I’ve been testing the hot new Tana app for the past week, and I’m exhausted. First, I don’t need a Zettelkasten. If you’re being honest, you probably don’t either. And yet, we spend hours or days learning the “proper” way to build one. Then we set up our new system, using paper or digital or both, roll up our sleeves, and waste time putting stuff into it. The worst part isn’t the putting of stuff into my PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) system. The worst part is all of the tinkering around where to put stuff and how to classify/tag/organize it. ...

In mastodon technology Shutdown, Ash Furrow writes: I have sad news that I have decided to shut down the mastodon.technology instance. In accordance with the Mastodon Server Covenant, the server will be shut down no earlier than December 1, 2022. Ash Furrow I’ve been on the Mastodon.technology instance for nearly 5 years. It’s been great, but given the coming shutdown I needed to find a new instance. I almost gave up on the whole Fediverse. After all, I’ve been on Twitter for nearly 20 years already. Never had to move or change anything. That’s of course no guarantee, but you know. Plus, it’s Twitter. ...

The more notes I put into Org-roam, the more I want to put there. My Org-roam directory has always been in ~/org/roam, meaning that my database was limited to files I put in that directory. The rest of my org files have been in ~/org, so they’re out of “reach” of Org-roam. Sometimes, though, I wanted link from, say, my Daybook.org file to one of my Org-roam files, thereby making that daybook entry part of my org-roam database. ...

I splurged on a new Apple Studio Display for my home office. It’s only been 24 hours but I couldn’t be happier. I wish it wasn’t so expensive. Even the “base” model is too expensive. And no way I’m paying another $400 just so I can adjust the height. That pisses me off a little, but the display is gorgeous, so all is forgiven. Here’s why I bought one: My 32-inch LG was too big. I know that sounds crazy, but too much screen real estate is a distraction for me. I wanted 5k. Whenever I switched between the (4k) LG and my internal Retina MacBook Pro monitor, the difference when reading text was pronounced. Moving to the internal Retina display felt like putting on glasses. I wanted built-in speakers and camera. I keep the MBP in clamshell mode, so I needed to have extra speakers on my desk and didn’t like the clutter. The hardware is beautiful. I stare at my monitor nearly all day, every day. The Studio Display is simply nicer looking than anything else I’ve seen. This alone doesn’t justify the purchase, but it sure helps. I’ve taken the LG to my temporary office in our old building, so it’s not like it’s going to waste. The new Studio Display is a great upgrade, though. ...

I’m trying something with TiddlyWiki. My public wiki has over 3,000 entries. As much as I try keeping notes in my array of Org-mode files, I almost always find what I’m looking for in the wiki instead. I’ve also kept a local, private “Lab Notebook” wiki in TiddlyWiki. It competes with my Org-mode daybook and journals, though, so I’ve neglected it. It occurred to me that I’ve enjoyed using TiddlyWiki for public notes. However, I can’t only keep a public wiki, because not everything belongs “out there”. Just most of everything. That’s where the Lab Notebook comes in. ...

I use Notmuch in Emacs for managing my email. It’s fast, powerful, and (once used to it) easy to use. There are a few oddities I’ve learned to work around. The first is with deleting messages. The manual for Notmuch states: Notmuch does not support, nor ever will, the deleting of messages Notmuch manual I’m ok with this, since Notmuch provides a way to essentially bury deleted messages using tags. I don’t necessarily need to actually delete the message file. Any message tagged with +deleted is hidden from searches unless explicitly included. Ignored tags are set in ~/.notmuch-config like so: ...

Here a few from a recent roll using the Leica M3 and the Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH. Mom and Dad. Leica M3 Dad playing mini-golf on the Quest. Leica M3 Molly. Leica M3 Michigan Fucking State. Leica M3

Emacs can be ugly, but it doesn’t have to be. Above we have the highly-polished and thoughtful iA Writer on the left and Emacs on the right. I’m using Doom Emacs in “Zen” mode, which is basically a tweaked version of Writeroom-mode. My tweaks include using iA’s Quattro font as a variable-pitch font and a little spacing via line-spacing. (add-hook 'writeroom-mode-hook (lambda () (setq line-spacing 0.5))) iA Writer is wonderful for editing Markdown files. Might even be “nicer” overall than Emacs for that purpose. It’s just so smooth, you know? But, Emacs is Emacs and that’s tough to beat. I alternate between them. It helps that I’ve made them look similar. ...

