Archive
Full Post List
Apr 24, 2025: Have you ever read a book by mistake? Revisiting a backup file of my old notes reminded me of the time I was reading what I assumed to be a novel by Ruth Ozeki, but it turned out to be a …
Apr 22, 2025: Finished reading: The White Ship by Charles Spencer 📚 I knew very little about the rival sons of William the Conquerer, but have now learned some …
Apr 21, 2025: Writing notes is much more than just writing notes. Done right, it’s a way of working with ideas: I’m organising my notes right now and stumbled …
Apr 20, 2025: The future of the humanities is wide open The humanities within universities are facing decline and financial prioritization, yet interest in liberal arts thrives outside academic …
Apr 20, 2025: To understand the future of AI, look to the past The hype about AI isn’t new. In his day, Victor Hugo was breathless about the book.
Apr 15, 2025: By rejecting the terms of Trump’s authoritarian bullying, Harvard University may forego $2.3 billion in funding. But they’ll lose much …
Apr 15, 2025: Why not publish all your notes online? Contemplating whether to publish personal notes online reveals both the potential benefits of motivation and community engagement and the drawbacks of …
Apr 14, 2025: Time to concede nothing A reflection on the enduring legacy of thinkers like Erasmus and Castellio, emphasizing the importance of perseverance in upholding values of civility …
Apr 14, 2025: Why in #Australia are there at least 50 private health insurance options (!) but only two major supermarket options, only two main telecom providers, …
Apr 11, 2025: Machine learning engineer Edwin Wenink has made 899 private notes public in his Zettelkasten, inviting readers to explore his evolving work.
Apr 10, 2025: Some sound advice from a less crazy time (two whole months ago): Write it Down | dansinker.com
Apr 2, 2025: Human creativity, when combined with AI, leads to greater innovation rather than a decline in beauty.
Apr 2, 2025: The game Myst, originally created as a card network in HyperCard, is being explored through graph analysis to reveal its hidden secrets.
Apr 1, 2025: So many, many books I really want to read. Here are just a couple on this towering tsundoku pile: The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most …
Apr 1, 2025: An interesting Zettelkasten discussion. malikalimoekhamedov.substack.com/p/bob-dot… See also: my review of A System for Writing.
Apr 1, 2025: It's a great time to be writing the future Writers are worrying about AI taking their livelihoods. But unless you were already writing like a robot, that’s not how it works. Now is a …
Mar 30, 2025: Five solutions to link rot in my personal note collection Have you noticed that the problem of link rot on the Web is very real? Just writing a link to a separate page, without comment or annotation, assumes …
Mar 30, 2025: Tame the chaos with just four folders for all your notes Bob Doto’s book A System for Writing (my review) suggests setting up a Zettelkasten (a flexible collection of notes) with a small handful of …
Mar 25, 2025: Can you make too many notes? This guy did. #zettelkasten #notetaking #pkm
Mar 25, 2025: 💬 This is a quiet space… Moving to Sydney offered cheap train travel compared with Europe. “Never mind arriving,” I would say, …
Mar 24, 2025: Lord Acton took too many notes, but that doesn't mean you have to It’s intriguing to discover a prolific author with a working collection of 148,000 notes, but it begs the question: can you make too many notes? …
Mar 19, 2025: The Dance of Joyful Knowledge: Inside Georges Didi-Huberman's Monumental Note Archive Georges Didi-Huberman’s extensive collection of over 148,000 notes exemplifies the enduring relevance and creativity of the Zettelkasten method …
Mar 19, 2025: The article that struck Will like a bolt of lightning: What’s the purpose of making notes? Image: Sayre Gomez at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Mar 19, 2025: TIL of a philosopher and prolific author who maintains at the heart of their working practice a collection of more than 148,000 notes. It’s a …
Mar 10, 2025: Roland Barthes on the purpose of making notes Note-taking should mainly serve as a means to enable writing rather than being an exhaustive record of knowledge. At least, that’s my approach.
Mar 9, 2025: My writing process oscillates between notes and drafts Writing is a messy, iterative process involving rough ideas, multiple drafts, and the challenge of balancing note-taking with drafting to ultimately …
Mar 7, 2025: I’m always comparing my sloppy first drafts with other people’s heavily-edited published work. So it’s no wonder I’m down on …
Mar 5, 2025: I’ve been asking what comes after content?. Here’s one possibility, dreamed up by Burnout from Humans. More at The Wild Chatbot. HT: …
Mar 5, 2025: Nothing is immune from the law of fashion: what looks cutting edge today will date very quickly. Before long, AI-generated ‘content’ will …
Mar 5, 2025: 💬 This quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra seemed to land for me. kim e landwehr https://kimlosey.me/2025/02/18/115810.html
Mar 4, 2025: 💬“I had in my mind to write three books about the world as it was, using concepts and images almost like characters. But I ended up making a long …
Mar 3, 2025: Ironically, I just saw this message from 2013 on the same day I heard Microsoft has announced it’s retiring Skype. I guess my superpower is Late …
Mar 3, 2025: 📷 It’s always amazing to be reminded we’re living on the surface of an exquisite marble. Thanks Firefly! (Also a comforting reminder we …
Mar 2, 2025: A nice little book launch today for our anthology. Destinations & Detours. I guess it was also the launch of Detour Editions 😁. It was great to …
Mar 2, 2025: 💬“If something happened that struck me, I would write a note — sometimes just on a little scrap of paper — and would slip these pieces of paper into a …
Feb 24, 2025: ”Just as no one can be Charles Dickens these days, very soon, no one will be able to market anything that looks like what AI could produce.” What …
Feb 24, 2025: I’ve found writing on Wordpress a bit of a chore. Plenty of features when all I wanted to do was post a little article. These days micro.blog …
Feb 23, 2025: What comes after content? The decline of Hollywood has been attributed to the rise of AI-generated ‘content’, leading to a potential cultural shift towards more …
Feb 23, 2025: The Lost Medieval Library Found in a Romanian Church medievalists.net medievalists.net …
Feb 21, 2025: My notes were full but my heart was empty. Doug Toft travels beyond progressive summarization Doug Toft explores his journey to making better notes on his reading. He found trying to summarize what he’d just read was heavy work. And Tiago …
Feb 21, 2025: Well the book arrived this morning. Now I really am publishing slowly!
Feb 17, 2025: Finished reading: Nothing Left to Fear from Hell by Alan Warner. 📚 This was so piteously moving. The lost cause, the delusional hopes, the petty …
Feb 17, 2025: Publishing slowly I’m writing so slowly that you might be wondering if I’m ever going to get anything published. Well wonder no more. I’m happy to say …
Feb 16, 2025: To care is to disobey The book Pirate Care discusses how the act of caring for others has been criminalized, and it advocates for a grassroots political practice of …
Feb 16, 2025: I’ve found Natalie Goldberg’s writing prompts to be especially helpful. Maybe it’s the pleasure of a deck of cards I can shuffle and …
Feb 16, 2025: A great strength of youth is to be able to say, with naive but powerful conviction: “How hard could it be?” I wrote comics as a child and …
Feb 12, 2025: 💬 “We live in a warehouse of casts that have lost their moulds,” - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988). Making meaning where …
Feb 12, 2025: Making meaning where there is none 💬 “We live in a warehouse of casts that have lost their moulds,” - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988). This quote, from the …
Feb 7, 2025: A photo of a toy train set from @manton brought back a fond memory: The first time I ever used eBay I was clueless and accidentally won three …
Feb 3, 2025: Diversity is the only reality!
