ng I’m Telling Stories I’ve Never Told Before — on Patreon! By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 01 Apr 2020 10:00:25 +0000 When I started this blog more than 10 years ago, I had one goal: to entertain as many people as possible with my travel stories. I got away from that goal in recent years, focusing on guides for travelers instead, realizing that it’s hard to earn a living when you tell stories like these. But … I’m Telling Stories I’ve Never Told Before — on Patreon! Read More » The post I’m Telling Stories I’ve Never Told Before — on Patreon! appeared first on Adventurous Kate. Full Article Blog
ng Dear Amazon, We’re Breaking Up. It’s Not Me. It’s You. By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000 Hi, Amazon. We’ve had a long history, ever since I ordered those first books and DVDs to be delivered to my college mailbox. You indulged my whims, from paleo cooking to crocheting, and you deposited a solid amount of cash in my bank account at the end of every month. Not to mention that fat … Dear Amazon, We’re Breaking Up. It’s Not Me. It’s You. Read More » The post Dear Amazon, We’re Breaking Up. It’s Not Me. It’s You. appeared first on Adventurous Kate. Full Article Blog Travel Blogging
ng Introducing Adventurous Kate’s Book Club! By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000 Since starting this blog, I’ve shared hundreds of books with you. Books have been the second topic on this site as long as I can remember, and sharing books with you has been one of my great pleasures. And it goes both ways — you guys have introduced me to some truly wonderful reads as … Introducing Adventurous Kate’s Book Club! Read More » The post Introducing Adventurous Kate’s Book Club! appeared first on Adventurous Kate. Full Article Blog
ng Which of These Comforting TV Shows is Right for You? By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 06:20:03 +0000 Right now we all need comfort — more than we’ve ever needed it. When times are stressful, sometimes relaxing with comforting TV shows is a way to relax and escape for awhile. As a TV connoisseur, I’m excited to share my favorite uplifting and comforting TV shows with you: comedies where you fall in love … Which of These Comforting TV Shows is Right for You? Read More » The post Which of These Comforting TV Shows is Right for You? appeared first on Adventurous Kate. Full Article Blog
ng Passport Renewal: Everything American Travelers Need to Know By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 07 Mar 2019 17:29:52 +0000 Passport renewal isn't quite simple, but it is straightforward. You just need to prepare with the right forms, supporting documentation, and some patience. The post Passport Renewal: Everything American Travelers Need to Know appeared first on Vagabondish. Full Article Travel Tips america american passport renewal travel tips United States
ng Up Your Car Camping Game with These 12 Clever Gadgets By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:21:15 +0000 From better campsite cooking to car maintenance to smartphone-free communication, here are 12 gadgets to up your car camping game. The post Up Your Car Camping Game with These 12 Clever Gadgets appeared first on Vagabondish. Full Article Modern Vagabond Camping Car Camping gadgets gear road trip
ng Brighten Up Your After-Dark Road-Tripping with Lanmodo’s Vast Automotive Night Vision System By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 02 Sep 2019 01:40:35 +0000 With a bright, 8.2-inch HD display and the flexibility to work in almost any vehicle, the Lanmodo Automotive Vast Night Vision System is a near-perfect alternative to factory-installed systems. The post Brighten Up Your After-Dark Road-Tripping with Lanmodo’s Vast Automotive Night Vision System appeared first on Vagabondish. Full Article Modern Vagabond
ng I Never Thought I’d Want (or Need) an Electric Folding Bike … But This Changed My Mind By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 23 Sep 2019 18:44:13 +0000 If you've never had enough room to take your bike road-tripping, Oyama's origami-inspired folding electric bike is here to change your mind. The post I Never Thought I’d Want (or Need) an Electric Folding Bike … But This Changed My Mind appeared first on Vagabondish. Full Article Modern Vagabond Review
ng BioLite HeadLamp 200 Is the Featherweight Head Lamp You’ll (Probably) Forget You’re Wearing By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 06 Mar 2020 21:43:29 +0000 It's not the brightest headlamp on the market, but it's more than adequate for cooking, reading, or finding a pee tree in the dark. Plus, it's comfortable, easy-to-use, and USB rechargeable. The post BioLite HeadLamp 200 Is the Featherweight Head Lamp You’ll (Probably) Forget You’re Wearing appeared first on Vagabondish. Full Article Modern Vagabond Review Camping
ng 5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Solo Travelling By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 17 May 2015 05:18:43 +0000 Planning a little solo jaunt across the land? If this is your first time planning your virgin solo adventure, I understand completely how excited and nervous you are. I was once in your shoes. Before you slap on your backpack and march out that door, here’s a small checklist of things you might want to do to ensure a better trip. Image courtesy of bluetidalwave.com Research, Research, Research It doesn’t matter if you’re headed into uncharted territory or a bustling metropolis, it only helps if you already know what to expect when you set foot in your destination. A quick google search should give you enough information on things like the local culture, geography, weather and political climate to start with. Oh, and do not forget to check out the local laws, either-written and unwritten. People have in the past gotten into trouble for using the wrong gesture or for looking the wrong person in the eye. Did you also know that shaking your head can be interpreted as ‘yes’ in India? “Hi, would you like to buy some drugs? – Nervously shakes head – “Great! Here’s two kilograms of cocaine!” Kuh-Myoo-Nick-Ashion Learn a few words and phrases from the local language and the appropriate situations to use them in. You would be surprised at how much a ‘Yallah’ or a ‘Habibi’ can get people to warm up to you in the Middle East. Also, knowing the language makes ordering food that much easier. Just saying. Who Ya’ Gonna Call? It’s very useful to have in hand a bunch of contacts that you can get in touch with if-knock on wood- you should ever find yourself in trouble, eg: Your home country’s Embassy/Consulate(stolen passports are a thing in some countries you know?), local emergency numbers etc. If you have friends or relatives in the country/area, make sure you have their numbers as well. There’s no telling what kind of emergency you might encounter on the road. Link Up With Other Travellers And Locals! This is for many people, the single greatest reward of solo travel-meeting new people. There’s so much you discover from engaging with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Yes, I’m being captain obvious here, but it’s a point that just had to be reiterated. Being alive in the internet age has its perks. A slew of apps and websites have made it that much easier for travelers to get in touch with people at their destinations. It doesn’t matter if you’re just hanging out with your host from ‘AirBnB’ and ‘Couchsurfing’ or finding fellow travelers to share in your adventure from ‘Penroads’, you’re guaranteed to meet some cool people on your journey. As a matter of fact, Penroads is the best way for you to connect with international travellers coming in from all over the world, so it’s definitely a useful tool to have (It’s a shameless plug. I am so sorry. But it really works!). Stay Healthy! Last but never the least, take care of your body. Stay hydrated. It’s no good if your mind yells “Onward!” and your body groans “Hell no!”. Find out if you need to get vaccinated before setting off. Carry some basic medicines and bandages if you can, especially if you’re venturing into the wilderness. On occasion you might have to be careful about where and what you eat as well. Talk to someone who has travelled to India and you just might hear the story about how the delicious chicken Tikka from a street vendor gave them a bad case of ‘Delhi Belly’. Happy tripping! Parag Murali is the Marketing & Happiness Manager at penroads.com. He combines his love for travelling and people into a daily passion for bringing travellers together. You can contact him at parag@penroads.com for just about anything, so feel free! Full Article Hiking and Trekking Machu Picchu Inca Trail Tips and Things To Know
ng 6 Tips and Tricks for Hiking the Inca Trail By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 28 May 2015 23:23:31 +0000 My flight was booked! My dream of hiking the Inca Trail, and walking through the sun gate to Machu Picchu was finally becoming a reality. But then, the reality hit me. I have never done an overnight hike before! What do I pack? How do I get into shape? Is it safe? Do I go alone or with a group? As excited as I was, I realized I had a lot of planning ahead of me, but every moment of preparation (and sometimes extreme anxiety) was all worth it. Here are a few tips and tricks that helped me not only survive the Inca Trail, but have the trip of a lifetime! Find an Incredible Tour Group Before booking my trip, I was not sure how I felt about going with a tour group. I was worried that traveling with a group of strangers would take away from the trip. However, after plenty of research, I decided to go with Active Adventures on the Ultimate Peru Adventure. Our trip leader was not only full of helpful and interesting information, but became a friend who gave local tips, and made me feel comfortable and safe. I became close friends with my small tour group of 10 people, and still keep in touch with them. Picking a quality tour group like Active Adventures not only helped take the stress out of travelling logistics, but is truly what made my trip an enjoyable experience. (And for all the foodies out there, our Inca Trail chefs were incredible). Get Fit On the Inca Trail we had people of all ages, sizes, and fitness levels. However, I highly recommend preparing your body a little, and familiarizing yourself with how your body reacts to high altitude. But, don’t worry, you don’t need to an extreme amount of training. To prepare, I went on one to two hikes a week, and did plenty of dog walking. My hikes on average ranged from 3 to 7 miles. However, as fit as you are, everybody reacts differently to altitude. Try finding a hike in your area that has somewhat of a higher altitude. I only had the opportunity to do one higher altitude hike. It was not as high as the Inca Trail, but it still gave me an idea of how my body feels in high altitude. But don’t stress out too much! Your tour leader has helped many people hike the Inca Trail, and will be there to help you if you start to feel sick, or simply need a little extra motivation. Technology Tools I am a firm believer in digital detoxing when traveling, but when hiking in the wilderness, it is comforting to know that I have helpful resources at my fingertips if I ever need it. When hiking or traveling, there are always a few resources and apps I like to have on my phone or iTouch to stay safe. As a traveler, we are more vulnerable to security threats or identity theft on public computers and Wi-Fi. I choose to use a VPN when traveling for Wi-Fi security in hotels, to avoid computer viruses, and to gain access to content that is geo-blocked. For my Inca Trail trek I downloaded the MotionX GPS app. The app supports GPS navigation without the need for cell service. Thankfully our guides kept us on track, but it was comforting knowing that if anything happened, I could use my phone as a backup for navigation help. Make a Visit to Your Doctor When traveling anywhere, it is important to check in with your doctor. Different regions of the world may require various vaccinations, or medication. Before visiting your doctor, it is also helpful to do a little bit of your own research as to what medications or vaccinations are needed for travel. Your doctor may be familiar with vaccinations needed for Peru, but you are the only person who knows what your trip will consist of. Be sure to mention to your doctor if you are going to the Peruvian Amazon, or high altitude. For the Inca Trail I recommend packing the following medications: -Altitude sickness medication (Acetazolamide) -Imodium -Antibiotics (Ciprofloxacin) -Bug spray (not technically a medication, but important to bring as well) -Ibuprofen (always good to have) This list is most likely what your doctor will recommend as well, but be sure to do your own research as well. You may need malaria pills or certain vaccinations depending on where else your trip is going, or personal previous medical history. Pack Light The hardest part of my trip (aside from trekking up the stairs of the Inca Trail) was packing! There are several limitations on how much you pack on the Inca Trail in order to maintain that porters are being treated fairly and respectfully. Each porter is limited to carrying 20kg. This includes all blankets, clothes, and the porter’s personal belongings. Talk to your Active Adventure tour guide before leaving on your trip to find out up to date information on how much you are able to pack, and information on sleeping bags and pads. Aside from packing light, there are of course certain items you will want to pack, depending on the time of year your trek is. I used Her Packing List, along with the information provided by Active Adventures to help me in packing everything I need. Have the Time of Your Life Last, but not least, be ready to have incredible experiences and memories that will last a life time. When I first booked my trip to Peru and the Inca Trail I had certain expectations and ideas of what the trip would be like. I was looking forward to seeing Machu Picchu, but what I found was that the most memorable and exciting parts of my trip were not necessarily seeing the big tourist spots like Machu Picchu, but the journey getting there, and the unexpected surprises that came along the way. Peru and its people exceeded all expectations, and opened my mind in ways I did not know were possible. Hi, my name is Jess Signet. My parents were travelers since before I was born. Even in the womb, I was able to travel all over the place! Boy, did things NOT change as I grew older! Knowing there’s more to the world than the bubble I live in made me want to travel even further. Traveling is my drug and I’m addicted. (Please, no intervention!) Full Article Hiking and Trekking Tips and Things To Know
