Strength in Learning
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Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays) I’ll continue to deliver a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. Here is your Taste of Tuesday. June 18, 2024 Last Thursday I had a chance to sit down and chat with Bobby Maximus! The last trip I took before the pandemic lockdown was to train with Bobby at his gym in Utah, and my workouts with him started me on the path to Ironman and going even deeper into the physical fitness of learning. Will be sharing the conversation with Bobby in the coming weeks. Since too many people still confuse learning with schooling, ‘tis the season to celebrate freedom (unless you know someone who is tragically already starting summer school). Every year that I taught high school, right about now, on the last day of school, I’d settle into my car, have a sip of coffee, ease onto the freeway, and turn the stereo WAY up… Alice Cooper - School's Out (from Alice Cooper: Trashes The World) 📱 What I’m Tech'ing — I don’t know why I’d want to control my phone from my laptop, but that’s one OS feature Apple announced at its developers conference. From Wired Magazine’s Everything Announced at Apple’s WWDC: “Apple typically uses its annual developer conference to announce big software updates and introduce new devices. But this year, Apple set aside the gadget talk and left plenty of room for what everyone expected would be the main topic of WWDC: all of the shiny new AI features coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs.” As with everything AI right now, some of the ideas seem cool and some run the gamut from unnecessary to creepy. 🎧 What I’m Listening To — My 8 remaining credits worth of books on Audible, which is sort of a feature and sort of a bug, since I periodically spend a few minutes trying unsuccessfully to kill my subscription. I liked audio books when I was commuting, but when I’m not behind the wheel I like holding real books better. Mostly I’m mentioning this because I’m learning a lot from Good Energy by Casey Means, and I also want to pass on her brother’s strategy for saving money on healthcare-related purchases via Truemed. 📺 What I’m Watching — I started watching “The Peripheral” on Prime, which was awesome because I didn’t know that a William Gibson (subject of an early OSL online research flashmob that created some cool outcomes) book had been made into a show. The show is fun, and I also found this interview with Gibson at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Gibson addresses the shift in science fiction from utopia to dystopia, and describes his writing approach to The Peripheral’s Jackpot: “I don’t think we have the cultural equipment to hold that idea (of a multi-causal apocalyptic event that happened over a long time horizon) readily in our heads…It’s not part of our mythology, in spite of the possibility that we might now already be living in it.” 🤔 Quote I’m pondering — "Conspiracy theory's got to be simple. Sense doesn't come into it. People are more scared of how complicated shit actually is than they ever are about whatever's supposed to be behind the conspiracy."
― William Gibson
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David Preston
Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays) I’ll continue to deliver a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. Here is your Taste of Tuesday. July 2, 2024 Happy Interdependence Day! Here in Open-Source Learning land, ‘tis the season for Civic Fitness. We’ve never needed each other more. Every year I watch people celebrate The Fourth of July and I catch myself thinking… Are we celebrating the same thing? King George and declarations and Boston and all that? A country...
Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays) I’ll continue to deliver a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. Here is your Taste of Tuesday. June 25, 2024 Note: If you’re a TL;DRer who gets dizzy after one paragraph, please head over to this one-question form I created to answer one (1) question and potentially win a prize. You can read the rest later. If you have Jedi-level focus and you can follow along for a few minutes, have a look at What I’m Thinking below to...
Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays) I’ll continue to deliver a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. Here is your Taste of Tuesday. June 4, 2024 This past weekend I sat on my patio with friends and listened as they shared memories of making their way across the border from Mexico when they were seven years old. The story was harrowing and familiar – it’s part of growing up, living, and working in Southern California. My friends were glad their parents...