Next month the book club is reading Think Again by Adam Grant Join the book club to get all the content in your inbox. While the most famous book about starting a Zettelkasten may be How to Take Smart Notes it’s not necessarily the best book on the topic. Valuable entries have co … | Continue reading
After covering a bunch of read later options recently the most requested option has been Readwise Reader. Readwise is a compelling option with RSS integration, Kobo/Kindle integrations, sync with Obsidian and to top it off the ability to send various content to it so you can read … | Continue reading
Creativity is a constant buzzword found in job descriptions, government speeches, and is used to describe how our public institutions should work. In the book Against Creativity, Oli Mould tries to push past all the rhetoric of creativity to find out who is served by the creative … | Continue reading
I read Lou’s blog and love the tidbits of life he shares. I do think of his wife as Wonder Woman and have no idea what her “real” name is. I’d love to know about your personal blog too. | Continue reading
I’ve tried so many creative systems to make myself work faster. Again and again, I have found that pushing myself simply steals from the future. Every time I push too hard and cut back down to a sustainable pace, I’m tempted to test my boundaries, to add just a little more, a lit … | Continue reading
So far as we’ve looked at A System for Writing we’ve talked about words being scary, taking more time to process your notes, and exposed the “writing is easy” lie that gurus try to pass off. What we haven’t covered is what I think it takes to have a good note system. Not Magic I’ … | Continue reading
After my treatise on email newsletters last week I was greeted by this AI slop article at the top of my RSS feed Monday morning and it got me thinking about creativity and producing some type of content. Specifically, what is the purpose of the content you’re trying to produce? I … | Continue reading
It will not literally speak to you. But visible areas of increased connectivity within the slip box, what Sonke Ahrens calls “clusters” can guide you towards ideas ready for expression. – A System for Writing Pg 111 This is one of the big misconceptions with a Zettelkasten/PKM sy … | Continue reading
Today we’re going a bit meta with a reader question. Steve has some content he’s been thinking of writing and wants to centre it around his own platform but wonders if people really read email newsletters. My Newsletters by the numbers I have 2 email newsletters. First is this on … | Continue reading
In chapter 4 of A System for Writing Doto covers all the work that goes into connecting notes, and to many I’m sure it feels daunting. He talks about stretching the meanings of notes when you’re starting because you don’t have many notes yet and you need to start making connectio … | Continue reading
Cal Newport regularly says that we assume if a bit of something is good, more must be better. Some connectivity is good, so connectivity all the time must be better. Easy to send text messages make some communication easier, so all communication going through a text must be bette … | Continue reading
Drew at Lithub says we should stop linking to Amazon and I don’t disagree with him. Jeff Bezos is just like any other big tech oligarchs out there. But Drew doesn’t offer any alternatives for those that want to advertise their books. You could link to Bookshop which helps support … | Continue reading
Ugh, we’re so backwards. Xyla’s awesome I love her builds and this is stupid. | Continue reading
I’m a sucker for a dot grid notebook so when Matthew recommended these sexy science notebooks I ordered 3. Do I need more notebooks, nope I have a stake on the shelf. But these are hot. | Continue reading
Cory has a bigger list than I put together a few days ago. To my US friends, I like you all and wish you the best but I have to say no to the government shit going on. Outside the attacks on my country, the US government is removing rights from it’s citizens and that’s […] | Continue reading
CJ Chilvers commenting on Neil’s research says that since my blog started in 2008 and I have about 4000 posts on it it’s likely that Google thinks my site is irrelevant. But I’m going to hold to his advice by posting what I want, when I want, and not pruning my backlog because th … | Continue reading
There’s a lot at stake when putting thoughts into words. Words that remain in our head are free to exist independent of how they’re used by other people. Once we attempt to put our ideas on the page, words that previously strutted self-assuredly across our synapses become sheepis … | Continue reading
LLMs are not generally optimized to say “I don’t know” when they don’t have enough information – Co-Intelligence Pg 96 One of the things I’ve always valued in another person is their ability to admit when they don’t know something. It’s also one of my biggest issues with LLMs, th … | Continue reading
Lou has a good list of apps that won’t be subject to the changing privacy whims of the US government because they’re outside the US. I’m not sure that’s true given that we see many companies saying that they “comply with all local laws” but at this point I’m much happier to suppo … | Continue reading
Firefox recently updated their terms of service, and when a company updates their terms it’s rarely in favour of the user. Take this line in the new Firefox terms. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide li … | Continue reading
It’s time to get uncomfortable, folks. Doing the same things we have always done because they are the path of least resistance is not going to cut it anymore. The times of ignoring the bad for the little comfort benefits are over. – Comfort and You rant about Apple’s choices and … | Continue reading
I’ve really never worried about my audio books on Audible, but with Amazon turning the cranks up on being a shitty company as they take away ownership of your books I decided to use Libation to download all 200 of my Audible books. Setup was easy and it’s churning away right now … | Continue reading
This review is for the book club. Next month we’re reading A System for Writing by Bob Doto. Check out the future reads and join 500 other book lovers Most of us interact with complex problems daily. If it’s not in your job, look around at the economic systems or political landsc … | Continue reading
I have a set of Sonos Play speakers in my office which get 6 – 8 hours a day of usage while I’m working. I’ve enjoyed their sound for a few years, but the software has continued to get worse and worse. Lately they’ll play music, but only some album I played a few weeks […] | Continue reading
