Baty.net

Let's try Zola

2025-10-28T18:40:00-04:00

While looking for a new Hugo theme for baty.net, I realized that I don’t like how themes work in Hugo and am tired of fighting with it. I really don’t like the templating system, so I started shopping for a new SSG.

I poked a bit at Jekyll, but the whole Ruby gem ecosystem has caused me grief too many times. I could’ve gone with Eleventy, but if I never have to type “npm…” again I’ll be happier.

In walks Zola</a>. Zola is built with Rust as a single binary with no dependencies. Yummy! Just like Hugo, but with a sane templating language. I tried Zola a few years ago but when I learned there was no support (or plans for support) for date-based permalinks, I bailed. I was getting tired of thinking about it, so I installed Zola, learned how to work around the permalink problem, found a template that might work</a>, and got to it.

I had hundreds of posts with front matter unsuitable for Zola. Thankfully, Zola (reluctantly) supports YAML, but discourages its use. What I needed to do was change the tags format, move featured images into content, replace hundreds of “figure” shortcodes, and I don’t even remember what else. What I do know is that even with Claude’s help, it took me more than 5 hours.

I’m going to publish it, just to find where things are breaking. What’s missing so far are all the “journal” posts. I may get to those later, but maybe I won’t.

The theme is fine. It works well and I can tweak it if needed.

It was fun starting fresh with a new SSG. It forced me to clean up a boatload of inconsistencies and wonky front matter. There’s a lot left to do. Let me know if you notice anything broken. Or if you love it or hate it.

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Maybe what I want is a new theme, not a new blog

2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

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

I sometimes like a change of venue</li>

I like the Twenty Twenty Five theme</li>

It’s nice having built-in comments and analytics</li>

If I wanted to change themes, it’s just a few clicks</li>

Dragging images into the editor is so easy</li>

Anything I might want to do is probably available as a plugin</li> </ul>
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 </code> or whatever for extra-long posts.</li>
No dependency on featured images in order for it to look good. I’ll add an image to the post if I want one.</li>
Need to pin the daily post each day.</li> </ul> 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.✍️ Reply by email

