devlog
PROJECT: ENJOYMENTWORK (a digital garden)
A Digital Garden: Capturing my daily thoughts and progress, as well as curated ideas with unique synthesis–a personal zettelkasten.
** Table of Contents:**
NOTE: I must be concrete and clear with the intention of this project, or else it will never get off the ground. Set up a daily template. - Have a home for all my internal links in header, all external links in footer. - Focus on the process.
TODO:
Oct 20:
- REMEMBER: Most of the site is functional! Just focus on putting the right links and styles in the headers and footers.
- Integrate Twitter and Instagram
Oct 12:
- Research Enjoymentland and Buster's old stuff
- Watch Lynda course on how to deploy to Netlify w/ Travis CI
- Create loop that will show only CERTAIN posts on home page
- Replace SVGs with font-awesome
- Completely redo header
- Add logo
- Get Google Fonts
- FIX FOOTER!!
- Figure out a way to add a sidebar
- Have it only show up on homepage
- Make all fonts bigger
- Serif font for body text
- One post per week but edited daily?
- Apply pull request to original repo with cleaned syntax
COLLECTION IDEAS:
- About me / biography / history
- Every other profile/work I have online
- Groups / collections of people
- Communities, discords, etc.
My current problems with digital gardens:
- Lack of organization:
- The fact that things are relational doesn't mean that there's a need to remove a hierarchical structure that's obvious upon first glance.
- Storing too much:
- There's nothing helpful about having everything you know in one place. It has to meaningful and important. You also have to make sure you aren't letting your entire brain become a vast cavern as you try (in vain) to use a digital alternative.
- Second brain is a neat concept, but we're already extremely reliant on Google vs. our our recollection. There's no need to try to emulate Google and make our own version of it.
- Instead, rather, we should be trying to cultivate synthesis. In other words, attempt to discover completely novel ideas by having helpful meditations and dense information on niche topics that aren't Googleable be easily available.
Daily Journal Template:
- What did I do today?
- What am I grateful for? (3)
- What did I eat?
- Currently reading/learning/listening to
Oct 21 Devlog:
Previously ran into some issues with system Ruby vs. RVM. Ubuntu would default to 2.7 system version which would cause all the gems to be messed up and never be installed correctly in an endless loop. Luckily finally figured it out and fixed it.
Figured out how to add a sidebar, but don't think it's really necessary.
That said, I do want to forget
Keep current articles as cheatsheet for features of SJekyll, still need to get used to everything. Also need to start writing things so there's content on the website as soon as it's uploaded.
Added new icons to the header, starting to look pretty cool. I want to make a slight, pastel color when you highlight the links to give the site as a whole a bit more color. Also want to add icons to the footer as well.
Oct 25 Devlog:
I feel like a lot of progress has been made. The site's responsive design is essentially perfect now. I've tested it in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari and it looks good in each!
For the sake of speed, I will eventually need to prune the massive CSS file. I've already installed and configured a minifier but I know I can do even more optimization.
Looking at what's been created by the community for Jekyll, it really is amazing. There's so much that I still need to go through, but since Jekyll is relatively small, it's not like I'm overwhelmed with it.
There is a drawback that a lot of community-made additions are from several years ago, and Jekyll is in version 4 now, so certain things are either outright broken or need a lot of changing to keep them up to date.
That being said, some things still work perfectly fine! For example, I just added a table of contents right now! This repository hasn't been updated four years, but still works perfectly.
Master-list of Jekyll plugins: https://github.com/planetjekyll/awesome-jekyll-plugins
Master-list of Jekyll scripts/hacks: https://github.com/planetjekyll/awesome-jekyll-plugins/blob/master/PASTIES.md
TODO:
- Set fonts
- Configure /archive plugin
- Add pagination plugin (!!!)
- Add Jekyll dashboard for easy post writing and publishing
- Create official template for daily entries
Formatting TODO:
- On homepage:
- Dates, Tags, Categories
Oct 26 Devlog
- Add defaults for YAML front matter on posts (https://jekyllrb.com/docs/configuration/front-matter-defaults/)
Got a lot of work done today, probably the most amount of work in a single day yet. WakaTime says I coded for around seven hours–once you're in, you're in.
Most of the changes and updates that I've been making have been admittedly small and cosementic in nature, but that's really all that's needed. Getting the dates, tags, titles, etc. in the feed on the homepage looking the way I want is really all that's left.
One thing that I really need to focus on in the next coming days is making sure that I minimize and optimize as much as possible. The CSS file still has a ridiculous ±1,300 lines.
It's really amazing how much you learn about a whole bunch of different web development techniques and information. It's even crazier to think that I've been creating websites for this long and there's still so much I don't know, so much that I could be doing better.
Oh, one fun thing that I added is that each post can have it's own custom icon from Font Awesome–that's another thing, I need to "fix"
I figured out the bug causing the table of contents to have incorrectly-linked anchor tags on the page. It turns out it was because of one of the extra features I added to the <HEAD> tag. Whoops.
I've been looking into other people's versions of SJekyll, and have found two so far!
- https://bmannconsulting.com
- https://fakepixels.dev/about/
It's really great to see how other people utilize this, and what ideas they're carrying on with and what new concepts they're adding!
So far, it seems like I should completely revamp the home page, and have the feed for the blog somewhere separate, and also have the "journal" section be easily accessible and separated as well.
TODO:
- Add easy highlight style
Features
- Backlinks
- Related Posts
- Disqus Comments (find alternative?)
- "Content"
- Parse internal links, external links, transclusions etc and manipulate the content to reflect it accordingly.
