On this day

January 31st

Still too long, didn’t read

January 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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What’s in your way?

January 31, 2024

I’m fond of saying that the first 90 percent of something is vastly easier than the second 90 percent. There’s so much wisdom packed into that, and it’s funny—if you know how to tell a joke. Gee Willikers! I’m almost done! When in fact, I’ve only just scratched the surface.

In practice, this means you need to limit distractions to the full extent possible. Pull quotes, so effective near the top of an article, become a nuisance further down; many readers will find themselves unconsciously drawn to them, even when they want to focus on the text. Attention to the basic typographic details, line length, a readable typeface, the right balance between font size and line height, appropriate contrast between the text and background, can make the difference between a reader who makes it to the end of the article versus one who tires and gives up.

~ Mandy Brown from, In defense of readers

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I can say, without exaggeration, that I’ve tortured myself over every single tiny detail of what you are looking at. That includes the fact that 7 for Sunday looks slightly different in email. (It looks great in email; but what you see isn’t quite as controllable as a web site.) It would probably be good enough if I hadn’t tortured myself about the details, even though I think craftsmanship matters.

But of course readers matter most.

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Deception

January 31, 2022

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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I love language. Is Machiavelli suggesting less total violence, or more total deception? Or does it suggest that any amount of violence and deception, (including even, more violence than deception,) is fine, so long as you consider deception as your preferred method? Wait. What is the purpose of the word “attempt”? Is it okay to succeed by force, regardless of the possibility of succeeding using deception? Wait, no it’s worse than that even: “Never attempt to win … can be won …” — Is it okay if my aim is simply to sow chaos, without actually attempting to win via either method? Or, what if I attempt to win through some other means, (via kindness or merit or nimble maneuvering or bribery perhaps)?

But I do so love language.

Because despite all those perfectly logical nits that can be picked, it’s a brilliant sentence—even translated into English—packing insight and wisdom which we all grasp instantly and intuitively.

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Audience

January 31, 2022

Elisa Graf is both a writer and an editor and has started a podcast called Mystic Takeaway. She loves stories about the transcendent and the everyday world colliding, and the surprise, joy, and wonder that ensues. Her podcast showcases extraordinary stories of mysterious encounters and miraculous healings.

In our conversation, we found ourselves talking about podcast show statistics. They come up often when people first dive into podcasting. Everyone quickly realizes there’s an array of numbers that can be tracked. But what do those numbers mean? What numbers should we be shooting for? What does a “download” or “listener” even mean? But rather than dive into techno-babble, I was curious about what first surprised Elisa about podcasting stats when she published her podcast.

(more…)

Reflection: Day 31

January 31, 2021

SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD — “You’ve spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individual’s own frame of reference?” ~ Stephen Covey

Awareness of our inward experience, and our outward experience, is the same. It’s the same awareness. These past few days, we’ve taken our awareness on a brief field trip outside ourselves. For the rest of our little journey here, we’ll remain looking inward.

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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin?
(The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)

Because your soul demands it

January 31, 2020

So I make it really simple. I’d say art is: “That which you have no choice but to do, because your soul demands it”.

Yes, it’s a fairly flawed definition. But it illustrates something that most people don’t get about artists or entrepreneurs. We do it, because if we don’t, life feels empty. The downside being, it doesn’t exactly come with an easy life.

~ Hugh MacLeod

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I’ve found it very difficult to distinguish, “I started this thing therefore I must finish this thing, and I must do it well,” from, “I must finish this thing, and I must do it well.” Notice the missing, “I started this thing therefore…” I have a lot of ideas, several of which I often believe are totally not utter crap. So I start on them.

But once I’ve begun, it gets very hard to tell why I am continuing. What exactly indicates when my soul demands I should continue?

I think about whatever thing I’m currently working on all the time. So I can’t simply use, “does it hold my attention?” It sure feels like I absolutely must continue this thing! Meanwhile, I’ve a long list of things that consumed my attention and energy at one point, but which today are lost from sight in the rearview mirror.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with taking holidays by trying to set something down. This requires immense effort in the beginning; I usally have to cold-turkey-quit to get away from my passion project du jour. Sometimes, day by day, the urge to pick it back up fades and I feel like maybe that project should be left in the rear view mirror. I suppose that my soul doesn’t actually demand it because I hope that my soul wouldn’t just give up after a few days.

Questions today. None of them elucidating. ymmv.

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The frickin’ best sports writer on the planet

January 31, 2019

You get the job because you walk into the editor’s office and go, “Hi, I’m the best frickin’ sports writer on the planet.” And somehow the editor can tell you aren’t lying, either.

~ Jason Korman from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/content/uploads/assets/Moveable_Type/archives/001070.html»

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It’s critical that you realize this works. It’s even more critical that you notice the “aren’t lying” caveat.

I’ve never liked the mantra, “fake it ’til you make it.” Don’t fake it! Just start working and start asking questions.

My favorite question is, “what would world-class look like?”

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Master the day

January 31, 2018

The big umbrella for me is this idea of “master the day.” The whole idea is that life doesn’t change — wether it’s weight loss, success, happiness, marriage. It doesn’t change until something today changes. And that by itself is a huge revelation. Because most of us, we may have heard that idea. But if all we did was change something today, then that would already put us on the path we want to be on. And that, again, right there, there’s a philosophical change. Because if we knew that it just took changing small things, and that by changing something small today it would be easeir to change something small tomrorrow, a lot of us would have a much easier time reaching our goals.

So how do you change on a daily level? When you think about it, the average person only reflects about what needs changing, once a year. Right? The New Year we write our resolutions and that’s the only time we reflect on what’s working and what’s not working. One time in 365 days. Imagine if you did that every day. Imagine if you did that 365 times now. Imagine how quickly you could iterate on your behavior and your habits.

~ Alexander Heyne from, «https://becomingasuperhuman.com/habit-mastery-weight-loss-the-secrets-of-success-w-alexander-heyne/»

I sure wish I’d read, (or heard,) this about 10 years ago. Took me an embarrassingly long time to discover this on my own. This is literally the it’s-not-actually-a-secret to all of my success. Small daily changes. Even in the face of catastrophically stupid, self-imposed set-backs. Small daily changes. Every day, one step forward.

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Deconstructing the CAP theorem

January 31, 2015

In computing, the so-called CAP theorem (1999-2002) has become both an icon and a bone of contention in the world of databases — a supposed truth about distributed systems. A lot has been written about it since it was formulated, especially around the recent debates on `SQL/noSQL’, but its many hearsay formulations are beset with a number of problems.

~ Mark Burgess from, Deconstructing the `CAP theorem’ for CM and DevOps

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If you work with databases, reading this might be wise.

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