1629: engerland

Throughput

• It's actually been quite a good week on the whole!
• Despite this, I did spend the first few days with a dreadful cold, which was not much fun.
• Also yesterday I discovered a kiwi allergy, or possibly Pollen Food Syndrome. A slightly scary afternoon though thankfully I didn't need to go to hospital.
• The rest of it has been pretty good, though! We have had some sunny days, some nice time spent with pals, work's been pretty good.
• I feel like I am (and have been for a while) between projects. There's a lot going on, but it's pretty much all BAU. I am going to have a think about what might be interesting projects to embark on.

Output

• Wrote something about the headlines on the BT screens that are all over the place.
• Wrote something about the draw of cybernetics
• Wrote something about mindreading
• Two new episodes of Memhaz (we forgot to upload one we recorded a while back) - 1, 2
• New episode of Calendrical Rot about Blindsight! Recorded a literal month before release, that's how things have been lately.

Input

• Realise I've been a bit behind on books:
• Been reading Ancillary Justice for the podcast, read it before maybe 7 or 8 years ago? Still good imo.
• Read a book called Chill, about how coldwater swimming is good for you, written by A Brighton Guy! The way it's written is a bit odd as the guy is clearly too honest to push the (relatively thin) research on the topic further than it will bear, but is also himself deeply personally convinced of the benefits, so will use lots of anecdotes that seem to be writing cheques that the research can't cash. I don't think he's wrong that it's a good thing, either, and I understand it's probably more difficult to wring a whole book out of "I think this is a good thing" than it is that + evidence and anecdote. I dunno. Liked it well enough.
• Read The Sleep Prescription, about how sleep is important. I don't think I've been sleeping quite as well as I do usually recently so I thought I'd try and read something to give me some ideas as to how I could improve it. It is all the stuff you've heard before about not using screens, trying to keep a fixed wake time etc, but it's no bad thing to be reminded of the basics.
• Read The 5AM Miracle, which is correct in identifying that waking up early is good for a whole bunch of reasons, but is written in a very brand-build-y way that I found annoying.
• Read Non-Violent Communication, which is very good and useful, though the lad does have a funny habit of including his and his mates' poetry. Also I feel like I have been on the end of some... schematic use of the techniques and my goodness nothing gets my back up like feeling like I'm talking to someone who's ELIZA'd themselves.
• Finally finished The Courage To Be Disliked which I've been dithering away on for ages. A summary of Adlerian psychology coming via Japan, not sure how much I agree with all of it but it's always interesting to see the path not taken for a field.
• Otherwise: still going with Balatro; The Acolyte continues to be mid. We've hit Gilmore Girls s4 and I can feel it getting bad.

Keep it real! Over and out.