Chris J Wilson

I don’t know if I missed it but did the original HomePod not get an update (or maybe they snuck in a processor bump in a press release somewhere) and what about the Apple silicon Macs? I’m really interested in getting a Mac again but definitely not an intel one. I really don’t like splitting the iPhone 12 camera features further, a larger sensor is a really interesting change, as is LiDar and 10 bit hdr video recording. I’m interested to see the final details but it’s more impressive than I thought. But I think I thought that last year. Marketing eh.

I’ve struggled with…well, a lot recently. I suspect that the general malaise has been one of the key reasons that I haven’t been able to write or publish anything longer than a tweet-length post for a while. It also doesn’t help that my daughter has been ill for about a month, waking up early, crying frequently, and going to bed later removing the little previous creative writing time. And now it looks likely that I have COVID while work has been steadily ramping up. But the other factor is a feeling that I have nothing worth saying. I know that this is partially a lack of inspiration (as Austin Kleon says, problems of output are usually problems of input) but it’s also caused by a growing self-censorship. I will get to the end of writing a post and then delete the whole thing because it feels stupid, or I am the wrong person to write this, or perhaps there will be negative repercussions to me sharing this post. The only way out is to act bravely and publish anyway, slowly building confidence and a sense of what is good to publish. So this is the first, probably terrible, step.

At work we have a tool that allows for collaboration and transparancy, so we can all see what everyone is up to and the changes we log. It’s also part of the ideas and values we preach… and yet I keep finding that different teams set their privacy to full so no other team can access files (and when they grant access, they do it on a case by case basis often leading to multiple requests) plus instead of using the collaborative tool, people will download their own copy, make their edits, and then reshare…often missing edits other people have made.

I really wonder why on earth we use these expensive solutions if no one is going to use them to do what they were designed for.

I really hate the culture of shaming newbies and amatures who try to copy something they see online but don’t do it as well.

• Everyone sucks when they start.
• If they enjoy it, what does it matter if it’s “good”
• It’s very easy to be the cynic who critiques everyone else (and does nothing)
• okay, if they are pretending to be a pro/guru and they have just started…you can roll your eyes a little.

A quick list of things that are making me happy. Feel free to steal this as a blogging prompt.

1. Walking my daughter to nursery in the morning.

It’s great to take the 30 mins to go past the duck pond, hold hands, and get to know each other better. She’s grown so much in the last two years and it’s amazing seeing her start to speak in English and Polish.

2. My Anne Pro 2 keyboard

I got my fancy keyboard back from the office and took it home. It’s really comfortable and sticking to the same keyboard with the same layout has helped improve my typing accuracy again.

3. Saturday Afternoon teas

We started inviting some friends round for afternoon tea on Saturdays. It’s an excuse to bake a cake, have a cuppa and chat. It’s been a great way to socialize in our post-lockdown situation (although we are keeping track of government guidelines and case numbers).

I hope this makes you half as happy as it made me when I wrote it. I’d love to know what is making you happy at the moment.

🔗 Why publishers and media organisations need to build communities — Media Sector

“LinkedIn’s Groups is a reminder that LinkedIn is not a community platform – it’s a business that monetises the #humblebrag in business as well as our eyeballs and data.”

Someone at work sent me this article to read and I couldn’t help but love this quote. It perfectly sums up LinkedIn.

“As a European, I’m getting increasingly tired of American influence, from media, politics, work & lifestyle etc. It is overwhelming how much input is coming from US when it doesn’t relate to my expe…”

A thread from @jelenajansson

I saw this thread a few days ago and empathized. America has influenced my life and culture in many ways through my whole life but it feels increasingly ever present. News is perhaps the most effective example where I can tell you all sorts about the ins and outs of American politics now (and yet I deliberately avoided studying American politics when at university and chose different modules on other political systems). Perhaps this is purely due to America’s profound influence on the rest of the world, and yet surely that is self-fulfilling: the more America is reported on, the greater its influence. Looking at the rising influence of Qanon conspiracies in UK and Germany with anti-mask and anti-vaccination movements, its absurd that inventions to defend the explain away the US President’s incompetence have become global.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing about culture and influence and there is a lot I like about the states, but the 24/7 US News and Culture is becoming too much.

