Miscellaneous

Unless I’m doing some crazy non-standard layout, I’m not a fan of using WordPress’ Gutenberg editor. Mostly I just want to type some simple text and add a link or two. Last year I bought a license for Iceberg which is a lightweight Gutenberg replacement that feels more “normal”. I stopped using it because there was a kind of uncanny valley effect, but after several frustrating days wrestling Gutenberg, I’m trying Iceberg again. Here’s what this post looks like in Iceberg ...

The more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered Thomas Paine I would be wise to keep this in mind.

I see office vs remote is very much on the menu (thanks media for using your platform to ruin our day ????) <p> The key should be *choice* </p> <p> Some people prefer to work at home<br />Some people prefer to work at an office </p> <p> It's up to managers to put on their adult pants and facilitate both. </p> <p> &mdash; Andy Bell (@piccalilli_) <a href="https://twitter.com/piccalilli_/status/1402971819431370753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a> </p> <p> My feelings about remote work are evolving, and I&#8217;m working through them, but social media makes it difficult because social media almost forces us to pick a side and run hard with it. Nuance is left at the curb, along with rational discussions. </p> <p> The above tweet demonstrates the kind of thing I see from people who&#8217;ve never had an employee who <em>wanted</em> to work remotely, but was incapable of being productive that way. That is a situation that exists. What should be done? My first reaction is termination. Problem solved!. How&#8217;s that for adult pants? But seriously, I don&#8217;t have a good answer. I don&#8217;t think the answer is automatically, &#8220;just give every employee the choice.&#8221; </p> <p> I could have chosen any number of tweets along these lines as example, but Bell is someone I enjoy following and this tweet in particular triggered me with the &#8220;adult pants&#8221; phrase. Managers, even good ones, sometimes struggle making difficult decisions (which I assume he means by &#8220;putting on adult pants&#8221;). So? Who doesn&#8217;t? </p> <p> I&#8217;ve been managing a handful of people for 25 years. In most cases, I&#8217;m entirely OK with them working remotely. Basically, I&#8217;m a fan of remote work, and prefer it for all the reasons made by its proponents. </p> <p> However, I don&#8217;t agree that remote work is automatically the best option for every person and for every company. Maybe you work for one of those companies. You might even be one of those people for whom remote work is counterproductive (and you probably don&#8217;t even know it.) </p> <p> So at least maybe don&#8217;t assume that every example of &#8220;I&#8217;d like you in the office&#8221; is a case of a bad manager just wanting to watch over the shoulder of a &#8220;body in a seat.&#8221; It <em>could</em> be that, but it also might not be. </p> <p> Nuance, is all I&#8217;m saying. </p> <p> <!--kg-card-end: html--> </p>

Keith James, Macfilos: Perhaps because life in the third decade of the twenty-first century, for those of us in technologically developed countries, seems to involve almost total submersion in an ocean of digital devices, I suspect I am not the only one who enjoys occasionally being cast away on an island of mechanical wonder, where devices involve moving parts more than moving electrons. Mmmm, mechanical memories.

I spent the weekend helping a friend assemble and place a lift for his speedboat. It was a job for four people, but we only had two. This meant some extra planning and heavy lifting. Eventually, we succeeded. It was a fun challenge.

Things have been stagnating around here. I haven’t felt like doing any capital-B Blogging. Rather, I’ve been pouring stuff into rudimentarylathe.wiki. It’s just easier to have the daily notes tiddler open and type as I go. No need to come up with titles or worry about whether I have enough words put together to justify a new post. Writing blog posts is a Whole Thing™. This blog started out as a place for me to share photos and their supporting processes and gear. Later, I combined it with my other blog(s) in an effort to consolidate my “presence”. Instead of writing more, which is what I expected to happen, I write almost never. ...

I wonder what I would choose to do with my time if I didn’t share every detail of my life? Let’s find out.

Here’s my star rating system for everything: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Loved it! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It was good ⭐️⭐️⭐️ It was OK ⭐️⭐️ I didn’t like it ⭐️ Hated it With me, everything gets 3 stars by default. Books, movies, photographs, everything: 3 stars right off the bat. I always assume that this new thing or person or conversation will be OK at the very least. This applies to more than just media. It applies to people, too. Sometimes I’m disappointed and end up with 1 or 2 stars, but more often than not I’m surprised and delighted and my opinion of something or someone goes up rather than down. ...

A New Guild System | THR Blog | Blogs | The Hedgehog Review: At a time when, as Levin points out, people tend to see participation even in such august institutions as the United States Congress as a platform for building their own personal brand, the solo-proprietor world can all-too-easily become branding all the way down and the personal website a device for constant ego-feeding. “Branding all the way down” indeed. ...

I got my first Kindle in 2007. I had given up on Amazon letting me do the Most Obvious Thing, which is to use the current book’s cover on the lock screen. But, after 13 years, I finally can! Finally! (I’ll probably decide to disable it when reading “Fifty Shades”, though)

Everything in my life has become overwrought, overthought, overdone, and needs to be unwound. Today, I’m dealing with this blog at copingmechanism.com. A few weeks ago I decided to go back to using WordPress (again), and dammit I’m going to try sticking with it this time. But, I don’t like any WordPress themes. There are thousands of them, and I can never find one that works for me. Oh, I find a lot of them that make me say, “Ooh, cool!” and install immediately and say, “There, that’s nice!” ...

None of the old books on my Kindle mean anything to me. They’re just there. I never see them, I never re-read them. I never use them for anything. Seems like a waste. In addition, I’ve recently purchased a couple of hardcover books that I didn’t enjoy. So now what? They’ve gotta sit on my shelf forever? I suppose I could always give them away, but that’s also work. (Advantage, real books, though). ...

I am once again having thoughts about only maintaining One True Blog™. I know, it’s just another mood and it’ll probably change, but as I wrote a few days ago, I don’t feel like blogging lately. I’m wondering if this is partially because I’m exhausted by the decisions around publishing. Just last week I moved my other blog at baty.blog from Blot to Micro.blog and back again. This meant switching from using Emacs to edit posts to MarsEdit (and back). I maintain automation to support all of it, and keeping all those threads going has become less interesting. ...

GQ told me that Now Is a Great Time to Go Back to an Old iPod and I believed them, so I bought one. This is a 7th-gen iPod Classic fitted with a custom board and 256GB flash storage. I got it from PiratePTiPods on Etsy. I admit it was a bit of an impulse buy, but after a week of use I’m glad I have it. I’ve loaded it with a bunch of my favorite songs, and have not yet run out of things to listen to. ...

Sometimes I get bored with the way I’m running things around here and look to mix things up a bit. It’s happened again. This time, it meant bringing back the Coping Mechanism blog. You’re soaking in it. I have my stuff at a few different domains: copingmechanism.com. This brand new blog. Running WordPress Ghost WordPress. baty.net. My blog since 2000. Generated by Hugo. I’ll probably move the thousands of posts to archive.baty.net and make baty.net an introduction and jumping off point. I have mixed feelings about this, but here we are. Roam Research. I have a public Roam database that I pour words into throughout the day. Nothing is edited, or even well-considered, for that matter. micro.baty.net. Short posts using the wonderful micro.blog service. rudimentarylathe.org. This was my wiki for quite a while. Built with TiddlyWiki, but now idle. I’m afraid there will never be such a thing as The One True Blog for me. But, for now, I’ll be focusing my blogging attention here. There will also be random gibberish in Roam, and short posts at micro.blog. ...