This is part four of a series on tackling wants, managing my media diet, and finding enough. Each post stands alone, so you don’t have to read them all. Read the introduction on “the mindset of more.” What is the internet for? Is the internet, at its core, a marketplace or a Third Place? Is […]
Highlight of the week: got asked to contribute to a newsletter I read 😀 Looking forward to: getting some rest this weekend — this week was emotionally exhausting even though I didn’t do much Stuff I did: 3 hours consulting 8 hours proposal prep — almost done — just need to write the intro letter and […]
I saw someone* share a list of guiding principles for their website they described as “Core Website Tenets,” and I love the idea of codifying my approach to my website. Some are operational, some are aspirational, some are decision points if I’m on the fence. Be friendly and kind Be open (but not too open) […]
“Origin stories tell us who we think a people are–who we think we are, and why. The American origin story is written in Native genocide, transatlantic slavery, and imperial subjugation overseas. That is its originating fact, and so to write the next chapter of that story means contending with this prologue, which most Americans find […]
Corn tastes better on the honor system by Robin Wall Kimmerer — with cool paper illustrations by Suus Hessling The writings of some early colonists reveal that they thought corn a primitive crop, because it did not require machines or draft animals to cultivate and process, as did their familiar wheat. They mistook the apparent […]
Highlight of the week: heard from several people in response to my post on friction in indie web connection 😄 Looking forward to: making this blood orange olive oil cake Stuff I did: 7.75 hours writing — I committed to my accountability buddy that I would make a decision this week and I regret that […]
Reilly shared this blog tag game and Dom tagged me so I’ll join in! 1. Why did you make this blog in the first place? My domain had sat stagnant as a hand-coded HTML site for many years as I had it in my head that I needed to design websites from scratch, and I […]
An oldie (2006) that I rediscovered as I’ve been cleaning out my music collection — this is the mellowest song on the album, Never Had a Chance is fun, I also liked the song Free.
Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day says content moderation died on January 6, 2021: [T]he Insurrection was the first time Americans could truly see the radicalizing effects of algorithmic platforms like Facebook and YouTube that other parts of the world, particularly the Global South, had dealt with for years. A moment of political violence Silicon...
Ingrid Fetell Lee with the wisdom in her email newsletter: Progress is the tangible evidence that we’re moving closer to our goals. We’ve been conditioned to measure success in terms of progress… Growth is a subterranean shift, not what you made or did, but a change in who you are. It’s hard to measure, harder […]
Win of the week: adapted a post that’s been sitting on draft since last June into my entry for this month’s IndieWeb carnival 🦾 Looking forward to: walking with a friend I haven’t seen since summer next week Stuff I did: 5.75 hours consulting 5 hours writing 🦾🦾🦾 wrote several alternate blurbs to help me decide between […]
Add friction to the activities you’d like to change, and remove friction from the things you’d like to do more of. This is usually applied at a personal level, but we can think of it across communities, too: Where is there friction in our community that blocks people from participating in the ways we’d like? […]
I lean towards trusting studies, but also recognize I’m not qualified to evaluate their quality. Coming from an environmental background, I also have skepticism around a lack of evidence of harm, which in the environmental field is often merely indicative of a lack of research, period. I don’t have time to stay up on the […]
Interesting framing in We’re all (folk) programmers by Spencer Chang: In contrast to fine art created for aesthetic value, folk art emerges from cultural significance and needs. Folklore encompasses emergent practices and traditions, passed down person-to-person within communities, as opposed to “high culture” which is universal and prescriptive,...
