Web Miscellany: Compilation #97

Hello, friend! How are you? After however long into this mess we are now, the pandemic is beginning to feel a bit lonely and listless. I spent my twenties building up habits for success and inner peace, many of which has slowly dwindled away over the last year. I feel like it’s time to rebuild from the ground up and revisit favorite books and seminars, but I’m feeling discouraged and uncertain of where to start, which is an unfamiliar feeling. If you have any recommendations, I am all ears.

I hope that your the week ahead is good to you. Here are a few links from around the web. Feel free to share anything interesting you’ve stumbled upon in the comments.

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1. Food for thought: “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.” – Plato
2. From the archives: I’ll be celebrating 8 years with my partner this month. I’ve learned a lot. Here are 7 Valuable Lessons From My 7-Year Relationship.
3. When did you decide?: “If it’s a habit, then it’s a decision, made consciously or not. And if we decided, we could decide to make a new decision about how we’ll act going forward.” Wisdom from Seth Godin.
4. Fun fact: The chemical element Boron is made through the process of spallation, in which cosmic rays hit a nitrogen-14 molecule at the speed of light and, in an instant of nuclear physics wizardry, knock off some protons to make Berylium, that then decays to Boron. Since it’s lighter than carbon, floats down from the atmosphere and settles onto plants on Earth. This cosmic dust is important for mammalian bone health and possibly the prevention of cervical cancer and prostate cancer.
5. Rewilding your attention: “Big-tech recommendation systems have been critiqued lately for their manifold sins – i.e. how their remorseless lust for ‘engagement’ leads them to overpromote hotly emotional posts; how they rile people up; how they feed us clicktastic disinfo; how they facilitate ‘doomscrolling’. All true. But they pose a subtler challenge, too, for our imaginative lives: Their remarkably dull conception of what’s ‘interesting’. It’s like intellectual monocropping. You open your algorithmic feed and see rows and rows of neatly planted corn, and nothing else.” I enjoyed this short read on how to cultivate a curiosity for the things that algorithmic feeds can’t serve us.
6. I want a herb spiral: If only I had a yard, I would create THIS. What makes herb spirals unique is their design to maximize space while creating different little microclimates which create extra heat or shade for different herb preferences. Many herbs are of Mediterranean origin and prefer sandy soil and dry conditions.
7. The Mundanity of Excellence: “Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.” Reminds me of cartoonist Scott Adams’ concept of a talent stack, whereby one develops a variety of skills that work well together.
8. Bullish on Bitcoin: Here are 9 (Bad) Arguments Against Bitcoin. This great article will answer your questions, dispel the myths, and wrap it up with a list of actually good arguments against Bitcoin.
9. This week in sewing: I set up a Trello account to digitally track the patterns and fabrics in my stash, following the instructions from Helen’s Closet. I tested out the serging machine and immediately broke a needle, so I suppose I need a refresher on use. I bought this incredible foldaway sewing table, so I no longer need to hunch over the ground to cut, iron, or gather. After six year of hoarding, I decided my Rifle Paper Co. famous cities canvas would be beautifully displayed as sewing and serging machine covers, using the free pattern from Closet Core. And,finally, I spent far too long gathering (using the dental floss method), with about 24 yards left to go.