• embark-org-insert-link-to - 2024-11-02T15:49:09.420Z

  Ooh, it looks like `consult-org-heading` already lets me use embark-act with the shortcut `j` to call `embark-org-insert-link-to`. It doesn't feel like a "j" shortcut, though, so I'll just bind it to `L` for "link" instead: `(keymap-set embark-org-heading-map "L" #'embark-org-insert-link-to)`

• EmacsConf progress: intros - 2024-11-01T18:32:21.973Z

  #emacsconf progress: I've recorded intros for all the talks so that speakers can review them, and some of the talk videos have started coming in. I'll ask the speakers for feedback after the video upload target date. Still slightly stressed about the prospect of replacing or re-setting-up BigBlueButton; corwin has taken over the stressing out about it at the moment.

• Planet Emacslife CSS tweaks - 2024-11-01T13:14:52.582Z

  More tweaks to https://planet.emacslife.com: now using flex layout, so it should be a bit more responsive to screen size; sticky headers on large screens so that you can see which post it is when you scroll down. Does it make sense to do sticky headers on small screens? I don't want long titles taking up too much screen space on phones…

• Emacs commits in Planet Emacslife? - 2024-11-01T11:14:53.651Z

  How do people feel about automatically including #Emacs commits affecting etc/NEWS and Org Mode's ORG-NEWS in https://planet.emacslife.com ? Handy for staying up to date? Too much, since it's easy to subscribe separately?

• Thinking about navigating a large archive - 2024-10-30T14:48:16.127Z

  I use the 11ty static site generator to publish my blog as plain HTML pages. I have a lot of posts in some categories, like Emacs. I want to generate some of the pages for easier browsing, but I'm not sure it makes sense to generate all of them. Right now I generate 5 pages of posts and then a page that links to all of them. (Ex: https://sachachua.com/blog/category/emacs). It occurred to me that it might not be obvious that there are more than 5 pages of posts (since we're more used to dynamic systems that paginate as much as needed). I wonder how I can make that clearer - oh, maybe I can add the number of posts.

  There's probably stuff I can do to make the All Posts easier to explore, too. I've started making topic pages. I'm also curious about implementing the stacked-cards navigation you see in digital gardens like https://notes.andymatuschak.org/ .

  Ideas? Pointers to other statically generated blogs with large categories who've figured some of this out?

• Living in the shallows - 2024-10-30T00:24:48.668Z

  Juxtaposing "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" (Nicholas Carr), "Deep Work" (Cal Newport), and "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" (Oliver Burkeman), I find myself leaning more towards Burkeman's acceptance of limits and lack of control. I'd rather figure out how to embrace these shallows than to write off large portions of my life: parenting a young child with all the attendant interruptions (which I am learning to welcome) and preparing for eventual old age.

  One of the things I've learned while doing Emacs News is that even things I can do in the shallows can be useful. Organizing information and passing it along does not require deep reflection or a quiet mind.

  I can read in short bursts here and there, take notes, and share them.

  Most of my Emacs tweaks are short, but they accumulate.

  Now I am learning to write small thoughts. They are not amazing insights, but they are enough for me, and sometimes they resonate with other people.

  Besides, even when I had full autonomy during my experiment with semi-retirement, it's not like I did amazingly deep stuff either. So that's all cool and I don't have to kid myself or feel like I'm missing out. Instead, I can enjoy this time in the shallows, when doing the dishes or tidying up is pretty much on the same level as many other things on my list of things I could do (probably more useful than most things, even). I can let myself be interruptible, and I can play with the fragments of my attention.

  Follow-up post: Embracing the shallows

• The Imagination Muscle - 2024-11-02T21:22:36.486Z

  AoM podcast on The Imagination Muscle:

  My notes:

  • Observation is the start of imagination.
  • Commonplace book, sketches
  • Observational closure
  • Reading many books at the same time, connecting commonplace books - this makes me think of dancer curiosity
  • History of coffee shops in London, clusters

  I wonder how I can use sketches and/or microblog posts and my Org files as commonplace books…

• Doodling in blog posts - 2024-11-04T21:17:03.208Z

  I had fun breaking up the monotony of text with doodles: https://sachachua.com/blog/2024/11/a-year-with-my-cargo-bike/ Also, yay #biking!

You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.