Baty.net is going to move back to Ghost, I think. Y'all will I'm sure get a chuckle out of it and I'm happy for you. :)
I've noticed that when running both Ghost and Hugo blogs, when I want to post something, my default is to reach for Ghost. It's just easier overall. Plus, I can have that sweet, sweet @jack@baty.net Fediverse handle that I loved but didn't want tied to my blogging platform.
And to think, just two days ago I added a bunch of new features to the Hugo theme.
This is fine.
Joan Westenberg, in The Cult of Hard Mode: Why Simplicity Offends Tech Elites:
...hard mode is where status lives.
This is exactly what I've been thinking about lately. It hurts to hear it out loud.
Read the article, but here are a few quotes that reminded me how far down the complexity rabbit holes I've traveled.
And under it all is the same impulse: make it harder than it needs to be, so I can feel smarter than I am.
Simple tools become suspicious. Using Apple Notes or Google Docs is like admitting you didn’t bother to invent your own language. But this is a strange inversion. In most fields, simplicity is the result of expertise. In tech, it’s taken as a sign you’re not even trying.
The fear is not that a simple tool won’t work. The fear is that it will - and that its success will render your complexity performative.
So instead of the boring thing that works, people gravitate toward the interesting thing that doesn't.
I mean...ouch!
Part of the fun of using Emacs is that I spent the time learning how to use Emacs. I mean, like, a lot of time. It makes me feel like I have a cabinet lined with nerd trophies.
If nobody was watching, would I behave differently? Maybe. I mean, Emacs might be the most amazing bit of software I've ever used, but wow do I fiddle with it. Fiddling is fun, but some days I wonder what it gets me, you know?
The timing here is interesting, because while reinstalling only the necessary apps over the weekend, I used Apple Notes to take notes. The interesting part is that I continued to use it, even after Emacs was installed and ready.
Apple Notes is surprisinglyl capable, but I don't enjoy using it. So what did I do? Yesterday, I re-installed Bear. I've always liked using Bear. It's beautiful and simple and gets right to the point.
Bear is totally an Easy Mode app. Other than tags, there's not much to play with. Monday, I wrote this in my journal:
Find things with fewer knobs to twiddle
Bear is about as close to knobless as it gets. It's the anti-Obsidian. It's the opposite of Emacs. Maybe that's why it called to me. No knobs is good knobs, or something.
I had no plans to go back to an old favorite for notes. In fact, the plan was to not take notes at all. I nice idea, but I still want to keep records and log things.
Anyway, I'm in a mood. I think I'll try living in Easy Mode for a minute, even if it means I'm stripped of my titles.
I hate not knowing how many times I'll need to press the button in order to turn a light off. Power on/off switches should be separate from brightness controls.
When including these "Notes" on my daily journal pages, I forgot to deal with cover images. This here is a test of this morning's fix for that.
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.
I've changed my Hugo template so that any "Notes" I create on the same day as a daily journal are included inline in the journal post. No titles, just text. They're still on the /notes page, too, so I can see them all at once. I'm also still cross-posting them to Mastodon, for now.
If there are "Notes" 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 '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 "Well, it doesn't actually work. It can't think!" 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 "vibe-coded") today. You know, the one that's working. I don't need to prove anything to you.
Between AI and Liquid Glass, it's been an exhausting, take-filled nightmare around these parts lately.
After canceling SetApp, I went looking for a replacement for CleanMyMac. I'd used OnyX years ago and remember it being fine, so I installed it and started testing it by running the application uninstaller on a few apps I no longer needed around.
The first few apps were deleted nicely. Then, one took much longer than the others had, which was weird. When it finally finished, I found that every single non-default macOS app was gone from my computer. I restarted and it came up as if it were brand new. Like, "Welcome to Mac" new. My files were all there, but none of the apps. Plus, all my settings, Safari extensions, etc...gone.
Well that's no fun.
I have no idea what went wrong. Did I fumble-finger something? Is there a bug in OnyX? I've written support and will know more once I hear something from them, I suppose.
