When somebody says something that you disagree with

When somebody says or writes something that you disagree with, some possible ways you might deal with it internally are:

(a) You can become upset about it. This isn't a great option.

(b) You can pity the other person. Again, not a great option. A bit of a cop out.

(c) You can laugh at what was said. Better than (b) if you can manage it. But when it's not really funny, this isn't an option.

(d) You can doubt your own position. Not necessary at this stage—there are more appropriate responses.

(e) You can “agree to disagree”. This is a good initial reaction.

With the last option, you don't discount the beliefs of the other person or your own. Instead, you put the issue into a holding state, giving yourself time to reflect on the issue when your head is cooler—either now, or at a later date. In this way, you don't let yourself get stuck on the issue.

I find that this way of thinking is helpful when reading random comments on the web.

Ultralightweight Backpacks

Whenever I go out, I take my backpack. It's my exoskeleton. If you're the same way, you might be interested in considering an ultralightweight backpack.

I like my old Kensington laptop backpack. But my luggage scale tells me that it's 2.3 lbs. Surely we can do better.

There are a couple of ultralightweights that I'm going to check out next weekend. The Packable Daypack is 0.5 lbs and holds 11 L. But it's a bit flimsy and the outer pockets don't have zippers. $25.



The other one I'm going to check out is the Eagle Creek Compass. It's 0.6 lbs and is sturdier, and has zippered compartments. But it only holds 2 L. That might be good enough though. $35.

New Readability bookmarklets, for reformatting the current page to make it more readable

You might have heard of those Readability bookmarklets that format a page for easy reading. They've released a few more, a couple of which use Google Fonts.

Here they are. Just drag them to your bookmarks, and use them to reformat the current page. Inverse is pretty cool, but I like the others as well to mix things up a bit.

Readability: Athelas
Readability: eBook
Readability: Inverse
Readability: Newspaper
Readability: Novel