Been in the mood to play around with CSS so both my main site and my micro.blog got a fresh coat of paint. Happy so far though I’ll probably keep playing around with it because it’s fun. Watch your step.

Renewed one of my WoW subscriptions since it’s Comp Stomp week and I still haven’t gotten that mount from Tazavesh. For my second account I bought an overpriced WoW token for 333K gold (ouch) but I’ll leave it in my bags for now. I might let the second account expire, so I’m currently going character by character making sure there’s nothing in the mailbox. Though knowing myself I’ll probably wind up posting auctions anyway. Need to make back those 333K somehow (sob).

• Played around with the CSS after pointing my highlights feed to micro.blog instead of Notion
• Gave highlights and notes a different look to differentiate between the two
• Added an RSS page

I tried sublime.app and it’s very cool. You clip things you find interesting and it pulls up related clippings that others have added. Other people discover new things because of what you post and you discover new things because of what other people post.

Last night I discovered bearblog.dev and it seems like an excellent blogging platform alternative. Super fast. Super simple. Stripped down to the “bear” essentials. I really like the “discover” page with the trending posts. I added the RSS feed to News Explorer and had a really good time reading through a lot of different blogs.

Something I think people struggle with is finding content to read and the upvote feature helps to make content discoverable without getting sucked into the algorithm.

I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Currently reading Joan Westenberg’s “How to Make People Give a Damn” and thinking about how authenticity will only continue to grow in value in the years to come.

Earnestness is radioactive. People sense it through the screen. If you’re saying something because you believe it, people may not agree, but they will listen longer. If you’re saying something because you think it will work, they may like it, but they won’t love it. There is a difference between engagement and emotional investment. One gets clicks. The other gets belief.

This is why a weird, typo-ridden essay on Medium about quitting law school to raise goats can outlast a perfectly edited corporate blog. Because someone meant it. The audience, whether they admit it or not, is starved for sincerity.

There is a reason why the Stoics are back in fashion, why Viktor Frankl sells more copies today than in 1980, and why YouTube is flooded with young men reading Marcus Aurelius to synth music.

People are seeking meaning.

It reminds me of a quote by Harold Kushner in When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: The Search for a Life That Matters:

“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power […] Our souls are hungry for meaning.”

I’ve been using News Explorer for all of my daily RSS reading, and I love it, but it’s forced me to tweak my workflow. Since I like to use Readwise Reader as my Read It Later/highlighting app of choice, I’m having to take the scenic route by using Instapaper as an intermediary.

News Explorer → Instapaper → Readwise Reader

Sounds clunkier than what I was previously doing which was using the share button to send articles to Reader, but it’s actually much smoother thanks to the integrated swipe action.

Today I discovered Manuel Moreale’s initiative “I’ll Read It” in which he encourages people to start their own blogs by volunteering to be their first reader:

“I don’t know what to write about” and “what if no one will read it?” These are the two most common reasons why people don’t want to start a personal blog. I already addressed the first one, so let me tackle the second one in the easiest way possible: I’ll read it. If you decide to start a blog in either English or Italian, I’ll read it. I don’t care about the topic. Start a blog, write something, send it to me, and I’ll read it.

I love this. If you have a blog in English, Spanish or French send me the link and I’ll read it.

Feedle is great for finding new RSS feeds to follow. Love that I can batch RSS feeds by topic. Hope they continue to expand their catalogue.

Me: I’ve come to an important life decision
K: Okay…
Me: After many years of battling the sock gnomes—why are you laughing? This is serious.

Gave my notes a little flair thanks to the CSS snippet from birming.com