~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

Monet - James' Coffee Blog

2025-11-13T11:57:20.000Z

On the ground floor of the Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris – a long building by the river banks of the Seine, and at the start of the Jardin des Tuileries – there is an exhibit of eight Monet paintings. The museum website introduces the paintings like so:

Offered to the French State by the painter Claude Monet on the day that followed the Armistice of November 11, 1918 as a symbol for peace, the Water Lilies are installed according to plan at the Orangerie Museum in 1927, a few months after his death.

The exhibit spans two rooms: each an oval. The two ovals connect together in a figure-of-eight. The walls of the rooms are white, each adorned with a wide-canvas Monet painting. When you are in either of the oval rooms, you are surrounded by colour: reds and yellows and blues and purples. You get a feeling that there is more detail than you can possibly comprehend, but you do your best to take in the works. From up close and afar, you study, appreciating the colours, the gradients, the trees, the reflections.

The painting on the left as you enter shows a gradient as if the sun is rising or setting – you don’t yet have a perfect grasp of how to distinguish between the two moments of day in art, and so you see both: a beginning and an end. You proceed further and see blue skies and white clouds reflected on the pond – blue a theme of several of paintings, you will later realise. What does it mean to appreciate a work?, you consider. Do I need to understand every detail? The answer to this question reveals itself as a smile adorns your face for reasons that you cannot quite put into words. Maybe the colour is brightening your mood. Or maybe the realisation that the more you look, the more you see satisfies a certain part of your mind that loves details.

You walk around the two rooms once and then realise you want to keep going. You keep walking. You look at all of the works with a new perspective – the perspective of having seen all that comes before and after each individual painting. You wonder if there are themes between the works, and you start to think more about whether the painting to the left as you entered was of a sunrise or a sunset.

In the back of your mind, you think about how the structure of the rooms – the two ovals – encourages you to keep going. You are in a place that encourages you to walk in circles. You learned from the plaque on your way in that this was designed: that the place is intentionally a figure-of-eight, the symbol of infinity.

At one point, after spending some time looking at a painting, you realise that there is a colour you didn’t notice before. You realise that there is an infinite amount to appreciate, and that you don’t feel an obligation to understand everything for the colours and the vastness of the paintings and the context in which they were offered – as a symbol for piece – take your breath away.

You realise that you don’t need to understand all the details of the works for them to have an impact, to leave you with some feeling.

I left with a sense of wonder. I came back the next day.

Input diet - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-11-12T15:00:00.000Z

Two related pieces of writing are doing the loops in my head recently. The first is the editorial piece from Dense Discovery #361—thank you Mattia for sending it to me—where Kay wrote

We’ve normalised giving our attention almost exclusively to people who already have obscene amounts of influence. And we amplify them by watching. The power law in action: a few rise to the top, and we keep them there by never looking away. (...) Seeking out lesser-known voices isn’t just an act of cultural curation; it’s a philosophical stance, a refusal to let attention be the only metric that matters. Because the most interesting stuff usually happens on the margins.

The topic of who is getting my attention these days is something I’m spending a lot of time thinking about. Because time and attention are a precious resource, one we probably take for granted way too often. A resource that’s been abused by the modern economy to the point where people seem unable to focus anymore, with the sole goal of selling us crap we likely don’t need.

The other piece I’ve been thinking about is Ridgeline #217, where Craig wrote:

The modern smartphone, laden with the corporate ecosystem pulsing underneath its screen, robs us of this feeling, conspires to keep us from “true” fullness. The swiping, the news cycles, the screaming, the idiocy — if anything destroys a muse, it’s this. If anything keeps you locked into a fetid loop of looking, looking, and looking once more at the train wreck, it’s this. I find it impossible to feel fullness, even in the slightest, after having spent just a bit of a day in the thralls of the algorithms. The smartphone eradicates “space” in the mind. With that psychic loss of space, grace becomes impossible. You see the knock-on effects of this rippling out across the world politically.

I’m starting to believe that a phoneless life is, for me, the ultimate goal. How to get there, that I don’t know, but I feel like it’s a worthy goal to pursue. And I think this goal is gonna be part of a broader push towards really curating the inputs in my life. By inputs, I mean everything I consume. Because I realised my mental health is deeply affected by what I consume, day after day. The books I read, the posts and blogs I scroll through, the news I ingest, the music I listen to. Everything contributes to how I feel, and I think I’m only now realising how much more strict and diligent I should be with my input diet.

The other day, I reopened my RSS reader after my small break from media consumption, and I was both over- and underwhelmed. Overwhelmed because I follow quite a lot of blogs, and so there were thousands of posts waiting to be read in there. Underwhelmed because after a quick scroll through all those entries, I realised there wasn’t much I was genuinely excited to read. Which isn’t to say the content in there wasn’t interesting, quite the opposite. I follow a lot of people who write a lot of interesting content. But I realised it was not content that really resonates with me, at this point in my life. And I came to the realisation that the only reasonable thing to do is to start from scratch again. Remove everything and start adding back only the content I really want to consume. And in doing that, this time around, I should be a lot more deliberate, a lot more careful in what I add. Because now more than ever, in this age of infinite digital abundance, quality really is more important than quantity.

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What’s in my inventory? - James' Coffee Blog

2025-11-12T13:51:33.000Z

Wherever I go, I usually bring my backpack. In it, I always keep a few things. First, I try to always bring a book with me. I usually pack a book to read before I leave the house, for the book I am reading is either at my bedside or next to my chair. Right now, I am reading the art of explanation by Ron Atkins, a book about how to communicate clearly written by a senior reporter at the BBC. If I am out and about, I might read in a cafe, on the train, or really anywhere that I can sit down and relax.

