links on Cliff538

Beam Paints - M’Chigeeng First Nation Company on Manitoulin Island

Mon, 11 May 2026 11:06:39 -0700

My wife is a watercolor artist in her free time and just found a wonderful resource for hematite pigment. Harvested by an M’Chigeeng First Nation company on Manitoulin Island. She just received them today.

It’s not cheap. But, I’m told there is no replacement for quality paint.

I just wanted to do a shoutout about a First Nations small business.

From their About Page:

Beam Paints is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation. I was raised by my artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, and was taught from a young age how to harvest hematite pigment in the LaCloche mountain range near our home in M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Beam Paints draws on my early educations in Indigenous pigment and expands it to encompass all paint traditions. A focus on high quality pigment content creates sublime artist materials, with plastic free packaging. Beam Paints is 100% Anishnaabe Kwe owned, and operating in our home reserve of M’Chigeeng First Nation, we are happy to employ paintmakers and woodworkers, men and women from our communities including M’Chigeeng, Sagamok and Wikwemikong. Click on one of these articles to find out more:

www.thefoundryhomegoods.com/blogs/jou…

Lightfast pigments, gum arabic, and Manitoulin maple sap blend together to create a handmade saturated colour that is a joy to paint with. From thick stripes to fine washes and details, quality is evident in every stroke. Our watercolours are shaped into paintstones, our version of a half-pan, before being wrapped in beeswaxed cloth. Our pans are packaged in slices of cedar and birch offcuts from an Indigenous sustainable lumber operation.

The Good Stuff - April 2026

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:59:18 -0700

A smattering of useful things I’ve come across this month

April 2026

Adventure Journal - The best outdoor magazine I’ve ever subscribed to. Great blog as well.
Bad Astronomy - One of the best Astronomy newsletters I’ve found. I read every issue.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Advice for Making the Most of Your Day - InsideHook - A short story that will make you smile about Kurt Vonnegut and his technology stack.
Something is Going on with Colorectal Cancer - Hank Green out with more great informaiton.
Guide to the Best Beginner Brush Pens - Someday I’ll get to messing about with brush pens.
Pinery - Self-Publishing App - Hiro had this in his report, and it looks great. Even though I didn’t need it, it was fun to explore. I do have a book I started 30 years ago about being a young pilot in the Alaska Arctic… just say’n.
Longreads - If you don’t know about Longreads, you need to check it out. Wonderful stories, very well curated.
Notebook - iA - I had to get one or two of these, just beautifully made. I’m not sure I’ll bring myself to write in it though… still working on that.
The Making of iA Notebook - YouTube - Watch the craftsmanship involved with this notebook.

Books added to the queue

Thirst - by Heather Anderson, I also added her latest forthcoming Farther.
So Late In The Day - Claire Keegan. If you haven’t read anything by Keegan, do yourself a favor and start one of her books.
The Year Without Summer - William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman. I was sent down this rabbit hole by Maria Popova’s book Traversal. I loved Simon Winchester’s book Krakatoa so I’m excited to get to this one. We are very fragile creatures on a very active planet.
Go Computer Now ! - I’m about halfway through this and I love it. Very well written and brings a whole new company and characters to light in the early days of the personal computer. The story brings in the usual characters, Bill Gates, Woz, etc but only for context in this story about Sphere Corporation. If you want to know more about the battle to bring the personal computer to the masses, you’ll really enjoy this.

