Uncategorized

by

The scale of getting things done:

  1. Urgent and important.
  2. Urgent but not important.
  3. Not urgent but important.
  4. Not urgent and not important.
Or for a visual que let’s borrow one from Wikipedia:
While it took me a long time to learn about the connection to president Eisenhower, I’ve generally found this decision matrix a pretty good way for classifying things. It works really well. Because urgency controls attention, and importance determines making sure it happens, which leads to much doing.
And then there’s what I call The Class 5 Full Roaming Vapor–something that is not urgent, but is important, and that makes you feel like having a shot of whiskey in the mean time. These kinds of things: you can kinda picture smack dab in the middle of the chart, lol.
by

A friend mentioned second guessing themselves, so I offered this in response:

If I was better at drawing, I’d probably make another one for my “Amok time” method of solving problems I don’t now the solutions too, lol.
by

Me: “Things I can blame on genetics: dunking a donut in my coffee.”

Willow: “What about the lack of sharing, human?”
Me: “Ummm, the baker?”
Misty: “Bastard….”
Corky: snorts
And may the coffee flow. 

Passing thought: omnitasking

by

A thought reoccurring to me often of late: is how many updates I’ve been meaning to write here in my journal, and filed under “Do that later.”

The answer is of course: too many.

My time has been pretty much a simple cycle of work, taking care home, or trying to garner enough downtime to recover from the formers. On the positive side, I’m not dead yet.
by

This Was Apple’s Most Significant WWDC Announcement. Why It’s Bad News for Google and Facebook Developers will have to disclose exactly what information their apps collect about users. 


An interesting idea but I doubt much will truly change.
In my Android → iPad conversion I came to the conclusion that Android made it easier for me to know what data I am sharing with applications; iOS makes it more clear that I am sharing data. But in practice people aren’t going to stop using their services just because of data collection. At best, we can hope users read the privacy policies, and that the platform gods police bad actors on their store fronts.
by

What would make you buy a new Amazon Kindle?

This is something I put a bit of thought into with my recent decision to get a modern Kindle. Chiefly it was driven by two facts about my old HDX7: it’s so old, I can’t remember what year the lock screen adds last refreshed never mind how many years “Yeah, that’s not supported anymore. Please use a browser instead.” has been the answer to various functions.
Secondly of course is the fact that my HDX was mostly used for reading, not for apps. Getting an e-Ink model was a natural choice versus another Fire series. For the most part, I think there’s only two things I could see that would make me upgrade before my Kindle is likewise old as heck.
1/ USB-C because the only other devices I typically charge that still use USB Micro-B are things like headphones and speakers. Devices that aren’t likely to retire until they break, no longer hold a suitable charge, or become a source of pain over the aging Bluetooth standards. So things that will probably die by the time USB connectors other than Type-C have gone the way of the floppy diskette.
2/ Tremendous boost in US performance. Because tasks like looking up words or shifting through annotations ain’t very fast on the Kindle 10 by any means. But when you consider that it’s hard to make the device any cheaper, and the SoC has enough oomph not to worry about ebooks exceeding its capabilities: it’s hard to complain about showing some patience for infrequently used interfaces to finally open.
Let’s say I’m not expecting to buy a new Kindle in a very long time unless I run out of Micro USB charging cables, lol
by

Covid Will Have Larger Impact on Commercial Than Residential Real Estate, Says New York Architect

I’m kind of interested to see what new buildings will look like in a few decades, both given the pandemic and the rise of technology.
Can’t say I expect people’s homes to change too wildly. Apartment corridors, stairwells, and elevators might change a bit, but I expect most people will carry on and slowly adapt fancy technology as prices drop.
Public and professional spaces on the other hand are a bit different. Your home is mostly your own and people who frequently have half the neighborhood for guests aren’t the norm; for better or worse. But where you work, travel, and conduct necessary business and the trappings are able to change.
For some reason I find myself remembering the tag office where I used to live. We’d all be packed in line like sardines unless you hit just the right off peak. At that time renewing online, or going to a self service kiosk wasn’t a thing. Hell, their computers looked kike leftover 486 machines in the era of Pentiums.
by

TIL: xfce4-terminal has a drop-down mode.

And it’s actually pretty nice and simple compared to some I’ve seen over the years.