noun : an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a hill or cliff.
Writing code that’s easy to debug begins with realising you won’t remember anything about the code later.
~ Tef from, Write code that’s easy to delete, and easy to debug too.
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Most of the programming I do — if you were to watch — looks very much like me sitting and staring suspiciously at my computer. Occasionally I sip a beverage. Occasionally I will rub my chin. Sometimes I will grudgingly type some code, knowing full-well I’m building something I’m going to curse about later.
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How Distraction Is Rewiring Our Brains—and How Mindfulness Can Help
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Here. I’m not even using a pull quote so you don’t get distracted.
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What makes Michelangelo: A Life on Paper all the more intriguing is that, by extending an invitation into Michelangelo’s private world of words written for his eyes alone, it raises the question of whom we create for — ourselves, as tender beings with a fundamental need for self-expression, or an audience, as social creatures with a fundamental desire to be liked, understood and acclaimed.
~ Maria Popova from, A Rare Look at Michelangelo’s Private Papers
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I have reached the point of no-return on books. The first, undeniable demonstration of my mortality is the stack of “to read” books. Every year I read more than in the previous year. And every year the stack of books gets taller. I am saddened when I find books such as this, and know that I will never get around to reading them.
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In this case, however, the perpetrator didn’t try to port Rosenzweig’s phone number: Instead, the attacker called multiple T-Mobile retail stores within an hour’s drive of Rosenzweig’s home address until he succeeded in convincing a store employee to conduct what’s known as a SIM swap.
~ Brian Krebs from, T-Mobile Employee Made Unauthorized ‘SIM Swap’ to Steal Instagram Account
slip:4uketo1.
Free swapping of SIMs is a feature making it easy to change phones [which might require different SIM card sizes] and to recover from entirely losing your device.
Age-old axiom: If you can imagine a situation where you would prefer to not use the feature, then someone can imagine a way to abuse that feature as a security vulnerability.
…and just a few days ago I was talking about not using your cell phone as a “second form of authentication.” :/
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Those of us accustomed to making life livable by superimposing over its inherent chaos various control mechanisms — habit, routine, structure, discipline — are always haunted by the disquieting awareness that something essential is lost in the clutch of control, some effervescent liveliness and loveliness elemental to what makes life not merely livable but worth living.
~ Maria Popova from, Spontaneity and the Search for Meaning: Erich Fromm on the Wellspring of Individuality, Creativity, and Love
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I spend significant time swerving between the two extremes of schedule-and-organize “all the things,” and running around like a dog fascinated by everything. New item #1 on my list of 42 things (all numbered “1”)…
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The Internet made it easy to gather together vast swaths of humanity and allowed them to communicate with each other at scale. These mostly anonymous ginormous nations of humans have no shared purpose and no shared values. With no common understanding of how to treat each other and no incentives to do so, communication in these “communities” rapidly degrades to the lowest common denominator where uninformed hate is a typical knee-jerk reaction to differences.
~ Michael Lopp from, Welcome Back to the Village
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There’s a bunch of insight about social networks (digital and in real life.) Also worth reading if you are interested in leadership and haven’t yet found the Rands Leadership Slack team.
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Security is never something we actually want. Security is something we need in order to avoid what we don’t want. It’s also more abstract, concerned with hypothetical future possibilities. Of course it’s lower on the priorities list than fundraising and press coverage. They’re more tangible, and they’re more immediate.
~ Bruce Schneier from, The US Is Unprepared for Election-Related Hacking in 2018
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I think the only thing “protecting” us from someone successfully hacking an election, is the sheer number of polling places. You’ve voted, right? Sure, it’s a busy spot with maybe a dozen machines and hundreds of poeple… but there are thousands and thousands of polling places, and the voting machines are not networked. Yet.
Don’t misunderstand: This is security through obscrurity, is not actually security at all, and is a recipe for disaster.
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If we support a foreign war or oppose it, it’s because of what effect it’s having on us, either individually or collectively. Our soldiers are dying. Our President is making us look bad. Our corporations are manipulating us. Our national debt is out of control. My taxes might go up. My budget might be stretched. My family member might be killed. We aren’t encouraged to consider such situations from the viewpoint of planet earth as a whole, or how our actions today might affect future generations. We perceive each other as separate and distinct individuals as opposed to cells in the same body.
~ Steve Pavlina from, What Lies Beyond the Haze of Social Conditioning?
slip:4usebo6.
This isn’t about “us” versus “them. It’s about “I”. How do I see my world? How do I see myself? Have I been conditioned? (duh. Of course I have.) Now that I’ve discovered I have a brain, do I like how I’ve been conditioned?
…oh sorry, got to talking to myself there.
