Tag: adrian

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How to Get eBooks, Audiobooks, Magazines, and Newspapers from Edinburgh Libraries

Like many library systems, Edinburgh has an odd collection of digital resources for members, including multiple providers of eBooks, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines, and reference materials. Last week, I joined in the hope of getting access to some newspapers and magazines I read, and if you’re curious or also want to join the library, you may find this interesting.

How to Join

This is very easy. You can either do it in person at any branch with some ID (e.g. passport, utility bill). If you want to borrow physical books, you’ll need to do it this way.

Alternatively, you can process online by filling out a form, which will get you a temporary ‘UNREG’ number. Next, email informationdigital@edinburgh.gov.uk with that number and request a permanent card. You’ll get a membership number via email, with which you can start borrowing books online immediately. If this seems weirdly insecure, yes, but apparently it’s deemed to be low risk since it’s just for ebooks.

Once you’ve joined, you will have:

  1. A library membership number with the format B00XXXXXXXX (where the Xs are numbers)
  2. A four digit PIN code (absurdly insecure, but what the hell)

These two things will grant you access to all the digital resources you need. In some cases, they only need your membership number ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s typically not necessary to create logins for the resources, although in some cases it can be useful.

Digital Resources

I’m not going to detail all of Edinburgh Libraries’ digital resources, but here are some that I find particularly useful:

Overdrive has the single largest digital book library with over 11,000 eBooks and 1400 audiobooks. It also has the best apps. The Overdrive app is mediocre, but the new Libby app is well-designed with a good reading experience. It’s not perfect though – it didn’t sync my progress between my iPhone and iPad.

You can also request new books, ebooks, and audiobooks online.

Pressreader offers almost 4000 magazines and 3500 newspapers. Most aren’t in English, but plenty are. These are exclusively print versions – you won’t get access to the online versions of the magazines or newspapers. You’ll definitely find something useful here, whether it’s British broadsheets like The Guardian and The Telegraph, or US papers like The Washington Post. There are also some very fine periodicals like The New York Review of Books and Bloomberg Business Week. You’ll want to read these on a computer or high resolution tablet, since most of the time you’re looking at PDFs (Pressreader’s text view is execrably formatted).

RBdigital has over 1700 audiobooks and 130 British magazines, including Time, New Scientist, National Geographic, and Wired. It’s a smaller selection than Pressreader, but generally higher quality in the UK, and with back issues going back around 1-2 years. Its app has a surprisingly good text view, but overall, the app is not pleasant to use, lacking the ability to favourite magazines.

You can also get around 800 audiobooks from Borrowbox and 300 from uLIBRARY. Yes, it is absurd that these resources are so spread out – ideally, libraries should collectively demand a common API that makes things much easier for members to search for and browse titles.

There’s also full access to the Oxford English Dictionary, the British Newspaper Archive (millions of pages of newspapers from 1710-1955), The Times Digital Archive (1785-2011), and the John Johnson Collection, “an archive of printed ephemera”. These are a puzzle-setters dream.

Overall, I’m pleased with the resources available but disappointed by their fragmented nature. There’s a very limited number of eBooks – popular titles are there but you don’t have anything close to the selection of printed books in the library – so I imagine it’s really the audiobooks, newspapers, and magazines that will be the most useful to most people. And it’s free! So if you live in Edinburgh, take a few minutes out of your day and sign up.

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Exercise Tips, 2018 Edition: Do what you like and be opportunistic

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My 7km running route around Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh

I used to hate exercising when I was younger, but managed to get into a place where I run or swim outdoors 3-5 times a week and generally enjoy it. Here’s what I found helps:

  • Try to exercise every day rather than just 3-4 times a week. You won’t (and shouldn’t!) exercise every day since things will come up, but ideally you’ll end up exercise most days.
  • I work from home now, but when I lived in London I would always try to combine my commute home with a run to save time and money. This is more practical in some locations than others, but the principal holds.
  • Do whatever kind of exercise you like. It’s more important that you do something rather than nothing.
  • Be opportunistic, especially if you live in a place with changeable weather. It usually doesn’t rain all day. When it comes to running, if you can get used to running in the rain – which may require some special clothes – you’ll be able to work out more regularly. Some of my most memorable runs were in the pouring rain in Hampstead Heath, when I gave a comradely nod to the sole dog-walker out there as I passed him.
  • Don’t obsess about statistics and calories. It’s not an exact science. Again, something is better than nothing.
  • Good shoes matter for running. Nothing else does, other than some kind of sweat-wicking T-shirt. It’s worth going to a dedicated running shoe store to get some advice; many of them have treadmills and cameras to analyse your gait.
  • The Apple Watch is surprisingly good at run tracking. Its other exercise features are mixed; I like the daily stand reminders and the 30 minute activity ring, but “Daily Coaching” notifications are infuriating bad and, frankly, dangerous. You can turn them off by opening the Watch app on your phone, then going to Activity > Daily Coaching.
  • Don’t overdo it. Pushing yourself too far is counterproductive. The only times I’ve really hurt myself while running with sprained ankles or falls was when I was tired or on the brink of illness and went for a run anyway because I “had” to.
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Travel Tips, 2018 Edition

I’ve been doing an awful lot more travelling for work this year. Most of it has been between Edinburgh and London, but I’ve also had last-minute trips to San Francisco and Shanghai that required quick packing.

To stay sane and organised, I’ve tried to streamline my luggage as much as possible. I’ve always travelled light, but it turns out there’s always more you can do, and every little bit helps. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Clothes and Toiletries

  • Always take an eye mask and disposable earplugs: you’ll sleep much better on the plane. You can buy earplugs in bulk from Amazon.
  • Keep a packing checklist with sections for extra things to take on holidays, business trips, beach stays, etc. It’s easy to forget to pack a swimming costume if you’re in a hurry.
  • Layers! A combination of a light waterproof hoodie, T-shirts, and shirts is good for most weather.
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Mountain Hardwear sweat-wicking base layer
  • I wear a Mountain Hardwear sweat-wicking base layer for long-distance travel. It works well in heat and cold, and it’s lightweight.
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I never thought I’d wear anything from Barbour, but time makes fools of us all
  • Take as few shoes as possible. My ideal is a smart-casual shoe with a trainer base – acceptable for all but the most formal occasions, but comfortable enough for lots of walking.
  • I still haven’t found a good collapsible water bottle.
  • For long trips, you want to wash your clothes halfway through to avoid taking too much stuff. AirBnbs are especially good for this, but you can also wash stuff in a sink if you can’t afford laundry service.
  • However many things you’ve packed, take out that one thing that you know you won’t actually wear.

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  • Buy a Tide To Go Stain Remover Detergent Pen. Seriously, do it. Right now. These pens are pure magic – they let you remove stains on the move.
  • Major caveat: I identify as a man and I work in tech, so it’s much easier for me to dress informally.

Technology

  • Don’t unpack your tech gear and travel toiletries between trips. Yes, it’s more expensive to have two sets of every cable and adaptor, but if you keep everything in your bag then you’re much less likely to forget or misplace things.
  • Take extra charger cables with you, along with a multi-port USB adaptor. If you’re out and about, you want to be able to charge as many devices simultaneously as possible when you’re back at base.
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The Jackery Bolt has 6,000mAh, enough for two full iPhone chargers, and has built-in Lightning and Micro-USB cables
  • Take an external USB battery, but don’t go overboard on the size, because you should be carrying it with you at all times. 10,000mAh is more than enough if you charge it every night. I use the Jackery Bolt, although Anker has a lot of good (and more compact) options.
  • ABC: Always Be Charging. As soon you get to your hotel room or apartment, plug everything in, even if you’re just there for a moment. It’s also crucial to charge while connected to WiFi, as this typically is required for iCloud backups.
  • Set up a backup system for your phone. God forbid that you lose your phone, but if you do, you want to make it as easy as possible to restore it. I also use Google Photos to have a second backup for my photos, and I open it occasionally to begin the background sync.
  • My MacBook isn’t just light – it charges via USB-C, which means I don’t need a separate charger brick. Most new laptops have USB-C charging, so you’ll get this for ‘free’ soon.
  • I don’t bother taking a tablet or a Kindle unless I’m planning to do a lot of reading; the weight/benefit ratio just isn’t high enough. My iPhone X has a reasonably big and very high quality display, and you may find it worthwhile to also get a larger-screen phone for the same reason.
  • AirPods are surprisingly convenient if only because you don’t end up tangled in wires all the time. Their only problem is that they have very poor sound isolation, making them impractical on flights.
  • Download offline maps from Google Maps before you go (unless you’re visiting China, in which case don’t bother since it doesn’t work at all). Favorite/star your hotel and other points of interest.
  • I make herculean efforts to stay online while abroad. Often, my Three Feel at Home plan does this for free; other times I have to buy a local data SIM, which is getting easier and easier.
  • I don’t bother taking a camera as it’s yet another thing to charge and carry.

