Jack Baty

Thought I'd bring back the status block here and see how it feels. Should it go at the bottom of the daily post instead? Dunno.

I made the mistake of reading the news this morning. It made me furious (like most days), so I went to visit my grandson and now I feel much better.

There's been talk lately about why RSS readers are designed like email clients and whether they should use unread count indicators This goes back to at least 2014. The latest discussion is around Phantom Obligations.

I love seeing new approaches to things, so I bought Terry Godier's new RSS app, Current, which is designed in a way meant to avoid the sense of obligation around unread articles. Current does some clever semi-algorithmic manipulation of feeds based on frequency, importance, type, etc. It's quite clever and it looks nice. I have a few early thoughts about it.

Using Current, though, I still find myself scrolling through my feeds and hitting "Mark as Read" on everything I see but don't want to read, same as I do in other readers.

Thing is, I like the unread count in RSS readers like NetNewsWire. These aren't obligations, they're opportunities. I'm sad when the count gets to zero. Unread articles are just that. Things on my list that I haven't gotten to yet. There's no rush, and if I haven't read all of them, so be it. Sometimes, if I get "behind", I just glance at the latest articles and if nothing grabs me, I "Mark all as read" and move on. I might feel a slight twinge of FOMO, but it's fine. It's possible that Current just isn't for me.

Maybe I just need to give it a few more days, to see if I actually prefer the "flow" Current promises. It seems like a thoughtful, well-designed app that is trying to improve the experience of keeping up with our feeds. I'm all for that.

“Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids...”

—HUNTER S. THOMPSON

Current is a new RSS reader. It looks interesting, but damn that page uses a lot of words to describe it. It makes simple seem complicated.

So is this going to be my main blog or what?

I finally got into the darkroom this morning. Caught up on making contact sheets. They're hanging to dry. I keep telling myself that contact sheets aren't worth the effort, but I feel guilty not having them, so I always catch up.

Gotta say, using a CMS that is tailor-made for running a simple blog and nothing else is pretty refreshing.

I don't feel much like computering today. Most of the weekend was spent over-computering about everything, and I'm weary of it. There are no other plans, but the weather is supposed to be rather nice for a change, so I should take advantage of that. Otherwise, I'll end up on another dead end like with Raw Therapee yesterday. Hours and hours with no gains. I have too many days like that.

Took the dog to the park for some roaming about. It's a beautiful day here. Gets my mind of all the horrible stuff...for a few minutes.

In order to use Linux full-time, I'll need to find a feasible workflow for my photography hobby. Weeks working with Darktable hasn't converted me. I still prefer both Lightroom (Classic) and Capture One for editing photos.

I see people mentioning WinBoat as a possible option, so I installed it, along with Windows and Capture One. It works! Well, technically it works, but is it usable?

See that app in the upper right? That's Capture One, running in KDE via WinBoat

Brief testing has made me think that it is not usable for me, at least on the little Beelink mini desktop.

It's fine that it takes 20 seconds to launch. And with the window at a reasonably small size, it's almost responsive enough to work with. It gets worse when the window is maximized and, for some reason, I am unable to resize the window consistently. It feels janky on my machine. Too janky.

The latest version of WinBoat is supposed to support USB Pass-through, but I couldn't get it to work.

Having to buy a Windows license would be gross, but if it solved my problem I'd jump on it. I'm not sure it solves the problem, yet, though.

Still, the bear dances! Maybe a higher-spec machine and the final 1.0 release of WinBoat will make it happen.

I woke up today and found that this blog was still using Pure Blog, just as I left it. I wasn't surprised, really, but sometimes I think that blog gnomes sneak blog changes into my life while I sleep, so it's good to check.

Having spent too much time worrying about how to render different post types or short vs long content, I'm now trying the I Don't Care method. Everything is just a post. Let's see how that feels, Right now it feels liberating.

Spent a couple of days putting this blog together and now I don't feel like writing.

Well, I did it. After days of tinkering with Pure Blog, I've used it for this site at baty.blog.

I didn't have the guts to replace my main blog at baty.net yet. Too much work.

Baty.blog has been powered by Blot for a while now, but I had to put this one somewhere, so Blot had to go. Most of the Blot content has been archived at blot.baty.net.

It feels nice to start fresh. Now, what should I use it for?

Originally posted on baty.net but thought it relevant here, too.

D'ya ever grow weary of thinking about blogging and blogging software and blogging workflows and blogging culture? No? Me neither. Not normally, anyway, but it's happening now.

I've been having a blast testing Kev Quirk's new blogging platform, Pure Blog. He's done a great job of nailing the basics. It's easy and fun to use. So fun, in fact, that I've been teetering on using it for this blog at baty.net.

Sometimes I just want a CMS.

Static blogs using Markdown files are great, but I like to post a lot of images, and SSGs make that more difficult. I've scripted a few things to help, but nothing beats a nice drag-and-drop UI.

It's been a relief using Pure Blog for a few days. Here's the thing, though, once I start considering going back to using a CMS, why not go all the way and use WordPress or Ghost (probably Ghost)? That's what I've been spiraling about for a few days. Am I going to be satisfied with something as simple as Pure Blog, when Ghost has analytics, comments, fediverse integration, etc.? I don't know, maybe?

If I do decide to change platforms, again, I need to deal with migrating thousands of posts. This is made more difficult by having changed platforms a dozen times, already. My Markdown files have all kinds of slightly different front matter; some YAML, some TOML. Some have "featured" images, some don't. It's a mess.

I was considering archiving the baty.net again and starting fresh. That feels like crazy talk, but I can't help thinking about it. Wouldn't it be nice not lugging all this legacy cruft around? Except, it would break a lot of links. It's not like my posts are linked to that often, but they are linked to. Seems rude.

Another option is to use one of my other domains. Baty.blog is a good candidate. That's currently running on Blot but I'd archived that blog before. There's always copingmechanism.com.

Thing is, if I don't continue using baty.net for my primary blog, I'll lose a ton of readers. Baty.net is my blog, and not many folks are likely to update their RSS feeds just to follow me around. Part of me doesn't mind, but I don't love the idea.

You see how it is? I have a love/hate relationship with blogging workflows. My mood changes too often and it ruins each carefully crafted setup. It's a good thing there's a love portion of the equation.

Sooo, anyhoo, that's where my head is, this morning. I'm going to be out for a while today, and when I return I would like to make the call. Stay tuned.

With each passing day, I move closer to using Pure Blog for baty.net. Kev as added a few convenience features and updates that make Pure Blog entirely capable of running my site. It's the content that scares me. Even though Pure Blog uses "standard" YAML front matter, baty.net has adopted a half-dozen of those standards over the years. Converting everything would be a chore I'm not interested in. But (and this is a huge but), what if I started fresh? GASP! I know, I know. I'm seriously considering it, though.