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• Post #4383695

  As the most amateur of amateurs in photography, so far I've learned that: it's not the camera body, it's the lens — but also not the lens; it’s the settings. And not the settings; the composition. But not the composition; the LIGHT. And not even the light, but actually just being there with the camera at all. It turns out that photography is all about taking photos a lot, looking at them, and trying stuff to make them better the next time. I wish I'd been told this earlier.

• Post #3717926

  A rare al fresco breakfast in Edinburgh. ☀️

• Post #3635708

  When the aliens get here, amidst the ruins they’re going to find a bunch of Brother mono laser printers, still on the included toner cartridge, sitting there on the network ready to roll and wondering why nobody has printed a return label for five thousand years.

• Post #1574459

  Very excited about DaVinci Resolve getting a Photo page in the next version, for all the colour correction and node-based editing stuff. I will not use Lightroom because it's an Adobe product, and I'm hoping that Resolve can do enough of the things I need to unify the workflow a bit.

• Post #1116870

  My 272nd free weekly mini-story "Despair was the gun" is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/despair-was-the-gun/ (Why not subscribe to get these in your inbox too?) #amwriting #fiction #shortstory

• Post #1116869

  macOS 26.4 seems to remount unmounted drives when unlocking the screen. Apple keeps finding new ways to make me dread every update and its bizarre bugs.

• Post #1116868

  My 273rd free weekly mini-story "The Major Arcana" is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/the-major-arcana/ (Why not subscribe to get these in your inbox too?) #amwriting #fiction #shortstory

• Post #1116867

  Stats on my free weekly mini-stories* Began: 11th Jan, 2021 Stories so far: 273 Total words: ~345,000 Most common genres: supernatural 128, sci-fi 94, horror 59, crime 42 * https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/ #amwriting

• Post #1116866

  So, so, so, so tired of news from That Country.

• Post #1116865

  Tip for those in the US wondering which news stories are real and which are jokes today: the cruel, demented stuff that damages international relations for decades to come is real.

• Post #1116863

  Also known as the “fuck Sky and Adobe in particular” law. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg0v36ek2go

• Post #1116862

  Imagine the pride you must feel to have your home planet come back into view, re-establish contact, and get all the news stories about your head of state saying “a whole civilisation will die tonight”.

• Post #1116861

  RE: https://social.vivaldi.net/@ianbetteridge/116373365428559458 I think virtually everyone is in favour of a NATO (and everything else) without the US at this point. I’m also pretty sure that in the EU Council meetings about ongoing rearmament, they draw air-quotes around countering the threat of ✌️Russia✌️.

• Post #1116860

  👍 👍 Get the world off US big tech at all costs. @dch https://bsd.network/@dch/116377001378037840

• Post #978100

  Maximum hubris to post photos from a spacecraft of the beautiful planet that your country is absolutely dedicated to fucking up in every conceivable way.

• Post #695549

  30 years ago today, on 13th March 1996, I was sixteen and at high school. It was a Wednesday. Half an hour up the road in Dunblane, a man called Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school gymnasium with 4 legally-owned handguns and 743 rounds. He killed 16 children aged between 5 and 6, the age my son is right now. He also killed a teacher, and injured 15 others, then killed himself. It was and is the deadliest mass (4+ casualties) shooting in UK history.

• Post #695544

  Software running on the user account of a minor should be prohibited from showing UI or messaging related to purchases, including trial functionality.

• Post #581711

  Mad scientist but with a retro Macintosh vibe.

• Post #529848

  It stands for UnSafe. The sheer number of people we know who have cancelled their planned holidays and even business trips there for the forseeable future.

• Post #529847

  I think it would be quicker to list my acquaintances who haven't said some version of this.

• Post #529846

  Interesting that this time around they got to völkisch _after_ the camps instead of before. In the USA it’s currently 1937–38. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/fcc-asks-stations-for-pro-america-programming-like-daily-pledge-of-allegiance/

• Post #529845

  My 268th free weekly mini-story "Exile" is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/exile/ (Why not subscribe to get these in your inbox too?)

• Post #529843

  Latest reminder that the world must have complete independence from the USA, in every respect, as one of its primary policy goals. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-orders-diplomats-fight-data-sovereignty-initiatives-2026-02-25/

• Post #529842

  Let’s all just try to be kind to people, and be sure to tell them it's because I told you to.

• Post #529841

  My 269th free weekly mini-story "Donkey" is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/donkey/ (Why not subscribe to get these in your inbox too?) #amwriting #fiction #shortstory

• Post #529839

  And if you want to make genre/topic-specific (or otherwise filtered) books from Markdown-based content using my Pandoc Publish wrapper, I wrote up how I do that for my weekly stories: https://mattgemmell.scot/automating-novel-and-anthology-publishing/ https://aus.social/@Unixbigot/116156840668636158 https://aus.social/@Unixbigot/116156840668636158

• Post #529838

  Nine years.

• Post #445928

  I think the most emetic thing about the 1Password price increase for the family plan is that they refer to it as “updating” the pricing, noting that it had heretofore "remained largely unchanged". It bugged me, and I pondered why; I think it's because it contains the implication that an unpleasant (20%!) price increase ought to be accepted now because customers had graciously been excused some notional previous increases, as if there were an element of now-unsustainable...

• Post #445927

  Another in the ever-continuing series of Two Kinds of People In The World: those who want to actually create things, and those who are basically OK with using the stolen work of countless others to marginally increase their own convenience.

• Post #309320

  Another painful one to write, given my life-long love of Apple. The world must extricate itself from US big tech: https://mattgemmell.scot/liberty-as-resistance/