I’m currently trying to figure out how to use RSS for this reason.

Thanks for the recommend! I just finished it (I’m also not actually gonna do the 30 day plan). Even though my internet vices aren’t actually on my phone, and my phone might as well be a dumb phone with how little I use it, the book was still uber relevant to my life. Part One in the book that went over the negative effects of tons of media consumption was the wake up call I was looking for. I definitely notice many of the negative effects mentioned in the book in my life… I wanna take back my free time and attention :)

Bonus points that the book is entertaining. It has a few actually good jokes, and useful perspectives. And it’s not at all preachy or judgey (which sometimes is a pet peeve of mine with self help books - where they feel like they’re trying to sell you an ideology too hard).

Pretty crazy that the book is from 2018 and is still so relevant - if anything I feel like our knowledge that media addiction is bad for us has only gotten stronger, and as a population our media addictions have also gotten stronger - and more socially acceptable. I’d love to read a similar thing that was more modern and could scare me with up to date statistics that knew about TikToc and such.

Yeah I was thinking about checking them out. I looked at their pricing model and was really confused and put off by it. Makes it seem like you have to pay more to be better informed. The lowest paid tier for example doesn’t show the factuality score of a publisher, which I feel like would be important to me, but who knows maybe it doesn’t come into affect with how they show the news.

Does seem like they support RSS feeds which is sweet

I definitely don’t need it for anything. I might just note down some of my ambient music playlist that I like to work to. I’ll have to figure out a new news source for political news, maybe this weekend I’ll try setting up an RSS reader to aggregate some sources. But yeah, political news I think is what got me to start using YouTube a lot more since I’d be waiting to hear about updates to all this craziness (in the USA).

I read most of my books, but I also enjoy audiobooks. I usually read series I love, and listen to the “meh” stuff. Sometimes I’ll even stop an audiobook and go buy the book version if I like it enough.

I 100% agree that audiobooks are another form of media, but I disagree that they’re comparable to algorithmically addicting media (which I have a problem with). You can listen to a book and have your life changed, meanwhile, it is doubtful I’ll remember anything I scrolled through yesterday, or watched in YouYube compilations.

I’m sure someone could waste a bunch of time listening to books they didn’t even want to, but I don’t struggle with anything like that. I read basically daily, but I go through regular audiobook slumps. And especially when it comes to attaining new information (I’m thinking a biography, not a math textbook), I think reading and listening are both fine enough. I mostly read fantasy though, for what it’s worth.

But yeah I suppose I read the things I love because I do notice some sort of difference. Can’t put my finger on it right now, but I will continue to do both with my arbitrary distinction :P

This might be the way. I’ve actually been un-googling this week, maybe I should just delete my YT account as well… I think I was just hoping a book would warm me up to the idea, or have insights I hadn’t considered. But I don’t really see even an hour a day of videos daily as something I want in my future.

I know! Sometimes I’ll hear Teams notification sounds in YouTube videos and get a huge spike in stress/anxiety. Kinda hate it 🙃

The hot dogs I’ve been eating all my life didn’t even make the list…

Pretty sweet! I’m still trying to learn to wheelie my mountain bike so that I can learn to manual after that…

Thanks for the info!

I actually know a bit about low-inflammation diets (mostly low meat and being selective on carbs) from when I was running track. I always saw it as a high-performance thing, but some habits have stuck around. And for a long time I’ve done Meatless-Mondays since it’s an easy and mostly thought-less thing to do.

Thus far, I’ve been pretty un-safe when it comes to mountain biking. Lot’s of little crashes that could have been easily avoided. Fortunately I hate crashing and have been working on risk analysis and I don’t think I’ll lose out on much fun by being 20% safer. I’m currently down-tuning one of my bikes to make it less capable so that it’ll be more fun on simpler trails. With a super capable bike, it sometimes feels like you have to ride the gnarliest things to be having fun. Riding a gravel bike (the least capable of the off-road bikes) on one of my least favorite boring trails was eye-opening to me on how fun “under-biking” is. And any speed decrease increases safety a lot.

I sprained both my wrists in a bike crash, then just as they were nearly healed I crashed again and sprained just my left wrist. After like 9 months it was still bothering me a bit so I decided to go to physical therapy and the exercises cleared everything up in ~3 weeks. Wish I’d known earlier that a brace and limiting movement wasn’t actually helping anything.

I’ve got the supplements, just need to work on making a habit of taking them…

Little bits throughout the day are probably better than lots once a week

I sit at a desk a TON. Started having back problems and was trying to work in exercises to help. What ended up working for me is an hourly notification that gives me a random exercise to do. I’ll usually do a few other exercises with each break as well. It’s been a miracle for my back, and definitely is something I plan to stick with - and should be good for arthritis too it seems!

Great info, thank you!! I’m compiling the things I’ve learned to make a personal list of things to try to add more of to my life, and things to try and have less of. I’m starting to realize that diet isn’t something to ignore just because I’m fit…

Haha, that’s a good idea, the next time I make a dad joke I’ll say, “oh no, was that a dad joke? You should probably take a pregnancy test, just in case it was.”

One time my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I went to pick up some condoms and then we decided to also get some ice cream and the cashier (older lady) gave us like a 3 second look and I thought she was gonna say something but then I said, “the ice cream’s for a friend” and it was the funniest thing I’ve ever said.

Wife still hasn’t forgiven me. Cashier didn’t say anything. My eyes were watering like crazy as I held in my giggles.

Magic cards Edit: did not get any magic cards. Got some cash though so I may head over to my LGS later this week

I was biking near campus in a bike lane and an old truck matched my speed (maybe 15mph) and then the truck came into my lane a little so I slapped the side to make noise. The passenger was a girl and her window was down so I yelled something and she looked back at me a face that I can only describe as “I don’t want to be here” but then she looked forward again and I noticed the driver was looking over his shoulder at me with a big smile. Anyway, he forced me off the side of the road and I rolled to a stop in some grass and was totally fine, just shocked that someone would do something so reckless. He easily could have bumped me and I could have ended up under a tire. The truck then shot off (in a 25 zone).

This is why I lose in Magic the Gathering so much. I’ll be like “wow what a combo, I could go on but this is mean enough.” And then two turns later I lose to a mean combo. I don’t think it’s actually mean, the goal is to win. I just think it can be more fun to not have huge plays, even if that results in more losses.

Last weekend I talked my wife into trying Linux on her desktop on an extra SSD I had, she loves it. Loves that she can customize everything, says it’s faster (especially boot time), we put it on her laptop last night