• The Week #263

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    • 5๏ธโƒฃ I missed it a few weeks back, but I hit 5 years of The Week without missing a week! Half a decade!ย 
    • โœ๏ธ I received my Supernote Manta and I am in love ๐Ÿ˜. It's hard to describe just how good and freeing digital paper is. No longer do I need to carry multiple notebooks with me. No longer do I have to decide to have a single type of paper in a given notebook.Write a note, two-finger circle it, new task managed in a central location. Flub a note, two finger on the sidebar circle to delete.

      I'm not sure exactly how my work notes will "end up" organizationally , but for starters I'm keeping it simple. Mostly I'm just separatingย  them out by product / person with an index page that lets me quickly jump between them. I haven't used the linking function much, but I've only had it for 1 work-day.

      For my personal notes, I've started doing Morning Pages. Each morning you sit and handwrite 3-pages of whatever is on your mind. Rather than having stray thoughts pinging around in my noggin, I can write them down. Then it's much easier for me to either action them, add a task to track it, or just get it out of my system. Working through why I am thinking certain things has been helpful. Do I need an e-ink tablet to do any of this? No. Does it lower the barrier to entry to nothing, yes. Starting a brand new notebook just for morning pages is a hurdle when you aren't sure you will continue while starting a new file is easy and free.
    • ๐Ÿ’” It's been a month since the Air India 171 accident and the preliminary report was released. The plane was operating exactly as it was meant until someone in the cockpit manually turned off the fuel to the engines. 10-seconds later (presumably by the other person) fuel was turned back on and the engines starting spinning up, but it wasn't high enough to have enough time to recover.

      It's tragic. If it were a mechanical failure there's at least a logical reason for the failure. But this? You don't want to accept it. Mental health is so important. We've got to check in with the people in our lives โ€“ not just a surface "how are you doing?", but "how are you really doing?".ย  And have the courage to model and be vulnerable and let them know that things aren't good when they aren't.ย  I'm fortunate that my work places a lot of effort to encourage us to take care of ourselves (physically and mentally), even having entire weeks dedicated to mental health. It's helped me tremendously this past month.
    • ๐Ÿ” A friend from uni I hadn't seen in years called me out of the blue and we went out for dinner and a coffee. It was a lot of fun. It's good for the soul to meet up with friends. I should do it more often.

  • Checkin to ๅ—่›ฎๅฑ‹ ๆน˜ๅ—ๅฐๅบ—

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    in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
    Espresso iced coffee. A bit late but yolo.

  • Checkin to MOS Burger (ใƒขใ‚นใƒใƒผใ‚ฌใƒผ)

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    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
    The salads come in a paper box instead of a disposable plastic bowl. Hooray!

  • ๐Ÿ”— 4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment

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    In May, according to government records, China had installed a record ninety-three gigawatts of solar powerโ€”amounting to a gigawatt every eight hours.
    There's a lot to be pessimistic about, but the rate that we're transitioning to renewables is not one of them. Yes there's some headwinds in some countries, but I reckon we're past the tipping point. Now is the time to smash the accelerator.
    1. Tagged with
    2. solar
    3. climate change
    4. energy

  • The Week #262

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    • โœ๏ธ I said I was falling down the e-ink tablet rabbit hole, let me elaborate. It's a fact that I work better when I write things down consistently. Spending time in a distraction free zone helps me think and focus better. Writing with my hand makes things stick a way typing doesn't. And I'd like to organize my thoughts/notes by more than chronological time.

      I feel I would benefit from writing things down outside of work as well. One thing that's stopping me is my notebook is mostly work, so mixing the two seems (is) very sub-optimal. The cheaper answer is "buy a second notebook", which is true, but then I need to carry two notebooks with me.

      While I was initially looking at a Remarkable 2 (and then the Paper Pro for color), I settled on a Supernote Manta.Why? The device is repairable โ€“ you can replace the battery, motherboard, and add storage. Notes are/can be made searchable. You can link between pages/note files. Lastly, the company behind it seems like they really care about their users. Oh, and they include a Kindle reader, so I'll be able read my books on it as well.

      There's even some Python repos that can like sueprnote-tool that let you convert .note files (supernotes's file format) to png/pdf/svg or extract text etc..which is very cool and expands the possibilities.
    • ๐ŸŽถ This likely speaks to the my vintage, but Rip Slyme and M-Flo were on Music Day and it was fantastic. I don't listen to Japanese music much these days, but they're always in rotation..
    • ๐ŸŒŽ Al Gore gave a talk at TED called Why Climate Action is Unstoppable and "Climate Realism" is a Myth and boy was it good. The rate that China is deploying renewables and green tech is astounding. They installed 45GW of new solar power in one month, which is the same amount of power as 45 nuclear. Absolutely incredible. It would be great if all countries could deploy at such a pace.
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