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 “Blizzard of Ozz” tour in 1981 was one of the of the first concerts I saw. I remember leaning my head into a speaker cone, because LOUDER!

The other day, I converted my entire TiddlyWiki into an Obsidian vault, just to see if I could. Since I still spend most of my time in Emacs, I thought it would be nice to search the vault from there. The post, From Obsidian to Emacs, by Mike Hostetler, mentioned using the Xeft package, so I thought I’d try it. Here’s my config: (use-package xeft :ensure t :defer t :config (setq xeft-recursive t) (setq xeft-database "~/.deft.db") (setq xeft-directory "/Users/jbaty/Documents/Notes/Vault/") (setq xeft-ignore-extension '("png" "jpg" "jpeg")) (setq xeft-extensions '("md")) (setq xeft-title-function #'file-name-nondirectory)) Xeft relies on Xapian for searches, so a module needs to be downloaded or built locally. I didn’t have any luck with the downloaded version, so I deleted the package, started over, and had it compile locally. The trick there was entering the prefix “/opt/homebrew” during installation, since I’d already installed Xapian using Homebrew. ...

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

Creating a new blog post for Hugo couldn’t be simpler. One simply creates a new Markdown file in the correct folder, making sure it contains the proper YAML front matter, and…OK, it’s not that simple. Normally I use a small lisp function in Emacs for creating posts, but that doesn’t help me on days that I don’t feel like using Emacs1. Another option would be to use the built-in hugo commands, but for some reason I never think of that. Probably because it requires that I cd to the right place and tell it what to name the file. ...

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

If he’s a bit manic for you, here’s part of the transcript that I’ve reformatted a bit: ...if you're a progressive, don't do this. Don't go on to the internet and go, "Hey fellow progressives, like maybe we should consider having, you know, a little - just just chill out a bit and have a bit of humility and realise that not everyone's had the opportunity to read the books we've read and not everyone's, you know, learned the lessons that you've learned. Maybe we should apply the Principle of Charity and not assume that anyone who disagrees with us has a nefarious intent and try and hear the best version of the argument, not the worst. And maybe we just need to-" They go, “Don’t you police my tone, you straight white male! Check your privilege!” ...

org-mouse is a built-in package for Org mode that lets one do some handy things using the mouse in Org files. Things like checking checkboxes and toggling subtrees. (use-package org-mouse :after org) Or just (require 'org-mouse) Clicking in [ ] Do this thing to complete it is easier than navigating to the line and hitting C-c C-c for each item. There’s no shame in using a mouse, even in Emacs. I sometimes prefer to sit back, grab the mouse, and click things.

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.

I know I won’t like Obsidian this time, either. Yet, I keep trying.

What if I used Glass for my film roll posts, instead?

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 “I don’t feel much like blogging” 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. ...

Reverting my blogging changes

I like to have Make and Model information available in film scans, and use exiftool for this. I have a lisp function in Emacs that does this, but sometimes I’d like to do it from a terminal instead. So I asked Claude for help. The result was camera-exif-tui. It’s a tiny Go app that launches a TUI that allows me to select a make/model and a folder full of image files. It calls exiftool and updates the images with the selected camera info. ...

Here are some (probably) unnecessary things I’ve been doing.

Just seeing if this thing still works.

The new M4 MacBook Air arrived, and it changed how I have things set up around here.

It seems I’ve finally actually “Reduced & Simplified” something.

I wanted a different view into my org-journal history, so I imported it into Day One Plain text is great, but has limits. I’ve been journaling in plain text (.org) with org-journalsince 2018. It’s just a bunch of .org files in a folder. It’s great, and, you know, future-proof. Before Org-Journal, I used Day One for journaling as far back as 2011. Day One is pretty, powerful, and available everywhere. There are “on this day” and “today” features that I find useful. It integrates smoothly with the Photos app, and it stamps entries with the current location and weather conditions. Add fast sync on all devices with end-to-end encryption, and it makes for a darn nice journaling setup. ...

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. ...

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. ...