ng Remote Working: The home office desks of Basecamp By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 20:35:47 +0000 People are always curious about work-from-home (WFH), remote working setups. So, I posted a Basecamp message asking our employees to share a photo of their home office, desk, table, whatever. Here’s what came in. First, the ask: And the answers, in the order they came in: Andy Didorosi, Marketing Justin White, Programmer Jonas Downey, Designer… keep reading Full Article Uncategorized
ng Live Q&A on remote working, working from home, and running a business remotely By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:43:34 +0000 In this livesteam, David and I answer audience questions about how to work remotely. At Basecamp we’ve been working remotely for nearly 20 years, so we have a lot of experience to share. This nearly 2-hour video goes into great detail on a wide variety of topics. Highly recommended if you’re trying to figure out… keep reading Full Article Uncategorized
ng Working remotely builds organizational resiliency By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:37:37 +0000 For many, moving from everyone’s-working-from-the-office to everyone’s-working-at-home isn’t so much a transition as it is a scramble. A very how the fuck? moment. That’s natural. And people need time to figure it out. So if you’re in a leadership position, bake in time. You can’t expect people to hit the ground running when everything’s different.… keep reading Full Article Uncategorized
ng Hiring programmers with a take-home test By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 28 Apr 2020 22:31:34 +0000 There’s no perfect process for hiring great programmers, but there are plenty of terrible ways to screw it up. We’ve rejected the industry stables of grilling candidates in front of a whiteboard or needling them with brain teasers since the start at Basecamp. But you’re not getting around showing real code when applying for a… keep reading Full Article Uncategorized
ng Play the Numberwang game By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: 2008-02-21T16:45:00 Part of the They've got the look promo for the BBC UK Homepage Full Article
ng Going for gold By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: 2008-02-22T12:30:00 As Hollywood prepares for the 80th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, prepare to get swept up in the glamour and excitement. Full Article
ng Watching the Corners: On Future-Proofing Your Passion By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 18 May 2010 00:59:56 +0000 On May 16, 2010, at 10:02 AM, "Xx" wrote: You mentioned you gave a talk at Rutgers about future proofing your passion. Is this available as a podcast? I'd love to listen! This poor kid emailed me to ask a really simple question. And I went and saddled him with the world's most circuitously long-winded answer. Surprise, surprise. Hey, Xx, Thanks for the note, man. No I'm sorry its not up as audio AFAIK. FWIW, it's a talk I'm asked to do more often lately so I wouldn't be surprised if it turns up sooner or later. Since you were kind enough to ask, the talk—which comes out super different each time I do it— consists of a discursive mishmash of advice I wish I'd had the ears to hear in the year or five after graduating from college: primarily, that we never end up anywhere near where we'd expected, and that most of us would have been a lot happier a lot faster if we'd realized that we were often obsessing over the wrong things—starting with how much the world should care about our major. ("Liberal Arts," with a concentration in [ugh] "Cultural Studies," thanks.) The talk started as a way to encourage students to learn enough about what they care about that any temporary derails and side roads wouldn't scare their horses too badly. But, today, I see it as something a lot bigger that's demonstrably useful to anyone who hopes to survive, evolve, and thrive in this insane world. A handful of bits I'm (obviously) still synthesizing into something notionally cohesive: My Kingdom for Some Context! For myself, I wish I'd known the value of developing early expertise in interesting new skills around emerging technologies (rather than just iteratively pseudo-honing the 202-level skills I thought I "understood"). Alongside that, I wish I'd learned to embrace the non-douchier aspects of building awesome human relationships (as against "networking" in the service of landing some straight job that, as with most hungry young people, locked me into a carpeted prison of monkey work at the worst time possible). Also how I wish I'd paid more attention to events, contexts, relationships, and change that were happening outside my immediate world —rather than becoming, say, the undisputed master of fretting about status, salary, and whether I was "a success" who had "arrived". Hint: I was not a "success," and I had not, by any stretch, "arrived." To my mind, "success" in the real world is much more the equivalent of achieving a new personal best; it's not about whether you won the "Springtime in Springfield SunnyD®/Q105™ 5k FunRun for Entitilitus," and got a little ribbon with a gold crest on it. Truly, pretty much anyone who feels they've "arrived" anyplace is about to learn a) how much more they could be doing outside the narrowness of an often superficial ambition and b) the surprising number of things they had to give away through the opportunity costs and trade-offs that lead up to every theoretical milestone. It's a real goddamned thistle, and it's more than a little depressing. Do You Still Really Want to be a Fireman? [N.B.: I really hope you're taking bathroom breaks here, Xx] Related, I think this is about how being an adult is not only unbelievably complicated in ways that you can't begin to imagine—that it's frequently defined by impossible decisions and non-stop layers of "hypocrisy"—but that there's an invisible but entirely real risk to doggedly chasing the theoretically laudable notion of "following your dream." Especially if it's a dream you first had while sleeping on Star Wars sheets in a racecar bed. Not because it's a bad idea to want things or to have ambitions. Quite the opposite. More because, for a lot of us, the "dreams" of youth turn out to be half-finished blueprints for wax wings. And not particularly flattering ones at that. By starting adult life with an autistically explicit "goal" that's never been tested against any kind of real-world experience or reality-in-context, we can paradoxically miss a thousand more useful, lucrative, or organic opportunities that just…what?…pop up. Often these are one-time chances to do amazing and even unique things—opportunities that many of us continue to reject out of hand because it's "not what we do." It took me a full decade to learn to embrace the unfamiliar gifts that kismet loves to deliver on our busiest and most stressful days, and which gifts might (maybe/maybe not) even end up bringing the real-life, non-racecar-bed, now me a big step closer to something that's 1000 times more interesting than a hollow, ten-year-old caricature of "what I wanna be when I grow up." Finding Your "Old Butcher" Also related, it strikes me that the indisputable wealth of information and options that are provided by the web often comes with a harrowing hidden tradeoff. While we can certainly learn a lot on our own and become (what feels like) an instant expert on any topic in an afternoon, we usually do so in the absence of a mentor and outside the context of applying expertise to solve actual problems. In my opinion, a cadet should have to survive more than a few Kobayashi Maru scenarios before he gets to declare himself, "Captain." Call it a guru, a wizard, an old butcher, or what have you, the mad echo chamber of a young mind often benefits from the dampening influence of an experienced grownup who can help you understand things that raw data, wikipedia entries, and lists of tips and tricks can't and wont ever do. We benefit from a hand on the back and a gentle voice, reminding us: "Try not to obsess over implementation until you really understand the problem," or "Worry more about relationships than org charts or follower counts," or "Don't quit looking after you've found that first data point," or—my favorite— "Spend less time fantasizing about 'success' and way more time making really cool mistakes." Conversely, though, I think this means that everything we think we know, as well as all the fancy advice that gets thrown around—absolutely including the material you're reading now—is the product of what one person knows and what another person has the ears to hear. For us. For now. For who really knows what. But it is a transaction that takes place in a very specific time and within the bounds of a set of "known" "facts." So, fair warning, doing your own due diligence never hurts. What's Almost Not Impossible? [N.B.: I swear to God this ends at some point, Xx] One big pattern for "future-proofing" your passion? Keep your eyes open and your heart even "opener." And, be more than simply tolerant of the notion of change—sure, take it as read that nothing is ever fixed in place for more than a little while. But, to the extent that your sanity can bear it, always keep an eye on the corners, the edges, and especially learn to watch for those infinitesimally tiny figures starting to shuffle around near the horizon. Because a lot of the things that seem ridiculously small and inconsequential right now will eventually cast a shadow that people will be chasing for decades. It's just that we're never sure which tiny figure that will turn out to be. So, yeah. It really is true that no one but you cares about your major. But, trust me: everybody is interested in the person who repeatedly notices the things that are about to stop being impossible. Be the curious one who soaks in all that "irrelevant" stuff. And, even as you stay heads-down on the "now" projects that keep the lights on, remember that the guy who invented those lights made hundreds of "failed" lightbulbs before fundamentally upending the way we think about time, family, industry, and the role of technology in how we live and work. But, yes, first he "failed" a lot a lot at something which more than a few of his contemporaries thought was pointless in the first place. Ask: What's out there right now that's about to stop being impossible? Where will it happen first? Who will (most loudly and erroneously) declare it's total bullshit? Who will mostly get it right—but possibly too early? Who will figure out what it means to our grandkids? Who will figure out how to put it in everyone's front pocket for a quarter? Y'know who? I'll tell you who: practically anybody BUT that guy in the racecar bed who wants to talk about his major. Important: Merlin's Advice is Only Future-Proof to 10 Meters A few years back, most watch manufacturers decided to come clean and stop categorically declaring that their timepieces were "waterproof." Instead, today, the more credible vendors admit their product is merely "water-resistant"—and, even then, they'll only guarantee the underwater functionality at so many meters, and for so long, and under thus and such conditions. Truthfully, the same applies here. Nothing can actually "future-proof" anything. Anyone who claims to know the future is either a madman, a charlatan, or, often as not, both. Thing is, regardless of the passions (or goals or values or priorities or whatever) that we hope to protect or defend, we'd all do well to remember that it is still ultimately OUR passion that's at stake. That means we're the only one responsible for seeing that its functional components survive and adapt in a world in which each one of us has just north of zero control. If we embrace the fact that no one can or should ever care about the health of our passions as much as we do, the practical decisions that help ensure Our Good Thing stays alive can become as "simple" as a handful of proven patterns—work hard, stay awake, fail well, hang with smart people, shed bullshit, say "maybe," focus on action, and always always commit yourself to a bracing daily mixture of all the courage, honesty, and information you need to do something awesome—discover whatever it'll take to keep your nose on the side of the ocean where the fresh air lives. This is huge. Anything else? Yeah. Drink lots of water, play with your kid every chance you get, and quit Facebook today. No, really, do it. Thanks again for the note, Xx, and sorry for the novella. I'll ping you if the audio ever turns up. Til then, forget your major, and break a leg! yr internet pal, /m ”Watching the Corners: On Future-Proofing Your Passion” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 18, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article Careers Knowledge Workers world of work