I bring my AirPods wherever I go, as well as my phone (I wish my phone were lighter though). I can’t read in noisy environments; the AirPods noise isolation feature is thus useful. I also enjoy listening to music where I go – songs by Taylor Swift, Lorde, Florence and the Machine, Oh Wonder, MisterWives, and several other artists are among those I listen to the most. I love podcasts, too.

I also bring a notebook in which to write. This is essential. Sometimes I need to write something down or sketch it out. My notebook is where I will write down a few ideas that I want to explore on paper rather than jotting down on my phone. I draw wireframes for web pages. I write stories. My notebook has a sticker of my blog mascot on the front, a little bit of personalisation.

I bring a few pencils. I don’t think I bring a pen anywhere; I prefer to write with pencil in notebooks. I like to use Blackwing pencils, which have a rubber – is “rubber” widely understood outside the UK? An alternate term is an “eraser” – on the end. I bring a pencil sharpener, too – all stationery is kept in my pencil case.

I bring some stickers where I go, in case I run into friends to whom I want to give stickers. I bring hand sanitiser – absolutely essential.

I bring various charging cables, some that I use and others that I keep in case someone needs them. (I once went on a trip abroad and forgot a charger converter. A friend kindly lent me a spare they had. Ever since then I try to keep a few cables.)

I also bring all of myself where I go – my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, my anxieties, my ideas.

This is my submission for the Bear Blog Carnival this month, hosted by Absurd Pirate on the topic “What’s in my inventory?”.

I’m going to study art history - James' Coffee Blog

2025-11-12T09:08:00.000Z

Over the last few months, I have been taking a part-time online course with the V&A focused on the history of art. The course has taken me through eras from Classical art and sculpture all the way to Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. With every lecture, I feel like my mind is being opened, both by the pieces of art I study and the context around the art – the cultural commentary that arose from pivotal art works, how technology changed art, and more.

With that said, I have an announcement to make: Starting in January next year, I am going to be studying for a bachelor’s degree in History of Art. I’ll be studying with the Open University, a university based in the UK that specialises in distance and online learning.

It’s a big change for me: for the last six years, I have been a technical writer, focused on documentation and tutorials of all kinds. I moved straight from secondary school to work. I had an eagerness to start my career, and, looking back, I feel I made the right decision by not starting with university.

But this year in particular, I felt like I was no longer growing as much as I wanted to. I was yearning for a new challenge. I started thinking about new things to do, and, looking back on what brought me the most joy this year, my time in art galleries was close to the top of the list. I could study art history, I thought.

When I am in galleries, I love trying to understand an artwork. I love looking for details. I love the moment where you realise a new detail after studying an artwork closely for ten minutes. I love noticing patterns between different paintings – whether themes or icons or common objects. Over the last year, I have found myself being able to understand paintings more as a result of spending more time in galleries, but there is so much more I want to learn – a realisation that fills me with great excitement.

Last week, in my part-time course, I learned how to interpret a Cubist painting, which has helped me appreciate that period to a much greater extent. I learned that Cubists strive to paint a picture of a space by showing you only the minimum details you need to build your own image of the space. An occluded part of a musical instrument and a glass may indicate the scene is in a bar, for example. An hour of learning helped open my eyes to a form of art I found interesting but was unable to appreciate to a great extent. Cubist paintings make me consider the questions What is essential to create an image? And how do I know?

After many months of thought, the idea of studying turned into a reality. My blog home page now reads I'm a soon-to-be art history student., a statement I added fuelled by the excitement I feel for the coming months. Despite this big change, one thing is for sure: I will continue to be here blogging as normal – indeed, writing, like analysing art, excites me to an extent that may take a lifetime to encapsulate in words.

Robb Knight - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-11-07T12:00:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Robb Knight, whose blog can be found at rknight.me.

Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter.

The People and Blogs series is supported by Pete and the other 124 members of my "One a Month" club.

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 a developer and dad to two girls living in Portsmouth on the south coast of the UK. By day I work for a SaaS company and in my own time I work on my many side projects. In a previous life I worked at a certain clown's restaurant which is where I met my wife some 15 years ago.

Although developer is what I get paid to do I'm trying to move towards more making; websites, stickers, shirts, art, whatever. I have no idea what that looks like yet or how it's going to pay my bills. I have a whole host of side projects I've worked on over the years; they're not all winners but they all serve, or served, a purpose. If I get lucky, they resonate with other people which is always nice.

What's the story behind your blog?

I've had a lot of blogs over the years, most of which would get a handful of posts before being abandoned. There was a version that ran on Tumblr which I did do for at least a year or two — any interesting posts from that have been saved. The current iteration is by far the longest serving and will be the final version. There's no chance of me wiping it all and starting again.

This current version is part of my main website which is where I put everything. My toots on Mastodon start life as a note post, I post interesting links I find, and I log all the media I watch/play/whatever (I don't want to say consume, that's gross) in Almanac, which itself is on the third or fourth iteration.

As I said above, I had done a few posts on the Tumblr-powered blog but if I look at my stats for posts, it was around 2022 when Twitter started to fall apart that I started to blog more. I was moving away from posting things directly onto social media sites and getting it onto my own site.

I started writing more posts that just had a short idea or helpful tip because I realised not every post has to be some incredible think piece. My analytics show that these posts also tend to be the most popular which probably says more about the state of large, ad-riddled websites than it does about my writing. For example this post about disconnecting Facebook from Spotify is consistently in the top five posts on my site but you're never going to read that post unless you specifically need it. It's not a "good" post, it just exists.