Jan 30, 2025: Currently reading: Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit 📚 I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three …
Jan 30, 2025: Useful Australian software? You’re probably thinking of Canva or Atlassian. And who even knows WiFi is Australian? But my favourite Aussie tool …
Jan 30, 2025: Torches against pitchforks There’s a great Dave Coverly cartoon of a worried king looking down from the battlements of his castle at an angry crowd massed just below. His …
Jan 30, 2025: “Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” - Anne Herbert, The Next …
Jan 28, 2025: Create a note system that indexes itself Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten system exemplifies a self-indexing record-keeping method. It allows efficient organization of notes through …
Jan 13, 2025: Semantic line breaks are a feature of Markdown, not a bug The adoption of semantic line breaks in Markdown enhances clarity by encouraging writers to isolate each sentence while allowing for visually …
Jan 13, 2025: 💬 “It was mainly a matter of transcribing and rearranging my notes… My notes were like plans for a bridge. Writing the book was like …
Jan 12, 2025: 💬“Read Montaigne, read him slowly, carefully! He will calm you . . . Read him from one end to the other, and, when you have finished, try again . . . …
Jan 12, 2025: Maybe you can create coherent writing from a pile of notes after all “My notes were like plans for a bridge”. I’ve argued that you can’t create good writing just by mashing your notes together …
Jan 10, 2025: Read better, read closer For anyone seeking clues on better techniques for reading, Scott Newstok, author of How to Think Like Shakespeare, has created a marvelous resource: a …
Jan 9, 2025: Improve your notes (and your life) with two-word phrases I’ve been discovering the power of two-word phrases in innovation and branding. This article illustrates their impact through historical …
Jan 5, 2025: Year in books for 2024 Happy New Year! Here are some of the books I finished reading in 2024. Happy New Year! Do you have annual reading goals? And do you …
Dec 2, 2024: Here’s a fascinating podcast episode about Andrew Hui’s new book. The Study. “With the advent of print in the fifteenth century, …
Dec 1, 2024: Zettelkasten anti-patterns When developing your Zettelkasten, your collection of linked notes, what have you learned not to do? Mathematician Alex Nelson keeps a paper …
Nov 27, 2024: 💬 “Put something on the Web, and do it for free”. thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-free-…
Nov 26, 2024: Here’s one for the #Zettelkasten and #PKM tragics: a dive into the pre-history of ‘atomic notes’. …
Nov 25, 2024:
Atomic notes and the unit record principle
Researcher Andy Matuschak talks about atomicity in notes, an idea also developed by the creators of the Archive note app, …Thinking about atomic notes
Nov 24, 2024:
How to write a better note without melting your brain
There’s a great line in Bob Doto’s book A System for Writing which goes like this: “The note you just took has yet to realize its …
Nov 24, 2024: In The Atlantic Arthur Brooks suggests three ways to become a deeper thinker. He also ‘solves’ a famous koan. Meanwhile, my suggestion for deeper …
Nov 23, 2024: TIL there’s a tracker for bogong moths! What? Yes, the iconic, endangered species that keeps the critically endangered Mountain Pygmy-possums fed. …
Nov 22, 2024: The future: They touted a slow race between 1984 and Brave New World. Instead it’s a sprint to the finish for The Handmaid’s Tale and …
Nov 21, 2024: Want to read: On Mysticism by Simon Critchley 📚 Having written about Julian of Norwich as a sci-fi author, I’m very interested in philosopher …
Nov 21, 2024: 🗨️ Keanu Heydari on the value of the #Zettelkasten. “Maintaining a zettelkasten is, in itself, an exercise in Stoic care of the self (epimeleia …
Nov 21, 2024: 📷 Just returned from hiking in New Zealand, where the sky was blue and the politics torrid. I learned of the Dawn Raids. We can all learn from this …
Nov 20, 2024: Do I prefer Mastodon or Bluesky? No need to choose, just cross-post from my blog using micro.blog. POSSE FTW. ”You can automatically cross-post your …
Nov 20, 2024: Lots of interest in Bluesky lately. I signed up a year ago. Although I hate venture-funded projects, I loved what Paul Frazee did with beaker Browser …
Nov 10, 2024:
Not just notes: another meaning of 'Zettel'
In German, Zettelkasten, quite simply, means ‘note box’. But there’s another, more hidden meaning of the word Zettel (note) that …
Nov 1, 2024: This year, for Halloween, I’m wearing normal clothes. Somebody asked me, “What are you supposed to be?” I said, “I’m a former gifted child. I was …
Oct 30, 2024: 💬 “Are you curious about your world? If so, what does your curiosity look like? How does it feel, and how does it move? And could you expand your …
Oct 29, 2024:
Busybody, hunter, dancer - which is your curiosity style?
Are you curious about your world? If so, what does your curiosity look like? How does it feel, and how does it move? And could you expand your …
Oct 28, 2024:
Three styles of curiosity - so which one is yours?
I’m interested in what it means to be curious. So I was intrigued by a new study about curiosity that I found via The Conversation. The study …
Oct 17, 2024:
Why not make notes by hand?
It’s often said that making notes by hand is good for learning. Here’s 🎬Notes on Biology, a nice stop-motion short about the benefits of …
Oct 14, 2024:
So many note-taking apps in the app graveyard - but not all are zombies
While clearing out my desk recently I found a USB thumb drive with a whole heap of old note-taking apps on it. This drive dates from 2017, not even …
Oct 12, 2024:
The truth according to Trump
Alan Jacobs rightly observes that Trump supporters don’t care about the ‘truth’ of their claims.
Oct 2, 2024: 💬Manuel says: “people are slowly starting to realise that you can get immense human value from the web outside of traditional social media. You have …
Sep 28, 2024: 💬 “Doing and seeing and thinking about stuff. Writing things down. Sharing and talking about little things, simple ideas, tiny thoughts. Making and …
Sep 22, 2024: Yuri says social media platforms have killed links. If so, it’s a very bad thing. I wouldn’t know, because I’m all in on the Web. …
Sep 18, 2024:
How to write an article from your notes - an example
In July 2024 educational technologist Andy Matuschak published a long article outlining his observations on the debate over discovery learning versus …
Sep 11, 2024: 💬 Oliver Burkeman: It’s not that systems for getting things done are bad, exactly. It’s just that they’re not the main point. The main point – …
Sep 11, 2024:
The shortest writing session that could possibly be useful
Here’s my perspective on ‘atomic notes’. They’re atomic in time even before they’re atomic in any other dimension. An …
Sep 2, 2024:
Enhanced markdown apps you can use for free to make effective notes
I’ve lost track of the ridiculous number of ‘Zettelkasten apps’ now on the loose on the wild wild web. When I checked the ChatGPT …
Aug 28, 2024: Finished reading: A System for Writing by Bob Doto 📚. Ok, I finished it a while ago, and here’s my enthusiastic review
Aug 21, 2024: Finished reading: The Looking-Glass by Machado De Assis 📚 My favourite late 19th century Brazilian author. His novella ‘The Alienist’, included in …
Aug 17, 2024:
How to get Strata for micro.blog up and running
I’ve decided to make use of the ‘notes’ feature in micro.blog. This is like making private posts in a blog. But my main use case is brainstorming …
Aug 17, 2024: 📷 Kookaburra of the day
Aug 14, 2024: I know nothing about breakdancing 🤣 but back in October I attended the qualifying event for the Australian breakdancing Olympic team, where I saw …
Jul 31, 2024: “Feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes” - Jane Austen 🗨️ More
Jul 31, 2024: Great evening light on the way home 📷
Jul 31, 2024:
Feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes: Jane Austen's timely advice for writers and creators
Jane Austen died in the cathedral city of Winchester on July 18, 1817; she was 41 years old. Towards the end of her too-short life, in a brief …
Jul 29, 2024:
My favourite tool is this notebook I made
I couldn’t find a note-making app that really suited me so I made one myself. OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. It’s really just a …
Jul 29, 2024:
Notemaking helps you remember - and helps you forget
Do we really need to remember everything? This is the question posed by Lewis Hyde’s memorable book, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the …
Jul 28, 2024:
Making notes will aid your short-term memory, even when you haven't got one
This week I was making notes about a presentation when my colleague looked over and offered to just give me the slides. I said thanks, of course. But …
Jul 25, 2024: Thanks to @guidostevens@kolektiva.social I found this great quote from Cal Newport, from his book Slow Productivity. “You should give your …
Jul 14, 2024: 💬"The note you just took has yet to realize its potential." - Bob Doto, A System for Writing
Jul 14, 2024:
A System for Writing by Bob Doto
“The note you just took has yet to realize its potential.” - Bob Doto Another ‘Zettelkasten primer’ won’t be needed …
Jul 4, 2024: Here’s why Puss in Boots is my hero: he made something from nothing, and so can we. This article was part of the June 2024 IndieWeb Carnival: …
Jun 29, 2024:
Something from nothing is no fairy tale
As an adult, one of my favourite fairy tales is Puss in Boots. I have immense respect for this talking cat. He has nothing going for him - not even a …
Jun 14, 2024: Why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity? Yes indeed, why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity? Here’s Anna Funder, author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, …
Jun 13, 2024:
A minimal approach to making notes
I want a minimal approach to making notes. I don’t want anything fancy, just enough structure to be useful. When I see people’s souped-up …
Jun 12, 2024: Five useful articles about writing Here are five links with worthwhile writing advice. 🖋️ How to think in writing, part 1: The thought behind the thought by Henrik Karlsson. Chase your …
Jun 8, 2024: Finished reading: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa 📚 This made me want to visit Kanda Jimbochu, the second-hand bookstore quarter of …
Jun 2, 2024:
A forest of evergreen notes
Jon M Sterling, a computer scientist at Cambridge University, has created his own ‘mathematical Zettelkasten’, which he also calls …
May 30, 2024: “let’s look at all the apps that live under our thumbs, and interrogate the choices they’re making, and then imagine what they would look like if we …
May 28, 2024: Andy Bell found 14 ways to supercharge your workflow with AI, but I’ve found the single best one.
