~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

Selfie: from scholar to pirate - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z

I cut my hair short but kept the beard with a light trim.

Wednesday, April 29, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-29T16:02:58.000Z

Someone mentioned org-roam and it reminded me how cool it is. I moved away from org-roam a couple years ago, shortly after denote was released. Denote felt lighter and less dependent on Emacs-ey stuff. Denote is great and I'm happy with it, but that didn't stop me from digging up my old org-roam config today, just to play around with it. That was 3 hours ago and I've not slowed down. I may need to revisit Using both Denote and Org-roam.

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Github exodus? - Baty.net

2026-04-29T12:06:29.000Z

There's currently another internet pile-on happening. "Everyone" is leaving Github because someone else said, "Everyone's leaving Github". I'm no fan of Github, but a handful of people will actually leave, and we'll forget about it in a week, because it's the internet.

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Poem: The echo of my steel - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-29T00:00:00.000Z

Where aromatic rose
and blackthorn shrub
spring from shared soil
you find what you seek
once you realise
that the mountain-god
heeds my prayer
as the echo
of my steel

I wrote the poem in the context of this journal entry: Doing what I must.

Doing what I must - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-29T00:00:00.000Z

This is an excerpt from my journal in which I comment on how I handle my everyday affairs in my land while respecting the greater magnitudes.

The hours are shorter when you have no idle moments. I have not had the chance to write much because I am preoccupied with time-sensitive tasks around my land on top of everything I do on the computer. I was scheduled to have a video call in ~30 minutes but it got rescheduled, so I am finding the opportunity to write this note.

Spring is the time of the year to plant vegetables and prepare everything for the coming summer. Irrigation must be reliable and the land should be clear of anything that cannot be controlled. Tall grass represents a threat in two ways: (i) potentially venomous snakes may take cover in it and (ii) once it gets dry it is a fire hazard.

A design choice for my land is to not pave anything that is not essential. There is the foundation of my house, made out of concrete, a one metre buffer around my house consisting of the extension of that same concrete, and everything else is just soil with vegetation. The cost for this arrangement is maintenance work to keep the wilderness in check.

Controlling the grass is a time-consuming endeavour because it is a manual process. I choose not to uproot it and am against the use of chemicals for such a task. I carefully remove only what represents some kind of danger to my continued presence here. The rest I control and take care of.

Doing it carefully is important to spot new plants that take form. This morning I discovered several more blackthorn offshots while I was in the process of transplanting a few aromatic roses. They are less than ten centimetres tall right now, though they will quickly gain height. I will not be surprised if they even start bearing fruit in the summer of 2027.

Many of my roses will blossom soon. They look beautiful while their aroma makes me feel comfortable. I transplant them at the edges of my land to form a perimeter. I enjoy the aesthetics while I also do it for practical reasons. Plants keep the soil together.

Having the roots in the ground is among the best forms of insurance one can get against soil erosion. This is true for the most hunble blade of grade to the most imposing oak tree. Without plants, the soil is dispersed easily.

Many farmers here will blithely cut down or poison everything, only to say “god help us” when they get a heavily rainy season, such as the past winter, which washes away parts of their land. I do not share their outlook and feel nothing for their plight.

The mountain has its own logic. It answers no prayers. You cannot do whatever you desire. It is better to think of it as an organism in its own right, even though this may sound like mumbo jumbo to you. The shape of the land itself creates certain conditions you must be aware of, such as for the flow of rainwater and the direction of the strongest winds. Where plants grow and what sort of conditions does their growth create to the soil, to the presence of insects and birds. These are all factors that are there. They form the situation you must be aware of. You may choose to ignore them, but that does not make them irrelevant.

Thus while god may one day answer your calls, continue doing what you must, deliberately and decisively. Have forethought, understand the mechanics of the system you are a part of, and conduct yourself in a manner that respects, but does not fear, the greater magnitudes of this world.

A trap many philosophers fall into is that of seeking the abstract among the abstractions, while losing sight of the here-and-now of their quotidian experience. The human condition is such where our body imposes certain inescapable patterns of behaviour, while our mind retains the capacity to fathom that which is transcendent. The key is to find a balance, else we suffer.