Back when I was a teacher, we had to fill in a register and record of work. This helped other teachers know what we had done in the last class and so they could prepare material for the following class. Some teachers saw this as unnecessary as they never shared classes, and so when they were off sick they would be contacted several times to find out what on earth they had been up to for the last few months. Most teachers included a few rough notes and some references to materials that could be helpful up to a point. I made it my aim to help my future self…who is an idiot.

I have a bad natural memory; I forget almost everything. It’s one of the reasons I love pen, paper, and task management apps — they have helped me avoid many problems. However, putting a note down doesn’t always help my future self.

A note can be useful, or it can be confusing.

When writing a note we are prone to the “curse of knowledge” where we assume that our future self will have the same information at hand that we do. That is rarely true. Instead, we will have a whole different set of memories and data clouding our perspective.

Assuming that our future self is a dumb idiot who won’t remember a thing is a great way to write a note that will be useful in the future.

And it was also a great way to write notes in records of work that helped teachers who had to cover classes.

³Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. ⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth. ⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. ¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot and don’t have clear ideas. I both think that there is good and bad within this movement (and that it’s both new and old). One recent idea I had is that we focus on those who have been cancelled. We don’t notice the times when people aren’t “cancelled” because there was no outcome. That’s why don’t mention however many events a controversial speaker went to, only the ones that were cancelleed. On the other side, we don’t know about all the terrible acts that people carry out and face no reprecussions for.

In Greek mythology, a genius wasn’t a person, it was a spirit who came and inspired the creator. But over time, we started to call people of intelligence and creativity geniuses. Elizabeth Gilbert would like us to return to this Greek idea and take the pressure off creative people to perform.

I think we could take a different route.

We could choose to inspire others. We could choose to take on the role of those spirits and offer encouragement and prompts.

We don’t need to do anything spectacular, but just offer a little spark to help.

We can all be geneses.

It never cease to amaze me how often I’m stuck, unable to start an article, section, or sentence and I tell myself

“Just write what the point is that you want to make, just clarify the thought.”

and sometimes I write exactly what should go there. Most of the time, however, it sucks.

But now I know what to write.

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Malcolm Gladwell (#168)

My dad is a great question asker. And my father has this, and I’ve spoken about it many times, of his many gifts, one in particular, as a kid, always had the biggest impact on me, which is my father has zero intellectual insecurities. So this is the only thing he has in common with Obama. He and Obama are the same way. It has never crossed his mind to be concerned that the world thinks he’s an idiot. He’s not in that game. So if he doesn’t understand something, he just asks you. He doesn’t care if he sounds foolish. He will ask the most obvious question. And it was without any sort of concern about it.

And maybe it’s because my dad is a mathematician. So he has this thing that he knows he’s really good at. And so he’s home free. If you have a PhD in math, you’re home free. … Yeah. And it’s like if you look like an idiot because you don’t know anything about basketball, who cares? So he asks lots and lots and lots of dumb, in the best sense of that word, dumb questions. He’ll say to someone I don’t understand. Explain that to me. And he’ll just keep asking questions until he gets it right. And I grew up listening to him do this in every conceivable setting. My father, here is this guy with his PhD in math. He made friends with all of these farmers who were our neighbors who were all drop outs.

I can’t remember where I heard about this quote (not from Tim’s podcast) but I’ve been trying to apply it. Ask questions “Do you mean… Sorry I don’t understand.” I’ll report back on the results.

Now and then I get messy head. Where my brain seems to cycle through the million things I need to do. I try to slow down and focus on what matters, but my head struggles to make sense of things as it jumps from loop to loop until it resets and starts again.

The cure is to slow down, pray or meditate, write down a list of what’s on my mind and just start with one thing. I know this from experience, but I also know (like today) that It doesn’t always immediately help. It usually requires some time and a good nights sleep (or two) before clarity comes.

On days like today when more things keep coming in as the day goes on, I get worse cases of messy head. But even the process of writing this post is part of the remedy. Acknowledging that I’ve been here before, I know what it is and clarity will come.

My head feels better already.