drafts.org 40 KB
- TODO Your hard work may not be recognized or rewarded
- TODO Unnumbered habits of a questionably effective person"
- TODO Photography
- Taking pictures can be fun
- Taking picutres to preserve memories
- Taking picutres to share and communicate about memories
- Taking picutres to express your creativity
- Taking picutres as "something to do"
- Taking picutres as a social a social activity
- Taking picutres for practical reasons
- Taking picutres to earn a living
- Taking picutres as a habit
- Taking picutres with technology you love
- Conclusion
- TODO stow(1)acism
- TODO Wizards
- TODO the wizards - Oh, the places you'll go.
- TODO image resizing
- resize images by output size imagemagic convert
- TODO Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean their not out to get
- TODO parody
- TODO A Yak-Shaving My Way Towards Embedded Image Descriptions
- TODO Scrolling your life away?
- TODO Live, Laugh, Love … Languish, Lament, Litigate ?
- TODO Why do we hack?
- Footnotes
- TODO Why do I hack?
- TODO do some stuff
- TODO Money Talks
- TODO do the right thing?
- TODO Try writing more, you'll worry less
- TODO "Weem doin' it by the numbers again, Mom"
- TODO Count Your Blessings
- TODO "Branding" volunteer hiking trail maintenance?
- TODO The Bad Old Days. What the office means to me.
- TODO Who 'ya gonna trust? CNN, Podcasts, ChatGPT…
- TODO What matters in work?
TODO Your hard work may not be recognized or rewarded
The short story ..
,#+caption: "Name of work" by WHO is licensed under cc by 2.0 ,#+attr_html: :width 200px images/BAZ.JPG
,#+hugo: more
The long story…
TODO Unnumbered habits of a questionably effective person" orgmode emacs
This is two part rant on planning with (and without) Emacs Org Mode, shoved together into one post in much the same way as Lennon-McCartney songs were shoved together from musical scraps they had laying around. My Frankenstein post will probably have less impact and reach than "A Day In The Life", Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
Rants on org mode, humanity and Bruce
Org mode and planning
These are reflections getting things done (not GTD). Or not getting things done. Or yak-shaving with Emacs and org-mode while pretending to get things done and really just enjoying the experience either way. Maybe that's what org mode is all about anyhow.
Org mode is the best list making tool I've ever found. Org capture let's you capture thoughts, links, TODO items on the fly in the middle of whatever else you're doing and get back to them. You never miss anything.
But we're human
But there are a couple problems. We're human, not AI-driven lisp code knocking off all the TODO items, and we're finite in terms of time, attention, focus, money, friends, skills, etc.
The result is that org mode enables me to grow infinite lists of TODOs. The human brain is good at focusing on maybe 3 things at a time. The path to despair (long undone lists) is obvious. Sometimes I just give up on org mode lists and do things.
Bruce
Long, Long, ago in a tech company far, far away (CompuServe, Columbus, Ohio) there were "how do we migrate off of DEC10 to compete with AOL wars". I knew Bruce McNaughton. Bruce moved on from there to be VP of MSN at Microsoft for a while. Arguably a "Highly Successful Person" (who I'm pretty sure does not use org mode, but does have ligit geek creds). I asked him once how he plans and memories (vague) are that he did not make lists (at the time Franklin Planners and then Franklin Planner software were all the rage). That image stuck with me. Just talk to people and do stuff.
Concluding Rant
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It's about enjoying what you do
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just the act of planning
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maybe actually getting things done, maybe not
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a sense of accomplishment (TODO -> DONE)
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Software can be a tool, a focus, a shiny object or a distraction
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Software can be tyrannical
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Computers are good an infinite lists, humans aren't
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I will die with a TODO list much larger than it is today.
My work planning regime with org mode
That said, here's more-or-less how I plan my days at work. Home/personal stuff is similar, but a little less structured.
Morning Planning
- What's in my head
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capture TODOs form the top of my journal (diaty.org)
- Look at "inputs"
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look at calendar, email and slack in that order.
- Look at existing porjects/plans
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Look at weekly plans, tasks, etc
- ?
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Juggle all these and figure out what I'm going to try to do that day
During the day
- Capture new stuff and move on
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Quickly capture new asks, TODOs (org-capture) and move.