May 27, 2024:
Make your notes a creative working environment
“Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?” This is a question …
May 25, 2024: Being human is a trend now. According to the Mintel Global Consumer Trends Report for 2024: “Today’s rapidly advancing AI-powered technologies seem to …
May 23, 2024: 🐙 Octopus intelligence is intriguing. Having read Ray Naylor’s The Mountain in the Sea 📚, I now want to try Other Minds: The Octopus and the …
May 4, 2024: I really enjoyed the latest micro.blog photo challenge, both taking part and seeing all the great photos you people posted. As ever, there were some …
May 4, 2024: As online search declines (thanks Google 😖) more people should know about it the discovery tools on micro.blog. They’re seriously useful. …
Apr 30, 2024: 📷 Day 30: hometown
Apr 29, 2024: 📷 Day 29: drift
Apr 29, 2024: Is the Web reconfiguring itself again? Is the web falling apart?, Eric Gregorich wonders. Meanwhile Manuel Moreale is confident that the web is not dying. I agree with both of them. These …
Apr 28, 2024: 📷 Day 28: Community. Spotted at a rally in Sydney: “Let’s dream new blueprints for the world we want to live in…”
Apr 28, 2024: Finished reading: Ian Gentle: The Found Line, edited by David Roach 📚 I’ve posted about this interesting artist previously, because I loved The …
Apr 28, 2024: Finished reading: Always Will Be by Mykaela Saunders 📚 These short stories are set entirely in Australia’s Tweed region, but they range over a …
Apr 27, 2024: 📷 Day 27: it’s always a lovely surprise to receive a bespoke selection of books in the mail, from the Wild Book Box.
Apr 26, 2024: 📷 Day 26: critter. It’s a bluebottle, or Portuguese man o’ war. These wash up on the beach, mainly in late Summer and early Autumn.
Apr 25, 2024: 📷 Day 25: spine. This is ‘Echidna’ by Illawarra artist Ian Gentle.
Apr 24, 2024: 📷 Day 24: light. I took this shot as we saw in the new year on the beach.
Apr 23, 2024: 📷 Day 23: dreamy. On the weekend I visited White Bay Power Station for the Sydney Biennale. Reopened after 40 years mothballed!
Apr 23, 2024: 📷 Day 22: blue. This is the ocean pool at Kiama, NSW.
Apr 21, 2024: 📷 Day 21: mountain. This is Black Mountain, the unlikely centre of Canberra.
Apr 20, 2024: 📷 Day 20: ice Memories of Norway.
Apr 19, 2024: 📷Day 19: birthday On my birthday this year I visited an exhibition of the artist Louise Bourgeois. She claimed we’re born alone, but it’s the …
Apr 18, 2024: 📷 Day 18: mood The Blue Mountains, in one of their mysterious moods.
Apr 17, 2024: 📷 Day 17: transcendence
Apr 16, 2024: 📷 Day 16: flâneur
Apr 16, 2024: 📷 Day 15: small
Apr 15, 2024: 📷 Day 14: cactus. This is from ‘The Channel Series’, by Karl de Waal, as seen at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Apr 13, 2024: Finished reading: Orbital by Samantha Harvey 📚 This reads curiously well alongside To be Taught, if Fortunate. Both describe spaceflight in mundane …
Apr 13, 2024: 📷 Day 13: page. Fantastic marginalia on this page of a manuscript at the State Library of Victoria.
Apr 12, 2024: 📷 Day 12: magic
Apr 11, 2024: 📷 Day 11: sky
Apr 10, 2024: 📷 Day 10: train
Apr 9, 2024: 📷 Day 9: crispy
Apr 9, 2024: Finished reading: To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers 📚My backlog of sci-fi reading is getting a little smaller.
Apr 9, 2024: Finished reading: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 📚I seem to be getting through the pile of sci-fi books that never shrinks but only …
Apr 8, 2024: 📷 Day 8: prevention.
Apr 8, 2024: 📷 Day 7: I’ve posted this photo before but it’s definitely my idea of wellbeing.
Apr 6, 2024: 📷 day 6: windy
Apr 6, 2024: 📷 Day 5: serene
Apr 4, 2024: Remembering 2 Tone records.1 (I once met Jerry Dammers’ dad. He was an extremely proud father). HT Alan Ralph. ↩︎
Apr 4, 2024: 📷 Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 4: foliage #mbapr
Apr 3, 2024: 💬“Peace of the sort that brings wholeness, harmony, and health to our lives only happens when chaos, confusion, and conflict are included and …
Apr 3, 2024: Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 3: Card. My daughter made this card for my birthday, to go with a themed collection of sci-fi novels. …
Apr 2, 2024: 📷 Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 2: Flowers. This extraordinary bunch came our way. What a beautiful gift! #mbapr
Apr 1, 2024: 📷Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 1: toy
Mar 31, 2024: How to set your own agenda Harrison Owen, who died in March 2024, invented one of the most hopeful approaches to group facilitation I’ve ever come across. He called it …
Mar 31, 2024: Finished reading: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 📚 I found this almost too whimsical yet strangely moving. A bit like my life then.
Mar 31, 2024: When it comes to writing notes, how much mess is just enough? Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, likes to keep his notes messy1: “‘Messiness’, in this context at least, is just the state of not …
Mar 31, 2024: Really looking forward to forward to photoblogging in April. It’s simple: just post a photo every day for a month. But I’ve been surprised to find how …
Mar 30, 2024:
Don't make a Zitatsalat out of your writing
Yes, Zitatsalat. I found this lovely but rarely used German term in the title of a book by the journalist …Zitatsalat? What does that even mean?
Mar 27, 2024: Hugo shortcodes in micro.blog Here’s a quick test of Hugo shortcodes. I’ve been reading some tips for making the most of the Hugo web rendering system. But it turns out I can’t use …
Mar 27, 2024: 🌊 A blissful Autumn weekend swimming and surfing #pacificwavewednesday Surf Beach at Kiama, New South Wales
Mar 21, 2024: Work as if writing is the only thing that matters “Work as if writing is the only thing that matters. Having a clear, tangible purpose when you consume information completely changes the way you …
Mar 13, 2024:
The card index system is ‘a thing alive’ - or is it?
