Playing around with micro.blog on iOS.

One of the taglines I used on my old blog Groundhog Day was "It's about seeing your shadow."

Much of the blog was about my journey from darkness into light, about seeing my shadow; the parts of me that weren't serving anyone, least of all myself.

Of course, it's a bit orthogonal to the whole notion of "six more weeks of winter," since that's supposed to be the undesired outcome. But it worked for the movie, and it worked for me as well. Keep repeating the same lessons until you learn them.

Anyway, the prevailing culture, white Christian patriarchy, isn't interested in seeing its shadow, or the people it casts into darkness.

By banning books, they try to keep out the light.

Jax Today tries to let the light in by elevating other voices. Nikesha Williams is one of them, and here she shines a light on the darkness growing in Duval County Florida, aka Jacksonville.

Originally posted at Notes From the Underground 08:46 Thursday, 5 January 2023

I think I've got everything wired up correctly again. I have an Automator workflow that is saved as an application that exports the image from Photos to the Images folder in Nice Marmot Exports.

That Images folder is nested two levels deep beneath Archives and the calendar year, which was 2022 when I created it. It worked fine in 2023, it just kept putting the photos in the 2022 folder.

Had some issues getting it corrected, but based on the two preceding posts, I think everything's working properly now.

This is a follow-up test. Shot last March from an overlook just south of the north entrance.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:13 Thursday, 5 January 2023

Testing the automations set up for posting photos. This was from last March, one of my favorite images from last year.

Florida has been governed by the Republican Party for a generation. Every branch of state government has been in Republican control for more than 20 years.

Today, it is ruled by one man.

Darkness descends over the "Sunshine State."

Meanwhile, in next-door Duval County (go Jags!) the school district is doing King DeFascist's bidding banning books.

Originally posted at Notes From the Underground 07:17 Wednesday, 4 January 2023

For the moment, I'm posting local political stories over in the command cave.

I had another 2022-2023 search and replace challenge. I'm a slow learner it seems. All seems well now.

Court backs St. Johns schools in transgender bathroom fight

Hate has a home in St Johns County too.

St. Johns County rated best for children.

St Johns County is the highest median income county in Florida, so no surprises there.

Of note, "more children are living in poverty — 14% compared with 8% in 2011-15."

Also noteworthy, "On a national basis, Florida fell in the lower half of states, ranking 35th for the third straight year."

Originally posted at Notes From the Underground 06:40 Wednesday, 4 January 2023

In addition to sorting most of my USB cables into zip-lock bags, I’ve also been purging extra Olympus battery chargers from the camera drawer so there’s room for the four different Wasabi Power battery chargers.

Now to label them. Because they all look alike.

Yeesh.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:49 Tuesday, 3 January 2023

Kind of a test post without a title. Also discovered I have to change the Automator application that exports the photo from Photos to the Images folder for the 2023 archive. A lot of moving parts...

Found yet another 2022 that needed to be changed to 2023. So instead of writing this post, I should be noting all the locations and figuring out how to automate it; or at least making it easier to find them next year.

Another little task is to create a template for a post without a title. That's easy, but I have to think about how that gets set automatically. Since you have to create a title when making a note, I think it'll just be a single letter or symbol, with an if-statement in the on-add action in the container.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:48 Monday, 2 January 2023

Even foggier than yesterday. Got a few shots with the Olympus Stylus 1s.

Found another 2022 I need to change to 2023. Sigh. It was an unfortunate choice of text color and background.

All should be well now. As this test will hopefully prove.

I found this link, which I will share in a moment, via Mastodon. As I was scrolling Mastodon, I was wondering if I was switching from one form of addictive behavior to another? I don't know the answer to that yet, but the possibility exists. At least on Mastodon I don't have the same number of people who interact with me, which is the major part of what kept me on Twitter.

In any event, it's not clear to me yet exactly what my relationship will be with Mastodon.

I could have simply "boosted" the post that I saw the link in, but I think the post is relevant to what I write about here from time to time, certainly today anyway. So I'll post it here, and then it'll get picked up via RSS on my micro.blog and automagically shared to Mastodon and Twitter, where my account remains active though I don't visit the site.

Please forgive all that preamble, but I found this post useful and relevant for those who may still be uncomfortable remaining on Twitter and uncertain about what their options may be. It's not the whole picture, but it's a useful glimpse of a large portion of it.

It feels as though there really is some momentum for a shift away from corporate social media silos to something more humane.

I mean, just consider the constructions: "Social media" vs. "Personal blogging." Which one feels more intimate?

It's not all sunshine and rainbows in personal blogging though. Comments were always a fraught endeavor. And while some blogs grew popular organically, there were many that focused on growth and "popularity" and you could tell just by reading them.

Which, at least in my case, meant I didn't read them for long.

And there were the people who wanted to profit off that natural inclination to look for rank and establish hierarchies. I never liked Technorati for that reason, but many people loved it.

Anyway, anything is better than Twitter. I don't think people should embrace another VC-funded corporate social media silo like Post, but I get it. This stuff isn't super-hard, but it's not brain-dead simple for busy people to figure out. The corporate silos exploit that and herd users into them.

