[CobrastanJorji]

This is an awesome setup. I like it, good job.

That said, I do think there's a bit of irony to solving your "paying attention to writing" problem by setting up your OS from scratch, choosing to swap out the default networking stack, installing a novel flavor of your preferred text editor because you're "trying to get to know it a bit more," customizing your battery readouts, tweaking the login sequence, and then, after all that effort to make sure you'd have the perfect environment for uninterrupted writing sessions, installing tmux so that you'll be able to do multiple things at a time.

[michaelbuckbee]

It it reminds me of a lot of friends who wanted to "start blogging" and their first step was writing a new static site system from scratch.

[throw10920]

Or friends who want to "make a game" and their first step is writing game engine from scratch.

I wouldn't be surprised if programmers had, collectively, written more game engines than actual games.

[embedding-shape]

> I wouldn't be surprised if programmers had, collectively, written more game engines than actual games.

Tailored to web developers, there definitively are more half-finished frameworks sitting on people's disks than finished web applications, I'm sure my ratio is pretty close to 1/1 over the years.

[bitwize]

Oh, that's exactly what I do. My rule is: one game, one engine. It's based on whatever the OS provides of course, or an abstraction layer like SDL, but everything above that is my own, tailored specifically to the game at hand.

[opan]

I'd much prefer people do this than pump out more poorly-running Unity or UE games.

[debesyla]

Or when I wanted to write a novel and went into world-building fantasy enciclopedia for two years... I didn't even pass the page 2 of the novel, lol. Now it's all forgotten.

[prox]

Reminds me of the old saying “everyone has a pen, but not everyone is a writer.”

[embedding-shape]

But how am I supposed to be productive writing blogposts unless I can copy my favorite Clojure templating library into Nix first, so I can have completely statically and reproducible blog posts building from markdown together with the nicest type of templating?

[bigyabai]

If we're all being honest, I'd rather read the Clojure/Nix templating blogpost instead of the 10,000th "why human interaction is important" bearblog essay.

[rglullis]

There is a false dichotomy here.

[volemo]

"Clojure/Nix templating, or why human interaction is important" /j

[bigyabai]

I could certainly read both, but only one sounds interesting.

[eichin]

yeah, part of my current writing push was made more successful by two things:

* I am not allowed to use a blogging system I wrote. (Really, I've written three or four at this point and need to stop, and there are plenty of existing systems that still align with my idiosyncratic constraints.)

* The blog must not have any meta content about blog tooling.

(I cheated a little on the latter by having an extra "site" blog for that - which lets me get the words out but doesn't "count" for the writing goal. A useful outlet, but it meant an extra month or so before "real writing" outnumbered meta writing :-)

[crimsontech]

But then they have something to write about as their first post.

[klondike_klive]

Reminds me of getting a new pen and notebook for Christmas and all I could think of to write was "this is my new pen"

[yjftsjthsd-h]

It's very convenient to have a first project all ready to blog about, fresh in your mind and everything:D

[cortesoft]

I think it is great to combine two personal projects into one!

For me, I can't learn anything unless I actually have a purpose for it. So if I wanted to learn how to write a static site system, I would also need to think of a reason I need one!

[em-bee]

one of my goals is to work on the server platform that i am using for my websites. i want to write a blog, but i am using that desire to push myself to work on the platform, so i need to complete that blog interface first.

[theodric]

They don't want to blog, they want to have blogged

[delis-thumbs-7e]

”Friends”. Yeah, right.

(I admit, I am guilty).

[egeozcan]

I think writing a static site generator was the first moment I felt like I may be serious about this programming thing.

Those losers who still need Perl on their servers better be ready for a mind explosion

...thought, me back in (too lazy to look up which year it was). I probably published like two things with it, spent (what felt like) a million person hours on it, just to abandon it and use Textpattern.

[sidpatil]

https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/

[treavorpasan]

Isn't this the definition of procrastination?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'd say more yak-shaving[0] or bikeshedding[1].

But I am also currently writing version 2 of an app that utilizes a general-purpose application server that I wrote (took about seven months), at first. It's been shipping for a couple of years. The server does great, but is unwieldy. I suggest against writing general-purpose servers.

The new version uses a newer, more focused, server that is a lot lighter.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding

[cultofmetatron]

I feel so called out ^_^

[samch]

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/974/

[phyzix5761]

That's how most of us started blogging lol

[bitwize]

Yeah, I cobbled together an SSG in Guile back in the day.