- Capture info
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capture info (links to HOWTOs, etc in the same file)
- Keep a calendar open
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Keep a calendar window open so I don't miss thigns
- Turn off all notificatons
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Turn off all email, slack, etc. notificatons and pop-iups so I can control my focus.
- Check email, slack on my schedule
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Check in somewhat frequently with slack, email so people can get ahold of me in a somewhat timely fashon. If it's urgent, call or text. Voice calls seem to be a dying breed ("BR 549", "Pensylvania 6-5000")
- Minimize yak shaving
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I tend to yak-shave a lot. Like writing this post. Watch it.
Organizing Time
- Do "thinking work early"
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plan do do "thiking work" early in the day
- Do "collaboration work mid-day"
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do 1:1s, collaboration mid-day
- Do "meetings late-day"
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Push meetings, interrupts, etc late day
Where to store "TODOs"
- one file
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I increasly just store TODOs, info , etc to one file (diary.org) which is a diary-like file organized under Year/Month/Day/ENTRY items.
- project files
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I do have planning files for most projects with TODOs etc
- agenda
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I do use org-agenda to get a roll-up agenda view, but more and more I'm just going with the inverse-stack, what's at the bottom of my diary.org and using mental prirotization.
Projects template
And because this post is getting too long already, I'll make it longer.
Here is the org project template that I've developed over the last decade or so. I still use it, but I'm moving more and more to capturing everything in diary.org/the journal and maybe linking out to these project files.
A couple notes. "OODA" refers to the "OODA Loop". At times, its a useful paradigm for thinking about action, think Snoopy and the Red Barron: Snoopy Observes the Red Barron, he Orients himself, he Decides to let the Red Barron live to fight another day, and the Acts by disengaging the dogfight.
"Cogita", "Fac", and "Dic" are Latin singular imperatives for "Think", "Act", "Speak". Another paradigm for thinking about actions. Figure out what you're doing, gather info, plan, then do stuff, then talk about it (blogs, reports, papers, meetings, sales…)
# #+options: ':nil *:t -:t ::t <:t H:3 \n:nil ^:nil arch:headline # #+options: author:t broken-links:nil c:nil creator:nil # #+options: d:(not "LOGBOOK") date:t e:t email:nil f:t inline:t num:2 # #+options: p:nil pri:nil prop:nil stat:t tags:t tasks:t tex:t # #+options: timestamp:t title:t toc:t todo:t |:t # #+title: PROJECT # #+date: <2022-12-25 Sun 07:50:58> # #+author: George Jones # #+email: ME @ SOMEWHERE # #+language: en # #+select_tags: export # #+exclude_tags: noexport # #+creator: Emacs 28.0.50 (Org mode 9.3.7) # This is a project to...(overview/intro)... # * PROJECT # ** PROJECT - Info :cogita:Ooda: # - Observe :: Gather Raw Information. # - Think (Cogita) :: Thoughts, Brainstorming, etc. # *** Info about the project # *** Links # - project directory :: file://~/home/private/FOO # + change this # + create directory # + keep project files here. # *** HOWTOs # - Links of HOWTO articles relevant to the project # ** PROJECT - Background # - Add any background info here (old files, plans, projects..) # ** PROJECT - Planning :cogita:oODa: # - Think :: Think about observations and info gathered # - Orient :: "Figure out which way is up" # - Decide :: Decide what your doing, which way to go. # *** Goals # *** Plans # ** PROJECT - Action Items :fac:oodA: # - Act/DO (Fac) :: Actions to take on info and plans # ** PROJECT - Meetings and Reports :dic: # - "After action reports" # - Tell people what happened. # - Have meetings, write reports, etc. (as needed) # ** PROJECT - Backlog
TODO Photography
Why take pictures?
My father got a degree in photography form Ohio University in 1958 had a career in various forms of photography and microfilm and took a lot of personal pictures and slides of family, trips, etc. I recently started looking through his slides (1953-1991), and asked myself "why take pictures?". This post explores that question.
If you just want to snap selfies and post them to Metabook without thinking about why, it's time to stop reading. The unexamined photo is not worth taking.
