- Our previous neighbour gifted us with her old stationary bike (thanks, Alexandra!), which is one of those folding ones. It’s quite basic, but I have started creating a habit around that. The trick (for me) is to watch a TV show only while I cycle – that generates the incentive to continue cycling for longer and to be eager to get back to it the next day.
- I’ve been playing a few new songs on the ukulele and working a bit on barre chords, but still finding them really hard! Yesterday I took a tour down memory lane and started playing songs I used to listen to when I was a teenager.
- I haven’t finished any new books this week as I’m reading three really long ones:
- This weekend we re-watched Chazelle’s Whiplash, which still mesmerizes and terrifies me in equal measure, and we watched Niagara, a 1953 suspense movie starring Marilyn Monroe (although, really, she’s not the protagonist).
- We finished one of the best TV shows I have ever watched: Catch and Halt Fire. What a marvelous discovery, and what a shame it’s so underrated! If you have a chance, please go see it; I suspect you’ll be amazed.
- A couple of interesting articles I read this week:
- James Clear discusses how you can (not) change someone else’s beliefs with facts, because as soon as you start criticizing their ideas they will put all their energy into proving you wrong. It’s more effective (and kinder) to spend time developing and explaining your ideas than investing energy in proving others wrong. Also interesting is the point he makes about how you don’t want to discuss bad ideas, not even in order to criticize them, as that will just give them continuity. You want bad ideas to die, and they won’t die if you keep bringing them up.
- Shane Parrish writes about how complexity does not disappear, but rather moves across systems. The simpler something looks on the outside, the more complex it has to be on the inside. Very interesting from the point of view of software design.