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

To call what I have a process would be a very liberal use of the word "process". If I have nothing to write about I just won't write anything, I have no desire to keep to a schedule and write just for the sake of it. Usually, I'll get prompted by something someone asks like "How did you do X on your website?" or I feel like I have something to say that would be interesting other people.

I write my posts in Obsidian, then when they're ready to go I'll add them to my site. If I'm on my ~~proper computer~~ laptop I use my CLI tool to add a new post. If I'm on mobile, I use the very haphazard CMS I built.

I'll proof read most things myself before posting and I rarely ask for anyone else's input but if I do want a second opinion it's going to be previous P&B interviewee, Keenan. Usually I'm able to get out what I want to say fairly succinctly without too much editing.

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

A proper keyboard and ideally a desk to sit at is what I prefer when I'm writing (or coding) but I can live with just the keyboard. My desk setup makes some people's skin crawl because there's so much going on but I like having all the trinkets and knick knacks around me.

I deeply dislike using my phone for most things outside of scrolling lists, like social media so I rarely write long posts on it. The small form factor just doesn't work for me at all but I also kind of need it to exist in the world.

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

All my domains are registered with Porkbun and I manage the DNS with DNSControl - my main domain, rknight.me, has nearly 50 records for subdomains so managing those without DNSControl would not be a fun activity. Speaking of DNS I use Bunny for my DNS management and also use their CDN for images and other files I need to host.

The website itself is, as are many of my side projects, built with Eleventy. Eleventy gives me the flexibility to do some interesting things with the posts and other content on my site which would be much harder with some other systems.

The site gets built on Forge to a Hetzner server whenever I push an update to GitHub either via command line, or through the aforementioned CMS, and is also triggered at various points in the day to pull in my Mastodon posts.

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

Assuming I actually had to the time to do it, I think I would start with the CMS first, before building anything of the actual site. It is a pain to update things when I'm not at my laptop but jamming features into my CMS is equally frustrating.

If I wanted something off the shelf and easier to maintain I suspect I would choose Ghost or Pika.

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?

Many of these costs are part of my freelancing so are bundled with other sites I run and somewhat hidden but I'll do my best to outline what I do use.

I have a single server on Hetzner that serves my main site as well as another 30 or so side projects so the cost is negligible per-site but it costs about $5 a month. Forge costs $12 a month to deploy my site along with other sites. The domain is $20 a year I think but that's it.

I have a One a Month Club here and I have a handful of people supporting that way. I also use affiliate links for services I use and like which occasionally pays me a little bit.

I think monetising blogs is fine, if it's done in a tasteful way. Dumping Google ads all over your site is terrible for everyone but hand-picked sponsors or referrals is a good way to find new services. Just keep it classy.

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

I want to read sites that are about the person writing them. Photos of things people have done, blog posts about notebooks, wallpaper, food, everything. Things people enjoy.

This is the second time I'm going to mention Keenan here because they write so wonderfully. They also have a podcast with Halsted called Friendship Material which is all kinds of lovely and joyful and everyone should listen.

Alex writes some really interesting computing-related posts, like this one about using static websites as tiny archives.

Annie is so smart and honest in her writing it brings me joy every time I see a new post from her. This post is a masterpiece.

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

I'd be a terrible business boy if I didn't at least mention EchoFeed, an RSS cross posting service I run.

I also have a podcast that used to be about tech but is now about snacks.

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 114 interviews.

Make sure to also say thank you to Paolo Ruggeri and the other 124 supporters for making this series possible.

A moment with a decidedly less gloomy church - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-11-04T16:05:00.000Z

If you’re subscribed to my From the Summit newsletter, you might recognise this church. It’s the same one I wrote about in the most recent missive, only this time there was a lovely sunny day and the whole place was not engulfed in the fog.

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

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No work is ever wasted - James' Coffee Blog

2025-10-31T13:01:12.000Z

This morning, I ended up on chsmc.org’s “Applying Pixar’s rules of storytelling to writing” post. At the bottom, he quotes:

No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

I knew I had to come back to this point. No work is ever wasted.

These words have multiple meanings to me, but among them is the pressure I sometimes feel for my writing to be destined for this blog. This is in contrast to writing something like a journal entry which is only for me. I would never say that any of my writing is “wasted”. But I do know how difficult it feels to think that what I write should be here on this blog.

With the ease of publishing on the web, I have felt and feel pressure to write something that could be a blog post. I haven’t written many journal entries, in part because I know they are not something I want to publish. I could be using that writing time to do something for my blog, I reason. Except inspiration doesn’t work that way, I am learning.

I haven’t felt much inspiration to write blog posts recently, for I am in the midst of the excitement and trepidation and anticipation and potential of a change. As such, I have had lots of inspiration to write in my journal, where I can think and process and imagine by myself. Journaling occupies a different space in my life. Journaling is just for me; blog posts, meanwhile, are for everyone.

In using my typewriter, I have once again been journaling. I love the writing I am doing. I am not trying to stick to the blog post form, with a title in mind and a topic to cover. Sometimes I meander between topics such that every paragraph is something new. Sometimes I stare out the window and have an idea that I don’t have much to say about but that I know I want to write down anyway, and so I do. I have found that when I write one sentence, another seems to follow – what seemed like part of an idea is starting to take shape.

