Author: Craig Constantine

The definition of done

Published February 8 · All posts on Feb 8

What you realise, the moment you ask “what would it mean to be done for the day?”, is that the answer can’t possibly involve doing all the things that need doing – even though that’s the subconscious goal with which many of us approach life, driving ourselves crazy in the process. If there are a thousand things that need doing, you’re going to need to arrive at some definition of “finished” that doesn’t encompass them all.

~ Oliver Burkeman, from What would it mean to be done for the day?

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And defining “done” for the day is just the first step. How can I be done at the end of this week? …month? I need to keep pulling back to larger timeframes to imagine: How do I ever stop having a, “the next thing I should do is…”?

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It makes no sense

Published February 6 · All posts on Feb 6

Whenever anyone tells me that some platform is great, I always nod and think to myself … for now. For now.

~ Bob Sassone, from Bluesky is not going to save you

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I don’t understand why no one else is saying this: Until I see anyone else running separate federation instances, it’s still just another monolithic platform. This again? If the AT Protocol (what Bluesky is built upon) is really great, how do I run my own instance to join the federation?

If you see only one instance, then it’s a platform. When you see multiple instances talking to each other, then it’s a protocol.

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What’s my thing?

Published February 4 · All posts on Feb 4

That was always a huge thing for me. I was so terrible at everything at school; I couldn’t catch a ball, I couldn’t even run without running into a tree. I was pretty uncoordinated. I couldn’t paint or draw, I couldn’t sing, and I thought I was just hopeless at everything. And then I discovered that what I could do was string words together in ways that tickled people.

~ Stephen Fry, from Stephen Fry

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I think my problem was I was too good (not actually good, but not bad enough) at too many things. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a clear calling like Fry describes.

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Only so many hours

Published February 2 · All posts on Feb 2

Several years ago the idea struck me to try living in the digital world but without digital media. I realised that I used to have all these analogue habits that fell by the wayside as I spent more time online, and thought that six months without digital media would give me the opportunity to focus on more material activities.

~ From Jennifer Rauch on why Slow Media is satisfying, sustainable and smart

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There are, after all, only so many hours in the day. Our choices (or our defaults if we don’t choose) end up determining the quality of our lives.

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Still too long, didn’t read

Published January 31 · All posts on Jan 31

From the moment food touches your tongue to the time it leaves your body, your digestive system and gut microbiome work to extract its nutrients. Enzymes in your mouth, stomach and small intestine break down food for absorption, while microbes in your large intestine digest the leftovers.

~ Christopher Damman, from Is weight loss as simple as calories in, calories out? In the end, it’s your gut microbes and leftovers that make your calories count

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That’s about the greatest summary I’ve ever read. The rest of the article is good too. Definitely not too long, and worth the read.

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Too long, didn’t read

Published January 30 · All posts on Jan 30

The first thing I’d like to point out is that the left and right sides of the energy balance equation could both be giving orders, and both be taking orders. The two possibilities aren’t mutually exclusive. And I think you can make a case for it going both ways.

~ Stephan Guyenet, from The science of body weight and health

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…but you should. Because the answer (to why we get fat) is complicated. There is no single, simple-to-control, cause and effect.

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Post-industrial

Published January 29 · All posts on Jan 29

But what most energizes Walley is gathering stories that reveal the trauma left-behind industrial workers have suffered. She is also focused on how to prevent such devastating fallout, which can stoke the kind of social and political unrest that’s roiling the U.S. as mining and manufacturing jobs disappear. “This stuff is talked about through things like statistics. People don’t get a sense of what it actually felt like,” Walley says. “Conveying it through stories gives a whole different perspective.”

~ Elizabeth Svoboda, from Life and Death After the Steel Mills

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At one point, the area where I grew up was dominated by a steel mill. Then, slowly over time, it suddenly wasn’t.

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Regular contact

Published January 28 · All posts on Jan 28

Another big hurdle is the time and effort it takes to schedule a gathering. In recent decades, participation in groups that allow friends to meet up easily—such as unions, civic clubs, and religious congregations—has dwindled. “One of the really great things about these institutions is they regularize contact,” Cox told me. “You’re there at the same time or for the same kind of meetings … with shared values and expectations for behavior. So it really takes a lot of the work off the plate of the individual.”

