English on Havn

I Don't Think It Should Be Easier to Put Rat Poison in Baby Food

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:09:08 +0200

Last week, there was a news story about how someone has been putting rat poison in jars of baby food.

On Saturday, HiPP recalled its entire range of jarred purées sold in Spar supermarkets in Austria, saying consuming them may be potentially “life-threatening”.

(…)

The jar had apparently been tampered with, police said. Authorities believe at least one more poisoned jar is in circulation and have issued guidance on how to recognise tampered jars.

— From this BBC article

My hot take is that this is bad. But at least it seems like something that’s pretty hard to do! And that’s why I don’t think it would be great if someone developed and released a way to make putting rat poison in baby food much easier and at a large scale.¹ Even if it (apparently) is technically possible today!

Yes, this is about AI

I’m saying this to try to illustrate a terrible argument regarding AI and misinformation, that I’m (still) seeing all over the place: “Misinformation, and tools like Photoshop and CGI has been a thing for a long time. Heck, you had alterations of photos in the Soviet Union! So the fact that AI is making this much, much easier, at an enormous scale, doesn’t change anything, actually. At least not for the worse, for some reason.”

Nikolai Yezhov was removed from this image after he was purged. At least someone had to put in a lot of work to do it!

Maybe you could add a button on top of the jar, and pressing it would release an ampoule of rat poison into the food? ↩︎

A Master Being Inspired by Another Master

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:45:47 +0200

Some people will look you dead in the eye, and say that “this video of a veteran Disney animator, sketching out what the Beast could look like in the style of Studio Ghibli” is exactly the same as “AI companies taking Miyazaki’s work and feeding it to their models”.

The iPad’s Biggest Problem Is That Only Apple Is Allowed to Solve the iPad’s Problems

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:58:05 +0200

iPadOS 26 was a popular release, as Apple solved* several of the iPad’s most glaring issues. However, the launch of the MacBook Neo has resurfaced various iPad frustrations — and reminded me of a thought I never got around to write about last summer: The one in the title.

For a long time, people had hoped for better window management on the iPad. And they had to wait because it couldn’t be solved by someone like Many Tricks. Podcasters rejoiced when Apple improved the audio routing options on the iPad because Rogue Amoeba had no way of doing it.

Now people are wishing for a clipboard history (that Spotlight on the Mac got this year) — and only Apple can deliver it. You can’t solve it through Paste or PastePal.

From Apple's marketing.

I love using my Mac — but I don’t love using Macs out of the box. You see, compared to a fresh one, my Mac has a better launcher and window management 🖇️, a more powerful trackpad, amazing hotkeys, and stellar sound control. And these (and many more) are all app types not allowed on the iPad.

That only Apple can solve problems (at least the fundamental ones) with the iPad makes it so our only option is to wait and hope. And not only that, when they eventually do solve it, there’s only one option. You see, you might hate the things I’ve done to my Mac — and that’s totally fine. You might want Aerospace to control your windows, and I don’t.

Simplicity?

I get that the iPad strives for simplicity — and that is a good thing about it! But I don’t think having a more open OS has to lead to a much more complex experience. I think it has much more to do with control and _app store revenue_…

Many people are sharing this excellent post by Sam Henri Gold. And in the following quote, you could very well change Chromebook for iPad:

Yes, you will hit the limits of this machine. 8 GB of RAM and a phone chip will see to that. But the limits you hit on the Neo are resource limits — memory is finite, silicon has a clock speed, processes cost something. You are learning physics. A Chromebook doesn’t teach you that. A Chromebook’s ceiling is made of web browser, and the things you run into are not the edges of computing, but the edges of a product category designed to save you from yourself. The kid who tries to run Blender on a Chromebook doesn’t learn that his machine can’t handle it. He learns that Google decided he’s not allowed to. Those are completely different lessons.

UniFi Wi-Fi for Noobs (Like Me)

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 16:32:59 +0200

Ubiquiti’s UniFi series is getting a lot of (deserved) hype these days. However, as the system is meant to scale all the way from a regular home to huge enterprise settings, the purchasing process can be perplexing. Recently, this got mentioned in one of my favourite podcasts, Hemispheric Views, where Andrew Canion said he didn’t even know how to buy it, let alone use it.¹

One of Ubiquiti's "brand ideals" from their website.

As a noob that actually managed to buy some of this stuff myself recently, I thought I’d do my best to give a layman’s explanation. Because it’s easier than you think! My target audience for this is someone who just wants a “good mesh wi-fi setup for their home."

But first:

Why did I want to get into UniFi?

Last year, I moved from a tiny flat to a large house. And it turned out that the wi-fi that was there didn’t quite cut it.

And the main reason I went for UniFi, is the modularity. It’s a bit like the difference between having an iMac and a Mac mini + display. With the latter, you could keep the screen and upgrade the computer if needed. Or you could get a larger screen while keeping the computer. And UniFi works like this. In general, they’ve separated the parts of a wi-fi setup into separate devices.

In addition to this, the software experience is pretty smooth, the hardware quality is supposed to be good, and it doesn’t hurt that it looks good as well!

UniFi is the opposite of this random TP-Link router.

The pieces you need

There are three pieces you require to complete the UniFi puzzle. And these can be had at different levels, supporting different standards. For instance, ethernet ports are usually rated for 1 Gbps, 2.5 Gbps, or 10 Gbps. And Wi-Fi varies between Wi-Fi 5, 6, 6E and 7 — and also between 2.5 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands.

1) The brain

First, you need a brain to coordinate everything. This device is also what you connect directly to the part of your wall where you get your internet. In the UniFi world, this is called a cloud gateway. But it’s basically a router!

An example here, is the Cloud Gateway Ultra 🖇️:

Example of what you can get if you upgrade:

What would you get if you go for the next tier, the Cloud Gateway Max 🖇️?

While the cheaper one can only run Wi-Fi, the Max can also be the hub for UniFi security cameras, phone service and more. So, if you want more than just Wi-Fi (I did not) you need to have a gateway that supports this.

The Max also supports higher ethernet speeds (2.5 Gbps — but they both have 4 Ethernet outputs) and has a slot for an SSD (for video recordings).

This is an example of how you can buy exactly what you need. But you can also upgrade pieces later on if you’d like.

2) The hands

The Gateway Ultra has four ethernet ports we can use to connect devices to the network. However, we came here for the wireless! And the hardware that actually wirelessly connects client devices (like phones and laptops) to the network are called access points.

Personally, I went for the cheapest option I could find: U7 Lite.

Example of what you can get if you upgrade:

While the U7 Lite supports Wi-Fi 7, it has only 2.5 and 5 Ghz bands.² It also doesn’t have great range. Going for the U7 Pro 🖇️, or the newer U7 Pro XG 🖇️, would get you 6 Ghz, more spatial streams (whatever that means), better range, and higher device capacity.

3) The nervous system

The last thing we need is a way for the brain to communicate with the hands. Ubiquiti really believes in not wasting wireless capacity to have the access points talk to the cloud gateway that way. So ethernet is the name of the game.

Let’s say we bought two U7 Lites and a Cloud Gateway Ultra. Then we would get this setup:

The access points would need two things to work:

Power
Data connection to the cloud gateway

To make things practical, especially because the access points likes to be mounted on the ceiling, Ubiquiti does both with one cable: Power over Ethernet.

Here you can see one of my access points, with one cable providing data and power.

Sadly, the Ethernet ports on the cloud gateway doesn’t provide power. One way to fix that is to get a power injector like this 🖇️. This one provides regular Power over Ethernet (PoE), through 15W. This is enough for the U7 Lite.

However, had we got the U7 Pro, we would need something that provides more power; PoE+. Like this 30W injector 🖇️.

Our complete setup would then look like this:

You need a brain, that’s connected directly to your internet provider.
Then you need access points to actually provide the wireless network.
And lastly you have to get power and Ethernet to where you need it.

My actual setup

Now, let me show my actual network setup! This will also highlight some alternate solutions.

My cloud gateway is the Express 7. It only supports Wi-Fi, which is fine for me. (So not security cameras, etc.) However, it does support 2.5G Ethernet. What I really like, though, is that It’s an access point as well as a cloud gateway — having Wi-Fi performance close to the U7 Pro.

So, this is the beginning:

For a tiny place, this could be everything you need.

However, as I live in a house, I required more access points. Four, in my case. All of these need power and Ethernet connection to the cloud gateway — so I bought a switch that both “splits” the data signal and provides power.³

Most of the work was actually getting the Ethernet to the access points. But luckily, I had some cable runs in the house already!

I went for a bit of future proofing by having the Ethernet backhaul being 2.5 Gbps, even though I don’t really need that at the moment. But I went for the cheapest options when it came to the access points (and more or less when it comes to the cloud gateway).

However that’s where the modularity, and its beauty, comes in: If I want to upgrade my access points (or just one of them), I can just buy a new one and swap it in!

Paraphrased! ↩︎
As far as I understand it, higher means better speeds, but worse range. The higher bands are also, usually, less crowded. ↩︎
Be aware: This switch does not come with a power supply, as you can choose between PoE+++ and a laptop-like power supply. ↩︎

Another Tiny Tahoe Travesty

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 10:32:16 +0200

Icon buffering

The lack of polish in the latest macOS version is just insane — from cut corners, to text going over other pieces of text, and weird HIG decisions.

But I wanted to point to a piece of terrible piece optimisation I haven’t seen mentioned (even though it probably has been):

Where's my icons??

This is on an M1 Pro — but it’s the same on my M4 Mac mini.

Is it a big deal? Of course not. But when you add all these paper-cuts together, the experience is much worse. And the software experience is so far from excellent, which, I assume, is what Apple’s goal is.

I’ve always bought Apple gear because of the software — but never Apple’s software. It’s been because of the exceptional third-party software only available on these platforms. You could say Apple should be paying these developers 30% of the hardware prices I’m paying…

However, I’ve always liked (just not loved) what Apple has been doing. But now it’s only “at least better than Windows”.

When the Design Requirements Are Perfect

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 14:46:09 +0100

The New Smart Home Line From Ikea

I’ve always quite liked Ikea’s smart home gear, as they’ve felt like good value for the price. However, with their latest batch of products, which are in stores now, it seems like they’re moving up to becoming the first thing I’ll recommend to most people! You know, if they actually work as advertised — which I haven’t got the chance to test yet. But I have a couple of devices in hand, so I’ll get to that!

However, I just wanted to shout out that I looooove the design requirements that they’ve chosen when developing these:

Everything should …

… be dirt-cheap
… support Matter and have a Thread radio¹
… use AAA batteries
… have a simple, sleek, and light design

I don’t have to explain why the first one is good…²

Going for Matter and Thread is great for the future³ — and having a major player go all-in like this is good. They’ve also made sure to print the Matter code on every device, in an easy to find place, and also on every manual.

After having Flic buttons 🖇️ with coin batteries for a couple of years, having AAA batteries, with a higher capacity and more easily rechargeable, is fantastic. And it’s well worth making some devices larger than needed to get this.

Here compared to an Aqara sensor 🖇️. Also, even though Ikea makes good rechargeable batteries, you obviously don't have to use theirs!

Design is obviously subjective, but I think all of these look perfectly fine — which is all you need! (In time I’d like to see black versions of everything, though.)

When making a large series of product for a big company like this, the key decisions, made early in the process, are so crucial. And it gives me great joy to see that Ikea, in my opinion, nailed those. Companies so often fumble here.⁴

Now, hopefully they’ll also work great! But I still think they deserve praise for the design requirements they set.

At least the light bulbs can also run on Zigbee. ↩︎
However, there’s also room for premium options later on as well! ↩︎
However, turns out my Apple TV is too old to be an border router — and I can’t access the Thread radio in my Mac Mini. (Thanks, Apple…) ↩︎
Probably because many of the large ones don’t need to make something great to make money, due to lack of competition… ↩︎

Software Should Have a Customisable UI

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:50:04 +0100

Part 1

I’ve recently noticed how most of my favourite pieces of software have one thing in common: I can customise them — not only to be needs, but to my preferences. And I really think this should, and could, be more widespread.

And I know that some iPhone users, when they hear customisable UI, might think: “Pff, why would I want a million ways to make my UI ugly, like an Android phone, instead of having one beautiful way??” But I’m not really talking about looks here! (Even though I also think theming is great.) I’m talking about button placements, how things work, etc.

An example: My favourite mobile browser

The screenshots below are of Safari on iOS (not my favourite browser) — and take note of the toolbar:

The regular toolbar in the first image, and the compact one on the right. In the latter you'll get a forward button as well, when it's relevant.

So, in the compact view, you get up to five buttons + the address. While in the regular view, you get 7 buttons. (In both cases, two of them are in the address field.) What I want to highlight is that when there are this few, exactly which buttons are chosen is crucial. For instance, I never ever use the bookmarks button. And should the refresh button take up space all the time when I almost always pull to refresh?

Apple should absolutely pick sensible defaults. But why do they think 1 billion iPhone users all want the same buttons?

This leads me to the main reason why I love the Quiche Browser: I’ve been able to create my perfect toolbar.

The address bar is clean, but I’ve added forward and back buttons next to it, on the same line.
On the next line, I have the following:
- A copy link button, that instantly puts the current URL on the clipboard
- The regular share button
- New tab button
- Paste and go, to instantly go to whatever’s on my clipboard (URL or web search)
- Tabs overview
- Close current tab

The beauty here is that you’ll might hate this toolbar! But to me, it’s just what I need.

In this app, you can also customise the items in the menu you get when long pressing the address bar — so that’s where I’ve put the refresh button. (You can also customise what you get when long pressing links.)

Does it add complexity?

Here’s the thing: A system like this doesn’t make it any harder, or less important, for the developer to ship good defaults. You can ship exactly what Safari has, and most users might not even find out it can be changed.

What Quiche does, is that they set a default, and also have a Toolbar Gallery:

But then, if you’d like to, you can go and create your own:

You can also choose how much you want on each line, thus making it more or less tight.

Here you can see a couple of the buttons I haven't used.

There are also more options — some of which you can see here (the screenshots above were from the Buttons section):

I sincerely believe none of this power makes the app harder to use — as the system is perfectly ignorable.

Easier for developers

While developing the system itself takes a toll on the developer,¹ I also think it can relieve some pressure. While you still need to sweat creating good defaults, you don’t have to be like the Safari team and think “OMG, we need to figure out exactly which 5 buttons, on average, would be the most useful to our billion users! Also, is 5 the correct number? What about 6? Or 4??”

There simply isn’t one correct choice for all of your users. So it’s OK to just let us (be able to) choose for ourselves. And especially as part of the Liquid Glass design language is to remove options and add more to sub-menus, users being able to decide what goes where becomes even more important.

I’m not talking about extensions here

I also love apps having extensive extension support — like Obsidian and the upcoming version of Bike. But that does add quite a lot of complexity. So what I’m specifically advocating here is that developers give users more control over small choices in apps.

It can still be opinionated

I know that many users, myself included, like opinionated apps. But I don’t think giving more options hinders opinionated design. For instance, I’ve previously written about Tapestry — an app I’d absolutely call the good kind of opinionated. However, I really wish I could move the avatars to the right side in this app! Last year, pre-Liquid Glass, I made two mockups to show what I mean: (The first image is the original, the second simply moves them to the right, and the last one also reduces the size of the avatar to fit the timestamp below, and I’ve moved the text a bit to the left.)

I prefer the last one — but I would then also move the body text margin more to the right.

My point here, though, isn’t to harp on this detail. It’s to show that the design is still opinionated (and cool, IMO), even if I had the choice of moving the avatar!²

And Tapestry is a good app… If you want a properly bad counter-example of what I want, we can check out Windows 11, and this forum post showing something that’s still a problem:

When I updated my machine to Windows 11, the quick access items were moved beneath OneDrive in the File Explorer navigation pane. This is a big inconvenience since I always have my OneDrive folder expanded and can no longer scroll to the top to access my pinned folders. How do I get the pinned Quick Access items back to the top of the navigation pane where I can – ironically – access them quickly?

Now Microsoft has also added a Gallery button there as well, that you can’t remove even if you never use it! And that post is from 2022…

I have tons of more examples I want to show! Both of where I wish I could make small choices, and of apps where I love being able to do so. (Expect mentions of apps like Mona, MrKeyboard, Affinity, and Paper.) But as I’m trying to post more and smaller posts, that will come in later parts.

The same with making the design pretty modular. ↩︎
This option would’ve been even more useful post-Liquid Glass, as they’ve added buttons on the left margin, that floats over both avatars and coloured lines. ↩︎

Winter boots "for life"?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 19:51:38 +0100

Not too long ago, I saw a thread over at r/BuyItForLife about winter boots. And as someone who likes the (even though often unrealistic) ethos behind that subreddit that’s also a Norwegian, I obviously have thoughts.

How cold is cold?

To be clear: Even though I live in Norway, I don’t live in the coldest parts. I also don’t stay outside for days at a time! If you’re working in the arctic, or something, you probably need something even warmer than what I’m about to recommend. But’ve had no problems with my boots, down to like -15 °C (5 °F).

The principles

While I will recommend some specific brands/models — the advice is generalisable:

Materials: Leather uppers, rubber soles, wool on the inside*.
The boots should be resoleable.
They should also be unlined — so you can get wool socks and soles separate from the boots themselves.
Get them pretty roomy!
And you should get more than one pair.

My boots. As you can see, I haven't touched them up for the photo shoot!

Why those materials?

The main reason I love leather is that it’s one of the few things that gets better with wear. (More comfortable and more beautiful.) So much of what we’re sold today, especially garments, are made to be at their best when you look at them in the store — and then they just get worse and worse. Also, if you treat leather well, it’s both weather-resistant and long-lasting.

Good rubber soles are great for traction, and hold up all right. And wool is just magic…

Why resoleable?

You wouldn’t buy a car where you couldn’t change the tyres — so when the tyres wore out, you would have to throw out the entire car.

Boots are the same. If you have a pair of leather boots, the soles wear out much faster than the uppers. So if you have a pair that’s been broken in, and has moulded to your feet, you should just get new soles (when they’re worn out) instead of a whole new pair of boots. However, not all boots are created equal — and they need to be constructed in a way that makes them repairable. The most common construction that allows this is Goodyear welt(r/goodyearwelt is nice) — but there are others as well.

However, as I've touched on previously: While there is some truth to the Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomics unfairness, I can't promise that buying resoleable boots will save you money.

There's more profit in waste — so mainstream brands don't bother with repairability. So the original boots are more expensive. You also have to pay for the labour, probably local (and more expensive), to get them repaired. What I can promise you though, is that you'll get more comfortable boots that you'll actually care about. It's also better for the environment, and supports good business practices.

Why unlined and roomy?

But do you know what wear out even faster than the soles? Wool liners. So even though boots with fuzzy lining are cozy and enjoyable, it’s much better to get the boots unlined, and then add the wool separately.

Depending on how warm you need to be, you can vary the thickness of your insoles and socks. I use these insoles myself — and I couldn’t find something that looks as good that’s more easily available. But cutting these 🖇️ into shape seems like a viable alternative!

There are two reasons the boots need to be roomy:

To give room for the insoles.
Because wiggle room for your toes is both good for your toes and for the warmth.

And speaking of “two reasons” — there’s also a second reason having unlined boots is a great idea: You can use your (expensive) boots for a larger portion of the year because they don’t have to be warm. When it’s raining during summer, I’ll wear my boots with no wool. And during spring and fall I’ll go for just wool socks, but no wool insoles.

What could be a problem, though, is that the boots are too large when you remove the wool. The solution here is to not just remove the wool insoles, but to replace it with a leather one. I use these from Saphir 🖇️ — but there seems to be other good ones 🖇️ as well.

Pro tip:

Size up when buying insoles. In my experience, they usually run small. And they can always be cut into shape.

My well-worn insoles. As I have high arches, I like structured ones.

Why more than one pair?

Let’s say I had one pair of boots that lasted me 1000 wears, and then I bought another pair that lasted the same amount. Then I’d get 2000 wears from two pairs. However, if I instead bought both pairs at the same time, and alternated between the two, I would potentially get a total of 3000 wears from two pairs instead.¹ Wearing them in parallell is better than in series!

The reason is that it takes longer than you might think for shoes to become properly dry after wear — not only from rain/snow, but also sweat. And if you wear the same pair every day for a long time (so they never get 24+ hours to dry out) they’ll become worn out before their time.

Using shoe trees, for instance made from cedar wood, can help them dry out faster — and also helps them keep their shape.² I use trees similar to these, from Cobbler’s Choice 🖇️. And they also have a variant 🖇️ specifically made for boots!

I didn’t buy my two pairs at the same time, though! Shoes like these are an investment — so maybe you, like me, need to save up for a while. You should also be a bit picky and wait until you find the right pair (as you’ll have them for a long-ass time).

I’m someone who wears both black and brown leather (although obviously not at the same time! 🧐) — so I knew I wanted one black and one brown pair. But I didn’t get around to buying the black pair until two years after I bought the brown ones According to my own advice, this wasn’t optimal in terms of wear and tear, of course. But stuff like is never as black and white as it may appear online! Another example is how it’s perfectly fine to use the same pair several days in a row from time to time!

I also believe my boots show another pro of having more than one pair: Variety — in styling (and more).

Oh, and having non-boot-shoes that handles “a bit of weather” is also a way to give your boots a rest. For instance, I’m often able to wear these shoes from Paraboot: 👇🏻

This amount of snow = no problem!

Summarisation, and the mentioning of some brands

So, get (more than one pair of) roomy, repairable, unlined leather boots with good rubber soles. Then add wool socks and insoles depending on the weather. Also get some leather insoles that take up about the same amount of space as your wool soles, so you can wear the boots all year round.

You can absolutely find good rubber soles from many brands. But two famous makers are Vibram and Dainite. So if you see those logos on a pair of boots, that’s usually a good sign.

When it comes to the boots themselves, there are also many alternatives. And I can recommend browsing r/goodyearwelt to find some good ones. Look for a repairable construction and decent leather!

My black boots are from a local brand in Oslo called Skomaker Dagestad (the best shoe store in Oslo, if you’re ever visiting!). While these are good quality for the price, I honestly can’t say the same about my brown boots!

The laces are these kangaroo leather laces.

I love them to bits, but I still can’t really recommend them. These are the Indy Boots, from Alden — and they’re quite overpriced for the materials and craftsmanship… However, I think they are the best-looking boots out there, and the last fit my weird feet perfectly. (And them being the shoes worn by Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones, doesn’t hurt their appeal either!)

The yellow mark is from Vibram. The Indy boots didn't come with a coarse sole like this — but I had a cobbler put them on after the original ones got some wear. The beauty of modular garments!

If you want to find some good boots for yourself, here are a couple of brands I can recommend! Some of them are more rugged, while others more refined. I’ve also tried to highlight stuff in different price points — but you can’t get shoes of this level for fast-fashion prices…

The best thing is, of course, to try them locally — but that’s not always possible. If this is the case, spend some time taking good measurements of your feet, and communicate with the store. You should also budget for return shipping. As you’ll have them for a long time, putting in the work to get it right is worth it!

Getting garments of high quality is, sadly, often harder for women. The grip of fast-fashion is tigher here… But it's not impossible! Most brands below have great options for smaller feet as well.

Thursday Boots creates good stuff for the price.
Beckett Simonon is also a good value option.
Red Wing is slightly pricier, but also good.
Grant Stone shows that you can get terrific quality made in China. Not cheap, but great value!
I like Paraboot and their sister-brand Heschung.
Meermin and Carmina are also good sister-brands.
If you want something really rugged and high-quality, have a look at White’s and Nicks!

There are obviously many more alternatives! But this is a starting point. And as long as you follow the principles, things can’t go very wrong.

The numbers are simplified and made up to explain a point! ↩︎
This is especially useful for shoes with thinner leather, like dress shoes. ↩︎

Yes — Please Include Fewer Chargers and Cables in the Box

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:37:20 +0100

(Oops, I forgot to hit publish on this one last week..!)

A detail about the new MacBook Pro in the EU (and also here in Norway, the UK, and Switzerland, even though we’re not in the EU) is that the laptop doesn’t come with a charger by default. The reason is a regulation that’s coming that says that companies like Apple need to provide users with the option not to get a charger.

But, still, amazing stuff continues to happen in Europe.

— Daring Fireball

What I find amazing is how cleanly John Gruber is able to put 100% of the blame on the EU, and 0% on Apple, in cases like this… I assume the bad stuff¹ he’s talking about here is EU users not getting a charger for free. But absolutely nothing is stopping Apple from doing just that in the EU as well! They only need to include an option of not getting the charger. Apple could even keep all the money from users selecting this option! (Nick Heer also points to a lot of bad coverage of this.)

I might be wrong, but I can’t remember Gruber chastising Apple for removing the chargers from iPhones, or more recently: the cable from AirPods Pro 3… And I agree with this! So, I’d rather focus on why I actually think all of these are good moves!

My optimal future

By default, I don’t think devices like this should come with any cables or chargers. But as part of the check-out process it should be trivial to add what you need — for instance with the MacBook Pro:

Charging cable?
- None
- MagSafe
- 2 m USB-C
- 3 m USB-C
Charger?
- None
- 70 W
- 96 W
Colour?
- White
- Black

These should be sold at “bundle prices”, and be cheaper than if you were to buy them alone. In Apple’s case, this would also increase the amount of competition their chargers and cables face. So maybe they’ll stop being so inferior to third-party options.

Products also need clear markings for the minimum and maximum/optimal number of watts — so people don’t think their 5 W phone charger can charge their Mac.²

Why?

Should all Mac Minis come with a bundled Magic Keyboard? I mean, you do need a keyboard to use the computer. Of course not! Perhaps the user prefers a different kind of keyboard, or already has one? It would also increase the amount of waste, and of course, the price. (Whether Apple would eat this cost increase, or pass it on to the consumer, would be up to them.) However, I do think Apple (or a third-party re-seller) should make it easy for users to get a good price on a keyboard when buying the Mac.

I don’t see why chargers and cables should be any different: I already have (or would buy) both keyboards, cables and charges that are better than what Apple makes. So I shouldn’t be forced to buy theirs, just to put them in a drawer.

Another, even more similar, example is when I bought this great 3-in-1 travel charger 🖇️ for my wife for Christmas: It came bundled with a 2 m USB-C cable and a decent (but rather bulky) 30 W charger. What I did, before wrapping it, was to swap out the charger for a more compact Anker charger and a 3 m cable 🖇️. Here, I wouldn’t be mad if the listing just said:

No cable and charger (USB-C to USB-C and minimum 30 W needed)

+€25 Include 2 m cable and 30 W charger

At the time, I believe I paid about €35 for the new charger and cable. So I’d rather get the choice to pay €15 more to get what I wanted, instead of either having to settle for something I didn’t want or pay €35 more and throw a cable and charger in a drawer.³

My precious

This is my current, carefully curated, charging bundle I carry around in my backpack. A 65 W charger (could be more), with the following cables:

3 m USB-C (black, braided),
MagSafe (white-ish, braided — not needed, but nice),
1 m Lightning (white, non-braided),
and (sadly) Micro-USB (black, non-braided).

Different colours and materials make it easy to find the one I want!

Less forced bundling, please!

I don’t mind being able to bundle stuff to get a good deal. But forced bundling is just annoying, and sometimes problematic. And while looking up the Anker charger you can get today that’s closest to the 30 W one I got earlier, I saw another example: This 45 W charger 🖇️ is great — but why can’t I get it without a 2 m USB-C to USB-C cable??

What if I want a longer cable? Or a braided one? Or nothing at all because I already have what I need?

When I bought my AirPods Pro 2, Apple gave me a nice, white, braided 1 m USB-C cable. However, I haven’t used it once, so this has been a complete waste.

Just like freedom, free stuff isn’t free! We have to bring down the amount of waste, so let’s buy just the cables and chargers we need — and then we can also get the sizes, lengths, colours, and materials we want.

Sarcasm factored in. ↩︎
The EU is working on mandating this, for both cables and chargers, which is great. ↩︎
Though, to be fair, I found a use for that charger. Somewhere size wasn’t a factor. ↩︎

But Did They Have to Make the iPhones Ugly?

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 13:43:57 +0100

In general, I have to say that the tech on this year’s iPhones seem pretty good! But I’m a little bummed out by the fact that it seems like they’ve given up on making them look nice.

Are they just thinking, “People will throw these in cases anyway — who cares?"¹ ?

Previous iterations of Apple have also missed the balance between design and functionality — but in the other direction. And let me say that I do prefer them not putting design over everything!

But do you remember posts like this?

An iPhone on top of a Samsung phone. (I don't remember which.)

This 11-year-old Reddit post pointed to Apple’s care when it came to the details. It even mattered to them the way the ports were placed beneath the phone.

I really don’t like the new backsides…

The iPhone’s Camera Plateaux™️ have always been inelegant. So I was glad that the plan this time was to make them larger. (I’m also one of those who dislike table wobble…)

But I think they missed the mark on both the Air and Pro — in slightly different ways.

Air:

When it comes to the air, I don’t like how the camera bar doesn’t have the same curvature as the phone’s corners. I think this image, with the battery pack, shows this well, as you can see that the battery pack does match the body.

(Yes, it does match the camera’s perfect roundness — but that’s not the choice I’d make.)

With the battery pack, you also get non-matching corners “bumping” up against each other. (Heck, if you insist on having the round corners on the camera bar, I’d consider having the top corners of the battery pack match those instead of the top of the phone.)

Speaking of bumping, the bumper case also brings out the issue with the top corners…

The Google Pixel 10 made the same choice. I don't love this either — but at least it's further from the top. And I also think it's a more balanced look in general.

Apple used to really care about corners…

Pro:

Apple does know how to do it — ‘cause just look at the Pro:

If I’m not mistaken, it looks like the corners match here. (And it still looks good up against the circular lens.)

And, as opposed to with the battery pack and the Air’s camera bar, the two-tone back’s top corners match the bottom corners of the bar.

My main issue with the Pro phones is that I just find the backs really messy. I mean, not as messy as the Nothing Phone 3 — but still.

I think I would’ve liked the “two-tone” design better if the camera bar had the same tone as the part at the bottom. Furthermore, the antenna lines make it so it’s more of a three-tone design… So I also would’ve tried to match those with the contrast colour.

The bar itself is really challenging to lay out, as it has to fit a lot of stuff. But maybe Google is onto something (as seen on the Pixel 10 image above) by blacking out more, to not have the lenses stick out as much?

But my main issue is something that bothers me with …

Both:

Why not have the bar go all the way out??

I think Google had the right idea with the Pixel 8:

Image from The Verge.

For some reason, they moved away from this with the 9 and 10 — but I liked that they integrated the bar with the frame.

Now the design is one large bar of soap with a smaller bar of soap placed on top. Why not just have one part of the first bar of soap be thicker than the rest?

Shouldn’t they still be able to do the neat trick where they place the antenna lines around the camera bar?

This would also provide more room — which is especially important in the Air!

Amateur thoughts on solutions

In general, I think sloping does well to make protrusions less… protruding.

I think this image, comparing Apple’s leather case for my 13 Mini with Bullstrap’s leather case 🖇️ shows this well:

They also manage to do something similar with their cases for the newer phones, with their larger camera bumps. (But if you're buying one from them, and it's relevant to your phone, make sure to get the one with the proper button for Camera Control!)

And personally, I think it would look nicer if Apple tried to mill the plateau out of the same part, and have it slope gently into the rest of the frame.

Even though they'd might have to make some sort of antenna line, shouldn't it be possible to integrate these three parts, the body, plateau and camera, better than this? 👆🏻

And especially as the Pros have a unibody design, it should be possible to make something much nicer here, without sacrificing space. (Heck, you'd probably gain some space!)

Some crude mock-ups

Now, I’m absolutely no designer… But if given the time, I’m sure the same people who sweated over the iPhone X’s continuous corners could make something better than what Apple delivered.

However, I still wanted to make some simple 2D mockups, to show my thinking:

I'm sure they have things they'd love to use the extra space for! Like having it not be USB 2.0… (Also, I didn't bother with anything but simple corner radii.)

Also, to remove the table wobble, I honestly think I’d make the plateau sloped all the way.

With the Pro, I really wish I had the opportunity to 3D print something… But hopefully these mock-ups provide some ideas.

Of course, there are a million things to consider when it comes to the inside of the phones.² But making the plateau larger (which is my main suggestion) should only make this easier.

Design is also what it looks like and feels like

The keynote started with this quote:

My issue here is that Apple makes quite few designs for the iPhones, compared to how many they sell. And then I think, in a larger sense than now, it should feel like someone really pored over the details. Even though so many, including myself, stuff them in cases…

As mentioned up top, “how it works” does look good. But I think it should be possible to make something look nicer than this, while not working any less.

And maybe the software team, in charge of Liquid Glass, should focus a bit more on the «how it works» part…

“Also, the lock-in is the main draw anyway!” ↩︎
Camera placement is a big one here. ↩︎

The Best Cotton Socks (I've Found)

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 15:55:52 +0100

And a Dream of Opening a Store

I just love good stuff. And I especially love the best¹ version of completely ordinary things. (Today I’m talking about clothes — but this could be about most goods.)

The thing is, there are things that are luxuries, and made from luxury brands. But while these things are better than your ordinary wares, they’re not honest.

Especially in women’s apparel, it seems like you often have choices like the following:

A $10 T-shirt, that’s actually a $10 T-shirt²
or a $150 T-shirt, that’s actually a $50 shirt.

Or course the latter is better than the first — but I’d rather buy a $70 T-shirt that has that cost due to the expenses for actually making it as good as it is.

Shout-out to some brands and stores that actually make high-quality and "honest" clothes for women:

Let me know if you know about more!

I would’ve loved to run a clothing store

And I wouldn’t mind just calling it Proper Stuff or something. The concept would be rather simple: Just stock basics, as timeless as possible, that are honest, sustainable, and of high quality. (I’d perhaps go for two tiers, to be able to have the absolute best while still having some more sensibly priced options.)

Standard & Strange’s tagline, “Own fewer, better things”, could be applicable. But “Simple excellence” would also encompass what I’d be going for.

One example would be the socks in the image above, which I promise I’ll get to. But here are some more examples, from one of my favourite stores:

I’m thinking things like simple jeans from Sugar Cane, T-shirts from Warehouse, hoodies from Whitesville, wool garments from Heimat, and canvas sneakers from Moonstar. Completely normal stuff, just made really well.

And I know that these things are much pricier than what most people buy. And I genuinely understand that things like that aren’t accessible to everyone — and that’s fine. But if you are able to afford it, I do I think it’s a good idea for more people to own fewer, but better, things. It’s better for the environment, and better in terms of ethics and the well-being of workers. However, I also think there is great personal value in having items you really treasure. Things that stick with you, and that you bother repairing.

Examples from my own wardrobe:

These sneakers, from Crown Northampton, are an example of the simple excellence I'm talking about.

And I can say the same thing about mocs from Rancourt.

This simple baseball cap from Poten is also wonderful.

Sugar Cane also makes proper denim jackets.

Sunray makes good, and cheaper, sweatshirts — but my favourite is from The Real McCoy's.

The best cotton socks I’ve found

Where something is made isn’t a perfect indication of the quality. The things that do make something good are:

The quality of the materials,
the choices in terms of construction,
and the time given to, and the skill of, the labourers.

You have things like shoes from Grant Stone that are made in China, while also having terrific quality. There are also brands, like the Norwegian Fair & Square, that make sure all their workers have great working conditions.

However, a pattern some might’ve noticed, is that I’ve mentioned many things made in Japan in this post. To me, it seems like it makes no economic sense to make something there and not make the choices that lead to high quality. So “Made in Japan” will very often mean that something is good.

And my first recommendation is from a Japanese brand

The socks I have from Decka are the most comfortable and durable socks I’ve seen and owned. I also really like the way they look.

The reason they’re not my only recommendation, is that they’re quite thick — and this might be too much for some people. Mine are of the 80s Skater Socks variety.

They also have a selection called Summer Picks, which, I assume, are thinner. So have a look at that if that would suit you better.

Another thing, I really like, is that they come in two sizes. I have rather short, but tall, feet — so Size 1 is perfect for me.³ (One-size socks are usually too long for me.)

The images from their website weren't as high quality as their socks…

I’m sure you can find a thickness, height and look from them that suits you.⁴ And then you’ll love your socks — not just tolerate them.

But my favourite thinner sock is from another brand

I don’t have any of Decka’s thinner socks — so I’m not saying Upstate Stock’s thinner socks are beter. But they’re the only socks I have that I like as much.

I couldn’t find my own socks, for a photo — but they are McCarren Tube Socks, like in the image above.

Compared to my socks from Decka, these are thinner overall, while still having a bit of extra thickness at the bottom.

They do have fewer styles — but they are cheaper, and made in the USA.

They also make other neat stuff.

I won’t claim that any of these socks will last forever. However, they will last longer than “regular” socks. They’ll also stay nicer for more of their lifetime, and I think they’ll make you smile when you put them on. And no one was exploited in the making of these socks.

As a Norwegian, I of course also use wool socks a lot — and I greatly recommend that as well! But I haven’t found any I like as good as these yet, so that will have to be a post for another day.

When I’m talking about “best”, I don’t mean that there’s only one best thing. Just of the highest tier. ↩︎
Not in terms of cost, but in terms of value. (And I know I’m being a bit generous here.) ↩︎
I do wish they made one smaller though — as that would fit more women. However, if you have 38-39+ in shoe size. I think Size 1 would fit you. ↩︎
They have fewer models that look like dress socks — but this one should do. ↩︎

PLEASE Stop Evaluating Streaming Services Over How Much They Pay Per Stream

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 17:00:19 +0100

*Taps the Sign (Again)

Today I saw this video, that has a premise I really like: A tier list of different music streaming services, mostly based on ethics.

However, this reinvigorated my annoyance with the over-reliance on the payment per stream metric.

Check out my grand idea for music streaming here.

And also check out what I've written about streaming payment previously here.

The most straightforward reason for why this metric is useless is that that’s simply not how the deals with the music streaming companies work. At all. It’s not like there’s a set payment per stream (that’s lower on Spotify than Tidal), and if my band got streamed twice as much next month we’d earn twice as much.

Every streaming service I know of does just about what Spotify does:

They collect the revenue, and keep 30% of it.
They then pay the rights holders 70%. Let’s call this the rights holders' share (RHS).
They divide the RHS by grouping together all streaming on their platform — and if Taylor Swift had 1% of all streaming on the platform, she would get 1% of the RHS.

Screenshot from the video. «1k streams will earn» doesn't make sense at all — because this doesn't predict the future. «1k streams earned» would make sense (but still be a pretty useless metric).

I get that it’s a metric that makes sense to people. But that doesn’t beat out the fact that it doesn’t reflect the reality.

Here’s what I, both as a user and artist, want to know when evaluating services:

How large is the RHS?
How does the service balance increasing the revenue per customer and reaching more customers?
How do they split the RHS among rights holders?
What effect does the service have on artists, through AI, artist relations, etc.?
And of course: Is the service owner someone you want to support or not?

1) How large is the RHS?

To me, this might be the most important. But boringly enough, I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t split the revenue 70/30. Please tell me if you know otherwise — but I’ll be assuming this going forward.

I’ll also pretend the regular price for music streaming is €10/month, to simplify calculations.

2) How does the service balance increasing the revenue per customer and reaching more customers?

A couple of years ago, I switched from Spotify to Tidal. And a significant factor was the payment/streams metric. However, at the time, you had to pay twice what I had paid for Spotify to get hi-fi streaming.

Does this mean it would’ve been just as ethical of me to just pay for a second Spotify account and not use it?

And now that Tidal isn’t twice as expensive any more, and has the same price as Spotify, does it even matter what I pay €10 for? I mean, if €7/month goes to artists no matter which one I pay for…

Heck, I could create a streaming service, charge €100/month, be the only customer, and look amazing on the “payment per stream” charts! 🤘🏻 Similarly, maybe Amazon is doing so good on the chart above because their users don’t use Amazon Music a lot, and just got it through Prime or something? And if the service did become popular, it would look just as bad as everyone else.

The main reason that Spotify looks bad on these lists, is that they have an ad-supported tier, with lower revenue per customer than €10. Now, artists could absolutely argue that this tier is giving away “all the world’s music” way too cheaply. Like, if Spotify set their subscription price to €1/month, that would also suck for artists. At the same time, it’s not like removing the add-tier would make all those users become paid members…

I’d say that it does hold some value that Spotify provides a way for customers to provide “less than €10, but more than €0” in revenue. But what you can criticise them for, is not having ways to create customers who provide more than €10. That’s why this point is about balance.

Qobuz is an interesting case study here

I like that they try to be more open about their payouts, with posts like this. (Even though it falls into the same payout/stream trap. I give them a pass, though — as they probably know that’s what people, wrongly, want to know.)

But let me comment on some claims they make in the post above:

Qobuz takes an approach that benefits artists

Founded by music enthusiasts who wanted to preserve the integrity of the works and promote musical creation, Qobuz stands out for four key characteristics that directly benefit artists:

1. No ad-supported free tier: Its exclusive paid model ensures higher compensation for all actors in the music creation.

2. High-quality subscriptions: All offers provide access to uncompressed (lossless) and high-resolution (Hi-Res) audio quality, as well as exclusive editorial content, justifying a premium positioning that ensures fairer payouts.

3. High-quality download store: Qobuz’s online store allows users (not limited to streaming subscribers) to buy albums in Hi-Res and CD quality, offering rights holders direct and higher compensation. This model, which complements streaming revenue, is particularly key in supporting music outside of just Top 40 hits, as over 51% of downloads on Qobuz come from genres like rock, classical, and jazz.

4. Spotlight on diverse range of artists and music genres: Qobuz highlights artists and genres that are often underrepresented — such as jazz and classical releases. The editors' selections, playlists and awards give a more eclectic selection of artists greater visibility, allowing lesser known releases to garner more streams, and overall generating more revenue for a wider range of artists.

— Qobuz

(No ads) As someone who can absolutely see the point that Spotify is giving music away too cheaply (and as someone who doesn’t like ads and tracking in general), this point is OK. But for the reasons mentioned above, it’s not a slam dunk, IMO.
(Hi-res streaming) This is a pure win, as the extra costs for providing hi-res music come out of the streaming service’s share. Listeners get a better music experience without the artists having to pay for it.
(Download store) Them having a focus on this, is my favourite part about them. Not only does it provide a way for customers not to be stuck with nothing if they cancel their subscription — it also provides the mentioned avenue for Qobuz customers to provide more revenue than €10/month.
(Diverse spotlight) This is also great — as one issue with the way RHS is divided, is that most of the revenue goes to huge artists.

However, interestingly enough, even Qobuz doesn’t give more than 70% of revenue to rights holders!

3) How do they split the RHS among rights holders?

An alternative way of splitting the RHS would be that the €7 I contribute to it would get divide among the artists I listen to. I do think there are arguments for this being more fair. And it would provide even more incentives for artists to get their fans to use a specific service and actually stream. However, not even Qobuz does it like this. (And I’m not totally convinced that it’s better.)

4) What effect does the service have on artists, through AI, artist relations, etc.?

Positives here would be having good tools for artists to engage with fans through their platform, highlight a diverse set of artists (like point four from Qobuz), actually having support, etc.

Negatives here could be Spotify’s efforts to grab parts of the RHS for themselves through «ghost artists», how platforms deal with AI created content, and more.

5) Is the service owner someone you want to support or not?

Here I’m talking about more external factors than just the service itself. And this is also something I wish more people thought about. The video linked above, which I’m sort of criticising here, did well on this point!

And, to be fair, I give higher marks to Qobuz here than to Tidal, which I’m currently using.¹

I already linked to some reasons not to support Amazon, Google/YouTube and Spotify. And I’m sure you, dear reader, know of a lot yourself. In addition to this, I have two reasons why I don’t want to use Apple Music (and why think you should consider alternatives as well):

One is simply that they’re already rich, large and powerful enough. Apple Music already have a much higher market share than it would’ve got without all the benefits Apple gives it.

The second is the following: Today the revenue share is:

Rights holders: 70%
Streaming service: 30%

But Apple fights with tooth and nail to have the share be like this, if the sub started on an iOS device:

Rights holders: 49%
Apple: 30%
Streaming service: 21%

It pisses me off to no end that Apple both grab share from artists and claims to provide more value in that chain than the service provider. If they had any decency, they would at least only take their 30% out of the streaming service’s share.

I have to look into the switching cost — both for me and my wife. I didn’t choose Qobuz last time, because I worried going to Tidal was enough of a shift from a mainstream option. And that going to Qobuz would be a bit too far. But I’m not sure. And that issue probably shrinks in time. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #12: UFO 50

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:50:47 +0100

Modern Retro Gaming Masterpiece

Imagine if someone, especially someone who likes retro gaming, told you: «What’s the NES? I’ve never heard of it, or played any of the games.» And then imagine you could tell them they could buy the 50 best games for just €25. What a treat they’d be in store for! Dusting off old classics, and exploring a treasure trove of retro gaming they haven’t seen before…

Cue UFO 50

If you told me about this game/project, available for Steam¹ and Switch, I would brush off as too ambitious to ever become a reality. However, it’s actually done, and here today!

A group of indie devs went together and created a fictional developer, called UFO Soft. The story is that this “company” released a bunch of games for their consoles, LX-I, LX-II, and LX-III, between 1982 and 1989. And you’ve just discovered 50 games, spread across the lifespan of the company, that you can play in any order you’d like.

UFO 50 is a collection of 50 single and multiplayer games from the creators of Spelunky, Downwell, Air Land & Sea, Skorpulac, Catacomb Kids, and Madhouse. Jump in and explore a variety of genres, from platformers and shoot ‘em ups to puzzle games and RPGs.

— From the game’s website

The game menu starts out like this. 👆🏻 The games are sorted from oldest (Barbuta, 1982 — currently selected) to newest. When you click the game, you dust it off, and start it up. And here’s the thing: These are full games!

These are NOT mini-games or micro-games! Although the size of each game varies, every one is a complete experience, from its opening title screen to its ending credits. Some are small arcade-style games, but there are also larger open-world adventures and a JRPG that could take many hours to beat.

— From the game’s website

As the “years” progress, so does the games — with improved graphics and more. There are even things like sequels to games “earlier” in the collection!

If you want more thorough coverage of this game, which this post is not:

There are many good reviews and videos about UFO 50 out there. So I recommend searching for it if you’re interested. To help you get started, here are two: This nice written review by TheGamer/James Kennedy, and this video by Snoman Gaming:

Retro, but modern

I also want to highlight something important — which they say well themselves:

Our goal is to combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design sensibilities.

(…)

Authentic but also modern: We carefully chose what elements to modernize. Every game shares a unique 32-color palette, and we took great efforts to make them look and sound like actual 8-bit titles from the 80s. On the other hand, it was important to us that UFO 50 was fun and surprising for modern players, so we chose not to limit ourselves to the genres and design conventions of the past.

— From the game’s website

My favourite game (of the ones I’ve tried) from the collection shows this well: Party House is something as weird as a deck builder from 1986.

Image credits: u/Glitch29 and TheGamer/James Kennedy

Similarly, Rock On! Island 👇🏻 is a tower defence game from 1987. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Image credits: TheGamer/James Kennedy

But it’s also important to mention that the games that are more traditional in terms of genre and gameplay, are still really fresh. They don’t just slap together something that’s similar to Mario or Metroid and call it a day.

Some things are still retro, though…

Games like the excellent Celeste shows what you can get with retro graphics, but smooth, modern gameplay tweaking. Sometimes the games in UFO 50 are like this. But they also toy with giving (especially) the “earlier titles” a more clunky feel.

You sometimes have to turn on a bit of that vintage patience while playing. Not every title pours out instant gratification…

But if you like retro games, please give it a try!

In a world filled with stale AAA titles, this crazy indie project is something I really root for. I know I’ll double-dip, by buying it again for the Switch (when I can afford it).

If the screenshot above gives you warm feelings, and trigger your curiosity, I really think UFO 50 could be something for you. Get a controller with a good D-pad,² turn on the CRT filter, and start exploring this “lost” collection of games from an alternative reality.

More screenshots, from the developer.

It’s technically only available for PC — but I’ve had luck playing it with things like CrossOver. ↩︎
I’ve played with an older version of the 8BitDo Ultimate 🖇️ controller, which I reviewed here. I’d love an 8BitDo Pro 3 🖇️, though — for that proper D-pad placement. ↩︎

My Compact Stereo Bass Pedalboard

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 12:33:28 +0100

On the side, I do a bit of pedalboard building. And finally, I’m done with my own board — so I wanted to present it here! I’ll also go into all the pedals and why I chose them.

Board and I/O

The board itself is the smallest size made by Temple Audio.

On the right side of the board, I can plug in power for all the pedals and Input A and B. I play with two basses live: My 1961 Fender P-Bass and Fender Japan Fretless Jazz Bass — and having them both plugged in is nice.

The power supply is the Canvas Power 8 🖇️ from Walrus Audio, which I’ll show when I get to the underside of the board.

The left side has a USB-C charging port, forwarded from the Canvas supply, balanced stereo out (the two XLRs), and a jack output from the left channel.

«Wait, stereo for bass??»

I only have two stereo effects: Chorus and delay. But I think it’s really cool! Lately, my «sound» has gone on to always involve some saturation (usually fuzz and/or a cranked preamp) and chorus. Here’s a little taste of the sound (isolated bass), from a demo my band is working on.

So, that’s why I send a stereo signal (with the XLRs) to front-of-house. However, I’ll never bother with two amps — so that’s why there’s only one jack output. My DI does have the option to sum the left and right channel, but that doesn’t work with my chorus. So what I do is that I just send Left to the amp, and then asks for the Right channel in my monitor.

The signal chain

In generic terms, here is my signal chain:

AB switch
Fuzz
Compressor
Tuner (and buffer)
Synth pedal
Flavourful transformer
Tube preamp
High-pass and low-pass filter pedal
Chorus (stereo)
Delay (stereo)
DI (stereo)

And now, let’s go through them one by one!