[Shellban]

*whistles innocently*

[katzgrau]

“Yak shaving”

It’s a classic move.

Start a new diet, so you join a gym and or buy a bunch of workout stuff.

I won’t knock it though. An important minority of my yak-shaving endeavors have led to long term positive outcomes.

[shoopadoop]

You want to play some old classic games so you spend five days getting a Raspberry Pi set up just right with Retroarch and then when it's setup just right you do something else.

[Waterluvian]

This is a thing I see everywhere. It’s the carpenter who mostly just builds jigs and french cleats for their workshop. Or the programmer who spends far too much time obsessing over what keyboard and font to use.

[krupan]

For a while I kept finding out co-workers were building their own CNC machines, and the mostly used them to make CNC machines components

[CobrastanJorji]

I myself am a 3D printer who mostly prints accessories for 3D printing.

[cgriswald]

I went with paper and pen precisely because there was always more I wanted to do with my computer work flow.

[nine_k]

When I need to write something, and I have a computer, and something is inconvenient, I can quickly (well, within minutes, maybe 30 of them) alter it to my liking, and return to writing.

When I only have a pen and paper (which I used extensively for writing at school), many things may be inconvenient, but there's no way to fix it. This may turn into a source of a low-key stress, and interfere with my writing much more than tweaking a computer would.

I use Emacs, an ultimate tweaker's tool, for writing every day. Last time I had to tweak something in it was a few weeks ago, and it took maybe 2-3 minutes. It's a small price to pay for a tool that just does what you need, when you need it, with zero mental load, and zero frustration.

[cgriswald]

For my two main uses pen and paper has two opposite effects. For creative writing it is freeing because it isn’t the last stop but I don’t have to worry about format or placement or anything. I can just go. Typing has a sort of “technical” feel for me, probably due to code, email, and to some degree comments.

For notes during study pen and paper are constraining and force me to organize the thoughts in my mind first and then commit them. Mistakes needing to be corrected here is good: It reminds me what I misunderstood.

But, like the sibling poster, the writing goes onto the computer for later editing.

[jimbokun]

What in the world do you need to be able to write with pen and paper?

It’s pretty much the single function of pen and paper.

[obsidianbases1]

Pen and paper for writing. Computer for editing.

[sixtyj]

Paper notebook. I wouldn’t recommend loose sheets of paper. :) After 15 years of writing notes on loose sheets I would start differently :)

Go Tim Ferris way - notebook where the first page is left for the table of contents, and number all even-numbered pages as first step.

[obsidianbases1]

My thoughts are so all over the place that I've settled on 3x5 note cards. It also makes the transition to the computer much easier, because I can re-arrange them in a way that is somewhat organized before taking a picture that gets transcribed

[SanjayMehta]

You might want to check out Scrivener (Mac and Windows). I use that in lieu of note cards. The cork board function lets you re-arrange text and media to your hearts content and then compile the final output to Word, PDF whatever. It's designed for non-linear writing.

https://literatureandlatte.com

[sixtyj]

The point here is imho that you intentionally remove the computer from the path (in some part of your work) if you want to achieve some focused deep work (in case that you aren’t coding ofc :)

[sixtyj]

Possibility to re-arrange is ofc good when working on something in progress.

But how do you archive these cards? That always drove me mad so I use them only for something “encyclopaedical” otherwise it is too much messy.

[obsidianbases1]

At one point I had a physical filing system, but now they get converted to digital pretty quickly since I don't have to pay 10/hr to get it done. I also usually keep a daily card, and sometimes a few weekly/current lists on the note cards and just carry them around until I'm done with them.

It's mainly the capturing of the ideas that I prefer writing physically. After that, being able to move them around my digital system makes them most useful because I can have dynamic views that surface priorities and related notes without having to physically sift through the stacks.

[cortesoft]

I hate handwriting with a passion. I have my whole life. I have horrible handwriting and my hand gets sore 5 seconds after I start writing.

I am sure it is because I don't hold my pen/pencil correctly, but I think after 43 years I am not going to suddenly fix that.

[lproven]

> my hand gets sore 5 seconds after I start writing.

Use a fountain pen. You can't press too hard: it bends and breaks the nib.

