~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

The hours I've spent in and around Emacs - Baty.net

2025-01-20T23:30:00.000Z

I don't even want to think about how many hours I've spent over the past week or two in and around Emacs. I can't decide if it's fine, because I love Emacs and I'm just having fun with it. Or, am I wasting too much of my life dicking around with my editor, when I could be doing stuff instead. Today, I'm mad at Emacs because of the whole email fiasco. I came close to burning it all down this afternoon. Cooler heads prevailed, but there remains a low-grade ache about all of it.

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I should paint myself into a corner - Baty.net

2025-01-20T22:05:00.000Z

For a year or so, I've been working to wean myself from as much macOS-only software as possible. The idea lurking behind this move has been, "What if I move to Linux?". I can't shake the thought, even though it would be a terrible idea. As a counter, now I'm wondering if I should use nothing but macOS-only software. That way it would simply be too much work to switch, so maybe I'll stop thinking about it. Yeah right.

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An email fiasco - Baty.net

2025-01-20T18:20:00.000Z

All I wanted was to use notmuch on my MBP to manage email, just like I do on my Mac Mini. The only viable solution I found was muchsync. There's no macOS installer for it¹, so I figured I'd compile it myself.

A few years ago I promised myself that if something required ./configure && make && make install I would skip it. Well, I really wanted to try it, so off I went. The make command failed immediately because it couldn't find notmuch.h. Great, path problems. After an hour of throwing things at the wall, adding some environment variables worked:

export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/lib"

Cool. I built it on both Macs.

muchsync requires SSH access to the "server" machine, which was to be the Mini, so I figured I'd use the Tailscale IP. Not so fast. One needs to enable Tailscale SSH first by running tailscale set --ssh, so I did. Except that returned this:

"The Tailscale SSH server does not run in sandboxed Tailscale GUI builds."

Crap. I'd installed Tailscale from the App Store. I uninstalled it completely (not easy), and installed the standalone version. I confirmed it was the standalone version, but I still got the sandbox error. For the hell of it, I enabled "normal" SSH access on the Mini and for some reason was able to connect via SSH over the Tailscale IP. I've no idea why it worked, but after an hour of tripping over everything, I didn't argue.

I read the muchsync docs and still didn't quite understand how everything fit together, but the instructions said to do something like, where SERVER is the IP of my Mini:

# First run
muchsync --init ~/Mail SERVER

# Subsequent runs
muchsync SERVER

That took a while, but seemed to work. I had what looked like a copy of all my mail and notmuch DB in ~/Mail on my MBP.

The second run of muchsync SERVER took way longer than I expected, so I logged into the web UI of Fastmail and watched as duplicate emails poured in. What's worse, most of the emails in my account looked to have arrived at the same time.

I obviously did something wrong. I re-read the docs, but couldn't figure out why it was happening. I changed a setting or two and re-ran muchsync several times. I also ran the usual mbsync -a on the Mini.

After all that, I ended up with four copies of most of my messages, and most of them were marked as unread. I used the unread status as an opportunity to delete the duplicates, since those were the only things unread.

I don't know why it happened, and I don't know how to fix it, but I wasted the better part of my day fighting with an email fiasco brought on simply because I wanted to read my email in a specific way on two machines.

This is why they invented IMAP. I should probably just use that.

There is actually a MacPorts port, but I didn't want both that and Homebrew on the same system. Besides, there were over 200 dependencies, so nope. ↩

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Photography - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-01-20T15:50:00.000Z

Even though I’m not a photographer I always enjoyed the act of capturing moments using a camera. These days my photos live primarily here on the blog—they even have a dedicated RSS feed—but also on my separate photos archive. I’m very casual when it comes to taking pictures, I do it exclusively using a phone these days and I don’t put much thought into the process. It’s something I do mostly for myself.

That said though, I love seeing what other people are doing in this space and I want to take this opportunity to highlight two people who are taking photography a lot more seriously than me.