AB switch: Homemade experiment

As I was building the board, I found myself running out of power outputs on my supply. I still have a power splitter or two — but I had some noise issues with some of them, so I wanted to reduce the amount of power I used.

One of the pedals that needed power was my AB switch, which only needed it to for an LED that showed which input was active. (The switching itself doesn’t need power.) So I wondered if I could build something that:

Was even smaller than my old AB switch. (As you can see, the board is pretty cramped!)
Had a switch that was visual in nature, so I wouldn’t need an LED, whilst still being foot-operable.

The best switch I could find was this thing. I didn’t have a good way to «drill» a square hole for it in the box, so excuse the messy hole — but it turned out like this (compared to my old switch):

It isn’t colour coded yet, though. It would be cool to have coloured screws, and/or at least some markings on the box. And, of course, it’s not as easy to see during a concert — but it works better than a regular foot-switch without an LED.

As this was just a proof-of-concept, and the first pedal I’ve built from scratch, I’m quite pleased. Here are some pictures from the inside during building:

The jacks are Lumberg KLBM3s.

Fuzz: Analogman Sun Face

The brand Analogman (and Mike Piera, the man behind it) is truly a treasure. I mean, the website (and logo) looks like this:

No CSS, like God intended.

While the “new e-commerce shopping cart website” looks like this:

I’m not joking when saying that this looks so bad, you just know the pedals are good! 😎 And the first pedal in my chain (proper) is a Sun Face fuzz pedal. This is a faithful, yet modern, modification of the Fuzz Face pedal. When you order it, you can choose some options — and I chose:

Top jacks,
power jack,
external Clean knob,
and Sundial knob¹.

I’ve later swapped the knobs for some red ones, and added an aluminum foot-switch cover.

Old-style fuzzes like this don’t play nice with buffers. So that’s why the buffer (in the tuner) is after this. (I don’t remember why I placed the compressor before the buffer as well, though… 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Compressor: Lusithand Alma Comp MKII

There are lots of great compressor options out there — many of them highlighted on this outstanding website. I landed on the Alma MKII, from Lusithand, for the following reasons: ²

I wanted something that at least wasn’t larger, and that had top-mounted jacks.
I love that it has clean blend and a tilt EQ. I don’t need more detailed compressor controls than the simple switch.³
It has compressor metering in the LED.
It sounds good, but not in a clean way. (I’d rather have more colour.)

Other strong contenders at the time, were Humboldt or Dakota from Niche Devices, Airchild 660 from J. Rockett, Photon Death Ray from Doc Lloyd, and Diamond Bass Comp/EQ.

I’m very pleased with the Alma, and always leave it on. But while I wish I didn’t care about it, I don’t like the way it looks… It’s manages the combo of being bland, while still not looking clean. (I think it has 5 different fonts on it..! And the MKIII isn’t much better.) I remember having some fun trying to clean up the design a bit:

Original on the left, mine on the right. I used the font he uses on his website. I moved the voltage info up towards the power plug, and 'lollipops' next to the logo for input and output. Then I dropped the all-caps and font with stroke, and changed the labels a bit.

The goal was to keep “the same” design, but just clean it up a bit. So I still don’t love it, hehe. I mean, look at something like the Photon Death Ray 😍:

Wonderfully campy! And the light on her beam lights up when you turn it on.

I did swap the knobs though (and some stuff by the foot-switch — which now it also has a topper, as you can see in the photo above). And I like the “panda look”, that gave it some more personality at least:

Original Davies knobs. 👌🏻

Tuner: Walrus Audio Canvas Tuner

I have strong feelings when it comes to pedal tuners. They’re something every pedalboard needs — but it’s difficult to find one that’s precisely the way I want.

Most tuners have a foot-switch so you can mute while you tune — and I know this sounds sensible (and in most cases is). However, If the board has a volume pedal and/or an AB switch, I’d rather mute with those. These need to be accessible anyway — so then I’d rather stick the tuner somewhere visible, but inaccessible. And for this to work, the tuner has to have an “always-on mode”⁴ — and at this point, the foot-switch is just a waste of space.
It should have a good buffer. (But probably one that can also be turned off.)
It also has to be accurate enough — but I don’t need Peterson level accuracy.
The visibility also needs to be good.

The quite new Korg XS tuner 🖇️ 👆🏻 is so close to being perfect… (It even has a bass version 🖇️!)

The visibility is fantastic, and they’ve done something brilliant (and original): The entire frame is the foot-switch. You can also toggle the buffer.

However, it can’t be set to be always-on! 🤦🏻‍♂️ There’s no way to tune with it without muting the signal. Look at the promo picture above, and how beautifully it’s tucked away at the top of the board. But you still need to be able to step on it…

Here’s how (relatively) easily, the Korg XS could become the perfect tuner (IMO):

The first change is easy: Add a dip-switch for an always-on mode.

Another slight issue is the lack of top-mounted jacks. (It’s always more efficient to have all I/O on the same side.) So, here’s what I’d do:

The dip-switches can be on the side, or something. Oh, and it would also be cool if you could choose the orientation yourself.

The Boss TU-3S is pretty neat. They just chopped off the foot-switch part! I would've loved a Waza version, though ("TU-3Sw") — as the buffer is better, and it just looks so much cooler.

The tuner I actually ended up with

Walrus Audio 🖇️ is, in general, a great brand — and I especially love the Canvas series (which I’ve already linked to, with my power supply). And even though it doesn’t fit everything I asked for above, I went for the Canvas Tuner 🖇️.

On my board, I actually do need to use the tuner to mute — so it isn’t a con that it has a regular foot-switch. (It can be set to be always-on, btw.)

The buffer and visibility is good, and the screen allows for some interesting features. These are the two I use:

It has a built-in timer, which I use to time our concerts.
You can flip it to the orientation you want.

Here on my board, you can see that I have it "sideways". When turned on it will still show the graphics the correct way here. 👌🏻

The cons are that the power jack is on the side (but the jacks are top-mounted), and that it requires a lot of power (for a tuner).

Synth pedal: Panda Audio Future Impact v4

Future Impact is a pedal inspired by the legendary Akai Deep Impact, with a bunch of added goodies.

Speaking of «camp», I love the way this looks. (Especially after I swapped the knobs, and added some colour to the foot-switches.) And that’s a good thing, as I just found out Panda Audio just released a new, and much more compact version of this pedal. 😬 That would’ve been a godsend on a small pedalboard like mine…

Moreover, to be honest, I haven’t got around to spending a lot of time playing with this one. (For instance, I am keen to explore the octave options). Currently, I just use it live for songs where we recorded with a synth bass.

Flavourful transformer and tube preamp: Lightning Boy 23Fe & Sushi Box Underground Accelerator

To explain why I lumped these two together, let me show my previous pedalboard:

If you look closely, you can see that I had mounted the wonderful Noble Preamp underneath the board, with the knobs poking out. In addition to being my DI, this was also my power supply. I looooved the way it sounded — but my pedal needs outgrew the power it could provide. This is what sparked the rebuild.

It’s also very expensive, so I couldn’t afford to keep it while still building my board. I also wanted to add stereo, so I needed another DI. All-in-all it was too expensive, too large, too weak (in terms of supplying power), and too mono for my evolving needs.

I considered buying two smaller tube DIs (for stereo). But instead I went for a clean and “sterile” DI (which I’ll get back to), and adding the mojo beforehand.

Lightning Boy Audio creates a lot of cool gear, including some funky transformers, like my 23Fe (not the new and improved 23Fe+ 😔).

The 23Fe was developed in 2023 in an effort to create a really bad transformer, while retaining somewhat of a decent frequency response, minimal insertion loss, and a robust enough build to handle getting tossed around without breakage. Technically speaking, the worse a transformer performs, the more colorful it is.

— Lightning Boy

This sits below my pedalboard, and my signal always goes through it. I preferred having it before the preamp, and it gives some subtle colour and a slightly different feel while playing.

For my preamp, I went for the Underground Accelerator by Sushi Box. This one is also always-on, and thus always give me tube-goodness and tone-shaping ability. I like it! Things doesn’t sound quite as good as it did with the Noble — but still great.

Here's a way the Underground Accelerator could've been really cool for me:

As you might've seen, the UA has a gain knob. This makes it so it can be a really nice overdrive pedal. But as I want it to always be on, I completely lose this feature.

My dream version of this pedal would be something close to a compact version of the Dreamcatcher:

It would still have Treble, Mids and Bass — but it would need two sets of Gain and Master knobs. It could have a toggle (perhaps instead of the EQ one) to bypass the pedal, and then the footswitch would swap between the two sets of Gain/Master.

This way I could set one of them in overdrive, while still choosing if I want to boost the volume or not.

HPF/LPF pedal: Custom from dpFX

The last part of my mono signal, is a custom pedal by dpFX.

Really compact!

As it’s just a set-and-forget kind of pedal, I love that I can just stuff it under the board.

Chorus: Analogman Mini Chorus (stereo)

For the first stereo part, we’re back to our friend Analogman. And the Mini Chorus (stereo, with blend knob and depth toggle) simply sounds wonderful. I want to leave it on all the time.

I wish they could deliver the blend knob in the middle with the painted sun face, though — as they do with the Sun Face.

Delay: T-Rex Replay Box (stereo)

In general, I wouldn’t call this 🖇️ a great delay. For most purposes, it’s simply far too clean and sterile. (I vastly prefer more tape/analog sounding delays.) However, for me, it’s perfect:

For bass, as opposed to guitar, it being so clean is a boon. The delay types I like for guitar can become too muddy — and my signal usually already has plenty of saturation and modulation.
It packs in stereo and tap tempo in an unbeatable form factor. I like that it’s horizontal, as it has two foot-switches (which become cramped on vertical pedals), and it fits where other pedals don’t.

DI: Walrus Audio Canvas Stereo DI

The aforementioned sterile DI, is also from Walrus Audio’s Canvas series: The Direct Box and Line Isolator 🖇️. This is also tucked beneath, and set to Line Isolator mode (meaning it sends a hotter signal compared to DI).

As mentioned, I don’t sum the Left and Right channels for the jack, as this ruins the chorus effect.⁵

This doesn’t really do anything for my sound — but it’s compact and just what I need.

Perfect for my needs

I’m very pleased with the final result, and that I was able to cram so many features into such a small board:

Two switchable inputs
Everything powered by one cable (including a USB-C charging port)
Tuner, fuzz, compressor, tube goodness and tone-shaping, synth effects, chorus, delay, and HPF/LPF
Balanced stereo output (and jack output as well)

The only thing, I’m missing, is that I wouldn’t mind a simple pedal I could hit to adjust my EQ while switching between a pick and fingers. I tried to make a Mr. White from Henretta Engineering to work for this — but it wouldn’t quite sound right. ⁶ So I sacrificed it for space and power. I’d also like it if the preamp could’ve been an overdrive pedal as well.

Placing the power brick for the Canvas supply was also a challenge — but I managed to find a spot where it wouldn’t create noise. (The tube preamp and compressor were the worst combos here.)

And the underside is a bit too cramped and messy — but that’s the price you pay for so many features. Also, I hate «Instagram tidy cable runs» that make it so the board is impossible to tweak down the line…

—-

I just love making pedalboards! So I hope I’ll be able to do it even more for others. The first thing is that I need to become better at advertising…

External bias control. ↩︎
Turns out MKIII just got released! None of the new features appeal to me, so I’m lucky there. But it seems great as well, and is what you would be getting if you bought one now. ↩︎
I’d rather not faff with attack, release, etc. ↩︎
Or you need a sparate tuner-out on the AB switch/volume pedal. But this takes up space, and now your volume pedal should probably be active, which increases the power needs… ↩︎
I just send Left to my amp, and ask for Right as my monitor. ↩︎
I would probably need a version tweaked for bass. ↩︎

Oh No, I Think I Might Have to Move to Home Assistant

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 14:17:20 +0100

And Other Major Life Changes

The last few months have been pretty wild… In April, my wife and I moved out of our tiny Oslo flat (41 m²) into her childhood home. This is a large (for us) 290 m² house in a smaller town. On the first night in the new house, with things pretty up in the air, our first baby decided he wanted to be born 3.5 weeks ahead of schedule. He’s a lovely guy! But it’s fair to say moving, renovating, selling a flat, and taking care of a bundle like that, is pretty intense — hence why I haven’t written the last few months.

I do want to refrain from posting a lot of our son online — but hopefully saying that his name is Alfred, and posting the pretty anonymised photo below is OK ☺️:

Dad Mode engaged. And Vincent is a great «big brother».

I got to make the house smart 🫶🏻

As part of the deal of us moving to «my wife’s» house and hometown, we agreed that I was allowed to make the house smart. Not that she was that difficult to convince, as she doesn’t find a smart home annoying. Especially if I manage to follow my own principle: Smartness should always be in addition to regular functions. There should always be a button to toggle a light — and then you can add smarts on top.

The current plan is to have the following be smart:

Lights
Blinds
Heating
Main door lock
Garage door

For the main door lock, I’ve bought a Yale Linus L2, that I will install down the road. It has Matter support, and with the Yale Smart Keypad 2 I should be able to set up HomeKey, codes (also temporary), fingerprints and more — all while stille having the option of using a regular key. (All our old keys will still work!)

I like that you just swap out the turn lock.

I don’t know what I’ll do with the garage door, yet, though. It has an old electric opener — but hopefully, I can figure something out that doesn’t include getting a new opener.

For blinds, I’m simply waiting for Ikea to release their Matter offer in January. (I can’t even buy their old model, as they’re out of stock.)

The heating is a bit complicated, as my father-in-law had set the house up with a system from the company Futurehome — so he has a mixture of Z-Wave and Zigbee gear. The problem is that that company just went bankrupt, and is in some heat currently… I’ll probably end up with a combination of the Z-Wave hating in the floors and Mill smart heating, often via this great plug.

This plug has a thermostat, and is also Matter compatible. And look how tiny it is!

Now, on to the lights

I’ve written previously about why I prefer smart bulbs to smart switches. The main con about bulbs is that they’re more expensive — especially in a large house. However, as we’re not allowed to swap out the light switches ourselves here in Norway, I think I’d lose that benefit by having to pay an electrician. I also had a head start as I had smart bulbs in our flat already.

I wrote about my previous setup here. One of the reasons I like smart bulbs is that I really like to have the bulbs change colour temperature throughout the day, which you can’t do with switches.

The bulbs I’m using are a combination of Philips Hue and Ikea Trådfri. I buy from Ikea whenever possible, and buy Hue if the type I want isn’t available from Ikea. I especially like the filament bulbs that can change temperature, like this one 🖇️. And the switches are from Flic 🖇️.¹

Ikea doesn't make a bulb like this — so this one is from Philips. I've added some stickers to the MagSafe charger to have it match everything, including the Flic button. The icons glow in the dark.

The dial is from Ikea, and controls Sonos speakers. My goal is that guests comfortably can control our «smart house» — so I try to add helpful stickers if I can.

In our flat, I was able to keep everything in HomeKit/Apple Home. However, I was open to having to run Homebridge on my always-on Mac Mini, if something in the house wouldn’t play nice.² Even though setup, with the way I was doing things, was a slog, I was pleased that I could do everything I wanted with just HomeKit and the app Controller for HomeKit. The end state would be something very stable and easy to adjust. And I wouldn’t be relying on the extra Mac.

However, due to some limitations Apple has placed on HomeKit, the method relied on creating numerous scenes; 4 or 7 per light. Using 7 would make a small thing (that I won’t go into here) a bit nicer, so of course I did that… And as I was almost done with setting up the entire house, I learned a «fun» idiosyncrasy with HomeKit: There is an absolute maximum limit of 100 scenes in a home! 🤦🏻‍♂️

In short(ish), this is how my lighting setup works:

The house runs through three different «moods» throughout the day (decided by sunrise and sunset):

Glass (coldest)
Cream (warmer)
Glow (warmest)

Each light has scenes for all the moods (both different temperature and brightness). When I turn on a light with a switch, it checks which mood we’re in and sets the light to that mood. When the mood changes, an automation checks which lights are on, and sets the temperature to the correct mood.

I originally did it with scenes because I had to. But I like that I can simply adjust a scene if I think something like «Hmm, this light is too bright in the glass setting.» I don’t have to go into each automation that touches that light.

I probably have to do it all over again…

Controller has a cool beta feature they just released, where you can have your lights still be «hosted» on your Apple Home hub, but control them via something they call Workflows. These, as opposed to automations that I had been using, need something like an always-on Mac to run, though. But they are more powerful. I could use this for the rest of my lights (and use the 100 scenes for most of it). However, I don’t love that I would have two different systems among my lights — and I’m worried about the stability. I want the switches to be rock solid, as I don’t want my wife (or guests) to be annoyed.³

So in my mind, there are two options for me:

Redo everything using workflows in Controller.
Move everything to Home Assistant (running on the Mac Mini).

Option 1: Workflows in Controller

Controlling our lights through Home.app has been great — and this is something I really want to have as a fallback (or when you want something a bit more specialised). With the current setup, the lights get sent straight from the first-party hubs (Philips Hue hub and Ikea Dirigera) to Apple Home (on the Apple TV, I think).

However, running the switches/switching with workflows on beta software on the Mac Mini is a bit scary to me… And I would’ve still liked to be able to use scenes, as that would make things easier to adjust down the line. Doing everything with workflows still wouldn’t allow me more scenes.

Option 2: Home Assistant

HA is obviously very powerful. It also has several plugins that do the temperature adjustments automatically.⁴ However, having to run a VM on my Mac isn’t something I’d love to do…

I would probably want to remove the Hue and Ikea hub from the equation, and run everything directly into HA. But to accomplish this, I need a Zigbee stick and a Z-Wave stick (or something that combines the two 🖇️.⁵

Cons for going the Home Assistant route:

I need to buy extra hardware for €100+ — and money is really tight these days.
Things will be relying heavily on the Mac Mini — which I especially don’t love, as my wi-fi is pretty shitty.⁶
I need to faff around with things I’m not very comfortable with…⁷
In general, It will probably take more time than the alternative(s). Not only would I have to create all scenes and automations again — I would also have to re-add every single smart device. And everything in a system I simply don’t know yet.

Pros for going the Home Assistant route:

I already have to find a solution for the Z-Wave thermostats in the floors — and this would fix that as well. It would also fix several potential future problems I might encounter.
- It would also allow me even more flexibility when looking at new devices to add.
I currently have both an Ikea hub and Philips hub, running their own Zigbee network.⁸ And I don’t think this allows the bulbs to help each other when it comes to creating the Zigbee mesh. If I had them all go straight to HA, I think they would be able to do that.
I do love myself some tinkering and flexibility… I also like open-source projects.
This would make me less reliant on the Apple ecosystem.⁹
- However, I would still be able to pipe my devices back into Home.app — which would be great for both me and my wife.
I’d probably be able to create better solutions in general, with this system, than what was available to me in HomeKit.

When I started this entire project, I was very close to building everything with Home Assistant from the start. And now, of course, I really wish I did just that… Going for HA barely lost out to just keeping things in HomeKit/Controller because I had already solved the problems, and knew what I was doing. However, the surprise scene limit makes it so the «keeping things in HomeKit» option becomes significantly worse. And this then makes Home Assistant more attractive.

So I guess it’s time for a nerdy adventure..!

Both Flic 2 🖇️ buttons and Twist 🖇️ dimmers. ↩︎
I’ve tried a bit to get it up and running, but with no luck. Home.app on my phone simply doesn’t find the Homebridge instanse running on the Mac. Maybe something about Tailscale messing up? ↩︎
«Why can’t you just use regular light switches like a normal person??» ↩︎
I will check these out — but none of them look like they give me exactly what I want. ↩︎
I really wish I could repurpose my Futurehome hub to do this… It has both Zigbee and Z-wave radios in it. ↩︎
I have my father-in-law’s old Google Wi-Fi, mostly without a wired backhaul. Something to look at in the future, for sure! ↩︎
I don’t know my VMs from my containers! ↩︎
First I added all the Ikea lights to the Philips Hub. However, this was very unstable when controlled them via Home.app. So, yes, adding everything to HA would be my third time resetting everything… ↩︎
(I really feel like I should be rocking the Framework laptope/Fairphone combo in the future…) ↩︎

Playing With Icon Composer and the Bike Icon

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 14:24:31 +0100

One of my favourite apps to use, is Bike Outliner by Jesse Grosjean/Hogbay Software. It’s simply delightful through-and-through.

He’s hard at work on a really promising 2.0, and I wanted to play with Apple’s new Icon Composer. So I wanted to see if I could contribute and adapt Bike’s icon to the new style.

The original/current icon.

Not optimal

The original Bike icon (which I don’t love as much as the app itself) isn’t optimal for this style. If you look at Apple’s documentation, it’s especially clear to see that it’s easier to get a nice result with few largish objects you can layer.

Also, I’m absolutely not a designer. But I did my best to create:

A first draft

One thing I’ve thought about the original icon, is that the spokes on the wheels are many and small. On the sizes where the icon is actually used, this makes them blur into each other. However, this isn’t necessarily something negative. (And I know Jesse likes it.) To me, it gives an impression of the bike being in motion.

Here’s what I did:

I redrew all the elements (except the head) to make them thick enough so that the glass effect in Icon Composer would apply.
Then I separated them into the maximum of four layers Apple allows:
- The spokes and wheels at the bottom,
- then a layer of transparent circles that blur the spokes,
- then the frame,
- and lastly, the seat and handlebar on top.

For some reason, the large wheel looks less blurred than the small one — even though they are on the same layer with the same amount of effect. I wish I could separate them (the small wheel looks better with slightly less blur) — but only four layers are allowed…

The same issue was annoying with an earlier version (that I also quite like), where I had some circles behind the spokes instead:

Here I added a white circle behind the spokes, to make the wheels pop a bit more. But I wish I could have the small wheel match the large one… Also, here I have more, and thinner, spokes, to create the blur at smaller sizes.

One way to fix it, would be to sacrifice having the seat and handlebar on a separate layer. But they look nice on top! It could also, perhaps, be fixed by not having the circles have the same colour in the first place.

To be honest, I think the version with the circle behind the spokes looks the best — especially on larges sizes like in the context above. However, that’s not the context where it will be used. And I think the first one I showed might fit the macOS 26 aesthetics the most.

Here you can also see the tinted and clear version of what I'll call Version A.

And the same for Version B.

Thoughts?

I’d love to hear feedback on these! And, if you want to look at them, and perhaps try it out, they can be downloaded via this Dropbox link. The export from Icon Composer doesn’t fit the mould for Sequoia, though. But I’ve made manual export for that in light and dark mode.

Quick Recommendation #11: StarCraft 2 (Video Game)

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 18:07:00 +0100

When Blizzard Was the Best in the Business

Growing up, I played a lot of the original StarCraft. (Even more than Broodwar.) So I was obviously hyped when StarCraft 2 launched 12 years later, in 2010.

This was back when Blizzard Entertainment only made great games (even though I’ve never been into Word of Warcraft), and hadn’t discovered microtransactions and undercooked remasters. I both played through the campaign and was mediocre on the ranked ladder,¹ and it was great!

Even though the game is 13 years old, there’s still an active pro scene and community. And recently, the YouTube algorithm decided to serve me a really charming channel: WinterStarcraft. His bread-and-butter is him casting pro matches, and I just love it. (To actually give the videos a chance to reach new viewers, the titles and thumbnails are really click-bait-y. But the content is good!)

For a place to start, I can recommend this video and match. (The third game is especially great.)

The game went free-to-play, via Battle.net, in 2017 – and this also includes the first part of the campaign: Wings of Liberty. That’s 20+ hours of gameplay right there – and if you’d like, you can then pay to unlock the rest of the single player content (Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void + Nova Covert Ops). This is also included in Xbox Game Pass.

Even though real-time strategy can be a bit daunting, the Starcraft 2 campaign is really accessible. It teaches you the game in a great way, feeds you mechanics bit-by-bit, and has a lot of challenge adjustability with difficulty levels and optional objectives. I just really like the world and story. (The Zerg, admittedly quite inspired by Xenomorphs, are some of the coolest things created.) And the game is just so polished.

This was also when Blizzard ported their games to Mac.

So even though it isn’t very optimised for Apple Silicon, it still works great on my M1 Pro. However, I did have an issue with the sound – but it’s fixable:

For some reason, the sound output would crackle if the microphone is active.² However, barring StarCraft 2 access to the microphone, through Privacy and Security in System Settings, fixed it. (I also have to close SoundSource.)

GL HF!

I think I reached Diamond League at some point. ↩︎
Both on AirPods, EarPods and Studio Display speakers. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #10: Hemispheric Views (Podcast)

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 07:42:26 +0100

Episode 137 Is the Perfect Place to Get Into the Most Charming Tech Podcast

Some reasons why Hemispheric Views is one of my favourite tech podcasts:

Three sympathetic hosts, with great chemistry.
Some Australian perspective in my life.
The goal of the episodes being “a tight 45” (minutes).
Great bits and running jokes. (For instance, their member program is called One Prime Plus. 😁)

I can recommend last week’s episode, 137: I Had a Pi in the Drawer, as a good place to start! It’s both accessible and gives a good impression of the show. And as I’m a bit late to posting this, you’ll then also have this week’s episode ready if you want another one immediately.

I also recommend following the hosts:

Martin 🇦🇺,
Andrew 🇦🇺,
and Jason 🇺🇸.

Don't Chop Up Your Apple Trees to Make Barrels for Your Apples

Tue, 27 May 2025 10:50:59 +0100

The CEO of The Browser Company, the company behind the Arc browser, recently posted a lengthy Reddit post. He explained why they’ve abandoned Arc, and discussed a bit about their plans going forward.

They’ve made a huge pivot to an upcoming AI browser they’re calling Dia. But I just wanted to comment on this, very stupid, approach, from the portion about what makes an “AI browser” different:

1. Webpages won’t be the primary interface anymore. Traditional browsers were built to load webpages. But increasingly, webpages — apps, articles, and files — will become tool calls with AI chat interfaces.

They really don’t see the major flaw in this approach?

The AI models are completely worthless without training data,¹ which they scrape from webpages. If people don’t visit webpages, the incentives to create the content disappears. What do they think this will do to the quality of the “tool calls” over time?

“Hmm, we need some barrels for all of these apples we just picked from our orchard… I got a great idea! The trees are worthless now, without apples – so let’s just chop them down and use the wood to make the barrels. I’m sure this won’t have any ramifications for the future.”

When something is worthless without a component, but highly valuable with it, you’d think the people producing the component should be compensated somewhat – but I digress. ↩︎

The Single Piece of AI Legislation I'd Start With

Wed, 14 May 2025 12:10:55 +0100

One Simple Rule

I know that creating laws is very hard — especially at a global scale.¹ And figuring out what to do about the rise of AI is the same. But I have an idea about where I’d start, that I would love to spitball.

My opinion regarding generative AI is currently something like this:

It’s not as useful and amazing as the salesmen claim it is. And overestimating it has its dangers.
At the same time, it also does have plenty of very useful use-cases — and more to come.
However, it being useful isn’t the same as it being a net-good, or that there aren’t very problematic consequences that need to be dealt with. (I wrote more about this here.)

My suggestion…

… for the first rule is quite simple (in concept):

It must be easy to find out if a piece of content is part of a model’s training data or not.

I know I’m far from the first to think of this. And during the process of writing this, I was happy to learn that, among others, Dua Lipa and Paul McCartney agree with me. 🔥

I know that AI companies will say something like: “But that’s not possible with the way we’re training these models!”

To that, I say:“OK, then change it.” If it worsens them for a while, so be it. Checking if people are pirating books on company laptops should be easy. And also for New York Times to find out if their stuff is being used by OpenAI.

Whether or not training is fair use is a different discussion,² but that can come afterward.

If the AI companies don’t want this transparency, I’d call that straight up suspicious cowardice.

And in the US, apparently. ↩︎
I don’t think so. ↩︎

Locked-In-O-Meter: iPhone Edition

Sun, 11 May 2025 17:55:18 +0100

I use several Apple devices. This is partly because I like them, and partly because I think they’re more worthy of my support than (for instance) Microsoft and Google.

However, Apple is doing their best to invalidate that second point. I’d also love to be able to support cool companies, like Framework and Fairphone.

So, I want to examine: How locked-in would I rate myself? Starting with the iPhone.

And I’m not just talking about being locked-in for nefarious reasons. I’m also talking about things I simply prefer about having an iPhone.

Hardware

I do like my current iPhone 13 Mini – and also my wife’s iPhone 15 Pro. However, from a hardware perspective, I would have zero issues moving to something else instead.

I’d either buy a Fairphone (the 5 has been out for a while, so interested in seeing what they do with the 6th version), or maybe a flip phone of some kind 🖇️. I think that’s the logical next step for a Mini Phone Person like myself.

Especially as long as my wife has access to a good camera, I’m not very picky about my phone hardware.

Accessories

The AirPods Pro 2 are perhaps my favourite Apple product ever. I like the sound, form factor, noise cancellation/modes, Find My features in the case, and the transfer between (Apple) devices. They’d probably still be decent buds with an Android phone – but I’d most likely be more happy getting something else. Probably less happy than I am with AirPods + iPhone today, though…

The Fairbuds are actually repairable!

In our house, the Apple TV is the only TV interface. It’s not that I love it – but the competition is terrible. I just want to be able to pay for a nice box that gets out of the way, and isn’t stuffed with ads. I had hopes that Sonos could create something more premium than the Rokus of the world – so I was sad to hear about the cancellation…

I like that I can control the TV with my phone (and easily get the sound to the AirPods) – so losing that would be a bummer.

Software

In general, I don’t use a lot of Apple’s own software. As my app defaults show, I just find that I almost always prefer third-party options. However, there are a couple of things me and my wife use together. And I want to try my best to not have my choices affect her more negatively than necessary…

We have a shared iCloud Photo Library, which works well. Something like Google Photos would probably work OK – but Apple bars it from integrating nicely with iPhones. And going into bed with Google, instead of Apple, is a step backwards in terms of ethics. So I would have to find something else, that would still be pleasant to use for my wife.

We also use Reminders.app a bit, and Apple Notes, for some shared stuff. But I think finding decent cross-platform alternatives here would be easier than with the photo library.

I use Shortcuts a bit, which would also be something I’d miss.

Telegram negates some ecosystem lock-in

I know that Telegram is a controversial recommendation…

I don’t like the company/people/values behind it.
- But at least it’s a different (and not American) company than the other companies I don’t like — and that are much more dominant.
It doesn’t have the highest grade of security. (Chats are mostly not end-to-end encrypted, and “only” encrypted on the server.)
- This is vital to know — but it’s not an issue for me. (I care more about not having tracking and ads.)
- I’d also argue that the security is about on-par with iMessage:
  - As long as only one chat participant has regular iCloud backups turned on, iMessage is also “only” encrypted on the server.
  - And as a user, you can’t really tell!

However, in the context of the Apple ecosystem it provides cross-platform replacements for (and improves!) at least three parts:

iMessage
- As I’ve written about previously, it’s just a really good chat app.
- I especially like the powerful group chat features.
- It also provides a great, and cross-platform, place to share photos.
FaceTime
- Both voice and video chats work great (and are always end-to-end encrypted).
AirDrop
- I’ve always found AirDrop to be very unreliable — and I hate waiting and hoping the correct device shows up.
- With Telegram, you can quickly send files up to 2 GB (and 4 GB with Premium).
- You can both send to others and yourself (with Saved Messages).
- And the cloud sync makes it so it doesn’t take up space on your device.

In other words, some common things keeping people in the Apple ecosystem don’t really apply to me.

Also, I've got to say: Even as an Apple user myself, I'm a bit judgy towards those who insist on using iMessage. 🙊 One thing is using non-cross-platform things within close family — that's fine. But putting pressure on what devices people buy in a broader social circle is simply a bit shitty… I've shown Telegram to a bunch of non-interested people, aged 10-80, and have had zero issues with them not figuring it out. That's also one of the reasons I like the (not the highest) level of security in Telegram: It makes it easier to use and get into. There are no usability compromises no matter which other service they're used to. I'm sure most would be able to figure out something like Signal as well. (Even though the file sharing limits, lack of backups and cloud sync, and encryption could be small stumbling blocks.)

However, third-party exclusives are my biggest “problem”…

Even though I’m not a developer, I get genuinely pissed when I see how Apple are treating, and talking about, third-party developers. In Apple’s reality, they (and their platforms) are providing all the value and business in that relationship – so they’re entitled to extract as much out of third-party developers as they can.

For some reason, they don’t see the way third-party developers provide value the other way, making their platforms more valuable.

One thing is with large (but small, compared to Apple) companies, like Spotify – that don’t have in-app-purchases for their subscription on iOS. In Apple’s view, this is unfair, as Spotify gets access to Apple’s platform without paying anything. But you can also look at it from a different perspective: I’m a subscriber to Tidal, Netflix, and YouTube – and the companies behind these cross-platform services make the iPhone a viable phone for me, by maintaining apps for the platform. And Apple doesn’t even pay them anything! It’s almost like it’s a mutually beneficial relationship…

But I’m even more annoyed when it comes to the way Apple treats (especially smaller) developers of platform exclusive apps…

A culture of paying for apps

If one were to compare the free apps available for macOS/iOS and Windows/Linux/Android, I’m sure the quality wouldn’t be that far apart. However, I just love that if I want to pay a bit for some nicer software, that’s available to me on Apple platforms. The culture of people being willing to pay for software is so important, and has made it possible for more people, especially indies, to make a living making (also small) apps.

Let’s compare it to pizza restaurants: You can get fast-food pizza on all platforms – no problem. However, if you want to pay a bit more for some great Neapolitan pizza, that simply isn’t available on Windows/Linux/Android. If that’s not something you would like to prioritise, that’s perfectly fine, of course. Then it not being an option isn’t a concern for you. But it is to me.

I mentioned many more in this blog post, but I’m talking about apps like NotePlan, Paper, Lire, Overcast, Raycast 🖇️, CleanShot X, BetterTouchTool, KeyboardMaestro, Callsheet, Ulysses, Bike, BusyCal, and Mona. Here’s something I want Tim Cook to really understand: I’m buying Apple devices because of the people behind apps like this. I don’t buy these apps because I have Apple devices.¹

I also like Setapp 🖇️, and that I can pay ~€12/month and truly improve the experience of using my devices.²

John Gruber also touched on this today, in the blog post Developers as Suppliers:

Apple should view developers as a precious resource to be cultivated, encouraged, and protected — not as a profit center to be squeezed. The only benefit from developers to Apple that Apple should be concerned with are the first-class apps those developers are creating to enrich and broaden Apple’s platforms.

To sum it up, these are the things pointing towards my next phone also being an iPhone:

Let’s say I wanted to buy a Fairphone 6 in the future. Here’s a list of things that would need to be solved or lived with (or just questions I have). 👇🏻

(BTW, the reason I’m focusing on replacing my iPhone, and not my Mac, in this post, is that the latter would be much more painful. I intend to write about that later, though!)

I’d probably want a new pair of earbuds at some point – and the experience would likely be worse than with the AirPods Pro 2s.
- Maybe something from Fairphone or Sony? Perhaps paired with the Sonos headphones?
I think I’d lose the ability to control our Apple TV.
In general, the value of my Setapp subscription will be lowered, as I can’t get phone apps (and some Mac apps will become less valuable without access to their mobile companion).
I’d have to find a new way for my wife and me to share photos.
- Could NextCloud work?
I’d also have to find a place for us to share notes and tasks.
I’d also need a new place for my own notes and tasks. These are now in NotePlan – and I’m excited about the beta with Teamspaces, as I have hope I can give my wife NotePlan, and use that to replace Notes.app and Reminders.app. I also do most of my writing in Paper (also on the iPhone).
- Obsidian is an option, which I do use for some other things. But it’s just so much less nice. 😩
I assume I would be able to find an enjoyable calendar app?
- One of the Setapp apps I like is BusyCal – so I guess I’d have to look at Android alternatives. As I have backend sync elsewhere, I don’t have to use the same app for mobile and desktop, though.
Currently, I actually don’t have a Mastodon app on my phone, as detailed in this post. But I really like Mona, so I would have to look at the Android alternatives and hope.
I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, and would have to find a replacement for Overcast.
- Hopefully, something like Pocket Casts could be OK. It’s much more expensive, though…
I read RSS feeds in Lire and Ebooks is Yomu – and I would have to examine alternatives for these as well.
I have my bookmarks in Anybox currently, as I like it better than Raindrop, which I used previously. But the latter is cross-platform, and using it would be fine.
I really like the video player Infuse, as a way to watch stuff from my Jellyfin library. I know that there are options for Android – but they’re probably not as nice… And I’d likely lose sync with my other devices.
The last thing is very niche, but also something that I value highly at the moment, and is likely impossible to replace with something equally good: Mango Baby Tracker
- It does one job, and does it very well – while leveraging many iPhone features, like Live Activities, Shortcuts, etc. We use it to track nursing, sleep, medication, etc., of young Alfred. I can start a timer on my phone, and it appears instantly on my wife’s iPhone…

If I were to rate my locked-in-ness from 1 (easy/preferable to move) to 10 (impossible to move), I’d perhaps give myself a 6.

I think the most problematic/annoying things would be iCloud Photo Library, tasks and notes (both shared and personal), baby tracker, and generally being able to use apps I find to be nice.

And I can literally think of zero reasons why I’d prefer an Android (/eOS) phone, except the flip form factor or wanting to support Fairphone.

If you’re an Apple user, how locked-in do you feel? What keeps you there? (Both positive and negative things.)
Do you have advice for solutions to my “problems”?
Are there any other things that should pull me towards Android?

Yes, it goes a bit both ways – but the afforementioned is the main causaility. ↩︎
Here’s a blog post about the apps on Setapp I use and like. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #9: Niléane

Sun, 11 May 2025 10:38:11 +0100

Just a Really Cool Woman

In this instalment of Quick Remmondations, I’m going to recommend a person in general!

While listening to the last few episodes of one of my favourite tech podcasts, Comfort Zone, a thought has been growing in me: “I think Niléane might be one of my favourite people online!” (I do like both Matt and Chris as well, to be clear. 🫶🏻)

She’s French-Réunionnese – and in addition to the podcast, she, among other things, writes for MacStories, creates a great theme for Mastodon called TangerineUI, and is the president of Toutes des Femmes.

Recently, she wrote a great post, called Are Pride Wallpapers and a Watch Band Enough in 2025?, and that pushed me over the edge to write this recommendation. (I also really liked this follow-up post by Matt. 👌🏻)

Why I think she’s a treasure for the community:

As a European,¹ I value her French perspective. (And I have a soft spot for France, as my wife’s a French teacher, and we’ve lived there!)

I also like that she has a bunch of fresh preferences, and ways of doing (also small) things. Like how she’s moved to mostly listening to music offline (instead of streaming),² and that she doesn’t use a task manager.

She has a great way of talking about LGBTQ issues, being both powerful, clear, and pedagogical. And I really appreciate her values when it comes to other things as well, like ethics in tech.

Oh, and in general, I just find her funny and interesting.

But enough fan-boy-ing from me for now!

Check out her writings over at MacStories,
subscribe to Comfort Zone,
buy her a cup of coffee,
and follow her on Mastodon. (And speak up if you find some people talking crap in her mentions.)

I’m from Norway – which aren’t a part of the EU, but is close both in terms of culture and economics. ↩︎
She uses Doppler. ↩︎

Raycast for iOS Is Out

Thu, 01 May 2025 11:00:26 +0100

A Companion to My Favourite Mac Launcher

Raycast 🖇️ is one of my favourite parts about using a Mac. It’s a great launcher, that I also use for snippets, window management, searching, setting a bunch of hotkeys (like for shortcuts), and more. It’s also my main window to AI tools, and the only AI subscription I have.

I’m working on a full post on how I use Raycast – but now I just wanted to share that the iOS version is out.

Obviously, very limited (thanks Apple)

Most of what Raycast does on the Mac is, obviously, not even close to allowed on iOS. So this new app is mostly just a companion for the Mac app.

Raycast did a large overhaul of their notes feature in november – and if you’re a user of this (which I’m not) having access to them on mobile is nice.

You also get access to your snippets and “quick links” (which I don’t use either).

But the thing I’ll use the iOS app for, is access to my AI chats. Not only does it sync the conversations from the Mac, I’ll also be able to use all the premium models I’m paying for. This greatly increases the value of my Raycast subscription.

As I don’t pay directly to any AI vendor, I’ve been using only free options on mobile. I don’t use AI chat that much, and even less on mobile, so I’ve been content enough with Mistral’s Le Chat.¹ But having access to all of Raycast is a large upgrade here.

I like using a European alternative, if I can. ↩︎

An (Imperfect) Solution for USB-C Devices Without PD

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 12:55:49 +0100

You Know, Those Who Need USB-A on the Other End

I just listened to the latest episode of the Upgrade podcast. It was Myke Hurley’s first episode after his parental leave – and as someone who got my first child less than a week ago, the episode obviously resonated with me.

I intend to write a bit about some baby tech – but here I just wanted to throw out a quick recommendation for an annoyance Myke brought up.

(Click here to jump straight to the solution!)

USB-C is great – but also a lie

The good thing about “everything” being USB-C, is that every cable fits into every socket. However, the problem is that you suddenly don’t always know if things will work. For instance, what’s the maximum amount of charging a cable can give? And when do you need a Thunderbolt cable? And how can you tell what a cable is?

In the Upgrade episode, Myke mentioned another issue: If the USB-C device doesn’t include everything that’s needed for USB-C Power Delivery, the USB-C cable might need to be USB-A on the other end.

For instance, this is the case with the, otherwise great, Anbernic RG35XX_ 🖇️ retro hand-held. If I connect it to my 140W charger, with a powerful USB-C to USB-C cable, it gets “scared” (because it doesn’t have the smarts to ask for less power), and doesn’t want to charge. However, if it senses a USB-A on the other end, it knows that it can’t draw too much power, so it “dares” to charge.¹

This is nothing but poor design from the device maker, as giving it the necessary smarts is both cheap and easy – but it’s still something one encounters from time to time.

The most obvious solution …

… is to simply buy a USB-A charger that you then use for those specific devices. And this is what Myke said he had done, for the multiple baby tech devices needing special treatment. But then you need to both have a custom cable for these devices and a custom charger. (By “charger” I mean the actual charging brick, not including the cable.)

There’s a (slightly) better way!

However, I really want to streamline things, and only deal with chargers with USB-C ports. The answer is a USB-A to USB-C adapter — which I also wrote about in this post about why you don’t really need a USB-A port for your desktop computer.

What you can do, is the following:

Buy a USB-A to USB-C cable 🖇️,
put a USB-A to USB-C adapter 🖇️ on the USB-A end of it,
and suddenly, you have a USB-C to USB-C cable that can charge those annoying devices.

You could just go for a USB-A charger plus a a USB-A to USB-C cable. However, having all USB-C chargers is really nice!

However, using a little adapter like this turns it into a "special" (extra slow) USB-C to USB-C cable!

And now you, at least, can continue using the USB-C chargers you use for everything else.

It’s not a perfect solution… It’s still annoying, and I hope device makers stop being stupid. But you do move from needing both a bespoke cable and charger, and to “only” needing a bespoke cable.

At least this is how I roughly think it works. ↩︎

Making My Phone More Boring

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 17:49:30 +0100

Not More Dumb

There are numerous reviews of the new Light Phone III going around – and this has invigorated discussions about having a dumber phone. There are also Android e-ink devices going around, with 🖇️ or without 🖇️ a SIM slot, which are cool. A friend of mine is considering how far he can get with the combination of an Apple Watch with a SIM and a Boox Palma. 👌🏻

I’m 100% in the category of too dependent on my phone. However, I don’t think having a dumber phone is the solution for me. I want one that’s more boring.

The problem with out phones isn’t that they’re too useful. It’s that they’re “too fun”. And by that I mean “too fun” like how junk food is “too good” for our own good.

Because, things like being able to buy transit tickets, pre-heat my car, and control my lights are not issues for me. And neither is easy access to a camera, calculator, music, weather forecasts, etc.

I do have some issues with my phone, though…

I have ADHD – and also a history (and not only a history) of anxiety and depression. So I really struggle with being uncomfortable with my mind wandering and being left to its own devices. This has led to me “needing” to fill every void with … something.

I want to try to work on this – especially as we’re expecting a baby next month.

Before mentioning what I have done to my phone: One thing I’m choosing not to tackle at the moment, is my over-usage of podcasts. Not listening to anything makes me uneasy. And often music isn’t even enough, and I require something like a podcast. That’s because the latter demands more of my mind. To put it a bit exaggerated: I want to listen to a podcast while going out with the rubbish. I intend to think more about this – but at the moment, I haven’t deleted Overcast or anything.

I do want to try to have it be more quiet around me, though – or at least “only” have music. (However, I know that will make things less quiet on the inside…) So, I’ve deleted the YouTube app from my phone. I don’t want to never use my phone for video, though – but maybe more intentional TV shows, etc. instead.

I also have an issue where I want to fill every little sliver of free time (like waiting a minute for something to load) with reading something quick – often in Mona (Mastodon) or Narwhal (Reddit). So, I’ve deleted all social media apps like this. I’ve kept Lire, my RSS reader, for now. I’ve also loaded up my phone with some ebooks.

I don’t get a ton of emails et al., so I’ve kept that and messaging platforms. However, I’ve tweaked notifications to make them more restrictive.

I don’t play games that much on my phone. However, as I might if I had less other stuff to do, I’ve deleted everything a part from Chess and Sudoku. 🤓

Lastly, I’ve turned my phone into almost greyscale. (I did make the toggle easily accessible in Control Center, though.) This serves two purposes: Making it more boring, and reminding me of this experiment. I also turned on the Differentiate Without Colour option (or whatever it’s called in English).

Turns out the screenshot wasn't in greyscale when I looked at it on my Mac. 😅 So I had to manually de-saturate it.

Great news for my iPad!

Even though I only have a Mini phone, I’ve almost stopped using my 2018 11-inch iPad Pro. However, as I haven’t done any of this to that as of now, maybe I’ll use it some more! I don’t mind that, though – as picking that up is more intentional.

Some things I didn’t want to do:

I have several problems with something as limited as the Light Phone. And some of them are that I would be making life harder for others. Suddenly, I’m not available on the messaging platform we’re using, for instance. People I’m with would also have to do things for me – when we’re out-and-about for instance. (Like navigation.)

I also don’t use a wallet, as I pay with my phone – so having to start carrying one of those would be annoying. And again: Me paying for stuff with my phone isn’t a problem in and of itself. It’s that it can easily lead to other things – so I’d rather try to eliminate those.

Having access to things like 1Password and notes, calendar and tasks is also important. The latter also helps with my ADHD – both by helping me remember stuff, and by allowing me to dump things I suddenly remember.

Now, let’s see how long this lasts…

I haven’t gone for something that radical. For instance, we’ll see how much I’ll just jump into doing the same problematic stuff in the browser… I also haven’t started being even harsher on notifications, or tweaking even more with Focus Modes. But it’s still interesting to see how annoyed I’ll be…

However, I do think I’m onto something: Phones don’t necessarily need to be dumber – just more boring. Heck, I’d even argue a more boring phone is a smarter phone

I’ll report back!

I Had to Expand the External Storage on My Secondary Mac Mini

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 15:39:13 +0100

I first wrote about this Mac and its setup here — and then I have an update here. However, quite quickly, I learned that the 2 TB of storage I had purchased wasn’t enough.

The main culprit is Time Machine — and while I could probably do something to minimise the usage, backing up my wife’s MacBook Air (512 GB) and my MacBook Pro (512 GB) currently takes up about 1.1 TB.

I was considering upgrading the internal storage on the Mac, as more and more options for this gets released. However, none of my use-cases for storage benefits from being internal — so I did something else.

New hardware

So, I previously only had a 2 TB SSD 🖇️ in a Satechi Thunderbolt enclosure 🖇️. And here’s what I did:

I purchased a (cheaper and slower) Satechi USB-C enclosure 🖇️, and a 4 TB SSD 🖇️.
Then I moved the old 2 TB SSD over to the slower USB-C enclosure,
and slipped the new 4 TB drive into the faster Thunderbolt enclosure.

Swapping the drives was fast and easy.

Both enclosures shipped with a thermal pad. Especially useful on the Thunderbolt variant – that thing gets warm. It can't be placed on the enclosure on the USB-C variant. However, it doesn't have a lot of adhesive, so it's fine.

A noticeable size difference (also in thickness, which I forgot to take a picture of). The plastic cover is supposed to help with the heat.

The black one for the USB-C one is a bit longer. It's practical that they're not the same colour.

Software tweaks

I kept the Time Machine backups on the (now) slow 2 TB, and moved everything else to the fast 4 TB. “Everything” in this context was:

My Dropbox folder, synced with Maestral
(which includes my Jellyfin library)
our iCloud Photo Library, and its backup,
some more random backup stuff,
my Steam library,
my MailMate folder,
and my default folder for installing large App Store apps (not that I have any) and games through the Heroic launcher.

One thing gave me an issue, though…

My 2 TB drive had the name Satechi SSD. But as I now had two of those, I renamed it to Satechi C-SSD – and I named the new one Satechi TB-SSD. However, Time Machine didn’t enjoy me changing the name of the target location. So I had to set it up again – an even though I pointed to the old backups, I think it reset itself. In other words, I lost my (not too deep) file history.

One hour later…

All-in-all, everything went fine – and it didn’t take long. And I think this little journey shows the pros of the flexibility offered by using enclosures instead of “regular” external drives.

✉️ How, and Why, I Use Micro.blog

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 16:22:19 +0100

A friend of mine, Simen (who has a nice, Norwegian blog), asked me about Micro.blog. That’s where this blog is hosted, and is also a social medium of sorts.

His questions

First, I want to give quick answers to the questions he had – and then go into more detail on how I’ve set things up.

1) “Which tier do you use, and why?"

Micro.blog has several tiers:

When I signed up, they only had the $5/month and $10/month plans. And I don’t quite remember what made me require the Premium plan – but things has been restructured now, so I could probably make do with one plan lower. If my friend wants to move to Micro.blog, we could go for a Family plan. 🫶🏻

I don’t find any value in things like notes and bookmarking, as I’d much rather use dedicated tools for this. I also don’t really use the newsletter feature – so I can’t really comment on that.

