Weeknotes 2024W38

We’re starting week 39 out of 52 tomorrow which means we are 75% of the way done with 2024. There are 100 days left until 2025 is here.

Launched a new rich text editor

As I wrote last week, I’ve been working on converting a Markdown-based editor to a rich text one in a Rails application I’m building. The Rails integration made it pretty easy to add in. Customizing it was the hard part that I couldn’t do yet and will revisit later if it’s important to users. But I launched it this week!

Photos are not allowed in the rich text editor but there is now a spot for users to upload one profile picture that will show at the top of their profile.

What matters is that I learned a lot, I improved on a working prototype, and I enjoyed it! This opens up the door to next steps with the person I’m collaborating with and hopefully a successful project.

Started accepting tips

After thinking about it and reading how other people think about making money from their blogs, I decided to begin accepting tips and added a Ko-fi link to the bottom of my posts. At first, it felt like “selling” my writing which is a no-no for me:

I write mostly for me with the hope that someone somewhere gets some value out of it
I learned a lot of what I know for free on the internet and it feels wrong to try and add a price tag to my retelling of that knowledge
Hardly anyone reads this thing anyways

I am not expecting to make any money from this nor do I need to. It’s not a measure of success for me and my website costs me $24 per year for the domains. I do put a lot of time and effort into my website and what I write, though, purely because I want to. Instead, accepting tips is offering one way for people to say “thank you, here is an appreciation token.”

I value learning and serving others. As such, there are other ways to say thank you that are more valuable to me than money:

Send me an email with a few thoughts or kind words
Share the link with someone else who might get something valuable from it
Comment on a Mastodon post acknowledging you read it

Still, I won’t say no to a free coffee for my efforts. Tips or not, thank you for reading. It makes me feel helpful and I really appreciate it.

In a similar vein, I was also compelled to turn analytics on. To be clear, I am NOT using Google Analytics. Way too invasive. Instead, I am using GoatCounter which is privacy-aware and only tracks what pages were viewed and by how many people.

This is a slippery slope, though. I was using a similar service for a while and it’s really easy to check the damn numbers every day. Still, validating that I’m not shouting into the void is nice. I’m still conflicted on this, though, and might turn it off if it becomes a fixation.

Struggled on a challenging post

Speaking of writing, I worked on a challenging article this week about minimizing cultural differences. I’ve had an idea to write about this topic for a while but got a spur during lunch the other day. I don’t think I’ve been stuck this hard on trying to clarify what I believe before. It’s been a welcome challenge.

Bits and Bobs

Listening to Father John Misty’s new album teaser. Very excited for the full release next week.
Wrote and posted book notes for None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell. I don’t normally read thrillers but this one was really good. Note: the listed date on book notes is the date that I finished reading it, not when I posted it. I’m behind on writing book notes.
Started reading Entitled by Kate Manne. Difficult to read but important nonetheless.

Links

Your brain is biased by default. Here’s how to reset it. | David Eagleman by Big Think. People don’t experience reality in the same way. We can expand our worldviews and internal models by traveling and interacting with others. Understanding our biases towards people in out-groups is a good way to counteract them.
Modern apologies by Seth Godin.

“Sorry” doesn’t have to be an admission of guilt or acceptance of fault. It could simply be the kind way one human acknowledges to another human that things aren’t ideal right now.
Know how you’ll end your presentation by Giles Turnbull. Don’t fizzle out of a presentation with “and, um, yeah that’s pretty much it.” Let your audience know, clearly, when your presentation has ended. I just finished reading Turnbull’s book and I’ve been enjoying reading around his website for more communication nuggets.
What Came First? by Google Arts & Culture. Fun game which made it very clear that I don’t know very much about history or culture. It gives you two cultural artifacts and you decide which came first. After you choose, you get a little snippet of info for each one which is a nice way to learn.
The skill of allyship by Recipes For Wellbeing.

Allyship is not about saviourism or paternalism. Rather, it’s about using your privilege to open doors, to challenge discriminatory policies and practices, and to advocate for systemic change. It’s about being willing to take risks, face backlash, and leverage your social and political capital for justice.
All on the table by Mandy Brown at everything changes. I love everything Brown writes and this was no exception.

“It is a fundamentally different experience to negotiate an exchange of funds with a living, breathing, person versus with a mindless, unconscious organization. It’s more vulnerable and personal, and there’s more on the table than just cash.”