One is Cody, who’s about to leave for a trip to Japan and will do a pop-up newsletter where I assume he’s going to share both his photos but also his writing, which I very much enjoy. He also has a podcast—one of my favorites—co-hosted by another photographer, Ben Horne.

The other is my long-time friend Mattia who I assume is trying to escape the corporate world and find a way to preserve his mental sanity through photography.

So there, if like me you’re also interested in photography maybe go check them out and send them some positivity. The web can be a lonely place at times when you’re a creative person and getting words of encouragement from strangers can be incredibly helpful.

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Coffee, Seinfeld and Google - James' Coffee Blog

2025-01-20T00:00:00.000Z

What do coffee, Seinfeld, and Google all have in common? They are the topics of this blog post!

I was on a call yesterday where the topic of coffee in sitcoms came up. I was curious: what television show spoke about coffee the most? We noted the lack of coffee mentions in Seinfeld. Seinfeld didn’t drink coffee. Frasier, the other 90s sitcom with which I am most familiar, featured coffee much more prominently: mentions of beans and origins and different drinks can be found throughout the series. Now I’m thinking about the double-shot, low-fat, no-foam latte.

I went to Google and typed in “How many times is “coffee” mentioned in popular sitcoms?”, excited to get an answer. The first result was my blog post on coffee in 90s sitcoms:

I forgot I wrote a blog post about coffee in 90s sitcoms! I really do love 90s sitcoms and coffee.

I smiled quite a bit when I saw my blog post show up first for my search query. Am I an authority on 90s sitcom coffees?, I think, sarcastically. But then, scrolling through a bit, I realised there wasn’t a clear answer to my question. I was curious how many times coffee was mentioned in Seinfeld and Frasier. I suspect Frasier references coffee more — there were so many coffee mentions in Café Nervosa.

Website acknowledgements - James' Coffee Blog

2025-01-20T00:00:00.000Z

One of the topics of discussion at the 32-Bit Cafe Web Weaving Workshop this week ¹ was credits and acknowledgement pages on personal websites — how do you give credit to people whose assets you use on your website? Acknowledgement pages are appropriate for acknowledging resources you use across your site (i.e. fonts, backgrounds). For images and resources you use on a single page, it is often best to give credit on the page itself — perhaps in a footer.

The discussion made me think about the Acknowledgements page I wrote for Artemis, the web reader I am working on. I decided to make a dedicated page to acknowledge:

The software I use for the project.
The typefaces I use.
The designer who made the project mascot.

Making the tool, I know I was standing on the shoulders of giants: open source packages saved hours of work, the typefaces I used helped me create the aesthetic I wanted, the mascot made the page feel more complete.

Reflecting on this page and discussions I have had since, acknowledgements can either be required, such as by a license (where acknowledgements are usually referred to as “attribution”), preferred, or voluntary. For example, using images on your site may require attribution depending on the license. Using an open font may not require attribution, but sharing what font you used may be interesting to readers of your website.

Since learning more about typography, I find myself increasingly grateful for people who mention what typefaces they use on their website. When I see a cool typeface, my first question is “what is it?” It’s nice to be able to see the typeface without digging into the developer console.

Acknowledgement or credit pages are similar to colophons, except colophons tend to talk more about the philosophy of the website. Acknowledgements, meanwhile, can focus specifically on giving attribution to people who made things that you use on your website.

I don’t yet have an acknowledgements page on this website, but I should make one! In the interim, I am thankful to Andy Carolan for designing my blog mascot, and for those who worked on the Standard typeface I use on my website.

The Web Weaving Workshop is an informal meetup of people who run personal websites. We like to chat about the culture of personal websites, share cool sites we have seen lately, and more. You can follow along with the latest events in the Discord.

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Shenanigans - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-01-19T16:30:00.000Z

We all know that corporations do weird shit. In their never-ending quest to maximise profits, they’re happy to exploit us and try all sorts of wacky shenanigans. We’re all aware of this. We all know that they try to use all the weaknesses of our monkey brains against us. And that sucks. It really does. We all think that sucks. And that is because it really does suck. We’d all be better off living in a world where people are honest and corporations are honest and we don’t have to live our lives constantly worried to be fucked by someone if we get distracted for a second.

