mneme @mneme@qoto.org

@freemo @solanaceae I think I tried TodoIst as well. Can't remember why I went for Nirvana... don't think there was much in them.

@solanaceae @freemo Yeah, many aspects of smartphones worry and/or annoy me, though I have one anyway. Nirvana can be used from a regular computer as well, though that's a lot less useful if you don't use a phone as well, as you can't put your computer in your pocket. Getting Things Done is still useful as a system though, even if you are pen and paper based. Quite a few overviews on the web, so might be worth you putting into your favourite search engine.

@solanaceae @freemo My team uses JIRA and something approximating Kanban. So my tickets go: Selected For Work->In Development->In Validation->Ready To Release->Done. But I also use the "Getting Things Done" system (from a book by the same name - which I've not actually read), which I track with an app called Nirvana. I'm naturally disorganised, so unless I'm very strict with myself things rapidly unravel!

I feel like a ridiculously simple creature sometimes. All of my tasks for today were very short, so I get to move a lot of tickets to the "Done" column. This makes me feel far more pleased with myself than is remotely rational.

"#Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford at Mississippi rally"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/02/trump-mocks-christine-blasey-ford-at-mississippi-rally
Ashamed to belong to the same species as this creature.

Despite increasing concern about #climatechange, we continue to burn more and more #oil each year.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-oil-demand-peak/now-near-100-million-bpd-when-will-oil-demand-peak-idUKKCN1M01TC

@rixx I'm enjoying it so far! The premise is very interesting, and I'm impressed by Ryman's ability to convincingly write a protagonist so dramatically unlike himself.

Are half the population of the Western world working bullshit, pointless jobs that contribute nothing to human society?
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/06/29/bullshit-jobs-and-the-yoke-of-managerial-feudalism?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/bullshitjobsandtheyokeofmanagerialfeudalismopenfuture
My intuition says, "Probably yes". But I'd like to see some better evidence. Is there some more objective way we can measure the value that someone's #work contributes to #society? The current metric is "If people will pay for it, it has value", so if we can't improve on that we have to accept that these jobs are not bullshit.

@rixx I like what you have to say about #scifi so I'm going to follow you! Your profile requests an introduction upon follow, this is it. I read Roccannon's World recently and really enjoyed it. City of Illusions is close to the top of my to-read pile, which I see you quite enjoyed in August. #amreading Air by Geoff Ryman at the moment.

Does antimatter fall down or up?
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/09/22/physicists-investigate-why-matter-and-antimatter-are-not-mirror-images
Spoiler alert: Probably: down... but maybe: up
#science #physics #cern

Now begins another week of hard labour down the #cloud mines.

Difficult #meditation session today after a heavy weekend, and skipping a day yesterday. Kept flipping between chattering mind and nodding off, but never managed to catch the sweet spot in between. Managed to sit poorly and suffered some discomfort as a result, which I tried to explore productively but was tempted to give up many times. Pushed myself through the full 39 minutes I'd set, but only just. This is why I shouldn't skip days, tomorrow will almost certainly be much easier! #DailyMeds

@SecondJon
"must" and "determined by" are too strong, but I think there are often correlations between the characteristics you mention and the way people think. Eg, we often see polling data that show politcal opinions breaking down by gender or race. People have a known (probably subconscious) bias to recruit people who are like them, which is one mechanism by which entrenched biases persist in industries that are dominated by a particular demographic. Encouraging people to recruit people who look different is a blunt instrument to fix that. But given the amount to which recruitment in tech is unavoidably subjective, and given that many parts of the industry do have entrenched demographics, I think it can be the right line to take. Is there a better way? Maybe.. We should certainly look for it. But doing nothing promoted the status quo, which I don't think is optimal. Anecdotally, my own workplace has gone from 95% middle aged white men to a much healthier balance of people over the last few years, partly because we noticed this and made an effort to correct it. It has become a much better place to work, both technically and socially.

@Trillenial Youth is very time consuming a very very tiring. I say we let the young keep it.

@hashtaggrammar "Rocannon's World" by Ursula LeGuin. I've been meaning to read more of her since loving "The Dispossessed" and "Left Hand" years ago. Should have got round to it sooner, as this one is also excellent. #scifi #books