I have read and, likely, in the past myself have talked about, the idea of “writing as thinking.” I honestly have never been able to internalise these words. Writing, as thinking? Maybe the best summary is what I touched on at the end of the last paragraph: when you put one sentence on the page, you may realise you have another one to write.

The typewriter feels conducive to writing reflective notes because it occupies a different space in my life. To write on the typewriter, I go to the other room, sit on the floor – for I do not yet have a desk for my typewriter – and start typing. My computers are a room away. When I’m writing, it’s just me and the typewriter.

Alone by my typewriter, I feel that I can be more vulnerable. I can explore topics where I do not yet have a cohesive enough narrative to be able to write something ready for someone else to read.

Some of my paragraphs in my journal have mistakes; the flow is off; the punctuation isn’t quite right. Whereas I actively edit my words when I write on my computer – something one of my friends first observed when we wrote a blog post together – this is not possible on my typewriter. So I do what feels right: I embrace the direction I’m going in. Sometimes I reach a dead end, in which case I start a new paragraph and begin again; other times, I realise there is more to a direction than I first realised.

As I experiment, I get that same feeling when I try to add my own twist to a song I’m playing on the piano: I’m learning. Sometimes I press a note that doesn’t fit and realise that I am further away from the spirit of the song than I want. Other times, I press a note that fits with the chord progression and I end up taking the song in a whole new direction.

I suppose this is the blog post I could imagine myself wishing I had, the one where I say to myself, with the greatest care: writing for yourself is never wasted. Not everything needs to be a blog post.

Frank Chimero - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-10-31T11:05:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Frank Chimero, whose blog can be found at frankchimero.com.

Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter.

The People and Blogs series is supported by Noahie Valk and the other 123 members of my "One a Month" club.

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 Frank Chimero, I design and write from my little apartment in New York City. I’ve been doing this for a long time, mostly for technology and media companies. Other than work, I’m interested in the same things many other people are: my partner, my dog, visiting museums, movies, paintings, reading, cooking, stimulating conversation, and long walks. A lot of those have a tendency to go together, especially here in New York, which is nice.

What's the story behind your blog?

I started teaching design shortly after finishing undergrad and had a great time with it. My students and I had so many stimulating conversations in the classroom, and their questions really forced me to think about my presumptions and beliefs about design in a way I wouldn't have without the prompting. So, after class, I'd type them up and was eager to share, and thus my blog was born.

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

Writing is generally a way to scratch an itch in my brain. Sometimes it is an annoyance or disagreement with something else I read, or responding to an idea I came across in my reading that captivated me in some way, and trying to figure out why it grabbed me. Most first drafts are brain dumps in front of the keyboard or going for a walk and using speech to text on my phone. These things are incredibly rough, and take a bit of polishing until they end up on the site, but I enjoy that process too. It’s nice to nudge, tweak, and expand on parts and feel things get stronger or more clear. I try to have some interesting reference or idea at the heart of each post I make, because it’s what I want to read. The web I am interested in is the insights and ideas of individuals.

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

Some people will think I’m a barbarian, but I don’t think tools matter that much. I write in TextEdit. If it’s by hand, it is typically on loose copier paper and a pen I stole from a hotel. I’m sensitive to spaces and love a beautiful room and good lighting, but I think it is more worthwhile to learn how to write well in spite of the environment rather than because of it. At least, that’s what I tell myself. The trick, for me, is to seek out those beautiful places and experiences and try to hold on to the internal environment they create in me, then find ways to get it down onto the page later. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

A few years ago I wrote a book called The Shape of Design. I’d book trains from New York City up to Albany to enjoy the views of the Hudson Valley from the train window. The trip was about 8 hours there and back home. I got so many words down, something about the momentum of the view creating a velocity in the writing. But you know what? Once I stacked that writing up next to all the other writing I did in libraries, at the kitchen table, or coffee shops, I never could pinpoint where what was written.

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

This is going to be underwhelming. I have an off-the-rack Macbook Pro M4. There is pretty much nothing installed on it except Figma, my fonts, and just enough of a local dev environment to make my rickety Jekyll deployments. If you were to close your eyes and imagine the first five sites you’d need for work, I have those, too. I have last year’s iPhone with YouTube and NTS Radio on it. I’ve stripped most everything out. It makes no difference. I just type and typeset.

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

I’m not certain. I have no clue how one would grow an audience in 2025 without betraying some of my values about respecting people’s attention. My current mindset is to enjoy my audience, respect them, and make no presumptions about it growing.

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?

The site either costs $60 or $0, depending on how you look at it. It’s served via Github Pages, which requires a subscription, but it also pays for other things like private repos, etc. I’ve never tried to make money with the writing on my site. Even the book I wrote is available in full online for free. This isn’t necessarily a moral stance, it is simply that the economics of it wouldn’t pay enough to justify the headspace it’d occupy. If others want to do something different, I say go for it.

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

I focus most of my reading time on books, and most of my digital reading is happening through newsletters these days. On the blog side of things, I mostly check up on friends’ writing by manually going to their site. “I wonder what Naz is up to?” and that kind of thing. I know there is RSS, but seeing the site is half the point. You’ve already interviewed a lot of them, but I think you would get a kick going through Rob Weychert’s obsessively maximalist life-documentation-as-blog. It is exactly the opposite of my own tendencies (“anything you don’t remember must not be that important”), and I have a lot of admiration, confusion, and respect for what he’s done.

