notes on Notes

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:32:28 +0200

From another great piece of writing by Joan Westenberg, “Why Belief Beats Discipline”:

We are not consistent with our goals. We are consistent with our identities. And if your identity says you’re inconsistent, undisciplined, doomed to flake or drift or binge or relapse, then the moment you raise your standards, your subconscious files an objection. You “forget” your commitments. You postpone things “just for today.” You start researching better productivity tools instead of doing the actual work. All of it in the service of returning to your known baseline - the set of standards you believe you can meet.

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 03:32:13 +0200

Watching the video “You need to be bored. Here’s Why” where Harvard Professor Arthur C. Brooks explains why boredom is a necessary part of our lives.

One of the reasons we have such an explosion of depression and anxiety in our society today is because people actually don’t know the meaning of their lives.

Good reminder to carve out some boredom time. No phone. No Internet. No distractions.

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 20:04:29 +0200

My favorite hack lately is adding detailed AI prompts to my text expander. Really useful for repetitive tasks like translation requests. Since I use AI primarily for Thai to English translation giving it specific instructions/added context is very useful.

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 15:09:36 +0200

Watched a video on the controversial question “Are wooden pencils better than fountain pens?” and it convinced me to order a wooden pencil and a pencil sharpener. I think it’s been decades since I used a wooden pencil. I have a really nice mechanical pencil that I almost never use because pens have always been my go-to and more so now that I’ve discovered fountain pens. But I’m willing to experiment.

I guess the question is: which wooden pencil? I’ll have to do some research.

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:52:21 +0200

The Ritman Library has digitized 2,178 rare Occult books and made them available in their online reading room.

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:18:57 +0200

I may have broken my website somehow so I’m not sure when today’s post will be going up. If you’re reading this the good news is my website isn’t all broken. Just partly broken.

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:03:53 +0200

Checking out Kite, which is Kagi’s news aggregator. Very simple and easy to set up. You can keep an eye on the news you’re interested in without being overwhelmed by it. Very cool. You can even add it as an RSS feed.

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 14:06:54 +0200

I managed to make enough gold in MoP classic to buy myself a WoW Token. Way easier to make 11K in classic than 300K in retail right now, though I guess it’ll depend how many people keep playing classic. I also played a bit of the new retail patch, but I think I’m having more fun questing through MoP.

I’ll likely return to New World before the October content drop. But for now I’m having fun being zen in Pandaria.

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:57:03 +0200

I’ve enjoyed doing laundry lately, and not in a productive, getting things done kind of way. In a “this is really fun” kind of way.

It’s weird and it won’t last but I’ll enjoy all the clean clothes in the meantime.

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 15:56:01 +0200

So when I said I was going to post here every day in August I guess what I meant is that I will post here at least 31 times in August.

Happy to report that my blogging adventures have inspired at least one person to start blogging (livejournaling) again. My new goal in life is to get all my friends to start/resume blogging. Join the revolution.

I spent all of yesterday playing Mists of Pandaria Classic and I have no regrets. WoW Classic is very relaxing for some reason. But as soon as I got to Pandaria on my newly-boosted level 85 Orc Warlock, I realized I had to turn around and go back to the old world to level my gathering professions. I don’t miss that part.

I watched some of Dark Winds S3 while flying around gathering ore. Today I might listen to some podcasts. See? Relaxing. I’ll either listen to Astonishing Legends or And That’s Why We Drink. Probably the latter.

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 18:33:38 +0200

My bulk order of socks arrived and I took out all the other socks in the drawer, stored them away in a safe location (far away from the laundry vortex) and replaced them with the new socks.

I suppose this isn’t so much defeating the laundry gnomes as it is resigning myself to paying them sock taxes every once in a while, but at least I don’t have to waste time pairing socks since they’re all the same.

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:13:03 +0200

I finally got around to ordering ALL the socks. They should arrive tomorrow.

The sock gnomes may have won the battle, but they won’t win the war!

So far today:

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:42:11 +0200

Went to the dentist.

Broke a tooth.

(In that order).

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:54:56 +0200

I’m convinced there’s some kind of vortex in or near my dryer that opens up during loads and sucks up socks and wool balls. I’m down to one wool ball. I also don’t have a single pair of matching socks anymore. How does this happen? Is it a curse? Is there some kind of portal in my laundry room? Have the underwear gnomes expanded their business ventures?

I have questions.

Caution: Wet Paint

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 15:29:56 +0200

Been in the mood to play around with CSS so both my main site and my micro.blog got a fresh coat of paint. Happy so far though I’ll probably keep playing around with it because it’s fun. Watch your step.