Warning number two. I over-analyze most things. I'm probably over-analyzing the question "Why take pictures?", but here goes…
Dad largely stopped taking pictures after Mom died. Why? That gave rise to the reverse question that this post explores: why take pictures? There are pictures from his high school years, marriage, family (that's me), trips, grand-kids, and, of course one of his favorite subjects, dead trees.
Why take pictures?
Taking pictures can be fun
It can be fun to take pictures. You get to choose the subject, take the picture, have them developed (or, even more fun, do it yourself in the basement with smelly chemicals, an enlarger, photographic paper and red lights), edit them (Dad was a vicious self editor, even in the days where you got one or maybe two shots on the film you had … insisting that the bad ones be thrown out) put them in albums or slide shows, creating your own title slides with colored chalk drawings and then gathering everyone in the basement for the slide show with the projector on the big white screen in front of the TV.
We will, of course, omit the fun of arranging your family for endless staged family photos which everyone in the family always loved to participate in and fondly remembers to this day.
Taking picutres to preserve memories
Then of course, there is preserving memories. I have pictures on both sides at least as far back as my great-great grandparents.
Here's whats on my dresser now… PICTURE OF DRESSER
Taking picutres to share and communicate about memories
I wound up being chief photographer, editor, picture developer, layout guy, fund-raiser and school coke-machine-re-stocker for my high school yearbook junior year. Of course, I shot most of the pictures on 35mm with Dad's Retna IIa and a light meter and developed the black and white photos in the basement on his enlarger.
We've had a few high school reunions. That yearbook (and others) always come out. Who could ever forget Duane, our 50+ year old math teacher dressing up in a ballet outfit with tights, a wand and a little crown to play his role as the "Credit Fairy" granting that last 1/4 credit people needed for graduation, or the time 10 or 20 of us carried a VW Beetle into the gym? Pictures don't lie…well…
PICTURE OF DUANE HERE
"Memories, like the corners of my mind…"
Taking picutres to express your creativity
Taking picutres as "something to do"
"To be is to do." Socrates. "To do is to be." Plato. "Do-be-do-be-do." Sinatra.
But, to be fair to Frank, he did record (not write) some semi-profound lyrics on the need to just get out there and just do things:
"That's Life"
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing Each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race
That's Life…
Taking picutres as a social a social activity
Taking picutres for practical reasons
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Fallen trees on AT
Taking picutres to earn a living
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Be careful about mixing your passion and your work. Sometimes if you work in a field that is also your passion/hobby, you can loose the joy or burn out. "The cobblers kids have no home photographs" (not true in our case).
I love playing with computers, programming, networking, data-wrangling and security stuff (what I do for a living), but after 2-4 hours of personal hacking and then 8+ hours of doing it at work, sometimes, I'm just done. Doing what you love for a living take the joy out of the hobby.
Taking picutres as a habit
Taking picutres with technology you love
Dad loved trains and cameras. In 2014 or 2015 we went on a camping trip and visited the Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Virgina, which combined these passions. Link was a high end NYC photographer in the 1950s who chose to make multiple trips to Virginia to document the last years of the age of steam trains, which happened to be the same era Dad was getting into photography. Link set up huge arrays of flash-bulbs to take you-only-get-one-shot night photos of trains, huge, engineered Rube Goldberg setups using the same technology Dad was using at the time and learning in college. They have some of the photographic equipment Link used in the museum. Dad was almost giddy looking at the equipment that most people glance at and say "that's interesting".
WINSTON LINK PICTURE
Growing up we had lots of photographic "stuff" around the house: cameras, an enlarger and dark room equipment, the slide projector and screen, light tables for viewing slides, mailers for sending film to the Kodak processing centers in Findlay, Ohio and Rochester, NY, and of course the endless supply of 35mm film canisters that saw double duty as pill bottles and many other uses. I still have a good supply of them.
Dad never really made the transition to digital photography. We bought him a Cannon EOS Rebel T3, and he used it some, but for whatever reasons (explored in depth here) he never really took to it. Maybe the time had passed. Maybe he had learned all he wanted to learn. Maybe the reasons for taking pictures were gone.
