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commit 5e480074e3b884e1f05216cf33e6ce9ba6e40d99
parent a2bace66e6eadbade52d62c2887fb91dddf3dd73
Author: Jake Bauer <jbauer@paritybit.ca>
Date:   Fri, 10 Mar 2023 22:35:39 -0500

*

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diff --git a/content/now-2022.md b/content/now-2022.md
@@ -0,0 +1,391 @@
+Title: Updates From 2022
+Summary: Updates from 2022.
+
+# [%title]
+
+* [December 2022](#december-2022)
+* [November 2022](#november-2022)
+* [October 2022](#october-2022)
+* [September 2022](#september-2022)
+* [August 2022](#august-2022)
+* [July 2022](#july-2022)
+* [January 2022](#january-2022)
+
+## December 2022
+
+The last month of 2022 was the month in which I did things I actually wanted to
+do and felt good about what I was doing.
+
+I attempted both [Advent of
+Code](https://www.paritybit.ca/projects/advent-of-code-2022) and a [December
+Adventure](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/clojurecember) this year which really let
+me work out my programming muscles again. Although I only did up to Day 12 with
+AoC and managed about 9 good days of the December Adventure, I still consider
+it a success; I practiced and got better at C and learned enough about Clojure
+that I wouldn't feel totally lost if I wanted to write something in it.
+
+AoC was fun at times, frustrating at others. I think the challenges are fun and
+interesting, but it is ultimately a code competition and it's easy to feel like
+you're falling behind when you fail to complete a day's challenge "on time".
+Trying to keep up with the daily cadence meant I would sometimes spend upwards
+of 3-4 hours working on my code each day which is a lot of time and was
+unsustainable. I eventually started doing challenges in batches, typically on
+the weekends when I had more time, and it became more enjoyable again. Either
+way, the challenges were a great opportunity to program in C again and, given
+that it is one of my favourite languages, I had a lot of fun overall.
+
+My December Adventure, if not already apparent, was to learn a bit of Clojure
+every day in December. It started off strong, and I eventually set a goal to
+build a GUI text editor, but when I hit some road blocks progress dwindled.
+I technically succeeded at my goal, but the GUI framework I decided to use,
+[Seesaw](https://github.com/clj-commons/seesaw), was not really flexible enough
+for me to create the GUI I wanted. I don't think that's an issue with the
+framework per-se—because it was still extremely easy to build a functional GUI
+as advertised—but it just didn't fit my needs. Either way, I do have a working,
+if basic, text editor and I learned enough Clojure to feel confident that I can
+use it in future projects and wade into others' codebases.
+
+In other aspects of life, I spent more time than normal playing video games
+this month, what with the Steam winter sale and more free time around the
+holidays. I heartily enjoyed the _Songs of Syx_ demo, and picked up a variety
+of colony/city/base building games (arguably my favourite genre) including
+_Timberborn_, _Going Medieval_, and _Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic_.
+
+Overall I'm happy with how this year, and especially this month, turned out. It
+started off quite rough but got much better in the latter half. Going into the
+next year, I have a couple of loose goals:
+
+1. Reduce my screen time
+2. Read more books
+3. Figure out some sort of journaling/time-tracking system that I can stick to
+4. Try Barry's Irish Breakfast tea
+
+1 and 2 go hand in hand. I want to spend less time in front of a screen and
+more time with more physical media and in other places than my desk. 3 will be
+very useful in one way or another, at least to help me remember the events of
+the past month when writing these update posts. 4 is a necessity.
+
+Happy new year :)
+
+### Complete Book Log for 2022
+
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
+* Finished: _Building a Second Brain_ by Tiago Forte
+* Finished: _Tarsnap Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Finished: _Relayd and Httpd Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Finished: _Absolute OpenBSD_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Finished: _Absolute FreeBSD_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Finished: _Ed Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Finished: _FreeBSD Mastery: Jails_ by Michael W. Lucas
+* Dropped: _The Cathedral And The Bazaar_ by Eric S. Raymond
+
+## November 2022
+
+Hello there o/
+
+This month was the busiest month of the year for me in other parts of my life so
+just about everything else took a back seat.
+
+I kind of expected this going into it, and quickly realized that it was indeed
+a silly idea to try to attempt NaNoWriMo, but that's okay. I didn't get any
+writing done for it, aside from about 100 words worth of narrative ideas, but
+I'll keep writing them down for next year's event or whenever the novel-writing
+fancy strikes me.
