Being kind to others is mostly about your actions. Being kind to yourself is mostly about your thoughts.
From James Clear’s newsletter.
Finished reading: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 📚
A beach at the Porto Selvaggio nature reserve in Salento.
You need to walk through woods for 30 minutes from the nearest parking spot. Worth it every time.
Finished working my way through the Earth’s Changing Climate course by Professor Richard Wolfson, available on Audible or directly through The Great Courses.
Old (2007), but still a solid intro to the science behind climate change.
Great article by Helen Thomson in The Observer about the mental health benefits of taking walks in nature.
Throughout the pandemic, I tried to take a long walk in the countryside every day. Doing this helped me get through a difficult time, that’s for sure, but I didn’t really give much thought as to why. The article explains some good reasons I can relate to.
Although it may sound great to people living in cooler parts of the world planning a summer holiday, one of the main downsides of living in southern Italy is how unbearably hot the summers are. Walking, and being outside in general, feels impossible for much of the day.
Now summer is finally over and the temperature is more manageable, I want to explore more of the Puglia countryside.
As the title of the article says: “Nature is free, and the best kind of medicine”.
Finished reading: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks 📚
Finished reading: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray 📚
Finished reading: A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle 📚
I’ve been looking for a markdown editor that’s nice to use, keeps everything in sync and plays well offline.
I frequently work across macOS, iOS and Linux. The fact I use Linux on my old Surface Pro when out and about throws a spanner in the works and narrows my options somewhat.
Decided to give Obsidian a spin.
Liking what I see so far, especially the option for making subheadings foldable in the editor. Very tidy. The general look and feel of the app is great too. Obsidian Sync works well and comes with a one month version history and activity log.
It also offers a welcome nudge to finally set up that Zettelkasten and figure out a more effective way of taking and managing notes. But that’s for another day.
Finished reading: Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken 📚
Finished reading: Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley 📚
I’ve been comparing Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro with OpenAI’s GPT-4o.
The consensus from my research seems to be that most people think that ChatGPT is by far the better product. However, I find Gemini offers a better experience for me.
I use it to help with lesson planning, learning Italian, studying iOS development and for help across other more general things. It’s also become a new first point of call for much of what I would otherwise just Google the old-school way.
More often than not, Gemini reads between the lines to tell me what I need to know in a far better format and tone than what I get out of ChatGPT. It’s also more frequently correct, with a button to link to sources if I want to dig deeper.
I find it much easier to be sloppy with my prompts and get what I need with Google than with ChatGPT. Sure that may make me sound lazy, but sometimes I don’t particularly feel like ‘engineering’ a prompt. This is not to say the difference is night and day, they are both very close, but I picked up on some nuances after using both for months as I weighed up where to spend my €23 per month.
There is something about Google that seems just nicer and clearer in the way it explains things. It’s a bit less bland and cliché. The way information is structured and communicated matters a lot. There are so many different ways to say the same thing, with just as much variation in clarity and impact.
I don’t use it for any writing, however. Even for feedback as an editor, I find its language suggestions and structural ideas a bit too formulaic. But for research? If you’re willing to treat it like a really smart academic who is known to be a serial liar and take drugs at any time of the day, I think it’s a fantastic tool in your arsenal.
I often access Gemini through the Google app on my iPhone. If you’re not familiar with the format, there are two big tabs at the top: Search and Gemini. I would say that I use Gemini more often than Search.
I think this is a sign of things to come.
Finished reading: The Cold War by Odd Arne Westad 📚
Finished reading: The Collected Poems by Robert Frost 📚
Finished reading: Poetry in the Making by Ted Hughes 📚
This is a great short book about poetry and the craft of writing it.
Finished reading: The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe 📚
Finished reading: The Inferno by Dante 📚
This quote from software engineer Kent Beck pretty much sums up where I keep going wrong.
“By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a reluctance to trade the dream of success for the reality of feedback.”
Dreams of future success may be a comfortable place to hang out, but they’re a complete waste of time.
Finish the work. Put it out there. Listen to what other people think about it.
Spotted in James Clear’s newsletter this week.