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

I want to take a moment to give a shout out to libraries. Librarians are god’s people. I think there is a strong ideological kinship between digital personal publishing (blogs) and libraries (self-expression, availability of information, capitalistic counterpoint, community and connection, and the overall “this is for everyone” vibe the web was born from). So, go check out your local library. Get a card, check out a book, enjoy the space, and maybe ask about what other services they have to offer besides media. Good communities come from good people and good spaces. Supporting your local library may be a way to nudge the world toward your vision of how it should be. Or it could just be a nice way to spend an afternoon.

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 113 interviews.

Make sure to also say thank you to Chuck Grimmett and the other 123 supporters for making this series possible.

Creating posts for Zola in Emacs - Baty.net

2025-10-29T15:32:20.000Z

Creating blog posts from Emacs is my prefered method. I had a whole setup built around doing this for Hugo, but since I just switched to Zola I needed to move things around.

Here’s where I ended up:

(defun jab/zola-new-post (title &optional)
  "Create and visit a new post for the prompted TITLE."
  (interactive "sTitle: ")

  (let* ((slug (s-dashed-words title))
	 (default-directory (concat (jab/zola-content-dir)
                                    "posts/"
				    (format-time-string "%Y/%m/")))
	 (fpath (if (y-or-n-p "Make Bundle?")
		    ;; If y create directory using slug and add index.md to path
		    (progn
		      (make-directory (concat default-directory (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d-") slug "/") 'parents)
		      (concat default-directory (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d-") slug "/index.md"))
		  ;; Otherwise just use the slug for the filename
		  (progn
		    (concat default-directory (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d-") slug ".md")))))
    
    (write-region (concat
                   "+++"
                   "\ntitle = '" title "'"
                   "\ndate = " (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%:z")
                   "\nslug = \"" slug "\""
                   "\n[taxonomies]"
                   "\n  tags = [\"misc\"]"
                   "\n+++\n\n")
                  nil (expand-file-name fpath) nil nil nil t)
    (find-file (expand-file-name fpath))))

This prompts for a title then asks me if I want to create a standalone file or something like blog-post-title/index.md. It creates the file with all the appropriate front matter (using TOML, yuck) and then I’m off and running.

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Tridactyl for Firefox - Baty.net

2025-10-27T20:40:03.000Z

I use Zen Browser on Linux. While playing around with LazyVim (I know, I know) I learned about Tridactyl which is a plugin that let’s you manipulate Firefox (or Zen) using Vim-like key bindings.

It feels weird and I keep tripping over myself, but I feel like once I’m used to it, this is a great way to browse.

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Tabs - James' Coffee Blog

2025-10-27T17:02:39.000Z

A recording of Alors on danse, news of a new exhibition of Michelangelo’s work, an event on creative writing, and information about art history courses all exist side-by-side in the ever-changing landscape that is my browser tabs. Every one is a train of thought: the tabs on music often recommendations by friends, there are bookmarks for events to which I could go, there are blog posts through which I connect with friends and develop empathy with people I have never met, there are tabs that are the precipice of new futures.

In one tab, an amateur musician covers a song I want to learn on piano. I love hearing others’ interpretations of a song; sometimes, a cover is so compelling that I go straight to my piano and play along. I revel in appreciating the difference in key and ask – but never seek to answer – why the song is played in a different key, for, until this very moment, as I write, I had never thought to ask “why?”

Music is so captivating that I often suspend questions until later, instead seeking comfort in the voice of the artist and finding excitement in figuring out in what key a song is played while I aim to play it. There is a thrill to hearing a new song – or a cover of an old one – and asking can I play it? and then at once going to try, by ear, to play the song – in the process of which I make my own version, incomplete and imperfect, for it takes time for me to learn all the intricacies.

Thus begins a journey, from playing one note correctly to figuring out the scales used in the song – a journey that may take anywhere from a moment to an hour. Some parts of a song are deceptively difficult to learn, leading to those satisfying moments down the line when I realise that I am finally getting closer to figuring out the key and the order in which the notes should be played. Within every song is potential to play, to learn, to think, to help me relax, to rest, to study, to empathise, to connect.

The opportunity to learn a song I love in a new key is in one tab, next to which rests the outline of a potential future, projects from the past in which I have renewed interest, messages from – and the opportunity to message – friends, and more. Each tab, a story.

Design, in pink - James' Coffee Blog

2025-10-27T12:53:42.000Z

Every so often, I open up a blank HTML document and work on a concept design for my website. Sometimes I have a theme, like my blueprint-inspired design, whereas other times I play around and see what I can make.

Today I thought: what would my blog look like if it were pink? I came up with this concept design:

I use the "Transitional" font stack from Modern Font Stacks, and a combination of pink and purple colours that I made through trial-and-error with an RGB colour wheel. The background is light pink. The text colours are a darker pink that is somewhat close to red.

I am unsure whether I will use this design on my blog, but I had fun playing around and exploring this direction for a bit.

IndieWeb Carnival: On Ego - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-10-26T17:00:00.000Z

Ego is one of those words that’s difficult to parse. I find language to be an imperfect tool in the quest to describe the inner workings of the mind, because in there, things tend to be fuzzy, while words are often sharp, pointing to distinct concepts that are seldom found in someone’s brain.

«I don’t have an ego», some claim. How that is even possible remains a mystery. I suspect it all comes down to how one defines the word ego, and what concepts are associated to it. Personally, I find the whole concept of trying to “give up” one’s ego to be quite futile. Take this definition as a starting point:

In philosophy, the self, or the ego, is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes.

If we use this definition of ego, I don’t see how you can ever get to giving it up. Unless by giving it up one means killing themselves, which personally I don’t find to be a compelling answer to this question. Because to give up something, someone has to be there to be the subject of the giving up. But if nobody’s there anymore, nothing is given up, because there’s nothing that can be given up. Do I make any sense?

