Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022
Instagram sucks and being owned by Facebook sucks, but there are so many nice Ricoh GR-series nerds on there that I’d miss if I didn’t look at it as much as I do.
The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files - Atlas Obscura
The digital world continues to expand and mutate in all sorts of ways that will orphan and otherwise impair file formats and programs—from ones long forgotten to ones that work just fine today but carry no guarantees against obsolescence. Instead of a patchwork of one-off solutions, perhaps there’s a better way to keep old software running smoothly—a simpler process for summoning the past on demand. A team at the Yale University Library is trying to build one.
Mitch Easter
Went down a rabbit hole after re-listening to the interview my friends Matt and Dan did with Mitch Easter last year on their Art•I•Fact podcast.
That dude produced/engineered some of my favorite records far outside of R.E.M.:
- Game Theory: The Big Shot Chronicles
- The Connells: Boylan Heights
- Pylon: Chomp
Plus, Let’s Active’s “In Little Ways” should be on the next Voyager spacecraft Golden Record:
Shelley LaFreniere, Mitch Easter, and Scott Miller, recording The Big Shot Chronicles in Easter’s Drive-In Studio, Winston-Salem, NC, September 1985.
Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022
WikiLens for VS Code looks interesting. I start looking at VS Code Markdown wiki extensions every time I get nervous about Logseq or OneNote.
You know how they say “the arc of history bends towards justice”? I’d like it if the arc of text editors would bend towards org-mode.
Leica M2 research
Love Affair with the Leica M2 - Japan Camera Hunter
It was the perfect camera in every way. It was small, discreet, and quiet. There when I needed it and unnoticed when I didn’t. Every trip since then it has been around my neck, waiting to take the next shot. Through hundreds of rolls, it has never once let me down.
Leica M2 after 1 Year (Review + Sample Photos) — KingJvpes
For what you’re paying for you will have a camera that will work every time and will do [so] for the rest of your life as long as you consistently maintain it.
The only question is: 35mm or 50mm. Repeat.
Friday, Sept. 9, 2022
Nick Cave - The Red Hand Files - Issue #204 - What is the point in life?
We reach out and find each other in the common darkness. By doing so we triumph over our collective and personal loss. Through kindness we slant, shockingly and miraculously, toward meaning. We discover, in that smallest gesture of goodwill laid at the feet of our mutual and monumental loss, ’the point‘.
Love, Nick
David Merfield and Blot.im
I was already a fan of David Merfield and Blot before today, and then I read all the pages in Blot’s Notes section. What a great dude. This is the kind of philosophical, technical, monetary, and aesthetic restraint I want to get better at:
No, I probably don’t want to subscribe to your newsletter. No, I don’t want this, or that. I just want to read your webpage and get on with my life.
We use a text-file (todo.txt) to keep track of tasks. If somebody needs to be notified when a task is complete, I include a link to the appropriate email thread in the task. This text-file is checked into version control which means we can easily summarize our completed tasks — the feed of work completed on Blot’s news page is generated automatically from this todo list.
I’ve used a variety of complicated tools to track tasks in the past but I still prefer a text-file.
Blot/todo.txt at master · davidmerfield/Blot · GitHub
Gaze upon it. A public todo.txt file that he actually uses.
So you accept that free speech causes harm?
Yes, I think that being serious about the principle of free speech means accepting that free speech causes harm. My belief is that the harm resulting from censorship is greater than the harm resulting from free speech. To give up the right to determine which words are acceptable to you is to give up a terrible power.
Blot does not have a presence on any of the social media platforms.
…
One of the desperate ideas I had in the past, was to cold-email a number of prominent people and demo them Blot. I decided against this since it seemed undignified.