Day 19: birthday #mbapr

A birthday table is set with decorations, favors, and blue balloons in a home interior; a banner reads ZORIONAK, congratulations in Basque.

Day 17: transcendence #mbapr

Bordeaux cathedral

🚀 A comment on comments – Manu

Someone asked me about my stance on not having comments on my blog. I’m not a fan of comments in general and I think commenting on something should be done in one of two ways:

  1. Privately via email or via direct messaging
  2. Publicly by posting a reply on your own website

I like seeing a comments thread in a post of mine, but publicly posting a reply in one’s own website makes a lot of sense, too. So here’s my shout out to Manu.

Day 16: flâneur #mbapr This one was tough @chrisaldrich this is the closest thing I could come up with. Wandering dude watching life pass by.

Day 15: small? #mbapr

A waxing gibbous moon floats above an art deco building against a clear blue sky during twilight. Spanish: Una luna gibosa creciente flota sobre un edificio art deco contra un cielo azul claro durante el crepúsculo. Basque: Ilargi gibosoa hazten ari dena flotatzen dago art deco eraikin baten gainean zeru urdin argiaren kontra ilunabarrean.

Day 14: cactus #mbapr

Gymnocalycium pflanzii, according to the iPhone’s smart info thingy.

A green cactus with long red spines sits in a black pot on a red surface, among other potted plants. Spanish: Un cactus verde con largas espinas rojas está en una maceta negra sobre una superficie roja, rodeado de otras plantas en macetas. Basque: Espina gorri luzeak dituen kaktus berde bat beltzeko ontzi batean dago, beste landare batzuekin ontzietan, gainazal gorri baten gainean.

Analog v digital writing tools

I was thinking about analog/digital tools for writing and journaling, and I started jotting down a few pros and cons of both. Personally I lean towards digital, but I’d like to hear your opinions.

Analog tools PROS

  • Help deep thinking
  • Beautiful notebooks and pens
  • Durability (decades or centuries)
  • Available any time and everywhere
  • Affordable (unless you go down the pen/paper shopping rabbit hole)
  • Light to carry (unless you go down the stack-of-notebooks-in-leather-cover rabbit hole)

Analog tools CONS

  • Difficult to copy/backup
  • Vulnerable to fire and water
  • Need lots of storage space
  • Bad legibility / Horrible handwrite

Digital tools PROS

  • Lots of backup options
  • Durability (as long as there’s electricity)
  • Lots of linking/referencing options
  • Automations
  • Rather type than hand write

Digital tools CONS

  • Electricity dependent
  • Useless in case of zombie apocalypse (no electricity)
  • Too many apps to fiddle with
  • Expensive hardware
  • Only available with battery/charger

Day 13: page #mbapr

One of the best first pages I’ve ever read in a book. Contra Florencia by Mario Colleoni. Translation in the page picture’s Alt text.

Two books lie on a wooden surface, one titled Contra Florencia by Mario Colleoni, overlapping another titled La historia del arte by H. Gombrich. Spanish: Dos libros están sobre una superficie de madera, uno titulado Contra Florencia de Mario Colleoni, sobre otro titulado La historia del arte de H. Gombrich. Basque: Bi liburu egur gainean daude, bat Contra Florencia izenburua duena Mario Colleonirenak, beste bat La historia del arte izenburukoa H. Gombrichek egina, gainean jarririk. An ordinary day, without pretensions, I made the decision to abandon myself to the benefit of a good walk, looking for, as Christian Bobin would, what the day needs to be a day: a little joy. A kind afternoon shored up the last hours of light, accompanied by a temperate sun, peaceful as that sweet and kind stone, so local, so own, which here they call serene. Voluntary prey of chance, open in my imagination to any adventure, I let myself fall through the neighborhood of Ognissanti, a place traditionally inhabited by artists. As the shops were closed, I took the opportunity to climb to the windows of all the premises, the cafes and the antique shops that I saw, that there are dozens of them here and they are all of extraordinary quality. In the meantime, I saw some remarkable piece and wandered following the orthogonal line of an imaginary axis, block after block, bend after bend, until suddenly I turned into Via Borgo Ognissanti, I raised my head as if memory could interpret the sky and I remembered that, in one of the many boutiques that dot this street, on November 29, 1913 a man named Alfredo Geri received a franked telegram from Paris.

Day 12: magic #mbapr

A bit late but I didn’t want to miss yesterday’s challenge.

A young child sits inside a large gift box, looking at the camera, in a homely room with wooden flooring. Spanish: Un niño pequeño se sienta dentro de una caja de regalo grande, mirando a la cámara, en una habitación acogedora con suelo de madera. Basque: Haur txiki bat opari-kutxa handi baten barruan eserita dago, kamera begiratzen, egurrezko zorua duen etxe-giroko gelan.

I felt hopeless because I want to get rid of YouTube but I really like watching videos while I’m having breakfast or a #SadDeskLunch and suddenly I remembered Nebula, which I had not visited in a long time. I’m happy now.

Day 11: Sky #mbapr

A bird flies by a white chimney with the faint moon in the clear blue sky behind. Spanish: Un pájaro vuela junto a una chimenea blanca con la tenue luna en el cielo azul claro detrás. Basque: Hegazti bat hegaldatzen da tximinia zuria ondoan, ilargi lausoa atzealdeko zeru urdin argian.

