The ideal website is static and hosted on a simple service like Amazon S3 or a cheap VPS. As long as someone keeps paying the bill, a static website will be around forever. There’s no need to worry about software upgrades or CMS vulnerabilities. A static website is fast and permanent. But for the editor(s), a static site isn’t very useful. This blog has run on just about every platform every created.

Adam Singer - 35mmc: The new Leica M-A puts you squarely at the cutting edge of 60-year-old technology, as to all intents it’s the same camera as the 1954 Leica M3, but 60 years of constant technical development, has given the M-A a slightly more cluttered viewfinder and a marginally less precise rangefinder. It’s completely irrational to want an M-A, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean just look at it.

Every month I export my Tinderbox “Daybook” entries so that I can print and bind them (a whole other story). I have a pretty good Org Mode setup for creating PDFs so I wanted the output to be Org Mode files. Previously, I used the built-in OPML templates and then converted the output to Org Mode using Pandoc. This was all a bit cumbersome, so I created simple Org Mode export templates, based on the default OPML templates.

I get a new laptop every few years. I always start fresh and install everything from scratch. It’s interesting to see what changes and what doesn’t. Most of the things I installed this time are the same as last time. Maybe I really am settling down. Anyway, here’s what I installed on my new MacBook Pro, in no particular order. Apps BBEdit iTerm Emacs TextExpander Keyboard Maestro 1Password Dropbox Droplr Skitch Moom Day One Slack Dropzone Reeder Google Chrome Acorn Soulver Alfred TheBrain Tinderbox DEVONthink Pro Office Adobe Creative Suite Microsoft Office Resilio Sync Command line apps/utilities

Adam Geitgey: I/O-wise, the new MacBook Pro is possibly the most open device Apple has ever built. There is literally not a single proprietary port on it. You get four universal high-speed ports that can each draw or supply power, send and receive data and transfer video and audio. It’s really pretty neat. I agree. Even though the transition will be a little painful, the result is an improvement in nearly every way.

This post is mostly to test whether or not my new IFTTT recipe is working. I like Medium, but I don’t want to live there. The best compromise might be to cross-post things from baty.net. I hesitate to automate the process because I post a lot of useless stuff, much of which is useless to everyone but me. On the other hand, there are people I’m interested in and I wish they’d post more nonsense.

If ever a book was meant for me, “The Revenge of Analog” is it. David Sax dives into the ongoing resurgence of analog: film photography, paper notebooks, vinyl records, even education. I believe all of these things matter, and that their continued (and growing) use is for the better. Sax perhaps sprinkles everything with a bit of unnecessary hyperbole, but he’s obviously excited about the same things I am, so I’ll forgive the excess.

People of Earth is a surprisingly good TV show. I watched the first episode because I was bored and nothing else looked interesting. After two episodes, I was hooked. It’s very, well, human.

This should give you an idea how much I dislike the keyboard on the latest MacBook Pro. I have to get used to it, but I don’t have to like it. And let me say again how much I love the Apple Extended Keyboard II. Still the greatest keyboard ever made.

Bruce Schneier: “I don’t like this,” he concluded. “I like the world where the internet can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, at all times. It’s fun. This is a fun device. But I’m not sure we can do that anymore.” I like it too. It’ll be missed.

I defended Apple when they released a mouse that needed to be charged by plugging the cable into the bottom. I said, “It only takes a few moments to charge, so just plug it in and grab a coffee or whatever.” I was wrong, I hate charging the mouse. I blow right by warnings that the batteries are “very low” and always end up with a completely dead mouse at the worst times.

The first time I used Firefox it was still called “Phoenix”. I haven’t used anything other than Safari in years, if you don’t count repeated failed attempts at using Chrome. I thought I’d see what’s new with Firefox. I’ve been running it for a couple of days and find it a pretty good experience so far. I’m not ready to make Firefox my default browser, but I’ve not given up yet either.