You've received this newsletter because you subscribed on my blog. I occasionally send out bite sized updates about what I'm working on, what's been posted on my blog, and what I've been reading on the web. If you don't want to receive these anymore, you can always unsubscribe.

Newsletter 23

Dear reader,

It has been calm on Twitter the past months. But that's okay, I don't agree with their policy of punishing links to lure content onto their platform. I'm good with the conversation living there. I'm also fine with content living there, I'm not okay with content forced to live there.

Instead, I'm spending more time on Mastodon, and I want to revive this newsletter as another space to share. Now I have an excuse to learn Maizzle and design a custom theme before the next issue!

I'm also working on a new project at Spatie: href.email. A biweekly newsletter with interesting bits on tech, dev and design. With social media at an interesting turning point, we want to experiment with other avenues to share what's worth sharing.

From Justin Jackson: "The world needs more slow, mindful media. [… ] You have to take your time to consume a podcast episode. You (generally) can't respond or comment immediately; it minimizes knee-jerk reactions. By slowing down, there's the opportunity to mindfully consider different points of view and be thoughtful in how we respond." While newsletters aren't as slow as most podcasts, they leave a lot more room for reflection than the current popular social media channels.

In an argument for logging off, Aaron Francis pours more similar thoughts into words. I I wholeheartedly agree with keeping our energy for the things we can influence. Read.cv conveyed this even more succinctly with a single image.

From the blog

Since the last time I sent a newsletter, my blog has received a fresh coat of paint. I wanted to introduce more color and found a lot of inspiration in kottke.org last redesign—something to write more about soon. I also introduced a new /reads page and updated my /uses page with software.

A selection of posts I've written over the past few months:

📓 How take notes + my Obsidian setup — An overview on how I take notes and use Obsidian.

📒 How I take notes: Structure with Now Next Notes — More on note taking, going in depth on notes flowing between folders based on their actionability.

📦 Building Laravel Error Share — I had a lot of fun building and designing a package that has to be "hacked into" an existing UI.

🍀 Great work requires a portion of luck — I couldn't resist sharing this great graphic from Christoph Niemann.

🌐 More than blogrolls — A roundup on curation and sharing links on the internet.

Across the web

🔪 Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics — iA on japanese design. "Japanese cooks who have special skills prefer knives without any ergonomic shape. A flat handle is not seen as raw or poorly crafted. On the contrary, its perfect plainness is meant to say, “You can use me whichever way suits your skills”. The Japanese knife adapts to the cook’s skill (not to the cook’s thumb). This is, in a nutshell, Japanese simplicity." I'm not sure what to do with it yet, but this paragraph has been echoing in my mind.

🖊️ What a physical notebook provokes — This article was one of the triggers that led me to start experimenting with physical notes.

💭 The Art of Decision-Making — Joshua Rothman explores the paradox of how we can spend a lot of energy fretting over small decisions, while the big life decisions seem to come naturally.

🏃‍♂️‍➡️ Managing My Motivation, as a Solo Dev — Keeping in motion, useful advice for any dev.

Random bits

📺 After a lot of internal debate, I pulled the trigger on YouTube Premium. The downside is: I can't imagine YouTube without it anymore, so I'm hooked for life. (If I had to elect one social media platform to remain relevant 10 years from now, it'd be YouTube—despite being owned by Google.) The ad-free experience made a lot of music accessible that isn't available on streaming services. Like this Tame Impala recording by the ocean, this Motor City Drum Ensemble set (what a lovely E&S rotary mixer), or Action Bronson's Tiny Desk concert.

📚 Away from screens, I picked Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential back up (he could describe the world like no one else). I'm trying to get through Thinking, Fast and Slow, but it's a bit heavy as a bedtime read. For Dutch readers: I'm also enjoying Ode aan de verwondering by Caroline Pauwels.

On the horizon

I'm planning to write a lot more in the coming months, but not necessarily on my blog. I'll be curating and writing the href.email issues, and we're setting up a blog on spatie.be with a lot of fun topics to share. Looking forward!

Until the next issue,
Seb