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I’m really happy with how my How to Be Less Wrong in a Polycrisis blog series turned out, so I’ve pulled the three posts together into an ebook.

The ebook is a more refined and cohesive version, with updated imagery, stronger links between chapters, and a few new examples.


I've switched from Google to Proton and will soon be moving on from Zoom. So I wanted to be able to easily add video conferencing links. This extension, made with Claude Code, provides that functionality for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.


OK, well I wrote my doctoral thesis* on digital literacies, so this is a hot topic for me as a parent of an almost 15 year-old boy and almost 11 year-old girl.

TL;DR: we're way stricter than other parents I know both in the UK and other western countries.

For example: we allow them WhatsApp, but no other social media apps on their phone (including YouTube). Devices automatically switch on at 08:00 and off at 20:00. Certain apps, like browsers, have maximum time limits of two hours.

Like me, they're both gamers, but aren't allowed games on their phone - only on tablets and consoles.

This sounds harsh when I write it down in black and white, but as a consequence they both read a lot and are really into sport (both represent the county at football and athletics).

The reason this stuff is so hard is that we're the first generation of parents having to deal with all this. And there are no accepted rules in wider society yet...

* https://dougbelshaw.com/thesis/


Why no social media in particular? Is it a blanket ban because there isn't time to talk to them about it or is it simply, in your opinion, too toxic for teenagers, or something else?

Why no games on their phones? Is this a way to control the time spent on games or to prevent the time wasted on games when out and about?


When consulting, I've found that people really like zero-install video conferencing solutions based on WebRTC (e.g. appear.in / Jitsi)


Have you considered using Open Badges for this? https://openbadges.org


That's very interesting although I'm not sure we fit their criteria. We are certainly interested in making our badges as recognized as possible.


Dell XPS 13 running Ubuntu 16.04

(Went from 2015 MacBook Pro to Lenovo X220 to this. If the X220 had a higher-res screen and better GPU I'd have stuck with that...)


Hmmm...

> I need to confess something: ‘‘Whuffie’’ would make a terrible cur­rency.

http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2016/03/cory-doctorow-w...


As a knowledge worker, I've found that there is no 'best' way of organising information. It depends on what it is that you're doing.

Having said that, the things I come back to are Trello (Kanban-style boards), Pinboard.in, a personal wiki, and Google calendar. I like everything web-based so that I can access things wherever I am and whatever device I choose to use.

Over and above that, I use a paper-based daily planner that I've iterated over time. I pull everything to do that day on to it, then bin it at the end of the day.

Version 3 is here: http://www.slideshare.net/dajbelshaw/dougs-daily-planner-v3 (CC licensed)


I've taken cold showers every weekday for the last few years. The way I get around the problems raised (washing hair, etc.) is that I have a really hot shower just before bed. This helps me sleep by lowering my core body temperature.

Cold showers are great and, as someone who's suffered from depression in the past, I go into each day thinking, "what's the worst that could happen"?*

*I realise that sounds flippant, but it's true...


So you shower twice a day? My skin wouldn't approve...


I've been doing this (both hot, though) most of my life. My skin is fine, but my hair used to take a beating -- now I only wash it every other day, rinsing in between, and it seems to work well.


The cold water doesn't dry your skin off nearly as much as hot water does.


I think the Chromebook Pixel 2015 suffers from the same HDPI problem with Linux distros that I've got with the 2013 version. I've got GalliumOS (https://galliumos.org) working, but it's somewhat unusable.

Linux Mint supports HDPI out-of-the-box, so that's what I'm going to try next...


I'm running Arch + Cinnamon on a Pixel 2 and HiDPI is not a problem at all. The last problem application for me as the Arduino IDE, but that has recently been fixed.


I'm running vanilla Ubuntu and not a single issue with HiDPI screen - it's razor sharp and after setting the right scale settings every component is the right size. HiDPI is not the future, it's present, and if some applications still haven't caught up with that - let's not blame the hardware.


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