ng My Faith in Nerds: Stronger Than Any Gelatinous Cube By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:01:57 +0000 dConstruct 2010: Merlin Mann - "Kerning, Orgasms & Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks" (NSFW) ME - Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it Let's be honest. I don't go...mmmm...places very often. I sit in this chair. I go to the Safeway with my daughter. Sometimes, I take the train downtown to get a haircut. I check the mail. But, by and large, like most nerds, I'm without question, a bit of a shut-in. Which makes it more than a little ironic that my first trip off the North American continent brought me all the way to Brighton, England's wonderful dConstruct Conference. Which wonderful conference placed me inside a very royal complex, alone on a very large stage, 90 seconds after being informed I'd better be entertaining, because I'd be conducting my oration on the same spot where, a scant 36 years earlier, ABBA had become international stars by singing an up-tempo number about giving up. So, y'know. No pressure. Commanded to this location by two of my web heroes, I was told I could speak about whatever I wanted. So, wow, to quote the ladies of ABBA, how could I ever refuse? Thus, I stood on that stage for over 35 minutes, rambling to 800 talented, creative people about Dungeons & Dragons, japanese toothpicks, torrenting Photoshop, as well as what I used to find myself doing after a long evening of shooting mutants in Stargate.1 But, mostly? Yes. Mostly, I stood on a stage thousands of miles from the chair from which I barely move, and I told a lot of really smart people that they were nerds. I also told them they should get out more. I swear: it made sense at the time. Some Serious Talent My talk about the challenges and opportunities of being a giant nerd seemed well received. Honestly, I'm very happy with how it turned out. But--oh, brother--was I ever up against some heavy hitters. Serious Lou Gehrig shit. I'll leave it to other, more eloquent folks to tell you what a wonderful day this was. But I will very much suggest you learn this for yourself by listening to the audio of the fantastic talks. Because every one of them is a corker. Additionally, like I said, Tom Coates put on one of the loveliest slide decks it's ever been my pleasure to see (56MB PDF). Great speakers, great hosts, wonderful attendees (who aren't above buying a yank a pint [thanks, everybody]). And, Thanks, dConstruct I have to admit, I'm kind of over conferences as a thing, which makes it even more crazy when I go to one, and it blows me out of the water with the care and quality of the event, the speakers, and the attendees. dConstruct was absolutely one of those blown-out-of-the-water events. (photo: happy.apple) As I learned over and over again--yes, like me--these folks are nerds. But, brother are they ever talented nerds who care and care. Which I just love so much. I'll take a nerdy bunch of fontdorks and cellists over a splashy mega-conference full of VC pitches and skanks pushing free Red Bull anytime. Anytime. dConstruct was simply a top-notch operation from end-to-end, and I'm insanely grateful that I was invited to participate. Thanks, Clearleft. And, you, the reader? If you get the chance next time, go. Heck, I might even leave this chair and go there, myself. Maybe. I suppose when Dr. Who's over, I could just let these 20-sided dice decide for me. Lemme see...what's my Armor Class and Hit Points...? Listen for Yourself2 dConstruct Podcast MARTY NEUMEIER - The Designful Company The Designful Company on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it BRENDAN DAWES - Boil, Simmer, Reduce Boil, Simmer, Reduce on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it DAVID MCCANDLESS - Information Is Beautiful Information Is Beautiful on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it SAMANTHA WARREN - The Power and Beauty of Typography The Power and Beauty of Typography on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it JOHN GRUBER - The Auteur Theory Of Design The Auteur Theory Of Design on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it HANNAH DONOVAN - Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it JAMES BRIDLE - The Value Of Ruins The Value Of Ruins on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it TOM COATES - Everything The Network Touches Everything The Network Touches on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks ME - Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks on Huffduffer Download the audio | Huffduff it Hint: Number Three. ↩ Code for these was stolen wholesale from the dConstruct site. Jeremy, et al - don't hesitate to tell me if that's a problem.Srsly. ↩ ”My Faith in Nerds: Stronger Than Any Gelatinous Cube” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 10, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article dConstruct Geeks Knowledge Workers Nerds Speaking NSFW
ng “Distraction,” Simplicity, and Running Toward Shitstorms By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:49:56 +0000 It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience. —Albert Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics” (1934) Context: Last week, I pinched off one of my typically woolly emails in response to an acquaintance whom I admire. He’s a swell guy who makes things I love, and he'd written, in part, to express concern that my recent Swift impersonation had been directed explicitly at something he'd made. Which, of course, it hadn’t—but which, as I'll try to discuss here, strikes me as irrelevant. To paraphrase Bogie, I played it for him, so now I suppose I might as well play it for you. (n.b.: Excerpted, redacted, munged, and heavily expanded from my original email) There are at least a couple things that mean a lot to me that I'm still just not very good at. Make nuanced points in whatever way they need to be made; even if that ends up seeming “un-nuanced” Never explain yourself. I want to break both these self-imposed rules privately with you here. [Editor’s Note: Um.] Because, I hope to nuance the shit out of some fairly un-nuanced points. And, to do that, I'll also (reluctantly) need to explain myself. But, here goes. First [regarding my goofing on “distraction-free writing environments”] I think there are some GIANT distinctions at play here that a lot of folks may not find nearly as obvious as I do: Tool Mastery vs. Productivity Pr0n – Finding and learning the right tools for your work vs solely dicking around with the options for those tools is just so important, but also so different. And, admittedly, it’s almost impossible to contrast those differences in terms of hard & fast rules that could be true for all people in all situations. But, that doesn’t make the difference any less qualitatively special or real. Similarly… Self-Help Vs. “Self”–“Help” – Solving the problem that caused the problem that caused the problem that caused the symptom we eventually noticed. Huge. Arguably, peerless. Viz.: How many of us ignore the actual cause of our problem in favor of just reading dozens of blog posts about how to “turbocharge” its most superficial symptoms? Sick. Focus & Play – Yes, focusing on important work is, as Ford used to say, Job 1. But, that focus benefits when we maintain the durable and unapologetic sense of play that affords true creativity and fosters an emergence of context and connection that’s usually killed by stress. BUT. Again, what conceivable “rule” could ever serve to immutably declare that “THIS goofing-off is critical for hippocampal plasticity” vs. “THAT goofing-off is just dumb, distracting bullshit?” Impossible. Because drawing those kinds of distinctions is one of our most important day-to-day responsibilities. Decisions are hard, and there’s no app or alarm gadget that can change that. Although, they certainly can help mask the depth of the underlying problem that made them seem so—what’s the parlance?—“indispensable”. Think: Elmo Band-Aids for that unsightly pancreatic tumor. Reducing Distraction through Care (Rather than braces, armatures, and puppet strings). Removing interruptions and external distractions that harm your work or life? Great. Counting on your distraction-removal tool to supplement your non-existent motivation to do work that will never get done anyway? Pathetic. Frankly, this is a big reason I'm so galled when anyone touts their tool/product/service as being the poor, misunderstood artist’s new miracle medicine—rather than just admitting they've made a slightly different spoon. Because, let’s be honest: although most of us have plenty of perfectly serviceable spoons, everybody knows collecting cutlery is way more fun than using it to swallow yucky medicine. Using a System Vs. Becoming a System. Having a system or process for getting work done vs. making the iteration of that system or process a replacement for the work. This is just…wow…big. But, maybe most importantly to me… Embracing the Impossibles. Getting past these or any other intellectual koans by simply accepting life’s innumerable and unresolvable paradoxes, hypocrisies, and impossibilities as God-given gifts of creative constraint. Rather than, say, a mimeographed page of long division problems that must be solved for a whole number, n. I just can’t ever get away from this one. For me, it’s what everything inevitably comes back to. The very definition of our jobs is to solve the right problem at the right level for the right reason—based on a combination of the best info we have for now and a clear-eyed dedication to never pushing an unnecessary rock up an avoidable hill. YET, we keep force-feeding the monster that tells us to fiddle and fart and blame the Big Cruel World whenever we face work that might threaten our fragile personal mythology. “Sigh. I wish I could finally start writing My Novel….Ooooooh, if only I had a slightly nicer pen…and Zeus loved me more….” All that stuff? That there’s a complex set of ideas to talk about for many complex reasons—not least of which being how many people either despise or (try to) deny the unavoidable impact of ol' number six. But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we're NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans. In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model. So, that’s what I try to do. I talk about these things. Seldom by careful design. Often poorly. But, always because they each mean an awful lot to me. […] But, no matter how I end up saying whatever the hell I say, I believe in saying it not simply to be liked or followed or revered as a “nice guy” who pushes out shit-tons of whatever to “help people.” Because, believe me, friend, a great many of those apparently “nice guys” swarming around the web “helping people” these days are ass-fucking their audience for nickels and calling it a complimentary colonoscopy. And, while I absolutely think that in itself is empirically wrong, I also think it’s just as important to say that it’s wrong. Sometimes, True Things need to be said. Which in this instance amounts to saying, a) selling people a prettier way to kinda almost but not really write is not, in the canonical sense, “nice”—but, far worse, b) leaving your starry-eyed customers with the nauseatingly misguided impression that their “distraction” originates from anyplace but their own busted-ass brain is really not “helping.” Not on any level. It is, literally, harmful. “Helping” a junkie become more efficient at keeping his syringe loaded is hardly “nice.” It’s the opposite of nice. And, it’s the opposite of helpful. These are my True Things. And, to me, saying your True Things also means not watering down the message you care about in order to render it incapable of even conceivably hurting someone’s feelings—or of even conceivably losing you even one teeny-tiny slice of that precious “market share.” Well, that’s the price, and I'm fine paying it—best money I've ever spent. But, it also means trusting your audience by letting each of them decide to add water only as they choose to—by never corrupting the actual concentrate in a way that might make it less useful to the smartest or most eager 5% of people who'd like to try using it undiluted. Because, at that point, you're not only abandoning the coolest people you have the honor of serving—you risk becoming a charlatan. And, that’s