+
+I will be participating in Advent of Code this year with a goal to just do as
+much as I can and use it to practice my programming abilities. I will probably
+do it in C again this year, though if I have extra time I think I'll try Clojure
+or another language I'm totally unfamiliar with.
+
+Yep, that's all I've got for this month! Until next time o/
+
+### Book Log
+
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
+
+## October 2022
+
+o/
+
+Life has been busy this past while for me, so this update is a bit late.
+
+I didn't do that much programming work this month, though I went through my
+GitHub account and cleared out old projects so that account is now just set up
+for collaboration and I have none of my personal projects over there. Speaking
+of collaboration, this month I sent off a couple of minor patches to
+[cerca](https://github.com/cblgh/cerca), the forum software for the Merveilles
+forum, and I handed off maintainership of the
+[Misskey-Extras](https://github.com/Johann150/Misskey-Extras) repository to
+Johann, who is a much more active member in the Misskey world than I am these
+days. I also made a small tweak to [sbs](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/sbs) to
+prompt the user to confirm when they're going to overwrite a page or
+re-initialize a site, since it is easy to do that by accident and it would be
+irreversible if you're not working with some kind of version control system.
+I think the final feature before the 1.0 release would be to support the
+creation of Atom feeds for Gemini pages, and then it'll be done.
+
+I've also become the editor for the Linux Lads podcast! So far, I've edited
+[Episode 15](https://linuxlads.com/episodes/season-7-episode-15/) and [Episode
+16](https://linuxlads.com/episodes/season-7-episode-16/) (which should be
+coming out within a few days of this update). That's been pretty fun and good
+practice for the upcoming podcast I mentioned last month that I'll be hosting
+and editing as well.
+
+This past month I've been trying out new task organization and time tracking
+systems to help keep things in order, and I've found that strict systems don't
+really work for me and I can't be arsed to keep meticulous records of how long
+I spend on any given tasks if my system doesn't track that for me. The next
+strategy I'm going to try is the Pomodoro method, which will not only help keep
+me focused on tasks, but also makes time tracking very easy. As far as todo
+tracking, I've reaffirmed that the age-old method of pen and paper (or a .txt
+file) works for me better than any other system. A notepad and pencil next to
+me on my desk is all I need for that.
+
+I think that's all I have to share for this month. In November I'll be
+attempting NaNoWriMo, with a goal to write 30,000 words by the end of the
+month. I'm not completely sure what kind of a story or text I want to write,
+but I'll figure it out :)
+
+Until next time, o/
+
+### Book Log
+
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
+
+## September 2022
+
+Greetings!
+
+There's not that much to report on this month. Unfortunately I caught The Virus
+at the beginning of the month which knocked me out for about a week and a bit.
+Thankfully it wasn't too bad for me and I recovered quickly.
+
+Throughout the rest of the month I've been working my way through my digital
+garden, cleaning up my to-read list and old set of bookmarks, and taking notes
+on the things I read and listen to or just shoving links away on various project
+pages to be picked up and studied again when I get around to those projects.
+I've pretty much cleared out The Greenhouse of things to read and what remains
+is broad topics and some very recent links I want to look at.
+
+I cleaned up my blog posts too. I removed about 13 posts that I wasn't happy
+with and slightly modified several more to fix broken links or reword things
+that I wasn't satisfied with. All with the goal of bringing the blog up to
+higher quality standards. I'm already eyeing a couple other posts that might
+land themselves on the cutting room floor.
+
+I also harvested a good number of tomatoes from my real garden. Unfortunately it
+doesn't look like it'll be a good harvest this year due to the plants getting
+ravaged by downy and powdery mildew due to the incessant humidity this summer
+and because of early frosty temperatures, but I still appreciate my limited
+harvest and the environment the garden gave me while it was in full swing.
+
+As far as projects go: a minor improvement was made to sbs to overcome a
+limitation of using shell. I added proper special character escaping for the
+title and description fields which are used with sed to set some fields in the
+resulting HTML files so now it's possible to use characters like '/' and '(' in
+titles without sed falling on its sword. Prompted by a post on Merveilles.town,
+I also created a new Vim colour scheme,
+[vim-dieter-rams](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/vim-dieter-rams), which is inspired
+by [this
+image](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d3/00/fa/d300faca17032f3d4030da8d348957c5.png)
+of one of Dieter Rams' industrial designs. I presented it to the person who was
+looking for such a colour scheme, and I used it a bit and quite liked it (though
+eventually I switched back to my monochrome light theme ;D).
