Meliorism (Latin melior, better): the idea that progress is a real concept and humans can interfere with natural processes to improve the world.
What would it look like to embrace pragmatic meliorism instead of cynicism?
Acknowledging problems while focusing on solutions
Learning from history without being imprisoned by it
Maintaining high standards while accepting incremental progress
Combining skeptical analysis with constructive action
This is harder than cynicism by orders of magnitude. It takes nuance, effort, and (critically) emotional risk. But it’s also more likely to actually improve things.
Storybook ending to the game: Saints were down by one at the bottom of the ninth. Bases were loaded after 2 outs. Final hit of the game hit the home run wall. Saints won, 13-9.
Yesterday I found about 8 Twitter accounts that I follow mentioned or listed a Mastodon address. Did a quick Twitter search for “mastodon” on followed accounts. Today I learned of Debirdify, which helped me to find about 100 more accounts I could follow directly from Micro.blog.
First time visit to Bauer Brothers Salvage today was purposeful, to get a piece we had seen online. Let me just say, for old house people, it’s a wonderland. Lots to love!
Listening to a lot of Seasurfer lately. I discovered them a few years ago and was reacquainted with them again a few weeks ago. Most recent album has what would call more of a dark wave sound, more synth. Earlier albums I would call more shoegaze. But layers, distortion, reverb and harmonies all throughout
I do not have a subscription to read the Washington Post, where the source article appeared, but I appreciate the quotes pulled out at 9TO5Mac. This seems like an appropriate stance for technology companies to take, and I appreciate it.
So that’s what they do. In secret. By serving search warrants on companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft to obtain emails and messages that belong to our customers.
The author of a sub-blog I follow produced a series of posts called Insanely Great Nineties Songs You Aren’t Sick Of. Start here if that speaks to you… He has a post per-year and links to YouTube videos of all of the songs he mentions.
I worked for a record store from the summer of 1990 to the summer of 1994 and these hit home for me. But fair warning, these are mostly not Top 40 song lists.
So there’s a music project called Lost Horizons—that I didn’t know about 30 minutes ago—that features former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde and Richard Thomas who has drummed with Dif Jus and Jesus and Mary Chain. Their In Quiet Moments album includes a track called Every Beat that Passed which is the most Cocteau-Twins-like music I have heard since… Cocteau Twins. This project is no attempt to return to that sound, but that track is spectacular. The tracks I have heard from the same album have a Saint Etienne vibe, in that the tracks recall the 60s and 70s.
I am very pleasantly surprised with the most current release of the iOS Bullet Journal application. It is in no way designed to take the place of your paper journal. But allows you to photo your pages and assign them to a calendar day and page number inside of a journal. Another nice feature is the ability to assign a page to a Collection.
Most importantly, it backs up to the iOS Files application. I can use my iCloud Drive to store the backup file. No new account is required. No new subscription is needed.
The application fully supports the Bullet Journal methodology, but gives you a way to review your notes even if you are away from the physical copy.
Lastly, in a pinch, there is an ephemeral 72-hour Log for Tasks, Notes and Events. This provides a way to continue to capture until you can return to your paper Journal.
