~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

Sunday, April 5, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-05T16:50:41.000Z

Stella's Lounge (2015). Olympus Stylus Epic / Fuji Superia

"README-driven development" is a phrase Simon Willison used and it's kind of perfect.

I'll never understand why people get such a boner over ridiculing someone else's code. It's not a good look.

macOS for now - Baty.net

2026-04-05T16:44:03.000Z

I've been using macOS exclusively for about a week and I'm a little embarrassed to admit how smooth things have felt. Not because of macOS specifically, but because I don't need to worry about keeping things set up and synced on Linux, too. I've been worrying about it a lot lately. More than that, I've spent a dizzying amount of time on it and taking a break from all that has been a relief.

The advantage of using macOS is that all of the comfort food software I love is there. I get my photo processing workflow the way I like it. I get all my little utilities like PopClip and Keyboard Maestro and Alfred. I get Tinderbox and DEVONthink. I get dead-simple sync via iCloud and backups using Time Machine. Trying to replicate this is an unrealized dream for me when using Linux.

There's a lot of friction introduced by managing two OSes on two or three computers. I don't enjoy it and I'm not sure it's worth the trouble.

The benefits I get from Linux are real, but they are more about philosophical alignment than about practical day-to-day computing. I'm convinced that one day I'll switch fully to Linux, but I'm not quite ready yet.

Flowers; snow - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-05T00:00:00.000Z

There were only one or two other patrons seated with a warm drink on this cool morning. For the first time in a few weeks, I got my favourite table. I’m not sure why it is my favourite, but it is the one I gravitated toward when the place opened.

When I looked out the window, I noticed that a few of the flowers in the hedge outside were starting to bloom. The red blossom took me back to this time last year when I was looking out at the same flowers. I thought about how much there is to see when you stay in the same place.

I don't know the name of the flowers, but I know someone who would: my grandmother. I have a memory of being a kid in the back of the car and her remarking on the weeping willows growing over the bridge in a small village. Now I know what weeping willows are too! I still have a long way to go, though: I know of the flowers on the hedge outside the coffee shop only as red flowers. I should take notes on the flowers and ask what kind they may be.

As the time passed, the rain started to fall outside. Was that a snowflake? I was cosy inside. There was a faint scent of cinnamon in the air which warmed my heart. I wrote down a few notes from my morning, sipping away on my decaf flat white as I did. Then, I caught the bus to go to my destination for the day.

Half-way through the journey, the rain turned into snow. I did see a snowflake! With every passing minute, the intensity of the snow grew. As we journeyed the luscious green hills became blanketed in white. I thought back to my memories of Winter, watching the snow fall.

Watching the snow fall, I was overjoyed and, at the same time, bewildered. I didn’t think I would be mesmerised by big snowflakes falling on the front window of the bus and being brushed away by the windscreen wipers. The snow kept falling. Then it was brushed away. Then more snow fell. And it kept going. I think part of my joy came from the surprise – of seeing the yellow sun beaming through my bedroom window only a few hours ago, and then seeing snow. And the other part of the joy came from my inner child: the part of me that sees snow and can’t help but be transfixed.

The snow didn’t fall for long – the skies are clear and blue. The sun shines through the window casting a golden light across the room. In my head and my heart I still feel the snow though, saving the memory and the feeling so that, for next year, I have another point of reference to help me navigate the seasons. Maybe, by then, I will know the name of the red flower too.

Saturday, April 4, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-04T16:50:16.000Z

Maximum Occupancy (2019). Leica M3 / Summicron 50mm / Tri-X @800 in HC-110

I'm spinning today. I want to do everything at once.

One of the things I did was completely revamp my Obsidian vault, with Claude Cowork's help. I wouldn't have done it without the help. Made the whole thing consistent, easy, and complete. Don't ask yet why I'm even looking at obsidian.

A couple of music devices - Baty.net

2026-04-04T16:40:05.000Z

The FiiO Echo Mini vs the iPod Classic

Last week I impulse-ordered a FiiO Echo Mini because it's cute and isn't expensive.

I've been listening to it daily. It's a fun and rather good audio player for the price, but as a device it is nowhere near in the same league as the iPod Classic. Maybe I'll pair it to the car and use it on the road. For around-the-house listening, the iPod wins.

E.B. White's morning decision - Baty.net

2026-04-04T11:18:38.000Z

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E.B. White

Saturday morning reading - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-04T00:00:00.000Z

My warm breath steams up my glasses a little bit. I have my cold pillow resting on my chin. I’m still under the covers. I started my morning with a book, Hot Chocolate on Thursday, a cosy tale that took me to Japan and Sydney all without my leaving my bedroom. I love reading in the mornings, although of late I have been a bit too busy to read so early. Saturday mornings, however, are always there for reading.

The prospect of staying warm under the covers for a while longer was enticing – and the cold of the pillow was comforting, too – but the light of morning encouraged me to get up. I had no bread in the house so I went out for breakfast, another one of those things I haven’t done for a few Saturdays now. Going out to a coffee shop and getting breakfast is one of my favourite things to do. Reading there makes the experience even more special.

I packed my book and set off to go and get some breakfast and coffee.

On my journey I noticed the changes in the trees and the bushes. The winter branches were budding. The green of each bud, collectively, brought new life to the trees and bushes. Spring is here. The same white blossom tree that caught my eye a week or two ago is still in full blossom. I know, soon, too, the tree will be green.

After placing my order at the coffee shop, I sat down and unpacked my book. I have run out of bookmarks and so the inside of the dust jacket serves as my bookmark. Soon I will make my way through all the mangas and books I have started. This morning was my way of making a bit of progress to that end. Decaf flat white for James. I went and got my coffee then settled in with my book.

Moments later, I heard a voice I hadn’t heard for a while. The song on the radio. It took me only a few moments to realise which song it was: Brightside by the Lumineers. I started singing along to myself. I remember when the album came out. I haven’t listened to that song in so long. Just as it had been a while since I had been in a cafe, enjoying a coffee and reading a book that brings me joy.

Emacs live stream with Sacha Chua on 2026-04-16 17:30 Europe/Athens - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-04T00:00:00.000Z

The other day I had a coaching session with Sacha Chua. Sacha asked me if she could record and publish it, to which I agreed. More here: https://sachachua.com/blog/2026/04/yayemacs-10-emacs-coaching-with-prot-packaging-emacs-lisp//.

Our next meeting will be done live on the 16th of April 2026 at 10:30 America/Toronto, 17:30 Europe/Athens time: https://youtube.com/live/djE_pVlgDHg.