+
+Following on from the technical stuff, I'm now properly on IRC! I had my
+username registered in a few places but didn't spend much time using the
+protocol since previously I didn't really have friends or a community on there.
+However, I've since gotten myself properly set up, and I'm now connected to
+OFTC, Libera.chat, Esper.net, and Tilde.chat and am available for chats on those
+servers.
+
+Although I didn't get around to much reading this month, I did come across two
+new podcasts which I started listening to and have enjoyed: [Future of
+Coding](https://futureofcoding.org/) and [Live Like the World is
+Dying](https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co). I also started work on
+show notes for my own podcast which will be focused on digital security and
+privacy with a strong emphasis on FOSS tools. Website to come soon™. There are
+about 14 episodes worth of topics so far. I'm trying to not let the podcast fall
+victim to [pod fading](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=podfade)
+and I want it to be of relatively high quality. The intended schedule will be
+one episode every two weeks, starting whenever it's ready.
+
+Goals for the month of October include getting started on a time tracking system
+and figuring out a system for keeping a record of the books I read and the books
+I recommend. Perhaps another page in The Arboretum would be good for the latter.
+I also want to finish my blog post on my ideal model of software development. I
+did some work on it this month but there's still a lot to go.
+
+### Book Log
+
+* Reading: _Disciplined Minds_ by Jeff Schmidt
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (20%)
+
+## August 2022
+
+Hello friends o/
+
+About three weeks has passed since I wrote my July 2022 update (I wrote it on
+August 9th) and it's time for another!
+
+This month (or, well, these past three weeks), I have:
+
+* Created my [digital garden](/garden/) and populated it with a bunch of stuff
+* Made significant changes to [sbs](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/sbs), which is now
+  on version 0.6.0 and probably ready for a 1.0 release
+* Created a light version of [my Vim
+  theme](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/vim-monochrome) and polished both versions
+* Started playing around with [Raku](https://raku.org/), mostly going through
+  the [Raku Course](https://course.raku.org/)
+
+The digital garden definitely took up most of my time. I had to figure out how I
+wanted to lay it out and how to make it as easy and convenient as possible to
+change, then I had to populate it with content which involved repeated
+braindumping and long notetaking sessions. There was and is still a ton of
+stuff to be added to the garden; more than what is already listed in [The
+Greenhouse](/garden/greenhouse/).
+
+I developed the garden alongside making changes and improvements to sbs to
+accommodate the structure I wanted. Thanks to that, sbs is now much more
+convenient to use and supports translating Gemini files into HTML files, which
+means I can easily have my garden available over the Gemini protocol as well as
+the Web.
+
+On a less technical note: I didn't get that much reading done this month, though
+I did take out a number of books from the library. I am hoping to get to these
+books over the next week since I will be traveling a bit and won't be taking my
+computers with me.
+
+In my last update I wrote about my struggles with burnout and losing my
+enthusiasm for tech, and I'm glad to say things have been continuing to get
+better on that front. Joining the Merveilles community has been noticeably
+helpful in that regard for all the reasons I wrote about previously. I still
+have ups and downs, but I can feel myself getting better. I feel like a train
+that has started to pick up steam again after sitting still for a long time. I
+am spending more time doing things I want to be doing instead of distracting
+myself with YouTube, Reddit and other such things (I did route Reddit to 0.0.0.0
+on my system, so that helped quite a bit). I'm also not fighting with myself as
+much or trying to force myself into this vision of an ideal person based on
+depictions of success and productivity in media (social or otherwise). Instead I
+am finding and embracing systems and rhythms that just work for me.
+
+That is to say, I'm trying to let myself be me, instead of constantly trying to
+be someone else.
+
+(As an aside, here's a wonderful video I found about that topic: [Avoiding Toxic
+Productivity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsT3KPYJFl4).)
+
+As I write this update, I am realizing how useful it would be to have a time
+tracking system. Not to "optimize my productivity", but to keep track of what
+I've worked on and for how long. So, that's definitely something to look into
+this coming month. I am aware of a few systems that others have made that work
+for them, but I'm going to do a bunch of research and probably end up
+programming a bespoke thing that works specifically for me.
+
+### Book Log
+
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo
+
+## July 2022
+
+Over the past several months I've been recovering from being burned out due to,
+well, probably more things than I know of, but certainly trying to finish
+university during the pandemic. In hindsight, I can see the signs of burnout
+were there since late 2018 and they came to a head in 2020/2021. Thankfully I'm
+in a much better place now, but I think still not fully recovered. Perhaps that
+warrants a blog post of its own, but that's why I haven't been super active with
+writing new blog posts. I've been quite turned off of computing,
+programming—tech in general really—and I haven't had the motivation to write
+about anything even though I have some topics I'd really like to explore.
