Over/Under #78 with RedBeanIceCream

This week my guest is ReadBeanIceCream.

There are different hashtags that I have pinned on Mastodon like #blogging #blogs or #100DaysToOffload to follow people in the community. That’s how I stumbled upon RBIC’s profile.

He writes about pandoc, RSS, plain-text and other related things.

You can follow him on the Fediverse or subscribe to his RSS feed.

Today, here are his topics ⤵️

Pandoc

Underrated. Underhyped. Under-everything

Pandoc bills itself as the Swiss Army knife of documentation conversion and that is no joke. Think about all of the tools you use to document something, anything. How many? Three? Six? Nine?! A tool to create a docx. Then another to create a slide deck. Then another one to create HTML. Then, something for spreadsheets. Then diagrams. Then PDF, EPUB, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam. What if there was something that can do it all?

That’s Pandoc. I know what you are thinking. “There’s no interface. It’s hard. I have to use a terminal.” That right there is why it is underrated and underhyped. The immediate reaction is, “I am not going all Mr. Robot just to write a document.” The thing is, it’s not that hard. 15 minutes to learn markdown and maybe another 10 minutes to know what flags to set. Here, I’ll help: pandoc --from markdown your-markdown-file.md --to html -o your-webpage.html. There, saved you 10 minutes.

So, now you can focus on writing or spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out why MS Word keeps blowing out your formatting when you move that image two pixels to the left. Your choice.

Ghostty

To be totally honest, I have to abstain on this one.

I am going to flex my terminal ignorance here. I use the terminal for a lot of tasks. Most of my workflows are text-based and I work through them via the terminal. My kanban board, my journal, and even my cookbook are in plain text. It’s fast. It’s efficient. I use the terminal daily.

That said, I run a stock terminal. I use Debian with XFCE and use XFCE4-terminal as my daily driver. Why? It suits my needs. It’s out of the way. It can grep. It can tree. It can bash. Sprinkle a little nano in there and you have about 90% of my workflow.

In my opinion, terminals are like text editors, use what makes your life easier and fits into your workflow. Everything does not need to be a flamewar (are those still a thing?).

PKM

Underrated. Overhyped.

I am going to assume we are talking about Personal Knowledge Management and not the PKM machine gun.

I think we should continue learning throughout our lives. We should never stop. However, we cannot be expected to memorize every single thing that comes our way. Things that we deem important. Things we will (not may) use some day. That requires some sort of PKM. I think true curation of knowledge is underrated. We tend to collect and store information instead of curate and synthesize knowledge.

The overhype comes in with glorified data hoarding or performative PKM. We have all seen the videos, “My Obsidian workflow uses these 50 life changing plugins.” Or, “I have 20000 notes in my Notion second brain.” I mean cool flex, I guess, but what are you doing with that information? You’ve procrastinated, I mean, designed this complex workflow and collected all of this data, but have you worked with it? Reflected on it? Have you learned from it? What happens when those platforms inevitably die?

For me, personally, I am happy with solid directory structure, plain text files that have been meaningfully tagged, and going back to those notes to either process them fully or reflect on them as part of a larger project. The goal is to learn, curate, and maintain knowledge not to whip out your second brain to prove it’s bigger than everyone else’s.

Diary

Underrated. Overhyped.

I am going to put diaries and journals in the same category as PKMs in that we should all keep one. Anything that allows us to slow down, think, write about our day (either before or after), and reflect on it is good for us. Self-reflection in any form is good.

Unfortunately, journaling has become a youtuber’s over-performative wet dream. The last thing that we need is all of these “creators” telling us how {insert method or tool} has changed their life. How many 20-minute video essays are floating around the internet telling us just how simple journaling is, but then they go on to outline a 12-step process that requires $200 worth of materials. Nope.

I love the idea of journaling in any form, but I have always struggled with journaling. I even write about those struggles. The thing that I have come to learn (which applies to most things), is to ignore the hype. Ignore the so-called influencers and do the thing your way. Whatever you need to do to facilitate self-reflection, that is the way to do it.

Flammkuchen

Underrated. Underhyped.

Holy flaming flatbread, Batman! Where has this been all of my life?! Thin crust flatbread slathered in sour cream, onions, and bacon. A piece of test dough used to gauge oven temperature that evolved into a crispy pizza-like delicacy. Hell yeah!

Obviously I would love it. I mean it is simple, rustic, and full of flavor… just like me. Definitely going on the, “I want a quick dinner” list.

Imagine that ICE officers are at your door to seize all your books. You

have the opportunity to save two. Which two do you pick?

I see ICE has gone full Fahrenheit 451 Firemen in this scenario. If so, then:

• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. It symbolizes the need, right, and freedom that we all have to write about how we see the world and our place in it.
• The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor. It reminds us that in some ways we are all flawed and struggle with both internal and external conflicts. To do so is to be human. It reminds us that the confidently self-righteous are cautionary examples that we should observe and learn from but not necessarily imitate.

Question from the previous blogger

If I could go back and give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be: don’t chase the shiny. Just because it is new does not mean it is better (Side note: just because something is old does not mean it is better either).

Always look inside and ask yourself, “will this new shiny thing make my life better? How? Why? If any of your answers start with “Because other people (say, think, do)…”, then you can probably skip this new shiny and wait for the next one.

What you would like to ask the next blogger?

If you were sent to the past to save one piece of technology, what would you bring back?

And my replies ⤵️

Pandoc

Underrated. Please, start with a man pandoc. Yeah, it’s a long read, but you’ll learn many things about document conversion, and you’ll thank me.

Ghostty

Overrated. I’ve already written about it and explained why I’m not a big fan. After using urxvt, xterm, and Alacritty for years, Kitty is the one that have won me over.

PKM

Underrated, but I do agree with RBIC, it’s overhyped by some YouTubers.

I would have loved to know that system when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, I discovered it only a couple of years ago. I only see benefits if applied simply, and correctly without all the hype around it.

Richard’s post was great about Zettelkasten. Go read it, as well as this article.

Be curious, and you’ll keep learning with or without a PKM.

Diary

Underrated. I’ve been journaling since 2019. I mainly do it to be able to get back at some point in my life. I also write our days for people when I won’t be here anymore. I want them to rediscover our past, maybe have some laughs, or maybe understand me better.

It’s the same with my Zettelkasten. People will be able to read all my thoughts, and maybe continue a discussion with me.

Flammkuchen

Underrated. That’s the kind of late, after party, dinner.

There was a place in Paris, near Chatelet Les Halles, that was open 24/24. We used to end up there at 3 or 4am when everything else was closed. Flammkuchen was always something I used to get to soak up the night’s alcohol.

I checked the recipe, and it’s really a simple meal that should be on your list of “quick dinner” as RBIC mentioned it.