1. Using Vivaldi browser. Seems stripped down, Chromium core, highly customizable, keyboard-centric/command line if you wish. Enough to make me switch? Not yet, but playing with the Notes function and seems to be able to use all my fav extensions (well, it is Chromium-based so that is expected).

2. Bookzz: a place to find books (nudge/nudge/wink/wink). I am finding electronic books that I already own in the flesh and am beginning to pare down my physical library in favor a virtual one. I have got to get down to “nomad” fighting weight. Here are some books I own that I found there: The Back of the Napkin, Making Comics, Theory U, The True Believer, The Unsettling of America. And before someone says, “Hey that’s an unsafe site”, just be aware that the Internet is still the wild west no matter what the copywrong police say. YMMV.

3. I am going to create a “carrot bag” today. I bought some permeable “bags” that I will be using to try to grow a crop I have always had problems with–carrots. Either the soil is not right or the bugs are too vigorous. I love nothing better than a carrot straight from the garden. Here is a picture of the “Smart Pot Soft-Sided Fabric Garden Plant Container Aeration Planter Pots”. Yeah, I know. It called itself ‘smart’ and that is usually the kiss o’ death.  We shall see.

4. Beginning to lock up my ‘Frankenchickens’: my neighbor has taken to blasting any errant chicken that makes its way over to his property. In my neck of the woods this is only slightly less aggressive than dissing somebody’s dog. I guess I gotta figure out a way to save my beautiful, free ranging yardbirds. They are semi-feral so I am going to have to create a yard using plastic safety fence (cheapest and most versatile) then lure them in over a period of weeks, then put a top over the fenced in area, then enclose them, and the hardest part, begin to butcher and freeze them. People have such idyllic views of the bucolic, but it is no place for the fragile. In fact you need to be beyond robust or resilient. You gotta be antifragile. In other words you have to get stronger from the stress. According to Nicholas Taleb, antifragile systems thrive on stress. So that is what I hope to do. I hope to thrive off of my neighbor’s repugnant behavior.

5. Elinor Ostrom. Want to spend some time with her splendid book, Understanding Knowledge as a Commons.  She wants to crossfertilize other disciplines with the analytic tool of “the commons”.  Here is one of her tools for doing that.  Trying to apply this to my work with CLMOOC.