Raindrop annotations
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I try to apply a rule that if I do something, and don’t write about it—or otherwise generate external-facing evidence of it—it didn’t happen. I have built so many things in the dark, little experiments or software projects or essays that never saw the light of day. I want to put more things out. If it doesn’t merit an entire blog post, then at least a tweet.
My default mode is solipsism. I read in private, build in private, learn in private. And the problem with that is self-doubt and arbitrariness. I’m halfway through a textbook and think: why? Why am I learning geology? Why this topic, and not another? There is never an a priori reason. I take notes, but why tweak the LaTeX if no-one, probably not even future me, will read them? If I stop reading this book, what changes? And doing things in public makes them both more real and (potentially) useful.
I’m interested in people who customize their experience of computing. This is often derided as “ricing”. But agency is interesting. People who remake their environment to suit them are interesting. And I am endlessly curious about how people do this.