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When people say they don’t want to embrace adulthood, what they really mean is that they don’t want to be a grownup themselves, but they want to live in a world where everyone else is. They want competent, effective politicians to represent them; they want their journalists and doctors to be smart and level-headed with a comforting mantle of gravitas; they want their children’s teachers to be dedicated and on-the-ball; they want customer service to be friendly and efficient; they want police officers to be honest and fair. They want the world to be stable, predictable…so they can afford to be erratic and irresponsible. They want to be kids, but live in an adult world, where grownups are at the ready to take care of their every need.
~ Brett McKay from, Why Growing Up Is Hard to Do (But Why the World Still Needs Adults)
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This was an enjoyable read that brought up a lot of good points. The basic question being explored is why is growing up harder “these days”? Brett spends a lot of time talking about what is different “these days” in society, in culture, in the human experience. It was a breath of fresh air from the more common “kids these days…” sort of screed.
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Every day I have a choice between working on pointless little tasks or big meaningful projects. On days that I choose the former, I end each day feeling I’ve accomplished very little, even though I’ve put in a lot of hours at my desk. I’ve kept up, but all I did was spin my wheels for another day. But when I chose to do the important stuff first, I feel great, knowing that I’m on my way to producing major results.
~ Steve Pavlina from, Conscious Procrastination
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More than 25 years ago, Steven Covey included a simple graph in a book. This task right here– is it important, and is it urgent?
Anything that’s not important, well, good– You just stopped doing that. Gaming, television, most of what you do on the internet, etc. If you’re still doing UN-important stuff… I don’t know what to say.
Now the important stuff is where the hard thinking begins. How important? Does it pay off now, or later? Does is pay off for me, my family (but not me), my family (including me), my tribe, the world . . . well, sorting out all the important stuff is IMPORTANT but not URGENT and so it gets skipped and pushed off. I’m happy to be the bearer of great news: You now know the most important thing to do: Sort out what is important to you.
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Suffering long and mild, leading nowhere of consequence…
And suffering swift, short, and harrowing… leading to the life you long for.
We take to the former gladly, happy to stagger down tortuous but clear paths.
But it is the brief, blind leaps that change the game entirely.
~ Bryan Ward from, Move Or Die
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Reading anything written by Bryan Ward is like playing with a sharp knife: You will get cut, and you will learn a very valuable lesson.
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Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It’s a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers, living out the consequences.
~ Jack Hitt from, Act V
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This is not a joke. It’s exactly what it seems.
Turns out old Shakes knew what he was writing about.
Also, if you (unless I’m mistaken about how many felons are reading this) think you’ve understood Hamlet– well, *bzzt* oh, so sorry, thank you for playing, we have some nice parting gifts. These guys in prison, they understand Hamlet.
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If you want to accelerate your rate of personal growth, work on becoming as honest as possible, both with yourself and others. The more honest you become, the more accurate will be your model of reality. And this will dramatically improve the success rate of your decisions and actions. Overconfidence and underconfidence are equally problematic, so strive for accuracy instead.
~ Steve Pavlina from, The Three Bears: Arrogance, Timidity, and Honesty
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Certainly there is a time and place for emotions. (Appropriate emotions of course.) But my experience is that any time my emotions, or my beliefs get a hold of the steering wheel things veer badly. I do much better when I use my brain to think things through, sort wheat from the chaff, and make plans. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I sure know where I came from.
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“I should lose weight. Specifically, I should lose some of this fat. …actually, a lot of this fat.”
Since I began my health tracking grids I had been regularly tracking my weight, building the habit of stepping on the scale every day. I’ve read several opinions that this is a bad idea. Because one’s weight can fluctuate significantly day-to-day, daily weighing can lead to “fear of the scale” and stress. I disagree. After stepping on the scale every day for about 10 years, it is now simply something I do. The scale shows me a number and I write it down.
One day I started reading more about physiology. How your body composition changes. How a strength building session increases muscle mass (duh) and that can make your weight increase in the short term. Suddenly, the scale going up can be a good thing.
…and then I wondered, “how much should I optimally weigh?”
http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2016/10/virtual-paleo-summit-video-what-is-your.html
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At the time I began this “waist/weight ratio project,” I weighed about 230 pounds and the “male, 5 feet 11 inches tall” medical guideline is . . . 175 pounds. What?! I would be ecstatic if I weighted 220. I’m not sure what I would do if I weighed even 215— I’d probably fall down in a stiff breeze.
So how exactly should one “optimize” weight? Why should I select any specific weight target? Why 175 (as medically recommended,) or 220 (college body!). What if my weight isn’t changing as I make healthy improvements– how do I track that? I began to think perhaps I should optimize health markers: Blood sugar regulation, inflammation markers, and triglycerides, and that is far more complicated than “step on the scale.”
One day, I read the following article. It’s deceptively short, but quite complicated and subtle. You should go read this very carefully before continuing.
http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/search/label/waist-to-weight%20ratio
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… because I view the maintenance of civilization and our moral progress as a species as a series of successful conversations.
