baty.net

The (found) photo I use for my avatarThe wildfire smoke here in west Michigan is the worst I've ever breathed. ::cough cough:: The sun looks like a copper penny left on the sidewalk. I forgot to add the temp and date to today's photo and I don't feel like it now, so it remains plain. A lot of the RSS feeds I follow lean macOS. Since I'm on Linux all day lately, I want to cover my ears and close my eyes and go "La La La..." whenever anyone writes about Mac stuff. Not because I'm not interested,…

Tree in park (2026) - Rolleiflex 2.8D STATUS: Cleaning up my Emacs config TODO: Set up Mac Mini as a scanning station READING: How I Learned to Read Again LISTENING: Random music from my Navidrome server After spending way too much time in the 100℉ heat yesterday, I plan to live in my little chair, in my little office, tinkering on my little computer, air-conditioned. I like Dank Linux, but Niri makes me think too much about window management. I know, a tiling window manager is supposed to help…

This post by @mellymeldubs on Bluesky about favorite and least favorite file formats is fun. (via “If HEIC has no haters I’m dead.” – Unsung) Let's see... Favorite: .org Least favorite: .heic ✍️ Reply by email

I've been cleaning up my Emacs config over the past couple of days. Capture templates are now consistent and sane. My inbox is explicit and forces review. Org-agenda files are calculated based on timestamps via org-mem. Claude added an org-node-dblocks function (mimicking denote) so I can embed org-node queries into files. I get behind on this sometimes and it feels nice to clean it up. ✍️ Reply by email

Unplugged.I'm really enjoying Linux right now (both KDE and Dank Linux with Niri). It could be just a mood (it usually is), but I've noticed that whenever I'm using the Mac, I just want to switch back. This is new to me. On the other hand, I cannot resist the urge to try every new thing I read about that's macOS only. So, whenever some cool new app is mentioned, it's a simple matter of swapping one cable and pressing a button on the mouse and POOF!, I'm wasting half a day on some new toy that…

I let this go for way too long. STATUS: Sweating my a$$ off TODO: Landscaping when it's 100℉ READING: Still working through Middlemarch WATCHING: "Fisk" - it's funny. I deleted my LinkedIn account, today. That felt good. Adding cover images to blog posts isn't hard, but it's not super easy either. Today, with Claude Code's help, I now have functions that do the work for me. All I do is invoke jab/baty-set-cover, select a file using Dired, type a caption, and the image is moved and renamed, and…

There's a photo in my library from years ago showing my computer running AIM. A wave of nostalgia washed over me, as expected. Then, yesterday I read Here's how I host my own AIM server and I had to try it. Read Veronica's post for everything you'd need, but basically all I did was... Run the server binary on a VPS with the IP configured as a listener Installed AIM 5.1 via the AIM installer from archive.org using wine (on Linux) Changed the AIM config to use my server IP. That was pretty much…

I've been feeling the urge to redo my home office. There's no good reason for this other than that I'm bored and restless. The current layout works and is plenty fancy for who it's for. And yet, I keep rearranging furniture in my head. This morning I ran into a photo of my office in 1995. Look at this disaster of a desk. My desk in 1995 Thing is, I did more and better work in all that chaos than I do today in my fancier, tidier, much more capable setup. This is because the desk has nothing to…

Girl in red hat (2009)I know that I'm in one of Those Moods™ when I open my RSS reader and mark every single item as read while saying things like, "Boring", "Stupid!", "Shut up, already!", "Useless", "Oh Fuck off!". I spent several hours yesterday updating and building on my "Digital Print Archive" concept. The idea is to keep my RAW files as a giant, long-term "negative" archive, while the edited keepers live separately as "prints". Claude and I gathered all of the edited JPGs from the main…

Gail and Carol (feat. Fred)My in-laws were in town for the weekend. I like carrying the "little" Rolleiflex. It's small enough and handles well. People stare when I'm using it, though. Fred pretending not to know I was taking his photo Alice on the deck Alice and Gail posing Smooches ✍️ Reply by email

It's the weirdest thing. I needed to do something using macOS yesterday and the whole time I just wanted to get back to my Linux desktop. This isn't the first time I felt this way, but it happened sooner and the feeling was stronger this time. ✍️ Reply by email

Vines. Grand Haven, MI (2026) - Nikon F100 / Kodak ColorPlus 200 STATUS: Recovering from too much socializing TODO: Mow lawns (Mine and my stepdaughters) READING: Howm tutorial LISTENING: Wet Leg, "Moisturizer" The in-laws fly out this afternoon. We had fun, but I'm exhausted from socializing. I'm not suited to "doing things" with people for more than a couple hours at a time for more than a day at a time. ✍️ Reply by email

Bench, Saugatuck, MI - Nikon F100 / Kodak ColorPlus 200Spent hours this morning trying new ways to deal with film scans on Linux. It involved Vuescan, Darktable, and a lot of cursing. I'm making progress, though, and I don't hate the results as much now. ✍️ Reply by email