And this is why it makes me so irrationally mad when I see small creators using the same shady tricks employed by big companies. How the fuck are we supposed to improve things if we all behave like this? It’s so sad.

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Links for January 19, 2025 - Baty.net

2025-01-19T15:15:00.000Z

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TikTok - Baty.net

2025-01-19T10:30:00.000Z

It looks like TikTok is off the air. This doesn't affect me because I've never used TikTok. On one hand, I feel bad for the millions of people love it. On the other hand, maybe go outside instead or at least find something useful to do that doesn't involve scrolling your phone as entertainment.

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Morning coffee - James' Coffee Blog

2025-01-19T00:00:00.000Z

My main TODO for the day was to buy coffee beans. I am running low. Rather than order online, I decided to visit the coffee shop from whom I most recently bought coffee. The coffee has been delicious.

The coffee shop is a bit out of the way, but I was excited for the shake up in routine. I can sometimes get stuck in a rut. That is, until I do something new that brings excitement. The inertia of doing something new – or something you haven’t done in a while – is hard to overcome but, when you do, it is so often worth it. I guess that’s true for much more than going to a coffee shop you haven’t visited in many months.

I walked briskly to the coffee shop, with excitement. I ate breakfast with no coffee this morning – eager to have my first coffee while picking up some beans. I think the excitement of the first coffee fueled the spring my step: the anticipation of a warm drink to hold in my hands on a chilly winter day.

Entering the shop, my first impression was all of the cakes on offer: cheesecakes, cinnamon buns, and more. In the background, conversation – the sound of friends chatting, people discussing the menu, staff members preparing food and drinks.

Despite the bustle – it was a busy morning in the coffee shop – I felt relaxed, as I often do in coffee shops. The only thing on my mind was finding the shelf where the beans were. Spotting the shelf, I walked over and, with care, chose the beans whose tasting notes looked most exciting. I went to the counter to pay and ordered a flat white.

I started taking notes of the environment – the decor, the surroundings. I love doing this. Taking notes encourages me to think about the space around me: what’s going on, what is interesting, how is the place designed?

I wrote down the joy that the hanging green plants and white paper decorations brought me – both soaked in the natural light from the tall windows surrounding the store. On the concrete counter, there was a yellow espresso machine: yellow being the colour of the store brand, and the colour contrasting so well with the grey concrete beneath. On the mirror near where I picked which beans I wanted read “Make great memories.” I stopped for a moment to reflect.

While thinking about the space around me, I thought about the attention to detail evident everywhere you looked: the plants that made the space feel more welcoming and open, the care that had been taken to write words like “Porridge” on the menu (the lettering was delightful), the mixture of bar-style seats at the windows ideal for one or two people and the open tables ideal for groups.

In my digital notebook, I wrote The bustle of the day — and anticipation of coffee — is waking me up. I felt alive.

“Flat white” was called out at the counter where I was standing. My coffee was ready. With the warm cup cusped around my hand, I left more attuned to the environment than I was when I entered. I noticed the cathedral bells chiming in the distance. I thought about the last time I was in this part of town and the positive memories thereof. I then walked to continue with my day. Next stop? A bookshop.

Bramble - Baty.net

2025-01-19T00:00:00.000Z

Over on The Online Photographer, Mike was poking fun at someone who made a bunch of photos of bramble. You know, bushes or sticks or what-have-you. I agree that photos of bramble are boring and meaningless, but I've taken a lot of photos of brambles and I kind of love them. I don't have a contrived artist's statement about them. I just like looking at them. So what?

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Short Long Form - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-01-18T20:40:00.000Z

I was catching up with some tech news earlier today and I saw the news that Instagram now allows videos up to 3 minutes long. The news is not particularly relevant to me considering I don’t use IG nor particularly interesting because, frankly, who gives a shit. The thing I found the most interesting was Adam’s wording in his announcement video:

Historically it’s only been 90 seconds and that’s because we wanted to focus Instagram on short-form videos.