Show a new tab when selecting New Tab in Zen Browser 2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00 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.</a> </blockquote> I don’t approve, so I found the setting to revert it using about:config… zen.urlbar.replace-newtab = false </code></pre> Much better. ✍️ Reply by email Nikon F100 and SB-20 2025-10-24T09:51:06-04:00 I’m becoming a fan of this awkward kit. The F100 is such a sleeper and can be had relatively cheaply. I ended up with that weird-looking SB-20 flash as part of a local Facebook purchase. There might be something to this TTL flash, auto-focus, auto-exposure photography thing. ✍️ Reply by email Pebble Core 2 Duo smartwatch 2025-10-22T09:48:27-04:00 I impulse ordered the new Pebble smartwatch</a> as soon as it was announced. At the time, I was looking for excuses to stop wearing my Apple Watch, and this seemed as good as any. The watch arrived yesterday. It’s very white :). There was no setup to speak of other than downloading the app so I can pick from thousands of faces. That should keep me busy for a while. I love e-paper screens. I haven’t spent much time playing with everything, but I feel like we’ll get along fine. My only complaint is that there’s no way to rotate the display so that (as a lefty) I can comfortably use the watch on my right wrist. The only thing I’ve done is to add a Timer app and assigned it to a long press of the middle button. Time, weather, notifications, and timers are my primary uses for a smartwatch, so I’m covered. ✍️ Reply by email Canon Sure Shot AF-7 2025-10-19T08:30:31-04:00 It’s nice having a pocketable point-and-shoot film camera with me. Normally for me, this either means an Olympus Stylus Epic or Ricoh GR1. Both of these are having issues, so I impulse ordered a Canon Sure Shot AF-7 from eBay. It was $30 shipped, so there wasn’t much risk. Here’s a self-portrait using the self-timer from the first roll (Kentmere 400) through the new camera: As you can see, it’s not terribly sharp and some frames (like this one) show a light leak. Still the camera is so simple to use that it almost makes up for those shortcomings. I still like having a built-in flash and miss it on other cameras. I like the snapshot aesthetic. I’m not sure how often I’ll end up using the AF-7, but it’s fun to have around and cost very little. Oh, and here’s a fun review: Canon Sure Shot AF-7 review: The ‘Owl’ that’s a hoot to shoot | Kosmo Foto</a> ✍️ Reply by email Drawing a line 2025-10-09T06:28:13-04:00 Sometimes one really needs to go out of their way to borrow trouble. ✍️ Reply by email Westenberg: Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice 2025-10-08T03:02:20-04:00 The appeal of cynicism is that it makes you sound smart without asking for a whole lot of independent thought. It’s easier to tear down than build up, to assume the worst than to evaluate evidence, to sneer than to engage, to smirk rather than smile. Source: Joan Westenberg, Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice</a></cite> </blockquote> We could use less of it. ✍️ Reply by email A couple of weeks full-time in Linux. How's it going? 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 TL;DR It’s a love/hate thing, with love in the lead. Here are a few thoughts on how things are going so far. I’m still using Omarchy</a>. I really like the tiling window setup with Hyprland. I sometimes paint myself into a corner, but mostly it makes window management fast and efficient. Workspaces on Linux are so nice. Everything on Omarchy can be done via keyboard. Once I got used to the bindings, this has made getting around, launching apps, moving windows, etc. convenient. I’m not against using a mouse, but It’s nice not to have to. So far almost everything has worked without fuss. My Apple Studio Display works, as does its speaker volume, webcam, and microphone. I was able to print to my laser printer straight away, and never needed to install anything for it. Speaking of installing things, using the little TUI wrapper over Pacman and the AUR is a dream. Launch the TUI, type part of the name of the app to install, and hit Return. Done. No app store, no DMGs to extract. Homebrew on macOS is pretty good, but it’s not as all-inclusive and consistent. Mostly what I like so far about Linux is how I feel about using it. I like the feeling of “Hmm, what can I do with my computer, today” rather than, “I wonder what Apple is going to allow me to do with my computer, today.” Running Linux on this completely repairable and upgrade-able Framework laptop, I feel a sense of agency. It’s a good feeling. That agency, however, comes with responsibility. I’m completely in charge, here. That means when things don’t work right (and sometimes things don’t work right), it’s on me to figure out some obscure way to fix it. I don’t know where anything is, yet. Thankfully, things have been working fine, but inevitably there’ll be some weird issue with the boot loader or Bluetooth will just quit working for no reason. That’s when the parts of Linux I don’t like will start. I miss some things from the Mac. I miss BBEdit, Tinderbox, PopClip, DEVONthink, and others. I miss my photography workflow. Photo management and editing software on Linux is powerful, but it’s not fun to use. At all. When doing any significant photo management, I switch to the Mac for now. I don’t know if that will ever change. Capture One, Lightroom, and Photoshop are just too good. Mostly, I miss having the standard Emacs bindings everywhere. It’s driving me nuts to type this post in a web browser, for example. How do people deal with text like this. Arrow keys? Gross. I just want C-f, C-b, C-a, C-e, C-n, and C-p, is all. All I know is that I’m having a lot of fun right now. ✍️ Reply by email Capture my thoughts? What thoughts? 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 I’ve carried one kind of paper notebook or another on my person for years. Moleskine, Field Notes, Travelers, you name it. The idea is to “capture my ideas and thoughts” while on the go. