I’ve been playing with Obsidian again for a few days. It’s always an immediate love/hate thing between us. There’s so much there that just works and makes taking/linking/searching notes easy. It’s not Emacs, which is a shame, but that’s half the point. So much of my life recently has been eaten up by farting around with Emacs. (e.g. Emacs from scratch once again | Baty.net)

Between futzing and breaking things, I felt like I needed a break. When that happens, I change things. This time, I fired up Obsidian and dusted off my Blot blog Both Obsidian and Blot are very nice and quite good at what they do, so it takes a while before I start to miss Emacs or Tinderbox or whatever.

I’m writing this in Obsidian (see Blotting with Obsidian - Jack Baty)

For today, at least, I’m having fun with it.

December 17, 2024 Blogging Obsidian Reply by email

I have a task on my list that reads, “Archive baty.blog and close Blot account.” I went there to do that but couldn’t. I can’t let go, so instead, I’ve started a new post. Oh well.

This is not a good idea. What am I doing here?

December 17, 2024 Journal Reply by email

I love using Blot for this blog, but I’ve been feeling nervous about its longevity. It’s been around for a long time, so the Lindy Effect should apply, but still. It feels like David has been MIA more frequently and for longer periods recently. It’s probably nothing to worry about, but I’m worried about it.

August 14, 2024 Journal Reply by email

I’m giving this minimal-emacs.d a try. So fast!

Deactivated my Twitter account, finally. F*ck that guy and everything he stands for.

August 13, 2024 Journal Reply by email

I’m going to use whatever apps I feel like using on any given day. That’s just the way I am. The trick is to stop thinking that I need to choose something for good. I can just pick up whichever tool gives me the best vibes right now and stop worrying about which is “best”.

My back is feeling a lot better, so I should probably get on all the chores I’ve been putting off because “my back hurts” :)

August 12, 2024 Journal Reply by email

Here are a few unexpected things that I’ve been doing differently recently.

I’m using Safari as my default browser. Arc is great, but Safari works with everything, especially with Apple’s new Passwords app, which I’ve been testing.

Related to the last one, I’m using Safari’s Reading List as a read later service. It’s built in and really all I want is a list of bookmarks. A simple CMD-SHIFT-D on any page and that’s it. This also prevents hoarding, in that it doesn’t download or otherwise store the pages. If I truly want to keep something, I can do that later.

I’m blogging with Blot. This happens occasionally, but right now it feels really good. Blot just disappears, and that’s soothing.

I’m using Fastmail’s web UI for managing my email instead of MailMate or Apple Mail. It’s fine, and it’s just a pinned tab away.

Making inkjet prints from film scans. I’ve got a perfectly good darkroom, so this is weird.

Things change fast around here, but I thought the above items were noteworthy.

August 11, 2024 workflow Reply by email

I feel like using Blot today, so 👋🏻! Do you know why this happens? I’ll tell you…it’s Emacs. Every day I wonder if today is the day I’ll stop using Emacs. Some days it happens, but then the next morning I’m back. This is one of those mornings. I have a nice lisp function for creating new Blot posts, which makes writing posts as easy as with things like WordPress (image handling not included). So today, I’m here.

There’s nothing at all on the calendar today, and I can probably ignore most of my todo list. I’m sure this is why I’m switching blogs and apps and journals and everything. Too much time on my hands is a dangerous thing.

Some days I feel like sitting up straight with my hands on the home row and on those days, Emacs is king. Other days, I want to lean back and plink around using only the mouse and maybe type a few things once in a while. On those days, just about anything but Emacs is better.

I need a (digital) junk drawer. In the past, I’ve used DEVONthink, Finder, EagleFiler, and Evernote. They all have advantages and disadvantages. I don’t think using just the Finder works. Evernote is too expensive. DEVONthink is too…much…somehow. EagleFiler is a good candidate, but sometimes feels like not much more than a fance Finder. Still noodling on it.

August 11, 2024 Journal Reply by email

I was toying with the idea of short posts here as .txt files rather than Markdown, but that was a bad idea. There’s no reason to use .txt. It’s exactly the same as .md but with less flexibility. .md it is!

I’ve heard Prot say that he uses mostly .txt files in Denote, but I don’t understand why one would do that. It’s all plain text, so why limit yourself?

August 11, 2024 notetaking Reply by email

BSAG posted recently about an Emacs mode I’d never heard of called “Devil mode” and it looked like a fun thing to try, so I did.

Devil mode trades your comma key in exchange for a modifier-free editing experience in Emacs. Yes, the comma key! The key you would normally wield for punctuation in nearly every corner of text. Yes, this is twisted! It would not be called the Devil otherwise, would it?

Installation using use-package was pretty straightforward.

(use-package devil
  :ensure t
  :config
  (global-devil-mode)
  (global-set-key (kbd "C-;") 'global-devil-mode)
  (devil-set-key (kbd ";")))

Note that I changed the binding to use ; rather than the default comma because I found that the default configuration messed with the default Howm bindings and I’m not changing those yet. Also, all my text expansion shortcuts start with , so that would be a pain to change.

After the first hour or so, I’m not sure if this will work for me. I need to give it a few days, to be sure. It’s great having some optional, nicer bindings for certain things. For example, I don’t like any C-x chords on my HHKB keyboard (or any, really). It feels awkward, even after a decade of use. Using ; x instead feels better already.

The problem for me is getting used to it. Right now it feels like every time I need to invoke some command, I need to decide if I want to use the native bindings or Devil mode. That friction is going to be a problem for a while.

Another issue is that the which-key package doesn’t fire when using the ; binding. The BSAG post mentioned a which-key fork that fixes this, but I’d prefer to avoid forks for things as important as which-key.

I’ll let you know how I’m feeling after using Devil mode for a few more days.

July 20, 2024 Emacs Reply by email

I noticed that I had an Emacs function named jab/blot-new-journal so I ran it and here we are. Why do I do all the work of streamlining and optimizing a process just to abandon it later? It’s a mystery.

However, I don’t know that using Blot for daily note (aka journal) posts makes sense. Feels less integrated than with the Kirby or Tinderbox sites. Still, it would be nice typing into an Emacs buffer throughout the day rather than a web form.

July 20, 2024 Journal Reply by email