alabut

alabut, 7 months ago to Dogs

My first test shot this morning with a 20-year old Nikon D70. Not bad for a vintage digital camera!

#dogs #photography

alabut, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to music

I made a short list of music inspiration for busywork, thanks to some #IndieWeb buddies. I was doing dishes while listening to hard German techno (as you do) and pinged the Slack to see what others find motivating.

Featuring picks by @gregorlove.com@gregorlove.com @KevinMarks @capjamesg @tantek.com

Give it a whirl!

https://alabut.com/writing/musicforchores/

#music

alabut, 4 months ago to random

Just read the leaked memo from Google about their so-called priorities while their actions are middling ripoff products during a rolling storm of layoffs. Once again I’m reminded of the lessons learned from a great business book called Walk The Walk:

1. Orgs never really have more than 1-2 core mission drivers, if we’re being real.
2. And just like people, you see what those values are by their actions and not words.

(via @campegg)

https://www.inc.com/nick-hobson/a-leaked-memo-from-google-ceo-sundar-pichai-comes-amidst-employee-discontent-no-ceo-wants-this-for-their-company.html

alabut, 1 year ago to random

🌵⛺️ Kicked off camping season with my first solo desert trip.

Thanks to @nazhamid for the photo inspiration and mapping tips. The Gaia GPS app was really impressive and gave me so much confidence.

#camping #desert #sunset #SanDiego #bicycle #MTB

alabut, 10 months ago to sandiego

Went hunting around Point Loma for sunset views.

#SanDiego #sunset

Lighthouse in the distance at dusk.
Military cemetery overlooking the Pacific Ocean at sunset.

alabut, 2 months ago to random

Let’s see if I can turn the #indieweb into the lazyweb. Does anyone have any examples of blog posts that handle vertical video well?

Just embedded without the usual platform cruft would be great, but I’m also curious about reach goals for Instagram levels of polish, ideally with just plain HTML. Can you do things like auto-playing silently until you click on it to unmute, playing only the video that’s in the viewport, etc, without a bunch of javascript wizardry?

alabut, 4 months ago to design

Ok friends and #design nerds, help me tinker with my portfolio site on this lazy Sunday. Which splash page do you like better?

Screenshot of a website. A man's face and a logo on the left, short bio on the right.

alabut, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to sandiego

Had an absolute blast exploring the trails of Otay Lakes and Sweetwater with my buds at Adams Avenue Bikes. Painful! But in a fun way. Here’s all the smiles from before the torture.

I’m also having fun learning to quickly capture portraits with my Sony ZV-1. It’s intended mainly for vlogging and is usually just a webcam for me, but it’s such a pocketable little guy that I’m loving it for stills too.

#SanDiego #Cycling #MTB #Photography

alabut, 7 months ago to writing

@artlung thanks again for the invite to the homebrew meetup last week. I’m hooked and I’ll be back!

Your post-event writeup talked about drafts and that reminded me that my question about it towards the end didn’t exactly come across. My super newb WP/blogging thing that I’m wondering is more like “semi-private but shareable drafts”. Have you ever published something with a link that you can send around for feedback but doesn’t go out to your RSS or site’s main public pages?

It’s a use case I run into all the time and the usual answer is to use gdoc’s “share to anyone with the link” feature until it’s ready for wider distribution, which works fine and it’s not a huge pain, I’m just curious. I’ve got some much thornier questions about how to integrate evergreen wiki-like info pages vs ephemeral/chronological blog-like writing, but I figure I’ll start light ;)

https://artlung.com/blog/2023/11/09/how-many-words/

#IndieWeb #writing #blogging

alabut, 4 months ago to random

So... I just started blogging again for the first time in 2+ years. Check it out!

It's chock full of inside baseball shoutouts to @astro, my old buddy @artlung, some new #indieweb buddies, and read on if you don't know what any of that means:

https://alabut.com/writing/blog-relaunch/

alabut, 5 months ago to random

@dpease oh hey there, bud! Didn’t know you were on here. Happy new year!

alabut, 7 months ago to AppleWatch

I get Humane AI Pin's goal for going phone-less while retaining the core benefits. For years now, the best part of my day is strapping on an Apple Watch in the mornings while I walk the dogs, grab coffee, pick up groceries and ease into the day with light errands. All while listening to music and just enjoying the moment.

The idea is picking up steam. Last night, a friend asked me for tips on how to do the same.

First, reduce noise:

• Disable most alerts in the Watch app, you can still see them on the phone later. The main one is to block any social media DM's.
• Add a focus mode to block everything, like when SMS is too noisy. Also can swipe to mute.