precisely what you become when you start to iteratively inbreed the kind of fucktard audience for whom daily buffets of weak swill and beige assurance are life’s most gratifying reward. Sure. Those poor bastards may never end up using any of that watery information to do anything more ambitious than turbocharging their most regrettable symptoms. But, who’s the last person in the universe who’s going to grab them by the ears and tell them to get back to work? Exactly—that same “nice guy” whose livelihood now depends on keeping infantalized strangers addicted to his “help.” Holy shit—no way could I ever live with that. It’s so wrong, it’s not even right. ESC, ESC, ESC! […] Okay. So anyhow, there’s a really long-winded, overly generous, and extremely pompous way of trying to say I don’t know how to do what I do except how I do it. But, I do genuinely feel awful when innocent people feel they have been publicly humiliated or berated simply because I'm some dick who hates people. Which has to be my favorite irony of all. When I was a kid, I thought my Mom was “mean” not to let me play in traffic on busy Galbraith Road. Today, I'm not simply grateful that she had the strength and resolve to be so “mean”—I actually can’t imagine how sad it would be to not have people in your life who care enough about your long-term welfare to tell you to stop fucking around in traffic. To where you eventually might start even seeking 12x-daily safety hacks from some of the very same drivers whose recklessness may eventually kill you. Wow. […] Admitting when life is complicated or things aren’t shiny and happy all the time strikes me as a wonderfully sane and adult way to conduct one’s life. That there are so many folks offended by even the existence of this anarchic idea is not a problem I can solve. No more than I can wish useless email away or pray hard enough that it never rains on anyone’s leaky roof. All out of scope. And, then, I jizzed on at length about how much I admire the recipient’s work. Which I do. Good work doesn’t need a cookie I may admire your work, too. Especially if you care a lot about that work and don’t overly sweat peoples' opinions of it. Most definitely including my own. For these purposes, it doesn’t really matter whether we're friends and, honestly, it doesn’t even matter whether I love, use, or agree with everything you do, say, or make in a given day. It doesn’t matter because good work doesn’t need me to love it. Like tornadoes and cold sores, good work happens with total disregard to whether I'm “into it.” But, conversely, let’s stipulate that the points-of-view undergirding our opinions—again, including mine—will and should survive either agreement or lack of agreement with equivalently effortless ease. Because, like really good work, a really good point-of-view doesn’t require another person’s benediction. Guess we'll have to disagree to agree Now, to be only vaguely clearer here, I'm not posting this circuitous ego dump in the service of altering your opinion of either me, my friend, his work, or practically anything else for that matter. But, I would love it if we could all be more okay with the fact that real life means that we do each have a different, sometimes incongruous, and often totally incompatible point-of-view. Yes. Even you have a point-of-view that someone despises. Ready to change it now? Jesus, I sure hope not. Then, to be only slightly more clear, I'm also not advocating for that fakey brand of web-based kum ba ya that gets trotted out alternately as “tolerance” or “inclusion” or some styrofoam miniature of “civility.” I'm absolutely not against all of those things when authentically practiced, but I'm also really skeptical of the well-branded peacemakers who are forever appointing themselves the Internet’s “Now-Now-Let’s-All-Pretend-We're-Just-Saying-the-Same-Useless-Thing-Here” den mothers. Because we're not all saying the same things. Not at all. And, it infantalizes some important conversations when we tacitly demand that any instance of honest disagreement be immediately horseshat into a photo opp where some thought leader gets to hoist everyone’s hands in the air like he’s fucking Jimmy Carter. Nope. Not saying that. Who will you really rely on? What I AM saying is that alllllll this seemingly unrelated stuff is absolutely related—that the pattern of not relying on other people for anything you really care about is arguably the great-grandaddy of every useful productivity, creativity, or self-help pattern. Where’s this matter? Pretty much everywhere you have any sort of stake: Don’t rely on other people to remove your totally fake “distractions.” Don’t rely on other people to pat your beret, re-tie your cravat, and make you a nice cocoa whenever that mean man on the internet points out that your “distractions” are totally fake. (Which they are) Don’t rely on other people to tell you when or whether you have enough information. Don’t rely on other people to define your job. Don’t rely on other people to “design your lifestyle.” Don’t rely on other people to decide when your opinions are acceptable. Don’t rely on other people to tell you when you're allowed to be awesome. Don’t rely on other people to make you care. Don’t even rely on other people to tell you what you should or shouldn’t rely on. Yes. I went there. Because that’s the point. These hypocrisies, paradoxes, and ambiguities that people get so wound up about—that many of us are constantly (impotently) trying to resolve—cannot be resolved. Because, yeah: all of these harrowingly unsolvable problems are immune to new notebooks and less-distracting applications and shinier systems and “nicer” self-“help” and pretty much anything else that is not, specifically, you walking straight into the angriest and least convenient shitstorm you can find and getting your ass kicked until the storm gets bored with kicking it. Then, you find an even angrier storm. Then, another. And, so on. “Get the fuck off of my obstacle, Private Pyle!” Doing that annoying hard stuff is how you grow, get better, and learn what real help looks like. Even if that’s not the answer you wanted to hear. You get better by getting your ass out of your RSS reader and fucking making things until they suck less. Not by buying apps. You don’t whine about distractions, or derail yourself over needing a nicer pencil sharpener, or aggravate your chronic creative diabetes by starting another desperate waddle to the self-help buffet. No. You work. And, for what it’s worth, just like you can’t get to the moon by eating cheese, you'll also never leave boot camp with your original scrote intact by telling your drill sergeant to try using more honey than vinegar. No. That sergeant’s job is to make you miserable. It’s his job to break down your callow conceits about what’s supposed to be easy and fair. It’s his job to emotionally pummel you into giving up and becoming a Marine. You? You're not there to give the sergeant notes; you're there to sleep two hours a night, then not mind getting beaten for 20 hours until a decent Marine starts to fall out. Who knows? He may even surprise you by introducing a surprisingly effective “distraction-free learning environment.” “Tee ell dee ahr, Professor Brainiac.” Like most humans, I like things I can understand. Like most readers, I love specificity. Like most thinkers, I love clarity. Like most students, I love relevance and practicality. And, like most busy people, believe it or not, I actually do really like it when someone gets straight to the point. But, here’s the problem. If my 2-year-old daughter asks me about time travel, and I blithely announce, “E=mc2”, I will have said something that is entirely specific, clear, relevant, practical, and/or straight-to-the-point. For somebody. But, not so much for my daughter. And, to be honest, not even to any useful degree for me. She'd probably either laugh derisively at me (which she’s great at), or she'd pause and ask, “Whuh dat?” (which she’s even better at). Thing is, her understanding that jumble of characters less than me—and my understanding it WAY less than Professor Al—has zero impact on the profundity, truth, beauty, or impact of the man’s theory. Sure. You could quite accurately fault me for being a smartass and a poseur, and you could even berate my toddler for her unaccountably shallow understanding of Modern Physics. But, in any case, you can’t really blame either Albert or his theory. You're turbocharging nothing Specifically, Albert can’t begin to tell us what he really knows if we don’t understand math. So, let’s say this theory you've been hearing about really interests you. And, let’s also pretend, just for the sake of the analogy, that you haven’t completed Calculus III (212) or Quantum Mechanics (403) or even something as elementary as, say, Advanced Astrophysics II (537). I know you have. Obviously. But, let’s pretend. Where do you start? Well, you could read some tips about learning math. You could find a list of 500 indispensable resources for indispensable math resources. You could buy a new “distraction-free math environment.” Heck, there’s actually nothing to stop you from just declaring yourself a “math expert.” Congratulations, Professor. Thing is: you still don’t know math. Which means you still can’t really understand the theory—no more than a pathetic Liberal Arts refugee like me or a dullard Physics ignoramus like my kid can really grok relativity. Difference is, you will have blown a lot of time hoping that actual expertise follows non-existent effort—while my daughter and I get to remain total novices without charge. Only, we don’t get all mad at the theory as a result; a staggering number of fake math experts do. I mean, be honest—after all that recreational non-work and make-believe dedication almost trying to kinda learn math sorta—you might actually get frustrated at how brazenly Al defies your fondness for shortcuts by continuing to rely on so many terms and proofs and blah-blah-blah that you still just don’t understand. So annoying. You may simply decide that Albert Einstein’s a huge dick for never saying things that can be completely understood solely by scanning a headline. EPIC EINSTEIN FAIL, amirite? You never really know what you didn’t know until you know it But, Al just told the truth. Problem is, Al’s truth not only requires fancy things in order to be truly understood—the more of those fancy things you take away from his truth, the less true it gets. And, by the time it’s been diluted to the point where you're comfortable that you understand it? You'd be understanding the wrong thing. Even I can understand that. But, not one bit of any of this is Al’s fault. Al doesn’t get to control who uses, abuses, gets, or doesn’t get what he said or why it matters. Especially since he’s been dead for over fifty years. All I know is, regardless of who has ears to hear it on a given day, it would be to Al’s credit never to mangle something important in order to get it into terms everybody’s ready to handle without actually trying. And God bless him for never agreeing that your “distractions” to learning math are his problem. So, yeah, if you only need to hand in a crappy 5-page paper, you could certainly Cliff’s Notes your way through Borges, Eliot, or Joyce in an afternoon, and feel like you haven’t missed a thing. Trouble is, if you did care even a little, it’s impossible to even say how much you're missing since you can’t be bothered to soldier through the source text. The text itself is the entire point. Even the wonderfully cogent and readable layman’s explanations Einstein himself provided don’t really get to the nut, the application, and the implications of his real theory. That all takes real math. That “single datum of experience” matters Sometimes, complex or difficult things stop being true when you try to make them too simple. Sometimes, you have to actually get laid to understand why people think sex is such a thing. Sometimes, you need to learn some Greek if you really want to understand The Gospel of John. And, yeah, sometimes, you're going to have to just work unbelievably hard at whatever you claim to care about before anyone can begin to help you get any better—or less “distracted”—at it. The part I really know is what doesn’t work. Reading Penthouse Forum won’t help you CLEP out of Vaginal Intercourse 101. Watching a Rankin-Bass cartoon about the Easter Bunny will teach you very little about the intricacies of transubstantiation. And, if you can’t be troubled to care so much about your work that you reflexively force distractions away, dicking around with yet another writing application will merely aggravate the problem. Ironic, huh? These quantum mechanics of personal productivity are rife with such frustrating “paradoxes.” These are True Things. Achieving expertise and doing creative work is all horribly complicated and difficult and paradoxical and frustrating and recursive and James Joyce-y—and any guide, blog, binary, guru, or “nice guy” that tries to suggest otherwise is probably giving you a complimentary colonoscopy. Do the math. Want a new syllabus? Sure: Run straight into your shitstorm, my friends. Reject the impulse to think about work, rather than finishing it. And, open your heart to the remote possibility that any mythology of personal failure that involves messiahs periodically arriving to make everything “easy” for you might not really be helping your work or your mental health or your long-standing addiction to using tools solely to ship new excuses. Learn your real math, and any slide rule will suffice. Try, make, and do until you quit noticing the tools, and if you still think you need new tools, go try, make, and do more. If you can pull off this deceptively simple and millennia-old pattern, you'll eventually find that—god by dying god—any partial truth that’s supported your treasured excuses for not working will be replaced by a no-faith-required knowledge that you're really, actually, finally getting better at something you care about. Which is just sublimely un-distracting. Dedication This article is dedicated to my friend, Greg Knauss. No, he’s not the app guy–he’s just a good man who does good work, who accidentally/unintentionally helped me write this rant. He also happens to be a fella who could teach anyone a thing or two about writing with distractions. Thanks, Greg. ”“Distraction,” Simplicity, and Running Toward Shitstorms” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 05, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article Creative Work Distractions Features
