I’m wondering if I should become more like everyone else. Should I post “5 Tips to improve your workflow right now!” articles on Medium? Should I be “super excited” to humblebrag about myself on LinkedIn? Should I fire up my Instagram account and splash gaudy “stories” all over it throughout the day? Should I buy some neon background lights and work on an unnecessary 90-second musical intro to my upstart YouTube channel? ...

Update: I think Org-roam is the right answer for most people, but I could not resist the simplicity and lack of dependencies of Denote, so I am back in Denote as of June, 2023. Using both Org-roam and Denote for my notes is not sustainable. I had to make a call one way or the other. I went with Org-roam. This is a bit disappointing because I prefer the philosophy of Denote. I like that Denote is agnostic about file types (I can mix and match Markdown and Org-mode files, for example). I like that it forces a consistent file naming scheme. I like that it doesn’t depend on Org-mode features or any other complex dependencies. I like that it doesn’t try to do too much, but is easily extensible. Plus, I’m not trying to build some sort of zettelkasten or anything, so simple is preferable. ...

When I started building a new index card note box, I followed Scott Schepard’s lead and used the Wikipedia Academic Disciplines as the overarching structure. I’ve come to dislike that system. It’s too dependent on hierarchy, and one I don’t really follow. So, this morning, when trying to install a new note about Libertarianism (topical!), I became frustrated and renumbered everything. I’m now using a simpler, more Luhmann-like card numbering system. (Some would call it “Folgezettel”, but I’ll stick with “numbering system”). ...

UPDATE: I’ve had trouble getting GoAccess to parse the logs consistently after changing the date format. I’ve been using GoAccess on the VPS running my static sites for keeping an eye on web server access logs. It works great and requires no tracking scripts. I run a cron job every five minutes to process my site logs and generate an HTML report. This is fine, but GoAccess always processes the entire log file and offers no way to filter the results. Sometimes I only want to see stats for, say, today or for the past week. ...

Ten years ago, Steven Johnson wrote The Spark File, in which he describes his process for keeping track of hunches, ideas, etc. in a single text file. I, of course, thought this was a great idea and immediately started keeping my own spark file. It began in 2012 and I was reasonably consistent with it until 2016. After that, there was a lull, but it picked up again for a short time in 2021, after which I sort of forgot about it. ...

I’ve been tracking an issue with the way backlinks are displayed that affects my use of Org-roam. Someone (hwiorn) finally discovered a workaround when using Doom Emacs: delete the compiled version of org-roam-utils. Like this: rm .config/emacs/.local/straight/build-*/org-roam/org-roam-utils.elc Now my links show up correctly. Finally! I’ll probably need to delete the file every time I sync or update but I don’t care as long as there’s a fix. It was driving me nuts. ...

The jAlbum UI I’ve been a Flickr user since 2004 and a SmugMug user for nearly as long. For some reason, I prefer looking at my photos via online galleries rather than, say, my Photos library, and both Flickr and SmugMug have helped me do that. I’ve also kept standalone static web galleries for the odd side project, such as a memorial to my dog Leeloo. Recently, I’ve been creating more of these, so I started looking for easier or better ways of generating static web galleries from a selection of photos. There are what feels like a thousand options. Everything from giant GUI apps to the nerdiest little command line utilities. ...

The Leica SL2 felt inevitable. After an almost accidental run with the Panasonic S5, which I didn’t enjoy at all, I tried going back to the Fuji system. I’ve always liked Fujifilm cameras and their classic control layout. I purchased a new X-T5 and a few nice lenses late last year, but it didn’t grow on me. The X-T5 is a great camera and I had nothing to complain about. Except it just didn’t give me The Feels. Not the way, say, a Leica does. ...

Reading notes for ‘Why People Photograph’ In a recent post, My Antinet and Barthes’ “Camera Lucida”, I wrote about having shelves filled with books that I remember nothing about. Seems like a waste, no? Writing notes (by hand) while reading new books has completely changed the way I read and I am finding many benefits: More deliberate consumption, better recall, and a physical residue of the things I’ve read. ...

Leica M6 Long story, short, I sold my precious Leica M6 (Classic). I could no longer justify having two modern Leica M cameras, so I decided to keep the beautiful MP and pass the M6 on to someone else. I’m sure I’ll regret this. (It’s the second time the camera has been sold, but the previous buyer returned it, for spurious reasons). Onward! Here’s the final frame I shot with the camera: ...

