Author: Colin Devroe
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Simon Reynolds on blogging
Simon Reynolds, in December, marking the 20th anniversary of Blissblog: I honestly can’t see that anyone has invented a better format than the blog, at least for what I want to do. Simon’s entire post is dripping with flattering remarks about how enjoyable and rewarding blogging is. Those of us in the 20+ year blogging…
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I’m refactoring Tuff – my static site builder – to support multiple websites so I’ve been posting more on Mastodon than here the last week or so. That should change now as Tuff is able build 3 very different websites. Lots more to do but I see the light.
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Recently finished reading Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Copious detail. Fast read if not for the length. Author a bit gushy.
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I’ve published a new YouTube video. It is a review of my portrait of The Engineer.
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I’m continuing to whittle away at my to do list for Tuff – my static site builder. Every few days I’m able to check off a task. Lots of small improvements add up over time.
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I’m putting the finishing touches on a presentation of my portrait The Engineer that I’ll be recording for my YouTube channel. I’m hoping to record better audio without spending too much money. Each presentation I make I want to improve.
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How to help Mastodon
There have been several waves of activity on Mastodon since I signed up in 2017. Those waves have increased in frequency and intensity. Admittedly, while I did put in some effort early on, I wasn’t really part of that first wave. I rode in on a much later wave in mid-2022 and haven’t looked back…
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We had a possible fireball explosion tens of thousands of feet above us in Pennsylvania. Shook our house pretty good at 10:49am Eastern. Now I’m looking for how to properly document it with NASA. I figured this worthy of jotting down on the weblog.
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What I saw somewhat recently #99: January 19, 2023
This is the penultimate WIS link list. The final list, number 100, shall reprise all previous link lists and come sometime in February. I’m looking forward to crafting a new link list reborn in a new style and with other themes. Doing anything 100 times isn’t easy so I’m proud of this little series of…
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Zero inside knowledge here; but my guess is an Apple Event in February announcing Apple VR dev kits that cost $3,000 that come with a headset + Mac mini. With the device shipping at least 6-9 months later for less than that.
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Revisiting Simon Collison’s Farewell to Twitter
Last night I revisited Simon Collison’s post from early December 2022 Farewell, Twitter. I had read it shortly after he published it and while I agreed with what he wrote, it didn’t hit me as hard as it did last night. Simon claims that “others have articulated the situation better”, however, last night I realized…
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After a 3 week break from blogging and social media (more like 2 weeks completely, 1 week just reading and replying), I’m ready to jump back in. I have lots of plans for 2023 for my website and personal projects.
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I spent January 1 in the darkroom making prints from a 35mm roll of Tri-X that I finished over the last few months.
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Last day of work done. Just deleted all social apps from my phone. Going to put my nose in a book, some food, and some bourbon. 👋
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Building Tuff – A static site generator just for me
Just about a month ago, for some unknown and undoubtedly a sleep deprived reason, I began building my own static site generator (SSG). And I did it entirely wrong. This is that story. A sensible person would have first looked at the available static site generators and tried them first. I didn’t. In fact, I…
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My website has supported dark mode based on the user’s system preferences. But now, those among you that prefer to toggle it on a per-website basis can do so. There are options for On, System, or Off. I keep my preference at System but choose whichever option works best for you! I’ll be improving the…
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I’ve just added a new watercolor sketch of a landscape in China to my portfolio. My grandmother photographed the scene in 1987.
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Rewrote most of my static site generator over the last few days. Cut the build time in half at the same time as doubling the number of files it deals with. The latest update adds monthly blog post indexes.
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What I saw somewhat recently #98: December 15, 2022
I have decided that #100 in this series of link lists will be the last “What I saw somewhat recently”. Today’s list is #98. I’ll try to get #99 out sometime in January and #100 will be a look back through all of the previous links.
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I’m trying to decide which text editor I want to write my blog posts in. Left to right: Sublime Text, MacDown, VS Code
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Looks like we’ll all be in line trying to buy the iPhone 15 EU running iOS 17 EU. iEU?
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I don’t understand the push towards self-driving cars? Do you really think a robot can merge onto a highway while eating a bowl of breakfast cereal and putting on eyeliner? I don’t think so!