Ego gives us many other words: from egoism, to egotism, to egocentrism. Those are all words that carry a bad reputation; nobody likes to be called an egoist. As social creatures, as part of the larger group of billions of human beings currently living on this earth, we find these constant inward-looking traits to be undesirable.

That said, though, I find the idea of always living experiences in the service of others, in an attempt to suppress one’s ego, to be an unhealthy way to go about spending the time we have available on this planet. Attempting to completely annihilate the things that make you you, in order to better fit with the rest of society, is not worth it.

It’s not healthy to spend time on this planet thinking you’re the absolute best at everything and nobody can teach you anything ever. That’s obvious. But the opposite is also not healthy: living your life thinking you’re worth nothing, that you know nothing, that everyone knows more and is worth than you and that they should be the ones to talk, to teach, to do, to earn.

If there’s one lesson I try to carry with me, it's that extremes are bad. And the goal should be to keep the pendulum swings to a minimum, and spend as much time as possible at the centre, where things are balanced. And you might think I’m saying this to you, but I’m actually talking to myself. Because the ego is still there, the inner dialogue continues, and the personal struggles will persist.

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Saturday, October 25, 2025 - Baty.net

2025-10-25T13:55:46.000Z

It’s weird how I spend a few days relaxing in WordPress, then I wake up one day and think, “Maybe I’ll generate my whole website with Org-mode and Emacs!” I probably won’t do that, but I sometimes consider it.

I don’t want photography be just another kind of file to play with on the computer.

STATUS: An entire day to myself with no other obligations. ::rubs hands together and laughs maniacally::
TODO: I’ll probably fart around more in Darktable. Maybe even hit the darkroom to make a few prints.
LISTENING: Talking Heads greatest hits (on CD)

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Show a new tab when selecting New Tab in Zen Browser - Baty.net

2025-10-25T13:53:39.000Z

At some point, for some reason, Zen changed the New Tab behavior when opening new tabs:

NEW TABS HAVE BEEN REMOVED, instead we are opting for opening the URL bar and then pressing enter to open a new tab (‘zen.urlbar.replace-newtab’ to false in about:config to revert)

https://zen-browser.app/release-notes/#1.7.5b Features section.

I don’t approve, so I found the setting to revert it using about:config…

zen.urlbar.replace-newtab = false

Much better.

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Maybe what I want is a new theme, not a new blog - Baty.net

2025-10-25T12:57:11.000Z

Thing is, I prefer using an SSG for my blog, but I’ve been posting using WordPress over at baty.blog for a few reasons:

I sometimes like a change of venue
I like the Twenty Twenty Five theme
It’s nice having built-in comments and analytics
If I wanted to change themes, it’s just a few clicks
Dragging images into the editor is so easy
Anything I might want to do is probably available as a plugin

But still, I would rather use an SSG like Hugo.

Instead of switching to WordPress, I think I would be OK if I had a new theme. Something with the following attributes:

Full posts on home page, with the option to use  or whatever for extra-long posts.
No dependency on featured images in order for it to look good. I’ll add an image to the post if I want one.

Need to pin the daily post each day.

Honestly, if I could find a theme that worked and looked like the Twenty Twenty Five theme but it was for, say, Jekyll, I’d consider switching to Jekyll. I just want to look at my blog and think, “Aah, that’s nice”. Currently, I don’t.

I thought about firing up Claude Code and having it help me, but I really don’t want to build and support my own theme.

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Romina Malta - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-10-24T11:00:00.000Z

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Romina Malta, whose blog can be found at romi.link.

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

I’m Romina Malta, a graphic artist and designer from Buenos Aires. Design found me out of necessity: I started with small commissions and learned everything by doing. What began as a practical skill became a way of thinking and a way to connect the things I enjoy: image, sound, and structure.

Over time, I developed a practice with a very specific and recognizable imprint, working across music, art, and technology. I take on creative direction and design projects for artists, record labels, and cultural spaces, often focusing on visual identity, books, and printed matter.

I also run door.link, a personal platform where I publish mixtapes. It grew naturally from my habit of spending time digging for music… searching, buying, and finding sounds that stay with me. The site became a way to archive that process and to share what I discover.

Outside of my profession, I like traveling, writing, and spending long stretches of time alone at home. That’s usually when I can think clearly and start new ideas.

What's the story behind your blog?

The journal began as a way to write freely, to give shape to thoughts that didn’t belong to my design work or to social media. I wanted a slower space where things could stay in progress, where I could think through writing.

I learned to read and write unusually early, with a strange speed, in a family that was almost illiterate, which still makes it more striking to me. I didn’t like going to school, but I loved going to the library. I used to borrow poetry books, the Bible, short novels, anything I could find. Every reading was a reason to write, because reading meant getting to know the world through words. That was me then, always somewhere between reading and writing.

Over the years that habit never left. A long time ago I wrote on Blogger, then on Tumblr, and later through my previous websites. Each version reflected a different moment in my life, different interests, tones, and ways of sharing. The format kept changing, but the reason stayed the same: I’ve always needed to write things down, to keep a trace of what’s happening inside and around me.

For me, every design process involves a writing process. Designing leads me to write, and writing often leads me back to design. The journal became the space where those two practices overlap, where I can translate visual ideas into words and words into form.

Sometimes the texts carry emotion; other times they lean toward a kind of necessary dramatism. I like words, alone, together, read backwards. I like letters too; I think of them as visual units. The world inside my mind is a constant conversation, and the journal is where a part of that dialogue finds form.

