Notes, photos, and essays from Jack Cheng.https://notes.jackcheng.com/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/26/room-for-notes/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/26/room-for-notes/Some pages should behave less like dispatches and more like rooms. They should hold a few objects in view at once: an image, a thought, a passage from a book, a link left open for later.Tue, 26 May 2026 13:20:00 GMT<p>Some pages should behave less like dispatches and more like rooms. They should hold a few objects in view at once: an image, a thought, a passage from a book, a link left open for later.</p> <p>This is the kind of page that may eventually want MDX, custom components, or a layout that does not belong in the daily stream. For the prototype, the important part is that it can sit beside ordinary notes without changing the publishing model.</p> <blockquote> <p>The system should make room for exceptions without making every ordinary post feel exceptional.</p> </blockquote>https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/lake-walk/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/lake-walk/Evening walk by the lake. The light made everything feel temporarily solved.Mon, 25 May 2026 22:05:00 GMT<p><img src="/media/posts/2026-05-25-lake-walk/lake.svg" alt="A quiet lake path at dusk with a band of warm light near the horizon."></p> <p>Evening walk by the lake. The light made everything feel temporarily solved.</p>https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/how-notes-travel/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/how-notes-travel/A note starts as a private scratch mark. It becomes more useful when it can move without losing its shape.Mon, 25 May 2026 20:10:00 GMT<p>A note starts as a private scratch mark. It becomes more useful when it can move without losing its shape.</p> <p>That is the thing I want from this notebook: a place where short thoughts, photos, and longer pieces can begin on my own domain, then travel outward when it makes sense. The source should remain plain enough to keep, copy, and repair.</p> <p>The mechanics matter because they shape the habit. If publishing asks for too many decisions, I will save the thought for later and later will become never.</p>https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/small-publishing-systems/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/small-publishing-systems/The hard part of a personal site is rarely the template. It is the tiny set of rituals around the template: where a thought begins, how it becomes public, what happens after it leaves the house.Mon, 25 May 2026 20:10:00 GMT<p>The hard part of a personal site is rarely the template. It is the tiny set of rituals around the template: where a thought begins, how it becomes public, what happens after it leaves the house.</p> <p>I want this place to make short notes feel as easy as posting to a timeline, while still keeping the canonical copy somewhere I can carry forward.</p> <p>That means the machinery should mostly disappear. Markdown in, stable page out, optional social copies after that.</p>https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/k7m2/https://notes.jackcheng.com/2026/05/25/k7m2/I keep thinking that personal websites should feel more like rooms than publications.Mon, 25 May 2026 18:32:00 GMT<p>I keep thinking that personal websites should feel more like rooms than publications.</p>