Jack Baty Daily

For creating a static blog, it's hard to beat Hugo. Hugo's capabilities and performance are compelling. And yet, I kind of hate Hugo.

I moved baty.net back to Hugo some time ago. The plan was to let Hugo do its thing and resist tinkering with it. Of course I tinkered a little, but I've been pretty good at leaving things alone, for the most part.

Then today, after a minor upgrade, Hugo wouldn't render my blog because some of the posts' front matter dates were in an "invalid" format. News to me!

I had to review a handful of old posts and fix the dates, even though most of them were, in my opinion, fine (e.g. something like "2024-09-29 10:12AM".

Anyway, I was reminded that Hugo can be a real pain, even when I leave it alone. So, I'm here in Tinderbox, bitching about it.

Some people, it seems, can look at the same app or two all day, every day, for years, and be fine. I can't. I experience a kind of tedium and then become restless. I've been living in Emacs for weeks now and I'm bored. This is why I'm typing this in Tinderbox instead. I claim to want only one blog, yet I continue posting to at least two of them. Again, because I get bored. It'll pass.

I have written notes in three different apps and posted on three different sites. It's 5:45 AM.

I find the Denote Emacs package to be just about perfect for keeping notes.

I have had the reMarkable2 tablet on two occasions. Bought one. Sold it. Bought another one. The hardware is great. The writing experience is great. It should be great. And yet, I never use it. A writing tablet isn't paper, as much as it tries to be. If I'm going to write by hand, why not just use paper?

This is a test post to make sure I'm not automatically syndicating from this RSS feed somewhere. I made kind of a mess of things with my short-lived dip back into Micro.blog.

I watched a documentary called The Book Makers and now I want to make a book.

Freddie deBoer

You have to imagine a life you can live with, where you are, when you are. If you don’t, you’ll never be satisfied. Neither AI nor anything else is coming to save you from the things you don’t like about being a person.

I'm trying something. This post is being written at daily.baty.net and should syndicate as-is to Mastodon (social.lol). I'm sending just the text, as if it's a native Mastodon post (no links).

20 years ago when I was feeling fancy, I bought myself a nice Maxwell Scott briefcase. At some point the strap loop failed so I patched it with a wire. Yesterday I emailed them to see about a fix. They responded today that they'll be sending me replacement parts, free of charge. Nice. I guess they weren't kidding about that 25-year warranty.

Firing up my micro.blog again has confused things a bit around here. Where do the little posts go, on daily.baty.net or on Micro.blog? Most, but not all, of the time, I want both, so I've dusted off the micro.blog specific RSS feed here and will pull that into micro.blog. Let's see how that feels.

Every court ruling news headline sounds like this to me:

"Court refuses to overturn rejected ruling not banning those refusing to undo denying a double negative."

Part Four of My Battles with Emacs - Bicycle For Your Mind

It is not my fault. I blame Jack Baty for this. He goes on and on about how Org-mode has improved his sex life and given him purpose and direction. Okay, maybe he hasn’t quite said that. But he is enamored with it and I am curious to find out what he is on about.

I don’t know whether to say “You’re welcome” or “I’m sorry” 😁.

The new record from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds is called "Wild God" and it's fantastic. Nick Cave in a good mood is a rare and wonderful thing.

I just want to write it down and find it later. Everything else is gravy.

I don't want to futz with things, but I still want the option to futz with things.

John P. Weiss quotes Jim Harrison: "A Diminishing Portfolio of Enthusiasms". It hits right where I'm feeling lately.

Obsidian is the WordPress of note-taking apps: Ubiquitous, powerful, extensible, complex, free (or not), a bit janky, and with a repetitive community of people seemingly desperate to become influencers. That last part might seem unfair, but I struggle to wade through the fluff while looking for good, honestly helpful information.

I'm kind of tired of blogging today. This has been happening pretty regularly lately.

OK, so Obsidian and I have never gotten along well. I know it's the 800-pound gorilla but it just doesn't click with me for some reason. After using SilverBullet for a while, I think I might know why. It's the file tree and sidebar. SilverBullet doesn't have one (by default) and so I spend no time "organizing" things. I just make a new note and move on. If I hide the sidebar in Obsidian as much as possible, could I make it feel the same?

OMG I'm absolutely catatonic about notes apps again. Playing with software is usually fun, but lately I've grown to loathe all of it.

We're all just looking for excuses to change apps, aren't we. We call them "reasons".

I have moods during which I'd like to cancel all of my subscriptions to everything. No more streaming services, no more fancy software, none of it. Then I review the list and find myself saying, "Well, of course I need that one!" for just about everything.