Can I flip this? →

Published July 24, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 24  ·  

I expend a lot of time and energy thinking about technology. I’m often trying to share some idea with others, or trying to make a change in the world. But year by year I’m shifting to spending more of that time and energy simply deciding what technology I want to adopt. Mastodon and the corresponding ActivityPub technology which creates the Fediverse is a great example. Should I join in on that new technology and create a presence there?

Grasping the value of new technology requires imagination. But unless you have skin in the game that doesn’t seem worth the effort because technology is supposed to make things easier and simpler, not wrack your brain.

~ Morgan Housel, from Why New Technology Is A Hard Sell

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Housel’s covers that, and three other intriguing points about why new technology is a hard sell. I’m left wondering could I use the points raised in the article to help me make decisions about technology? If I flip the article’s thinking over (from an others-directed “why doesn’t technology get adopted” direction to a self-directed “why I might not adopt technology” direction) then I can ask myself corresponding questions. For example, for the quoted point above, I can ask: Am I engaging my imagination at all when considering some piece of technology? (Aside: I decided, yes, and you can search for @craig@constantine.name wherever you are in the Fediverse.)

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Silence →

Published July 24, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 24  ·  

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

~ William Penn

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45 days until Level 52 →

Published July 23, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 23

This entry is part 1 of 46 in the series Level 52 countdown

The idea is to post here every day to report that I did what I was supposed to do. I’ll include what I plan to do for the next day’s activity. That forces me to plan ahead a bit. That’s the magic sauce because when I fail to plan, I fail.

This is not going to be a 45-day sprint of insane challenges. The idea is to be disciplined. Each day, plan something that is appropriate for me to do.

This post also presents a gallery of the ALL images in this series of posts. The gallery is dynamic so it will automatically grow as I add more posts to this series.

July 23, 2023 — #42 →

Published July 23, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 23  ·  

Reading time: About 8 minutes, 1700 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/42

Acoustic ecology →

Published July 23, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 23  ·  

I love a scenic overlook, but give me a few minutes and I’ll be sitting with my eyes closed listening to the scenic overlook. I once dove in the ocean at the edge of the continental shelf—it’s a long story—but the sense of lack of place when you gaze into the abyss is unsettling. Sitting and listening to a vast landscape is the closest I’ve ever come to that. (And without feeling like complete panic is right behind the veneer of my thoughts.)

The World Soundscape Project worked from the basis that any given soundscape (or sonic environment) is a representation of how that environment is perceived by listeners within it. Soundscapes are themselves influenced by human behaviours. As a combination of all sound within a particular location, soundscapes may therefore comprise natural sounds as well as those from social and technological sources. As these sounds change, so does the ecology of the soundscape.

~ Neil Clarke from, Acoustic ecology and the World Soundscape Project – earth.fm

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Soundscapes are amazing. I’ve always been fascinated by sound, and how our aural sense is a very old sense; it is connected to a much older part of our brain. Sound is very important to our sense of being. We hear in the womb, and at twilight our hearing recedes last to gracefully ring down the final curtain.

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Nouns or verbs? →

Published July 23, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 23  ·  , ,

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing… an actor, a writer… I am a person who does things… I write, I act… and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

~ Stephen Fry

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Common sense →

Published July 22, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 22  ·  , ,

But I am still optimist enough to credit life with invincibility, I am still ready to bet that the non-human otherness at the root of man’s being will ultimately triumph over the all too human selves who frame the ideologies and engineer the collective suicides. For our survival, if we do survive, we shall be less beholden to our common sense […] that to our caterpillar- and cicadea-sense, to intelligence, in other words, as it operates on the organic level.

~ Aldous Huxley

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Mind your attention →

Published July 21, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 21  ·  ,

I’m sold on the idea that mindfulness is the key which unlocks everything else. I get chuffed when something grabs my attention. I’m fine with noticing; It’s good that I notice emergency vehicles. But realizing I’ve blown the last 5 minutes doom-scrolling in Instagram? Not cool.

There’s a reason for this. Our experiences in the digital realm are usually very novel—and this novelty leads to the release of dopamine in our brain. Dopamine doesn’t lead us to feel happy and satisfied in and of itself—it leads us to feel as though pleasure is right around the corner, so it keeps us wanting more. The more novel an app, the more we get hooked—we feel a constant rush and keep using the app until we remember to stop. (Here’s looking at you, TikTok.)

~ Chris Bailey from, 5 lessons I learned switching to a flip phone for a month – Chris Bailey

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This is a longer than usual article from Bailey and it’s stuffed full of insight. One item of note is he frequently gets very intentional about testing things to their logical conclusion. This article comes from him trying to live his life without a smart phone. His conclusion (and I agree) is that smart phones are awesome. Unfortunately, there’s some bad opportunities mixed in too. (Ocean and surfing, yay! Sharks, not so much.) Want to see how addicted you are to your phone? Try this.

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Challenged to change →

Published July 21, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 21  ·  ,

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

~ Viktor Frankl

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Common mistakes →

Published July 20, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 20  ·  ,

Four common mistakes that help you hide— Busy is the same as brave. A mentor is going to change your life. Waiting to get picked is the next step. There is a secret, and you will soon learn it.

~ Seth Godin

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