blogs killed the e-mail star
If you don’t know what AliExpress (https://www.aliexpress.com) is, wherever you’re buying your stuff from, you’re probably paying too much. The best way to describe it is with an example.
The gimmicks in this picture are USB LEDs that light up when they are inserted into a USB connector. They turn any USB power source into a lamp. I bought them from AliExpress in a pack of 5 for US$ 0.68, postage included. Ridiculously cheap.
My Facebook account is now reduced to a groupie boosting Like-counts on my wife’s posts, but even this strange marital responsibility and my occasional anti-anti-China taunts are becoming less effective motivators for me to log into the social network.
I can’t deactivate the account outright because I know that there will be that one need for Facebook when it is least expected — like, an asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, and the only way to secure a passage to Mars is with a Facebook login. So I leave the account active but slowly undo the Timeline. The concept is simple: I ruthlessly eliminate old posts that have lost their appeal until only the bare minimum is left.
But recently when a post is deleted, Facebook moves it into a recycle bin. And for it to be gone completely, there is a hurdle of manually emptying the bin. I suspect that Facebook does this in order to retain the precious user creations that underpin its business model. Or perhaps users asked for a way to recover deleted posts. Regardless of their justification, Facebook is malign enough for me to remain sceptical.
A few months ago, picking up an old-new notebook from my stock of pillaged office stationery, I was surprised by my own handwritten quotation on the first page.
Remember to touch base. Base is where you were before you became lost.
I copied it onto a Post-It that is now stuck on my monitor, but I didn’t look for its source until today.
It actually comes from The Rules of Life by Richard Templar. I read this book in 2004 during a phase of self-improvement although I don’t remember being impressed by it.
Maybe it was prescient that I wrote dwon this particular ‘rule’ then only for me to find it now when the advice seems much needed. Coincidentally, last week whilst rummaging through boxes in the attic, I held the book in my hands, considering whether to read it again before putting it back.