I’m enjoying their new sound
Microposts
🔗 “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel | Strong Songs: A Podcast About Music
Strong Songs Season Six kicks off with a widely requested classic: Peter Gabriel’s 1986 yearner “In Your Eyes.” Because why hire one rhythm section when you can hire two for twice the price?
🎧 A favourite song on a favourite podcast
Finished reading: Although I’m far from having a crisis, I’m well into midlife. So, Midlife by Kieran Setiya was a powerful book.
I could relate, when Setiya describes what he expects to feel after he finishes writing the book:
If experience is anything to go by, the hole will be filled soon enough. There will be another project: a class to teach, a book to read, an article to write. I will move on. But the movement is like running on a treadmill. Life is a succession of projects, each one left behind, their numbers slowly adding up. What the future holds is only more of the achievements, and the failures, that make up my past. It will differ only in quantity from the life I have already lived, a mere accumulation of deeds.
I won’t spoil the outcome. Suffice it to say that this book has lots of good advice, written clearly and with humour.
Setiya also has a good session on Waking Up.
📚
🏃♂️ Back to cold, snow, and ice on today’s run
🔗 The strange and turbulent global world of ant geopolitics
What is surprising is how poorly we still understand global ant societies: there is a science-fiction epic going on under our feet, an alien geopolitics being negotiated by the 20 quadrillion ants living on Earth today. It might seem like a familiar story, but the more time I spend with it, the less familiar it seems, and the more I want to resist relying on human analogies. Its characters are strange; its scales hard to conceive. Can we tell the story of global ant societies without simply retelling our own story?
Fascinating
Finished reading: I enjoyed Making It So by Patrick Stewart. Although not as much Captain Picard as some Trekkies might want, I appreciated the broader view of his career 📚
Great video from Casey Neistat. I too, somehow, continue to get older and am trying to hold on to some goals.
🏃♂️ Mostly trails on today’s run
🏃♂️ Nice to see some sun on today’s run along the Leslie Spit
📚 These Wheel of Time books are long! I only got 1/3 of the way through The Shadow Rising before the library loan ended
🚴♂️ Great crew for a ride up both sides of Achterbahn
Finished reading: System Collapse by Martha Wells is another fun book in a great series📚
Finished reading: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is rather strange. Some really lovely, poetic passages about the tranquility and beauty of Mars, coupled with buffoonish characters from Earth. I totally get this could be intentional, though it is jarring 📚
Finished reading: The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1] by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn is a remarkable book. I’ve never really comprehended the Stalin-era purges. Solzhenitsyn’s dark humour and extensive narrative details really helped make them feel horrifyingly real 📚
🏃♂️ Found some company on today’s run
New books for the new year 📚
🥶 Shortest and coldest swim of the year
Finished reading: Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a good end to a fun series. I enjoyed the world building and premise of the trilogy which doesn’t get too serious 📚
Finished reading: Against the Grain by James C. Scott is a really interesting exploration of the links between agriculture and state building. Definitely changed my mind about early state formation 📚
We had a fun family night out to see the Candlelight Tribute to Taylor Swift at Longboat Hall. Interesting to hear the music reinterpreted by these talented musicians
🎵 Will Butler + Sister Squares - Will Butler + Sister Squares
I’m enjoying this one
The new Apple Watch integration with Training Peaks is really nice. Like my Garmin friends, I can finally just roll out of bed and do what my watch tell me to without having to manually create workouts 🏊🚴♂️🏃♂️
DayOne has integrated Journaling Suggestions already. A nice addition and now there’s no compelling reason to use the new Apple Journal app. I liked the promised simplicity of the new app, only to find it too simple. My journal is extended memory, so I rely on search, which isn’t in the new app.
Lucy tried the gecko food. Didn’t work well with her system, but she has no regrets
🏃♂️ Forgot to turn off the workout before getting back in the car. Got some impressive running paces! 😀
Nice addition to HealthFit: a visual summary of training load to see if you’re optimizing stress and recovery
🏊 🚴♂️ 🏃♂️ Alright, signed up for the Ironman 70.3 in Muskoka. I enjoyed the race last year and look forward to a repeat
🎄 Tree is up and decorated
🏃♂️ Light rain, wind, and NIN playlist made for a gloomy ambience on today’s run
I don’t understand Apple’s algorithms. There’s no way I listened to 100 Gecs Boiler Room Session 51 times. Once was fun, but it is 1 hour and 26 minutes long. I would remember listening to it that many times
