ask DNA's website for musings on life
My wife recently showed me a video of someone listing their favourite brewing methods and it got me thinking. When I actually reviewed the number of ways I brew coffee, though, I came up with only eight, so I threw in two bonuses at the end. Here goes Wacaco Pico Presso After years of taking my AeroPress on the road, I borrowed a friend's minipresso and was impressed. It wasn't a perfect espresso,…
Years ago, I sent my old desktop multimedia workstation to recycling because I'd gotten a new, more robust setup. Before tossing it, naturally, I backed up my files and moved them to the new computer. Except, in my inexperience and inattention, I only backed up working/in-progress files. I missed the folder that contained my rather large collection of multi-GB complete projects. It was only weeks…
Every older version of this site (going back to circa 1996) has had comments or a guestbook. I liked the genuine (excuse this overused buzzword - I mean it honestly) engagement. It was just as fun making friends as getting into arguments with weenies online. When I made askdna.coffee , I was going to go for a guestbook for old-time's sake, then I thought a comments section would suffice, then I…
I posted yesterday about better input/output , then stumbled upon a post (which is now gone, sadly) and that got me thinking about what I'd put in my list. Dog cuddle time Discovering new music Homemade espresso Lunch dates with my wife Spontaneous adventures Exploring local bookstores Laughing with family and friends Little anime collectable things Running my own tech stuff My Travelers Notebook…
I want to do things that bring me joy. I need the capacity to do them. Like many people my age, I feel so overwhelmed by the volume and intensity of input that getting out of bed can feel daunting and it's all I can do at the end of the day to mindlessly look at my phone for 45 minutes before going to bed exhausted. Add to this all the noise in the news, social media (especially legacy social,…
We admire athletes because they strive to do incredible things, looking to outdo themselves and one another, breaking records, achieving things no one in the past ever had. But there are only a few dozen of them on the playing field. There are thousands of us watching. We look up to strong business leaders because they blaze a similar trail to those athletes: they want to be the best, they…
Welcome to the first annual (?) ask DNA Anime Top 5 List! This is just a quick write-up of shows I enjoyed this year. The criteria is pretty simple: Must be good (obvs) Must be current (completed a season during present calendar year) Can be series, movie, OVA, short, basically anything animated from Japan Personally, I tend to be into grittier, psychologically f'd up shows than these (although…
A lot of seriously negative things made the news this year and a handful of seriously negative things have impacted me personally. Those things matter and deserve space to be talked about. But it also matters to remember that not everything is terrible. It's easy to get dragged down. Every day, I write in my journal. It's mostly just a daily to-do list, but I start each day with Grateful for:…
Updated: 2 months, 2 weeks I choose to pay for several web things that I could easily get without spending a dime. But why, ask DNA? Why would you do such a thing? Email The biggest reason for this is privacy. While email is kind of inherently not secure , at least my personal conversations are not being tracked, sold to literally anyone who will pay, or used to train the next big AI model. Yuck!…
A year ago today, I was one week into my first solo trip to Japan. By this time, I was in Nara Park, feeding the deer and visiting the stunning Todai-ji. I'd planned to blog about my adventures while travelling, but my laptop encountered a weird critical problem the night before I left. Rather than fight with it and carry around dead weight, I left it behind. I'd journal every day and turn that…