+
+Since starting to recover, I've been on a bit of a journey to figure out who I
+am and what I want to do with my life outside of my current full-time job. To
+that end, I've been exploring different spaces and ideas: listening to a wide
+variety of podcasts, reading blogs, engaging in [online
+communities](merveilles.town), and watching probably too much YouTube. I still
+don't have any firm ideas, but I do have vague notions of "simplicity", "analog
+technology", "sustainability", "village-like community", and so on. This led me
+to the Merveilles community, around which I had been circling practically since
+I started using Mastodon all the way back in the summer of 2020. The values and
+virtues that are embodied in that community resonate with me, and so I've
+decided to make that my new home on the Fediverse
+([@jbauer@merveilles.town](https://merveilles.town/@jbauer) is my handle).
+
+Aside from being a supportive and active community, it is filled with people who
+are generally on the same wavelength as I am about the vague notions I listed
+above and, crucially, they are actively engaged in pursuits along those lines. I
+feel that surrounding myself with people who are doing things, who are filled
+with a myriad of ideas, and who can give valuable feedback will help lift me out
+of the slump that I am in and help me find the motivation to work on the things
+I want to work on. An idea I have heard time and time again is that there are
+generally two kinds of people: those who inspire you and those who drain you;
+one of the best things one can do for their mental health is to cut out people
+who drain (often called "energy-vampires") and surround oneself with people who
+inspire. I have certainly surrounded myself with far too many of these so-called
+energy vampires over the past 3-4 years and I've been working on changing that.
+
+In terms of what I have planned for the future, well...
+
+I have several blog post ideas I'd like to flesh out regarding my ideal model of
+software development, more fun explorations of tech and certain aspects of the
+computing/software industry, what it would take to develop a software stack from
+the ground up these days, and more.
+
+I need to organize my wiki and start using some kind of system where I can
+accumulate knowledge, links, and ideas in a much more effective way than I
+currently have.
+
+I want to get back into programming because I have several ideas I want to
+realize including exploring making my own kernel, OS, several different client
+programs (email, IRC, etc.), programming language, and so on. I've been having
+some fun learning Raku recently, so that's a good sign.
+
+I also want to read more books. I have acquired several very interesting books
+including K&R's _The C Programming Language_, _A Collection of Essays_ by George
+Orwell, _The Design of the UNIX Operating System_ by Maurice J. Bach, _Operating
+Systems - Design and Implementation_ by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, and _Domesticate
+Your Badgers_ by Michael W. Lucas, among many others. And, while I am actually
+quite interested in reading them, I also have to work on my attention span which
+has been damaged by the dopamine-drip-feed environment of the modern internet.
+It has been hard for me to concentrate on reading books for any extended period
+of time.
+
+One final thing I will aim to do is update this Now Page at least once per
+month. I'd like to do something similar to [100r.co's Monthly
+Log](https://100r.co/site/log.html) and detail what I've been up to over the
+course of a given month. Not only will this be helpful in seeing what I've
+actually accomplished (celebrating victories is also quite important for one's
+mental health), it might also hold me to account if I feel like I have some kind
+of deadline where I need to have something to show (within reason, of course,
+because I don't want to push myself into burnout again). I tend to be a lot more
+effective at doing things when I have a deadline.
+
+So, I know that was a huge update, but there was a lot to be said. I am
+looking forward to the future and to getting started on doing the things that I
+actually want to do. If you want to talk to me more about anything I've written
+here, feel free to send me an email :).
+
+### Book Log
+
+* Finished: _Building a Second Brain_ by Tiago Forte
+* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo
+
+## January 2022
+
+I've been exploring more topics for the blog, getting further immersed in
+interesting [online communities](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/merveilles.html),
+and trying to figure out how I work best.
+
+I've also recently changed the theme on this website. I've added a light theme
+and made the dark theme more accessible to those with vision issues following
+the new APCA contrast guidelines.
+
+I've been migrating back to and setting up more services on my home network.
+I've ditched hosting Matrix because of the hassle involved, and have started
+hosting a personal wiki over at
+[gemini://wiki.paritybit.ca](gemini://wiki.paritybit.ca).
+
+I have recently been trying out the Apple ecosystem (MacOS and iOS in
+particular) so I can have more well-informed opinions about it.