I find that the notion of an abstract god is ultimately unhelpful as such. Not because the idea is not worthwhile, but merely owning to the fact that abstractions are necessarily not concrete. There must be narratives that have immediate utility in what we do everyday. It helps little, if at all, to pray to some deity in the heavens while you do not recognise anything greater than you in your immediate surroundings. The absence of an intermediate life form between humanity and divinity easily devolves into a rudderless mode of living. Even when that is couched in terms of ceremonial theism, of talking to your priest and attending the liturgy, it remains inherently atheistic in its day-by-day expression.

To picture the mountain, the sea, the forest, the earth at-large as intermediate mountain-god, sea-god, forest-god, earth-god is not to deny the possibility of that which is absolute, for there is a common in the multitude of all that is—the mind inevitably discerns those patterns in the cosmos. Think of what envelops, nourishes, and outlives you as greater than you. It is a recognition of how things are in our world, but also a means of keeping yourself in check, specifically by not mistaking your ego as the master of this world and the centre around which everything revolves.

I am here, not in the heavens. My condition demands that I have situational awareness in order to thrive. When I admit that I am not the most superior life form on this planet, for example, I account for what my environment renders viable. I “respect” the rain-god, for instance, by taking care of my land so that it is resilient and robust to the forces of erosion. When I cut down the tall grass, I “worship” the fire-god by acknowledging how easy it is to suffer irreparable damage from wildfires. And so on.

I refer to them as “gods” in an artistic way. This is a metaphor,a figment of the imagination, which helps me describe in a few words a complex system whose workings can both benefit and harm me. It is my responsibility to find what is benign by remaining alert, asking questions, and seeking knowledge.

This “respect” or “worship” is not symbolic. It is neither expressed through nor exhausted in rituals. There are no special garments I must wear or certain words I have to chant. There are no intermediaries of any sort; no hierophants who reveal mysteries to the initiates. It is all about a life of readiness, a life of determination, a life of unflinching resolve to do what is necessary. There is an immediate feedback loop between my deeds and their consequences, which I find invigorating. The outcomes keep me honest to my word, while they serve as a reminder of the limits as well as the potential my power has.

Against this backdrop, I continue labouring with the same enthusiasm I had in the beginning. Which now inspires me to write this poem:

The echo of my steel

Where aromatic rose
and blackthorn shrub
spring from shared soil
you find what you seek
once you realise
that the mountain-god
heeds my prayer
as the echo
of my steel

Use something else? - Baty.net

2026-04-28T18:13:18.000Z

"I refuse to use anything that has touched A.I. in any way!"

...later...

::rubs sticks together to make fire::

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-28T11:53:06.000Z

Harbor - Sutton's Bay (2017). Nikon F3

The dog's surgery went well yesterday. She had several large masses removed from her skin. This is the third time we've had to do this. The vet convinced me to send a sample out for a biopsy, even though the aspiration looked benign and cyst-like. The fact that they regrew on the same scarline as last time is concerning. Alice is recovering, but is in a lot of pain. It's killing me to hear her whine. She never whines. It'll get better, slowly.

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The things I use for writing and note-taking - Baty.net

2026-04-28T11:36:58.000Z

Do you know why have trouble finding things? Here's why...

Ghostty. TUIs and CLI tools never get old. And I still like using Vim as $EDITOR
Obsidian. My resistance to using Obsidian is sometimes overcome by its utility, ubiquity, and ease of use.
Emacs. My everything tool for the past decade. It's sometimes a problem for me.
BBEdit. The venerable text editor that remains unmatched in utility and stability. It indeed doesn't suck.
Tinderbox. Deep, powerful outlining, visual mapping, and general note wizardry. A favorite since 2004.
Bear. The nicest, cleanest non-plain-text note app I know. It's so slick, and updates are gradual and deliberate.
Apple Notes. It's always there when I need it, even though I don't love it.

You can understand why I love using these. They're all great, in their own ways. Which one I'm interested in at any moment depends on my mood. Hence, I have trouble finding things. Having access to so many wonderful tools is both a blessing and a curse.

(originally posted on copingmechanism.com but I'm not sure I want it there)

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Philosophy: violence, safe spaces, and inevitability - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-25T00:00:00.000Z

In this ~30-minute video, I talk about the relationship between violence and safe spaces. How violence carves a space out of the wilderness and how it keeps it free from danger. I bring up several examples and also discuss the concept of inevitability as one of the three fates. The point is to accept the world as-is; to understand that there are things we cannot opt out of even if we do not like them. Then, we may carry out certain deeds without taking on a burden that is not ours.