~ Sam Harris from, Racism and Violence in America
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That puts it all pretty succinctly. Avez-vous des questions?
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Suddenly, a decision I hadn’t even been aware I had made – giving up the thrill of movement for movement’s sake – seemed like a terrible mistake. I felt the same as if I had thrown out my entire music collection by accident.
~ Julie Angel from, Be Brave! “For big results, think small”
I completely agree with this sentiment. By the time I realized how much I had given up, it was far too late for me to recover what I had lost. These days everyone says complementary things about how much I’ve changed, or how well I’m doing. All I’m thinking is, “if only I hadn’t . . .”
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http://www.cumberlandconcepts.com/shop/medium-zipper-bags-2/
Cumberland Concepts “medium” bag (available in a slew of colors).
This bag is quite small. That’s the point: It’s it’s easy to grab and easy to stuff into whatever it is you’re carrying that day.
This little bag provides convenience and a bit of insurance. (Its exact purpose depends on what you decide to keep in the bag.) It is easy to prepare this bag, and it requires very little maintenance to keep it ready-to-go. By purposefully setting it up, you will beginning thinking intentionally about packing. You will begin building the habit of thinking about why are you packing, what do you need, what do you want, and balancing the answers against how much you want to carry around.
Following is a list of ideas intended to spur your thinking. I have no idea what you will want to put into this bag. There are surely some items you’ve wished you had, but which would be impossible to individually remember to always bring, and there are some important-in-a-pinch items that could be priceless insurance in rare situations. As you read this list, imagine scenarios where you would smile when you realized, “oh! I have [item] with me!”
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The core of the philosophy seems to be this: To have a good and meaningful life, you need to overcome your insatiability. Most people, at best, spend their lives in a long pursuit of happiness. So today’s successful person writes out a list of desires, then starts chasing them down and satisfying the desires. The problem is that each desire, when satisfied, tends to be replaced by a new desire. So the person continues to chase. Yet after a lifetime of pursuit, the person ends up no more satisfied than he was at the beginning. Thus, he may end up wasting his life.
~ Peter Adeney from, What is Stoicism and How Can it Turn your Life to Solid Gold?
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Mr. Money Mustache is fun and chock-full-of challenges to re-think, and shrug off the western, consumerism mindset. (Which I, at least, have grown up with.) Here he is discovering Stoicism back in 2011. It pleases me greatly when I find common threads appearing in the various people and places that I follow.
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Since you can’t do everything, you have to choose the things that are most important. That’s where a task management system can really help. By allowing you to filter out the things you shouldn’t be doing right now, it limits the scope of what you are thinking about and makes it easier to choose the right thing. By choosing the right tasks to work on, you can tip the scales of imbalance in your favor and achieve your personal and professional goals.
~ Mike Schmitz from, How to Achieve Your Goals with Any Task Management System
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I suppose it is possible that one day I will manage to let go of all the things I want to achieve. I say that only because the alternative — what I’ve been doing my entire life, chasing goals — is completely and utterly hopeless. Down that path lies madness.
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I dunno. But I don’t think of myself as working hard at any of the things I am good at, in the sense of “exerting vast willpower to force myself kicking and screaming to do them”. It’s possible I do work hard, and that an outside observer would accuse me of eliding how hard I work, but it’s not a conscious elision and I don’t feel that way from the inside.
~ Scott Alexander from, The Parable of the Talents
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True story:
Long ago, I worked with a boy who was dating a girl. Boy goes to girl’s house for a dinner with her parents. Turns out that the girl’s father is a professor at College. The boy mentions he has a co-worker who went to that College, and mentions my name. Girl’s father says, “Oh! Craig was one of my students… He could have done well if he had applied himself.” Turns out father was one of the professors in my major. I had many classes with him, and he went on to be Department Head for a while. So he did, in fact, know me well.
I didn’t do the bare minimum. But to be fair to that professor, I didn’t really work super-hard either.
It was all, more or less, easy.
What would have been hard, would have been being in the Arts college and trying to do art-type-things. Hell, I would NEVER have even gotten accepted into the Arts college at that same university.
What was hard for me? I took a literature survey class once — ONCE. I took a journalism course… that was so hard I think I hallucinated most of it(*). I spent years trying to learn to play the piano, and the guitar– fail. And, I’m out of superlatives, but losing fat is really hard for me. And, controlling my disfunctional relationship with food is really REALLY hard. Also, languages are hard — I’ve been trying to stuff French into my head for 5 years now…
So:
That thing you’re doing that you find easy? …I’m — or someone else, you get the point — thinking, “HOW DO YOU DO THAT?!”
(*) On the other hand, it was the only course my now-wife and I were ever in together, so while I worked very hard, I was probably a little distracted.
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