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diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2025-01-19.md b/website/src/content/blog/2025-01-19.md deleted file mode 100644 index 2c5ed99..0000000 --- a/website/src/content/blog/2025-01-19.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,193 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: - How I read things on the Internet now (no, of course I don't leave the - terminal!) -description: >- - I've been sprucing up how I follow what's happening on the Internet. I can now - read all the things I want to read pretty efficiently, and enjoy doing it, - which is exciting. -pubDate: 2025-01-19 ---- - -## The problem - -I like to read things on the Internet sometimes. Or listen to things. Or watch -things. - -Some interesting people write blog posts. Some beautiful people make music. Some -silly people make comedy sketches. Sometimes my friends are sharing stuff with -their friends, which means me (WIP on that front: I'll get back to that). - -I want to know about it. I want to read interesting things that will educate me. -I want to hear beautiful music. I want to hear about what my friends are up to. - -I can't read everything as it comes in, it's too much: I'll need to sift a lot -of it out quickly. I'll need to sift through it regularly to stay on top of it: -like, several times a week, if not daily. And sometimes, while I'm doing my -daily sifting, I'll find something I really want to read, but I haven't got time -right now: I'll save this for the weekend. - -For a while, I've been hosting [CommaFeed][commafeed] on [PikaPods][pikapods]. -This has been OK ([OMG, RSS is cool][rss]), but the interface is just clunky -enough to make it a chore to use. That means I don't sift through stuff -regularly, and that means my feed piles hundreds of unread posts high. - -It also hasn't been any good for distinguishing between stuff I don't want to -read _ever_, and stuff I don't want to read _right now_ but will get round to -later. I could in theory use the bookmarking feature built-in to my browser, but -removing things after I've read them is too clunky, so I don't do it. - -## The solution - -Every morning, I open my terminal and run [newsboat][newsboat]. - - - -I know the unread count is pretty fresh, because I've set up a systemd service -to run newsboat at startup to fetch the feeds. - -I press `l` twice to open a post. Then I press `n` to navigate to the next -unread post until I run out of unread posts. - - - -If I encounter something I want to read later, but don't have time right now, I -press `b`, which runs a home-made bookmarking script. Here it is: - -```bash -### readlater.sh ### - -# newsboat passes a few arguments: -# the first one is the post URL -url="$1" - -# I turn the URL into a suitable filename -filename=$( \ - echo $url | \ - sed "s/.*:\/\///" | \ - sed "s/\//./g" | \ - sed "s/\.html\$//g" \ -) -filename="$filename".html - -# If I've already got this in my reading list, -# I don't add it again -if [[ -a "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" ]] -then - exit 0 -fi - -# Otherwise, I download the post with curl -# and pipe it to a file in my reading list -# folder, ~/readlist/unread -curl "$url" > "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" -``` - -I can also run this script manually and pass it a URL of my choice at any time, -say, if I find an interesting article while browsing the Web. - -When I want to read from my reading list, I run `readnow.sh`, which simply opens -my reading list folder, `~/readlist/unread`, in my terminal file browser of -choice: namely, [ranger][ranger]. - - - -Although ranger has a preview, I'll typically open the file up in my terminal -web browser of choice, which is [w3m][w3m] (plus a couple of custom -key-bindings). I've configured this to be my preferred web browser in ranger by -shifting it to the top of the list of HTML browsers in -`~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf`. - -```conf -### ~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf ### - -... - -ext x?html?, has w3m, terminal = w3m "$@" -ext x?html?, ... - -... -``` - -Having configured my default web browser in my ranger config, all I need to do -is press `l`. - - - -No ads, no cookie popups, no giant banner images taking 2 seconds to load and -shifting the content all over the place: just the text I want to read. Isn't it -beautiful? - -Once I'm finished reading the post, I'll press `q` to quit w3m and return to -ranger. Assuming I don't need to read it again, I'll press `dm` to move the post -to `~/readlist/read` - my way of marking a post as 'read'. - -I've done this by writing a super simple script, `markread.sh`: - -```bash -### markread.sh ### - -filename="$(basename $1)" - -if [[ -a "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" ]] -then - mv "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" "$HOME/readlist/read/$filename" - echo "Marked $filename as read." -else - echo "I couldn't find a file in ~/readlist/unread with the name: $filename" -fi -``` - -...and hooking it onto the custom keybinding, `dm`, in ranger: - -```conf -### ~/.config/ranger/rc.conf ### - -... - -# map `dm` to run markread.sh in the shell, providing the active filename -# as the first and only argument -map dm shell markread.sh %f - -... -``` - -## The result - -I can now keep up to date, and I enjoy doing it. - -I get not everyone likes to live in the terminal. I think the key takeaways are: - -- Make it really easy to sift through new posts -- When you sift, sift through every post, and for each one, either read it - straight away, or add it to your reading list -- Sift daily -- Make it really easy to add things to your reading list -- Make it really easy to browse, read things, and mark things read in your - reading list -- Set aside time to catch up on your reading list -- Make the whole thing joyful (both because joy is good, and because you won't - do it otherwise) - -## Next steps - -I still haven't really figured out social media. I'd like to stay up to date -with what my friends are doing, especially the ones I don't see very often. If -my friends are posting stuff on the Internet, I'd love to see it. - -I still need to know: - -- Are my friends posting stuff on the Internet? -- If so, where? -- What's the best way of subscribing to their posts - even if they live on - different websites and in different formats? -- What's the best way of sending and receiving comments/replies/reactions? - -TBC. Answers on a postcard please. - -[commafeed]: https://www.commafeed.com -[pikapods]: https://www.pikapods.com -[newsboat]: https://newsboat.org -[ranger]: https://ranger.github.io -[rss]: /blog/2024/05/02/no_more_youtube -[w3m]: https://w3m.sourceforge.net |