I love the Tufte theme for micro.blog, by @pimoore. Absolutely love it, with its sidenotes, side figures… It’s beautiful. Thanks, man.

estebantxo.micro.blog/2024/04/0…

my timeline has been frozen for hours and my posts don’t show anywhere. something’s wrong.

Day 10: train as suggested by @starrwulfe #mbapr

I can’t believe I don’t have one single picture related to trains. Not even remotely. And I commute everyday by train. So today’s a miss.

Today I listened to two very interesting, mind challenging podcast episodes that I’d like to share with you. Both are interviews done by Bari Weiss for the Honestly Podcast at The Free Press.

Portrait of Paul Kingsnorth

Paul Kingsnorth

The Story of Someone Who Changed His Mind

It’s a conversation with former activist, still writer and enviromentalist, new born orthodox christian (yes, all that) Paul Kingsnorth. His views challenged lots of my beliefs, and the thing is that they make a lot of sense and made me think a lot and want to read more about and from him.

Portrait of Batya Ungar-Sargon

Batya Ungar-Sargon

How the Working Class Became America’s Second Class

This episode features Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, whom I didn’t know either. Very, very thought provoking views, strongly based on her own journalistic research across the US. I may not agree with many of the thoughts she states as facts, but she certainly makes many interesting points about how the left has gone elitist and how a populist (in my opinion) like Trump is connecting with the hard working people in America.

Day 9: crispy #mbapr

Several snack bags and a cereal box are cluttered on a wooden pantry shelf among kitchen items. Spanish: Varias bolsas de snacks y una caja de cereales están amontonadas en un estante de despensa de madera entre artículos de cocina. Basque: Hainbat snack poltsa eta zereal kutxa bat trasteleku batean daude bilduta sukaldeko tresnen artean, egurrezko panategi-apal batean.

Today I thought that I can do a good work in my profession and I can make four people in this world feel loved. And I guess that’s it.

Day 8. #mbapr This is the closest thing I found for prevention in my photo roll. I wanted to remember the parking spot, so there’s a preventive picture.

A blue car parked in a garage, with the number 2082 on the ground, indicating a parking spot. Spanish: Un coche azul estacionado en un garaje, con el número 2082 en el suelo, indicando una plaza de aparcamiento. Basque: Auto urdin bat aparkatuta garaje batean, 2082 zenbakia lurrean, aparkaleku bat adieraziz.

📸 Day 7: well-being #mbapr

When I make bread, I am well. So well-being 😊.

A freshly baked, crusty loaf of bread is sliced open, revealing a porous interior; placed on a white plate on a dark surface. Spanish: Una hogaza de pan recién horneada y crujiente está cortada, mostrando un interior poroso; situada en un plato blanco sobre una superficie oscura. Basque: Berriki egindako, azal gogorreko ogi-xerra zabalduta dago, barrualde zulakorra erakutsiz; zuri koloreko plater batean ipinita, azalera ilun baten gainean.

I’m making a bold move in my social networking workflow, inspired by these two posts by @moonmehta: this one and this other one.

I have unfollowed everybody in Micro.blog (after backing up the follow list, just in case I need to go back (You can do this by Exporting Follows in your Fediverse details in the Accounts section). and then subscribed everybody back via RSS (I use NetNewsWire for this).

The https://micro.blog/posts/user format (no .json nor .xml extension, just the plain user name) lets you subscribe to both posts AND replies of a certain user. Every post they publish and every reply they send, regardless of the recipient (I even found out that this format https://micro.blog/posts/'mastodon user' lets me subscribe to any Mastodon account via RSS).

The idea is twofold. On one hand, I limit even more the addictive nature of every social network, even a one like Micro.blog, limited-by-design. My Micro.blog timeline will not show my follow’s posts anymore, so I won’t need to be checking the web or the app like I used to do with Twitter and I still do with Micro.blog. That should help me own even more the time I give to my digital stuff.

On the other hand, scrolling down the timeline wouldn’t guarantee that I’d read every post from my follows, and I’d miss many of them. Having them in NetNewsWire will assure that I can read every post and reply and I won’t miss my favorite people’s insights.

I have started subscribing to 75 RSS feeds. This might change. I might see that I want to receive updates from a smaller number of people. Or I might like the system and follow even more people this way. I have 3.750 unread posts right now, so the Mark All As Read feature is going to be very handy in the beginning, and probably down the road too.

Engaging with the posts and replies might be a bit cumbersome. When I see a post I want to reply to, NetNewsWire opens the original blog. If the blog has the “Comment on Micro.blog” feature, it’s easy to reply to. If not, it’s a bit more difficult. Replies are opened directly in Micro.blog, so that’s not an issue. I’ll see how it goes.

So here’s a new try in my blogging/social networking journey. I want to write more and scroll less; I want to engage in meaningful conversations and read everything from the people I like. Above all, I want to own the experience and the time.

And one added benefit: this RSS feed https://micro.blog/feeds/eumrz.json now gives me my posts and the replies I receive from other people. That’s very cool. Thanks to Jatan for the idea.