2) “Which features do you appreciate the most?"

I like the cross-posting features and robust ActivityPub support. For instance, the comment feature here is neat:

And comments made via things like Mastodon will show up here as well.

I also like that there are great option for third-party apps for publishing, like Ulysses, Drafts, and MarsEdit.

And I find that the platform has a good balance between being easy enough to use, while also being powerful and flexible enough to form into what I need. An example of the contrary was how I couldn’t find a way to have WordPress have a front-page with the start of my blog posts like I have now. (I’ll go into how I’m doing that later.)

3) “How is it different from the alternatives?"

Before I tried WordPress, my blog was on Write.as. However, that was too simple, and not expandable enough. With Micro.blog I can freely add features via Javascript, for instance. (Examples below.) And it also has a plug-in system (even though it’s far from as powerful as WordPress in that regard).

I know that Simen uses Quartz, which I also use for my band’s website. This is a nice static site generator where you, for instance, can simply “push” an Obsidian vault. However, this doesn’t have integrated newsletter support, doesn’t support ActivityPub, and doesn’t have cross-posting (among other things).

4) What’s missing? Or is too clunky?

One thing Quartz is better suited for, though, is digital gardens. Micro.blog is absolutely built around traditional, chronological blogging.

I also find uploads to be very clunky, when I don’t do it through Shortcuts. I can only upload one file at the time – and there’s no way, even in the … menu, to copy just the URL to the file. (I have to carve it out from the HTML or Markdown.) 👇🏻

The ActivityPub posts that Micro.blog push, for the long-form posts, are also very lacklustre, IMO. Just the title, and link to the post:

And I don’t like the social media part of the service – which I’ll get into next.

However, I’m generally delighted with the place I’ve gotten this blog!

My use, and how I got there

I’m largely a total novice when it comes to web stuff. So setting up this blog has been a way for me to learn. I’ve gotten a lot of help from LLMs – but I don’t want to go full vibe coding: I want to understand so I learn.

One can use Micro.blog as a social media, like Mastodon. However, I find having conversations and consuming much better via one of the terrific third-party Mastodon clients, compared to Micro.blog. The new Micro Social app improves it for iOS, but still…

So I just use the timeline and conversations sparingly.

Theme

My theme is a highly edited version of the Tiny theme, by Matt Langford. The CSS is written totally from scratch by me – but I take advantage of the framework for Microhooks. Check out his newer themes, Sumo and Bayou!

I’ll touch on things I’ve added to the theme in the next section.

Plugins and JS

I’ve expanded the features via native plugins, custom forks of plugins, and some javascript.

Glightbox

Check out this blog post for details on my photo workflow. It’s based it on an edited version of a Glightbox plugin. And code for an image looks like this:

<div class="lazy-placeholder medium"
	style="background-image:
		url(https://havn.blog/uploads/2025/cleanshot-2025-04-04-at-14.39.372x.png);">
	[{<glightbox src=
		"https://havn.blog/uploads/2025/cleanshot-2025-04-04-at-14.39.372x.webp"
		alt="Explained above."
		title="" description="" >}}
</div>

I set 'small', 'medium', or 'large', which I then have CSS rules for.

I use a shortcut that

Asks me to select an image,
prompt me for alt text,
creates a lazy loading version and webp version,
uploads them to Micro.blog,
and then spits back the code above.

Tinylytics

The site uses Tinylytics, via a Micro.blog plugin. As previously mentioned, I’m firmly in the writing into the void phase of blogging. So just knowing that someone is visiting the site is very nice. ☺️

Open Graph Cards

This is another plugin I have, that, I think, makes the links I share to posts look better.

Summaries

I’ve adjusted the Summaries add-on to the Tiny theme. In short, this allows me to add a shortcode in my posts:  Only things up to that code will be shown on the front page, and a Read More button is added at that point. I love this flexibility.¹

Barefoot

Footnotes, like the one above, are made via a Barefoot plugin that I’ve customised a bit. However, I haven’t made it work inside the summaries on the front page. 😕

These, and links, are my favourite parts of my, admittedly kind of extra, CSS code and animations. I am a bit ashamed that my links can go over more than one line, though…

Highlight.js

This is what I use to get syntax highlighting on code.

hr {
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;

    margin: var(--margin-line) 0;
    border: unset;

    &::before {
        display: block;
        content: "";

        height: var(--thickness-line-1);
        width: clamp(8rem, 5.6rem + 10.667vw, 12rem);
        background-color: var(--mid-blue);
        border-radius: var(--radius-1);
    }
}

Like this. 👆🏻

Lite-youtube-embed

This is what I use to make YouTube embeds liter. Explained more in this blog post.

Soundcite

I use Soundcite to create clickable sound bites like this.

<span class="soundcite" data-url="https://havn.blog/uploads/2025/nice.mp3" data-start="0" data-plays="1">this</span>

The code for the above.

Other JS

I also have some Javascript for a couple of features:

The reading indicator on single posts,
the back-to-top arrow,
and lazy loading of images.

Other CSS features

A couple of “features” are made only with CSS + HTML:

I’m using <figcaption> to indicate captions – which are then styled.

I’ve also created a mobile version of the galleries, which I’m quite happy with. And I’m using something similar to get scrolling on wider tables.

	Norway	Sweden	Denmark	Finland	Iceland
Capital:	Oslo	Stockholm	Copenhagen	Helsinki	Reykjavík
Population:	5,594,340	10,588,230	5,982,117	5,603,851	389,444

Some info on the Nordics!

I’m using this styling for quotes.

— Me

Callout

But this styling for "callouts".

Micro.blog doesn’t have a built-in feature for anchor links – but I can link to headings (and other stuff with IDs) manually, like this.

I’ve also recently added support for kbd and samp elements for keystrokes and computer inputs and outputs instead of using code.

So a keyboard shortcut could be like this: Command + A
And selecting a menu item can be like this: Edit → Select All

Lastly, I have a couple of hidden categories – for instance English and Norwegian, for “proper” blog posts in that language. My front page here is only those I mark with English, and it’s also so people can subscribe to the RSS they want. However, I don’t want it to say “English” at the bottom of every post. So I don’t recommend subscribing to the main RSS feed. Instead subscribe to the English and/or Norwegian feed. I want to see if I can find a way to not serve that main feed – as that would feature micro posts and both languages. I also always first post without the language tag. Because then I can fix problems before pushing to RSS and the front page.

Markdown

As the sicko I am, I have the following workflow:

All my Markdown files (notes, tasks, blog posts, and more) are located in NotePlan’s iCloud folder.
However, I mostly edit them with Paper.
And I proofread and publish with Ulysses.
- I’ve added NotePlan folders as external folders.
- I use keywords to create file posts into categories on Micro.blog.
- Ulysses also knows whether a post should be created or updated.
- I also use it to create tables.

I have a shortcut for creating new blog posts:

This asks for a title,
gives it title case,
creates a file in my drafts folder,
and opens the file in Paper.

I like that I simply edit the same file in all three programs, and that I can use whichever device I want.

Footnotes, tables, quotes, and more, are simply native Markdown. However, some things use HTML – like galleries, captions, callouts, and more. There are two main ways I make reproducing this easier:

1) Raycast 🖇️

Some snippets are saved in Raycast. For instance, typing ,sc gives me the code for Soundcite.

I also have an AI command that turns the selected Markdown text into HTML. For instance, I’ll use this to format text inside a callout.

2) Popclip

If I have text selected, and hit Hyper + M, I get this menu:

From left to right:

Wraps selected text in <figcaption> </figcaption>
Wraps selected text in <div class="callout"> </div>
Wraps selected text in <strong> </strong>
Wraps selected text in <em> </em>
Wraps selected text in <p class="lyric"> </p> (used for my band’s website)
Wraps selected text in <a href=""> </a>
Wraps selected text in <kbd> </kbd>
Wraps selected text in <samp>.</samp>
Changes select text to Title Case

Issues

Mostly, all of this interoperability works great. Ulysses detects HTML, and wraps it in something it calls Raw Source, so it gets passed properly to Micro.blog. However, an annoying bug makes it so  needs to be added later. (It’s also annoying that Ulysses needs 4 dashes to create an hr.)

Furthermore, the data Ulysses uses to know whether to update a post or publish it as a new one, is stored locally. So I can’t publish a post from my iPhone and then update it on my Mac. This has to be done from the same device.

I think all of this would’ve been fixed if I only used Ulysses (and stored the files in its library) – and that’s generally what I would recommend to others, hehe.

In general, though, I love my setup. It’s crucial that the friction be at an absolute minimum: Especially when it comes to creating new posts, adding images, and publishing. And I can do it all in excellent apps! 👌🏻

In addition to being a fantastic place to dump some of the things on my mind, this site is also a great playground for learning. It’s also a nice bonus that Micro.blog is a smaller player, trying their best (even though they’re not perfect) to make the web a better place.

Adding the code to the very end makes it so there’s no button, but the entire post is shown on the front page. Perfect! ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #8: Initial D

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:24:48 +0100

Drifting Anime, That Drips With Style

I’m not the biggest car-guy, even though I do enjoy a bit of car-YouTube from time to time.¹ But I just love the anime Initial D.

The cars they drive remind me of my first real racing game: Gran Turismo on the first Playstation. And it has cemented owning a car with pop-up headlights on my bucket list.

The show has lots of intense racing scenes, backed up by an insane eurobeat soundtrack. Trust me – it works.

Here’s the basic setting:

Takumi Fujiwara is a teenager that works part-time for his father’s Tofu shop – making deliveries in the early morning. His father, Bunta, is an old street racer, and while Takumi hasn’t inherited his interest, he has inherited his talent. And being a lazy teenager, who wants to get done quickly with his work, he simply started driving faster and faster.

He drives an old, but well-tuned, Toyota Corolla – and him getting laughed at for driving a car like that, with the name of the tofu shop on the side, is part of the charm.

How to watch

Here’s the order:

Initial D (referred to retroactively as First Stage): 26 episodes (1998)
Initial D Second Stage: 13 episodes (1999)
Initial D Extra Stage: 2-episode OVA side-story focusing on Impact Blue (2000)
Initial D Third Stage: a 104-minute movie (2001)
Initial D Fourth Stage: 24 episodes (2004–2006)
Initial D Extra Stage 2: a 50-minute OVA side-story focusing on Mako and Iketani (2008)
Initial D Fifth Stage: 14 episodes (2012–2013)
Initial D Final Stage: 4 episodes (2014)

In general, I prefer the original Japanese, and not the English dub. However, when watching while doing other stuff, it’s easier when I understand the language spoken, heh. So I jump between the two.

The English dub is available on Crunchy Roll – but for some annoying reason, I can’t set it to Japanese. However, most of the show appears to be available on YouTube – like here and here.

Keisuke Takahashi drives my favourite car from Gran Turismo: the Mazda RX-7.

If you at least have a passing interest in cars, I highly recommend giving the first few episodes a try!

A recommendation here, for light-hearted reviews, is Throttle House. ↩︎

Milestone Achieved: Linked to on a Podcast I Like

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 20:43:47 +0100

And a Guide to Pronunciation of My Name

One of my favourite tech podcasts, is Comfort Zone. It’s hosted by Christopher Lawley, Niléane Dorffer, and Matt Birchler, and is simply a pretty chill time with neat people.

Last week they asked for listener input, so I sent them a relevant blog post – and I got a little shoutout. ☺️

I’m thoroughly in the writing into the void phase of blogging. So every share, mention, and email really means a lot.¹

My name(s)

Matt made a valiant effort to pronounce my weird Norwegian name – but obviously failed spectacularly. So I thought I’d use this occasion to provide a little guide!

My name is Erlend. The d is always silent – but for some Norwegian dialects, the r is silent as well. And for English speakers, this is my recommendation.

Then you pronounce it like the name “Allen”, but slower: Alen

However, if you have r’s like me, or the French, you can pronounce it like this: Erlend

Oh, and then there’s my blog. The name Havn is Norwegian for harbour. The a is like the a in “car”: Havn

Go and give the podcast a listen! The banter is good, and they have interesting challenges every week.

Furthermore: Share and/or email a small blogger this week. 🫶🏻 It’s lovely when the void answers – and many of us don’t get any help from algorithms.

Hint, hint! ↩︎

Why I Don't Use LLMs for Facts

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 11:35:20 +0100

A Simple Story About iPhones and Perplexity

A couple of mates and I have a little (private) Telegram group called The Nerd Garden (in Norwegian). And, among other things, we talk about technical equipment there. Recently, a friend asked for advice on buying a used iPhone. He said he was considering the 15 Pro vs. regular 16, and shared a link to Perplexity.¹

Part of the answer he got there, was this table:

Feature	iPhone 15 Pro	iPhone 16
Build material	Titanium frame, matte glass back	Aluminium frame, glossy glass back
Display	6.1-inch OLED, ProMotion (120Hz)	6.1-inch OLED, standard 60Hz refresh rate
Processor	A17 Pro chip	A18
Camera System	Triple-camera system with telephoto (3x zoom)	Dual-camera system (no telephoto lens)
Main Camera	48 MP quad-pixel sensor	48 MP quad-pixel sensor
Zoom Capabilities	Up to 3x optical zoom + digital zoom	Up to 2x lossless zoom (cropped from main sensor)
Video Recording	ProRes video support	Standard video
Action Button	Customisable Action Button	Standard mute
Battery Life	~23 hours video playback	~22 hours video
Price	Higher price due to Pro features	More affordable

If you don’t know all the facts in this situation, nothing jumps out as being off here. However, not only does the iPhone 16 have an Action Button – it also has Camera Control. And I think it has slightly better battery life than the 15 Pro.

I continued in his Perplexity conversation, and asked: “Are you sure about the Action Button on the 16?” I got this response:

Yes, I am sure about the Action Button on the iPhone 16. The iPhone 16 series, including the base model, features an Action Button that replaces the traditional mute switch. This button is customizable and can perform a variety of functions beyond just toggling Silent Mode.

(…)

In contrast, the iPhone 15 Pro retains a traditional mute switch and does not have an Action Button like the iPhone 16 models.

— Perplexity

So, not only did it not understand that it was wrong the first time, it then said something else that wasn’t true.²

It also gave two sources for that last claim:

However, I followed these links, and they only lead to sources (correctly) saying that the iPhone 16 has an Action Button.

The confidence is the problem

There was no way to pick out the errors in the table. Even asking “Are you sure about the Action Button?” isn’t something that should be expected.

And when it gives two sources, why shouldn’t this be trusted? How would my friend be able to know that exactly these sources should be checked? (As we can assume many other claims would have the same number of sources.)

Two bags of peanuts

Bag 1:
- 50 peanuts
- 4% are bad – but these are brown, and clearly visible
Bag 2:
- 100 peanuts
- 1% are bad – but these are indistinguishable from the good ones

If you’d get sick if you ate a bad peanut, which bag would you choose? Even though Bag 2 has a bunch of pros, the cons outweigh them, if you ask me.

As you probably understood, Bag 2 is like LLMs for me. The opaque-ness makes it difficult to trust anything.

Gell-Mann amnesia effect (or LL-Mann amnesia effect)

The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is a cognitive bias describing the tendency of individuals to critically assess media reports in a domain they are knowledgeable about, yet continue to trust reporting in other areas despite recognizing similar potential inaccuracies.

— Wikipedia

Obviously, the simple iPhone hallucination wasn’t that important. However, If I want to avoid the Gell-Mann amnesia effect (or LL-Mann amnesia effect as we can call it in this context ☺️), it doesn’t make sense to trust it when dealing with subject matter I’m not knowledgable about.

Alternatively, it needs to be for facts I will immediately check manually. For instance, I had forgotten what the Gell-Mann amnesia effect was called – so I used Claude to remind me! As someone who does know about the differences between the 15 Pro and the 16, it could also be useful to create a first-draft to send to my friend – as I would be better placed to spot the mistakes. Simple code, that will either work or not, is another example.³

LLMs can be great for learning, and does have its use-cases – but you have to be vigilante. (I wrote more on this here.)

However, the iPhone situation shows why “LLMs as search engines” doesn’t make sense to me. At least “full-time”. I’d rather use a great search engine – also because I enjoy surfing the web, and usually don’t need something to do it for me. I want to reach the people behind the information.

I don’t want to share it here, as it might be a bit personal. ↩︎
To be clear: The 15 Pro only has the Action Button, while the 16 has both Action Button and Camera Control. ↩︎
However, I don’t vibe code. But for simple things, like CSS, it can be helpful. But I want to understand the code I use. ↩︎

Design Challenge: 65% ISO Mac Keyboard, Usable by Everyone

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 15:08:09 +0100

I Want Your Opinion!

I like custom keyboards, and a couple of years ago, I made my own:

It's a Laneware L-67 and Macro-1, with Less But Better keycaps.

However, three things made this process harder/more expensive (at least at the time):

I wanted a Mac layout, while most keyboards are made for Windows,
I needed the ISO layout, while most keyboards has the ANSI layout,
and the Norwegian layout is a subsection of ISO.

ANSI vs. ISO.

Enter: 3D printer

This spring, I’m moving from a tiny flat (in the city) into a large house (not in the city). And one of the things I’ll now get room for, is a 3D printer.¹ And as someone who likes tinkering and soldering, I want to try to create a keyboard, perhaps hand-wired, in the style of the legendary Joe Scotto.

In time, I would like to make a split keyboard for myself. But before that, I wanted to try to create a more standard keyboard. And I thought a fun challenge would be to design:

A simple keyboard for my wife

This provides the following criteria:

Have all features (except Touch ID) that she uses on her MacBook Air. This includes:
- All letter, number and symbol buttons,
- arrow keys,
- escape,
- and brightness and sound/music controls.
Be simple enough that she could just sit down and use it without any prior knowledge.
I also want to try to not have a function row. So closer to a 65% than a 75%.

The main issue with having no function row, is the escape key. It needs to be the top-left button, but then the button we use for apostrophes (next to 1) needs to be moved somewhere. I solved it by moving it to the ISO-key between Shift and Z, which usually is < and >. And then I access those with a special modifier. However, this wouldn’t work for a keyboard that’s supposed to be instantly usable by everyone.

3D print everything

Luckily, by making it completely custom, including the keycaps, I can get more creative with the solutions. And I’ve landed on three different alternatives, that are all cursed in their own unique way. 🤗

To get the function row functions, I’ve designed it with a rotary encoder top-right, that controls the volume (and mutes on click). Below this, there’s a button for play/pause (+Shift for next track, and +Optn for previous track) and buttons for brightness up and down.

Option A moves the apostrophe button between Caps Lock and A. This looks the best IMO, but moves the button the furthest. It fits there because A is the button the furthest to the left (compared to Q and <>).
Option B places escape to the left of the apostrophe button, and then adds some macro keys below this (I want to mark with App 1, App 2, etc.).
Option C places the apostrophe button to the left of Q. I don’t mind that placement, but it creates a Tab key for ants and a Caps Lock key for elephants.

I think my preference is the order they're in: A>B>C.

So, which one do you prefer?

Do you have any other ideas?

Would you be able to just sit down and use any of them?

I’m considering a Prusa CORE One. I like that it’s so open, and that it’s European. Would love to hear opinion on this as well! ↩︎

A (New-ish) Game for Lovers of Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:58:05 +0100

Do you, like me, get warm and fuzzy feelings from this sound?

My Heroes of Might and Magic journey started with HOMM 2 🖇️ – but I’ve probably spent the most time with HOMM 3 🖇️.

I still play it from time-to-time, but I’m also always interested in modern takes on the formula.

One I like, is Hero’s Hour 🖇️ (currently 55% off!). Here the world map portion is very similar to HOMM, while the combat is more of a free-flowing auto-battler.¹

Hero's Hour is also good.

But my favourite is Songs of Conquest,

and it’s currently 72% off on GOG 🖇️!² It’s also available for iOS (both iPhone and iPad!) — but I haven’t tried that version myself.

Some feelings of mine towards HOMM 3, which will be relevant here:

I never played the campaigns, and mostly just jerked around on single scenarios and random maps.
- After a while, I started downloading custom maps as well.
Even though it’s a suboptimal way of playing, I’ve always preferred only having a few heroes and castles.
- I know that the best thing to do is to have numerous heroes (many with almost no units), and use them to run around. However, I’ve always found this play style really annoying.
- I find it a bit of a chore to juggle different faction’s units. (I wouldn’t mind having one main hero for each different faction, though.)
  - You also get morale issues if you mix things up too much.
- I also didn’t love it when I had to think: “How many of my units should I have on my main, and how many should I split off towards a second viable hero?”

With Songs of Conquest, it feels like someone custom-made a modern Heroes-like just for me.

Here are some of my favourite changes:

Combat

At the bottom of the screen, you can see the order units will go in.³
The battleground not only has elements that block you, it also has high ground (which will affect damage).
- You can also place your units before entering the battle.
Attacking with a unit will end its turn – but if it has a movement range of 4, you can move 3 first and then 1 more if needed.
- Ranged units can also move and then shoot – but they’ll do half the damage.
  - They also have both a regular range and a “deadly” range (which deals double damage).
Units have attacks of opportunity – so they will attack units that move out of their range.
Not every unit can “wait” – it’s a skill that some units have.
- And almost every unit has a special skill!
Magic works differently:
- In HOMM, you have a spell book with accessible spells, and a pool of mana you use to cast them. You can cast one spell per round.
- Songs of conquest instead has 5 different types of mana (called essence) – and by default your hero (called wielder) starts out with 0 mana each combat.
- However, units will create mana for your hero each of its turns.
- You can cast as many spells as you want each turn – but it takes time to build up to the more expensive spells. They cost mana of 1 or 2 types.
  - You can see the available spells on the left side of the screen.
- You unlock access to more powerful spells (in the 5 different schools) with skills.
- You can also start combat with more mana through both skills, and by controlling builds on the world map.
The UI is also generally much clearer and easier to use.
You can also simulate combats, for a quick result. But if you don’t like how it went, you can choose to do it yourself instead!

Overworld

I know that some of these are controversial – but if you look at my feelings towards HOMM, you’ll know why I like this.

Settlements are really cool:
- Each settlement starts as size 1 – but has different potential: From maximum size 2 to 5.
- This unlocks building sites, in three different sizes.
  - The buildings are also visible (and loot-able) on the world map.
- However, even with the largest size, you can’t buy every building the faction offers!
  - This makes it so you need to get several towns to get access to everything.
  - And here we’re at perhaps the most controversial change: You have to convert settlements of other factions! You can’t keep them as a different faction.⁴
- If you’d like, you can build several of the same building – so a town can be all tier 1 unit buildings, or all wood producers.
- There’s also a building you can use to buy units from other settlements – so you don’t have to ship units around.
Stacks of units can’t grow into infinity!
- For instance, a stack of dragons can only consist of 3 each.
  - However, this number is something you can upgrade with one of the research mechanics.
- A hero can hold more stacks than you have unit types, so you will have to choose which units you will have more than one stack of.
- Your main hero will also become full – so this makes is less annoying to have to start building secondary heroes!
- The maximum number of heroes starts out small, and you need more settlements to increase it.

However – some words on the campaign…

If you used to play Heroes for its campaign, you’ll be a bit disappointed here. The campaign is very short, and is more like a long tutorial. I do recommend starting with this, though – as it’s a good way to become acquainted with the new mechanics!

It also only has four factions, with a fifth available as DLC 🖇️, which isn’t the most.

However, I really like the way it looks, the performance is fine on my M1 Pro, and I really like the changes and modernisations. Highly recommended! And it’s from a small indie team, that seems really passionate about games like this.

This isn’t available for Mac – but it worked great on Parallells. I haven’t tried it with things like Whisky or Heroic, though. ↩︎
It is available for Mac – but it currently has a bug where you need to run the app in Rosetta. ↩︎
This is often added with HOMM mods! ↩︎
You can loot a town you’ve captured instead, though. ↩︎

AITAH for Wanting 50% of Someone's Income, to Drive Them to the Hospital?

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 16:07:56 +0100

Last night I came across a guy, who had been mugged, stabbed, and was bleeding out. He desperately needed me to drive him to the hospital.

First I said: “Well, you shouldn’t have started it, when you allowed yourself to be attacked!”

Secondly, I said I could help him if he promised me 50% of his income, for the rest of his life. And then, for some reason, he got mad??

I said to him: “You don’t have any cards here.” And I told him that keeping 50% his income is better than the 0% he’ll get if he dies…

Am I the asshole, just because I wouldn’t help someone innocent in need, unless there’s something in it for me? Should I be punished, just because I had the means to help, with a car and all the time in the world?

(On a completely unrelated note: Slava Ukraini! ✊🏻🇺🇦)

On the Need for Friction

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 15:24:51 +0100

Imagine talking to a medieval farmer, about the concept of excercise. Giving yourself “useless” physical strain, to improve your health? Let’s call this idea artifical physical excercise. That wouldn’t make any sense to someone who would get more than enough strain through just living their life.

And while it will vary greatly, from person to person, how much artificial exercise is needed, everyone agrees that we need to look after our physical health in today’s society.

When discussing this, people will mention which of these they enjoy the most, which they find effective, how to fit it into their lives, etc. Some of it are games, competitions, sports, and more – and it can be your job, a favourite pastime, a hobby, or just something you tolerate.

It can also be adjustments you make to your life, like riding a bicycle to work, or changing your desk setup. Let’s call this incidental physical exercise, in opposition to deliberate physical exercise.

But, in this context, this is my main point about this: It’s very accepted to talk about doing things for your physical health, even though it might not be the most comfortable, fun, or easy.

And similar to how technological improvements increased the need to look after the health of our bodies, it has now made it important to look after the health of our minds as well.

Learning and AI

If you’re at the gym, there are many examples of how technology can enhance the effectiveness of our artificial physical exercise. However, using a forklift to lift weights might be more effective and comfortable, compared to doing it yourself – but it also makes the action completely useless! The point isn’t that the weights get lifted, but that you do it. This is in contrast with a warehouse, where the point is to get the stuff lifted.

One framework here, could be the difference between a tool and a machine. The former will enhance the user, while the latter replaces it. And when using AI, specifically for learning, some discipline is required to make sure that it remains a tool, and doesn’t slip into becoming a machine. This is one reason why I’m highly skeptical of giving young students unfettered access to LLMs.¹

A custom LLM implementation, with guard-rails that helps with this discipline, could be great for students, though. And LLMs also have great potential for teachers, as a machine can be more useful when the main point isn’t exercise.

It’s quite similar to the way we think about calculators in mathematics didactics. They’re obviously useful, and are a tool students need to learn to use. But they have to be used consciously. And when training your thinking, and establishing core understanding, they can be problematic.

Articles and videos with titles like “Junior Devs Can’t Code Anymore” are popping up, and give an interesting example of a border-case: In this case we are in a professional environment, where the work getting done is an important point. But over-relying on a tool, that might not help you develop as a professional, especially early in your career, can be quite dangerous.

As someone who only dabbles in programming, LLMs has made it possible for me to do and learn much more than I could’ve previously. But I’m trying to be conscious about it, by trying to do it myself the next time, really understand the core concepts and code I get in return, etc.

Cognitive health

I want it to be just as common to talk about doing things that are good for your cognitive health² as for your physical health.

One example of this, was a recent video, by the beautifully nerdy YouTube channel Technology Connections, called Algorithms are Breaking How We Think. He’s talking about the value of friction, and I think it explains why we should be careful not to always do things the easiest way. This can be compared to taking the stairs even though the lift is easier – and would be an example of:

Incidental cognitive exercise

One of the problematic aspects of feeds like TikTok’s (and everyone wants to make those nowadays) is that they remove any kind of friction. And I don’t think it’s a good thing that we’re getting used to just having the apps serve us something, without making any choices. “I want to listen to music. Just give me some, Spotify – I don’t care what.” This is neither great for the arts nor our minds, I think.

I’m not saying that there are no good things about algorithms, and that we shouldn’t ever use them. For instance, discovery algorithms can be great to find new people. But it’s a bit like how it’s no problem for Jane Doe to always take the lift at work, if she’s very active in other parts of her life. But I, being a lazy slob, shouldn’t always default to the lift.

Relying less on algorithms isn’t only good for your mind – it also takes back some power from the platforms. If I follow a page on Facebook, it only nudges the algorithm to give me their content – Meta still decides. However, if I follow a blog via RSS, I will get the things they write – because I made a choice.

Junk food for thought

Incidental cognitive exercise is about making choices for “the future you”. But it does require some more effort to curate a Mastodon or RSS feed, as opposed to just opening an app that always gives you unlimited amounts of stimuli.

I think it makes sense to look at the hyper-algorithmic feeds, especially for video (TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts), as junk food for the mind. And that’s why I’m so annoyed when people over-emphasise “revealed preference”:

Placing this option in the context of Facebook and Instagram actually suggests that this feature won’t matter very much; both services make it hard to find, and revert back to the default algorithmic feed, and for good reason: users may say they want a chronological feed, but their revealed preference is the opposite.

— Ben Thompson / Stratechery

If I had the choice between a salad and a pile of McDonald’s, my stupid brain would want the burgers and fries every day.³ But I wouldn’t use that as proof that McDonald’s “is better”.

I don’t subscribe to every argument of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (some of which can be heard in this Hard Fork episode.) But if we gave our kids free access to McDonald’s, 24/7, how do we think that would affect their physical health? Would they be equipped to regulate that? And how often would they be too full to bother with the healthy dinner their parents have made?

I know that I can’t have candy in the cupboard, and that I’ll eat better if I make sure to have healthy snacks available. Doing this kind of effort can be compared to curating some (finite) feeds, like Mastodon or RSS, so that mindless scrolling isn’t the only decent option. Other things could be to charge your phone away from your bed (and keeping some good magazines and books close instead), and to only have good games on your devices.

Friction is underrated

There are many great parts about modern technology – including algorithms. It’s much easier to just say: “Let’s throw it all out!” But I think we need to strive towards keeping the good parts, like how social media can help to connect us, and LLMs can be great tutors, without being naïve regarding the negative.

And similarly to how it’s very common to discuss artifical physical excercise (both deliberate and incidental), to improve our physical health, we need to be more conscious about our cognitive health. I want more conversations about cognitive excercise – deliberate and incidental.

It’s very natural for us to want to avoid friction, of any kind. But the simple fact is that it’s good for us! And when technology has removed much of both the physical and mental strain, we have to add some of it back.

I’m a teacher – in Maths, Social Science, and Music. However, even though I haven’t worked as one after the launch of ChatGPT, I still have had a lot of thoughts about learning with AI. And my wife still works in education. ↩︎
I’m not talking about “mental health” here, even though both that and illness are connected to both cognitive and physical health. ↩︎
And twice on sunday. They server breakfast as well, right? ↩︎

In Defence of Netflix Not Being in the Apple TV App

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:39:28 +0100

I like the Apple TV (box). It’s the only way I watch TV! I like that it’s a competent and fast piece of hardware, without ads*, that gives me easy access to all the streaming I want.

That it’s an app platform, makes it easy for even my niche Norwegian services to be a part of the platform. It can also have things like the excellent Infuse media player (for local files and Jellyfin).¹

Apps can also choose to serve their content to Apple’s frameworks: This makes the content searchable with the global search, and also adds the content to the Apple TV app. A section of the app is “Up Next”, where you can continue watching things from different services:

It's called "Fortsett å se" (continue watching) in Norwegian. Here you can see things from both Max, Disney+ and Apple TV+.

However, annoyingly, Netflix doesn’t participate.

And before I defend them, I want to highlight the cynical reasons they don’t:

It’s better for them if you stay in their app.
- The reason is that they can advertise new stuff (you’re not watching yet), to make sure you stay with the service. This is also why Continue Watching isn’t always at the top.
- If you’ve finished watching a show (perhaps through Apple TV (app)), you’ll might go on to something from another service next. And then you’ll might cancel your subscription after a while.
They don’t have to.
- Even though they’re not as dominant as they used to, Netflix is really popular. So they feel like they can get away with not participating.

The mistake

Last week, there was a bit of writing because someone accidentally flipped the switch, and made Netflix actually participate:

Image from this Six Colors post.

Netflix quickly turned it off again – and the take that was the most popular in this cycle, was perfectly summarised by this great quote:

Netflix deeply regrets accidentally making Netflix a better product for its customers.

— Joe Rosensteel

As someone who uses both Netflix, the Apple TV (box), and Apple TV (app), Netflix participating would be better for me. But I think I have more understanding towards Netflix than most.

The defence

My first thought was that it was funny hearing someone like John Gruber criticising the move. When Apple themselves don’t play nice with others, to instead give users a unified experience (or whatever), he’s usually quick to defend them. And when they do this, it’s also because they’re dominant enough to not have to.

But I also think John Siracusa had plenty of good points on this, in the latest episode of Accidental Tech Podcast. And I’m stealing some of these here.

Control and competition

Because I think this, mostly, is a story about control. Apple is saying to the streaming providers: “Just give us the power and your content, and we’ll take care of delivering it to customers.” And as a user, I can see the appeal of this – but I think it’s a bit short-sighted.

I’ve noticed a major difference between the way antitrust and competition is viewed in the US and here in the Nordics: In addition to looking at things that directly affect consumers, we also think it’s important to make things better for small- and medium-sized companies – as this will indirectly be positive for customers in the long run.

And I get that Apple is far from being all-powerful in the streaming market. But they’ve shown what they do when they are, so I get why Netflix doesn’t want to contribute to this. Being the aggregator really matters.

If Apple’s business model here only was selling Apple TV boxes at a profit, I would 100% get behind blaming Netflix. A hypothetical contrast is the TV box Sonos is making: If I were the streaming providers, It would be much easier to trust Sonos to be fair, as they don’t have their own streaming service, and currently don’t demand a cut of everything.²

But even though Apple do sell their hardware with great profit-margins, you can never have enough money. So they also want to inject themselves everywhere, and think they deserve 30% of every transaction that happens on their platforms.³

But it doesn’t stop there: Apple also intends to compete in as many markets as possible themselves. (A 100% cut is even better than a 30% cut.) They’re investing a lot to build a direct competitor to Netflix, with Apple TV+.

Home screen vs. Apple TV (app)

On the home screen here, the competition between the services is fair.

However, Apple is pushing hard for Apple TV (app) to become the hub of the Apple TV (box), instead of the home screen. And here, there’s no reason to think they’ll fight fairly.

If you look at the screenshot above, from Apple’s own documentation, you can see that Apple TV+ and MLS are up top, while Max and STARZ are relegated to the bottom. And if you search for a movie, that can be purchased both on iTunes and on other platforms, which one do you think the UI will surface..? And I haven’t mentioned the millions of ways Apple can give preferential treatment to its own service in the Home tab.

Netflix could ask companies like Dropbox⁴ how much fun it is to compete with Apple’s services on Apple’s platforms… I’ve written previously about how I’m annoyed that I’m not allowed to use part of the 2 TB I have on Dropbox to store my photo library and automatic device backups. Apple is also the one controlling all the APIs etc.

So, when it comes to the balance between Apple and the other streaming providers, it’s easy to see why it’s more advantageous for Apple to funnel users to Apple TV (app), compared to the home screen. And a great example of how Apple uses its power in other areas, is that they’ve changed what the home button of the remote does by default: It will now send you to the app instead of the home screen. Also notice how this puts pressure on Netflix: As it causes users to need more clicks to go to the Netflix app.⁵ And remember that there isn’t a separate app for Apple’s own streaming service, so this is also a bit like turning one of the buttons on the remote into something similar to the Netflix or Hulu buttons you’ll see on some TV remotes.

If I’ve understood it correctly, services aren’t allowed to have their content show up in OS search unless they also provide the content to the Apple TV app. This is another example of how it’s easier to compete with other trucking companies if you also own the roads.

Don’t worry, Netflix will probably cave in the future.

They’ve obviously built support for this feature (that they accidentally turned on), which might be a part of an ongoing negotiation.⁶ And I won’t claim that this won’t be better for consumers! Because the simple argument is that choices are always good, and you’d then be able to choose to watch through the Netflix app or the Apple TV app. Let’s not forget all the cynical reasons why Netflix wants to keep you in their app!

And I get that it’s tempting to not have much sympathy for any company – especially one as large and powerful as Netflix. But do think it’s a bit short-sighted of consumers to push for even more concentration of power in the tech sector.

That it’s locked down to what Apple allows, makes it harder for those who want to stream pirated stuff, though. But I (honestly!) don’t know much about that world. ↩︎
I could imagine them taking a bit if you sign up to services through the app – but they don’t do this with music services currently. ↩︎
Even if it’s a Patreon donation, or a low-margin ebook. ↩︎
Or Spotify. ↩︎
“But just give us the control, and become a part of the Apple TV app, and you’ll become easily accessible again!” ↩︎
Whilst Apple thinks it deserves to be paid for anything and everything, it doesn’t like paying others. (See games on Apple platforms, and apps for the Vision Pro.) So it will be interesting to see if they end up paying Netflix to make them participate. ↩︎

My Blog's Photo Workflow, Powered by Shortcuts

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 14:40:21 +0100

And Thoughts on Alt Text

I use many images on my blog. But that’s not because I’m a photo blogger, or use a lot of decorative illustration images – it’s usually because I want to show and/or explain something.

I’m pleased with where my flow for uploading these, and adding them to my blog posts. So I would like to show what it looks like, and give thanks to Jarrod Blundy over at Hey Dingus, as I’ve built it around a shortcut of his.

The shortcut starting point

Jarrod has shared plenty of cool shortcuts, over at his Shortcuts Library. And the one I started with, was the one called Bulk MB Image Uploader. The point of this was to be able to upload several images at once to Micro.blog – which is the hosting provider we both use. However, uploading in bulk like this isn’t necessary to me. I just used the framework surrounding access to the Micro.blog API/app token, so I don’t have to use the website, and can do it all from shortcut actions.

More features

After being yelled at, by various web efficiency tests because my website used too many resources, I wanted to optimise the way I use images. And this involves two steps: Compress the main images, and add lazy loading (with a temporary lazy image, that keeps the layout while the image loads).

So, my version of the shortcut (which only works with one image at the time), actually uploads two images to Micro.blog:

One “full-sized” WebP version,¹
and a lazy placeholder PNG version (that has only 24 pixels as its max height/width).

I’m using Jason’s GLightbox plugin for Micro.blog to get a lightbox for the images, and I combined that with this guide for lazy loading.²

So the code my image uploader shortcut spits out, looks like this:

	<div class="lazy-placeholder large" 
		style="background-image:
		url(LINK-TO-LAZY-PLACEHOLDER.png);">
		
		[[<glightbox src="LINK-TO-MAIN-IMAGE.webp" 
		alt="MORE ON ALT TEXT LATER." title="" description="" >]]
	</div>

I can edit "large" to "medium" or "small" if I don't want the image to be full width. And I rarely add title or description – but I thought I'd just leave them there.

Annoying conversion journey

Shortcuts has a built-in Convert Image action (shown above) – but it’s really lacking. It can only convert to JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, PDF and HEIF (so now WebP), and you generally don’t have plenty of options, for instance for compression. The good thing, is that these work on mobile as well!

I do use the built-in actions to create my lazy-placeholders, though. 👆🏻

But as I almost always do this on my Mac, I went searching for third-party Mac apps to help me with the conversion of the main image.

Both Squash and Permute have seemingly perfect Shortcut actions for stuff like this.

But Squash has an annoying bug, where it will add a “you’re using the free version” watermark, even though I’ve unlocked the app. It’s also very slow. The good thing is that, just like the built-in action, it’s able to just do the conversion and hand off the new images to the next part of the shortcut.

With Permute, I have to save the converted images to disk before passing it on. The thing that bothered me with this solution, though, is that it kept asking where I wanted to save the images, and also open up Permute when it performed the action.

The optimisation app Clop trotted in to save the day, though!

I still need to save to disk, though – but I just save them into a temp folder I've made, that I just clean out from time-to-time.

Framing screenshots

As my images will often be screenshots, I’m also a heavy user of the app Shareshot. This will take a screenshot, and either add a device frame, or some padding like on the images I’ve had in this post until now.

My uploader shortcut now asks me, “Do you want to frame the image?”, and will perform this before sending it to Clop etc. I can choose the following:

No
Yes, Square
Yes, Fit Frame (with small padding)
Yes, Fit Frame (with medium padding)

The image above is of the Square preset (when it detects an iPhone screenshot), and is from this blog post about Tapestry.

Alt text

The original shortcut has the option of adding automatic alt text generation with a module and OpenAI Vision. (And this just got a nice update!) However, I’ve turned this off.

Here’s the thing: The generated alt text is very competent – but it doesn’t know anything about the context in which I’m using the image. So I found myself heavily editing the alt text 100% of the times.

It is intended that this image description be used as a starting point for your alt text. You should review it, and edit or add to it as needed. – Jarrod Blundy (creator of the shortcut)

I can see the benefit of this starting point. But for me, it turned out to be faster to just have the shortcut allow me to manually type in the alt text.

My approach to alt texts

Let me first say that I would love to get feedback, especially from users of alt texts, if there's something off about my approach, or practice of it!

When I write alt texts, I like to think of it like I’m reading the blog post out loud to someone (over the phone, or whatever).

I also don’t want to waste the time of those reading with screen readers, so I try to reduce redundant and unimportant details. For instance, the alt text of the Tapestry screenshot above, in this post, is: “An iPhone screenshot with an iPhone frame, and padding that makes it a square.” As the point in this context was to show off that specific screenshot type, I focused on that. I didn’t mention that it was from Tapestry, as that’s mentioned in the caption. And the text content of the screenshot was completely irrelevant.

Mentioning the iPhone frame and padding would’ve been completely irrelevant when I used the exact same screenshot in the post about Tapestry. And this is an example of how alt text completely changes from one context to another.

I’m also not afraid of having the alt text simply be “explained below/above” if I truly give all the relevant information in the blog post itself.³ This is because I imagine it being annoying to get the same information twice.

Another example, from another blog post:

“And I get that many might like the things I don’t. So I think the answer is more customisation – like this settings screen from Mona:”

In the original context, my alt text was “I can adjust text size, text spacing, how much of the display name to show, the shape, size, and placement of the avatar.” — while in this context, it was simply “explained below”.

The o1 model (even more powerful than the 4o from the original shortcut) gave me this, by using Jarrod’s great “complex prompt”:

A smartphone settings screen shows a Mona app preview, displaying a welcome message to @MonaApp with a cat-face emoji, and listing customisation options like text size, username, and profile photo details.

— o1

It is good – but it wouldn’t really help me get to my alt texts faster.

I think it’s more relevant with other types of images, though (not screenshots) – but when I’m in blog writing mode, I don’t think it’s a big issue to just type out the description.

So, this is the flow I get when I hit the global hotkey to upload images for my blog posts:

I usually pick from Photos.app, as my Cleanshot screenshots also gets added there automatically.

The alt text for the image above here, is: "I then get prompted for the alt text. (Writing this alt text was kind of meta…)" If I think of one, I don't mind adding little easter-eggs to the alt text – (hopefully) as a treat. ☺️

I wait a bit, and then get this notification. Then the code is ready to be pasted into the blog post.

A bonus shortcut

Here’s a link to the shortcut from above – but I’m not sure how useful it is. It’s very customised to my need, and I like to create module-based shortcut. So, for instance, the WebP Converter and Lazy Image Generator are different shortcuts. This makes it easier to plug-and-play with different ones (like one for Clop and one for Permute). But perhaps someone would like to poke around, and can get some inspiration from the mess…

I’ve also made a much simpler shortcut, for when I just need a quick markdown image (like in a note): This just uploads one compressed image, and then gives a simple markdown image link, with no alt text.

![](https://havn.blog/uploads/2025/img-9719.jpeg)

So with this, I just get back something like this. 👆🏻

Now, I haven’t managed to get this shortcut to work with uploaded videos – so I would love to hear if someone has had success with this. Oh, and remember to check out Jarrod’s blog and Shortcuts Library!

I know that WebP images are a bit controversial… But they take up so much less space than alternatives, and they also handle transparency. ↩︎
I’ve had some problems with my implementation, but it’s in a pretty good place right now. It doesn’t work flawlessly with images with transparency, though. ↩︎
I’ve heard this is bad for SEO – but I don’t write alt text for Google. ↩︎

✉️ Tapestry Feedback Feedback Feedback

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 23:25:14 +0100

Not too long ago, I wrote some feedback to Iconfactory’s latest app, Tapestry. I just got some great feedback on that, from them, so I wanted to provide a response.

Here’s what they wrote, on Mastodon:

There’s a lot in your post. Thx for such thoughtful feedback, it’s appreciated. Some things like the ability to turn off the service name is coming. The thing to keep in mind is this: just because a particular part of the design doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed that way for a reason that you may have not considered.

The service name is a perfect example. Lots of people are colorblind or even unsighted. To them they cannot tell posts apart simply by color.

So while we are going to add the ability to turn off the service name, that’s why it’s there by default. Avatars are never going to move to the right side. Their placement was carefully considered as was how they appear with their transparency.

Everything you see is the result of over a full year of design, testing by over 1,500 TestFlight backers & then tweaking to adjust things that didn’t work as well as originally planned.

In the end Tapestry may not be for everyone & that’s fine

If Tapestry ends up looking & behaving like Reeder or Surf or… what’s the point? We designed the app the way we wanted it to look & behave using feedback from our testers as a guide. The design will continue to evolve based on feedback like yours (which is thoughtful) but it can never be all things to all people.

Many have told us they love Tapestry so it seems to be doing a lot of stuff right but it can always be better. We’re gratified but will continue to improve going forward. 👍

— Iconfacory

Here’s my response:

Thanks for reading my feedback, and getting back to me with such an interesting response! And looking back at my own feedback, I see that it was harsher than what was intended… Sorry!

The thing to keep in mind is this: just because a particular part of the design doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed that way for a reason that you may have not considered.

Yeah, I totally get this! And as I said in the original post, I know that you are great designers (better than me), so I assume you don’t just do things at random, hehe. This isn’t necessarily a 1.0 feature, but that’s why I love being able to do little tweaks and customisations in the settings of apps: Because what’s right for some, isn’t right for others.

And I didn’t mean that I expected every piece of customisation to be there in 1.0. I just meant that, as the app evolves, it’s possible to allow users to tweak things to their liking. (Like how I, in the Markdown app I’m writing this in, can choose if Cmd+I give me underscores or asterisks for italics.) It was absolutely the right move to first launch with both colours and service name. 👍🏻

Avatars are never going to move to the right side. Their placement was carefully considered as was how they appear with their transparency.

(…)

If Tapestry ends up looking & behaving like Reeder or Surf or… what’s the point? We designed the app the way we wanted it to look & behave using feedback from our testers as a guide.

I’d love to hear about your considerations for the avatars. (I assume you’re right, and that there’s just something I don’t see.) I especially don’t understand why you wouldn’t even consider being able to move them as an option, heh…

I did a quick mockup of what it could look like: 👇🏻

The most obvious compromise is the timestamp.

And the original, the way it is currently: 👇🏻

And here’s another version, where I’ve taken back some left-margin, and made the avatars small enough to fit the timestamp below (even on short posts, like the second Mastodon post): 👇🏻

With this setup, the content could've been a bit wider (to the right).

And while it’s perfectly fair to prefer them on the left, I don’t think it’s fair to say that it doesn’t still look and feel like Tapestry. I’m “just” advocating for the user to be able to do some tweaks (specifically being able to, as options, turn off service name, adjust font sizes, and move the avatars) – not demanding that it looks just like Reeder. (Even though the specific thing with the avatars on the right is available there.)

There are plenty of things I like about both the app and the design! (I’ve been using it full-time since the last post. I especially like the colourful design, and the way I can quickly move between compact, expanded, and full view of posts.) I guess that’s why the things that bother me matters more, if you know what I mean.

And sorry for not coming with the feedback sooner. I’m also a Kickstarter backer, has had the TestFlight since it launched, and has had these opinions since then, heh. (Not that it necessarily would have mattered, if I’m alone in having those opinions: Loving the colours and vibe, but wishing for tweaks to clean it up a bit.)

You, of course, don’t have to listen to, and spend time on, a noisy customer like me! But I’m genuinely interested in hearing about the considerations – as I both find it interesting to discuss, and something to learn from.

Have a nice weekend!

-Erlend

✉️ Micro Social: A New Third-Party iOS App for Micro.blog

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 16:22:57 +0100

And Some Very Early Feedback

Greg Morris is someone whose blog I’ve followed for a while, but I didn’t know was a developer. But now he has released a third-party iOS client for Micro.blog!

As he’s mentioned, it happened “quite accidentally”, and it’s very early days. So this post is just me letting people know it exist, and providing some very early feedback.

To Greg:

Oooh, I love that you’re making this! I’m 100% in the target demographic for Micro Social. (Someone who uses, but doesn’t like, the default Micro.blog app — and is willing to pay for something better.)

I’ll try to provide some more useful feedback later, as I’ve used the app more, that you can use if you’d like. 🙂

Here are some first-impressions:

(In general I like it! So these “negative” comments are meant to be constructive. 🫶🏻)

I’m currently running an iPhone 13 Mini — so the phone is probably both older and smaller than what you use. ☺️

I had several crashes two updates ago, but it’s fine now. But I’ve noticed that avatars load slowly when I scroll (even if I scroll slowly). Maybe you can have the lazy loading start “earlier”?

I really like that you have avatars and names on a separate line, so you can use full-width content. (Instead of having weirdly large left-margins, that far too many apps has. I have strangely strong feelings about this…)

I also really like the “card look”:

The muted card around the OP is a nice touch.

However, on my Mini phone, I wish you were a bit more stingy with the padding, as the content gets too narrow. Especially on the timeline, due to the extra arrow on the right side. Is this needed?

I don’t know if it’s possible, but perhaps consider moving the arrow to the block with the avatar and username, to allow (full) full width for the content? Not as pleasing – but the little arrows take up a lot of space now, as it’s the full height of the entire content (including images).