Niklas Luhmann, the famed sociologist of Bielefeld, Germany, wrote of how he saw his voluminous working notes (his ‘Zettelkasten’) as a …
Mar 8, 2024: How to make Mastodon even more fun! Here are a couple of fun websites that will make Mastodon (and possibly the whole fediverse) even more fun. I know, it hardly seems possible. And if …
Mar 8, 2024: 💬 “The real issue with speed is not just how fast can you go, but where are you going so fast? It doesn’t help to arrive quickly if you wind up in the …
Mar 6, 2024:
How to start a Zettelkasten from your existing deep experience
An organized collection of notes (a Zettelkasten) can help you make sense of your existing knowledge, and then make better use of it. Make your notes …
Mar 6, 2024: 💬"At what point does something become part of your mind, instead of just a convenient note taking device?" A question discussed with …
Feb 26, 2024: Here’s how we journey beyond the ‘hero’s journey’.
Feb 26, 2024: Yes, we can be heroes, but does that mean we should be? Yes really, we can be heroes. Thanks very much David Bowie! But if this sounds attractive, perhaps we should be careful what we wish for. Do you want …
Feb 25, 2024: Give it, give it all, give it now Annie Dillard on the writing life 💬 See also: The constant flight forwards Sharing what you know Embracing your humanity is the way forward Image …
Feb 20, 2024: Looks like you can all relax. Everyone’s ‘pivoting’ these days, so why not Satan? 📷
Feb 20, 2024: Mark Luetke shows how he uses a Zettelkasten for creative work (‘zines!) “The goal here is to create an apophenic mindset - one where the …
Feb 15, 2024: Atomic notes - all in one place From today there’s a new category in the navigation bar of Writing Slowly. ‘Atomic Notes’ now shows all posts about making notes. How to make …
Feb 15, 2024: A new post category in micro.blog, filtered to include existing posts Micro.blog is a really useful and easy way to host a website. Even though it feels more like a cottage industry than a corporation there are way more …
Feb 12, 2024:
How to overcome Fetzenwissen: the illusion of integrated thought
It’s too easy to produce fragmentary knowledge. One potential problem associated with making notes according to the Zettelkasten approach is …
Feb 11, 2024:
From fragments you can build a greater whole
Everything large and significant began as small and insignificant This is my working philosophy of creativity and I’m trying to follow it …
Feb 11, 2024: How to decide what to include in your notes Before the days of computers, people used to collect all sorts of useful information in a commonplace book. The ancient idea of commonplaces was that …
Feb 10, 2024: Promethean shame among authors using AI tools: “It starts to make you wonder, do I even have any talent if a computer can just mimic me?” The Verge
Feb 8, 2024: At last, writing slowly is back in fashion! Cal Newport, author of the forthcoming book, 📚Slow Productivity, has finally latched on to the premise of this website: you can get a lot done by …
Jan 30, 2024: Thinking nothing of walking long distances How far is too far to walk? Author Charlie Stross observed that British people in the early nineteenth century, prior to train travel, walked a lot …
Jan 29, 2024:
Does the Zettelkasten have a top and a bottom?
What does it mean to write notes ‘from the bottom up’, instead of ‘from the top down’? It’s one of the biggest questions people have about getting …
Jan 28, 2024: Can we understand consciousness yet? Professor Mark Solms, Director of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, revives the Freudian view that consciousness is driven …
Jan 28, 2024:
Ross Ashby's other card index
During the Twentieth Century many thinkers used index cards to help them both think and write. British cyberneticist Ross Ashby kept his notes in 25 …
Jan 27, 2024: Soon we'll all be writing the books we want to read To benefit from AI-assisted writing, look closely at how it’s transforming the readers. Whenever new technologies appear, many changes in the economy …
Jan 26, 2024: Even the index is just another note It’s tempting to place your notes in fixed categories At some point in your note-making journey you’ll notice that quite a few people like to …
Jan 25, 2024: I’m late to the party but just needed to say: yes, the web is fantastic . I actually love it 😍
Jan 24, 2024: 📷 Moonlight over the headland. This time of year in Sydney is pretty magical.
Jan 10, 2024: Three worthwhile modes of note-making (and one not-so-worthwhile) I finished reading Alex Kerr’s Finding the Heart Sutra on New Year’s Eve, so it just scraped into my reading for 2023. And while reading I made notes …
Jan 9, 2024: It feels soothing that they still have these mechanical boards at a few rail stations in New South Wales. I’m guessing they use less electricity …
Jan 5, 2024: Finished reading: Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon 📚 I actually read this back in September 2023, …
Jan 5, 2024: Manton Reece has updated his excellent and inspiring book on Indie Microblogging. This 1660 description of the Royal Society well describes micro.blog …
Jan 2, 2024: Some people have created a little list of books they didn’t read in 2023. I suppose mine would be my rather long but unpublished list of books I’d …
Jan 1, 2024: Finished reading: Finding the Heart Sutra by Alex Kerr. 📚 I really enjoyed Alex Kerr’s Lost Japan, and this opinionated reflections on the Heart …
Jan 1, 2024: Finished reading: Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park 📚 This was my final read of the year, 2023. Fascinating take on the intertwining of Korean and …
Dec 10, 2023: The value of feedback depends on how you use it I had a school friend who worked on Saturdays at the local op shop. Whenever an item of clothing she liked came in, she’d put it on view somewhere …
Dec 3, 2023: Raising babies? Here's how to survive - I mean, enjoy it Ben Werdmuller may not be alone in finding it quite a challenge raising a baby while also having a life. Here are some thoughts from my own experience …
Dec 1, 2023: Conducting myself properly They made me the student leader of the school orchestra. One day the music teacher was sick and he asked me to conduct. I had no idea what to do, …
Dec 1, 2023: The real story of Napoleon? If you’re thinking of viewing Ridley Scott’s movie version of Napoleon 🍿, or if you’ve already seen it, I’d recommend also …
Nov 30, 2023: Why I'm writing faster Why do you write? Everyone has their reasons but I write so I can think: Writing is not simply a way of saying what someone knows but one of the most …
Nov 28, 2023: Publish first, write later Even a flightless bird may contemplate the constant flight forward “Literature is perhaps nothing more complicated and glorious than the act …
Nov 26, 2023: Whether I’m a tortoise or a hare, or a person who resists anthropomorphizing animals just for the sake of a cheap fable, or even a person who’s …
Nov 26, 2023: Having posted Choose your own race and finish it there’s no excuse now not to boost this: “What kind of runner can run as fast as they …
Nov 26, 2023: Choose your own race and finish it Are you Hare or Tortoise? The idea of writing slowly appeals to me because it comes from Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise. Perhaps you …
Nov 17, 2023: yeah, no, that didn’t work. Back to the drawing board. Or whatever board is needed for my wicked plans of social media subversion via POSSE to see the …
Nov 17, 2023: I’m a big fan of the POSSE approach - Post Once, Subvert Social networks Everywhere. I think that’s what it stands for. Anyway, if I’ve done the …
Nov 17, 2023: Well I’ve signed up to BlueSky. Dislike sociopathic ‘social’ networks at the whim of seed(y) capital. But I really liked what Paul Frazee did with …
Nov 14, 2023: A history of thinking on paper It’s hard to describe how exciting it was to receive in the mail this morning: The Notebook by Roland Allen! 📚 The subtitle is excellent: A History of …
Nov 14, 2023: Finished reading: Movement by Thalia Verkade 📚This is for everyone who’d like to get around their home town better.
