From 165227d0c6cf777c244bc46629eef733d37d3501 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bfahrenfort Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2023 12:30:16 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Quartz sync: Sep 8, 2023, 12:30 PM --- content/Essays/productivity.md | 7 ++++++- content/Essays/why-i-garden.md | 12 ++++++++---- content/Programs I Like/obsidian.md | 11 ++++++++++- .../Programs I Like/on-self-hosted-software.md | 4 +--- content/Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden.md | 2 +- content/Projects/my-computer.md | 17 ++++++++++++++++- content/Updates/2023/sept.md | 5 ++++- content/on-linux.md | 17 ++++++++++++++++- content/templates/Update.md | 2 ++ 9 files changed, 64 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/Essays/productivity.md b/content/Essays/productivity.md index e07b023c5..664910861 100644 --- a/content/Essays/productivity.md +++ b/content/Essays/productivity.md @@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ This article is split into four sections: You'll notice that the more performance has a direct relationship to price, and complexity has an inverse relationship to price. Something that you set up that's highly complex is likely to be free, but easy and user-friendly tools may be paid, with price increasing the more performant and feature-rich they are. +Only one tool doesn't fit into any of the categories below, and that's [[Programs I Like/obsidian|Obsidian]]: a free, cross-platform notetaker that is only as hard to use as you make it. It has its own paid sync service to keep notes in parity between devices, but there's a plugin called [[Projects/Obsidian/livesync|Obsidian LiveSync]] that allows you to selfhost your notes encrypted and for free. See also [[Projects/Obsidian/home|my Obsidian setup]], where the difficulty of getting it to work varies wildly with the different components. + ## General Advice - Go to sleep. Seriously, do it. I think that mood is deeply related to productivity. [Studies have shown](https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/irregular-sleep-connected-bad-moods-and-depression-study-shows) that your day-to-day mood corresponds to the regularity of your sleep schedule. - This more applies if your work/school has a high time commitment or a penchant for overtaking other things: @@ -17,15 +19,18 @@ You'll notice that the more performance has a direct relationship to price, and - Logically think about a few of the things you do for fun and designate those as your "hobbies." - Start thinking about your days in terms of accounting for work time, adulting time, and hobby time for one of your explicit hobbies. - At work from 8-6? Great. Is your gym or other recreational space only open at a certain time? Block it out for that hobby. Anything else can come in between. +- This is going to sound counter-productive, but actually don't spend time setting up any of the manual stuff below. That's time you could be spending doing actual work. I use my free time for all of this nonsense and it's probably a waste. ## Easy Tools ### On your computer -Fun and helpful, but ultimately constrained by the fact that you can only see them from one device in today's world. +Fun, helpful, easy to start using, but ultimately constrained by the fact that you can only see them from one device in today's world. - [TAPE](https://aeriform.itch.io/tape): a project manager for the creative minded. Cross platform. $5, less than a Starbucks, and you're supporting a really neat studio. - [JRNL]( https://blarfnip.itch.io/jrnl ), the one by Blarfnip: Similar idea to TAPE, but for daily journal entries. I'm not sure how good creating a habit of sitting down at your computer is though. Windows only. Also $5. ### On the Web / Otherwise Cross-Platform or Collaborative - [Notion](https://www.notion.so/): Feature-rich collaborative knowledge sharing space for whatever you desire. Personal notes and goals? Digital autogardening? Project collaboration? Done. Free tier along with a [pricing scheme](https://www.notion.so/pricing). [Free Plus account with a student email]( https://www.notion.so/product/notion-for-education ). + - Many people have concerns with Notion's privacy, so many alternatives exist. [AppFlowy](https://appflowy.io/) looks very powerful from the outside although I haven't used it. + - As always, reddit is a great place for a litany of opinions on any subject. Here's [the productivity take on Notion alternatives](https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/11zj8dj/better_safer_alternative_to_notion/). Let me know if this link goes down due to reddit chicanery. - [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/): Free collaboration-optional research tracker. [[Projects/zotero-lexis-plus|I made it compatible with legal research.]] ## Medium Tools diff --git a/content/Essays/why-i-garden.md b/content/Essays/why-i-garden.md index 8c6e9fd07..b6d94f7a5 100644 --- a/content/Essays/why-i-garden.md +++ b/content/Essays/why-i-garden.md @@ -2,19 +2,23 @@ title: Why I Garden tags: ["incomplete", "cloud", "essay"] --- -### Short answer: fun. +## Short answer: fun. I don't get to write stream-of-consciousness in my day-to-day, or to document arbitrary technical problems and how I've solved them. This is a fun place for that outlet. -### Long Answer +## Long Answer There are a lot of beautiful rabbit holes on the internet if you know where to look. Wikis for arbitrary fandoms, project websites, blogs, the like. I'd like to be one of those, or at least a starting point for someone to find a rabbit hole. The kind of experience I want to be a part of has some basis in the early internet. There was a vocal minority pushing for this sort of unguided exploration, supplemented only by signposts of where one *could* travel from a given page, instead of where one *should* travel [[#1.