I stopped trying to initiate things so much in the friendships and ever since then, I’ve felt like a weight has been picked off me. I started intentionally energy-matching S, and L doesn’t really text anyway so it’s normal there. I haven’t asked them to work out this week and so they haven’t asked me and I’m suddenly no longer affected by that, I think I’ve mourned a decent amount already so I’m content since I have other friends that I’m going to put more effort into. Today me and L went to the library and were trying to build a taser without the library staff noticing, and at one point one came over and said “hey I just wanted to ask what you guys are making since I heard a loud crack” and we rehearsed saying that it was an example of conservation of energy and a cool demonstration for middle schoolers. In reality, I bought a cheap transformer (5V->1,000,000V) and we were using a double A battery, some nails, and a bottle to build a taser that was shooting arcs. The guy bought it, and we kept going and made good progress. Also turns out S was just busy with his finals and those ended and so he’s back and I’m happy because I love that man so much. I also found someone on Instagram that by coincidence is also going to the cleopatrick concert and they put me onto some SICK music that I’ve been blasting on repeat recently. Ever since realigning the friendship with S and L, I stopped getting that friction burn from that rope slipping out of my hands. It’s a bit of a shame that they weren’t the friends to put in the effort to maintain it, but I’m happy that I am in a spot now where I can recognize that without it hurting me.

I had an unexpected revelation while browsing the book section at a local Goodwill. Here’s a page from Ways of Seeing by John Berger.

#love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjZhTVvzL0k&ab_channel=DadvsVideogames

“Too late for you to learn the error of your ways...” ~ Finch Granger

I've forgotten how surprisingly good combat was in Hogwarts Legacy!

And I realize I never did another game log post for this game. Yes, my character's name is Finch Granger. Yes, I have a backstory about him being Hermione's long lost ancestor LOL. That's how I justified using that name anyway haha.

Tags: #GameClips #HogwartsLegacy

I was at Ankerklause with Luke this evening when a girl approached us to ask for money. I greeted her with a “hi,” and she started to cry, saying no one said hi this evening to her. I didn’t have any coins, so I gave her 5 euros, and she began crying even more, saying we had such good energy. I told her the same—it’s always a two-way exchange, after all.

After she left, I cried. I’m glad Luke and I made space for her to be emotional, to cry, and that we shared her sadness. No one should carry such emotions alone.

The experience sent me on an emotional roller coaster, making me reflect deeply.

I’m so tired of living such a hypocritical life! How can I spend 250 euros on boots, yet only give her 5 euros, or sometimes even less when people ask for help? How can I not work and earn, just to give more away? Why do I keep things for myself, buying more, when I could do so much more for others?

I should volunteer this winter.

Prayers, etc.: * 05:00 – Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel * 06:00 – praying The Angelus * 07:10 – praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, followed by the Memorare * 08:00 – Day 3 of 9, praying the St. Jude Novena * 08:30 – Thought for today from Archbishop Lefebvre: Not only does Mary describe her Gospel for us in her Magnificat, she goes on to live it. She does not settle merely for speaking of the humble, of those who are poor, of those who fear God, but she is a shining example of these qualities throughout her life. The stable of Bethlehem is the expression of the beatitude of poverty. * 12:00 – praying The Angelus * 15:10 – prayerfully reading The Athanasian Creed, followed by today's Daily Meditation found in Benedictus Magazine. * 18:00 – praying The Angelus * 19:00 – praying the hour of Compline for tonight according to the Traditional Pre-Vatican II Divine Office, followed by Fr. Chad Ripperger's Prayer of Command to protect my family, my sons, my daughter and her family, my granddaughters and their families, my great grandchildren, and everyone for whom I have responsibility from any demonic activity. – And that followed by the Monday Prayers of the Association of the Auxilium Christianorum.

Health Metrics: * bw= 222.34 lbs * bp= 156/74 (63)

Diet: * 07:00 – ½ pb&j sandwich * 09:00 – 1 ice cream sandwich * 10:00 – 1 banana * 11:00 – meat balls * 12:15 – lasagna

Chores, etc.: * 05:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 06:45 – monitor bank accounts activity * 09:45 – start my weekly laundry * 12:30 to 13:45 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 14:00 – spent most of the afternoon and evening listening to music and reading