The Good Stuff - March 2026

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:33:40 -0700

A smattering of useful things I’ve come across this month

March 2026

DOFSimulator - A great website for learning about Depth Of Field. You can select your camera and lens, move the model, and change the focal length and f-stop. Very useful web app.
cliff538.com from 2009 - Finding my blog from 2009 was fun! The original cliff538 was built from scratch as an exam for an HTML/CSS class that I was taking. Really brought back some good memories. Sadly, there is no record of my very first blog, where I documented, step by step, how to build a stitch-and-glue kayak. Everything has been lost to time. Some more old blog links: here and here
Book Alex - A great spot for book reviews and more from Alexandra.
Small Web - An IOS app from Kagi that focuses on the small web.
GPSJAM - great website showing where GPS jamming is occurring.
ReKindle - has all kinds of apps for your Kindle. I did not try any of them since most of my digital reading is on an iPad, but it sure looks promising if you are a Kindle user. If you try it, let me know what you think.
TRAVELER’S COMPANY USA - Pretty cool place for all things journaling. Lots of unique items and journaling kits.
Japanese Stationery Awards 2026 – bungu - Best of the best for 2026.
BRICKA | Premium magazine for Lego Fans - BRICKA is an online and physical print magazine dedicated to exploring, amplifying, and featuring voices within the brick building community of Adult Fans of LEGO.
Orion Magazine - Just found this and need to explore it more.
Netlify - Netlify is a cloud platform for hosting and deploying web apps, websites, etc. I made a free account with them and explored their Agent help with making a static web page. They seem to have a fairly generous free level, so you can experiment with deploying websites and apps. I’m currently using the free tier at Vercel to host my web app for posting to my blogs. I have zero complaints; it’s been a great service, but it’s nice knowing there are options.
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - Gift Article - As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers – with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Nine Books to Reset Your View of the World - Gift Article - Each of these titles will widen your perspective, offering you original insight and vision.
100 Jumps - This is a surprisingly fun and frustrating game. I still haven’t made all 100 yet. I’m not giving up! You really want to work on getting perfect jumps. Every time you get three in a row, you get an extra life. Here is the iOS [link](apps.apple.com/us/app/10… 100 Jumps)
The Onion Newspaper - “With 65,000 paying print subscribers, in 50 states and 50 countries, The Onion is, by some estimates, the country’s 12th-largest print newspaper, above The Boston Globe. Overall annual revenue grew 300% in 2025.”
- They are running a sale right now - $75 for one year of print.

Flashback to 2009

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 17:51:28 -0700

cliff538.com from 2009 - Browsing the internet archives, I stumbled upon my blog from 2009. The original cliff538 was built from scratch as an exam for an HTML/CSS class that I was taking. Really brought back some good memories. Sadly, there is no record of my very first blog, where I documented, step by step, how to build a stitch-and-glue kayak. Everything has been lost to time.

Some more old blog links: here and here

I’ve searched everywhere for that old blog on how to build a stitch-and-glue kayak. I can’t even remember which platform I used, or whether I hand-rolled it. A lot of photos and time documenting the process as a how-to was spent on that site. I can’t find a web archive or saved files of it anywhere.

The Good Stuff - January 2026

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:43:00 -0700

A smattering of useful things I’ve come across this month

January 2026

NYT gift article - 100 Best books of the 21st Century
CraftWork by FlohGro - If you use Drafts and Craft, this may come in very handy for you.
When you should use Safe Mode and what it does Howard always has great articles. Anything you want to know about your Mac, it’s probably on Howard’s site.
100 Days To Offload - The whole point of 100DaysToOffload is to challenge you to publish 100 posts on your personal blog in a year.
URL Manager Pro - A full-featured, powerful bookmark manager. No fancy front end on this one, just a clean, simple, yet powerful manager.
Language Transfer - free courses to learn new language skills with no memorization or writing things down. I’ve just started the Spanish course and am curious about their approach. I’ve been using Duolingo for a while now and am always looking for a new angle.
Enclose.Horse - I’m not a huge gamer, but this game has really stuck with me. It appears so simple, but it’s not. You can make it as quick as you’d like or take some time and really try for a good score. Updates daily.
Past Puzzle - another quick, fun daily history game. Free, and ad-free. I’ve just found it through Mastodon, and it’s really well-made and fun.
Moving your DayOne Journal entries to Obsidian. This Swift Script makes it happen. Sometime back, I used a similar script, and it worked really well.

I’m attempting to keep track of and post my monthly finds this year. We shall see how disciplined I can be! I really enjoy it when other people do this; I find such great stuff. I’m hoping to pass some of the love on.

As always, thank you for taking the time to be here, and I hope it’s a beautiful day. Cheers.

Separate Blog Experiment For Short Notes Up and Running

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:26:58 -0700

Cliff538 Notes is up and running.

Not sure about all of this, but it bothers me that titleless short notes, really meant for Mastodon, are clogging up my home page.

I’m still investigating whether there is a way to separate titleless posts from the home page, but then you would still need a separate page to show all of them. Or, have a toggle to show/hide. Seems complex to me.

The easiest route is what most people suggested to me: just keeping everything on one blog. Keep it simple! I tried posting my short notes only to Mastodon, but then I don’t have a nice, clean running record on my blog. The answer seems to be a separate blog where you write all your short notes, tweets, skeets, and toots. Then you have a clean running list of all of them. Link to it from the home page.

Most people will never look at it; it’s mostly for me. A record of everything I posted to Mastodon. I suppose you could download all that info from Masto, but what then? Where do you put it for easy viewing?

