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Maybe on a day like this it is a good idea to look to the Stoics. Gain trust in yourself and the good people around you. Do what’s right. Don’t despair.
Here’s the whole text of this excerpt from the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holliday.
DON’T BE DISTRACTED BY DARKNESS
There’s no question that depressing things happen in this world. They always have and always will. People lie, cheat, steal. Envy, avarice, selfishness-it’s all out there. And it’s hard to miss. I’s easy to despair about this. What do we do? Must it be this way? What’s the point of being good when everyone else is so bad? This is the wrong way to think about it. It’s not up to us to change this unchangeable part of the human species, but instead to think about how to adapt to it, how to integrate it into our understanding of the world and not let it make us miserable. That’s a big part of why the Stoics talk about ignoring what other people do-their lying, cheating and stealing— and focusing on what we do. On making sure that we hold ourselves to a higher standard and put our energy towards evaluating ourselves according to those standards rather than projecting it onto others. Marcus’s best advice on this is worth remembering today: instead of talking about other peoples selfishness and stupidity, our job is “to run straight for the finish line, unswerving.”
To not be distracted by the darkness of others, to head towards the light. To be good without hesitation, even when other people are not. That’s our job. Today and for our whole lives.
My FaceID didn’t work tonight. No idea why. 🎃
Since switching to Vivaldi, yesterday
For now I will switch and try out Vivaldi. The feature set makes somehow sense and what I've seen about the browser so far seems good. We'll see.
I noticed that my camera has new options during a video call. I can set a background 🎉. This background choice is just lovely. 😍
Pinboard is dead. At least for me. Let me tell you how I bookmark in 2024.
Yesterday, I read an opinion about the bookmarking service pinboard.in. I am a user since 2010. In 2019 I paid ~$210 for a 10 year contract because I wanted to do my part to keep the service running and enable the founder to do his thing. Because I believed in his mission and the purpose of the service. Gordon made me aware that Pinboard might be over. There is a Hacker News thread for the linked article where alternatives are discussed, if you are interested. The thing is, I believe Gordon and others might be right. Roughly 1,5 years ago I tried to write a small application to interface with the Pinboard API. Unfortunately, the API didn’t work as expected. When I looked into it, I learned about a version 2 of that API that was supposed to be in development. The documentation to that API was insufficient and things didn’t work in any way like they were documented. When I reached out to the Pinboard founder I heard nothing back. The state of the API hasn’t changed at all since then. There were no updates.
The founder still writes on the web about things like lunar programs and moon landers with SpaceX and other political topics. He also gave entertaining talks on conferences during the last years. But he didn’t do what he was paid for. At least in my opinion. Sure, the basic website still works. And maybe that could be considered enough?
I have since stopped using the service. Bookmarking is an activity I not do as often anymore as before. If I want to have a website handy for later reading or watching, I use Omnivore. It’s an open-source solution that is free to use. Eventually you can even do self-hosting. I chose it because it works well and I can read and understand the code and tech stack. If they ever decide to discontinue the web app I can host it myself.
For saving website to reference later, which you could call bookmarking, I mostly use Obsidian. It’s my preferred solution for taking notes that I want to keep. Right now I have over 5.600 notes in there. A big part of those are my journal notes, which I imported from Day one.
To make saving websites quicker I wrote a small Alfred.app workflow that calls a Shortcut (from Apple shortcuts). If everything works out (it does most of the times!) a note is created in Obsidian.
I attached a screenshot of the note, because I don’t have a good way to share it with you otherwise right now. Those bookmarks land in a folder called /sites. I can add tags and link them to my notes, or references the bookmark in a note somewhere else. It doesn’t save a complete copy of the bookmark. So if the website disappears from the web, my bookmark would cease to work. Maybe that is something that I will add later. I am not sure yet.
So yeah, Pinboard is dead as far as I am concerned.
In order to fulfill my part in documenting life and the seasons here’s the first chestnut 🌰 I saw this year. Autumn is coming.
It’s impressive how much greener the grass is on our side since we installed our automated irrigation system. 🥳
Iced Americano ☕️
Good Morning ☕️
Bouldern im Family Rocks in Oranienburg ★★★★☆
Gestern war wieder Bouldern angesagt. Da in der Berta Block demnächst die Berta Block Masters anstehen (Samstag am 8.6.), werden die Routen aktuell nicht umgebaut. Deshalb wollte ich mal etwas Neues probieren und wir sind nach Oranienburg gefahren. Die Halle dort heißt Family Rocks, und ich war mit den Kids da. Das hat gepasst.
Das Schöne ist, dass es einen großen Kletter- und Tobebereich für die Kids gibt. So wurde es ihnen nicht langweilig. Zwischendurch gab es etwas zu Essen, so dass sie nicht mehr ganz so grummelig waren (hangry!).
Ich fand sehr anspruchsvolle Boulderprobleme um mich daran abzuarbeiten. Die Halle ist noch ziemlich neu, und nicht so stark besucht. Das hat zur Folge, dass die Griffe größtenteis noch sehr rau und griffig sind. Es kostet ziemlich viel Haut dort zu klettern. Auch sind die Schrauber der Meinung auch auf den leichten Routen schon mal ein paar anspruchsvollere Griffe einzubauen, wie mir der Betreiber erklärte. Das machen sie, damit sie auch die Anfänger mal an die härteren Griffe heranführen, die sie sonst nie anfassen würden. Dadurch wird es nicht leichter—aber interessanter.
Ich bewege mich aktuell im unteren Mittelfeld. Dort sind das die grünen—blauen Routen. Und da gab es genug zu klettern und ich hatte viel Unterhaltung. Das Publikum war, wie so oft beim Bouldern, wunderbar relaxed und man konnte sich austauschen und gegenseitig anfeuern. Klasse!
Wir kommen gern wieder, auch wenn die Anfahrt relativ lange dauert. Selbst aus dem Norden von Berlin brauchten wir 30min mit dem Auto.
Insgesamt ★★★★☆ v.a. wegen des Kidsbereichs.
Erd-, Stachel- und Johannesbeeren halten sich an ihre Jobbeschreibung! 👍🫶
Vogelgesang während der Hunderunde
Heute morgen, während ich Milo spazieren führte, habe ich wieder Vögel bestimmt. Ich bin auf die App durch @Buddenbohm@fnordon.de aufmerksam geworden. Gerade bei uns am Kanal waren schön viele Vögel zu hören. Und ist es nicht schön? Sie singen so toll und ich kann endlich mal lernen, welcher Vogel wie klingt. Steigert nachhaltig die Naturverbundenheit. Und wer kann schon was gegen nachhaltig sagen.
Amsel und Gartenrotschwanz fand ich am Schönsten. Zaukönig und Buntspecht haben mich überrascht. Ich habe auch noch Elstern gehört, konnte sie aber nicht aufnehmen, weil der Hund da wieder Blödsinn machte in dem Moment.
Habe jetzt 10 Vögel in meiner Life List in der App. Mal sehen, welche ich auf der Nachmittagsrunde vernehmen werde.
walking the dog
The puppy needs rest! So much today today! 🐶
Good morning from snowy Berlin.
Wonderful sunrise over Berlin today
Merry Christmas 😘