I will check with Sacha how she imagines doing this. Though I am the laissez faire type, so will adapt as we go.

[ Note that all my coaching sessions are private: I never share details of my meetings. This is an exception because Sacha asked me about it. ]

Anthony Nelzin-Santos - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-04-03T11:00:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Anthony Nelzin-Santos, whose blog can be found at z1nz0l1n.com.

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

Bonjour ! I’m a militant wayfarer, budding typographer, pathological reader, slow cyclist, obsessive tinkerer, dangerous cook, amateur bookbinder, homicidal gardener, mediocre sewist, and fanatical melomaniac living in Lyon (France). I was a technology journalist and journalism teacher for sixteen years, but i now work in instructional design.

In my spare time, i take photos of old storefronts to preserve a rapidly fading typographical tradition. One of these days, i’ll finally finish the typefaces i’ve been working on forever. And my novel. And the painting of the bathroom. (My wife is a saint.)

What’s the story behind your blog?

I was born a few years before the web was invented and grew up at this fascinating time when everybody wanted to do something with it, but nobody knew quite what yet. We were still supposed to learn Logo and Pascal in technology class, but most of the teachers understood the importance of the web and taught us the basics of HTML and CSS. I built my first website in 2000… as a school assignment!

By 2007, i was one of those insufferable tech bloggers who made enough money to feel entitled, but not enough to feel safe. (I moonlighted as a graphic designer.) When more established outlets came knocking at my door, i shut down my blog and became one of those insufferable tech journalists who make enough money to feel entitled, but not enough to feel safe. (I moonlighted as a journalism teacher.)

I kept a personal blog under the “zinzolin” moniker. This shade of purple is my favourite colour, partly because it sounds a bit like my name. Over the years, it became more and more difficult to find the energy to write recreationally after having spent the day writing professionally. In 2025, feeling more than a little burnt out, i rebooted my blog and switched from French to English. Fortunately, the name is equally weird in both languages.

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

I don’t have a process so much as a way of managing the incessant chatter in my head. I write to give myself the permission to forget, and i publish to gift myself the ability to remember. You’ll never catch me without some way to capture those little “brain itches” — a notebook, the Bloom app, a digital recorder, the back of my hand… (I wrote part of this interview as a long series of text messages to myself!)

In the middle of the week, i start reviewing my notes to find a common theme or extract the strongest idea. When an incomplete thought keeps coming back, i don’t try to force it by staring at a blinking cursor. I take a long walk, and usually, i have to stop part way to write. Most of the actual blogging is done long before i sit down to properly draft my weekly note.

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

I have this romantic notion that the more comfortable i am, the more i can edit, the worse my writing tends to get. If i could, i’d write everything longhand in a rickety train, stream-of-consciousness style, and publish the raw scans of my notebooks. You wouldn’t be able to read half of it, but i can assure you the illegible half would be Nobel-prize worthy.

But then, some things only happen after a few hours of diligent editing. If i give myself enough time, i can stop transcribing my notes and start conversing with them. There’s always something worth exploring in the gap between our past and present selves – even if the past was two days ago – but that delicate work requires a conducive environment.

Judging by my recent output, it looks like this environment comprises a good chair, a MacBook Air on one of those ugly lap desks, my custom international QWERTY layout, iA Writer for writing and Antidote for proofreading, cosy lighting, just the right amount of background noise, and most important of all, a pot of delicious coffee.

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

I’ve tried pretty much every CMS and SSG under the sun, but i’ve always come back to WordPress, until Matt Mullenweg reminded us that a benevolent dictator still is a dictator. Z1NZ0L1N is now built on Ghost and hosted by Magic Pages.

I used to use Tinylytics and Buttondown, but i’m now using Ghost’s integrated analytics and newsletter features. My other websites are hosted on a VPS with Infomaniak, which is also where i get my domain names, e-mail, and assorted cloud services.

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

That’s a question i had to ask myself when i rebooted Z1NZ0L1N last year. I switched to English in a bid to better separate my professional output from my recreational output. I jettisoned most of my audience, but i found a new community around the IndieWeb Carnival and quickly rebuilt a readership on my own merits. I get excited each time i get an e-mail from someone i don’t know from a country on the other side of the globe.

I wanted to find a way to publish regularly without turning Z1NZ0L1N into the umpteenth link blog. After a few experiments, i’ve settled on a weekly note that’s part “what i’m doing”, part “what the rest of the world is doing”. This is old-school blogging meets recommendation algorithms — and i love it.

Some things haven’t changed, though, and will never change. I use an open-source CMS that i could host myself, not a proprietary platform that i can’t control. I designed my theme myself. I don’t play the SEO/GEO game.

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 a little less than €10/month for Magic Pages’ starter plan with the custom themes add-on. Considering that it saves me €15/month in third-party services, i’d say it’s a fair price. I pay €12/year for the z1nz0l1n.com domain, but i also registered a few variations, including zinzolin.fr, which was first registered in 1999! Blogging is my least expensive hobby — by far.

As someone who’s worked a lot on the economics of independent publishing, i’m happily subscribed to a few news outlets and magazines. I like the idea of $1/month memberships for blogs, but in practice, i find it hard to track multiple micro-subscriptions on top of my existing (and frankly far too numerous) digital subscriptions.

I wonder if we should create blogging collectives, almost like unions and coops, to collect and redistribute a single subscription in between members. In the meantime, i’ll continue not talking about my Ko-Fi page.

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

The Forest and Ye Olde Blogroll are fantastic discovery tools. A lot of my favourite bloggers have already been featured in People and blogs: VH Belvadi, BSAG, Frank Chimero, Keenan, Piper Haywood, Nick Heer, Tom McWright, Riccardo Mori, Jim Nielsen, Kev Quirk, Arun Venkatesan, Zinzy… I’d love to see how Rob Weychert, Chris Glass, Josh Ginter or Melanie Richards would answer. Their approach to blogging couldn’t be more different, but they each informed mine in their own way.

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

Since 2008, i’ve taken thousands of photos of old storefronts. It began as a way to inform my typographical practice, but it rapidly became an excuse to go out and pay attention – really pay attention – to the world around me. You wouldn’t believe the things i’ve discovered in side streets, the number of conversations i’ve struck after taking a picture of a once-beloved shop, and how my way of looking at the evolution of cities has entirely changed.

If you’re up for a little challenge, find your own collection. It might be cool doors, weird postboxes, triangular things, every bookshop in Nova Scotia, sewer manholes, purple things, number signs… It’ll give you another perspective not only when travelling in foreign places, but also on your (not so) familiar surroundings. It doesn’t cost a penny, but it’ll pay off immensely.