My blog is proof …

… that I like the look, hehe. And I don’t know if you have as much control over spacing as I have with CSS and clamp. But as I’ve already worked on optimising very similar spacing for my little phone, I wanted to show my work. And then you can steal it if you would like to, or ignore it if not.

We have very similar padding on “the card” – but I went for half that amount on the outside/gutter. I mashed up the screenshots here, to show the effect (but the largest effect is on the right margin, due to the arrow):

That’s it, for now!

I’ll keep using it, and might provide additional feedback later. It’s already better than the official app, IMO. 👏🏻

I’ll also be the first to buy it when you launch that part of the app. Best of luck!

The Paper Dev Should Give Their Take on a Tot-Like App

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:31:00 +0100

I recently wrote a review of Iconfactory’s great app, Tot.

I like it – but editing text in it does make me miss my favourite places to do this: Paper and Bike.

And this process made me realise that the Paper dev has all* the pieces in place to give their take on an app like this. And it makes sense from a business perspective!

The reasons I don't just use Paper for this now, is that I would like it to be a separate app that could have its own hotkey, and that I could turn on Stay in Front just for this other app. I'm looking into options for having two instances of it open, heh.

The pieces

A best-in-class text engine, that can jump between Markdown (plain-text) and Preview (rich text) Modes.
- This is also already great on both Mac, iOS, and iPadOS. (No Apple Watch, though.)
The UI is made to be minimalistic, mimicking just a piece of paper.
Paper ships with several beautiful accent colours, and great support for them in the UI.
It also provides good export features. (Including for copy/paste.)

Here’s what I would do:

My suggestion for a name (also to make it easier to discuss here) is Slate.

A slate is a thin piece of hard flat material, historically slate stone, which is used as a medium for writing.

— Wikipedia

The next question is how much it’s OK to copy from others. Let’s pretend it’s fine to take all …

The best parts from Tot:

Fixed number of notes

I really like that Tot only supports 7 notes, that are all “internal” to the app.¹ I also love how they’re distinguished from each other by colours.²

These 7 accent colour options are already built into Paper (plus black and custom). As you can see, you can tint both the icon, text, Markdown syntax and background.

Having exactly 7 would a bit on-the-nose… But one of the reasons I liked the “Slate” name, is that you could one-up, rhyme, and go for 8!³

Perhaps the 8 notes could be regular, accessible Markdown files in the app’s iCloud folder, to simplify automation? But that you can’t create other notes with the app, and it can’t “find” other notes if you place them there.

The business model

Tot is free for the Mac, and a one-time purchase for each extra platform (iOS and Apple Watch). I think something like this could be a good idea for Slate as well.

You could also consider just having it be free, and the business model being to funnel people into Paper. Once people get the taste for the great writing feeling, they might want a more powerful app, that can also edit files.

The whole point of this post, is that I don't think it would be that much work for the dev to make this thing. But as Paper doesn't already have an Apple Watch app, that would have to be something for a later time…

What to take from Paper

See my full review for why the general text engine is terrific. I’d, of course, bring this over.

Accents

I really like how the accents in Paper colour the icon, scroll bar, caret, and iOS UI. It can also subtly colour the background, text colour, and Markdown syntax. Like in Tot, this can be used to distinguish between the different notes.

Here you can see six different colours on the Mac. (It can be both more or less subtle than this.) I love the caret and scrollbar!

Here I've shown two colours for iPhone.

The minimal UI, and visuals in general

Opening a new note in Paper, just gives you this:

You can even turn off the counter! But options for this are needed.

On Mac, you’re supposed to rely on keyboard shortcuts and Markdown, and on iOS you have the great, customisable toolbar above the keyboard.

You would probably have to add something to show that there are different notes somewhere, though, like Tot has:

But in general, I really like the way Paper looks, with square corners, paper texture on the background, sleek caret and scrollbar, and more. You could toy with going for a more stone-like thing, though – if going for the slate metaphor… Skeuomorphism is back, baby!

Formatting

I would have the amount of formatting options somewhere between Paper and Tot. You can also compare with Raycast 🖇️ Notes:

I think not having headers is a good idea. Both to focus the app, and because the Markdown syntax would be messy.⁴

For instance, you could bring over:

Bold
Italics
Ordered lists
Unordered lists
Task lists
Links
Quotes
Horizontal Rule

(I wouldn’t mind support for code as well – but support for that is one of Paper’s weak points. I also think quotes and horizontal rule needs some visual work.)

I’d also keep the options to set your own preferred syntax.

Markdown Mode and Preview Mode

I don’t like auto-hiding Markdown syntax (as the text jumps around), and I don’t like separate preview windows, like NvUltra/Marked. So I love how Paper handles its two different modes.

The Markdown Mode is an honest mode, that shows all the syntax. But this is muted and applied (bold text is bold, etc.), for better readability. (You can also place the header symbols in the margin, like God intended.)

In Preview Mode, the app acts and looks more like a rich-text editor. This also has a little UI element helping you know if you’re about to type some bold text (etc.). Here’s an image of the two modes:

Markdown Mode on the left, and Preview Mode on the right. I, generally, prefer the former on Mac and the latter on iOS.

What about the rest?

I really like Typewriter Mode and Focus Mode – but I don’t think they’re needed here.

Perhaps keep the Export features, but not the Publish ones?

I’m unsure about the general level of customisability, for things like animations, fonts, spacing, accents, etc. As the options are already made, perhaps just give it?

Or just pick my defaults, which are objectively the correct ones:

1.1 Line Height
0 indentation
0.5 Paragraph Spacing
1 Chapter Spacing
Soft blinking caret, with slow smooth movement (except when typing)

However, I think giving all the customisation options could be good advertisement for the proper Paper app.

I get that it’s harder than it seems…

I’m not claiming that moving forward with my idea would be a negligible amount of work for the dev! Just maintaining two apps would be a hassle – like how, if you made a new feature, you’d want to add it to both apps.

But I really think an app like Slate, could both be a great app on its own and be a good way to funnel people towards Paper. Adding it to Setapp 🖇️, like Paper already is, could also generate some extra income and exposure.

And apart from the UI and logic behind the limited number of notes, it would mostly be about taking features away from an app that’s already built.

It doesn’t open files, or anything like that. ↩︎
It also has a colour-blind mode, though. 👍🏻 ↩︎
I toyed with calling it “Sleight” – but I was sad to learn that it doesn’t rhyme with eight. 😔 ↩︎
I really like that I, in Paper, can have the # symbols in the margin. But that takes up a lot of horizontal space. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #6: Arco (video game)

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 15:18:56 +0100

Original, Tactical, Recreational

Last year, Panic published a terrific indie game I’d like to recommend: Arco. I’ve only played the first two acts, but I like it a lot so far.

It has great pixel art, music, writing, and story.

It also has a genuinely innovative turn-based combat, and guilt system, which makes in-game choices interesting.

The launch trailer.

It’s available on PC, Mac, and Switch. I’m playing it on Mac, with a controller – and it works flawlessly. (If you want to get it for desktop, I recommend getting it through Epic, as the dev gets a larger piece of the pie.)

Click here to see all my quick recommendations!

App review: Tot

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:17:00 +0100

Yesterday, I wrote about Iconfactory’s newest app, Tapestry. Today, I want to do a little review of another great app of theirs, Tot.

“Your tiny text companion”

Tot is a scratchpad app, for fleeting notes. It was inspired by Tyke, which explains the need for this well:

I made Tyke because when I’m working I often need a little bit of scratch paper to jot something down.

Sometimes it’s because I need to paste it someplace or other times it’s because I just want to clear the formatting and edit it.

I used to use a new text editor window for that job. Now I don’t have to.

—From the Tyke website

I use Tot for things like writing down everyone’s take-away orders. I also use it when I need to keep some text in a small Mac window that stays on top, or small pieces of info I might want to look up from time-to-time.¹

The business model is also both clever and fair: It’s totally free on Mac, and then you pay once for iOS (€20) and Apple Watch (€2).

My favourite part of it, is that it allows you to store 7 notes. It’s more than 1, but still limited. You swipe between them, and they are beautifully colour coded.² This makes it so you don’t fall into the trap of wanting to name your notes, or keep them forever. You’re supposed to move on.

These 7 notes are synced between Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with great apps for each.

Purposeful limitations

It supports a limited amount of rich text features: Bold, italics, links, and lists. The latter can either be regular unordered ones, or “smart bullets”, which can be toggled like a task list.

You get a little toolbar above the keyboard on iOS, and you can pick 3 shortcuts to list types.

Plain-text

You can also switch it into plain-text mode. (And this setting is remembered for each note.) The app knows about Markdown, so the formatting will be transformed into this in the plain-text mode – and hotkeys, like Cmd+B, works.

Additionally, Tot handles imported text intelligently by doing Markdown conversion:

In plain text mode, any rich text will be converted to its equivalent in Markdown. If you copy “something bold” on a web page, it will end up as “something **bold**” in the plain text.

With rich text mode, the opposite happens. Any pasted text with Markdown formatting will be styled using your selected font.

The same conversions happen during drag and drop.

— From the app’s documentation

It also has thoughtful details,

like counters, sharing options, Shortcuts support, colour-blind mode, and more.

Not perfect

I’ve seen Tot being mentioned as “finished software” – but I don’t agree with that.

Alternatives:

I don't think it should become more powerful – because I like the limitations! But if you want something similar, but that's a bit more powerful, I recommend checking out Antinote. The beta is free until March 2025, so jump in now!

And if you're a Raycast 🖇️ user, the new version of notes built in there is great as well.

If you want something that's simpler (and cheaper) than Tot, check out Scratchpad.

When I jump between Tot and my favourite text editors, Paper and Bike, there are a couple of things I miss. (And that’s why I would’ve loved it if the Paper dev made an app like this!)

Tot doesn’t really support lists…

Hitting tab will only indent a list item if you have the caret before the list symbol.

When doing text selection, it also doesn’t distinguish between the list content and symbol, like Paper does. And it doesn’t wrap properly.

Formatting issues

Hitting Cmd+B doesn’t just format the text you have selected – it puts you into some sort of Bold Mode. This makes any text you type bold, until you turn it off. The inverse is true as well.

Bike handles rich text ambiguity better than any app I’ve seen:

You're never unsure about what you'll get when you type.

In Paper, having the caret near a bold section (without having anything selected) and hitting Cmd+B, will turn off bold for the entire section. I love this, as you don’t have to precisely select the section first.

There are also some edge cases, like multi-line formatting, which Paper handles better:

I also wish Tot would do some light formatting like this in plain-text mode. (It could still show every symbol, like now.)

I also miss having hotkeys to move paragraphs/list items up and down.

And wouldn’t mind folding. (Paper lacks this as well, though.)

It’s still a great app! I love the way it looks, and the limitations. It’s just not at the absolute top, when it comes to being a place to handle text.

I highly recommend trying it out on Mac, and maybe buy it for the other platforms if you use it a lot.

I don’t want my regular text editors to have that option enabled. ↩︎
I love how the icon changes with the colour of the active note. ↩︎

✉️ My Issues With the Tapestry Design

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 13:22:57 +0100

The 1.0 of Iconfactory’s latest app, Tapestry, just landed. Like the new Reeder, it’s a “unified timeline app”, that collects feeds from many different sources, like RSS, Reddit, YouTube, Mastodon, and more.

Some really like this idea (for instance for collecting Bluesky, Mastodon and Micro.blog in one place), while others don’t. I’m not yet sure where I stand.

I backed the Tapestry kickstarter way-back-when, so I’ve been able to beta test it. I like a lot of the ideas – and the way it handles feeds/connectors and default apps seems fascinating and robust. But due to some issues with the visual design, I’ve never been able to get into it… This post is my feedback letter to the devs, which might also be interesting to others.

Edit:

I got some feedback from Iconfactory on this post. That, and my response back, can be read in this blog post.

Great designers

I spent €40 on the Kickstarter – but even if I’ll never get into the app, I won’t call it a complete waste. Because Iconfactory is a cool company, that I don’t mind supporting.

And they are excellent designers! So when I disagree with things about their work, I’m, of course, a bit nervous, heh.

Mini Gang, unite ✊🏻

I’m still rocking my trusty ol' iPhone 13 Mini. And I think part of my issues stem from me using a phone that’s probably smaller than what they’ve optimised for. I also get that it’s a 1.0, and that much of the work has gone into some really cool tech on the backend. So I hope it’s possible to see that this feedback comes from a place of love, and hope for the future!

And I get that many might like the things I don’t. So I think the answer is more customisation – like this settings screen from Mona:

Messy and cramped

I like colourful designs. And Tapestry has this neat idea, where it gives timeline entries different colours depending on the type.

Here: Mastodon, Bluesky and RSS feeds ("Blog").

This is what it looks like when I just browse my blogs, like a regular RSS reader.

It might not come across perfectly in screenshots, but with my Mini phone in hand, I find a combination of things here unpleasant.

Large fonts, lack of space

In general, the app has very little white space – and this becomes worse by the fact that some fonts are larger than necessary. And to save more space, I wish I could turn off the part where it says the type of feed. The colours already communicate this, and it’s especially useless in the feeds of just one type. (So this should probably be a per-timeline toggle.)

In most screenshots, I’ve used Dynamic Type to turn down the font size 1 notch. I like Tapestry the most if I can turn it all the way down – but then all my other apps get too small. Here you can see Tapestry with the default font size, and then the smallest possible:

I like the smaller fonts a lot more. But that settings messes up the rest of my phone…

Edit: You can adjust text size per app!

You have to

add a Text Size control to Control Center,
go into the app,
tap the widget in Control Center,
click Tapestry Only, and adjust.

This helps – but it’s not perfect, IMO. And now my menus are comically small…

Borders and avatars competing

I like the darker coloured border on the left side, and how it goes all around when you expand the entry. But the lines going through the avatars, that sometimes have plenty of different colours and varying degrees of transparency, makes it very messy, IMO.

Here you can see that the Platformer and Six Colors avatars have transparency.

I wish I could move either the avatar or the border to the right side – like you can in Reeder:

Having the option to turn off avatars (like in Unread below here), would also be nice. The names are already communicated. (I do see how having the avatars makes scanning more quickly easier, though.)

Some things are better on my 11" iPad.

At least things are less cramped! But I would still like to be able to move the avatar to the right…

It also feels more unfinished than the iPhone version: Expanding and collapsing on the timeline doesn’t seem to work, and it really needs a multi-column view, like the one in Reeder below.

Comparison shots with my RSS reader

Here you can see the title font sizes of Tapestry (purple) and Lire – on the same Dynamic Type size:

Here’s how they display entries:

It’s OK that Tapestry uses less space for an entry – but I don’t think it should then also use a larger font size. (Also, props to Tapestry for having to display one more piece of info: The type of feed (“Blog”).)

And the entire feed screen:

I’m not saying Tapestry has to become as minimalistic as Lire, or that the latter is a perfect example of design. But I wish I could tweak Tapestry, as it currently feels a bit claustrophobic to me.

Summing it up, and looking ahead

Iconfactory told me on Mastodon, that they’ve optimised for being able to quickly scroll through the timeline “and instantly be able to spot a post from a particular service”. And I guess I don’t do that all that much. But even though, I don’t agree with them that “[y]ou can’t do that in those other apps”.

Nevertheless, my wishes, for now, are these:

Allow me to tweak the general font size of the app. (And as titles are coloured, I don’t think the difference in font size, compared to the body size, needs to be as large as it is now.) A spacing setting might also be a good idea, as some might want the tighter look.
Have an option to toggle the feed type text on/off (per timeline).
I also want to be able to display all content in posts on my Mastosky timeline – so settings like this should also be possible to do per timeline.
- You could have default values in the main settings, and then in the timeline settings, have a toggle for “Custom setting X” and then select what you want.
Be able to set avatars to be either left, right or off.
On the iPad, it would be nice to be able to browse the timeline with some of the entry visible, and then being able to click to expand for a bit more, and then also be able to open the entire thing. Something closer to what you can already do on the phone, but perhaps with different break points.
There also needs to be some sort of multi-column view.

And two, more technical things, I’ve thought about while testing:

Using Apple to sign in to Micro.blog doesn’t work for me. Doing that just allows me to browse Micro.blog within Tapestry – I don’t get sent back to the app to finish the connector.
My RSS backend is currently Miniflux, which also uses the Fever API. I get that Tapestry isn’t a regular RSS reader, so I don’t expect the feeds themselves to be synced through something like that. But it would be cool if I could sync just which feeds I subscribe through!

I will continue trying out the app, as I like both the company and several of the ideas. But for now, for me, it needs more work before it’ll become a staple in my daily surfing. Which might be expected for a 1.0 product.

I recommend checking out the app for yourself!

Quick Recommendation #5: The Mad Max Video Game

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:19:39 +0100

It’s not often I finish video games… One of the reasons, is that I often play games you can’t finish – like Europa Universalis and The Bazaar 🖇️. But I actually just finished, an r/patientgamers favourite: the Mad Max game, from 2015.

And it’s actually at 80% off on GOG at the moment!

It’s not a fantastic game – but if you like Mad Max (like me), I can recommend it. I saw someone on Reddit call it “the perfect mid-budget game”, and I agree.

It’s an open-world game, with a world of great flavour. The car-combat is especially good and unique.

But one piece of advice, if you decide to check it out: Exploring the open world gets quite repetitive – so it’s not worth it to approach the game with a completionist’s mindset. Just treat it as a bite-sized little treat, and do the stuff you find fun and run through the story. If you buy it for like €4, just try to get that amount of money’s worth.

I played in through Steam, and on my Mac Mini. It says it’s not available for Mac, but installing it still works, for some reason. (Not 100% sure about the GOG version, though.)

A bad image of a video game's credits. A rare sight for me.

Quick Recommendation #4: Ultima Retrospective (YouTube)

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 10:42:56 +0100

I have no prior nostalgia for the CRPG series Ultima. I’ve always known about the series, but never played any of the games. Still, I’ve loved a series by the YouTube channel Majuular: Ultima Retrospective

The videos are long – but well-made, with a combination of story behind the development and reception, plus a complete run-down of the gameplay and story. It’s also not done, so I assume there’ll be more content down the line! (You know, if you’re done with the 14 hours made up until now.)

Let's Try to Always Provide a Dignified Way Forward

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 20:04:23 +0100

And a Message to My Fellow Straight, White, Cis Men

It’s been a rough couple of days over at my part of the internett…¹ And this has made me think about something I learned on a teacher seminar once: While dealing with tough student situations, always provide a way for them to come out of the situation with their dignity intact, while still achieving the goal behind the intervention.

It’s not an easy exercise, I can assure you! But I think it’s an important principle, that can be applied to many other situations as well.

We can disagree and still love each other – unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

— James Baldwin (via Patrick Rhone)

It’s a time for vigilance.

Especially for straight, white, cis men like myself. Because, people not like me are under attack (so they’re vigilant whether they want to be or not) – not because of what they do, but who they are. And we can’t let them fight this battle alone.

So here’s a little message to my brethren (and I’ll try my best to do my part):

Let’s pay extra attention – both IRL and online. Let’s try to speak up when someone’s harassed – or ask if there’s something we can do after-the-fact. Maybe they want us to talk to the insensitive boss for them, or perhaps not. Let’s not make a scene when one isn’t warranted.
Let’s take the time to explain why some things might be hurtful or important – even if it’s not any of those to us specifically. It’s tiring to always have to be the one to educate – so try to pitch in. (But see the last sentence in point 1.)
I know it might seem performative to wear a little flag on your lapel, bio, or whatever. But I like to think that it signals, to whomever might need it, that “I think who you are is OK”.
Keep learning. There’s so much I don’t know about not being like me – so I want to stay humble and curious. (And this very much applies to this very post as well! Feedback is greatly appreciated.) Kind questions might be perfectly fine – but at the same time: Read the room, and see point 2. No one likes a voyeur, or to be made into something exotic. Sometimes, maybe just let someone be a regular human being, and research a bit on our own. And, for the love of God, when someone shares with us: Listen.
And lastly, let’s not make pronouns into a big deal. I get that it might seem unnecessary to share our pronouns, as perhaps no one (including us) has ever been in doubt. But doing it (quickly, and without jokes) is a good way to make others, with a larger need, feel less alone.² And no one will lynch us if we say the wrong pronoun to someone – just say “sorry”, and (genuinely) try our best. (If you’re in doubt, it can be a good idea to ask privately beforehand.) What’s really hurtful is when people don’t care.

Some people are out of reach.

They might have lost the will to care for those unlike them a long time ago. And when it comes to these, spending time figuring out a way forward, is pretty pointless.

But many are not.

And if we are to take this battle seriously, we’ll also be in situations with people whose hearts might very well be in the right place, but could still need a nudge. I’m far from perfect when it comes to stuff like this myself: I sometimes say hurtful things – and don’t always use inclusive language. I also don’t do close to enough concrete action to help those around me. So I absolutely also require these nudges! We are not lost causes – just causes.

And this is a spectrum: From those who need a little nudge, to those who need a larger one, and off to the unreachables. **And one thing I want to see much less of, is people who equate those in need of a small nudge to the lost causes. **

I get that comparing this with a teacher/student interaction can give off a whiff of condescension – but that’s not my intension. I’ve just seen, too many times, how people who don’t see a dignified way out, will harden. And if they don’t see a way back into the community, they’ll strike out on their own (perhaps finding other outcasts). Everyone wants, first and foremost, to be loved. A good second option is to be liked, and a third one is to be accepted. But if all of these feel out of reach, they’d rather be feared than ignored.

To be clear, I’m not talking about letting things slide, or a lack of accountability. And I get that what I’m saying can be hard (and some people just don’t deserve it) – especially if one is tired, scared, or worse.³ That is why allies are needed!

But let’s try to imagine what it would look like if amends were made. What would have to be done? What would have to be said? (Now, and going forward.) Even though we can’t drag someone across them, let’s try to build the bridges we need.

I can only speak for myself: But if you want to be someone who respects, accepts, and supports others, no matter their race, sexuality, gender identity, religion, etc. – you can hang with me. And that door is always open, even though you might’ve said and done stupid things in the past. You do have to be accountable, and walk the bridge yourself – but you don’t have to be perfect.

I don’t want anyone to feel trapped in an identity of hatred.

I’ll end on what I’d categorise as a genuine and beautiful apology someone shared online. It’s easy to fuck up – let’s not make it harder than necessary to make proper amends.

I’d like to apologise what has happened from the bottom of my heart.

I have grossly overstepped the trust and respect of you specifically, the community and all people who identify as LGBTQ+. I made a mistake by my own doing and disregard of other people’s feeling and identity.

It was incredibly stupid, childish, and disrespectful of me to make that comment, which I realised on the day as rightly pointed out by the community. It was irresponsible, insulting, and insensitive to all — and rightly have been called out for.

It was never my intention to hurt you or make you feel this way. It is, and was, very out of character of me to say what I said, and there is nothing I can say here to make you feel better.

I made a terrible mistake. I ask for your forgiveness.

This specific forgiveness isn’t primarily mine to give. But I still give what I have.

-Erlend

But I won’t go into it here, as I want to try to make this post more general. ↩︎
And suggesting the sharing might also be a nice gesture. See point 2. ↩︎
I completely get not being able to always be on your post patient and understanding, when people are unjust. Especially to you. ↩︎

I Don't Have to Convince Myself That "The Model Y Is Bad, Actually" to Not Buy One

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 14:17:06 +0100

As we’re expecting a child in May, we need a bigger car. And here in Norway ~90% of new cars are EVs, so we’ll obviously buy one of those.

If I look at price, range, charging, tech, and practicality, the best choice is the Tesla Model Y.¹ I have to pay significantly more to get something similar, or get something significantly worse. However, I do not want to add that much money to Elon Musk’s bottom line – so I won’t buy one.

And to land on that conclusion, I don’t have to first convince myself that “the Model Y is a bad car, actually”. It’s OK to admit that it’s a great car (for the price), and perhaps point out things you wish others could learn from it² – while still not choosing it for other reasons.

But my car purchase isn’t the main point of this post. I use it as an example to point out a fallacy I see too much. Because, the following pattern is both dishonest and (sometimes) counter-productive:

Elon Musk is a terrible person →

Model Y is a terrible car →

I won't buy a Model Y

Because, suddenly, your purchasing decision hinges on “Model Y being a terrible car” (which it simply isn’t). Now, this might not matter to you! But if someone hears this, and then finds out that the car is good, they’ll lose the reason to not buy it. So, I think this is a better thing to communicate:

Elon Musk is a terrible person →

I won't buy a Model Y (whether it's good or not)

You are, of course, allowed to actually think the Model Y is a bad car! My point is that one thing doesn’t necessarily lead to the other.

And you don’t have to think that everything about SpaceX is lame, due to Musk and other problematic parts about the thing. But you can choose not to fawn over it. In a similar vain, one might decide not to recommend the Model Y.

The way generative image tools have been trained is deeply problematic – and that’s the reason I won’t use them on this blog. I don’t have to also find them useless. That’s a pointless and, for the reasons mentioned, sometimes counter-productive middle step.

It’s a problem when the more ethical choice also has to be the “best” choice.³ I think it’s better to normalise accepting something slightly “worse”, and/or more expensive, because it’s the right choice.

One of the cars high up on our list is the Opel Grandland. Perhaps we would be more happy with that than with a Model Y – or maybe not. My point is that it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to convince myself that Model Y is a worse choice. I won’t get one anyway. And I don’t think you should either.

The only major downside with it, is the sound dampening and general quality feel. It’s a budget car after all. Oh, and the looks are pretty boring. I also currently have a 2019 Model 3 I’ve been happy with – so I know what I would be getting into. ↩︎
Like properly taking advantage of the interior space and not having an on/off button. ↩︎
I’d argue that “ethics” is part of what makes something “best” – but you know what I mean. ↩︎

Hurrah: My Favourite Markdown Editor Just Dropped on Setapp

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 17:38:39 +0100

The magnificent Markdown editor Paper just became available on Setapp 🖇️, making it more accessible for more people to try out! I’ve written a thorough review of it previously, but here are the things you need to know:

It’s simply the best Markdown editing experience I know of. (And I’ve tried a lot.) Only Bear comes close.
- And it’s excellent both on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
It’s very minimalistic (just opens as a blank, white “sheet of paper”).
- At the same time, it has a bunch of hidden advanced features and customisation options.
It’s a file-based editor, as opposed to being library-based.
- One good thing about this, is that it can be used in conjunction with other Markdown apps,
- like using it as a nicer editor for notes stored in NotePlan, Obsidian, etc.

So, I wouldn’t primarily say it’s a “notes app”. It’s more of a “writing app” and “Markdown editor”. You could, of course, use it as a notes app – but then you have to rely on Finder/Files and x-callback-URLs for the organisation.

I highly recommend giving it a go, and play with the settings to make it behave like you want! Perhaps my favourite feature, is the combined Typewriter Mode and Focus Mode:

The Terminal – For Noobs (Like Me), Part Three

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 22:01:19 +0100

A More Noob-Friendly Terminal

This is the third, and final, part of my terminal guide.

The first one was about basic concepts,
the second about why you might want to use and become familiar with the terminal,
and this is how you can make your terminal more noob-friendly (regardless of what you’ll end up using it for).

I’m not saying these things are stuff everyone should do – but they are things that have helped me like the terminal much more. And feel free to just pick-and-choose the things you want to try out.

Also, as I’m a Mac user, this might be a bit Mac-centric. But I think all of the programs I’m mentioning also exist for Linux – and many of them for Windows as well. (And installation is probably similar.)

Choice of app

One thing that has tripped me up quite a bit, is that terminals adhere to different text manipulation conventions than the rest of the OS. For instance, Shift+Command+Left will usually select text from the caret and all the way to the left – but it doesn’t in terminals. To be fair, the hotkeys in the terminal are probably better, if you know them. But to me, it’s just impractical that they’re different when I spend so much more time with “regular” bindings. (Here’s a video showing some of the default bindings in most terminals!)

The only terminal I’ve found that behaves like regular apps, when it comes to text, is Warp 🖇️. It also has several helpful AI tools integrated. However, this is a controversial recommendation. Among other things, it has gotten a lot of flack for the fact that you used to have to log in to use it, and that it’s quite bloated compared to other terminals. But I still think it’s a good choice for beginners!

In this example I've sent a command, and the result takes up more space than I have room for. Normally the command itself wouldn't be visible – but in Warp you can always see the command up top. You can also see it suggesting the next command.

If you want something leaner, either to start with or if you’ve graduated from Warp, I recommend Ghostty.¹ I’m currently using Ghostty – and the screenshots in these posts are from it. I don’t miss the AI features, as I prefer to keep a chat going in Raycast 🖇️ anyway. And I’m getting by with the, in my opinion, poorer text manipulation.

Ghostty is cleaner – but you can't see the top of the command. Maybe it can be configured somehow?

Customising

In this world, programs typically don’t have a regular settings screen, where you can hit buttons to make your choices. Instead, they’ll usually have a text file, where you add the changes you want to make to the default settings. These settings files often start out empty, or perhaps not even made at all (so you have to create it manually).

Let’s use the code editor Zed as an example: The settings.json file starts existing, but empty. To show you the things you can change, how what you need to write, they show you the default settings in a “filled out” file.

You can see what that looks like at this link – and one way you can adjust settings, is by copying and pasting everything from the default into your settings.json, and then change what you want.

But you can also just write new values for what you want to change, which is what I have done. Below is my entire settings.json for Zed – and you can probably understand what every line does!

{
  "uifontsize": 16,
  "bufferfontsize": 13,
  "bufferfontfamily": "FiraCode Nerd Font Mono",
  "theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "macOS Classic Light",
    "dark": "Quill"
  },
  "indent_guides": {
    "coloring": "indent_aware"
  },
  "git": {
    "inline_blame": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  },
  "journal": {
    "hour_format": "hour24"
  },
  "scrollbeyondlastline": "verticalscroll_margin",
  "softwrap": "preferredline_length"
}

Some config files use json, like this. Others use toml, other languages, or something proprietary. In general, it’s a good idea to open these files in code editors, with syntax highlighting (like Zed).

.zshrc

A file you need to create yourself, is the config file for the shell (zsh). In your home folder, create a file called .zshrc (with no extension or anything). This is where you customise the shell itself. And a nice thing about this, is that these settings follow you between different terminal emulators (like Warp and Ghostty).

Files and folders that start with a . is usually hidden. So to see them, you have to enable showing these. The hotkey in Finder is Shift+Cmd+..

Later in this guide you’ll be asked to add stuff to this file. Furthermore, the order of lines usually doesn’t matter in files like this – but hierarchy might.

When you’ve changed the .zshrc file, it won’t be apparent in your terminal immediately. You can restart the shell with exec zsh, or by just quitting and re-opening the terminal window.

Starship

There are many ways of configuring your prompt – and one of them is Starship. For it to work optimally, you need to have a nerd font installed, and used as your font in the terminal. These are fonts that have a bunch of extra, specialised, glyphs. I like FiraCode! (Click here for a preview, and here to download. You can also do brew install font-fira-code-nerd-font)

To install Starship, first just run brew install starship,
then paste the following into .zshrc: eval "$(starship init zsh)",
and lastly, create a config file, if you want to customise it.

Let’s look at the command, from the documentation, to create the config file:

mkdir -p ~/.config && touch ~/.config/starship.toml

The && separates two different commands, and states that they should be performed one after another. So first mkdir -p ~/.config, and then touch ~/.config/starship.toml.

mkdir creates a directory/folder – and the -p is there so that it won’t throw an error even though the folder exists. You might already have the .config folder!

touch is a command for creating files, and it will create the starship.toml file, where you’ll add your settings.

I’m explaining this to show that it isn’t magic! And you can also manually create the file and folders in Finder, if you’re more comfortable with that. You also need to locate the file, to be able to open and edit it.

Starship also comes with presets, which are snippets you can copy into your config as starting points. The only thing I’ve done is adding command_timeout = 1000 to the top (I got some errors related to this), and adding the Nerd Font Symbols preset.

Starship in use

Helpers

These two apps are little helpers that will make life in the terminal a little easier.

thefuck

You install this simply with brew install thefuck. (See how easy Homebrew is??)

Then I’d add the following to .zshrc: eval $(thefuck --alias)

Now, if you get an error, after giving the wrong command, you can just type “fuck” – and it will suggest a fix.

Here you can see that I wrote “brwe” instead of “brew”, so I got an error. Just writing “fuck” gives a suggestion for fix, and hitting enter sends it. I can also go up and down to see other suggestions, and ctrl+c cancels.

I mentioned it in part one, but if you don't know how to exit/cancel something in the terminal, try hitting esc, q, ctrl+q, or ctrl+c, or type :qa.

tldr

This is installed with brew install tlrc²

Typing man brew will give you a complete manual for Homebrew. But these are sometimes very long!

Typing tldr brew instead, gives me this neat little thing:

zsh-autosuggestions

As mentioned, Warp has built-in AI suggestions. However, you can add something similar to Zsh (so all terminals) as well! And one option is zsh-autosuggestions.

First run brew install zsh-autosuggestions,
and then paste source $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh into your .zshrc.
I also added this, to change the colour of the auto suggestions: ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=10'
- Many terminals operate with themes that have 16 colours, numbered from 0-15. So you can try adjusting the number (from 10) to find something that you like, and that fits your theme.

After typing "cd", it suggests "Havn". It adapts to my history, in addition to known commands.

Alternatives to common tools

Some of the most common commands aren’t the most user-friendly. Luckily, you can swap them out for more modern alternatives!

What I’ve tried to focus on is not to make them more advanced (which you also can, of course) – but simply doing the same thing in a more user-friendly way.

bat

An example of this is the command cat, that will give a preview of a file. However, it doesn’t have things like syntax highlighting, so it’s harder to read. But someone has made something named bat! (“A cat clone with wings.")

As you perhaps could guess, you install it with brew install bat.

OK, so now you can preview things, in a nicer way, with bat instead of cat. But we can improve things further! Because, if you’d like to, you can paste this into your .zshrc:

alias cat="bat"

This means, that if you write the old command (cat), it will automatically use bat instead! Making aliases like this can be really useful – so please remember it! The syntax is simply alias command="What should be done instead".

In addition to man and tldr, another way to get help with a command, is things like brew --help. And bat can make that help text nicer as well! Add this to your .zshrc:

alias -g -- -h='-h 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'
alias -g -- --help='--help 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'

Now, both --h and --help commands will be highlighted.

Not that this is the most exciting example! But I do like some colour.

In general, these apps will often be able to improve other parts of the terminal! For instance, you can use bat to improve file previews of programs I’ll get to later.

micro

As mentioned, as I’m not used to it, I don’t like the way the terminal handles text differently than every other part of my OS. So while I get that things like NeoVim can be very effective when you learn it, I try my best to edit text outside of the terminal.

Another of the classic terminal text editors is nano. But a more user-friendly alternative is micro.

brew install micro gives you this, of course. Typing micro path_to_file opens a file in this editor. And if you’d like, you can create an alias in .zshrc: alias nano="micro"

You can also make micro your “default terminal editor” by adding this to .zshrc:

export EDITOR='micro'

However, you can also do this:

export EDITOR='open'

That makes the default editor to open the file in the default app set in macOS.

eza

Another classic command is ls (list), which shows you the content of the working directory. But here’s what my messy Dropbox folder looks like with the default command:

Then take a look at what it looks like if I use the tool eza instead:

The folder is still messy, but it's much easier to read!

However, the command I’ve run above isn’t just eza. It was the following:

eza --icons=auto --group-directories-first --no-symlinks -x

So here I’ve also made an alias (in .zshrc), so that writing ls instead gives me that:

alias ls="eza --icons=auto --group-directories-first --no-symlinks -x"

You can, of course, tweak the variables to fit your taste!

fzf and zoxide

You’ll often use ls in conjunction with cd (change directory) – and it’s a common way to get around via the terminal. However, this can also be improved – with zoxide. And it gets even better with the help of fzf (fuzzy finder).

Install both, with brew install zoxide fzf³
Add these lines to .zshrc:
- source <(fzf --zsh)
- eval "$(zoxide init --cmd cd zsh)" (They say this needs to be close to the end of the file, to override other cd command definitions.)

Now using cd will use zoxide instead. This will get smarter with use. And among other things, it makes it so you don’t have type the entire path to a folder you’ve been in before. Take a look at this video for more on this! 👇🏻

You can also run fzf by itself, by just typing fzf. However, hitting enter on a file will just print⁴ the path.

But let’s combine some things we’ve already set up. For instance, we can do the following:

fzf --preview 'bat --style=header --color=always --line-range :50 {}' --preview-window=right:60% | xargs open

This will run the fzf fuzzy finder – but it will preview the files with bat. And hitting Enter will open the file in the macOS default. You can create an alias, and adjust the parameters, if you like. For instance:

alias fz='fzf --preview "bat --style=header --color=always --line-range :50 {}" --preview-window=right:60% | xargs open'

With the alias above, running fz will give me this neat window and preview, which I can type to search in.

A nice file manager

Now, this is a bit more advanced. So feel free to skip it for now, and perhaps come back to this later!

yazi

Lastly, I want to show a nice file manager – that you can use for things like changing your working directory, opening, copying and moving files, etc.

In addition to a nerd font, it also becomes better with multiple other tools (some you might have already). So I recommend installing all of these:

brew install yazi ffmpeg sevenzip jq poppler fd ripgrep fzf zoxide imagemagick

Then you should add this to your .zshrc:

function y() {
	local tmp="$(mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXXX")" cwd
	yazi "$@" --cwd-file="$tmp"
	if cwd="$(command cat -- "$tmp")" && [ -n "$cwd" ] && [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]; then
		builtin cd -- "$cwd"
	fi
	rm -f -- "$tmp"
}

Now you can just type y to open it.

All actions can be found here, but here are some of the more important ones:

Move around with arrows.
q = Quit, and change working directory to where you were in yazi
Q = Quit, without changing the working directory
Space = Toggle selection of a file.
- o = Open selected file(s)
- y = Copy selected file(s)
- x = Cut selected file(s)
- p = Paste file(s)
- P = Paste file(s) (and overwrite)
- d = Trash selected file(s)
z = Jump to a directory, using zoxide
Z = Jump to a directory, or reveal a file, using fzf
s = Search files by name, using the program fd
S = Search files by content using the program ripgrep

This app also has a similar config story. You can copy the default config files, and then play around with the variables. Personally, I’ve adjusted the column widths, and made it open files in the macOS default!

This app is quite new for me, but I like it so far.

Phew – OK, that was a lot… But hopefully this guide has been of some value to other noobs like me. Would love to get feedback! From noobs, or pros.

Oh, and for reference – here’s my current .zshrc file:

eval "$(starship init zsh)"
eval $(thefuck --alias)

export EDITOR='open'

source <(fzf --zsh)
source $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh
ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=10'

alias cat="bat"
alias nano="micro"
alias ls="eza --icons=auto --group-directories-first --no-symlinks -x"
alias -g -- -h='-h 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'
alias -g -- --help='--help 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'
alias fz='fzf --preview "bat --style=header --color=always --line-range :50 {}" --preview-window=right:60% | xargs open'

eval "$(zoxide init --cmd cd zsh)"

function y() {
	local tmp="$(mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXXX")" cwd
	yazi "$@" --cwd-file="$tmp"
	if cwd="$(command cat -- "$tmp")" && [ -n "$cwd" ] && [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]; then
		builtin cd -- "$cwd"
	fi
	rm -f -- "$tmp"
}

Yes, I know there are many more terminals – many of them great. For instance, iTerm is a classic when it comes to Mac terminals. ↩︎
It’s “rc” because it’s a Rust client. ↩︎
Yes, you can just add more programs, separated with spaces, like that. 👌🏻 ↩︎
Just “type it out” in the terminal. ↩︎

The Terminal – For Noobs (Like Me), Part Two

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 21:52:37 +0100

The Why and What

In part one, I tried to establish the basic concepts, like terminal emulator, shell, prompt, and CLI. In this part, I want to go into why people use the terminal – and in the next part, how to make it more noob-friendly.

“But why do people use this archaic thing?”

As mentioned in part one, I’m absolutely not one of those who live in the terminal. But if I were to guess (and this applies to my basic usage as well), I’d say two things are the most important: It’s fast, and it’s powerful.

One way it can be fast, is that CLI programs are computational efficient, as there’s a lot of stuff (like graphics) they don’t need to render.

Another way is that you can do quite complicated tasks in a single* command. For instance, I’ll sometimes run this:

for dir in */; do
(cd "$dir" && mkdir -p .Originals && cp * .Originals/)
done

This will

run through all folders in a parent,
add a hidden folder in each, named .Originals,
and place a copy of each file in that hidden folder.

I use this to create backups of files before editing them (in a specific workflow), and it happens instantly. 👌🏻

CLI tools are both powerful in terms of what they can do, and also in that they’re usually highly customisable. They’re also generally easy to combine with each other, because they often do one thing.

And the combination of being fast and powerful, if you know what you’re doing, makes it a valuable tool in which to invest.

“But what can you use it for?”

If you’re a programmer, you can become a beast (with plenty of bragging rights) by using the text editor NeoVim, that runs in the terminal.¹ But I’m not, so I’ll only say that if you find yourself stuck in something you can’t exit, try hitting q, ctrl+q, ctrl+c, or type :qa.

And if you use many terminal applications, you’ll might want to use stuff like Tmux, which is a sort of window manager within a terminal.

But as I don’t know what I’m talking about, I want to stick to more basic use cases:

Random commands
Package management
Navigate and search the file system
Git
Control other computers/servers
Set up, and run, background tasks

Random commands

After a while, you’ll collect several little snippets that do useful stuff for you, like the examples with .Originals I mentioned above. There are also tools for converting files, batch renaming, and other little things that might be annoying and repetitive.

You can also control OS settings that might not be available elsewhere (or are impractical). One example here are the ones I use to swap the dock layout depending on whether I’m using an external monitor. Another one is a command to turn off font smoothing (which you should):

defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0

I like to keep these as snippets in Raycast 🖇️.

Package management

This is just a fancy way of saying “installing, updating, and uninstalling apps”. And Homebrew is a good one for Mac, which I’ve written a guide for.

Navigate and search file system

A nice terminal setup for this can be a great alternative to Finder, and also file search with launchers like Raycast or Spotlight. I’ve given an example at the end of part three.

Git

Git, and version control, is another area where I want to write a For Noobs (Like Me) post someday… Because I only almost understand it! And one of the reasons I find the text editor Nova to be more noob-friendly, is that it has built-in support for Git in a GUI, so I don’t have to use it in the terminal.

However, as long as I don’t have to deal with conflicts, it’s really fast to just do it in the terminal! So I’ve (mostly) graduated to this now.

Control other computers/servers

I’ve written previously about having a M4 Mac Mini as a secondary computer. And the only monitor I have connected to it is our TV – and I don’t really have a mouse and keyboard connected to it either. This means I mostly have to control it with my MacBook.

And while I can share the entire screen and control it like that, it’s also really practical that I can just type ssh erlend@192.168.12.34 into my terminal, and suddenly, it’s like I’m running a local terminal instance on the other Mac.

SSH is a way you can securely interact with something remote. In addition to the above, I use it when I use git, and when I have to access a Digital Ocean 🖇️ droplet that runs a Discourse forum I run. It’s also really nice that 1Password handles the SSH keys flawlessly.

Set up, and run, background tasks

In the post I linked above, I also mentioned that I managed to replace Feedbin as a host for the RSS feeds I read. Currently, everything is hosted on my Mac Mini, with Miniflux – and I had to set everything up using the terminal and CLIs.

But now it’s simply a background task that starts up with the Mac.

There are lots of YouTube videos out there, like “7 essential CLI tools”. And the things mentioned are often cool – but often not relevant for a noob and non-programmer like me. But I’d love to hear about other use cases out there! And especially if you think they can be useful for me and my fellow plebs.

Click here to go to part three, about making your Terminal more noob-friendly.

You have to relearn everything about how you manipulate text on a computer… But if you do, you’ll become much faster at it! ↩︎

The Terminal – For Noobs (Like Me), Part One

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 21:48:09 +0100

The Basic Concepts

If you’re like me, from time-to-time you’ll come across tasks that should be done in the terminal. But as you’re not very familiar with it, you wince a bit, and then just paste whatever they say, and hope for the best. The guide might also assume you know a bunch of concepts, that you don’t really understand. Like, why do some commands start with $?

Hopefully, this guide can answer some of the questions you’re too afraid to ask, and make you less afraid of the terminal. I’ll never be a person who lives in the terminal (especially as I’m not a programmer) – but I’ve managed to get to where I like it, and will be happy if a task can be done there.

Sorry that this will be a bit Mac-focused. But hopefully, it can be useful for more than Mac users!

Part Two: The Why and What
Part Three: A More Noob-Friendly Terminal

I want to make this part of a series called something like "For Noobs (Like Me)". And when I do that, I'm always very interested in feedback: both from people who know much more about the subject matter than I do (as I don't want to misinform), and from beginners (about whether or not the explanation is understandable). Contact me here, or comment below!

Basic concepts

To me, things get much less daunting if I understand some basic concepts. And here are some of the basic things you won’t necessarily see explained on guides that include some terminal stuff.

CLI vs. GUI

Most programs we use today, rely on graphical user interfaces, or GUIs. In general, this means things like buttons, graphical icons, and more – and they can usually be operated by clicking around with a mouse (or finger, on a touch screen).

A command line interface, or CLI, is an alternative way of interacting with a program, where the main way is through lines of text called command lines.

Example

Let’s say I want to install Bitwarden.

A typical GUI way of doing it, is by going into the App Store, and click a button to install:

A CLI way of doing it, could be to use HomeBrew (which I’ve also written a noob guide on, here):

Writing brew install bitwarden will tell the program brew to run the command install, with the argument/parameter bitwarden. I like this because it can be faster. But you do have to know what to write!¹

Terminal (emulator)

A bit simplified, a terminal is a way to give data to, and/or read data from, computers. And in the early days, this was the only way to do this. (The computer literally printing the data on paper, is also a type of terminal.)

If you’re in the GUI environment macOS, you can open the program Terminal.app. This is colloquially called a terminal, but is technically a terminal emulator – because it “only” emulates a terminal (within a GUI environment).

Some examples of terminal emulators (which I’ll get back to more later) are Terminal.app, iTerm 2, Warp 🖇️, Ghostty, Wezterm, and Alacritty.

Shell

OK, so:

You type command lines into a terminal emulator (like iTerm)
to use CLI programs (like HomeBrew).

But there’s one more piece of the puzzle: The Shell

As far as I understand it, a shell is a sort of interpretation layer between the operating system on one side, and user input and other programs on the other.

This can be for GUIs – like how the Quartz Compositor is a shell for windows on macOS, and Wayland can be a shell for Linux et al.

But there’s also a shell in the terminal² which will interpret your commands.

The image above shows the installation instructions for Homebrew. The thing I want you to look at, is that it starts with a $ symbol. This is related to a shell called Bash. It’s not meant to be part of what you copy and paste, but to let you know that it will work in that shell.

The default shell on macOS is a different shell, called Z shell/Zsh, sometimes indicated by the % symbol. But this is made in a way that everything that works in Bash will work in Zsh. So if you see the $, just copy everything after the symbol, and you’re golden.

Prompt, working directory, and path

The image above is an example of an “empty” terminal window. And it, sort of, “asks” you for a command. Like, “What do you want me to do? Type it in here:”.

And the part that “asks”, is called the prompt.³

The parts I’ve highlighted are the prompt – and I can then type in commands below and after it. Currently, the prompt tells me the following:

The folder Tiny-Havn-theme is the working directory – which is where I “am”.
It has noticed that it’s a git repo – and this is currently on the main branch.
It’s also showing that node.js (the icon) v23.6.0 is present.

What is included in the prompt, and how it looks, is highly customisable – and is something many enjoy tinkering with. I will go more into this in Part Three.

This is a simpler example, where the prompt just tells me which folder I'm in.

Working directory is a crucial concept when it comes to working with the terminal! The way I think about it, is that you are always somewhere on your computer when you’re using the terminal. You are always in a folder, like with Tiny-Havn-theme above.

The example above is what things usually look like when you open up a fresh terminal window. And here the working directory is your Home folder (“Erlend” in my case). But as this name varies from user to user, the tilde symbol is used to indicate the home folder. So that’s why the working directory is just ~. And something like “~/Downloads” means the Downloads folder in your Home folder.

The command mkdir will create a folder. And without further specification, it will create it your working directory. This is one way the working directory matters.

But here’s another important way: By default, you can only issue commands to programs within your working directory.
This can be beneficial – however, some programs you absolutely want access to from everywhere. Luckily, you can tell your terminal: “Hey, programs in these folders are accessible from everywhere.” This is called your PATH.

You can run echo $PATH to see a terribly formatted result of the current folders. Among other things, I have this folder there: /opt/homebrew/bin.⁴ Both Homebrew itself and the programs I install with it gets placed into that folder. And as it’s “in my path”, I can run brew commands (and everything I install with Homebrew) from any working directory.⁵

Basic concepts, summarised:

After a prompt (which tells you a bit about your context) you type command lines (and read outputs) in a terminal emulator (like iTerm).
These commands are then interpreted by a shell (like Zsh),
before getting passed on to things like CLI programs (like Homebrew).
You’ll always be “in” a folder on the computer, while using the terminal. This is the working directory. But you can move around, of course!
In general you can only use commands related to programs located in the working directory. If you want to be able to use a program from everywhere, it has to be placed in your PATH (which you’ll often do!).
For some commands (like brew list, which shows you a list of the apps you have installed with Homebrew), your working directory doesn’t matter. You have access to it from anywhere, and the action doesn’t do anything to your working directory.
However, sometimes a command (like mkdir) will do something to your working directory (unless you specify otherwise) – so then “where you are” is relevant.

Now, click here to go to Part Two, to read about why people use the terminal voluntarily, and some things you can do with it.

Or, you can jump straight to Part Three, to learn how you can make your terminal more noob-friendly.

