Week Notes 3: A Week Offline at Home

This post is 3 of 4 in the series week notes.

General

This week, I left my phone and laptop at the office every day as a response to this post Minimizing Use of Phones and Technology on /r/Quakers. Being device-free at home has been a nice break. It turns out that all those little e-mail checks were a waste of time and presence. I didn’t really need, in the moment, to know anything my phone could tell me.

Prior to this experiment, the only day-to-day thing that I thought I “definitely” needed my phone for was calling the school before drop-off in the mornings. A quick ten second phone call. Turns out, I could just bug the secretaries at drop-off time. I’m strongly considering leaving my phone and laptop at work going forward.

Reading

War and Peace: This slowed down a fair bit. I was reading other things before bed.
The Virtual Community: This was a great dive in to the early internet. It was released in 1994 and revised in 2000. I think we have a lot to learn from the experience of the early internet.
Sharing Nature with Children: This has a cool take on education called “Flow Learning” that I want to write a bit about.

Writing

Currently writing up the heart group stuff.
- My co-author was able to analyze two string figures from the Trobriand Islands. So, it seems to be working!
I submitted a pitch to The Canadian Friend.

Moving

A bit of juggling here and there.
The weather got a lot warmer and I was able to walk in on Thursday and Friday.
- Amazingly, Wouter at BrainBaking asked to see the photo of the deer remains! I checked in on the remains and some of them are still there but covered with snow.

Playing

I met with a French tutor, to help iron out the kinks in my spoken French. It was magnifique!
- Also, I’ve started talking to one of our adminstrative staff in French.
I’m playing with some string figures:
- the figure Bunk (XXV, Fig. 44, p.831) from Aboriginal Australian String Figures by Daniel Sutherland Davidson
- a pair of Arviligjuarmiut figures

Links

I was delighted to meet véronique another Toronto-based zinester who likes ctrl-c.club.
Wouter has a lovely post on Montaigne: Je Replie Ma Vue Au Dedans (in English). I remember really enjoying Montaigne when I read him in highschool. Such a goofy dude.
A lovely chill set: Khruangbin x Hermanos Gutierrez | western desert road.
This week, I came across two incredibly deep internet rabbit holes. Both of these deserve “appreciations” like I did back on ctrl-c.club.
- Originala Literaturo Esperanta (“Original Esperanto Literature) by Sten Johansson. This page has thousands of links to reviews of Esperanto literature, and many links to the actual literature itself. I am totally fascinated.
- あやとりしてみよう (“Let’s Try Cat’s Cradle”) by ISHINO Keiichiro. First off, I don’t read Japanese. I have no idea what most of this website says. However, it seems to have ~1000 string figures from all over the world translated in to Japanese. Incredible. There is so much here. I met Keiichiro when he sent me a picture of Flor de Palo Borracho, which I was playing with in Week Notes 2.

Meta

Published: Feb 28, 2025 @ 10:00.
Last Modified: Feb 28, 2025 @ 22:41.