ng Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)" By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:40:08 +0000 A couple weeks ago, my pals at Twitter were kind enough to invite me in to visit with their (rapidly growing) team. The topic was meetings, so I used it as an opportunity to publicly premiere a talk I've been presenting to private clients over the past few months. I hope you'll enjoy, Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them). Slides: Supplementary links and commentary forthcoming, but I wanted to go ahead and post the talk as quickly as the video was available. Special thanks to Michelle, Jeremy, and the crackerjack Twitter crew for a swell afternoon. I really like this talk and sincerely hope you will find it useful in helping to un-break your own meetings. ”Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 06, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article Meetings Merlin Speaking Twitter Videos world of work
ng Resolved: Stop Blaming the Pancake By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:22:44 +0000 In a classic bit from an early Seinfeld, Jerry and Elaine are at the airport, trying to pick up the rental car that Jerry had reserved. As usual, things go poorly and get awkward fast: Seinfeld - "Reservations" JERRY: I don't understand...I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation? AGENT: Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars. JERRY: But, the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation. AGENT: I know why we have reservations. JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation--you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And, that's really the most important part of the reservation...the holding. Anybody can just TAKE them. [grabs chaotically at air] And, how weirdly similar is that to our conflicted relationship with New Year's resolutions? In Seinfeldspeak? See, you know how to make the resolution, you just don't know how to keep the resolution. And, that's really the most important part of the resolution...the keeping. Anybody can just MAKE them! Oversimplified? Probably. But, ask yourself. Why this? And, why now? Or, why again? Welcome to Resolvers Anonymous: I'm 'Merlin M.' A few years ago, I shared a handful of stories on the failures that have led to my own cynicism about the usefulness of life-inverting resolutions. Because, yeah, I've historically been a big resolver. Here's what I said when I first suggested favoring "Fresh Starts and Modest Changes" over reinventions: Download MP3 of "Fresh Starts & Modest Changes" Five years on, I think I probably feel even more strongly about this. Partly because I've watched and read and heard the cyclical lamentations of folks who decided to use superficial totems (like new calendars) as an ad hoc coach and prime mover. And, partly because, in my capacity as a makebelieve productivity expert, I continue to see how self-defeating it is to pretend that past can ever be less than prologue--that we can each ignore yesterday's weather if we really wish hard enough for a sun-drenched day at the beach. It simply doesn't work. Companies that think they'll be Google for buying bagels. Writers who think they'll get published if they order a new pen. Obese people who think they'll become marathon runners if they pick up some new running shoes. And, regular old people with good hearts who continue to confuse new lives with new clothes. Has this worked before? Can you look back on a proud legacy of successful New Year's resolutions that would suggest you're making serious progress by repeatedly making a list about fundamental life changes while slamming prosecco and wearing a pointy paper hat? My bet is that most people who are seeing the kind of change and growth and improvement that sticks tend to avoid these sorts of dramatic, geometric attempts to leap blindly toward the mountain of perfection. I'll go further and say that the repeated compulsion to resolve and resolve and resolve is actually a terrific marker that you're not really ready to change anything in a grownup and sustainable way. You probably just want another magic wand. Otherwise you'd already be doing the things you've resolved to do. You'd already be living those changes. And, you'd already be seeing actual improvements rather than repeatedly making lists of all the ways you hope your annual hajj to the self-improvement genie will fix you. Then, of course, we make things way worse by blaming everything on our pancakes. Regarding "The First Pancake Problem" Anyone who's ever made America's favorite round and flat breakfast food is familiar with the phenomenon of The First Pancake. No matter how good a cook you are, and no matter how hard you try, the first pancake of the batch always sucks. It comes out burnt or undercooked or weirdly shaped or just oddly inedible and aesthetically displeasing. Just ask your kids. At least compared to your normal pancake--and definitely compared to the far superior second and subsequent pancakes that make the cut and get promoted to the pile destined for the breakfast table--the first one's always a disaster. I'll leave it to the physicists and foodies in the gallery to develop a unified field theory on exactly why our pancake problem crops up with such unerring dependability. But I will share an orthogonal theory: you will be a way happier and more successful cook if you just accept that your first pancake is and always will be a universally flukey mess. But, that shouldn't mean you never make another pancake. So Loud. Then, So Quiet. I offer all of this because today is January 7th, gang. And, for the past week, all over the web, legions of well-intentioned and seemingly strong-willed humans have been declaring their resolved intention to make this a year of more and better metaphorical pancakes. And, like clockwork--usually around today or maybe tomorrow--a huge cohort of those cooks will begin to abandon their resolve and go back to thinking all their pancakes have to suck. Just because that first one failed. And, as is the case every year, online and off, there won't be nearly as many breathless updates to properly bookend how poorly our annual ritual of aspirational change has fared. Which is instructive. Not because new year's resolutions are a universally bad idea. And, not because Change is Bad. And, not because we should be embarrassed about occasionally falling short of our own (frequently unreasonable) aspirations. I suspect we tout the resolution, but whisper the failure because we blame the cook. Or, worse, fingers point toward the pancake. Instead of just admitting that the resolution itself was simply unrealistic or fundamentally foreign. And, that's a shame. Remember, there's no "I" in "unreasonable" Granted, I'm merely re-repeating a point I've struggled to make (to both others and myself) for years now. But, it will bear repeating every January in perpetuity. Resist the urge to pin the fate of things you really care about to anything that's not truly yourself. The "yourself" who has a real life with complicated demands. The "yourself" who's going to face a hard slog trying to fold a new life out of a fresh calendar. Calendars are just paper and staples. They can't make you care. And they can't help you spin around like Diana Prince, and instantly turn into Wonder Woman. Especially, if you're not already a hot and magical Amazon princess. First, be reasonable. Don't set yourself up for failure by demanding things that you've never come close to achieving before. I realize this is antithetical to most self-improvement bullshit, but that's exactly the point. If you were already a viking, you wouldn't need to build a big boat. Start with where you are right now. Not with where you wish you'd been. Also, accept that the first pancake will always suck. Hell, if you've never picked up a spatula before, be cool with the fact that your first hundred pancakes might suck. This is, as I've said, huge. Failure is the sound of beginning to suck a little less. And, finally, also be clear about the sanity of the motivations underlying your expectations--step back to observe what's truly broken, derive a picture of incremental success that seems do-able, and really resolve to do whatever you can realistically do to actually get better. Rather than "something something I suddenly become all different." At this point, you have logistical options for both execution and troubleshooting: Make a modest plan that you can envision actually doing without upending your real life; Build more sturdy scaffolding for sticking with whatever plan you've chosen; Make a practice of learning to not mind the duds--including those messed-up first pancakes; Or--seriously?--just accept that you never really cared that much about making breakfast in the first place. Care is not optional. Otherwise, really, you'd never need to resolve to do anything. You'd already just be cooking a lot. Instead of being all mad and depressed about not cooking. But, please. All I really ask of you. Don't blame the pancake. It's not really the pancake's fault. Like me, the pancake just wants you to be happy. This and every other new year. ”Resolved: Stop Blaming the Pancake” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 07, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article change is hard resolutions self-improvement
ng "Back to Work" - Merlin's New Thing with Dan Benjamin at 5by5.tv By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:15:15 +0000 [update 2011-01-18 @ 16:07:40: We're up!] 5by5 Live Before Christ was a corporal, Dan Benjamin was already a bit of a hero to me. Since the early aughts–long before his insanely great 5by5.tv podcast network–Dan’s Hivelogic Enkoder was saving us millions of spam messages. His thoughtful tutorials on OS X (including unmissable advice on doing sane installs of MySQL and Rails, among others) are among the best on the web. His CSS has been widely stolen and reused without acknowledgment by thieves as diverse as other people and me. And his polymath posts on everything from Buddhism to The Paleo Diet to how to record a “Double-ender” have shown a charming combination of curiosity and empathy that, amongst numerous other reasons, clearly makes Dan a better human than me. A propos of nothing, Dan’s also the guy who conducted one of (mp3) the three best interviews with me in which it’s been my good fortune to participate.1 Today, I’m honored to say that Dan and I are starting a thing together. If it suits you, drop by 5by5.tv/live in about 35 minutes–at Noon Eastern/9am Pacific–to find out what we’re up to. I think it might be good. I’ll just say I’m as excited about this as I’ve been about any new project I’ve started in the past year or so. Anyway. You can judge for yourself. Whether you can tolerate me or otherwise, definitely do not miss the work Dan’s doing at 5by5. Because it really is outstanding and very polished stuff. As for our thing? My own goal, to paraphrase a bit from that interview with Dan, is to help you get excited, get better–and then?–Back to Work. More soon. Thanks. Favorite interviews. Just for the sake of completion, my all-time favorite interview was conducted by Colin Marshall for The Marketplace of Ideas (mp3); Dan’s “The Pipeline” eppy with me was a close second; and David and Katie’s recent nerderrific interview on my Mac workflow (mp3) on Mac Power Users has turned out to be a lot of peoples’ favorite thing I’ve done in years (love LOVE David’s stuff). ↩ And...we're up Back to Work | Ep.#1: Alligator in the Bathroom Download MP3 of "'Back to Work,' Ep. 1" In the inaugural episode of Back to Work, Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin discuss why they’re doing this show, getting back to work instead of buying berets, the lizard brain, and compare the Shadow of the Mouse to San Francisco, and eventually get to some practical tips for removing friction. It's a start. Sexy Audio RSS Feed Sexy Subscription via iTunes Episode Links Welcome to BrettTerpstra.com, home of Brett Terpstra and his nerdery carlhuda/janus – GitHub practically efficient — technology, workflows, life MacSparky – Blog The Brooks Review And now it’s all this Dan Rodney’s List of Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts & Keystrokes 43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann’s Blogging Panel at SxSW | 43 Folders waffle software · ThisService One Thing Well html2text: THE ASCIINATOR (aka html2txt) The Conversation #27: Missionless Statements – 5by5 ”"Back to Work" - Merlin's New Thing with Dan Benjamin at 5by5.tv” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 18, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article hacer pimping Podcasts
