Posts

In November, I experimented with using only CLI tools. How did it go? I’d give it a 7 out of 10. The other two CLI-based productivity tools I used for the month were Taskwarrior and nb. Taskwarrior is very good at managing tasks, but I don’t know if it’ll stick as my main task app. There’s too much typing involved with keeping things updated (adding tags, projects, etc.). The TUI helps, but I’m not sure it’s enough. I’m currently tinkering with Super Productivity as more GUI-ified option, but I’ll probably just end up back in Emacs org-mode like I always do. ...

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” Kurt Vonnegut

In Baty.net • What do I even mean by “Simple?”, I was looking for a definition of “simple”. I aspire to simplicity, but never seem to find it. For example, I switched my daily.baty.net blog between Kirby and Tinderbox three times in three days. One day, I want posting to be simple, so I use Kirby, because it’s an easy-to-use CMS. The next day, I want hosting to be simple, so I go back to using Tinderbox as an SSG because static sites are simple to host. ...

I’ve become a bit overwhelmed by text after using mostly CLI/TUI tools for the past few weeks. I need a break from looking at tedious walls of text all day, so instead of creating posts here using Markdown, I’m posting to my WordPress blog over at baty.blog for a while1. I needed a change of venue. Hope to see you there! 👉 baty.blog I don’t know what I mean by “a while”, so don’t go too far. ↩︎ ...

Some thoughts and observations around my feelings about using Linux vs macOS. For the past week or so, I’ve been switching between Linux and macOS several times a day. I’ve been working towared full-time Linux for nearly a month, and planned to relegate the Mac to photo processing only. A sort of photo appliance. While doing that, though, I opened some of my favorite Mac-only apps, and immediately doubted the entire Linux experiment. Things would be much simpler if I used macOS for everything. Right? ...

It’s been the kind of day where using (or trying to use) Emacs frustrates me. I’ve spent the past few weeks adapting my custom Emacs configuration to work on Linux. I was so confident that I would be moving to Linux that I ignored anything that might not work cross-platform. I should know better. Today I was using my Mac and fired up Emacs and of course nothing worked. I spent nearly 2 hours futzing with it and I still don’t know what’s gone wrong. Reviewing Git commits hasn’t narrowed it down, either. It’s not the fact that I broke Emacs, it’s more that I’m so capable of breaking Emacs at any time. I do it more than I care to. I’m not in the mood, ya know? ...

For nearly two years I’ve been telling myself to Reduce & Simplify. For short periods, I’ve almost done that, but entropy takes over and I once again overcomplicate everything. Could the problem be that I’m not sure what I mean by “Simple”? One day, it feels simple to use only Emacs and a browser on Linux installed on boring hardware. The next day, simple means using the default Notes, Mail, and Reminders app on macOS. Then on another day, a notebook and pen are my definition of “simple”. What happens is that I end up alternating between all of these so-called simple workflows, and I’m back to chaos. ...

When I started running the macOS 26 (Tahoe) betas, I didn’t have strong feelings about Liquid Glass one way or the other. I’ve been running Linux for a while now as daily driver, but since I was thinking that I may have to use macOS on the desktop, I’ve spent a lot of time using both Linux and macOS. Now I kind of hate Tahoe and Liquid Glass. While getting my Mac Mini (M2 Pro) updated and configured, I was reminded how many times macOS pops up a dialog telling me something needs permissions for something. It feels like I’m constantly clicking “Allow”. It happens so often that I no longer bother even reading the messages. I just click “Allow” and move on. Kind of defeats the purpose of the warnings, no? ...

I’m trying to get everything running smoothly on the Linux machines. I really am. And I’m close, but I’m not there yet, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get there. Many of the apps I use on macOS are also available on Linux. This is awesome. It’s the ones I love, but need to leave behind that are causing all the trouble. Most of the problems are around photo processing. I’ve spent many (many!) hours learning and testing Darktable for RAW processing. It’s a powerful tool with a lot of clever ideas, some of which I actually prefer to its Mac counterparts. However, Darktable is not at all pleasant to use. Once the cleverness and new-shiny factors are past, I’m forced to live in a clumsy, awkward, unpleasant, unattractive environment. I miss Capture One dearly. Capture One gets me results I like quickly and easily. It’s better. ...

