Dan J’s Website

I always find Seth's posts insightful. And he posts so many of them, and they're so concise... that basically he's a walking example of why writing and publishing every day is the only way to get great at being a writer and a publisher.

This post captures so well why "just try harder not to make mistakes" is a dead end that I just want to quote all of it, but since that's not really how I want the web to work, just a couple highlights before you go read the rest (it's only 416 words):

It seems ridiculous that a surgeon needs to write her name (with a Sharpie) on the limb that she’s about to operate on, but this simple system adjustment means that errors involving working on the wrong limb will go to zero.

In school, we harangue kids to be more careful, and spend approximately zero time teaching them to build better systems instead. We ignore checklists and processes because we’ve been taught that they’re beneath us.

The ego that makes us think we're "above" simple systems for eliminating mistakes is as hardwired a part of our humanity as the imperfect memory.

Letting go of the one lets us solve for the other.

This is an excellent—and harrowing—look at the downsides that come with being well-known.

Various measures of "success" in today's world seem to bring some measure of fame along with them—insofar as you have to create content to get people's attention, for a lot of small creators especially, that attention is focused on you.

This quote (and the quotes it includes) sums up how I feel about fame:

During my college years, one of my dorm mate’s dads was a famous Hollywood producer. He once said to me, “You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.”

Taking it a step further, we could quote Bill Murray:

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: ‘try being rich first.’ See if that doesn’t cover most of it. There’s not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job. . . . The only good thing about fame is that I’ve gotten out of a couple of speeding tickets. I’ve gotten into a restaurant when I didn’t have a suit and tie on. That’s really about it.

Being rich would suit me fine. Being rich and famous would be obnoxious, as per Mr. Murray. The worst thing, reading Tim's article, would be being famous without being rich (emphasis mine):

If you don’t have your own ammo, [extortion] can be catastrophic. In other words, if you have more fame than resources, you paint yourself into a vulnerable corner. If you have fewer options and fewer allies, you’ll be attractive to predators.

You might think, "how likely is it that I would be famous at all?" But if you're building an audience on the internet in order to, for example, build an online business... well, this article will tell you about the inevitable downsides that come with an audience that climbs up beyond "tribe" size to "city" size.

I'm going to meditate on this one on the regular, as I try to build any sort of business or brand for myself.

A couple tactical notes:

• If you run an email list, using something like ConvertKit or Mailchimp, you have probably needed to provide an address; emails from mailing lists need to contain a postal address for the business as an anti-spam measure (I don't know the source of that specific requirement). Don't use your home address for this. Even if you have a tiny mailing list... all it takes is one unsavoury person signing up. Rent a P.O. Box, if at all possible, or some similar thing in your own jurisdiction.
• I've been meaning to get a "virtual" phone number (or more than one), and use it in places that require a phone number instead of my actual mobile. Again, if you catch any level of fame, this becomes far more important. You don't want your contact info logged somewhere that people from the internet can find it, and our existing institutions are notoriously bad at keeping personal info like this private. Best to keep your real information behind a smoke screen as much as possible.

It's a stunning thought, to the point of vertigo, how much time and energy and sweat and blood we invest in a life we don't actually want.

[...]

It is no surprise that the people we admire took alternate paths.

Both Coulton and the sadly-defunct The Last Psychiatrist blog were essential inspirations for the extremely gradual path I've been taking from the life I somewhat-blindly entered after university to the life I actually want. I'm pinning—and sharing—this post as a reminder. ❤️

I have really mixed feelings about this massive article, which I'm bookmarking because I'm only part way through it.

The good: it's full of extremely tactical actions you can take right now, while you're reading it.

The bad: it's on Medium 😛; the writer is, um, rather pretentious and self-satisfied; the constant appeals to personal longevity are, I think, off the mark. If you're going to change a bunch of settings to reclaim your time and attention, a la Digital Minimalism, do it because it improves the quality of your life and your interactions with others and the world around you. The idea that you should set your wallpaper to a picture of your pet because there's some statistical correlation between looking at a dog and having 10% less chance to die of a heart attack (paraphrasing :P) is so... I don't know, it's kind of everything that makes me roll my eyes about the tech-yuppie-utopian-immortality set. Like, sure, do whatever you can to preserve your physical health, but maybe that could be lower on your list of priorities (i.e. choose quality over quantity).

Still. An article I want to refer back to. Probably.

It's obnoxious that this is even required—and who knows how effective it is to opt out of any of these companies. Are they trustworthy?—But it's worth taking a look, for the sake of your online hygiene.

I like Curtis's post about finding open alternatives to even excellent apps like Ulysses: in the longish run, I'd like to do the same. Bookmarking this for reference (and props).

This is one of those things I find myself needing to do to keep my place tidy, and it's easy to let it slide if you don't know the process, and then the next thing you know you've had this stupid blue plastic bag lying in the corner of your entryway for months, and you don't realize it but it's slowly driving you mad.

So, better to just fold 'em up, put an elastic band around them, and put them in the closet:

1. Push the bottom in, like an "inverted taco"
2. Flatten the sides outward, so the bag, lying flat on its side, has a sort of "boat" shape
3. Fold the handles down onto the bag
4. Fold the sides of the bag over top of the handles, so the outline is now a rectangle
5. Fold one side over top the other, basically folding the rectangle in half
6. Now fold the handles at the top downwards, and then fold again, so you've folded it vertically in thirds
7. Now you've got the bag into a small rectangular shape; Put an elastic band around to keep it like that

(via youtube search)

This is an excellent episode. Tristan is eloquent about where the attention economy came from, and what we would need to do to counter its massive negative effects.

I got back into running recently, and am following this training guide, which basically starts you out mixing a little jogging with your walking, but steadily works its way up to running for one hour non-stop (after 13 weeks).