So apparently we live in a world where 180 seconds is considered long-form since it was too long for a platform whose focus was short-form videos. But thank god they’re no longer focused on short-form videos and people can now create long-form content. That is, as long as they stay below 180 seconds.

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Journaling changes I should make - Baty.net

2025-01-18T12:15:00.000Z

Reading Jeremy's post about keeping his personal journal helped clarify some of the thoughts I've been having about mine.

Some Entries from My Personal Journal:

On Tuesday the 12th of November, 2024, I started what I hoped to be a new habit. That is writing a personal daily journal. Over the weeks, I expanded my aspirations to include a daily check list of activities I wanted to do.

I've been consistently keeping a personal journal for years. I write primarily using Org-journal, a Daybook.org file, and a paper notebook. My problem isn't that I don't journal enough, but rather that I can't decide where to journal.

I'll never give up paper notebooks, so let's not even consider that. I like how my brain feels when writing on paper. I love the resulting artifacts, too. Flipping through old paper notebooks is an experience that can't be replicated using digital tools.

However, I don't love writing by hand for too long. My hand cramps and I become impatient. I'm faster using a keyboard and it's easier. Also, it's much easier to read things I've typed :). Combined with the other benefits of digital, I doubt I'll ever give up my digital journals, either.

As for digital, my Daybook.org and my Org-journal files compete for attention. Sometimes I write an entry in my Daybook, then add a bunch of notes below it. Org-journal also gets longer notes, sometimes with very similar content. It's confusing.

I'm thinking I'll limit using the Daybook.org file to only include simple date-based headings that show up in my org-agenda as short, log-type entries. e.g. "Shoveled the driveway" or "Canceled my subscription to SomeApp". Org-journal will include more day-to-day narration, like "Went to grocery store for pop and coffee. I'm trying the local 'Rowsers' coffee for the first time." So, log-adjacent, but with more :). I'll think of it like this: Daybook is what happened, and Org-journal is about what happened and what I thought about it.

This means that my Org-journal will include a lot more mundane things from my day than it has been, but I think that's fine.

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Philosophy: the courage to be yourself - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2025-01-18T00:00:00.000Z

In this 30-minute video, I talk about the disposition of the philosopher (“friend of wisdom”), which is about being courageous in thinking for oneself and in speaking one’s mind. I comment on how this attitude is what matters instead of how smart or talented one is.

Coffee and quotations - James' Coffee Blog

2025-01-18T00:00:00.000Z

I visited a coffee shop I have not been to in at least two years today. On the wall, above the coffee equipment rested on wooden countertops, there was a quotation written on a sign. It read:

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

After ordering my flat white, I stopped to think about the quote for a minute. I wrote down as much as I could so that I would remember to think about it later. This quotation makes me think about how much joy it brings me to make someone smile. I love the opportunity to do things that bring joy to people: to say something funny that makes us laugh, to bring people together, to start or continue a conversation with friends and family.

“Flat white” was called. I went to get my drink. With a kindly-spoken “thank you,” I departed the coffee shop with a warm cup in my hand. The warmth of the coffee was significant amid the chilly winds that had come this morning. But I left with more than a coffee: I left with a bookmark of a quote to think about. I am grateful that the cafe took the time to write the quotation on the wall.

I wonder how many people have contemplated the quote over coffee in the coffee shop.

Emacs churn - Baty.net

2025-01-17T14:45:00.000Z

At the beginning of the year I wanted to try Emacs Easy Mode™. Yeah, I know, there's no such thing, but I thought I'd try. I ditched my vanilla configuration for Doom and I switched my convoluted Denote/Howm combo for Org-roam.

This morning, I reverted all those changes.

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P&B: Annie Mueller - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-01-17T12:00:00.000Z

This is the 73rd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Annie Mueller and her blog, anniemueller.com.

To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

Hi, I’m Annie. I’m a middle-aged cis woman from the U.S., a writer, a single mom of four teenagers (ages 13, 15, 17, and 18 currently). I grew up in Mississippi, but other than several years living in Puerto Rico, I’ve spent most of my life in St. Louis, Missouri, which is where I live now.

