Week Notes – Jan 13 to Jan 26 2026
📝 It seems I like to write bi-weekly notes, instead of strictly weekly. Well, I will keep the title of these posts as “Week Notes” anyway. It still feels right.
🌎 Honestly, I've been a bit sad these past weeks with all that's going on in the world. I don't follow or regularly read main news media outlets, but even with my very limited and curated source of news, it's been rough, huh?
🎿 I'm halfway through my cross country beginner ski classes and it's been fun. The learning curve is definitely shorter than ice skating, though it still comes with its own set of challenges. I'm no good going down slopes (even very gentle ones). My skis have a tendency to cross themselves all the time, it's crazy. But hey, double poling is fun! I still have some work to do on the diagonal stride with the poles.
🗓️ Since January started, I haven't been able to complete a weekly review. I usually do them on weekends, but I’ve been pretty tired lately. The 8 p.m. ski classes throw off my sleep routine during the week, and I’ve also been taking ice‑skating lessons on Saturdays. So I’ve accepted that I won’t be fully on top of my reviews this month, and that’s okay.
☃️ A polar vortex came to my area this weekend, and it's been very cold. I mostly stayed inside because facing a -35C wind chill is no fun (that's when the cold will literally hurt your face). I wanted to go skate at the Rideau Canal, but I moved that plan to next weekend.
📖 Reading has been a bit all over the place. I was reading a book for my local Book Club (Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie) and it was not working for me, so I abandoned it. I am still enjoying Persepolis Rising (The Expanse #7). I have 3 more books I started at the same time, but I want to focus on one to finish before the end of the month.
🎧 I finished an audio book: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow. It lays down all the foundation and reasoning behind the phenomenon that is the systematic decay of services everywhere.
📊 I started using a book tracker spreadsheet developed by the ladies of the Currently Reading podcast, which I hope will give me more insights about tropes, moods and recommendation sources that I enjoy. I'm giving it a try this year!
🐧 My Linux experience has been great, so much so that I don't even notice I've changed operating system. Ubuntu has been stable and does what I need it to do. It's fast and efficient.
📌 Cool online reads:
- The Discourse is a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack: Yeah, it feels like we are on the receiving end of a DDOS attack with all the social media services and news from everywhere. This article uses this analogy to discuss how this information overload is disrupting discourse and critical thinking.
- Some internet history reading – 82MHz: Some good book recommendations. I haven't read any of those books, so, yay!
- Switching to Linux Step By Step | Taming Knots: part of a series of posts about switching to Linux
- laze.net – Poorly Organized Thoughts on Turning 50: I’m over half way there and this was a nice reflection on aging. By the way, I found Ryan's blog via...
- ... Ryan – Manu : People and Blogs series – interview with Ryan from laze.net
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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.