Bags

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  • I have a Peak Design 20L Everyday Backpack. It’s arguably overkill since I was pretty happy with my old Jansport, but the Peak Design looks much nicer and has lots of very thoughtful pockets and compartments, eliminating the need for packing cubes and such. The 20L doesn’t actually fit all that much stuff and it’s quite expensive, but it’s fantastic for trips of a few days, and it feels indestructible.
  • I’m a big fan of carry-on duffel bags versus trolley cases. I’ve been using the same TravelPro duffel bag for around 15 years (sadly no longer available) and it’s still going strong. Duffel bags weigh less, provide more space, are deformable and expandable, and are less likely to get forcibly checked on full flights, because the staff know that they take up less space in overhead compartments. They’re also easier to carry anywhere that trolley cases struggle with – staircases, rough terrain, etc. Of course, duffel bags are definitely not suitable if you are unable or unwilling to carry them across airports, but if you are, you really should consider them.
  • Never check anything if you can avoid it.

Miscellaneous

  • Empty your wallet of unnecessary crap like membership cards, coins, credit cards, before departing. You’ll have a lighter load and less to lose if it’s stolen. 
  • I’ve started taking taxis to the airport, especially for early morning flights. It’s a good way to reduce stress, and if you want to rationalise it, flights are cheaper than ever.
  • Pack healthy snacks – I like Kashi bars. Just make sure you put them in a separate, easily accessible compartment if you’re travelling to the US, since there have been reports they’ve started searching for food.
  • Take a pen!
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Shanghai Disneyland in One Day

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Yesterday(!), I visited Shanghai Disneyland at the end of a week-long trip to the China Digital Entertainment Expo (aka China Joy), as part of a UK trade delegation. Most of the week was taken up with briefings about the Chinese games industry; endless meetings with local companies; and raucous bar-hopping and karaoke.

By the end, I didn’t feel in a physical or mental state to do much other than do laps in the hotel pool and find good places to eat duck. I did try to visit the Shanghai Museum, only to be met with a three-hour queue. Pro tip, Shanghai: build more free museums.

The point is, I refuse to be judged for going to Shanghai Disneyland on my final free day. I’ve visited Shanghai before, I’ve done the obvious tourist stuff, and Disneyland was not only a 25 minutes taxi ride away, but even better, it was on the way to the airport. Under the circumstances, it seemed foolish not to go. So, in the spirit of my Disneyworld posts from February, here are my general thoughts: Continue reading “Shanghai Disneyland in One Day”

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A highly-upvoted Hacker News comment linked to a post I wrote twelve years ago on The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer:

a book from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age … that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches you morals, ethics, even self-defence.

Looking back at the post, I’m shocked by just how little I remember writing it. I suppose when you’ve been blogging for almost twenty years, that’s to be expected. It’s also a reminder that while blogging is rarely as viral as Facebook and Twitter, its permanence and searchability can pay dividends over decades.

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Dǎoháng, or how to navigate in China

When you request an Uber in Shanghai, chances are they’ll call or text to find out where you’d like to be picked up. This poses a problem for people who can’t speak Mandarin, like myself. What to do? Reply with a single word: Dǎoháng.

Supposedly, this means “just go where your mobile phone map tells you to“, which sounds like a lot to fit into a couple of syllables, but it worked for me.

There was a brief decade or so, beginning when I was around eight, when I was truly excited by international travel. I’d devise meticulous lists of what I should pack: socks, notebooks, goggles, multiple copies of hotel reservations, digital camera batteries, special ‘pop up maps’ that I could fit in a pocket. I’d count down the days and nights and hours and minutes until I left for the airport.

Today, a combination of work and familiarity has robbed me of the anticipation of travel. At the same time, the contents of my ‘pack list.txt’ file has inexorably shrunk to a scant few lines: a country-specific power charger and whatever clothes I feel like taking. That’s because wherever I travel, I feel confident that I can get by with my iPhone. As long as I have data and power, I stride the world as a god, summoning taxis and divining the whereabouts of moderately good restaurants by communing silently with my black slab. It matters not whether I can speak a single word of the language — with my phone, I can figure it out, one way or another.

