Both Google Cloud Vision and SuperNote's new handwriting recognition handle my print fine. Neither handle columns the way I'd like, but to be fair, I'm not really sure how I want columns and wrapping handled anyway. I can always experiment with the standard use-case: one column of text, to export as text (with perhaps the occasional sketch, which I can crop and include).

If I can get the hang of writing my thoughts, then it turns some of those bedtime hours into writing hours. Writing by hand feels slow and linear, but it's better than nothing, and thinking takes most of the time anyway. While speech recognition feels like it might be faster in short bursts, I don't have a lot of "talking to myself" time (aside from sleepy brain dumps), and my workflow for processing audio is still slow and disjointed. I can't type on my phone because then A- will want to be on a screen too. I'm glad e-ink devices are different enough not to trigger her sense of unfairness, although sometimes she does ask if she can do mazes or connect-the-dots. Then I switch to knitting until it's really really time to go to bed.

I'm slowly figuring out my workflows for experimenting with and writing about code. Naturally, that's a little more challenging to write about by hand, but I could draft the context. I can think through life stuff too, and maybe look into saving more notes in my Org files.

I've experimented with handwritten blog posts before. Now that I have a little more time to tweak my workflow and think thoughts, maybe I'll get the hang of them!

It looks like the Supernote's real-time recognition is pretty accurate for my handwriting, getting the text out of multiple pages is pretty straightforward.

Here's the raw TXT output from the Supernote.

Here's what it took to edit it into the first part of this post - just adding line-breaks and fixing up some words:

Source images

[[

If I add more lines between paragraphs when writing, I might be able to skip adding them in the text export.

For comparison, here's the text output from Google Cloud Vision.

Tweaking my handwriting workflow
Both Google Cloud Vision and Super Note's new
handwriting recognition handle my print fine. Neither
handle columns the way I'd like, but to be fair,
I'm not really sure how I want columns and wrapping
handled anyway I can always experiment with the
standard use-case
use-case: One column of text, to export
as Text (with perhaps the occasional sketch, which
can crop and include).
If I can get the hang of writing my thoughts,
then it turns some of those bedtime hours into writi
writing
hours. Writing by hand feels slow and linear, but it's
better than nothing, and thinking takes most of the time
anyway while speech recognition feels like it might be
faster in short bursts, don't have a lot of "talking to
myself" time (aside from sleepy braindumps), and my workflow
for processing audio is still slow and disjointed. I can't
type on my phone because then A- will want to be on

I'm glad e-ink devices are different enough
not to trigger her sense of unfairness, although sometimes
she does ask if she can do mazes or connect-the-dots
a screen too
Then I switch to Knitting until it's really really time to
go to bed.
I'm slowly figuring out my workflows for experimenting
with and writing about code. Naturally, that's a little
more challenging to write about by hand, but I could
draft the context. I can think through life stuff too, and
maybe look into saving more notes in my org files
I've experimented with handwritten blog posts before
Now that I have a little more time to tweak my workflow
and think thoughts, maybe I'll get the hang of them!

I'm leaning towards SuperNote's recognition results for long text, although I don't get access to the confidence data so I'll probably just have to delete the misrecognized text if I include sketches.

I'd like to write about code more often. It's easier for people to try out ideas if they can copy the code without fiddling with selecting the text, especially on mobile browsers, so "Copy code" buttons on source code blocks would be nice. I used this tutorial for adding code buttons as a basis for the following CSS and JS code.

First, let's add the buttons with Javascript. I want the buttons to be visible in the summary line if I'm using the <details /> element. If not, they can go in the div with the org-src-container class.

/* Start of copy code */
// based on https://www.roboleary.net/2022/01/13/copy-code-to-clipboard-blog.html
const copyLabel = 'Copy code';

async function copyCode(block, button) {
  let code = block.querySelector('pre.src');
  let text = code.innerText;
  await navigator.clipboard.writeText(text);
  button.innerText = 'Copied';
  setTimeout(() => {
    button.innerText = copyLabel;
  }, 500);
}

function addCopyCodeButtons() {
  if (!navigator.clipboard) return;
  let blocks = document.querySelectorAll('.org-src-container');
  blocks.forEach((block) => {
    let button = document.createElement('button');
    button.innerText = copyLabel;
    button.classList.add('copy-code');
    let details = block.closest('details');
    let summary = details && details.querySelector('summary');
    if (summary) {
      summary.appendChild(button);
    } else {
      block.appendChild(button);
    }
    button.addEventListener('click', async() => {
      await copyCode(block, button);
    });
    block.setAttribute('tabindex', 0);
  });
}
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) { 
  addCopyCodeButtons();
});
/* End of copy code */

Then we style it:

/* Start of copy code */
pre.src { margin: 0 }
.org-src-container {
    position: relative;
    margin: 0 0;
    padding: 1.75rem 0 1.75rem 1rem;
}
summary { position: relative; }
summary .org-src-container { padding: 0 }
summary .org-src-container pre.src { margin: 0 }
.org-src-container button.copy-code, summary button.copy-code {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0px;
    right: 0px;
}
/* End of copy code */

Someday I'll figure out how to make it easier to tangle things to the post's directory and make the file available for download. In the meantime, this might be a good start.

