/reader

Along the way to adding this, I realized we could extend more of Micro.blog's publishing. Because Pagefind runs on your built HTML pages, after your Markdown goes through Hugo, we needed a hook into the processing of your blog. I'm calling these actions. There are a few now and will be more later.

You will find an Edit Actions button on the blog settings page. When adding a new action, you'll see these options:

Each action can run either right after Hugo, but before Micro.blog finishes publishing your blog to our servers, or after everything is done. You can imagine in the future other useful tools that could be tacked on to this, such as our existing GitHub backups or maybe uploading via SFTP to other servers.

I've added a new "Ping" action that sends a POST to another server. This sends simple JSON with a url field for your blog. I've also moved the Wayback Machine copy into this part of the interface, but kept the old checkbox for convenience for now.

Have other ideas for actions? We can add more and hopefully open it up to plug-ins later. And of course this is optional, so it's mostly tucked away in the UI.

Anyway, I explained to her there was nothing indicating a leak.

— But it’s a problem, she said.
— No, there’s no problem, I replied.
— Yes, there is. I’m worried.

I explained as gently as I could that this was not the kind of problem I could solve. It wasn’t even a real problem, just a mind-made one.

I suggested she put some paper on the floor up there. Check it whenever worry came creeping back. That calmed her down and she thanked me for both the visit and the advice.

It’s surprisingly common that I visit “problem houses” where the only real issue is the idea that something is wrong. People even tell me they have physical symptoms because of the thought of a problem. And I believe them. Truly.

That’s how powerful the mind is. But our awareness is even more powerful.

We don’t have to believe everything that little voice in our head tells us. We can observe those tiny attic monsters without feeding their story. And when we shine the light of awareness into that dark attic, we see the truth: there were never any monsters there to begin with.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about Obsidian, which lives and breathes Markdown². I can’t tell you how many times I’ve (re)installed Obsidian, thinking this time it’ll stick, for sure!

It hasn’t stuck yet, but I was determined to give Obsidian the entire month of December to win me over. I made it as pretty as I know how to. I installed the few essential plugins. I created some nice templates. Each morning I’d fire up a new “Daily Note” with my fancy template. Then…nothing. Even though I already knew this, I simply don’t enjoy using Obsidian. There’s something about it that doesn’t jibe with my brain. I don’t like how the sidebars work. I don’t like how it handles attachments. It doesn’t feel right, ya know?

I keep trying to use it because there are things I like about Obsidian. I like that it can do a lot of fancy stuff, easily, and right out of the box without me having to spend hours figuring out why my hand-made Lisp function isn’t working. Linking is easier in Obisidian, and although the Graph is mostly useless, it’s still cool to look at. “Unlinked mentions” is a great feature for apps like this, too.

The best thing about Obsidian, though, is it works on macOS and Linux without fuss, and it syncs easily with just about any sync tool. Or I can pay for Obsidian Sync, which is even nicer. Oh, and it works on iOS, which comes in handy.

So for a week I tried emphasizing the things I like and ignoring the things I don’t. It didn’t work. Obsidian is almost certainly the Right Answer for many people, even me, probably. I couldn’t do it. I caved after only a week.

That means I’m once again back in Emacs. Emacs is too good at too many things, so I’ll probably never be able to leave it permanently. I’ll just occasionally become annoyed with something about it and try switching to something else for a minute…again. Maybe Octarine next time 🤔.

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I still get questions about childrens’ names and citizenship and gender recognition certificates and things.

But now I also get questions like “how do I print multiple copies of the PDF?” and “why does my homemade deed poll not have a serial number?” 😂

🧡 I love RSS feeds. And I love you for using them. 💙