I don't normally use tags in Org-mode files, so I hadn't noticed that tags on DONE headings use the same face as the heading itself. This makes the tags difficult to spot. Every theme I tested failed to differentiate between heading text and tags on DONE headings.

Here's my books.org file:

After failing to find an easy way of changing the face of tags, I cheated and installed org-rainbow-tags. Now my tags are wildly different from the headings. And from each other, for that matter:

I'm not sure I like this for every org-mode file, however, so I only enable the mode in my books file. This is done by setting a local variable in the file itself, like so:

;; Local Variables:
;; eval: (org-rainbow-tags-mode)
;; End:

For a couple of years, I kept my reading list in an Org-mode file. I found it a bit tedious, and the only thing I did about that was to stop doing it. I mean, I always seem to be on the verge of abandoning Emacs anyway, right?

Well, I'm back in Emacs, hard, so I want my books there again. I started out by building a capture template for adding books. This should be fine, but just for grins I did a quick search and found the org-books package. This looked like more than I needed, but I tested it anyway. Turns out I liked it. The problem was that it required Helm, which I don't use, and some of the functions weren't working for me. Then I found this fork by goderich which removed some dependencies, fixed some issues, and added support for TheStoryGraph.

I forked the goderich fork, tweaked a couple of things, and was off and running. I caught up with 2024's books. It was so easy this way!

To add a book, I copy its URL from TheStoryGraph and call org-books-cliplink and the book and metadata are added for me.

The configuration for org-books is pretty straight-forward^[1]:

(use-package org-books
  :ensure t
  :load-path "~/.config/emacs/lisp/org-books"
  :config
  (setq org-books-file "~/Documents/Notes/Denote/20230406T053322--books__meta.org"))

Since several of the :PROPERTY: names were the same as my old template, the column view works just fine.

I need to clean up the inconsistent rating display and scale, but otherwise this is nice. And it's now easy enough that I might actually keep it updated.

This roll of HP5 from the Leica M3^[1] was shot mostly in Grand Haven during one of our frequent walks through town and on the pier.

I first decided to sunset the Canonet, in 2022 due to a few issues making it less than ideal to use. I have a short memory, and was feeling badly about the camera sitting on a shelf, so I loaded it up with a roll of HP5.

Processing the roll yesterday reminded me why I'd set it aside:

I can’t seem to focus it and I don’t trust the shutter speeds. Also, it has scratched a couple of negatives and the frame spacing is all over the place.

All of these things are still true, and focusing is even more difficult than I remember. Something's up with the rangefinder, that's for sure.

Just look at the frame spacing from this sample...

Since I was mostly indoors, and focusing is difficult, I slapped a manual flash on top so I could shoot at f/8 @125th. I completely guessed at exposure, but was close enough.

I think it's time to retire the Canonet for real this time.

I'm finding it difficult being "off" social media right now. Every time there's a lull in my thoughts, I want to reach for one of my feeds. It's how I avoid doing anything useful.

I want social media to be a source of information and not purely entertainment, but it usually ends up being entertainment. Also, it's often infuriating, which is why I stepped away in the first place.

One thing I've noticed is that when I'm not sharing things, I feel kind of invisible. I like sharing things. My blog(s) are good for sharing. It's what they're for. But not having comments on the blogs means there's not much actual engagement. I like engagement :). That's what Mastodon (and more recently, Micro.blog) is good at, which is why I find it difficult to leave.

What I'd like to do is to continue posting to my social media accounts, but stop reading the feeds. Is that rude? It feels rude. Is it reasonable and acceptible to post things to social media without being "on" social media? Is it even possible?

The new record from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds is called "Wild God" and it's fantastic. Nick Cave in a good mood is a rare and wonderful thing.

While walking Alice this morning, I saw a strange row of lights in the sky. It was stationary, so I knew it wasn't a meteorite. It didn't look like a comet. When I got home I did a quick search and it turns out it was a chain of Starlink satellites. There was a time I would have been amazed and optimistic about the technology. Instead, I just thought, "Fuckin' Musk."

