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Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Housekeeping: out with the old; in with the new!

Ahoy!

It is time to freshen the site up a bit for your reading pleasure. 

Spring cleaning more typically occurs in the erm, Spring, but things happen in their own sweet time. I believe in having a plan and then living into it, as opposed to doggedly following a pre-set schedule. "Living into" means leaning forward with intention while leaving room for the unexpected. It means enjoying serendipity. Sometimes it means taking credit today for things that were scheduled to happen yesterday or tomorrow. 

The critical skills needed for "living into" include awareness, patience, gratitude, flexibility, attentiveness to the moment at hand, and willingness to forgive oneself for excuseable shortcomings. 


I hereby forgive myself today for doing my blog housecleaning in October instead of March, and I take credit for it as a positive thing--something that needed to be done anyway and that just settled into this present moment rather than the one I originally envisioned. I hope you are picking up what I am laying down around going with the flow, because this balance between being and doing may be the secret to happiness.


Here is a brief summary of updates to the layout and content of PhilosFX. This includes Hails and Farewells made and Pleasant Surprises discovered. It's a work in progress. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. 


Farewells 


1. We bid a fond Farewell to the World Clock. Fueled by figures from World Health Organization, CIA Factbook, US Census Bureau, and other sources, the rolling stats sparked endless questions and discussions. The original World Clock was programmed in Flash, which is no longer supported. I loved that it was embedded in the site. Watching it update in real-time was both mesmerizing and a little frightening. 


2. Farewell to the section, "MY RECENT BEER REVIEWS." There was a time when I was an active reviewer on BeerPal. I got to the point where the process of reviewing was getting in the way of enjoying the beer. Initially, the lessons learned from focused analysis outweigh the cost of labor. I got to a point where the balance tipped in the other direction. For a while, I only published humorous reviews of fictional, April Fools Day beers. Finally, even that dropped off. BeerPal stopped supporting the feed, and to my chagrin, I didn't even notice. Nostalgia eventually becomes clutter. I do still occasionally review beers on Untapped, but as for the "MY RECENT BEER REVIEWS" section, that is g-o-h-n Gone!

3. Farewell to blogs that I am no longer using or following, and can therefore no longer recommend. This type of clutter is much more readily discarded. Outta here!

4. Same goes for links to outdated or underused websites. I followed the KonMari method and thanked each site for its lessons as I let it go.

MY LINK LIST

Hails

1. I replaced Poodwaddle's World Clock with a link to a similar compilation, Worldometer. I discovered Worldometer at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. They do not provide an embed code, so the best I can do for now is to offer the link. Click the link and be transported to a fascinating portrayal of data about the world we share. Worldometer is not as mesmerizing as the old Poodwaddle World Clock, but seeing your personal life in the context of the global scale is still a mind-bender. 

2. Note that the favored blogs will continue to automatically organize chronologically, with the most recently published post at the top of the list. 

MY BLOG LIST

Add







The blog of author and podcaster Tim Ferriss: https://tim.blog/

US War Memorials Overseas. I am especially interested in the monuments located in Italy, which are curated by my friend Angelo: https://www.uswarmemorials.org/

The Elvis Costello Wiki, a resource for Elvis Costello fans, currently with over 25k pages:
 

3. The old alphabetical listing of 36 websites was daunting, even for me. The new scheme clusters websites into thematically-linked groups. Welcome to a new organizational concept for the favored websites: Be, Know, Do, Have. 


MY LINK LIST


Be (Taking care of myself (mind, body, and soul) for increased mobility and to combat pestilence)

Know (Life-long education and training for increased transcendence and to combat ignorance)

Do (A life of service to increase comfort and convenience for all and to combat conflict)

Have (Making more to provide more and to combat poverty)


Pleasant Surprises

1. The world had not heard much from Allie (Hyperbole and a Half) Brosh in ages. I was prepared to reluctantly remove my link to her fabulous blog. However, she just recently used her blog (vice hacked Facebook and Twitter accounts) to announce her new book. Over 500 pages of her unique brilliance await you! 

2. My Scoop It magazines had long been neglected. The feed windows were blank and I figured they were ripe for reallocating to new content. However, all four of these curated magazines came back to life when I updated my password. 

3. For some reason, my Follower button had deactivated. I discovered this when a friend asked me how to follow the blog. All I had to do was turn it back on--easy! 




That's about it until the next time the cleaning bug bites me. I appreciate your time in visiting PhilosFX. If you find some value in the pursuit of a life worth watching, please click the Follow button in the upper right (above the Search) and you will get an email alert whenever a new post drops. And as you already know, comments and suggestions are always welcome. 

Cheers!   





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