Joel Hook’s digital garden is definitely a model. I don’t think a blog is bad for me, but readers don’t want to wade through the mix of personal writings and more interesting stuff. (Do they? Honestly I enjoy it, but I don’t know about others.)

Paul Graham’s site is a collection of essays. I really admire it. Having a clear and long arguments about something while being relatable without being judgy is really something else. He doesn’t really have.. references? Maybe because he’s already experienced what he’s saying. Sometimes his posts are short too. And interestingly he set a pretty short linebreak, so his paragraphs are actually not that long each, but looks proportional. I really love how he starts with a central idea (If you wanted to get rich, how would you do it? I think your best bet would be to start or join a startup.) and delves down on the idea, scale, opposing views, and takes you on a tour.

Pawlean.com is a really personal blog. I still feel a bit too.. vulnerable to write like that. But I like the fact that it’s not about being authoritative or even guiding, but just telling her experience.

jenny.world is also a very personal and mixed site. Kinda like tumblr (is it tumblr? it is). I really, really like Vacuuming. On another note, giving up hosting/other stuff to tumblr is a good idea. But I’ll stick with jekyll for now.

notes.andymatuschak.org is a really experimental UI. Well at the end of the day it’s for me to look at how to take notes more properly instead of a blog. The really interesting idea for me right now seems to be Close open loops. I like the sentence-as-title system he got there too. How to succinctly express an idea and have it as a relationship. Have to start taking more notes, honestly.

I also want a /now page like sivers.org/nowff describes. Or make that my main page (his front page is pretty cool too). Listing all the things I’m into right now (tech stack, FE learnings, hobby (simracing), ideas floating in my head.) and last updated is pretty important too.

Simon Willison’s site is also freaking great. I love the fact that he has both a blog standard (‘entries’) and other random stuff curated (‘til’, ‘links’ and ‘quotes’). I don’t know whether I post often enough to do that, but it is cool to see that separation. Monthly entry archive vs a daily view that includes quotes and links. Turns out the tag (example: datasette tag) also displayes all links and quotes related to that. I wonder what’s the difference between these in-the-moment short content and longer ‘entries’. It’s a weird mix between a publishing platform and a personal knowledge management thing for him.

The biggest thing from Simon’s site is that I want to use that format to curate what I come across on twitter/other daily or even from my library. Setting things up to be curated piecemeal but merged into tags. I already have several pieces related to a topic, but not organized into tags. Example: With enough sacrafices.., Fate/Destiny/Life, Our Life is Not Ours.

Some more inspiration that’s stuck on my curation: Khanism’s Fate and Destiny (I think there’s a specific post that really resonates with me but can’t find the link) and Melting Asphalt’s A Natural History of Beauty.

Honestly, all this stuff is useless if I don’t write. This is why I posted this up on the blog. Let’s keep this going. ✌️