ng Video: John Roderick on String Art Owls, Copper Pipe, and Bono's Boss By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:51:26 +0000 [jump to video] Long story (not very) short? One night in 2003--after killing it in front of audience of about 30 lucky people in Oakland--The Long Winters needed a place to crash, and my wife and I were happy to oblige. So, they drove their Big Stinky Blue Van over the bridge, slept on our floor, and by breakfast the next morning, it'd become clear to me that I'd provided lodging to a man who was not only very likely a member of my karass--he was also one of the smartest bullshit artists I'd ever met. Almost eight years later, although I don't see him nearly as much as I'd like, I still count the guy as one of my best pals ever. That's John Roderick. And, I think you need to know about him. John doesn't read this site--he's more of a Twitter person--so I don't risk feeding his astounding excess of dignity by saying he's one of the most gifted writers and bon vivants of our generation. He's just the best. In large part because he's congenitally incapable of suffering bullshit. This was never more apparent than the Saturday morning in 2007 when we sat in my back yard and talked about a lot of stuff. Playing guitar, advertising on the web, the evil work of promoters, and why everyone is always trying to shortchange everyone on copper pipe. That talking became a four-part interview I ran on the late and occasionally lamented The Merlin Show, and, to this day, it's one of my favorite things I've been lucky enough to post to the web. So, y'know how I'm definitely "not for everyone?" Well, John is really "not for everyone." He's opinionated and arrogant and undiplomatic and unironically loves Judas Priest--meaning everyone will find at least one thing not to like about him. Despite being hairy and enjoying laying on your bed, John is not exactly a teddy bear. But, John's also right a lot. And, he never sands off the edges of his personality or opinions to make you theoretically "like" him. Which, it will come as no surprise to you, is a big reason I love the guy more than a free prime rib dinner. So, why the jizzfest about that awful jerk, John Roderick? Because, as I noted the other day on the Twitter, in our first episode of Back to Work I misattributed a line that should have been credited to John. Which in itself is unimportant, except inasmuch as finding that link to correct the error got me watching our 50-some minutes of chatting again. I also received some at-responses and emails that reminded me how much people enjoyed our chat. But, really it made me realize how much that rambling morning in my back yard still resonates so much with stuff I care a lot about. Independence. Agency. Directness. And, never apologizing for wanting to get paid. Also, guitars and talkative hippies. So, anyway. John. I edited all four parts of the video into one big (streamable/downloadable) movie that should make it way easier to watch at a sitting. Should that interest you. Which it may not. Which, as ever, is totally fine, and kind of the point. But. If you like Dan and my new show (and, seriously—God bless you magnificent bastards who helped briefly make B2W the most popular podcast in the world [gulp]), I think you'll really like this interview a lot too. I hope so, anyway. Thus, submitted for your disapproval, permit me to present my four-year-old visit with the acerbic, opinionated, and reportedly unlikeable bullshit artist whom I respect and adore more than just about anybody. Meet Hotrod. Vimeo Page Direct Download Link (589 mb, requires login) ”Video: John Roderick on String Art Owls, Copper Pipe, and Bono's Boss” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 21, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article Brady's Bits John Roderick The Merlin Show video
ng Cranking By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:38:56 +0000 1. Nothing wrecks your living room decor quite like a giant, rented hospital bed. The one my Dad laid in for a couple months in the fall of 1974 was an alarmingly stiff and sturdy affair, the frame of which was forged of impossibly heavy iron, with half a dozen jaggy coats of putty-flesh latex paint doing a shit job of concealing the dings and dents kissed by dozens of clutches of burly rental guys trying to navigate unaccommodating residential doors. Jammed cattywampus between a teddy-bear brown sectional, an antiqued rococo credenza, and what had until recently been my Father's favorite armchair, the hospital bed left little room for easy socializing, let alone aesthetic speculation. This was a living room where a very ill person would mostly die soon. The hospital bed's defining feature was the theoretical ease with which the human trunk slumped in its top half could be raised or lowered by turning a shitty little crank at the foot of its lower half. Like the bed itself, the shitty little crank was ugly and obtrusive and hard to live with. Mom and I tripped over the crank a lot. The theoretically useful but ultimately shitty little crank made the hospital bed look like those old-timey cars we'd see in the bad silent movies they showed down at Shakey's Pizza. Mom and Dad despised the saltines-and-ketchup style of pizza served at Shakey's. To them, LaRosa's over on Cheviot had way better pizza plus a pretty good jukebox. But, I really liked Shakey's. They gave away cool styrofoam boater hats with a red paper band that said, "Shakey's Pizza Parlor." Which I thought looked smashing. So, they used to take me to Shakey's. In practice, the hospital bed's shitty little crank functioned mostly as a recalcitrant and pinch-inducing mechanism for eroding my father's dignity. Dad would lay in the hospital bed that filled our living room while my Mom slowly cranked. He'd try to make jokes. (Dad had always been the funniest person any of his friends knew.) The hospital bed creaked. Mom cranked. Dad's tired upper half would haltingly rise and bob with reluctant help from the bed's upper half. Mom sweated at the crank. Dad laid there and watched. Dad couldn't help. He watched. He was in the hospital bed. Mom did all the cranking. Dad watched. He watched while his wife turned a shitty little iron crank, trying impotently to make her best friend just a tiny bit more comfortable as his body worked to finally finish eating itself. But, he couldn't help out. I think he wanted to help out. But, he couldn't help out. She couldn't really help my Dad. My Dad couldn't really help her. But they sure tried. She cranked and cranked. I was seven. I didn't know how to help anyone. 2. The last time I saw my Dad, he was in a different hospital bed. That one was a much more functional and aesthetically appropriate unit neatly fitted into an overlit semi-private room in the highly-regarded Jewish Hospital located on E. Galbraith Road. We weren't Jewish. We were just sick. Frankly, I forget what the crank on the second hospital bed looked like, but I seem to recall that it worked just fine. This was maybe a week before my Dad died. From what I can gather, he and my Mom had wanted to time things so that I could be with him as long and as late as possible--but not so late that I'd have to see him in the kind of condition I have to assume he was in during the full week he was too ill for his boy to visit him. Pretty bad condition, I'm guessing. In the almost forty years since Dad's last week in any hospital bed, my Mom and I haven't talked much about it. If there are things to say about that week, I'm not sure even forty years is long enough to prep for them. I know I'm still not ready. I should ask my Mom if she's ready. She was forty then. Just under half her life ago. What I do know is my Mom lived by that second hospital bed most every minute of Dad's last week. Just like she'd been by the first hospital bed in her living room for the months before. Only now she was the one sleeping on the wrong bed. There are limits to the physical comforts you can offer a woman who's determined to stay by her husband's second hospital bed until it's time. But she was there that whole time. Up to the last time my sweet Dad ever said anything to anyone. As he laid in that second hospital bed, I'm told that the last thing my Dad said to anyone was something he said to my Mom. He told my Mom: Take care of The Big Guy. That was me. I was "The Big Guy." My Dad always called me "Big Guy," and I always loved when he said that. It made me feel strong. It made me feel tall. It made me know that my Dad and I were best pals. I still love knowing I was my Dad's best pal. 3. I don't specifically remember the day our particular clutch of burly rental guys came out to remove the first hospital bed from our living room. I do remember thinking it was weird how quickly the space filled with huge floral arrangements, covered dishes and casseroles, and a pack of outdoorsy men with giant red hands who were new to sobbing inconsolably in front of each other. But, that hospital bed had been heavy. Really heavy. And even though the bed's wheels had been thoughtfully nested in plastic casters, the raw tonnage of the iron motherfucker left permanent dents in our ugly, broccoli-green carpeting. Six breadplate-sized dents that were still there a year and a half later on the day my Mom and I moved out. We didn't need a house that big for just the two of us. Plus, the living room wasn't much fun to hang out in any more. Way too big. Way too big. 4. I don't currently have a hospital bed. I have a modest but very comfortable regular bed in a regular bedroom where I sleep with my regular wife. She's my favorite part of the bed. To my knowledge, our modest but very comfortable bed is not fitted with a shitty little crank. Which is nice for everyone. And, every single morning at almost exactly 6:00 AM Pacific Time, my three-year-old daughter wakes up, jumps out of her crank-free, regular, big-girl bed, tears out of her regular bedroom, and--even before she gets her hot milk or takes off her pull-up or tells us to turn on Toy Story 2--she dashes into our regular bedroom, runs up to our regular non-hospital bed, and screams, "DAD-dy! DAD-dy! DAD-dy!" until I wake up and say, "G'mornin', Sweet Bug! Did you have nice sleeps?" Sometimes she tells me whether or not she had nice sleeps. Often as not lately, she tells me to make her hot milk and turn on Toy Story 2. Both of which I'm totally fine with. Thing is, she screams "DAD-dy!" like the most impossibly great thing in the world has just happened. Every single morning. Right by my bed. Without a crank in sight. And, you know what? Something impossibly great has happened. Because an annoying, rambling, disagreeable little man like me gets to have this alarm clock in piggy-patterned footie jammies run up to a regular, crank-less, healthy-Dad, non-hospital bed and make him feel like he's The Greatest Thing in the Universe. Just like I think she's The Greatest Thing in the Universe. Just like I thought my Dad was The Greatest Thing in the Universe. And, although I'm confident that I will always think my daughter is The Greatest Thing in the Universe, I'm also all too aware that this feeling will not always be reciprocated in quite that same way or with quite that same enthusiasm that we both enjoy right now. She won't always run to my bed in footie jammies. I'll only get that particularly noisy and personalized wake-up call for a little while. And, I only get a shot at it once a day. At almost exactly 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Then one day? I won't get it any more. It will be gone. 5. Many mornings over the past six months or so, at almost exactly 6:00 AM Pacific Time, I was not in my regular bed. I was not even at home. I was sitting in another building, typing bullshit that I hoped would please my book editor. Who, by the way, is awesome. And, if I noticed what time it was, I'd always wonder whether my daughter had run into our bedroom yet. I'd wonder whether she had seen my side of the bed empty again. And, when I thought about my empty spot on the bed and how disappointed she'd be to scream "DAD-dy! DAD-dy! DAD-dy!" then see I'm not even there, I'd die a little. I'd die a little, because as I thought about her, I'd think about my Dad. And as I thought about my Dad, I'd start thinking about hospital beds with cranks--then on to dents, and covered dishes, and rooms full of sobbing outdoorsy guys, and so on. But, by then it might be 6:10 am Pacific Time. And I didn't have time to think about my family. Not now, right? No, I had to keep working. I had to stay in that other building and keep typing bullshit that I hoped would please my editor. Who is awesome. So, I'd type and type. I'd crank and crank. I'd try and try. I'd want very much to go home, make hot milk, and watch Toy Story 2. So much, I'd want this. 6. Anyhow, this has been my on-and-off job for the past two years. I type. And, I try to type things that will help and comfort people, but mostly I try to type things that will please my editor. Who is awesome. Sometimes I do my job at 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Sometimes I do my job at 5:30 PM or 11:30 AM or really any time in between. Sometimes I do my job while my family goes to birthday parties and holiday dinners and a couple vacations and I don't even know how many (non-Shakey's) pizza nights--all without me. Without Dad. In fact, a depressing amount of the time--really up until this week--I would do my job until I hadn't the slightest idea what time it was or what bullshit I was typing or what my crank was ever meant to be attached to in the first place. But, even when my shitty little crank was not attached to anything, I did keep cranking. Because, Dads do their job. It's what they do. They crank. They crank and crank and crank and crank. Sometimes the cranking made something special that will be really useful to people who badly need the comfort and help. But, a staggering amount of the time, my cranking has produced joyless and unemotional bullshit that couldn't comfort, help, or please anyone. Especially my editor. Who is awesome. There's no point in doing anything if it doesn't eventually please my editor. Who is awesome. This has constantly hung over my head. For two fucking years. But, this has been my job. It's a job I often did late. It's a job I often did poorly. And, it's a job where I often didn't pull my load or live up to even my own expectations and standards. Which is far from my editor's fault. She's been awesome. 