|(1)]]. - -#### References +--- +## References ##### 1. [Maggie Appleton - A Brief History and Ethos of the Digital Garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) ##### 2. + +--- +## Further Reading +Jacky Zhao has a really good garden if you'd like to explore it [here](https://jzhao.xyz/). They're also the creator of Quartz, which is [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden|how I publish this site]]. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/Programs I Like/obsidian.md b/content/Programs I Like/obsidian.md index 0c273a3c3..84726d938 100644 --- a/content/Programs I Like/obsidian.md +++ b/content/Programs I Like/obsidian.md @@ -1,8 +1,17 @@ --- title: Obsidian +tags: + - incomplete + - productivity --- > Obsidian is the private and flexible note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think. > > \- [obsidian.md](https://obsidian.md/) -I love, love, LOVE this application. \ No newline at end of file +I love, love, LOVE this application. + +Full overview of features and why it's the ultimate productivity solution in the works. + +--- + +For a discussion of my obsidian setup for ease of use, productivity, AND hosting this website, see [[Projects/Obsidian/home|Projects: Obsidian]]. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/Programs I Like/on-self-hosted-software.md b/content/Programs I Like/on-self-hosted-software.md index 72492a3fd..c5ed92678 100644 --- a/content/Programs I Like/on-self-hosted-software.md +++ b/content/Programs I Like/on-self-hosted-software.md @@ -1,6 +1,4 @@ --- title: On Self-Hosted Software --- -## What is Self-Hosted Software? - -## Why do I like Self-Hosted Software so much? +This page should really just be a redirect to [[Projects/my-cloud|My Cloud]]. I have a whole essay on the subject there. diff --git a/content/Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden.md b/content/Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden.md index 1d890fe2e..312113a41 100644 --- a/content/Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden.md +++ b/content/Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ This isn’t my first web project. I’ve created homepages for open source proj ## About Quartz Quartz is a publishing system that allows you to take Markdown in a variety of different flavors and host it as a website! One of those flavors is Obsidian markdown, which means it's a choice for publishing your Obsidian notes. All of these webpages are edited right inside Obsidian (either on my laptop or my phone, thanks [[Projects/Obsidian/livesync|LiveSync]]), and then I can tell Quartz to throw my changes on GitHub for them to be deployed automatically. -As for why I chose Quartz over the conventional [Obsidian Publish](https://obsidian.md/publish) route, The primary reason was cost at first: I could run this for free on my own hosting. However, it turns out that the community around extending and improving Quartz is absolutely HUGE! New features are being merged almost every day, and I'm happy to say that I've contributed to a few features and bugfixes. +As for why I chose Quartz over the conventional [Obsidian Publish](https://obsidian.md/publish) route, The primary reasons were convenience and cost at first: it was easy to edit right out of Obsidian, and I could run this for free on my own hosting. However, it turns out that the community around extending and improving Quartz is absolutely HUGE! New features are being merged almost every day, and I'm happy to say that I've contributed to a few features and bugfixes. Many people will run Quartz out of the root of their Obsidian notes, but I run the site out of a subdirectory of my main [Obsidian Vault](https://help.obsidian.md/Getting+started/Create+a+vault). This is because I don't want to publicly expose all of my notes. This subdirectory is symlinked as the `content` folder in my repository that the site runs out of. - Sidebar: this makes link autocomplete weird. diff --git a/content/Projects/my-computer.md b/content/Projects/my-computer.md index f80ef9ebd..9145fc5af 100644 --- a/content/Projects/my-computer.md +++ b/content/Projects/my-computer.md @@ -38,4 +38,19 @@ I use a [bare git repository](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles) #### Config Hell - There are a lot of little tweaks I do to software to make it fully useful to me, which is the one argument I’ve ever raised *against* compartmentalizing through Flatpak, Snap, etc. - I have a bunch of Flatpak programs with absolutely no settings sync or remotely near the capability to sync, so what do I do when I want to migrate? -- Hey kids wanna see a dead husk of a man? Come find me three hours after I update my Neovim install. Dear lord, that thing breaks OFTEN. \ No newline at end of file +- Hey kids wanna see a dead husk of a man? Come find me three hours after I update my Neovim install. Dear lord, that thing breaks OFTEN. +## Software +Any software that's actually of note can be found in [[Programs I Like/home|Programs I Like]]. Here, I'll just go over some tenets I've noticed when dealing with my computer as a tool for my work, my projects, and my personal life. +### Resistance +To me, "resistance" is the subjective difficulty involved with installing new tools. In simpler terms, it's how much of a fight your computer puts up. I believe that your computer should adapt to you, rather than the other way around, which is a major part of the reason why I use linux. + +For example, Windows is very high-resistance in general: finding an executable for the tool (hopefully portable, otherwise it's an installer which is even more resistance), putting it in the correct place, and potentially dealing with UAC to authorize where you put it or to allow it to run properly. + +It goes without saying that package managers alleviate resistance significantly. A single source for no-nonsense installs of almost everything you need! +#### Immutable Distros +Something that's gaining popularity is the immutable operating system, where the underlying filesystem is intentionally resistant to change. I don't see this as overly resistant in my sense, mainly because providers like VanillaOS and Fedora Silverblue recognize that this resistance is present and provide alternative routes to install software. It's more of a compromise. +### Friction +I define "friction" in a computer as the subjective mental or physical effort required to access a tool that you already have. This is less tied to OS than resistance, and can vary by tool or environment. + +If something is low-friction, it gets used, and used often. As a matter of fact, the reason I've swapped around so much for my notes solution is because I've been trying to find something low-friction. [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden|Quartz]] appealed to me for this website simply because it was low friction and I could author content right out of my notetaker. +- For example, [[Programs I Like/obsidian|Obsidian]] is more feature rich than the alternatives while being more accessible. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/Updates/2023/sept.md b/content/Updates/2023/sept.md index 974c4e433..b873ac218 100644 --- a/content/Updates/2023/sept.md +++ b/content/Updates/2023/sept.md @@ -16,4 +16,7 @@ There'll also be a small blog component to it. ## New Pages - I fiddled with the [[index|homepage]] a bit. - I added comments with Remark42, and documented it [[Projects/Obsidian/quartz-comments|here]]. -- I started fleshing out [[Projects/my-computer|My Computer]]. \ No newline at end of file +- I started fleshing out [[Projects/my-computer|My Computer]]. +- I'm researching and angling towards fully writing through the essay on [[Essays/why-i-garden|Why I Garden]]. +## Status Updates +- I finally got around to looking into Mastodon and the Fediverse more broadly. The ideas are *insanely* cool. Expect pages and maybe projects on it in future. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/on-linux.md b/content/on-linux.md index e6abf4f63..43f46bf59 100644 --- a/content/on-linux.md +++ b/content/on-linux.md @@ -5,4 +5,19 @@ tags: ["linux", "cloud", "advanced", "incomplete"] This page documents my many adventures with Linux and why I enjoy it. ## Virtualization -Virtualization is a great way to get acquainted with Linux. If you're a student, check if your university has VMware (also see [[for-students|Resources for Students]] in general). \ No newline at end of file +Virtualization is a great way to get acquainted with Linux. If you're a student, check if your university has VMware (also see [[for-students|Resources for Students]] in general). + +I started messing with Linux in a virtual machine, and testing to see if I'd be able to daily drive it. My experiments with Ubuntu went pretty well, but it didn't feel good to use in a normal-computer sense. I tried again with Linux Mint, and ended up liking it a lot more. However, the Cinnamon DE was a bit too unstable for my liking. More on that in [[#Bare Metal|-> Bare Metal]]. +## Single-Purpose Computing +At the time of my experiments with Linux, I was part of a professional organization with its own club room at my undergraduate institution. In this club room was a big plywood monstrosity with a TV up top and a tower PC underneath, shaped like an arcade cabinet. Complete with buttons and joysticks, this cab was the ultimate 4-player emulation machine. + +The problem: Everything was broken, and nobody could fix it. It ran Ubuntu 16 and had mountains of emulators and games, but none of the emulators would load. I asked around and apparently it had been sitting like that since before some of the seniors had started undergrad. + +As such, I took it upon myself to troubleshoot and fix the cab so that everyone could enjoy it. A few driver updates and fixed file paths later, it could run games again! + +It did need some special setup to run RetroArch, so I created a script and left a text file tutorial on the desktop to make sure that people could run it in future. + +The response I got was amazing! Everyone in the organization was extremely grateful, and I'm so happy I undertook that project. + +Unfortunately, the cabinet was scrapped earlier this year due to space requirements and a shifting purpose for the room, but it did end up being used actively for a few years, so I don't regret the project at all. +## Bare Metal \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/templates/Update.md b/content/templates/Update.md index 28febb816..911eed8ed 100644 --- a/content/templates/Update.md +++ b/content/templates/Update.md @@ -8,4 +8,6 @@ tags: ## Housekeeping ## New Pages +- +## Status Updates - \ No newline at end of file