This is not the most responsible or respectful way to travel, but neither is it the least responsible way to travel. And I find it refreshing to just hurl myself into a new land and have to figure it out on the fly. It’s like a game.

Until I visited Shanghai.

The whole trip was unusual. Earlier in 2016, I was invited to the opening of The Shanghai Project that September, a new arts festival that would be hosting an exhibition based on my book, A History of the Future in 100 Objects. Then the exhibition was pushed back to ‘Phase 2’ in April 2017, so I was dis-invited to the opening. And then I was re-invited in order to speak at a roundtable, with barely a couple of weeks’ notice. But hey, I won’t turn down a free trip to Shanghai!

So I was even less prepared than usual, and because I’d be in China for under 72 hours, I hadn’t bothered figuring out what I’d do for mobile data.

When I landed, nothing worked on my phone. I couldn’t connect to the airport wifi because it wouldn’t send me an SMS code. No Google, no Dropbox, no Slack, no Foursquare. I was Samson, shorn of my locks.

I’m being melodramatic. I got picked up from the airport by an intern, who kindly let me connect to her phone’s hotspot. And the hotel had free wifi that resided behind the Great Firewall, so I could get to my beloved Google and Slack. But I didn’t want to spend all my time cooped up in the hotel and I didn’t much like the idea of exploring without any mobile data (because, yes, I’m a child).

And then a staffer at the festival helped me get a prepaid China Mobile SIM. She actually persuaded the the China Mobile store to stay open later, just for me. I felt bad, especially since I can’t speak Mandarin and they had the usual baffled look of people who see someone who looks Chinese but inexplicably cannot speak Chinese.

I inserted the SIM card. The eclipse ended; the rays of the sun reached my body; my superpowers returned. I wandered the city, a god once again, in need of nothing and of no-one.

Note: I drafted this in 2016 and for some reason I forgot to post it, so here you go. I believe that Uber doesn’t exist in China any more…

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My Tech Stack, 2018 Edition

I always find it interesting to learn about the tools people use in their work and play – often there are a few things that I haven’t heard of that I end up using – so I’m doing the same in case it’s useful to you.

Hardware

My main work computer is a 2017 5K iMac. This is overkill for the kind of work that I do today but I wanted a large high-res monitor for designing mobile mockups in Sketch and enough power to support my HTC Vive VR headset. It has a 3.8ghz i5 processor with 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD, and a maxed-out Radeon Pro 580; I plan to keep it for some time.

When I’m on the move, I work from a 2017 MacBook. It’s incredibly light and thin, and with 16GB RAM it can keep up with almost anything I throw at it, work-wise. By being judicious with the stuff I keep on it, a 256GB SSD has been fine. It would be nice to have more than one USB-C port but it hasn’t been a big problem.

I usually don’t upgrade my iPhone every year, but it was genuinely unavoidable last year since I really needed to see what our apps looked like with the new notch. I did get the ‘cheaper’ iPhone X 64GB though, and it turns out that 64GB is totally fine for my purposes. I wear an Apple Watch Series 2, which has about two days of battery life and yet still isn’t powerful enough to run third party apps smoothly; and I adore my AirPods, which may be Apple’s best product of the last few years.

I use a Moto G5 for testing our apps on Android – I deliberately chose a cheap, but not dated, device.

At home, I do most of my web browsing on a 2016 iPad Pro 9.7″. I’m not using it quite as much as I imagined I would because the iPhone X is so fast, and I’ve moved over to reading books on my Kindle Paperwhite.

We have three Sonos: Play 1s for music in the kitchen and living room. They sound good but I detest the Sonos app and can’t wait until Airplay 2 rolls out. Depending on how Sonos deals with integration, I may have to buy a Sonos One to make them all work properly; or I might add to the single HomePod I have upstairs, which sounds fantastic but is really quite expensive.

Our Nest Thermostat has genuinely saved us a lot of money already, and the various Homekit-compatable Philips Hue lightbulbs are… fine. It is kind of ridiculous that my lightbulbs occasionally need their firmware updating, but it’s also very cool that I can hook them up to a motion sensor so that I get free nightlights when I go downstairs. Of course, you can remote control the Nest and the Hue lights.

