@Erik@mastodon.nz
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

Erik

@Erik@mastodon.nz

I’m passionate about writing, software design, personal knowledge management, Taoist Tai Chi and cycling (especially bikepacking). I live in Rotorua, New Zealand, with the most wonderful woman in the universe and a gaggle of amazing kids.

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Erik, to random
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

The aurora was quite spectacular tonight. I took these photos in Rotorua, New Zealand, way too far north to usually see the aurora at all.

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liztai, to Malaysia
@liztai@hachyderm.io avatar

I think the scariest thing is I often use this particular monorail line. Usually on Wednesdays. If it had been tomorrow...
Unfortunately one person died in this incident 😔

#KualaLumpur #Malaysia #TootSea

Tree falling on a busy road

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai that's terrifying!

publicvoit, to markdown
@publicvoit@graz.social avatar

I'm writing a longer (as it seems) article on the lock-in effect of solutions like that are using open formats like for storage. The file format is not the only thing that might lock you in.

I did already start with a list of arguments but also want to collect your ideas so that I don't forget a good argument.

Please, no emotions, just facts and objective arguments.

Reply here in this thread and I'll collect ideas from it. 🙇

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@publicvoit part of the lock-in effect for Obsidian is their live preview mode -- instead of seeing the underlying Markdown text, you see that text rendered in a way that is particular to Obsidian. When you combine Obsidian's unique extensions to Markdown (like callouts), along with themes and custom stylesheets, you're no longer working with just Markdown but Markdown as rendered by Obsidian...and then you're totally locked in despite the supposedly open file format.

liztai, to linguistics
@liztai@hachyderm.io avatar

learning progress: 30/100 characters learned & memorised so far. HSK 2 vocab nearly 80% done. I may complete HSK 4 vocab in Q1 after all.

May be upping my goal for learning characters to 1000 by end of 2024. My brain seems to like the Tofu Learning app's flashcard system. Things actually stick!

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai 1000 characters should be doable, depending on how good the flashcard system is in Tofu. I've been working through James Heisig's book "Remembering the Traditional Hanzi", and am up to 740 characters after 3 months. That's a lot more time-consuming than what you're doing, as the book requires you to work out mnemonics to help remember each character, but I'm steadily doing 10 characters a day. With your experience, you'll definitely get to 1000 characters by the end of the year.

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai James Heisig has produced books for both traditional and simplified Hanzi. For example: https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236/ref=sr_1_3?crid=ZPI2DFTTAXVF&keywords=heisig&qid=1704344515&sprefix=heisig%2Caps%2C278&sr=8-3 and https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Traditional-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters-ebook/dp/B09WTSP8XK/ref=sr_1_6?crid=ZPI2DFTTAXVF&keywords=heisig&qid=1704344515&sprefix=heisig%2Caps%2C278&sr=8-6. The decks you download usually say "traditional" or "simplified" as both are available.

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai how do you mean it’s the opposite of your approach? The Heisig book does cover the 1,000 most common characters, plus 500 more that are related and easier to learn at the same time. There’s a second volume that covers the next most common 1,500 words.

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai wow, so you can hear and understand (some) Mandarin, but not read the characters? That's completely different from a beginner trying to learn Chinese from scratch...I'm impressed. So what you're doing is taking the radicals and stroke order of the written character and associating it with a character you already know from the spoken language. I'm glad you found a deck that works for that...do share your progress as you go along, as I'd love to hear how you get on.

liztai, to scifi
@liztai@hachyderm.io avatar

This is LITERALLY the best way to summarise the first four episodes of the #ThreeBody #Cdrama 😆
But anyway, am enjoying it even if I feel like, WTF IS GOIN' ON WITH THE NUMBERS AND THE PHYSICS
After a lifetime of sci-fi from a Western perspective, it's really fascinating to see one from a Chinese one, and this is like hard #scifi at that!

Math problems swirling around

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai you watch such interesting shows! I wish things like this were available in New Zealand...

liztai, to random
@liztai@hachyderm.io avatar

Whoa. So New Zealand has a right wing govt now. 🤔

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai Basically the left-wing government botched things so badly that people voted for change, and a terrible right-wing coalition took power. They've already been deeply unpopular, doing things like renaming government departments to remove Māori naming, repealing smokefree legislation, etc -- we're just hoping they are so terrible that they'll get voted out next time and the Greens will take over.

Erik, to markdown
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

I checked out the new table editor this morning, and was very disappointed to see that it doesn't add whitespace to a table so it can be easily viewed/edited in another editor. The "Advanced Table Editor" plugin did this, which made tables much easier to read in another programme. So much for using Obsidian as a table editor...

A screen snapshot of the same Markdown table as it should appear so it's readable in other programmes.

Erik, to cycling
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

Mount Fuji is looking quite lovely this morning…

Erik, to productivity
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I'm always trying to improve my and system, so I did an experiment: instead of building a detailed schedule listing when to do each task, I tried working off a list of tasks to be done. It was a disaster: I got far less done, and felt stressed and umproductive.

I've learned that I work best when I know what I'm going to do at each moment of the day, rather than just working off a list of tasks. I'm now back to using focus blocks filled with tasks, and I'm happy.

Erik,
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@dekkzz76 absolutely — different people have very different ways of working. The trick is to discover what works for you, which may not be obvious at first — especially if you think you “should” do things a particular way.

Erik, to cycling
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

Today I discovered that a road shown on Google Maps doesn't actually exist. I had planned to use it as part of a loop, but when I got there all I found was farmland, so I had to backtrack and find an alternative. That turned a 95 km ride into a 140 km ride, and added 700 metres more climbing and an extra three hours to an already very long ride. I'm feeling quite tired now.

skinnylatte, to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

I’ve decided to learn Cantonese properly, because old Chinese people in San Francisco just insist on talking to me in it anyway. Sometimes when I’m volunteering at food banks and such I’m also the only person they feel they can ask questions to, so I guess it’s important if I’m going to live here. (I understand 99% of it but don’t speak enough, as I speak Chiu Chow instead)

Also just totally messed up my languages: the word for ‘cheap’ in Thai is the word for ‘expensive’ in Cantonese.

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@skinnylatte I hope your Cantonese learning goes well. I'm at the other end of the scale...a beginner attempting to tackle Cantonese with no prior experience of tonal languages at all. It's a massive challenge, trying to remember the characters, the tones and the meaning of every word, but I am making slow progress. So I can appreciate what you're doing, even if just from the eyes of a beginner...

kboyd, to random
@kboyd@phpc.social avatar

Question for :

What do folks recommend for a comfortable saddle? Cutout/cutaway/noseless/jumbo gel padded: Show me what you got.

Erik,
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@kboyd it depends a lot on the type of riding you do. I do some crazy rides (10+ hours, day after day) when , and I had lots of saddle trouble. Ended up getting a Brooke's saddle from England. They're leather, and take about 500 km to "break in" -- they're not super-comfortable at first, but after they're broken in and shape themselves to your bottom they're absolutely amazing. A friend described his as being like "angels holding your bottom cupped in their hands"...

Erik, to random
@Erik@mastodon.nz avatar

@liztai that's awesome...the Tai Chi society I'm part of has been celebrating Cheng Beng (or "Ching Ming" as they call it) with chanting. I wasn't able to join the actual ceremony as it was at 4 am my time, but I did attend a couple of meetings where they did some practice chants and talked about the ceremony and the significance of Ching Ming and why it's called "Tomb Sweeping Day". Small world...

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