My friend and I reunite after 18 months. I missed him dearly, but once we sit down for ramen we can both tell it’s like we were there yesterday. I talk about him often. He’s the person who was so discombobulated by Dutch white innocence, that he felt more comfortable going back to the Middle East to live in the closet. He’s doing better now. No more crack, and the spinning class is surprisingly inclusive. He even joined a theatre group.

I am notorious for never grasping how many people know how much about what. To save myself from any further embarrassment I won’t spend my time here telling you what the app is about. The team does that nicely over here. I do think I have something to say about what Scriptogr.am came exactly at the right time for me.

As we more further down the line of Web 2.0 and slowly into the abyss that is Web 3.0, I feel the definitions of web design are evolving greatly. I remember back in the day when it was just one website out of fifty that looked really beautiful, and how I would spend many hours on the site just being surrounded by all the pretty. Now, as more and more distinct design trends are emerging, looking pretty isn’t the main goal anymore. It has become a criterium. And most websites I know meet that criterium in one way or another. Now that the eyes have what they need, the user wants for the website to be up to speed with their brain.

Liked https://christianbuehlmann.com/a-mon-sujet-english/

I’m humbled by learning that my words are the introduction of someone else’s biography.

Recently, I’ve been making some great progress with my personal website. While I normally don’t engage in technical ballets on the goings-on of this website, I feel it’s relevant to document what I’ve learnt and done, if only for posterity.

Tools

• Jekyll: as is often the case for me, this site is built using my favorite flat-file content management system
• Github: hosts the code for this website
• Netlify: serves the content to my website
• Obsidian: I write in a single Obsidian vault
• obsidian-git: helps me manage the version control of my Obsidian content
• Push git subdirectory as branch: a Github action that lets me publish a part of the content of my Obsidian vault to a separate repository
• Git submodule: my separate repository is pulled into my website’s code base
• Netlify build hook: every day, Netlify looks for new content and publishes it to my website

Why this is great

• I hold the strong belief that tools don’t matter. This means, among other things, that I don’t like to be limited to using particular platforms or apps to write. I want to see my files in a folder that I can move around. Jekyll allows me to do just this.
• My website is a text-heavy space: most of what you’ll find on here is written content. As a knowledge worker, writing is an integral part of my daily life. Many of the things I write are not for public consumption, but they are closely linked to things that are. To avoid duplicate content and awkward linking, it was important for me to manage my text files in a single space, one Obsidian vault.
• I have a tendency to tinker a lot on my website. This can make it so that I spend more time trying out new things and changing the design than I do writing. Having my code base and content separated helps me focus more on writing things that are meaningful to me.

Some things I haven’t figured out yet

• Is it worthwhile for me to publish more granular IndieWeb post types such as notes and likes? Do I care about them? Am I making them only to show them? What’s their value if I cannot automate this process? Does the technical implementation change if I push said content to a git repository that consists of only notes?
• What does a proper dark mode look like?
• Do I want to continue my barebones experiment and document the discomfort of vanity? Or am I ready for something more modern?
• How in the world do I even go about Micropub and Webmentions?

Brushing my teeth on Friday morning, I think about the weekend ahead, secretly complaining that my social engagements will keep me from getting the rest I need. Then I remember Easter Monday. The true marker of my mid-thirties is the excitement I feel at the prospect of a bed, and nothing but it.

I hold a baby this week, one of my favorite ones. His face has two states that exist simultaneously: the one of utter shock and surprise only newborns can have, and the one that reminds you that babies know everything about the world and forget it as soon as they start to speak. He laughs when I bop his nose, although I quickly learn that the force with which I bop Anja’s adult nose shan’t be applied here.

It was indeed great while it lasted, until about three weeks ago. Churning out little posts, coming up with fun tidbits, roaming the streets of Eindhoven with a little noteback. Getting feedback. Compliments. Your mother’s cousins’ daughters’ coworkers are reading your blog. And then university life begins. And there is time for nothing.

So here’s a change of strategy, and of pace.

This website will be featuring different forms of content from now on. No more updates on my general well-being, college achievements, and peculiar trains of thought. Sure, there’s enough happening, but the focus isn’t where it should be: on a white piece of paper. Instead of feeling shame about my lack of commitment, I will simply change the contents.