We have a 43″ 1080p Sony TV, powered by Android – it’s fine. There’s a Nintendo Switch connected to it, mostly used for Splatoon 2; a PS4; and an Apple TV, mostly used for Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and Plex (more on that later).

Also in the living room is an Electric Objects EO2 digital painting frame, a lovely present from my brother. It is honestly very cool and it cycles through various classical artworks, internet gifs, and random modern art. Many people don’t realise it’s a monitor. Electric Objects is no more, so you’d have to check out Meural or Depict if you’re curious.

I record The Cultures podcast on a Blue Yeti microphone and pop guard. Rounding out my stuff is a ScanSnap S1300 which I got after a particularly stressful Christmas a few years ago when I didn’t have access to all my paperwork for tax filing. Since then, I’ve scanned practically every bit of paper I own. It took a while, but I appreciate the sense of security you get when your paperwork is immune to your house burning down.

Mac Apps

I use Safari on my desktop and laptop. It isn’t as integrated with Google as Chrome is, but it’s faster and significantly more power-efficient on the MacBook (to the extend of getting another 1-2 hours of battery life). Plus if you use Safari across everything, it helps you sync up bookmarks, history, and other stuff. I use 1Blocker for blocking ads.

Sketch is my design tool of choice, along with Pixelmator for any photo manipulation. Dropbox is invaluable for sharing and backup, and I use 1Password religiously as a password manager (it has apps on every platform). It takes a while to get all your stuff in there, but once you’ve done it, you’re pretty safe. Other work apps include the usual Microsoft Office (better than you think, these days), Slack for chat, and the Google Suite.

I can’t stand Final Draft for script reading and writing, so I use Highland instead. It is very pleasant, and much cheaper.

Reeder for my RSS feeds; Tweetbot for Twitter (more powerful than Twitterific); IINA for videos (more native than VLC); Audio Hijack and Skype for podcasting (and for my sins); Transmission for torrents; and Plex for streaming those torrents to my Apple TV (or any other device you can think of). Because I am simultaneously a terrible and good person, I bought a lifetime membership to Plex.

After using practically every note-taking app in existence, I’ve gone back to Apple’s bog-standard Notes app. It syncs excellently across all my devices, which is what I care most about.

Fastmail for my non-Gmail backup; WordPress.com for blogging; Micro.blog for a potential Twitter replacement, and Rocket for inserting emojis into everything. Apple Music, because all my stuff is from Apple.

iPhone Apps

I won’t bother listing the obvious ones here, but here’s a few notable ones:

  • Letterboxd for keeping track of movies I’ve watch
  • Goodreads for books
  • Google Photos, just as a way to back everything up
  • Amaroq for Mastodon (another potential Twitter replacement)
  • WeatherPro has very good forecasts and a lot of data
  • Dark Sky is surprisingly good at predicting rainfall in the next few hours
  • Train Times is still the best dedicated app for seeing how late you’re going to be
  • Instapaper for all my long-form internet reading
  • Reeder for RSS feeds
  • Apollo for Reddit
  • Overcast for podcasts (“Smart Speed has saved you an extra 181 hours…”
  • Unobstruct for cruft from websites

Security

I’ve turned on two-factor authentication on every service I use, and I’d encourage you to do the same. It would be very damaging and stressful if someone got access to my stuff online, and two-factor auth is the best way to protect yourself. Use Google Authenticator if you want to be ultra-secure, or Authy if you want to be slightly less secure but have an easier life.

Things I’m anticipating

The next smart home addition will be a Homekit-compatiable keypad door lock. Haters be damned, this is the 21st century and I don’t want to carry around bits of metal to gain entry to my house. I think this is the year they’ll get sufficiently affordable and secure.

As mentioned, I’d like to make all my speakers Airplay 2 compatible, so that’ll mean getting a Sonos One or another HomePod. I’ve been doing more reading, so I’m curious whether there’ll be significant improvements to the Kindle this year.

I’m not desperate to get a new Apple Watch or iPad – we’ll see what the improvements are. Finally, I’m waiting for a 4K OLED Dolby Vision-compatible (the ‘best’ HDR format) TV to get sufficiently cheap.

Do I need all this stuff?

