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This site takes as its inspiration Andy Matuschak’s working notes. The genre is sometimes called a digital garden — but that metaphor doesn’t really speak to me. Regardless of the name, these kinds of sites typically lack the usually hierarchical navigation that most web sites feature. One moves from note to note by following links, or entering a term in the search bar. So if the topic seems to interest you, please browse.
You’ll see that links to external websites are marked with an icon while internal links between notes and other pages on this website are simply underlined.
The notes are published using blot.im, a static website generator. As its creator, David, likes to say, “Blot turns a folder into a website.” It’s simple to connect blot.im to a folder in Google Drive or Dropbox, or use git to connect a folder on your hard drive. Files inside the folder are converted to posts, pages and images automatically. There are a suite of useful tools to round out the experience — full-text search, RSS feeds, tags and (especially for this site) backlinks between posts.
The challenge, at least for me, is to use the Mustache templating system and CSS to present the content they way you want. Blot.im includes some templates out of the box, but none of them really fit my needs — which was to create a site where I could publish these notes and some exploratory blog posts side by side. With some helpful coaching from David, I forked the standard Magazine theme to create what you see here. I call it “Take Note.” It’s a work-in-progress, but it does the job.
I author my notes in Obsidian as Markdown files. The Obsidian vault is a folder, which is where blot.im picks up the content (via git) to do its magic.
I am an ink-stained storyjack living and working on a small island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay. I write notes, essays, articles, stories, and feuilletons to better understand the world and to make meaning as a last-ditch effort against entropy. You can learn more about me at jackbeaudoin.com or about my work at storyjack.me. If you want to reach me, the surest way is via the Contact page.