Re: Christina's five questions for July 2023            2023-07-16

Here are Christina's five questions for this month, July 2023, and
my answers to them.

  gopher://sdf.org/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2023-July-Five-Questions.txt

The questions
-------------

> 1. What's your favourite way to stay active?

I love early morning or late night walks, particularly in nature.

> 2. What's the best way to stay focused and productive?

To not even have a phone or other distracting device near me when
I'm trying to focus or stay focused.  At least this works for me.

> 3. If you could have any sport or game instantly mastered,
> unrelated to your current interests or abilities, which one
> would you choose and why?

Mountaineering.  Having had several mountaineers among family
members and close relatives, growing up I was in awe of their
skills and expertise.  I looked up to them in some aspects, and
wanted to be one myself.  I find mountaineers inspiring, and
mountaineering a calming activity despite (because of?) its
natural challenges and difficulties.

I feel similarly about archery.

Though, thinking more about it, I think part of the appeal of
these two sports/activities for me is that, like most other good
things in life, one does not simply master them overnight or
indeed instantly.  Rather, experience is gained and skills are
honed and sharpened through hundreds, if not thousands, of hours
of work and practice.  So...maybe not? :-)

> 4. Share with me an interesting trivia tidbit about your
> favourite historical event.

Okay maybe not quite a 'historical event', but the advent of web
feeds - RSS specifically - and their later rise in popularity were
arguably significant events in the history of blogging and the
blogosphere in the early- to mid-2000s.  It's generally well known
that the late Aaron Swartz helped develop RSS and co-authored the
RSS 1.0 specification.  What might be much less known is that he
wrote some posts[1,2] and a spec[3] for 'RSS 3.0' on his weblog.

Granted, this was probably an elaborate joke[4,5]; but like Alex,
I genuinely, non-ironically loved it and found myself thinking
about it every now and again.  In the interest of not derailing
this 5q series, I'll hold back on going down the rabbit hole here
and keep my thoughts for a dedicated, future post on the topic.

> 5. Share a summer recipe.  (Christina shares a Lavender Tea
> Cookie recipe)

Homemade berry smoothie; my favourite cold drink in the summer,
and throughout the rest of the year too.

  1 cup  frozen berries
  1 cup  fruit juice(s)

Put the berries in a blender cup.  I usually go for strawberries,
raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.  Then add your
favourite fruit juice(s).  Berries, grapes, and pomegranate are
my favourites.  Feel free to dilute the juices, pouring a bit less
and adding some water instead.  Blend for 10-20 seconds.  Voila.

Take care, and so long for now.

[1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000574
[2] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000582
[3] http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/rss30
[4] https://simonwillison.net/2002/Sep/7/heheRSS3/
[5] https://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2018-12-01_Thinking_about_the_real_RSS_3.0