The collection of my writings.
141 items under this folder.
For sure this page is a bit of a mess. Instructional guides § Astrophotography 101: A Lesson Series on Photographing the Milky Way – Lonely Speck - large MOC with multiple articles to work through on all topics Planning § Light Pollution § Light Pollution Map for Bendigo - I have this app on my mobile phone.
I value backups of my data and systems. Having them means a level of security if something is lost, damaged, hacked, breaks. I may be over-compensating in some areas with multiple on-site and off-site backups.
A list of the TV series where I've seen every episode. There are many more TV seasons I've finished, but not the whole (yet!).
I only ever saw a few episodes of Babylon 5 on TV when it first aired so my first full watch through was on DVD. Smart science-fiction with a planned arc over 5 seasons is still rare in TV even now.
I first saw Band of Brothers on TV, then DVD, then Blu-ray. A 4K version would be visually amazing. This is a TV series I could watch all day long. It is engaging and scary at the same time.
A dramatisation of Discworld’s Night Watch. It took me a long time to get through this series and I would tackle only a couple of episodes at a time.
Artistic, black and white, side-scrolling, button-mashing, samurai fighter. Short at about 5 hours to play. That’s enough. Here’s a screeshot. .
My earliest memories of a camera come from my Dad and the 35mm SLR camera he had when I was young. The detachable lens, film canister and dust blower all fascinated me.
During my time at University, I owned a Commodore Amiga. I can’t remember exactly where I got the money (may have been selling the family Commodore 64).
This article is about how I have implemented the Getting Things Done Methodology (GTD) within the Obsidian note taking application. It is not commentary on how to follow the GTD methodology, nor will it necessarily reflect the methodology in its pure form^[Those familiar with GTD no there is no such thing as a pure implementation.
A long lasting change in someone’s Way of Being.
I posted this to my work colleagues in December 2022. It was as much for me to set myself up for a break as it was for others. My 18 Days Until I Can Fully Rest was something I directed at myself.
The workflow I use to develop RAW photos.
There is something special about looking up at the planets, stars and galaxies and the sense of purpose and humility it engenders within me. It is spiritual.
This is the first of a series of articles I plan to write on how I take a photo or movie shot on a camera right through to archive with full metadata for future family historical purposes.
Currently a placeholder as I work out how to get the flowchart on From Camera to Digital Asset Management linking properly. See also RAW Photo Developing.
Alongside my Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 Binoculars I’m will keep an eye on telescopes with a view to purchasing one in the future more suitable to my needs.
Commissioned by the BBC for the 40th Anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon, I first heard this radio play around 2015 and only the once. It was pulled from Spotify not long after.
Tips to Shooting Panoramas § Ideally use a tripod, but can be done handheld. Get the exposure right Set to shutter priority so that ISO and aperture don’t change Set white balance to anything other than AW Focus Set focus to manual so it doesn’t change Shoot with plenty of overlap .
Instructions on how I added Google Fonts to Obsidian Publish.
Within a Digital Garden it’s very easy to get caught in the trap of duplicating public knowledge that can be found elsewhere, or is otherwise known. For example, The Lord of the Rings is made up of Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
A business has a soul just as people do. Souls on a plane. Should we ask how many souls rather than employees work in a business?.
Metadata:#note-making#lyt#media/streaming/video presenter:: Nick Milo, Anne-Laure Le Cunff url:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuxM3kOaVDY Anne-Laure Le Cunff came to the field through discovering the Generation Effect.
This reminds me of the common theme I’ve heard from Personal Knowledge Management over the last 2 years. That is, make notes in your own words. Research has shown you remember better your own notes.
There are as many systems to apply ratings as there are things which can be rated. Ratings are applied as keywords beginning with #rating/ Anything can be rated.
This concept is an attempt to get people to remember there is more than just the map. Yet, maps show relationships. In the case of a road map, it’s the relationships between A and B and importantly how to get there.
I read an article many years ago, that I can no longer find, which discussed the fear of blank videotape and how it would destroy the home-video market.
Too many businesses collect personal information from individuals for their benefit. Under the guise of “providing better service” private data is held, often insecurely, well beyond it’s need.
This is a list of the albums or artists I come back to time and again. You can pretty much guarantee that if artists release new music, I’ll be listening to it.
A Different Audience § I am the primary audience of my Digital Garden. When I’m blogging, the audience is primarily an external reader. Writing for myself means I’m happy leaving something half-baked knowing I may come back it later.
