so frustrating when something stops working for no reason I can fathom. I sync everything related to my Emacs config via Syncthing, and the Emacs version is identical, and yet doom-modeline fails to load on the MBP but works fine on the Mini. It's crazy-making and I can't figure it out.

UPDATE: I had to re-install the "f" and "shrink-path" packages for no apparent reason. I still hate not knowing why things broke in the first place. Makes me want to throw in the entire Emacs towel.

The whole "Check your Halloween candy. I just found [some crazy thing] in a Snickers" thing is tired already.

Today's Emacs etc. fiasco reminded me of this day in 2020.

Notes for October 29, 2024

Roam > Obsidian

Org-roam vs other Roam-alikes | Baty.net

Me, in May, 2020:

My ~/org directory has everything. It’s not just my notes repository. It’s my Journal, my todo list, my authoring environment, my reference manager, my time tracker, my PDF viewer/annotator, and sometimes my email and RSS client. I love the idea that I can ripgrep in ~/org and find anything. I love that everything always behaves the same way (bindings, editing, file handling, etc.). I love that it’s all local and free and is more likely than any of the alternatives to be around for decades.

I contain multitudes (and I want them out!)

The best way to continue liking someone is to stop following them on social media.

Round and round with Roam and friends

I hate this feeling. My brain has been oscillating so quickly between my modes that it feels like it's vibrating. And not in a good way. Here's how it's been going:

I was reading my feeds early in the morning, and saw a couple of photos of some well-used notebooks. You know the ones, lots of bookmarks and edge markings and the whole thing looks swollen due to it being over-stuffed with interesting stuff. I've been struggling to continue using my Leuchtturm because the paper isn't great and I don't like tiny dotgrid pages. So I grabbed one of my half-filled Midori MD notebooks, which I love, and started writing with my favorite fountain pen.

Shortly after that, someone online mentioned Roam Research. I put down my pen, and started playing in my old Roam database. I felt a powerful wave of note-taking nostalgia. I don't know if you remember, but when Roam showed up it changed everything about note-taking for me. Links, backlinks, transclusion, daily notes, all of it.

In July of 2020, I paid $500 for a 5-year subscription to Roam. I was a "True Believer™".

Then Conaw got weird. The #RoamCult thing got embarrassing. Roam raised a ton of money and then seemed to mostly stop doing anything really new. Obsidian showed up. And Logseq, and Tana, and well, you know. There were suddenly alternatives. Cheaper ones that seemed to be getting more attention by the devs than Roam. So I switched (to all of the above, at least briefly).

Now this morning I re-installed and configured Org-roam and have been making my Denote notes work with it.

It's been quite a week, and it's only Tuesday!

With apologies to Groucho Marx...

I don't want to work for anyone who would hire me via LinkedIn.

The New Internet

I read a post recently where someone bragged about using kubernetes to scale all the way up to 500,000 page views per month. But that’s 0.2 requests per second. I could serve that from my phone, on battery power, and it would spend most of its time asleep.

I can always tell when someone is unserious about software by how much they complain about a "lack of updates". They're just bored and want something new to play with.

Links for October 28, 2024

• How Digital Nomads Are Exploiting the World - Thrillist
• The New Internet Tailscale still feels like a miracle.

Notes for October 27, 2024

Well, we're back on Hugo. I'm sorry. I like how the PaperMod theme looks and works and feels, more than I like the hand-made thing I was using with Eleventy.

I just noticed that I was using a /journal/ prefix to URLs with Hugo, but removed that on the 11ty version of the blog. This of course has broken existing links to journal entries. I'm ignoring it, but it'll bug me soon.

I'm bored already.

Emacs feels right. Obsidian doesn't. I don't know what else matters.

One thing about switching between different static blogging tools is that the mechanism for writing and publishing doesn't change. I type in Emacs and then type "make deploy" in a terminal. Same old.