Keep exploring

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If you're looking for more content, go read one of the previous 135 interviews.

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3D-printed cameras - Baty.net

2026-04-03T10:34:58.000Z

printed analog camera space

Good lord, just look at all the 3D-printed cameras! I had no idea.

(via 82MHz)

Friday, April 3, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-04-03T09:31:13.000Z

Couple on Pier. Grand Haven, MI (2023). Leica MP / Summilux-M 35mm

Much of yesterday was swallowed by converting this blog from Hugo to Eleventy (Like Twitter, I'll probably never call it Build Awesome 🙄). I wondered if I'd wake up today feeling like I'd made a mistake. So far, I don't miss Hugo. It's only been a day, though. Whether I continue to like the design is another story. I meant for it to be basic and simple, then decided to put everything on the home page. I like the individual pages, but home is pretty messy. That's probably OK, since most people read this via RSS anyway.

Emacs: new sequence scheme for the ‘denote-sequence’ package - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-03T00:00:00.000Z

The denote-sequence package is an optional extension to denote that empowers users to write “sequence notes”, else “folgezettel”, in the style of Niklas Luhmann.

Sequence notes are created in relation to other notes, as parent, child, or sibling. denote-sequence communicates such relationships by writing a “sequence” to the file name, in accordance with the Denote file-naming scheme (technically, it uses the optional SIGNATURE component of the file name, which is defined as a free-form field for users to use as they see fit—so this is just one application of it).

The package supported two schemes before

The exact presentation of such sequences is subject to the user option denote-sequence-scheme. The package has hitherto supported two schemes, the numeric and alphanumeric.

In the numeric scheme, each level of depth is delimited by the equals sign. The sequence 1=2=3 thus has three levels of depth. It means “the third child of the second child of the first parent”.

By contrast, the alphanumeric scheme relies on the alternation between numbers and letters to communicate levels of depth. The above example is thus expressed as 1b3.

The new `alphanumeric-delimited` scheme

Many users have told me that the alphanumeric scheme looks cleaner. Though I think it is hard to read when sequences get really long, like 2a13c6d2a. To this end, the new sequence scheme augments the alphanumeric style with delimiters that are placed after the first level of depth and every third level of depth thereafter. Thus: 2=a13=c6d=2a.

Users may find this easier to work with.

Remember the `denote-sequence-convert` command

This command has been part of the package since its inception. It can convert from one sequence scheme to the others.

denote-sequence-convert has a “do what I mean behaviour” with regard to which file or files it should operate on:

When called from inside a file with a Denote sequence, it operates on the current file.
When called from a Dired buffer, it operates on all the marked files.
When there are no marked files in the Dired buffer, it operates on the file at point.

The target sequence scheme for the conversion is whatever is assigned to the user option denote-sequence-scheme. If, however, denote-sequence-convert is called with a prefix argument (C-u by default), then it will prompt for the target sequence scheme.

Coming in version 0.3.0

I just merged the code into trunk. Users who are building the package from source can try the new feature right away. Otherwise, it will be available in the next stable version of the package. I hope to have that ready some time in mid-April.

Package name (GNU ELPA): denote-sequence
Official manual: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/denote-sequence
Git repository: https://github.com/protesilaos/denote-sequence
Backronym: Denote… Sequences Efficiently Queue Unsorted Entries Notwithstanding Curation Efforts.

Eleventy - Baty.net

2026-04-02T17:39:52.000Z

<blockquote class="callout"> It has been 0 days since I changed blogging platforms on baty.net. </blockquote>  Hugo and I go way back, and our relationship has been tumultuous at times. Sometimes I get mad at it for introducing yet another breaking change. Sometimes I'm bored with it. Sometimes I get frustrated with the way things work (or don't). All three of those came up for me this week, so I did something about it. Rather than fix what was broken, I completely revamped site using <a href="https://www.11ty.dev">Eleventy</a>. I've made passes at it like this before, but this time I started from scratch and, with a bit of robot help, made it about as simple as I could. All the content has been migrated. I've tried to keep URLs the same as before. Post and Journal URLs should be good. Notes might break, though, sorry. I'm missing a few things yet, but I'm started to lose momentum today. I did all this in half a day, but I need a break. I'm going to deploy it, since that will motivate me to finish. It's deliberately simple, theme-wise. I may have gone too far by include all content types on the home page, but we'll see how it settles in. Let me know if you hate it or if anything is broken.

Paul Ford on The Ghost Effect - Baty.net

2026-04-02T17:24:03.000Z

<a href="https://mailchi.mp/aboard/zkd26k8jzm-10345011?e=903e56dc11">The Ghost Effect</a>: <blockquote> That said, for $200 a month (or $20), you have a team of cybercriminals on tap that you can call at any time. You are now an absolute elite hacker, if you take time to learn some basics. Congratulations! Seeing state-level cyberweapons become a commodity is kind of a new thing, and I thought you should know about it. </blockquote> It's a wild world out there. I'm a little nervous about it.

Using my edit button shortcut - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-02T00:00:00.000Z

In 2025 I built a browser extension that adds an edit button to your browser. The edit button pages if a page either has:

A rel=edit link;
A custom edit link set in the extension preferences, or;
A link with an anchor like “edit page” (only available if you enable the setting, since this is a heuristic).

Back when I built the extension, I added in a keyboard shortcut to open the edit link associated with a page. On Mac, the shortcut is Command + Shift + E.

I forgot all about this shortcut until recently, when I accidentally pressed Command + Shift + E instead of Command + Shift + R, the shortcut to refresh a page. At first, I was surprised, but the mis-press gave me the reminder I needed that this feature exists.

Since then, I have been using the Command + Shift + E shortcut almost daily to edit pages on my website.

I like that the shortcut has a similar hand position to refreshing, a shortcut that I find relatively comfortable to use. I also like that the shortcut only requires use of my left hand, so that I can press the edit button while using my mouse to navigate to my next task.

My flow to edit a page now usually looks something like this:

Go to a page on my website (i.e. my software notes page).
Press Command + Shift + E.
Ghost opens in my browser.
I use my mouse to navigate to Apple Notes, where I usually have notes I want to copy onto my website.
I use my mouse to go back to Ghost where I paste in my notes and organise and develop them a bit where necessary.
I save my edits.

While I could also use the mouse to press the edit link button that appears in my browser, the shortcut is so convenient.

