It sounds like you don't understand what a pub is like.
Whilst this is definitely not what's it's like, this quaint video is all about the lineage of the pub in the UK, and explains the third-spaceness of them, which I'd argue still exists[1].
Pubs are so important for our communities in the UK, whether that's watching the game, seeing a friend's band, celebrating a birthday or just catching up after work.
Many of the parts of my life have been lived in a pub. If it's criminal, I'd happily be locked up. Or maybe lock me in, a sadly rarer occurrence these days.
Exactly, designing a 'third place' that isn't alcohol focused seems to be a tough nut to crack. Alcohol greases the wheels for socialization and is a highly profitable item for a place to sell that keeps the lights on (people may have several drinks an hour, drinking leads to more drinking both in the long and shot terms, etc). Meanwhile a typical coffeeshop here in seattle is, aside from the espresso machines, is a near silent library-like space. Many people heads down in a book or a laptop. Instead of having a few drinks per hour you instead may have a single coffee and maybe a pastry or sandwich.
If someone opened a social space with maybe a kitchen that let you pay by the hour to hang out, credit for kitchen orders. All the other bar/pub accoutrements gaming (darts, pool, shuffleboard, pinball, whatnot), sports on the tv, whatever .. I still don't think people will go for it.
I think the only non-boozy option that comes to mind is the small town diner but those are thin on the ground.
> Exactly, designing a 'third place' that isn't alcohol focused seems to be a tough nut to crack.
how so? I go to a climbing gym and it is a pretty social (and, of course, healthy) activity... crossfit is not my thing but apparently it is similar for more traditional workouts. to the extent you can consider a cycling or running club a "space" those are similar. dog parks for dog owners, playgrounds for parents, etc...
Many of those lack spontaneity though. I don’t walk past a climbing gym with a friend of mine and think “fancy popping in there for an hour or so?” You need to plan a visit to many of those places so you have the right clothing/footwear/etc.
The social point of a pub is that you can just decide to go in on a whim. Pubs are increasingly not about alcohol either. I’ve had a few instances in the last couple of years where I couldn’t drink alcohol for extended periods (various reasons, mostly medication related). Hasn’t stopped me going to the pub.
Years ago you would get an odd look if a group walked into a pub and all ordered soft drinks but not so much now (well, you still will get that in some pubs).
Obviously I’m not out looking for another place to buy a lime and soda after midnight but I can quite happily have an evening out without having to drink alcohol whilst others do or don’t around me.
Ditto for the fountain pen. For the past few months I've been trying to switch off the computer as much as possible and do as much writing as I can by hand. I can concentrate a lot better and I enjoy the physicality of handling a good pen and actual paper.
If you want to try something wild: take a side project and do your programming on paper.
Type the code in and run it if you must. But go back and write in pen and ink.
It sounds weird. Programming languages have a lot of funky syntax. You’ll find the impulse to either find short-hand or else you will start structuring the program such that you can keep (parts of) it in your head.
When I was learning Python on Udacity’s Python course, I worked out solutions to the problem sets on paper. That’s when I do my best, 100% focused thinking: with a good pen and a nice notebook.
It’s still the most enjoyable programming experience I’ve had.
Lisp dialects are usually nice enough to write on paper. Because whitespace between list elements is never important in classic Lisp, you can break lines wherever it makes most sense visually to do so. Plus, the referential transparency means that you can write on loose sheets without any specific order (although many Lisp compilers do read top-to-bottom in practice).
I've loved fountain pens and ink for years. Used an iPad with an Apple Pencil (which are great) for a couple of years, and then recently came back to fountain pens and pencils. I missed them so much!
What pens have you/others been using? I like the TWSBI 580.
I use a Lamy 2000 and find the shape, balance, and weight to be perfect.
Different inks can transform the writing experience; Aurora’s Black ink is very wet, and in my Lamy, writing with it is effortless.