Links for October 27, 2024

• Tech for Life - R.B. Griggs
• Happiness vs. Satisfaction
• Losing weight isn't easy, but it is simple

I'm not saying anything new, but I feel like we've lost the battle for having good and useful products and services. Is it just me, or does every product seem to only grudgingly accept the actual user as a necessary evil? We're secondary to whatever is actually making the money. Call me a grumpy old man, but I hate this trend. "Enshittification" is an over-used meme word by now, but I can't think of a better one.

More like "Fed-UP-verse" amirite?

On days when I feel like "doing something different", I tend to stick to the same circular routine of either switching cameras or text editors or note-taking tools or email clients or blogging platforms and so on. I wish instead that I would create something different. Something new.

felix stalder:

If you automate the easy stuff, it's much harder to gain experience necessary to do the harder stuff

You can use Clean Up with a clear conscience – Six Colors

However, I don’t want to see silly, sweeping statements from people that foist their anxieties based on their ignorance onto other people.

Some reasonable points. Some not so much. Mostly it feels overly defensive. One person's "silly sweeping statement" is another's valid opinion.

The thing about BOGO (Buy One, Get One free) is that I end up buying something I don't need, just so I can get a second thing I don't need.

I'm (half-heartedly) considering canceling every streaming option I have. Maybe then I'll stop endlessly scrolling through trailers while never actually watching any movies.

Haven't felt like blogging much. Every time I think of something to "say", I shrug and think, "Not worth it." I hope this doesn't trigger a platform change or anything. I was just getting comfy here :)

I wish I would find something better to do.

Certain software tools click with me. TiddlyWiki, Emacs, BBEdit, and OmniFocus are the ones that I am thinking of right now. I love them all.

I write here nearly every day, but what's it for?

Speaking of clicking with software, I do not click with Obsidian. After seeing another new error when using Emacs this morning, I thought I'd move some stuff into Obsidian, hoping that maybe this time it would stick. It didn't. The whole experiment lasted about 3 hours. Sometimes I just want things to be easier for a minute, which things like Obsidian, Bear, etc. are good for, but I don't know if I'll every leave Emacs.

I noticed that the "cover" images for my posts aren't showing up when reading my feed in Elfeed. It's because I use absolute URLs without a hostname. Other readers, like NetNewsWire, prepend the hostname automatically. I don't think I'll fix it yet, because using full URLs makes me twitchy, because I'm me and I move things.

I've been re-discovering TiddlyWiki. My wiki (wiki.baty.net) contains nearly 4,000 "tiddlers", beginning in 2018. There is so much stuff in there that I search it almost daily. I've drifted away from using it for new stuff, probably because I'm all-in Emacs for notes (howm, specifically) and I've been publishing my daily notes at either baty.net or daily.baty.net. Now, though, I'm remembering how great TiddlyWiki is for exactly the sort of things I want to record and share. So, I'll be spending more time there for a bit.

Remember when I used wttr.in to pull in the forecast in ascii?

      \   /     Clear
       .-.      +13(12) °C     
    ― (   ) ―   ↗ 12 km/h      
       `-’      16 km          
      /   \     0.0 mm      

If I were to let someone else manage my blog, I'd probably go with Pika. Not that I'm considering it :). Anyway, there's no search, yet, which makes Pika a non-starter for me.

List a two-word phrase that is destroying the world: "Private Equity"

It's unanimous, people prefer the one post/day journal format here on baty.net. "All in one place is best" seems to be the consensus. I'll try.

BSAG » Exploring desktop linux: Part 3

I'm watching this closely. She seems to be getting on well so far. The only way I could use Linux would be to only use Linux. Switching between Linux and macOS is crazy-making.

I did, though set up Neovim and LazyVim yesterday, just for kicks. I might be experiencing a mild case of Emacs Fatigue.

