There’s a lot to be said for using the Mac’s Finder for long-term, portable, stable storage of files. It’s always right there. Add Dropbox and everything is seamlessly synced across both of my Macs. On the other hand, there’s DEVONthink, which is where I’ve kept important files and documents for a number of years. Once in a while I get it in my head that I need to remain as OS-independent as possible.

I’ve tried using Agenda for my notes several times and only recently has it “stuck”. Here’s why. I am not trying to keep everything in it. Agenda doesn’t work for me as an “Everything Bucket” and that’s what I was trying to use it for. Instead, I’m using it only for time-based, project-related notes. Anything that involves specific dates or that could benefit from a nice, chronological history becomes a “project” in Agenda.

BBEdit for years. Then Vim for years. Then Emacs for years. In between I’ve used just about every editor there is. I love them all. Emacs is everything anyone could ever want in an editor, and more. It’s the “more” part that gets you. At some point this weekend I realized I had spent nearly two hours trying to dial in Emacs window behavior and failed. Even if I had succeeded, it was still two hours I could have been doing something else.

I am in 100% agreement with the concept of “Owning Your Content”. I have had my own blog on my own domain for going on twenty years and have no plans to stop. The writing (aka “Content”) on my blog is displayed the way I want it and no one can take it away from me or change it or otherwise interfere. This is as it should be and I recommend this to anyone wanting to publish their writing online.

Sometimes I pour a dram of Scotch or two, put on Roger Waters’ “Amused To Death”, turn it up loud, and just listen to the entire thing with my eyes closed. “Perfect Sense, Part 1” And the Germans kill the Jews And the Jews kill the Arabs And the Arabs kill the hostages And that is the news And is it any wonder That the monkey's confused He said Mama Mama

In regard to the vignette where one of us fellas goes to a movie alone, sees a yellow-clad woman seated in the same row, and the yellow-clad woman says “come sit next to me you fine fellow” and then a move is prescribed to be busted, what should I take for the headache accrued from trying to absorb your weirdo nonsense word pile? Seeing as the move busted at the theater is not a dance move, as was the case earlier, but rather making out (…?

In which Rands suggests that we should all work the way he works because it’s better. ̌Apoplectic adequately describes my reaction when I see one or both of the following situations on the screen: a desktop cluttered with unorganized icons and/or a browser with forever tabs. My concern: how much of your day is spent finding things? (I happen to agree with him)

I never tire of listening to “Welcome To The Boomtown”.

The BASIC Engine is a very low-cost single-board home computer with advanced 2D color graphics and sound capabilities, roughly comparable to late-1980s or early-1990s computers and video game consoles. It can be built at home without special skills or tools and using readily available components for under 10 Euros in parts, or mass-produced for even less. Source: BASIC Engine

Beorg is a pretty good implementation of Org-mode on iOS. The latest version introduced a couple new sync options and much better editing features. My problem is that I keep my Org files in ~/org on my Mac and sync them between machines using Syncthing. I don’t want them in Dropbox or iCloud, but I’d probably choose iCloud first. What I haven’t figured out is how to nicely create a symlink to the ~/org directory in the iCloud Drive directory.

Mallrats “Operation: Drive-by” poster I still have this crazy Mallrats drawing as a giant actual poster. I’ve never hung it, but it makes me smile anyway. Thinking about giving it up. Hit me up if you’re interested. Free for the cost of shipping.

I’ve been feeling rather point-and-clicky lately, so I decided to move all my tasks to Things and use it for the month of August. I spent a few hours moving everything out of Org-mode into Things, and it was a terrible idea. Things is great, and the iOS version is one of my favorites on the platform, but I missed Org-mode almost immediately. It always starts out fine. I “ooh” and “aah” quite a lot, saying, “Now THIS is how a task manager should look!