The irony is that I forgot the shortcut existed until I accidentally encountered it. Indeed, overall, I struggle with remembering keyboard shortcuts beyond the basics (copy, paste, quit, refresh), preferring to opt for a menu or another visible affordance. But the edit keyboard shortcut is now becoming one I use regularly so it is increasingly etched into my memory. I think there was a gap to bridge between adding the shortcut as a feature in the development process and making a habit around its use.

browser extension that adds an edit button to your browser software notes page

Prot Asks: Hjalmar about Emacs for music, the joy of art, and Internet sociability - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-02T00:00:00.000Z

In this 2-hour video, I talk with Hjalmar about using Emacs to write music, the joy of artistic expression, and sociability in the Internet era.

Hjalmar is a viola player and composer who currently studies composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music. We start our discussion with me asking how it is to study music. I learn about Hjalmar’s experiences in that regard.

Hjalmar writes music in Emacs using a setup that involves Org, the Org Babel system, and the LilyPond music notation. Hjalmar describes in further detail how this process works.

I was curious how Hjalmar discovered Emacs to learn that it was a hobby that developed during the Covid pandemic. We discuss how even though Emacs is known as a programmer’s tool, it is equally capable for people who do not write code, such as musicians, academics, and journalists. A large part of that is Org and its wider ecosystem of extended functionality.

I ask about Hjalmar’s creative process. It is an iterative process of accumulating lots of pieces and then jumbling them to produce a result. Hjalmar will typically settle for the second version, given that it is an attempt to address all the mistakes of the first draft.

A large part of our exchange is about the process of artistic expression. Hjalmar is interested in creating playful interactions with the audience, to blur the lines between what is and what is not music, and to make everyone present a participant. I learn more about how this works and the relevant ideas that inform the approach.

The other big theme of our talk is the human experience in the context of digital technology and the Internet. This is about artistic stimuli as well as interpersonal affairs. We discuss the community aspect of art and how that relates to the feelings of connection and creativity. The gist is how we benefit from face-to-face interactions in ways that our technology cannot replicate.

Links from Hjalmar

Personal website: https://hjalmarbjerner.com/
YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@hjallis22

About “Prot Asks”

In this video series, I talk to anybody who is interested to have a video call with me (so do contact me if you want!). The topics cover anything related to Emacs, technology, and life in general. More here: https://protesilaos.com/prot-asks.

Slash AI - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2026-04-01T09:00:00.000Z

I’ve seen /ai pages popping up here and there on other people’s blogs. The idea for these pages is, and I quote, «promote trust and transparency». Trust, in the context of 2026 internet—and society in general—is quite the complex topic. Dishing out trust willy-nilly is no longer a reasonable thing to do, and I also think we’re getting to the point where the “benefit of the doubt” is no longer worth considering.

If I were to write on this /ai page that I don’t let these tools touch anything I post on this blog, would you trust me? Would that change the perception you have of me? And if you did trust me, why are you doing it? After all, you have no way to actually know for sure. But that is precisely what trust is, isn’t it? Trust is not based on knowledge, but on instinct, on intuitions, on feelings, and on prior experience.

Personally, I couldn’t care less what you write on your /ai page. The same way I couldn’t care less if you use em-dashed. Words are cheap, easy to write, and they mean less and less. But your history, all the baggage you carry with you, all you have written and said, that is harder to fake, building it is time-consuming, but destroying it takes a second. If you start posting AI slop, my trust in you is gone in an instant, and no matter how you’ll try to justify it, that trust will not come back.

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

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Museum Memories: Roundup - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z

This month I had the pleasure of hosting the March 2026 IndieWeb Carnival on the topic of “Museum memories”, in which I invited participants to write about a memory of a museum. To everyone who participated – we had over 30 participants this month! – thank you. It was a delight to read everyone’s stories.

Reading the contributions to this month’s Carnival will take you around the world, covering everywhere from Canada to Japan to Goa to Cairo. There are a breadth of perspectives, covering everything from a behind-the-scenes look at writing for museums (V.H. Belvadi), to cities themselves as museums (Paul), to the role of context in understanding art exhibits (Ginny).

In this post I briefly summarise the contributions, drawing attention to one point that stood out to me as I read each blog post. I invite you to read the round-up and follow the links to any post that interests you.

While the "Museum memories" Carnival is now over, I am still accepting contributions. Feel free to email me at readers [at] jamesg [dot] blog and I will make sure your post is represented in the round-up. In addition, if I have missed your blog post in the round-up, please email me so I can add your post.

The Carnival for April is on the topic of "Adventure", hosted by Pablo.

Submissions

Beto walks the reader through his experiences with modern art, starting with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He notes the extent to which modern art opened his eyes, to the extent of reflecting on the very nature of what art could be:

My earliest memory of being in love with a museum was when I visited the Centre Pompidou, in Paris, with my dad. I was 15, and we were traveling from Brazil through France, Italy, and Spain. This was my first contact with modern art, and I was deeply affected by everything I saw. It changed my perception of art, and of what art could be.

⁂

Joe starts by reflecting on how thought-provoking the topic of museum memories was: “As I thought about what that prompt brought to mind, I was flooded with memory.” He then goes on to share two memories of museums: the first, seeing WIRED magazine in a museum; the second, in the pride he felt seeing an exhibition run by his sister at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

What a wonder it is to remember the totality of my sister’s life and experience that kind of accomplishment. I mean, I remember the day when my sister was born. I remember her first step. That I can hold those memories in my head along with the memory of the day she earned her Master’s Degree and the day she shared her exhibit with me and our Dad.

⁂

Jeff followed in Joe’s footsteps of exploring two museum memories: his time in the Design Museum of Barcelona and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Reflecting on visiting the design museum in Barcelona, Jeff shares how the visit was brought to life by being accompanied by family:

This visit stands out because of the shared experience with my son. The museum was focused on design, which we are both involved in. […] So the exhibits touched something deep inside of who we are as designers/creatives. I am so glad that I got to be with him when he visited this museum.

⁂

Like Joe, I was flooded with memories when I started to think about writing my entry to the Carnival for this month. I shared my experience visiting the National Museum of Flight with my grandparents when I as a kid. I am still in awe of the scale and grandeur of the museum, and have many fond memories of the trip:

I feel that same sense of awe now in art galleries when I look at large paintings: the scale of the thing in front of me can be so grand – or indeed small and extensively detailed – that, for a moment, I can’t help but think “wow!” That feeling never gets old.

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Mike shared his excitement of visiting the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Air & Space Museum) in Northern Virginia and the wonders of seeing a real-life spaceship in person:

Sure, if you’re a flight geek, or a war buff, you’re going to be in heaven there. But as neither of those really, I can attest to how really cool it is to walk around there regardless of your interests. I mean, how can you not gaze in wonderment at an actual spaceship, imagining the many stellar voyages it took. Wondrous.