There is a growing list of people I’m following on YouTube who are my go-to for learning about photography. They are all people I can imagine spending the day with.
All things video games and the platforms I play on.
A summary of my current photography gear (cameras, lenses and accessories). With a bit of a wishlist as well 😉.
Roam Research is a note-taking tool that gained significantly in popularity by word-of-mouth in 2020. The key benefit comes from the way it treats blocks of text and Backlinks are Important.
DUST is a wonderful and wide-ranging collection of short science-fiction stories on YouTube.
I have some very beefy binoculars for stargazing.
These are all of my favourite things.
The authors on this list are those whose books I come back to time and again. You can pretty much guarantee that if a new title is published, I’ll be reading it.
What a writer. My first read of Brandon was the Mistborn Trilogy and from there I moved to The Stormlight Archive and despite each book in that series being 1000+ pages, I read the first 4 back-to-back.
The Five Love Languages is a model that says we have a preference for how we mark love as received and how we prefer to show our love to others. The languages are: Words of Affirmation Gift Giving Acts of Service Physical Touch Quality Time Relationships may break down when two people show their love in a language that is not preferred by the other.
I have blogged on-and-off since 2002, always with the purpose of sharing. As a model of writing, there was pressure to perform and write something of value.
Background § I have referred to my personal knowledge management system as a Digital Garden for several years now and it makes sense this online presence reflects that.
Welcome to The Quantum Garden, a site where I share what interests me in the hope you’ll find it interesting as well. Time spent in the garden is all about cultivating possibilities in life.
A digital garden is a form of website where the author creates and curates ideas in public. As they collect information and write, notes are published in various stages of completeness (tagged Seedling, Budding or Evergreen) so that others can benefit from what’s there and then, without the burden of having to finish an article.
There is a lot computer gaming can teach us if we step back from the gaming and take a look at what is really going on. Gaming Teaches - Perspective Gaming Teaches - Learn From Others .
Jumping off point for all things LEGO.
Maps are ways to access notes quickly, in a context. Much more than just an index, they organise and relate, include searches/tags even for quick access.
The behaviour and decisions in my life are made in accordance with this mission statement; the essence of which is grounded in the principles of truth, beauty, goodness and unity.
Obsidian is primarily a note-taking tool that uses Markdown files for speed and flexibility. The official site is https://obsidian.md/. Within Obsidian I document and link: Personal journal entries Digital Garden notes My consumption of books, movies and TV shows This website is published directly from Obsidian using Quartz 4.
To achieve a Platinum Trophy on a PlayStation means completing a set of trophies representative of fully completing the game.
Overview of how I use Quartz to display this digital garden. Includes a list of customisations I've made.
For the last year or so I’ve been publishing my blog on Wordpress. I began using Ulysses.app to write in Markdown and publish to Wordpress, then about March this year I started publishing directly from Obsidian.
I’ve been wanting to document and share my photography workflow — from camera to archive — for a few weeks now. The introduction of Adobe Lightroom into my workflow recently has meant a delay which has ultimate turned out for the best.
Tomorrow I take delivery of my CPAP machine and have been researching what water I should use in the humidifier. The prevailing wisdom for CPAP machines is that one must use distilled water.
This afternoon, as I was importing DNG files into Lightroom, I found way too many that it won’t import. There is some kind of corruption in the DNG file.
Here be some dragons. This is a quick post to explain how Javascript can be used eliminate the need to update multiple pages if the structure of your metadata changes.
The Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) is an average measure of how many times you have a full or partial loss of breath for more than 10 seconds. It’s not hard to imagine this is not a good thing if it occurs too often.
This week I pulled my Canon 400D DSLR out of the cupboard and clicked the shutter button a few times. I’m through my camera gear and familiarising myself with everything again.
Trust involves making a ongoing series of Assessments that you will take action which takes care of me, including not taking action to harm me. That someone “can be trusted” is not a matter of fact.
In June I took part in a social experiment with Jason Becker as part of his Letters Project. He has been corresponding with people using email, in letter form, for many months now.
Logseq has been appearing a lot in my Mastodon feed lately. Many sing its praises over Obsidian so with a slow afternoon at work yesterday I thought to take a look.
With notice that Netflix has made a series of The Three-Body Problem I’m revisiting the novel as an audiobook. Though I read it first only 18 months ago, I only have the barest memory of the story.