In the meantime, I had to rebuild/reinstall everything. Just for fun, here's the list:
I'm sure there will be more, but I think I've done a good job of keeping it clean so far.
Part of me feels good about the fresh start. I could use the weekend back, though.
I think about this a lot. Whenever I read it I usually make a few prints.
It happened again and it was so satisfying.
At $10/month, SetApp is a good deal, especially if you use more than a handful of the included Apps. I've been a subscriber since early on.
I have two Macs, so the subscription is $15/month. Still a good deal, but I did the math and realized that I could purchase most of the apps I use outright for less than a 1-year SetApp subscription for a single Mac.
This wasn't always the case. For a while there, I had a couple dozen apps installed. My goal this past year has been to whittle that down to the essentials. Here's what I ended up with as of this morning.
Not bad, but after this morning's App uninstall fiasco, I thought I'd see how many more apps I could live without. After all this, I feel like I only need Forklift, and Popclip, so those are the only things I've purchased individually so far.
Eventually I'll probably cave and buy Soulver, because it can be super handy for some things. And I'm sure I'll miss HoudahSpot, but for $6, Find Any File is a reasonable substitute for the way I use it.
So, I've canceled my SetApp subscription. This has already given me the FOMO jitters, but I'm trying to resist the feeling as long as I can.
I wrote the following in 2021 but can't find where I posted it, and I'm feeling it again, so I'm recording it here
It feels like everyone (or at least those in my bubble) is consumed by the “how” of note-taking. Tools, workflows, processes, backlinks, and on and on. Obsidian? Roam? Paper? It’s fun to explore and interesting to read about and there is no end of things to distract myself with.
None if it really matters, though. We endlessly split hairs and wring our hands and gaze at our navels over irrelevant minutiae around taking notes. It’s exhausting.
As an attempt to extract myself from this loop, I think I'll stop taking notes for a while. This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing/blogging. Blogging isn’t note-taking. Nor is journaling. I’ll still do that. What I won't be doing is jotting down my recent thoughts about minimalism or digital record-keeping or the details of a conversation I had with a colleague or how much I paid for the printer paper I just ordered. Who cares?
No more Org vs Obsidian vs Tinderbox vs The Archive or what-have-you until I stop obsessing over which is better or more private or more open source or if it uses the right flavor of Markdown. No more worrying about whether I’m taking “smart” enough notes or if this note should be “evergreen” or not. How long should a zettel be, anyway?
There are lots of smart, productive, happy people around who take very few notes and aren’t missing anything. I'd like to be one of those people for a minute.
I want to just walk around the seaside village all day, making small watercolor paintings of things I observe. I would do that, but I rarely leave the house in my boring midwestern suburb and I can't paint for shit.
It's gotten out of hand.
Maybe I'd blog better if I was a more gooder writer.
I took a roll's worth of frames today, but on four different film cameras, so I still don't have anything new to process.
The past week has been weird for me, blog-wise. Normally, I fire up a daily post every morning because I want to. I then keep my eyes peeled for interesting things to post about. I like posting stuff on the blog. Lately, though, I haven't felt like it.
Examples?
After many years of wanting a Rolleiflex, I bought one a couple weeks ago. I'm excited about it and I have thoughts about it, so why haven't I posted anything?
I've started using Howm (rather than Denote) for most of my notes. This is big, right? Yet as far as blogging about it? Crickets.
I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just don't feel like doing the work. This would be fine if I was doing something else instead. But I'm not. Instead of writing, I'm not writing, is all.
Anyway, I'm sure this is just a phase. At least I hope that's all it is. For once I'm not changing platforms again as an excuse to post something, so that's good, I guess.
Kazuyuki Hiraoka, author of the Howm Emacs package:
If you don’t organize notes, it’s wearisome to read them.
If you try to organize notes, it’s wearisome to write them.
got that right.
I know people throughout history have successfully used Rolleiflexes for all kinds of documentary photography and photojournalism, but have they ever tried following a toddler around?
I've not quite gotten the hang of the Rolleiflex, apparently.
This is expired Kodak Portra 400 (Expired 2012).
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