Day 21: Fall

A tree with bright red leaves on a residential street

Day 20: Disruption

Sign on wall: β€œNo trespassing. This area is under constructionβ€œ

Day 19: Edge

Edge of the train platform with yellow warning surface

GPS Watch? No Thanks. Top Runners Are Ditching the Data.

For many, GPS watches are a remarkably useful training tool. But there are other runners, including world-class runners like Jacobs, who have a hard time understanding the fuss. To them, a smorgasbord of data is more hindrance than help. And get this: Some runners don’t wear watches at all.

I’m sympathetic to this idea. In general, I’m trying to stop obsessing over my health and fitness data (tough for this data analyst to do). That said, I’m far from an elite runner. So, I don’t have enough body awareness to intuitively know my pace zones and find realtime data on my performance helpful for making sure my runs are effective.

Perhaps more importantly, my watch is also my source of music and a way to keep my family updated when I’m out on a long run.

I don’t expect to be running out the door without my watch anytime soon.


Day 18: Fabric

Close up of chair fabric

Day 17: Intense

Red hot coals in a fire pit

Interesting guest column by Reg Whitaker in Wesley Wark’s National Security and Intelligence Newsletter

The leading physicists mobilized in the Manhattan Project were on the one hand applying intelligence in the sense of the same pure quest for knowledge that had driven the discoveries of scientists from Galileo to Einstein. On the other hand as a military scheme, the Manhattan Project was an intelligence problem in the sense of secrets that had to be protected from enemy eyes, or indeed from any eyes, friendly or unfriendly, from outside the charmed circle of the initiated and security-cleared.


πŸƒβ€β™‚οΈ Today’s run was an endurance run with a progressive fast finish. I tried breathing through my nose for the first hour to keep things slow.

Powered by Billy Talent and Beastie Boys

Map of the run in Cambridge. 20.99km in 1:59

πŸ“Ί I enjoyed Foundation Season 2. A good part of that enjoyment requires letting go of the original books and embracing this reinterpretation

Foundation poster


Finished reading: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler has so many fascinating ideas about consciousness, intelligence, and language embedded in a good story about a community of octopuses. I really enjoyed this oneπŸ“š


Day 16: Oof!

Smashed and cracked Apple Watch

Day 15: Red

Close up view of red peppers and tomatoes on a counter

Day 14: Statue

Statue of a black lab in New Brunswick

Day 13: Glowing

Caspar bedside table. A glowing orb

Day 12: Panic

Swarm of bees in the backyard

Day 11: Retrospect

Large clock in the Great Hall at Toronto’s Union Station

Day 10: Cycle

Four cyclists on a road with pink sunrise sky

Finished reading: Earthseed by Octavia E. Butler is a powerful story that is surprisingly optimistic for a dystopia πŸ“š


Day 9: Language

Shelves covered with books

Day 8: Yonder

Sun setting behind a tree in the distance behind a field with a winding gravel path