Posts in "notes"

Outside Magazine - We've Reached Peak Wellness. Most of It Is Nonsense.

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The roots of a redwood tree only run six to twelve feet deep. Instead of growing downward, they grow out, extending hundreds of feet laterally and wrapping themselves around the roots of other trees. When rough weather comes, it’s the network of closely intertwined roots that allows the trees to stand strong. We are the same.

It’s well past time to get real about our health, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social.

Daring Fireball - Tim Cook and Luca Maestri on Intel

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Tim Cook:

For our Mac business overall, we faced some processor constraints in the March quarter, leading to a 5 percent revenue decline compared to last year. But we believe that our Mac revenue would have been up compared to last year without those constraints, and don’t believe this challenge will have a significant impact on our Q3 results.

I have a feeling that it’s less of an issue with the processor and more of an issue with the keyboard. CPU speed bumps have become nearly unnoticeable in day-to-day use, but this keyboard thing is a PR nightmare.

The Girl on the Train

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At the top it said “my seizure plan”. I blinked at it then looked up at her. “Are you having a seizure now?” I asked. “No, but I’m about to.” She looked down at the monitor on her finger. “Can you sit with me until your stop?” She asked.

A heart-wrenching slice of life story about this girl living with a disability, doing the best she can, just trying to get through the day.

The ultimate guide to DuckDuckGo - BrettTerpstra.com

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Despite this being the last section of the post, Instant Answers are by far the coolest feature of DuckDuckGo. You can find a complete list of all the cool tricks available at the dev site, but I’ll highlight a few of my current favorites.

I’ve been a fan of DuckDuckGo for years, and I highly encourage everyone to at least give it a shot.

Setting Up Webster's Dictionary

Via a post I saw today from Chris Bowler, via a newsletter by Sarah Bray, discussing an article written by James Somers, wherein he describes the writing process of John McPhee1, and how he uses a good dictionary to go from last draft to finished work. The emphasis here is on a good dictionary, namely the 1913 Webster’s Unabridged. I won’t attempt to describe how wonderful the dictionary is here, James did a fantastic job of that on his blog five years ago. I will however say that I think his installation instructions for getting the dictionary usable on your Mac are out of date. Here’s the easy way to do it.

First, download the compiled dictionary text. I downloaded it from a GitHub account, but who knows for how long that’ll be available, so I’m hosting the download here: Webster.s.1913.dictionary.zip

Next, unzip the downloaded file and find the file named “Webster’s 1913.dictionary”. Click on the Finder’s “Go” menu and hold down the ⌥Option key to show the hidden “Library” folder. Click on Library, and find the “Dictionaries” folder. Open it, and drag and drop the new dictionary folder into it.

Now when you open the macOS Dictionary app, you can go into the settings (either by pressing ⌘, or by clicking on “Dictionary” then “Preferences…” in the menu bar), scroll down a bit till you find “Webster’s 1913”, click the check box next to it and drag it to the top of the list. Uncheck the “New Oxford American Dictionary”. Now when you click on a word in a good Mac app, then click just a tad bit harder3, you’ll get the definition from the new and improved Webster’s. It’ll also show up in Spotlight searches, and anywhere else the system-wide dictionary is used.

Now you have a far richer and more useful dictionary. A useful resource if you happen to currently be, or soon will be, a college student who needs to write often, and in volume.

  1. Good grief! ↩︎

  2. Which, ironically, is also hosted on GitHub. ↩︎

  3. If your Mac doesn’t have the force-press feature in the trackpad, you can hit ⌘⌃D while a word is highlighted to get the definition as well. ↩︎

Pat Gallant-Charette Won't Stop Breaking Records

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Pat Gallant-Charette is tougher than your average grandma. She’s probably tougher than you. The 68-year-old Maine native has completed the majority of the Oceans Seven, a marathon swimming challenge that has athletes tackling seven of the toughest open-water swims in the world. She has systematically subjected herself to near-freezing water temperatures, strong currents, shark attacks, and blooms of jellyfish during swims that have her in the water for up to 24 hours.

Role model.

How to Survive a Grizzly Bear Attack

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The lesson here is that you can’t count on seeing a grizzly in time to back away or take another action. At one point during the class, Adam got bored and wandered off about 30 yards. Predators have evolved to blend into their surroundings. Sitting down behind a small pine tree, the enormous bear was utterly invisible to us at that distance. Forrest explained that grizzlies can charge at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, and unlike humans, who take several strides to accelerate, the bears can hit their top speed on their first bound. If Adam had charged us from that hiding place 30 yards away, he’d have been on us in just a couple seconds.

Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

Stories

“We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?”

Christians, shaman, poets, and authors all know one thing… what we believe shapes who we are, and the stories we tell ourselves shape those beliefs. Our lives are a self-fulfilling prophecy. We become who we believe we will become, because we take actions that are logically attuned to the story we’ve told ourselves about our life. Storytellers hold power, not because of wealth or authority, but because the stories they tell shape our understanding of the world around us. In turn, how we understand the world and our place in it guides our decisions and shapes our world to be more like what we believe it to be.