Category: Aside

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2018.1.22

Over the weekend we signed up for a pair of hikes for March. One will take us to one of the highest (and safest) points in Nicaragua1 — another challenging volcano hike! — and another calmer hike through the rainforest and along a series of waterfalls. I admit a little bit of trepidation over the first hike mostly because of the heat we’ll be walking through (and walking down young volcanos is always a bit slippery), but I’m also super excited summit Volcan Concepcion and take photos!

  1. The highest point is Pico Mogoton but the hike is made moderately dangerous by the presence of landmines that were laid in the war with the contras. ↩
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19 Tiny Habits That Lead to Huge Results

While I wouldn’t necessarily identify Cole’s nineteen habits as ‘tiny’ in aggregate I would agree that most of the habits he identifies are important for developing a well-balanced life. Perhaps the most important habit, to my mind right now, is to reflect on oneself and to value oneself, to the point where you can identify aspirations goals and strive to achieve them. If I’m being honest, it’s really hard for me to visualize or express such personal aspirations and thus one of my more important ‘tasks’ over the coming months is to both clarify such aspirations and identify how to achieve and exceed them.

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2018.1.19

Peer review is a hit and miss proposition. Sometimes whoever reviews the work is clearly unsuitable. Other times the reviewer’s suggestions would have you write a totally new paper. And other times the reviewer shows how the argument you’re making can be helpfully deepened and strengthened. That last kind of review is rarer than it should be but, when you experience it, can help to transform a good paper into a considerably stronger and more meaningful piece of work.

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2018.1.17

Blew away over 10K emails that were collecting dust in one of my main accounts. My goal over the next few months is to remove the mass majority of old email that serves no purpose. Doing so will both free up some space (not that I really need it) while also cutting down on the possible deleterious effects of having the account in question getting hacked and contents selectively modified and/or leaked.

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2018.1.16

I’ve swapped between a bunch of different fitness trackers (and companies) over the past several years. I love how Apple Health manages to bring all of them together…except for my historical Fitbit data. But I found (and installed and ran) myFitnessSync for Fitbit – Fitbit to Apple Health and now I finally have all of my data stored in Apple Health. And, also, I can now blow away my old Fitbit account!

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2018.1.15

With another poll coming out warning how indebted Canadian are, and the personal and national risks of carrying so much debt, I’m glad that I spent so much time (and money!) last year shedding my consumer debts. I’m not looking forward to increases to student loan carrying costs but they’re manageable and won’t risk my quality of life. But I was in a privileged situation: I really don’t know what society is going to have to do to help people who have accumulated far too much debt, though increasing the borrowing costs might at least disincentivized people from accumulating large quantities of new debt.

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2018.1.12

I have a deep and abiding dislike of editors of academic journals who enrol me in their content management systems and then issue peer review requests without bothering to first send me a personal inquiry. I appreciate the ‘ease’ of automating the requests but doing so significantly diminishes the likelihood that I’ll ever review for them or suggest another peer to take on the assignment because I don’t like the idea of them being spammed, either. Further, the way these requests are issued raises security concerns: I don’t know the journal, there’s no reply-to-human contact, nor can I verify the legitimacy of the link by just glancing at it. The onus shouldn’t be put on me to sniff around and confirm the sender in order to do free labour for them.

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2018.1.11

One of the things that I enjoy about this space is sometimes writing short aside posts (like this one). They don’t tend to delve deeply into whatever’s going through my head nor do they typically include a link to elsewhere on the Web. But for some reason I don’t really like the idea of them being published without a title. So I’m going to try associating the date with each aside-type post and see whether, over time, I want to expand or shrink this title scheme or, instead, keep it to the data posted.

Addendum: While my current theme may not show the date, at least for my own backend (and RSS purposes) the title will be present. I guess that’ll just have to be enough.

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Oprah Winfrey’s 2018 Golden Globes Speech

I have no idea whether or not this speech might herald Oprah’s potential entry into politics as a candidate, or as an effort to leverage her reputation and power to equalize power imbalances in the media and entertainment space, or as part of another activity that she plans on undertaking. What I do know is that her speech is amazingly powerful and has parallels with some of the best speeches of Obama that launched him as a candidate: if this was her political ‘coming out’ speech then it’s remarkably impressive in its accessibility to the general public and depth of meaning and importance to the public writ large.

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But I Am Connected!

Despite my iPad showing that I’m using its built-in speakers, the top right bar indicates that I’m attached to my BeatsX headphones. And music is, in fact, being played through the headphones. But no matter what I do – connect, disconnect, turn off and on Bluetooth, etc -I can’t get this panel to recognize I’m connected to my headphones.

Apple design: it’s often great if Apple has recently given a damn about the area you’re dealing with.