Friday, April 24, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-24T11:30:05.000Z

There won't be much time for farting around today and I'm already feeling twitchy about it.

People who can do stuff like this are not the same species of human as me. Redbull downhill urban biking POV

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Nicolas Solerieu - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-04-24T11:00:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Nicolas Solerieu, whose blog can be found at slrncl.com/blog.

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People and Blogs is supported by the "One a Month" club members.

If you enjoy P&B, consider becoming one for as little as 1 dollar a month.

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

I’m dad, designer, cyclist, designer, texture guy – currently living in San Luis Obispo, CA. My oldest kid just learned to blow his nose. The other one is in his prime baby time. These days I day dream about bikepacking and permaculture.

Born and raised in France, I landed in California in 2016. An odd mix of work ethic and ego led me to define myself through the stuff I make: all sorts of combinations of rectangles and text boxes, mostly for screens, solely because I got good enough to get paid for it. While I'm filled with gratitude for my career, I spend a humorously uncomfortable amount of time torn between ascetic ideals and pragmatism.

While I’m not a technologist, I’m not a monk either. I’m way too fidgety. Time outdoors, family life, movement, and occasional meditation keep me sane.

What's the story behind your blog?

I adopted this domain name in 2016 as I didn't like having my real name spelled out in the URL, it felt weird. I bought my initial domain back in 2012: nicolas-soleri.eu, I thought it was clever. SLRNCL is a concatenation of my last name and my first name without the vowels. It's hard to remember, which is great since I'm not trying to play the SEO game.

I truly started to put effort into writing in 2022. The birth of my first child probably had a lot to do with it – and getting off instagram. I couldn’t fathom the idea of being a dad with an instagram account. But I’d love for my kids to one days read the blog of their silly dad.

Self-awareness and allergy to grandiosity creates a tension between craft, skepticism, and my embodied experience which I love to put into words. The blog-therapy is (still) working. It’s eating up most of my creative ego and filling my feed.

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

Nowadays I use the default iOS notes app. I write whenever. I edit little.

I used to have a notes.txt file on my desktop where I was putting down all interesting nuggets, like a wine cellar, hoping for them to mature. Instead, they mostly degenerated and created a bunch of anxiety from doing nothing of it.

I breed an uncomfortably large amount of thoughts daily. Most of them are unexceptional. I cultivate poor writing hygiene because I do not want to truly get into writing. Yet, there seems to be something that keeps bringing me back to words. To tame my ego and avoid creating a generational supply of passable notes I use my blog as a graveyard.

Typos are my own, I’m working on it. With AI it now feels like a mark of authenticity. Sometimes I ask my wife to proof-read, but that is rare because we end up arguing, worth it.

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

Following the flow of life is what makes my creative juice flow. I often write on the toilet or in public parks while keeping an eye on my kids. I thrive in “white-space” time - time in between things. So I jot down notes when I’m out and about. I’m not a coffee shop person and I hate my home office.

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

My website is home cooked. It runs mostly on PHP. I still have Jquery installed but I’m slowly removing all Javascript dependencies. I'm not a great dev and prefer to stay 5 years behind trends. My website is constrained by my skills. This has kept me grounded and covered most of my needs and ambitions. I don't recommend inspecting my code, it's really not great but decently light. Building stuff is a great way to keep myself grounded in the process. I use Inter as the only font because it's nice, plain, and open source. It will default to system font if Inter isn't available. Because I don't want to import anything custom or use CDN. I'm not better than Inter (and few out there are IMO).

The site is hosted by OVH in France. I’m considering self-hosting since my house produces excess solar power.

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

I’d use bearblog if I was not a pretentious web designer and had to start over. I recommended it to my wife, she likes it. The simplicity and authenticity of the project is lovely. That said I do not regret the torturous process of having redesigned my website tirelessly over the last decade. The process taught me a lot about myself.

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?

My domain name + hosting cost under 20 euros/year. I do not run ads or track anything - I don’t plan or change this ever.

That means my website has had an incredible ROI considering the career opportunities it gave me. The many people who hired me all visited my website (and told me about it). I had some rewarding connections with internet strangers. My gratitude is larger than an html file can hold, and definitely magnitude greater than what it cost me to run my website.

