I did an internet search and clicked on a result and ended up here at baty.net. I liked the way the page looked. I liked how simple it was and how quickly it loaded. The whole thing reminded me that using Hugo and the Jane theme made for an enjoyable reading experience, even it’s a more difficult publishing experience. This made me wonder if I was still able to build and deploy the site.

Dante Stella | The Machine Planet: The real danger is not time, or technology, or the elements, or phlogiston. The real danger is that the work will fall into the hands of someone with no interest in it You might find in the end that your time and money is better spent on life experiences than making the record of it last just a couple more years longer.

Sometimes a new thing comes along and replaces the old thing. I truly love my rudimentarylathe.org wiki, built with TiddlyWiki. TiddlyWiki is a wonderful, flexible, powerful bit of software. My use of TiddlyWiki has changed over time, and lately my wiki has become the only thing I’m using it for. In order to publish the wiki, I need a few things. I need a web server. I need to use Firefox with the Timimi plugin or TiddlyDesktop in order to easily save my edits.

Starting a new book. Watching a movie I haven’t seen. Listening to a new album. Trying a new restaurant. All of these things start with the question: Am I going to like it? My new default answer is, “Yes, I am. I’m going to love it.” I give it 5 stars and I haven’t even tried it yet! And it’s fine if it turns out otherwise. I’m allowed to not like things, too.

At some point recently, most of the files in my Digital Print Archive went missing. I started keeping the archive in early 2019. The idea was that I’d have a _permanent_collection of curated and edited files, “burned” as JPG files so that if anything ever happened to my RAW processor, I’d always have a copy of the edited files. Suddenly, most of those JPGs are gone. The folder structure remains, and all of the matching .

It hurts a little, but I’ve begun selling off my lovely Fuji cameras and lenses. I fell in love with Fuji when they released the original X100. I loved that camera. I still have it, but it’s in a drawer somewhere. Since then I’ve used the original X-Pro, the X-Pro2, X-T1, X100T, and X-T3. I have also collected a number of the finest Fujinon lenses. The winds started to shift with the purchase of a Leica Q a couple years ago.

Shelly and Jeff at JT's Our friends Shelley and Jeff are two of the very few people we’ll (carefully) meet with during the pandemic. I snapped this while having dinner. It’s a nice portrait of them, but what stands out is the chip in Jeff’s hand. He loves the restaurant’s “spicy chicken nacho dip”. He also loves salt, and will often add salt to each chip full of dip.

I am so thrilled to be the new owner of a Leica M10-P. I can hardly believe it. An M10 has been a dream camera since they were announced. I never imagined I’d actually own one. But, circumstances have allowed me to begin putting together what I consider the ultimate “kit” for me, and the M10 is at its center. I couldn’t be happier. I went a little beyond what I’d intended and got the M10-P version rather than the original M10.

Photographs should not be significantly altered in post. It’s cheating. This is how I feel. I suppose if you consider yourself a “digital illustrator” rather than photographer, then sure, but otherwise, it’s cheating. And oh my how easy it is to cheat these days. Here’s an example. I took the following photo yesterday during a walk at the beach with my daughter. Ok, I lied, the photo I actually took was this one…

I’ve only had it out again for a few weeks, but I’ve already put my beloved iPhone SE back in the drawer. As much as I love its size, shape, and Touch ID, the little SE doesn’t fit as well into my life as well as the X. Its battery only gives me about a half-day of use. It doesn’t fit in my car holder. It’s a lot slower, and the camera is much worse.

Here are the cameras I use regularly enough to claim that they are “being used”, in order of most-to-least used. Digital Ricoh GRIII Leica Q Fuji X-Pro2 Fuji X-T3 Film Leica M6 Fuji Instax SQ6 Leica M3 Hasselblad 500C/M Obviously, this list is way too long for anyone claiming to be a serious hobby photographer: “It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer, blah, blah…”. On the other hand, it’s a fine list for someone—me, for example—who enjoys photography but really likes cameras.

I shipped my first Ruby On Rails app—an ecommerce website—in 2007. I had been writing PHP apps for a few years and working with Rails was a revelation. In fact, I was half finished writing that ecommerce site using PHP when I discovered Rails. I was so sure about Rails that I convinced the CEO to let me trash the PHP version and start over in Rails. It was worth it.