Inspired by Paul Battley (whom in turn was “inspired by Tom and Nat and Chris”) I’ve decided to start writing weeknotes. Specifically, around the end of last year I decided that I would write brief weekly notes and share them online.

To make that easier, and because I stumbled upon a nice 2022 calendar-diary template on Reddit (and because I'm usually eager to find new use cases for my loyal reMarkable 2) I would also start writing a page about my day, every day.

Unrelated to all that, I had been meaning for a long time to have a blog again (I have been “blogging” and “microblogging” on third-party platforms, but I always missed owning my content and being part of the IndieWeb like in the good old days).

Last month it all came together, and eight days ago, on January first, I finally managed to (re)launch this blog. (I started doing other new things, but those aren't relevant now, or I won't share with the world.)

So here go my first weeknotes for week 1, 2022 (plus a few more days, for context):

Miss Entropy​

Miss Entropy levanta la cabeza
me mira y dice: «up!»
«Up!», me ordena.

Ha estado apuntando su dedito
en direcciones inescrutables
señalando maravillas nuevas
desde hace un rato.

(Ver mis subrayados en el segundo libro y en el tercer libro.)

Todo lo que he resaltado mientras leía el primero de los tres tomos que componen los Ensayos de Michel de Montaigne, probablemente la obra de no-ficción más importante de la literatura universal.

Today, a friend of mine liked this LinkedIn post:

The Female Lead on LinkedIn: Siera Bearchell: "I have to tell you something that once I realized |…

Hace pocos meses nació un nuevo podcast en el panorama español: Bola de Cristal. Las dos personas detrás de la idea —y detrás del micrófono— son Elías Domingo e Ismael Soto, profesionales inquietos y comunicadores natos con una lista interminable de intereses variados que alimenta el guión semana tras semana.

El último capítulo (que hace ya el número catorce) está dedicado a las próximas elecciones a la presidencia de EEUU, y además de las voces habituales de Ismael y de Elías, cuenta con la participación de Guillermo Fesser, el conocido humorista y periodista, desde hace unos años residente en EEUU.

The nice folks at Sentience Research (an organisation within the Effective Altruism movement) published a few days ago an extensive interview with the British philosopher David Pearce. Pearce is a vegan, a transhumanist, and a negative utilitarian. In 1995, he published on his web site a manifesto outlining his “hedonistic imperative” theory: the moral imperative to abolish all kinds of suffering in sentient creatures.

I don’t agree with everything Pearce says. And I don’t understand a lot of what he says. But there are so many passages that I found inspired and inspiring in this interview (and in his work in general), that I have to collect them somewhere. Here they go.

Dijo anteayer Isabel Celaá, ministra de educación:

«No podemos pensar, de ninguna de las maneras, que los hijos pertenecen a los padres.»

Y tiene toda la razón. Los hijos no pertenecen a sus padres.

What I read in 2018, and what I’m planning to read next

Six years ago I discovered The Greatest Books, and loved it immediately.

I am one to be easily overwhelmed by choice, volume and variety — in general. I also love books, and have a quasi-irrational belief in the importance of reading. It is estimated that the total number of books ever published is around 130 million. Undoubtedly literature, in the form of essays or fiction, has had a huge influence in human history and development. Some books are clearly better than others — better crafted, more insightful, funnier, deeper.

Este pasado lunes, 19 de noviembre, fue el Día Internacional del Hombre, una fecha simbólica celebrada en muchos países, pero completamente ignorada en España.

Ese día escribí esto en Mastodon:

“We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”

This novel is mind-boggling.

It took me more than six months to read it, together with most of Shmoop’s notes and analyses of chapters, themes and trivia. If you are going to read Ulysses, make yourself a favour and plough through it with a good companion text at hand from day one. Shmoop is not exactly an oracle of rigour and scholarship — but I found their informal guide surprisingly thorough and well researched; if you want something more serious, use Ulysses Annotated. I think a reference or summary for Ulysses is essential if, like me, you are not a native English speaker: I would have missed lots of details in the action and many allusions, subtleties and puns without it.