A place to write where you just don't care

🔗 Stream on

Simon Collison has written about having a longer form blog and also a short one.

A primary motivation for creating my Stream was the paralysing sense that a blog post needed appropriate length and weight.

I understand that feeling well. I am always too aware of my audience when I write. To the point that anything too short or off topic feels like I’m wasting their time. As a result I have created way too many blogs down the years (and I still maintain too many).

So I’ve found my recent discovery of Micro.blog very freeing. I don’t care too much on here. I just share what’s on my mind. No matter how short, long or off topic.

New word learnt: standfirst. “An introductory paragraph in an article, printed in larger or bolder type or in capitals, that summarises the article”.

I had never heard of this word before. I always just called it the ‘byline’.

(learnt via this article)

1988 Flannel

Daughter Realizes Dad Has Worn Same L.L.Bean Flannel Shirt Since 1988

I’m a recent convert to flannel. Like pickup trucks they do just look a bit silly in the UK. But the benefits outweigh that for me.

They’re so versatile. Lovely and warm in the autumn, often letting you go out without a jacket. And you can wear a t-shirt underneath and then unbutton the shirt if you get too hot. And in the winter they’re often thick enough that when paired with a jacket you are nice and toasty.

Flannel is also hardy and long lasting (though not as hardy as they once were I’m sure). I drunkenly fell off my bicycle last year wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch one. It has a few scuffs, but it survived very well indeed. And if I wasn’t wearing it my skin would have been covered in road rash.

Another reason I like this story is because it reminds me of the ‘capsule wardrobe’. The idea that you have a default outfit – or a few default outfits. Meaning you don’t spend a bunch of time working out what to wear each day.

I have too many clothes to have a ‘capsule’. But I would say I have a ‘uniform’ at work. I wear the same Cos fleece, Charles Twyitt trousers and Clark’s dessert boots each day.

Continuing on from yesterdays post about preserving your websites once you die Derek Sivers has the idea of the Hundred Year Host. It’s just a concept right now though.

They were talking about the “agri-food industry” on the radio. But all I could hear was the “angry food industry”.

People who put (Save for later) in their posts sure must think highly of what they have to say. I wish I had that sort of confidence.

fredbenenson on Threads:

Apple needs to ban notifications from delivery / service apps that are merely advertisements, or at least enforce differentiating between actual status updates and ads.

I am so SICK of getting DoorDash advertisements just because I need to have their notifications on for regular deliveries.

I totally agree. I try to remember to turn Uber Eats notifications on/off when I order. But I don’t always remember. And I shouldn’t have to remember.

Digital legacy

At least once a week I think about what’s going to happen to my websites once I die. Within a month or two they’ll probably disappear, which upsets me.

What can I do to avoid that? It shouldn’t be too difficult. All my sites are static, aside from Learnt.me which is put online via Obsidian Publish. But Learnt.me is probably the site I’d like to remain online the most after I die.

WordPress now offers their 100-Year Plan. But it’s $38,000.

NearlyFreeSpeech is pay-as-you-go. So I could conceivably top up my account with as much as I could afford and it should last a while (assuming they stay in business).

My current sites are largely on Amazon S3. So as long as there’s an active card to pay the $3-4 monthly pay it should keep working for many years.

But ideally my Will gives some instructions and some money for preserving my digital legacy. And one of my more tech-y friends could carry it out.

I don’t plan on dying any time soon. But it would be good to put a plan in place.

I’ve written about @vincent’s wonderful Tinylytics.

It’s a human rights violation for a company not to have any wi-fi signal in their toilets.