Disposable ones are good enough now, e.g. the Pilot V-Pen.

https://cultpens.com/products/pilot-vpen-v4-disposable-fount...

[syntheticnature]

You sound likely to have dysgraphia, based on the fact I have all the same aspects and a dysgraphia diagnosis.

[NathanielK]

I am similar. If I physically write a couple times a week, my hand adapts though. It's a skill like any other.

Fountain pens are nice too since you don't need any pressure.

My writing looks a lot better if I just force myself to slow down and be deliberate, but honestly it's a constant battle. I'd definitely benefit from practicing penmanship on it's own.

[dv35z]

Worth mentioning - for a long time, I found my handwriting messy AND my hand would tire out. When I was about a teen-ager, I decided to write in call-caps, very clearly. I've been doing that for a long time now, and worth giving a try.

[gnabgib]

teen-ager? call-caps? Cursive (several hundred years old) fixes this.. all-capitals(caps) or block-caps makes writing more laborious, possibly easier to read (which is why it used to be requested on hand-written forms?)

[wolvoleo]

Me too. And I can type so much faster and without thinking about it than I can write.

I've had many writing classes in school and different holders for the pen etc but I never managed to improve at all. Writing is just not for everyone.

[laweijfmvo]

how did you decide which pens to go with?

[cgriswald]

Slow down. I’m still deciding on what size of notebook and whether I go dotted or blank.

[infinet]

I guess I will setup something similar or more complex. But there are alternatives:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114947

"George R.R. Martin Writes on a DOS-Based Word Processor From the 1980s". No internet, no multi tasking.

[maleldil]

That's doing wonders for his productivity.

[righthand]

I mean really… he hasn’t finished writing a book that’s narratively trapped but he certainly has been writing and working on a lot more than that one book. He certainly is productive at the very least. Is he satisfying your direct desires and expectations about what he should be working on? No. Does that mean his writing device is unproductive or bad or silly or a waste of time? No.

[maleldil]

It was a joke. I don't care how much he writes. Anything we get from him is a gift.

[lproven]

More less why I built this, TBH.

https://github.com/lproven/usb-dos

[rendaw]

I'd agree, but in this case they were able to write a blog post that got (as of now) 300+ points and 200+ comments with the content of their work.

[dnnddidiej]

A good test of your focus on writing is if you can use a boring tool like Substack, Wordpress, Blogger or Github pages (vanilla out of the box ssg setup) and just write.

That said this one did write something. But I'd say for anyone else writr 10000+ words on whatever before a single word on your setup.

[alexwwang]

Just open a term, start opencode, and tell my idea to LLM and ask it to write a passage of given length and save it to a file for me. Then the review loop starts. This is the writing job in the new era.

[kowbell]

I'm really, really curious why though? I'm not gonna try to dig at you, I just don't understand and want to know.

Is your "writing job" one where the end goal is like short random articles on some giant aggregate, or something like instructional content for businesses or something? Where a human typing things was just a means to an end, rather than what I'd assume OP's doing where they're writing for their own joy and/or because people love their specific voice? Because that's the only way my brain can rationalize it right now.

[alexwwang]

Actually not. I have my real idea, facts, data and all materials that support my point for a passage. I am just doing an experiment to see if I could find the line by myself. Let me ask you a question, imagine you are living in late 19th and early 20th century as a columnist and you have a secretary. You tell her your idea orally everyday and she typed down your words and revised them to be a column. Not only typing and revising, she even double checked the correctness of all references you mentioned and used in your passage as you indicated.

How do you think the ownership of these passages? Created by yourself or both of you? In what degree you would consider the line between you and her efforts?

[alexwwang]

Great. I have some thoughts and insights go alone this topic and I’m going to write it down to discuss this issue in detail. Thank you for your initial response.

[alexwwang]

Also this issue reminds me those women behind the one of the most famous statisticians, the founder of Biometrika, Karl Pearson. AFAIK, he employed a large number of female workers to do those tedious, mechanical and fragmented calculations, which supported his discoveries on statistics. How would you draw the line between his ideas and papers on statistics and those female employees? Would you like to share his honor with those great females?

[geek_at]

honestly this explains so much about many blog posts or journalistic articles I read in the last year

[alexwwang]

What you mentioned depicts the fact that we faced. That’s absolutely not a good thing. But on the other hand, the situation we face ask for a higher critic ability of a person. I think it could be an improvement of this era.