The steam of the espresso machine — of focusing in the milk to make sure it is just right, of tapping to remove the bubbles, of preparing. Soft instrumental music plays in the background, more upbeat than the music to which I was listening earlier — easing me more into the da...
This post was written first with my screenless writing interface, and then edited in Ghost, which I use to publish blog posts to this website. The extent of my edits were fixing typos and reworking the introduction and conclusion a little bit.
My original concern when brains...
This text below post is presented verbatim, as it was typed with only a keyboard: without a display or any assistive technology. Typos are left in. The "Notes after writing" and "My writing setup" sections were typed on my Mac as I prepared to publish the post.
This is my fi...
Every so often I have an idea for a feature that might be interesting in a web reader. I write down my ideas in my notes. Sometimes, an idea makes its way into Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain. Other times, the idea stays in my notes where it can breathe, mature, and m...
I have been working on a few new features for Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain. You can read a summary of what’s new below.
See, sort, rename, and delete folders
You can now view a list of the folders you have created, specify in what order folders should appear in you...
In my last two blog posts, I discussed how I use greyscale mode on my phone and night shift on my computer. These blog posts were inspired by discussions happening in the IndieWeb community about greyscale, and now, more generally, how we use our phones.
My phone, an iPhone,...
Writing my post on how I use my phone in grayscale yesterday got me thinking about other customisations I make to the computing devices I use. The first one that came to mind is that I keep my laptop, and by extension my external display when I am using it, in night shift mod...
Back in 2023 I challenged myself to use my phone in greyscale mode for a week. The experiment was successful: a week later, I was still using my phone in greyscale mode. At some point afterwards, I did disable greyscale mode. But last year, or early this year (I can't remembe...
I took Edward Tufte’s online course on analysing and presenting data. It lasted four hours and was a mixture of reading from his books and listening to lecture material. The course was terrific and I learned so much. As I was taking the course, I took down a few quotes that s...
My first thought was the field of pink petals. Day by day, petals fall from the tree as green leaves grow from the blossom. I wonder for how long the petals will keep falling. There seem to be a million dots of pink in spring, from which there is a new perspective to see ever...
The day holds onto the light for as long as it can. The warm glow of the horizon reminds me of all of the bright adventures of the day, and makes me wonder “what will I do tomorrow?”. I can see the first star, which means that night will soon be here; the time for rest, processing, and preparing to imagine tomorrow.
(Written a few days ago, and published on a rainy evening where the memories of the sunset on a clear evening warm my heart.)
Every so often I think about the word “content.” It’s not my favourite word. Content feels relatively flat compared to the things to which it can refer.
I have been meaning to write about my preference for something else for a while: I prefer to say “my words” or “my stories...
I don’t think I will need my jacket. The weather is warm enough that I can go outside without one. It always feels both special and jarring on the first days of the year when the world is so warm that you can go out without a jacket – the anticipation for the warmth clashes w...
Log in, sign in
I recently experimented with writing a new 401 page for the IndieWeb wiki to replace the default nginx page we have. My experiment is not live yet, but I wanted to document a few of the decisions I made while writing the page.
First, I chose the title “You ne...
I think about joy when I make web pages. If you hover over the mascot on my blog, its eyes will open. The typeface of my blog title on my home page is the same one Taylor Swift used for her evermore album. If you explore my website for long enough, you will find an Easter egg...
The moment when the sun crosses the horizon feels like it should last longer than it does. Within a few minutes, the sun has moved out of view; the red glow — a moment of transition (is all of life a moment, or moments, of transition?) — tells us where the sun once was. The g...
The joy of exploring a city with friends — of getting lost and finding your sense of place again, of laughing under the moon and discussing the rainbows we see when we look at light; of discussing the cuisine of Germany in a warmly lit bakery, a treat as the day came to an end; of looking forward to the next day — conversations and talks and futures.
While I was away in Düsseldorf, and when I got back, I received a notification in Artemis asking whether I wanted to change the time zone in which the reader was set. It is important that the user’s timezone is correct so that Artemis can continue to update at midnight in the...
Since the release of Artemis, the settings page has been growing steadily in size. What was a few options has grown into over a dozen. With every added option, it was harder to find each individual option.
The new settings page
With that in mind, over the last few weeks I hav...
Last week, I had a call with someone for an upcoming project. I naturally asked how the weather was. Shortly after I asked, I realised that I don’t like to ask about the weather just because British people like talking about the weather. I realised that I wanted to see a sliv...
A row of people waving with smiles on their faces, the attendees of IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf. I am positioned third from the left, in my favourite jacket, blue denim. ALTA row of people waving with smiles on their faces, the attendees of IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf. I am positione...
I like to walk quickly. One of my childhood friends did, too. Whenever I reflect on the pace at which I walk, I think of the times when we tried to walk as fast as possible. My friend was much more athletic than I – with longer legs, too – so they often had the edge in walkin...
In 2018, David and Chris recorded a podcast episode about the indie web in which the topic “living the indie web life” came up. As soon as I heard the phrase, I thought to myself: what does living the indie web life mean to me?
This evening I hosted an online Homebrew Websit...
The kitchen was scattered with rainbows as the sun shone through the frosted glass. Maybe the glass was put there to make rainbows; what was the architect thinking when they designed this place? I saw the shadows of my head and my hair cast onto the cabinets. Can I make a sha...
Part of the motivation behind some of my top-level pages like my ideas lists is that I feel some things should have a URL. Giving something a URL gives it a place on the web. One area where I feel this could be applied more is in newsletters. I wish email newsletters had corr...
I think I watch the two trees outside that blossom beautifully in spring with such attention because they are so close. Those trees are with me when I say “cheers” every morning before I drink a glass of orange juice; they are there when I look out to watch the sun set, and w...
Over on Bear Blog, Thereabouts posted “The greatest breakfast food in existence”. When I read the title, my face lit up. “A blog post about breakfast food!” It got me thinking about what breakfast brings me the most joy. I think the answer is waffles and coffee.
This time ar...
Last week someone who uses Artemis suggested that it would be nice to be able to use the software with a custom subdomain on their website. This feature suggestion got me thinking about the “own your links” concept in the IndieWeb. While the current version of the “own your l...
Behind the counter in a coffee shop I visited last week there was a whiteboard which read [1]:
Sunday debate:
Custard creams or chocolate bourbons
There were dozens of tally marks on the board and counts from a social media poll. The results were:
Custard creams: 212Bourbons: 171
I love both biscuits, so if there were a both option I would have voted as such; if I had to pick one, it would be custard creams, though. Otherwise, I might have said fig rolls, a biscuit I had for the first time in ages this week. Fig rolls may not have been an option, but they sure are tasty.
[1]: Given I saw the whiteboard on a week day, I assume the debate was going to run for a week, despite the title being "Sunday debate". In any case, any day is a good day to chat about biscuits.
I was inspired by, of all things, a video monologue by a Scottish surfer [1] who said that the future for them was challenging themselves in new ways. My guitar was close by and I thought maybe I should give myself a bit of a challenge too. I picked up my guitar and looked up...
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