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Over many years of watching YouTube videos something has become clear to me; quite often, the fewer views a video has the more information I seem to glean from it. A 3-hour presentation on fine art photography from many years ago? 55 views? <3 A poorly lit, hard to hear, video of some guy in…
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By opening Slack, Teams, and Discord on your computer at the same time you’re running all of the JavaScript ever written since the time of the Egyptian pyramids.
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This weekend Eliza and I tried some experiments in the darkroom with paper negatives that failed completely. It is good to be humbled from time-to-time.
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Making backups of my site’s content is easier than ever. Just like my photo library I now have 4 complete back ups that will seldom be very far out of date.
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Developed two rolls of Tri-X last night. One I have no idea where it came from – and it looks like the camera had a light leak (selective memory?). But the other looks terrific. I can’t wait to spend some time in the darkroom.
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Disbanding the POSSE
For the past several years I’ve been POSSE-ing. In Indieweb terms that means to publish content on my own site and syndicate it to other platforms. I’ve decided I’m going to discontinue using automation in favor of manually writing posts for each of the platforms I want to post to. I’m doing this for 3…
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Spent some time this morning making adjustments to dates in RSS feeds. I think they should be accurate now. Sorry to all subscribers for the odd RSS behaviour the last few days.
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Zhenyi Tan is on a tear
Zhenyi Tan, who I linked to back in April about his app History Book (which I still use), is on a bit of a tear. Just take a look at Tan’s website post archive and count the number of times you see the word “Launch”. His most recent projects; a Time Machine inspired UI ontop…
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I’m going into year 3 of learning film photography and darkroom printing. One thing is abundantly clear, both of these disciplines are wholly separate. If you find yourself good at one and struggle with the other, do not feel bad. Both require skill. Both can be raised to the level of art. It is OK…
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What is Apple’s policy for updating things like rsync on macOS? The preinstalled version is very old.
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iCloud+ email sometimes misclassifies replies as junk mail. I would think that my having emailed the person first would be enough for Apple to know the email isn’t Junk?
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I’m getting dangerously close to switching away from WordPress and onto Tuff – my personal static site generator. Like any well tended garden, I’ll need to pick weeds and cast seed, but the important bits are done.
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Hello World 2
I’m writing this, my first post (actually, it is the second or third) written using my new static site rendering thingy I call Tuff. Twenty plus odd years ago I copy and pasted my way to having my first blog. I was writing HTML by hand then and just copying the bits and pieces that…
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Spent about 90-minutes in the darkroom making this print. It is an 11×14 print from a 6×6 neg taken in 2020 at Keuka lake in New York State.
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I must be out of my mind. I started building a static site generator.
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Yesterday I took a stranger’s portrait. It was quick, likely poor lighting, and may not turn out at all. But I’m super happy that I worked up the courage to ask.
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Cleaned and organized the darkroom for winter sessions.
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My favorite ways to view photographs, in order: books, iPad (someone’s website, or in Flickr app), YouTube on TV.
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I have the whole day off and I have so much internet to do.
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Why use 1 hashtag when 25 will do? 😊
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What I saw somewhat recently #97: November 22, 2022
Enjoying a martini and Leon Bridge’s Tiny Desk concert There aren’t enough links in the world to describe the amount of information I’ve been ingesting lately. The Twitter takeover, the FTX fraud, the hacking of FTX, and the crypto winter. All while maintaining my steady diet of whacky ephemera and art inspiration topped with a…
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The bricking of an iPhone in three waves
The above series of images were made on a recent trip to Ocean City Maryland and are very likely the reason why my iPhone became what is known as a brick. Let me back up. I’ve used my iPhones underwater ever since Apple said they were IP-rated for a reasonable amount of water resistance. I’ve…
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I took a nap. Can’t recommend it enough.
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We’re going down down in an earlier round, and sugar we’re going down swinging. 🎶
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TIL Vivaldi, in addition to building a browser chocked full of features like email, to do lists, contact management, and note taking, also has a blogging service and now a hosted Mastodon instance. Productive team!