Don't wait for the new year for a bold new start. Start today with Nicholas Bate and reap the benefits.
Hint for NB: Would love to see these as a deck of index cards.
Fixie Friday - Affinity Kissena
When it comes to building communities, there's one essential ingredient that can make or break the community. It's trust. Sure there are other things needed to build a community like people and participation, but trust is essential if that community wants to meet its own aim and grow to include to new members.
Without entrusting others to act on the best interests of the community, it becomes nothing more than an organisation that uses bureaucracy to funnel contributions through to 'those in charge'. A community that needs approval on everything from a couple of people who act as the 'heads of the community' is going to find itself difficult to grow and may eventually end up turning people away. No one wants to join a community where all contributions to the community need approval from one or two individuals.
Trusting people to act within the best interests of the community is essential for the community to grow. It's through this trust we can allow people to act in the best interests of the community and make it a better community for all involved.
T-Shirts
... the ultimate guide.
The Kaweco Liliput Fountain Pen
Just dawned on me the other day that I don't currently own a fountain pen so I'm starting a short list of considerations with the Kaweco Liliput Fountain Pen.
Any other recommendations for a first time user of fountain pens?
Take the Stairs
We end up with needlessly difficult lives because we have trouble recognizing ease when it’s hidden behind difficulty. It’s hard to see, for example, in that difficult moment when you’re about to walk into a gym for the first time, that you are taking the path of greater ease: if you get yourself through that short, difficult experience, your life quickly begins to lose a lot of difficulty. Beyond the gate, your health situation is easier, dating is easier, clothes shopping is easier, and so is virtually any physically demanding task you can think of, possibly for the rest of your life. All of this ease is bought for three hours a week, which themselves quickly (and permanently) become many times easier than they were the first time.
Amazing piece about the changes in the Internet since the glory days of blogging.
The centralization of information also worries me because it makes it easier for things to disappear. After my arrest, my hosting service closed my account, because I wasn’t able to pay its monthly fee. But at least I had a backup of all my posts in a database on my own web server. (Most blogging platforms used to enable you to transfer your posts and archives to your own web space, whereas now most platforms don’t let you so.) Even if I didn’t, the Internet archive might keep a copy. But what if my account on Facebook or Twitter is shut down for any reason?
— The Web We Have to Save by Hossein Derakhshan
The Bradley Mountain Waxed Canvas Utility Roll is one of those products you're going to own for a very long time. Love those kind of products.
Michael Wade sums up well what being productive means:
This means working with deliberation and not by impulse. I must elude a multitude of distractions.
— Going Down the List
by Michael Wade
Book Recommendations by Patrick Rhone
Thanks for the recommendation Patrick!