Arjen Wiersma

Christian Tietze is hosting this month's Emacs Carnival with the topic “This year, I'll”. I have never participated in a Carnival, so I guess this year I will.

I don't know if my year will be Emacs centered, I use Emacs daily and whenever I do something useful (to the world) in it, I tend to share it as I have been doing for almost 26 years now. This year, however, I use Emacs to step out of the algorithm based internet into the indie web, or Slow Web as I like to call it.

I have been focusing on self-hosting the important parts of my digital life, using open source technologies to replace technologies that become ever more expensive, less feature-full and invested with features that I find useless (look at all the “AI” integrations). Good examples are my recent posts of Forgejo and keeping the instance safe, or the move to write freely for my blog.

Emacs, for me is in the center of this movement. It is the place where I edit all the config files, browser source code, move files around, read RSS feeds and much, much more. For me Emacs is the computer interface that I feel most comfortable with and that has been with me while I have traveled various operating systems (old-skool Windows, macOS and Linux).

Slowing down also means to be more deliberate. Choosing where you put energy and integrating it with your workflow in a low-resistance way. For me that means that I will be exploring how to use these technologies from Emacs whenever possible.

So, to answer “This year, I'll” is to say “This year, I'll be taking control of the technologies I use”. I guess this also means that I'll be in a carnival this year :D