Best products from r/Cortex

I will recommend my favorite nonfiction book, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter Norton. It documents the period between WWI and the Great Depression when streets were converted from public spaces to car exclusive spaces from the perspectives of justice, order, and efficiency. It’s a fascinating history of how cities largely surrendered their greatest asset to the automotive lobby.

Are you wanting a messenger bag or more of a back pack? I have the older version of the osprey flap jack pack, but the newer one still looks good. It doesn’t have a lot of different features but it is tough enough to go on day hikes but looks good for running around the city. It is easy to access pockets but the cover keeps everything protected from pick pockets. The water bottle holder on the inside is a little weird for some but I like that it keeps everything compacted together.

My usual carry is:
Dongles, ear phones (Bluetooth and regular), notebook, iPad and pencil, kindle, water bottle, folder for loose papers should I get any, battery pack, Kleenex, and a language die that helps me study Hungarian

I couldn’t find my exact bag but these are the new iterations:
https://www.ospreyeurope.com/shop/dk_en/osprey-transporter-flap-25-2019
https://www.amazon.com/Osprey-10000050-Mens-FlapJack-Backpack/dp/B0124Y3JT8

That pack is deep enough to hold my 1.5 litter water bottle and everything with room to spare. I don’t suggest this sized bottle but I’ve grown to fond of it to change.

Are you talking about this one?

Silicone Case for Apple Pencil Holder Sleeve Skin Pocket Cover Accessories for iPad Pro, Soft Grip Pouch with Charging Cap Holder and 2 Protective Nib https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077SJ25B6?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

I happen to like it. I don’t remember how I happened upon it, but it would be likely that it was from here.

It’s inexpensive and better than the little loop I previously used to retain the cap. The tip cover is nice and the pencil works fine with it on. It doesn’t roll because of the connection for the cap. The grip could be better, but it could be roughed up with some high grit sandpaper.

Perfect! I found it using the Hello Internet search. I misremembered that it was mentioned in Cortex. (And it was actually Brady who talked about the Microsoft guy.)

It was H.I. #83: The Best Kind of Prison:
http://podcastsearch.david-smith.org/episodes/1771#4960

And the guy was Preston McAfee. Here's his Numberphile interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kWuxfVbIaU

His book is Competitive Solutions: https://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Solutions-Strategists-Preston-McAfee/dp/0691124035/

Thanks for your help!

My personal favorite non-fiction books that sound incredibly boring, but are actually really interesting:

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky It's a book about salt! The history of salt, the cultural significance of salt, salt production through the ages, all about salt. It's amazing.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky It's the history of Cod! The author spends a good portion of the book talking about how Cod is both incredibly bland and tasteless, but also how western culture loves that bland fish and all of the interesting political movements for Cod.

And for a more serious topic: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich. This is multiple personal accounts of the Chernobyl disaster, all deeply interesting, and deeply sad. I'm only an episode into the Chernobyl HBO series, but I'm pretty sure that show is following some of characters from this book. It's a high quality book that I think is worth everyone's time, it doesn't go super in depth with the technology, just the human aspect.

I'm a fan of this. It's a knockoff of the Ridge Wallet but it's pretty good quality and incredibly slim. Also scales well based on however many cards you need to put into it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074DSWXJZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I would love to share a video but seems like Krtek is pretty much unavailable on reliable video services... :(

Looks like it has been translated to 'How Little Mole Got His Trousers'

Well due to that quick Part 4 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reference the author of the manga wrote a book about creating manga: https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Theory-Practice-Craft-Creating/dp/1421594072

I’ve heard good things about it and that most creative people can get something from it. My copy is still in the mail.

I actually found this a week ago and it does the trick. This is the charger I found. One of the chargers has a a charger that works for an Apple Watch and they all support fast Qi charging. I travel often for work so the fact that it folds up is awesome because most wireless chargers are bulky AF.

I've heard really good things about the Brydge: https://smile.amazon.com/Brydge-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Apple-iPad/dp/B01N2W1XEL/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1506703272&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=brydge+10.5

Sounds like exactly what you want

I do! Under the title: "You Should (Almost) Always Use Spaces"

> Generally speaking, using tabs is barbaric. Makefiles are an exception, as they originate from a less civilized era. Go source files are also a weird exception. I don't know what Rob Pike was thinking, but he's pretty smart so I guess he gets a pass.

> The only argument you can really make for tabs is they result in smaller file sizes than those delimited with spaces, but seriously? Are you that pressed for disk space? May I suggest one of these?

I haven't read this one myself, but from hearing Grey and Myke talk about their experiences, I think this book could be very helpful.

I think one problem people usually have is being too precious about it and end up feeling too intimidated to write as much as you want or at all. Especially with pen and paper it's easy to feel that you shouldn't ruin this beautiful physical objects with your crappy handwriting and unimportant stuffs. I think I heard Merlin on one of the All the Great Shows™ talked about this and solved this by scribbling on the first page of a notebook then it's ruined already you can feel easy. But since you're having a yearly theme of sweating the small stuff maybe this doesn't bother you at all.

​

Oh and the yearly theme reminded of Chris Hadfield's book where there's literally a chapter on sweating the small stuff. Is that where it came from? If not it might be an interesting read for you

These are great and I prefer them over fanny/bum bags
https://www.amazon.com/Kawei-Knight-Nylon-Messenger-Backpack/dp/B00NW4AC7C/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1524884228&sr=8-10&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=innturt#immersive-view_1524884270321

It looks like one of these.
I use them and they’re pretty nice if you want the webcam covered but still need to use it

I’ve no side hustle or self-employment at the moment so I don’t have any Cortexy advice, but what I do have like you is a 4yo and a nearly-1yo.
One thing I’ll say is that our key for our mornings is having a hatch white noise machine/nightlight for our toddler (paired with only quiet toys in her bedroom). It’s app-connected and you can schedule different schemes for it, so it turns on (ocean sounds, and it can do any hue so she picked a soft pink/purple) at bedtime every night, and it turns green with no sound at 8am every morning. That way, no matter what time she wakes up, she knows she has to stay in her room and stay quiet until her light turns green. She’s grown out of her afternoon naps now but we also had a separate scheme for that so she could differentiate naps from nighttime when she was getting old enough to still need a nap but not want to be shut in her room forever during the day. It helped her to know it was just ‘a short nap not a long nap’ (her words) like going to bed for the whole night. And further into that transition period, the afternoon light just meant ‘quiet time’ so whether she felt like sleeping or wanted to stay up and read, she still had to stay in her room and quiet for an hour or two until her light turned green.