A blog about everything, by Jack Baty

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

I wonder what I would do with my time if I didn’t have the internet.


Had an extended dream last night that I couldn’t find my car. I was sure I had parked it near where Donald Trump had driven away in a beat up old Acura Integra with a loose wheel, but neither my car nor Trump were anywhere to be found.

Monday, March 18, 2024

Yesterday, on daily.baty.net, I wrote:

Today I woke up and my first thought was, Oh right, I’m back in Tinderbox again.” What will I wake up to tomorrow?

I suppose then the answer is Emacs and Markdown and Blot.im”.


You’ll have to excuse me for rambling here today. I need to talk about why, after a week on everything but Emacs, I’m now back in Emacs and posting to the Blot blog. Tinderbox, Logseq, and Obsidian can be a fun change of pace, but I can’t figure out why anyone who has become proficient using Emacs and Org-mode would ever stop using Emacs and Org-mode. Other than the mobile factor, there’s no reason to leave the comfortable, free, future-proof, and powerful environment of Emacs. Also, Markdown-mode in Emacs is very good.


Wow, my Blot folders were a disaster. There were nearly 100 conflicted copy” files from Nov. 2023. I had over 500MB of images in an old wp-content folder, but only 6 images were being used. I sure make a mess. It took an hour, but I think I have things cleaned up pretty well, now. Let’s keep it that way, eh Jack?

Test of Git sync in Blot

I’ve changed the sync method in Blot from Dropbox to Git, since I want to avoid having to install Dropbox on the new Mini. If you see this, it worked.

However…

I’ve decided to use Dropbox for sync. One of Blot’s compelling features is that when syncing via Dropbox, all I need to do is create or edit a file and hit Save” and it’s out there. No git add . or committing necessary. I like that lack of friction, even if sometimes it means I’m publishing half-formed things.

So I installed Maestral and hooked Blot back up with my Dropbox account. Maestral is fast and lightweight so I don’t feel too gross having it installed.

A (small) improvement to photo display on Glass.photo

Post moved to https://baty.net/2024/03/a-small-improvement-to-photo-display-on-glass-photo

From MacBook Pro to Mac Mini

Post moved to https://baty.net/2024/03/from-macbook-pro-to-mac-mini

Friday, March 08, 2024

I really don’t want to talk about tools anymore, but that’s all I know how to talk about. Should I tell you how I’ve been forcing myself to use Obsidian again? I can’t seem to stop trying.

And why am I creating a journal post in Blot? I’m not even supposed to be here. I mean, I’m pretty content with using Kirby, but some days I get especially twitchy about having my content in Kirby’s own text format rather than normal” yaml front matter like everything else. Also, I had to upgrade Kirby this morning and I didn’t feel like remembering how to do that.

Creating a WARC Web Archive using wget

Post moved to https://baty.net/2024/03/creating-a-warc-web-archive-using-wget

No longer keeping my notes in a Git repo

For many years I’ve put every new folder full of anything into a new Git repo. I never questioned it, I just did it because that’s what you do.

I’m thinking about no longer doing this. This morning I was daydreaming while waiting for a folder to finish rsyncing to a server and I was mesmerized by page after page of lines like .git/objects/fb/70e546350cc4106caf1225706b44c85087ed27” scrolling by. I checked a few of my projects and was surprised by how much space all those .git/ directories use.

Do I even need them? I’m thinking no. I can’t remember the last time I went back and looked at earlier commits or needed to diff anything that wasn’t actual code. My ~/org files don’t need precise version control, they just need good backups. Static websites probably need Git because it’s nice for tracking template/CSS changes. Also, I’ll need it if I ever decide to use Github Pages for hosting, etc.

So I’m considering going through my project folders and removing .git/ directories unless I actually need Git.

Software that sparks joy

Post moved to https://baty.net/2024/02/software-that-sparks-joy

Sometimes I just want to write stuff in Emacs

Blot is great. One reason I keep it around is because sometimes I just want to write stuff in Emacs. I have a lisp function which makes it super easy to create a new post. Then I get to type in Markdown-mode in Emacs and it’s so great.