Sign in Subscribe
Four Sides
Personal Writings of James McCullough

Featured articles

Turning 15 Years Old

Turning 15 Years Old

45

45

2024 - Year of Discipline

2024 - Year of Discipline

Turning 14 Years Old

Media Diet - Winter Edition

Media Diet - Winter Edition

44

44

2023: Get Back in the Box

2023: Get Back in the Box

43

43

What Home Is - AppleTV+ Series

What Home Is - AppleTV+ Series

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Panic Aboard the SS Twitter - Lessons Learned This Week

Panic Aboard the SS Twitter - Lessons Learned This Week

Quick Thoughts on Severance

Quick Thoughts on Severance

60 Days (Mainly) Without Twitter

60 Days (Mainly) Without Twitter

Chuck Klosterman’s ‘The Nineties’

Chuck Klosterman’s ‘The Nineties’

Let’s Communicate

Let’s Communicate

Latest

I had a lot of fun watching the Brier in person on Sunday with my parents. Very different experience tracking four games at once across the sheets. If you’re in the Okanagan, go check it out this week!

0:00
/0:19

Thomas Scoffin of Team Yukon at the 2015 Briers Curling Championship

Tags: micro | curling

Watched the 50th anniversary special for SNL last night with my girlfriend. I’m a longtime fan of the show; she is new to it. Lots of great moments throughout, but I especially enjoyed Steve Martin at the top.

Tags: micro | snl | saturday night live | tv

We grab frantically at social network signals, news, podcasts — whatever — during all moments of downtime. Nevermind the last time we heard our voice, when’s the last time we gave our voice a chance to be heard?

A quote from the first edition of Roden (2012!) from Craig Mod in celebration of writing edition number 100. He's been one of my favourite writers/photographers over the years, based in Japan.

Definitely worth subscribing to his newsletter.

Tags: micro | social media

But, from personal experience, I know there are many ways to use AI for writing that are not only ethical, but actually strengthen your ability to write and think. Programmers understand this...

… using AI is like hiring someone.

A quote from Nathan Baschez, developer of Lex, an AI-powered writing app, was included in the first Lex Annual Letter. The metaphor he suggests is a powerful idea, I think, and something I will find myself thinking about a lot in the coming days.

Lex Annual Letter: Why don’t more writers use AI?
Hi! Nathan here, founder of Lex. This week, a new tradition: an annual letter from me to you. By all measures, 2024 was an incredible year for Lex. We…
Lex

Tags: micro | writing | ai

A little late to the party in discovering this new album from Jon Batiste (out in the fall 2024). He takes Beethoven and other classical artists‘ piano scores and transforms them into blues.

Brilliant music. New favourite album to write/work to.

Tags: micro | music | jon batiste

Long Live the Queen - Mary Sloan

Commissioner of Yukon Adeline Webber, in her capacity as Chancellor of the Order of Yukon, is honoured to announce the 2024 inductees to the Order of Yukon. This year’s inductees are Nesta Leduc, Mary Sloan and Joseph Rudolphe (Rudy) Couture....

Tags: theatre | mary sloan | high school

DigitalOcean Referral Badge

Social Links


Mastodon
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() { // Get all links in the document const links = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); const currentDomain = 'foursides.ca'; const amazonAffiliateTag = 'four0b-20'; // Replace with your Amazon affiliate tag // Process each link Array.from(links).forEach(link => { const href = link.getAttribute('href'); // Skip if link is null, empty, or just a hash if (!href || href === '' || href.startsWith('#')) { return; } try { const url = new URL(href); // Handle Amazon links if (url.hostname.includes('amazon.')) { // Remove any existing tag url.searchParams.delete('tag'); // Add your affiliate tag url.searchParams.set('tag', amazonAffiliateTag); // Update the link attributes link.setAttribute('href', url.toString()); link.setAttribute('target', '_blank'); link.setAttribute('rel', 'nofollow noopener noreferrer'); } // Handle other external links (not Amazon and not internal) else if (!url.hostname.includes(currentDomain)) { // Add referrer parameter url.searchParams.set('ref', 'foursides.ca'); // Update the link attributes link.setAttribute('href', url.toString()); link.setAttribute('target', '_blank'); link.setAttribute('rel', 'nofollow noopener noreferrer'); } } catch (e) { // If URL parsing fails, it's likely a relative URL (internal link) // Do nothing for internal links console.debug('Skipping internal link:', href); } }); });T