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It’s the same old story. I don’t know whether I want to use one or multiple notebooks. Or even if I want to use paper notebooks at all. Here are some random thoughts about my intended notebook use for 2025. Each year for the past 13 years I have ordered a Hobonichi Techo. Some years, I write in one nearly every day. Other years, I fill the first few pages, then it remains mostly blank for the rest of the year. This morning, I (optimistically, as always) set mine up for 2025. ...

I like the idea of building my own Emacs config, so I set Doom aside and (re)built my own configuration (mostly) from scratch.

I like the idea of building my own Emacs config, so I set Doom aside and (re)built my own configuration (mostly) from scratch.

Deleting things I don’t really need is liberating.

A roll of HP5 through the Olympus Stylus Epic.

It’s been nearly a month using Ghost, so it was time to switch back to Hugo.

Some former Nik Software people are building a new tool for managing photo libraries. It’s called Aspect. I’m a sucker for any photo-related software, so I installed the beta and spent yesterday testing it. I took some notes after using it for a day. First impressions were good. I like the ideas behind Aspect. It relies on the underlying file system, so it’s reasonably transparent. It organizes things for me based on dates and events. I can control the structure. I can even change it later, and Aspect will move things around to match. ...

Every note-taking app handles file attachments differently. Most of them do it poorly. What I’ve found surprising is that I actually like what Org mode does with attachments. I might be the only one who does. The way I have Emacs configured, dragging a file into an open buffer window will prompt me with a few options, the one I use being “Attach file”. This then copies the file into a subfolder of whatever directory is configured as the org-attach-directory. This subfolder is named based on any ID property set in the Org file. This means I end up with a directory tree that looks like this: ...

All I want is Letterboxd for books. LibraryThing is the Craigslist of book trackers. Goodreads is icky. TheStoryGraph has a layout I don’t get along with. Bookwrym is decent, but doesn’t feel that great. Plus, I don’t care if my reading list is “federated”. I asked about this on Mastodon, and @johnke responded, suggesting Hardcover, which I’d never heard of. It was a good suggestion. I imported all of my books from TheStoryGraph, which I’d previously imported from Goodreads, and I was off and running. Here’s what it looks like: ...

How to export a note with images from Tinderbox and end up with a fully self-contained HTML archive.

I bought a nice Nikon FE2, but I don’t love it enough to keep it.

At the beginning of 2024, I had grand plans to Reduce & Simplify. I was also determined to use what I have. I’ve done neither of those things. It’s November. I tried for a while. Or rather, I tried a bunch of different times, which had the effect of making everything less simple. Instead of limiting the number of tools I use, I switched from one to another (in an honest but misguided effort to make things simpler). The result has not been the nice, clean, simple set of tools I had hoped for. Instead of having few dependencies and requiring little maintenance, my stuff is spread everywhere and littered with neediness. ...

I had fun today exploring my options for a browser-based workflow.

I wanted to add an :ID: property to several hundred files, but only if one didn’t already exist. I cheated and asked ChatGPT for help. It helped.

How I added a subtle link to edit the current page or post in Ghost.

There is no built-in method in Ghost for floating an image and having text flow around it. It’s a significant omission, and one which they say is “too hard” and have no plans to change. OK fine, I’ll do it myself. I found a reasonable solution in this post on the forums. Here’s how I’m using it. Add the following to the header in the code injection area: /* small images to float but not look stupid on mobile */ @media (min-width: 40rem) { .float-left-half figure, .float-left-two-thirds figure { float: left; margin: 8px 20px 6px 0; } .float-right-half figure, .float-right-two-thirds figure { float: right; margin: 8px 0 6px 20px; } .float-left-half figure, .float-right-half figure { max-width: 50%; } @media (min-width: 64em) { .float-left-two-thirds figure, .float-right-two-thirds figure { max-width: 67%; } } } Then, in a post or page, I add an HTML block before the image card I want to float (e.g to the right). ...

The Canon AE-1 Program was my first real camera. Unfortunately, I no longer own that original from 1982, so I bought another one in 2013. It’s not a great camera, but it works. I like to put a roll through it now and then.

I spent the morning of the election with my daughter and grandson. It was a nice way to spend part of an otherwise anxiety-filled day.

OK, it’s happening again. Hugo broke my site for the second time in two updates. I got mad (again) and decided it was time for us to break up. I dusted off the version of the blog that I’d built using Eleventy and started working on getting everything updated. Except it didn’t work. I don’t know what I was missing or what had changed since I stopped using it, but things were broken. I then decided that I would start fresh with Eleventy’s base blog repo. That was also a mistake. After several hours, I had built an ugly blog, without some of the features I’d wanted. I gave up. ...

I’ve been back in Doom Emacs for a few days. This is how it’s going.