Some weird things about my behavior that I noticed today. First, I might like Safari more than Arc, which is a complete surprise. I used Safari for a few weeks, then switched back to Arc last week. Today, I switched back to Safari. It's just...less, somehow. Second, I prefer OmniFocus to Things. Another surprise. Things is just so nice, you know? But OmniFocus does a few more little things that I miss when I'm using Things. Third, I've plunged back into my TiddlyWiki wiki again. This was triggered by how much I like using howm in Emacs. Howm is a lot like TiddlyWiki in some ways. Anyway, I was reminded how much fun TiddlyWiki is, so I've dusted it off and started putting stuff there again. Told you they were weird.

I removed the "Open to Work" label from my LinkedIn profile. Not because I'm not open to work, but because I truly can't stand being anywhere near LinkedIn. The type of people who would hire me are just as likely to find me elsewhere.

Do people prefer these once/day combined posts, or would they rather see them individually (as seen on daily.baty.net)? I feel like most of the individual notes aren't useful enough to justify their own slot in someone's RSS reader. On the other hand, it's nice being able to link directly to any of them.

If I could stop bringing new things in, I wouldn't have to worry about where to put them.

While scrolling through the Books I’ve Read, I realized that I don't remember the first thing about most of them. There are a few standouts, of course, but for the most part reading feels like temporary entertainment. I hope some of it is absorbed and becomes a useful part of my brain, but it doesn't seem like that's happening.

I'd almost forgotten that I re-subscribed to Medium a few months ago. After visiting the home page this morning and reading one vapid headline after another, I canceled my membership. I'm sure there's valuable content there, but it's hiding behind clickbait and I don't feel like wading through it.

I wish I cared more about having something to say than I do about the mechanisms around saying it.

Does every sentence I write need to start with "I"?

Writing full-on blog posts hasn't interested me as much, lately. I don't mind rambling on in these daily notes, but I haven't felt like putting enough coherent sentences together for real posts.

One way to avoid the Reply Guys on social media is to stop making broad, sweeping, controversial statements in the first place. And don't you dare reply and accuse me of victim blaming.

If they had fed the language machines a diet of cupcake recipes, history might have gone another way.

"Moonbound", Robin Sloan.

My Applications folder is a toybox, but it should be a toolbox.

I posted a little over on daily.baty.net today. I shouldn't do that, because it undermines my dream of having One True Blog™. Some days, though, I find it impossible to resist.

Links for October 16, 2024

• Pluralistic: You should be using an RSS reader

Dan Milnor: Adobe Max Day One

The tools remind me that story is king.

I see a lot of criticism of Tesla's new taxi design. Specifically, everyone seems confused that it's a 2-seater. Ridiculous! Now, while I'm critical of everything Tesla, I haven't seen anyone asking how many passengers the typical cab ride accommodates. Is it 2, maybe? It could be that Tesla did the research. Anyway If I need more room on a specific trip, I can alway call an UberX.

The latest Lightroom update includes Smart Albums, finally. I keep giving up on Lightroom and going back to Capture One, but C1 can be very laggy and it's driving me nuts. Lightroom is fast, and the library/sync is really nice, and improving all the time. I'm so confused.

But I wish Generative Remove was never invented. It's too easy and too tempting.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the entire FOSS movement is crumbling?

I often analyze tools before I actually need them. That's silly, and a waste of energy. It leads to a pile of software that I don't need, but also a bunch of opinions about them that aren't really valid.

It would be nice if I could hold a thought for more than 30 seconds. My brain is so scattered and unpredictable that it makes it difficult to get anything done. So far this morning I must've opened every app, note, and website that I know of. I don't know what I'm hoping to find, but so far I've failed and wasted way too much time.

Here's an example. I was about to write something about watching The Substance last night, so I went to Letterboxd to grab a link to my review. By the time I switched back to this document, I'd forgotten what I was going to write. Not a clue, so I wrote this instead.

I'm trying that thing again where I mark a region of text in each entry. The idea is to emphasize the important bits so that it's easier to scan the page. I'm not convinced it helps, which is why I waffle about it.

