What I learned last week (#18)

A book excerpt I appreciated: “While mankind is very intelligent in relation to other species, we have the intelligence of moss growing on a rock compared to nature as a whole.” – from Ray Dalio’s Principles.

I want to (re)learn how to code (at least enough to make a few utilities): I have some ideas on little things I’d like to build to make my journaling/note taking/writing easier and I want to do some things on my blog. I used to do light coding as a web designer (JavaScript, Flash/Actionscript, and some ASP.NET). This post, Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code, and my current reading of Draft No. 4 by John McPhee, is pushing me to dive back in.

Some ideas on where to travel: I want to do a year travel with the kids, or perhaps living in a few different places, and reading this list gave me some ideas on how to think about it. France is definitely on the list.

A cool app for animating your own art: I’m grateful to have been turned on to the PuppetMaster app last week, and just like that we have a project for spring break this week: drawing the animated story of… (to be continued)

A great purchase that I rediscovered: I write a lot and am a fan of fountain pens (one of many rabbit holes I like to follow). I’ve collected a few pens over the past couple years, and I recently picked up my TWISBI Vac700 and remembered why it’s king: filling is easy, the extra-fine nib is superb and it’s got a heft to it that just feels right.

Get On With It