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. ...

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. ...

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’ve added a search page. It uses Pagefind. It turns out I’d already begun work on this with the original site. The clue was a commented-out line in my Makefile: index: npx -y pagefind --site ${SITE_DIR} All I needed to do was create a search page and add a snippet: --- layout: layouts/base.njk title: Search slug: /search --- <link href="/pagefind/pagefind-ui.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/pagefind/pagefind-ui.js"></script> <div id="search"></div> <script> window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { new PagefindUI({ element: "#search", showSubResults: true, pageSize: 10, autofocus: true }); }); </script> To manually build the index, I render the site and then index it. using npx -y pagefind --site _site. I do this as part of the deploy recipe in the Makefile. ...

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. ...

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 ...

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.

The best way I’ve found of preventing photos from looking too digital is to make them with film. Sometimes I defend people from pile-ons, even when they deserve the pile-on. I feel like too many people wake up and think, “Who can I decide is bad, today?” and that’s just no way to be. So, if you point out that someone did something horrible (and by “horrible”, you usually mean “something I don’t agree with”) and I say “But maybe they just…”, it’s not always because I agree with what they’ve supposedly done, but rather to point out that there might be more to it. We’re complicated. Situations are complicated. You don’t know everything about it, so maybe back off a smidge and consider that. ...

How about we collectively stop apologizing for how often we write on our blogs or what we write about on our blogs. Newsletters, too, while we’re at it. I like the new message/alert summaries on my Apple devices. I just used ChatGPT to help me write some emacs lisp for my blogging workflow. DEVONthink can now use AI to intelligently rename files. I use that all the time. Complaints about social and environmental impact of AI use are justified, but it’s probably time to stop suggesting that LLMs aren’t useful. ...

Trying some things with Eleventy

I’m back to using Eleventy for my blog

New Orleans without a camera. Hugo and Kirby options.

Yesterday I did that thing where I wanted to use something other than Emacs and Org Mode, so I re-installed Obsidian and launched both Tinderbox and SilverBullet. Then, I wrote some notes in all of them. It was so darn nice having somewhere new to work. It lasted a few hours, after which I copied all of those notes into the appropriate .org documents and properly scolded myself for straying again. Everything else is inferior to Emacs, but sometimes I just need a break. ...

There’s nothing on my schedule today and that is totally fine with me. It’s not just fine, it’s preferred. I made some small (5"x7") prints in the darkroom this morning. I sometimes feel that the small prints aren’t “worth it”, but they’re cheap and easy to make, so I keep doing it. I guess at the exposure and only reprint if I’m way off. Otherwise, as my dad says, “Good enough for who it’s for”. And I’m always happy I have them later. ...

Latest roll (HP5) from the Leica MP. Nothing much here to speak of, although I did use a manual flash on some of the indoor shots. I kind of like flash photos. They look like photos, you know? Lincoln looking up My dad and Lincoln. Testing manual flash. Funny face White sneakers are white

Is it too early to begin speculation about the iPhone 17?1 Two buffers I always have open in Emacs are: the current journal entry here on baty.net, and my personal journal (org-journal). I type the same kinds of things in both places. Which one I choose depends on my mood. I hate when I run out of feeds to read and so just sit here staring at the screen. Running out of feeds isn’t the problem, fyi. ...

I just dropped in and scrolled through the feed on LinkedIn. If LinkedIn is the game I’m forced to play, then I forfeit. So many people seem to travel around looking only for red flags. Maybe they should spend more time looking for green lights. A few weeks ago, my Dad’s Apple Watch (Series 3) died, so I gave him my Series 7, since I was hardly ever wearing it anyway. Then last week I started reading “Younger Next Year” and all they talk about is doing aerobic workouts six days a week and closely monitoring my heart rate. Lacking an available heart rate monitor, I ordered a new Series 10 Apple Watch. I had to. HAD TO. ...

My Org mode capture templates are acting funky. Things aren’t going where they’re supposed to. e.g. my Daybook entries are going into the wrong part of the datetree. I’ve changed nothing relevant that I know of. I hate this. I would still exist if I deleted my Instagram account. – Cheri Lucas Rowlands Would you? Would any of us? I don’t want the things I create to be nothing more than something to scroll past. But maybe that’s better than having noone see them at all. ...

I think I’ll (reluctantly) stop using Capture One and go back to Lightroom. I was using Lightroom for a while because it’s good and keeps getting better, but I get the best results from and prefer using C1. However, it has become so slow as to be unusable. It can take 3 or 4 seconds to update the preview after moving a slider, which is maddening. I’ve done all the recommended things to improve performance, but nothing helps. Lightroom updates immediately. Plus Lightroom syncs, has modern features that non-professionals use, and is relatively inexpensive. ...