Renewed one of my WoW subscriptions since it’s Comp Stomp week and I still haven’t gotten that mount from Tazavesh. For my second account I bought an overpriced WoW token for 333K gold (ouch) but I’ll leave it in my bags for now. I might let the second account expire, so I’m currently going character by character making sure there’s nothing in the mailbox. Though knowing myself I’ll probably wind up posting auctions anyway. Need to make back those 333K somehow (sob).

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:44:47 +0200

Played around with the CSS after pointing my highlights feed to micro.blog instead of Notion
Gave highlights and notes a different look to differentiate between the two
Added an RSS page

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 20:49:16 +0200

I tried sublime.app and it’s very cool. You clip things you find interesting and it pulls up related clippings that others have added. Other people discover new things because of what you post and you discover new things because of what other people post.

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 17:36:01 +0200

Last night I discovered bearblog.dev and it seems like an excellent blogging platform alternative. Super fast. Super simple. Stripped down to the “bear” essentials. I really like the “discover” page with the trending posts. I added the RSS feed to News Explorer and had a really good time reading through a lot of different blogs.

Something I think people struggle with is finding content to read and the upvote feature helps to make content discoverable without getting sucked into the algorithm.

I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 17:37:28 +0200

Currently reading Joan Westenberg’s “How to Make People Give a Damn” and thinking about how authenticity will only continue to grow in value in the years to come.

Earnestness is radioactive. People sense it through the screen. If you’re saying something because you believe it, people may not agree, but they will listen longer. If you’re saying something because you think it will work, they may like it, but they won’t love it. There is a difference between engagement and emotional investment. One gets clicks. The other gets belief.

This is why a weird, typo-ridden essay on Medium about quitting law school to raise goats can outlast a perfectly edited corporate blog. Because someone meant it. The audience, whether they admit it or not, is starved for sincerity.

There is a reason why the Stoics are back in fashion, why Viktor Frankl sells more copies today than in 1980, and why YouTube is flooded with young men reading Marcus Aurelius to synth music.

People are seeking meaning.

It reminds me of a quote by Harold Kushner in When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: The Search for a Life That Matters:

“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power […] Our souls are hungry for meaning.”

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:49:10 +0200

I’ve been using News Explorer for all of my daily RSS reading, and I love it, but it’s forced me to tweak my workflow. Since I like to use Readwise Reader as my Read It Later/highlighting app of choice, I’m having to take the scenic route by using Instapaper as an intermediary.

News Explorer → Instapaper → Readwise Reader

Sounds clunkier than what I was previously doing which was using the share button to send articles to Reader, but it’s actually much smoother thanks to the integrated swipe action.

I'll Read It

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 16:37:50 +0200

Today I discovered Manuel Moreale’s initiative “I’ll Read It” in which he encourages people to start their own blogs by volunteering to be their first reader:

“I don’t know what to write about” and “what if no one will read it?” These are the two most common reasons why people don’t want to start a personal blog. I already addressed the first one, so let me tackle the second one in the easiest way possible: I’ll read it. If you decide to start a blog in either English or Italian, I’ll read it. I don’t care about the topic. Start a blog, write something, send it to me, and I’ll read it.

I love this. If you have a blog in English, Spanish or French send me the link and I’ll read it.

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 19:57:38 +0200

Feedle is great for finding new RSS feeds to follow. Love that I can batch RSS feeds by topic. Hope they continue to expand their catalogue.

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 19:00:55 +0200

Me: I’ve come to an important life decision
K: Okay…
Me: After many years of battling the sock gnomes—why are you laughing? This is serious.

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:27:11 +0200

Gave my notes a little flair thanks to the CSS snippet from birming.com

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:54:11 +0200

I’ve been trying for the Cartel Master’s Gearglider mount in WoW and even with the Collector’s Bounty buff my luck remains abysmal. I hear if you complain your RNG magically improves so this is me complaining.

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:45:24 +0200

I’ve been watching The Waterfront on Netflix and I haven’t decided if I like it yet. Melissa Benoist is great in this but seeing her in this role makes me miss Kara Danvers. Where are her glasses? Why isn’t she flying around? Anyway, fun fact: I’ll watch anything with Maria Bello in it.

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 17:38:32 +0200

Been trying out a new RSS reader: News Explorer and so far I love it. The way it pulls comments so I can read them on the sidebar without having to click into the site is game-changing, especially for Reddit.