Last week I decided that I’d like to write with a bit more discipline than what I’d been doing in the journal entries, so I fired up a new Ghost instance at RudimentaryLathe.org. ...

I attended our annual family reunion in Newaygo this weekend. It’s always great to see everyone. I shot a roll of HP5 with the MP and 35mm Summilux. Aunt Joan and Uncle Bob Playing cornhole Smiles all around My cousin Aaron Judy and Norma

Dired mode in Emacs is fantastic, but one little thing that annoyed me was that the directory listings show file ownership and permissions, taking up space with information I almost never care about. I started down a rabbit hole of figuring out how to hide those columns. I spent wasted an hour on my way to discovering that, of course, there’s a built-in way to do it: dired-hide-details-mode. Well, that was easy. ...

Note Pagefind is no longer used on this site, due to a theme change. I was made aware of Pagefind via a post by Bryce Wray. Pagefind is… Pagefind is a fully static search library that aims to perform well on large sites, while using as little of your users’ bandwidth as possible, and without hosting any infrastructure. Pagefind.app They had me at “…without hosting any infrastructure”. The theme I used to use included a nice search using Lunr. My new theme uses Algolia, which I don’t love because it involves a separate, commercial service and requires rebuilding and pushing an updated index to the Algolia service every time I post something. ...

I dug out the big Linhof today and made a few self-portraits. The setup was my usual: painted backdrop with two Profoto strobes, one through a octogon box and one with a small modifier on the background. I mostly wanted to test my new digital camera scanning setup. I think it worked pretty well. Here’s another. I was just horsing around by this point. ...

As much as I, ehem, LoveIt, the theme’s very theme-specific magic felt like trouble waiting to happen. And honestly, I was bored with it, so I went looking for something new. ...

Here are few from the latest roll of HP5 through the Leica MP. This is notable because it’s the first roll scanned using a digital camera. Jeff got a new shirt Gail Steve Steve and Bryan

When I was a kid I kept a small, fresh-water aquarium. It was fun, but I always knew that the really cool fish lived in salt water. Fast forward 40 years or so and I’ve finally put together a salt-water “reef” aquarium. I’ve started small because there seems to be quite a percentage of people who bail on them within the first year or so. I want to be sure it sticks before spending tons of money and going all-in. I went with the “beginner” BioCube 32. I set the tank up the first week of June. Added “live” rock and sand. “Aquascaping” the aquarium was fun. I think I have a configuration that looks nice and also leaves plenty of nooks and crannies for critters to hide in. I added a powerhead pump for better flow, and waited. I had to buy water! ...

Sometimes I notice the Leica M10-R sitting forlornly on my desk and I’m reminded that I don’t deserve it. A camera like that should be used, and used a lot. Mine mostly sits around waiting for me to take another selfie or photo of my dog. That’s a lot of money tied up in what most people do (and often better) with their phones. I’m a rangefinder guy at heart. I’ve shot with one almost continually since 2003. The Leica M, whether film or digital, is IMO the pinnacle of camera design and construction. But…I often just want to have a camera with me for simple grab shots. You know, the one-handed snapshot of a friend at dinner. Or a macro of my dog’s toes. The M is not the camera for those. Not in my hands, anyway. So I long for auto-focus, and EVF, maybe even IBIS. ...

I rage-quit Emacs this morning. By that, I don’t mean that I hit C-x C-c really hard, although I did do that. I mean I stopped using Emacs. ...

I was struggling with some recent tweaks to this blog’s theme, and while poking around I discovered that the LoveIt theme was once again being developed. I had moved to the CodeIt theme after LoveIt looked to be abandoned back in 2020. The author had simply seemed to disappear. And then, a month ago, there was this post. Since CodeIt was archived recently and development stopped, I took the opportunity to kill my fork and switch back to LoveIt. I cleaned up a bunch of unnecessary CSS while I was in there. I’m trying to stick as close as I can to the defaults for now. ...

The quote from Robert Greene that I posted yesterday has thrown me a little: [People] are far too present and familiar, their every move displayed on social media. That might make you relatable, but it also makes you seem just like everyone else. Robert Greene I don’t know how I feel about the idea that posting so much about myself makes me seem the same as everyone else. I always figured it showed how I was different. The very last thing I want to do is be just like everyone else. ...