I was thinking about how to prepare for my next 10-year review, since I'll turn 40 this year. I've been writing yearly reviews with some regularity and monthly reviews sporadically, and I figured it would be nice to have those posts in an EPUB so that I can read them on my e-reader and annotate them as I do my review.

I use the 11ty static site generator to publish my blog as HTML files, since I currently can't keep more than Emacs Lisp, Javascript, and Python in my brain. (No Hugo or Jekyll for me at the moment.) I briefly thought about getting 11ty to create that archive for me, but I realized it might be easier to just write it as an external script instead of trying to figure out how to get 11ty to export one thing conditionally.

One of the things I've configured 11ty to make is a JSON file that includes all of my posts with dates, titles, permalinks, and categories. It was easy to then parse this list and filter it to get the posts I wanted. I parsed the HTML out of the _site directory that 11ty produces instead of fetching the pages from my webserver. I got the images from my webserver, though, and I made a local cache and rewrote the URLs. That way, the EPUB conversion could include the images.

Download blog.js

const blog = require('/home/sacha/proj/static-blog/_site/blog/all/index.json');
const cheerio = require('cheerio');
const base = '/home/sacha/proj/static-blog/_site';
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

function slugify(p) {
  return p.permalink.replace('/blog', 'post-').replace(/\//g, '-');
}

async function processPost(p) {
  console.log('Processing '+ p.permalink);
  let $ = cheerio.load(fs.readFileSync(base + p.permalink + 'index.html'));
  $('#comment').remove();
  let images = $('article img');
  await Promise.all(images.map((i, e) => {
    let url = $(e).attr('src');
    const outputFileName = 'images/' + path.basename(url).replace(/ |%20|%23/g, '-');
    $(e).attr('src', outputFileName);
    $(e).attr('style', 'max-height: 100%; max-width: 100%; ' + ($(e).attr('style') || ''));
    $(e).attr('srcset', null);
    $(e).attr('sizes', null);
    $(e).attr('width', null);
    $(e).attr('height', null);
    if (!fs.existsSync(outputFileName)) {
      console.log('fetch', outputFileName);
      return fetch(url).then(res => res.arrayBuffer()).then(data => {
        const buffer = Buffer.from(data);
        return fs.createWriteStream(outputFileName).write(buffer);
      });
    } else {
      console.log(outputFileName, 'exists');
      return null;
    }
  }));
  console.log('Done ' + p.permalink);
  let slug = slugify(p);
  $('article h2').attr('id', slug);
  let header = $('article header').html();
  let entry = $('article .entry').html();
  return `<article>${header}${entry}</article>`;
}

let last10 = blog.filter((p) => p.date >= '2013-08-01');
let posts = last10.filter((p) => p.categories.indexOf('yearly') >= 0)
    .concat(blog.filter((p) => p.title == 'Turning 30: A review of the last decade'))
    .concat(last10.filter((p) => p.categories.indexOf('monthly') >= 0));

let toc = '<h1>Table of Contents</h1><ul>' + posts.map((p) => {
  return `<li><a href="#${slugify(p)}">${p.title}</a></li>\n`;
}).join('') + '</ul>';

let content = posts.reduce(async (prev, val) => {
    return await prev + await processPost(val);
  }, '');
content.then((data) => {
  fs.writeFileSync('archive.html',
                   `<html><body>${toc}${data}</body></html>`);

});

This created an archive.html with my posts, using the images/ directory for the images. Then I used my shell script for converting and copying files to convert it to EPUB and copy it over.

On the SuperNote, I can highlight text by drawing square brackets around it. If I tap that text, I can write or draw underneath it. Here's what that looks like:

These notes are collected into a "Digest" view, and I can export things from there. (Example: archive.pdf)

(Hmm, maybe I should ask them about hiding the pencil icon…)

Anyway, I think that might be a good starting point for my review.

A- complains if I get screentime when she doesn't get screentime, so it's hard to find time to write on my laptop or on my phone. I've experimented with dictation before, since Google Recorder can make a half-decent transcript. I'm not used to talking things out, though. I keep correcting false starts, stutters, and mis-recognized words.