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Zinzy then takes us to London to the National Gallery, where she reflects on how the words on a plaque next to an artwork in the National Portrait Gallery changed her perception of a work. I will leave this quotation as your invitation to read the post in full:

Picture me entering the National Portrait Gallery for a photo exhibit, and walking heart-first into a room with an enormous print of a woman in complete disarray. Cheeks red from hours of crisis, a frown pressed into her forehead, shoulders held up as if tenseness were the only form of comfort she had left to know

Zinzy’s experiences match my own in seeing paintings in museums: the plaques help us understand a piece, but our initial impressions still stick with us.

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We’re now leaving London to explore the Museum of Possibilities in Chennai with Jatan. The museum has a range of exhibits on assistive technologies, a few of which Jatan explores in the post both in words and with images. At the start of the post, Jatan shares a wonderful tool:

One of the display themes was tech tools which bridge accessibility gaps for people. These tools were in working states. I particularly loved this e-pen which reads text out loud as you slide it over any page with words. It can even save said text as a file.

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twitu then takes us to the Goa Chitra Museum, which displays “many daily use tools and equipment by the people of Goa in the 19th and early 20th century.” twitu reflects on the experience of seeing tools used over a hundred years ago, noting:

I find it fascinating to know what occupied the lives of people 100+ years ago. The tiresome beat of daily chores and tools to automate them. And some of them have stayed fundamentally the same for the pass 100 years!!

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Last Encore takes us to Japan to explore how the architecture of museums impacts our experience as visitors, reflecting on the tension between interior design, architectural visions, and function:

In such establishments, one is bombarded with buzzwords like “immersive” or “free-flowing,” where the layout is intentionally ambiguous. Under the guise of “exploring in any order you like,” I find myself pacing the same gallery over and over, muttering, “I am quite certain I have seen this room already.” Finding the exit becomes a genuine struggle.

Last Encore’s experiences brought back my own memories of museums that feel almost labyrinthine: full of wonderful art, but hard to navigate.

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Ginny takes us to the WAG-Qaumajuq museum in Winnipeg:

The WAG-Qaumajuq is home to the largest collection of Inuit art pieces in Canada. Qaumajuq (pronounced KOW-ma-yourk) means "it is lit, it is bright" in Inuktitut.

Ginny’s post introduces her post through the lens of context, which she considers an essential part of art galleries:

The most important part of an art gallery for me is context. Why was this piece created, what was the artist's inspirations, what part of their history informed the art?

Full of fascinating facts about Inuit and Indigenous culture, Ginny’s post is a wonderful read.

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Next, Ben explores the power of museum memories through the lens of exhibitions on power generation. Ben starts with a concise history of how humans generated power, and then shares several experiences of getting up close with power generation machines of all kinds in several museums. In his post, he reflects on how one display case can display the chronology of a technology over a century:

Something that stood out to me is a display case with functioning models of industrial-era steam machines all connected together by belts to overhead drive shafts. […] The evolution of the display case over 100 years shows the versatility of rotational energy: networks of power distribution can be built with interchangeable power generators and power consumers.

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V.H. Belvadi invites us behind the scenes to see what it is like to work with a museum. V.H. explores what museums could be if they had more support, the role everyday objects play in museums, the intricacies of communicating to the public through exhibit plaques, and more. I especially appreciated his eye-opening perspective on what museums could be with more support:

Speaking to multiple curators a common confession I have heard is that if only the museum could afford floor space for everything they own, they would love to display all of it. For many museums that might mean an extra room or storey. For the likes of the British Museum it probably means several additional buildings.

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Nick then takes us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through the lens of his visit as a seventh grader. Nick reflects on, among other things, the grandeur of the building and how it felt to be visit:

What I can recall most vividly is the feeling of wandering through this enormous museum on my own. Stepping into the grand entrances of the Met is akin to visiting the world’s great cathedrals. High ceilings, marble floors, brilliant lighting. I was still naive in my art education at this point, but these art works felt so important, so elevated in that remarkable space. I did not actually get lost in the Met, but I did lose track of time.

Nick wraps up his post with a delightful conclusion: “I may have gotten a little lost in the Met, but I found a part of myself too.”

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Sammie brings a new perspective to what we consider to be a museum, inviting us to think of museums not only as a discrete physical location but as any place in the world that sparks your curiosity:

Similarly, seeing things physically in general. Watching train cars drive by and seeing all the art on the sides of them displayed, or watching the wheels and considering how they fit in the tracks. Questioning how wires connect and following them from one machine to the next. Studying walls and furniture, paintings on the walls of waiting rooms. There are so many things that you get to see and question and wonder.

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Matthew tells us the story of his experience growing up near the Blists Hill outdoor museum complex, and the lasting influence the space had on his life. Matthew notes how the museum allowed him to “smell and really feel the past”:

Once onsite, I was given a lot of freedom to roam around and look at the various shops and interests of the site, and then we’d go home for lunch. The site, it is a reproduction victorian village, with shops, banks, and other artefacts that faithfully recreate the era. It was fairly rudimentary in those days, having not long opened, but quickly developed into one of those rare but popular destinations where you get to not only see, but touch, smell and really feel the past.

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Andrei made two contributions to the Carnival this month: first exploring the relationship between art and wealth in “Exit through the gift shop > The fine line between culture and ostentation”, and then documenting several museums he has visited in “Museums along the Road”.

Andrei invites readers to seek a slower experience in museums by visiting an exhibition that really appeals to us:

So instead of going for the huge art and history museums where you spend tens if not hundreds of euros for the tickets, go for the slow experience. Stay away from the Louvres and MOMAs and Tates of the world, they’re usually filled with stolen shit taken from oppressed people so rich people can get richer. Instead, search an exhibition of an artist that you like, or visit something special.

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David starts his post by talking about the variety of museums that he enjoys, from art institutions like the Louvre to rural historical museums. He then explores how there is nothing like seeing a piece of art in person:

I learned early on that there is no substitute for seeing actual works of art whenever possible. It’s a wonderful experience to finally see a painting that you are familiar with through reproductions. A painting is alive in a way that even a high quality reproduction is not. The colors are true, but it’s more than that. It’s the life, the physicality, the hand of the artist, sometimes obscured but always present. A reproduction can show you how something looks, but it can’t capture any of that life.

