dajbelshaw

I’m really happy with how my How to Be Less Wrong in a Polycrisis blog series turned out, so I’ve pulled the three posts together into an ebook.

The ebook is a more refined and cohesive version, with updated imagery, stronger links between chapters, and a few new examples.

I've switched from Google to Proton and will soon be moving on from Zoom. So I wanted to be able to easily add video conferencing links. This extension, made with Claude Code, provides that functionality for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.

OK, well I wrote my doctoral thesis* on digital literacies, so this is a hot topic for me as a parent of an almost 15 year-old boy and almost 11 year-old girl.

TL;DR: we're way stricter than other parents I know both in the UK and other western countries.

For example: we allow them WhatsApp, but no other social media apps on their phone (including YouTube). Devices automatically switch on at 08:00 and off at 20:00. Certain apps, like browsers, have maximum time limits of two hours.

Like me, they're both gamers, but aren't allowed games on their phone - only on tablets and consoles.

This sounds harsh when I write it down in black and white, but as a consequence they both read a lot and are really into sport (both represent the county at football and athletics).

The reason this stuff is so hard is that we're the first generation of parents having to deal with all this. And there are no accepted rules in wider society yet...

* https://dougbelshaw.com/thesis/

When consulting, I've found that people really like zero-install video conferencing solutions based on WebRTC (e.g. appear.in / Jitsi)

Have you considered using Open Badges for this? https://openbadges.org

Dell XPS 13 running Ubuntu 16.04

(Went from 2015 MacBook Pro to Lenovo X220 to this. If the X220 had a higher-res screen and better GPU I'd have stuck with that...)

Hmmm...

I need to confess something: ‘‘Whuffie’’ would make a terrible cur­rency.

http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2016/03/cory-doctorow-w...

As a knowledge worker, I've found that there is no 'best' way of organising information. It depends on what it is that you're doing.

Having said that, the things I come back to are Trello (Kanban-style boards), Pinboard.in, a personal wiki, and Google calendar. I like everything web-based so that I can access things wherever I am and whatever device I choose to use.

Over and above that, I use a paper-based daily planner that I've iterated over time. I pull everything to do that day on to it, then bin it at the end of the day.

Version 3 is here: http://www.slideshare.net/dajbelshaw/dougs-daily-planner-v3 (CC licensed)

I've taken cold showers every weekday for the last few years. The way I get around the problems raised (washing hair, etc.) is that I have a really hot shower just before bed. This helps me sleep by lowering my core body temperature.

Cold showers are great and, as someone who's suffered from depression in the past, I go into each day thinking, "what's the worst that could happen"?*

*I realise that sounds flippant, but it's true...

I think the Chromebook Pixel 2015 suffers from the same HDPI problem with Linux distros that I've got with the 2013 version. I've got GalliumOS (https://galliumos.org) working, but it's somewhat unusable.

Linux Mint supports HDPI out-of-the-box, so that's what I'm going to try next...

As a new literacies researcher, this fascinates me - especially the 'forced informality' through artificial constraints.

"so accustomed is the public to telegraphic brevity, that their use often produces amusement rather than the expression of formality which the sender desired."

In this case the brevity was due to cost, but in this age of abundance we choose such constraints (and complain when they're removed - c.f. Twitter).

It was my first time meeting Stallman at the Indie Tech Summit (where I also met the CloudFleet guys). He's a little eccentric, but he's one of the reasons I'm now on a Linux machine instead of a Mac!

Cheers. :)

Hey, OP here. Thanks for the mention of Xprivacy - I wasn't aware of it. :)

Like everyone else, I'm always learning. Just sharing this post for others who weren't aware of Amazon's business model here (which does seem somewhat hidden).

Indeed, and that's the case with everything - Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I get it.

My point in this post is that I (who am interested in privacy and rights online) didn't realise what was going on, how is Joe Average going to know?

You might find this from Laura Thomson (Director of Engineering Operations at Mozilla) useful: https://speakerdeck.com/lauraxt/minimum-viable-bureaucracy

Interesting. I've been thinking about this recently and, yes, while I can sit in front of a computer screen for eight hours, I reckon I'm only productive for six hours. So I try and work in three 2-hour bursts.

It's worth saying that my situation's slightly different in that I work for a tech company, but I'm not a coder.

Harder, but not impossible. It's interesting the range of reasons people come up with (what about spam! everyone else is using Gmail!) not to do this.

Not always the best option for everyone (obviously).

Oops! Thanks - fixed. :-)

No problem! :-)

Thanks! I know some people love DevonThink so I'll (OP) take a look.

I think you've confused a generalisation with a pronoun here.

Indeed, I could have gone into more detail but people don't tend to read long posts. So I could have talked about the time I was in a taxi in Spain (not speaking the language) and my only directions to a conference venue got corrupted, or the time when a note to myself about my doctoral thesis disappeared, or...

OP here. Thanks for the question, which I've noe clarified in the post. I've got no problem with paying for it but wanted to make readers aware of it, that's all.

They're fundamentally different forms of communication suited for different purposes?

Exactly. :-)

Twitter's a constant stream I dip in and out of. DM's, IRC and Skype chat pings are for important stuff.

Works well. :-)

Thanks! It's all to do with getting to know the system. Popular HN threads have a certain logic to way people format link titles. ;-)

I heard this for months and only at home in North East England. I ruled out the nearby wind turbines as I heard it when they weren't on.

Never did get to the bottom of it as it disappeared as suddenly as it came.

As requested, providing an update to this post which hit the front page of HN last month!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6289664