Over the years, I have become used to most of my life being like swimming in the sea. Bobbing up and down and having to work with the environment to get the best out of my experience. There is absolutely no point in me trying to swim against the tide, nor ignoring the waves for risk of them breaking over my head. It’s best to just ride it out.
There have been points where I have tried to force it.
Working from home allows me to stretch my legs on my lunch break and also clear my head. I love walking and value the ideas that come to me when doing a little exercise and “switching off” for a few minutes.
Today we want down the canal
Took in some countryside views
Autumn is definitely on the way!
And noticed all of the power lines lined up in this one spot.
There’s a lot more I can say on this topic that I am currently motivated to type out. After being a faithful Pocket subscriber for years, I switched to Matter months ago and have never looked back. Well, maybe once or twice.
Among a slew of new ’read it later’ apps, Matter stands out as it’s what everyone seems to use. It’s the new hotness, and most of that is because it plugs into everything and allows you to do more with your reading.
My blog has being going for almost a decade. In that time, technology has transformed my life and the way I write has gone through some pretty major shifts. What was first typed into a frustratingly slow WordPress installation can now be published from a variety of apps with surprising ease, and often now straight from my phone.
Don’t get me wrong, publishing from a mobile isn’t new. I was doing everything from my iPad for years, and this is the same.
There’s some crazy weirdness surrounding Elon Musk. He’s the darling child of what seems like all the internet, but most of his followers are paid for. Unfortunately for someone held in such high regard by tech bros everywhere as some kind of god, his phone records have revealed his ideas actually kind of suck, and he’s surround by sycophantic suck ups.
I won’t go into the ins and outs of what is contained in his texts and emails, there are more intelligent people than I to do that.
The best advice I give anyone who wants to become good at something, is to do it. Constantly and consistently, become obsessed and love the practice. This goes double for photography. Unfortunately, I think social media has ruined the expectation of taking photos and that really sucks.
I was at one time worried about only taking photos that everyone likes. Studying the settings people used and trying to recreate shots that others had taken.
Since Matter chose to remove all of their social sharing features, I’ve lacked things to read. As much as they claim to have improved things in getting recommendations direct from Twitter, they really suck. There is nothing better than learning what the people around you are reading to let you know what to take a peek at, and I wish more services understood that.
I have a particular hatred of American politics and its ability to worm its way into everything.
The idea of Stoptober is, at least in the UK, to stop drinking or smoking. It’s used as a marketing gimmick by so many companies that have a vested interest in selling you things, but the premise is great.
Considering myself and my wife don’t smoke, nor drink very much, we have decided to instead stop our negative thoughts. After both suffering with our mental health for a few months, it is the ideal opportunity to try to get back to feeling like ourselves again.
Russell Brandom for The Verge:
I call it the Bootleg Ratio: the delicate balance between A) content created by users specifically for the platform and B) semi-anonymous clout-chasing accounts drafting off the audience. Any platform will have both, but as B starts to overtake A, users will have less and less reason to visit and creators will have less and less reason to post. In short, it’s a sign that the interesting stuff about the platform is starting to die out.
Not very often I post what I am randomly up to but my wife took me to Cinco Lounge for dinner the other night and it was fantastic. The right mix of weirdness (I think they call I chic) and excellent food - I had Wan Chai Fried Rice Bowl with Miso Chicken.
I love the way they use old gym floor boards, may be fake I don’t know, but it brings back loads of school memories.