+
+[← Go to 2023](now)
diff --git a/content/now.md b/content/now.md
@@ -8,13 +8,6 @@ currently working on. [Learn more about now pages here](https://nownownow.com/ab
 
 * [February 2023](#february-2023)
 * [January 2023](#january-2023)
-* [December 2022](#december-2022)
-* [November 2022](#november-2022)
-* [October 2022](#october-2022)
-* [September 2022](#september-2022)
-* [August 2022](#august-2022)
-* [July 2022](#july-2022)
-* [January 2022](#january-2022)
 
 ## February 2023
 
@@ -59,379 +52,4 @@ Until next time, o/
 * Finished: _A Little Tea Book: All the Essentials from Leaf to Cup_ by Sebastian Beckwith with Caroline Paul, Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton
 * Finished: _The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook_ by Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss
 
-## December 2022
-
-The last month of 2022 was the month in which I did things I actually wanted to
-do and felt good about what I was doing.
-
-I attempted both [Advent of
-Code](https://www.paritybit.ca/projects/advent-of-code-2022) and a [December
-Adventure](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/clojurecember) this year which really let
-me work out my programming muscles again. Although I only did up to Day 12 with
-AoC and managed about 9 good days of the December Adventure, I still consider
-it a success; I practiced and got better at C and learned enough about Clojure
-that I wouldn't feel totally lost if I wanted to write something in it.
-
-AoC was fun at times, frustrating at others. I think the challenges are fun and
-interesting, but it is ultimately a code competition and it's easy to feel like
-you're falling behind when you fail to complete a day's challenge "on time".
-Trying to keep up with the daily cadence meant I would sometimes spend upwards
-of 3-4 hours working on my code each day which is a lot of time and was
-unsustainable. I eventually started doing challenges in batches, typically on
-the weekends when I had more time, and it became more enjoyable again. Either
-way, the challenges were a great opportunity to program in C again and, given
-that it is one of my favourite languages, I had a lot of fun overall.
-
-My December Adventure, if not already apparent, was to learn a bit of Clojure
-every day in December. It started off strong, and I eventually set a goal to
-build a GUI text editor, but when I hit some road blocks progress dwindled.
-I technically succeeded at my goal, but the GUI framework I decided to use,
-[Seesaw](https://github.com/clj-commons/seesaw), was not really flexible enough
-for me to create the GUI I wanted. I don't think that's an issue with the
-framework per-se—because it was still extremely easy to build a functional GUI
-as advertised—but it just didn't fit my needs. Either way, I do have a working,
-if basic, text editor and I learned enough Clojure to feel confident that I can
-use it in future projects and wade into others' codebases.
-
-In other aspects of life, I spent more time than normal playing video games
-this month, what with the Steam winter sale and more free time around the
-holidays. I heartily enjoyed the _Songs of Syx_ demo, and picked up a variety
-of colony/city/base building games (arguably my favourite genre) including
-_Timberborn_, _Going Medieval_, and _Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic_.
-
-Overall I'm happy with how this year, and especially this month, turned out. It
-started off quite rough but got much better in the latter half. Going into the
-next year, I have a couple of loose goals:
-
-1. Reduce my screen time
-2. Read more books
-3. Figure out some sort of journaling/time-tracking system that I can stick to
-4. Try Barry's Irish Breakfast tea
-
-1 and 2 go hand in hand. I want to spend less time in front of a screen and
-more time with more physical media and in other places than my desk. 3 will be
-very useful in one way or another, at least to help me remember the events of
-the past month when writing these update posts. 4 is a necessity.
-
-Happy new year :)
-
-### Complete Book Log for 2022
-
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
-* Finished: _Building a Second Brain_ by Tiago Forte
-* Finished: _Tarsnap Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Finished: _Relayd and Httpd Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Finished: _Absolute OpenBSD_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Finished: _Absolute FreeBSD_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Finished: _Ed Mastery_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Finished: _FreeBSD Mastery: Jails_ by Michael W. Lucas
-* Dropped: _The Cathedral And The Bazaar_ by Eric S. Raymond
-
-## November 2022
-
-Hello there o/
-
-This month was the busiest month of the year for me in other parts of my life so
-just about everything else took a back seat.
-
-I kind of expected this going into it, and quickly realized that it was indeed
-a silly idea to try to attempt NaNoWriMo, but that's okay. I didn't get any
-writing done for it, aside from about 100 words worth of narrative ideas, but
-I'll keep writing them down for next year's event or whenever the novel-writing
-fancy strikes me.
