Tag: time

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saturday, man, reading, paper

James Shelly:

Be careful what you wish for. The gleeful agreement of the masses is no less perilous than the mass polarization of opinion.James Shelly

I “discovered” MacDown via a link to Offscreen Dispatch while reading a post by /home/kOoLiNuS.

MacDown is an open source Markdown editor for macOS, released under the MIT License. It is heavily influenced by Chen Luo’s Mou.Tzu-ping Chung

Social media may be making me miserable.

One recent study examined the links between Facebook use and wellbeing. “We found that the more you use Facebook over time, the more likely you are to experience negative physical health, negative mental health and negative life satisfaction,” says study author Holly Shakya, assistant professor and social media researcher at the University of California, San Diego.Markham Heid

John Saddington

Mastery takes incredible patience and it’s a commitment to invest continually over a long period time that really brings it all together in the end. Finally, I think it’s worth noting that I believe that very few people will do this intentionally but I think it’s intent that can make the biggest difference.John Saddington

Job interview:

“I am a bit worried,” I said, “about the whole idea of relentlessly driving down supplier costs just so that people on the internet can buy marginally cheaper consumer goods.”

Silence.

I’d like to think that my question rocked him to his core, made him reconsider his life up to this point, caused him to abandon principles he never knew he held. In reality, he was probably making a this-guy-is-an-idiot face to his coworkers on the other end of the line.

“Well, if you feel that way, our organisation might not be a good fit for you.” He hung up and it was over.

Chris Bowler:

We don’t memorize facts any more, partly because there are so many of them available and partly because they’re right at our fingertips. And maybe the problem is not our desire to recall information or find stimulation, but that we’re still limited to accessing this information through clumsy fingers and glass screens. Perhaps once the information is wired through a neural network straight to our grey matter and the facts and details are accessible the second the thoughts come to our mind, this will be a non-issue. There will be no offline.

Thank you:

We all have someone, or some people, who helped bring us to where we are. Their voices are the ones in our head when we know we can think a bit more deeply, or be kinder to the barista, or do some kind of thing that, ultimately, will make us better.

Whether it’s a partner who cheers you on or a dog who gives you a lovely lick when you get home, figure out who makes what you do worthwhile — and give them a big thanks.gaping void

Ula.

Sure, you still have to go to work every day, and you’ve got plenty of responsibilities, but even the busiest person has at least a little free time, and you have no excuse for spending it being bored. The truth is, it’s more likely that you’re not bored, you’re boring.Ula

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

Montgomery Township, New Jersey, United States of America

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I’m not reading many books. I haven’t for many years. I read a lot of long form articles. Most of the articles are about “how to do something”. I have The Hacker Playbook 2 sitting here but I haven’t the notification to read it. Quite frankly, being in learning mode all the time is exhausting.

Perhaps I must make time to sit in bed after breakfast on a Sunday morning and read a novel. Instead of patching my servers, follow up on leads on LinkedIn or pruning the email tree, I could just pick up a sci-fi novel and lose myself in another time and place for a few hours. I haven’t done that since I was single.

I read slowly. It takes me awhile to get the words to go from being just a flow of characters to flow of images. But once I get there I don’t want it tot stop until the story is over. Stopping before the end of the story is like watching a movie over several days. That flow doesn’t work for me. I like to read the same way I watch movies.

I have a lot of books on my iPad in iBooks and Kindle. I have a lot of partially read books. It seems the issue isn’t the medium.

When I was single and living on my own, Saturday morning after completing my weekend “to do” list, I would visit the local bookstore and buy one or two cyberpunk novels. Sunday was my reading day. After breakfast I would lie in bed and read and I wouldn’t stop except for a quick lunch. Then back into bed for more reading. I could easily finish two and sometimes three paperbacks.

My excuse for not reading more is that there are too many interruptions. I have a wife and kids and lying in bed all day, focused on reading, isn’t possible.
So … I stopped reading anything that takes longer then 15 minutes. How do I get back to that reading space? Is reading for no more than 15 minutes damaging my ability to focus?

After writing this I think I have a solution. My wife likes to sleep in on Sunday. She usually gets up around 10:30AM. My daughter as well. My son tends to get up a bit earlier.

On Saturday, I will visit the local Barnes & Noble. I’ll spend some time perusing the shelves. I won’t set a time limit. I’ll just let my self wander until I find a paperback I want to take home. Then on Sunday morning, after I’ve had my breakfast, I’ll climb back into bed next to my sleeping wife and just read.

Note: I wrote this in response to the February 1,2016 writing prompt for the Written with Desk Google+ Community.