November 19, 2023
Pinging This Blog's Subscriber Base
Dear subscribers, Are you still there? Did you know I've been on Micro.blog and Ghost for quite a while? You should follow my RSS feeds if you prefer.
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May 15, 2021
The End of my HEY World Experience
Photo by Leon Seibert on Unsplash No time to waste here. This post will be the last one on HEY World. After giving it a few thoughts, today, I decided to move my Friday Notes & Photo Legend Series to Substack. Why, you might ask? It is all about control, flexibility and discoverability. HEY World is not a publishing platform. It will n...
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May 14, 2021
Friday Notes #23 — I Didn’t See That Friday Was Coming
Wow, it’s Friday morning, 6:17 AM. Not only the Friday Notes writing is not complete, it isn’t started! I find myself without a subject to write about. Usually, such subject starts to emerge at the beginning of the week, Sunday or Monday. Then, each day, I diligently think and write my Friday Notes to eventually finish just in time, ea...
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May 10, 2021
Photo Legend #25 - “Darkness Falls Across the Land”
(Micheal Jackson’s Thriller playing in the background here). This photo was taken last summer during a long stay in a country house that we rented for two months. That day, when the sun was slowly sunsetting, fog slowly started to crawl and created this wonderful scene. At that time, I took the picture without knowing what I would do w...
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May 7, 2021
Friday Notes #22 — Slow Writing
It’s been a slow week for writing and posting content online. I was busy on other things, and my inspiration is not always a constant flow. It follows a line of ups and downs. I don’t panic or feel bad when it’s down. I take it as an opportunity for taking a pause to do other things and to step back. Taking some distance from my writin...
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May 4, 2021
Keeping HEY during Basecamp Controversy
There is a lot going on around Basecamp, the guys behind HEY email service. Basecamp leadership is shaken after writing controversial blog posts (on HEY) about internal company politics changes. I won't summarize it here as I'm not really fully aware of what's really going on. Yet, people are angry at Basecamp leadership decisions. Emp...
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April 30, 2021
Friday Notes #21 — Some Parts of ME
Recently found on https://alanralph.co.uk/13253-2/: "Take your personal website, for example. Your writing might not appeal to others. People might find it irrelevant or even dislike your style or your message, especially if you are writing about something new and unconventional. But if it’s important to you and if it contains a bit of...
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April 23, 2021
Friday Notes #20 — My Impostor Syndrome
Quick question: do we have to read a lot to be considered a “real” writer? I always thought that writers, like novel writers, must be reading a lot of books. Is it the case? I once had this idea of writing a science-fiction novel (as documented here). Such a project would need much research and readings to put together the envisioned f...
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April 18, 2021
Photo Legend #24 — Spring time
I recently went for a long walk of 8 km on a small island called “Nun’s island”, just outside of Montreal. It was a superb spring day. For the occasion, my iPhone 11 Pro stayed in my pocket as I had my Nikon D750 camera with me with my 70-200 mm lens. On that sunny and warm day, there was so many birds, all with their distinctive sound...
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April 16, 2021
Friday Notes #19 — Feeling Well, Feeling Proud
See these Apple's Activity summary screenshots? They are the source of why I’m feeling so well, so proud these days. On the second day of January, 2021, I decided to change a few things in my physical life. One of them was to exercise more. Way more. We’re now half-way in April, and I’m still in line with this goal. If all goes well, I...
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April 9, 2021
Friday Notes #18 — What Will be my Legacy?
I often think about the concept of legacy. What will I leave behind when I’m gone besides my two kids. What will they remember of me? On what artifacts will they rely on to remember me? They will undoubtedly be able to look into my numeric photos archive for one thing, provided they can still access it. But then, what else? Not much wi...
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April 2, 2021
Friday Notes #17 — The Passing of Time
In recent weeks, there has been a few events in my life that marked the passing of time. First and foremost, I lost my father on March 7th after a week stay at the hospital. He was 92. I’ll certainly write about this experience in the near future. 🌌 Next, March 13 marked one year anniversary of working-from-home, thanks to COVID-19. It...
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March 27, 2021
Why I Love Taking Photos of Abandoned Places
A few years ago, a friend of mine invited me to go with him for an urban exploration photo session. I was excited. Visiting abandoned places has always been fascinating for me. It’s like going back in time. There are so many untold stories sitting around us in cities or the countryside. Each place is different, telling its own story, o...