~ Olga Khazan, from The Friendship Paradox

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I’ve often thought about social things I could do to encourage bumping into more potential friends. But I have the cart before the horse: We used to have social things we simply did for the sake of those things, and it just happened that we ended up with a lot of friends (of various degrees of closeness.) It doesn’t work to seek friends by trying to hack which social things to do.

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Where does it come from?

Published January 27 · All posts on Jan 27

Not every time that we talk about consciousness are we talking about experience. Sometimes ‘consciousness’ refers to awakeness. When you’re asleep at night, or blacked out from too much to drink, you’re not conscious in this sense of the term. Alternatively, sometimes ‘consciousness’ refers to awareness. It’s this kind of consciousness that you lack when you’ve zoned out while driving. You’re awake, but not you’re not fully aware of your surroundings. It’s also this kind of consciousness that activists target when they engage in the process of consciousness raising.

~ Amy Kind, from How to think about consciousness

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I no longer get stuck wondering where did my consciousness come from when I was born. Nope. I’m now stuck on: Where does it go every night when I fall asleep. …and where does it come from each morning that I awake?

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Reality?

Published January 26 · All posts on Jan 26

Ever since Plato started telling stories about people trapped in caves, philosophers have pondered the relationship between the mind and reality. How can we be sure that the world we think we know is the real world? After all, we’ve all been mistaken before – a person in a store window might turn out to be a mannequin, or two lines that appear to be curved might actually be parallel – so how can we be certain we know reality as it truly is?

~ D J Hobbs, from How to think like a phenomenologist

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I’m not sure I want to think like a phenomenologist…

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It can also be about empowerment

Published January 25 · All posts on Jan 25

Until now, she said, the history of medicine has been the history of doctors, whose priestly wisdom has been delivered to clueless, passive recipients as if it was gospel. Cousins’s story reversed that. Psychiatrists had asked him to map his moods for three months, so he developed a simple means to do it online every day and share his mood map with friends. They provided a supportive network, a bit like Weight Watchers. His moods immediately started to improve and became more stable: the act of monitoring had itself produced an effect.

~ John-Paul Flintoff, from There’s an app for that

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I particularly like, “the overexamined life is not worth living,” twist on that old phrase.

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The complexity of relationships

Published January 24 · All posts on Jan 24

So why did we evolve a large brain if it wasn’t essential for toolmaking? One reason is that existing in a large social group is very mentally taxing. Those who are better at playing the social game will have more access to mates and resources and will be more likely to reproduce. As the groups get larger, so the computational power needed to keep up with the interconnections grows exponentially, as does the stress.

~ Mark Maslin, from Why Humans Are So Smart—And So Stressed Out

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I’m too often stressed out (ever / at all is too often!) It helps to get really clear on what exactly is stressing me out. Because the complexity of relationships is a feature—not a problem—of our expansive, beautiful, wonderful, modern world.

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It’s complex

Published January 23 · All posts on Jan 23

So you think your choices have reasons behind them and, if these reasons are good ones, then you think that others, in principle, could see this, too. You recognise in yourself, and think that others should recognise in you, a choice aimed at something worth seeking, and a choice by someone who can make that call. This means that what you are after is ‘good’ not just in a sense confined to you, but visible to everyone. Once the goodness of your choice is visible to everyone, it is a kind of absolute goodness – a goodness that anyone could recognise.

~ Christine Korsgaard, from Philosophers and other animals

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Really complex. The road to hell is marked by unconsidered decisions.

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Personal

Published January 20 · All posts on Jan 20

Everyone has an atmosphere peculiar to himself, pervaded by all of his characteristics. We cannot radiate anything unlike ourselves or our ideals. The qualities you radiate will either attract or repel people. Your atmosphere will affect your career.

~ Orison Swett Marden, from The Power of Personal Atmosphere

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We could debate whether such atmospheres are a good thing, and what responsibility we each have to cultivate ours. But first, it’s just interesting to study it and wonder about it.

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