💾 Archived View for bitdweller.flounder.online › english › gemlog › 2021-12-16-capsule-editing.gmi captured on 2024-08-31 at 11:34:01. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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Capsule edits, or how I learned to stop and love Syncthing

Since I can remember, I've always been jumping from one digital note-taking solution to the next, supposedly better or more private or open source, etc... I've recently set on a new way of doing it. You can read about it on my capsule, on the self hosting page, but in a nutshell, I use plain text markdown files and I use different programs on different platforms and sync them with Syncthing.

Self-hosting

On to capsule editing

What occurred to me is that Gemini pages are plain text. So I've made a little script that converts one of the folders in my notes to .gmi files and uploads them to my capsule, hosted on flounder. It runs on a Raspberry Pi, where I have Syncthing and a bunch of other stuff. I run it once a day. I don't need more, and flounder certainly doesn't need the traffic!

Why?

I can write and add stuff to my capsule straight from my smartphone, on my note taking app, which I use a lot, with zero friction, not messing around with editors on Android (hat do tons of other stuff I don't need, thus making the UI more complex), whenever, wherever. And if I'm in a hurry I can just run the script on the Pi and it will be published in seconds (or minutes!).

But why?

I'm trying to cut down on mindless browsing. Trying to change some of that null behaviour to a better use of my brain that I like doing, something that fills me where reddit fails.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying it's bad or it makes you dumb, etc, not even saying I'm not going to do it anymore. I'll keep browsing reddit and there are moments that's the only thing I want, but I'm trying to do other stuff as well.

Also, I have a baby now, which is crazy, and I'm spending a lot more on my mobile while trying to get her to sleep, which is not always easy.

All this gets boring after a while, and a small phone is almost always reachable and usable. And I can use this time to write. Yes, she's sleeping right beside me right now :)

So there you go. Syncthing syncs my notes, and a daily cron task uploads the files to my capsule.