Slow and steady avoids injury, and all that. I need to combine it with plenty of stretching, though...

Also, in a depressing example of how fragile the web is, the link in that article to running form guidelines goes to a domain that no longer exists. 😒

Here's the Wayback Machine link: Benson's EPS - Basic Movements in Running

I've been making this dish on the regular. It's a little different from my usual slow-cooker chilli, and is great on rice, on a tortilla, or with tortilla chips.

Ingredients

• 2.5 lbs extra lean ground beef
• 1 cup minced onion¹
• 1 cup diced red bell peppers
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup minced cilantro
• 1 small tomato, diced
• 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup alcaparrado, manzanilla olives, pimientos, capers, or green olives (I've been using castelvetrano—I love the colour, and they have a mild taste)
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and pep to taste, just like every other recipe in the universe

Instructions (this is how I do it: for the instructions as given, check the link)

1. Brown the meat in dutch oven over medium-high heat
2. Drain the meat (or not?), add onions, garlic, and bell peppers and cook another 3-4 minutes
3. Add tomato, cilantro, tomato sauce, 1.25 cups water, olives (plus some brine from the jar), then the spices
4. Put dutch oven in 350°F oven for 1-1.5 hours (I usually take out and stir after an hour, then give it another half hour or so)
5. Once it's ready, taste and add salt/pep/more spices as desired
6. Discard bay leaves and serve
7. Makes about 5-6 250g servings

I use, but don't really like, CloudApp to share files (mostly images). The desired solution is:

1. Drag a file to an icon or something
2. The file is uploaded somewhere that it can be linked to via URL (ideally at a domain I control)
3. The URL goes on my clipboard and I can easily share it

If you pay for CloudApp, it does work with your own domain... but I kind of dislike having a third-party service for this at all.

The link above is to an old article from 2012, so there are almost certainly better solutions for self-hosting a file-linking thingamabob, but I'm bookmarking this as a start.

Example that may be relevant to building my own static CMS (if you have a static site generator, you need some trigger to regenerate the site in response to a Micropub call, if you want to be able to update the site from a Micropub client).

(via Indieweb wiki on Micropub)

This thread links to a bunch of people's work on communicating with the ErgoDox (or, more generally, QMK) from code. ErgoDox tweeted this in response to me asking if there was some way to integrate the keyboard's LEDs with e.g. HomeKit... ultimately, I want to control the keyboard lighting the same way I control the Philips Hue lamp on my desk.

Something to hack on someday.

(via @ErgoDoxEZ on twitter)

These look delicious. Time to buy a waffle iron!

Ingredients for 8 waffles

• 1 cup raw oats, blended into flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup 2% cottage cheese
• 3 eggs + 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 can (15oz) pumpkin purée (or baked sweet potato)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (optional, but recommended)
• Spray olive oil

Steps

1. Fire up the waffle iron.
2. In a high powered blender or food processor, oats and blend until you create flour. Set in a bowl and mix with baking powder.
3. Add cottage cheese to the blender and blend until it becomes soft, creamy and smooth with little to no curds. Add it to the bowl with the flour along with the eggs. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together until the batter is thick, yet still runny. Note: if you’d like to make pancakes instead, simply add in another egg white and/or add tablespoons of almond milk until the batter is slightly more runny.
4. Add the batter to the waffle iron and cook until your desired readiness, about 3 to 6 minutes. If you’re making these for weekly meal prep, allow the waffles to completely cool before wrapping them in plastic wrap and placing them in the freezer.
5. Enjoy with fresh berries and your choice of syrup or agave.

(via Fit Men Cook)

Important article by Cory Doctorow about "adversarial interoperability" - the concept of building a system that interoperates with an existing system for the purposes of competing with it—what it is, why it matters, and what's happened to it.

In short: alt. took over from Usenet in a way that federated social networks are struggling to take over from facebook and twitter.

(via... I can't remember; EFF's newsletter, probably)

Short video about Dustin's writing process: he does a shit-ton of outlining on cards ahead of time, which I think is what Joe wanted me to see an example of.

(via Joe Nassise)

"What’s your advice for aspiring writers?"

Keep writing, and don't walk away when you're discouraged. Finish your projects.

I still feel like an aspiring writer. I'm self-published. No one shook my hand and told me I'd make a most excellent author, and that's a scary thing. I took a leap.

I spent years toying around with unfinished manuscripts. You know what got me out of that rut? I decided enough was enough, and I committed to a publish date. Even now that I've published my writing, I still use pre-orders not just as a marketing tool, but to force myself to finish my projects. Maybe it's the former journalist in me, but I need deadlines.

So, try giving yourself a deadline. But don't make it a soft deadline in your head. Commit to sending your work somewhere: to a beta reader, a friend, a book agent or online to Smashwords or Amazon Direct Publishing.

Try writing novellas instead of the great American novel to start out. Finish a shorter piece, and you'll figure out some of the formula for finishing a longer one. You'll also prove to yourself that you can finish it.

Then comes the hardest part. You have to set it free.

Good luck!

I came across this person when searching for my own author name. At least in terms of pronunciation, they're awfully similar. 😂 Anyway, I really like her advice, quoted above.

A favourite post from one of my favourite tech bloggers, Scott Hanselman. I keep this in mind when trying to decide how the URLs on this IndieWeb site should work.

Critical hub for learning about tools and services that respect / protect your online privacy.

SBI is a home for generating new knowledge and understandings of how Indigenous nations and communities are impacted by gender and sexual violence, and how they may continue to work towards healing and freedom from such violence.

I saw this site linked to somewhere, and wanted to bookmark it for future investigation. I feel woefully ignorant of indigenous issues (and intimidated by the thought of countenancing them, let's be honest). At least let me not ignore resources when they're dropped in my lap.