2024s
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.
Italian Sundays are made for passeggiatas. Here’s a shot from our stroll today in central Lecce.
Hit a 77-day streak on Duolingo today. The gamification of studying Italian is working wonders. Duolingo has become a daily habit, and this also trickles through to other tools I’m using to learn Italian. Wish I found this app years ago.
Enrolled in Harvard’s CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science course. Enjoyed working through an older version of this years ago before abandoning it about halfway. Let’s see if I can make it to the end this time around.
Finished reading: Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby. It’s a niche one for sure, but right up my alley. These two geniuses had more in common than first meets the eye. 📚
Whoa, we’re half way there 🎶
Finished reading: The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil A. Fiore 📚
Finished working my way through the Learning How to Learn course on Coursera. This was recommended as a helpful resource at the start of The Odin Project.
So much depth. It’s great for anybody looking to learn something new and study more effectively, especially if you’re procrastinating or finding your subject difficult to wrestle with.
When I close my computer and head outside, sometimes it feels like I’ve stepped through a time machine instead of a door.
Finished reading: Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer 📚
In a chapter in Baseball 100 about Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh, Joe Posnanski compares baseball training in Japan to spring training in the United States.
Training is much more gruelling in Japan apparently. He explains how, culturally, the sport is just viewed differently there.
When American manager Trey Hillman managed a Japanese team and tried to make some training sessions less intense, in an apparent effort to do the players a favour, the players weren’t happy about it. For them, there was honour in putting in an extreme level of hard work that was just part of their sport.
Got me thinking about my approach to studying web development. Web development training, if you like.
I’m often banging my head against a wall trying to understand new things. It’s tempting to look for shortcuts, AI assistance and other ways just to speed things up.
I hope that putting in the time and work to more fully learn and understand things will help me build a solid foundation on my path to digital craftsmanship. Totally get that finding efficiencies will be key later down the road, but I’ve got a few muscles to build first.