Almost the end of February and I think it’s time to rejig things with my sites. I’ve fallen off using this site, and mostly not used any site this month. However, I think I want to move to just the wiki for daily notes and then make this site a bit more of a traditional blog. It does risk that this site becomes a silent lot. I’m mostly motivated by the ease at which I can add to the wiki. This site isn’t hard but the wiki is still easier.
I also want to migrate this daily-stuff to the wiki mostly as there are no expectations over there and I don’t care if I repeatedly talk about buying the same thing for 6 months and still not buy it, or how I should do something but then never do it.
So perhaps as March is about to appear I should do the big of sys admin work to sort things out.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a morning off and all the kids are in school. I don’t know what to do with myself! Tidied and dusted the camera shelf and the office. It’s not noticeably tidier but it’s better. I looked at my list of potential projects or things that I started but never got very far. Such as learning javascript, and website readjustments or using that e-ink screen. None of them are really that appealing to actually do.
Been playing Path of Exile with a friend. The game is quite old now, 2013 release date, but still holds up well. It’s often referred to as the truer sequel to Diablo 2. There’s a lot more customisation possible compared to Diablo 3. We played it in May 2020 and each time I think it’ll be a great game to play as there’s so much end game content it’ll keep us entertained for ages. Yet I’m sure we’ll get there then realise it’s just infinite grinding for incrementally smaller and smaller improvements. So we stop. The journey is fun though.
Enjoying my first Leica lens, the 90 mm f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit. It gets categorised under Tele-Elmarit-M, but the eariler ones, like mine from 1973, doesn’t have M at the end. It’s so light and small. I compare it to other camera systems and I’m not sure there’s anything that even comes close. Okay, it doesn’t have autofocus motors in it but just the glass is so compact. Looking forward to seeing what I can manage to take with it (what I can get in focus 😅).
Family are visiting this weekend, so will be good to get the 90mm out. Even just getting the cameras out again would be good. Hardly picked them up since New Year’s.
I guess I wasn’t as busy back in January, and so I spent more time writing on here. Or perhaps I got out of the habit, as it doesn’t really take that long to write something.
My daughter told me she found me online. I was curious as to what she meant. She’d google image searched me and found my Github profile and looked at the site. She called it Jithub - perhaps she’ll call them Jifs too…She liked my fond of tea repo. Least she didn’t comment on my custom CSS. I’d actually wondered if she’d found this website
I’ve taken to logseq at work. I’m not writing huge amounts in it or documenting everything that happens that day - maybe I should but I do need to also do some of the TODOs I capture! It’s very nice for capturing notes on things as well as TODOs as I’m writing. The simple effort of Ctrl+enter to make a new TODO helps prevent me from getting distracted by going somewhere else to write it down, or trying to keep it in my head. I need to look into listing out all the TODOs a bit better. Perhaps some query tweaks or figure out how to use the Table view so that it’s useful. I’m not sure it’s great for me managing all the actions I capture, but least they’re not forgotten.
I tried out Microsoft ToDo at work as well. That’s a pretty nice todo app. Not quite a feature rich as ticktick or others but has enough. The integration with Microsoft 365 is nice in a work environment. I also like the Today view where you add tasks from your list into today to do. I’ve not used it but I like the idea of it. Thinking perhaps I need to move todos from logseq into MS todo and then manage them.
A colleague was interested in logseq when he saw me typing in it. Perhaps I should’ve also sent an apology with the link to download it and a youtube video to watch as I send him down the rabbit hole of note taking apps.
We did agree on the uselessness of the new Onenote compared to the 2018 Office version.
I did start wondering if I could use logseq to manage this blog. It’s nice just opening it up and typing. It makes markdown files. Some processing and then a blog could appear. All these things are just excuses not to do something and just mess about.
If only I had something more than my iPhone on the way to work to do this view justice. Perhaps an 8x10 with colour positive film.
Links
AstroVim - AstroVim is an aesthetic and feature-rich neovim config that is extensible and easy to use with a great set of plugins
I spent much of the weekend away from the computer and that means I can’t really write on here. Nothing that wrong about it but made me think about Tiddlywiki again. It’s perfectly suited for daily journalling, it has a dedicated button and setup for it. I just don’t love the look of it.
Bought my first Leica lens! 90mm Tele-Elmarit f/2.8. Looked in mint condition and seemed like a good price…for this lens. Be excited to try it out.
Been using TW a lot for work but feeling like a need something more. Finding I have so many random ideas or tasks or things that I’m not capturing somewhere. Always find this with new roles, everything is new it feels like so much to take in and I’m not used to it. Whereas something I’ve done for ages I can just listen and I know what to do without issues.
Tempted to switch to Logseq, for inline tagging and todos maybe. Although there’s quite a lot of functionality with Loqseq that I feel like I need to learn before I start using it else it’ll be somewhat messy.
Last time I thought about this, I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and I’ll just keep using tiddlywiki and a notebook. Maybe I should stick to that thought.
Oh I’ve been neglecting this site. I’ve actually been really engaged and motivated at work, so not even used lunchtimes to write, and we’ve been watching the Witcher or playing Pokemon cards in the evening so no time there either. Has meant the family journal has been neglected too.
Not sure about the Witcher season 2. I think it doesn’t help that I’ve completely forgotten everything that happened in season 1. There’s just weird bits like how someone can escape when there’s 10 wizards and witches standing by and then just random monster things attack and that’s somehow part of the story?
I have been using tiddlywiki at lot at work and really enjoying it. I struggle with knowing how much to break things down into smaller tiddlers. I wrote a long note which had headings and I suppose I could’ve broken it down but I also like to keep it all together. I also don’t want tags of other tiddlers. I suppose it doesn’t matter but once I start getting too many then I find it annoying as it’s hard to see what I should pick. There’s always fields but I feel like they’re more effort than tags. Anyway I’m also trying not to make it too complicated. It has made me realise there’s value in tidying up and organising notes afterwards. I thought I had some stuff organised but I kept losing it, so might do a bit of organising tomorrow.
I’ve kept a OneNote at work in the past. It’s useful for keeping screenshots from Teams meetings and sharing with others. Not shared much in a while, but am wondering if I should be using OneNote instead of TW…But TW is a superior tool, plus I occasionally put in personal things to remember and can easily access it at home.
I’m liking the idea of having a M10. But it might just be the thrill of buying things that’s making me think this. I love it but film can be tiring, least for me it can be, and digital requires much less cognitive energy. But digital doesn’t spark joy, more like just the satisfaction at capturing some memories of that day for future us. I’m thinking (hoping?) that the digital rangefinder, with manual focus will bring the same joy as using film but with the benefits of digital. It would also be nice to share lenses between digital and film. Still a lot of money whichever way I persuade myself.
For a long time I wanted to write a technical blog to “show off” in case I wanted to change career to software engineering or data science. I’ve never managed to do it as I think that career change will never happen. I read an interesting thread on /r/datascience from some hiring managers who said they never look at personal blogs like that. Mostly as they don’t know if it’s legit or copied. Plus some other reasons, although later slightly contradicted themselves with suggesting someone finds a problem of interest and solves that and writes about it.