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Noahie documents how our relationship with museums can transform with time. Starting by mentioning how he explored the Dallas Museum of Art with an “irreverent attitude” as a kid, he now sees museums as a place to have a “peaceful and interesting day.” Noahie then reflects on the increased accessibility to art in the modern day, and the lasting influence art has had on his life:

Overall, I think that museums have become a more humble institution despite their aristocratic beginnings. These days, good art is accessible to everyone, and I think that's important. The influence it has had on my life is vast, and these days, it's one of the things I most look forward to in life.

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Bix shares his experience visiting a travelling exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at the time of the Bosnian War, which left them with a chilling impression:

Mostly, I just remember that even as the exhibition itself eschewed showing images of the camps from one war, we daily were seeing images of camps from the latest war.

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Elena begins her blog post with a story of a museum guard who had particular expectations of how someone should and should not appreciate art:

I still had my ticket in my hand and used that to point to all the cool parts. I admit, I was also very close to the glass, but I didn't touch anything. Anyway, it didn't take long and a guard came literally stomping towards us. He then said in a very upset tone: "This is great art you're looking at. Do not use your ticket to point at it! One does not point at great art with a ticket!"

This museum did not deter Elena from enjoying the rest of the museum with her colleagues, thankfully. Instead, she took it in her stride:

But when it had finally sunken in, we quoted him at every other artwork to remind one another to please absolutely not use our tickets to point at this great art that's exhibited here.

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Anthony puts museums at the heart of his holidays. When visiting, he is “looking for, over anything else, is evidence of how things were made”, connecting the marks of how art is made to his love of analog writing tools:

My love of fountain pens, typewriters and block printing isn’t rooted in nostalgia, but in the fact that they leave their mark on my work. The nib, the slug and the carvings literally imprint every decision, every mistake and every happy accident into the paper. They prove that i was here. At their best, museums do the same thing on a much larger scale. They prove that people were there.

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Kristof shares three memories of museums: the Deutsches Museum in Munich, exploring various museums in Sweden, and his experience at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance centre. Kristof’s reflections of Yad Vashem from the perspective of someone who grew up in Germany are stark:

This museum leaves no one unmoved, but what struck me deeply in retrospect is the fact that my language and my familiar culture were visible in the pictures. Beautiful facades of German cities… with corpses lying in the streets in front of them. Beautiful German landscapes… with barbed wire, half-dead people, and the headline “Arbeit macht frei”. The culture of my ancestors was visible everywhere. MY damn culture! I felt shame because my people were the perpetrators. I felt anger because my people were the victims.

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Reilly documents his experience visiting the Communication Technologies Museum, where he was able to get up close to – and even try – some technologies. Reilly’s experience illuminates how interactive exhibits add a new dimension to museums: from being an observer who reads and studies an exhibit to an active participant:

One of my favorite exhibits was a set of teletype machines, all linked together. A teletype is similar to a typewriter, but keypresses can be transmitted and received. Typing on one of these machines sends a code for each character — traditionally the 5-bit Baudot code. When a teletype on the other end of the line receives Baudot code, it types out the same character as the unit sending the code. The museum as kind enough to let visitors type on one of the teletypes, and it was extremely cool to see them communicate with each other, with another unit duplicating what we typed.

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Paul takes us to the biggest museum we have seen yet in submissions to the Carnival by positing that the city of Barcelona itself is a museum:

I mention all of this because the city itself is a giant museum. You can step back in time, in design, and urban planning, and wander through the narrow cobbled streets of the Old Quarter, then walk ten minutes to Eixample to see an extension, started two hundred years ago, that’s still celebrated for how modern it is.

Paul’s blog post is almost a web-based walking tour of Barcelona, covering ancient building foundations, the city planning of the Eixample neighbourhood, the Castell de Montjuïc, street art, the Sagrada Família, and more.

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We’re now off to Philadelphia to explore the Franklin Institute with Jesse. In his post, Jesse walks through the architecture of the building, its striking exhibits, and the personal resonance of the health exhibits in the museum. The pendulum in the museum inspires Jesse to ask us to consider the role of rhythm in our own lives:

And we are also rhythmic machines, aren’t we? — rhythm being the way nature imposes order on her own chaos. The body’s algorithms, circulation and respiration, and the mind as well. Inhale, exhale. Sleep, wake, sleep.

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Loreleice takes readers through an exhibition in Museo Sugbo, which documents the history of the Cebu area in the Philippines. Loreleice describes photos of both a “baro't saya, a traditional costume for Filipina women”, and “pots and bowls, which seem to come from the pre-colonial era.” I feel like Loreleice is my tour guide while I read this post.

Toward the end of the blog post, Loreleice notes the potential of museums to deepen our knowledge of a subject:

Since I only get surface-level knowledge about the Philippine history from textbooks (and possibly the Internet world), I feel like museum visits could deepen that.

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Theo, inspired by the range of memories he has in museums, prepared a list of moments spent in museums. The list covers everything from seeing his grandfather “‘ice-skating’ for the first time in like 20 years” to “running around in an ancient Roman villa, making bread and visiting the herbs garden; Twice”.

Theo’s post ends with the central role people play in their memories of museums:

I think I realised that what made museums so special to me is the people I shared these moments with. Some of these people I'll never see again, others I could but won't. People I miss, people I love.

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For Evan, museums are woven through his life, from visiting the National Museum of Natural History as a kid, to exploring the museums of Paris with family, to going to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh on a first date with the woman who became his wife. Evan introduces his post with a label I might have to start using myself: being a Museum Person:

I think of myself as a Museum Person. I come from a family of Museum People. I married a Museum Person. I take my kid to museums. We’ve been going to museums for longer than I can remember.

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Dale discusses the delightful surprise of encountering the Spirit Museum in Stockholm. His blog post makes me think about how many “gems” there are to discover outside of the headline museums in cities:

Honestly, in a city with lots of really good museums, the Spirit Museum is a real gem, and maybe the best ‘accidental’ discovery Iʼve made. Despite that it is small by capital museum standards, they seem to have a knack of attracting really interesting visiting exhibitors and punch above their weight in variety and entertainment value.

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Britt recalls moments from childhood spent in museums run by North East Museums in England, including the “Hancock Museum (natural history) and Discovery Museum (science and local history)”. The memories span from a close encounter with an animatronic triceratops to seeing a beehive at work through the glass in a museum staircase.

Britt notes that museums have had a lasting influence on her passion for learning:

My many childhood visits to museums are part of why I love learning things and sharing what I learn with other people.

