Creating a static website for all my bookmarks (opens in new tab)

I've done this for awhile now, but only a couple years ago learned about the traditional practice of Common Placing, of which this is arguably a modern version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book

Also, whenever I add a reference I'll include a link to the Wayback Machine in addition to a direct link, and especially for PDFs mirror it locally--both Wayback Machine and Google Books have taught me invaluable lessons about relying on third-parties to maintain access to important sources.

I maintain the page using Markdown, and use Markdeep[1] for client-side rendering. Though overtime I've added some features, e.g. to make anchor linking easier.

To prevent myself from adding too much junk, my rule is I'll only add a source if I return to it at least twice, with a significant gap in between visits. That is, it has to be sufficiently memorable and substantive. And the effort required to relocate the source is part of the measure of its worthiness. My notes tend to be more terse than the article's examples, but sometimes they're a good place to link to related material that might not make the cut for a separate entry. Early on I added a separate "Inbox" section to allow myself greater liberty in adding sources, but that didn't work well. Half of the stuff there should have just been added to the main section, and the other half left off. Better to just try to keep disciplined, though there are always the exceptions you can't resist.

Since starting around 2017 I've accumulated about 230 entries.

[1] https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/

I’ve been doing this since the ‘90s. At first I just had a text document with urls. From there it didn’t take a lot of imagination to wrap them in a little basic html, and there you have it.

The author has features I don’t have. But that’s the beauty of this! I have features they don’t have. You can have whatever features you want.. it’s just a matter of scratching your itches. Well, and some basic web skills (these days some basic prompting skills are probably enough).

I’ve thought about doing this, or at least a markdown file on GitHub. The problem is, most of the bookmarks I want to save are of the “finish reading later when I’m not on mobile” variety. And I tend to leave them as open tabs, because if I tuck things away, they tend not to get looked at much.

> When I save articles, I write a short summary of the key points, information, arguments. I can review a one paragraph summary much faster than I can reread the entire page.

As can others who aren't sure how closely their tastes align with yours. This is amazing.

That's genuinely awesome! I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time!

I don't have a background in coding, rather I'm just a humble engineering tech but this sounds like something I want to learn and sink my teeth into.

I have a tremendous amount of links - probably going back to the late 2000's and I've always relied on services like Pinboard, Raindrop and Delicious (!).

Once again thank you for the inspiration and the metaphorical kick up the backside!

I keep track of personal side projects in a markdown file, which is easily exported to a static site with `grip`. It’s simple, private, and immune from enshittification.