-
-I will be participating in Advent of Code this year with a goal to just do as
-much as I can and use it to practice my programming abilities. I will probably
-do it in C again this year, though if I have extra time I think I'll try Clojure
-or another language I'm totally unfamiliar with.
-
-Yep, that's all I've got for this month! Until next time o/
-
-### Book Log
-
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
-
-## October 2022
-
-o/
-
-Life has been busy this past while for me, so this update is a bit late.
-
-I didn't do that much programming work this month, though I went through my
-GitHub account and cleared out old projects so that account is now just set up
-for collaboration and I have none of my personal projects over there. Speaking
-of collaboration, this month I sent off a couple of minor patches to
-[cerca](https://github.com/cblgh/cerca), the forum software for the Merveilles
-forum, and I handed off maintainership of the
-[Misskey-Extras](https://github.com/Johann150/Misskey-Extras) repository to
-Johann, who is a much more active member in the Misskey world than I am these
-days. I also made a small tweak to [sbs](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/sbs) to
-prompt the user to confirm when they're going to overwrite a page or
-re-initialize a site, since it is easy to do that by accident and it would be
-irreversible if you're not working with some kind of version control system.
-I think the final feature before the 1.0 release would be to support the
-creation of Atom feeds for Gemini pages, and then it'll be done.
-
-I've also become the editor for the Linux Lads podcast! So far, I've edited
-[Episode 15](https://linuxlads.com/episodes/season-7-episode-15/) and [Episode
-16](https://linuxlads.com/episodes/season-7-episode-16/) (which should be
-coming out within a few days of this update). That's been pretty fun and good
-practice for the upcoming podcast I mentioned last month that I'll be hosting
-and editing as well.
-
-This past month I've been trying out new task organization and time tracking
-systems to help keep things in order, and I've found that strict systems don't
-really work for me and I can't be arsed to keep meticulous records of how long
-I spend on any given tasks if my system doesn't track that for me. The next
-strategy I'm going to try is the Pomodoro method, which will not only help keep
-me focused on tasks, but also makes time tracking very easy. As far as todo
-tracking, I've reaffirmed that the age-old method of pen and paper (or a .txt
-file) works for me better than any other system. A notepad and pencil next to
-me on my desk is all I need for that.
-
-I think that's all I have to share for this month. In November I'll be
-attempting NaNoWriMo, with a goal to write 30,000 words by the end of the
-month. I'm not completely sure what kind of a story or text I want to write,
-but I'll figure it out :)
-
-Until next time, o/
-
-### Book Log
-
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (44%)
-
-## September 2022
-
-Greetings!
-
-There's not that much to report on this month. Unfortunately I caught The Virus
-at the beginning of the month which knocked me out for about a week and a bit.
-Thankfully it wasn't too bad for me and I recovered quickly.
-
-Throughout the rest of the month I've been working my way through my digital
-garden, cleaning up my to-read list and old set of bookmarks, and taking notes
-on the things I read and listen to or just shoving links away on various project
-pages to be picked up and studied again when I get around to those projects.
-I've pretty much cleared out The Greenhouse of things to read and what remains
-is broad topics and some very recent links I want to look at.
-
-I cleaned up my blog posts too. I removed about 13 posts that I wasn't happy
-with and slightly modified several more to fix broken links or reword things
-that I wasn't satisfied with. All with the goal of bringing the blog up to
-higher quality standards. I'm already eyeing a couple other posts that might
-land themselves on the cutting room floor.
-
-I also harvested a good number of tomatoes from my real garden. Unfortunately it
-doesn't look like it'll be a good harvest this year due to the plants getting
-ravaged by downy and powdery mildew due to the incessant humidity this summer
-and because of early frosty temperatures, but I still appreciate my limited
-harvest and the environment the garden gave me while it was in full swing.
-
-As far as projects go: a minor improvement was made to sbs to overcome a
-limitation of using shell. I added proper special character escaping for the
-title and description fields which are used with sed to set some fields in the
-resulting HTML files so now it's possible to use characters like '/' and '(' in
-titles without sed falling on its sword. Prompted by a post on Merveilles.town,
-I also created a new Vim colour scheme,
-[vim-dieter-rams](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/vim-dieter-rams), which is inspired
-by [this
-image](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d3/00/fa/d300faca17032f3d4030da8d348957c5.png)
-of one of Dieter Rams' industrial designs. I presented it to the person who was
-looking for such a colour scheme, and I used it a bit and quite liked it (though
-eventually I switched back to my monochrome light theme ;D).
-
-Following on from the technical stuff, I'm now properly on IRC! I had my
-username registered in a few places but didn't spend much time using the
-protocol since previously I didn't really have friends or a community on there.