We will try this for a few months and see how I like it. It’s easy to go back to having everything on the home page.

https://notes.cliff538.com

🍿 Watched: The New Yorker at 100

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:36:50 -0700

The New Yorker at 100

A Netflix documentary centered on the New Yorker’s vaunted newsroom, this star-studded documentary explores the history and inner workings of the iconic, century-old magazine.

I really enjoyed the peek behind the curtain on how the sausage is made. I would love to spend a month just observing the process of creating a monthly magazine.

Can you imagine the job of sorting through thousands of monthly cartoon submissions, picking out 30, and having your boss pick out of that list 3 to 5 for publication?

The backgrounds of some of the reporters were fascinating.

All in all, I loved it. Highly recommend.

Cliff Notes: Q4 Photography Update

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:11:07 -0700

I’m going to try to update my photography goings-on every few months or so, so I have a good look back on all things photography-related.

365Pixels

365Pixels is coming along nicely. I think I’ve found my groove in posting every day. Life still gets in the way and forces a missed day or two. I haven’t back-dated anything yet. I don’t think I want to go down that road; I’m still deciding.

I want it to be an actual daily photo blog, and if I miss, I miss. It should be noted as such. If I back-date, then I really didn’t post every day… There are no real rules to this, I’m just making stuff up as I go ; )

I thought about putting everything photography-related on the website, but I have decided against it. Cliff538 really needs to stay the central hub. I came very close to posting my daily photo on Cliff538, and, to be honest, I’m still not sure whether 365Pixels as a separate blog was the right choice.

Hardware

My travel/hiking/flight-bag camera has always been my Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II. It’s small, lightweight, and performs magically in handheld low-light situations. I would really like to do more bird photography, and the latest OM-1 offers a big step up in focus tracking and frame-per-second shooting. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it and have been very happy with it so far. I know it’s an old camera now and needs to be updated, but it’s a big step up in performance for me.

Not sure if I’m going to sell the OMD or keep it for bashing around in a backpack or something.

Really Right Stuff Modular L-Plate Set I’ve been using RRS L-Plates on my cameras for years, excellent quality stuff. Of course, my OMD plate doesn’t fit, so I had to get the one for the OM-1.

Picked up the Godox iT32 with X50 Flash Trigger. I’ve had a few practice sessions with it, and so far I’m really impressed. The magnetic hotshoe lets you mount it on a camera or take it off and hand-hold it wherever the flash needs to be. I’m going to get this for the Nikon as well.

Rolleiflex

My focus screen is so dark that I’ve essentially stopped using the camera because I struggle to see what I’m shooting and focus properly.

In steps BrightScreen. Where have you been all my life! I got a prompt reply from Rick about a few questions I had, and days later, I had my new screen with good instructions attached.

I replaced the screen in about 20 minutes, and most of that time was spent cleaning while the hood and focus screen were off. It’s like a new camera! A very bright, clear, focus screen. I’m in love again.

If you have a dim focus screen, please don’t wait any longer and look at BrightScreens. They have screens for over 50 different camera models.

Stray Pixels

I’m told the Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries don’t leak. I don’t know how many electronics I’ve ruined by accidentally leaving the batteries in and having them leak their acid into the inner electronics.

No more cans of compressed air to clean equipment: Wolfbox MF50 electric air duster saves the day. I love this thing!

The Find Lab I’ve read many good reviews and will be using their services soon. I’ll let you know what I find out with film purchases, developing, and negative scanning.

Love. Hope. Fear. Vulnerability. Strength. Life.

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 18:34:51 -0700

Love. Hope. Fear. Vulnerability. Strength. Life. All wrapped up in the most beautiful and perfect comic. Randall Munroe knocks it out of the park. 💛

xkcd.com/3172/

Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Space Travel Posters

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 12:09:41 -0700

Pretty cool space travel posters/wallpapers from NASA:

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:23:42 -0700

I really enjoyed this documentary. If you even have a small adventurous bone in your body, you’ll enjoy it.

I had a difficult time finding it online, but was eventually able to rent/purchase it through Vimeo.

theroadtopatagonia.com

From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 10:46:48 -0700

“From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend.”

Gift Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/well/reading-pleasure-decline-study.html?unlocked_article_code=1.f08.XJt4.OS0gfQAX-Z18&smid=url-share

This really saddens me. I know personally (and I’m in the minority here), I would much rather read a great book than play video games. And, it’s not from trying, I have a PS5, Gameboys, and Switches, and I just don’t play them very much at all. When I’m reading a good book, I think about it when I’m not reading and look forward to getting back to it.