Monday will be the first King’s Birthday public holiday. It’s not feeling like a typical long weekend for me. Maybe I’ve had too many public holidays and they are all the same.
I’m reading Self-Discipline: a guide to taking control of your mind, your time, and your life by Mark Manson and it’s given me cause to think about my habits.
A cornerstone of my career reputation has been built on my reliability. When others learn that I deliver what I say I will, on time and to the standard expected, they form a positive opinion of my work practices.
This note is part of the Gaming Teaches series of observations about what gaming can teach me when its use as a lens on life. So this is interesting.
For the last 2 weeks I’ve been working with metadata and the information that I want to track in Obsidian. As my digital garden, keeping information about the books I read, the movies I watch and the games I play, creates a full picture of my life (hey, maybe one day someone will be interested).
I have been a Goodreads user for many, many years. It has provided me the means to track my reading activity alongside a list of books I want to read.
Clearly Mastodon is broken as a social media platform 😄 PlatformConstant nagging adsFacebookYesTwitterXYesInstagramYesYouTubreYesMastodon (and other Fediverse platforms)NO 🎉 And it gets worse.
Gaming teaches us the usefulness of chasing our perspective if what we are doing isn’t working for us. I use sim-racing to help explain.
It’s just over 3 years since the impact of Covid-19 entered my world. I’ve been reflecting this week and one idea has me horrified beyond the direct impact of Covid-19 itself.
My daughter and her friend have started a podcast called “You Know What I Mean?”. Two new adults who have just started university, chatting and laughing about finding their way in the world.
I have been an Instapaper user for many years. From the time it was free, to paid, and then free and paid. For a while I was feeding Instapaper articles through Readwise to Obsidian.
This week I’ve returned to playing Elden Ring. Movement, combat and management of weapons, armour and spells, is all handled by a “controller”1. Games will generally ease you into which button to press when but after a while you end up not having to think about what to do and you just do it.
Today I spent some time playing the original Resident Evil. Games have evolved since 1996 in many more ways than graphics alone. To me it felt a lot like the text adventure Zork I with graphics.
Let’s say I’m measuring my behaviour, success, etc. and I fail to meet the ideals of the standard I’m comparing to. I will either: Feel inadequate because I am not good enough.
I'm listening to the complete discworld series of audiobooks. All 40 were released across 2022-23 and it will take me much, much longer to listen to them all.
This game got a lot of negative press just before release. It was a game I’d been looking forward to since it was first announced at around the time of the PlayStation 5 launch.
I curate a lot of digital documentation for myself and my family. It is important to remove as much friction from the system. There are so many demands on our time, that the smallest resistance can easily provide an excuse to switch on Australian Idol or Survivor and do nothing.
More and more, I’m finding my role in conversation is to help others reach clarity. Despite their best attempts to avoid it at all costs.
Earlier this week I received notice mastondon.au was being shut down (since taken over by someone else so staying). That lead me to thinking: Am I now on the best Mastodon server I can be (aus.
The first I knew was an email saying my $5 donation to running the mastodon.au server was refunded. I inquired to be told the server was scheduled for shutdown in 3 months.
Early 2000 and I was in London and a newly promoted manager within Arthur Andersen, Business Consulting division. During some new-manager training, we were encouraged to develop our own personal mission statement.
My proposed list of alternative day names to help us organise time easier and avoid confusion across the week.
I regularly see posts in the Life of Dad Facebook group that inadvertently suggest you’re not a real dad unless you are always putting your family ahead of your own needs, and making large sacrifices for your family.
In October 2016 I attended a session for HR professionals where the topic of the day was mental wellness. The idea was someone could be mentally unwell but not necessarily mentally ill.
Last night I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once and this morning followed up with a The Terror of Everything Everywhere All at Once, a commentary on the movie by Thomas Flight on YouTube.
When employees in the workplace complain about a lack of communication, what they really mean is a lack of conversation with a capital C. Conversation is Collaborative; requiring people to come together with an openness to joint mutual benefit.
This is a record of my effort building the LEGO DC Batman Batmobile Tumbler (76240). It has a total 2049 pieces. Finished it is sized 16 cm (6”) high, 45 cm (17”) long and 25 cm (9”) wide.
A game where I get to play as a cat. With 2 cats in the house, have to say it’s animated very realistically. Catinum Trophy § I have the Platinum Trophy on Stray.
This morning I finished Carrie the book and this afternoon I watched the 1976 movie. Book Carrie is by far the stronger of the two. She has a purpose and drive that isn’t in the movie.