There’s no plan behind it. It grows slowly, almost unnoticed, changing with whatever I’m living or thinking about. Some months I write often, other times I don’t open it for weeks. But it’s always there, a reminder that part of my work happens quietly, and that sometimes the most meaningful things appear when nothing seems to be happening.

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

Writing usually begins with something small, a sentence I hear, a word that stays, or an image I can’t stop thinking about. I write when something insists on being written. There is no plan or schedule; it happens when I have enough silence to listen.

I don’t do research, but I read constantly. Reading moves the language inside me. It changes how I think, how I describe, how I look at things. Sometimes reading becomes a direct path to writing, as if one text opened the door to another.

I love writing on the computer. The rhythm of typing helps me find the right tempo for my thoughts. I like watching the words appear on the screen, one after another, almost mechanically. It makes me feel that something is taking shape outside of me.

When I travel, I often write at night in hotels. The neutral space, the different air, the sound of another city outside the window, all create a certain kind of attention that I can’t find at home. The distance, in some way, sharpens how I think.

Sometimes I stop in the middle of a sentence and return to it days later. Other times I finish in one sitting and never touch it again. It depends on how it feels. Writing is less about the result and more about the moment when the thought becomes clear.

You know, writing and design are part of the same process. Both are ways of organizing what’s invisible, of trying to give form to something I can barely define. Designing teaches me how to see, and writing teaches me how to listen.

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

Yes, space definitely influences how I work. I notice it every time I travel. Writing in hotels, for example, changes how I think. There’s something about being in a neutral room, surrounded by objects that aren’t mine, that makes me more observant. I pay attention differently.

At home I’m more methodical. I like having a desk, a comfortable chair, and a bit of quiet. I usually work at night or very early in the morning, when everything feels suspended. I don’t need much: my laptop, a notebook, paper, pencils around. Light is important to me. I prefer dim light, sometimes just a lamp, enough to see but not enough to distract. Music helps too, especially repetitive sounds that make time stretch.

I think physical space shapes how attention flows. Sometimes I need stillness, sometimes I need movement. A familiar room can hold me steady, while an unfamiliar one can open something unexpected. Both are necessary.

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

The site is built on Cargo, which I’ve been using for a few years. I like how direct it feels… It allows me to design by instinct, adjusting elements visually instead of through code. For the first time, I’m writing directly on a page, one text over another, almost like layering words in a notebook. It’s a quiet process.

Eventually I might return to using a service that helps readers follow and archive new posts more easily, but for now I enjoy this way.

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

I don’t think I would change much. The formats have changed, the platforms too, but the impulse behind it is the same. Writing online has always been a way to think in public.

Maybe I’d make it even simpler. I like when a website feels close to a personal notebook… imperfect, direct, and a bit confusing at times. The older I get, the more I value that kind of simplicity.

If anything, I’d try to document more consistently. Over the years I’ve lost entire archives of texts and images because of platform changes or broken links. Now I pay more attention to preserving what I make, both online and offline.

Other than that, I’d still keep it small and independent.

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?

It costs very little. Just the domain, hosting, and the time it takes to keep it alive. I don’t see it as a cost but as part of the work, like having a studio, or paper, or ink. It’s where things begin before they become something else.

I’ve never tried to monetise the blog. It doesn’t feel like the right space for that. romi.link/journal exists outside of that logic; it’s not meant to sell or promote anything. It’s more like an open notebook, a record of thought.

That said, I understand why people monetise their blogs. Writing takes time and energy, and it’s fair to want to sustain it. I’ve supported other writers through subscriptions or by buying their publications, and I think that’s the best way to do it, directly, without the noise of algorithms or ads.

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

I’ve been reading Fair Companies for a while now. Not necessarily because I agree with everything, of course, but because it’s refreshing to find other points of view. I like when a site feels personal, when you can sense that someone is genuinely curious.

Probably Nicolas Boullosa

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

Hm… No mucho. Lately I’ve been thinking about how fragile the internet feels. Everything moves too quickly, and yet most of what we publish disappears almost instantly. Keeping a personal site today feels like keeping a diary in public: it’s small, quiet, and mostly unseen, but it resists the speed of everything else. I find comfort in that slowness.

Keep exploring

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Ten facts about me - James' Coffee Blog

2025-10-22T21:19:21.000Z

As I write, it is the late evening. I am getting ready to go to bed. The room is illuminated by fairy lights. I have been trying to go to bed at more reasonable hours of late, but I just saw the ten pointless facts about me blogging challenge and felt inspired to write something down before I go to sleep. I have been doing a lot of introspective writing on my typewriter for the last few days. This blogging challenge is a good chance for me to put a few words on my blog.

Without further ado, below are my answers to the questions in the challenge!

Tea, coffee, or water?

All three. I usually drink two cups of coffee a day; occasionally three. I drink coffee before 2pm, then stick to water after that. If I am visiting someone and am offered a cup of tea, I will accept a cup at any hour. I drink water at all times. Water is life. Liquid coffee is almost all water, too.

Footwear preference?

I like wearing trainers, but I am yet to find a shoe that is right for me. I am wearing New Balance trainers right now which are most comfortable. The sales representative was really helpful when I went in relatively clueless about what shoe was right (thanks anxiety!).

When I am visiting a new place, I like to walk as far as I can to explore. Especially in cities. My ideal shoe is one that I can walk ten miles in while feeling comfortable. I love long city walks but I don’t want to wear a heavy-duty shoe all around.