Conclusion
It's not just about pictures, of course. Much of this generalizes. H
TODO stow(1)acism
I am currently listening to Marcus Aurelius' meditations, but this is not a post about stoicism, it's a post about stow(1)acism
Describe my use of stow(1), git and {home,work}/{public,private,secret}/FOO
The short story ..
The long story…
TODO Wizards
The short story ..
The long story..
TODO the wizards - Oh, the places you'll go.
The short story ..
The long story…
TODO image resizing
The short story ..
The long story… * 2022-01-28 Friday
resize images by output size imagemagic convert HOWTO
[2022-01-28 Fri 05:24]
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convert png to jpg, specifying output file size in bytes
convert thinker.png -define jpeg:extent=100k thinker.jpg
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jpg does not support transparency (GIF does)
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convert png to smaller png, preserving transparent background and resizing (by pixels, not bytes)
convert thinker.png -background transparent -resize 10% thinker-10pct.png -
convert png to smaller gif (because Steve!), with transparency convert thinker.png -background transparent -resize 10% thinker-20pct.gif
TODO Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean their not out to get snark
you !!!
Illuminati … self-aware snark and parody is healthy.
The long story…
TODO parody
The short story ..
You know about
The onion
But did you know about
https://wittenburgdoor.com/about/
Mennonite parody site in canada
The Bee
I'll probably be canceled for admitting I even know about these sites, and for laughing at their humor (where's that not-so-hidden-microphone, Google?)
But it really helps to lighten up. Try it.
TODO A Yak-Shaving My Way Towards Embedded Image Descriptions
I’m setting up to digitize a lot of pictures, mostly things I’ve taken over the years and pictures from my father. I'm trying to figure out the best way to embed descriptions, copyright, etc. directly into images in a way that will work with image management programs (gthumb, etc.) and by blogging setup (hugo, ox-hugo)
It's turning into a true Emacs Org Mode, Hugo, EXIF and IPTC yak-shaving adventure. But of course, I will save time and get more done in the long rung….right….yak-shave away :-)
How
One of the things I want to do is embed descriptions and copyright and license info directly into the pictures. It looks like Exif has been around a while and will let you do this, though it was originally focused on metadata around the mechanics of the picutre: exposure time, f-stop, etc. It looks like IPTC is the new/newer standard for embedding this sort of information.
Requirements
Things I’m concerned with are:
- Embedding
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That I’m able to add descriptions, license and copyright info
- Portable and long lasting
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That that info be impeded in the image (not in some proprietary format, external to the image, or specific to one application)
- Versitile
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That it work with a variety of the formats I’m likely to use (JPG, PNG, TIFF, possibly GIF)
Secondarily I’m would like it to work with:
- my blogging software
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hugo_ox-hugo that I use to produce my static blog. Some discussions around that here https:/_fosstodon.org/@eludom/107753707224027594
- image management programs
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gthumb, eog, etc on Linux
Work In Progress
Make it work in raw hugo
Exif shortcodes in hugo https://blog.zedas.fr/posts/hugo-shortcode-picture-exif/, https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/properly-formatting-exif-data-tag-exposure-time/32415/8
Make it work with ox-hugo
The path seems to lead through shortcodes in hugo, and thus shortcodes in ox-hugo: https://ox-hugo.scripter.co/doc/shortcodes/
TODO Scrolling your life away?
The short story ..
Have you ever created antying useful made a significant contribution to society while scrolling through things on your phone?
It seems to me that time spent on phones is somewhat of a dead end. I have useful thoughts when I get out and go for long walks in the woods or sit down with a pencil and paper journal. I create things when I'm on a keyboard in front of a computer screen.
Scrolling just seems like a narcissistic pastime.
TODO Live, Laugh, Love … Languish, Lament, Litigate ?
I'm not a fan of fake bright-faced slogans and trinkets. Take this little angel on the window-sill above our sink
I prefer what I wrote on the back side "Job's boils"
The front side reads "…accept Gods will…"
OK, maybe whoever is standing there doing dishes would rather be doing something else, but doing dishes is hardly a "curse" or calamity. Just suck it up and get the job done. No frilly angel art or trite phrases required.
