Hey friends,

We've had a few friends start putting Christmas decorations out which brings up the yearly question of: when does Christmas season start? 🤔🎄

I'm still holding out for the-day-after-Thanksgiving. Let's not overlook one of the most pie-intensive holidays of the year thank-you-very-much! 🥧

Thinking Too Hard 🤔

Last week, I talked about handling stress during The Crunch and I mentioned one of the survival mechanisms is having a good energy reclamation strategy. Or, more specifically, removing 'energy parasites' from your life.

One of the biggest energy parasites we have are our phones.

Herman Martinus recently wrote a post that talks about this very thing:

I care about living an intentional and meaningful life, nurturing relationships, having nuanced conversations, and enjoying the world around me. I don't want to spend this limited time I have on earth watching short form video and getting into arguments on Twitter.

— Herman Martinus, Smartphones and being present

Herman identifies that short-form entertainment (TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc) while engineered to draw us in, actually fractures our attention. Like empty internet calories. His solution? Make his phone as boring as possible—unsubscribing from social media and enabling strategies to not get sucked in by the algorithms.

His strategy won't work for everyone, but I think the premise holds true: if you remove the empty hours in your day, what ELSE could you do with them? Here are a few things that wind up being net-positive for me:

• Read a book.
• Seek out conversations IRL.
• Create something for realsies with your hands.
• Take a walk, or work on your physical fitness.
• Write a journal.
• Seek groups or classes of shared interests.
• Getting out into nature.
• Going to an art gallery, or simply exploring the art gallery that is the weird web.

Not every hour needs to be ultra-productive, but we have control of the QUALITY of our hours. If we need to relax, we should seek QUALITY relaxation. If we want to have a conversation, we should seek QUALITY conversations (which rarely exist on social media, and typically draw from REAL-LIFE relationships).

What are the energy parasites in your life, filling your days with empty hours — and what could you do INSTEAD if you remove them?

Interesting Web Bits 🍿

Web Stuff

• "Somebody with good taste could’ve made my website, but then it wouldn’t be mine." Authentic > Flawless. All day, every day.
• Boyd Kane on how applying typical thinking about 'bugs' doesn't work with AI.
• Open-source, self-hosted file converter.

Other Stuff

• I didn't know what gaussian splats were, but look at Dany's incredible bug... splats? 3D photos? What do we call these? 🐝
• Gina Trapani (of Lifehacker fame who is now blogging again) scoops a quote on 3 ways to spend time making things.
• Shhhh... we all have many questions, but for now just watch these sandwiches rotate. 😵‍💫🥪
• Also, if 50 cents from 1994 is adjusted for inflation...
• Open a window somewhere in the world. 🪟

Watch and Play

• Catepillars are crazy! And these are just a few from my home state of NC!
• A short celebration of the lovely owl. 🦉
• 🎮 Slugoborus like snake but with lots of other hazards!