7. Anyhow, I've tried to do my job. But, I've often failed. I've sometimes failed to make things that will help and comfort people. And, God knows I've failed to please my editor. And, worst of all, more often than my heart can bear at 2:34 pm Pacific Time on Friday April 22nd, I know I've failed to be home for several of my daily shot at "DAD-dy! DAD-dy! DAD-dy!" It's now become unavoidably clear to me that I've been doing each of these things poorly. The job, the making, the pleasing, and, yeah, the being at home. And I can't live with that for another day. So, I've chosen which one has to go. At least in the way it's worked to date. Which is to say not working. I'll let you guess which. Because, that? That choosing? That's what my book needs to be about. Not about pleasing people. Not about cranking on bullshit. Not about abandoning your priorities to write about priorities. My book needs to be about choosing a hard thing and then living with it. Because it's your thing. But, that part's gone missing for just a little too long now. Certainly not missing from my handsome and very practical rhetoric--it's been missing from my actual life and living. In a quest to make something that has increasingly not felt like my own, I've unintentionally ignored my own counsel to never let your hard work fuck up the good things. Including those regular people. Including, ironically, the real work. Including any good thing the crank is supposed to be attached to. So, I'm done fucking that up. I'm done cranking. And, I'm ready to make a change. I'm not sure precisely what that change will look like, but, at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I have a pretty good idea that this particular performance of "Edelweiss" you're enjoying right now may immediately be followed by a dramatic chase, a hopeful escape attempt, and only if I'm extremely lucky, maybe an eventual stride over the Alps. As I'll explain in a minute, it most likely means I don't have My Book Contract any more. Who knows? We'll have to see. 8. All I know is tonight's Friday. And, that's Daddy-Daughter Night. And, my book agent says my editor (who is awesome) will probably cancel My Book Contract if I don't send her something that pleases her…today. Now. By tonight. Theoretically, I guess...uh...this. See: my agent very helpfully suggested I send my editor a chapter full of "email stuff." My editor really likes "email stuff." And, it was theorized by my agent that sending this "email stuff" might please my book editor just enough that she might not cancel My Book Contract. For now. Well. If you've made it this far, you, like my editor (who is awesome), will have realized that this is not a chapter of "email stuff." It's a very long, wooly, histrionic, messy and uncomfortable story about hospital beds, piggy jammies, and styrofoam hats. I seriously doubt it will please my editor. Who is awesome. So, no, I really hope she doesn't cancel My Book Contract. But, it does occur to me that said contract is the last and only thing my publisher has to intimidate me into doing things I don't want to do. Things I think will harm my book, my integrity, and my life. Once that threat is made good, the game ends. They can sue me and yell and stuff. Which would suck, but at least no one would be demanding my book have fucking pussy willows on the cover. Which, as I sit here, feels more and more unbearable to me. In any case, I don't control anything that anyone does. It took a long time for me to really get that. It's such a funny thing. Threats--like hurricanes and rectal exams--are only scary until they arrive. Once they're over, they're just the basis for funny stories. But, you do nearly always survive them. And, if you didn't survive? It wasn't because of a lack of fear. Like I say, the universe doesn't particularly care whether you're scared. Oh, well. I like my editor. She's awesome. I hope she doesn't cancel My Book Contract. I hope we keep working together. But if it goes away today, tomorrow or further on? Well. As a favorite novelist of mine used to say: "So it goes." I'll figure this out tomorrow. Or Monday. Or later. Tonight is Daddy-Daughter Night. And, no fucking way am I missing two in a row. 9. Now, as far as My Goddamned Book? Truthfully? Wanna hear the really complicated part? This is not me quitting the book. No fucking way. This is me doubling down on the book--on my book. I will finish my book very soon. Not because of (or in spite of) any contract, and not because of (or in spite of) any editor, and certainly not because of (or in spite of) any tacit demand for empty cranking. I will finish my book because I want to finish it. Because it is very, very important to me to finish it. But, again, let's be clear-- what I finish will be my book. And, it will be done my way. And, yes--you Back to Work fans knew this one was coming--my book will have my cover that I choose. It will not have fucking pussy willows or desert islands or third-rate kerning. It will be, to quote my editor (who is awesome), "messy." My book will help and comfort the people that I want to reach. And, yes, much like my editor, my book will be awesome. I truly hope my book pleases her. 10. So, there you have it. An article that's clearly not a chapter of "email stuff." Me? I'm off to prep for "Daddy-Daughter Night." And, tomorrow morning, unlike last Saturday morning and countless other days before it, at the crack of 6:00 am Pacific Time, I will be available in my regular crankless bed to ask my daughter whether she had nice sleeps. And I will tell her and my regular wife that I think they're the Greatest Things in the Universe. And, maybe after I make hot milk and watch Woody worry about cowboy camp, I may even think to myself about how proud my funny Dad would be of his pal, The Big Guy. For doing what needed to be done. To be someone special's Dad for as often and as long as he can. Just like he did. Even when it gets hard. Even when it gets really hard. -- 30 -- Thanks for listening, nerds. You'll hear more when I hear more. ”Cranking” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 22, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article family Inbox Zero Personal
ng Instapaper 4: Deciding to Read By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:37:45 +0000 Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone The lede here is that my pal, Marco, has just released the stellar new 4.0 version of his Instapaper suite. This is fantastic news, and–as if you needed one more of Marco’s beta testers to say so–I do sincerely hope you’ll mark the occasion (and support his hard work) by purchasing the Instapaper iOS app(s). I promise you’ll be treating yourself to a massive update to an already excellent product. Now, it’s fortunate and appropriate that you’ll be hearing this advice at length from a lot of people this week. Because, if it’s not already obvious, Marco’s little app (and its associated services) enjoys a rabid fanbase of sundry paragraph cultists who are as eager as I am to spread the word; and, yes, we do want you to join the Reading Nerd cult. But, I also want to mark the occasion by adding a few thoughts on exactly what Instapaper has done, and continues to do, for me. (As you may already know, I’m a big Marco fan.) Thing is, I want to tell you how Marco has made a magical machine for people who have decided to read. Long-Time Fan For years, Instapaper has been one of the best made, most used, and most beloved apps in my iOS ecosystem. It’s always lived on my iPhone’s home page, and, as you can surmise, that’s because I use Instapaper a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Specifically, I use Instapaper a lot because it helps me do four things extremely well. Four things that work together to make my life a little better. In that typically annoying mixed order I can’t seem to stop doing, here goes. 2. Deciding WHEN to read Second, and most obviously, I use Instapaper maybe five to ten times a day to catch up on my reading. Which is great. This is what Instapaper is actually for, right? You read stuff. Long articles, smaller features, short books, big piles of documentation, and really just anything that I would like to read…later. More saliently, these are things that I have decided to read. This decision part’s important, but more on that in a couple minutes. But, how does all this “stuff” I’ve decided to read get in to Instapaper? 1. Deciding WHAT to read See, this is the really important first part. Because as much as I use Instapaper for all manner of reading, its use as an ephemeral destination for mostly ephemeral content wouldn’t be nearly so useful if I didn’t have so many ways to collect all that stuff. So, that flexibility in collecting material is where I end up using some form of Instapaper dozens of times each day. Examples? I have a bookmarklet for adding items to Instapaper in 4 browsers on 7 devices. I have (and use the hell out of) the “Send to Instapaper” services that are built in to everything from Google Reader to Reeder to Flipboard to Instacast to Tweetbot to Zite to you name it. I can automate in or out of Instapaper with If This Then That, I can email items directly to Instapaper–hell, I can even just copy a URL from iOS Safari, and paste it directly into the motherscratching Instapaper app. Suffice it to say, there are many ways to get “stuff” into Instapaper. E.g.: But, that banner dump only tells part of the story. Yes, a big part of this is about ubiquity and ease-of-use. But, the practical result is that all those little entrees to Instapaper are available to me everywhere I might need them, and they each represent a single little click that silently adds an item of “stuff” to my Instapaper pile. Each button is one more simple opportunity for me to decide to read. 3. Deciding WHERE to read Now, the third part of this magic is less immediately obvious, not least because the reading experience of the Instapaper iOS apps is, for my own purposes, perfect. But, there’s more. Because, all that support for getting stuff into Instapaper is mirrored by an endless number of ways to get stuff back out. To, in fact, read. That thing I decided to read is now everywhere. However I ended up deciding to read something, seconds after that *click*, the real magic starts happening, and–through whatever inscrutable black art and transmogrification is happening inside the fearsome celestial engine Marco has made–that decision to read is expressed in the most elegant of results and in a startlingly broad variety of convenient places. It’s readable on a website; it’s readable on an iPhone, and 2 iPads; it’s readable on a Kindle 3; it’s readable on the crazy number of apps and services that display Instapaper items. And, it’s even preserved for posterity in my private Pinboard archive. So, for practical purposes, this stuff that I’ve decided to read can now go whooshing through a network of customized tubes, and gently land practically anywhere that well-formed bits may reside. 