Jack Baty @jackbaty@mastodon.technology

Sort of phoned in the newsletter this week, but https://thelathe.substack.com/p/the-lathe-7

It’s cool seeing people using simple tools for book logging. I’ve been keeping a plain text log at baty.net/books for a while and it’s a great way to ensure it’ll always be around. I augment it though: https://www.baty.blog/2021/book-logging-plain-text

Sometimes I’ll barely notice a scene in a book while reading it, but then find that it haunts me for days later: https://www.baty.blog/2021/no-one-to-replace-the-fish

10 years ago I gave my now son-in-law an “Early 2008” MacBook Pro. Yesterday, he was still using it. Wow. Today I handed him my 2016 MBP and he’s just a little excited. “So fast!”. (I didn’t tell him about the M1s 😁)

If your thing doesn’t work in Safari it’s a non-starter for me. I understand that you don’t care, but I still wanted you to know.

I made this one deliberately a little low-key but I like the look. The Q2 Monochrom floors me.

I’ll shoot you in the fuckin’ face if you think about coming ‘round here. I’ll shoot you just for fun.

A little of the old, wild Nick Cave shows up here in the first half, and he’s most welcome. This is another terrific record from Cave. https://www.nickcave.com/carnage/

Usually when I go to kick Emacs to the curb I end up instead making it feel new by starting over. https://www.baty.blog/2021/emacs-from-scratch-again

Why is it so hard to copy text off web pages lately?

Was it Google that started the trend of putting the “Add new thing” button at the browser’s lower right corner? Is there some reason they decided it belongs as far away as possible from where I’m working?

I just sent The Lathe #6. It keeps happening! https://thelathe.substack.com/p/the-lathe-6

I have not posted anything in a week that didn’t contain a gross typo or accidental extra word caused by making too-quick edits and clicking “Post”. Slow down, Jack!

Dependabot and friends are useful, but it kind of ruin the commit log as a place to track updates.

I’ve noticed that when using digital tools for thinking I end up mostly thinking about how I’m organizing what I’m thinking about, but with analog tools I think about what I’m thinking about.

I’m bored and almost certain this means something drastic will happen to one or more of my blogs today. Crap.

Ulysses 22 beta: https://micro.baty.net/2021/02/26/ulysses-beta.html

Well, I can’t not try every text editor I learn about: https://www.baty.blog/2021/onivim

What I really want is a modern modal editor geared toward writing prose/documents rather than code. I’ve spent many many hours trying to bend Emacs in that direction and have failed. Something like Onivim but for writing. https://www.onivim.io

I ranted this morning about what I consider unnecessary images in blog posts. It rang familiar because I’d done it back in 2018 as well: https://archive.baty.net/2018/maybe-your-blog-post-doesnt-need-that-2000-pixel-header-image/. Fewer people agree with me today than did then.

Is “Super Follow” per tweet? I can’t think of a single thing with fewer than 280 characters that I’d pay for. Can I just pay $5/mo for no ads or retweets?