Calcium on the school run

Thinking I should start a channel called “school run” especially for morning revelations.

Measuring people through my camera roll

I’ve in-laws who don’t like having their voices recorded for posterity. And they resist any sort of casual snap unless it’s a family event. Because I’ve at least one image of each in-law for the past 15 years, I can see how people can shrink as they get older. Hopefully their …

Googlebots Crawl Microblog

I didn’t expect to earn any Google Juice from my microblog but plausible.io/topgold.m… shows me the little topgold.micro.blog has footprints visible in Russia, the UK, and the USA. It appears visitors from Twitter are masked as “direct” because I’ve clicked on tweets …

First Lab Session for AI Workgroup

I’m reviewing working notes at publish.obsidian.md/transform… left behind by a group of trainees from the Tipperary County Council who spent more than five hours on keyboards while completing hands-on tasks with AI. We used several GPTs from OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity.ai, and …

Red Book Preface #audiomo

I am thinking about carving out time for the social audio project called Audiomo. It runs every June with the Light Touch of Ernmander. I think I will figure out whether I can do the Audiomo challenge without ever leaving my 5yo Samsung handset. So I took a photo of a red notebook that has 229 pages …

Why Faster Upload Speeds?

Wondering why my home wifi upload speeds are nearly twice as fast as the download speeds. I have gigbit fibre to the home. We don’t get fibre speeds over WiFi but that’s alright.

Throwback to my trans-Atlantic days

I have a daily throwback album and that means I can see things from the 80s like the seats I used to occupy while flying free across the Atlantic.

Making a Personal Chatbot

From field historian John Tierney I learned about a GPT-powered chatbot that learned from texts about daily itineraries, thoughts, and conversations with others. This customised LLM learns about political stances, meal preferences, and common stories. A simple voice cloning software lets the chatbot …

Let it sit

Thanks to Suw aka [Chocolate and Vodka](What to do when your mind is blank — Chocolate and Vodka), my creative block is sorted. Her advice: Let a draft sit overnight I try to never let my newsletter wait until the day it’s due, unless I’m already very clear on what I’m going to be writing. So when …

Hard Work Hardly Not

I heard my grandfather use the phrase “work comes first” and he lived life that way. Grandpa Goldbach prioritized working life over other aspects of life, such as leisure time, family, and personal interests. However, this is not the view of his great grandchildren. Some key points about …

Thinking about erecting a solar fence

I’m following a discussion on a Facebook Group that pits a local community against a solar farmer. Because of the way Perplexity.ai works, I’m being fed information about how solar fences can generate energy. The energy can flow to batteries or inverters. Here are the key points: Solar …

Need a Factory Reset

MY ANDROID PHONE needs a factory reset. It’s more than five years old, has a cracked screen and a worn charging port, and its battery is well-worn.

I Didn't See the Other Aircraft

DURING MY 3000 FLYING HOURS I vividly remember two occasions when we were cleared to land on a runway that was occupied by another aircraft or by a vehicle. In both cases, I didn’t see the conflict but a crew member sitting in the jump seat pointed out the conflict. Knowing this, I believe the …

Big Fan of Mem.ai and soon it's reading email threads

In the mid-90s, I was so happy with a flat-text indexing service called AskSam. I’d install the software from a set of floppies and it would keep track of all sorts of notes I had scattered across my laptop. Today, I still have a scattergun approach to information and I’m using a much …

Critical Thinking and Creativity

I’m taking a short advanced programme about Creativity and Critical Thinking. In some corners, critical thinking is at odds with creativity. In my life, critical thinking processes help me question, analyze, and evaluating, while creativity helps me produce clever ideas and explore multiple …

Useless British Passport

“In France, I am Irish, thanks to my grandmother, born in County Antrim. In Canada, I am Canadian, having been born there. Albeit I left aged ten months. In Britain, where I spent much of my childhood, I am British, as my parents were,” writes Jonathan Miller in …

Productivity Bound by Soft Leather

Happy to report I’ve achieved PRODUCTIVITY with my Traveler’s Notebooks.

Time for a Scratch Format Methinks

It’s probably time for me to totally reset my five year old phone. And replace its battery. And repair its cracked screen. But I want to use the time and money to practice some touch and go landings instead. I’ve succeeded in paring down the number of apps on the handset with tips from …

Hard Work on the Surface Book

Putting in the hard yards on the Surface Book before the next school term starts.

Test Drive Your Tech #protip

I’m a fan of the Ricoh Theta 360 camera range and we have several on campus. Yesterday, I discovered the Theta V I planned to use needed recharging, resetting (uses the SIM pin I carry), and a 669 MB firmware upgrade. So it pays to test drive the tech you need to use before you need to use it.

Talking to clever creatives in Clonmel about establishing a presence on Mastodon. First up @designerofmotions@metalhead.club

I have a Calendar Item called Focus Time. When it kicks off, I close electronic items and return to thinking with my pen.

Two more weeks and my morning coffee view will be leafless.

The Reach of the Internet

I’ve made a few DIY YouTube clips that now have more than 4000 views. I think it’s nice to know that if you share how you might solve one person’s problem, you’re probably showing hundreds of others how to do the same thing. Making YouTube tuts and sharing discoveries on …

Simple podcasting guide for 2022

Simple podcast guide for 2022. It’s much easier making shareable audio now, when compared to my iPod days.