Nov 7, 2023: In eight different ways, to have a friend is to be one A few years ago, Barking Up The Wrong Tree reflected on research 1 that identified the eight different kinds of friends you need. But it struck me …
Nov 7, 2023: How to make the most of surprising yourself Your collection of linked notes, your Zettelkasten, isn’t a ‘second brain’, as though it were separate from your first, actual …
Nov 5, 2023: Finished reading: The Circle of the Way by Barbara O’Brien 📚 Plenty of wide-ranging information in this survey of Zen Buddhism, with an …
Nov 5, 2023: Finished reading: The Real Work by Adam Gopnik 📚A great section on the art of magic and the significance of S.W. Erdnase’s book, The Expert at the …
Nov 5, 2023: Learning to make notes like Leonardo Leonardo wrote on loose sheets of paper The Codex Arundel, a notebook of Leonardo Da Vinci, is not what it first appears. It isn’t a notebook …
Nov 5, 2023: Discovering the music of Kyle Shepherd 🎵 As part of the Sydney Opera House 50th Birthday celebrations there was a staging of South African artist/director William Kentridge’s amazing …
Nov 4, 2023: Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚Would recommend if you or your culture appreciates video games. It’s also …
Oct 30, 2023: Can you keep all your notes in email? Zsolt suggests using email as a kind of append-only note storage system. Edit: Zsolt is actually referring to Raveen Kumar’s post on append-only …
Oct 20, 2023: 📷 🎶 Can’t let the day go by without marking that Sydney Opera House opened exactly 50 years ago today, 20th October, 1973. Ironically, Sydney’s live …
Oct 19, 2023: 📷 Ominous weather above the Parramatta River. What does the morning have in store?
Oct 17, 2023: If we're not just making content, what are we making? My little struggle with editing text directly in Wordpress has highlighted a distaste for the term ‘content’, as in ‘content …
Oct 15, 2023: Finished reading: Farsighted by Steven Johnson 📚 Wrote 17 notes in 2 hours, and enjoyed doing it by hand. Realised this book is as much about novels - …
Oct 15, 2023: Updating a Wordpress site this weekend felt like a chore. I really wanted to enjoy it, but the writing interface, with its content blocks, seemed to …
Oct 14, 2023: Yet more good vibes in Sydney: Glebe Point Road closed to traffic means it’s open for a weekend street party! Watch and learn, city authorities …
Oct 14, 2023: Good things in Sydney, continued… the brand new accessible entrance to Redfern Station. Bollards in the foreground show Aboriginal art, …
Oct 14, 2023: Linda Burney, Minister for Indigenous Australians, at our local polling centre this morning for the #VoiceToParliament referendum. I had a few good …
Oct 10, 2023: When I was a child, my mother loved nothing better than to visit ‘Bronte country ‘, or ‘Hardy’s Wessex’, or Beatrix …
Oct 8, 2023: The only problem with 📷🎉 completing the September 2023 micro.blog photoblog challenge - 30 days of posting photos - is that by the end I kind of felt …
Oct 8, 2023: Currently reading: Why Women Read Fiction by Helen Taylor 📚 Bought this at the National Library bookshop. Reading it sitting in the shade of an oak …
Oct 1, 2023: 📷🎉 Celebrating the completion of the September 2023 micro.blog photoblog challenge. 30 days of posting photos. I’ve really enjoyed seeing how …
Sep 30, 2023: 📷 Day 30: treasure #mbsept The final day of the photoblog challenge, and a treasured memory of my son’s seventh birthday.
Sep 29, 2023: 📷Day 29: Contrast #mbsept The Glowworm Tunnel in the Wolgan Valley, NSW. I couldn’t see the glow worms, then realised I was still wearing my sun …
Sep 28, 2023: 📷 Day 28: workout (@rom) #mbsept It might just work out, but it’ll certainly be a workout.
Sep 27, 2023: 📷 Day 27: embrace (Matt, aka @mroutley) #mbsept This pub gets a big tick! (It’s obviously the only pub in Bodalla).
Sep 26, 2023: 📷 Day 26: beverage (@Annie) #mbsept Art at The National Gallery of Victoria: 100 glasses (1991-92). glassblower: Michael Hook engraver: Perry …
Sep 25, 2023: 📷 Day 25: flare (Matthew, aka @matt17r) #mbsept Sydney’s Darling Harbour may feel like an over-developed tourist trap, but I must admit, …
Sep 24, 2023: 📷 Day 24: belt (George, aka @allaboutgeorge) #mbsept When we visited CERES in Melbourne, we also walked past this velodrome. 🚲 A bike path that goes …
Sep 23, 2023: 📷 Day 23: a day in the life #mbsept Deeply into our residency in Portland NSW. Please come to the open rehearsal on 1 October. And you can even …
Sep 22, 2023: 📷 Day 22: road (Dan, aka @jomalo) #mbsept Hairpin bends at Kamay National Park, Sydney
Sep 21, 2023: 📷Day 21: fall #mbsept Coat-hanger season might be my favourite time of year.
Sep 20, 2023: 📷Day 20: disruption #mbsept Sometimes you have to protest to stop the disruption. “Let’s dream new blueprints for the world we want to …
Sep 19, 2023: 📷 Day 19: edge #mbsept Clear edges at Adelaide’s Himeji Garden.
Sep 18, 2023: Is domain-hosting a viable social media business model? Since July 2023 BlueSky has apparently learned from Manton Reece and micro.blog that you can run a sustainable and open social media network with a …
Sep 18, 2023: 📷 Day 18: fabric #mbsept Fab 1970s wallpaper at The Foundations, Portland NSW.
Sep 17, 2023: 📷 Day 17: “intense” #mbsept
Sep 16, 2023: Can you make your autobiography out of hashtags? Image credit[^1] The hashtags of a cyberneticist In 1963 Ross Ashby, the British cyberneticist and inventor of the automatic homeostat, engraved a …
Sep 16, 2023: 📷 Day 16: oof! #mbsept
Sep 15, 2023: 📷 Day 15: red #mbsept The bottlebrush trees at the front of our house are just coming into bloom.
Sep 14, 2023: 📷 Day 14| statue #mbsept Food for thought.
Sep 13, 2023: As 9/11 is commemorated again it’s worth reflecting on why some people are wary of US foreign policy. This 9/11 is also the 50th anniversary of …
Sep 13, 2023: 📷 Day 13| glowing #mbsept Sydney Airport at dusk.
Sep 12, 2023: 📷 Day 12 | panic #mbsept
Sep 11, 2023: 📷 Day 11 | retrospect #mbsept
Sep 10, 2023: 📷 Day 10 | cycle #mbsept I’d like to put an end to these signs. Bike paths should go on forever! 🚲
Sep 9, 2023: 📷 Day 9 | language #mbsept There are more than 150 of these signs in Wales.
Sep 9, 2023: A note on the craft of note-writing An fairly new article from Brazil caught my eye, on note-writing as an intellectual craft. It highlights the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s …
Sep 8, 2023: 📷 Day 8 | yonder #mbsept A sign in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Sep 7, 2023: 📷 Day 7 | panorama #mbsept Can’t believe it’s been a week already. Good memories of this beach in Wales.