4. Just…Deciding to Read I know most of you know these things. I know you’re familiar with the many “Features and Benefits” of Instapaper. And, I even know that most of you reading this are probably already using Instapaper–perhaps even to read this very article. So, the point here is not simply that Instapaper is flexible, idiot-proof, and sanity-savingly redundant. Although it is all those things and many more. The point is that my life always gets better when I decide to read things–and then actually read those things I decided to read. This is not a trivial point. We’re all busy, and we’re all bombarded with 10,000 potential calls on our attention every day. Some days, we handle that better than others. Some days, we don’t handle it all. All I know, is that, throughout my life, deciding to read has made that life better. It made my life better at 7 with Henry Huggins. It made my life better at 16 with Slaughterhouse-Five. It made my life better at 20 with Absalom, Absalom!. And, it made my life way better at 25 with A Confederacy of Dunces (cf.). And, now, for the past few years–following over a decade during which I read way more href tags than actual prose paragraphs–my life has gotten better, in part, due to Instapaper. I’ve finally gotten my hands around this “too much stuff” issue, at least insofar as it relates to words of theoretical interest. Now, I know where it goes. It goes into Instapaper. Because, now? Yeah. Twenty-some years after a college career sucking down over 1,000 pages a week, I am finally returning to reading a lot more. Because, I am deciding to read a lot more. Instapaper means there’s no excuse for not reading a lot more. Period. How about you? What Are YOU Deciding? When you’re in line at the ATM or the professional sporting event, what do you do? If you’re like a lot of people, you hit your mobile device like a pigeon on a goddamned pellet. Then, you decide what happens. You can decide to throw birds at pigs. You can decide to check in on which strangers are pretending to like you today. You may even decide to see what you would look like if you were really fat. Thing is, you could also decide to read. Just for a couple minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. Who knows. It’s your decision. A Nudge Towards “Better” But, if you have followed the circuitous skeins of yarn comprising this little sweater you’ve been reading, it comes down to this: If you’ve decided that you want to read, Marco’s app will really help you. He’s removed any phony barriers you’ve built about “not having time” or “not having it with you” or “not knowing where to put it.” There are no excuses, apart from the superficial animated ones you’ve constructed out of cartoon birds. As for me? In the last week alone, I decided to read a lot of things in Instapaper. A small sampling: I decided to read about an American family’s educational experiment in Russia. I decided to read about what Heidegger means by Being-in-the-World. I decided to read about why toasters are so bad. I decided to read about responsive web design. I decided to read about why Charlie Kaufman wrote Being John Malkovich. I decided to read about how Open Data could make San Francisco Public Transportation better. I decided to read about how John Siracusa remembers Steve Jobs. I decided, and then I read. I read, and I read. So, thanks, Marco. You’ve made my life better by making it easier to decide to read. Then, you made it way easier to do the actual reading. And, to you–the kind readers-of-prose-paragraphs who were inexplicably patient enough to decide to read this long article–please consider supporting Marco’s work. Please get an account at Instapaper and, if you have an iOS dingus, please do buy the Instapaper app. In addition to having exquisite taste in app icons and a lovely speaking voice, Marco’s just a very good human. And, good humans more than deserve our support. Buy Instapaper 4.0 by Marco Arment. ”Instapaper 4: Deciding to Read” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 17, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?" Full Article Decision-Making Instapaper Marco Arment reading
ng JUST IN: Actress and leader of #MeToo movement accuses Bill Maher of sexually harassing her By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:35:19 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post JUST IN: Actress and leader of #MeToo movement accuses Bill Maher of sexually harassing her appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
ng VIDEO: AG Barr criticizes Mueller’s handling of Steele dossier By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:50:00 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post VIDEO: AG Barr criticizes Mueller’s handling of Steele dossier appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
ng BREAKING: Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:20:36 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post BREAKING: Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
ng REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:34:32 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
ng BREAKING: FDA issues emergency authorization for first coronavirus antigen test By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:05:45 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post BREAKING: FDA issues emergency authorization for first coronavirus antigen test appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
ng School bus drivers take on a new role to help students with distance learning By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 15:08:00 -0400 School bus drivers in the Upper Grand District School Board are transporting school work instead of students. Full Article
ng 'Everybody around here is dying,' Shelburne retirement home devastated by outbreak By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 17:17:00 -0400 The Shelburne Retirement Residence has been devastated by an outbreak of COVID-19, with 90 per cent of its residents becoming infected. Full Article
ng Ontario invests $1.5 million in supportive housing for Muskoka's most vulnerable residents By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 13:59:19 -0400 The province is investing $1.5 million to support a housing project in Muskoka to help people with no place to call home. Full Article
ng Bradford boy with sweet intentions sparks missing person search By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 11:51:29 -0400 An eight-year-old boy with good intentions sparked a missing person search on Tuesday. Full Article
ng Police identify three teens responsible for 'appalling prank' in Innisfil By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 13:55:00 -0400 An "appalling prank" in Innisfil sent South Simcoe Police officers on a mission to identify the culprits involved. Full Article
ng Human remains found in Mulmur Township confirmed to be missing Caledon senior By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 13:11:00 -0400 Human remains located in Mulmur Township in March have been confirmed to be those of an 88-year-old Caledon man who was reported missing seven months ago. Full Article
ng K9 unit discovers human remains in search for missing Meaford man By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 20:32:00 -0400 Grey Bruce provincial police say the OPP canine unit found human remains in Meaford, and one person is under arrest. Full Article
ng Local health unit credits public with slowing COVID spread, encourages cottagers to stay home By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 16:50:00 -0400 While infection rates remain steady across the region, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is reporting more than half of all 360 cases have now recovered. Full Article
ng Mother Nature blankets parts of Muskoka with spring snowfall By barrie.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 15:03:52 -0400 The calendar may say May, but that didn't stop Mother Nature from blasting some wintry weather in Muskoka on Friday. Full Article
ng Police find 8-foot boa constrictor while investigating Oppenheimer Park fight By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 18:36:00 -0700 Police officers responding to a call about a man with a machete in Oppenheimer Park Friday afternoon found what they were looking for, and then some. Full Article
ng Too soon? B.C. workers, employers struggle with thorny reopening issues By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 19:06:00 -0700 As British Columbians digest the implications in the steps the premier announced in reopening the province's economy, some residents have come to the conclusion they’re too much too soon. Full Article
ng Legal landscape murky for B.C. workers and employers during pandemic By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 19:39:00 -0700 Labour laws haven’t changed in our province, but legal experts are already urging B.C. employers to be flexible and reasonable — while warning employees they may not be legally protected if they refuse work during the pandemic. Full Article
ng Police investigating child luring attempt on Vancouver's West Side By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 20:58:10 -0700 The incident happened in the West Point Grey neighbourhood around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police said. Full Article
ng 'The horror stories get worse and worse': Some tenants taking advantage of eviction ban By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 18:29:00 -0700 Landlords who are missing thousands of dollars in rent or who find their properties damaged or strewn with garbage are concerned some tenants are taking advantage of the eviction ban put in place during the pandemic. Full Article
ng 'Where is that compassion?': Closing tent cities a chance to change housing policy, advocates say By bc.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 06:49:00 -0700 T.J. Lovell had just 30 minutes to pack up his belongings from the tent city in Oppenheimer Park if he wanted access to a hotel room that he could share with his father. Full Article
ng Photos Of Kim Jong Un Spark Conspiracy Theories About A Body Double…You Be The Judge By 100percentfedup.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 00:52:56 +0000 The following article, Photos Of Kim Jong Un Spark Conspiracy Theories About A Body Double…You Be The Judge, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com. For several weeks rumors of the North Korean dictator’s sickness and ultimately, his death, have been making their rounds in the media. North Korea’s state-run media released photos of Kim Jong Un that were allegedly taken on May 1, at the opening of a fertilizer factory in Sunchon, N. Korea. Twitter users who’ve studied the images are […] Continue reading: Photos Of Kim Jong Un Spark Conspiracy Theories About A Body Double…You Be The Judge ... Full Article Featured Politics
ng Donald Trump Jr. Offers To Walk Bride-to-Be Down The Aisle After Liberal Parents Refuse To Attend Her Wedding Because Fiance Is A Conservative By 100percentfedup.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 02:26:06 +0000 The following article, Donald Trump Jr. Offers To Walk Bride-to-Be Down The Aisle After Liberal Parents Refuse To Attend Her Wedding Because Fiance Is A Conservative, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com. TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome brings out the worst in a lot of people. One young Texan girl’s story of her intolerant parents who refuse to attend her wedding because she’s marrying a conservative, however, is a new low. Lawyer and conservative civil rights activist, Rogan O’Handley tweeted a Tik Tok video of a Texan […] Continue reading: Donald Trump Jr. Offers To Walk Bride-to-Be Down The Aisle After Liberal Parents Refuse To Attend Her Wedding Because Fiance Is A Conservative ... Full Article Featured Political Correctness Politics
ng Univ of Pittsburg Researcher, China Native, Dr. Bing Liu, “On the verge” of COVID19 Breakthrough Is Murdered…Alleged Gunman, Hao Gu, Kills Himself By 100percentfedup.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 03:23:08 +0000 The following article, Univ of Pittsburg Researcher, China Native, Dr. Bing Liu, “On the verge” of COVID19 Breakthrough Is Murdered…Alleged Gunman, Hao Gu, Kills Himself, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com. A 37-year-old China native and "outstanding researcher" at the University of Pittsburgh... Continue reading: Univ of Pittsburg Researcher, China Native, Dr. Bing Liu, “On the verge” of COVID19 Breakthrough Is Murdered…Alleged Gunman, Hao Gu, Kills Himself ... Full Article Featured Politics
ng BREAKING: CBS News Allegedly Staged Fake COVID19 Testing In MI…Makes Dem Gov Whitmer Look Like She’s Doing More To Help Citizens Than Fed Government [VIDEO] By 100percentfedup.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 15:57:46 +0000 The following article, BREAKING: CBS News Allegedly Staged Fake COVID19 Testing In MI…Makes Dem Gov Whitmer Look Like She’s Doing More To Help Citizens Than Fed Government [VIDEO], was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com. Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe has done it again. He’s uncovered yet another deceitful piece of coverage on the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic in America by CBS News. O’Keefe begins his interview with a man whose identity is being hidden, “You’re telling me—you’re 100% certain, that CBS News, CBS News Corporation national—staged a fake event. They […] Continue reading: BREAKING: CBS News Allegedly Staged Fake COVID19 Testing In MI…Makes Dem Gov Whitmer Look Like She’s Doing More To Help Citizens Than Fed Government [VIDEO] ... Full Article Featured Left News Political Correctness Politics