Chess: * 10:45 – moved in all pending CC games

posted Monday, 2024-10-21 ~20:45 #DLOCT2024

• ✅ I’ve switched my task list management to Microsoft To Do and it’s been working well so far. It’s less overhead overall. I’m working on a blog post to describe the setup, which actually is not too different from previous setups I’ve tried before.
• ⚖️ I got a new digital bathroom scale with BIG numbers! My dietitian is asking me to weight myself regularly at the same time in the morning and keep a record. My old scale is a mechanical one and the numbers are so small, I can’t read them.
• 💊 I’m taking a lot of probiotics/supplements prescribed by my Naturopath, including one that will tamper down some of the H. Pylori present in my stomach. It seems I don’t have enough of the bacteria to call it an infection, but they might be contributing to my acid reflux (gastritis) symptoms.
• ⛸️ I went to my first intermediate 2024 Fall Ice Skating class this Saturday. I was happy to know that: 1) I did not forget how to skate, and 2) I can still do my awkward forward cross-over counter-clockwise. So that means I’m just continuing from where I left off earlier this year. I’m enjoying my skates, all is working well.
• 📺 We got Amazon Prime for 3 months and we started watching “The Rings of Power” Season 2 and “The Legend of Vox Machina” Season 3. We only saw the first episode of each so far.
• 🧱My partner and I both worked with building heritage restoration for a long time in our careers. This weekend we attended a workshop about the use of traditional mortars, specifically, hot mixed lime pointing mortars used in stone masonry. It was a great excuse to drive to Kingston when the lovely fall colours are in bloom and be around Fort Henry near the river.
• 📖 I’m relaxing reading this historical romance with such beautiful writing and fun banter. It’s called “How the Marquess Was Won” by Julie Anne Long. It’s my first time reading this author. I saw this book being praised in the Heaving Bosoms podcast and I just want to finish reading it to listen to the episode. It will be fun!

Currently reading

• The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• How the Marquess Was Won (Pennyroyal Green #6) by Julie Anne Long

I want to read next

• Five Minds by Guy Morpuss (BookClub pick for November)
• Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal

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Post 51/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #weeknotes

Love came without warning, No chance to think or process Contextualize or analyze

One morning awoke A signal sent hesitantly, Reciprocity triggered glow

Twinkled eyes And sunrays take on New Meaning

Easy smiles are How hearts are lost And lives won

A heart is captured Even before its owner Understands that the day is begun

| | |

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words are our only real power #poetry

Darned toothache. It's occupying too darned much of my attention. I knew I was doing too much eating this weekend. The only thing to do now is to medicate that part of my mouth as best I can and return to eating sparingly and carefully. That what I did the last time this happened. It worked then and it'll work again.

posted Monday, Oct 21, 2024 at 5:00PM #QNOCT2024

This went out two days ago as issue 16 of The Angelo Report, a weekly newsletter published every Sunday afternoon.

There are about ten weeks or so left in the year. When you hear that, do you think about:

1. what you're going to tackle in 2025?
2. what you've got left to do in 2024?

It's a little of both, for me, and none of it feels especially good. I expected to launch a new app by the end of the year, but as it stands, that schedule seems pretty unlikely. I've been struggling to kick off (or restart) certain habits, like exercising and meditating. I'm setting standards for myself, but having trouble executing. There's a lot going on that's robbing me of energy and focus.

I'm not writing this to vent, but to level-set. We all know by now that most of what you see on social media is a curated, best-of playlist that people put out there to seem like they're on top of their game, that they're thriving, and that life showers them with nothing but rainbows and puppies in return. The reality is that we're mostly holding it together, sure, but we're otherwise all struggling with something, and moving through life carrying that struggle with some degree of grace.

Some measure of struggle is important, I think. It builds character, as they say.

(Of course, too much struggle stunts growth.)

But carrying that struggle with grace is the hardest part. It's finding patience when it feels like you have no time. It's showing kindness when you're feeling ongoing pain. It's being generous when you don't feel like you'll ever have enough for yourself.

And in some cases, it's seeking meaning when you feel like you need a little comfort.

While my grace lapses in all of the ways I've listed here, this one —slumping in comfort— is the one that bites me most often, I think.

Whatever you're struggling with, I hope you find grace in carrying it.

Around The Web

• Jack Raines writes about the cost of apathy — how we prioritize comfort over living intentionally, and that true fulfilment comes from crafting your life around your values, your ambitions, and taking chances.
• Kurt Armstrong writes about perseverance and commitment in Repair and Remain. It's easy to seek quick fixes or run away when things get tough, but eventually that just makes everything worse.

Recommendations

* Recommendations may contain affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the book, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own, and I only recommend what I've enjoyed or look forward to.

📚 I've been enjoying Dana Miranda's [Healthy Rich]() newsletter, and pre-ordered her upcoming book You Don't Need a Budget: Stop Worrying about Debt, Spend Without Shame, and Manage Money with Ease on Audible. I've been using tools like You Need A Budget for a very long time, and as someone that's working to launch a new personal finance app, I'm very curious about this recent-ish movement that urges folks to avoid budgeting and instead use things like automation and developing a relationship with money to navigate their finances.

Yes, iv been away for a while due to “life stuff” and I hope to have a projects update shortly once things iv been forced to focus on recently come to a close.

But you may notice some differences here… and by that I mean yes, this site has moved to Write.As!

Whilst Write.As may not exactly be fully in-line with the my original five “tennets” for this space as outlined in my previous post, I found writing directly in HTML was tiresome, and didnt really want to learn or provision yet another backend.

Write.As upheld most of my original five “tennets” (noteably; Simplicity, Freedom, and Privacy) I wanted to maintain from my original post, but I accept I have conceeded at least some of the others (Robustness and Compatibility) as a result.