Olympia SM3 (2016) - Graflex 4x5 Crown Graphic STATUS: You're not going to believe what I did this morning TODO: Stop doing the thing I did this morning READING: "Validation", by Caroline Fleck, PhD LISTENING: Styx, Crystal Ball Ok, so here's what happened... ...never mind, just know that I've moved the blog back into Eleventy from Ghost. It lasted a month this time. Felt longer. ✍️ Reply by email

Funnel cake at Pride Day. Holland, MI.I'm so back in Emacs it isn't even funny. Also Linux. Dank Linux, to be precise. Toy Story 5 was pretty fun. I still can't focus long enough to write more than a few sentences at a time. I'd consider it a debilitating problem, if I actually had more and useful things to write about. It's only a nuisance, honestly. ✍️ Reply by email

So much fun. Pixar's still got it.I went to see it with my daughter, who's 37 now and still insists that we see every new Pixar movie in theaters. She was so into it. When Bonnie's friends weren't being nice to her, Jess leaned over and said, "I'm so mad at those girls!" And when Bonnie was sad, she said, "I just want to hold her :(" Otherwise, she sat there and laughed the whole time. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Roofs at the zoo (2026)This weekend involved a lot of time away from the computer. This is healthy and fine, but I'm looking forward to stagnating at my desk for the next couple of days. There's yet another internet kerfluffle happening around yet another company whose products I use. It's so disappointing and exhausting. I'm not shopping around yet because I don't like the alternatives much. Besides, being too quick to judge and react to things like this is part of why the world sucks now. I'm…

Sure, Del Toro's "Frankenstein" was technically a "better" movie, but I'll put money on "The Bride!" being watched and enjoyed 20 years from now, while "Frankenstein" will be remembered as, "...pretty good, but I haven't bothered watching it again since 2025."The Bride was, for me, 1,000 times more fun and interesting. Who cares if it's a weird mess if it's a fun and interesting mess.

I'll watch just about anything with John Cena, but I couldn't make it through this. I didn't find it funny enough, often enough, so I bailed after about 30 minutes.

I take some fun photos in car washes.Two things were said to me this week that made me feel good. The first was from my therapist. She said, "After our first few sessions I was worried that you were too smart for me and that I'd have to work to keep up." Sure, she's my therapist, but still. Second, someone emailed me and said that they thought the internet was a better place with me in it. How nice is that?! Some days I feel stupid and useless. Not today, though. ✍️ Reply by email

After seeing this in an email from Meta today:"The setting to disconnect your off-Meta activity is going away."... I was reminded that I should finally delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts, so I guess that setting isn't the only thing going away.I'm posting this because I want a public record of it. I'm sorry if it comes off as performative. I'm also sorry that it took me this long.

I predicted what was going to happen the whole time, and I was happy to be right about most of it. Great to see Dustin Hoffman. I liked Leo Woodall, but there was this low-grade smirk on his face too much of the time. Anyway, thumbs up.

A stroll along the river with the Rolleiflex 2.8D and HP5.

I can't even describe how beautiful this movie is. Every frame a painting. A Vermeer. The way they look at each other throughout is the greatest thing. This was my 5th or 6th watch and I still can't breath for the last 5 minutes. Astonishing. Crying is allowed. It's unavoidable.

I don't know why I don't hear anyone talking about this show. It's damn good TV.

I've spent many hours fine-tuning my custom Ghost theme to get things just so. Then, I woke up this morning and decided I didn't like most of what I'd done, so I reverted to the default "Source" theme. Source is mostly inoffensive, and a good fall-back position when I'm sick of thinking about themes. It happens a lot.I dislike nearly every available Ghost theme, so I thought I'd build my own. It turns out I kind of don't want to. The local setup is full of things I don't really understand, and…

Snapshots on or around my sister's birthday celebration.Me, reading to Lincoln (Photo by Jess)Sister's dog TilleyTickle KissesColorful flowers in black and whiteMirror self-portrait behind the JOBO

I brought the Leica MP to a windy day at the lakeshore. Wind and sand can be trouble for camera gear. I spent some time cleaning sand from the lens when I got home.Starry PJsMirror self-portraitA mom trying to light her cigarette in the windBeer board at The ScoreWalking the beachIt was windy.

Color film suffers from bad exposure sooner than black and white film, so I tend to favor using modern automatic exposure cameras with good meters. The Nikon F100 fits the bill.The roll was mostly from a trip to Grand Haven, but also contains my usual around-the-house stuff.A car wash offers fun abstract color opportunitiesAlice relaxing on the deckMirror self-portraitGail in front of some decent-sized waves. Grand Haven.Pink bike. Pride Fest. Grand Haven, MI

This blog uses a heavily modified fork of the Laminum Ghost theme. Other than the basic layout, it's nearly unrecognizable as Laminum at this point. Here's a list of the most significant changes, for the record.Sass/build pipeline removal. I've never liked the idea of a "build pipeline" for CSS, so all the Sass-specific features were converted to plain CSS. mixins were removed. Then the Sass-based vendor files were converted to plain CSS. Ultimately, I replaced Sass entirely with a simple…