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really have many thoughts or ideas, on the go or otherwise. I can’t remember the last time I was walking or at the store or whatever and thought, “Oooh! That’s a brilliant idea, Jack! Thank goodness I have this notebook with me!” Mostly what I write in these notebooks are grocery lists or the name of a TV show someone said I should watch. Who are these people that have all kinds of ideas while out? I want to be one of those people, so I still carry my notebook everywhere. Just in case, I guess. ✍️ Reply by email Depression 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 My family and friends have always told me, “Oh, you definitely have ADHD.” I’m not inclined to diagnosis shopping, so I’ve just assumed that’s what it was and ignored it. Recently, though, my disinterest in mostly everything and lack of focus has been worse, and it’s affected my mood and my overall well-being. I decided to see if there was anything to be done about it. I spent four hours at an intake screening for ADHD. Two hours of interview and two hours of testing. The person running the tests said that the doctor wanted to “include a few additional tests, so it might take a little longer.” Fine with me. It felt like an IQ test. Lots of “What’s the next shape in this series?”. There was word associations and vocabulary questions. I even had to organize blocks to match printed patterns. At the follow up appointment a few weeks later, he informed me that it’s not ADHD at all. What I suffer from is Major Depressive Disorder. So…depression, then. He said that during the entire interview he was mentally checking off boxes in the “depression” column. This was a surprise to me, at first. I mean, I don’t feel sad or (what I thought of as) depressed. I don’t have trouble getting out of bed or anything. Didn’t sound like depression to me, but then he started pointing out some of the things I had said and how they relate to depression, and it began to make sense. It’s not just about feeling sad. One doesn’t need a “reason” to be depressed. When I asked the doctor about my ADHD-like symptoms, he told me that it was early in the process, but, “Testing shows you’re very bright. Your brain wants things to do, but the depression prevents you from maintaining interest, so you bounce around a lot. This must be frustrating.” Indeed! I haven’t liked the way I’ve felt for years. My brain hasn’t been behaving, but I assumed it was normal for me, and did my best to ignore it. A diagnosis has helped me put a framework around it all. Anyway, he put me on some medication and I’m going to therapy. Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure. Probably because writing in public helps me get my head around it. ✍️ Reply by email Is my photo workflow feasible on Linux? 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 I’m trying. I really am. I’ve spent a while getting my head around Darktable and digiKam. That’s no small feat, honestly. What weird software. It’s capable, but getting to where I was with Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and sometimes Capture One has been elusive. There are manuals, blog posts, and Youtube videos to consume, but, given the nature of Darktable, everyone tells me to do things differently. There are a dozen ways to accomplish every task. Which one’s best? Who knows!? Converting film negative scans it what I’m struggling with most. Lightroom has Negative Lab Pro, which is sort of de facto standard at this point. It makes quick work of conversion, adjustments, and metadata handling. Darktable has Negadoctor, which remains a mystery to me. I’ve used it to convert three rolls, and I’m getting the hang of the process, but I still can’t get the look I want from them. Everything’s a tad muddy, no matter how much I futz with the 175 available sliders. One thing I’ve learned is that the Framework is much slower than the little Beelink with Darktable. That means the Beelink stays as the main desktop. I thought for a second I could use the Framework for both, but not if I’m going to be processing photos with it. I’ll give it until the end of October to see if I can forego the Mac entirely. ✍️ Reply by email Org-social 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 tanrax/org-social</a>: Org Social is a decentralized social network that runs on an Org Mode file over HTTP. You can create posts, interact with groups, make replies, mention other users, create polls, or personalize your profile. All this without registration, without databases… Just you and your Org Mode file. </blockquote> It’s a ton of fun for us emacs nerds. Follow mine here: https://jackbaty.com/social.org</a> ✍️ Reply by email Where to start in reading David Foster Wallace - Ted Gioia 2025-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 That’s not entirely fair. Wallace’s most famous book, Infinite Jest—1,079 pages and weighing 3.15 pounds (in the hardcover first edition)—is challenging. But Wallace wrote many other things, and some of them are quite accessible. Source: Ted Gioia, Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace</a> </blockquote> I hope that reading and talking about DFW makes a comeback. For a while there, Book Social Media was (rightfully) aligned against sound-smart lit-bros who wouldn’t shut up about Infinite Jest. I may have been one of them, because I loved (and still love) that book, so shut up. But definitely read This is Water</a>, even if it’s cliche by now. and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again</a> is a ton of fun. Oh, and his piece about Federer</a> is amazing, even if some of it might be exaggerated. Who cares? ✍️ Reply by email CalDAV to my Emacs Diary 2025-09-29T17:33:37-04:00 Please, there must be a thousand ways to do this that I haven’t discovered. If you know of anything simpler, I’m all ears. The following is a quick-and-dirty summary of how I did it. [!NOTIFY] 👉 Update: Sebastián to the rescue with his cdsync package Seb let me know about his package that does all this and more: cdsync</a> </blockquote> I use the Emacs Diary</a> all the time. I prefer