Money is important, and I’m a lucky bastard. I don’t have anything against people monetizing their thoughts - though I’m rarely compelled by a paywall. Digital patronage and crowdfunding seems highly relevant to get out of the social media hell realm of today. It has pitfalls, the main one being requiring mass adoption which seems highly delusional. But hope and compassion are contagious while big tech fights entropy. Social media always comes back in a different form, meanwhile, html is still there. It’s the cockroach business model.

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

These two crack me up and make me think: Keenan and Taylor town (already seen on P&B)
Some wholesome Aussie stories: Beau Miles
Maggie Appleton always gets me interested
The only design blog Tobias Van Shneider I've ever read
I'm a fan of Faircompanies stories and mission
Not a blog but worth checking out James low audio archive

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

There are so many goodies out there, one link away. Sharing is fun, side projects too. In my case it took me a decade to get my head out of my own butt and realize the cost of my own ventures. I believe a lot of us are similar to me, moving through life and accumulating stuff. Cleaning up, giving up, and passing along are necessary processes. So as a closing thought I’d suggest to sit, close your eyes and think of all your stuff. If you’re comfortable with it, great. Otherwise, spring is coming.

Keep exploring

Now that you're done reading the interview, go check the blog and subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you're looking for more content, go read one of the previous 138 interviews.

People and Blogs is possible because kind people support it.

While I was looking for something else - Shelby Foote - Baty.net

2026-04-23T18:31:45.000Z

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Paul Ford on AI and the Asterisk - Baty.net

2026-04-23T16:20:03.000Z

"I Can't Believe It's Not Software!" Paul Ford on AI and the Asterisk* - YouTube

Paul Ford is always so impressive and smart and sensible. I love reading and listening to him.

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Spending hard caps - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-04-23T07:10:00.000Z

I was catching up with some tech news yesterday and every time I read one of these “I woke up with a USD 18k bill in my Cloud account” articles, I am reminded about how fucking stupid—and predatory—this whole industry can be.

The ability to set hard spending caps should be required by law. I think that’s another issue the EU should decide to tackle at some point. If I know I have a budget available, there should be an option for me to configure your service so that you don’t allow me to spend more than that. And if my product or site goes down as a result of that, it’s a choice I get to make.

But the reason why hard caps are usually not an option is obvious: companies get to make more money this way. Hurray for capitalism! The sad part is seeing allegedly smart people arguing that no, the actual reason is that it’s a complex problem to solve, and no-one has figured out how to do it yet. An excuse so pathetic that it’s not even worth getting mad about it.

There are people discussing plans to build moon bases, put servers in orbit, build digital gods, and yet setting a hard cap on billing is a complex problem to solve. Sure, I believe that.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

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Selfie: looking sideways - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-23T00:00:00.000Z

Close up picture of me looking away from the camera

Butterflies - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-23T00:00:00.000Z

I like to walk quickly. One of my childhood friends did, too. Whenever I reflect on the pace at which I walk, I think of the times when we tried to walk as fast as possible. My friend was much more athletic than I – with longer legs, too – so they often had the edge in walking speed. I loved trying to be quick anyway. Now, I have the joy of walking bringing back those memories.

When I notice something out in the world, I often stop in my tracks, eager to see or hear as much of what I have noticed as I can. The sound of church bells makes me stop and smile. The sight of cherry blossom makes me stop and appreciate the colours. On my walk today, I slowed and stopped at the sight of a red butterfly with white and black dots resting on a purple flower.

The butterfly walked over the flower. What colours do I see? Can butterflies pollinate? Was the butterfly taking a rest? All of these questions rushed to my mind; maybe the energy from the spring in my step was redirected to my imagination. I observed the slow pace of the butterfly. Maybe the butterfly was showing the beauty of slowing down every so often.

Toward the end of my walk, I saw a white butterfly flutter around the white blossoms of a blooming tree. I thought about how the colours matched, in contrast to the red and black and white butterfly on the purple flower. Matching and contrast – blending in and standing out – are both part of Nature?

Before going back into the house, I stopped again at the cherry blossoms outside and felt a few petals. I felt them in the spring rains a few days ago and wanted to feel them again – how different is the texture? Today, the petals were smooth and silky as I remember.