I worked as a freelance writer for about 20 years, starting straight out of college. I got an English degree but found rather quickly that no one wanted to pay me to write poetry or provide literary criticism. So I branched out into learning whatever topics had potential to be lucrative. This worked out well for me because I love exploring new subjects. As my Dad describes us both, we’re "about a mile wide and an inch deep." I’ve covered a wide range of things but ended up specializing in finance and tech. For me, a real sweet spot is clarifying and explaining somewhat complex topics, like tax law or digital security, for a more general readership.

For many years, freelance writing was something I did at the edges of my life. When the kids were little I used to wake up at 4am so I could write a draft, then nurse a baby, then write a little more, then spend the day keeping a herd of tiny humans alive. I’d write a little more during nap time and after their bedtime. I homeschooled for several years, too. I look back now and have absolutely no idea how I kept up or what I was thinking. I didn’t get enough sleep for at least a decade.

In 2021 I started working full-time for Teamup Calendar. They’d been a client for years, so it was an easy transition. And it was time. I lost about half my clients in 2020 due to the pandemic. And while I liked working on different projects, it’s a lot to keep up with. I’m enjoying work that goes deeper now, focused on one team, one product, one role. As the designated ‘content’ person in a small company, a typical day might include writing product news, editing site copy, making mockups, updating documentation, helping with customer support, and putting together tutorials. I get to work from home, my hours are flexible, I like our product and I absolutely love the people I get to work with. So I feel really grateful for where I’ve landed with work.

I’m an avid reader of fiction (mostly science fiction and fantasy), poetry, and whatever nonfiction topics strike my interest. I’ve been enjoying memoirs a lot lately. I love blogging, all things indie web, and getting confused about CSS. I have a small circle of close friends whom I regularly spend time with; otherwise, I’m usually hanging out with my kids and/or being blissfully cozy at home. I stay physically active by dancing, mostly in my kitchen, and hiking and trying to run without dying and I’ve recently taken up weight lifting which I enjoy way more than I thought I would. I’m not very crafty but I’m learning how to crochet because I need a hobby that doesn’t involve staring at words. It involves more math than I expected. I might try collage next; I like the idea of ripping things up and then pasting them together.

What's the story behind your blog?

I started blogging during my college years, on Xanga. I was hooked. I’ve been keeping a diary or journal of some sort since I was about 10, and blogging was such a natural extension of that. Then I got interested in having more control and options. But I’m no coder. I tried a few different options and ended up with a self-hosted Wordpress site. I went through a few different domain names too but have been at my current domain for about 10 years now.

Wordpress was good for a long time, and I had fun playing with themes and doing minor customizations. But it became too unwieldy for me. The process of sharing a simple blog post felt kind of complex and clunky. I’d wanted to move away from Wordpress for a while but hadn’t figured out where when I came across Pika. I moved there last September and I’m absolutely delighted. It’s just a delightful blogging experience.

I also have a micro.blog site, which I really enjoy. It’s where I put photos and stuff like quotes and links and little notes and what I’m reading. For me, it works well to have the "big blog" separate from the "micro blog." They’re two different states of mind, or categories, for me. Micro.blog is for little stuff I want to keep or note or track or share. Logging, which might include a bit of writing but might not. Pika is for writing posts. Blogging, which might include or link back to something I’ve logged, but might not. It’s an arbitrary distinction, but it works well for me.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Writing is how I process life, really. I write about my feelings all the time. I write about stuff that I notice, what confuses me or delights me, my questions, experiences, fears, hopes. I write a lot of the same stuff over and over.

Blogging is a really special mode of writing. It can be as mundane and specific and personal as what I write in my journal, but I’m sharing it. I’m letting others in, inviting people to know and participate in these small experiences I’m having. They’re doing me a favor by taking a few moments to read what I post and I’m always kind of shocked and quite honored. Amazing! So many things people could be doing. If they take a minute to read something I write, what a gift that is for me. It’s really cool. Blogging gives us a way to find these little points of connection and have interactions and conversations and develop relationships with people we might otherwise miss.