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March 26, 2021
Friday Notes #16 — if You Can Chew & Walk, You Can Work & Walk
Working from home for a year helped me learn new habits that are beneficial for me at work, and for my sanity. Let's see how and why. “"It was Jobs that day, out on one of his many walks around the Palo Alto area, where Apple are based. Steve Jobs was famous in the area for his long walks, which he used for exercise, contemplation, pro...
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March 21, 2021
Photo Legend #23 — The Cabin
Last summer, thanks to COVID-19, instead of traveling out of the country for our vacation, we decided to rent a summer house for two months, far from our home city. It was different, much needed and very much appreciated. In the last few years, I felt the need to get closer to nature. Is it because I’m getting older? Maybe, I don’t kno...
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March 21, 2021
Why I’m Publishing Under the Numeric Citizen Nom de Plume?
Someone once asked me: “why are you calling yourself ‘numeric citizen’ online?” I was caught off-guard because this name was chosen instinctively, without much thought. When I came back to blogging in 2018 after a few years hiatus, I wanted to use a pseudonym that would endure time, be unique, and related to cyberspace world. I knew my...
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March 20, 2021
Restarting my Photo Legend Series
I love photography. I consider myself a serious amateur photographer. My first contact with this art form goes back to when I was a teenager. But, what's even more interesting is photo with a story behind it, because they all have a story behind, right? I love when photographers tell their story about the when, the where and how a phot...
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March 19, 2021
Welcome to Medium Readers
To all my Medium readers who subscribed to my Friday Notes series, here on HEY World, I want to thank you for following me 🙏🏻. Medium is a great platform but it is not a blogging platform. Blog content should be free in my opinion. This goes against the business model of Medium, and my goals as a blogger. That's why Friday Notes is now...
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March 15, 2021
Finally Found my Use Case for HEY World
Every single day since the official release of HEY World, I'm thinking: what can I do with HEY World? I like it so much; I cannot ignore it. Something has to happen because of it. Today, out of nowhere, I finally found my use case for it. Let me explain, briefly. On December 10, 2020, I wrote on Medium: “In recent months, Medium made q...
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Have you tried: http://world.hey.com/~shuffle? I did. A lot. I even created a Shortcut on my home screen named “HEY World Dice”. Tapping on the icon opens Safari with this URL and boom, I’m presented with a random HEY World user’s wall (can I say that?). I found some interesting things but most of my findings can be summed up to: “Hey,...
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March 12, 2021
Everybody's Welcomed Here
I like Om Malik's take on HEY World: “"Hey World is all about blogging as a philosophy. It recognizes the inherent value in sharing and expression. It tips its hat to blogging’s past and focuses on its essence."” The essence being self expression as a tool to help build an audience, because this is exactly the way I see it. I'm current...
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March 11, 2021
Life Must Go On!
Following the announcement of my father who passed away last week-end, I received a lot of support from people who follow me. To them, I want to say thank you. Your kinds words are helping me cope with the events. 🙏🏻 Now, looking forward. Life must go on. Resuming normal programming.
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March 8, 2021
Forced Interlude
Yesterday, I lost my dear father. 😢 He was 92. I knew it was coming. He didn't suffer much; I'm grateful for this. As a candle slowly loosing its flame, he slowly left this world for another one. I'll miss him. Allow me to take a short pause. 😔🪦
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March 7, 2021
Thinking out Loud on Possible Hey World Use Cases
Yeah, that’s me on this picture. This is my third post on HEY World, still thinking about the possible use cases of HEY World. It is so good, that I have to find something for it. Thinking out loud is how I found a “raison d’être” for my Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter. I was walking with my wife last summer talking about news...
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March 6, 2021
Updated Thoughts About HEY World
I've been thinking about HEY World since writing my first post. Lot's of tidbits about it to share, and a few observations as a blogger. Tell me more! First, a couple of information tidbits. HEY World doesn't track it's users but we actually can see how many people are subscribing to the newsletter. We can even export the subscriber's ...
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March 5, 2021
HEY World — Message in a Bottle
Today, HEY World came to (numeric) life. When I’m thinking about this new service, the image above exemplify the thing that comes to my mind. What is simpler than putting a message in a bottle in today’s world? HEY World for bloggers or writers like me is exactly the kind of frictionless experience that we are constantly looking for. T...
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