Sep 7, 2023: If you live your life in chunks, what size should they be? Life tends to be lived in chunks. Hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years - these are familiar if slightly artificial concepts. But what’s …
Sep 6, 2023: Yes, Esperanto is idealistic - not that there's anything wrong with that The child who learns Esperanto learns about a world without borders, where every country is home. https://uea.org/teko/praga_manifesto/pm_angla Yes, …
Sep 6, 2023: Finished reading: Milkman by Anna Burns 📚 Different from what I expected - very funny. It’s one of those novels that takes the whole book to …
Sep 6, 2023: 📷Day 6 | Well #mbsept 🏡
Sep 5, 2023: Micro.blog photo challenge day 5 | forest read more). 📷 #mbsept
Sep 5, 2023: 📷 🏡A couple of weeks ago we visited CERES urban farm, with its community garden, cafe, bike workshop, nursery, bookstore, playground, market, chooks …
Sep 4, 2023: 📷 Day 4 | orange #mbsept
Sep 3, 2023: 📸 Day 3 | Precious Three days into the Micro.blog photo challenge already! Time spent simply relaxing in the back garden is precious. #mbsept
Sep 2, 2023: How many books are you reading? On Mastodon, Evan Prodromou asked “How many books are you reading?” and I was slightly shocked by the results. Only 5% of 569 people said …
Sep 2, 2023: Finished reading: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon. 📚 Loving Austin Kleon’s blog, I ordered his trilogy from my local bookstore. Also finished …
Sep 2, 2023: 📸 Day 2 | Buildup The Micro.blog photo challenge continues! There was a lot of buildup to the blue moon supermoon earlier this week. My verdict? It …
Sep 1, 2023: 📸 Day 1 | Abstract The Micro.blog photo challenge begins! Most of the paintings in our house are abstract. This is part of a tryptych by Sara …
Aug 31, 2023: Looking forward to the micro.blog photoblogging challenge, starting soon at a blog near you. 📷
Aug 30, 2023: Feels like Summer here in Sydney, even though it’s the penultimate day of Winter. 26C by lunchtime, followed by an afternoon thunderstorm.
Aug 29, 2023: The early morning cloud was lifting over Spectacle Island 📷
Aug 27, 2023: How to connect your notes to make them more effective A linked note is a happy note A great strength of the Zettelkasten approach to writing is that it promotes atomic notes, densely linked. The links are …
Aug 26, 2023: What is the real work of Serendipity? Currently reading: The Real Work by Adam Gopnik 📚 The Real Work is what magicians call ‘the accumulated craft that makes for a great …
Aug 23, 2023: Hey @joshua , what did you end up doing during your last 48 hours in Paris? The suspense is killing me 😁
Aug 23, 2023: TiddlyWiki is a really useful writing tool I use Tiddlywiki as a writing tool, and as a heavily customised Zettelkasten (an ‘index box’ of notes). I love how readily this toolkit can be …
Aug 21, 2023: This newly opened bike path is a great example of #greeninfrastructure. The pipe easement beside the Alexandria Canal has become a Cycling and walking …
Aug 21, 2023: Writing about my worm farm, which is a metaphor for my writing:
Aug 20, 2023: Yesterday I polished the look of the Writing Slowly website by switching to Matt Langford’s Tiny theme, and adding some font and colour-scheme …
Aug 19, 2023: Mystery machinery, abandoned on the Karloo Track. Is it a lawnmower? 📷
Aug 15, 2023: Finished reading: Unlocking Luhmann by Claudio Baraldi 📚 This is a great companion volume to the works of Niklas Luhmann. It’s a linked series …
Aug 15, 2023: Cherry blossom! Spring is here. 📷🏡
Aug 15, 2023: “RSS rules, man!” - Baldur on Martin Field’s Really Specific Stories podcast. 🎙️💬
Aug 12, 2023: Ted Nelson's Evolutionary List File Rick Wysocki has a great post introducing Ted Nelson’s innovative idea for a new kind of file system. New, at least, in 1965. Ted Nelson’s …
Aug 11, 2023: A Network of notes is a rhizome not a tree The Zettelkasten is not just an outline The Zettelkasten approach to making notes and writing is not the same as creating a standard outline. An …
Aug 9, 2023: Finished reading: Your Name is not Anxious by Stephanie Dowrick. Urgent, practical, and affirming. Both profound and profoundly helpful. 📚 Interview …
Aug 9, 2023: “Walking in and of itself is a way to cultivate precisely all the qualities of person-hood that seem missing from much public discourse — attention, …
Aug 8, 2023: Is there a literature of teeth? Do you find teeth comical? Do you find it hard to take them seriously? Jianan Qian, writing in The Millions, does. “teeth make a flawed metaphor, too …
Aug 7, 2023: Finished reading: Foster by Claire Keegan 📚 Wonderful. Almost as good as Small Things Like These.
Aug 3, 2023: Two metaphors for #learning. Do we acquire knowledge or do we participate in it? Maybe it’s both. doi.org/10.3102/0… #PKM
Aug 3, 2023: Another week, another new bike path! Still partly under construction, this one’s near my house alongside the excellently named Muddy Creek. 🚲
Jul 28, 2023: The dream is diversity “We co-create with one another and with nature, but by the very creativity of the Universe and us in it, we cannot know what we will co-create. …
Jul 26, 2023: Just want to say I’ve been using #Workflowy for 541 weeks now. It’s just fantastic. The app I’m happiest to pay my annual fee for …
Jul 26, 2023: Checked out this new Sydney cycling path on the weekend. It runs from Parramatta, across the Parramatta River, and nearly 5km North to Carlingford. …
Jul 25, 2023: The mastery of knowledge is an illusion The writing task always eludes us. CJChilvers sees in the slow but inevitable demise of the Evernote app a deeper critique of the concept of the …
Jul 24, 2023: Walter Benjamin on the obsolete book “Already today, as the current scientific mode of production teaches, the book is already an obsolete mediation between two different card file …
Jul 22, 2023: Hermann Burger - Serious about a Zettelkasten? The Swiss writer Hermann Burger (1942–1989) wrote the draft of a novel in 1970 called Lokalbericht (1970) [Local Report]. “‘Local …
Jul 4, 2023: 📷 Low hanging cloud over the creek on the way home.
Jul 3, 2023: Currently reading: Milkman by Anna Burns. 📚 By turns hilarious and harrowing. It’s not at all how I imagined it, which was mainly harrowing. …
Jul 2, 2023: Thoughts are nest-eggs - Thoreau on writing In October 1837 the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson prompted the twenty-year-old Henry David Thoreau to start writing a journal. “‘What are you doing …
Jun 25, 2023: I have elephants A chapter of Sarah Bakewell’s book Humanly Possible considers the life and times of Renaissance scholar Petrarch. Petrarch, she says, wrote a …
Jun 19, 2023: 📚I’m really enjoying Craig Mod’s latest pop-up newsletter from Japan. This time he’s doing a walking tour of Northern Japan’s jazz kissa1. The whole …
Jun 16, 2023: Finished this collection of short stories a while ago but forgot to record that important fact: A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin 📚 The …
Jun 16, 2023: This week I finished reading: Lost Kingdom by Serhii Plokhy 📚 Discovered some of the complexities of Russian nationalism. Began to make sense of the …
Jun 12, 2023: 🎵 Belatedly learning to play ‘Maybe I’m amazed’. There’s something ridiculously satisfying about Paul McCartney’s chord …
Jun 7, 2023: Gaslit by machinery that calls itself a person “I’m Bard, your creative and helpful collaborator. I have limitations and won’t always get it right, but your feedback will help me …
Jun 3, 2023: How to be interested in everything Thomas Edison claimed he was interested in everything “One day while Mr. Edison and I were calling on Luther Burbank in California, he asked us to …
Jun 3, 2023: To build something big, start with small fragments Building something big from something small. That’s how everything big gets built. 💬 Traditionally, a writer identifies a subject of interest …
Jun 2, 2023: Let's have another new logo Matti is unimpressed that the notetaking app Obsidian has a new logo. Change. It happens all the time. Thunderbird has a new logo too (and for that …
May 27, 2023: 📷🐋 Just when we thought we would see nothing, this humpback whale popped up at the mouth of Broken Bay. Magical .✨ And if the boat hadn’t broken …
May 26, 2023: The lost index cards of Harold Innis Chris Aldridge has discovered yet another writer who used index cards to construct an extensive body of work from smaller pieces. This practice is …
May 26, 2023: With the rise of large language models (LLMs), we are once more suffering from La Stilla Syndrome. That’s my Jules Verne-inspired name for the …
May 23, 2023: Jules Verne could have told us AI is not a real person A castle of mysterious voices In one of French writer Jules Verne’s many sensational novels, The Carpathian Castle, the hero, Count Franz de …
May 23, 2023: Very happy the videos are already available from micro.camp. It was frustrating to be (not) watching from a distant time-zone, but I’m looking forward …
May 21, 2023: I read the top ten Zettelkasten posts on Hacker News so you can do something more wholesome with your day I really did read a lot of geeky Zettelkasten posts and now I’m going to share them with you Every so often someone on Hacker News mentions …
May 19, 2023: More than ever, embracing your humanity is the way forward. Innovation makes people panic. Every so often there’s a panic about how the …
May 14, 2023: 🍳📷 I made this. Just saying.