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Next, we’re off to Egypt with Jeremy to explore the Cairo Museum. Jeremy submitted a post from 2005 for this month’s Carnival, which I accepted with great delight owing to its vividness. Jeremy’s post walks through several exhibits and his reactions to them. He also discusses how the information available in museums builds over time:

OK, there are still fabulous gaps in my knowledge. Like, what is the relationship between Dunmutef the jackal and Anubis the jackal? But I feel that I have made something of a breakthrough, all on my own. Bits of information, scattered observations, have come together in something that resembles coherence.

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Sara starts by sharing a childhood memory of the Technological Museum of Bistra, and then goes on to discuss the everyday role that museums have in our lives, with a particular focus on museums in Ljubljana. Sara’s conclusion reminds us that museums are for everyone:

While I know a lot of people here dismiss museums and galleries as something that only intellectual and pretentious people do, I do think that the museums and galleries do have their role in our everyday life as well and I am seeing that in my everyday life. They deserve the support they are getting and more.

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Frances shares a memory of visiting the British Museum at the age of ten or eleven during which they took many photos. Reflecting on the one of the pictures, Frances connects their childhood museum visit to their current field of study:

Here we have Mithras slaying a bull. Apparently I was already intending to study ancient and mediaeval history at university.

It does not appear my interests have changed all that much.

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By way of the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT exhibit, kwist reflects on how all the parts of an exhibition come together to build an impression:

Instead, an exhibition's concept, selection of exhibits, their arrangement in relation to each other, and even things like the use of the museum space and its soundscape come together to offer a unique experience, and a view at the world from a different perspective.

kwist also shares the moment when the exhibit, which was about the concept of “wildness”, came to life:

But at least for me, it also just ... worked. Somewhere along the way, I decided to go along with it, and started thinking about this more abstract concept of "wildness" the exhibition was trying to convey - and it clicked somehow. It was an almost meditative experience that had a strong impact on how I view museums, and deepened my appreciation of them.

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Moving on, Ken’s post takes us back to Washington, D.C., this time to the Hirshhorn Museum. Ken notes that the building was “One of the first times modern architecture seriously captured my curiosity.” Describing the building and his experiences visiting the museum, he says:

On the inside, it’s all post-WWII modern and contemporary visual art, each floor a continuous loop of gallery space. And then on the top (publicly-accessible) floor, one of the galleries has a balcony overlooking the National Mall.

Something about the novelty of the subject matter and my malleable state of mind at the time, but certain exhibitions are just seared into my being.

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Next, we are visiting Michael’s blog, in which he shares five stories from museums across the United States, from Philadelphia to San Francisco. Michael’s post reflects on the nature of life and time, museums near and far, using poetry to describe an exhibition, and more.

Reflecting on his visit to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Michael explores how what seemed far away as a child became close as an adult as he stood inside the museum 20 years after reading about it in a magazine:

Sure thing, kid. It's amusing now, having lived here for 30 years, to remember just how far away San Francisco was to a suburban 9-year-old growing up on Long Island.

This has me thinking that, indeed, museums themselves bring what may be so far away a little bit closer to us.

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Thomas takes us to the heart of Paris to explore a specific exhibit at Musee d’Orsay that left a lasting impression: the Three Mixed-media Arabs. Thomas shares his reaction to the sculptures, studying them in close detail from many angles:

Part of what struck me was the movement of the alabaster cloth. But, with the cloaked sculpture and a hood, I couldn’t sort out how the hood, face, and head worked. Each angle and time I’d look I was see another detail of the sculpture that drew me in and distracted me from the static mechanics of how it was done. Whomever I’m with often nudges me onward, but my mind is stuck and enrapt with the hooded in hard alabaster bronze face that seems to have the alabaster moving freely like cloth captured and frozen in an instance (yet crafted over much time).

Thomas shares his impression that the works do not get as much attention as others, noting:

When I am there and taking in the three pieces I am usually the only one around it looking at them for anything more than a few seconds or passing glance. It feels like they are hidden in plain sight.

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Thank you again to everyone who contributed to the Carnival, and to all readers who have followed along with the Carnival this month!

This post was syndicated to IndieNews.

Exit through the gift shop > The fine line between culture and ostentation Museums along the Road Joe Matthew Britt display case Evan David Centre Pompidou Frances Museum memories my entry to the Carnival Jeff Jeremy Ken’s post Dale Kristof Last Encore Adventure Ginny Loreleice Michael’s blog Jesse syndicated to IndieNews Noahie Paul kwist Reilly Beto Sammie Sara Mike Theo Elena Jatan V.H. Belvadi Bix Nick Zinzy twitu Anthony Ben

Nesting social posts under blog posts in Artemis - James' Coffee Blog

2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z

In Grouping link posts in a web reader, I described a feature in Artemis to show when someone whose website you are following has bookmarked a post by an author you also follow. The motivation for this feature was to reduce clutter in a user’s reader by grouping shares of a post under the original post.

Whether an entry should be nested was determined by the URL of an entry in a feed, which meant that the feature triggered only for people who publish bookmarks feeds that link directly to other websites.

Yesterday, I started working on an expansion to this feature to cover another case: when someone you follow publishes a blog post, then announces that post on another account like Mastodon whose feed you also follow. I have seen this happen a few times since there are a few people whose blog and Mastodon account I follow. Ideally, the Mastodon post would be grouped under the main post.

Here is an example of the new feature in action:

ALT

The Artemis web reader showing three posts. The first post has one post nested under it that says "Shared as a link by Thomas Vander Wal."

Above, vanderwal.net’s Musee d’Orsay and the Three Mixed-media Arabs blog post is the main entry. Below the entry is the text “Shared as a link by Thomas Vander Wal”, which links to the Mastodon post announcing the blog post.

When a post is retrieved by the Artemis polling system, all outgoing links are saved in a list. Then, when a user’s reader is being displayed, any post that links to another post will appear nested under the post to which it links. This feature only triggers if the feed that contains the link is a Mastodon account ¹. This prevents a scenario where someone writes a blog post that links to another blog post, where, with the logic above, the blog post that links to another post would be hidden.

(Note for users: This feature works if you are subscribed to a feed using the ActivityPub syntax like @jamesg.blog@jamesg.blog; if you follow the RSS feed for a Mastodon account this will not work. This feature may work for Bluesky replies too, although I haven’t yet tested it on Bluesky accounts).

While a relatively small change, this feature helps to create focus on blog posts as opposed to presenting both a blog post and an announcement post in the same way.

[1] This feature may also work with other ActivityPub-based systems, although I haven’t tested it yet.

