In Japan, we experienced days of rain. In the Netherlands, we can have similar experiences. Mostly accompanied by lots of wind. For me, it’s in the end the wind that gets on my nerves. The rain has a fresh touch, but the continuous noise of the storm is hard to bear.
Last week we had a couple of storm-free Japanese-type rainy days. Between showers, I managed to take a nice walk with the dog, an umbrella, and my camera.
Via Indistractable:
Identity determines behavior, and behavior determines belief.
Who you think you are is critical.
Tech: backing up this site with BackwpUp plugin.
Trying to get my daughter’s Kobo reader working again. She let it sit for a while and missed an apparent crucial update. The normal Kobo update process does not work anymore. So I looked around and found that Kobo reader is open source and therefore there is a community helping with questions such as mine.
https://cheat.readthedocs.io/en/latest/kobo.html
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145177
These worked like a charm. Does require some tech skills.
I like my Kindle, but this feels much better then the locked in Amazon device
How to get new ideas by Paul Graham.
The site brr about life on the South Pole is fantastic.
A friend (not a proverbial one this time) loves riding his racing bike. He also loves riding the newest models with the newest technology, preferably expensive lightweigth ascesories. He has a busy family life as well. The argument that wins his wife over to acquire the latest fancy bike is:
‘Shall I buy a this new bike, or shall I train more hours?’
It’s not the bike, it’s the ride.
Transcribe text safely with mygoodtape.
Read old books without having to own them on open library.
Substack CEO kills Substack. For me at least. All the things you fear when using someone else’s platform to create content become real. Read an perfect analysis of an interview with him
on techdirt here.
Run your own WordPress instead, or other web tool. When on your self-hosted WordPress (not wordpress.com), use their WordPress newsletter tool.
Paul Graham (from Y Combinator, not the photographer) on how to do great work.
In this issue from David Perell’s newletter I read
Many Silicon Valley investors say that fast response times for important messages correlate highly with a founder’s long-term success.
Gets me going, because such a sentence lacks reason and humility:
Learned a new word for an interesting phenomenon, skeuomorphic, via The Wippet.
Good to know these hand made USB cables with hidden implant exist.
I am all in favor of editing flat files. They are portable, easy to change editors, platform independent, and very easy to search across, just using your Linux, Windows or MacOS search capabilities. All my notes are in simplified markdown. When I need to generated html from it, this service is so easy: markdowntohtml.
Craid Mod’s article about what I would call the Zen of Coding.
Alan Jacobs’s article on why he doesn’t use Canvas specifically, and warn for data harvesting and ‘surveillance capitalism’. Instead, as I do, he prefers open source en open web technologies instead. Plus some wise words on ChatGTP and how it will not help his students any more than other tools.
Pizza toast is a Japanese invention. Craig Mod made a beautiful movie about a Japanese cook crafting pizza toast with incredible dedication. Pizza toast is best consumed on a low table, cross-legged on on your knees. You carefully break one of the pre-cut quadrants loose and eat in with small bites.
To make pizza-toast, the thick Japanese toast bread is best. I have only seen slices as thick as 3-4 cm in Japan. At home, I use our Dutch bread, but it doesn’t come close. Japanese pizza-toast is superior.
Great things are made up of lots of little things. Something big is made by making lots of little things.
Every day 1 sketch makes 365 a year. That already begins to look like a “body of work.”
Writing 100 words a day make 36500 in a year. That’s already half a novel.
I love crafts, tinkering, crafting, and doing things myself. Not only is it cheaper, but you also learn a lot more and have more fun doing it.
Nassim Taleb wrote
Anything you do to optimize your work, cut some corners, or squeeze more “efficiency” out of it (and out of your life) will eventually make you dislike it.
I make one exception: tax returns. I have always done that myself, but with a company, I couldn’t do it anymore. For some things, you need an expert, like the tax return of your small business.
And sewer repair.
Effie Pappa’s stop motion film has some answers