Fortunately, I can write on my A5X while waiting for A-. I get more space than I do when writing on my phone, so it's easier for me to think. I can export pages as PNGs, Dropbox, share each page, sync with with Google Photos, and then use Lens to copy the text. I can then paste it into Orgzly, which automatically syncs with Syncthing so that I can edit it on my laptop with Emacs. It needs a little cleanup (capitalization, stray punctuation, missed words, things in the wrong order), but editing it feels easier than dealing with the output of speech recognition, so it seems to be worth the extra time and effort. Besides, it feels less embarrassing to write at the sandbox than it is to talk to myself.

I can edit the text directly on my phone, but I still need my laptop to publish my blog because I haven't set up my static site generator on my server. Some day! In the meantime, this might be a good workflow for getting thoughts out there.

What if I want to refer to sketches while I write? Flipping between pages on the A5X can be challenging if they're not next to each other, but I can keep my current writing page next to my sketch. I could also view the sketch on my phone and balance it on the A5X, or use layers to keep a small version of the sketch as a handy reference. Lots of ideas to play around with…

Things will probably be a little strange on my blog for the next few days, as I've decided to experiment with statically generating my blog with Eleventy. It's a little complicated because I wanted to keep as many of my posts and category/tag feeds as possible.

To speed things up, I usually work with a subset of my posts. Generating a partial copy of my site results in 557 files and takes 3.73 seconds. When I generate the full copy of my site, it writes 13358 files in 96.73 seconds.

With any luck, I'll be able to get most of the things working before the next Emacs News post. Let's see!

Depending on what time A- finally goes to bed, I might have around 1-2 hours of discretionary time that I can use to focus on a small task and complete it. If I pick something that's too big, I get tempted to stay up late, which often makes me grumpy the next day. So a good approach might be to have a number of reasonably small tasks that give me as quick a payoff as possible, especially if those tasks can result in compounding improvements.

Now that I can post Org Mode headings to my journal from Emacs, it's easier to log finished tasks as journal entries that will get picked up during my weekly and monthly review. The next step might be to figure out how to flesh out those lines into more useful posts. That way, I can find things again by searching my blog. Also, if other people can pick up ideas from my posts, I might be able to benefit from their improvements.

There's a lot of room for growth in terms of my workflow for doing stuff, learning stuff, and sharing stuff. Here's what a possible learning path might be like:

• Planning: I've just started excavating the Org files that I've been tossing ideas into over the last 5+ years of limited discretionary time. Now things are mostly refiled, and I've got quite a few projects on my priority list. I might spend a bit of non-computer time mulling over 1-3 possibilities throughout the day, and then work on the most interesting one after processing my inbox. I find that in the course of a week, I tend to focus on one or two projects in order to take advantage of momentum. It's also good to set aside planning/improvement/review time instead of getting tempted to prioritize coding all the time, as fun as it is to write stuff.

  I don't have to optimize this. Most tasks are good to work on and move me forward, so I don't have to spend a lot of time trying to analyze the best effort/reward ratio. I can usually just go with whatever I feel like working on.

• Coding: I usually work with Emacs Lisp or Javascript, with a little bit of Python. I have some technical debt in Ruby that I don't have the brainspace to dig into at the moment. It may have to wait until A- goes to in-person school. For Emacs Lisp, my next workflow improvement might be to get the hang of Lispy. For my personal projects, infrastructure is the main thing tripping me up. I need to spend some time setting up a proper development environment and learning more about workflows so that I can reduce risk when I'm working on stop-and-go things.
• Writing: Dictation is out for now, since I don't feel much like talking at night. It's nice to be quiet after a whole day of talking with a kiddo. When I get the Georgi keyboard I ordered, stenography might be an interesting long-term skill investment. The bottleneck is probably still my thinking speed, though. That means I could probably:
  • embrace lists and outlines as a way of getting fragmented thoughts down (possibly over several sessions) and then shuffling them around into some form of coherence (yay Org Mode)
  • lower my threshold for posting; it's better to think out loud
• Screenshots: I recently tweaked my shortcuts for inserting screenshots. Now I just need to make them part of muscle memory.
• Drawings: I can sketch things out on my Lenovo X220 tablet PC, although flipping the screen is a little annoying. One option might be to leave my screen rotated and then use a Bluetooth keyboard to type and use shortcuts. The keyboard isn't as comfortable to type on as my laptop is, though. Hmm… org-krita doesn't quite fit my workflow, so I need to write my own. I want to be able to quickly sketch something. If I like it, I want to convert it, rename it with a caption, and add it to my sketches.