I started my CLI app only experiment at the end of October, meaning that it’s been just over a week of nothing but CLI and TUI apps for nearly everything. How’s it going? Well, it’s been fun. I suspected it would be, because I’ve been living in a terminal on and off for decades now. It’s not as if terminal apps are new to me. Diving back into them has been a blast. ...

Speaking of jrnl, did I mention that I’m testing jrnl as my daily logging tool? Since I’m sticking to CLI-based tools for the month, I needed a replacement for my Emacs “Daybook”. My Daybook relies on all sorts of capture templates and snippets in Emacs. Since that’s out, I figured I might try the One Big Text File (OBTF) approach. By default, jrnl writes entries to one big text file, so it seemed suitable for this purpose. ...

I’m slowly learning how to customize Hyprland. I’ve been playing with jrnl as a way to do a daily log. It’s been successful enough that I wanted to streamline it a bit. What I wanted was to bind a key to opening my jrnl prompt in a floating terminal in whichever workspace I happen to be in. Here’s how I did it: # Keybinding for floating centered terminal bind = SUPER SHIFT, J, exec, alacritty --class floating-term -e jrnl --config-override editor "" windowrulev2 = float, class:(floating-term) windowrulev2 = center, class:(floating-term) windowrulev2 = size 800 60%, class:(floating-term) This gets me a conveniently sized and placed terminal window with jrnl waiting for me to type whatever I want. A simple CTRL-d and it creates the jrnl entry and the window goes away. ...

Since I’m using only CLI and TUI apps in November, I needed to find a replacement for Mu4e in Emacs. As a long-time Mutt user, I assumed that’s what I’d use. A couple people recommended that I try aerc instead. I’ve run into aerc before, but assumed it was some super geeky thing meant for emailing software patches around. While it does do that, it handles “regular” email pretty well, too. ...

I think I’ll try something. I think I’ll try using only CLI and TUI apps during the month of November. So this means: NeoVim / LazyVim instead of Emacs and Org-mode for notes Mutt instead of Mu4e for email Taskwarrior instead of Org-mode for tasks LazyGit instead of Magit for Git. Newsboat instead of Elfeed I might even give nb a fair shake, just for kicks. Why would I bother with this? No reason other than that it’s fun. Omarchy comes with a pretty complete LazyVim setup and I’ve been surprised by how nice it is. ...

I use Zen Browser on Linux. While playing around with LazyVim (I know, I know) I learned about Tridactyl which is a plugin that let’s you manipulate Firefox (or Zen) using Vim-like key bindings. It feels weird and I keep tripping over myself, but I feel like once I’m used to it, this is a great way to browse.

I prefer seeing a new tab, not the URL search dialog

I’m fishing for a new theme. I’m willing to change SSGs to get one I like.

I’m becoming a fan of this awkward kit. The F100 is such a sleeper and can be had relatively cheaply. I ended up with that weird-looking SB-20 flash as part of a local Facebook purchase. There might be something to this TTL flash, auto-focus, auto-exposure photography thing.

I impulse ordered the new Pebble smartwatch as soon as it was announced. At the time, I was looking for excuses to stop wearing my Apple Watch, and this seemed as good as any. The watch arrived yesterday. It’s very white :). There was no setup to speak of other than downloading the app so I can pick from thousands of faces. That should keep me busy for a while. I love e-paper screens. ...

It’s nice having a pocketable point-and-shoot film camera with me. Normally for me, this either means an Olympus Stylus Epic or Ricoh GR1. Both of these are having issues, so I impulse ordered a Canon Sure Shot AF-7 from eBay. It was $30 shipped, so there wasn’t much risk. Here’s a self-portrait using the self-timer from the first roll (Kentmere 400) through the new camera: Self-portrait at my desk ...