"Job's boils" references a guy who's kids were all killed, all his livestock were stolen all for reasons he never understood (God was settling a bet with Satan behind the scenes and using Job effectively as a pawn.) Then his wife gave him the helpful advice "[Admit that all you did something wrong and you're only getting what you deserve] Job, curse God and die." Now there's encouragement.
So rather than look at the front side of a frilly piece of angel art (or the happy, unrealistic bits of life and the "praise and worship" music that's vogue in many churches) I prefer the back-side with a direct, realistic reference to the pain, suffering, disease and death that are inevitable for all of us.
Take the world as it is, make your next move, trust that there is some purpose or, you know, "curse God and die". Your choice.
Memento mori[1]. Ecce homo[2].
[1] "Remember that you are mortal". A Stoic motto. Also supposedly, when a Roman general was riding into the city for his Triumph, there was a slave riding in the chariot with him to keep wispering this in his ear.
[2] "Behold the Man". The words of Pontius Pilate in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned mockingly with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion.
TODO Why do we hack? 100DaysToOffload
Why do we hack? Because we enjoy it? Because we want others to use our work? Because we get paid?
Once again emacs-conf went to the source and gave us a chance to hear from and interact with RMS.
People in the public eye often get on (get put on) a soapbox repeating the same lines. Stallman even chose to open by playing an 8 year old TED talk he did extolling software freedom. Certainly not new, but once in a while it's refreshing to return to primary sources rather than news or other mediated views. This talk and the Q&A was a straight view in the heart, soul and source of the Free Software movement.
I asked two questions on the webpad which he answered. In both cases I was trying to get past the repeated soapbox points to what makes the person underneath tick.
Despite the utter profusion of tools built around the ecosystem he created over the past 40 years (just look at the program of emacsconf and the contents of the *LPA archives), several of his comments lead me to believe he still views emacs as "just an editor", so to clarify I asked:
Q: What do you use emacs for beyond editing?
A: I use it for reading and writing email; this is what I do most of the day. (Sings) "I've been answering my email, all the god-damned day / .. / <transcriber lost the thread about here [lyrics available at https://stallman.org/doggerel.html#IveBeenAnsweringMyEmail]
Which confirmed my suspicion about non-use of the ecosystem…. but a live performance of his own parody song about email? Score one for touching the human behind the troupe.
As someone who's been around computers and Emacs long enough to have started using the TECO based emacs something like 3 years after RMS created it (c.a. 1979), I look back fondly on some of the tech I've used (all of which included versions of emacs): TOPS20, TOPS10 (!), Multics, VMS, BSD Unix, SunOS, Solaris, etc and thanks to places like SDF and friends I can still log in and tinker in those environments once in a while. At emacsconf 2020 Stallman waxed nostalgic for a moment about (I think) DDT (Dynamic Debugging Tool) or similar for a minute and the sense of control it gave, so this year I probed:
Q: Do you ever dabble in retro-computing, e.g. logging into TOPS10/20 systems SDF, etc?
A: No, I decided it's a waste of time. It's tinkering that would not develop anything of any importance or use. And I know if I'm going to enjoy developing something… I could enjoy developing anything… I decided not to distract my attention from useful computing.
So that's revealing. It acknowledges the existential pleasure of creating, in any environment, but only values creations that are likely to be used by others in "modern" systems.
I have a son who's about to finish a doctorate in piano performance. Clearly it's legitimate for him to perform for the enjoyment of audiences, that is "useful". But I think it was also legitimate for him, a child, to sit down at the harpsichord in the hallway of George Washington's Mount Vernon and to knock out baroque pieces for the sheer joy of it, I don't think that was a "distraction" or "waste of time".
A lot of what makes Emacs what it is, is the accretion of scratch-you-own-itch solutions (org-mode, for instance) done for oneself and possibly the pleasure of just writing the code and making things work, and then shared as an afterthought. In this context GNU Emacs itself is now 40 years old and was at the time a re-implementation of a then 7 or 8 year old system (TECO Emacs) targeted to run on a re-implementation of a system (Unix) created in 1969. Today (much to my amazement) there are STILL people into the Amiga1, C-64s, and PDP-10's that run on raspberry-pi's. I once had an office-mate who "wrote" his own version of the Z80 in Verilog, because he could.