As far as my writing process, it’s pretty simple. I think of something, I want to blog about it, I open up my blog dashboard and start writing. Or I’m writing a note in Obsidian, decide to make it a blog post, and copy it over to my blog. I don’t think too hard about it. I usually proofread it, but not always. It’s just a blog.

That’s the process about 75% of the time. Zero friction. The Pika editor is delightful to use.

The other 25% of the time, I might realize I’m writing something that needs more thought and time, or research, or I just need to sit with it for a bit. Those drafts live in Obsidian. When I’m ready to post one, I copy it to my blog.

For microblogging, I use MarsEdit on my laptop or the official Micro.blog app on my phone.

I don’t really have a plan about what I’m going to blog about, but ideas aren’t ever an issue. I journal daily, I take notes all the time, I make lists incessantly. And I’m continually inspired by what other people share and blog about.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I mean, sure. My ideal creative environment is the library from Beauty and the Beast. I’d also love it if someone could bring me snacks and keep me supplied with coffee, tea, and sparkling water. Maybe a nice Cabernet in the evening. I like to have an array of beverages.

I don’t know if physical space influences our creativity, precisely. But I do believe that our environment influences whether we feel safe, and how much energy we have, and how easy it is to focus. And those are factors in how creative we can be. It’s not that creativity is a dial that gets turned up and down by our physical environment; it’s more that we are creative beings, inherently, always—and when we feel safe and have energy and aren’t too stressed about other stuff, that creativity can come out more easily and more generously. However, I’ve also found in my own life that creativity benefits from constraints. Sometimes working with a small amount of time hunched over a laptop or scribbling frantically in a cheap notebook is the key that unlocks a door.

I think more than our physical environment, our internal environment is key to healthy creativity: Do I believe I’m a creative being, or not? Do I believe that what I have to share is worth sharing, or not? Do I think about myself as someone whose work is valuable? Do I honor my own boundaries? Do I respect my intuition? Do I feel that my voice is worthwhile? Am I invested enough in my own creative expression that I’ll risk embarrassment? Am I confident enough to make mistakes publicly, and know that I’ll recover?

If I cultivate positive beliefs about who I am as a creative being, and back those beliefs up with action, I build an internal environment that stays with me no matter what physical space I’m in.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My domain is registered with Hostinger. My blog is hosted by Pika, which is also my blogging platform.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I wouldn’t get so precious with it.

When I first started blogging, it was simple and fun. Along the way, I started feeling like I needed to have important things to say, be more professional, have all these polished bits and pieces, publish on a schedule, blah blah blah. Ridiculous. It sucked the joy right out of blogging. So I just wouldn’t waste any time worrying about weird corporate standards applied to my personal blog. I’d stick to doing what I do now: say what you want to say , don’t take it too seriously, have fun, let your weird flag fly so you can find other interesting people. Be part of the beating bloody heart of the Internet. Be messy, be alive, and tell us about it. Share the stuff you’re doing and making and thinking about and trying out. Don’t censor yourself so much. Blog a dozen times a day or once a month or whenever you feel like it. Try things. Change your theme, change your platform, do whatever. Mess it all up and start fresh. (Related: I’d also be better about backing up allllll those blog posts before trying things and messing it all up.)

