Baty.blog

Welcome to Jack Baty‘s blog about everything

  • I hit a tech wall

    The past month has been a whirlwind of new tech stuff for me. I bought 2 new computers to run Linux, so I’ve been learning to adapt my workflow to an entirely new environment. This means that just about everything in my computing life has changed.

    I have a new NAS, and moved everything from the Mac Mini server to the NAS. This meant learning more Docker and understanding how to do things on the UGREEN OS.

    I’ve been playing with a few new TUI apps for things like Taskwarrior and Mutt and LazyGit. So basically I’ve been fighting text files for a month and I’m bored with it.

    It feels like I’ve hit a wall with all this. I need a break, which might be why I’m typing this here in WordPress using my browser instead of a Markdown file in Emacs for Hugo.

    Also, my paper notebooks are getting some use. Maybe I should go for a walk.

  • Bored photography

    Sometimes I get bored

    Sometimes I get bored and try distracting myself with some lesser-used camera or process. This time, it’s the original Fujifilm X100 with the old Monochrome preset. Processed in Darktable because I’m a masochist.

  • I haven’t deleted this yet for some reason

    Whenever I stop by here and look at the blog I think, “Well that’s kind of nice, actually.” Then I consider moving my blogging here (again). But also, I know me and it never sticks. And yet, it’s still here.

  • How’s the WordPress experiment going?

    TL;DR I’ll probably bail on it soon.

    I quite like how the theme looks and works. I like being able to just drag in images and have everything done for me. I like built-in analytics and comments. I like that there’s a massive ecosystem. I like that I can switch themes with ease when I get bored. I like that when I spot a typo I can fix it right in place.

    I don’t like Gutenberg. I don’t like how janky the control panel feels. I don’t like every plugin trying to upsell me constantly. I hate the “Site Editor”. Have I mentioned that I don’t like Gutenberg? I don’t like that my stuff is all out there and buried in a database.

    The pros always outweigh the cons…for a few weeks at most. Then, the cons really start to eat at me. That’s what’s happening now. I copied many of the posts from the past couple of weeks here and added them to the Hugo blog at baty.net.

    So, I may go back there, and leave this one idling for when I get the itch to write somewhere new.

  • Westenberg: Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice

    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.

  • Roll 54 (2025) / Leica MP, HP5

    This one took me a couple weeks to get through. Some restaurants, some beaches, some dogs.

  • Is my photo workflow feasible on Linux?

    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 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.

  • Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace – Ted Gioia

    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.

  • A couple of weeks full-time in Linux. How’s it going?

    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.

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