-However, I've since gotten myself properly set up, and I'm now connected to
-OFTC, Libera.chat, Esper.net, and Tilde.chat and am available for chats on those
-servers.
-
-Although I didn't get around to much reading this month, I did come across two
-new podcasts which I started listening to and have enjoyed: [Future of
-Coding](https://futureofcoding.org/) and [Live Like the World is
-Dying](https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co). I also started work on
-show notes for my own podcast which will be focused on digital security and
-privacy with a strong emphasis on FOSS tools. Website to come soon™. There are
-about 14 episodes worth of topics so far. I'm trying to not let the podcast fall
-victim to [pod fading](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=podfade)
-and I want it to be of relatively high quality. The intended schedule will be
-one episode every two weeks, starting whenever it's ready.
-
-Goals for the month of October include getting started on a time tracking system
-and figuring out a system for keeping a record of the books I read and the books
-I recommend. Perhaps another page in The Arboretum would be good for the latter.
-I also want to finish my blog post on my ideal model of software development. I
-did some work on it this month but there's still a lot to go.
-
-### Book Log
-
-* Reading: _Disciplined Minds_ by Jeff Schmidt
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo (20%)
-
-## August 2022
-
-Hello friends o/
-
-About three weeks has passed since I wrote my July 2022 update (I wrote it on
-August 9th) and it's time for another!
-
-This month (or, well, these past three weeks), I have:
-
-* Created my [digital garden](/garden/) and populated it with a bunch of stuff
-* Made significant changes to [sbs](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/sbs), which is now
-  on version 0.6.0 and probably ready for a 1.0 release
-* Created a light version of [my Vim
-  theme](https://git.sr.ht/~jbauer/vim-monochrome) and polished both versions
-* Started playing around with [Raku](https://raku.org/), mostly going through
-  the [Raku Course](https://course.raku.org/)
-
-The digital garden definitely took up most of my time. I had to figure out how I
-wanted to lay it out and how to make it as easy and convenient as possible to
-change, then I had to populate it with content which involved repeated
-braindumping and long notetaking sessions. There was and is still a ton of
-stuff to be added to the garden; more than what is already listed in [The
-Greenhouse](/garden/greenhouse/).
-
-I developed the garden alongside making changes and improvements to sbs to
-accommodate the structure I wanted. Thanks to that, sbs is now much more
-convenient to use and supports translating Gemini files into HTML files, which
-means I can easily have my garden available over the Gemini protocol as well as
-the Web.
-
-On a less technical note: I didn't get that much reading done this month, though
-I did take out a number of books from the library. I am hoping to get to these
-books over the next week since I will be traveling a bit and won't be taking my
-computers with me.
-
-In my last update I wrote about my struggles with burnout and losing my
-enthusiasm for tech, and I'm glad to say things have been continuing to get
-better on that front. Joining the Merveilles community has been noticeably
-helpful in that regard for all the reasons I wrote about previously. I still
-have ups and downs, but I can feel myself getting better. I feel like a train
-that has started to pick up steam again after sitting still for a long time. I
-am spending more time doing things I want to be doing instead of distracting
-myself with YouTube, Reddit and other such things (I did route Reddit to 0.0.0.0
-on my system, so that helped quite a bit). I'm also not fighting with myself as
-much or trying to force myself into this vision of an ideal person based on
-depictions of success and productivity in media (social or otherwise). Instead I
-am finding and embracing systems and rhythms that just work for me.
-
-That is to say, I'm trying to let myself be me, instead of constantly trying to
-be someone else.
-
-(As an aside, here's a wonderful video I found about that topic: [Avoiding Toxic
-Productivity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsT3KPYJFl4).)
-
-As I write this update, I am realizing how useful it would be to have a time
-tracking system. Not to "optimize my productivity", but to keep track of what
-I've worked on and for how long. So, that's definitely something to look into
-this coming month. I am aware of a few systems that others have made that work
-for them, but I'm going to do a bunch of research and probably end up
-programming a bespoke thing that works specifically for me.
-
-### Book Log
-
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo
-
-## July 2022
-
-Over the past several months I've been recovering from being burned out due to,
-well, probably more things than I know of, but certainly trying to finish
-university during the pandemic. In hindsight, I can see the signs of burnout
-were there since late 2018 and they came to a head in 2020/2021. Thankfully I'm
-in a much better place now, but I think still not fully recovered. Perhaps that
-warrants a blog post of its own, but that's why I haven't been super active with
-writing new blog posts. I've been quite turned off of computing,
-programming—tech in general really—and I haven't had the motivation to write
-about anything even though I have some topics I'd really like to explore.