Today I learned that I can use tags in Org files as a filter for org-refile-targets. My refile targets are mapped to org-agenda-files but limit them to only top-level headings in order to keep the list under control. Once in a while, though, I would like to make a more deeply nested heading available for refiling. I can do this by using (:tag . "refile"). Who knew?! (setq org-refile-targets '((org-agenda-files :maxlevel . 1) (org-agenda-files :tag . "refile")))

There are always cameras loaded with film scattered around my house. I don’t go out much, so sometimes I’ll pick up a camera and take a random photo just for the feel of it and to use up some film. These photos are almost always one of three things: Myself, my dog, or my desk/workspace. Case in point, I recently finished the roll that’s been languishing in the M6 by taking the following mirror self-portrait. ...

I know that film photography and Emacs are completely unrelated, but I have been thinking about both of them quite a lot recently. Since moving back to shooting film in 2003, I have regular thoughts of switching to all-digital again. It’s just easier. I have rooms full of “stuff” in support of film photography, and things would become so much faster and easier without all of that. A nice digital camera, a good RAW editor, an inkjet printer, and some hard drives, and I’m all set. ...

I’m tired of computers. I spent hours today rummaging around my notes and trying to figure out if I should write some new thing in Emacs or Obsidian or Tinderbox or what? It’s confusing and frustrating, and I need a break. I’m typing this on my iPad Pro using the Magic Keyboard. I won’t lie, the iPad is too limiting for me under nearly all circumstances. But that’s exactly why I need it right now. I’ve gotta stop tweaking and start doing something instead. That something might just be watching Netflix, but at least that’s not going to make things worse. ...

Somehow, for reasons unknown, I’ve rebuilt daily.baty.net using Eleventy. It started when I struggled to make some tweaks to the site, which is (was) generated using Tinderbox. Tinderbox, being Tinderbox, is ridiculously powerful and flexible, but it wasn’t doing what I thought I was telling it to do. So I stepped away and started tinkering with its inspiration, my Drummer blog. For a hot minute, I considered going back to using Drummer, even though I worry about its longevity. Drummer is how blogging is supposed to work (at least in my head), so I started looking at it again. ...

The first book I read with my Antinet in mind was “Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography” by Roland Barthes. I’m not doing a book review here, but I wanted to say a few things about the process of reading with the goal “installing” notes into my Antinet. Camera Lucida and my bibcard I’m not someone who needs a Zettelkasten. I’m not working on a book or paper or anything. I want to use what I’ve read. Even better, I’d like to integrate the things I’ve read with my own thoughts. I want to learn. ...

I keep a simplified version of a Bullet Journal in paper notebooks. I write in it every day. In it, I write tasks, log meals, write journal entries, copy quotes, etc. This way of working fits my brain, and I see no future in which I’m not doing some version of it. But I must admit that y’all are right, searching paper notebooks kind of sucks. However, I’m not moving my notes to digital just so I can search them more easily. That’s not a trade-off I’m interested in. Instead, I’m working on a system that makes my paper notebooks easier to search. Or perhaps it’s better to say that I’m working on making it easier to find things I’ve written in my paper notebooks. ...

I can never decide which blog post format I should use on my home page(s). Should I use full posts so that all of the content is available by simply scrolling? Should I shorten each post to just a title and a short summary, making it look more consistent and easier to scan? Or maybe I should only include a list of titles, and let people dig in based on that. ...

I remain incapable of consolidating my blogs, social media, etc. I’m realizing that I have three types of blog posts, “macro”, “micro”, and “nano”. Normal long-form posts are “macro” posts. Shorter posts or images with commentary are “micro” posts. Then there are the little snippets and random thoughts I can’t help blurting out for some reason. Those are “nano” posts. I could put them all at baty.net and be done with it, but I have yet to find a way to do this using WordPress (or Hugo, for that matter). I never like the way themes render all three types. ...

You all remember Evernote, right? For years (beginning in the late 2000s), Evernote was the note-taking tool for many of us. Then, they got weird, started selling merchandise and branded scanners, and made odd tangental mobile apps for some reason. Evernote seemed to have lost focus. After a couple of years of that I, as someone who loves trying new software, didn’t hesitate to move on to newer, shinier tools for my notes. ...