D&F 8/4/25
D&F 8/03/25
Over here in writing-land I'm somewhat out of sorts, as this coming a week late reveals. Work is super busy with hiring and around sixteen direct reports, and when I'm not working I'm either riding my bike, at therapy (massage and psychological), or watching ER. I like my day to day lately but it hasn't left me with a lot of energy for writing. The tough thing about every summer from a link-perspective is that the news tends to slow, and this year the news that has posted is grim. I try not to post a bummer-only missive, or one that's exclusively about bicycles, so it takes a lot more time to collect enough to feel worth sharing.
I've managed to put together a few posts though, and in an effort to give you something beyond global problems to think about, here they are:
Links
- As someone who deletes and reduces a lot of cruft in my life, from old phone numbers to unused clothing and electronics, this article on deleting a "second brain" of notes resonated with me. With the rise of personal knowledge management it's more common to dump all our thoughts into a phone or computer and rely on them for an exhaustive list of ideas and bits of reference for work or creative work, but I can see how that could become a hinderance. To misuse a quote from Wittgenstein, "...anyone who understands [their notes] eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when [they have] used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. ([They] must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after [they] has climbed up it.)" The process of writing notes is much more important than the actual notes themselves, I think. Keeping important numbers or other non-creative data in a file indefinitely is probably no threat to creative writing or thinking, but I think even things like "morning pages" function as practice more than archive.
- I love seeing Bloc Party perform—listening to this set made me fondly remember my twenties and the parties and adventure they soundtracked in my life. Put on your skinny jeans, and pump this Tiny Desk set out of your speakers.
- Did you watch The Pitt? Did it also make you watch over 12 seasons of ER? Then you might enjoy reading about the changing recommendations for "rescue breaths", those breaths in-between chest compression while performing CPR. If I'm reading correctly it boils down to a "skill issue" wherein the average person can't be expected to do a good job, and should instead focus on the compressions themselves. Studying the efficacy of breath or no breath is complicated by not being able to ethically do a study, since ideally every person who needs CPR is given the highest quality care—just like pesky ethics complicates determining the efficacy of many other treatments; once you know something works it's cruel to not use it to prove just how well it works.
- This year if I get my passport back from the renewal process, I plan to ride around Shikoku with my friend Rory. Here's a preview of the route. It'll be a tough ride, but I'm really looking forward to the singularly focused days of putting in hours on the bike and eating convenience store food on the go. I've never been to Shikoku, so going around the whole island seems like an excellent way to explore it. I'll post more as we prepare for our trip, and hopefully write up the whole trip by the end of the year.
Closing
The Tours de France are over, and it's summer break for Formula 1, so my sports-watching is also on hiatus for a little while... which means finishing ER. I can't promise you'll enjoy the show as much as I have, but it's certainly long and engaging. It jumps the shark more than once, but still manages to tug at my heartstrings and build enough engaging characters to make me keep watching.
Whether you're an indoor kid or are spending your summer al fresco, I hope you're enjoying yourself and learning, as I am, how to finally use sunscreen regularly. The world continues to be troubling, but I keep hoping we'll inexplicably see a positive shift. As they say, "on't let the bastards grind you down," space cowgirls~