Finished reading: The Republic of Alberta by Tyler Dawson make a compelling case that the rest of Canada needs to be paying attention to Alberta separatism. I remember how traumatic this was with Quebec and am not keen to do this again 📚
Microposts
I counted myself in 🇨🇦
🎵 Song of the week for my daughter — Right Back to It (feat. MJ Lenderman) by Waxahatchee from Tigers Blood. I think this is Waxahatchee’s best song.
Finished reading: Although I preferred the mystery of his previous book, Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley is still a fun read 📚
Gregory Jack: The New Republicans were real. They’re worse than I thought:
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 📚
Nine Inch Noize is a great mix of nostalgia and novelty 🎵
Finished reading: Despite a gloomy subject, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker was a delight to read 📚
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! 📚
Project Hail Mary is a very fun movie 🍿
🎵 Hooray, new music from both Wintersleep and The New Pornographers is out this week
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 📚
🎵 Song of the week for my daughter — Wheat Kings by The Tragically Hip from Fully Completely. A Canadian classic!
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 📚
🏃♂️ Winter was back for today’s run
🎵 Song of the week for my daughter — How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths. A classic alternative song that still sounds great to me.
Go by The Chemical Brothers showed up just in time to get me through today’s tough ride 🚴🎵
So I propose (years late, many bucks short) we just toss it all in the bin and go back to the beginning. Blogs, newsletters, IRC, mailing groups, and, sure why not, Usenet, go nuts. (The jury is still out on forums, but I suspect they are actually a stunted malformed sapling sprung from the same seed of evil that created modern social media.) These things are time tested, functional even in the face of overwhelming lack of interest from the general internet, and are, most importantly, utterly unbreakable. A specific blog, irc etc etc might disappear, but that won’t take anything besides that one facet of a larger whole with it.
I don’t think this is just nostalgia, though there is some of that. The “old” internet was robust and vibrant in a way that modern sites aren’t.
Finished reading: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is very well done. Really fleshes out the Achilles myth and brings Greek heros and gods to life 📚
George had a busy day
🔗 Why the Online Harms Act is the Wrong Way to Regulate AI Chatbots - Michael Geist
Applying the Online Harms Act to AI chatbot conversations now risks reopening the very issues policymakers previously sought to avoid. In fact, it is difficult to see the difference between something posted to an AI chatbot or similar content entered into a search query or included in text message or email correspondence. If proactive monitoring of searches, emails or texts is subject to privacy safeguards, so too should be AI chatbot engagement.
I’m all for smart regulation of AI, but agree that this isn’t the way to go.
Vereda Central. 📍
☕️ Tried a new (to me) coffee shop nearby: Vereda Central. Good coffee!
Great advice from Greg Morris in Noticing, Not Performing
Noticing your life doesn’t require depth. It requires attention.
Once I stopped trying to use my journal as a memoir and just captured daily thoughts, feelings, and happenings, my journal became useful and enjoyable.
🔗 Boredom Is the Price We Pay for Meaning - The Atlantic
But boredom needn’t be destructive. The discomfort of boredom, even the anguish of it, can spur us into flights of imagination, resourcefulness, and invention. It can prod us to seek more absorbing circumstances: a career more aligned with our interests, a partner more aligned with our needs, a livelier town, better hobbies, new forms of beauty and inspiration.
Boredom is the price we pay for a life rich with meaning. Recognizing this makes the feeling more endurable.
Even though my meditation practice helps with this, boredom is still tough to embrace. My best strategy so far is to generally leave my phone by the door, rather than always carry it around. Then, those moments when I’m tempted to pull out my phone for a distraction, can’t be avoided.