To each their own, but I fear that we are not promoting reading and showing children the joys of it. My wife was a grade school librarian for 12+ years and read to students every day, opening up whole new worlds for them. Sadly, librarians seem to be a thing of the past. It is our loss.

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 11:43:56 -0700

I learned about this website from Ed Young’s Newsletter. I think everyone in the U.S. needs to see it.

About The Website Unbreaking:

The United States is experiencing institutional collapse at a speed and scale that are difficult to understand, especially through feeds and updates that atomize our attention. We believe that mapping the damage done and its human costs—and the pushback and resilience work already underway—is necessary groundwork for building and retaining political agency.

https://unbreaking.org

Koofr and pCloud

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:28:46 -0700

Well, I’m uploading 2TB of photos to Koofr, so far, so good.

I’m new to them, and setting everything up has been straightforward so far.

I also signed up with pCloud and set it up, but I haven’t used it much yet. I can say I prefer pCloud’s interface, which looks and feels better to me.

After using both, I’ll let you know the pros and cons.

#koofr

#pcloud

Custom CSS for your Markdown in DEVONthink - Who Knew!

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:01:09 -0700

This link comes from MacStories, but it’s too good to not share.

If you are a DEVONthink user, this is a really nice touch. I’ve downloaded and used jsloop’s custom CSS, and it’s terrific.

I had no idea you could do this in DT, and it makes all the difference in the world.

There are directions for both DEVONthink 3 and DEVONthink To Go 3, and you are free to use jsloops CSS to get you started. Then it’s easy to make tweaks after that.

The two links:

https://www.devontechnologies.com/blog/20250327-markdown-stylesheet-jsloop

https://jsloop.net/2025/03/22/markdown-theming-in-devonthink-3

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:50:28 -0700

ElevationLab has a new AirTag Camera Plate that is Arca-compatible. Ordered one to try it out.

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:28:17 -0700

I did 1,157 books the old fashioned way, with lots and lots and lots of clicking. Don’t be like me, be smart. Follow this 👇

‘How to bulk download Kindle files, while you can’ 🔗 Jason Snell / sixcolors.com

Bringing a Little Joy Into My Day and Weekly Planning

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 15:22:31 -0700

There are endless blog posts about the latest to-do apps and systems. My goal is not to proclaim from the rooftops that I’ve found the secret to daily planning success but to share some thoughts on a few options that I have found very rewarding.

I have a constant struggle with Analog vs Digital; it perturbs me how much I think about this. I’ve given up worrying about which type of system it is, and I do what feels right and what keeps me on track. And, if that system brings a little joy to the process, even better.

I’ve been a Things app user for years now and love it. It’s quick and easy on all my devices and syncs well. It’s always on my desktop at home as a gentle reminder to keep me on track for the day. My problem with it is planning my week or my day. Things is an ever-growing constant list that mostly sits stagnant, and I have little interaction with it on a daily basis. I’ve tried building my day in calendar apps, and that works, but they don’t stay open. I close them at some point, and the day aimlessly drifts off down rabbit holes. One requirement I’ve found is that the day planner must always be visible.

When planning my week and day, I was missing something and wasn’t staying on track throughout the day. It’s all there in Things, but I don’t have any draw to it; I can’t touch it or grab it and alter it. I’m primarily digital, but I need/crave some pen and paper touch—not too much, though; I’ve tried paper journaling, and that’s too much. I love journaling in DayOne.

Enter Ugmonk. First, this is not a cheap system upfront, but by the time you read this, they will have a much more affordable metal version for sale (launching February 19th, 2025), which has been much needed. Also, this system is not complex; you could easily make your own with some woodworking skills or a 3D printer and 3x5 cards. The cost for me is worth it; it brings me a little joy, it looks great sitting on the desk, and I’ve stayed on track better throughout the day.

I’ve been using the system for over a month and love it. I’m still not sold on using the weekly and daily views together, but for now, it’s both. It comes down to how your brain works and what you need to see. I’m a person with an odd job. I’m away from home for 3 to 4 days a week. So, when I’m home, I need to see what is left of my week and what I want to accomplish that day. I never know what day of the week or day of the month it is; it just doesn’t matter to me. I have large calendar widgets on all my devices to help me remember. All I want to know, what I need to know, is how many days off I have until I go back to work and what I want to get done on those days.