I appreciate the desire to have one's software used widely, but I think its equally valid for people to do their own thing, possibly in nitch areas or on obsolete platforms, just because they want to. I'd even say these are prime examples of people exercising software freedom on their own hardware and, at least to them, this is "useful computing".
Hat's off to RMS for Emacs, GCC, Core Utils, the GPL, FSF, Free Software…
Happy Hacking !!!
Footnotes
TODO Why do I hack? 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
The long story…
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Reflections on my last interactions with Wilhite, him still hacking Ada
TODO do some stuff 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
The long story…
Sacha Chua favourited your post 14h eludom sachac@emacs.ch George Jones :emacs: :orgmode: @eludom @jgoerzen @jtr @sachac For work daily planning I've taken to a hybrid planning model.
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Collect a list of top-of-the-head TODOS in one file (daily.org/journal) without reference to the infinite lists.
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Then maybe mix in some stuff from the infinite lists. Try to keep it doable in a day.
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do some stuff during the day.
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realize it won't all get done. Make peace wit that fact and focus on what you do finish.
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Also journal/note go to diary.org through the day. One file to look at.
From:
https://fosstodon.org/@eludom/109564736411627471
TODO Money Talks 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
Lately I've been reading the Humble Dollar
Financial Education for me, long neglected
Sure, it's aimed at just-pre and just post retirement people with "some money", but touches many other areas.
Touches:
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Family
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Psychology
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Values
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Faith
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Yes, Politics
"If it can't be measured, it dosn't exixt"
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Some truth (but not astethics, enjoyment, creativity, meaning…)
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money does that to some degree
Even if you don't have a lot of money, I think the site is worth a read. You'll learn a lot about money, but, more importantly, you'll learn about yourself.
I wish I'd read this sort of stuff a lot earlier (e.g. I sat out most of the post 2008 crash over political fears … looking at the long track record of the markets and trusting them might have been better. I have similar concerns today.). I probably would have made better decisions, had less anxiety, and maybe helped other people more effectively with the resources at my disposal.
TODO do the right thing? 100DaysToOffload
"much government spending is immoral, hence reducing taxes is a moral imperative"
The long story…
"much government spending is immoral, hence reducing taxes is a moral imperative"
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observation
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potentially inflammatory statement
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but it makes you think o who do you trust with money
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your money?
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other people's money?
o what are your values?
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who's lined up with your values
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you?
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your family? o e.g. if I'm making a do I WANT to leave large piles of money to my kids? Will the "do the right things" with it?
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your church?
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other organizations?
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the government?
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more of a problem the more money you have
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John Wesley quote on money?
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greed and envy
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are tendencies when you don't have a lot of money o or think you don't have a lot of money o or listen incessantly to sources that tell you don't have a lot of money
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compare wealth of "poor" person in US/western countries today with, say, "poor" in 1900.
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greed and envy are not good for your psyche o better idess
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"enough"
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gratitude
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thankfulness
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congratulate others for their good luck/fortune/hard work
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Allow others to have moral responsibility
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Andrew Carnegie may have exploited people, but their are also libraries in his name across the US o Am I willing to allow people to do the "wrong" thing with their own money? o People with large private wealth sometimes do good things that no government bureaucracy would ever sign off on.
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TODO Try writing more, you'll worry less 100DaysToOffload
The past couple weeks, I've intentionally cut the phone out my morning routine. I was writing a daily journal (on paper), about a page or two. I've always found that to be cathartic, as well as a good way to organize my thoughts and do some day-to-day planning. Now I'm writing two daily journals.
The second one is an attempt to capture family history and oral tradition. A lot of history, artifacts and stories have landed on me after 150 or 200 years. I'm "getting them out" in a semi-organized manner. There will probably be online versions later, but I find the process of writing on paper leads to much more creativity at the start.
Which leads me back to the start of this post. You can start you day doom-scrolling, filling your head with sound bites, stories of political (and other) apocalypses, or you can use the time to create, reflect and plan before spending the time you this day. Your choice.
(turns out this is version 2 of my previous post…)
TODO "Weem doin' it by the numbers again, Mom" 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
When we were kids and Dad took us to shower at the campground, there were apparently mental list of how to do it, a phrase from my distant childhood memory (probably age 2 or 3) has me telling mom (still working out grammar) "Weem [we am] doing it by the numbers again, Mom"
TODO Count Your Blessings 100DaysToOffload
Do something radical.