But I have very fond memories of the early days of blogging, with Al, and Hal, and James, and Garret, and Shelley, and AKMA, and Susan, and Dori, and Rob, and Elaine, and Stavros the Wonder Chicken, and Jonathon. Very fond memories. I still have a knife and an everyday pan that Al Hawkins recommended I get as a new bachelor learning to cook for himself. We kept the everyday pan even though it's aluminum and doesn't work on an induction range because it's so damn useful in the oven.

I'm sure I left a few people out in that previous paragraph. Most are still online. We didn't always agree on everything, but we mostly got along fine. I look forward to something like that again.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:45 Sunday, 1 January 2023

A photo post test. I note that I have to update the script for the image URL. Manually edited in this post.

Also have to create a 2023 Images folder on the server.

This pic was something of a happy accident. Shot this yesterday and I'd originally intended just to get the branches of the tree silhouetted against the sun. I normally walk with the XZ-1 turned off, and it's not the fastest little camera to be ready to shoot. Not usually a problem, since I don't plan to shoot "action" with the XZ-1. Usually.

I spotted the birds as the camera was starting up and hoped I'd be able to capture them in the frame. I did, but you'll notice I didn't actually silhouette the branches against the sun.

Good enough, though. I liked it.

Forgot to update the RSS template for 2023. Might work now. This is a test.

Doing some maintenance around here to get the marmot configured for 2023. Dropped a post in the micro.blog to share some pics from the fireworks last night at St. Augustine Beach. I have thus far managed to stay off Twitter, and it has opened up more time to work in Photos and so on.

Mitzi and I had dinner at a friend's house last night. She lives in St Augustine Beach, almost on the beach, only a short walk to the dune. We watched the fireworks from the dune walkover. I brought along the Olympus E-PL10, a PEN Light model, which was sort of a more consumer-level micro four-thirds body. Up until the E-PL9, the Light models had the full features of the more "professional" bodies in terms of the image processor and menu system.

The E-PL9 and E-M10 Mk3 and subsequent models had a more "accessible" menu system, with fewer options and available customizations. But in this case, I wanted the E-PL10 because I wanted something small and light to carry, and I was going to shoot with Live Composite mode, and I often have to fiddle around finding it on the E-PL7 or E-PL8. Plus, mine is a "Kuro" (黒) which looks very smart with the black 17mm/f1.8 prime. So, style points for closing out the old year.

I also brought along an old Gorillapod, one of the heavier models. I thought we'd be sitting on the beach, but I wanted options. As it turned out, we could watch from the dune walkover, so I clamped the Gorillapod on the rail. It vibrated a lot as people walked on the boards, but it appears that the relatively wide angle and the image stabilization handled it pretty well.

Thick fog this morning. I took the Oly XZ-1 along because I always hope to see some spiderwebs. They've been missing of late, though this morning I was happy to spot one at the back gate. Here's a little album at Flick from this morning's walk.

Anyway, first post of the new year at the marmot. Hopefully, many more to come.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:15 Sunday, 1 January 2023

Doing some maintenance around here to get the marmot configured for 2023. Dropped a post in the micro.blog to share some pics from the fireworks last night at St. Augustine Beach. I have thus far managed to stay off Twitter, and it has opened up more time to work in Photos and so on.

Mitzi and I had dinner at a friend's house last night. She lives in St Augustine Beach, almost on the beach, only a short walk to the dune. We watched the fireworks from the dune walkover. I brought along the Olympus E-PL10, a PEN Light model, which was sort of a more consumer-level micro four-thirds body. Up until the E-PL9, the Light models had the full features of the more "professional" bodies in terms of the image processor and menu system.

The E-PL9 and E-M10 Mk3 and subsequent models had a more "accessible" menu system, with fewer options and available customizations. But in this case, I wanted the E-PL10 because I wanted something small and light to carry, and I was going to shoot with Live Composite mode, and I often have to fiddle around finding it on the E-PL7 or E-PL8. Plus, mine is a "Kuro" (黒) which looks very smart with the black 17mm/f1.8 prime. So, style points for closing out the old year.

I also brought along an old Gorillapod, one of the heavier models. I thought we'd be sitting on the beach, but I wanted options. As it turned out, we could watch from the dune walkover, so I clamped the Gorillapod on the rail. It vibrated a lot as people walked on the boards, but it appears that the relatively wide angle and the image stabilization handled it pretty well.

Thick fog this morning. I took the Oly XZ-1 along because I always hope to see some spiderwebs. They've been missing of late, though this morning I was happy to spot one at the back gate. Here's a little album at Flick from this morning's walk.

Anyway, first post of the new year at the marmot. Hopefully, many more to come.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:15 Sunday, 1 January 2023

Last night’s fireworks at St Augustine Beach.

Over at the Command Cave, I shared something that has crossed my mind from time to time. Today I'm going to offer something of the converse.

Heraclitus spoke of "the harmony of binding opposites," the tension that exists between faith and fear. This is the space we inhabit, if not always harmoniously, with ourselves and with others.