I use the weekly card for this. On my first day off, I grab a fresh card and my favorite pen and map out my week in broad strokes; it sits on my desk, so I’m constantly reminded. Then, each day, I formulate a plan with the daily card.

There is something special about grabbing that thick, beautiful paper and writing on it with your favorite pen. It gives substance to the plan; it sinks it just a little bit deeper into memory by writing it out. It makes me smile; it brings just a little joy, and I like that. Plus, I always have paper to quickly grab to make quick notes using the backside of the weekly or daily card. When done with the day or the week, I can store them away, or I’ve been using them for bookmarks.

As an option to this analog version, I just learned about Tweek. I’ve used this alongside my Ugmonk/Things system just for testing. I think Tweek is really cool; I wish I had come up with it. If I ever want to drop Ugmonk, I’d go with Tweek. They have full function under their free plan, so you can test it to see if it fits into your world. But it’s sterile for me; I need some analog, I need to touch some nice paper, and I need to use my favorite pen. I need that little piece of joy to start my day, the constant visual reminder, and that satisfaction of marking off an item with my Sharpie.

I hope some of this helps you with your task list. Thank you, as always, for visiting my little piece of the web. Cheers!

Things

Ugmonk

tweek.so

KIWIX - A User Report

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:15:43 -0700

I’ve seen this posted about Mastodon a lot, and then @amerpie posted about it yesterday, and I thought, why the heck not? Let’s check it out; I’ve got some time to kill.

So, yeah, this KIWIX is really cool. I’m not a Super Bowl kind of guy, so I downloaded Kiwix and then proceeded to download the entire Wikipedia, then iFixit, then Gutenberg. Sheesh, why not? I have a Synology with ample space, so why not lock some of this stuff in and have it on local storage?

If you read some of the reviews on Kiwix, you’d think it doesn’t work well, but I’ve had zero issues with it; I’m using the Mac App. So now I’m a downloading fool, gathering what I can for no apparent reason other than because I can…

Here is their Library of downloads. Check it out and see if there is anything you may want to have stored locally.

Some of the files are huge, so good storage capacity is a must, but they have tons of different download options if you are interested in just sections of, say, Wikipedia.

You can even run a local Wi-Fi network from a Raspberry Pi with all your downloaded data. This would be great for classrooms, but I may do this just for the fun of it.

It’s good to have it stored locally, but clearly, the mission is for folks who have limited or no internet access. It’s free to use and looks like a worthy endeavor to support with your skills or finances.

Here is their About Page. Some pretty cool stuff here, like:

The Short Story Did you know that you could store the entirety of Wikipedia on your phone? And read it anywhere, at anytime?

The Long Story We can make highly compressed copies of entire websites that each fit into a single (.zim) file. Zim files are small enough that they can be stored on users’ mobile phones, computers or small, inexpensive Hotspot.

Kiwix then acts like a regular browser, except that it reads these local copies. People with no or limited internet access can enjoy the same browsing experience as anyone else.

The software as well as the content are fully open-source and free to use and share.

The Challenge
50% of the world’s population has no reliable access to the internet. This can be because of cost, lack of infrastructure, or censorship.

The Solution – How Does It Work?
We copy educational websites and compress them into files that people can take with them and browse anytime, anywhere. Kiwix Is Also A Nonprofit Most of our revenue comes from donations. We do not display ads, nor do we collect personal data.

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 16:16:23 -0700

🔗 How Your Thinking Changes at 60 | Andy’s Blog

Then you turn 60. And something shifts.
You stop caring about things that don’t matter.
You don’t need to prove yourself anymore.

You don’t need permission.
You don’t waste time on people who drain your energy.

You’ve seen enough trends, fads, and “next big things” to know they all pass.

And most importantly, you realize time is no longer on your side.

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 15:35:31 -0700

Carl Griffith’s 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter

Want a Sourdough Starter that’s been active since 1847? I can’t verify that the offer is still active, but we did it several years ago. Follow the directions exactly, or they won’t send it to you.

‘Source’ 🔗 Griffith / carlsfriends.net

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 21:42:37 -0700

‘How Often Do Health Insurers Say No to Patients? No One Knows.’ 🔗 Robin Fields / propublica.org

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 16:00:36 -0700

‘Public Domain Day 2025 in Literature - Blog’ 🔗 Standard EBooks / standardebooks.org

Books by William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Mahatma Gandhi, and John Steinbeck enter the U.S. public domain