I also enjoy writing with dip pens. The Sailor Hocoro (1) works with fountain- and dip-pen inks and has a smooth-writing steel nib. I use it when I want to write out some passage or quote in another color. India ink is the blackest black and I love it for that, while walnut ink is a pleasingly light sepia.
All through university and for several years afterwards I had an Online Vision Classic, which served me very well. Unfortunately I lost the first one at some point, and its replacement had various issues. So a couple of months ago I decided to go for a really good pen, and got an Otto Huth design 04. It looks great, lies comfortably in the hand and has an excellent nib.
Funny to see the discussions of instant pot vs rice cookers in the comments. We use one of each, often in conjunction with each other. Cheap and easy way to make a curry, for example. Never had any problems with the 3rd hand Zojirushi we have. Just follow the instructions and it gets the rice bang on each time.
It seems more like you're saying "It's ok that your toaster doesn't cook pop-tarts, you shouldn't be having those anyway--the sugar's bad for you." Your way of doing things might not be everybody's.
Nothing has to cater to anything but I'm still allowed to be annoyed that I can't read it on mobile.
What can I say I am a reliable person trying to make sure less people get sucked into Julia without learning of it's downsides. To be fair, the same could be said to you ;).
How would you reccomend I learn history with spaced repetition? I'm studying a detailed subject independently (I.e. not for an exam with a set curriculum) and I'm finding it hard to atomise the cards down bevond dates and names. I suppose I should start there first and then build more complex cards, but I'm not sure what the best approach for those is. Thanks for the detailed article!
I'm currently doing this and personally I believe the dates and names approach is best (depending on your goals). The theory is that if you have a solid grasp of the coarse details like births/deaths/major battles then when you are reading about the more subtle ideas (like what factors caused the fall of the Roman empire) you will be able to couch those ideas in the concrete framework you've already built. Then those ideas will be able to stick better.
I've only been doing it for a year and change so we'll see how it goes, but I think it's a good approach.
Obviously ignore the stuff that's less relevant for an autodidact, though seriously consider the effect any particular thing could have on your learning. For example, perhaps you'd get a high ROI paying a history graduate student to assign and grade a research paper or exam.
I've thought about this a lot and I don't have an answer. History is very prose-like and unstructured and that makes it hard.
My tentative thought (and I haven't validated this entirely) is to try to structure it. Make a spreadsheet with tables for people, events, etc. Look at Wikipedia infoboxes for inspiration into the types of things that should go as columns in the tables.
You can also try hierarchical periodization. Like if you were making flashcards about the life of Peter the Great you'd divide his life into:
1. Early life
2. Grand Embassy
2.1. Austria
2.2. The Netherlands
2.3. England
3. Great Northern War
3.1 Start
3.2 Founding of St. Petersburg
Created an account just to say thanks for the comment, and thanks for reading! A little taken aback by both - was not expecting 1000 reads overnight haha.
Thanks so much, really appreciate it. I didn't go into how I'm doing it in the post, because that's in flux at the minute, but I've largely kept to
1) Calorie counting - tried focusing on macros but that just adds another thing to manage when realistically, I just need the scale to go lower. Making it simple makes it sustainable.
2) Feel good exercise - enjoying yoga was a big surprise, but Sean Vigue Fitness over on YouTube really warmed me to it. I love free weights, I love rowing, I love running (although don't do it too much because of my knees).
It's a relatively new blog, but I'm posting more of the same every Sunday. Next one is about how SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is hitting me at the minute.
Whilst this is definitely not what's it's like, this quaint video is all about the lineage of the pub in the UK, and explains the third-spaceness of them, which I'd argue still exists[1].
Pubs are so important for our communities in the UK, whether that's watching the game, seeing a friend's band, celebrating a birthday or just catching up after work.
Many of the parts of my life have been lived in a pub. If it's criminal, I'd happily be locked up. Or maybe lock me in, a sadly rarer occurrence these days.
[1] https://youtu.be/_GCcoaSq3x4?si=QunsiKqk4D4IRV0M