May 13, 2023: 📷🐦Though they’re a common site on Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River, I rarely see this many cormorants gathered together. Guessing there …
May 9, 2023: Thanks to a post by @chrisaldrich I was finally prompted to write about Aby Warburg’s Zettelkasten and library. Aby Warburg's Zettelkasten and …
May 9, 2023: Aby Warburg's Zettelkasten and the search for interconnection Aby Warburg and the compulsion to interconnect Aby Warburg was a German art historian obsessed with the connections he saw across European and …
May 6, 2023: Emotional Ignorance by Dean Burnett 📚demolishes the old myth that we only use 10% of our brains. It’s far more complex and interesting than that. My …
May 4, 2023: Was Dracula foiled by a gang of obsessive note-takers? May 3 is the date Bram Stoker’s famous novel, Dracula begins. It’s a classic tale of evil, lust and violence and you can follow along from …
May 1, 2023: 30 years of the World Wide Web. An incredible journey! I recall wondering if it would supersede Gopher. Didn’t have to wonder long. I also …
May 1, 2023: More discontent in the world of academic publishing. It’s amazing how far the brightest people have been tricked by the industry. Troubling to …
Apr 24, 2023: “The question: what are you making with your notes?” An important question, and a great article from @annahavron
Apr 24, 2023: “Everyone needs their own thinking space.” Sometimes it’s a room of your own, sometimes it’s a website of your own. But …
Apr 19, 2023: “Do you know exactly what you want?” It’s a very good question. I do, and my word of the year is “focus”. That’s because I find it very hard to …
Apr 7, 2023: An amazing Femi Kuti concert last night. The recordings are great but they don’t do justice to this band in person. The total confidence that …
Apr 6, 2023: 📷 Golden early-evening light on the route home.
Apr 6, 2023: The Writer’s Journey began as a memo. Working at Disney during the 1980s, Christopher Vogler saw senior executives using memos effectively. He …
Apr 5, 2023: April already 📷📚It’s April already. Do the months slip past ever faster? Autumn has arrived again and it’s glorious - a limpid blue sky after a weekend wet with …
Apr 4, 2023: 💬 “In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act”. A magic spell that protects the user against advertising of …
Apr 3, 2023: 💬 “Energy moves in waves…”
Apr 2, 2023: Personal publishing is still the future The online writing gurus say it’s pointless starting your own blog, because no one will read it. Best to go where the readers are and write …
Apr 2, 2023: Can’t believe I’ve only just found out about the Parks board game. (Hat tip to John Chandler) @johnchandler There really should be something like an …
Apr 2, 2023: Visited the Wildcat Zine Fair in yesterday’s rain. Did I mention I really like zines? Something about the “publish what you like and to hell with …
Apr 2, 2023: Adding two plugins to the website this morning. ‘Search space’, by @sod is now at 1.0 so definitely time to give it a try. And while I’m at it I’ve …
Apr 1, 2023: We think best when we bring opposites together “We think best when we bring opposites together, when we realize that all these realities, one inside the other, are somehow connected. That’s …
Mar 31, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 31: “practice “. Keeping the instruments out and ready to play makes it much more likely that I’ll get some …
Mar 30, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 30: “mirror” Penultimate day of the photo challenge!
Mar 29, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 29: “slice” One of our local bakeries does a quite decent seeded whole meal Viennese style loaf - although you …
Mar 28, 2023: 📷🚲Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 28: “prompt” I like to keep this old prompt front-of-mind: “simplicity is the key…”
Mar 28, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 27: “support” Sydney has many more bridges than just the famous Harbour Bridge. This bridge across the …
Mar 27, 2023: 📷 Day 26 of the Micro.blog March Photoblogging Challenge. The prompt is ‘instrument’. This small picture was a gift from a friend long ago.
Mar 26, 2023: 📷 🌮Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 26: “variety” Fond memories of the time my kids and their friends made us this meal. They were so delighted. …
Mar 25, 2023: 📷 🌮Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 25: “spice” When I searched my photographs for “spice”, this is what it found: a spice cupboard for robots. I …
Mar 24, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 24: “court”. Walking through the parks near my house just before dusk. There’s a whole heap of netball courts, …
Mar 23, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 23:”chance”
Mar 22, 2023: 📷 🐝Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 22: “insect” Just in time for a photograph, this native bee flew into the kitchen. There’s 1,700 species of …
Mar 21, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 21: “tiny”
Mar 20, 2023: 📷🪴Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 20: “houseplant” In hot weather, spraying the leaves of this umbrella plant creates a noticeable cooling …
Mar 19, 2023: How’s your coffee art these days? I predict big improvements for my game. ☕️
Mar 19, 2023: 📷 🗂️🗃️Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 19: “analogue”
Mar 18, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 18: “portico” When it comes to fancy architecture, nothing beats the Australian vernacular style.
Mar 18, 2023: 📷 Day 18: “fabric #mbsept 1970s wallpaper at The Foundations, Portland.
Mar 17, 2023: A gift from my son: three intriguing books for my to-read pile (which never seems to get any smaller)! 📚
Mar 17, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 17: “early”. Cloud on the headland, slow to clear.
Mar 16, 2023: 📷 🚴Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 16: “road” Came across a surprising sign on a cycling tour of Argyll: “Unsuitable road for sat-nav …
Mar 15, 2023: 📷🐈 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 15: “patience” If you wait long enough, something is bound to turn up.
Mar 14, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 14: “horizon” Mysterious Lake George. The windfarm on the horizon powers Sydney’s water …
Mar 13, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 13: “connection” At work I’m into connecting people and places. A project I’m proud of …
Mar 12, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 12: “shiny” It’s often very bright at my local surf beach. Sometimes makes me think …
Mar 11, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 11: “gimcrack” The very opposite of gimcrack: a Genroku (1688-1704) period plate from Kyushu …
Mar 10, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 10: “ritual” My daughter goes surfing almost every day. She’s gradually accumulating more …
Mar 9, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 9: “together” Spotted during my regular bike ride: birds of a feather.