No! But this is both my work and my hobby. Also, I don’t own a car and I don’t have kids so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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More Calories Please

Public Health England now recommends that:

…adults try to limit the calories of their three main meals to 400 for breakfast and 600 each for lunch and dinner […noting] that the remaining calories of the daily guidelines – 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men – are likely to be made up of snacks and drinks.

To achieve this, the government is challenging the food industry to reduce calories in products consumed by families by 20% by 2024. The categories of foods this applies to includes pizzas, ready meals, ready-made sandwiches, meat products and savoury snacks. It’s likely they’ll achieve this target with smaller portion sizes, which fills me with deep and profound sadness.

I successfully weaned myself off unhealthy snacks and drinks several years ago, so I tend to eat bigger portions for my main meals. There is no world in which I want to eat just 1600 calories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with the remaining 900 calories on snacks. I can manage this fine when I’m preparing food for myself at home or work, but when I’m on the move it’s clearly going to become harder and harder to find ready-made lunches that have 700-800 calories without adding on crisps or snacks or whatever.

I’m not a nutritionist or a food scientist, but I do know that barely anyone eats the suggested servings for things like breakfast cereal. Just try weighing out 45 grams – it looks like nothing. If retailers have to reduce their portion sizes, I wouldn’t be surprised that people just end up buying multiple portions – a hugely wasteful practice.

Others feel the same way. Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford was interview by the Guardian:

While she welcomed raising calorie-awareness, she noted that the recommendation to eat a total of 1,600 calories for main meals was well below daily levels and assumed people were snacking. “Maybe it is better to have a slightly bigger meal and not to snack,” she said.

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Valuing Friendship over Principle

Lately, I’ve been spotting more and more cases of people valuing friendships over principle. Here’s what Quinn Norton, who was hired and then swiftly fired from the New York Times Opinion section for her offensive comments in the past, along with her friendship with neo-Nazi Andrew Auernheimer, said:

I was called a Nazi because of my friendship with the infamous neo-Nazi known on the internet as weev—his given name is Andrew Auernheimer; he helps run the anti-Semitic website The Daily Stormer. In my pacifism, I can’t reject a friendship, even when a friend has taken such a horrifying path. I am not the judge of who is capable of improving as a person. This philosophy also requires me to confront him about his terrible beliefs and their terrible consequences. I have been doing this since before his brief time as a cause célèbre in 2012—I believe it’d be hypocritical for me to turn away from this obligation. weev is just one of many terrible people I’ve cared for in my life. I don’t support what my terrible friend believes or does. But I strongly advocate for people with a good sense of themselves and their values to engage with their terrible friends, coworkers, and relatives, to lovingly confront them for as long as it takes, and it would be wrong to not do so myself.

This is obviously an extreme case. I imagine – or at least, hope – that most people would end friendships with those who become neo-Nazis. And note that I am deliberately talking about friendships, not familial relationships. You can’t choose your family.

But I’ve seen many more cases where people will refrain from criticising friends (often not very close friends) who say or do things that conflict with their principles. I’m not talking about ending friendships with people who say racist or sexist things, because to be frank, most people know better than to do that. I’m talking about expressing political, professional, intellectual, and philosophical differences with friends.

Let me give a slightly painful, personal example. In 2010, I wrote a post entitled Can a Game Save the World, where I criticised comments by Jane McGonigal about the power of games. I’m not in the habit of criticising friends, especially in public, but: given her very public profile; the resounding silence from anyone in the games or tech industry at the time; and the degree to which I disagreed with her, I felt a responsibility to say something, if only to show that disagreement existed within the games community. I certainly wouldn’t bother in most cases.

My post led to arguments. Many mutual friends privately told me they agreed with everything I had written, but for the most part they said nothing because I assume they didn’t want to affect their friendship with Jane, or possibly their professional lives, given her influence.

What’s the lesson? We all draw our own lines, and in our comparatively new online world of having hundreds of friends and kind-of-friends and acquaintances, maybe we aren’t sure how to express differences and disagreements, especially when it seems the only way to do so in public is via a megaphone to the entire world that can only broadcast 280 characters at a time (another reason for blogs to come back!).

But we should remember that adults can have disagreements and yet remain friends. I’m no Chidi Anagonye, I don’t believe in radical truth-telling, but I do think it’s essential for us to practice how to disagree with each other publicly, politely, and firmly, because that’s how we learn what we really believe, and what we’re prepared to do to to defend those beliefs.

After all, “if you won’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”