So, I was messing around with this idea of pulling together an “indie” version of something like the New York Times, just for fun, you know? I called it “indie output nyt,” a total working title, of course.
I started by just brainstorming. What would this even be? I figured it needed some core elements:
- Content, obviously. But what kind? I leaned towards short-form stuff, quick takes, maybe some curated links.
- A way to gather it. I didn’t want to spend hours hunting for stuff.
- Some way to display it. It had to be clean, simple, readable.
First, I dove into gathering content. I decided to focus on things I was already interested in – indie game dev, weird tech news, some music stuff. I started by bookmarking articles and jotting down quick thoughts in a plain text file. Just raw ideas, nothing fancy.
Then, I figured I needed a better way to organize this mess. I played around with a couple of note-taking apps, but honestly, they felt like overkill. Ended up sticking with a simple folder structure on my computer. One folder for each “category,” and separate text files inside.
The display part was tricky. I’m no web designer. I tried a couple of free website builders, but they were either too clunky or too restrictive. I wanted something super minimal. I remembered seeing some really clean, text-based websites, and that’s what I aimed for.
I messed around with some basic HTML. Literally just headings, paragraphs, and lists. No fancy styling, no images, just text. It looked surprisingly okay! Super basic, but readable, which was the goal.
After a few hours of tinkering, I had a single HTML file with a bunch of my curated content. It was rough, but it felt like something. Like a tiny, personal newspaper.
I’m still not sure where I’m going with this “indie output nyt” thing. Maybe it’ll just be a fun personal project. Maybe I’ll keep adding to it, refining it. The main thing is, I enjoyed the process of building something from scratch, even if it’s super simple. It was a good reminder that you don’t need fancy tools or a ton of expertise to create something interesting.