Mar 8, 2023: Micro.blog March Photo Challenge Week 2 Preview Just thought I’d provide a preview1 of week 2 of the photoblog challenge. Week 2 prompts: 🗓 March 8: walk …
Mar 8, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 8: ‘Walk’ Exploring the mangrove walkway at Buffalo Creek with my friend S. Walking around Sydney …
Mar 7, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, day 7: ‘Whole’ The leaves of my Swiss cheese plant, Monstera deliciosa, are whole, holes and all. …
Mar 6, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March Photo Challenge, day 6 “Engineering”. This time last year we were enjoying the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Writers …
Mar 5, 2023: You don't build art, you grow it Finished reading: Dancing with the Gods by Kent Nerburn 📚 This book is advice on the artistic life from an experienced sculptor and writer. I found …
Mar 5, 2023: 📷 Micro.blog March photo challenge, Day 5: Tile. A home renovation uncovered these original hearth tiles. c.1898. They’re quite worn but …
Mar 4, 2023: 📷 March Micro.blog photo challenge day 4: Zip I imagine commuting by zip-line to my office in the treetops. @Miraz, you might recognise this
Mar 3, 2023: I woke before dawn to find someone had left a beach campfire alight through the night. As the sun rose over Barrenjoey Headland I was completely …
Mar 2, 2023: 📷 March Micro.blog photo challenge day 2: Weather The view from the train window this morning neatly obliged. Though you can hardly see it through the …
Mar 1, 2023: 📷 March Micro.blog photo challenge, day 1: Secure Well, that’s what the cat’s feeling, curled up in a shoe box. I’ve tested just …
Feb 22, 2023: Can AI give me ham off a knee? Last night I lay awake thinking about how AI-automated writing is about to change our entire language. Since AI can easily write everything correctly …
Feb 22, 2023: When someone believes they have no expertise, that doesn’t mean they have nothing useful to say. We often learn best from those who are just one step …
Feb 22, 2023: Free books! 📚 TIL: A search on Amazon Kindle produces loads of free academic book titles, many of which are high quality and really interesting. Just …
Feb 22, 2023: Putting yourself out there attracts people who are likeminded. That’s one benefit of making it personal
Feb 21, 2023: Despite AI, the Internet is still personal Blogging is great and it will never die. That’s why I keep coming back to it and you do too. Dave Winer, the blogfather, once said: “A blog is the …
Feb 19, 2023: A home to endangered pied oystercatchers. The city is just visible in the distance.
Feb 19, 2023: What I saw on my bike ride this moring - a view through the bird-hide window.
Feb 19, 2023: Footnotes Footnotes For some reason I really like footnotes. And sometimes 1 it’s good to see the footnotes appear in a little box when you hover over the …
Feb 18, 2023: Finished reading Cold Enough for Snow Finished reading: Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au 📚 This was a quite mezmerising read. It reminded me of the writing of Yasunari Kawabata, who won …
Feb 9, 2023: The coming ellipsis eclipse Eclipse of the ellipsis: should you be worried? Apparently, using an ellipsis marks you out as old-fashioned. I don’t know why. I suppose this is just …
Feb 9, 2023: Here’s a photo of where I live. It wasn’t sunny today though. Today we had nearly 10cm of rain. In American units, that’s bucketloads.
Feb 5, 2023: Why I'm writing slowly There’s an emerging movement in favour of ‘slow productivity’. And writing is one of the best examples of the many benefits of …
Feb 5, 2023: Want to read: Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber 📚 I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that piracy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth …
Feb 5, 2023: The thing about advice is that people do what they want with it Currently reading: Dancing with the Gods by Kent Nerburn 📚 I know nothing at all about Kent Nerburn, so it’s interesting to read this book of …
Feb 3, 2023: Finished reading: Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout 📚 This was an intriguing character study. Lucy Barton, a successful but quite damaged author, really …
Jan 30, 2023: Can sentimental writing ever be as exact as reality? Finished reading: The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita 📚 There’s a section of the book where the narrator, an apprentice piano tuner, …
Jan 27, 2023: Big changes at writingslowly.com New year, new website (backend) It’s a new year, so it must be time for new web connections! Well, I finally decided to shift from a hosted …
Jan 26, 2023: The past is as urgent as ever Finished reading: The War of the Poor by Eric Vuillard 📚 This incendiary novella - only 66 pages long - burns so fiercely it felt like a bomb was …
Jan 26, 2023: Visions of a utopian Middle Ages Finished reading: Matrix by Lauren Groff 📚 I found this an intriguing, highly fictional reconstruction of the life of a medieval convent. The version …
Jan 25, 2023: My piano is a forest Currently reading: The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita 📚 I love the metaphor of the piano as a living forest, and I’m enjoying the …
Jan 25, 2023: What I learned from Austin Kleon about sharing what you know Learning and sharing, sharing and learning. It’s a virtuous circle. That’s what I learned, and that’s what I’m sharing. …
Jan 16, 2023: Without democracy, no true creativity Finished reading: Against Creativity by Oli Mould 📚. This is a critique of everything symbolised by Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class …
Nov 18, 2022: I'm now @Richard@mastodon.au - yes I joined Mastodon. There's an original idea. As though there aren't enough half neglected social media accounts in …
Nov 13, 2022: Not thinking of writing a novel in November Well, I didn't sign up to NaNoWriMo, where you undertake to write 50,000 words in a month. Partly, it's just not my way of doing things. I have …
Oct 9, 2022: Thinking of writing a novel Manton mentioned NaNoWriMo and that has got me thinking. https://www.manton.org/2022/10/07/love-reading-about.html
Jun 25, 2022: Living beneath the shadow of the past In former times people lived their lives beneath the shadow of their past. The golden age was always behind them. The olden days were the good old …
Jun 3, 2022: My range is me The actor and film director Taika Waititi made an interesting comment on his creative process: "I'm the laziest, laziest actor you'll ever come …
Jun 2, 2022: You can get a lot done by writing slowly “People say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so prolific’…God, it doesn’t feel like it—nothing like it. But, you know, you put an ounce in a bucket each day, you …
Jun 2, 2022: When I publish a post with no title, where does it go and who gets to see it?
Jan 26, 2022: Thanks to Tom Critchlow, I now know a simple JS trick for including the micro.blog feed into a website: <script type="text/javascript" …
Dec 6, 2018: Best albums of 2018 Thanks to NPR’s list of great albums of the year, I found Jeremy Dutcher, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa. Spent a marvellous evening listening to this …
Nov 25, 2018: I had forgotten that posts to my wordpress site only show up on micro.blog if there’s no title. Let’s see whether this post, written on my …
Nov 25, 2018: Finally the iPad Having finally got hold of an iPad, I’m expecting more posts here soon - and by extension on micro.blog
Aug 23, 2018: zines I'm imagining writing a handful of 'zines and setting up stall at one of those 'zine fairs. I would like that. I just looked it up and found a pop-up …
Aug 18, 2018: Great bike ride down the river and along the bay this morning. Cold to start but warmed up nicely. Flat rear tyre though - twice... argh! I'm getting …
Aug 17, 2018: You have been warned It starts innocently enough, then they take over the world. You have been warned.
Aug 16, 2018: Fit for humans Vrypan says ‘social networks don’t scale socially’. It’s true. We need a distributed alternative to the monolithic megacorporations. The indieweb is a …
Aug 15, 2018: A big win for civilization in England? A judge has ruled that a local council in England needs to consider its statutory duties before closing down …
Aug 14, 2018: What keeps me from blogging? Mark Sample asks himself what it is about blogging that keeps him from blogging. For me, to be honest, it's Wordpress. The editor tool makes me feel …
Aug 14, 2018: Shelter [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“393”] Olivia Chaney - Shelter[/caption] Really enjoying this. English song …
Aug 14, 2018: Blogs are back According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, blogs are back! The article references one of my favourite metaphors for the web: the garden and the …
Aug 13, 2018: Should I read the Indieweb Guide? I’ve now added the Indieweb plugin along with webmentions. Looking forward to finding out how it works! (There’s a guide - maybe I should …
Aug 10, 2018: Only sinners left down here I miss my old habit of blogging regularly. It used to make me happy. I like the idea of cultivating one’s garden1 online. But somehow the tools …
Aug 10, 2018: Just by posting on my site, the post is automatically mirrored to micro.blog
Aug 7, 2018: New micro.blog account I did in fact add a micro.blog account, which you can find at micro.blog/writingslowly (but it's not fully linked up yet - that's the next step).
Nov 28, 2017: I’m thinking of adding a connection between this site and Manton Reece’s micro.blog It’s a bit like Twitter but there’s more …
Jan 25, 2014: Welcome Hello,Thanks for reading my first post here. As you can see the site certainly lives up to its name. I am writing slowly1. If you’d like to …
Sep 25, 2013: 📷 Day 25: flare (Matthew, aka @matt17r) #mbsept Sydney’s Darling Harbour feels like an over-developed tourist trap. But I must admit: every so often …