Sara does a better job than me laying out what it means that blogs are part of oral culture — how that influences what we get from the blogs we read and what we’re sharing when we write on our blogs: Because blogging is the oral culture and therefore we are looking at each other […]
What I worked on consulting — I worked on one interpretive sign project and two outreach projects as a consultant — I’m really happy with how the two finished projects turned out business development — I developed case studies for my website’s interpretive design section blogging — I published 436 public posts overall recovery — […]
This is part three of a series on tackling wants, managing my media diet, and finding enough. Read the introduction on “the mindset of more.” The Internet feels like an old relative’s hoarder house, the hallways so packed with clutter you can barely squeeze through. At one point they remembered where some of the important […]
Win of the week: posted the intro and first two posts of the series I’ve been working on! third post scheduled for Saturday! Looking forward to: just got several books from the library I’ve been looking forward to, hopefully they’re good! Stuff I did: 0.5 hours consulting — took most of the week off work again, […]
What I listened to in 2024 I listened to about 11890 songs — on average, 32 songs a day. 2831 unique tracks (down 30% from 2023) 688 artists (down 46% from 2023) 954 albums (down 52% from 2023) Monthly listening roundups My favorite music of 2024 My top played song was Pa Pa Power by […]
What I Read in 2024 I read 167 books in 2024, funnily enough the same number as in 2023. All the books I read My 20 favorite books from the year Reading stats 35 novellas 48 self-published 30 re-reads 39 owned books 31 comics (fiction and non-fiction) 107 DNF’s 70 physical books Fiction by genre […]
This is part two of a series on tackling wants, managing my media diet, and finding enough. Read the introduction on “the mindset of more.” In America we have a love-hate relationship with our stuff. We covet new stuff even as we discard the old. I’ve recognized this year just how much cruft I’ve accumulated […]
This year I’m sorting books by vibes instead of genres, sorry not sorry 😉 This was a bit of a rough reading year, so these are “favorites,” distinct from “best” or even necessarily “recommended” (if you’re ever looking for SFF or romance book recs, feel free to email me). See all the books I read. […]
I’ve been having fun giving feedback on other writers’ blog posts recently — and it’s also made me remember that it works really well for me to add comments to a piece in track changes 😂 Usually, I do all my drafting in-browser. So, I decided for my next long piece, I’d go through the […]
This is part one of a series on tackling wants, managing my media diet, and finding enough. Read the introduction on “the mindset of more.” Streaming music services promise us more — and need us to want more. To regain intentionality in how I listen to music, I cancelled my streaming music subscription: it’s now […]
I’ve been playing the game Satisfactory with my sister for about the past year. Neither of us have played games much, and that mostly pre-2000. It’s been slow going as we learn what tools are available to us, how to interact with the world, and what goals we’re meant to pursue. But another thing we’re […]
Win of the week: took the whole week off work Looking forward to: finishing the blog posts I’m working on 😀 Stuff I did: I’m cranking away on a multi-post blog series 🦾 I was hoping to post the intro this week, but I realized I need to get the posts into a little bit […]
This week I took an aggressive initial pass on cleaning out my music library, trying to err on the side of removal. In the past, I’ve been hesitant to remove older tracks that I don’t listen to much for the sake of historical records, to keep old playlists playable. But now that I’ve cycled through […]
The theme of the week is making space. Win of the week: fixed a bunch of images on my consulting website that I’d saved with Affinity, may as well get my money’s worth out of Adobe while I have it — maybe I just used crappy settings but Affinity Photo seems to be really bad […]
I like to read a lot of different writers because there’s so much cOnTeNt out there it’s easy to miss the good stuff; if multiple people are pointing to a piece it’s probably worth reading. And sometimes, writers will recontextualize something I did read: “look again.” Ah, you’re right, I didn’t catch that on the […]
(Ed. note: hello Hacker News folks! Since you may be new to my work, I wanted to provide a bit of context; for more of my thoughts on reading, please see My Reading Philosophy in 17 Guidelines) I prefer a lightweight nonfiction book to a detailed tome. I’m a dilettante of many interests, so my […]
The US has at least two different systems of what gets termed “socioeconomic class” by Siderea Economic class refers to money. It refers to the wealth or poverty of a person, and to the privileges they do or do not have because of their economic might or lack thereof. Social class is what is being […]
Win of the week: wrote every weekday this week! Looking forward to: planning to bake this sourdough apple cobbler this weekend 🍏 Stuff I did: 9.5 hours consulting 4.75 hours writing reviewed someone’s blog post! Two more people have asked me to read theirs 😀 That means I’ve got two more openings — so if you’ve […]
Bookmarked Scientists Reveal a Very Compelling Reason to Use Your Air Fryer by David Nield (Science Alert) Stir frying, deep fat frying, boiling, and pan frying food are all far more likely to pollute your home's indoors than the relative newcomer to the modern kitchen, the benchtop air fryer oven.
How thousands of school lunches are made for Japanese students (video) by Adedayo Afolabi and David Valerio (Business Insider) A completely different perspective on food in schools, considering it both part of the curriculum and an essential role of schools to make sure kids are fed. + How did planners design Soviet cities? (video) by […]
During WWII, the United States government incarcerated over one hundred thousand Americans because they were of Japanese descent, two-thirds of them American citizens. Their bank accounts were locked and they were forced to leave behind their homes, pets, businesses and possessions to live in remote, barren camps guarded by armed soldiers. They...
👉 Do you have a blog? I’m offering to edit 5 people’s draft posts! I’ve had zero takers so far. Win of the week: bought so many things I’ve been needing to! Made up for four and a half years of delayed purchases over Black Friday weekend 😆 Looking forward to: reading a book this weekend Stuff […]
Cool things I saw on my road trip up the California coast. Patterns Exterior details Interior details