I’ll get back to this later. But a tip for HomeBrew is that you can write brew search bitwarden (or whatever) to know that you’re using the correct name. ↩︎
I’ll skip “emulator” from now on. ↩︎
Not to be confused with AI prompts. ↩︎
I can find it by going to Macintosh HD, and show hidden files and folders. ↩︎
Another mentioned folder, is /bin. And that’s where the built-in mkdir is located. ↩︎

More on Using a Mac Mini as a Secondary Computer

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 17:52:22 +0100

Remote Access, RSS, and Storage and Backups

Last November, I started using an M4 Mac Mini as a secondary computer. I’m still pleased with it! And I wanted to provide a little update with some more things I’ve learned.

Remote access

Using the Mini, has been pretty simple. I’ll usually use Continuity, via my MacBook or iPad, if the TV the Mini is connected to is on. And I’ll use Screen Sharing if not.¹ (I can recommend keeping something like an integrated keyboard and trackpad nearby, if you have the space – which I don’t.)

But I’ve also figured out something else! And I get that this is very basic for many of you, but probably not for all.

On the Mini, I’ve gone into System Settings → General → Sharing → Advanced → Remote Login, and turnet it on. Now I can paste in something like this, in my Macbook’s terminal: ssh erlend@192.168.12.34

The terminal instance, on the MacBook, will now be like if I was running it locally on the Mini. This allows me to reduce the number of times I have to control the Mini directly – as it’s nicer to just use the MacBook.

I also think this is an important setting – even though it’s not as secure:

This means you can’t have FileVault turned on – but it makes it so the Mac will log in (and start all login items) on a restart. This is important to keep services running – but if there’s another (more secure) way of doing this, I’m interested in hearing about it.

RSS

Speaking of things I’ve done in the Terminal…

My Feedbin plan, for $50/year, was up January 10th – and I wanted to see if I could cancel it and run it from my Mac. I noticed that my RSS client of choice, Lire (and several others), had support for something called Miniflux, so I wanted to install that.

With the help of Claude (via Raycast AI 🖇️), I managed to install it via MacPorts. I also had to create a database, and user, with postgresql. Quite quickly I got Miniflux up and running locally – but I struggled much more to get access remotely.² Because, you obviously don’t want to be able to just type in a public IP and get access to what the Mac is serving.

Classic LLM problem…

Claude suggested Cloudflare as a free option. I do have a couple of domains I could use, but I would rather not move them over to Cloudflare. However, Claude said I didn’t have to with their Zero Trust service. I then spent 6(!) hours trying to make it work, before I learned that, no, it doesn’t work without moving the domain. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Tailscale <3

The reason I didn’t use Tailscale, is that I thought the cheapest option there was the $6/month plan – which is more than I paid for Feedbin. However, it turns out that there is a free plan for personal use!³ Setting this up, and thus getting remote access to my Miniflux instance, was ridiculously easy.

I also had to follow this guide, to activate both the Miniflux API and something called Fever API (within Miniflux). I was then able to add Miniflux as my syncing service in Lire.⁴ (But Lire for Mac has an annoying bug, where you can’t paste into the login window. So I had to type everything, including a long and complicated API key, manually…)

Exporting an OPML file from Feedbin, and importing it to Miniflux worked like a charm – and I only miss one feature from Feedbin: Miniflux supports folders, but not tags – and I prefer the latter. But still, I’ve been more than happy with the experience and performance so far.

Storage and backups

I recently wrote about being annoyed because it feels like Apple is forcing me to pay for much more iCloud storage than I need. I already have a lot of Dropbox storage, so I wish I could only use that. My photo library takes up the largest portion of my 200 GB plan, and it’s annoying how hard it is to reduce how much I use, and that the next option is 2 TB.

iPhone (and iPad) backups

One way I’ve tried to reduce my usage, is to store my iPhone backups on my Mini, instead of in iCloud. And connecting the phone with a cable, finding it in Finder, and turning this on gets me somewhat along the way:

However, I can’t find a way to have the backups happen automatically!

Apple has made a way for you to access your iPhone via your Mac.
Here they’ve made a way to back up the entire phone,
and also sync (which is not as complete as backups) the iPhone and Mac.
They’ve also made a way for the sync to happen automatically (when locked and connected to power),
But they’ve not made a way for the backups to happen automatically.

When you know that iCloud backups can happen automatically, it’s hard not to think that Apple’s motivation for developing the same for Mac backups is being hampered by that sweet, sweet service revenue…

Internal vs. external storage

My current setup is only 256 GB of internal storage, but 2 TB of (quite fast) external storage. And one thing, I don’t think I mentioned in my original post, was that why I chose not to move my Home folder to the external drive.

The thing is that, it can create numerous problems – so it has to be worth it. And with the way I use my Macs, a minimal portion of my storage use has to be in the Home folder.

All of these are on my external drive:

Apps larger than 1 GB (from the App Store)
Steam games
iCloud Photo Library
My Dropbox folder (which is most of my stuff)
Most backups, including Time Machine backups of our family’s two MacBooks.

Annoyingly, one of the things taking up the most space on the internal drive, is the aforementioned iPhone backups. Because, of course, Apple isn’t allowing those to be placed on an external drive…

By the way, I know that I don't adhere to every backup principle under the sun – so I don't need emails about that, thank you. But [other emails](mailto:erlend@havn.online) are welcome!

More cold storage

While the amount of internal storage works OK, I’ve learned that I could use more external. But that doesn’t mean I wish I bought more than 2 TB for the Thunderbolt enclosure (even though I do intend to upgrade that down the line). I’ve just learned that I want a bunch of slower storage as well.

As mentioned, I’ve placed my photo library on the external drive, and asked it to download everything (about 150 GB). And then I’m currently using ChronoSync Express (via Setapp 🖇️) to create an extra copy of the library every night (and not to not delete files, even though they’re removed from the original).

This is what the action looks like, which can then be scheduled. If I had a more storage, I would turn on the archive feature as well!

That means that the two copies take up a bit over 300 GB.
The Time Machine backups take up about 500 GB each,
and the Dropbox about 450 GB.

That means I’m pretty close to the 2 TB – and I wish I could have an extra copy of my Dropbox folder. So I want to add another drive, with slower and cheaper storage. (Suggestions are welcome!) In addition to apps, games, and media for Jellyfin, I think I might want to keep the Time Machine backups on the faster drive. And move more of the “extra” stuff to the slower drive. Here I’m also planning on keeping a remote backup for a friend of mine.

If you’re considering going down this road, I can still recommend it! I’ve also had fun playing the Mad Max game, and UFO 50. 👌🏻

Neither are 100% stable – but works well enough. ↩︎
You also need to make sure everything starts on login. ↩︎
You also need to make sure everything starts on login. ↩︎
PSA: The server in Lire wound up looking like this: http://100.66.12.345:8080, with the IP being my Tailscale IP. That address is also how I now can access Miniflux from everywhere. ↩︎

Sharing an Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 13:49:55 +0100

From Pixelfed – an Open Alternative to Instagram

Link to the post.

Dear Mark,

I hope this finds you well. I noticed something interesting today - it seems Instagram is blocking links to my little open-source project. You know, the one that lets people share photos without harvesting their personal data or forcing algorithmic feeds on them.

I have to admit, I’m flattered. Who would’ve thought a small team of volunteers could build something that would catch your attention? We’re just trying to give people a choice in how they share their memories online. No VCs, no surveillance capitalism, just code and community.

Remember when Facebook started? It was about connecting people, not maximizing engagement metrics. Our project might be tiny compared to Instagram, but we’re staying true to that original spirit of social media - giving people control over their online presence without turning them into products.

You could’ve ignored us. Instead, by blocking our links, you’ve given us the best endorsement we could ask for. You’ve confirmed what we’ve been saying all along - that big tech is more interested in protecting their walled gardens than fostering genuine innovation.

Every time you block a link to our platform, you remind people why we built it in the first place. Your action tells them there are alternatives worth exploring, ones that respect their privacy and agency. So thank you, Mark. You’ve turned our little project into a symbol of resistance against digital monopolies.

Perhaps one day you’ll remember what it felt like to be the underdog, building something because you believed in its potential to make the internet better. Our doors are always open if you want to remember what that feels like.

Best regards,

Daniel Supernault

P.S. Keep blocking those links. Every error message is just free advertising for the social web.

My Adaptive Smart Light Setup

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 15:06:53 +0100

A Guide, and a Glimpse Into the Mind of a Madman (Me)

I’ve previously written about why I think Smart Bulbs > Smart Switches.¹ And one of the reasons I think that, is that I (for some reason) really love having the colour temperature of my lights change throughout the day.

Sadly, I’ve found the automatic systems for this really lacking. But here I wanted to show how I’ve created a system I like.

The goals:

Be effortless to use (and relatively easy to adjust)
Both provide a good experience with simple switches, and with dimmers.
Working with different brands of switches and bulbs.
Keep everything in HomeKit.²

I want a smart home. But, in use, I want it to be as simple as a dumb one. I want guests to be able to operate things at, at least, the same level as they would in another unfamiliar home.³ And then I want to add smart benefits on top of this, like colour temperature, automations, some hidden button features, and being able to override stuff with things like a phone.

My most used switch is the Flic 2. And when the light is off, I want one click to turn on to a setting that’s almost always the right one. But as the “right setting” changes throughout the day, I have to do some adjustments in the background…

While you can adjust the brightness in Home.app, I also wanted to be able to do it with a dimmer switch at some places. So I’ve bought a couple of Flic Twists 🖇️ as well.⁴ HomeKit/Matter, sadly, hasn’t delivered support for dimmers, though – so I had to be a bit creative to get these to work as I wanted.

You can, of course, do something nicer than this – but the little white tape on the regular light switches is all you need for them never to be turned off.

The principle

I’ve created three “moods” (which correlates to brightness and colour temperature):

Glow (warmest)
Cream
Glass (coldest)

And, currently, my home moves through these moods at these times:

From the night before 🌙: Glow
1 hour after sunrise ⛅: Cream
3 hours after sunrise ☀️: Glass
3 hours before sunset 🌥️: Cream
1 hour after sunset 🌙: Glow

If you turn on a light during “Cream time” it will turn on to that setting, and so on. And when the mood changes (during the day), it will go through the lights that are turned on, and adapt them to the current mood.

The how

Be warned: It’s a very fiddly setup process… But when you’re done, you can easily change when the mood changes, and also what a specific light will look like during a specific mood.

Prerequisites:

HomeKit enabled bulbs (that can change temperature) and switches
A bulb that can always be on⁵
The app Controller for HomeKit⁶
- This is able to do more advanced stuff with HomeKit than Home.app, while still not having to move things out of that system.

1) The always-on bulb

I have this outdoor lamp, that’s always on:

And I’ve created an automation that will change the brightness like this:

From the night before 🌙: 25%
1 hour after sunrise ⛅: 40%
3 hours after sunrise ☀️: 60%
3 hours before sunset 🌥️: 40%
1 hour after sunset 🌙: 25%

What I’m doing here, is using this bulb to help my automations know which mood we’re in.⁷

If that lamp is at 25%, we’re in Glow,
if it’s at 40% we’re in Cream,
and 60% means Glass.

This means that if I, for instance, want Cream to start 2 hours after sunrise instead, I’ll just adjust that one automation controlling that one lamp.

There are a million ways to fill this need, though. It just needs to be something that can be checked, by automations, to see which mood we’re in.

2) 4* scenes per lamp

Now we’re starting to get to the fiddly parts… You see, automations works the best with scenes. So we have to create a bunch of these, for each light.

Let’s use a “kitchen light” as an example. You could get away with 4 scenes:⁸

Kitchen light Off (yes, you need this)
Kitchen light Glød (both brightness and temperature)
Kitchen light Cream (both brightness and temperature)
Kitchen light Glass (both brightness and temperature)

If you at a later time want to change how the light looks in a certain mood, you’ll go in and adjust the specific scene(s).

Here you can see a scene, in Controller, that includes both setting the temperature and turning it on, and setting the brightness: (I think it increased the reliability to have both brightness and power state together.)

3) Switch automations

Next, you’ll set up automations related to the switches. The basic idea is this:

I click the switch:
- If the light is On → Set Kitchen light Off
- If the light is Off → Check the outdoor lamp
  - If at ≤25% → Set Kitchen light Glow
  - If at 40% → Set Kitchen light Cream
  - If at ≥60% → Set Kitchen light Glass

Sadly, I think you have to create 4 separate automations, though. One for off, and one for each mood.

Here you can see examples of an Off automation and a Glow automation:

I know it sounds (/is) convoluted – but this method has proven itself to be fast/responsive, and very reliable!

And speaking of convoluted…

I know that I’m crazy – but in my next home, I want to break up the scenes in two: One for brightness, and one for the temperature.⁹

Then we’ll end up with the following scenes:

Kitchen light Off
Kitchen light Glow B(rightness)
Kitchen light Glow T(emperature)
Kitchen light Cream B
Kitchen light Cream T
Kitchen light Glass B
Kitchen light Glass T

And the basic switch automations are the same – but they only set the “brightness scene”:

I click the switch:
- If the light is On → Set Kitchen light Off
- If the light is Off → Check the outdoor lamp
  - If at ≤25% → Set Kitchen light Glow B
  - If at 40% → Set Kitchen light Cream B
  - If at ≥60% → Set Kitchen light Glass B

Then we create even more automations, that work like this:

If Kitchen light gets turned on:
- Check the outdoor lamp
  - If at ≤25% → Set Kitchen light Glow T
  - If at 40% → Set Kitchen light Cream T
  - If at ≥60% → Set Kitchen light Glass T

Separating it like this, means that we’ll get the correct temperature, no matter how we turn on a light. For instance, with a different switch, with voice, or through Home.app. Automations like that looks like this:

But yeah, that means we’re up to 7 scenes and 7 automations per light! 😰

More advanced switching

Buttons like the Flic can have separate actions for single-click, double-click and hold – and the example above only relates to single-click. What I have done is, sometimes, having double-click control a different light in the same way. (Other times I've also made it so holding will turn off all the lights in a room.) But then we're back to making it user-friendly: I want this to be hidden extra-features for us who live here, while just clicking works like a regular light switch. Easily being able to have a single switch controlling several lights, and having a light be controlled by several switches, is one of the reasons I like having smart lights.

The easiest way to do that is to add a separate if statement in your switch automations, like: "When this button is clicked, or this other button is double clicked, then…"

4) Adapt lights that or on, when the mood changes

This step is optional, but I like it. Because, let’s say I turned on a light during Glass time, and kept it on until the evening. I wouldn’t want it to be stuck on this bright setting (even though I could fix it by turning it off and on again).

I’ve fixed this with automations like this:

And here’s another reason why I would break up the brightness and temperatures: Because, I’ve learned that while I want the temperature on lights that are on to change, I don’t want the brightness to change. So for the automation above, I would want it to only set the scene “Kitchen light Glow T”, and not do anything about the brightness.

This brings us to the final sum: 7 scenes and 10 automations per light…

And that’s it! No sweat…

Yes, you have to create a million scenes and a billion automations…¹⁰ But you’re left with a system where you can (relatively) easily choose what each light will look like during each mood, and quickly change when the different moods are.

So, to sum it up:

Find one thing you can use to indicate to the rest of your home which mood you’re in. (The numbers below are for the use of three moods.) Then add an automation, for instance based on the sun, to this item.
For each light, create scenes related to each mood (in addition to Off) – preferably separated into brightness (and power state) and temperature. 4 or 7 scenes per light.
Create switch automations. One for Off, and one for each mood – 4 automations per light.
- Then, preferably create automations for setting the temperature when a light turns on. One for each mood – 3 per light.
Create “mood checks” for each light. One for each mood – 3 per light.
Don’t worry about it ever again (except for making tiny adjustments to moods and timing).

Bonus guide: How I got the Flic Twist to work with this setup

I don’t know if this part is relevant unless you have my exact setup. But I wanted to share it anyway, as it could be useful for a similar setup as well – specifically if you have some switches that doesn’t play nice with HomeKit. And it also highlights another reason why I’ll use separate brightness and temperature scenes in my next home.

I backed the Flic Twist on Kickstarter a while back. But when it finally arrived, Matter support for dimmers had not. This button has the following gestures:

Push (AKA “click”)
Double Push
Twist
Push & Twist

However, if you add it to HomeKit you’ll lose the last two, as they’re not supported! So, for now, I have to keep it totally separate.

The setup in the Flic app:

Here’s how I’ve configured a Twist to control two lights:

Push will just toggle it – and it will turn on to the last used brightness and temperature. Twist adjusts the brightness. Double push and Push & Twist does the same, but for a different light. Twisting when the light is off will also turn it on, from the lowest brightness possible.

However, currently this doesn’t factor in my precious moods! I don’t mind that it doesn’t care about the brightness, as we’re literally using a dial that can set it to whatever we want. But I do want it to go to the correct temperature! Luckily, if you have the “When this light turn on, set it to the correct temperature” automation, this will already work flawlessly. 👌🏻 And that’s the last reason why I, even though it sounds insane, recommend going that route.

Smart switches is absolutely cheaper, and can be simpler. But I think the experience is better with the smarts in the bulbs. ↩︎
As Matter is still pretty disappointing, I’m keeping my eye out for when I might want to move over to HomeAssistant. I’ve also managed to not need HomeBridge – but we’ll see what happens when I move into a large house this year. ↩︎
Where you, to be fair, sometimes don’t quite know which light switches go to which. So I won’t call that a failure of the smart home usability. ↩︎
But these are too expensive to have everywhere… ↩︎
I use a bulb in my garden for this. ↩︎
Maybe others will do as well! ↩︎
There might be better solutions for this – but this was the best way I could find to create a variable within HomeKit. ↩︎
I have this setup, currently. But later I’ll get into something I think is better (but that takes even more time). ↩︎
I’ll get back to why I think this is a good idea later! ↩︎
This isn’t too bad in Controller, though – as you can duplicate and edit. It also has a bunch of organisational features to make navigating things easier. ↩︎

My Wishes for NotePlan

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:04:58 +0100

I like and use NotePlan (via Setapp 🖇️), and feel good recommending it to people. But there are a couple of reasons why I don’t love it. So while I keep all my notes and tasks in Markdown files in the NotePlan folder, I prefer editing those in other apps – like Paper. Below are the changes and improvements I would need for me to love it.

The basics needs to be improved

The NotePlan developer is very active, seems like a great guy, and is pumping out updates. Some of these are really ambitious (like more collaboration and a web editor). But the app is, at its core, a Markdown editor – and I think this core requires some improvements, and that getting this right is foundational for the rest.

I get that I can’t expect it to be as good here as the dedicated Paper, and some of the more advanced features, like the Typewriter Mode:

It feels like having an assistant who always scrolls the document to where I want it. And the dimmed text outside the window allows me to know when it's going to scroll. 👌🏻

But NotePlan should be better…

Bold and italics

Let’s say I have a bold sentence, and I then want the middle word to also be in italics. I should be able to select that word and hit Cmd+I. But NotePlan completely messes this up.

I also wish I could say that I want hitting Cmd+I to give me _underscores_ instead of *asterisks*.

Ordered lists

Another thing it can’t handle, is manipulating ordered lists. Neither adding something in the middle of a list, nor moving items around, works as it should. (I’ve shown what I mean here.)

Selection

A couple of updates ago, the NotePlan dev improved how selection works when you’re editing a task or checklist item. Let’s say I’ve written a task, and the caret is at the end of the line. I now want to select the text (to rewrite it, make it bold, or whatever), so I hit Shift+Cmd+Left:

I like that it doesn’t select the task list element here! And if I do want to select it, I just hit the hotkey again:

I really like this behaviour – but the improvement needs to make its way to regular lists and headings as well.

Links

Links look quite nice in NotePlan:

And you can create them easily by selecting the text you want to become a link, and hitting Cmd+K. Then it will paste the link from your clipboard. But there are two problems:

I don’t think you can edit a link, or see which link is actually there.
I use the clipboard manager Paste a lot – and occasionally, I don’t want to use the last thing I copied, but something previous instead. This is clunky in NotePlan.

I prefer the way Paper (and several other apps) works here:

If you select some text and paste a link, it will create the hyperlink. This is sort of like how NotePlan works with Cmd+K – but you can also paste something from earlier (with a clipboard manager).¹ Hitting Cmd+K in Paper works like this:

If you’re in Preview Mode (which acts more like a rich text editor), you’ll get a regular link dialog box – and if you have a link in your clipboard, it will pre-fill the link section. If you’re in Markdown Mode, it works like NotePlan. However, there you can always see the link content. And in Preview Mode, you can hit Cmd+K or left click to see/edit the content.

I wish NotePlan copied the paste behaviour, and that Cmd+K opened a dialog box. And, the compact Markdown link appearance is neat, but I wish it would expand on focus – even though I, in general, really don’t like it when Markdown syntax does that. I’ve made my own NotePlan theme (you can download the light mode here, and the dark mode here). And the only syntax I have auto-hide on for is for headings – but that’s only because I can’t place the # symbols in the margin, which I wish I could.

More advanced stuff

I honestly think the stuff I have mentioned until now is table stakes and should be prioritised. However, when it comes to the things I’m getting to now, I get that priorities differ. But the following are my main wishes.

Synced blocks/sections

This feature is currently planned, and is discussed a bit here. But I wanted to add some nuances – and I’m not sure what’s the best solution would be.

Sync vs. transclusion

Let’s say you have a “master note” on a subject, and you want to add info to it from several other notes. For this, Obsidian supports transclusion, which is quite cool. The way it works, is that if you write [[Name of a note#Heading]] you’ll create a link to that note (and heading), but if you instead write ![[Name of a note#Heading]] the app will display the content under that heading directly in the current note.

However, here’s an important detail (that can both be a positive and a negative): The actual content of the master note file will only be the shortcodes (![[Name of a note#Heading]]), and not all the things that will be displayed in the app. The preview of the content will also usually be read-only, and you have to go into the original note to edit it.

NotePlan currently has a Synced Line feature, which works a bit differently:

This allows you to sync a line (like a task) between two notes. The difference here is that the line actually is in both notes. NotePlan will add a little code at the end (which it then hides), to tell the app to sync all instances of that line/code. So a task could look like this:

- [ ] A synced task #Tag ^8r1x8v

A benefit of this, is that the line is equally there in all instances, and you can edit it everywhere. You could also share a file with a collection of those, and the content would be included (without you having to also share the other files).

However, the duplication can create problems with things like search and tagging. For instance, if I check for tasks with #Tag, I would see all the synced lines individually.

My question is, when NotePlan wants to expand in this area, should it go for syncing or transclusion? I guess an answer would be to work towards both. And being compatible with things like Obsidian is an important argument for at least supporting transclusion. But I would’ve loved it if synced blocks/sections could be a thing, and that the duplication issue could be addressed somehow.²

I love the way NotePlan has two separate systems for #Tags and @Mentions,³ and that you can give them to both notes and tasks. But I think it’s underutilised – and an improvement here is one of the largest wishes I have.

Currently, you can create Filters, which have a cool rules system. However, the problem I have with this, is that in only works on tasks, and that the layout takes up a lot of space because it uses a lot of it on margins and showing where every note is placed:

I get that this might be preferred for some⁴ – but I wish I could create a Smart Section or Smart List that would just display it as compact as a regular list:

If you went for the Smart Section option, it would be a part of a regular note. And in the example above, it would fetch (and create synced lines) with all tasks matching the criteria. (In this example, having the tag @Hjemme.)

Here’s what a regular folder looks like in the sidebar:

I really wish I could create a smart folder (maybe with the same rules system), and have the notes that fit the criteria just show up as a similar list. I think the only thing I can do now, is to go all the way to the bottom of the sidebar, select a single tag, click it, and then see a clunky list of the instances of the tag.

A more flexible sidebar would also be needed.

The developer recently released an update with a cool Notes Tables feature, that I’m sure many will love. But it’s not for me…

Personal collaboration

Something like this is also planned, I think – and I won’t go into it too much. But currently I only use Apple Notes and Reminders.app for things I share with my wife, and it would be neat if I could move that stuff over to NotePlan. It does have a team feature – however, that’s more of a professional tool. But I get that that’s where the money is…

A bright future

In general, I’m excited about NotePlan’s future! Especially because the developer is so active. And it feels better investing in it when I know that everything is just a folder of Markdown files. However, I really wished I loved being in the app… But I might someday!

If you paste a link with nothing selected, you can choose, via a setting, if you want it to create the link syntax or not. ↩︎
Maybe you at could only display the instance that was last edited in the internal NotePlan search. And maybe delete duplicate tags. ↩︎
I use the former for themes and the latter for contexts. ↩︎
It’s especially neat that you can add a new task, in the note in question, above or below a task you’ve filtered out. ↩︎

Why I Value Doing Stuff on My Mac With One Hand

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:18:24 +0100

And How I Do It

I get that it sounds shady¹ or like a great accessibility story, when I talk about being able to use my Mac one-handed. But it’s neither. Allow me to explain!

My default mode for using my Mac …

… is with my right hand on the trackpad, and my left in the home row position – for instance like this:

Here I'm on my couch, with a laptop tray in my lap. More on this later.

I totally get that both hands on the keyboard is the default for many. And I’m there quite a lot as well, and love keyboard-driven software.² But, for some reason, the tasks I’m doing call for the above even more.

So I’ve optimised my Mac to be able to do a lot with only that left hand on the keyboard, and only that right hand on the trackpad.

My office setup.

I really like the Magic Trackpad, as I can have the “desktop” setup be really similar to the laptop one. I do have a gaming mouse at the ready – but if I had to use a mouse, I guess I would try to recreate as much as possible on the Magic Mouse.³

The right hand and trackpad

I’ve used BetterTouchTool (and some default options) to have the trackpad be extra useful. (I can also recommend Swish, even though it doesn’t fit what I want to do with the trackpad.)

Here are the main gestures I’ve set up, and that work in “every” program:

I like both Exposé and Mission Control, so these are four-finger swipes up and down.
Four fingers to the right is New Tab,
and four fingers to the left is Close Tab.
Three fingers to the left and right move between tabs.
Three fingers down will give me the menu from the menu bar where my mouse is (via the app Menuwhere). This is especially nice on big monitors.
One-finger tap is obviously Left Click, and two-finger tap is Right Click. But I’ve also set it up so three-finger tap is Middle Click (like pressing down on a mouse wheel)– which will open links in new tabs in browsers.
Three-finger click will send Cmd+R, to refresh stuff.
Four-finger click will send (Forward) Delete. (For being able to select something, and delete it, without moving from the trackpad.)

While browsing, it’s just so smooth to be able to three-finger tap a link to open something in the background, then (when I want to check it out) just tree-finger swipe to change the tab, three-finger click to refresh it (if needed), and then four-finger swipe to close it when I’m done. Especially while chilling with the laptop in my lap (as God intended), it’s really underrated to have a great browsing experience with one hand! Also neat while drinking coffee. 👌🏻

The left hand and keyboard shortcuts

The two main things I’ve optimised for here, are opening apps and window management. I also use Paste quite a lot (with its paste stack feature). To be able to do this, I’ve had to set up a lot of custom hotkeys. And to have them not conflict with the default ones, most of them use two “modifier keys” that aren’t used normally:

The ✦ Hyper key (Shift+Control+Option+Command)
The ¬_¬ Meh key (Shift+Control+Option)

I’ve used Karabiner-Elements to set it up so holding Caps Lock gives me ✦ Hyper, and holding (not tapping) R or U gives me ¬_¬ Meh.

I’m mostly using Raycast 🖇️ to actually set the specific hotkeys (including launching shortcuts).

¬_¬ Meh

This key is used only to launch apps. For instance, I used ¬_¬ + W to open the terminal Warp 🖇️. However, I’m currently using Ghostty – but I’ve kept the same hotkey. So that’s why some make sense, and others don’t.

Here are my current hotkeys:

¬_¬ + 1 = 1Password
¬_¬ + W = Ghostty
¬_¬ + E = Apple Notes
¬_¬ + R = Finder
¬_¬ + T = Telegram
¬_¬ + Y = Tot
¬_¬ + U = Ulysses
¬_¬ + I = Photos.app
¬_¬ + O = Obsidian
¬_¬ + P = Paper
¬_¬ + A = Tidal
¬_¬ + D = Affinity Designer
¬_¬ + F = Zen
¬_¬ + L = Trello
¬_¬ + Z = Zed (or Nova)
¬_¬ + C = Shortcuts.app
¬_¬ + B = Bike
¬_¬ + N = NotePlan
¬_¬ + M = Mail.app
¬_¬ + , = System Settings.app⁴

Now, one can, of course, also open apps with a launcher and typing – but that requires two hands to be done effectively. And you can also use Cmd+Tab or something similar – but it’s just much faster to immediately launch (or switch focus to) the app you want with a single stroke.

✦ Hyper

This key is both used for window management (which I go more into here and here) and for more general global hotkeys.⁵

When it comes to window management, I’ve (sort of) made a grid under my left hand:

✦ + W = Top Left
✦ + E = Top Right
✦ + A = Left Half
✦ + S = Fullscreen
✦ + D = Right Half
✦ + Z = Bottom Left
✦ + X = Bottom Right

As you can probably understand, I can rapidly launch the app I want, and then place it where I want:

Some other uses of the ✦ Hyper key:

✦ + V = Activate Paste
✦ + C = Activate TextSniper
✦ + I = Blog image uploader shortcut
✦ + N = A new document from Bike shortcut I’ve made
✦ + P = Launching Raycast AI chat
✦ + Ø = Run a (low-creativity) English grammar check on the selected text (Claude)
✦ + Æ = Run a similar Norwegian check (Claude)
✦ + Å = Define the selected word, with examples of use (Claude)

Try it for yourself!

I can strongly recommend setting up (at least some of) this for yourself. The easiest parts are the Hyper key (with something simple like this) (with a bunch of Raycast hotkeys) and some trackpad gestures in BetterTouchTool:

I’ve added some as global gestures (like four-finger swipe right sending Cmd+T), while others (like changing tab) needs to be set per app. But as long as you have a backup of the setup, it’s really a set-and-forget-thing!

Some feedback I’d love to get:

Have you tried any parts of my setup?
Do you have a similar setup yourself?
Is Swish working for you?
Do you have any advice for me on how to improve the setup further?
Or doesn’t this make sense to you at all? (Maybe because you’re more of an all-keyboard person?)

Here I wanted to link to something I had heard, but I actually think is un-true: That one of the portable Dead or Alive games had a “One-hand Mode”. 😅 ↩︎
I totally would’ve used Godspeed 🖇️ if I had a use for a dedicated task manager! ↩︎
The other main reason I don’t want to use a regular mouse, is that I dislike when horizontal scrolling is much worse than vertical ↩︎
Shout-out to those of you who get why this is a great shortcut. ↩︎
But not that fullscreen. I’m not a psycho. ↩︎

Rumble Nation – a Terrific, Minimalistic, Japanese Strategy Board Game

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 13:12:49 +0100

Comparison Between the Old, Regular Version and the New, Deluxe Version

A couple of years ago, I got a great recommendation from the Board Game Barrage podcast: The minimalistic area majority board game, Rumble Nation. It only takes about 30 minutes to play, is easy to learn, and is cheap and compact. And all of this while still offering a lot of player interaction and interesting choices.

A rundown of the game:

You're competing for control over 11 areas in feudal Japan numbered from 2 to 12. These will give 2-12 points to the winner (and half points for second place). The winner is the person with the most points.

The game has two phases: One where players will take turns, and there are both chance and choices – and one where you'll see who wins the fights. (But with no chance or choices.)

In phase 2, the person who has the most armies in an area will win it. But here's the most interesting part: You'll determine the winner in order, from 2 to 12. And if you win area 2, you'll be able to add reinforcements, 2 armies, to every adjacent area you have at least 1 army in (and that hasn't been determined yet). So, prioritising high numbers is great, as you'll get a lot of points. But low numbers will give you a lot of extra armies in other higher value fights!

When placing armies, in phase 1, you'll throw 3 dice. You then combine two of them to determine where you place them (if you select 3 and 6, you'll place them in the 9), and the last die determines how many you'll place (half its value, rounded down). You can also, once per game, use a special card ability.

This means you'll place between 1 and 3 armies every round – so everyone won't be done in the same number of rounds. You can't (without using special abilities) move armies you've placed. So, in general, it's best to be the last to commit your armies – but the game has handled this in an interesting way, by having the tiebreaker in the phase 2 fights be whomever finished their phase 1 first.

And as mentioned, phase 2 is 100% deterministic, so the game wraps up really fast and smoothly.

I ordered the original version from Japan, and it’s been a treasured possession. But recently, I was looking at some other games from Japan, and saw that they had made a deluxe version 🖇️ of it – so I ordered it.

I got it in the mail today, and wanted to show how it compares to the original, as I haven’t seen this done anywhere.

The rules

The only gameplay changes compared to the base game is that one tactic card is nerfed a bit,¹ and that the deluxe version includes a Daimyo variant/mini-expansion.

While playing with the latter, you’ll remove two armies and instead be able to place your extra large token as an army.² At the beginning of the game, you will have drafted an ability, you can use once, related to this Daimyo piece.³ So this adds a third option in phase 1, in addition to throwing dice and placing armies, and using one of the publicly available tactic cards. It seems interesting!

But an important difference is that the deluxe version is Japanese only, while the regular version was both Japanese and English. Luckily, the BGG community has come through, and English rules can be found here. Also, only the daimyo cards are language-dependent (but they also have iconography you can learn).

The components

The yellow cubes are armies, and the kabuto is just for the player to keep in front of them to indicate their player colour. In the regular version, there are only 3 dice, which gets passed around. The token with the katanas are used for the mentioned tiebreaker.

In the deluxe version, every player gets their own dice set, and they’re really nice. I also like the new armies (even though I do have a soft spot for cubes in board games), and that the big piece gets game time. The card art is also nicer in my opinion – but the tactic card quality is about the same (while the daimyo cards are in an even higher quality).

Hexagons are huge in board games – but I think this is the first time I’ve seen heptagons! In general, I’d say the tokens in the middle are a more sideways move, compared to the others, though.

I’m someone who does value how a game looks and feels. But I also value it being compact – both on the shelf, during transport, and on the table.

I'd say the box is a bit larger – but not too bad!

However, the only thing I think is a pretty pure downgrade, when going to the deluxe version, is the board. (I’ve added the English names to the original board – so disregard that if you’d like!)

The original board gets somewhat congested in the end, and the deluxe components are larger. But it’s still a bit annoying that the game now needs more board space.
I think I like the palette less (even though it fits nicely with the rest of the art direction, which I do quite like).
Even though it adds boats, it lacks some interior details from the original.

What I would give it, though, is that the combination of size, colours, and lack of details makes it even more readable. But that wasn’t a big problem with the original.

I love the little rivers and buildings. And as they're pretty muted, they don't hurt the readability.

Compared to the original, the deluxe board is pretty bland, in my opinion.

All together now

Here's (almost) all the components, for a 3-player game. (There would be one less katana/tiebreaker token, and in the deluxe version every player would have a daimyo card.)

The player dice are unnecessary, but really nice. They are heavy and have this good-looking texture.

Verdict

The good:

Nice box- and card-art.
The box isn’t that much larger.
The daimyo variant seems like a decent addition.
Good player components.

The bad:

Larger board presence.
Only Japanese rules and components (we’ll see whether I’ll apply a fix for this or not)
Duller board art.

In general, though – Rumble Nation is a terrific board game for the price and complexity, that I greatly recommend picking up 🖇️. And the deluxe version is good – which is fortunate, as it’s the only one I can find at the moment.

Bonus images

As a side note, here are the other games I ordered from amazon.co.jp:

I’m especially happy with the addition to this little collection:

Retreat used to be that you could return up to 3 soldiers – but now it’s 2. That’s probably a good change. ↩︎
This counts as 2 armies in a fight, but only 1 army while placing. ↩︎
So, the tactic cards are available to all players all game, and it’s first-come-first-served, while the daimyo abilities are selected at the beginning of the game, and you can choose when to use it. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #3: What Makes This Song Stink (YouTube)

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 10:31:08 +0100

In general, I prefer positive content. So I prefer the vibe of CinemaWins over CinemaSins. But the series called What Makes This Song Stink, by Pat Finnerty, is an absolute treasure of YouTube content.

I think it can work for anyone – but it’s especially funny if you’ve spent any time on “Music YouTube”. (The series is packed with Rick Beato beats.)

I recommend starting at the beginning (of the playlist linked above), with Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down, and watch them in order. Then you’ll see the evolution of the form, and be in on all the terrific in-jokes. And already the third video, on Weezer - Beverly Hills, is a highlight.

It’s hard to explain, but the series just has so much heart, and Pat is just delightful. I highly recommend giving this series a try! (Also, he releases like a couple of videos a year – so its easy to stay on top of.)

Quick Recommendation #2: Better Markdown Preview in Finder

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 13:30:20 +0100

Hitting space to preview files (Quick Look) is one of my favourite Finder features. However, it does a pretty mediocre job with Markdown files. QLMarkdown is a little utility that makes these previews richer.

A preview showing some of the supported features.

You can install it from this link, or by using this Homebrew command:

brew install --cask qlmarkdown

The app isn’t signed – so you need to do the little dance to convince macOS that you want to run the app. (This is detailed in the original link share up top.)

You need to open the app once for the utility to work. And that’s also where you change settings.

I get that many Markdown contexts are outside of Finder – but if you do use them there, I hope this little tool can be useful!

Is Apple Forcing Me to Pay Them for Much More Cloud Storage Than I Need?

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 13:01:08 +0100

It’s pretty well-known that the 5 GB of cloud storage Apple includes for free (when you buy a €1,000 phone) is quite pathetic. However, I’ve actually found the 200 GB plan for 39 NOK (€3.33) a month to be decent value. But as I’m close to reaching the limits of that plan – I think it’s highlighting some anti-competitive issues.

My use

I’m currently using 86.7% of my storage.

Photos.app is the largest culprit, using 128.7 GB.
Backups use 27.3 GB – but I intend to set this up to back up locally to my Mac Mini.
iCloud Drive only uses 4.5 GB, as I’m babying it quite a bit.
Messages uses 3.8 GB – but this could probably be removed as I don’t use iMessage as my default chat app.
My wife is currently on her own 50 GB plan – but we do have an iCloud family. (So I wouldn’t mind combining these.)

My default cloud storage provider is Dropbox

In my opinion, the largest tech companies have far too much power already. So I like to use services from other companies if I can.¹ I also like how, in general, using third-party alternatives can give you flexibility. So, since we’re using Dropbox in my band, and I think it does the job, using this is my default cloud storage provider makes sense to me.

However, some pros of using third-party alternatives can be thwarted by first-parties, like Apple:

Problem #1: Backups

I’m “lucky”, in that I’ve given Apple even more money, by buying an always-on Mac mini – so I can actually resolve this problem. But Apple has conveniently (you know, for your own security) made it so you can only use their products and services to make complete device backups.

Because things are as they are, I really think the vast majority of people owning an iPhone should pay at least some money to Apple every month, for cloud storage – no matter how much cloud storage they might have elsewhere. And I think this reality is a concern.

Problem #2: Photos

I’m using iCloud Shared Library with my wife – and I think it’s a pretty good experience. (Even though it’s baffling that you can’t create shared albums there yet.) And that’s lucky – because no one is allowed to create a full-fledged competitor on iOS.

And this makes it extra annoying (and problematic) that I’m not allowed to use some of my 2 TB of Dropbox storage to store my photos.² Because it could be an argument that it’s fine that Apple uses its investments in Photos.app to funnel people into buying iCloud storage (in addition to Apple’s hardware products), and that Dropbox should make their own Photos.app competitor. But Apple is literally barring them from doing just that.

This is the issue with the ever-increasing bundling of markets: To be able to properly compete in cloud storage (which could be a healthy market in itself, as long as APIs and software hooks are good enough), you need to have your own little monopoly³ to leverage.

Problem #3: Lack of options

Even though I’m able to trim away everything else, in time, my photo library will become larger than 200 GB. And all of these problems make it all the more frustrating that the next tier in Apple’s offering is to 10x my storage, from 200 GB to 2,000 GB (2 TB), for 3.3x the price. And it’s not like I can go for a competitor, that might offer a 500 GB plan, instead…

Please let me know if you have other ideas for me! But I know that it would be very unpopular at home if I wanted to move our family photo library to something like Nextcloud…

It’s problematic when one company sits on so many parts of the table:

Why should the Apple, the software maker, build a way to use Dropbox as the cloud backend, when Apple, the cloud storage provider, wouldn’t like this?
- And how does this affect their incentive to support better image compression (like JPEG XL), etc.?
iMessage gets special treatment on Apple’s platform, and has a firm hold on the American market.⁴ But what are their incentives, when it comes to making it be more kind to both your local and cloud storage, when the same company also earns money when you need to pay for more storage of both those varieties?

I’m not saying Apple, and other companies in similar situation, always exploits these things to its fullest. I don’t think there are people at Apple, twiddling their fingers, and saying “Muhaha, let’s make things terrible for Dropbox customers. And let’s make every photo take up twice the amount of space. 😈” And I know I’m harping on Apple here – but to be clear: The reason I do that, is that I use vanishingly few products from the other giants, as I like them way less than Apple. I’m not saying they’re the worst offenders.

It’s just that my recent cloud storage woes have shone another light on the problematic competitive landscape surrounding the tech giants. And I really think it’s important to keep an eye on incentive structures – especially when it comes to things that affect all of us (like the mobile market). Because these structures have effects on priorities and small choices, which compound when the companies making them are multi-trillion-dollar ones.

It’s not like Dropbox is some plucky indie – but Apple is literally 400 times larger. ↩︎
I know I can put copies there. ↩︎
Not necessarily a literal monopoly – but an area with lacking competition, like what Google and Microsoft has. ↩︎
But luckily not here. It’s a decent service, but there are better alternatives. And I would never base my communication on something not cross-platform – even though I only use Apple products. ↩︎

Quick Recommendation #1: Cheap Strap Locks for Guitars

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:09:20 +0100

Why buy expensive (or just kind of cheap strap locks, when you can go old school and just order a bunch of rubber gaskets for bottles??

Here’s a link 🖇️ to the listing I used on AliExpress – but there are probably plenty of others that are just as fine. 👍🏻

More pictures of, and the story behind, my 1962 P-bass can be found here, by the way!

I know it’s silly – but for some reason I think it’s a bit more rock ‘n’ roll to use something not meant for the purpose. 😎

App Defaults and Home Screen Update – January 2025

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 18:09:16 +0100

I wrote a bit more in-depth about it in my original post here – but here’s my update at the beginning of 2025! A bunch of these are paid apps I probably wouldn’t prioritise if I didn’t already subscribe to Setapp 🖇️ – so keep that in mind.

Headers with * have some changes.

Mac dock

I use an automatic shortcut, activated with Shortery, to switch between the dock being “hidden at the bottom” (on the laptop screen) and “shown to the left” (on my 27" monitor).

Here’s what it looks like by default:

The stacks to the right are Apps, Setapp, and my Downloads folder

iPhone home (and lock) screens

My home screens, and backgrounds, change with my Focus modes – but I wouldn’t say I’m great at maintaining these modes. I’ll often use different variants of the same background, for instance from Wallaroo. Some of my modes have traces of this – but I’ll also mix it up, like I have now, with things like photos of my wife.

I always use just one home screen – so I always have one swipe to the Today View and the App Library.

Today View and App Library

No mode

Do Not Disturb

Work

Chill

Sleep (lock screen not relevant)

Driving (home screen not relevant)

Systems and productivity

📓 Notes, tasks, and writing*

Most of this happens in a folder of Markdown files, which I access both through Paper, NotePlan, and Ulysses. At the same time, I just love using Bike (and always think in outlines), so I use that a bit as well. But it’s a big con that I can only access those files on the Mac for now…

I’ve been dabbling with Godspeed 🖇️ for tasks – and I can recommend it, even though I just don’t need a separate task manager.

I’m also using Obsidian for my band, and Notes.app for stuff I share with my wife. And I use Tot as a sticky note and when I need to keep some text floating on top on my Mac.

📖 Journaling*

I’ve switched from Everlog to Diarly because the latter is included in Setapp. But I still don’t journal a lot, and I’d say they’re about equally good.

🛒 Shopping list

My wife and I are using Bring.

📅 Calendar

Still using, and liking, BusyCal.

🌦️ Weather app

The free (because it’s run, and paid for, by the Norwegian state 👌🏻) weather service and app Yr is great, and a true hidden gem (for people outside of Norway).

📮 Mail server

Fastmail 🖇️ still works great!

📨 Mail client

Mail.app is still aggressively fine.

💬 Chat app

I don’t love the people behind it, and I don’t use the more “social media”-like features of it at all. But as a simple chat/call app for friends and family, nothing beats Telegram. And the fact that it’s cross-platform is great, as my social circle is that as well.

🌐 Browser

Even though it’s an Alpha product, I’ve used Zen as my main browser for the last couple of months. And I really like it, and the fact that I can use (and enjoy) a Gecko browser.

I currently use Quiche Browser on iOS, and Safari on iPadOS.

🔎 Search Engine

Kagi is still one of my favourite tech products. Luckily, I don’t know what people are talking about when they’re discussing how web search has become bad…

🔖 Bookmarks

Anybox is my box for anything.

🔐 Password management

I strongly believe that it’s a good idea to store your passwords (etc.) in a third-party manager. And I like 1Password – especially as it works great to use with my family.

📶 RSS backend

I still use Feedbin – but I’m looking at the possibility of hosting in on my new Mac Mini!

📰 RSS reader

Lire is still my favourite here. 👌🏻

📁 Cloud File Storage

I try not to use services from the absolute largest companies if I can help it. So that’s one reason why I’m mostly using Dropbox – and I quite like it as well. But I’m fearing that Apple is forcing me to pay for more iCloud storage as well…

🌅 Photo storage and management

I just use Photos.app.

📷 Camera app

I think I would’ve liked something like Obscura or Halide if I had a better mobile camera. But as I’m still rocking my iPhone 13 Mini, Camera.app works OK.

⏲️ Time tracking

Timemator works perfectly for my use.

Tools and utilities

🤖 Automation and settings

The trifecta of Keyboard Maestro, BetterTouchTool, and Karabiner-Elements makes every other Mac seem broken. PopClip, Hazel, and SoundSource also contributes.

🔩 Text Editor*

I mostly use Nova – but occasionally (including now) I try to run Zed as my main. Nova is more feature-rich, (arguably) prettier, and noob-friendly.¹ But Zed is faster and more minimal!

📟 Terminal*

There’s a similar story here: I’ve mostly used Warp 🖇️ recently – and I love how noob-friendly it is! Especially how it handles text like a normal frickin program! (Instead of doing it in the special terminal-way.) But I’m currently trying Ghostty, which is more sleek and less bloated.

📦 Package manager

I just love installing (and uninstalling) apps with HomeBrew. So I always use that if I can.

🧮 Calculator

On the Mac, I’m using the launcher or Soulver. And on the iPhone, I can’t recommend the weirdly named SC-323PU enough! Take it from a maths teacher: It’s the best – even for simple calculations.

🖼️ Screenshots (and screen recordings)

Cleanshot is just so good. 👌🏻

🚀 Launcher (and more)

I still use, and love, Raycast 🖇️ – both as my launcher, and general LLM interface. It’s really fast, and I love how I can set hotkeys to everything. For instance, I have hotkeys to open numerous apps, different AI commands, running shortcuts, and searching Anybox.

I’ve bought a license for the (even more) indie alternative Monarch – to support the development. The dev is working on the ability to Bring Your Own Key (AI) and support for (Raycast) extensions – and I’ll be interested to see if it can replace Raycast at some point.

🪟 Window management

I mostly use Raycast, combined with Apple’s default actions. (Here’s a post on how I set up the hotkeys, and here’s a post on how I manage windows.)

I also use Lasso when I need something more specific.

📋 Clipboard manager

Paste is terrific.

📄 PDF tool

Nitro PDF is a perfect example of a nice “better default” I would never pay for, but am glad I have access to through Setapp.

🗜️ Zip tool

Archiver is another little Setapp gem.

I’m interested in the development of something like Ice – but I’m currently happy with Bartender. Especially how it can change dynamically (both when things change, like battery status, and depending on whether I’m using an external screen.)

🗑️ Uninstaller

PearCleaner is great when HomeBrew can’t be used.

🌍 VPN

I don’t use this a lot – but ClearVPN (through Setapp) works well enough.

🖌️ Design tools

Still liking the Affinity suite!

Entertainment

⚽ Football scores

If you follow football, no matter the league, I highly recommend (the Norwegian app) FotMob.

🎬 Media player and server*

Another enjoyable “Setapp default” is Elmedia Player, which I use for local music and video files.

A new addition is me running a Jellyfin server on my Mac Mini, and watching stuff there through the great Infuse player.

🎤 Podcast player

Overcast got (temporarily) worse just after the recent rewrite – but now we’re into the phase where it’s better than it was before, and where the developer is (and thus we are as well) reaping the rewards of going through with it.

🐘 Mastodon client

Mastodon is my social media of choice, and there are so many great apps for it out there! But my favourite, is Mona.

👥 Reddit client

It’s not as good as Apollo was (RIP) – but Narwhal 2 is pretty good.

🎵 Music

I’m still on Tidal, after being on Spotify for a decade. Still don’t like it as much – but it’s OK.

That’s it!

My absolute favourite parts about Apple’s platforms isn’t stuff they do – but all the great software available for it. (Even though I know some of the things I’ve mentioned are cross-platform!) It’s almost like, sometimes, the work of others gives them more business – and not just the other way around…

Regarding noob-friendly-ness: My favourite things in Nova here is, a git pane (but I’ve now graduated to doing it in the terminal 💪🏻), rainbow brackets (but Zed has gotten some colour coded indent lines that does some of the same), minimap, and code structure headings (when you scroll down, where you “are” in the code sticks to the top). ↩︎

I Tried to Design an Icon for Zen – My Favourite Browser

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 13:47:59 +0100

I’m one of those who really likes the Arc browser. But at the same time, I’m quite worried about Google’s web hegemony (and the general trajectory of The Browser Company) – so I want to use and like Firefox/a Gecko browser. Sadly, I just don’t think Firefox is very good…

I get that Mozilla has a lot of things going on, and that creating a browser engine is a lot of work. But I really wish they prioritised having a focused team that's allowed to just working on making Firefox nice.