I woke this morning to a slew of emails informing me of backups that had failed due to insufficient space on the target drive. Why had they all failed? Well, it was because one had succeeded.
When I find myself waiting in the car to pick someone up, I often play a mental game of working out how high the Earth would be covered if everything humankind has made were flattened and spread out.
I watched Avatar today, in preparation for a likely weekend trip to see Avatar 2: The Way of Water at the weekend. Both films have now taken over US$2 billion dollars.
Me, earlier this evening… “I’ll go to the supermarket and get bread while you’re out” Ah, my Amazon order of Forspoken hasn’t arrived yet. I want to be home when it comes.
This week sees the release of Forspoken, a new RPG for the PlayStation 5 and PC. My copy should arrive in a few days and I’ve been looking forward to it since I saw the trailer alongside the original PS5 release.
For the last 4-5 years I’ve used my Sennheiser 4.50BTNC headphones every day. The BTNC stands for Bluetooth and Noise Cancelling. For Christmas 2022 I was gifted a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 4 headphones.
My 2022 reading stats are in and this year I clocked 20,871 over 46 books. Since first purchasing a Kindle some years ago my reading has increased substantially, and my annual target is 20,000 pages.
I’ve been a fan of Stephen King since I first read The Bachman Books and IT in 1988. Under the Dome is the darkest of them all. It’s not the supernatural horror but the human greed that brings about the downfall of so many people and places them in horrible situations.
Around this time each year people start to say how the Christmas/New Year break is just what they need as a holiday. This year it’s different. Everyone I speak too who is working is completely tapped out mentally.
I’m now down to 18 work days before I get 2 weeks off work over Christmas/New Year. It’s important that I relax and look after myself. It’s tempting to think of all the: Books I can read TV I can watch Movies I can watch Video games I can play Kilometres I can walk Places I can visit Miniatures I can paint Photos I can categorise but the risk is I spend my holiday busy.
We have a state election on Saturday. One local candidate sent a letter to our household today. We have four that will be voting. They could have sent a letter each.
I want to talk about backups. They are important, and always have been. Unlike grabbing photo albums on the way of of the house during a fire, the right backup system means we can focus on saving the most important thing in the house - ourselves.
Each time I hear the Sun is 50% through its life and only has 5 billion years to go, I feel sad. If we’re not off Earth and into the Milky Way Galaxy by then it’s all over.
I once heard the suggestion that a gravestone is more reflective of the people that commission it than the person who has died. It’s similar to you buying a present for someone that you’d really like to receive yourself.
Changing how we observe our world by becoming a different observer is powerful. A power that gives us more choice. If you ever need reminding that observing differently can make a difference to how you feel in your soul you can: Listen to a favourite piece of music in a different location, on better headphones, or in a dark room.
Board members are elected for three terms, on a rolling basis. The first term… to learn The second term… to be productive The third term… to mentor the new first years.
Today I recalled the tendency for my early career performance reviews to be positive, “but David, you need to learn to see the Big Picture.” I always left feeling a little stupid because I didn’t know what to do about it.
I’ve written several times over the past 20 years that RSS feeds are important yet can be a hinderance as much as a help. RSS Gathers News and Audio to Me § I use them extensively in my news reader (currently News Explorer) to go out to websites that offer a RSS feed and pull the news to me.
Every now and then I use Amazon/Audible’s Matchmaker tool to see if there are any Kindle books for which I’d like to purchase the audiobook cheaply. Today I picked up Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace for $9 total.
On Sunday I started playing Sid Meier's Civilization VI. Today I lost badly and that’s ok because I was learning all the time.
I have a relatively new car. It’s done just over 3,000km. Here is a crazy coincidence from earlier today. The odometer read 3,000km while I was stopped at traffic lights.
FOMO generates extra dollars for the gaming industry, both PC/console gaming and board/tabletop games. Two words. DLC and Expansion. Both represent additions to the base game.
At the edge of your consciousness you may be aware that over the past few years there has been a resurgence in board games, tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, and tabletop wargaming like Warhammer.
Sometimes, we don’t know what is important, and blogging, journalling and writing in general are ways to discover that. To go meta, these are all forms of conversation and without conversation figuring out anything is impossible.
Since discovering my old blog entries I’ve been developing a workflow to import them into my current Wordpress blog. Spanning 2002–2012 there is value in bringing it all together, even if it takes some time.