Strongly adhered to the tip of the branch, soon the petals will blow through the air and turn the grey ground pink – a fleeting moment for the ground and the tree, but one that lingers through the seasons in the mind.

Paul Ford - Too many apps - Baty.net

2026-04-22T20:24:17.000Z

Paul Ford, Aboard Newsletter

my hunch is that we should prepare ourselves for way, way too many apps.

It's already happening, and that's just the ones I make for myself.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-22T18:46:57.000Z

I was able to prove my ownership of a copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio so they finally sent my activation code. That was A Whole Thing, but B&H and Black Magic came through. Now to properly test the new RAW editing features in v21.

I thought I would get along fine with Ubuntu, but I've found it unreliable on my Framework 13. Same with Mint. Anyway, I'm back to Fedora/KDE, which I've come to prefer anyway.

I should probably write a long, excuse-riddled blog post about it, but I have been committed to using Obsidian on macOS for nearly a month. Thing is, I have not been able to let go of either Emacs or Linux. I can't quit them. Using macOS again has been nice. It has the software I love and, Tahoe aside, the macOS is great. What's weird is that I prefer using the Framework 13 instead of the M4 MacBook Air, so I tend to grab that when away from my desk. The final straw has been that Linux doesn't (by default) use Emacs key bindings system-wide, like macOS does. I can't live like that, so I dragged Emacs along and here I am, writing this post using Emacs on Linux.

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Living the indie web life - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-22T00:00:00.000Z

In 2018, David and Chris recorded a podcast episode about the indie web in which the topic “living the indie web life” came up. As soon as I heard the phrase, I thought to myself: what does living the indie web life mean to me?

This evening I hosted an online Homebrew Website Club, a meetup where people from around the world get together to chat about all things personal websites. We chat about writing, publishing, organising our thoughts on the web, the potentials of the web as a medium, HTML and CSS, and more. The meetup is a forum for informal chat – we don’t expect familiarity with any topic. If you are interested in personal websites, you are most welcome.

During the meeting, Ana shared a cross-stitch of the IndieWeb community logo (so amazing!), which she then posted about on Mastodon after the meetup. I responded to the Mastodon post from my own website, publishing a response and syndicating it using Brid.gy Fed so that it would show up in response to Ana’s post. Here is my original post, and here is the version on Mastodon.

I found out about Ana’s post via Artemis, the web reader I maintain; I follow Ana’s Mastodon posts from there. On Artemis today I also saw visual art from an arts publication I follow, learned that The Met museum publishes archival materials “from the vaults”, read a kind comment someone left on my guestbook, read about an idea that opened my mind, learned about how my local government is making voting spaces more accessible, and more.

The last three paragraphs summarise my day in the life on the indie web, and represent what I feel a slice of the indie web life can be like. At the heart of the indie web is people and conversation, with a bit of purposefully-designed technology that helps us stay connected. At the heart of the indie web is community, because to build a better web we need to work together.

Earlier this week, I wrote in my notes:

I don’t want to give my power away when it comes to technology. I don’t want anyone else to have to give their power away either.

Living the indie web life, to me, means resisting giving my power away when it comes to how I express myself on the web. I want to express myself in my own way, and stay connected to my friends without having to go through a third-party intermediary who doesn’t have my best interests at heart.

Because I have a website, I can share these words directly with you, and know they will show up in the way I want them to without adverts or tracking. Indeed, this website may be mine, but the words are for you.

Living the indie web life to me also means helping others to take control of their web presence, too. I host events because I want to create space for discussions – for people to think about and discuss and digest the question "how do I want to make my own spaces on the web?" I made Artemis available for others to use because I found the idea of a web reader that updates once per day useful. I thought other people might find the software useful, too.

What does living the indie web life mean to you?

This post was syndicated to IndieNews.

Artemis David and Chris recorded a podcast episode about the indie web posted about on Mastodon after the meetup here is the version on Mastodon Homebrew Website Club Here is my original post syndicated to IndieNews.

Emacs live stream with Sacha Chua on 2026-04-30 17:30 Europe/Athens - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-22T00:00:00.000Z

Mark your calendar for next Thursday. I will do another live stream with Sacha Chua. We will talk about Emacs and I will check on her progress since our last meeting. I am looking forward to it!

Note that the event will be recorded.