Young vines preparing to soak up the summer sun.
Finished reading: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 📚
Finished reading: Bright Wings by Billy Collins 📚
Drawings of birds and poems about birds. What’s not to love?
Over recent months this website has morphed into a public log of my reading.
I’m ok with that. I guess the beauty of having a personal website is that you can use it as you want, and it’s ok if that changes over time as it rides life’s ebbs and flows with you.
With no hunger for likes or algorithms to appease the freedom feels real. Hopefully I’ll find the time to post a wider variety of things here soon.
Finished reading: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 📚
Funny and beautifully written.
Finished reading: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 📚
Finished reading: Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon 📚
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you just are who you are, forgetting the power you have to take action and become who you want to be.
Let’s not let the challenges of the past and the present hold you back from moving forward towards where you want to go.
Keep taking those steps, no matter how tiny they may feel. They all add up if you just show up and keep moving.
Smile when you can. It makes the journey more fun.
So here’s to the future, and the steps we’ll take to shape it.
Finished reading: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller 📚
Apple recently shared a great Q&A with its UX writing team from last year’s WWDC.
Lots of good insights here. If you’re a writer it’s worth checking out the article in full, but I want to share their advice for explaining technical concepts in simple terms:
First, remember that not everyone will have your level of understanding. Sometimes we get so excited about technical details that we forget the folks who might be using an app for the first time.
Try explaining the concept to a friend or colleague first — or ask an engineer to give you a quick summary of a feature.
From there, break down your idea into smaller components and delete anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. Technical concepts can feel even more intimidating when delivered in a big block of text. Can you link to a support page? Do people need that information in this particular moment? Offering small bits of information is always a good first step.
This ‘delete anything that isn’t absolutely necessary’ applies to more than just good UX writing. It’s also solid advice for marketing copy, especially when talking to a broad audience about technical products. It’s so easy for readers to get lost and just give up on figuring out what you’re trying to say.
As they go on to say: “Clarity should always be the priority”.
Interesting to hear Malcolm Gladwell talk about his writing process on MasterClass.
He shared how he breaks every piece of writing down into small, numbered sections before stringing it all together and figuring out what goes where and working on transitions. He didn’t mean sections like chapters in a book or even subheadings in an article, he suggested that his sections are often far more granular than that.
Sounds pretty basic. But this approach makes large, intimidating projects easier to handle. It also helps build a feeling of ongoing momentum. I do something similar but without the numbers. Think I’ll give the numbers a go.
Finished reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
Finished reading: Naples ‘44 by Norman Lewis 📚
This has been a year of discovering American sports. Feels like they never stop, except for the ads. Chose Chicago as my base, don’t ask me why. It amazes me how frequently Americans stop me in the street to talk about the Cubs when I’m out in my cap, even in some of the most remote corners of Europe.
The Merlin Bird ID app really is a remarkable piece of kit. Its Sound ID feature tells you the type of bird you can hear after recording only a few seconds of song. Works more often than not for me here in Italy, even when the bird song is quite faint.
Finished reading: Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. This book was recommended at a poetry event I attended a few months back. Thought-provoking advice on the craft of writing, scattered with a dash of memoir and lots of good prompts to fight the blank page. 📚
Can’t remember how I stumbled upon The Odin Project web development curriculum, but I’m glad I did.
I like the way it points you where to go to dig deeper into the topics, and it offers a nice blend of different learning materials and assignments.
I find it way easier to learn new things by reading about them instead of watching videos. Pissed that it’s taken me so long to figure that out. I think this is one of the main reasons why I’m having more success with this course compared to other ones I’ve tried in the past.
Need to decide whether to progress to Ruby on Rails or full stack JavaScript. I guess sticking with JavaScript should offer a deeper knowledge of the language but I heard that Ruby is a joy and Rails makes it easy to do a lot on your own.
I find myself at a fork in the road, and my research is all getting a bit Robert Frost, but I’m trying not to take too much time mulling it over. To borrow a phrase from James Clear’s newsletter today, I think this decision is more of a hat than a haircut or a tattoo.