Jack Baty's Weblog
We have stopped blogging – Johann Savalle
Johann Savalle:
So yeah, I wish blogging would make a come back.
Me too.
We got blogging right 20 years ago
I’m feeling especially nostalgic for the Good Old Days of Blogging™. Looking at my blog from 2003 makes me think we got blogging right early on.
That’s one of the earliest captures of my blog that I could find on archive.org. I miss it. Look at that sidebar with a blogroll and XML icon. “Powered by blosxom”! I may even adjust my current theme to be a bit more mid-2000-ey, just for kicks.
Fun With Server Apps This Week
I’ve been having fun with a few new, and new to me, servers and apps this week. Here’s a quick summary.
Using Caddy for serving static content
I have a bunch of static files/websites laying around so I stood up an Amazon Lightsail instance and installed the Caddy web server.
Using Caddy for serving static content
I have a bunch of static files/websites laying around so I stood up an Amazon Lightsail instance and installed the Caddy web server.
Automating the End of Movies on Physical Discs – Subtraction.com
Khoi Vinh:
No one pays attention to Netflix’s discs-by-mail business anymore
The linked video showing the cool automated DVD return process is fascinating.
I still receive Netflix DVDs by mail so that I have access to movies not available via streaming services. Vinh points out a more important problem caused by moving from one media format to another: the loss of some titles altogether.
The Frictionless Joy of Using a Single Platform
I’ve had so much fun these past few months learning my way around (Arch) Linux on the desktop. Using a ThinkPad while mobile instead of a MacBook Pro or iPad has been a pleasant change of pace.
I settled on the i3 Window Manager and found it to be a totally new and mostly pleasant way of working with windows. I tried all sorts of cool software that I’d only read about before. I spent lots of time editing configuration files, tweaking the dickens out of every possible feature. This has provided countless hours of entertainment and I learned a lot.
However, I’m putting my Linux experiment on hold.
The Intel NUC and Roon as My Music System
Figure 1: Intel NUC running Roon Core
I have been using Roon to manage and play my music collection and it’s wonderful.
I wrote a little about my first impressions here. In fact, I like it so much that I paid the $499 fee for a lifetime subscription. This seems steep only until you consider it as a critical component of an audio system. (See how I rationalize?).
Hugo Page Bundles
I haven’t paid much attention to Hugo’s Page Bundles since they were introduced, but I should have. Page Bundles let me put a blog post’s images and other assets in the same folder as the original Markdown file. This means the images for a post ride along right next to the post rather than way over there in the /static/img/2018 folder. Over the long term that should be handy.
Packed The First of Many Boxes
I’m getting married next year. This means I’ll be selling my house and moving. I’ve been in this house since 2001, so I’m rather well entrenched.
I’m excited about the change, but I’m not looking forward to going through everything I own and deciding what to do with it. I may need a little Marie Kondō magic.
There’s no great rush, but I’ve just packed the first box of books.
Posting with ox-hugo so far
I’m a few days into using ox-hugo for publishing blog posts and so far it’s been great. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but I’m finding it to be worth it.
Here’s what the source Org-mode file looks like right now.
I like it!
Things I Write With
As someone who loves writing with analog tools, I have always switched willy nilly between pens, pencils, notebooks, types of paper, etc. I never seemed to find any consistent patterns. The past year has, finally, found me settling on a pretty stable set of writing tools.
It goes like this:
For day-to-day note taking, I use a pencil. Go figure, right? I tried using the Blackwings, which are wildly popular with the fancy pencil set.