Hi, I’m Jack Baty 👋

I’ve gone back to using Espanso for text expansion. As powerful as Keyboard Maestro is, every time I reach for it I feel like I’ve already lost a battle somewhere. Text expansion macros are about all I use KM for these days, so it’s not much of a disruption. I bookmark Espanso’s config folder in Emacs so I can jump right in any time. The expansion macros (“matches”) are contained in YAML files and can be as simple as: ...

you can “study” the data later and rearrange it. But the initial “just remember this” impulse should be as close to simply throwing the data at Emacs as possible. Remember Mode (Manual) I like that. I’ve been secretly conducting an experiment called “Use Obsidian Exclusively for 30 Days”. It started a week ago. I’m typing this in Emacs, in case you’re wondering how it’s going. Most days, I write the same things in both paper and digital journals. Then I print the digitital one. What’s wrong with me? 😄1 ...

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Oscar Wilde Walking Alice this morning shortly after 3:30 AM, I thought the moon looked weird. There was only the slightest sliver lit and the rest was a deep red. Turns out there was a total lunar eclipse at 3:30 that no one told me about. That explained it. I spun up a WordPress blog this morning because I was bored and wanted to tinker with something. It’s so easy to get started, but the block and site editors still feel like a janky, confusing mess. Just make me a nice theme with a few options and access to CSS and I’m good. I deleted the site 20 minutes later. Guess I’ll need to find something else to play with today. ...

Nothing feels fun right now. Most of the things I typically enjoy have become frustrating exercises. I love paper notebooks, but can’t bring myself to write in them for more than a few minutes. I love film photography, but I don’t feel like dealing with the constraints and the costs. I’ve no patience for it. I love movies, but none of them look interesting. My typewriters collect dust. It’s probably just another allergic reaction to the terrible shit happening in the world right now, but I’m finding it hard to shake. ...

Finished a roll of HP5 today with some shots of my grandson, of course. Here’s 4 from the roll.

I just exported 2700 tiddlers from my TiddlyWiki as one big markdown file, split it into individual files, and renamed them using Denote’s format. ¯_(ツ)_/¯. I guess I tired of searching my Denote notes, coming up empty, then having to go to the wiki and search again. I’ll write some notes about it at some point. Using ChatGPT reminds me of when they started letting us use calculators in class. Sure, I forgot how to do long division by hand, but who cares? Everything else was so much easier it was worth the trade. ...

It seems like this is turning into an Emacs blog. Not that there’s anything wrong with that :). It’s getting harder and harder to discover useful videos on YouTube. Every thumbnail is created using the same “Make a crazy face and point at something!” format. Every title is a despirate grab for attention. The recommendation algorithm is all over the map and usually not helpful. I rely on subscriptions to known quantities and recommendations from other people. I wish it was better. ...

On macOS, hitting CMD-Shift-. in Finder toggles the display of hidden (.dot) files. I wanted the same thing in Dired mode.

Using both Howm and Denote for my notes in Emacs. But why?

Scrolling with the Logitech MX Master in Safari sucks out of the box. The following from this Reddit thread helped, even though it required installing 2 additional packages. Here’s the useful part of that thread: Install Logitech Options+ (sigh) and set: Logi Options+ (Plus): Customization App for Logitech Devices What a gross bit of software, but it’s necessary here. I’ve read that once this process is done, I can delete the app completely, but I haven’t tried that yet. ...

I like having a felt pad on my desk, but I don’t like how it sometimes causes mouse movements to become choppy. My favorite mouse is the Logitech MX Master. Maybe other mouses work better on felt, but I want to use this one, so I decided to buy a mouse pad. Then I remembered I have a 3D printer. I downloaded this model and an hour later I had a custom-sized simple mouse pad and it works great. ...

Ladybird: Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine. Driven by a web standards first approach, Ladybird aims to render the modern web with good performance, stability and security. From its humble beginnings as an HTML viewer for the SerenityOS hobby operating system project, Ladybird has since grown into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems. Ladybird is currently in heavy development. We are targeting a first Alpha release for early adopters in 2026. ...

My eyes were bored so I changed themes again. Back to PaperMod for now.

I’d like to not create these daily journal posts, and instead create several individial posts. The problem is that so much of what I write here in journal posts is not Postworthy. So, I’ll keep doing this, I guess.

A week ago, I toyed with the idea of using Gnus for reading Email in Emacs. As expected, I hated it at first. But then… ...

Hang on a sec… digg reboot I’m here for this!

I went down a rabbit hole with the built-in Remember mode in Emacs today. ...

lmq-10/denote-search This package provides a search utility for Denote, the simple-to-use, focused-in-scope, and effective note-taking tool for Emacs. The command denote-search is the main point of entry. It accepts a query, which should be a regular expression, and then searches the contents of all the notes stored in denote-directory for it. The results are put in a buffer which allows folding and further filtering; all standard commands offered by Xref are available as well. ...

Avatarium is new to me. I love her soulful (clean) vocals and the doom/sludgy sound. It’s like Joni Mitchell and Black Sabbath teamed up. Too many journals. Not enough to say.

We look good together, no? When I bought the Nikon Z f recently, the way I intended to offset the cost was to sell the Leica SL2. The mistake I made was to buy the Nikon before selling the Leica. Yesterday, I gathered up the SL2 with accessories and took some photos of it for the listing. Picking up the camera reminded me that, as nice as the Z f is, it’s not in the same league as the SL2. Everything about the Leica feels nicer. Controls, covering, grip, doors, battery, all of it. ...