Count your blessings, name them one by one
Literally. Do it. Write them down. Meditate on all the good stuff in your life. Maybe even give thanks.
https://hymnary.org/text/when_upon_lifes_billows_you_are_tempest
TODO "Branding" volunteer hiking trail maintenance?
In your "Presidents Log Book Entry" in the monthly newsletter, you talked about the need for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) to build its "brand identity" to reach our target "consumers". About that…
I'm involved in PATC as a trail maintainer and an avid hiker with 1700 miles of an AT Section hike over 14 years. I'm in it to meet the likes of Tom Johnson, one of your predecessors as PATC president. I ran into him once in the middle of a long day-hike, corresponded a bit and devoured the copy of the history of the PATC which he wrote and sent to me shortly before he passed on while leading a hike. I'm in it to work with Jon & Katherine Rindt, Mosby district supervisors. I admire their non-ceasing selfless work to clear 100s of blow downs, corral the cats (volunteers like me), fix signage, work with the county/state/parks to get parking lots fixed, etc. I'm in it to take trail maintenance classes from the likes of Robert Fina and to, again, admire the dedication, learning and investment of time and resources he puts into it. I do my little bit, but there are giants out there. I'm in it to take walks with my family, to meet casual hikers and to talk to the steady stream of thru-hikers who are on a mission. I'm in it drag my daughter-in-law, a professional ornithologist, out with me to do maintenance and to be amazed as she identifies 30+ in species of birds around us on one outing without even seeing most of them. She then put together a display about the birds that is in the display case at the Tucker Lane parking lot (thanks to Jon, too).
So, yeah, brand identity. I'd welcome to chance to get to know you and to talk to you about it, one-on-one. I could use some help cleaning out water bars and weed-wacking my section once the vegetation gets going later this spring. Let me know if you'd like to help.
TODO The Bad Old Days. What the office means to me. 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
The long story…
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Broken WIFI
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Broken Video Conferencing
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City noise
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People having to find/fight for conference rooms
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extroverts assume their preferences, style and choice of career should be normative for introverts. Late risers…
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HR promotional blurbs on big screens in common areas promoting whatever it is HR promotes, convincing themselves, I'm sure that they are relevant and needed, but, in fact just sucking down revenue, mostly failing in attracting good candidates (see buying talent via acquisitions vs. normal hiring process) drawing focus off productive work.
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hits of the return of office politics
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badges
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TODO Who 'ya gonna trust? CNN, Podcasts, ChatGPT… 100DaysToOffload
The short story ..
On my Mastadon feed this week, the question was asked
"Why have #podcasts become so popular in the last few years? What's changed?"
I think there are a lot of answers. Mine include
No need for the overhead or editorial control of older media forms. Lower production and distribution costs. A wide range of presenters and topics.
Thinking a little further, I think there's going to be another HUGE reason to tune unto long-form talking-heads/analysis style podcasts: You can be pretty sure (at last for a while) that the people talking are people, not, e.g. ChatGPT spitting out articles. If you want to hear what PEOPLE are saying and thinking, for the time being podcasts are it.
When we get to the point that AI generation of TV anchors and White House press secretaries is common place, we will have arrived at an existential crisis of trust in all mass-market delivered content.
At that point, your best bet will be to have live, in-person, one-on-one interactions with real people. And, come to think of it, in any event, talking to people more might not be such a bad idea.
TODO What matters in work? 100DaysToOffload
The chart below is a mental framework I've used to evaluate my work situation over the span of may career. The goal is to move as far up the pyramid as you can. Being at the top (interesting )is really a first or zeroth world problem. Insert discussion of human flourishing/εὐδαιμονία here. If you're failing at a lower level, the upper layers really don't matter.
file:/home/gmj/home/public/art/maslow2023.png
The Amiga was my first computer. I was the first person to port an Emacs editor to the Amiga, porting a version of what became "MicroEmacs" and mg to it and receiving a phone call from one of the core Amaga engineers at Commodore asking if they could use it after I posted to comp.sources.amiga