Now we know that there is no single, rational way to deal with this administration. The lesson for Canada is that diagnosis is not capacity. We can say sovereignty and “elbows up” as often as we like, and talk endlessly about the Arctic, pipelines, building Canada and middle power diplomacy. Unless we can actually build, buy, permit, deploy and defend at speed, sovereignty remains a slogan and security an aspiration. My original prescription was basically right. What I underestimated was how inadequately we are equipped to follow it.
RunnerCast is a great, single purpose app that tells me one thing: how is the weather for my run?
Prior to RunnerCast, I’d open up the Weather app on my phone and squint at various metrics. Now, I’m presented with a straightforward set of colours on a timeline and declarative sentence about if I should go now. I also appreciate that I can tweak my tolerance for temperature, precipitation, and other weather features to match my preferences.
Another helpful feature is that you can add in upcoming events (like the half marathon shown in the screenshot) to start preparing mentally for whatever is coming up on race day.
I’m fond of apps like these: well designed, specific, and useful.
🏃♂️ Proud to run alongside my son this morning for his first half marathon. We shaved about ten minutes off his two-hour goal!
Finished reading: The Governors General by John Fraser is a good companion to The Prime Ministers book. The Governor General as an important and misunderstood part of Canada’s government that deserves more attention. This book is a fun and personal start 📚
Finished reading: The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey keeps delivering on the promise of the first book in the series. I’m a fan of the “clever humans fight overwhelmingly dominant aliens” genre. Remains to be seen if the humans actually win 📚
Thanks to a passcode debacle, I had to reset my iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch — so I used the moment to start fresh rather than restore from backups. I started with a clean install of each and have been rebuilding from there with an intention to minimize the total number of settings adjustments and apps. This moves me back towards my earlier, mostly defaults setup.
After the initial install, I added a handful of apps:
And then added back most of my portfolio of health apps: HealthFit, Strava, TrainingPeaks, Training Today, and Zwift Companion. TrainingPeaks is only to get workout from my coach, otherwise I’d be happy to exclude it. Plus, I keep getting closer to dropping Strava. I’m only using it these days to keep track of what my friends are up to, not for any of the actual fitness features.
Specifically on the iPad, I’d accumulated many “TV apps”, like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I much prefer watching my shows on a proper TV. So, haven’t added these back to the iPad.
I’d also accumulated many experiments with home screens, focus modes, and widgets. I’m back to just a few simple ones now with very few apps or widgets on screens.
We’ll see how long this simplified approach actually lasts. I’m always keen to try out new apps and systems. That said, it is nice to have clean, simple setups that further reduce the temptation to stare at screens and fiddle with settings.
Office tension continues to rise as we enter the second month of a broken dishwasher
Finished reading: A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan continues this epic series. Hard to believe I’m only half way through the fourteen book series! 📚
Waking Up recently told me I’ve passed 300 hours of practice across just over 2,000 active days. That works out to about 10 minutes a day for five years, which is a small commitment that has compounded into something I care about.
So, why do I keep going? The most honest answer comes from the times I’ve skipped a couple of days: I feel more distractable and less centred. That’s the counterfactual and it’s more persuasive than any in-session feeling.
Beyond the functional benefit, I’m genuinely fascinated by consciousness—what it is, how it relates to experience, and whether attention can be trained in ways that matter. Waking Up is excellent here. The app has dozens of quality series with practitioners who take these questions seriously, and Sam Harris draws from both contemplative tradition and people doing rigorous philosophical and scientific work on the nature of mind.
The harder question, though, is whether any of this carries over. A couple of years ago, I went through some challenging work experiences and found that the equanimity I’d cultivated in practice didn’t transfer reliably. I found I was getting frustrated, saying to myself “but I meditate!”, which really just made the point that equanimity in a quiet room is not the same as out in life.
Over the past year, I’ve been deliberately working on that gap—paying attention to how I respond to frustration, pressure, and distraction in daily life, not just during a morning session. It’s slow going, but I’m noticing a real difference. This work connects well with my ongoing effort to be less distracted by technology, which also requires noticing when attention has been captured.
Everything seems to be coming together. Slowly, ten minutes at a time, but it is. That’s why I keep going.
I like the new heart rate distribution graphs in HealthFit.
Here’s an example from a recent intervals run that shows decent recovery back to Zone 2 in between each hard effort. This helps me make sure I’m neither pushing too hard nor slacking in those intervals.
There’s a different profile for a recent HIT session that kept me in a pretty steady high effort once the warmup was done.
The overall distributions by activity type are fun. Although no one is surprised to see that yoga is less intensive than running or cycling.
HealthFit remains my app of choice for integrating all of my fitness data.
Something is happening. The dam has burst on almost two decades of tightly-managed, coordinated and targeted political messaging. In its place we’re seeing a communications approach that’s more free-flowing, discursive, open and adaptable.
Such a welcome change. I hope it lasts.
Finished reading: Arctic Passages by Kieran Mulvaney nicely integrates the past, present, and future of the Arctic into a compelling story about climate change, geopolitics, history, and exploration 📚
Finished reading: Count Zero by William Gibson is great. Not sure why I waited almost thirty years after reading Neuromancer to read this one. I certainly won’t wait as long to read the third book of the trilogy 📚
Finished reading: The Prime Ministers by J.D.M. Stewart was exactly what I wanted: a concise and clear summary of each Candian Prime Minister. That was a gap in my knowledge that is now closed 📚
