The appeal of cynicism is that it makes you sound smart without asking for a whole lot of independent thought. It’s easier to tear down than build up, to assume the worst than to evaluate evidence, to sneer than to engage, to smirk rather than smile.
Source: Joan Westenberg, Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice
We could use less of it.
This one took me a couple weeks to get through. Some restaurants, some beaches, some dogs.
I'm trying. I really am.
I've spent a while getting my head around Darktable and digiKam. That's no small feat, honestly. What weird software. It's capable, but getting to where I was with Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and sometimes Capture One has been elusive.
There are manuals, blog posts, and Youtube videos to consume, but, given the nature of Darktable, everyone tells me to do things differently. There are a dozen ways to accomplish every task. Which one's best? Who knows!?
Converting film negative scans it what I'm struggling with most. Lightroom has Negative Lab Pro, which is sort of de facto standard at this point. It makes quick work of conversion, adjustments, and metadata handling. Darktable has Negadoctor, which remains a mystery to me. I've used it to convert three rolls, and I'm getting the hang of the process, but I still can't get the look I want from them. Everything's a tad muddy, no matter how much I futz with the 175 available sliders.
One thing I've learned is that the Framework is much slower than the little Beelink with Darktable. That means the Beelink stays as the main desktop. I thought for a second I could use the Framework for both, but not if I'm going to be processing photos with it.
I'll give it until the end of October to see if I can forego the Mac entirely.
That’s not entirely fair. Wallace’s most famous book, Infinite Jest—1,079 pages and weighing 3.15 pounds (in the hardcover first edition)—is challenging. But Wallace wrote many other things, and some of them are quite accessible.
Source: Ted Gioia, Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace
I hope that reading and talking about DFW makes a comeback. For a while there, Book Social Media was (rightfully) aligned against sound-smart lit-bros who wouldn’t shut up about Infinite Jest. I may have been one of them, because I loved (and still love) that book, so shut up.
But definitely read This is Water, even if it’s cliche by now. and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is a ton of fun. Oh, and his piece about Federer is amazing, even if some of it might be exaggerated. Who cares?
Using Winer's WordLand to post to WordPress encourages me to make shorter, even title-less, posts. While there are no character limits, the initial size of the form sort of adds an affordance of brevity. I don't mind this.
TL;DR It’s a love/hate thing, with love in the lead.
Here are a few thoughts on how things are going so far.
(more…)I’ve carried one kind of paper notebook or another on my person for years. Moleskine, Field Notes, Travelers, you name it. The idea is to “capture my ideas and thoughts” while on the go.
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really have many thoughts or ideas, on the go or otherwise. I can’t remember the last time I was walking or at the store or whatever and thought, “Oooh! That’s a brilliant idea, Jack! Thank goodness I have this notebook with me!”
Mostly what I write in these notebooks are grocery lists or the name of a TV show someone said I should watch.
Who are these people that have all kinds of ideas while out? I want to be one of those people, so I still carry my notebook everywhere. Just in case, I guess.
Org Social is a decentralized social network that runs on an Org Mode file over HTTP.
You can create posts, interact with groups, make replies, mention other users, create polls, or personalize your profile. All this without registration, without databases… Just you and your Org Mode file.
It’s a ton of fun for us emacs nerds. Follow mine here:
But the truth for nearly everyone is simpler. You don’t have to turn your back on the big issues, but you also don’t have to import the entire national crisis into your personal one.
Source: You don’t have to swallow frogs
The article discusses the recent Ezra Klein/Ta-Nehisi Coates interview.
I made it official, I'll be blogging exclusively here at baty.blog for a while. Sometimes, by "a while", I end up meaning "two days", but it is what it is. It feels really good for those two days, at least. I'm having fun. I like the theme enough. I don't mind dumping short and long posts at random here. You all may have a different opinion, but it's my blog, right? 😅