Chris J Wilson

I’ve decided that I generally prefer monthly subscriptions over annual ones.

The benefit of an annual is it’s cheaper over the year, but that can mean you get hit by a single big payment. I am very bad at spreading these payments out and you never know what next year will look like.

The larger monthly payments are easier to track and buget for.

Probably the best solution is to spread my annual payments across the year.

I don’t know if I missed it but did the original HomePod not get an update (or maybe they snuck in a processor bump in a press release somewhere) and what about the Apple silicon Macs? I’m really interested in getting a Mac again but definitely not an intel one. I really don’t like splitting the iPhone 12 camera features further, a larger sensor is a really interesting change, as is LiDar and 10 bit hdr video recording. I’m interested to see the final details but it’s more impressive than I thought. But I think I thought that last year. Marketing eh.

I’ve struggled with…well, a lot recently. I suspect that the general malaise has been one of the key reasons that I haven’t been able to write or publish anything longer than a tweet-length post for a while. It also doesn’t help that my daughter has been ill for about a month, waking up early, crying frequently, and going to bed later removing the little previous creative writing time. And now it looks likely that I have COVID while work has been steadily ramping up. But the other factor is a feeling that I have nothing worth saying. I know that this is partially a lack of inspiration (as Austin Kleon says, problems of output are usually problems of input) but it’s also caused by a growing self-censorship. I will get to the end of writing a post and then delete the whole thing because it feels stupid, or I am the wrong person to write this, or perhaps there will be negative repercussions to me sharing this post. The only way out is to act bravely and publish anyway, slowly building confidence and a sense of what is good to publish. So this is the first, probably terrible, step.

At work we have a tool that allows for collaboration and transparancy, so we can all see what everyone is up to and the changes we log. It’s also part of the ideas and values we preach… and yet I keep finding that different teams set their privacy to full so no other team can access files (and when they grant access, they do it on a case by case basis often leading to multiple requests) plus instead of using the collaborative tool, people will download their own copy, make their edits, and then reshare…often missing edits other people have made.

I really wonder why on earth we use these expensive solutions if no one is going to use them to do what they were designed for.

I really hate the culture of shaming newbies and amatures who try to copy something they see online but don’t do it as well.

• Everyone sucks when they start.
• If they enjoy it, what does it matter if it’s “good”
• It’s very easy to be the cynic who critiques everyone else (and does nothing)
• okay, if they are pretending to be a pro/guru and they have just started…you can roll your eyes a little.

A quick list of things that are making me happy. Feel free to steal this as a blogging prompt.

1. Walking my daughter to nursery in the morning.

It’s great to take the 30 mins to go past the duck pond, hold hands, and get to know each other better. She’s grown so much in the last two years and it’s amazing seeing her start to speak in English and Polish.

2. My Anne Pro 2 keyboard

I got my fancy keyboard back from the office and took it home. It’s really comfortable and sticking to the same keyboard with the same layout has helped improve my typing accuracy again.

3. Saturday Afternoon teas

We started inviting some friends round for afternoon tea on Saturdays. It’s an excuse to bake a cake, have a cuppa and chat. It’s been a great way to socialize in our post-lockdown situation (although we are keeping track of government guidelines and case numbers).

I hope this makes you half as happy as it made me when I wrote it. I’d love to know what is making you happy at the moment.

🔗 Why publishers and media organisations need to build communities — Media Sector

“LinkedIn’s Groups is a reminder that LinkedIn is not a community platform – it’s a business that monetises the #humblebrag in business as well as our eyeballs and data.”

Someone at work sent me this article to read and I couldn’t help but love this quote. It perfectly sums up LinkedIn.

“As a European, I’m getting increasingly tired of American influence, from media, politics, work & lifestyle etc. It is overwhelming how much input is coming from US when it doesn’t relate to my expe…”

A thread from @jelenajansson

I saw this thread a few days ago and empathized. America has influenced my life and culture in many ways through my whole life but it feels increasingly ever present. News is perhaps the most effective example where I can tell you all sorts about the ins and outs of American politics now (and yet I deliberately avoided studying American politics when at university and chose different modules on other political systems). Perhaps this is purely due to America’s profound influence on the rest of the world, and yet surely that is self-fulfilling: the more America is reported on, the greater its influence. Looking at the rising influence of Qanon conspiracies in UK and Germany with anti-mask and anti-vaccination movements, its absurd that inventions to defend the explain away the US President’s incompetence have become global.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing about culture and influence and there is a lot I like about the states, but the 24/7 US News and Culture is becoming too much.