Digital reading lessgoooo
Hit and Miss #349
Hello!
Plenty on the go today—the tyranny of small tasks, or whatever it’s called, loads of logistics to do on top of all the normal hopes and aspirations of a weekend.
In the most meta of ways, I’ve been reading a fair bit about digital reading, and re-thinking the tools I use to do so (using the neglected “notes” feature of my site for that thinking!).
Craig Mod shared some of his most recent thoughts on the theme, discussing the combo of Readwise Reader and an e-ink device for long-form digital reading.
Building on what I’d written in that note, in using Reader a bit the last few days, it scratches nicely my itch for better long-form digital reading and annotating. My normal approach is to encounter something in NetNewsWire on computer or phone and open it in the app or a tab. This leads either to blocked usage of the app (you can only open one thing at a time) or a pile of tabs. Reader, by contrast, tracks your progress in reading a piece, so it’s much lower stakes to walk away from it and come back later, without losing your place.
Also, Readwise isn’t VC-funded (as reaffirmed late 2022), which is another big plus to me (neither is Pinboard, which is part of why I like it—it’s one dude!).
As of this week, of course, I now need to go two places to find links to share in this newsletter (until I get Readwise/Reader -> Pinboard sync set up), but that’s a fine problem for now.
Now, some links plus tiny Lucas thoughts:
- Martha with two good, very different posts recently: why a “Teams organization” feels so different than a “Slack organization” (when I moved from a Slack org to a Teams org, I was struck by just how quiet it felt—and, as Martha notes, the relative inaccessibility / awful UI of “everyone” channels makes working in the open so painful); and her discussion of her own experience with neurodiversity.
- This piece came out while I was on a decently disconnected vacation last year, but Mandy Brown’s discussion of talkers and writers and how best to work together has been mind-nourishing food for thought after a week where just these tendencies were on very visible display at my work.
- It’s neat to see the Nova Scotia CSDS team (and, more specifically, my former deskmate John Kenney!) share their new approach to legacy tech.
- First, because it’s a Canadian digital government team with an active blog. Second, because the broader definition of “legacy” contained within (not just the tech!) is crucial to approaching this thorny problem.
- Another way I’ve found helpful for thinking about or identifying legacy stuff: how predictable or manageable is its behaviour if something changes, whether in the system’s context or its inputs?
- Many of these perfectionist cooking thoughts strike painfully close to home. (via Sameer)
- I appreciate the nudge here to re-set standards around what “good” cooking or food needs to look like—particularly as I’ve been struggling to going in the kitchen lately, despite the fun and satisfaction the process of cooking itself brings me.
- Something I’ve been doing for this, learned from Helen Rebanks’s The Farmer’s Wife, is to freeze bacon with wax paper between the slices, so you can always quickly add a slice of bacon to whatever easy meal you’re making—because a slice of bacon is invariably that indulgent, delicious piece that makes you feel at least a little better (admittedly, it can sometimes feel uphill to do the bacon freezing in the first place! but we try!!)
To finish, an assortment of fun links:
- I’ll always share a good “walking and thinking” post.
- This map of Hacker News went around this week. Simon Willison’s summary of some of the fun and impressive data engineering bits was a helpful overview to the creator Wilson Lin’s in-depth write-up of the project.
- Maria Popova quoting J.A. Baker’s beautiful writing on the peregrine, borne from long, close observation.
- Loved this profile of a carpenter who works on the most expensive, most absurd houses in New York City. So many great details throughout: the multidisciplinarity of it, the precision in measurements, the absurdity of the requests. And, for Ellison himself, details emerge that eventually link woodworking, gardening, and a firehouse—HOW COULD I NOT LINK THIS ONE!?
All the best for the week ahead!
Lucas