However, I’ve used Zen as my main browser for the last six months – and I’m pleased with it! (By the way, click here, to go straight to the new icons.)

In short, it’s a Firefox fork, that has copied a lot of the things I like about Arc – like vertical tabs, split-views, workspaces, and nice padding 🤤. It also has some original ideas – and my favourite one takes advantage of the great customisability offered in Firefox:

Zen Mods

You can easily install, and adjust the settings of, community created mods. These are mostly little tweaks, like themes, having the close button on the left side (and hidden without hover), cleaner extension menu/right-click menu/navigation bar, etc.

I really like that the browser is enjoyable out-of-the-box, but that I can still customise a lot to my liking.

But be aware: It is alpha software.

This means that not everything is polished, and that things change quite frequently. But, as mentioned, I’ve used it as my primary browser for six months, and I’ve still liked it more than most browsers.

One of the things that has just changed is the graphical profile, logo, and icon.

I like the direction and idea – but I don’t love the execution

The profile used to be harsher and more based on black and white – and with a Z logo. Now everything is a bit more chill, which fits the name better.

I assume the circles are meant to represent zen garden patterns – that sometimes come in circles:

Photo by PlusMinus, CC BY-SA 3.0

Even though I’m not a designer, I tried my best to create a logo/icon, based on the same idea.

And these are the goals that I had:

Have the circles be of consistent thickness, as this appears to be more common when it comes to the zen patterns.
Add some more depth, to give a more sand-y vibe.
(But as I know that Zen has to only ship one version of the icon, it can’t be too detailed – as it must also work in small sizes.)
Have versions for the 10 accent colours you can choose in Zen. (And light and dark versions of each.)
Try to make it a bit less generic.

The last one is especially difficult, as “a bunch of circles in a quite minimalistic style” isn’t the easiest to differentiate…

Here’s my best try:

Desktop icons

As this is just an early proof-of-concept, I just made it for my two favourite accent colours: A light blue, and a dusty pink. (Oh, and remember that you’ll probably watch the images much larger than they’ll be in use.)

All icons, for Mac, PC, and Linux, can be found through this Dropbox link, if you want to try them out.

Would love to hear feedback if anyone has any!

And, have you tried Zen for yourself? I greatly recommend it, or (the terribly named) Floorp, if you want something nicer than Firefox, but still see the value in bumping up Gecko market share.

Guess What Apple Paid to "Buy" the Firefox Extension for iCloud Keychain

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 16:12:23 +0100

Good news! As of today, there’s an official Firefox extension for Passwords.app / iCloud Keychain.

“What? There wasn’t one already?" you might say.

Fair question! Maybe it was a bit much to ask of the famously cash-strapped company to take care of those of their users who want to use the only* independent* browser. (To me, this reveals one of the reasons why I think you should rather store your passwords with a third party you trust.)

Luckily, the lonely lad (or lady) Aurélien has been maintaining an unofficial add-on for years! 🫡

“But now Apple has managed to scrape together the cash to build one themselves??"

Not quite… Apple reached out to Aurélien, through Mozilla, to ask if Apple could simply get the code of the unofficial plugin. (Source)

“Ah, so instead of starting from scratch, they instead bought a good starting-point. Smart."

Well, not quite… From the GitHub thread linked above:

The user Hakusaro: “Thank you for all your hard work. And I really hope Apple at least paid you a little for this."

Aurélien: “Unfortunately not. I suggested a $1 one-time GitHub sponsorship as acknowledgement before the transfer, but didn’t get an answer."

This comment was last week, and there hasn’t been an update on this since – but I really, really hope it’s just due to slow processes within Apple. Because fuck them if they can’t contribute a single dollar to someone who has helped Apple’s users for years, and Apple directly now.

I know that large corporations are notoriously bad at sponsoring the open-source projects that they depend on – but this is just so blatant.¹

"by" Apple Inc.

OBS: If anything has changed since I wrote this, or if I’ve misunderstood something, please let me know! I’ll gladly update the post.

But again, I’m holding out hope for there being more to this story! ↩︎

✉️ Feedback on the The Verge Subscription

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:38:31 +0100

The excellent tech website, The Verge, just launched a subscription – which I know they’ve worked on for a while.

Generally, I think the way they’ve approached it seems pretty sensible – but I still have some feedback. And hopefully, the fact that I’ve subscribed for a year will increase the odds of it getting better, and not decrease it.

Some quotes from the launch, to get you up to speed

All the emphasises are mine – meant to guide you towards the most important parts.

Today we’re launching a Verge subscription that lets you get rid of a bunch of ads, gets you unlimited access to our top-notch reporting and analysis across the site and our killer premium newsletters, and generally lets you support independent tech journalism in a world of sponsored influencer content. It’ll cost $7 / month or $50 / year — and for a limited time, if you sign up for the annual plan, we’ll send you an absolutely stunning print edition of our CONTENT GOBLINS series, with very fun new photography and design.

At the same time, we didn’t want to simply paywall the entire site — it’s a tragedy that traditional journalism is retreating behind paywalls while nonsense spreads across platforms for free. We also think our big, popular homepage is a resource worth investing in. So we’re rethinking The Verge in a freemium model: our homepage, core news posts, Decoder interview transcripts, Quick Posts, Storystreams, and live blogs will remain free.

Our original reporting, reviews, and features will be behind a dynamic metered paywall — many of you will never hit the paywall, but if you read us a lot, we’ll ask you to pay. Subscribers will also get full access to both Command Line and Notepad, our two premium newsletters from Alex Heath and Tom Warren, which are packed full of scoops every week.

Our vision has always been to build The Verge like a software product, and we have a big roadmap of features to come, like a true dark mode toggle, the ability to personalize the homepage feed, and a lot of wacky ideas about what it might mean to follow authors, topics, and streams across the site and — eventually — decentralized social platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads.

In general, it seems OK

I get that most people want “everything online to be free all the time”. But if you want people to do high-quality journalism,¹ they need a way to do it while putting food on the table. And I think a freemium model, of sorts, seems like a good way to go about it.

Some problems with only going ad-supported:

It doesn’t align the incentives of the writers and readers as cleanly,
and it makes most people subsidise the product (by seeing ads and worsening their privacy) for the people who’s just saying “Nah, I’ll just harden my LibreWolf and block all the ads, to make sure the people making the content I want, doesn’t benefit at all from me consuming it.”

If you’re against this move and want to read stuff from The Verge, I’d love to hear how you envision the creators should benefit from you consuming what they make.

Some feedback, though:

The biggest, is that I absolutely think paying should get rid of all the ads. No mucking about.

One of the benefits they list, is a full-text RSS feed. But if this isn’t included already, I want an option to also get it without the sponsored/affiliate posts, like Apple’s AirTags are cheaper than they’ve ever Benn for Cyber Monday. Firstly, these are ads as well. Secondly, as a Norwegian, these are relevant about 0% of the time. I think they always categorise them as Deals – so shouldn’t be too hard.

I also think they need to offer ad-free podcast feeds.

The print magazine

From the launch post:

(…) and for a limited time, if you sign up for the annual plan, we’ll send you an absolutely stunning print edition of our CONTENT GOBLINS series, with very fun new photography and design.

Now, guess if it’s possible to get this magazine if you live outside of North America (even if you’d pay for shipping)… And guess if you get a further discount instead if you’re not eligible for this reward, or if you have to pay the same price as those who do get it…

I don’t love that it now feels like I’m subsidising rewards I’m not eligible for.

Open standards

From the launch post again:

Most major social media platforms are openly hostile to links, huge changes to search have led to the death of small websites, and everything is covered in a layer of AI slop and weird scams. The algorithmic media ecosystem is now openly hostile to the kind of rigorous, independent journalism we want to do.

I wholeheartedly agree with this point – and that is why I love that they embrace open standards like RSS (for both text and podcasts), and good ol' links.

However, the reason the things they mentioned in the quote happens, is that it often doesn’t make sense, from a business perspective, to support open standards. So, if I’m to renew my subscription, I want them to make good on their promises to also invest in open social media.

And even though I like several of the ideas behind Bluesky and the AT Protocol, I think, when we’re fighting an uphill battle for openness, improving the W3C standards is better than fragmentation. In other words, I want them to spend “my money” on ActivityPub – even though other things could make more business sense. The ability to do that, comes with people being willing to pay you out of loyalty.

Some ideas on how to do it

I absolutely don’t mind them having a presence on other platforms/protocols! But I think they should base things around ActivityPub.

I’m sure they’ve cooked up plenty of possibilities on the inside – but I wanted to provide some thoughts anyway:

I don’t think they should do something like hosting a Mastodon instance open to the public,²
but having a server³ so we can follow accounts like @nilaypatel@verge.social, @frontpage@verge.social, and @liveblog@verge.social⁴ would be great.
I also want the Quick Posts to be native ActivityPub posts, that I can get in my timeline.
- (If posts are this, I would use ActivityPub services as the main “comment section” – but that’s just me.)
Micro.blog could serve as an inspiration (or you could just use the service⁵) for setting up the Quick Posts: Users can follow the account directly – but you can also set up automatic cross-posting to numerous services.⁶

The biggest thing for me, is that I think The Verge’s main home should be their website (they got that right) – while the hub for their social presence (both for brand stuff, journalists, and readers) is based around ActivityPub. In time, I’m sure Threads users would be able to follow these accounts! And with even more time, they can probably be bridged into Bluesky as well! But again: I don’t mind cross-posting elsewhere.

I get the notion that creators (of all kinds) have to “be where the audience is”. But if you have “a massive loyal audience despite industry-wide declines in Google referrals and big social platforms downranking links” and “the most popular single page at all of Vox Media”, you can influence where the audience is!

Some people, and organisations, are in a position where they can choose to put their thumb on the scale – and push the web towards a better future. A future where network effects aren’t hostage effects, where you can follow people from your preferred platform, and where creators can move without losing everything they’ve built up.

The Verge, and Nilay Patel specifically, now that you have the subscription revenue of people like me, I hope you do your part to promote the web I know you want as well. I’m not saying The Verge has been, or is being, bad for the health of the web. I’m only saying you can be better. And especially after this change.

Whether or not you think The Verge is doing this, is a separate discussion. I think it’s pretty good! ↩︎
That’s just a lot of hassle, and shouldn’t be something a publication has to deal with. ↩︎
Absolutely doesn’t have to be Mastodon! ↩︎
Just mute this if you’re not following the event..! ↩︎
Maybe that could persuade Manton to increase the character limit before enforcing truncation! ↩︎
Micro.blog currently supports Medium, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, Bluesky, Nostr, Pixelfed, and Threads. ↩︎

I'm Getting a New Car, and I Don't Care About CarPlay

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 02:46:16 +0100

Am I insane?

Time and time again, I’m hearing people say that they wouldn’t buy a new care without Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.¹ (The after-show on the latest episode of Mac Power Users was the last example.) I also hear how stupid some companies are for not including these systems in their cars. And I just don’t get it. Or, to be honest: I think I know some reasons why my opinion seems to differ from most people’s.

I'm intersted in feedback on this! I wrote this (quite warm) take while not getting any sleep last night – and I've edited the post a bit since then. I've expanded on some points, and I've also tried to provide a bit more nuance, after a nice conversation with Eric, over at Mastodon.

I live in the land of EVs

Norway has been subsidising EVs heavily for many years. And I think this statistic shows the effect well:

Year	EV market share
2020:	54.3%
2021:	64.5%
2022:	79.3%
2023:	82.4%
2024:	88.2%

The proportion of new cars in Norway that are pure EVs.

To put things into perspective: The EV market share in the US is currently at 8.9%, which is well below the 13% we had all the way back in 2014 – ten years ago.²

A welcome effect of this, is that we also have a healthy used-market for EVs – so I literally can’t remember the last time I talked to someone who weren’t buying an EV.³ I’ll come back to why this is important!

My experience

The car I’ve had for the last 3 years, is a 2019 Tesla Model 3, which I bought used. My wife and I are expecting our first kid in May, and we have a large dog – so we need something larger in the next 6 months. That’s why I’ve been looking at new cars again.

I’m pleased with my Model 3! And the Model Y would probably be the best purchase for us. But I simply don’t want to buy one, due to *gestures in the general direction of Elon Musk*. Luckily, we have tons of options over here. But when I started doing my research, I found myself not caring about whether the cars had CarPlay – even though I’m heavily entrenched in the Apple ecosystem.⁴

A harshly made collage of some of the cars we're considering.

The reasons I haven’t missed CarPlay

A big caveat is that I haven’t owned a car with CarPlay – so maybe I’m missing something obvious! However, I’ve never really missed it either.

Another important factor is that the software in the Tesla is pretty great. I entirely understand that CarPlay can be a hotfix for crappy infotainment, though.⁵

But anyway, I just don’t miss CarPlay when:

I already get my phone calls etc. in the car,
the map and navigation is great, and picks up events from my calendar automatically,
I have radio right there,
and I’m logged into my Tidal account (which changes to my wife’s if she’s driving).

The only things I don’t have access to, is things like podcasts and audiobooks. But when I’m alone, I just listen with my AirPods (on transparency of course!) as I go in and out of the car. And if I’m with someone else – that’s the only time we use the bluetooth connection to the phone. So, yeah – having access to those things would absolutely be a little bonus of having CarPlay. But it’s really minor!

Could a factor be that, since we’re not English natives (and these tools are much worse in Norwegian), there’s some voice stuff I’m missing? For instance, if some like having access to texting by voice. Genuinely confused!

Overlooked negatives about CarPlay

Again, I get that CarPlay can be better than a crappy built-in infotainment – or if you’re borrowing or renting a car. But there are some things that make me dislike the idea of carmakers resting on CarPlay bailing them out:

Disconnected look and feel

Let’s take navigation as an example:

My car has only one massive screen. And I really like that when I use navigation, it takes up a lot of space. It’s a bit like how the iPhone revolutionised things, by being able to prioritise area.
Another nice example, is a car that has a decent screen in the middle, a smaller screen behind the steering wheel, and a HUD (head-up display). While navigating, you’ll get a decent showing in the middle, while you also get some information behind the steering wheel. When you should make a turn, you also get notified in the HUD.
Compared to both of these, just having navigation in a little, disconnected CarPlay window, seems like a substantial downgrade.⁶

With an integrated system, every part of the software (also the non-infotainment ones) can be cohesive. Apple fans should be able to see the appeal in that!

Battery woes

Last year, my wife and I really put the EV lifestyle to the test, when we drove from Norway to Toulouse in southern France. That was a three-day drive – but navigation and charging was effortless:

We put in where we wanted to end up,
the car calculated when (and thus where) we needed to charge – which it also changed on the fly if things changed,
and, importantly, when charging was near, it started pre-heating the battery.

That last point is important for the charging speed – especially in colder climates. And it’s something I think many people are missing, if you’re not used to EVs.

After we got back from France.

Now, please correct me if I’m wrong here – and I know all of this could be fixed in the future, but:

The thing is, for the longest time, CarPlay didn’t know about your battery’s state of charge. And hopefully the example above shows why that’s a big nerf to the navigation! They did start to roll out support for this a year or two ago – but I don’t think many cars support it yet. And I don’t think there’s a way for the CarPlay navigation to tell the battery to start pre-heating.

Maybe I’ll eat my words!

As most cars I’m looking at do support CarPlay, and also might have worse built-in systems than Tesla, I’ll might become a convert in a year…

Some big pros for CarPlay:

I stand by the idea that the ceiling is higher on integrated systems – but the floor is much lower. And, in general, carmakers are far from having earned our trust, when it comes to creating good software.
As someone who uses a more niche music streaming app, in Tidal, in lucky that my car supports it natively. CarPlay provides a much larger variety of services.
It also, probably, provides more longevity – compared to the very real fear that the carmaker just “forgets” about your car.
I’ve already mentioned the benefits if you’re borrowing or renting a car.
And it’s also way easier to create more thorough integration with things like messages, calendars, etc.

And as my most important con regarding CarPlay is exclusive to EVs, I genuinely understand it being important if you’re buying an ICE car.

My conclusion

If I were to sum it up, I think there are two main points I want people to think about:

I want more people to be aware of the significant cons of CarPlay when it comes to EVs.
And I think it would be more nuanced if people went from saying “my next car has to have CarPlay” to: “My next car has to have CarPlay – unless the built-in software is great”.

And I kind of get why car company CEOs chooses not to integrate it:

As the ceiling is higher on integrated systems, it can become a differentiation.
And if they don’t have CarPlay to lean on, they have to work harder on making their own software great. I mean, imagine the pressure on GM to deliver a software experience customers like!

Perhaps you could say that, people who are really serious about making hardware should make their own software?

I will mostly talk about CarPlay in this post – but I think most of it applies to Android Auto as well! ↩︎
Also, don’t let anyone tell you EVs doesn’t work in colder climates. ↩︎
You know, if they’re buying a car. 🤷🏻‍♂️ ↩︎
Most of them have it, though! ↩︎
I’ll come back to this point! ↩︎
Who knows what’s happening with CarPlay 2.0 – and if a car has several screens, they usually only have CarPlay on one of them. ↩︎

✉️ A Recommendation for the Great Note-Taking and Task Management App, NotePlan

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 16:44:27 +0100

In the latest episode of AppStories, Brendon Bigley filled in for Federico Viticci. Among other things, they discussed the apps he used, and he said he had research (and some writing) in Obsidian, while using the neat little post-it app Tot for “task management”. By task management, he meant that he kept his daily tasks in a note, and just deleted it at the end of the day.

This workflow made me want to recommend an app I like: NotePlan. And this post is a letter to him, about why I recommend that he takes a look.

Hi, Brendan! I’ve been listening to NPC on and off – but as I’m slightly more interested in the stuff AppStories focuses on, I’m glad you got the chance to bring your voice there as well. I enjoyed the episode!

When listening to your workflows and tastes in apps, I felt the need to throw a recommendation your way (which might also fit someone else who stumbles upon this letter): NotePlan. I think this app would be a nice upgrade over the way you use Tot, while, at the same time, also having the potential of replacing Obsidian. The writing experience is nicer than Obsidian’s – so it might even creep up on iA Writer! However, the writing experience isn’t absolutely top-tier, so I have to admit that I write my blog posts in a different app – while the files are in the NotePlan folder. (My favourite writing Markdown experience is Paper, which I wrote a review of here.)

Furthermore, it’s a bit expensive on its own, so if you don’t already already subscribe to Setapp 🖇️ (where the app is included), it might not be worth it, depending on which apps (if any) it manages to replace.

These are the ingredients the app is made up of:

At its core, it’s an Obsidian-like, as in just-a-folder-of-Markdown-files.

It does have plugin support, but it’s still far from as customisable as Obsidian.

However, if you’re mostly on Apple devices, it’s much more native-feeling than most Electron apps.¹

As I heard you use Windows at work, it could be valuable that NotePlan has a web app as well – even though it’s not as good as the native experience.

It offers powerful note-taking features, like

templates (with Javascript support!),
backlinks,
embedded images,
code syntax highlighting,
foldable headers and list items,
synced lines,
(light) front-matter support,
voice notes,
sketching and hand-writing transcripts,
sharing live links to notes with others, and more.

I also like that it has a command-bar interface (with a fast search), and powerful custom themes.

I've made a theme pair (light and dark mode) for NotePlan – and most of the screenshots in this post use the light mode version of it. Adding the files to the Themes folder and restarting the app, will make them appear as options.

But the Secret Sauce is the way it handles tasks and calendar notes! But before I go into that, I wanted to touch on …

How you can use it in conjecture with other apps, like Obsidian:

As mentioned, the NotePlan library is just a folder, that looks like this:

You, sadly, can't point NotePlan in the direction of a different folder – but you can point other apps to NotePlan's folder.

The Notes folder holds your regular notes, while the Calendar folder holds the calendar notes. If you wanted to dip your toes into the app, while using Obsidian in parallell, you could just add your Obsidian vault to the Notes folder. Then you just point Obsidian to either just folder, or the whole NotePlan folder (so you’ll get access to the Calendar folder as well). I think note links are cross-compatible between Obsidian and NotePlan.

This folder can be synced in two ways:

With CloudKit,
or with iCloud.

If you’re using NotePlan exclusively, the former is recommended – as NotePlan can sync this on command. However, it doesn’t sync without you opening the app. (Thanks, Apple.) So if you’re editing the content of the folder with other apps (like I do), it’s probably better to use iCloud.

Then the folder becomes a regular iCloud folder, like this, which you can do whatever you want with. With CloudKit, it's in Application Support – so still accessible.

But let’s get to the good stuff:

Tasks and calendar notes

This Calendar Notes section is located above the regular folder structure.² Clicking on one of them, like the Daily, will take you to today’s daily note. If it’s empty, you can choose to have it autofill from a template – or it can just be empty (with a button if you want to add a template manually). From here, you can easily swipe to the left and right, to get to yesterday’s or tomorrow’s note. The same applies to the other types of calendar notes.

The 7-Day view shows you today + the next 6 days' daily notes in a single view – where you can edit, and move stuff between, all of them.

NotePlan has this nice way of being powerful if you want it to, while staying out of your way, and just being a nice plaintext editor, when that’s your preference. So, you could simply do exactly what you do in Tot today, by doing stuff like this:

Compared to Tot, I think it would be a pleasant little bonus that it’s a full-fledged Markdown editor under the hood, and that you don’t have to delete the note every day (even though that can be a neat thing to do as well!). It could be useful that yesterday’s note is just a swipe away!

But let’s take a look at what we can add, if we’d like to:

Two layers of tasks and tags

One clever thing that NotePlan does, is that it, for some features, has added two separate layers.

Tasks³ are a bit more “serious”, and will do things like appearing in an overdue list (more on this here), while checklist items⁴ are only there for you to have something to click on.

You can also add both @mentions and #tags, which both can be nested. This can be used to bring up “every task with the chosen tag”, or every note with a mention. Personally, I use the @mentions for context (like @Home or @Office), while I use the tags for the subject.

Advanced, but optional, task features

If I like, I can add things like time (or a time block), or importance to a task as well. I can also schedule it for another day (with or without time).

Adding the time stamps creates a notification and/or a time block, which you can decide if you want to appear in your regular calendar app as well. Notice that the cancelled task also had a time block – cancelling it removes the calendar event.

The two at the bottom are scheduled to another day tasks. This can also be used to “send” a task to today (or any other date), from a regular (non-calendar) note.

This task, from my weekly note, appears at the top of my daily note, because I added today’s date at the end. (It’s hidden in this view, though – which is nice.) I can click it, to complete it, right there. But I can also Command + Drag it, to create a synced line somewhere in my daily note.

The purple asterisks signify that the line is synced – so both editing the text, or changing the completion status, would get synced between the two placements.

The big thing here, is that all* of this is accomplished just with plaintext.⁵ This makes it straightforward to automate, and perform manually. Like, just writing

- A task @Home >2024-11-30 17:00

will create the task, give it the tag, and schedule it – with no extra clicks.

This screenshot, from a screen capture from the creator of the app, gives an impression of the possibilities:

Notice the calendar sidebar on the right, and the library sidebar on the left. These are nice to have access to, but can also easily be hidden (with a hotkey).

Now, much of this can be accomplished in Obsidian as well! But I do think that they’re mostly smoother here, as they’re built in. It’s also much easier to set up, and the app just feels better. It also doesn’t mind just being a simple Markdown editor, hiding its more advanced features, if that’s your style.

I’d love to hear about it if you’ll give the app a chance, or if you’ve tried it before! And if you do give it a go, this is my recommendation:

Start by just using the daily notes just like you use Tot today,
- and just keep the more advanced features in the back of your mind.
Also try adding your Obsidian vault to the Notes folder.
- Please don’t hesitate to continue using Obsidian like you do today,
  but know that you have access to the notes in NotePlan as well (if you want to dip your toes),
- and that you can write >2024-11-26 (etc.) anywhere, to “send” a line to your daily note.

Some things could be better about the app, though

As mentioned, I prefer the writing experience of Paper. I go into detail on why in my review – but some things NotePlan handles suboptimally are, numbered lists (moving items around, adding to the middle, etc.), and complex combinations of bold and italics.

You can create custom filters for tasks – but I wish I could create smart folders, that would show a list of all notes that meets the criteria in the sidebar, like regular folders does now.

I really like the synced lines feature – but I wish it was a bit more powerful: It would be cool if syncing a heading also synced the content beneath it, and syncing a list item also synced its sub-items.

But it’s still an app I highly recommend checking out! Especially if you already subscribe to Setapp, and also because it’s so friction-less to move in and out of, due to the file-based approach. 👌🏻

This is a big one for me – but I get that it isn’t for everyone. ↩︎
You can choose how many of them should be active. Here I’ve turned on all of them, to show the different types. ↩︎
Which I’ve set up to be written by starting an item with a dash. ↩︎
Which I make by starting a line with a plus symbol. ↩︎
The synced line is the only thing that’s not a simple text input. ↩︎

"Julie", a New Single From My Band

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:29:36 +0100

I play bass in a band – and today we released a new single.

It’s called Julie, and I would love it if you gave it a whirl! 🫶🏻 It includes a modulation, an outrageous guitar solo, a fade-out, and good vibes.

Please Care About the Factory's Effect on the River

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 16:55:04 +0100

No Matter Where You Live

Let’s imagine a town, where the river is the main source of fresh water for everyone. Then, one day, someone builds a factory, near the middle of the river. A side effect of what the factory produces, is that it releases toxic waste into the river. The owners are aware of this – but they won’t do what’s needed to clean it up, as it would cut into their profits.

How would you feel about buying the factory’s products?
And would it matter if you lived upstream or downstream from it?

Blog posts about Substack

Today I read John Gruber’s blog post Regarding – and, Well, Against – Substack, which also linked to Anil Dash’s post “Don’t Call It a Substack”.

We constrain our imaginations when we subordinate our creations to names owned by fascist tycoons. Imagine the author of a book telling people to “read my Amazon”. A great director trying to promote their film by saying “click on my Max”. That’s how much they’ve pickled your brain when you refer to your own work and your own voice within the context of their walled garden. There is no such thing as “my Substack”, there is only your writing, and a forever fight against the world of pure enshittification.

Anil Dash

This is a great point – and all three of us are in agreement here!

A slight disagreement

However, while I have a slight (and perhaps unimportant) disagreement with the next quote from Dash, I strongly dislike Gruber’s comments on it.

Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators’ work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable. You don’t have to take my word for it; Substack’s CEO explicitly said they won’t ban someone who is explicitly spouting hate, and when confronted with the rampant white supremacist propaganda that they are profiting from on their site, they took down… four of the Nazis. Four. There are countless more now, and they want to use your email newsletter to cross-promote that content and legitimize it. Nobody can ban the hateful content site if your nice little newsletter is on there, too, and your musings for your subscribers are all the cover they need.

Anil Dash

Substack is the factory in my simple analogy at the top. And “normalizing a radical, hateful agenda” is the toxic waste in the river. My small disagreement, is that I don’t think the factory was made with the purpose of polluting the river.

Some might say that’s an unimportant distinction, and that what matters is that they don’t care that they’re doing it. And I get that! My point is that I don’t want to give people the opportunity to think, “Of course they didn’t create an entire factory just to pollute 🙄 – so let me disregard all the points about the factory’s effect on the river."¹

Gruber’s post also shows another way this type of hyperbole can be unhelpful:

I think Substack sees itself as a publishing tool and platform. They’re not here to promote any particular side. It makes no more sense for them to refuse to publish someone for being too right-wing than it would for WordPress or Medium or, say, GitHub or YouTube. Substack, I think, sees itself like that.

John Gruber

Technically, I think he’s right here.² But Dash’s (I believe, exaggerated comment) allowed the discussion to be dragged into Substack’s intent rather than effect – which is not unimportant, but way less important.³

A large disagreement

However, I really don’t like where Gruber goes next:

What I can say, personally, is that I read and pay for several publications on Substack, and for the last few weeks I’ve tried using their iOS app (more on this in a moment), and I’ve never once seen a whiff of anything even vaguely right-wing, let alone hateful. Not a whiff. If it’s there, I never see it. If I never see it, I don’t care.

John Gruber

Gruber doesn’t even try to dispute that the factory is poisoning the river. The only thing he’s saying is that, as someone who lives upstream from it, he doesn’t care whether it pollutes. His water tastes good, so why should he care?⁴

He also adds a footnote, saying that he doesn’t judge a social media platform on whether there are objectionable people on them, but whether or not he notices. And, again, I think he overemphasises his own experience.

Let me be clear: Everyone’s personal experience does matter. Choosing not to be a platform, for instance because you’re getting harassed, is of course perfectly valid. What I’m saying is that the total amount of harassment happening on a platform (or other negative consequences something produces) should also matter, even though you aren’t affected by it personally. And this is especially important if you’re, say, a straight, white cis man, like myself (and John Gruber).

Joaqin Windmuller said it well, in the blog post, Just Because You Don’t See It Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t There and Doing Harm.

However, I totally get that Dash probably wrote this in a bit of righteous anger. And in cases like that, you sometimes lose a bit of nuance! ↩︎
Even though he fails to see the very important point that Substack has taken a much more active role than something like WordPress. ↩︎
But again: My objections towards Dash are minor. ↩︎
Now, he might also think Substack doesn’t have a negative effect to the degree Dash does. But he doesn’t say that. ↩︎

Alternatives to Forcing Apple to Provide Solutions to Their Competitors

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 22:27:43 +0100

On Anti-Trust, APIs, and Market Participation

This week’s episode of the Upgrade podcast, was a good one as usual. I especially liked the discussions surrounding a potential pair of Apple smart glasses, and the way this connects to the regulatory scrutiny Apple is under currently.

Jason refers to the fact that Federico Viticci loves the Meta Ray Bans, but still really wants Apple to create a pair. And he then asked what I deem to be a crucial question:¹

Do we want smart glasses from Apple because of what they do better than the competition, or because of what they are allowed to do, but that they bar their competitors from doing?

Let me use earbuds as an example, as they are more common. I’m delighted with my AirPods Pro – and they’re a better fit for me, and my Apple hardware, than a pair of Sony buds (for example). But when looking at the reasons why I pick one over the other, here’s something I think it’s crucial to distinguish between: Which of them are due to things Apple does better, in fair competition (maybe I prefer the sound, or noice cancelling), and which of them are due to things Apple blocks Sony from doing (like pairing fairy dust)?

A side point: Why I think Apple's main markets require more regulatory scrutiny than something like the gaming market:

Their main markets, especially the smart phone one, is extremely large in absolute terms.
As opposed to things like the gaming market, it's one everyone* has to participate in.
Many people game on a PS5, but also on PC and mobile, etc. Very few daily more than one phone OS.
A complete monopoly isn't the only way to have anti-trust issues. For instance, a duopoly doesn't necessarily mean healthy competition.

This brings me to a clip I wanted to share from the podcast, where I agree with a lot, but wanted to add something:

Regulation is suboptimal.

It’s ofter better if things shakes out without politicians meddling. However, sometimes, it doesn’t. And I’d say we’re currently at a place where it’s almost impossible for new players to thrive in, and define, emerging technology markets.

AI as an example

For instance, I think the Humane AI pin can both serve as a lesson on hubris, and one on how some ideas have* to come from a company that’s already dominating.

Perhaps a better example (even though I have several issues with the state of AI) is OpenAI. Will they manage to become an important, and independent,³ player, or, when all is said and done, will things concentrate around Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Google?

Matt Birchler wrote an interesting post, pointing to some quotes about Apple stepping into the AI space:

It happens all the time. Tech giants ship exciting new technology while Apple’s projects stay veiled in R&D, leading to the constant narrative that the company is ‘behind’ in that area.

With AI, that story may have actually had some truth to it—but things are starting to change.

Apple shipped major AI features to potentially hundreds of millions of devices with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 last month.

(…)

Before the end of the year, I have no doubt Apple’s AI features—especially what’s coming in 18.2—will become more mainstream than any other existing AI product.

Ryan Christoffel

Judging by the early impressions of Apple Intelligence: If Apple ends up being the most successful player in this market (too), it won’t be out of merit – but due to their position in other markets. And that’s not a good thing.

Paraphrased by me. I don’t want to put words into Jason’s mouth – but I still wanted to give him credit for the point! ↩︎
But it’s a good thing if Apple provides guard rails when it comes to things like privacy! ↩︎
Or are they already “Microsoft”, for all intents and purposes? ↩︎

Monitor Resolution Guide for macOS

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 15:21:55 +0100

Seeing as Apple just released a great monitor-less Mac, in the new M4 Mac Mini¹, it makes sense that there’s more external display discussions surrounding Macs. After answering a couple of questions on Reddit here, I thought I’d try to write a guide. Because, if you don’t use a screen made by Apple, things get a bit complicated…

To keep things simple, I'll be talking about regular widescreen aspect ratio, of 16:9 – but the principles applies to things like ultrawides as well. Also, I know that some of the things I'm saying are simplifications. But I still welcome feedback!

To make this as timeless as possible, I won’t discuss specific monitor models. Instead, I’ll do my best to foster understanding, that will help in your research.

Two uses of the term “resolution”

One way of using it, is when discussing the actual number of pixels a screen has. For instance, a regular 4K screen has 3840 ✕ 2160 pixels. This can be called the physical resolution.

However, look at this image, where I went into settings to set my 4K TV to display as 540p:

The Doro phone of resolutions. This is on a 50" TV!

Changing the setting, luckily, doesn’t delete a bunch of pixels on my TV. So in this context, it can be useful to think of the resolution more like the size of the rendering. This can be called the logical resolution.

The relationship between the physical and logical resolutions matters

The physical and logical resolution can be the same. But for high-resolution screens, this will usually make things too small. And in this context, the resolutions 4K (3840 ✕ 2160) and _1080p_ (1920 ✕ 1080) have a special relationship: The former is exactly 2x the width and 2x the height of the latter. This is why you’ll see people mention 4K being “2x” that of 1080p. But keep in mind: it technically has 4x the number of pixels (since it’s 2x two times).

Let me try to explain why that’s important

Here’s an element on a screen with only 6 ✕ 4 pixels (let’s call it “4p”):

If we swap out this screen with one with 2x the resolution, 12 ✕ 8 (“8p”), we’ll get this:

Without changing the logical resolution, the element became tiny! So let’s have each physical pixel be 4 logical pixels, so the element will look the same:

The 4p screen on the left, and the 8p screen on the right.

OK, they look the same now – but then we haven’t really gained anything by doubling the resolution…

Let’s take advantage of the extra pixels, without changing the logical size, by filling in some pixels to make things nicer:

So now we’re running the 8p screen at 4p logical resolution, but nicer. This can be called 4p HiDPI, and is what Apple refers to when saying their screens are Retina.

The expressions PPI (Pixels Per Inch) and DPI (Dots Per Inch) get used quite interchangeably these days – even though the latter used to only refer to print and ink dots.

I won’t go into why here² – but having the physical resolution be exactly 2x (so four times the number of pixels) the logical resolution, is the best. Knowing this, we end up with the following, for some common resolutions:

Preferred logical resolution	Optimal physical resolution
1080p	4K
1440p	5k
1692p	6k

The 14" MacBook Pro, I’m writing this on, runs its 3024 ✕ 1964 screen with the logical resolution of 1512 ✕ 982 HiDPI. The thing is, what you want is ~220 PPI – no matter the screen size.³

Apple made a choice

The table above applies to both macOS, Windows and Linux – but it applies more to macOS. That’s ‘cause Apple has prioritised making the optimal resolution look even nicer, to the detriment of suboptimal resolutions. As screen types vary way more on the other platforms, these have (understandably) prioritised making suboptimal resolutions looking better. This is the source of the confusion surrounding monitor resolutions for macOS – while Windows users just buy a 4K screen at a random size, and get on with their life. Personally, I don’t think any of the platforms have made the wrong choice here, as the realities differ so.

However: Sub-optimal ≠ Trash

It’s not that running a 4K screen with a logical resolution of 1440p will make your eyes bleed. But you’ll might get some of the issues shown here – and running it at 1080p HiDPI will look better.

And just like with hi-refresh screens, some people are simply more picky on things like this than others. It also matters what you’re used to!

Three ways to improve the sub-optimal

Getting something _optimal_ might be prohibitively expensive for many – so I hope my guide towards the optimal doesn't give the impression that this is something everyone has to do. And I want to point out four specific initiatives that will lower the gap between the optimal and suboptimal:

BetterDisplay Pro will make macOS play nicer with more resolutions, and also provides more adjustment possibilities.
And DisplayBuddy helps monitor controls feel more native.
If the optimal logical resolution is too "zoomed in" for you, try fixing it with things like accessibility settings, reducing font sizes, etc.
u/Cg006 had a great recommendation as well, for both optimal and suboptimal monitors: Turn off font smoothing, for instance via this little utility.

Oh, and both advice 1 and 2 above can be good if you have a monitor that does have the optimal resolution, but is not from Apple!

Two examples

1) Let’s say you want a 4K screen:

As mentioned, the logical resolution of 1080p is the friend of 4K. And in general, I’d say this logical resolution is great for screens ~21 inches.

This image is from my band’s studio, and the screens are 24 inches and 4K, running at 1080p HiDPI. In general, this is a bit too zoomed in for my taste – but as the screens are further away than with most setups, it ends up being pretty perfect.⁴

By comparison, Apple’s own iMac is 24", and has a 4.5k resolution. If you’re ever in doubt about the optimal resolution for macOS, just check Apple’s products.

What I hope is pretty obvious by now, is that 4K 27-inch screens aren’t optimal for macOS – which is too bad, as these are very common and affordable.

2) Let’s say you want a 27" screen:

A nice logical resolution, for 27", is 1440p. And 2x 1440p is 5k – so that’s what you want for a screen of this size.

“Ugh, but those are rare and expensive. Can’t I just get a 4K screen?”

Well, of course – I’m just saying it’s not optimal. And while it might feel like “it’s only one K less”, 5K has almost twice the number of pixels:

1440p = 2 560 ⋅ 1 440 ≈ 3.7 million pixels
4k = 3 840 ⋅ 2160 ≈ 8.3 million pixels
5k = 5 120 ⋅ 2 880 ≈ 14.7 million pixels

Not quite – but saying "4K is just like 5K" is almost like saying "1440p is just like 4K".

So, let’s sum it up:

Start by figuring out your preferred logical resolution – which will greatly depend on the size of the monitor.
- For instance, 1440p.
Figure out which physical resolution you need to get 2x that. (Four times in total.)
- If 1440p above, that will be 5k.
Find out how ungodly expensive that solution is, and go for BetterDisplay, DisplayBuddy, and accessibility settings, to compensate for ending up with a suboptimal monitor.

Good luck!

Check out my Mini setup here. ↩︎
I wrote more about it here. ↩︎
And this doesn’t fit too well with the notion of “4K is a good resolution no matter the screen size”, which is quite common. ↩︎
And remember advice 3 above if things are too zoomed in. ↩︎

My Setup for the M4 Mini as a Secondary Mac

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:12:22 +0100

NAS, Media Server, and Light Gaming

I spent the weekend setting up my little new Mac – and I have to say: it went pretty smoothly! Here’s what I did, and how you can do it yourself if you like.

The hardware

As Apple’s upgrade prices are certified insane, I went for the absolute base model. I did briefly consider getting 10 gig Ethernet – but I had to change too much about my setup to get any benefits from it. And I don’t really need that fast a connection for my use case.

16 GB of ram is enough for me, but the built-in 256 GB of storage is obviously too little. But as it’s a stationary machine, getting external storage works great.

There are some reports that these Macs' storage is actually upgradeable! But that's above my pay-grade.

Some drives will use regular USB speeds (for instance USB 3.2 Gen 2). These are cheaper – but if you go for USB 4 or Thunderbolt 3+ you will get about three times the speed. If you, like me, want to run programs (like games) straight from the disk, you’ll probably want the latter.

Instead of getting a regular external SSD like this 🖇️, I went for getting an enclosure + a separate drive. These are much less compact – but they’re flexible and upgradeable down the line.

For enclosure, I have seen this 🖇️ from HyperDrive and this 🖇️ from Satechi receiving numerous recommendations – and I found both of them in Norway. The only difference between them (apart from looks) I could see, was that the HyperDrive is rated for a maximum of 4 TB, while the Satechi can handle 16 TB. I could only afford a 2 TB drive currently (and don’t need more currently) – but I still went for the Satechi, also because I’ve had good experiences with the brand previously. (BTW, they also have a much cheaper, enclosure 🖇️ for regular USB-C.)

My drive is a Samsung 🖇️ 990 EVO 2 TB SSD. It’s rated for 5000 MB/s, which is probably more than needed (but it was about the same price as slower drives here). Especially if you’re going for regular USB-C, the drive doesn’t have to be fast. (But perhaps get something name-brand, to make sure it’s stable.)

Drive setup

This is what was included with the enclosure. The thermal pad was on the inside – but I removed it for now.

Then I connected the drive, and added the little rubber plug at the end.

The plug was easy to fasten.

There was no mention of the thermal pad in the manual! But I did my best to stick it to the lid so it touches the drive when closed.

There were no tools required, and it was as easy as it could get!

When I then connected it to my MacBook, I got this:

But don’t worry! Hitting “Initialise…”, or launching the Mac app Disk Utility, brings you here:

Hitting Erase up top, and formatting it to APFS, is all you need to make it work. (APFS isn’t the best for cross-platform-ness – but it’s the best for Mac, and needed for Time Machine.)

The speeds

Here are the speeds I got from different devices. 👇🏻 I ran a couple of tests, and these results were representative. Not too bad, IMO!

Measurement	Enclosure	M1 Pro MB	M4 Mini
Sequential R:	2445 MB/s	4689 MB/s	5221 MB/s
Sequential W:	2508 MB/s	4665 MB/s	5318 MB/s
Random R:	848 MB/s	857 MB/s	768 MB/s
Random W:	844 MB/s	852 MB/s	780 MB/s

I think the sequantials are the most important. And, I have no idea why the Mini seems slower for the randoms. Maybe the disk was busy with something new?

The SSD enclosure is absolutely warm while in use, but not hot. I assume that’s OK? 😅

My placement

Next, I unboxed the Mac, and placed it where it’s supposed to be. The Mac setup would’ve been easier if I took it to my office, where I have my external screen, keyboard, and trackpad. But I made do with my TV and what I had at home.

Mac Mini, Apple TV 4K, Nintendo Switch, Anbernic RG35XX 🖇️, and 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller 🖇️.

The following are permanently connected to the Mini:

Power
HDMI to the TV
Ethernet
The SSD Enclosure
The 8BitDo dock

I’ve previously made a quick reviewed of the 8BitDo controller here – but things are even better with my current setup: The dock being connected to the Mac, not only gives it power for charging – it also makes it so the 2.4 GHz dongle in the base is connected to the Mac. Out-of-the-box the controller, sadly, doesn’t support Mac – but 8BitDo support sent me a beta firmware for the dongle, which makes it work! So now it’s connected to the Switch via Bluetooth and the Mac via 2.4 GHz – and I can easily change connection with a switch at the back of the controller.

But I had to connect some temporary peripherals as well:

I think the last image, including the USB-C adapter on the mouse’s USB-A cable, shows why the front-ports are nice, and why the lack of USB-A ports is a total non-issue.

Sadly, I don’t think I could set up the Mac Mini by only using my MacBook – so I had to connect some peripherals. I could probably have made do with only the keyboard – but I didn’t know the following: When you tab through to select things like Confirm buttons, you have to hit Space (and not Enter/Return, for instance). So a mouse was practical – even though I didn’t have a wireless one.

I just sat on the floor while running through the initial setup. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Mac setup

As mentioned in the subtitle of this post, my use cases for this Mac are NAS, media server, and light gaming. And here’s the software stuff I did to make it happen.

Screen setup

My TV is a pretty average older Philips 4K TV (with the, IMO, underrated feature Ambilight) – and I had a couple of issues regarding resolutions in macOS. What I wanted was to run it in 1080p HiDPI, which means that the screen has the size as if it is running in 1080p, but it’s technically running in 4k. Every “pixel” in the 1080p is actually four pixels. (I’ve written more about this here.) However, I could only choose between regular 1080p or 540p HiDPI!

I did find a fix for this, though, by installing (and buying) BetterDisplay Pro. This allowed me to override the given resolution, making sure macOS knew the screen was 4k, and allowing me to select 1080p HiDPI.

More system configuration options and Edit native panel pixel resolution was the answer.

The options available under here also improved the way the TV looks. 👌🏻

Quickly, I wanted to find a way to control the Mini from my MacBook. And here I’ll outline the two ways I do it.

Doing it via Screen Sharing is nice because then I don’t have to be able to look at the TV while doing it. However, initially, that method was really unstable for me. I think it was because the network was being taxed by initial setup, downloads from cloud storage, etc. So, in the beginning, regular Continuity was the way to go. This meant I could just move my mouse up and above my laptop screen, to have the built-in MacBook trackpad and keyboard control the Mini.

Here’s a video of me moving from my iPad, via my MacBook, and to my Mini, with Continuity:

I tried to lower the volume of my Norwegian mumblings – so don't mind the sound.

You’ll set up screen and file sharing the same place: System Settings -> Sharing

Here you also get a glimpse of the state of my Mini's dock.

This last screenshot is of the File Sharing options – but I forgot to show one thing: I added the home folder (named “erlend” in my case) as being shared. It’s the folder icon you can see in the background. I then right-clicked that folder, and turned on Share as a Time Machine backup destination.

All of this, leads to the following, when I select Erlend’s Mac mini in the Finder sidebar:

As you can see, both my home folder, internal disk (Macintosh HD) and external disk (Satechi SSD) are available. I can also hit Share Screen… up top to take control of the Mini.

Time Machine

If you haven’t enabled Share as a Time Machine backup destination, you’ll get this when trying to set it up:

But by following the steps I outlined above, it becomes possible to select the external drive connected to the other machine here.

Other uses of external drive

As the internal storage is so paltry, I have to set up the Mini to use the external drive as much as possible. And here are some ways I’ve done this:

Dropbox

Due to Apple depreciating some APIs, you can’t have your Dropbox on an external drive if you use the default client. But if you use Maeastral, this becomes possible.

Be warned, though: Running the initial Time Machine on two laptops, while also syncing iCloud and Dropbox on a new machine, is best done overnight…

App Store

Recently, Apple added this new option to the App Store:

I don’t think I’ll install anything over 1 GB on this Mac – but I thought I’d shout it out anyway!

Steam

I’ve installed two versions of Steam on the Mini: A regular macOS install, and a Windows version via Whisky. And if you go to the Steam settings, and Storage, you can select a default destination for your game installs. This can also be on an external drive, so I chose that, of course.

No Mac version? No problem! Loving UFO 50, by the way.

Media server – Jellyfin

The last step in my setup, was to set up the Mac up as a media server. I’ve used Plex previously, but I wanted to give the open-source alternative Jellyfin a shot. And I love it!

The installation was relatively easy. The only hiccup I had, was that when I followed this guide to turn on hardware acceleration, I also turned it on for AV1 – and this broke stuff. I posted in the forums here, and in minutes I got a reply telling me to turn off AV1, and everything worked.

But the best part about Jellyfin isn’t Jellyfin. It’s that I can use Infuse as a client. I just love un-bundling and third-party options, as I’ve written about here and here. It’s great that the people writing Infuse can be laser focused on making a delightful video player, while it’s OK if the people behind Jellyfin focus on creating a good backend. I love that I don’t have to choose media server software based on whether I like the player!

Infuse is a delightful software experience.

Pretty painless

… is how I’d summarise the process. And I bet I’ll discover new things to use this machine for as times goes by! Will keep you updated – and please don’t hesitate to ask questions!

And I have a question for someone who knows: Can the Mini do its job even if I let it go to sleep? 🤔

Today's Plan: Setting Up My Mac Mini NAS

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 14:53:42 +0100

I just picket up my new Mac Mini, which I intend to use as a server (backups and media) and light gaming machine, connected to my TV.

Upgrade prices are a joke – so I went for the base model + a Thunderbolt enclosure, and a Samsung 990 EVO 2 TB SSD (which speeds might be an overkill – but it was on sale). Wish me luck! (Will report back later.)

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 10:59:21 +0100

Something is off about the performance on my blog… Especially on Chromium! While part of me would enjoy saying “Works best on Firefox”, I still have to do something about it.

Well, I have been looking for an excuse to rewrite and optimise my CSS! I’ll start tomorrow. 💪🏻 (Wouldn’t mind advice!)

Early Mac Mini Takes From Someone Who’ll Probably Get One

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:15:37 +0100

For a while now, I’ve thought that I’ll most likely get a Mac mini when it gets refreshed. My intended use case is pretty specific — and not as my main computer:

Connecting some external storage, and using it for
- backups,
- and as a media server. (Jellyfin, perhaps?)
Maybe use it for some smart home stuff.
And I’ll also connect it to my TV, via HDMI, for some light big-screen gaming. (Like UFO 50! But also things that I want to play with a controller that’ll run at least as well as on my M1 Pro 16 GB laptop.).

Thoughts regarding my use case

I got to say, the update is pretty perfect for me. The new form-factor is great for my TV furniture, and I can probably get by with the absolute cheapest one. The only upgrades I’m considering, are 24 GB RAM and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Would love input on this!

General thoughts

In general, I think this is a great update at a good price. And at last we’re finally out of the 8 GB hole! 256 GB is pretty rough, though… But it’s OK for me! So, in principle, if Apple had non-criminal upgrade pricing, I wouldn’t mind it starting that low. But they don’t.

They made the right choices regarding the ports

The new Mini has the following ports on the back:

3x Thunderbolt 4/5
HDMI
Ethernet
Power

And the following in the front:

2x USB-C
Mini-jack

There are two questions we need to look at:

How many ports should the enclosure size account for?
And then, which ports should those be, and where?