My SetApp subscription was scheduled to renew today, but I didn't let it. I figured that if I buy the apps outright that I actually use, I'll spend around the same amount as I would on a 1-year SetApp license for both Macs. The purchased apps would either come with lifetime licenses or a small annual upgrade fee. This means next year I'll pay a much smaller amount for all the same software.

Here are the apps I currently have installed:

On the other hand, I'll no longer have access to 250+ fun apps to try. Normally I would consider this a bad thing, but I'm still working toward my Reduce & Simplify goals, and that means striving for less software, not more. It's fun tinkering with various apps, but honestly, it's an unnecessary distraction.

And then....

It turns out that the answer to the question, "How long can I go without SetApp?" is "about 30 minutes"

I took a closer look at the apps I have installed and use frequently, and also the ones that I use occasionally and then uninstall. The math got a bit more complicated.

So, I just paid $135 to renew my SetApp subscription for two Macs. As for the urge to tinker, I guess I'll just have to learn some restraint :).

I've been testing a version of Johnny Decimal using folders and org-mode files. While doing this, I found myself frequently wanting to create a new .org file in the current (Dired) directory with the same name as the directory (long story).

In a past life, this would have been a fairly straightforward challenge. I'm not remotely fluent in (emacs) lisp, but I've always enjoyed learning, so I would have dug in and figured out how to write the function myself.

I don't feel like that person any more. I just wanted to use the function and move on.

So, I asked ChatGPT to write one for me^[1]

Write an emacs lisp function to create a new org-mode buffer having the same name as its enclosing folder

It worked. First try. However, I wanted to also automatically save the buffer as an org-mode file with the new name, so I amended my prompt with...

Add to the function so that it saves the new buffer using the buffer name into the current directory

And that also worked on the first try.

(defun jab/create-and-save-org-buffer-same-as-current-folder ()
  "Create a new Org-mode buffer with the same name as the current folder and save it in the current directory."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((current-directory (file-name-directory (or buffer-file-name default-directory)))
         (folder-name (file-name-nondirectory (directory-file-name current-directory)))
         (file-path (expand-file-name (concat folder-name ".org") current-directory))
         (new-buffer (generate-new-buffer folder-name)))
    ;; Switch to the new buffer and set it to Org-mode
    (switch-to-buffer new-buffer)
    (org-mode)
    ;; Save the new buffer to the specified file path
    (set-visited-file-name file-path)
    (save-buffer)
    (message "Created and saved new Org buffer: %s" file-path)))

I ran this, and it did exactly what I wanted, so I added to my permanent configuration and moved on.

I kind of hate how well this works. It feels like I'm a lazy cheater and that I'm using a bunch of magic code to do stuff. Then again, I can now do things in a few minutes what might have taken hours before. I'm not learning, but at least I'm doing. I guess.

It's been a couple weeks since moving my blog back to Hugo and, surprisingly, I'm perfectly happy with it. However, I'm not as sure about these daily notes posts.

I often manually crosspost from here to Mastodon, and wonder if maybe I'd prefer having that happen automatically. That won't work if I continue using the current format, so I've been thinking about splitting short posts off again to a separate (micro) blog.

daily.baty.net would be fine for this, but this time around I'm in a less-software mood, so I'd prefer not having to fire up Tinderbox right now. Plus, I want posting to be dead simple.

I considered using Scribbles since I already have a blog there. It could easily be used for the daily posts, and I've already paid for a lifetime subscription. As good as Scribbles is, it just doesn't fit my sensibilities, somehow, so I'm going to let that one idle for now.

Enter Micro.blog. I canceled my Micro.blog subscription a while ago, after using it since the original Kickstarter. No reason, I just wanted to try something else, probably.

While reviewing what I wanted from a daily microblog, I realized that Micro.blog hits just about every point. So, I renewed my subscription, switched to the Tiny theme with a couple of tweaks, set up crossposting, and I'm off and running again at jack.micro.blog.

This is an experiment. Specifics may change without notice 😁.