D&F 12-27-20

Welcome to the last links newsletter of 2020! We’ve almost finished this terrible year. Congratulations, or as the show Alice in Borderland insists on saying こんぐらちゅれぃしょん (I don’t know why they use Hiragana). I reviewed this year for my site, and it did not get very many stars.

I hope you had a lovely solstice, and any other holidays you celebrate. Did you buy yourself anything nice? Get something cool for your family or friends? I mailed tooth magnets to two close pals, and a very large tooth candle to another pal. When I spend too much time on the internet, I fall down weird gift holes.

Links

• Are you a night owl like I am? Perhaps you also participate in revenge bedtime procrastination. There’s a sweetness to enjoying the last bits of the day; knowing that you are not required to do anything, or be beholden to anyone. I love it. As I’ve become happier with my work and day-to-day life it’s become less necessary to eek out every day, but it’s still a habit.
• Do you have a LinkedIn that you largely avoid checking? I know I do! There’s a whole nightmarish universe over there. There’s some prior art (from friend of the pod Joe) on how to min-max your LinkedIn for fun and profit.
• While we’re talking about cool guy Joe, why not take a look at his very good site or his very good list of pictures from 2020.
• Remember Four Seasons Total Landscaping? It feels like that happened thousands of years ago, but it was only a month ago! Here’s how it happened.
• Other friend of the pod Nick sent me a link with these delightful weapons, which I now wish were obtainable in Dark Souls.
• I love an end-of-the-year list, and this one is perhaps my favorite so far.
• Finally, a very good site from my pal Jim mentioned this Nieman Lab 2020 report, and in it I found an essay on bringing back the RSS reader, which is something I fully endorse. Log off the doom scroll sites, and join something like Feedbin instead. It’s been a great boon to my mental health to largely depend on RSS instead of scrolling.

Closing

This year, as the clock strikes 12 let’s all kiss 2020 goodbye. I’ve learned these last many years to stop hoping that the next year will significantly better than before, but I hope I get to see at least some of you in person in 2021, maybe even with food involved. Time will tell. Personally, I can’t wait to eat dim sum again with some friends for holidays I don’t celebrate.

I hope you get to fill your days with games, and movies, and think about nothing but nice things for at least a day or two. Keep relaxing, space cowgirls~