Dgplug

*Image, courtesy [Tom Gauld][tgt]* This post was first sent to my newsletter on February 1st, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) Welcome to the first, “serious” newsletter of 2021. This was supposed to be my year end post, but life, as usual got in the way. Now that I’ve jammed both the blogs together, most of the personal stuff is going to stay focussed on stuff about books and reading and writing and a few photos thrown in once in a while for good measure. Seems like that is what I was doing most of last year, anyway. ...

That long winded message was what greeted me this morning when I did my morning update the computer routine. E: linux-firmware: installed linux-firmware package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 2 Nothing like a bug that sticks in your craw and prevents you from starting the day. And then leads you down that crazy path of figuring out what the error is. And then going down the rabbit hole of realising that this error happened because that went wrong. And then tracking it all down. And then going batshit crazy. And then trying to figure whether updating Linux was a good thing to do in the first place. And then wondering if even installing it was a good thing? And then questioning your life choices in general. ...

I have been telling the young ones, that reading the things they consider important, needs to be engaged. Engaged with the words. Engaged with the flow. With the author. Her ideas. The way she makes her case. Or tells her story. To wrestle with what is being said, or left unsaid. To build a mental model with the ideas being presented. To write it all down. To wrestle with the work and draw your own conclusions. (which might not necessarily be what the author intends). ...

This is just a play post to do a few things. One, I am now testing categories for the blog. So that the tech folk can subscribe only to the tech rss feed if need be. Second, I need to get into the swing of writing things again. It’s only been close to a month of not writing, but I already feel rusty 😂 I have been watching a lot of Netflix and other online streaming media last year. Well lot is relative. Definitely not as many as the books. But what I realise, is that I just spend my time endlessly browsing through what I want to watch rather than, you know, actually watching something. I also realise that most of my watching is mostly stuff I already watched. I want my old Holmes, or Yes Minister, or Suchet’s Poirot. Stuff I already have, offline. But not easily accessible, since it lies on an external hard disk, which I need to plugin to my desktop and then watch. ...

This post was first sent to my newsletter on December 7th, 2020. You really ought to subscribe :) The beginning is always today. — Mary Shelley The biggest obstacle to ultralearning is simply that most people don’t care enough about their own self-education to get started Finding Time for Ultra learning What matters is the intensity, initiative, and commitment to effective learning, not the particulars of your timetable ...

This post was first sent to my newsletter on November 16th, 2020. You really ought to subscribe :) Teaching Birds How to Fly, & Skin in the Game! via pixabay This probably is the last post, I have on Antifragile, for now. These lessons over the past few weeks are those, that have sunk in for me, and something that I use on a daily basis. I’ll write more as I learn and internalise some new piece of wisdom (knowing the book, I’m sure I will). ...