No Beer Here

My audio recording gear is packed up, so I'll spare you some terrible audio this week.

The first thing I want to discuss is drinking. I am a big fan of craft beer. I have an extensive Untappd profile (1,360 unique checkins 😬), which was featured in a "get to know your teammates" quiz during a team meeting when I was working at 10up. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. Anyway, it's no secret that I like beer and a good old fashioned. But, drinking also affects my mood, my energy, my health. So I'm taking a break. I only highlight this here because if you're in the same boat that I am, this podcast episode might resonate with you, and if you want an accountability partner for your own break, let me know.

A week or so ago, I listened to an episode of The Rich Roll podcast, with Andy Ramage, founder of One Year No Beer. The episode addresses our culture of drinking, the middle-of-the-road drinker, and some of the benefits of going without for a while, whether that's 28 days, 90 days, one year, or longer. I've done clean months before where I've essentially done a reset of my system, and I haven't found it too challenging for myself, but I did find it challenging socially. This episode addresses some of that. I found it insightful and learned some new information and techniques, and I also found myself inspired.

This quote stood out to me from the podcast. Andy was talking about sleeping better and getting up earlier and finding a few more hours in each day by quitting drinking.

“You can change the world in three hours per day.”

Truth!

From the OYNB website:

The main goal of OYNB is to help and support people in changing their relationship with alcohol. Whether your personal choice is moderation, planned break, or total abstinence, our mission is to help and guide you to a better way of living.

I'm eight days in, and feeling great.

Speaking of alcohol, one of the pubs I meant to go to while I was in Austin was the Crown & Anchor, and I never made it. I'll have to hit it up on a return trip to Texas sometime.

"We don't have bar fights, and we don't have hard liquor. If you drink beer, by the time you're ready to fight somebody you've got to go pee."
– Veteran Barkeep Wisecracks His Place Into Local Legend

From Kottke: "Mario Wienerroither takes music videos, strips out all the sound, and then foleys back in sound effects based on what people are doing in the video."

Fascinating. Be sure to watch some of the others!

50 Years of Hip Hop: an amazing interactive piece on the history of hip hop.

"The Roland TR-808 was one of the first electronic drum machines. When it was introduced in 1980, hip-hop artists and producers such as Afrika Bambaataa, Newcleus and Rick Rubin incorporated it into their sounds."

One of the best live shows I've ever been to was the DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist "Renegades of Rhythm tour, where they used Afrika Bambaataa's original vinyl. Amazing. I can't believe some of the shows I've been fortunate to see.

Erika Hall, on the current state of design:

"Some guy in an ivory tower wrote Robinson Crusoe fanfic using calculus in the late 1800s and now our whole business culture, and the policy surrounding and enabling it, is based on privileging a narrow, biased, reductive (not to mention racist, sexist, colonialist) perspective on value and human behavior. We got Reaganomics because of a napkin sketch of a graph that has proven to be very wrong. The field is evolving, but not quickly enough.

Anything that has been designed, can be designed differently, including and especially, the rules and the rubrics."

That last part, especially. Read the full post.

What I'm Reading

• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century – amazing stories everyone should read (or listen to).
• I just finished Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley – I listened to the excellent audiobook. Also highly recommended.
• My daughter has been trying to get me to read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde since she read it in high school. I am about halfway through.

What I'm Listening To

• The Revivalists latest album, "Pour It Out Into the Night" is on a lot these days.

What I'm Watching

• Strange Planet – I've followed Nathan W Pyle's Strange Planet on Instagram for years, and it's outstanding. Now there's a show! So far, it's solid.
• Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind – Fuck, I miss him. New plan is to watch every Robin Williams movie again. So many. So good.

Worth Your Time

• Old tech is still mandatory for some critical functions. Chuck E. Cheese Still Uses Floppy Disks To Make Its Rodent Mascot Dance — For Now. And, Here’s why the best IMAX movies still need a Palm Pilot to work.
• The Joy of Sulk

Be well. Be kind to each other. ☮️❤️