Community of bloggers / What's on my Plank
Reading other people's blogs on “Read Write.as” and “100 Days to Offload” feels like a mix of voyeurism, a search for inspiration, and through time, an emergent sense of being part of a virtual community. Right now I'm particularly enjoying seeing linkages pop up between blogs. Here are a few examples:
- “What's On Your Plank” started on 4 June by Mike Stone and continued on 5 June as “Updating My Plank” by Muse & Reason.
- Muse & Reason's own post, “The Case of the Dangling Toad” about Isaac Newton's unappealing toad-based curative being picked up in Roscoe's Notebook under “A plague remedy?”.
- Stuff Life's “Question to Mike” from Mike's thoughts.
As well as explicit linkages, just seeing posts that echo with my own experiences and thoughts add to this sense of community:
- Stuff Life's “Going open source on Android” feels like a parallel experience to my “de-Googled smartphone” post.
- As Mike Stone wrote in his “100 Days of Discovery”, finding new software suggestions is also an unanticipated bonus. Right now I'm trying out Typora, Joplin and Standard Notes all thanks to people's posts.
- Scott Nesbit's “Open Source Musings”, “Random Notes” and “The Plain Text Project” are a great read, balancing technical content and personal experience.
- Evangeline Digital's first post, full of joy and optimism that Write.as is the “write” place for her (apologies for the pun!) reminded me of my first post a couple of weeks ago.
I also stumbled across the guilty-pleasure gem that is The ACME Tribune (pure escapism about the “ACME Omnipresent Interstellar Corporate Conglomeration”).
I guess I could kick things up a gear and interact with everyone on the Fediverse through Mastodon etc. but I am hesitant to do so. I stepped away from Facebook and Twitter towards the end of last year. So much noise, so little signal. While there is a trade-off in immediacy and interaction, I'm finding a sense of relief in being largely removed from social media and FOMO – so for now, I'll enjoy everyone else's blogs with vicarious pleasure and hope a few of you gain some pleasure and sense of community from mine too!
What is on my “Plank”?
My “Plank” is Latte Dock. It is definitely a work in progress as I've only recently started my Linux laptop and it is solely for personal use. Maybe I'll post an update in 3-6 months!
From left to right:
- Firefox – I may post about my own browser experience another time (I know, you can hardly wait, right?!).
- Dolphin file manager.
- Thunderbird – it's been years since I've used a dedicated desktop email client, as I have tended towards web interfaces.
- Skype and Zoom – while I have some misgivings about them, right now staying in touch with people is important so I'll use the video conference tool that works for them. Maybe I'll manage a Jitsi Meet session again if I'm lucky!
- Signal desktop – typing out messages that end up on people's phones is a simple pleasure but one I do enjoy for the admittedly small number I've convinced to use Signal.
- KCalc – easy access to a calculator is a must.
- Joplin and Typora I've already mentioned – in fact I'm writing this blog on Typora now.
- Discover and System Settings as I continue to evolve my set-up
- Konsole – because what would a Linux computer be without a terminal application ;–)
Coming soon once I get launchers sorted as they do not come with their AppImages:
- WorkFlowy – I'm erratic in my use of this tool but I do love the idea behind it and use it with my wife for shared shopping lists if nothing else!
- Standard Notes
Entry 9 of my participation in the “100 days to offload” challenge. Find out more and join in!
2020-06-07 #100DaysToOffload #technology #Linux #blogging #TradeOffs