[blog] updates on currently reading (#200)

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+Node.js
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+> **Editor's Note:** As of November 2024, this blog no longer reflects the reality of how the site's "currently reading" feature works. If you're curious about the *how*, you can skim [this pull request](https://github.com/riastrad/cyberbspace/pull/195). If you're curious about the *why*, you can read [this blog post](/notes/2024/dropping-the-ocean).
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 ## What is this about?
 
 A couple weeks ago, on a lark, I decided to see if I could have the main landing page of this website dynamically update to reflect whatever book I'm currently reading.

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+---
+layout: post.njk
+title: Dropping the Ocean
+summary: Brief log of changes to my home page's currently reading feature
+date: 2024-11-26 19:00:00
+tags:
+  - post
+  - development
+  - web
+  - brief
+permalink: /notes/{{ page.date | dateYear }}/{{ title | slugify }}/index.html
+---
+
+I have been frustrated with having to pay Digital Ocean $5.30 every month just because I wanted to show what books I was reading on my site's home page. Last week, I [finally did something](https://github.com/riastrad/cyberbspace/pull/195) about it.
+
+The reason I didn't do this sooner, was because I have had [grand plans](https://github.com/riastrad/cyberbspace/issues/30) to completely re-vamp how I manage my digital reading record. I started down this path & quickly got bogged down in the details of book editions, date formats, ISBN numbers, &c. It all started to feel a bit silly & messy, so I set aside.
+
+Back in 2022 I was steeped in backend engineering. It felt easy and natural to spin up a Node.js server to connect my site to my reading data. Now that I'm no longer surrounded by on-call schedules and availability metrics, I had the epiphany that the feature doesn't need to be up-to-the-minute or highly available. I'm not changing the books I'm currently reading that often. I was being a computational wastrel.
+
+So I've changed my approach. I've now got a GitHub action that runs once every 4 hours to check my reading app's RSS feed. If it's changed compared to data that was previously pulled down, the action updates the data, commits it to my repo, & triggers a fresh site build. You can see the details in the [pull request](https://github.com/riastrad/cyberbspace/pull/195). I like this approach, it gets me closer to where I want to be[^1] without forcing me to spend hours build out a bespoke system. It feels more conducive to iteration, which I've found leads to better outcomes. I already see how I can use this strategy to catalog the books I have read & auto-generate dedicated review pages. I can do this piece by piece until I'm ready to swap out my use of [Oku](https://oku.club) for my own backend. Even better, my book data is now backed up in my site's git history.
+
+My only hesitation about going further down this route is the fact that I won't be able to easily pull my review data from Oku. They hide it behind a series of API calls that I will have to reverse engineer. For now, though, I'm happy that these books & links load instantaneously with the page instead of there being a perceptible delay while the front-end waits to hear back from the back-end.
+
+There's also a small hint of irony about this work. I'm not currently drawing a regular salary from anywhere, so being mindful of expenses is a more prominent part of my life. With the $63.60 I have saved by making this change, I have found the exact justification I needed to go out and buy a few more books.
+
+ [^1]: i.e. managing my reading data myself & baking all of my data into my site directly