I have never liked the phrase “Step outside your comfort zone”. Why do that uncomfortable or scary thing? An implication of stepping outside is that I can’t step back inside when I may need to.
One of those small pieces of advice I picked up years ago was “pause and savour the first sip of tea or coffee.” Every time I remember to do so it’s a moment of quiet in the day.
The other day a friend was saying to me that he’d been involved in an investigation at work, and colleagues were asking him for details (gossip). He said he’d been telling them, “I can’t say anything.
Euan Semple posted about the digital overwhelm we are facing more and more as online systems become ever more dictated yet poor interface design makes them unusable.
Tubular Bells 2003 § I listened to Tubular Bells 2003 properly for the first time on 6 October 2022. I had thought it was more of a remaster until I learned it was a complete new recording.
Conversations such as blog posts that I write in my head lying in bed or when walking are always better than they end up when I type them. I wonder if it’s because typing is simply physical and there is less emotion accessible in the moment.
This is the process each audiobook transitions through on the way from Audible to my listening ears. Purchase more books on Audible than I possibly have time to listen to.
I’ve become conscious that “just” has crept into my email vocabulary. “I’m just writing to ask…” “I just need to know…” When used this way, it’s apologetic and has no place in making solid requests.
Yesterday I was musing on the difference between training and education, wondering why training in the workplace is usually ineffective. This is my stream of consciousness on the question.
Have you ever carefully considered a purchase from a store then when you got home realised there was an aspect you’d missed that made it completely unsuitable? I do it frequently with trips to the hardware store for screws where somehow I’ve managed to get the wrong diameter or length.
I’ve noticed recently a tendency in myself and others to add layer upon layer of explanation when we are talking. Once I saw it, I realised how counter-productive it is.
A group of farmers was asked what they would do if they woke up in the morning to find their $100,000 tractor had been stolen from the shed. They indicated a rush of activity around police, insurance and other such matters.
Nobody likes interruptions (unless they are good news) but regardless, each interruption that occurs takes not only the time of the interruption itself but a little longer as you strive to get back to where you were beforehand.
Backlinks are links on a web page/note that list other web pages/notes which refer to it. Within my digital garden, backlinks are critical in making connections between ideas.
This is a record of my effort building the R2-D2 in (73508). It has a total 2314 pieces. Finished it is over 31cm (13”) high, 19cm (8”) wide and 15cm (6”) deep.
Nagash, known by many names such as the Great Necromancer, the Great Betrayer, the Usurper, the Undying King, the Supreme Lord of Undeath or simply He Who Shall Not Be Named, is the ultimate personification of death and the undead, an ancient, evil being who sought to conquer this cruel, chaotic world and bring about an age of undeath that will rule for all eternity.
This is a record of my effort building the LEGO Millenniuum Falcon (75192). It has a total 7541 pieces. Finished it is over 21cm (8”) high, 84cm (33”) long and 56cm (22”) wide.
In mid-2020 I was introduced to the exciting new note-taking application Roam Research and I transferred my notes and tasks into the database, making use of the powerful backlinking and cross-referencing features of the database.
It’s fair to say that the Lord of the RIngs spin-off, Shadow of Mordor will always hold a special place in my gaming heart. Not only did I throroughly enjoy the game and appreciate the mechanics, but it’s the first game for which I ever achieved a Platinum Trophy something I never thought I’d be able to do.
I love things that make me feel a strong sense of nostalgia. Many of us do. Yesterday I watched The Muppets after missing it in the cinema earlier this year (twice in fact).
I’m a couple of chapters into ”Start with Why” by Simon Sinek and he’s already solved a problem I’ve been pondering. Well, not so much pondering as noting with curiosity.
My daughter is an avid reader and loves the library. This week she brought home a copy of “What Dad’s Can’t Do” by Douglas Wood. Here’s a summary from the website.
I set my self-consciousness a task as I went to bed. To come up with a title for myself by the morning. I awoke as the Quantum Gardener. Mary Mary, Quite contrary, How do your quantums grow? With chance and opportunity, And your futures all in a row.
These days it is possible to trial most computer software before you buy it. But what does ‘trial’ actually mean. For me, trial once meant install, play around a bit and then forget.
I walked to the middle of the circle holding my name tag in my hands. Turning around to face the other course participants I held up my name tag and declared in a voice from the centre of my being, “This is my name tag but this is me and I am legitimate!” It was late Sunday afternoon^[2002] and I had just completed Newfield Institute’s Coaching in Action program.