Blogging is just one person saying, "Hey, here’s me." I know sometimes it can feel like you’re screaming into the void but honestly, even that can be therapeutic. Because at least you’re the one screaming, you’re making a sound, you’re putting something out there. There is a lot more power in that than we realize. I guess that’s the other thing I’d do differently: I wouldn’t ever worry about who’s reading or not reading my blog. All expression craves an audience: that’s beautiful and natural and normal and good. We want connection, not a vacuum. But when we focus on the audience, it’s so easy to lose our own voice and perspective. We start tuning ourselves unconsciously to please this audience. Then we’re not creating, we’re performing. And we lose something really essential, the joy of creating for its own sake. And we get resentful, because we’ve traded something essential, something that’s in our control—the process of creating and sharing—for something non-essential and out of our control. Because other people’s attention and approval is always out of our control. No one owes me their attention, and certainly no one owes me their approval. But I owe myself the time and space and energy to do what makes me feel most alive, and to contribute something positive, however tiny, to this reality.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I pay $15/year for my domain name. It’s $6/month for Pika and $100/year for Micro.blog Premium. I don’t have any revenue. Sometimes I get emails from people wanting to sell stuff on my blog and it’s always the dumbest, most unrelated stuff. Anyway I hate ads so I’m not gonna do that. I did start setting up Ko-fi at one point.

If people can monetise, I think that’s great. I love the one-a-month concept and club. I like supporting other bloggers, but I don’t have a lot of extra money so that’s a cool way to contribute without breaking the budget. Tiny things add up.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I love my guestbook, please sign it so we can be friends. :)

This was the 73rd edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Annie. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.

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Vanilla to Doom to Vanilla - Baty.net

2025-01-17T09:00:00.000Z

I'd been happily using Doom Emacs until just over a month ago, when I decided to start from scratch again. Shortly after moving to my vanilla config, as usual, I started missing some of the niceties of Doom. I'm faster when using Doom/Evil, and sometimes it's nice having things taken care of for me.

So, at the beginning of January I switched back to Doom.

After a week in Doom, I was feeling pretty comfy. Too comfy, in fact. I couldn't shake the feeling that every Doom keybinding I internalized brought me deeper into depending on Doom. That made me twitchy. Every time I used keybindings like SPC m a a or put a Doom macro like after! or map! in my configuration, I felt like I was spending time learning someone else's tool.

So, this morning I switched back to my vanilla config. I'd made some nice tweaks with Doom, so I brought them over, too.

Now I feel better. I'm a little clumsier, and sometimes I wish I didn't have to do everything, but dammit it's MINE! 😄.

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2025 Roll 195 (Hasselblad 500C/M) - Baty.net

2025-01-17T00:05:00.000Z

Sometimes I just need to blow through a roll when I'm bored. This is from the Hasselblad 500C/M and 80mm Planar on HP5 developed with HC-110(b). Thankfully, Alice was handy. These were all handheld at 1/30th, which is a terrible idea. The one of me is underexposed and full of dust. ¯\(ツ)/¯

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Third run - James' Coffee Blog

2025-01-17T00:00:00.000Z

I have just finished the first week of Couch to 5k! It has has been a challenging week, but incredibly rewarding. I have gone from having not run in years to doing three runs in a week. I’m very happy!

This week I have felt myself being pushed to my physical limits. I have become more aware of my body and its movements. I start thinking more about my breathing (and I look forward to the breaks in the run when I can catch my breath). I notice when motivation kicks in and I find a stride in my step. I feel when I need to slow down a bit and when I can speed up. I notice the incline and decline in the hills more. It’s harder to run up hill, but it is so satisfying when you get to go down a hill, however small.

This week, the schedule was a five minute warm up followed by eight periods of running for 60 seconds then walking briskly for 90 seconds, concluding with a five minute cooldown. As I work through the Couch to 5k programme, I will be running for longer with each passing week.

One of my favourite parts of the run is when the coach says that there are only two more running periods left to go. At that point I am tired but hearing those words grounds me in the fact that I can finish: I‘m already 80% of the way there by that point!

I learned this week that I probably should not eat breakfast too soon before a run. I decided to go running after breakfast on Wednesday and my stomach wasn’t as happy as it was on Monday when it had been a few hours since my last meal. I thus decided to run before breakfast today. I may stick with this schedule of running before breakfast. Now, I can go enjoy some coffee and a bagel!

My legs tend to get very stiff after the cool down phase. Perhaps I need to be doing stretches? I tried one or two today, but I need to consult the programme app to learn what is most effective.

I will be taking two days rest this weekend in preparation for next week. I hope to continue running on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Now it’s time for me to make breakfast!