Partially I think, in a world where the Mac Studio exists, they went for a sensible size and port number (9 — one more than the M2 Mini, and one less than the M2 Pro). It’s OK to disagree with that — but I think we have to keep that separate from the port types and placement.

I’ve seen some disappointment voiced about the jack being on the front. And while I have zero issues with someone preferring that for their specific setup, I still think it’s wrong to say that Apple made the wrong choice for the majority of people. For those with speakers connected permanently, there are _so _many options for connection. And which port on the back should’ve been moved to the front instead, then?

I also think it would’ve been a travesty if they sacrificed USB-C ports for USB-A ones. Just get over it…

The power button placement is fine

I mean, it uses very little power while in sleeping, so how often do you need to turn it off? And it’ll probably be OK to reach anyway. (Remember that the back of the Mac will be closer to you than with the last one, as the footprint is smaller.)

I’ll have to think about it some more, but I think this will be my next purchase. And I think this will be a great Mac for many people for many years.

I Got the Opportunity to Build My First Wet/Dry/Wet Guitar Pedalboard

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 13:07:13 +0100

I was lucky enough to be allowed to make this cool rig this week! It’s made to work well with one amp, but great with two. And if you’re a certified mad lad, you can even run it with three amps!

Allow me to explain:

When a signal has effects on it, it’s called “wet” – and when it doesn’t, it’s called “dry”. However, sometimes (like here), only some effects, like chorus, delay and reverb, are categorised as making the signal wet. And whether effects like overdrive and compression are on, the signal is categories as dry.

The board has four jacks in its side panel:

Guitar in
Dry signal out
Wet out L
Wet out R

Rigs that have those three outputs are called wet/dry/wet rigs.

The first part of the signal is TC Electronics Polytune 3 > Xotic SP Compressor > Van Weelden Royal Overdrive (🤤). This is the “dry” signal, and it’s split (with a JHS Buffered Splitter under the board), and sent to the dry out and into the Musicom Labs Parallelizer II. Via the latter, the Eventide Tricerachorus, Boss SDE-3000D and Strymon Cloudburst are run in stereo parallell – before the signal goes Fulltone Supa-Trem2 > Lehle Little Dual 2.¹

After the Lehle, the signal goes to the wet outputs on the side of the board.

I also added a couple of aluminium foot switch toppers where it was needed. (Also, notice the colour coding of these on the Parallelizer. 😎)

The Boss delay requires its own power supply – but with a cheeky splitter beneath the board, both this and the Strymon Zuma powering the rest of the pedals, get power from one IEC plug on the side of the board.

Please disregard that my weird angled IEC plug doesn't work well with the customer's lefty setup! 🙈

I did add some cable management and stuff – but in general, I don’t like the Instagram friendly practice of custom fitting everything, as I want the board to be easy to adjust and work with. Here you can also see the splitters and different power supplies:

I added another cable tie to the Zuma after this picture got taken!

I try to do things “nice, but still pragmatic”. So, I want to make it less messy, while still making it workable. My favourite way to fasten things under the board is via the pedal’s (or whatever) own bottom plate screws or similar. I’ll then screw it out, and screw it back in through the board. But when this isn’t possible, I really like using cable ties, actually – especially when you can’t see them up top. They’re light, cheap, flexible, and stable – albeit unromantic.

So, one IEC plug, jack from the guitar, jack to dry amp, and jacks to stereo amps, and you’re good to go! I also love how snugly it fits into the Peli.

Really cool rig, I’m glad I got the opportunity to work on. If you’re in Norway, feel free to contact me if you want some help with a board! And check out the artist I made it for: SJ Sveen!

The Lehle is mostly to make sure the different amps play nice. ↩︎

Homebrew – For Noobs (Like Me)

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 14:42:55 +0100

I do not know what I’m doing when it comes to the terminal on my Mac. But one use-case, I really like, is Homebrew. So I wanted to explain what it is, and how to use it, to other newbies!

How to install it

I get that I haven’t told you why yet, but to install it, you just copy this into your terminal: $¹

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Then you just follow the quick guide. (I think you only have to copy and paste one set of commands.) For Mac, you can also go here to download the latest .pkg file.

It’s a “package manager”

And this just means that you use it to install, uninstall, and update other apps. These can both be command-line software (called formulae in Homebrew parlance) or what most would recognise as regular apps (called casks).

And here’s how you use it:

Installing something is as easy as typing brew install firefox. That’s it! No going to a website, no downloading of installers, no dragging and dropping, no nothin'! And you uninstall by typing brew uninstall google-chrome. Even though you’d be surprised by how many apps support installation through Homebrew, not every app does. Furthermore, every “app name” has to be only one word – so brew search chrome will help you find out if the app you want is there, and how you should address it.

Remember that Casks are the "regular" apps.

You type brew update to update Homebrew itself. But this leads to something a bit confusing: To update apps installed by Homebrew, you have to type brew upgrade.

Taps are a thing as well.

The main source of casks and formulae are the Homebrew catalog – but sometimes you need to add a different source. This is often a custom source for a specific app, and those are called taps. For these apps, you first have to add the tap by pasting in a command – but the app will include this in its guide.

My favourite consequence of using Homebrew:

Recently, I did a fresh reinstallation of macOS. And one annoying thing, especially if you (like me) have numerous apps installed, is to hunt down every app and reinstall them. But with Homebrew, you can just keep a text-file (script) of the apps you want to install on a fresh OS'. Here’s mine. 👇🏻 I know it’s long, but the only thing you need to bother with is the lists of formulae and casks.

#!/bin/bash

# Array to keep track of failed installations
failed_casks=()
failed_formulae=()

# List of formulae to install
formulae=(
		bat
		eza
		fzf
		zoxide
)

# List of casks to install
casks=(
		affinity-designer
		affinity-photo
		affinity-publisher
		bbedit
		bike
		calibre
		daisydisk
		discord
		dropbox
		fmail2
		hazel
		karabiner-elements
		keyboard-maestro
		lasso
		linearmouse
		memory-clean-3
		menuwhere
		nova
		obsidian
		pearcleaner
		raycast
		setapp
		slack
		soundsource
		squash
		steam
		telegram
		tidal
		transmit
		vivaldi
		warp
)

# Install formulae
for formula in "${formulae[@]}"; do
		echo "Installing $formula..."
		if ! brew install "$formula"; then
				echo "Failed to install $formula."
				failed_formulae+=("$formula")
		fi
done

# Loop through each cask and attempt to install it
for cask in "${casks[@]}"; do
		echo "Installing $cask..."
		if ! brew install --cask "$cask"; then
				echo "Failed to install $cask."
				failed_casks+=("$cask")
		fi
done

# Check if there were any failures
if [ ${#failed_formulae[@]} -ne 0 ]; then
		echo "The following formulae failed to install:"
		for failed_formula in "${failed_formulae[@]}"; do
				echo "- $failed_formula"
		done
else
		echo "All formulae installed successfully."
fi

if [ ${#failed_casks[@]} -ne 0 ]; then
		echo "The following casks failed to install:"
		for failed_cask in "${failed_casks[@]}"; do
				echo "- $failed_cask"
		done
else
		echo "All casks installed successfully."
fi

I've named it installs_erlend.sh, and keep it at an easy-to-access cloud location.

Here’s what I then do:

Drag the text file to an accessible location – for instance, in a folder called “scripts” in my home directory.
Install Homebrew.
Make the script executable, with the command chmod +x ~/scripts/installs_erlend.sh
- The ~ symbol in the path means the home directory, which in my case is called “erlend”.
Run the script, with ~/scripts/installs_erlend.sh

It will then install everything in one go! Together with the ability to “install every favourited app” in Setapp 🖇️, getting up to speed is effortless.

An alternative interface

If you’re more comfortable with an interface that looks more like a regular app store, you can install an app called Applite.

This is just an interface over Homebrew, that can make installation and discoverability easier for some! And this, and Homebrew in the terminal, can be used in parallell.

As mentioned up top, I’d love comments on this! Either from people actually knowledgeable about the subject, or from beginners like me. Do you see the value of something like Homebrew?

Edit 1: Cork

Another GUI app I’ve used a bit for Homebrew, is Cork. This app can also search and install stuff – but also makes a bunch of surrounding admin easier to do. Personally I’ve found I don’t need to do the aforementioned admin, so I haven’t used it all that much, heh. But it’s still a good app! I recommend the AppAddict Lou Plummer’s review of the app for more info!

Edit 2: Brewfile

Brendan Thompson gave me a good recommendation: Brewfile. I haven’t looked into it that much, but it seems like a way better version of the noob script I wrote above, that makes bulk installation with Homebrew easier. I’ll definitely use that myself next time! It (and my script, tbf.) also support mas, which is a tool for installing things via the App Store. 👌🏻

Keep the tips coming!

The dollar sign is the symbol of a terminal shell called “Bash”. You can think of that as the dialect used by your terminal. On newer Macs the default is a different one, called Zsh (with the symbol %). However, it is backwards compatible with Bash, so commands that start with $ always works! However, what they often don’t tell you, is that you shouldn’t copy the dollar sign when giving the command to the terminal. ↩︎

It's Not Too Late to Listen to the October Trilogy

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 09:48:52 +0100

Terrific Albums for the Autumn

For any Norwegians reading this, this recommendation will be categorised as very cliché. But clichés are just that for a reason – and if you haven’t listened to these albums, you’re in for a treat.

The albums I’m referring to, are the following, by the Norwegian artist Thomas Dybdahl:

… That Great October Sound (2001)
Stray Dogs (2003)
One Day You’ll Dance for Me, New York City (2004)

They were all released in October, and are the perfect companions to wool jumpers, a fireplace, and warm soup. But I get that listening to three albums is a big ask. So as a taste, you can listen to his shortest song, which is also one of my favourites: Dice

This is from his fourth album, not on the list – but the sound is similar! Very early 2000's, but charming, video.

A Shortcut for Automatic Mac Dock Changes

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 22:00:00 +0200

For When You Switch Between Screen Sizes

I switch a lot between using my MacBook as a laptop, and in clamshell mode in my office. And in general, I keep every setting the same between the setups. However, I have different dock preferences:

While in laptop mode, I want it at the bottom, with automatic hiding.
But while on my 27" external display, I want it to be on the left, smaller, and always showing.

The great Rafael Conde has made a solution, with his app HiDock. But sadly, in my experience, it’s simply not stable enough (probably due to some esoteric macOS restrictions) – so I’ve made a crude shortcut to replace it. But before the guide to try it out for yourself, a little thing I recommend you paste into your terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 1 ;
killall Dock

This will make your auto-hidden dock appear faster when you mouse over it!

First, create shortcuts for setting the different preferences

In general, I like creating modular shortcuts: Instead of making one monster shortcut, you break it down into modules. So the first shortcuts I created are one called “Dock — Laptop” and one called “Dock — Display”.¹

They only consist of one action: Run Shell Script.

And my laptop variant runs this script:

#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation -string "bottom"
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true
defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 36
defaults write com.apple.dock magnification -bool true
defaults write com.apple.dock largesize -int 45
killall Dock

I’d say every line is pretty self-explanatory! Just change the variables to fit your needs, and run the shortcut to test. (My preferred way to quickly run shortcuts is with Raycast 🖇️.) The last line, killall Dock, restarts the dock. This will make it blink – and there is a tiny chance that it will remove the little separator in the dock. This comes back on a restart, but that’s a reason to not run this command more than necessary.

My Display variant is like this:

#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation -string "left"
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool false
defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 30
defaults write com.apple.dock magnification -bool true
defaults write com.apple.dock largesize -int 36
killall Dock

BTW, you don't need to change any of the options in the Shortcuts action.

For a long time, I didn’t bother with automating this; I just ran the corresponding shortcut when I had changed setup. This works fine!

But here’s a shortcut to have it happen automatically

There are different ways to get shortcuts to run automatically – and one of them is the utility app Shortery. I’ve set this up to run my shortcut, HelloDock, when I unlock my computer.

First a bit on how it works, and then how you can use it if you’d like.

How it works:

First, it runs a script that checks whether an external display is connected.
Then it checks which mode the Mac is currently in.
Lastly, if things have changed (and only then), it will run the correct shortcut of Dock — Laptop or Dock — Display.

Step one is done by this script (made with the help of an LLM):

#!/bin/bash
# Get display information using system_profiler
display_info=$(system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType)
# Count the number of "Display" entries, which generally indicates a connected display
display_count=$(echo "$display_info" | grep -c "Display:")
# Check for "Built-In" display, which indicates the laptop's internal display
builtin_display_present=$(echo "$display_info" | grep -q "Built-In")
# If there is only one display and it is built-in, output "Laptop"
if [ "$display_count" -eq 1 ] && [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo Laptop
else
  echo Display
fi

This spits out "Laptop" if the built-in display is the only active display, and "Display" if not.

I struggled a bit with how I could do step two – but I found a solution that, although not pretty, works well.² The shortcut creates a little text file, called hellodock.txt, that currently only consists of the word “Laptop” because that’s the mode I’m currently in. When the shortcut sees that the script output and the current mode is the same, it will just do nothing. Only when there’s a mismatch will it run the correct shortcut action (Display or Laptop), and then change the text file. So the text file should always display the current mode.

How you can set it up for yourself

The start of the shortcut.

Here’s a link to the HelloDock shortcut that’s meant for running separate shortcuts for the dock modes. With this, you need to create the mode shortcuts, and point the “Run Shortcut” actions to them.

And here’s a link to one I’ve named HelloDock One, that has everything in one. It comes loaded with my scripts for Display and Laptop mode, and you can just edit them right there in the shortcut.

It should create and handle the text file in the Shortcuts iCloud folder by itself.

The two different endings to the shortcut variants.

That’s it! Hopefully, it works fine. Feedback appreciated!

You can, of course, name it whatever you want. ↩︎
There are probably better ways of doing this! ↩︎

Waste Your Money on Things That Last

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 16:50:40 +0100

A Defence of Buying Things

A couple of years ago, I was working full time as a teacher. And even though the pay in that profession is far too low, I was still quite comfortable (economically). However, the last few years, I’ve had way less spending power. I wanted to take a master’s degree, which (sadly, and luckily) led to my mind sort of rupturing, and me getting diagnosed with ADHD.¹ Now I’m learning how I really work, while trying to get a freelance lifestyle up and running. I’m lucky in that I know that I can get a teacher job if I like (and need) to.² And even luckier: I’m in a position where I can survive on less income for a while. So, we’ll see what the future holds – but nonetheless: Currently, I don’t have a lot of money to waste.

Some notes on privilege:

I live in a wealthy country, with plenty of social security, and come from a middle-class background. And the reason I talk about 'not having money to waste' instead of 'being poor' (even though I don't have a lot of income), is that I still have everything I need (and more). After all, this post is about being in the position of having money to waste! So I do know that I'm very privileged. However, I hope the principles I'm trying to get across can be relevant for several levels of affluence.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to spend your money on things like holidays and experiences. And you can absolutely argue that these things last in their own way! But I just wanted to give a little shout-out to something I feel like gets recommended less than those.

Pre-purchased luxury

If my “luxury” habits (you know, from when I worked as a teacher 😅) consisted of things like going to restaurants a lot, which is expensive here in Norway, going to my current lifestyle would be a large downgrade. However, here are some things I’m glad that I bought, as I still get great enjoyment from the money I spent.

“Re-usable” entertainment

Personally, I, in general, don’t love rewatching movies and TV shows. So in terms of “entertaining hours per krone”, other forms give me more bang for the buck. As probably many others, I have a way too large backpack of video games – on both Mac and Switch. I also have plenty of board games. Some of them I haven’t tried, and most of them have tons of plays left in them.

Equipment

Even though it’s not the latest and greatest, I have more technical equipment than I need. I also have what I need to work on music, go outside, build and repair things around the house, etc.

Now, I have a really small flat, and I don’t like clutter or having too much stuff. (And neither does our planet.) What I’m talking about is mindfully investing in useful stuff, not impulsively buying everything you fancy.

Well-made clothes and items

But this post was originally inspired by how lucky I felt, being able to put on clothes I love (that keep me warm and dry), and use good backpacks etc., that I’ve invested in a long time ago.

I like slow fashion (in opposition to fast fashion). And the two most important principles here, are things that have the quality to last, and a timeless style that works for years.

Style is, of course, subjective – but personally, I like things inspired by workwear and classic fits. However, I have more advice when it comes to:

Spotting quality

Construction (how they’re made) and materials (what they’re made of) are, much, much more significant than where they’re made.

Go for things made of (preferably only) natural materials, like cotton, wool, linen, leather, etc., and constructed in a way that makes them repairable.

When it comes to brands, it can be a good idea to go for small brands with close relations to the factory. I’d also primarily buy a brand’s core competency: Know-how when it comes to making jackets doesn’t necessarily translate to making shoes.

What you want, is to find things where the people who made it were provided great materials and the time to do it properly. Sadly, this happens more often in some countries than others, so where it’s made can be an indication. But it’s absolutely not a given! For instance, there are people running (more or less) sweatshops in Italy and the US, and you have brands like Grant Stone making items of top quality in China. See this thread for more on this!

Here’s what I wore yesterday:

For those who are interested:

You can’t see my T-shirt, but it’s a white loop-wheeled cotton T-shirt, from Warehouse.
You can’t see my baseball cap, from Poten, either.
The jumper is a wool jumper from the Norwegian brand Hunting Lodge.
The vest is a wool vest from Filson.
The watch is a Vostok Amphibia.
The jeans are from Tender, and the only thing I bought on holiday to Stockholm this summer.
I have socks from Decka, in mocs from Rancourt.

I know these things are costly, and not something everyone can afford! But by buying used, and by buying less, most people can push up the quality of the items they own. “Own fewer better things” is always* good advice.

Winter is coming – and in Norway, that matters. So I’m glad I already have both boots, a raincoat (for layering), thick wool shirts, etc.! So even though I don’t have much money to waste these days, I’m glad I wasted the money I had on things that last. I’m still living in abundance.

Which was absolutely a good thing! I want to write more on this later. ↩︎
I also miss students! ↩︎

How to Change macOS Keyboard Shortcuts for Window Management

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:07:12 +0100

Or Any Other Keyboard Shortcut, for That Matter (With Extra Added Fun for Multilingual Users)

This year, Apple decided to upgrade the default window management on macOS, from terrible to OK. However, I’ve heard some complaints about the keyboard shortcuts, as they use the Globe key, which can cause some problems if you want to automate the hotkeys somehow.

But I have good news: You can change these, and any* other, keyboard shortcuts!

16/10-24: Now updated to work with weird apps, like Discord!

Here’s (one way) how:

If you go into the System Settings app, hit Keyboard and then the button Keyboard Shortcuts…, you’ll open up a screen. In this, you can then hit App Shortcuts to come here:

This screen is for changing the keyboard shortcuts to the items in your menu bar (or adding to those who don’t have one already), like those shown in this image:

You can either add them only to specific apps (like you can see I’ve done), or to All Applications – and when we’re dealing with this window management, we need to do the latter.

Hitting + gives us this screen:

When writing the menu title, you have to be very specific. Here’s what it could look like: Format->Bulleted List

The spelling and capitalisation has to be exact – and you need to separate levels with a - and > and no spaces.

Here’s what it looks like if I want to set a hotkey for tiling a window top left:

Window->Move & Resize->Top Left

As the option sits two levels deep, I have to add a bit more – but it works!

The end result.

Yes, the hotkey is Shift + Ctrl + Optn + Cmd + E, heh. But I use Karabiner-Elements to set up Caps Lock as all of those keys at once.¹ Doing that creates a separate modifier, not used by any apps. A word for this, is Hyperkey, and it’s sometimes denoted by this symbol: ✦

The easiest way to set it up is probably with this little utility by Ryan Hanson, and I greatly recommend doing it.

I go more into how I manage windows here – but this is the short version:

I always resize with just my left hand
I’ve made a “grid” that uses Hyperkey (Caps Lock) + a letter:
- W and E is Top Left Quarter and Top Right Quarter
- A is Left Half, S is Maximise/Fill, and D is Right Half
- Z and X is Bottom Left Quarter and Bottom Right Quarter

The grid isn’t perfect, as I couldn’t set Hyper + Q as a hotkey, and I like to keep Hyper + C as OCR Copy. But I still really recommend this setup! For the rare cases I need something else, I use Lasso (launced with Hyper + Space).

Cons of the System Settings method:

Pretty fiddly – you can’t even paste text, as it will think you’re trying to set Command + V as the hotkey
Doesn’t get backed up – you have to do it again if you reinstall macOS (Pro tip: Take a screenshot to “back up”!)
Only works on menu bar items

Pros of the System Settings method:

Works without third-party software
Will change the displayed hotkey in the menu bar – making it easier to remember

I've only added new hotkeys to the corner options. I'll go into why later!

An alternative: Keyboard Maestro

You can also use the excellent Keyboard Maestro for the same task.

Here you can see I’ve set it so hitting Ctrl + E will perform the View->Toggle Sidebar action. I think this would work on the window management as well. The Keyboard Maestro action you’re looking for is called Select or Show a Menu Item.

However, sometimes the hotkeys aren’t in the menu bar. And then you can use Keyboard Maestro to simulate a different screenshot. In the example above, hitting Command + K will simulate Command + U in a specific app.² However, I don’t think you can use this method to simulate the Globe key – as it isn’t available to third-parties. This Keyboard Maestro action is called Type a Keystroke.

For some reason, the terminal app Warp 🖇️ didn't accept the default method of setting the hotkeys. So I added it to a group that just duplicates them like this, in Keyboard Maestro.

Cons of the Keyboard Maestro method

Needs third-party software
Doesn’t change the displayed hotkey in the menu bar

Pros of the Keyboard Maestro method

You can duplicate actions, etc., to make the workflow easier
Keyboard Maestro setups can be backed up and shared
Other powerful features are also readily available

For multilingual users (like me)

As could be seen in the screenshots, I’ve only added hotkeys for the corner options ³ I added these because they have nicer animations than what Raycast 🖇️ has access to – which I use for the halves. The reason is that it’ll cycle between 1/2, 2/3 and 1/3 when you repeat the hotkey. 👌🏻 Please add this within 10 years, Apple!

But anyway – my settings, for Top Left, look like this:

Window->Move & Resize->Top Left

Vindu->Move & Resize->Top Left

Window->Flytt og endre størrelse->Øverst venstre

I had to add all three version separatly – because, for some reason, the wording isn’t consistent depending on whether the app in question is in Norwegian or not. And I’ve no idea why there are two versions with a mix… If I wind an app where it doesn’t work, it’ll probably be one where everything is in Norwegian.

The morale is: You have to check what your menu says.

Update: OK, so I’ve been running my setup for a couple of weeks now. And while the addition of the nicer animation has highlighted the lack of them in Raycast, it has worked perfectly… until I used Discord. For some reason, the (crappy Electron app) doesn’t have the windowing options in its menu bar. 🤷🏻‍♂️ However, Raycast can resize it!

So, here’s the workaround:

First, I added back the corners (and fill) to Raycast, but on hotkeys I never use/don’t like. For Top Left I used Hyper + 7.

Then, in Keyboard Maestro, I created a group called “Window Mangement Fixes”, which I said should only work in certain apps. Currently the only inhabitant is Discord, but I’m sure I’ll discover others to add later.

Then I added macros for the broken hotkeys. Remember, Hyper + W is the hotkey I’ve set to be Top Left (the default way, with the nice animations) – but this doesn’t work in Discord. But hitting Hyper + 7 will work, as this uses the Raycast method. So, what I’ve done, is telling Keyboard Maestro: “When I’m in Discord and hit Hyper + W, please simulate Hyper + 7”. I do lose the animation, but it works!

When I hold it. Just tapping toggles Caps Lock as normal. ↩︎
This is in Telegram, which has a weird hotkey for hyperlinks. ↩︎
And “Fill”/maximise. ↩︎

Big Milestone for Me: First One-a-Month Member

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:57:29 +0100

My little blog is added to the One-a-Month Club’s website. It’s “[a] collection of blogs and other web projects that make supporting them both simple and inexpensive by offering access to everything for as little as $1 per month.” The site is run by the excellent Jarrod over at Hey Dingus, and inspired by Manuel Moreale:

But I recently realised that tiers are the wrong approach. At least for me. I believe in kindness. I believe that if you decide to support something I do, you should get all the benefits, no matter how much you pay.

I also realised that 1$+/month is the best price possible when it comes to supporting online creators. The 1 part means you can set it up and forget about it because it’s a low enough amount that won’t make too much of a difference for the majority of people who are considering supporting online creators. The + part allows you to contribute more if you want to do so. And that’s just perfect.

And recently, I achieved two milestones is one, thanks to Numeric Citizen: Get a mention on a blog I follow, and my first donation.¹

I honestly choked up a bit, as I read his kind words in the latest edition of The Ephemeral Scrapbook:

While browsing my Micro.blog timeline, I met Erlend from Norway. I came across his Micro.blog hosted website that I have found to be gorgeous and unique in its design and appearance. At first, I didn’t believe this website was hosted on Micro.blog using one of the available visual themes, but yeah, it is. Browsing his website is a delight both visually and with the content. I decided to support him via his Ko-Fi page.

This is the first website I’ve ever made, and I’m very new to this whole “posting things I write online” thing – so encouragement like this really means a lot. But I promise to be very happy with my second One-a-Month member as well, so don’t be afraid to go over to Ko-Fi.org and consider it. ☺️

Also, please check out Numeric Citizen – I recommend it! Here are some links:

To follow him on the Fediverse:
@numericcitizen@micro.blog
Micro blog
Micro.blog account
YouTube channel, where he especially have videos on Craft and Micro.blog.

… from someone I don’t know IRL. ↩︎

App Review: Paper

Sun, 29 Sep 2024 20:19:50 +0100

The Expensive, but Best, Place to Write Markdown

As mentioned previously, I love writing in Markdown – and especially when it’s in normal .md files. I like the clarity of what’s formatted and not, the portability,¹ and that I can use different apps on the same document. However, different Markdown editors are far from being created equal.

Paper is an app, for Mac, iPad and iPhone, that “only” opens/creates .md files and edits them. But it does what it does better than anything else.

Paper could be an app for you, if:

… you write a lot in Markdown – especially in short to medium lengths,
… you don't mind (or even prefer) working with files instead of libraries,
… you value the quality and feel of software, like $1.000 Japanese garden shears.

Mini-tier list of some editors I’ve tried

To set the stage, I’ve made a little tier list. As I prefer writing about Good Stuff, my list doesn’t include bad editors – but Good, Great and Terrific ones. Here I’m not talking about the features of the app, but the writing experience. (The lists are alphabetical, not ranked.)

I will also go into details of things I don't like about Paper – but I hope this tier list helps you understand some apps I think it's better than.

There’s been plenty of memes about how long the team over at Shiny Frog spent on Bear 2.0. But holy croak, it shows – the editor is extremely polished. The app does have good export features, so your notes aren’t held hostage.² But the main reason I, personally, don’t use it, is that the note files aren’t easily accessible to other apps. It also doesn’t have as robust publish features as Ulysses, or task/calendar system as NotePlan. However, as a general note-taker for Apple devices, I highly recommend Bear.³

Panda is the Bear editor as a stand-alone app, to simply open .md files – so it’s closer to Paper in terms of functionality. However, it’s not readily available for mobile, and isn’t technically a proper product at the moment.⁴

I love my pair of Alden Indy Boots. I haven’t found a single boot I like the look of as much, and the last (being rather narrow at the back and wide in the front) fits my weird feet perfectly. However, I don’t generally recommend them – as they’re not technically “worth it”. They’re simply too expensive for what they are, as you can get better made shoes for the same price, or shoes of similar quality for less. But that doesn’t change the fact that I love them, and am happy I bought them!

I could say the same thing about my Filson Journeyman backpack: Is it too expensive? Yes. Do I still love it? Also yes.

Paper is in the same category: I won’t claim that it’s worth it – because it’s very expensive. But if you end up splurging for the app, you’ll get something terrific. Let me try to explain why.

The price for Paper varies from region to region, and the dev keeps experimenting. But it can be as much as €200! Personally I bought it after getting paid extra for a job I did – and at least the money went to a small indie dev. How much money people have to "waste" on nice stuff like this varies. So I'll focus on the good, and the bad, of the app – and then it's up to you to figure out if it could be worth it to you. It also has a 50% educational discount.

How I use Paper

As mentioned when talking about my default apps, I currently store my notes, blog posts, tasks, etc. in NotePlan. The app’s database is stored with CloudKit, but is still accessible by other apps. As I prefer writing in Paper, I will do that as much as possible, while jumping into NotePlan and Ulysses for stuff that those apps do better.⁵

For instance, I’ve made different shortcuts for creating a new general note or a new blog post. This creates a .md file that gets saved into the NotePlan database, and then opened in Paper.

What makes it great

The biggest con of Paper, is that it’s a file-based app – and I really prefer the use of library-based ones. I am just not used to/don’t like relying on Finder/Files. I have the same issue with another favourite app of mine, Bike Outliner – which is files-based as well. But here I’ll try to explain why I still jump through hoops to write in Paper. It’s difficult to explain, but it just gets so many little things right, which makes it hard to move to other apps.⁶

I understand that Paper's price and feature set may not be suitable for everyone. However, perhaps this review can also serve as a source of inspiration for good text editor features! The Paper dev has also written two interesting articles about the nitty-gritty of the app!

Markdown syntax

The first thing it does right, is allowing you to choose your preferred syntax. This dictates which symbols will be used when using hotkeys – but it still “accepts” all variants when typed.

Also, note that you can choose whether a space after a # symbol is needed to create headings.

By default, Paper shows the Markdown syntax – but in a muted colour. This is my preferred mode, as I don’t like it when text jumps around with automatic hiding, while finding it distracting if it’s as visible as the text. It also applies the formatting:

The # symbols are in the margin, to align the header with the paragraphs. 👌🏻

However, at the hit of a button, you can enter Preview Mode. This turns Paper into a rich text editor of sorts – while the file beneath remains Markdown. I find this especially useful on iPhone, where space is at a premium.

While in Preview Mode, hitting a formatting hotkey while no text is selected, will bring up this little window, showing which formatting you’re currently typing with:

It also handles selection and combinations of bold and italics perfectly. Have a look at this example:

The middle part of the sentence has both bold and italics applied – but what should happen if I select a word in the middle and hit Cmd + I?

Paper nails it, by turning off italics, but only for the selected word. If my caret had been in the middle, but without having selected the word, it would turn off italics for the entire section. This last option is nice for when you quickly want to turn off the formatting of an entire section, without having to exactly select the whole thing. Ulysses lacks this, for instance.

Obsidian, on the other hand, turns off italics for the entire section even if the word is selected:

While NotePlan just completely messes up:

Paper also rocks at edge-cases when it comes to selection and formatting. Here’s an example, from this article by the developer. (Sorry that you probably have to zoom in to see the text!)

It will also, unlike Ulysses (for instance), always remove spaces before and after syntax. 👌🏻

It also handles links well: If you select text and paste a link, it will create a Markdown link with the selection as the text. However, if you paste without any selection, you can choose whether it should create an empty Markdown link or just paste the URL. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Lists

OK, let’s say I’ve written a numbered list, with three items – but then I want to add something between 2 and 3. However, maybe I regret it, and want to delete it again! Let’s see how three different apps handles it:

As you can see, Obsidian and Paper both handles adding a new item in the middle. However, if I delete an item in the middle, things break in Obsidian.⁷ Neither NotePlan nor Obsidian handles deletion in the middle of a numbered list.

I couldn’t find this hotkey in Obsidian (don’t know if it exists – it’s a big omission if not), but both NotePlan and Paper has a hotkey for moving the paragraph with the caret/the selected paragraphs up or down. (I have it mapped to Ctrl+Cmd+Up/Down.) Let’s compare what happens if I move List item 3 up:

This, and the things regarding formatting, are examples of how Paper just works.

Another thing is how it always seems to copy and paste like I want. And if you like, it has options for copying and pasting between Markdown and HTML.

The app also has rudimentary support for task lists.

Markdown Mode on the left, and Preview Mode on the right.

Looks and feel

In addition to working well, the app also looks and feels great.

There’s no UI – the app is just a white square (which can even be without rounded corners) with your text. However, notice the paper texture on the background, and the sleek and matching caret and scroll bar. The caret can also be set to blink softly, and move smoothly as it moves from line to line (at a customisable speed).

These are in an accent colour I’ve chosen:

All the accent options look great – but you can set your own colour as well. You can also have it give a slight tint to the text and background – and it also changes the selection colour and even the app icon (which also has a dark mode variant, of course).

Edit 14/11-24: Now the dev has also added that you can tint the Markdown syntax. 👌🏻

Text editing tour de force.

It can also be set up to have proper paragraph spacing. (But I do have some notes on this, which I’ll come back to.)

Of all the apps I’ve used, there’s only one app which I like the feel more of than Paper – and that’s Bike Outliner.

The scroll bar doesn’t just look good – it has a hidden trick: If you hover over it, it expands, and shows you “chapters” (which are your headings).

Some more neat navigation features, can be seen here:

Moving words within sentences, and paragraphs within the document (also list items in a list), works on where the caret is currently, or on what you have selected (even partially).

Rearrange Chapters opens a screen, where you can drag your headings (with its content) around, in a list. You can also change the heading level of them.

However, my favourite navigation feature is the excellent Typewriter Mode. All other typewriter modes I’ve tried, work something like Ulysses here:

So, as you type, and create new lines, the vertical position of the caret stays constant. This can be nice – but I don’t like that it moves every line. That’s a bit too disturbing for me.

I’ll show it in action afterwards – but have a look at the options for Typewriter Mode in Paper:

That I’ve set Offset at -10% means that I’ve set my sweat spot to be a bit over the middle of the screen.
However, you can set it to not move every line! As I’ve set the Window to be 21 lines, it only moves when I’m more than 10 lines away from the sweet spot.
Speed is how fast the scrolling is. I like to keep it slow.
Delay is how quickly it reacts when I go outside the window. I think I prefer 0.
Focus on Click is whether it should only move while typing.

The results is a Typewriter Mode that just feels like a human is scrolling up and down for you, in a natural way, to always keep the caret at a nice vertical position.

It also has a cute Move to Center and Hide Others feature, shown here:

Great iOS and iPadOS counterpart

Until now, I’ve mostly shown examples from the Mac app. But the mobile counterparts are also great. And here’s an important point: Most of the things I’ve mentioned are customisable. So it’s great that you can set different options on different platforms.

For instance, my beloved Aligned Headers take up too much horizontal space on my Mini phone – so I turn it off there (but mostly use the Preview Mode).

Both apps also has a completely customisable toolbar, with numerous clever buttons – like this one, for Soft Returns:

I like the third-party keyboard SwiftKey – even though Microsoft hasn’t done an impressive job with it since they bought it. But for some reason, it doesn’t play nice with some Markdown apps, like Drafts. However, it does play nice with Paper!

Other, and things I don’t use much myself

Another little thing Paper just nails, is undo/redo. The developer touches on it in this article – but yeah, it just works. He’s also made a nifty touchpad gesture, where you can rotate to undo/redo! That looks like this:

You can also pinch to change the size of the window – and holding Command, while scrolling, changes the text size.

Paper also has some rudimentary exporting and publishing features.⁸ It’s not as robust as Ulysses', but I like that they’re there.

Some will be happy to know that the app is far from trying to be an “AI app”. But it does have an AI hotkey! If you don’t have any text selected, you’ll get this:

And if you have selected some text, you get this instead:

When using the latter, it will edit the text, while also providing an explanation. Both right in your document. Yeah, and as it uses native text tools, the Apple Intelligence features can work out-of-the-box as well (when they eventually ship).⁹

Two other features I don’t use much, but that some might, are a Focus Mode and Counter. The first allows you to mute the parts of the document your caret isn’t in – and you can choose if it should focus on the current line, sentence, or paragraph. You can also decide if you should exit the mode on click.

Plenty of options for the Counter

Some other niche features are the option to not be able to edit or delete text (only write), typing sounds, and showing hidden characters. It’s also supposed to smartly handle switching between non-alphabetic languages (like Chinese or Hebrew) and alphabetical ones (like Norwegian) – but I can’t really test that.

Lastly, it also has a Callback URL Scheme, which also makes it work nicely with Hookmark. I also recommend checking out the overview of the keyboard shortcuts, which gives an impression of how much can be done with those.

But there are also things that could be better!

I’ve focused heavily on the positives until now – both to show why I really do love this app, and as I hope it can serve as inspiration for other apps. But that doesn’t mean the app is perfect. Some of the things I’m mentioning here, I know are hard/impossible to implement due to how the app is built. Nonetheless, I still think it’s a good idea to point them out here, as they are things I miss with the app, and that others might miss as well.

Price

I get that it might be easier to capture fewer customers at a price of €200 than 10 times as many with a €20 price… Nonetheless, I still think the price is wild – and it makes me a bit sad, as it keeps the app niche.¹⁰ Another thing that bums me out, is that the dev told me he had pitched the app to Setapp, but that it got rejected because they already had enough writing apps. I really think Setapp made a mistake here, as they might not have realised how high quality the app is. If you agree with me, or are curious and have Setapp, join me in sending them a friendly email to ask them to reconsider.

Personally, I view Paper as a luxury writing instrument – like a nice fountain pen. And if you write a lot, and have the funds, it’s not that crazy to spend a bit to provide more joy to that experience!

Surrounding features (and name)

I don’t like how generic the name is – as Paper is hard to both talk about and search for, heh. However, it does suit the app well: Not only does it look like a piece of paper (with its paper texture and square corners) – it also simulates single pieces of paper, as opposed to something like a notebook. This brings me back to a con I’ve already mentioned, that it’s a simple files-based app, with little to no surrounding features. I would’ve loved it if I could get the writing experience of Paper, with the extra chrome of apps like NotePlan or nvUltra!¹¹

A quick thing I would love, would be if I could point it at a folder and say “Hey, please know about things in this folder”. (It would have to create a hidden .paper folder in it.) This could be a way to make links [[like this]] work. I’ve pointed both NotePlan and nvUltra at the same folder – so both of them follow those links, regardless of which of the apps I made it in!

It also doesn’t have any dedicated shortcut actions, for automation. But as we’re dealing with plain-text files here – it’s far from impossible to work around that!

Lastly, in this section – the dev has made a choice, for the Mac app, that I don’t agree with: To keep with the minimalist approach, the app doesn’t have a settings screen at all. And every option is accesses via the menu bar. The basic ones are visible all the time, while the more advanced ones require you to hold Option. I love a good settings screen, so I think having one of those would be better – at least in addition to the current menu. When I’ve evaluated this app, I’ve often found myself thinking, “That would be a good option to have in a settings screen – but it would be overcomplicated if it were just in the menu bar”.

Looks, and formatting features

The app’s simplicity can also be sensed in some formatting options, or lack thereof. And while I do love how the app looks, it could be even better, in my opinion.

Headings

Here are some headings – in Preview Mode on the left and Markdown Mode on the right:

So, the app does acknowledge h1-h6, which is good. But I have two problems with it:

In Markdown Mode, all headings have the same size and paragraph spacing. (However, at least the spacing is larger above than below, as it should be!)
And Preview Mode has the same size for h3-h6.

I know that several markdown editors, like iA Writer and MarkEdit, do the first thing as well – but I still don’t like it. I get the principle of wanting to stay true to the original plaintext file – but I don’t see any philosophical differences between “showing bold text as bolder than regular text”, and “having heading 1 be larger than heading 2”. It should at least be an option.

Here’s a mockup of how I would like it to be:

I've also given the \\# symbols slightly smaller font size, but that's not necessary.

I’d also love it if the headings could be collapsible, like in NotePlan (and many others). Collapsible list items would also be great!

Some niche things that haven’t got much love

Paper’s main focus has been on doing the basic Markdown things extremely well – and do them well it does! But that means that some more niche features haven’t got the needed attention. But I hope they can get it eventually!

The app has little support for tables and images. It will show images, but only ones that are hosted online, and only in Preview Mode. It will also show Markdown tables in Preview Mode – but I don’t think it really has a way to make them.

I know it’s not trivial to add support for images in .md files when you’re not a library app. One improvement could be to show the images in Markdown Mode as well. And maybe the app could offer to convert the file to TextBundle if you want to add a local image? Or perhaps the “Hey, please know about this folder” suggestion from earlier would make it possible to add attachment folders, like NotePlan does?

I also wish footnotes were improved. Hitting the hotkey only creates this: [^] While I wish the app used its terrific logic from numbered lists, and did the following:

Add the correct number in the footnote syntax [^3]
Then moved to the bottom of the document, and write [^3]:

Then you could quickly add the footnote content at the bottom – and if the number was clickable, to quickly go up and down between them, it would be even better.

When writing blog posts, I’ll mix in some HTML here and there – like when adding images, callouts, etc. And I prefer the way Ulysses displays this, as Paper doesn’t really recognise it. Here’s an example:

The example is from this blog post.

In Paper, the HTML is just there, while in Ulysses, it’s recognised as what it calls “Raw Source”. The latter makes it easier for me, at a glance, to see what’s text and what’s code. This, together with the “Built-In Proofreader and Editing Assistant” and publish features, is why I finish up my blog post in Ulysses.

Some apps, like Obsidian, will try to render the HTML inline. This can be a cool option to have, but it can also be a bit messy.

A possible implementation could be to recognise, and render, things that start with < and end with > as code:

Paper’s doesn’t love code blocks either. Let’s compare it to Ulysses and NotePlan:

Not great…

Better!

But NotePlan wins this one! You can even choose highlighting colours in the theme settings. 👌🏻

I don’t think Paper has to be as good as NotePlan here – but it should be better. This also brings me to an example where a settings screen would be nice.

The font menu.

Variants lets you set weight for Heading, Body and Bold – but that’s it. You can’t set the font for code and have a different font for headings. And the letter spacing is the same for everything. Having this be more robust would be much easier if not everything had to fit within the menu bar…

Edit 14/11-24:The ability to set different fonts, and font variants, to headings, body, bold, and code, has been added! 🙌🏻

Block quotes, horizontal rules, and more accents

The Markdown Mode has a very strict paradigm, where it won’t hide or show any elements that aren’t there in the plain-text file. But an effect of this, is that horizontal rules look very rudimentary:

They do look a bit better in Preview Mode – but I would want them to be in the accent colour and match the caret and scroll bar.

Block quotes are also too simple:

Here’s one idea for how it could be improved (in my opinion), without adding anything:

But I would also like a line, that matches the thickness of the caret and scroll bar:

The accent colours are so beautiful, that I would like to see more of them! I also think having sharp lines in those colours, like the caret and scroll bar has now, as part of the branding is a cool idea I think could be developed further. But I get that not everyone wants the accent colour everywhere – so, again, a settings screen would be nice. For instance, here are some accent ideas I’d like:

Some might find my suggestion a bit too much! That's why they shouldn't be mandatory.

Here are the changes I made:

The list bullets are bold, like originally, but I gave them the accent colour. I’ve also given them more transparency as you move up indent levels.
The asterisks around the bold word isn’t bold. (Just to make them a bit less prominent.)
With links, I’ve given the square brackets and underline colour the accent colour, to “link them together”.¹² One idea is more transparent and another is less.
I’ve also muted text in parentheses a bit, which is just a thing I think is a bit fun.

A way to present the options, could be to have a list of the different Markdown syntax (maybe the same place as you choose your preferred syntax), and the option to pick between regular, muted, accent, and muted accent.

Another option could be to just have a toggle that says “Tint syntax”, and choose a pleasant default. For instance something like this:

Edit 14/11-24:The ability to tint all Markdown syntax has been added now! This is quite nice. To keep it simple, all syntax (except finished tasks) gets the same tint – but you can adjust the amount. It's slightly less nice (as I want a strong accent on some things, and little or no on others), but still a neat addition. I've set the tint percentage to 40% on the image below – but personally I use just 20%.

I also had fun playing with an icon idea that took a bit more from the app itself. Being literally the only app on my Mac who has square corners, I think the icon should be the only one with the same. I also tried to incorporate the caret in the P. I think my favourite is the one with it being slightly thicker than the letter – but in general, I’m not claiming that the icon is better than the original, hehe. And now we’re firmly into spitballing territory, and out of the review.

Conclusion

Paper is simultaneously one of my favourite pieces of software, and also pretty hard to recommend. It has a rather narrow use case and a very steep price. But if you write a lot in Markdown, and value excellent tools, there are worse ways to waste your money! Personally, I think it’s worthwhile to spend money to make things we do every day more enjoyable. Both if it’s work-related, as it could make you more productive, and if it’s (like it is for me) connected to something that’s just a creative endeavour – as it makes me pursue it more. The app has also got meaningfully better in the six months I’ve used it, so I’m excited about the future as well – including any other projects the developer might build.

You can easily copy+paste from one Markdown source to another. ↩︎
I think it uses TextBundle files in an SQLite database. ↩︎
They’re also working on a web editor – but who knows how long that’ll take. It’ll probably be great when it arrives, though! ↩︎
But if you want a great, and free, app to have as your default way to open odd .md files, Panda is a great place to start. ↩︎
Tasks+Calendar and Publishing, respectively. ↩︎
NotePlan feels more native than something like Obsidian – and is an OK place to write. But doesn’t get close to Paper, sadly. ↩︎
NotePlan looks correct after deletion – but that’s only due to the fact that it didn’t update in the first place. ↩︎
You tap the title to access these things on mobile. ↩︎
However, as the developer is located in the EU, he mentioned that he had to disable Writings Tools in Paper for now, as there’s no way for him to validate how well they work. ↩︎
However, the dev has said that the price is way lower in parts of the world with less purchasing power, which is good. ↩︎
I want to write an articles on those ideas someday! ↩︎
Pun intended, obviously. ↩︎

I'm Anti Anti-Growth and Anti-Commerce on Open Social Media

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 15:05:50 +0100

I don’t like it when people say “People on this platform are like this” – because all platforms contain multitudes. However, one quite prevalent multitude on Mastodon, and other open social media platforms,¹ is the idea of being against growth and commercial activity on these platforms. And while I agree with some parts of these notions, in general, I really don’t agree with them.

The reason can be summed up in three points:

If we agree that open social media, free from ad-tech monopolies, is a good thing, everyone deserves the chance to take part in it.
This includes those who use online platforms to make a living, and those who want to follow them.
And resources flowing through the ecosystem, makes it more realistic to achieve this goal.

Let’s name this abstract “good thing” after something else most people agree is good: Cake

I think everyone deserves cake! But we might have to bake more of it to have enough to go around. And being able to do that, and delivering it in a safe and timely manner, is a big challenge.

Nuances on growth

So, the main reason I think there should be some focus on growth, is that everyone deserves things like good privacy.² And to achieve this, we need to focus on accessibility, usability, communication, actually being enjoyable, and more. Now, some of those who argue against growth, are really talking about being against “growth at all cost”, “growing past the security measures”³, etc. And with that, I’m 100% aligned.

Nuances on commercialisation

Lots of the commercial activity online is toxic, in many ways⁴ – and we absolutely shouldn’t welcome everything. But there’s also lots of commercial activity that’s absolutely fine! Some examples include promoting art, creating content, offering services (IRL or online), and selling products.

The current landscape is dominated by ad-tech, lock-in and opaque algorithms.⁵ But we’ll never get past this, and to a better place, if we don’t allow commercial activity. Instead, we must work on making this activity healthier. That is why I strongly agree on being critical towards ideas!

A good example of someone trying to build something healthy, is Sub Club, for creating paid subscriptions via ActivityPub. This post, by Anuj Ahooja, sums it up well:

Three neat features of sub.club:

You can post to premium subscribers by DMing your sub.club from your existing Fediverse account. 🤌🏼

There's already an API, so devs can integrate with the platform from day one. 🔌

Ice Cubes and Mammoth are the first clients to have a 'subscribe' button for sub.club, and it'll show up on other apps soon. 💲

The long-term goal is standardised "Subscribe" button for every premium subscription platform on the Fediverse, not just sub.club.

As it’s built on ActivityPub, users would be able to follow the creators on whichever platform they prefer. And I also like the long-term goal.

But of course, there were comments like this beneath the launch post:

I’m not sure what you’re on, but late stage capitalism will NEVER work on the fediverse.

That is not the culture here, never has been, and almost definitely never will be.

And this is the notion I just find so misguided. Like, if you have specific criticism of sub.club, that’s fine! But by lumping it together “late stage capitalism”, without giving any justification, it just seems like anything related to making money = evil. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the only alternative to open social media is the ad-tech monopolies. And I think it’s pretty crummy to demand that those who make money online, and those who want to follow them, stay there.

Sub.club also plans to be useful for making it easier for instances to be funded. I love amateur instances, funded by donations, as much as the next guy. But if we want cake for everyone, safely, we need people to be able to do the necessary work. And people require money (to eat and stuff). So it’s a good thing if donations can become easier.

But also, it’s next to impossible to challenge the giants with just those servers. So I think services like omg.lol and write.as, that offers a Mastodon instance as a part of a paid service, is nice as well. I also think Mozilla.social could’ve been a good thing if they gave a damn. And the client, Mammoth (which is freemium) running an instance, is also cool.

Now, let’s take Mastodon accounts as an example.⁶ For the reason mentioned above, I think there’s room for all of these types:

Randoms just talking about their day and interests
Small blogs and publications
Journalists and official accounts for larger publications and newspapers
Politicians and government entities
People who are personalities on other platforms (like YouTube), who want a social media presence
Heck, even brands and influencers

It’s perfectly fine in some instances to not allow self-promotion – and some might demand that it’s marked with a hashtag. Others might demand that ads for others (like sponsorships) are marked as well. (I’d say most should do this.) This would make it trivial for users to create their own ad blockers, by simply ignoring #ad.

For an example of useful “brand accounts”, have a look at the instance indieapps.space!

Now, I’m not saying I love the idea of more commercial activity on “my” part of the web. But categorically being against it kind of screams of NIMBY, in my opinion.

Oh, and if we want large accounts (which I think we should), we need good tools for them. Technology Connections has has several threads about the short comings of Mastodon in this regard.