it to using only Org-mode dates in my agenda. The tricky piece is getting the stuff from my CalDAV (Fastmail) calendar into the diary. Hanno’s post, Managing calendar events in Emacs</a> got me started. Their post is more geared toward Org dates, but it gave me a good leg up. Basically, it’s this: Sync using vdirsyncer</a></li> Convert using khal</a></li> Include converted entries in my diary file</li> </ol> I installed vdirsyncer and khal via Pacman (Omarchy) Here’s my ~/.config/vdirsyncer/config</code>: [general] # A folder where vdirsyncer can store some metadata about each pair. status_path = "~/.vdirsyncer/status/" # CALDAV [pair jack_calendar] a = "jack_calendar_local" b = "jack_calendar_remote" collections = ["from a", "from b"] # Calendars also have a color property metadata = ["displayname", "color"] [storage jack_calendar_local] type = "filesystem" path = "~/.calendars/" fileext = ".ics" [storage jack_calendar_remote] type = "caldav" url = "https://my.caldav.account" username = "nerd@example.com" password = "averylongpasswordreally" </code></pre> I ran vdirsyncer discover</code> once and then vdirsyncer sync</code> and it pulled my calendars down into ~/.calendars/</code> vdirsyncer creates .ics calendar files, which aren’t useful for Emacs Diary. That’s where khal</a> comes in. My ~/.config/khal/config</code> file: [calendars] [[main]] path = "~/.calendars/699f44f9-799a-4325-9328-aff622023096/" color = dark green [[other]] path = "~/.calendars/2e7d0c52-d5c7-4e6a-aa2e-01f8eb84a515/" [locale] dateformat = %Y-%m-%d timeformat = %H:%M </code></pre> That tells khal where the calenders are, and sets up a usable output format for use in the Emacs Diary. The following command is where I landed. khal list --format "{start-date} {start-time}-{end-time} {title}" \ --day-format "" \ today 10d >~/.config/emacs-mine/caldav-diary </code></pre> It generates a list of calendar events from today until 10 days from now and puts the results into a file that I use as part of my Emacs Diary. Just make sure that includes are enabled: (add-hook 'diary-list-entries-hook 'diary-include-other-diary-files) </code></pre> Then, in my main diary files, I added the include line: #include "/home/jbaty/.config/emacs-mine/caldav-diary" </code></pre> {{< figure src=“agenda.jpg” caption=“Events from CalDAV on my Org agenda” alt=“Screenshot of my agenda” align=“center” >}} And boom! My Fastmail calendar shows up in my Org Agenda. I’m not worrying about syncing the other direction, yet. ✍️ Reply by email Ah, blogging 2025-09-29T06:15:07-04:00 You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been posting over at my experimental WordPress blog at baty.blog</a>. I wish I had a good explanation for it, but I don’t. It may be that my current foray into using Linux has caused a bit of keyboard-and-text-only fatigue. I mean, it’s been all day in a terminal or TUI or NeoVim for everything. I have been dealing with sync and config and updates and so on. By the time I go to write something on the blog, I’ve lost the mood, so I’ve been clicking “New Post” in my browser, typing a bit, dragging and dropping an image or two, and clicking the Publish button. It’s kind of a relief, honestly. I still dream of having only one blog</a>, but until I stop being so moody about it, that feels unlikely. I started this post just to see if I was back in the mood for Emacs/Hugo. I apologize for my continued tendencies to jump all over the place. I know it’s annoying. In the meantime, I’m writing mostly here, or over at baty.blog</a>, or on the wiki</a>. ✍️ Reply by email Including Emacs diary entries in Howm menu 2025-09-26T10:45:57-04:00 ⚠️ Note that this doesn’t work properly. There’s a “nil” at the end. Howm</a> has a handy menu for viewing tasks and notes. One thing I wanted to add was my Emacs diary entries for the current date. This took 3 things: First, I created a function for inserting the day’s entries from Emacs diary in the current buffer. (defun my/insert-diary-entries-for-today () "Insert diary entries for today at point." (interactive) (let ((diary-list-entries-hook nil) (diary-display-function 'ignore)) (let ((diary-entries (diary-list-entries (calendar-current-date) 1))) (if diary-entries (dolist (entry diary-entries) (insert (cadr entry) "\n")) (message "No diary entries for today"))))) </code></pre> (and by “I” I mean Claude, mostly) Then I added the function to the allowed list ;; For including Emacs diary in Howm Menu (setq howm-menu-allow (append '(my/insert-diary-entries-for-today) howm-menu-allow)) </code></pre> Finally, I added %here%(my/insert-diary-entries-for-today)</code> to Howm’s menu file. And now, Howm’s menu shows the day’s diary entries. ✍️ Reply by email Why does it matter if I use Emacs or not? 2025-09-25T05:17:00-04:00 I’m writing this in Vim. Or, more specifically, NeoVim. Am I doing it because I don’t like Emacs? Of course not. Sometimes it’s just fun to use something else. I like to try everything. Whenever I criticize Emacs or even simply use something else, I get comments about how I’m somehow wrong in doing so. How silly. We’d be better off not lashing our identities to the software or hardware we use, I say. ✍️ Reply by email I wanted to try Linux so I bought 2 computers 2025-09-21T14:19:55-04:00 I’ve dipped my toes into using Linux a few times in recent years, but it never stuck. When I saw a demo of Omarchy</a>, it made me want to try again. Omarchy made me decide to finally learn whether I could actually use Linux in anger, on a desktop. So I bought a desktop. See It’s all upside-down (computer-wise)</a>. After a few days, the answer to “can I use Linux for real?” was “Yes!”, so I started side-eyeing my M4 MacBook Air, thinking I could replace it with a Linux laptop. So I did. I ordered a new Framework 13 laptop</a>. The Framework arrives this week, and I couldn’t be more excited. In fact, this whole escapade may have been a not-so-well disguised plan to trick myself into buying one of those cool laptops. It’s possible that I’ve gotten ahead of myself here, but what a fun ride so far. ✍️ Reply by email