While I was unloading the party supplies at the rental place, a woman came out and said, "I just wanted to meet the guy with the cool name." I asked her what she thought was cool about it. She stood straight, lowered her voice, and said, "Jack Baty! It just sounds cool. It sounds like you're either a cool fisherman who lives by himself on an island, or a movie star." I thanked her and left without telling her which one I am.

I'm all for people ragging on DHH, because DHH has revealed himself to be kind of an awful person. Didn't anyone ever tell Matt that one should never wrestle with a pig?

I've added a search page here. Some notes: Searching baty.net

We celebrated my grandson's 1st birthday yesterday. He's so great.

There were 75 people there to help celebrate. Everyone had fun. We ate, played games, and watched Lincoln open gifts (with mom's help). The weather was beautiful, but then it started to thunder, so we took down the tent and put everything away. Shortly after that, it began to pour, so that was a wrap. Perfect timing, actually.

I don't know anyone who thought that LLMs do "formal reasoning", so snickering about the new research is something you can do, but you shouldn't expect responses other than, "Duh!"

I left my desk yesterday with all my favorite, long-term apps running: Tinderbox, TheBrain, Emacs, DEVONthink, etc.. This morning, I did my weekly computer cleanup, rebooted, and now I'm only running a terminal, Emacs, and Safari. It won't last, because I love software too much, but this is how I wish I worked.

My advice, to those using WordPress or other Automattic tools, is to let the current drama play out for a while. Everyone jumping ship now might end up regretting it if things work themselves out. If you feel you must jump in and hate on Matt, though, go for it I guess. We'll probably end up feeling like the whole thing was a tempest in a teacup in six months, anyway.

I just realized that there's no way to search this blog. I wonder if I can use the same tooling as the Hugo blog. This doesn't seem like fun.

An admission: I've been using TheBrain again/still, Like I did late last year. Its value increases over time. Whenever I put something in it, I can always find it later, and quickly. It may be weird and expensive and proprietary and have limited export options, but it's still the app I've found most effective for things that benefit from context and long-term linking.

I'll be spending the afternoon getting things set up for my grandson's 1st birthday party tomorrow. There are tents and tables and chairs and decorations and food and who knows what else.

Links for October 11, 2024

• Getting my daily news from a dot matrix printer - Andrew Schmelyun - I really really want something like this.
• Cabel Sasser · Videos · XOXO - "Appreciate Everything Endlessly" is such great advice and I should heed it more often. I cried a little bit.

My problem is that I love different software for different reasons. I love Tinderbox, Emacs, and TiddlyWiki equally for taking notes. Today I've been testing The Archive again, because it does certain things really well. Sometimes I use all of them in a single day. It's not an effective or efficient way of working, but my love of wonderful software makes it difficult for me to avoid the behavior.

"Megalopolis" and "Joker: Folie à Deux"; or, The Virtue of Burning Money

If you’re going to blow a massive sum on one huge thing, why not a thing that people who don’t know you personally can experience and evaluate and maybe even enjoy? Better “Megalopolis” than a yacht, or a Vermeer locked away in a New York townhouse.

Right!

Links for October 10, 2024

• Rescued Tiny Kitten Grows Up Believing He’s a Big Dog | Day 1 to 60 - YouTube - Possibly the sweetest, cutest thing my eyes have ever seen. (h/t Merlin Mann)
• ‘I Applied to 2,843 Roles’: The Rise of AI-Powered Job Application Bots - Screw it, I give up. I guess I'm retired now.
• The Why of Crazy Stupid Tech - I'm skeptical of their lack of skepticism. Seems like more tech-bro utopianism to me, no matter how much they downplay it.
• Letterboxd besties - I have no besties, I guess.

I thought that as soon as I sat my butt down at this computer after four days away that I would have all sorts of things lined up to talk about, but nothing much comes to mind. It's 11:30 AM, so maybe later?

The whole WordPress thing is boring as f*ck.