🏊♂️ The lake is the only cool place around here and I’m grateful for it
Microposts
Finished reading: I really liked the premise of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: how would people adjust to being brought from the past into the present? Well written too. The last third was a bit too much standard time travel plot though, which detracted from the cool premise 📚
First week of vacation was a great success
🏃♂️ A sobering war memorial on today’s run. Likely a large proportion of the young men in the area are inscribed on it
George has settled into cottage life
Finished reading: Although it took two library loan periods, I enjoyed Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan 📚
Finished reading: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older continues a fun series: solving mysteries on a gas giant planet. 📚
Finished reading: Tapper’s Day Off by Dan Moren is a fun short story. I’m glad to read more in this universe 📚
Finished reading: Despite having watched and really enjoyed Slow Horses on Apple TV, reading the first book by Mick Herron was still great fun. 📚
🏊♂️ Nice to be back in a lake
Finished reading: An Immense World by Ed Yong is a remarkable book. A fascinating exploration of the senses and what we can learn by trying to understand the perceptions of other animals📚
🏃♂️ Hazy out there from the forest fires on today’s run
Vacation starts now!
After three weeks with a Readiness to Train score around two, I’m glad to be back in the green. Time to get active again!
Finished reading: A Field Guide to Lies by Daniel J. Levitin is a clear and thorough summary of all the ways we need to be on guard for misinformation. Targeted to beginners though, so not a lot of new information for us veterans of the internet 📚
Finished reading: The Longbow, the Schooner, and the Violin by Marq de Villiers is an interesting exploration of wood via those three objects. A bit clunky in sections, though pretty good overall 📚
🇨🇦🥃 Enjoying the Bearface Triple Oak whisky
Finished reading: The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison continues the great Cemeteries of Amalo series. I’m impressed with how casually and simply such a rich and complex world is created in this series 📚
New notebook day!
George is recovering well from recent, minor surgery by sleeping at my feet
🔗 Matt Gurney: How Hollywood screwed with our civic expectations
Why do we assume the same government that is, for instance, struggling to fill potholes in my city, or hire enough nurses in my province, or fix a federal payroll system, is going to be more competent when presented with something totally out of the blue? This flies in the face of all of our lived experiences with government. It’s a generous assumption of state capacity that is, to put it charitably, unearned.
Finished reading: Blindsight by Peter Watts is an interesting mix of sci-fi, horror, and philosophy. I enjoyed it. Vampires in space!📚
🎧 I enjoyed Season 7 of Strong Songs and am happy to be a Patreon supporter
Glad it’s Friday
🎶 Some good, new albums that fit well together:
🇨🇦 Gloves Off is a thought provoking series (so far) on how Canada could respond to recent geopolitical developments
I was pleased by Glenn Jenkins' invitation to return to his Program on Investment Appraisal and Risk Analysis at Queen’s University and describe an approach to project appraisal and economic assessment. This is my third year participating and I’m consistently impressed by the quality of questions and level of engagement from the participants.
Download: transport-economics-and-appraisal.pdf
🔗 Optimization Culture is Making Us Fragile
For all that we know about human performance, it is still wildly mysterious. A blackbox algorithm cannot predict how you’ll perform. If you think you must have full readiness to perform at your best, then you will leave so many of your best days on the table. It is a fragility mindset that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Absolutely something to be careful about. I know I’ve sometimes been influenced by a poor readiness score and have learned to treat it as a general indicator, rather than prediction.
Finished reading: Outlive by Peter Attia is a comprehensive approach to health. Although we need to be careful about influencer nonsense when it comes to health advice, Attia’s work is carefully considered and researched. My main takeaways are the importance of strength training, monitoring my protein consumption, continuing to prioritize sleep, and carefully considering mental resiliency 📚
Tall Trees Muskoka. 📍
Reflecting on yesterday’s stomach troubles, I have to consider the deep fried butter tart I had the night before the race. A delicious concoction of a butter tart, wrapped in a cinnamon coated churro, topped with vanilla ice cream. Not traditional triathlon nutrition, but I’ve decided it prevented anything worse from happening, rather than contributing to the trouble.
