Jack Baty

February 2023
  February 4
    Speaking of using things I'd previously sworn off, I'm giving Obsidian another go. I dislike using Obsidian, but it does everything I might need. As long as I steer clear of the rabbit hole of trying every plugin and workflow I see, I might be able to make it work while I wean myself from Emacs.
    The underlying outliner/editor in Drummer could use some tweaks. For example, I can't click and drag to select text. I have to shift-click instead. That seems like table stakes and is likely a bug, but I'm not sure where to ask about it, and I'm afraid I might be scolded if I did. Perhaps I'll try anyway because it makes editing less pleasant when otherwise it's quite nice.
    One thing that lessens my fear of being stranded with Drummer is that it's all just (OPML) outlines. If I want to move, I'm sure I could export data from here and open it in, say, TinderboxLink, which handles OPML natively. It would require moving things around and editing, but I'd have a nice head start.
    Read this in a blog comment today: "This will only result in bachslash,...". I need to make "bachslash" a thing 😆
    The enshittification of Dropbox continues apace. I'm happily using Maestral instead. It's been fine. Still, I miss the good old days of Dropbox being a simple folder that synced.
    Switching keyboards
      My favorite keyboard for years has been the HHKB. I love it. The Topre switches feel perfect. The small size is great. The layout is, well, something that requires some getting used to, but once you do, it's fantastic.
      The problem I have with the HHKB is that there is no row of function keys so lots of key bindings are behind a "function" layer, meaning I need to hold the Function key in order to access things like, oh, direction keys. This means I hold down the Function key a lot.
      After hours of typing, my right pinky starts to hurt, so I need to swap out to a different keyboard for a while. Sometimes I just use an Apple Wireless, but when I want to actually enjoy typing, I bring in the Realforce R2. The R2 uses Topre switches, so it feels good, but it's quite large. It also uses different weights for different keys. I think this is meant to reduce fatigue by making it easier to press keys with weaker fingers. However, I find that just resting my pinky on the ";" key sometimes triggers a keypress.
      Anyway, I'll use the R2 for a while until my pinky recovers and then I'll probably go back to using the HHKB.
  February 3
    I didn't realize that screen readers struggle when hashtags are written all lowercase. So, instead of #uxdesign, one should use #UXDesign. Good to know!
    Right now I'm not worrying about HTTPS or a custom domain or any of that. I'm just having fun publishing with an outliner.
    Sometimes a change of pace is fun.
    I've archived my Drummer outline prior to 2023. Fresh! The posts are cached and still show on the public site, though. This is probably OK.
    What happens when the Twitter API goes dark for Drummer? I see that Dave is working on it. I hope it continues. I haven't used Drummer regularly in a long time but I'd hate to see it go away. I like having the option :)
    Is it possible to hide the Twitter retweet button?
      I don't want to see any Twitter controls, so I went looking for a way to hide them. Not seeing anything obvious, I ended up creating my own blog template and custom css that simply hides the element. I expect this will end up a waste of time, since before long Dave's going to need to bail on Twitter completely. I hope. Onward!
January 2023
  January 11
    I'd like to continue using Drummer. Feasible?