- Bi-directionally link to other articles/posts/content on site
- Highlight broken/non-existing bi-directional links
- Add icons to links to specific sites (Wikipedia, GitHub, YouTube)
- Context Menu
- Unique feeds for posts vs. notes
- Simple, effective footer
- Comprehensive <HEAD>, thanks to: https://htmlhead.dev/
- MathJAX
- Dynamic search in header (with other helpful links)
Oct 27 Devlog
TODO:
-
Create a homepage that's separate from the post feed
-
Add /journal to search JSON
For markdown previews: https://jaspervdj.be/lorem-markdownum/ For breadcrumb trails: https://jekyllcodex.org/without-plugin/breadcrumbs/ Display all items from ALL collections: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31171041/listing-all-collections-in-jekyll extensive .gitignore: https://miguelmota.com/bytes/extensive-gitignore/ Be mindful of: https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
IMPORTANT: For technical files such as search.json, you need to ensure that the layout is set to null, so that the default site layout isn't used instead.
IMPORTANT: cdn.mathjax.org has been retired. Check https://www.mathjax.org/cdn-shutting-down/ for migration tips.
Change:
<script async src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-MML-AM_CHTML" type="text/javascript"></script>
To:
<script async src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.1/MathJax.js?config=TeX-MML-AM_CHTML" type="text/javascript"></script>
HOMEPAGE DRAFT
# Welcome to Brennan's Digital Garden
- About me / What I do / What this is
Of course, this is just a website, like any other. These grand ifeas regarding cognitive behavior and radical transformation of the internet are ideas that can only be conjured up by such a simple, static website if one were to be so idealistic, while also appreciating the gravity of importance regarding the future of the Internet for good.
> Is this just simply "premature optimization"? https://www.kevincunningham.co.uk/posts/premature-optimization/
## What is a Digital Garden?
- The Internet is Fundamentally Broken
- Agile
- Show Your Work
- Public Learning
- Vocabulary for digital learning and spaces
"It's less than a blog, more than a tweet." As part of my exploration of digital gardens and inspired by Anna and Kelly Pendergrast
### Why?
Digital Gardens solve two problems:
1. Our ability to COMMUNICATE and SHARE on the internet in novel, positive ways
2. Our ability to COMPRHEND and SYNTHESIZE information with emphasis on CREATIVITY rather than CONSUMPTION
3. What's a “new” idea? Related: what's an “original” thought?
Lavoisier once said: “Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme”—meaning “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.”
1. (https://www.mentalnodes.com/the-only-way-to-learn-in-public-is-to-build-in-public) The only way to learn in public is to build in public
Our natural fear of being judged leads most people to build, learn, and think privately. But seeking validation should not be the goal of learning in public. Instead, the goal should be to tap into your network's collective intelligence to create constructive feedback loops.
1A. Imagination is the second most powerful force on Earth
2. Keep your levels of consumption and creation balanced
2A. The three rules: From collector to creator
Many note-takers hoard content because it gives them an illusion of knowledge. The best way to truly understand anything is to use the generation effect: to produce your own content, in your own words, and to share it with the world to create a feedback loop.
Collect. Note-taking, raw snippets, Kindle highlights + personal commentary.
Connect. Link to previous notes. Do not keep orphan notes.
Create. Write original article.
3. Mechanical note-taking (listening and passively writing down) is useless for memory and creativity.
First, the generation effect shows that we remember information better when we create our own version of it.
Second, creativity requires the ability to connect the dots between many ideas and content sources, sometimes in surprising ways. Raw notes, especially when classified by topic or category or source and thus living in silos, do not allow for discovering these surprising connections. Do not keep orphan notes.
4. Writing is thinking
There is a text renaissance. Organic thinking tools include chatting with someone, doodling, mathematics, and writing.
5. Complex thinking is impossible without external scaffolding
- good thinking is impossible without internal scaffolding
5A. Networked thinking can happen at many levels
Personal networked thinking (threaded thinking), as in within an individual's own ideas? (assuming one can have their own ideas)
Collective thinking, as in several individuals connecting ideas together or mind-to-mind networks?
Societal thinking, as in a society organically thinking as one single organism? How does cellular thinking impact the organism's thinking? There is certainly a feedback loop.
5B. Threaded thinking instead of linear thinking
Linear thinking is a myth. Thinking is not only non-linear, it's messy. It involves a lot of back and forth, dead ends, branching, walking back, merging ideas, changing ideas, contradicting ideas. When I picture what my thoughts look like—the actual process of navigating different ideas in my head—I
5C. Do not keep orphan notes
Every time you write a new note, make sure to go back to previous notes and to interlink them together. Orphan notes do not contribute to the serendipitous creation of new insights. Only by connecting notes together can we go from collector to creator.
6. Metacognition is important
- it's the epitomy of what it means to be human. I care because metacognition is not only at the intersection of science and philosophy. It is the intersection of science and philosophy. Whether you consider neuroscience, AI, machine learning, the hard problem of consciousness, imagination, the question of reality (aka "are we living in a simulation?") you will always end up contemplating the concept of metacognition.
### Vocabulary
Seeds. Seed your garden with quality content and cultivate your curiosity. Plant seeds in your mind garden by taking smart personal notes (taking raw notes is useless). These don't need to be written in a publishable form.
Trees. Grow your knowledge by forming new branches and connecting the dots. Write short structured notes articulating specific ideas and publish them in your digital garden. One note in your digital garden = one idea. (what you're currently reading is such a note) Do not keep orphan notes. Thread your thoughts.
Fruits. Produce new work. These are more substantial—essays, videos, maybe a book at some point. The kind of work researchers and creatives may hope will help them live beyond their expiration date.
### Caveats
## Sections of This Project
- /Posts
- /Notes
- /Journal
More will be added as I deem fit.
## Resources
## Credit
