UPDATE – 2 Jan 2024 – Back in July 2023, the Obsidian team announced an officially-supported “Importer” plugin that includes the ability to import from Evernote. This sounds easier than the method I outline below using YARLE. I have not tried this new “Importer” plugin (because I already migrated from Evernote!), but you may want to go try that new plugin before doing what I outline below. On April 8, 2008, I started using Evernote as a place to store all my various notes. It would come to be a critical part of my daily workflow… so much so that…
Mar 13
Three Years Ago Today, Vermont Shut Down Due to COVID-19
Today I was wondering why “March 13” was pulling at the back of my brain as a date of some importance… and then I realized why. Three years ago today, everything changed. It was on Friday, March 13, 2020, that Governor Phil Scott issued Executive Order 01-20, “Declaration of State of Emergency in Response to COVID-19 and National Guard Call-Out”. It imposed visitor restrictions at hospitals and state facilities, restricted travel by state employees, prohibited large gatherings, and called up the National Guard to assist. The Executive Order did not itself shut down schools, but it directed the Secretary of…
Mar 13
Three Years Ago Today, Vermont Shut Down Due to COVID-19
Today I was wondering why “March 13” was pulling at the back of my brain as a date of some importance… and then I realized why. Three years ago today, everything changed. It was on Friday, March 13, 2020, that Governor Phil Scott issued Executive Order 01-20, “Declaration of State of Emergency in Response to COVID-19 and National Guard Call-Out”. It imposed visitor restrictions at hospitals and state facilities, restricted travel by state employees, prohibited large gatherings, and called up the National Guard to assist. The Executive Order did not itself shut down schools, but it directed the Secretary of…
Mar 07
Waking Up at Times Beginning With A "4"
For most of 50 years, I held very firm to the belief that the ONLY time I should ever see a time beginning with a “4” in the morning was when I needed to get up and go to the airport to catch an early flight. Otherwise, any time like 4:30am was just downright uncivil and hostile. I should be asleep at that time. I should NEVER be awake at times beginning with a 4. And yet… here I am writing this post at 4:55am. 🤷♂️ What happened? Well, our dog got older! (And I might have, too.😉) For some…
Feb 26
The Single Biggest Thing Preventing Me From Doing More Writing Is…
As I’ve frequently lamented in my yearly themes (although not this year), I would like to get myself to write more. And back on December 1, 2022, I tried to commit to #100DaysOfBlogging, but that hasn’t worked out so well. I’ve been watching how I spend my time lately, and to I’m sure the surprise of absolutely NO ONE, including myself, it would seem the single biggest thing preventing me from doing more writing is… getting distracted by social media! 🤣🤣🤣 Take this morning. I was awake early at around 5:00am (courtesy of our wonderful but early-rising dog) and I…
Feb 12
Listening to Hear Versus Listening to Fix
In the last six months or so, I have had an unpleasant revelation about myself. I realized that for most of my 55 years of life whenever I’ve been listening to people, I’ve been listening to offer “fixes”, i.e. solutions. You’ve probably done this yourself at some point. The classic example is something like: Someone: “Ugh.. my legs hurt so much from " Me: “Oh, that’s rough! You should take two ibuprofen. You’ll feel better!" There I was, jumping in with a solution and trying to help. But here’s the…
Feb 05
The Awesome Clarity of Prioritizing Health
There is an awesome clarity that comes when you have very clear priorities – and in my case one of those is my health. As I alluded to in my three words for 2023, I’ve had a couple of recent minor incidents that have brought this home to me. A key one was back in November 2022 when I went for a routine colonoscopy. Having had colon cancer, this was my three year checkup and all was great. No signs of cancer and everything looked good. BUT… they had to keep me a bit afterward in the recovery area until…
Jan 29
Capturing My Own Memories Of The Internet’s History (and Pre-History)
Last month I boosted a post on Mastodon where an early pioneer of networking relayed an amusing story about shutting down part of the ARPANET during a storm. After I did that, I was asked “@danyork Do you have a similar story from your archive?" As I said in a reply,I have stories, but none quite so dramatic. Born in the late 1960s, I got involved with the Internet in the mid- to late 1980s at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). I was not part of the late 1960s / early 1970s group that was involved with the ARPANET….
Jan 28
Fascinating Article About the Early History of Python
Back in the early 1990s, I was active in some different developer user groups where perl was the scripting language of choice. I remember with great fondness some of the “obfuscated perl” challenges where the goal was to write something as obscure and small as possible… that actually performed some action. The perl slogan …
Jan 24
With so many "Dan Yorks", ChatGPT’s interview questions are very generic
After Simon Willison wrote about how accurate questions from ChatGPT were when he asked “I am interviewing Simon Willison. What are some good questions I can ask them?”, I had to give it a try. Simon’s had some questions specific to the areas he works in, web development and open source, so I was curious to see what might be in one with my name. I was particularly curious because there are so many “Dan York”s out there on the Internet. Alas, my response from ChatGPT was boringly generic: I am interviewing Dan York. What are some good questions I…
