Rudimentary Lathe

A blog about everything by Jack Baty

The analog equivalent of having too many blogs

By

On September 29, 2023

In Analog

The notebooks I’m actively using right now. Seriously.

We all know that I have too many blogs. What’s less obvious is that I use too many different notebooks. Here’s what’s currently in rotation:

  1. A yellow legal pad. It’s nice to just throw stuff on the top page without thinking.
  2. Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Notebook (lined). This is my sort-of bullet journal. I keep lists and notes here, mostly.
  3. Hobonichi Techo. This is my calendar/planner. I keep appointments and important dates here. I also try to jot down a quick summary of the day or a small drawing representing something that happened.
  4. Field Notes “Dime Novel” edition. I recently found this on a shelf and thought it too pretty to ignore. This is likely to become my next journal, even though I’ve cheated and started writing in it already.
  5. Midori MD Notebook (lined). This is only for journaling. I like the paper and the 7mm lines.
  6. Index cards. I can’t decide what goes on index cards, but I keep them everywhere, just in case. Usually, I write quotes on them so I can pin them to my bulletin board. I also have maintained a half-assed Zettelkasten on the cards, but that’s mostly died on the vine.

Is this too many? I don’t know. Some days it feels like a huge mess and I worry that I’m writing something in the “wrong” place. Other days, it’s perfect and I like having the options.

So, a lot like blogging, then :).

Appreciate This Moment – Dave Rogers

By

On September 29, 2023

In Misc

So appreciate and be grateful for the privileges we enjoy today. We may not have them for much longer.

Appreciate This Moment :: Dave Rogers

Indeed.

A micro post via MarsEdit

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On September 29, 2023

I’d forgotten that MarsEdit added a “New micropost” feature recently. It pops up a super-simple little text window into which I can add a title and some text. You’re soaking in it.

Alternatives to using Gutenberg

By

On September 29, 2023

In Tech

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’d like to stick with WordPress for a while. Let’s also say that I dislike writing anything more than a sentence or two using the Gutenberg editor. (I don’t enjoy block editors anywhere.)

What are my options?

iA Writer offers my favorite writing environment. It’s just so damn nice1. It publishes to WordPress fine. The issue is that it’s a one-and-done situation. Once I hit “Publish”, any edits need to be done in WordPress. I write fast and loose, so there are always edits. Also, Writer only allows for publishing Draft posts. I never post drafts. Or, more accurately, all my posts are drafts forever. Just let me put it out there.

MarsEdit is a complete and powerful way to publish. It handles a variety of scenarios and takes many parts of WordPress into account (e.g. Featured Images, etc.). It does two-way publishing2, meaning I can write and edit in either/both Gutenberg or MarsEdit and not lose anything in translation. It has a handy plugin for extracting quotes and links from web pages. It’s author, Daniel Jalkut, is very helpful. My only beef with MarsEdit is that it’s beginning to show its age. I know, shallow, but I can’t help but be a little put off by it.

Otherwise, there’s Ulysses, but I recently uninstalled it, so that’s out.

Anything else? Maybe it’s less hassle in the long run to just use Gutenberg.

  1. I’m typing this post in iA Writer. ↩︎
  2. Now I’m editing the published post in MarsEdit. ↩︎

RSS as security risk?

By

On September 29, 2023

In Tech

While looking for a way to enable xmlrpc in this Siteground-hosted WordPress installation, I ran into this:

20230929 Security Optimizer Site Security Rudimentary Lathe WordPress

RSS continues to struggle with maintaining traction, and this doesn’t help.

A year?

By

On September 29, 2023

In Misc

I paid in advance for one year of hosting at Siteground. I’m not sure I’ll make it that long using WordPress.

Stop Making Sense (1984)

By

On September 28, 2023

In Entertainment

WHY STOP MAKING SENSE? WHY A MOVIE? WHY A BIG SUIT? WHERE DO THE ODD MOVEMENTS COME FROM? WHAT WILL THE BAND DO NEXT?

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album “Speaking in Tongues.” The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Letterboxd

I’d like to apologize to my past self for never watching this until now. To make up for it, I’m putting it on repeat in the background the way other people put on cable news.

Seriously great.

Grab the weather forecast using weatherapi.com

By

On September 26, 2023

In Tech

I like to record the weather in my journals. For several years, I’ve used https://wttr.in via curl. Recently, wttr is often unreachable or throws errors, so I took a look at weatherapi.com

Designed for developers by developers, Weather API is the ultimate weather and geolocation API

The free account limits are generous, so I created an account. The default JSON results are very thorough. I created a little shell script that uses jq to parse the JSON and returns only the high/low temps and a text summary of the forecast:

#!/bin/sh
# Jack Baty, 2023 (https://baty.net)

jq=/opt/homebrew/bin/jq
weatherfile=`mktemp`

curl -s "https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?key=MYAPIKEY&q=MYZIPCODE&days=1&aqi=no&alerts=no" > $weatherfile

condition=`${jq} -r .forecast.forecastday[0].day.condition.text ${weatherfile}`
high=`${jq} -r .forecast.forecastday[0].day.maxtemp_f ${weatherfile}`
low=`${jq} -r .forecast.forecastday[0].day.mintemp_f ${weatherfile}`

echo "Low ${low}, High ${high} - ${condition}"


The output looks like this:

Low 52.1, High 72.6 – Patchy rain possible

Easy enough. I wrote a small lisp function that calls the script and inserts the weather in Emacs:

(defun jab/insert-forecast ()
"Use weatherapi.com to insert the weather forecast at point"
(interactive)
(let ((w (shell-command-to-string "~/bin/getweather")))
(insert w)))

Love Exposure (2008)

By

On September 22, 2023

In Entertainment

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an “up-skirt” photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that’s a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.

Letterboxd

First thing first, this movie is FOUR HOURS LONG. Hell, the titles don’t even appear until an hour into it.

Second thing: It’s about a priest’s young son who spends his time making “up-skirt” photos. I’m serious when I say that this is an important plot point and that it’s also a touching love story.

Third thing: It’s fantastic. I found it funny, moving, and thrilling to watch. Highly recommended if you can get past points one and two.

The Unbelievable Truth (1989)

By

On September 21, 2023

In Entertainment

CAN A NICE GIRL FROM LONG ISLAND FIND HAPPINESS WITH A MASS MURDERER?
After serving time for murder, Josh Hutton returns to his home town where he meets Audry Hugo. No one can remember exactly what Josh did…

https://boxd.it/15LC

The Criterion Channel is featuring a new Hal Hartley Retrospective. I’ve heard him mentioned often, but never watched any of his movies. I started with the first of what’s become known as his Long Island Trilogy, “The Unbelievable Truth”.

What a treat! It was strange and stilted and funny. I can’t wait to continue what will probably now be a Hal Hartley marathon.

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