Here's a a topic that make me feel old. Despite the title (we're likely nowhere near the "last word" on Bitcoin), this article challenges a few of the ideas I've had about cryptocurrencies. I've long held the view that anything related to blockchain technology is negative — the environmental impact is simply too high. But I confess I barely understand how this stuff all works. Nic Carter makes a few points that challenge the common assumptions and got me thinking about this once more: > Anothe…
I enjoyed this article from Zakk Fleischmann. In it, he talks about how spending $5 for a Starbucks coffee is a "leak" and how this trickles into other areas of life. > Poker players have this concept called a leak: a blind spot that causes you to consistently make an error. As an example, a very common rookie leak is to only raise (put in more money) when you have a good hand. You can see why this would be problematic: after a few rounds, an observant opponent will be able to tell when you hav…
As the year has rolled along and the days are starting to get a little longer up here in the north, I've been enjoying my use of Obsidian more and more. As I mentioned in the past about Roam, these tools are additive. The more you use them, the more valuable they feel. This isn't by accident — you have to make meaningful connections between your notes (as I mentioned here). But as you make those connections, you experience the feeling of building. Your base of knowledge matures a little more.…
William Van Hecke has an interesting idea for how to use his time. Based on a concept he read in a Neal Stephenson novel, he organizes his time in ten day periods: > Time is divided into ten-day decades. (We commonly use the word “decade” to mean ten years, nowadays, but prior to the 16th century, it could mean any collection of ten things, including days.) I love my desynchronized rhythms; the 10-day decade and the 7-day week create a healthy polymeter that drifts in and out of sync over time.…
For the last several years, I've taken part in the Goodreads reading challenge [https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/show/11650-2021-reading-challenge]. I tend to come up 3–5 books short each year, but I'm happy overall with how much I've been reading. However, I'm not crazy about what I've done with the books I've read. Often, I've done very little beyond reading the words on the page. I made highlights and perhaps a short blurb somewhere in my notes. But as this was all before I had…
Joel Hooks shared this post about writing more and worrying less about the polish. He mentions how shifting from thinking about his writing and site as a blog to a digital garden helped him to write more: > Seriously. The idea of a "blog" needs to get over itself. Everybody is treating writing as a "content marketing strategy" and using it to "build a personal brand" which leads to the fundamental flawed idea that everything you post has to be polished to perfection and ready to be consumed. I…
In a recent post [https://chrisbowler.com/making-sense-of-roam-research/], I made an offhand mention that Obsidian [https://obsidian.md] might be a better fit for some people than Roam Research [https://roamresearch.com]. What was that all about? Well, for one, I believe both are good tools. If you're looking to use Roam as a Zettelkasten tool, Obsidian offers many of the same benefits. I've been keeping my eye on its development all the months that I've cautiously used Roam. It's super easy to…
I signed up for the beta of this app [https://getmatter.app] because there have been a few instances where I wanted to listen to a blog post I had saved. My first thought was that iOS must have some kind of functionality for this (it does). But then some people in the Roam community mentioned Matter. On a recent run, I gave it a try and listened to two blog posts that were around 2,000 and 4,000 words each. And it was a fairly pleasant experience. It's still an AI voice reading text, so it…