While the darkness sometimes intrudes, it also offers a new perspective on the light. I experience a genuine feeling of gratitude for ordinary things we take for granted. Each time I take a glass of safe, clean water from the refrigerator, I know that it wasn't always like this and for many people in the world, it's still not. And I'm grateful for it, and humbled by the inexplicable good fortune afforded to me to have it. None of us chose our parents.

Clean water, abundant, convenient and safe food. Electricity, a sturdy house, a warm bed. We are rich beyond measure in many ways we seldom appreciate. My appreciation has grown, and I think that's a good thing. Maybe even "woke."

But it reminds me that it's important to pay attention to what you're paying attention to, and for too long I've been paying attention to things that perhaps I shouldn't be.

I think we live in a responsive universe. I don't know what that means, but I know that we are a part of the universe, not something separate from it. And my experience suggests that it offers clues to getting along in it more harmoniously in the tension of binding opposites.

When we watched Hallelujah earlier this month, the closing clip of Leonard Cohen speaking to the camera resonated in me in a way that I've learned to pay attention to. I watched to learn more about Leonard Cohen and the history of that song, not take away some life lesson. But I know it when I hear it.

"You look around and you see a world that is impenetrable, that, uh, cannot be made sense of. You either raise your fist, or you say 'Hallelujah.' I try to do both."

My interior experience of late, the past several years, has been mostly one of raising my fist. I haven't been hearing the "secret chord," that from my lips might draw the hallelujah!, if I may be forgiven.

I have given my attention too much to Twitter. Although I follow many fine people there, and have made many online friends, I think we share a few too many things in common. Most of the time it's a steady stream of injustice and outrage. An ongoing chronicle of bad faith, incompetence, petty selfishness and blind ambition. All worthy of raising one's fist to.

But it's exhausting. It distorts our perspective. "That which you feed, grows." I'm not sure I'm helping anyone by being there, and I'm pretty sure it's not helping me.

So it's time to stop giving my attention to Twitter. I'm not deleting my account, I'm just not giving "the timeline" my attention. Things I post here or from the underground will make their way to my micro.blog, which will automatically post links to these words on Twitter and Mastodon.

I subscribe to an RSS feed of replies to my tweets, so if someone cares to comment on Twitter, I'm pretty sure I'll see them unless or until Elon disables that feature. And I receive DMs by email, so I can still be reached via Twitter if someone wishes.

The marmot isn't a frictionless environment, it demands a more deliberate approach, which hopefully means a more thoughtful, more mindful approach; and I think I'll welcome more of that in my interior experience.

A greater opportunity to inhabit a wider space between stimulus and response. Something I once worked hard to achieve. We all get a little lost along the way. The trick is finding our way back.

To that end, with all the resolve this rather arbitrary cultural tradition can imbue, I will strive to do more of something a wise woman once taught me, "David, just be still."

I shall be still, at least some part of every day.

I'll listen carefully for a secret chord, and be grateful when I get the chance to utter hallelujah.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:47 Saturday, 31 December 2022

Although we have at least another day left in 2022, I thought I'd spend a few minutes down here and post something before I start the new year.

When I created this blog, I thought wanted it to have a place to post political comments. Politics have become toxic, and I didn't want to make Nice Marmot a toxic place.

But, like anyone I suppose, I have darker moods from time to time; and I often find that I'm reluctant to post those thoughts at the marmot. They're not strictly political, though politics has a role in why they exist.

For instance, the other day I was thinking about what my most likely cause of death would be. Ordinarily, as a privileged white male (if that's not too redundant), I'd say the causes would most likely be heart disease, cancer or accident. I'd say my chances of dying of starvation would be very, very low.

Today I think the potential mechanisms facilitating my departure from this mortal plane have expanded to include starvation, violence attendant to social disorder due to famine, illness due to loss of public utilities, chiefly water and sewer, the collapse of health care services, and complications due to COVID.

Now, except for COVID or COVID-related illness, I don't expect any of those things in the next five years. I think the next five will be fairly benign, though we will be witnessing increasing signs of collapse. I think it gets a little hazy after that.

There may be a period of twenty to thirty years where we kind of muddle along in denial, growing increasingly aware of the fragility of our civilization. If that's the case, it'll likely be one of the more typical modern maladies sending me off, and I'll have lived to something approaching a "normal" modern lifespan.

But there could be a sudden collapse too. Another pandemic, some unanticipated consequence of loss of species diversity, crop losses due to extreme weather events, a nuclear exchange between nations, setting off a chain of events that ruptures the brittle nature of the logistics supporting nearly 8 billion people on this planet.

I mean if a ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal can be a global issue, imagine what lobbing a few nukes might cause.

Anyway, when I'm feeling "low" I have the burrow here. For now anyway.

Feelings pass, at least they usually do for me. I don't think it'll all be doom and gloom.

Sometimes it'll just be rage.

And I'll issue a communiqué. A note from the underground.

It's darker here.

Originally posted at Notes From the Underground 07:38 Friday, 30 December 2022