I sincerely hope this will not become a new Christmas tradition
Microposts
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 🏃♂️
Post COVID-booster recovery run 🏃♂️ 🦠💉
Getting our COVID boosters
How to fix the disaster of human roads to benefit wildlife | Aeon Essays
Unbelieveable:
…about a million individuals of all species are killed every day on the roads of the US. In North America overall, the cumulative scale of all this roadkill now surpasses hunting as the main cause of death in larger species
As bad as that is, the impact roads have on dissecting land up into small islands is even worse for species’ habitats. The article goes on to describe some of the initiatives underway to reduce the impacts of this “sprawling web”.
I’m slowly making my way through Pragmatism, and Other Essays by William James and was amused to see:
I offered this as a conciliatory olive-branch to my enemies. But they, as is only too common with such offerings, trampled the gift under foot and turned and rent the giver. I had counted too much on their good will.
Some things haven’t changed since 1909 📚
A long run with fresh snow is a great start to a Sunday 🏃♂️❄️
Looks like someone went for an inadvertent swim 🥶
I listened to each song on Pitchfork’s 100 Best Songs of 2021. Although I downloaded a dozen or so songs, the vast majority of them didn’t appeal. Hopefully I’m not just getting old! 🎵
I really like the idea of Screen Time and want to use it to manage my behaviour. And then I get something like this: apparently I stared at aeon.co (a great website) every minute from midnight to 6. I’m certain I was actually sound asleep then
After likely too much deliberation, I’ve registered for the Ironman 70.3 in Tremblant. Although “only” half an Ironman, it is still daunting enough to make me both nervous and excited (nervouscited, as my daughter often says) 🏊♂️ 🚴♂️ 🏃♂️
A good, long article on the James Webb Space Telescope that includes both details on the telescope and explains the science that makes it so exciting
Classic, having finally settled on Apple Notes, Craft has announced an eXtensions Developer Platform that is tempting me back. I’m glad Micro.blog is here as a support group for those of us that can’t stop fiddling with our tools 😀
Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven is quite expansive in scope and imagination. A fun, easy read with some big ideas 📚
First snowstorm run of the season ❄️ 🏃♂️
Urban trail run 🏃♂️
I really enjoyed season 1 of Foundation. Definitely a departure from the books, which was totally necessary. The companion podcast was interesting too 📺
The moon trying to break through the clouds
Wednesday, November 17, 2021 →
The Strong Songs Year Three, In Review episode is a good summary of a fun season 🎧🎶
I picked up Artifact by Gregory Benford at my local used bookstore on a whim. I’m glad I did. It is a fun mix of archaeology, theoretical physics, and espionage 📚
I’m enjoying the redesigned Waking Up app. The new design is much cleaner and easier to use. The original design was interesting when the app debuted. A couple of years later, with all the additional content, it had become rather complicated to navigate. After 941 “mindful days”, I’m still finding the app really helpful.
Okay, these automated email signatures are getting silly. I just got a meeting invite with 6,000 characters in 500 words. None of which were actually written by a person. It included:
- A note that anyone attending an in-person meeting needs to be vaccinated
- A warning not to open any attachments from unknown senders
- A confidentiality warning with direction to delete the email and all attachments if I’m not the intended recipient
- Lots of details about how to join the Teams meeting
Inner Symphonies by Hanna Rani & Dobrawa Czocher has been really helpful this week 🎵
A fun discussion on the Mindscape podcast with Christopher Mims about the interconnected industrial ecology
I enjoyed Revenant Gun: Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee. A fitting end to the trilogy📚
I’m standardizing on using Micro.blog Bookmarks as my read it later service. To make this easier, I’ve created a Shortcut for sending links from Safari to Bookmarks. Now I can keep the Micro.blog app set to posting, instead of having to switch back and forth in settings. You’ll need an app token as part of the setup for the Shortcut.