That said I believe the compromise made here is minimal, but overall with the quality of life improvements that would help me to focus more on documenting and posting…rather than coding, will be worth the change long-term.

#001970 – 19 de Outubro de 2024

Vejo Self-Portrait as a Coffe-Pot com deleite e parcimónia. Não quero devorar os 9 episódios. Quero que dure este deslumbramento.

I love using Write.as to host my blog. I love using Obsidian to manage the bulk of my second brain. And it's the love for these two products that eventually led me down a rabbit hole in search of a way to potentially integrate the two together. Not only did I find a solution, but it works even better than I could've imagined.

Right now, I am writing, editing, and even publishing this blog post directly from within Obsidian. I'm not using a browser, and I'm not on https://write.as in any way. It's as easy as writing a note, adding some frontmatter, running a command palette command, and boom, you have a published blog post. Here's how to do it.

The Write.as Obsidian plugin

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At first, I was looking for a way to publish posts from a particular directory on my local machine similarly to how static site generators like Hugo work. My thought was that I could write a blog post in Obsidian, and then move it to a folder configured to automatically publish its contents to Write.as.

I quickly threw that notion aside when I stumbled upon an Obsidian community plugin that makes the process even more seamless. It's aptly named “Writeas Blog Publisher,” and you can find it in the community plugins section of your Obsidian settings or over on GitHub if you want to install it manually.

This may be the simplest plugin I've ever used. Once installed and enabled, you just set your Write.as username and password in the settings. From then on, just add writeas_collection into your frontmatter and set the value to the name of your blog. Once that's done, just run Publish/update from the command palette or type alt+shift+p on your keyboard, and your post will go live on your blog regardless of where the note is located in your vault.

The plugin will automatically pull in some more frontmatter, including the URL and ID for the blog post. And updating those posts is as easy as making any necessary changes and rerunning the Publish/update command. Any updates made will immediately reflect on the respective Write.as blog posts whether you moved your note to another location in your vault or not. It really is that simple.

To make this process even easier, I created a template for my potential blog posts, and I set a hotkey to automatically pull in that template on command. Now, at just a few key presses, I can go from a private note to ready for publication.

Why do this?

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I love writing. But I don't do it enough. At least I don't publish my writing enough.

I spend so much time in Obsidian every day journaling, writing mini essays, studying cybersecurity, etc. After years of writing and note-taking, there's a plethora of knowledge in my vault, and I wanted to remove as much friction as possible getting that content from my second brain onto my blog.

Maybe you are like me, and any unnecessary friction will just increase the likelihood of you not accomplishing your goals. Yes, we need to overcome obstacles to achieve all that we set out to do, but setting ourselves up for success can only improve our odds.

It may seem small, but I am hoping systems like this one will increase my output and give me an effective way to express my creativity. And in the end, sometimes it's the little things that bring us the most joy, and I hope this discovery has or will provide you as much joy as it does me.

Massive thanks to Chris Gwilliams for developing this plugin.

Tags: #productivity #apps Write.as Comments:

It is well-established that the purpose of a liberal education is to enable individuals to see themselves as free, self-determining and responsible for their actions. Meanwhile, discourses of digital technology emphasise empowerment, particularly in terms of personalisation and choice. Technology would therefore seem like a good fit for autonomy.

But, for all that technology offers, it can impose practices, values and routines that may be incongruous or inconsistent with an individuals preferences or desires. For example, if a learner use a platform that collects data, then that data can subsequently be used to guide learning. While this is typically framed in terms of assistance, the power of technology now goes well beyond assistance and it could be said that technology itself has agency.

This means that using technology or participating in online environments or other platforms (such as a game), human agency needs to be subordinated or traded off in some way.

The increasing power of technology troubles our understanding of autonomy. Understanding and being able to locate autonomy is fundamental in highly technicalised learning environments and any inquiry into learning technology must consider how it affects the capacities of learners. We might emphasise the empowerment of the humans, or the capacities of the machine, but there is a danger that a focus on one elides an understanding of the other. Autonomy is relative, indeterminate and, in any scenario, others (including technology) may have the upper hand.

Consider the example of nudge economics, a technique used in behavioural economics that manipulates people by narrowing choices or prompts towards a particular behaviour. The use of nudges to influence learning denies autonomy to learners, though it may result in favourable outcomes. For many learners, these nudge structures may be welcome and useful, and its certainly a seductive idea, but it raises questions about who is really in control of learning.

For the most part, learner autonomy is poorly understood and may fall back on essentialist or deterministic accounts of learning that do not account for the indeterminacy of autonomy.

Note to self: Write a list of books that I would want to have with me in some sort of apocalyptic scenario where there's no Internet, no electricity, sort of like that Jodie Comer film, The End We Start From, except without all the walking around.

No, I'd be in my flat, having no idea what's going on in the world. Probably going to die soon. But, hey, I can't just stare at the walls for days (weeks, months) on end, so I must have books. Oh yes, and they must be actual physical books, nothing electronic since there's no electricity.

I should have a collection of such books IRL, just in case ...

#Books #Apocalypse #ApocalypseBooks