From: Zachary Vance Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:06:27 +0000 (-0500) Subject: Zen notes X-Git-Url: https://git.za3k.com/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=0ccb9b90da3f669e513f69e6c7a19ce9bbef8a90;p=blog.git Zen notes --- diff --git a/images/zen-notes1.png b/images/zen-notes1.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bcd0ac Binary files /dev/null and b/images/zen-notes1.png differ diff --git a/images/zen-notes2.png b/images/zen-notes2.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5892720 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/zen-notes2.png differ diff --git a/images/zen-notes3.png b/images/zen-notes3.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9c2486 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/zen-notes3.png differ diff --git a/images/zen-notes4.png b/images/zen-notes4.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ad2172 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/zen-notes4.png differ diff --git a/posts/zen-notes.md b/posts/zen-notes.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d871c69 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/zen-notes.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +author: admin +categories: +- Non-Technical +date: 2025-12-29 +tags: +- ai did it +- programming +title: Zen Notes +--- + +I've been trying various challenges this month. Some more object-level, like "Learn Redstone". Some more meta-level, like "orient everything I do toward goals". + +The first have been going pretty well. The second, not so much -- they start good, and I lose steam an hour or two in. + +My working theory is that I'm not losing enthusiasm -- it's just easy to forget, and there's no specific deliberable I have in mind. I'm essentially working on a habit. + +Yesterday's challenge was "constantly take notes". I decided to have Claude code me up a note-taking application, which is available [online here](https://tilde.za3k.com/notes/). It's a basic note-taking app, with all the usual stuff. Additionally, it's got an automatic "Zen Mode", meaning it hides all the menus and stuff when you're actually typing. + +![caption: menus mode](zen-notes1.png) +![caption: typing/Zen mode](zen-notes2.png) + +It has a few killer features I wanted: + +- If you stop typing for a long time (think an hour), it start beeping at you +- It then keeps beeping at you until you "catch up" to a total rate of 2 wpm or so -- that is, about 100 words an hour. As longas you're actively typing, it doesn't beep. +- The beep is subtle enough that I don't want to throw it out a window (your mileage may vary) +- You can turn on "typewriter" mode where you can't backspace. I haven't tried that yet--it would be more for something like writing a rough draft of a document and less for taking notes. +- You can work on two computers (it has cloud storage with no login) +- It saves locally and you don't need the internet + +We added a couple features later: + +- The weirdest by far is my request for a very subtle indicator of how much you need to "catch up" when it's not beeping. The result is a glowing bar on the bottom, which fades and disappears when you are all caught up on typing. +- A "working hours" settings, where it automatically doesn't beep between certain hours. +- It support multiple document editing with tabs. This may have been a mistake. + + +![caption: type a lot more words](zen-notes3.png) +![caption: type a few more words](zen-notes4.png)