I don’t have many pairs of shoes because I find it so hard to find a pair that fits well.

Favourite dessert?

Tiramisu.

The first thing you do when you wake up?

I first turn my phone alarm off. I sometimes then take a drink of water before getting up. I like to say “good morning world” when I wake up. I don’t do this every day, but I feel better when I do.

Age you'd like to stick to?

I’m happy to age as I age.

How many hats do you own?

Many, although I don’t wear hats too often. Last time I wore a baseball cap here in Scotland it blew off my head and I almost lost it. I love hats though. I recently purchased a cowboy hat. I am looking for a fez.

Describe the last photo you took.

The last photo I took was of a blog post I wrote with my typewriter. The page is fully in focus with no background. My previous non-typewriter blog post was a photo of an iced latte I bought in Starbucks.

Worst TV show.

I am trying to watch less television. I can’t really think of a worst television show. My favourites are Frasier, Seinfeld, The West Wing, and Leverage.

Do you floss your teeth?

I don’t floss my teeth, but I know I should. On the topic of dental health: Given it is presently the late evening at the time I write this blog post, the next thing I plan to do after publishing this post is to brush my teeth!

As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?

I had many! Before the age of 10, I wanted to be an inventor. I had an idea for a light switch made of paper that, when pressed, would work. I loved the idea of being able to draw something with paper and bring it to life. This invention could now exist with a camera and computer vision or with some degree of circuitry, but I prefer to leave it to the child-like part of my mind to dream more about.

Also before the age of 10, I wanted to be a scientist – a chemist, ideally. (In high school I learned I am not particularly adept at chemistry and struggled quite a bit. I passed my exam in the subject, but only barely.) Later, I started to enjoy programming more and more, and wanted to do something with computers. I also loved subjects in school that involved a lot of writing – history, politics, English, among others.

Professionally, I ended up pursuit a career as a technical writer, although that is but one facet of my life. I make websites and love art and play music and try to make people smile and enjoy traveling and so much more. I even invent things too, mainly related to this website. My blueprint-inspired website design is a homage to my childhood ambitions to become an inventor.

As I grew up, I started to think about things more as a career. In my later teenage years, I put a lot of pressure on myself, a time from which I am still healing. Looking back and forward, I know there is so much more to life than work alone. As an adult, I think I would now say that my aspiration for adulthood is, to the extent I can, be happy, keep learning, use my skills to do work I am proud of, and bring joy to others as much as I can.

You may have noticed I didn't include "pointless" in the title of my post even though the original challenge was called "ten pointless facts about me." I didn't include this from the start because I knew that there was probably something fascinating to say about one of the questions even before reading them all. Far from being pointless, I found these questions most delightful to answer!

Look, another AI browser - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-10-22T07:05:00.000Z

Yesterday, OpenAI announced Atlas, its AI browser. To the surprise of literally nobody, it’s Chromium with AI slapped on top. Perplexity also has a browser: it’s called Comet, and it also is Chromium with AI slapped on top. Then we have DIA, which is, you guessed it, Chromium with AI slapped on top. I think Opera also has one of those Chromium browsers with AI slapped on top.

I code sites for a living (allegedly), and I honestly cannot overstate how uninterested I am in all these new browsers. Because these are not new browsers: these are Chromium frames with AI slapped on top.

The thing I found more interesting about the whole OpenAI announcement was Sam Altman tweeting: «10 am livestream today to launch a new product I'm quite excited about!». This is coming from someone who’s allegedly running a company that’s building a tool that should usher in a new era where computers will replace most of human work, where we’ll all have a super intelligence always available in our pockets, ready to dispense infinite wisdom.

And yet he’s quite excited about a fucking Chromium installation with AI slapped on top of it. I guess building an actual browser, from scratch, is still a task so monumentally difficult that even a company that is aiming for super-intelligence can’t tackle it.

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10 pointless facts about me - Manuel Moreale RSS Feed

2025-10-21T11:40:00.000Z

Found on Kev’s blog and originally started by Dave, here are my answers to this fun blog challenge:

Do you floss your teeth?

Sometimes. I’d say maybe a few times a week? I’m terrible at being consistent, and that includes flossing regularly.

Tea, coffee, or water?

Coffee in the morning, tea (sometimes) later in the day, not enough water the rest of the time. Did I mention I’m terrible at being consistent? That includes drinking enough water.

Footwear preference?

Right now, I’d say flip flops, even though they are a terrible choice when you have to walk around the woods.

Favourite dessert?

Probably Crema catalana. It’s the one dessert I’m resisting the temptation to buy what’s needed to make it myself at home because I know I’d end up eating it every day, three times a day.

The first thing you do when you wake up?

I say hi to the dog that’s for sure sleeping somewhere near.

Age you’d like to stick at?

From a purely physical perspective, I’d say 22. If I have to consider all factors, I’d say 36. And I’m 36.

How many hats do you own?

Do beanies and toques count as hats? Because if they do, then I own 7 hats. If they don’t, then I’m down to 3.

Describe the last photo you took?

It’s from a walk with the dog the other day: clear sky and some tree branches and leaves illuminated by a lovely light. Most of my gallery looks like that.

Worst TV show?

I don’t watch TV, and the last time I watched a TV series, I think it was in the dark days of the COVID shutdown, which happened what, 32 years ago? I don’t even know what’s on TV these days.

As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?

The oldest memory I have of a job I wanted to do was car designer. I remember loving seeing yellow FIAT Coupé around. Funny because now I couldn’t care less about cars.

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