On this theme, if you have kids older than 5, then you’ve most likely had requests to get Fortnite. It’s the current rage right now and as someone who spent many nights playing 4-on-4 battles of Goldeneye, I understand the allure. We’ve taken a stand against this kind of gaming in our home for now, but it’s something all parents have to think about. This article does a good job of discussing the pros and cons. It also touches on aspects of gaming that my parents never had to worry about. It’s…
I shared a couple of weeks back about gaming in our home [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/gaming]. Part of that essay was focused on how much I (and my kids) are enjoying Breath of the Wild. This article from late 2017 does such a nice job of summing up why it’s such an enjoyable game. > The vast majority of open-world games are actually very linear in terms of their core progression, with a series of primary story beats that have to be played through in order. Prior Zelda games were much the s…
Related to the recent theme of running your own website [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/personal-websites], Craig Mod interviews Jason Kottke on the latest episode of On Margins*. Craig’s podcast is focused on books, but he interviewed Jason on the premise that his hundreds of thousands of words published on his site over 20 years is several books worth. And God bless Craig for providing a transcript of each episode!A lot of the interview is only tangentially related to the theme I’ve been har…
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve bonked on my longer runs. This often happens to me in a minor way around 14–15 KMs. But during my long run last week, it happened at 5 KM in. I finished just under 27 KM, but it was a thoroughly unenjoyable run and very slow. So it got me wondering about my nutrition. And reading. The link above has been helpful for getting a better understanding of how to approach this goal. And I thought I would share a few others: * A Complete Guide to Proper Marathon Nu…
I recently shared [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/personal-websites] a list of personal blogs that I enjoy. But I neglected to add Alan Jacobs to the list. Perhaps it’s because he maintains several blogs, some regularly, others less so. But his primary personal blog [http://blog.ayjay.org] is one I subscribe to, and it’s almost like a digital commonplace book. I first mentioned Alan in this space because of Habits of Mind in an Age of Distraction [https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/habits-o…
Video games give me some concern, but there are positive examples available.
We all have those people we follow online that we admire. The people who get us excited when their site pops up in our RSS feed reader, or when they share a link to their site on Twitter. For me, Craig Mod is at the top of that list. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about people making their own home on the web. Not on places like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. You can achieve success there, but it never feels to me like I’m getting a fuller picture of the person behind the persona. H…
There's a growing desire to use non-digital tools. Pen and paper are at the top of the list for knowledge workers.