It seems I listen to an average of ~2h of #podcasts per day.
Given that I play most of them at 1.5×, it's probably ~1h20′ listening per day.
👉 **Newer #Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, Bluetooth interface**: ditto. Give me all my freaking training files, I don't need a stupid Samsung Health account, nor installing a whole set of Android apps requiring a ton of permissions (SMS!? contacts!?) and special privileges to surreptitiously download and install other apps in turn.
Also: to send audio files from my phone to the device (for playing during workouts), I'm presented with a mysterious list of MP3 files supposedly living on the phone. That includes old 5″-long WhatsApp audio messages and other garbage… but none of the podcasts I'm actually interested in transferring. What directories are scanned, what's the criteria, how can I find or refresh? No clue. Again: give me a damn removable drive, and let me move files at will!
I shall shut up about this topic at least for a while now, but for anyone out there still thinking that #MRA's and other critics of mainstream #feminism and of the concepts of #patriarchy and #maleprivilege are some kind of delusional misogynists amplifying trifles for the sake of controversy: please spend a few minutes reviewing the data (not _opinion_ — _data_) contained here:
* [Very brief list of #men and #boys' issues](http://empathygap.uk/)
* [A more detailed account](http://empathygap.uk/?page_id=22)
* [List of posts by subject, linking to sources — from imprisonment to health to job fatalities to educational attainment](http://empathygap.uk/?page_id=2244)
* [Published research about #gammabias summing it all up](https://sci-hub.st/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5)
The “#news” nowadays: the History and the causes of a complex, consequential conflict… in seven tweets
I just read, over the course of several days, #SlateStarCodex's [“Non-Libertarian FAQ”](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/) (years ago I had only skimmed it).
It is a brilliant text, as usual, and it reminded me why although I read and flirt at times with different ideologies I remain mostly a #moderate — why I don't call myself a #libertarian or an #anarchocapitalist; but rather someone with libertarian sympathies, or perhaps a (classic) #liberal.
It reminded me why absolute #libertarianism or #anarchism as ideologies and moral systems, in particular, may feel rational, coherent, complete and desirable… without being any of those things.
Which does _not_ imply, of course, that some specific governments nowadays would not do better by moving closer to the libertarian pole!
> _“In 1989, 23 of the top 50 (including the top 5) companies ranked by global market capitalization were Japanese firms. By 2019, that number was reduced to just one, at no. 38: #Toyota.”_
This time of the year I like to reflect on all the great new #music I've discovered and enjoyed, and on the classics that I keep on playing on loop and dancing to.
I'm talking wonderful tracks such as _“The Wheels on the Bus”_, _“Five Little Ducks”_ or _“The Potty Song”_.
I love #economics because its basic principles are so powerful and generalisable (ie, it's not just “about #money”).
I started using Greg #Mankiw's very popular textbook _“Principles of Economics”_ as a reference a few years ago, and since then I find myself applying its “ten principles of economics” often in everyday life.
This week I learnt that David #Henderson has been teaching his own “ten pillars of economic wisdom” for decades. Those seem good, too.
So I decided to merge both!
Hereby I present the main insights of economics condensed in **fourteen principles of economics**. Even if you don't like econ as a subject, you'd do well to heed these ideas:
👉 In common (_Mankiw ≃ Henderson_):
* Rational people **think at the margin**. ≃ Economic thinking is thinking on the margin.
* People respond to **incentives**. ≃ Incentives matter; incentives affect behavior.
* **Trade** can make everyone better off. ≃ The only way to create wealth is to move resources from a lower-valued to a higher-valued use. Corollary: both sides gain from exchange.
* A country's standard of living depends on its ability to produce **goods and services**. ≃ The only way to increase a nation’s real income is to increase its real output.
* **Markets** are usually a good way to organize economic activity. ≃ Competition is a hardy weed, not a delicate flower.
* Society faces a short-run trade-off between **inflation and unemployment**. ≃ Creating jobs is not the same as creating wealth.
👉 Mankiw's:
* People face **trade-offs**.
* The cost of something is **what you give up** to get it.
* **Governments** can sometimes improve market outcomes.
* Prices rise when the government **prints too much money**.
👉 Henderson's:
* TANSTAAFL: There ain’t no such thing as a **free lunch**.
* **Information** is valuable and costly, and most information that’s valuable is inherently decentralized.
* Every action has **unintended consequences**; you can never do only one thing.
* The **value** of a good or a service is subjective.
I decided that these merry days leading to Christmas, when we're infused with positive sentiments and hope for humanity, are as good as any other to read… #Hitler's _Mein Kampf_.
😲
Not really! In fact, I'm a bit embarrassed to leave my e-book reader lying around so that others can see what I'm reading… But my Theory of Reading actually supports and encourages reading _anything_ that has been very influential (for good or for ill) regardless of its literary merits, its veracity, its applicability today, or its moral qualities.
Not to put them all necessarily in the same bucket, but I have read _The Iliad_, _The Odyssey_, _The Communist Manifesto_ and _Atlas Shrugged_ — and I would read _The Bible_ and _The Quran_ too: all of them #books that are ( in a way or another) wrong, false, corrosive, harmful, evil, racist, sexist, pro-violence, or pro-war — or even all of those things at the same time!
Granted: #MeinKampf may well be the wrongest among the wrong books… And in a way, that contributes to making it “useful” as a reading.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/64930929-tripu?shelf=currently-reading
#Pocket says that in #2021 YTD I read > 1,100,000 words using the app, and that I'm in the top 1% of readers 🤷
Has everyone seen the exact same message? 😆
#Goodreads has been pestering me about “the best #books of 2021”; first to vote, then to see the results — but I couldn't care less.
I try to read the best there is since writing exists. That often means reading works written half a millennium ago, and sometimes even as far back as the 8th century BCE. How could it be otherwise?
The year 2021 alone represents < 0.04% of time elapsed since humans started writing and reading. Even if we assumed that book production, or even book “quality”, increase over time somehow (questionable), I can't understand the disproportionate interest in novelty most people seem to have.
I just finished reading the first volume of the #Essays by #MichelDeMontaigne, arguably [the most important non-fiction work in all of world #literature](https://thegreatestbooks.org/nonfiction).
Here are all my highlights (in 🇪🇸 #Spanish):
Speaking of #socialmedia… another beautiful #dataviz by #VisualCapitalist
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-social-networks-worldwide-by-users/
Go, #fediverse, go!
This #cartoon by #JohnJonik is the answer to so many things happening on/to the #internet. So often applicable.
https://jonikcartoons.blogspot.com/2011/09/general-cartoons.html
