Tried using a pencil on my Bullet Journal yesterday. I got a no. 2 pencil from the office supply room, a basic pencil from Staples. Was an interesting test. I've forgotten how it feels to write using a pencil. It feels nice! The way the pencil just glides over the paper, it feels so much better than using a pen. I could write way faster and it didn't smear at all. And if I make a mistake, I can just do a CTRL+Z with the eraser. Brilliant.
My main reason for trying a pencil, is to see if it smears. The pens that I have, a Pilot G-2 and a Pentel Energel both with 0.7 tips, flow really well but the ink takes awhile to dry. It is unfortunate really because the black ink from those pens look really vibrant. It really pops out on the white pages of my Leuchtturm 1917 and makes the lines written with the pencil look bland.
Unfortunately, since I write really small and really quickly, I end up smearing the ink more often than not. I just sometimes don't have the patience to wait for the ink to dry. The Pentel Energel is already supposed to be a quick drying pen, but it still smears when I write quickly.
I saw this post from QuietHabits and it reminded me of my own attempt at “dumbing” down my smartphone. I remember at one point I told my wife, “maybe I should get another Windows Phone?” I think she just rolled her eyes.
At one point I did own a Nokia Lumia 920 and I still miss it today. And yes Windows Phones had an app problem that was never really solved, which is why it would be perfect since there are less apps to distract you with.
This is for the techie ones out there who want to delete their Facebook posts, but keep their account active. Probably helps to be familiar with using automated UI testing tools/scripts like Selenium. I for one don't know how to use Selenium, but I can do Coded UI.
Anyway, check out the link below. The readme page should have all the info you need to do this.
Nearly got into an accident on my lunch break today. I was turning left on an intersection that had two left turn lanes. I was on the second left turn lane, which was a left-turn/pass-through lane. The driver on the leftmost left turn lane, was only supposed to turn left (because it was a left turn only lane), decided to drive straight through. He nearly ran over my car as I was trying to turn left. The only thing that saved me from that accident is that I performed a lifesaver/shoulder check as I was turning left.
The lifesaver/shoulder check is a defensive driving check that you do when turning. The reason for doing so is to make sure no one is trying to pass you on the side that you are trying to turn to. It is called a “lifesaver” because doing so can literally save your life if you're riding a motorcycle or a bicycle. It is something that I learned, which turned into a habit, while riding motorcycles a decade ago.
Just to add some context, my car is equipped with blind spot monitors. It did beep as we were entering the intersection. I also could see the car on my driver side mirror. Of course just because my blind spot monitors beeped and I could see the car in my mirrors, doesn't mean that the driver was going to drive straight through. He could have been just close at that point and then eventually would turn left. Which is why it is still critical to actually do a shoulder check right before or as you are turning, to make absolutely sure no one is going to run into you.
The suggestion there that you need an ethicist, it suggests at least to me that they're concerned about the addictiveness of the products. In fact, Tristan himself has written about that, and that's exactly what he says. He suggests that there should be, in the design world, a Hippocratic oath — just as in medicine doctors should “do no harm,” he believes the same should be true of designers of these kinds of platforms; that people who design tech, people who design social media platforms, should be forced to obey the same rules — do no harm.
I like this idea, a lot. The problem is I don't think the tech industry will adopt it. Not unless the industry moves away from making money using an ad-based model.
This is the feeling or sensation you get when your favorite song starts playing and the music just sorts of, washes over you. For a long time I just called it “goosebumps”. The correct term it turns out, is actually “frisson”.
It made me a judgemental jerk. Why? I don't know. Maybe I didn't agree with their post? Maybe I felt belittled by their post? Maybe I felt jealous because of their post? There could be a bunch of different reasons why, but either way I think it goes back to the content I saw on my news feed. In my previous post I talked about how I was trying to rein in the content that showed up on my news feed. Well another reason for wanting to do that, was because the content that was shared on my news feed unconsciously made me judge the people that shared them. And I didn't want to be like that.
Update: I ended up creating a new Facebook account, here's why.
I couldn't control the news feed. It wasn't for lack of trying too. During the months leading up to the day when I deactivated my account, I put in a lot of effort to try to control my news feed. Here are some of the things I tried:
A few months ago, while I was researching how to start a personal blog/website, I kept running into this idea that a blog, without a system that allows comments, is not a blog. One popular blogger even likened it to a telephone with no earpiece.
