Hey, how’s things? Are you still holding on? Are you still facing the storm? Are you deciding to dance in the rain? Wherever you’re at, I hope it’s all working well for you. You will get through this.
Despite purposefully exiting the Cult of Productivity there is one metric I do focus on a little. That is how much I use my phone, becasue that is such a suck of my time. For me my phone is a big source of information but it’s a gateway to worry and stress, and pointless doomscrolling. So getting my weekly report (courtesy of the phone itself – how ironic) that I only used my phone for just over three hours, last week, is very heartening. I aim to halve that screentime, but that’s an ongoing story.
The less screen time, the more creativity. The more creativity, the less need for the phone. That’s my experience. No notifications. Calls on silent. Leave it in another room. That’s working for me.
Privacy
“You could easily mistake Alec Harris for a spy or an escaped prisoner, given all of the tradecraft he devotes to being unfindable. Mail addressed to him goes to a UPS Store. To buy things online, he uses a YubiKey, a small piece of hardware resembling a thumb drive, to open Bitwarden, a password manager that stores his hundreds of unique, long, random passwords. Then he logs in to Privacy-com, a subscription service that lets him open virtual debit cards under as many different names as he wishes; Harris has 191 cards at this point, each specific to a single vendor but all linked to the same bank account. This isolates risk: If any vendor is breached, whatever information it has about him won’t be exploitable anywhere else. Harris has likewise strictly limited access to his work and personal phone numbers by associating his main phone with up to 10 different numbers …
When using Uber, he provides an intersection near his house as his pickup or drop-off point. For food deliveries, he might give a random neighbor’s address and, after the order is accepted, message the driver, ‘Oops, I typed out the address wrong. Let me know when you’re here, and I’ll run out.'” And this is all just for starters when it comes to a privacy and security company CEO’s efforts to maintain what used to be a relatively normal level of anonymity. But these days, our privacy has been all but eliminated. Who you are, where you live, what you buy, how much you pay, your health, your interests, the shows you watch, the people you associate with, your location, your politics, the sites you visit, every breath you take, every move you make; all of it is tracked, shared, sold, and easily accessible. But what if you wanted to be a little more private? It’s possible. But it’s not easy. Benjamin Wallace in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How to Disappear. (Perhaps nothing is more emblematic of this modern condition than the fact that a guy who has deployed every imaginable tactic to remain invisible is the star subject of an article that describes all of his habits.)”
This is the level of work for near perfect online/offline security.
It was a metaphorical punch to the gut. I stopped. I literally stopped in my tracks. Stood, momentarily, inactive as I processed what I was hearing. Speechless. I really didn’t know what to say. My mind was numb. Like how can Marc Maron decide to bring his podcast to an end? I’ve been listening since 2014. It’s something that has been a bit of a constant in my life, twice a week. I have loved his self-analysis, his great interview styles and his sense of humour. I’m not in recovery, and I’ve never had addiction issues, but I valued a lot of the insights of Marc’s and his guests brought from the world of recovering/addiction.
I had a feeling of where do I go now? What podcast is any good now? I’m not into three random bros just talking shit for three hours about stuff they know nothing about. Neil Brennan’s ‘Blocks’ is ok but it’s like every fortnight and often doesn’t plumb the depths. Bill Burr is ok, but doesn’t really push you to think like Marc does. (I love Bill’s take on things, but it’s not going to fill the void, exactly). Bummer. Well, off to the podcast app…
I’ve never really been a jazz listener. I just could never quite find an access point. However, the algorithm, in its mystic way served up this video, because it is a real leftfield choice for me. For some reason, it stood out. It’s sublime. Truly sublime.
Go forward, people.
Officially andy russell 