My top ten-ish tv shows
Honorable Mentions
On my fifth rewatch right now. Just started S2
Obsidian might work for you
In the 2000s and early 2010s, less of your life was lived on a cell phone or smartphone.
For kids now, it’s 100% of their lives. Post-COVID, the majority of social interaction between peers is through a social media app.
That means that close to 100% of kids are on their phones during the school day. If you aren’t, you run the risk of social isolation and FOMO.
Administrators can’t send a kid to detention for using their phone because ALL kids would be in detention every day.
Here’s one article that examines the problem
Surprised no one has mentioned The Expanse series. A ton of world building in very different kinds of environments. Space stations, small ships, big ships, generation ships, asteroids, moons, planets.
The environments are well thought out in how the residents would need to adapt
Columbus is a great little city in a not so great state. The local politics are quite progressive and the food and bar scene is quite nice. There was a decently sized queer community when I lived there a decade ago, and I’d expect it to continue to flourish as long as a major university is nearby.
Winters are cold. Summers are hot. The weather is what it is 🤷🏻♀️
I wonder if you’d like Sleigh Bells. Twee pop vocals over grungy guitar. A lot of fun
Gosh. I hadn’t thought about Indian in the cupboard in years
Not OP, but I almost exclusively read novels and non fiction via audiobooks. For context, I’m on pace for 70 books this year.
My main reason for audiobooks is I having a driving commute. Two hours a day round trip. Audiobooks keep me sane in a way that podcasts or music do not. I also do audiobooks when doing chores around the house.
Second, I struggle to focus on reading a book on my phone. Too many distractions and I think the reading experience is subpar. I do have an eInk reader, but I haven’t charged it in years because it’s easier to do audiobooks.
Physical books are rare in my home, but that’s a self-reinforcing cycle since I enjoy audiobooks so much.
Daddy would you like some sausages?
Yeah. Specifically so they could disconnect from the sabbath
Just use shift-4 mate
I went to grad school during the ‘08 housing crisis because there were not many jobs available for early career folks. The program was a combination of technical networking (Cisco) and business acumen.
Classes were longer seminars, much harder than undergrad with an intense focus on the subject matter rather than superficial discussions. Projects were also longer/harder including a thesis (~100 pages, 6 months of work)
I learned A LOT. I networked with industry folks and continue to engage with the alumni community. I’ve helped 5-6 grads land their first job.
After a few years working, I did an MBA part time (nights and weekends). That was similarly challenging and I also learned a lot.
I would recommend working professionally before a grad degree unless you’re in a specific industry like bio/chem research, math, psychology etc. basically industries where you require a Ph.D to do anything.
Do your best to get a graduate assistantship to offset the expense of the program OR work with an employer for continuing education.
Not a direct answer to your question, but I read How to be Perfect last year. Michael Schur (creator of Parks and Rec) wrote the book as an exploration of the research they did to make The Good Place.
It’s a survey of philosophy for non-philosophers and does a great job breaking down how to make good choices without being preachy.
Here’s the link
Why do you need a VPN and not a reverse proxy and dyndns?
My setup uses some docker containers to:
We are still in the early days of the fediverse. Once this thing gets figured out and stabilized, I think we could see some progress in consolidating duplicate communities…
But does the broader group of users want this model?
All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing are beautiful western novels by Cormac McCarthy. Both are very much “a boy and his horse” kind of stories about learning to be yourself. They’re loosely related and there’s a third book that brings the boys together and concludes their stories
The Jungle and Oil! by Upton Sinclair are novelizations of Sinclair’s investigative journalism work in the meat packing industry and the nascent workers rights movement respectively. Oil! was very loosely adapted into the film There Will Be Blood (the film covers maybe the first 3-4 chapters by greatly expanding upon the material
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen was a very impactful book for me as a child. It’s a YA novel, but still worth a read. The main character Brian survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and is forced to find a way to survive on his own
A few more recent novels that I enjoyed:
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Won the 2024 Booker Prize (best English language novel) about an authoritarian government taking power in Ireland and how that unfolds from the perspective of a mother with young children. It’s a hard read, but very well written
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. Translated into English. A friend described it as “sexy witches in South America deal with authoritarian rule.” And that’s pretty close…
Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park. A semi-fictionalized history of the Korean Peninsula and the desire to have a unified identity. Many people come to the peninsula (same bed) with very different goals for its use (different dreams). Really fascinating book and engaging
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Follows a trio of friends as they explore the world of video game design. Starts in the early 80s and runs through the 2000s. Reminder me very much of the show Halt and Catch Fire.
My Friends by Hisham Matar. Follows a Libyan immigrant living in England in the 80s through 2010s as he wrestles with his identity, his homeland, his friends and family. Khaled’s closest friends serve as foils to his own feelings, reacting to the same circumstances very differently from himself