Finished reading: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is really good. A strong emotional core with an intriguing sci-fi structure📚
Microposts
Busy morning so far
One of the highlights from last night’s Stout Beer Festival: Beeramisu Imperial Stout from the Third Moon and Bellwoods breweries
Although I was disappointed to miss out on attending Micro Camp March 2022, I’ve enjoyed catching up on the videos. A nice diversity of topics, each very well presented
I think I liked season 1 of Raised by Wolves? A curious mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror that overall was more about mood than plot. I’m not sure what to make of the ending yet.
As a follow up to my post about swimming with an Apple Watch, I’ll note that the watch only records activity when your arm is moving. So, things like kicking drills aren’t recorded. Not a serious issue for me, though this can make stats inaccurate.
Despite this, I still appreciate the simplicity of using the Apple Watch to train for triathlons.
Pancakes for dinner
A fun one
A good one on a cold night
Finished reading: As with the first two books in the trilogy, The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton is a fun sci-fi story about humans fighting back against powerful aliens. Definitely an easy read, though with some pretty imaginative twists and ideas about the future 📚
Finished reading: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is an entertaining mix of computer nerds, ancient rituals, cryptography, and a love of printed books 📚
I’m fortunate to have a nice bike storage room at my office. Something happened there today that prompted the facilities manager to send us the list of prohibitions, which included this miscellaneous grouping at the end 😀
Finished reading: Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton is fun. Part 2 of the Salvation trilogy and a great humans fighting back against powerful aliens story📚
There’s been some shovelling today ❄️
Lucy is enjoying all this new snow ❄️
Finished reading: The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian is a fascinating and very well written overview of the current state of AI research. I was particularly struck by how much of the challenge with safe AI is based on our poor understanding of our own intelligence 📚
As a benchmark for upcoming training, my coach had me run a 5k time trial. This is also useful for determining my heart rate training zones. I started off too fast and paid for it near the end, but managed to hold a good pace from KMs 2 to 5 🏃♂️
Finished reading: The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom is a compelling, brief story about faith and redemption 📚
Finished reading: This seems to be the consensus, so I won’t belabour the point: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is a powerful book. If you feel overwhelmed by busyness or slightly adrift, it is well worth a read. There are some tough messages in it, though, that require contemplation 📚
Lucy has resolved that 2022 will be the year of more food
Wednesday, December 29, 2021 →
As an update to my earlier post about using MindNode for task management, I’ve refreshed my areas of focus and projects for work. I still find MindNode really helpful for this, especially for seeing the balance of projects across the areas of focus. In this case, I can see that I have many Process Improvement projects, which makes sense, given my company has a big push on Lean at the moment.
Now I can fill in next actions for each project and then sync with Reminders.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021 →
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a really interesting story about two different worlds and a physicist that tries to bring them back together. As with most good science fiction, the story is about the people, rather than the science, but the sci-fi setting accentuates the morals of the story 📚
I sincerely hope this will not become a new Christmas tradition
A good time to reread the classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 🎄
Breaking in my new shoes with some hill sprints 🏃♂️
Wednesday, December 22, 2021 →
A Christmas classic
Wednesday, December 22, 2021 →
Although a time and concentration commitment, I enjoyed this 3Blue1Brown video. Showing how to approach a problem from a computational or generalizable direction is interesting and provides a good lesson on the importance of diverse approaches.
After 2.5 years of faithful service (which, honestly, is far too long), I’ve updated my trusty Sauconys with a new pair. The red is a bit flashier than my usual style, but they’re comfortable 🏃♂️