Grouping link posts in a web reader Mastodon post Musee d’Orsay and the Three Mixed-media Arabs

When knowing it all does not matter - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z

This is an excerpt from my journal. I express the connection with my surroundings and how I do not need all the answers.

Minutes to eleven. Another rainy day comes to a close. I just came back from my nightly hike with the dogs. We walk around the mountains for several hours per day. This is basically paradise for dogs. It is equally benign for me as well. I remain as fit as ever. I always have energy to do what I like. My mental state is stable, my thoughts are clear, my presence focused. The mountains empower me. I forgot how it is to live with perennial stress. Everything is easier when you have a good connection with your environment and your inner world.

There is nothing grand happening. This note describes the present moment, though it also applies to what I was feeling yesterday, and the year before, and, probably what I will experience in the future. Stability sounds boring to someone who is used to trying new things all the time. Though it actually is not. Once you get used to this reality, you develop a finer appreciation of the phenomena. It is a little bit like conditioning yourself to eat unsalted salads: at first it is bland until it eventually becomes a combination of natural flavours that were once obscured by the salt.

I keep treading the same paths. Though I always notice something different. The environment is alive. Every form of life in it is in motion. It is working towards some end. The grass tries to be taller and wider, in order to maximise its exposure to the sun and access to soil plus water. The acorn proceeds towards becoming an oak tree over the course of centuries. Even the land itself is transforming. Every single rainfall takes some hard matter from the higher parts and moves it downstream. Where there was once solid ground one now finds signs of flowing water. In the geological time frame, the earth itself becomes something other than what it was.

I lack the depth of conscience to communicate with the earth the way I do with my dogs or other people. Though I can already sense that it is an organism. I discern the manifestations of life all around me. And I am aware that there are strata of emergence to each phenomenon. What I understand as myself, a unit of human, Protesilaos the one and only, is a system of systems. To describe even a single part of my body, I would need to spend a lifetime studying all the technicalities. I am ignorant about the full extent of knowledge that is embedded in the making of the eye, for example, or the interplay between the brain and the gut. Yet there is a sense in which I know myself. I operate at a certain stratum of emergence. What happens at the strata below or above is not at the centre of my conscious world, although it is a precondition for it.

The reason I am content with the little things is because I have understood that they are actually not insignificant. They are subtle, yes. It is as if they are hiding in plain sight, testing our capacity for mindfulness. Many of the world’s religions promise an escape from this world. I do not resonate with their teachings. I was listening to some monk the other day talk about how suffering is innate to the present experience and how we must not feel moved by what is around us. How so? I feel calm. To be moved is to be, for all presences are in motion. I keep finding reasons to smile: they are all around me.

What I did wish to escape from was the expectation of knowing it all. The idea that there has to be a beginning, middle, and end to this story, and that I should be aware of it. I do not feel entitled to know everything. I do not prey for the universe to conspire in my favour. I do not ask for an opt out clause, some derogation from the rules that govern the mechanics of the system of systems. I love what is and am thankful for what I have for as long as it is beside me on my path.

The gods offer hints but no explanations. We can only work with what we have. Even if they did tell us explicitly, we lack the means to definitively know: are they being truthful or trying to test us? If, for example, Jesus performed all those miracles and got resurrected, those all prove that he did perform these very miracles and did get resurrected. There is nothing in those events, in isolation or in combination, that necessarily proves everything else that Christians claim to know about God: agentic, triadic, benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, ubiquitous. The leap of faith is unavoidable.

We deal with what is germane to the human condition, recognising that it is an amalgamation of joy and sorrow, of enthusiasm and disappointment, of tension and release. We suffer when we are unable to connect with that which is immanent; that which is so close to us at all times; that which we underestimate, take for granted, or altogether ignore. Giving it a name, telling a story about it, is useful insofar as we do not forget that this is an artistic device. We do it for the fun of it, to have something to talk about with other people, and to contribute to the workings of our social reproduction.

God dies in the naming of god, in the framing of it as only one instead of the multitude and the monad, in the stories we take too seriously as we turn them into inflexible doctrines. God is lost once the dogma we impose on our psyche forbids us from reaching out to the source, to the singing spring whose waters always flow.

When I sense the cold rain on my face, as I close my eyes and turn skyward, I find peace in the knowledge that I am not special in my need for water and air. Just as I require them, so do the plants and other animals all around me. This is not merely about surviving, but feeling the connection with that which envelops and underpins me. From my constitutive subsystems to the supersystems I partake in, there is life ever-lasting, ever-transfiguring.

The rainy days will continue until the first third of April. I do not have someone to tell this to, so I am putting it in the present bottle and tossing it to the sea. Not having all the answers does not bother me. I am like that bottled note, moving wherever the current takes me. That there even is an ocean is astonishing. I cannot fathom the full extent of the factors whose interplay contributes to there being an ocean. Can we even draw clear delineations in the cosmic continuum? Is there an in vitro expression of anything to be studied in isolation from totality?

I will go to bed now. Tomorrow morning I will get the chance to continue with my projects around my house. Well, unless there is heavy rainfall. Every yard here contains hours of my labour. Though no matter how much sweat I spill, I can never make the land an extension of myself. It belongs to me just as it belongs to the grass and the insects below of it. We are all together. Admitting as much keeps things in perspective and makes everything simpler.

~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

Sunday, April 5, 2026 - Baty.net

macOS for now - Baty.net

Flowers; snow - James' Coffee Blog

Saturday, April 4, 2026 - Baty.net

A couple of music devices - Baty.net

E.B. White's morning decision - Baty.net

Saturday morning reading - James' Coffee Blog

Emacs live stream with Sacha Chua on 2026-04-16 17:30 Europe/Athens - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

Anthony Nelzin-Santos - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

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

What’s the story behind your blog?

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

Keep exploring

3D-printed cameras - Baty.net

Friday, April 3, 2026 - Baty.net

Emacs: new sequence scheme for the ‘denote-sequence’ package - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

The package supported two schemes before

The new alphanumeric-delimited scheme

Remember the denote-sequence-convert command

Coming in version 0.3.0

Eleventy - Baty.net

Paul Ford on The Ghost Effect - Baty.net

Using my edit button shortcut - James' Coffee Blog

Prot Asks: Hjalmar about Emacs for music, the joy of art, and Internet sociability - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

Links from Hjalmar

About “Prot Asks”

Slash AI - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

Museum Memories: Roundup - James' Coffee Blog

Submissions

Nesting social posts under blog posts in Artemis - James' Coffee Blog

When knowing it all does not matter - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

The new `alphanumeric-delimited` scheme

Remember the `denote-sequence-convert` command