January Recap: Hitting the ground running
New items, knowledge map and more!
Dear friends of the Libre Solutions Network,
It’s time to get HYPED! 🤯
Something very cool is coming soon!
I can’t spoil the surprise, but I also can’t contain my excitement.
Keep an eye out for me in unexpected places!
It’s here!
Digital Autonomy & Fitness
I had the pleasure of interviewing Zachary Boissinot, the owner of a gym that fought to stay open during the Covid Crisis. Not merely in any Canadian city, but in Canada’s national capital. We talk about his experiences during the Covid Crisis, as well as our thoughts on what we can do to oppose tyranny.
The Digital Autonomy series is where I like to explore the intersection between our digital landscape and the aspects of our lives it touches or even impacts. I believe that by learning from those with strong passions for entirely different domains, we can map out important insights and strategies for building a better digital future.
Sharing my personal knowledge graph
Logseq was my first Tool Tuesday item to share. It’s a very handy tool that has already made better use of my time. I wish I had done it more justice, but Logseq is definitely going to return to Tool Tuesday in the future.
I’ve begun the process of filling out my own personal knowledge graph hosted at gabe.rocks/docs. This creates an easily searchable resource of things I’m aware of, and what I find worth mentioning. This is very much a work-in-progress but I’m hoping it will be valuable to others in the long run.
As I continue to work on my own research, findings will be regularly synced to the knowledge graph. Over time, it will be quite the resource for understanding the wider context of what I share in the future. This will also allow me to make good use of questions people ask me. Any comments or feedback about the graph or what you would like to see on it would be greatly appreciated.
Good Energy & wearables
I was gifted a copy of Good Energy that I blitz’d through over the turn of the new year. While I found some things interesting in the book, I have reservations of the explicit endorsement of Big Tech wearables. In response to the book I take the time to outline some of my concerns with these devices.
I think it’s really worth emphasizing that you don’t need to hook yourself into the matrix to improve your health. Most of you are quite aware of my preferences when it comes to intrusive surveillance, so it only follows I would be equally vigilant in my own weight loss journey. I did manage to find a helpful wearable that doesn’t use a smart phone that will help me a great deal. It’s a very simple digital watch with step counter and timer functions. It really helps that it comes in blue!
The Zano Conspiracy
I wanted to highlight Zano as an example of how people saying all the right things can be involved in something with some real rough edges. The cryptocurrency ecosystem is complicated and it’s characteristic of the community to dismiss any and all criticism as ignorance or defeatism. It’s objectively not worth it to investigate every new digital asset that gets hype. You’re better off having a high level of skepticism even if it means missing out on the earliest stages.
I feel the need to shout out Molly White who put out an excellent report No, Trump didn’t make $50 billion from his memecoin; that explains some of the counter-intuitive mistakes people can make when it comes to thinking about the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Molly White does an excellent job outlining one of the many things I wanted leave the reader understanding in my exploration of Zano.
Big Tech: The change of the guard
I believe it is crucial for people to recognize Big Tech’s problems not for who is at the helm, but for what it is. The consolidation of our digital lives, which impact our actual lives, is not likely to end well.
If nothing else, I hope the “Free speech X” honeymoon is over. Better still, we can hope that people are willing to spend time building up independent digital infrastructure and reclaim their digital autonomy. There are some exciting projects that have caught my eye, and I have some interesting ideas of my own for what can make a real difference.
Weight Loss Journey
In case you haven’t seen it already. I’m sharing my personal weight loss updates in a new Substack: Micro-dosing Failure. These updates live and will continue to be shared from my personal site, but there is now an option to engage over Substack. Before moving this to Substack, I would regularly receive kind emails from strangers who subscribed over RSS. I greatly underestimated how much people would appreciate my updates, and the kind support you can receive over the open web.
It’s a bumpy road. My goal is to share the authentic process of going from over 570lbs to a healthy weight as well as I can. By sharing the ups and downs I can ideally encourage others to withstand the difficult moments knowing that they do pass. January was certainly a roller-coaster of ups and downs. As a way of sharing more into the process, I regularly record monologues as I walk. You may find these worth listening to if you’re curious.
A small controversy…
I took a strong stance on what I believe should be the focus of opposing Digital ID. I really struck a chord with others on this front. Not only was this piece featured on nakedcapitalism.com, but many more than I expected shared my sentiments.
In response to some (predictable, but unexpected and untimely) intense replies, I returned in kind. This situation ended up being a bit more combative than I would like. In the future, I hope to state such passionate objections in a more measured and collected way.
heard you on the corbett report this morning and after several attempts to subscribe.....no luck, finally found another way.....great work and thank you Gabriel.....blessings from arizona...
Catching up to your posts here and in your health journey. But it was nice to see I haven’t missed all that much. I can’t open your graph on my phone so I’ll have to check it later.
Super excited for your future presence in unexpected places. :)