It may seem priggish to say it, given the current “vibe shift,” but we really can’t give up on personal integrity just yet. The day we celebrate our children for their selfishness and cruelty will be the point of no return.
I can’t believe that I’m about to type this sentence: Now that America is threatening Canada with economic ruin and potential annexation as the 51st state, I think it is very important for Canadians to stay well informed. To that end, I recommend two great sources: Paul Wells and The Line. Both are high quality, independent journalism with important voices in the True North, Strong and Free 🇨🇦
A fun episode of The Incomparable on my favourite fiction book of 2024
🔗 What Aging Can Teach Us About Sustainable Success
With that in mind, here are a few lessons I’ve learned as an aging athlete who can still run pretty fast, but is having a lot of doing it.
- Stop short. Almost always.
There’s an old adage in running that you should have one more rep in the tank. It’s also called the no hands on your knees rule. Both get a simple point, the risk of pushing to get that final repeat is seldom worth it. The benefit is small, if it even exists.
I’m tempted to write this on my shoes. Good advice that I followed this morning: the workout called for 5–8 reps and I stopped after 5 good ones.
Required viewing
Eleven miles later, I stopped my watch — satisfied, yet aware that my run was a castle constructed out of lies. I never intended to stop early, but I told myself that I would. I think I believed myself in the moment. As a moral philosopher, this gives me pause.
We had a great two-day family ski trip to Blue Mountain. After a few years off skis, great to be back.
🔗 The "near abroad" comes home // Paul Wells // paulwells.substack.com
I’ve believed for many years that Canada’s national bird was a chicken coming home to roost, except this one looks like an eagle.
🖖 Outline of a short story, starring a Star Trek fan:
- New episode of Vulcan Hello podcast arrives
- Realizes there’s a new movie: Section 31!?
- Stops listening to avoid spoilers
- Starts watching Section 31
- 20 minutes in thinks: “uh oh, is this the only Star Trek movie I’m not going to finish?”
- Goes back to podcast. Is convinced to finish Section 31, eventually
- Has at least five other good Star Trek movies to rewatch first
Yoga with George
☕️ Consistently tasty coffee
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
I’ve been a happy AeroPress user for many years now. A few weeks ago, I was gifted the Flow Control Filter Cap. The cap acts as a pressure activated valve that prevents any drip through the filter, until you press on the plunger. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much of a difference it has made to the consistency of my coffee
Before trying the flow control cap, I would not have said the AeroPress was unduly inconsistent. So, this isn’t a complaint about the original design. Rather, I now have fewer errant grounds making it through to the mug, can hold the brewing longer for a more robust flavour, and am less likely to make a mess while brewing. I can also reliably generate a nice foam at the end of the brewing.
The only small downside is that it is more challenging to get the used filter and grounds out of this cap. The filter tends to stick to this cap much more than to the original.
To complete my transition to coffee influencer, here’s an unnecessary, slow-motion video of making coffee 😀
Finished reading: Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave by Seán O’Hagan is a remarkable conversation about creativity, grief, and religion📚
🏊♂️ The Mystery of the Shrinking Pool
Thursday, January 16, 2025
There’s an odd glitch with my Apple Watch: anytime I finish a swim interval, it claims there are still two meters left. Then after about five seconds, it realizes I’ve stopped, decides I’ve finished a lap after all, and moves to the next interval.
It isn’t the pool, I’ve tried several different ones. Even stranger, it isn’t accumulating by lap. If I finish a 25m sprint: two meters short. A 500m interval: also two meters short. So, it isn’t caused by misestimating the length of the pool.
Anyway, not a big problem. The only real impact is that my intervals are always slower on the watch than in the actual pool, since several seconds get added to each one. This makes it look like I’m much faster on longer intervals, since the delay has a bigger impact on short swims.
Dispatch from the Front Line: “Canada” is a question of what we can get
The ability of a population to withstand neighbourly aggression — “economic force,” if you will — depends on two things. The first is internal social cohesion and identity. The second is what the aggressor is willing to do or offer in order to secure capitulation.
The first is so important, yet so intangible and fickle
🎧 Nice to have Strombo back on Apple Music radio. The show has been a regular companion for my long basement rides and was missed over the past few months
📚 Although I exceeded my goal of reading 45 books in 2024 by finishing 60 books. I’m going to keep my goal for 2025 at 45, anticipating that I’ll be reading more non-fiction this year which will slow me down – for the better.
If you’re interested in owning your own web content (and you should be), the new Micro.one is a fantastic option at a super affordable $1/month. I joined Micro.blog back in 2018 and am a very happy Premium user.
The people should own the town square
Nice to see this:
we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components (including name and copyrights, among other assets) to a new non-profit organization, affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.
Mastodon continues to be our best, decentralized option and I’m glad it exists
🏊♂️🚴🏃♂️ Finding the return to fitness sweet spot with RTT
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Thanks to a pre-Christmas flu and general busyness over the holidays, my triathlon training took a dive.
This past week, I’ve really tried to get back into it. As a result, my watch and phone have been pointing out that my training load has spiked and are suggesting caution.
At the same time, my readiness to train has been correspondingly increasing. I’ve been using this increase, plus generally feeling good, to keep the training intensity at the right level without overdoing it.
Seems to be working so far. Now that I feel like I’ve regained momentum, I’ll ease off on the training progression to stabilize on a more modest increase over weeks. I don’t need to relearn the lessons of overtraining and injury!
Göran Winblad has a good video on how to use RTT and HRV as one indicator in training. Worth investigating for your training too.
🎧 Reducing “abundance blindness” by deleting my Apple Music library
Saturday, January 11, 2025
I lamented recently what a mess my Apple Music library had become. I was tempted to delete the whole thing and start again, only to end up doing nothing. What’s the big deal? It’s just a collection of songs. I search through them, find something I like, and hit play.
Then Jason Burk said in Episode 128 of Hemispheric Views:
I just, I find that I have this, like, abundance blindness where I have an infinite number of songs. So, it kind of wraps back around on itself to be like, who cares about any of it? It’s just way too much.
And the urge to clean everything up came back. So, I did it: deleted every album and playlist! It feels nice to start all over, add back in the essential albums, and appreciate the scarcity of good music again. I’m continuing to use the great Albums app to keep the focus on actual albums, which are the proper way to appreciate music.
Of course, I can’t quite delete everything 😀.