Second, add utility:

• Download music you love. Streaming's fine but offline playlists are even better.
• The Wallet is what I use most, both for Apple Pay and also the Starbucks card.

Hope that helps! Anyone else have a similar routine?

#AppleWatch #Humane #AIPin

alabut, 5 months ago to cars

Tonight I just saw a hot rod version of an EV, I didn't know that was a thing. Pulled up next to a Mach-E that had some Shelby badging – turns out it's a Euro spec limited edition. It was black with gold stripes, just like this floor model from a car show.

#cars #ev

alabut, 4 months ago to f1

🏁 Where my racing nerds at? Best driver of all time just made the biggest move the sport has seen in decades, maybe ever.

I’m going to watch the Ferrari movie this weekend with a big glass of red and wonder how they pulled off this coup 🍷

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/01/sport/lewis-hamilton-ferrari-mercedes-f1-spt-intl/

#F1 #Formula1

alabut, 2 months ago to random

@nazhamid question about your blog: I could’ve sworn I saw at least one post with an auto-playing silent video that didn’t have the usual embedded crap, but I can’t seem to find it. Am I imagining things? I went through your archives hoping to peek under the hood at the html and try to emulate it.

alabut, 1 year ago to random

Wifey poo is out of town, so my little dogs are being subjected to a guys night with whiskey and a sports movie.

alabut, 4 months ago to random

Does anyone else like writing or blogging from a tablet device?

I tried a fun little technical challenge tonight – seeing if I can blog from my ipad by pushing a markdown file to github.

Why? No real reason, just for funsies. I love the super focused writing zone I get into with apps like IA Writer and Bear on the iPad. There's something about the "one fullscreen app at a time" nature of iOS that puts my productivity blinders on. It's as close as I can get to having an old school typewriter, or going back in time to when pre-internet computers were basically word processors. Except you can change settings and lug the thing to a coffeeshop.

Plus another fun constraint: keeping the blog post in markdown-only reigns in my tinkering compulsions that want to endlessly touch up the layout in html.

It almost worked, I just had to hop on the laptop real quick to figure out that IA Writer was mangling the frontmatter and iOS was inserting smart quotes. Lessons learned for next time.

alabut, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Made a minor but satisfying change to my personal site. I've written enough since rebooting my blog in Jan that I had to pin an intro to the top:

https://alabut.com/writing/

I'm still getting the rust off of the writing habit but it feels fantastic to say that the momentum is building, like settling into a gym routine that leaves you a little sore but still excited for the next session.

The index is still a bit hidden for now while my home page acts as a design portfolio and that's ok, it's intentional. Maybe that'll change later this year, no rush. Let's see where the garden grows and needs trimming, repotting, etc.

#IndieWeb #PersonalSites #SmallWeb

alabut, 1 year ago to animals

Got up at dawn and took my little four-legged rooster to his happy place.

#SanDiego #dogs #DogsOfMastodon

alabut, 5 months ago to random

Today marks 31 days since I started a daily journal.

Handwritten journal entry with a little chart of the daily tides.
Handwritten journal entry. The top has little drawings and icons about the weather, the bottom is writing about the author’s state of mind.
Handwritten journal entry. Mostly writing, with a few icons drawn and highlighted to emphasize points.

alabut, 1 month ago to random

Hey, what're you all up to in an hour? Want to nerd out about HTML/CSS? Come join @artlung as he hosts a pop up #indieweb event for all things frontend:

https://events.indieweb.org/2024/04/front-end-study-hall-FHS5M2AofkU4

alabut, 25 days ago to random

Tomorrow’s the last day of Premier League action and we’re going to make a big breakfast to celebrate. I’m betting @vanderwal is going to be watching, anyone else getting up early in my Pacific time zone?

alabut, 10 months ago to sandiego

Tonight I practiced video on my Sony. The slomo came out a little grainy, it really needs a lot of light, so sunset was just barely usable.

#SanDiego #sunset #video

Silhouette of a family at a bonfire by the water.

alabut, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Whew, 19 minutes left in February in the Pacific time zone and I just got my entry over the line for this month's #IndieWeb Carnival. Made it.

The topic is "digital relationships" and I reflected on how things have changed since the pandemic started.

https://alabut.com/writing/digitalrelationships

alabut, 7 days ago to random

Whoa, it’s been a decade since Halt And Catch Fire ended?!? Totally worth a rewatch, at least season 1.

I know critics and fans like the later seasons more but that first arc was amazing because it was based on the crazy real life story of Compaq, a bunch of brilliant nut jobs that took on the massive risk of reverse engineering IBM’s iconic PC. https://oldbytes.space/@mingo/112563886594697440