(defun my/org-insert-drawing-as-link ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((file (make-temp-file "/tmp/image" nil ".psd")))
    (copy-file my/index-card-template-file file t)
    (insert (org-link-make-string (format "file:%s" file)))
    (my/open-images-in-krita (list file))))

(defun my/preview-in-other-buffer (file)
  (with-current-buffer (find-file-noselect file)
    (display-buffer (current-buffer))))

(defun my/org-convert-sketch-at-point (&optional two-col)
  (interactive "p")
  (let* ((link (org-element-context))
         (file (org-element-property :path link))
         date
         (intermediate (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".png"))
         new-file new-link)
    (unless (eq (org-element-type link) 'link)
      (error "Not at a link"))
    ;; (call-process "krita" nil nil nil file "--export" "--export-filename" intermediate)
    (call-process "convert" nil nil nil (concat file "[0]") intermediate)
    (my/preview-in-other-buffer intermediate)
    (setq
     date (org-read-date)
     caption (read-string "Caption: ")
     new-file (expand-file-name (format "%s %s.png" date caption) my/sketches-directory)
     new-link (concat "#+CAPTION: " date " " caption "\n"
                      (org-link-make-string (concat "sketch:" (file-name-base new-file)))))
    (rename-file intermediate new-file t)
    (delete-region (org-element-property :begin link)
                   (org-element-property :end link))
    (if two-col
        (progn (insert
                (format  "#+begin_columns
#+begin_column50
%s
#+end_column50
#+begin_column50
"
                         new-link))
               (save-excursion (insert "
#+end_column50
#+end_columns
")))
      (insert new-link "\n"))))

(defun my/reload-sketches ()
  (interactive)
  (url-retrieve "https://sketches.sachachua.com/reload" (lambda (&rest args) (message "Updated sketches."))))

Also, graphviz is pretty handy for quick diagrams, and it will probably be even more useful as I dig into it and other text-based diagram tools. The diagram at the beginning of this post was generated with:

#+begin_src dot :file "sharing-path.png" :cmdline -Kdot -Tpng -Nfontname=sachacHand -Nfontsize=30
digraph {
  rankdir=LR;
  node [shape=box];
  "Planning" -> "Coding" -> "Writing" -> "Screenshots" -> "Drawings" -> "GIFs?" -> "Video" -> "Streaming";
  "Planning" -> "Reading" -> "Writing";
  "Planning" -> "Writing";
}
#+end_src

Animated GIFs, videos, and streaming may have to wait until I have more brainspace. Plenty to tweak even now!

I’ve been getting deeper into Python so that I can model our personal finances. I really like using the pandas library to manipulate data. All those years I spent trying to juggle increasing complex spreadsheets… Working with Python code in Org Babel blocks is just so much more fun. I like being able to keep my assumptions in tables without having to fuss around with naming cells for easy-to-read formulas, slice and summarize parts of my data frames, organize my notes in outlines and add commentary, and define more complicated functions that I don’t have to squeeze into a single line.

I haven’t quite been able to tempt W- into the world of Org Babel Python blocks. Still, I don’t want to give up the awesomeness of having pretty tables that I can easily edit and use. So I have a bunch of named tables (using #+NAME:), and some code that exports my tables to CSVs:

#+NAME: tables
| Table         | Key                 |
|---------------+---------------------|
| assets_w      | Description         |
| assets_s      | Description         |
| tax_rates     |                     |
| disposition   | Asset               |
| probate_rates | Asset               |
| basic         | Client information  |
| base_expenses | Category            |
| general       | General assumptions |

#+begin_src emacs-lisp :results silent :var tables=tables :tangle no
  (defun my-tbl-export (row)
    "Search for table named `NAME` and export."
    (interactive "s")
    (save-excursion
      (goto-char (point-min))
      (let ((case-fold-search t))
        (when (search-forward-regexp (concat "#\\+NAME: +" (car row)) nil t)
          (next-line)
          (org-table-export (format "%s.csv" (car row)) "orgtbl-to-csv")))))
  (mapc 'my-tbl-export tables)
#+end_src

and some code that imports them back in, and formats tables nicely if I’m displaying them in Org. The in_org block doesn’t get tangled into index.py, so I don’t clutter command-line use with Org table markup.

#+begin_src python :results silent :tangle no
  in_org=1
#+end_src

#+begin_src python :results silent :exports code
  import pandas as pd
  import numpy as np
  import orgbabelhelper as ob
  def out(df, **kwargs):
    if 'in_org' in globals():
      print(ob.dataframe_to_orgtable(df, **kwargs))
    else:
      print(df)
    return df
#+end_src

#+begin_src python :results silent :var tables=tables :colnames yes
  for row in tables:
    table = row[0]
    index = row[1] 
    if row[1] == '':
      index = None
    globals()[table] = pd.read_csv(table + '.csv', index_col=index).apply(pd.to_numeric, errors='ignore')
    # print(globals()[table])
#+end_src

Then I can use C-c C-v C-b (org-babel-execute-buffer) to update everything if I change the table in my Org file, and I can use C-c C-v C-t (org-babel-tangle) to create an index.py that W- can read through or run without needing Org.