Both of these sound very interesting - I'll have to check them out!

You know, this made me think of WHY this is - why am I good at following food restrictions, but not so great on digital restrictions.

Here's what I think it is.

With food (with the carnivore diet, anyway), it's VERY clear cut. Animal origin? Good. Not animal origin? Bad.

With use of screens/devices, it's nowhere near that clear cut. If I were to cut out my laptop and phone entirely, I couldn't function, couldn't work, couldn't do fun and interesting projects.

It's such a fuzzy line. For instance, take Youtube.

Youtube is critical for a lot of things. But then, it's so easy to go from "must watch youtube for an important project, or to learn how to do x,y,z", to "zzz...got nothing else I must do, so I will anesthetize myself with youtube for hours".

Oh man...that would have to be the digital detox/distraction thing. Using devices too much.

I do follow a LOT of the advice that I give (often do a digital detox on Sundays, use social media very little, have youtube blocked on my main laptop, etc, etc).

But I still end up spending too much time online. It's "better" time, like research, projects. But it's also too much.

My carnivore advice, though - THAT I actually follow, almost 100%.

I do the free pick-up at grocery strores, and don't really consider it a fiat habit - it saves a lot of time, and schedule the pick-up when I need to do errands anyway.

Never thought about delivery though.

Come to think of it, I got introduced to the Carnivore diet, indirectly, via a podcast. And that's been extremely valuable for me.

How it happened was that I listened to an interview with Nina Teicholtz, author of The Big Fat Surprise, on The Bitcoin Standard podcast, then read her book. I realized how bad standard nutritional advice was, then read a few books on carnivore, then started with carnivore.

That's only the one that pops in my head first, I know there's lot of other ideas I've been exposed to via podcasts.

But the time suck of podcasts...ugh

I like the "prime thinking real estate". So true.

Reflecting a little - I'm probably just a little discontented/searching because the main project I'm working on is a little frustrating right now.

Substack (along with stacker.news) used to be the trusted news source that I would go to, regularly.

But in the past couple months, it seems different. More dopamine driven, more click-baity, less thoughtful.

What news sources do you like?

Interesting idea. So far I've stuck to topics that are my central passions.

Maybe I'll try to expand my horizons.

I was living for a time in Nicaragua, decades ago, on a homestay type trip.

The family I was staying with once took me to a beautiful clear stream once, where people do laundry and also washed their hair.

The thing I will always remember is that - they had no shampoo, so they bought little one-time-use packets of shampoo from a roadside vendor, on the way up to the stream.

Buying it like that must have cost tons more than just buying a bottle of shampoo once.

Smart. I've often thought that would be a great idea.

And that way (correct me if I'm wrong), you don't get caught by the regulation that forbids AirBnBs, because you are living in the same house. I believe much of the regulation is caused by the fact that sometimes people hold huge parties in these houses, and the neighbors complain.

Where are your favorite digital nomad locations, if you don't like Denver, Barcelona, Amsterdam or NYC?

Years ago my family visited Japan for 3 weeks, staying in 3 separate AirBnBs for one week each, all around the country. It was a fantastic trip, the AirBnBs were relatively cheap, we could cook at home, etc.

About 6 months after we traveled there, the government cracked down HARD on AirBnBs. They had to apply for one of a very limited set of permits available.

A WSJ article at the time, said that it was a result of lobbying by the hotel industry.

I'll bet that's what's happening now, as well - not really an organic grass roots "anti-tourist" movement, but a astro-turf movement, funded by hotels.

Sounds very reasonable.

AI is amazing for helping you program a simple project, with a tool you know nothing about.

As for a complicated project, in an tool that you're quite familiar with - it can be distracting.

In Zimbabwe during the hyperinflation there was a "3 boiled eggs" index, that was actually reported on in financial reports.

The Big Mac index seems too changeable. It might just be me, but I feel like hamburgers have been getting thinner.

Yesterday I had a reminder of shrinkflation - I just looked in a bathroom cabinet, where we had stocked up on some shampoo on sale. The new bottle vs the old one (bottle size was different, but both were called a "family pack" and were otherwise the same) was a shrinkage of 15% in contents.

Thanks for this. What a thoughtful write-up.

I read the article "The Bullish Case For Bitcoin" by Vijay Boyapati. https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1

I'd heard about bitcoin long ago, and thought I should learn more about it. But this article finally got me off my ass, and I thought to myself that I absolutely MUST find a good book, and read it. I found The Bitcoin Standard, and was hooked.

Restaurant was tough at one time.

Then I split it up - Rest Aura Ant

(except since Restauraant, with "aa", is OBVIOUSLY wrong, I skip one.

It doesn't necessarily make sense to anyone but me, but it works!

Yeah, it's pretty decent! And kept well, even in days of hot weather with no refrigeration.

Wonder if I could make it myself. It would be good as a backpacking food.

I did a little research, from what AI tells me, this may be significant: Tax Incentives and Residency Programs: Italy has introduced attractive tax regimes, such as the flat tax for high-net-worth foreigners (a 100,000 EUR annual flat tax on foreign income for new residents), which has lured wealthy individuals to relocate. This "res non-dom" policy, combined with the allure of Italy's lifestyle, has contributed to an influx of millionaires.

I'd talk to my aunt (elderly back then, but still with it, and eager to tell stories about her life), and LISTEN to her stories, and write them down.

When I finally got around to doing this, she was no longer able to really tell a story anymore.