-
-Since starting to recover, I've been on a bit of a journey to figure out who I
-am and what I want to do with my life outside of my current full-time job. To
-that end, I've been exploring different spaces and ideas: listening to a wide
-variety of podcasts, reading blogs, engaging in [online
-communities](merveilles.town), and watching probably too much YouTube. I still
-don't have any firm ideas, but I do have vague notions of "simplicity", "analog
-technology", "sustainability", "village-like community", and so on. This led me
-to the Merveilles community, around which I had been circling practically since
-I started using Mastodon all the way back in the summer of 2020. The values and
-virtues that are embodied in that community resonate with me, and so I've
-decided to make that my new home on the Fediverse
-([@jbauer@merveilles.town](https://merveilles.town/@jbauer) is my handle).
-
-Aside from being a supportive and active community, it is filled with people who
-are generally on the same wavelength as I am about the vague notions I listed
-above and, crucially, they are actively engaged in pursuits along those lines. I
-feel that surrounding myself with people who are doing things, who are filled
-with a myriad of ideas, and who can give valuable feedback will help lift me out
-of the slump that I am in and help me find the motivation to work on the things
-I want to work on. An idea I have heard time and time again is that there are
-generally two kinds of people: those who inspire you and those who drain you;
-one of the best things one can do for their mental health is to cut out people
-who drain (often called "energy-vampires") and surround oneself with people who
-inspire. I have certainly surrounded myself with far too many of these so-called
-energy vampires over the past 3-4 years and I've been working on changing that.
-
-In terms of what I have planned for the future, well...
-
-I have several blog post ideas I'd like to flesh out regarding my ideal model of
-software development, more fun explorations of tech and certain aspects of the
-computing/software industry, what it would take to develop a software stack from
-the ground up these days, and more.
-
-I need to organize my wiki and start using some kind of system where I can
-accumulate knowledge, links, and ideas in a much more effective way than I
-currently have.
-
-I want to get back into programming because I have several ideas I want to
-realize including exploring making my own kernel, OS, several different client
-programs (email, IRC, etc.), programming language, and so on. I've been having
-some fun learning Raku recently, so that's a good sign.
-
-I also want to read more books. I have acquired several very interesting books
-including K&R's _The C Programming Language_, _A Collection of Essays_ by George
-Orwell, _The Design of the UNIX Operating System_ by Maurice J. Bach, _Operating
-Systems - Design and Implementation_ by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, and _Domesticate
-Your Badgers_ by Michael W. Lucas, among many others. And, while I am actually
-quite interested in reading them, I also have to work on my attention span which
-has been damaged by the dopamine-drip-feed environment of the modern internet.
-It has been hard for me to concentrate on reading books for any extended period
-of time.
-
-One final thing I will aim to do is update this Now Page at least once per
-month. I'd like to do something similar to [100r.co's Monthly
-Log](https://100r.co/site/log.html) and detail what I've been up to over the
-course of a given month. Not only will this be helpful in seeing what I've
-actually accomplished (celebrating victories is also quite important for one's
-mental health), it might also hold me to account if I feel like I have some kind
-of deadline where I need to have something to show (within reason, of course,
-because I don't want to push myself into burnout again). I tend to be a lot more
-effective at doing things when I have a deadline.
-
-So, I know that was a huge update, but there was a lot to be said. I am
-looking forward to the future and to getting started on doing the things that I
-actually want to do. If you want to talk to me more about anything I've written
-here, feel free to send me an email :).
-
-### Book Log
-
-* Finished: _Building a Second Brain_ by Tiago Forte
-* Reading: _Good Arguments - How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard_ by Bo Seo
-
-## January 2022
-
-I've been exploring more topics for the blog, getting further immersed in
-interesting [online communities](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/merveilles.html),
-and trying to figure out how I work best.
-
-I've also recently changed the theme on this website. I've added a light theme
-and made the dark theme more accessible to those with vision issues following
-the new APCA contrast guidelines.
-
-I've been migrating back to and setting up more services on my home network.
-I've ditched hosting Matrix because of the hassle involved, and have started
-hosting a personal wiki over at
-[gemini://wiki.paritybit.ca](gemini://wiki.paritybit.ca).
-
-I have recently been trying out the Apple ecosystem (MacOS and iOS in
-particular) so I can have more well-informed opinions about it.
+[Go to 2022 →](now-2022)