This month you’ll note no fiction books were finished. That dang Brandon Sanderson guy wrote a 1300 page tome so I’ve made progress on Wind and Truth but not finished it. In fact I’ve made enough progress that it would equal 2 fiction books worth of pages read if it was a normal … | Continue reading
Miriam has a good and heartbreaking post on the current state of technology in light of the pushers of technology wanting to eradicate her existence. The beliefs of these CEOs aren’t incidental to the AI product they’re selling us. These are not tools designed for us to benefit f … | Continue reading
Reminder, next month we’re reading A System for Writing by Bob Doto. You can find future books here. If you have suggestions I’d love to hear about them. Systems need balance and buffer, but both of these things can be tricky to keep around in the face of a system that appears to … | Continue reading
The guiding star of Alderian psychology is that we derive meaning from connection to community. That we can only feel connection to a community when we are useful in it because we are contributing meaningfully to that community. Why don’t we feel connected? Philosopher: Take, for … | Continue reading
Many are currently lamenting what they see as the fall of Apple from a tech company that “did it right” to one that goes where the winds of power takes them. They see Apple advertising on X again or donating to the inaguration as some personal affront to their sensibilities. The … | Continue reading
In the sea of generic social media and governments speed running their way to Nazism Floor 796 brings back some good old internet oddness. I spent 20 minutes scrolling around absorbing what’s happening and I still could spend time seeing what’s going on. If you know of more odd p … | Continue reading
Not everyone recognizes that addiction can appear in larger systems and in other guises — such as the dependence of industry on government subsidy, the reliance of farmers on fertilizers, the addiction of Western economies to cheap oil or weapons manufacturers to government contr … | Continue reading
It’s rare that I don’t finish a book, but there have been a few. Most recently I put down The Black Swan because I felt it was a poorly written self agrandizing work written so that Taleb could show how smart he was while making up new names for established principles. Even when … | Continue reading
I enjoyed the behind the scenes look with Lou. In general I enjoy the series of blogger interviews. | Continue reading
From Manu on Identity. It’s also why I find broad group definitions so annoying. Lumping together potentially billions of people using arbitrary traits as the dividing line is such a lazy way to look at the richness of human diversity and experience. Every time I see people using … | Continue reading
Robert goes over why he keeps a blog. I still think a blog is great for your career. I’ll be writing more about technical stuff on my business site/blog because I’m learning more about Laravel and Python and want to branch out from WordPress stuff. | Continue reading
It’s almost irresistible to blame something or someone else, to shift responsibility away from ourselves, and to look for the central knob, the product, the pill, the technical fix that will make the problem go away. Thinking in Systems Pg 4 I love this quote because it relates c … | Continue reading
Yes you read the title right. This high school student built his own laptop and it’s not some janky thing it’s a viable usable laptop. | Continue reading
I know I’m always looking for good book recommendations, as much as wanting to know which books are not worth reading. To that end I’ll be doing a monthly recap of the books I read with a recommendation so you can populate or weed books out of your TBR pile. Non-Fiction Declutter … | Continue reading
Reading this article from 404 about Mark Zuckerberg being annoyed that anything he says leaks and causes damage to his company…maybe stop saying shitty things that devalue humans. It’s possible Marky that you’re being an asshat and many of your employees don’t agree with you and … | Continue reading
Years of social media have managed to convince us that a scrollable timeline, a comment box with a characters limit and a like button are the tools we need to use to connect with each other. That is a big fucking lie and if you don’t believe me write me an email and I’ll be happy … | Continue reading
This is the third book in Ryan Holiday’s series on the four cardinal virtues from stoic philosophy. Courage is Calling covers courage, temperance is covered by Discipline is Destiny and this covers justice. His coming book will cover wisdom. Holiday’s investigation of justice cov … | Continue reading
As we finish up the first month of 2025 people are still all fired up about their goals, though some are already seeing the cracks in the self they projected into 2025. Today I want to address the reading goal and it’s value for the quality of your life and the quality of your re … | Continue reading
Robert Breen says no and he’s probably right, though they all say they want some of the books when I ask them today. While I place value on my book collection of a personal nature that exceeds the monetary value of the books, I also realise that as I age I need to talk to […] | Continue reading
If you want to use Gmail then 404 has a post on how to turn off Gemini summaries but of course the easiest way to do this is to not use Gmail. Proton is a good option. | Continue reading
Once again, don’t go into the company of powerful people, particularly white ones, and point out the obviousness of systemic racism. They have a label for that, “identity politics.” When you think independently of the narrative that people are comfortable with, you make them unco … | Continue reading
Reminder if you’re part of the book club and have thoughts on this month’s book I encourage you to publish them and send me a link so I can include it in next week’s wrap up of our book for January. A core topic of discussion in Holiday’s look at justice in Right Thing Right […] | Continue reading
The question about using Kindle, or any electronic reading device, brings up many emotions for people. Some swear by them and some swear that they make you dumber, while others feel nostalgic for the smell and feel of a book without weighing in deeper than expressing their person … | Continue reading
The title is a bit meta, but there are some excellent options on this list of best self hosted apps of 2024. I’ll set up Pinchflat to give my younger children access to YouTube creators that don’t label their content as kid friendly because that breaks their monetization, but are … | Continue reading