Tandoor & Personal Knowledge Management Systems why you do not need them
Editors note: This is specifically about Tandoor but more about me and what I really need.
You don't like to collect a bunch of random recipies in your phone photo app, the cookbooks over your stove or as some kind of bookmarking chaos then you might like Tandoor. Tandoor is a recipe management app (or when you google for it a clay oval shaped oven) you can self-host :sparkles-emoji. with docker.
So when you are like me one year ago you think huh I got this entire bookmark collection separated between 1. things I like and 2. things I have still to try. In addition there are some extra cooking recipes lying around in a folder on my personal computer and some "standardized" recipies in Obsidian (we will come back to this later).
You might take the same route as me with starting a subscription for Tandoor as a recipe management system and to let this germany based developer of this open source software have money to keep up with development. You like the way Tandoor is run with its "no we dont need cookies". But at some point you ask yourself is that 3,50€ per month really "well spent"™? Tandoor is famous in the recipe management bubble for its possibility of hosting it on your own server. So you want to self host it.
Start of the long and not needed "story" of learning to use a docker a little bit
You just plug your old little raspberry pi 3 into your router then install a terminal based operating system, somehow link it to your PC so you dont need to reconnect your monitors and then start reading up on self hosting so it was actually worth doing this.
You find that you need a thing called "docker" so you can "deploy" "Container" onto your pi? aha. Maybe you are like me and enjoy the picture of the whale with the container on it and you think okay this looks friendly. Then you read up to the best of your understanding and find out that docker allows multiple container/software to run on the same device alongside without blocking each other or at least that is what I remember.
But you dont enjoy using command based tools. You know that they are faster when you know the ropes but you are afraid of the ropes (for some reason idk?! or dont know where to start?). So you look into Portainer a graphic interface for docker and think okay I just need to figure it out with Tandoor what things I need to type into where and after some more hours trying it works! Yes it works! You are happy and relived to know that you are more capable than only turning on your computer with the right button.
So now it runs on its own little server in the corner and you get to work to transfer your account from the online paid version to your local Tandoor client. And it all just works.
end of this long story
Finally we got this! Of course as your knowledge is not far reaching you played it safe and did not open your local home network to the entire internet. This wont be problem right?
But months later you think about it. You can not access your recipe vault in the supermarket, you need to manually type in the recipes you photograph out of the cookbooks you borough from your local library and your partner does not want to fiddle with that tech. What use is Tandoor with all its great features now? Also about all these features: do you need it? You only really need an ingredients list and steps plus the photo of the dish your visual brain actually wants to eat something.
You start to wonder about a place where printed out websited, photocopies of the pages of these cookingbooks and a scribble your old family member gave can coexist. You learn about paper again. Paper is the oldest and most versatile blank canvas I know of. It can be folded, scribbled on and is interoperable with any pen you have lying around. Tech (even when its based on markdown and open-source) is restricting when compared with paper. The only thing it cant to is calculate the ingriendets based on number of person sharing this meal like Tandoor. Its also not everywhere accessible like the 3,50€ online version.. So maybe at this point you realise like me that tech is cool and all but you do not need that much.
I am sadly just a sucker for this type of thinking. Oh shiny thing that solves all my problems and will look as sick. This thing really hit me down with the introduction of obsidian into my life. When I saw it I need it. Not that fancy graph view anyone was talking about but this writing playground with custom theming so I could have a sepia writing background.
You don't remember what size of skirts you wear, what gifts you want, which books you read (and you don't want amazon to know it), what renovations need to be done in your home and which plant likes what type of shade then you dear reader are also dire need for a in Personal Knowledge Management System (PKM for short) like Obsidian, Notion, Loqseq, Vim? or ...
But that is not the points they really shine nor what the youtubers that make the tutorials use it for. They use it for their content creation machine. And while I write these blog posts (sometimes) I do not summarize and relink all my reading everything I just want to chill and read a good book like the (Adult Analysis Anthology #1 by BP Games).
What I do need is a way to capture my shower thoughts throughout the day and to freeing of the thoughts I have that won't let me sleep. For this purpose and the purpose of writing these blogs I use obsidian and for everything listed up there I use notion. Not because its the most efficient way or the thing that makes me happy.
But sometimes just like it is with Tandoor its good to learn the ropes, to try it out, to run 30 meters into that direction only to know that you didn't need it in the first place. I juggle notion and Obsidian into each other and make them sepreate again but not anymore. i learned that sometimes things can just stay like this as an entire evening devoted to "clean up" this mess is an evening I could just use to write this (yes really this post you read here) blog post. I could also just cook :)