My message:

If you’re finding yourself being a fan of open social media, but also be against growth and commercialisation, I have a few questions for you:

Why doesn’t everyone deserve to take part in the thing you think is good?
Do you think it’s OK for people to make a living doing things like making videos, selling art online, writing blogs, etc.? And if so, why should the people doing that, and those who follow them, be forced to stay on the ad-tech platforms?
How do you expect open social media to compete without resources? (And again, we all know what the alternative is if it can’t.)

Nah – my message is instead: Let’s work on healthy and secure growth, having the open social media be a flexible and private place to both sell and buy, and getting enough resources into the ecosystem to provide cake for everybody.

I’m just mashing together things like The Social Web, The Fediverse, IndieWeb, etc. ↩︎
Which is one part of “the cake”. ↩︎
Security might be the biggest challenge, as it’s so hard to scale. ↩︎
Be it tracking, scams, predatory practices, etc. ↩︎
I’m not categorically against algorithms – but I think users should have more control and information. ↩︎
Even though I think it’s important to remember that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon, and that the open social media/the social web is more than the Fediverse/ActivityPub. ↩︎

The Idea of Marques Brownlee's App Panels is OK

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 13:47:39 +0100

But I Have Several Problems With It

With the review of the latest iPhones, Marques Brownlee/MKBHD also revealed his latest project: The app Panels.

And I don’t mind the idea:

He’s hinted at expanding it in the future, but currently the app is an app to get wallpapers. You can get some of them for free (and by watching ads), but you can also buy packs of them, or subscribe to the app to get access to everything. The money is split between the app and the artists.

Wallaroo, by Iconfactory, is already a paid app for wallpapers, and Walli is an example of an app with a model where artists can upload their work.

In general, I feel like people’s expectations of stuff being free online is too high, so I don’t mind a new paid option in the market.

But these are my problems:

The name
The price
The split
The privacy

I want to mention that, in general, I quite like Marques and MKBHD! So this criticism isn't coming from hate.

1) The name

I get that it’s difficult to come up with an original name, as there are so many apps and companies out there. And, yes, “panels” can refer to screens – but it can also refer to comic panels. And the name Panels is already taken, by a great app for reading those!

Check out (the original) Panels, if you like reading comics! The iPhone version is also pretty clever.

2) The price and 3) The split

Panels (the wallpaper app) splits the income with artists – kind of like what music streaming apps do. So let’s compare it to, say, Spotify:

With Spotify, you get access to all* the music in the world, for $12/month | $144/year.¹
And they get a lot of flack for “only” giving 75% of revenue to artists.²

Panels also cost $12/month – but has a heavily discounted yearly price of “only” $50/year. But that’s still far too much. 1-2/month | $10-20/year would be fair, IMO. I’d value “all music” more than three times higher than “some wallpapers”…

However, the worst part is the split: Where Spotify gives 75% of revenue to artists, Panels give 50% of profits. The difference between “revenue” and “profits” is important here! And in what world is that a fair assessment of how much value the app maker and the artists provide!? What would the app be without content?

He might say (or secretly think) “Pff, my name is so big – and if you want access to my audience, you have to pay up.” But anyone who thinks that, has forever lost the right to complain about Apple’s 30%, or YouTube’s cut, ever again…

If the app took about 20% of revenue, I’d say that seems about right.

4) The privacy

This The Verge article touches on some of the criticism of the app, including on privacy. And it also includes a post from Marques addressing some of it.

In short: It collects more than it should and needs to. But the data disclosures were also a bit overzealous.

For me, his answer to the criticism is far from hitting the mark. In terms of pricing, he only talks about improving the free version. But in general, the free version is challenging to combine with decent privacy – as the ads are tracking. And he doesn’t address the two things I’m most offended by at all: The pricing of the paid version, and the slap-in-the-face ratio of the split.³

Both prices, and if they have a yearly plan, varies from country to country. ↩︎
I’m not quite sure that’s fully deserved, though. I’ve written more abut that here. ↩︎
And had the split been better, I would have less issue with the high price – as it at least would mostly go to artists. ↩︎

My Biggest Small Gripe With Apple Notes

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 13:02:39 +0100

And (Obviously) Objectively Correct Principles for Paragraph Spacing

I think Apple Notes might be one of the best pieces of software Apple ships. They’ve nailed creating a simple app, with great ease-of-use, that still has more powerful features hidden, for those who want it. There are a couple of reasons why I don’t use it much, though:

In general, I like to rely on third-party services.
I also like the portability of Markdown, and being able to use several apps on the same files.
I like that, in NotePlan, I can use the same app for notes and tasks.

However, Notes has numerous nice features, like:

Good apps on both Mac, iPad and iPhone, while also being accessible on the web
Pretty good collaboration features, with shared notes and folders
More than enough options for formatting

In addition to these, you have to-dos (that can sort) and tables.

Collapsible headings
Embedding of files, photos, and illustrations (especially good with PDFs)
Audio recordings
Links between notes (no backlinks, though)
Tagging and smart folders
Quick notes (which Apple, selfishly, reserves for itself)
Math notes.

So I’ll gladly recommend it to most people!

However, as most Apple software, Notes is pretty inflexible. If you don’t like their choices, you’re out of luck. And I really don’t like their choices when it comes to paragraph spacing.

My paragraph spacing commandments

Have a look at this screenshot from Notes:

I really don’t like the lack of spacing around the headings, and that it’s difficult to tell that there are two separate paragraphs below Heading 1.

A way to fix this, is by adding newlines before headings and between paragraphs. But I think this both looks a bit inelegant, and is annoying to have to do.

So, I’ve made four commandments, that I think every text editor should adhere to. (And one extra, for Markdown editors.) Apple absolutely isn’t the only sinner. But most(?) other apps can at least customise these things!

The image above, is an example of what I want to see in terms of spacing¹ – and none of it is created with newlines.

1) Paragraph spacing must be larger than the line height

This makes it easy to see that there are two separate paragraphs below Heading 1. To avoid complexity, if the app has an option for adjusting line height, you could have the paragraph spacing be a multiple of the line height.

2) There must be a separation between hard and soft returns

Many text contexts on our computers distinguishes between hitting Shift+Return or just Return. For instance, in some chat apps, Return will send the message, while Shift+Returns creates newlines.

In most text editors, Return creates a new paragraph – and usually a new regular body paragraph. (So if you were writing a heading, the next one would not be a heading.) However, if you are writing a list, it creates a new list element. This is a hard return.

However, if you hit Shift+Return (or Ctrl+Return in some contexts), you will create a new line within the same paragraph. This is a soft return. It can be used like this:

This is the first list element.
This is the second,
which goes over two lines.

If I had made a hard return after “second”, I would have created a new list element (3.) instead of just a new line. This also works in headings, etc.

Adhering to the first commandment can be annoying if your app doesn’t support soft returns. Because occasionally, you want a new line without the extra paragraph spacing. For instance, while writing things like this great pop song by the Norwegian artist Astrid S:

From everything to nothing at all.
From every day to never at all.
And everyone says that I should be sad.
Is it normal that

I don’t feel sorry for myself,
care if your hands touch somebody else.
Wouldn’t get jealous if you’re happy.
It’s okay if you forget me.
I don’t feel empty now that you’re gone.
Does that mean it did mean nothing at all?
But I’ll tell you what the worst is:
It’s the way it doesn’t hurt,
when I wish it did.

You need soft returns to be able to separate between line changes and new parts. Supporting these on mobile apps is a bit more complicated – but as not everyone needs it, I like the approach by the excellent app Paper:

The toolbar is totally customisable, so you can add the soft return if you'd like to, and place it wherever.

Apple Notes does have this distinction. But you require a keyboard to type soft returns – and it’s less useful when they don’t have paragraph spacing.

3) Scale paragraph spacing to heading level

To help with distinguishing heading levels, it’s a good idea to give more paragraph spacing to level 1 than level 2, etc. Here’s my example from earlier, but with added pixel values:

In this example, I’ve used 16px between regular paragraphs, and also below headings.² And this leads me to the next commandment:

4) Make sure headings are closest to the content it applies to

Notice that I’ve added the scaled spacing above the headings, while keeping the spacing below them the same.

This screenshot is from Ulysses. As you can see, they do allow for spacing scaled to headings, but they make a different mistake: They apply the same spacing above and below. This doesn’t make sense, as headings explicitly apply to content below it. So standard information hierarchy theory dictates that it should be closer to that paragraph than the one above.

However, Ulysses does adhere to a bonus commandment, only relevant to Markdown editors:

5) Align Markdown headings, by putting the syntax in the margin

I prefer having the Markdown syntax being shown, but muted, as I don’t like it when the text jumps around (when showing/hiding automatically). But if you don’t put the # symbols in the margin, the headings won’t be aligned with the rest of the text:

However, as this takes up extra horizontal space, I like that I, in Paper, can align the headers on Mac and iPad, while not doing it on mobile.

With and without aligned headers. It takes up far too much space – especially on my Mini phone. As it doesn't look optimal without the aligned headers either, I often use the (great) preview mode while editing on mobile. This makes it, more or less, a rich text editor (while the file remains .md).

Fixing Apple Note’s spacing

I’ve made a mockup, where I’ve adjusted the spacing in Apple Notes. I’ll show the default spacing, my adjustments, and default spacing with added newlines.

In general, think the default line height in Notes is too tight, and this also makes the visual difference between the latter two smaller. So keep in mind that the middle option would also be functionally easier to use, as you don’t need to add space yourself.

In addition to higher line height, I'd also increase the difference between the headings a bit!

Defaults and customisability

Now, I’m not saying everyone has to have the same preferences as me – so lots of customisability, like in Paper, of course has its value. And I also genuinely understand if many just don’t care! But I really think adhering to these commandments makes for the best default.

What do you think? Could it be that the world-renowned design company is correct, and I (a nobody, who’s not even a designer) am wrong? 😲

The commandments again:

Paragraph spacing must be larger than the line height
There must be a separation between hard and soft returns
Scale paragraph spacing to heading level
Make sure headings are closest to the content it applies to
Align Markdown headings, by putting the syntax in the margin

But I’m not saying proper designers can’t make it look better than I can! ↩︎
Technically this is done by saying that everything should have 16px margin below (and nothing above), and then giving the headers different top margins. ↩︎

The Apps I Use From Setapp

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:26:48 +0100

And Why I Think It’s Great Value

Setapp — which apps do you use? Many, us pay for SetApp yet don’t get all the value because we don’t know the full extent of all the shiny toys. This was last asked 4 yrs ago, so it feels relevant againWhat the hidden gems have I missed?

A while ago, someone, on the MPU Forums, asked the question above. And here’s my answer to this question.

I also got around to writing this, as many of My App Defaults are from Setapp, and because I recently read about the Setapp iOS store in the EU (which Norway, sadly, isn’t a part of).

I hope this post can be useful if you’re considering the service, and wonder if it’s worth it, or if you’re new to the service and would like some tips to get started. If you want to give it a try, I’d appreciate you doing so through my affiliate link to Setapp 🖇️. 🫶🏻

I've paid for the service for a couple of years, and keep paying for it. This post is me explaining why, and giving some tips. But I get it if some might find the use of an affiliate link to make me biased - so here's a regular link, if you'd rather use that.

I’ve sorted them into the following categories:

I also have a couple of honorable mentions, that are (or seem like) good apps, but that I, personally, don’t use that much.

I’ve added the price outside Setapp as well.¹ Setapp is €10-15/month, or €100-150/year. However, some things to keep in mind:

Many of the apps are one-time purchases (but often not with unlimited updates), so it’s difficult to compare with a single subscription.
Many of the apps I use, I wouldn’t pay for if it weren’t included in Setapp. I’d either use a free/cheaper alternative, or just not use something like that at all.

I still find it to be great value – and I like that I can use nice, paid apps like explained in the second point.

Always-running utilities

These are apps I have running in the background all the time.

Bartender (€21)

The grandad of menu bar organisation. Ice is an interesting free alternative, but I’m still pleased with Bartender – especially as I can have it automatically change layout when I connect my Studio Display.

BetterTouchTool (€22)

I mostly use this to set up trackpad shortcuts – which it does amazingly. But it can do much more as well.

Cleanshot X (€26)

Terrific tool for screenshots, annotations, and screen recordings. An alternative for the latter, called IShowU (€80 or €22/year) also just dropped on Setapp.

Default Folder X (€47)

This app powers up the open and save dialogues on your Mac – with things like recent folders and the ability to click on folders you have open in the background to save there.

Hookmark (€63)

This is an app for creating deep links between different documents and parts of apps (like specific emails).

iStat Menus (€13)

Recently updated, with a beautiful coat of paint, this highly customisable app lets you place what you want in the menu bar. I have RAM and CPU usage, and a weather widget.

My laptop mode menu bar, dictated by Bartender. If I hit the weather widget, iStat gives me a detailed forecast. And hitting the memory and CPU bars, gives me more details about those things.

Mission Control Plus (€10)

I only use this to allow me to close windows from Exposé. Worth it!

Paste (€27/year)

My favourite clipboard manager. Both pretty and powerful.

PixelSnap (€35)

Used for measuring things or your screen. I think xScope might be a more powerful version of this.

PopClip (€23)

App that mimics the menu you get when you select text on iOS – but you fill it with what you want. I’ve turned off mine coming up automatically, but I get this with a hotkey:

From the left:

The left one is a specific one for working with subtitles. It splits the selected line into two, down the middle.
This wraps text in <figcaption>, and is used for blog posts.
This wraps the text in a “callout div”, that I use to create callouts like the one about the affiliate link up top.
If I want to format text in image captions or callouts, I have to use HTML. This creates an HTML hyperlink,
this is italics, <em>
and this is bold. <strong>
The pen is some custom stuff for my band’s website.
The Last One Will Title Case the Selected Text.

New defaults

These are tools that do the same thing as built-in tools, but a bit nicer/and more in a more powerful way.

Archiver (€20)

Just a nice zip/unzip tool. The Unarchiver (free) is more or less just as nice!

Elmedia Player (€25)

And this is just a nice video player. But here Iina (free) is also just as nice.

BusyCal (€45)

It lacks some of the most powerful Fantastical features – but I also prefer some things about BusyCal. And seeing as it’s so much cheaper, this is a great alternative if you want something more powerful than Calendar.app, but don’t want to pay €60/year. It also has a nice menu bar widget (as seen in the screenshot above).

Nitro PDF Pro (€200 or €17/month)

I’ve no idea why this is so expensive! I guess it offers features some businesses just got to have. 🤷🏻‍♂️ But for me, it’s just a nice PDF reader/editor.

Useful tools

These are apps that I might not use every day, but that are nice to be able to call upon when needed.

ChronoSync Express (€27)

Neat little tool to sync different folders.

ClearVPN (€40/year)

A Pretty VPN that seems to do the job – on Mac and iOS. But I’m a very light VPN user.

Downie (€18)

Great app and browser extension for downloading anything from the web. (For instance, YouTube videos.)

Expressions (€7)

Together with an LLM, this app makes it possible for me to make useful regex patterns.

Folx (€18)

Torrent and general download manager, with browser extensions as well. Not the most used on my Mac, but I like it.

Image2Icon (€11)

Simple tool to turn any image into good-looking app icons.

Keep It Shot (€17 w/bring your own API or €7/month)

I’ve aimed this at my screenshot folder (for Cleanshot X), and it will automatically rename the screenshots into something searchable and rememberable.

OpenIn (€12)

Let’s say you normally want to open .md files in App 1, but if it’s in Folder X, you want it to open in App 2 instead – then OpenIn is for you. You can also use it to open links in different browsers depending on which app you click it, and more.

PDF Squeezer (€19)

Some PDFs have an ungodly size, and this app fixes that.

Permute (€13)

An app from the same developer as Downie, and an excellent converter tool. Works on images, videos and sound, and has Shortcut actions.

Timemator (€35)

Great time-tracker, with some automatic Mac features. (But I only use it for billable stuff.)

Sip (€18)

Gives you a colour picker everywhere, and some useful palette tools, like a floating colour dock for easy copying.

Image from the app's website.

Soulver (€13 + €35)

Now, this app got sherlocked pretty hard by the new Math Notes feature in this year’s OSs – but it’s still a great app for the combination of natural language notes and a calculator.

I wrote more about it here, in the post The Case for Soulver, and an App Between a Calculator and a Spreadsheet.

Squash (€46/year)

Sleek app for batch image actions.

Unite (€45)

An app for creating “desktop apps” from websites/web apps. Just like you can do from Safari or Chrome, but with more customisability.

Workflow staples

These are apps you can build a lot of your workflow around, and that I use quite a lot.

Bike Outliner (€34)

This is probably the app I like to use the most, of any app of any type. However, as it’s files-based and doesn’t have an iOS app (yet), it’s a bit challenging to integrate into my Markdown-focused workflow. But I highly recommend it nonetheless.

NotePlan (€90/year)

This app has a lot in common with Obsidian. But it gives you a much more native feel, and tasks and calendar notes are first-class citizens. This app can be the backbone of your digital life, for notes, tasks, time-blocking and more.

Ulysses (€36/year)

While I prefer the writing experience in Paper, Ulysses is still a great place to write, and I use its publishing features for Micro.blog all the time. If you’re writing long-form, like a novel or thesis, Ulysses is terrific.

Honorable mentions

These are apps that don’t suit me, or that I just don’t need. But I’ve tried them, and seen that they’re good, or heard good things about.

BusyContacts (€45)

BusyCal’s sister-app. But I don’t use contacts much. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Calendars (€21/year)

This came to Setapp after I had used BusyCal for a while, so I don’t know how it compares. (I didn’t feel the need to try it out.) However, it looks like a great calendar app, from a good developer.

Canary Mail (€19/year)

Decent email client if you like AI tools.

Craft (€86/year)

Powerful and flexible note-taking app, with sharing and co-operation features.

Diarly (€24/year)

I currently use Everlog for journaling, but this also looks really solid!

DisplayBuddy (€17)

If you use several external displays, and especially if they’re not made by Apple, this app (and BetterDisplay Pro) will be your best friend.

Dropzone (€31)

Drag and drop enhancer. From the website:

Dropzone makes it faster and easier to: Move Files, Copy Files, Install Apps, Launch Apps, AirDrop, Run Shortcuts, Imgur, Amazon S3, SFTP Server, FTP Server, Rename & Move Files, Shorten URLs, Resize Images, Compress images, Download YouTube Videos.

GoodTask (€42)

App built on top of the Reminders.app database, which gives it more powerful features (while keeping the database, for sharing, Siri features, etc.).

HoudahSpot (€38)

More powerful file search for Mac.

Keysmith (€48)

With this, you can record specific actions (with mouse and keyboard), and then give them keyboard shortcuts. For those things that don’t have a proper hotkey!

Marked (€13)

App, by the great Brett Terpstra, for showing Markdown previews from everywhere.

MarsEdit (€54)

App for writing blog posts, and publishing them to things like WordPress, Micro.blog or Mastodon.

MindNode (€22/year)

A mind-mapping tool I’ve heard good things about.

Path Finder (€27/year)

A decent Finder replacement, with some more powerful features.

Secrets (€85 or €34/year)

As mentioned in this post, I think it’s a good idea to use a third-party password manager. And Secrets is one of them.

Spark (€54/year)

Probably my favourite email client (which, admittedly, is a pretty low bar), as I can’t use Mimestream before it supports JMAP. However, as I share my Power User Setapp account with my wife, only one of us can use Spark – so I let her have it.

TaskPaper (€27)

Ultra-fast plain-text task manager, from the same developer as Bike.

TextSoap (€45)

Classic tool for cleaning up your text.

Typeface (€43)

A more powerful version of the built-in Font Book.

Unclutter (€22)

A place for storing temporary files, text, and more.

Yoink (€9)

Like Dropzone and Unclutter, an enhancer for drag-and-drop.

Especially if you haven’t bought many of these apps already (or enough of them are due for a paid upgrade), I’d say Setapp is absolutely worth it. And I do like it as a place to go look for something when I discover a need! That’s how I found many of these tools.

I get that many people prefer to purchase apps, instead of having a subscription. In that case, paying for a couple of months of Setapp can be a great way to test/discover plenty of apps and learn about what you might want to buy.

Some prices I only found in another currency, so I changed it to Euros. Some apps might have slightly different functionality, but I chose the closest option. ↩︎

The Story of My 1962 Bass Guitar

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:48:39 +0100

My Most Treasured Possession

In 2010, I went on a school trip from Norway to Los Angeles. I wanted a new bass, so I took a chance, and sold both basses I had at the time, to have funds to spend in L.A.

I sold this 1979 Rickenbacker 4001, in my favourite finish: Autumnglo. I also sold the bass in the background, a 1982 Squire JV Jazz bass.

I was looking for a P-bass

But after not finding anything interesting in Guitar Center and other “regular” music stores, I searched online. There I found a store called Norman’s Rare Guitars. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s one of the world’s most highly rated vintage shops – and they had a real bargain. You see, Fender instruments from the early 60s are expensive – especially the “Pre-CBS” ones.¹ To put things into perspective: Norman’s have one currently, in great condition, which they want $10,900 for!

Mine looked like this when it was new. But not any more!

The one I ended up buying was even older, from 1962, but “only” $3,000. Not only that, the currency rate was much more favourable, from Norwegian Kroner, at the time. I paid what today would be $1,700.

Why it was so much cheaper

The guys as Norman’s said that the bass spent most of its life in the possession of a man they know who was. However, he wasn’t a stranger to experimenting with chemistry and his own blood – and the bass bears witness to this.

Here’s what I know about originality

I know that the volume pot is new (as I’ve swapped it myself) – and I don’t think the knobs are original.² The rear strap button has been moved (to accommodate the heavy tuners). The headstock strap button is missing, alongside the pickup and bridge covers. However, as far as I know, the rest is original: Neck (more on this later), thumb rest, bridge tuners, pickup, and electronics.

As mentioned, my bass used to look like the one in the image above here – same finish and all.³ But now, and when I bought it, it looks like this:

The tortoise pick guard has been sanded down, or something, to appear matte. The sunburst finish has been removed, and then he's applied a gold finish before adding a dark purple. The pickup also got a bit of the dark purple colour. He's also made notches on each side of the neck, for some reason. And even weirder, is that he's made tiny holes in the clay dot inlays, and filled them with a bit of lime green paint.

I think he was a bit lazy, or something, with the backside. It’s a much lighter shade of purple, so I think he only bothered with one layer. More notches, above the neck plate. It’s a bit hard to tell here, but you can see that when the purple wears away it shows gold first, then wood.

He also made notches around most of the headstock. I think the decal is newer (late 60s). It might've been from the time he did this weird notch job? Because they've actually been lacquered over properly! A bit of lime green here as well. 👍🏻

Quite a bit of wear on the neck.

The pick guard is quite wobbly – which I like, as it gives a nice spot for my pick. Here you can also see that he filled the inlays on the side of the neck with green as well. (But, funnily enough, not the one furthest in. I guess it was too much of a faff.)

"All the best swords instruments have names"

I’ve named the bass Hufsa, which is the Norwegian name for The Groke. Not only does my bass and her share colour and general shape – I also like the idea of both being a bit off-putting, while only looking for friendship.

The neck

I love, love, love the neck of this P-bass – precisely because it’s not a P-bass neck. I don’t have the largest hands, so I love that, according to Norman’s, the original owner asked the Fender factory (which was local to him) to deliver it with a jazz bass/A neck.

The bass serial number indicates that it was delivered in early 1962, and the neck is dated September 1961 – so the story is very plausible, as Fender would make bodies and necks separate, and match them up later.

Re-fret and more

Currently, the bass is “in the shop”.⁴ It’ll get new frets, new clay dot inlays, and a bit more – but I won’t be going for a refinish or other restoration efforts. I want to keep the mojo!

I’m glad it has the story it has

Now, if the bass was closer to mint, it would obviously be worth way more than it is today. But then I would never, ever been able to afford it! And it’s a remarkable player, that keeps its tuning forever and sounds terrific. And I will never get rid of it. The only bad thing, is that it’s completely removed my GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) for new basses…

Sound examples

Here’s a song from my band Klondike:

Feet in the Water

And another one:

Healing

In 1965, Fender got bought by CBS. And the quality dropped a bit after this. ↩︎
But they are old and heavy. ↩︎
The sunburst is barely visible in the electronics pocket. ↩︎
Will report back when it’s done! ↩︎

🌱 My App Defaults

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 18:22:22 +0100

Extremely late to the party, I finally got around to write about my app defaults. A bunch of these are paid apps I probably wouldn’t prioritise if I didn’t already subscribe to Setapp 🖇️ – so keep that in mind. I’ll also give alternatives places where I remember some.

Click here to see the hardware I use this software on!

Lastly, I know that these posts are “supposed” to be simple lists – but I thought I’d add a bit more info.

Systems and productivity

📓 Notes, tasks, and writing

I want to get this one out-of-the-way first, as it’s the most complicated one. (The other entries are much shorter!)

All my notes, tasks, and writing is in a bunch of Markdown files held within NotePlan. But these are also local files I can access with other apps, write to with automation, etc.¹

I prefer to do as much as possible with Paper, which is a super slick Markdown editor. So I use this for writing of blog posts, note-taking, sticky notes, as the default app for random .md files, etc.

I use Ulysses to edit and publish blog posts to Micro.blog.

And occasionally, I’ll use TaskPaper to manage more complicated projects – but as mentioned, all of these apps points at the same NotePlan files!

This is from NotePlan, and I’ve added one extra feature to every task down the list – and as everything is plain-text, I can add it from wherever.

Farta means “out-and-about” in Norwegian, and is a tag list I use for things I can do if I’m driving around.
If I add a time, and the task is in a daily note, I’ll get a reminder notification at that time.
I can add a date at the end, to move it to a daily note (to give me the notification if I’m not in a daily note, or to schedule it for another day).
You can also create time blocks, by adding an end-time.

I also really, really like Bike Outliner – but I struggle getting it to fit into my workflow. I also dabble in Tot, when I need stickies that stay on-top.

📖 Journaling

I absolutely fall into this cliché: I wish I journal more than I do. But when I do, I do it in Everlog. I like that it’s Markdown and linkable.

📅 Calendar

I use BusyCal. It’s way cheaper than Fantastical (and included in Setapp), while being almost as good. (There are some things I prefer in BusyCal, as well, actually.) I think this is a nice sweet point if you want something a bit more powerful than Calendar.app, but don’t want to pay Fantastical money.

🌦️ Weather app

Here’s a great tip (that probably mostly Norwegians know about): Here in Norway, we have a publicly funded weather service, called Yr (which means drizzle). It’s good, completely free (and without ads), and has good apps for both Android and iOS. And guess what: It’s available in English as well!

Pronunciation guide: The y is a monophthong, that sounds like the ui sound in “build”.

🛒 Shopping list

My wife and I use Bring, which is a great little uni-tasker!

📮 Mail server

I host through Fastmail 🖇️. I go into why here.

📨 Mail client

I sincerely hope Mimestream gets to building JMAP support because I don’t like any of the mail client options out there… I think I prefer Spark – however my wife is on my Power User Setapp account, so only one of us can use Spark through that. So I let her have it, and just use Mail.app. It’s aggressively “fine” – but I at least like it better than the Fastmail client.

💬 Chat app

The one I use the most, and prefer, is Telegram. I don’t use their more “social media like” features at all, so it’s annoying that these have a tendency of getting them in trouble (for good reasons!). Because as a simple chat app, it’s terrific. It’s very much like if iMessage was better and cross-platform!²

However, I also pay close attention to Signal and Matrix, as I have to evaluate when Telegram does enough things I disagree with that I “have to” switch. (I would rather not switch to one of the more “monopolistic” options.)

🌐 Browser

As I mentioned in this post, I don’t think it’s necessary to use the same browser on desktop and mobile. Sadly, Apple is blocking third-party browsers from having extensions on iOS/iPadOS, so I use Safari on iPad. On iPhone, I switch between Safari and Quiche Browser, which has enough nice things built in to be a good experience.

On the desktop, I think Arc is my favourite browser. But I try to avoid using Chromium/Blink, and I don’t love their direction – so I don’t use it. I’ve used Firefox – and I don’t mind it if I spend some time adjusting it. I’m very interested in how the vertical tab update turns out! However, I’ve used Zen the last couple of months, and I really like it!

It’s a really promising Firefox fork, which is pretty pleasant out-of-the-box, with a good design and built in vertical tabs. But a really cool idea, is a “modification market” of sorts, where you can install little adjustments made by others. In addition to Firefox’s general customisability, you can really make it your own!

🔎 Search Engine

I use, and love, Kagi Search. I wrote more about it here! They also make a WebKit browser, called Orion – but it’s not for me. However, Kagi is still available in every other browser, through an extension.³

🔖 Bookmarks

To quote myself, from this post:

For bookmarks, I use Anybox, and I really like it! I love that it’s not a read-later app. It’s specifically built for getting anything in and out of a box – and not for consuming it in-app. Goodlinks and Raindrop are other alternatives.

🔐 Password management

Another quote from the same post:

I use 1Password for passwords (and much more). I like it – but here is the fact that it’s cross-platform significant. The reason is that I have my family members on the plan, and I would rather not force them onto specific devices. For a free alternative, I’d go for something like Bitwarden over the built-in OS or browser features.

I also use it to store things like secure notes, SSL, a scan of my passport, company number, etc.

📶 RSS backend

To make it easy to move between clients (and for some newsletter features), my RSS feeds are in Feedbin.

📰 RSS reader

These are the reasons I use Lire: It’s cheap, feels and looks pretty good, can cache truncated feeds, and display sites (on a site-by-site basis) in inline browser. The latter is so that I can browse blogs on their native websites, while getting new articles in my feed.

📁 Cloud File Storage

I use, and quite enjoy, Dropbox. I like that it’s a larger player while not being one of the absolute giants. It’s a bit more neutral than something from Apple, Google, or Microsoft.

🌅 Photo storage and management

I do store my photos in Photos.app, though – and use iCloud for the backups. I intend to get a Mac Mini, though – to set up some extra backup. I’ve tried Photomator a bit, and I really like it! If I worked a bit more with photos (which I might in the future), I think I’d pay for that.

📷 Camera app

I just use Camera.app. But in a year or two I intend to upgrade my iPhone 13 Mini, and then perhaps to a Pro phone (for the better cameras). At that time, or maybe before, I think I’ll look into things like Halide or Obscura!

⏲️ Time tracking

I hear everyone mentioning Timery – but I use TimeMator. It’s included in Setapp as well, so “free”, and I like that it doesn’t need another backend. (Timery uses Toggl.) It has slick apps for Mac, iPad and iPhone, and also supports automatic tracking (which I don’t use).

Tools and utilities

🤖 Automation and settings

Much of the lube in my workflows comes from the trifecta of BetterTouchTool, Karabiner-Elements and Keyboard Maestro.

🔩 Text Editor

For coding, I use Nova. It’s a Mac-assed Mac app, and it offers some features that make life easier for a noob like me.⁴ I’ve also used, and recommend, Zed: It’s even faster than Nova (which is also fast), but a bit more bare-bones and harder to get into. And it’s free, and also available for Linux (and soon Windows)!

📟 Terminal

Speaking of noob friendly tools, I really like the terminal app Warp 🖇️. It looks slick, has a bunch of things that make it behave more like other apps (for instance, in how you select text), and gives a little help here and there. I’ve also used, and like, iTerm.

🧮 Calculator

For good reason, PCalc gets a lot of love. But I don’t think any of its modes reaches my favourite,SC-323PU. I just love the great overview you get! And I’m a maths teacher, so you can trust me.

Screenshot of one of the modes in SC-323PU. (Catchy name, I know!)

🖼️ Screenshots

On Mac, I use the excellent CleanShot X. On iOS/iPadOS, I use a combination of Annotable and Shareshot. The former is a better version of the built-in Annotate tools. The latter is a way to frame screenshots with devices, like the one of the calculator. It’s a bit expensive for what it is, so I would recommend getting the Apple Frames shortcut. But every so often, when I have a little extra money, I like to splurge a bit on apps that I don’t need, but that are nice!

🚀 Launcher

I really, really like Raycast 🖇️. Not only is it a great launcher, but (among other things) I also use it for this:

Setting keyboard shortcuts for opening apps and running shortcuts
Window management
AI chat and commands
Text snippets

It also has tons of extensions you can install. For instance, I have one to create masked emails from Fastmail, and another to search for links in Anybox.

📋 Clipboard manager

Raycast also has a decent clipboard manager – but Paste is better, and included in Setapp.

📄 PDF tool

I use NitroPDF. It’s an app that I would never pay for – but it’s included in Setapp, so I’m happy that I get a slightly better tool than the default one. There are several apps like this on the list, including the next one:

🗜️ Zip tool

Archiver stays out of the way, and does just what you want it to do nicely. However, the free The Unarchiver is also great!

I also use Bartender through Setapp, and I like it. It did get purchased recently, so if you want an alternative, I’d check out Ice. There are some advanced features I use in Bartender, though, which I fear aren’t in Ice. I like that it can automatically show the battery when it gets low, and that I can automatically change layout when I connect to my Studio Display.

🗑️ Uninstaller

Pearcleaner is a simple app that does what it does so well.

🌍 VPN

I very rarely use a VPN – but when I do, I like that Setapp comes with a nice one, called ClearVPN.

🖌️ Design tools

I use, and greatly recommend, the Affinity Suite of apps. I use all three, but I’m, by far, most comfortable with Designer.

Entertainment

🎬 Video player

I don’t view a lot of video on my Mac, but when I do, I use Elmedia Player. Where it not for Setapp (again), I’d use Iina.

🎤 Podcast player

I’m a long-time Overcast user. The developer recently released a complete overwrite of the app. This was clearly needed, and absolutely the right move for the app’s future, which I’m excited about. But currently I like it less than I did pre-rewrite.

🐘 Mastodon client

Mastodon is my social media of choice, and there are so many great apps for it out there! But my favourite, is Mona.

🎵 Music

A couple of months ago, I switched from Spotify to Tidal. The better sound quality I viewed as a bonus, while the main reason was due to the higher artist payments. However, I’m not sure I, and most other people, evaluate the payments correctly – so not sure if I got that right. (More on this here!) I also think Spotify is a better app and service, so I do miss it. But I don’t have a plan to move back at the moment.

That’s it! These apps have stayed the same for a while – but I still love checking out new stuff, so there will probably be changes down the line.

Having the files here, as opposed to a regular cloud file storage, does have some drawbacks. But I like that the NotePlan apps are native, has support for both #-tagging and @-tagging, great UI for calendar notes, etc. I will write more about this later! ↩︎
Keep it mind that if as little as one participant in an iMessage chat has regular iCloud backups turned on, it isn’t end-to-end-encrypted. I personally don’t mind this at all! But I think this facts make iMessage and Telegram about the same when it comes to security, as Telegram always “only” encrypts on server. ↩︎
This extension also works with Safari – but Apple is making it a bit hard for them. And the search suggestions gets delivered from the engine you’ve selected in the Safari settings, like DuckDuckGo. ↩︎
Like code folding, path bar and rainbow brackets. ↩︎

My Take-Away From the iPhone Event: This isn't a "Pro year"

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:09:25 +0100

A friend of mine had to buy a new iPhone a couple of months ago – and I liked his phrasing while asking me for advice: Is this a “Pro year”? Now, to some, the things you always get with a Pro phone are so important that every year is a Pro year. But I’m discussing how much you get for your money with the upgrade – because this will vary from year to year.

To be clear: I don't think most people should buy new phones more often than every 3-5 years. But as that interval will hit many people every year, it's still always valuable to analyse this year's phones.

However, I'll be holding on to my precious 13 Mini for at least another year! 💪🏻

So, while we haven’t seen any reviews of this year’s models, to me, it seems like last year was a “Pro year”, while this year isn’t. Let’s find out why.

These are things that are the same – things you’d get for the upgrade last year, and still get this one:

Both from 15 to 15 Pro and from 16 to 16 Pro:

ProMotion display (high/variable refresh-rate)
Always-On display
Added Telephoto camera
Night mode portraits
Support for Apple ProRAW
Faster USB-C speeds
Aluminium → Titanium (With increase weight as well, though.)
LiDAR Scanner

The iPhone 16 colours. One thing I don't touch on in this post is that the regular version gets all the fun colours!

Going from 16 to 16 Pro

In addition, the aforementioned stuff, this year you also get:

Increased screen size, from 6.1" to 6,3" / 6.7" to 6.9", and smaller bezel (A negative for me, but not for most, I assume!)
22 hours to 27 hours battery life (video playback), helped by the larger size
Substantial upgrade to the Ultra-Wide camera
Support for 4K video at 120 fps
Added four-mic array (and access to some finesse regarding this)

The iPhone 16 Pro colours. Boring, but still pretty nice, IMO. I like that the black is pretty black, the natural titanium will probably patina pretty nicely, and that the Desert Titanium will look great with brown leather.

If someone asked me for advice, I’d simplify it down to this:

Screen size, and the associated effect on weight and battery life (Interesting that they now have options in 6.1", 6.3", 6.7" and 6.9".)
Screen tech (Always-On and ProMotion)
Better cameras

However, last year there was more:

Going from 15 to 15 Pro

In addition to the stuff mentioned up top, last year you also got:

Action button
A16 → A17 Pro chip (a more substantial bump)
6 GB → 8 GB RAM
Apple Intelligence (due to the last two items)
20 hours to 23 hours battery life (video playback)
Better Ultra-Wide camera (But not as large an improvement as this year.)
Support for Macro photography
Support for spatial video
Thread radio

Now, I don’t care much about Apple Intelligence (as English isn’t my primary language) or spatial video – but their inclusion makes the 15 Pro more future-proof. And the more substantial increase in performance and the extra button is something everyone can appreciate.

So, my temporary conclusion, also based on all the changes outlined in this blog post, is that going from the regular model to the Pro one is less worth it than it was last year – and that paying a bit more for an iPhone 16, compared to buying last year’s iPhone 15, is well worth it.¹

In general, this year’s iPhones aren’t that exciting – they’ve looked like this for a while now. At the same time, the design is well-refined, and I really like that they’ve added two more buttons since the phone I currently have!

But things are more complicated if you add buying last year’s models used/refurbed into the mix! ↩︎

Summarised – This Year's iPhone Changes

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:07:56 +0100

While working on a different blog post, I made a list of changes to the different iPhone models. Instead of just scrapping it, I thought I’d post it here.

Improvements across the line(s)

Camera Control button added
Support for Dolby Vision video
Latest generation Photographic Styles
Anti-reflective lens coating
Improved glass
Faster MagSafe charging
Lower minimum brightness
A bit longer battery life

iPhone 15 Pro → 16 Pro

Larger screen size, from 6.1" to 6.3" / /6.7" to 6.9" (A negative in my book, but not in most’s, I assume.)
Upgraded chip, from A17 Pro to 18 Pro (Doesn’t seem like the largest bump.)
Improved thermals
New ultra-wide camera (Seems substantial!)
The non-Max also gets last year’s 5x tele lens
Improved microphones

iPhone 15 → Iphone 16

Upgraded chip, from A16 to A18 (All-new architecture – more substantial upgrade.)
More RAM, from 6 GB to 8 GB.
Support for Apple Intelligence (Due to the last two things mentioned.)
Added Action button
New ultra-wide camera (With support for Macro photography – but not as large an upgrade as on the Pro.)
Support for spatial video
Thread radio
1 whole gram lower weight (🤓)

Anything I missed? Feel free to let me know!

My recommendation is that it seems like the iPhone 16 (regular model) is the best buy at the moment. And that the €100 higher price compared to buying last year’s iPhone 15 is well worth it. (Where a used 15 Pro fits in the calculation, is a more complicated question!)

I Love My Little Charging Bundle

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:29:51 +0100

I recently wrote about not needing USB-A, and mentioned the USB-C Lifestyle™️. That reminded me of a little bundle of cables I always keep in my backpack. So here are some …

Advice for frustration-free charging

When I talk about "chargers", I generally refer to the brick itself – not including the cable.

1) Buy extra

Here’s my bundle:

The trick is that I don’t need any of these elsewhere – they are extra. I have other chargers in my office, next to my bed, etc. I get that this is a bit more wasteful than just having one charger that you move around everywhere. But I think this is resource spending that’s worth it – and hopefully the devices you buy don’t come with (sub-par) chargers you don’t need. Furthermore, try to keep chargers for a long time.

2) Think about colour and texture of the cables

These are the cables in the bundle:

USB-C, 3 meters (black, braided)
MagSafe for Mac (light gray, braided)
Lightning, 1 meter (white)
Micro-USB (black)

As you can see, all of them have a different combination of colour and texture. This makes it easier to pick out the correct one!

3) Don’t buy “original” chargers

In general, buying “original” accessories will give you something that might be pricier, but at least is among the best. But when it comes to chargers, and especially compared to Apple, the third-party chargers are objectively better. The reason being that Apple doesn’t use GaN, a relatively new technology that allows for significantly smaller size to power ratio.

Mine’s a 65 watt Anker charger 🖇️, that I really like. Because while I don’t necessarily recommend getting chargers from Apple/Samsung/etc., I do recommend getting a “name-brand” one. Anker is a brand I’ve always been pleased with, so I haven’t tried many others. But I think Ugreen and Belkin might be decent as well. Would love to hear about it if you have other recommendations I can add here!

4) Get enough wattage, but not more

The number you want to look at when buying chargers, is the wattage. Here’s an overview:

5 watts: The old, little iPhone chargers. Not worth using.
20 watts: Great for phones, adequate for tablets. Will charge most laptops, but a bit slowly.
30 watts: Good for tablets, adequate for laptops.
65 watts: Around the max for devices like the MacBook Air. More than fast enough for my MacBook Pro as well.
100 watts: Great for fast charging of more demanding laptops.

There’s no issue with using a more powerful charger than necessary – you can safely plug your phone in a 100-watt charger. But they become larger, and more expensive, as they increase in size – so that’s why I recommend getting enough, but not more.

In general, I use 30 watts for chargers I have “here and there” – and I carry 65 watts in my backpack. I’ve never needed more.

5) Consider having fewer(!) ports

I get the urge of buying chargers with more than one port –** and occasionally that’s absolutely a great option**.

The charger above is in my kitchen, with a MagSafe puck 🖇️ and USB-C cable always connected. It provides 47 watts – but that’s, obviously, shared between the ports. It tries to doll out the power to where it’s needed – but it doesn’t always work flawlessly. So sometimes I have to unplug the MagSafe puck to get more juice for the USB-C cable (even though I don’t have any devices on the puck).

But for the times when you “always” need two outputs, I’d still go for one of these. But the reason I went for the one-port-version for my backpack, is that I really like the simplicity and reliability of always knowing what you’re getting. When I want to charge several things at once, I can usually charge through another device. For instance, I’ll charge my phone via my iPad or MacBook, or iPad via the MacBook.

Bonus recommendation: 3-in-1 charger(s)

If you have a smartwatch, like my wife, you might want something other than just loose cables for your travels. So I bought this for her one Christmas:

I swapped out the charger it came with, to one from Anker, that was smaller while providing the same wattage. Then I placed the one I got with it somewhere in the house where size doesn't matter. I also swapped the cable for a longer one. This experience is a good example of why I, in general, prefer it when charger/cables are not included. Because then you can, instead, buy better ones/the type you need. However, I don't mind there being a bundle available that includes these things.

This is the Mophie 3-in-1 charger. There are many variants of 3-in-1 chargers, but the 2023 version of the Mophie charger has two important details:

The MagSafe/Qi 2 pad in the middle charges the full 15 watts,
and the Apple Watch can fast charge.

The latter is not true of the previous versions of the Mophie charger.

You can recognise the previous version, which I don't recommend getting, on the travel case. It doesn't have a zip, but instead has this button and rubber band.

So, when researching these chargers, always check the charging speed of the different parts! However, if you always charge over-night, you might not need the fastest charging – and something like form-factor might weigh more. I’m just saying it’s good to be aware. Also, keep in mind how powerful the power brick needs to be.¹

So, my summation is:

Buy extra. Don’t just move around one charger. (My wife only uses the Mophie above while traveling.)
Think about colour and texture of the cables, to make the different types easy to pick out.
Don’t buy “original” chargers. Instead, buy name-brand GaN chargers, from brands like Anker.
Get enough wattage, but not more. 20 watts for phones and tablets, 30 watts for phones, tablets and consumer laptops, and 65 watts for everything mentioned above, but also pro laptops. 100 watts is more niche.
Consider getting fewer ports, as this is simpler and more reliable.
Check charging speed, especially when buying chargers that can charge several devices at once.

Edit: I got an «answer post» from Eric, that I liked! 👌🏻

For the Mophie, it’s at least 30 watt. ↩︎

No, You Don’t Need USB-A on Your Desktop Computer

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 15:34:03 +0100

The first redesign in a decade for the Mac Mini is near. And the rumours point towards Apple removing the USB-A ports on the current models, in favour of USB-C ports. And to the surprise of no one, people are moaning about losing their precious ports, as if they were buying a laptop in 2016.

But, just like Freedom …

USB-A isn’t free

First, let me be clear: I’m not discussing the number of USB ports – I’m discussing the types. So, for instance, I’m evaluating 5 USB-C ports vs 3 USB-C ports and 2 USB-A ports.¹ So “just keep the USB-A ports” wouldn’t come for free, it would come at a cost of more of the future-proof² port type.

Another “cost”, is that the longer computer makers ship products with the port, the less pressure Logitech et al. feels to update their peripherals to USB-C.

I know this might sound a bit harsh, my clear advice is …

Get over it

“But I don’t want dongles”, I hear you say. Well, I think there are satisfactory ways to adopt the USB-C Lifestyle without becoming a permanent resident of Dongle Town – which doesn’t include buying numerous new devices.³ Yes, I know this comes at the cost of maybe €10-30 (depending on your setup) – but just factor it into the cost of the €500-1000 computer, and it will be fine. And your life will be better for it!

Here are my two main tips, as someone who’s deep into the lifestyle.

1) Buy some new cables

I have an older Satechi presenter, which charges with Micro-USB (boo) and came with a USB-A to Micro-USB cable.

However, I’ve bought this cursed contraption:

A USB-C to Micro-USB cable!

I don’t love having to lug around that stupid cable⁴ – but it sure works to pull an older device into the USB-C age. All my power bricks 🖇️ are USB-C, so I can charge it directly there. It can also charge from my tablet, laptop or the theoretical USB-A-less Mac Mini.

I’ve most often used it with an iPad Pro (with a Magic Keyboard) – and an advantage of bringing things into USB-C, is that it also makes things work better with more “port constrained” devices, like the iPad. So I would, for instance, run things like this:

USB-C Power brick (in the wall)
USB-C to USB-C cable
iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard (which charges the iPad)
USB-C to Micro-USB cable (in the iPad itself)
Satechi remote

That cable would (probably?) also allow the remote to be charged from a newer iPhone!

So, my first recommendation is to see if any of your “USB-A devices” could become “USB-C devices” by just buying a new cable.

2) Buy some adapters

One of my peripherals, where the aforementioned approach doesn’t work, is my (tragically underused) gaming mouse – a Steelseries Rival 700. I can’t (easily) swap out the cable from the USB-A it came with. But instead of buying a dongle, I’ve bought an adapter 🖇️.

Are you really telling me that that tiny increase in bulk is so terrible on a desktop computer? Heck, if you use many different USB-A devices, where none of them can get a new cable, just leaving that adapter in the computer, wouldn’t be half-bad!

Bonus tip:

A few devices, like the Anbernic hand-helds, charge via USB-C (in the device itself) – but need a USB-A on the other end. However, using an adapter like this, you can make yourself a special little USB-C to USB-C cable. Sure, you still need a different cable than your iPad – but at least you don't also need a different charger!

Now, I’m sure there are some very niche examples, that my workarounds don’t cover, that would make having USB-A over USB-C much better. But please remember the “costs” associated with this, that I mentioned up top. To me, this is the epitome of a non-issue.

Now, whether the rumoured 5 USB ports on the Mac Mini is enough ports – that’s a different discussion. ↩︎
Or, you know, “present proof”. ↩︎
But everything you buy new from now on should, of course, support USB-C. ↩︎
So the presenter itself being USB-C would, of course, be better. ↩︎

The Beauty of Third-Party Services

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 15:14:28 +0100

and Open Protocols and Standards

I’m very much what you’d might call a software snob. Not only do I care about unnecessary things like how an app looks – I also care about how it feels. I’d also say that apps are an interest/hobby of mine, and I love testing new things. So I love open and portable stuff, so that I’m always able to use the software I prefer. Allow me to explain, with four examples: RSS, Email, Browsers, and Markdown.

RSS

My current RSS reader of choice, is Lire. It doesn’t look and feel quite as nice as Reeder and Unread, but it is still good in this regard. However, I love that I can customise the look, that it caches truncated RSS feeds, and that I can (on a feed-by-feed basis) load an inline web browser. This makes it possible to read blogs with their original design, which I think is neat.

However, my feeds don’t live in one client. They’re synced with Feedbin. This makes it trivial to move between clients, and I can even use several in parallell, as things like sorting and read status instantly sync between them. Maybe I prefer Lire on mobile and Unread on Mac, for instance?

Shoutout to the excellent people/blogs in this Lire screenshot: MacSparky, Hey Dingus, LJPUK and Pixel Envy.

Portability is an important principle here. And if I want to move from Feedbin to Inoreader, for instance, I can easily export my feed subscriptions as an OPML file, which I can then import into Inoreader.

So I’m not locked in anywhere, and I can use the client I prefer everywhere. This reality is what I wish I could have for music streaming as well, as I’ve touched on here. It also shows why I want less bundling and integration.

Notes on cross-platform-ness

My best friend, and fellow nerd, has always been adamant in using cross-platform tools – the reason being that he can be flexible in terms of which hardware he uses. He can easily switch between Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, etc. However, this doesn't gel well with my software snobbery, as most of the best apps (in my opinion) simply aren't cross-platform. I have the same issue with web apps – I love their flexibility and portability, but I don't love using them. So the approach laid out in this post, is my approach to the same idea. But yes, it would be even more robust if I only used web based and cross-platform tools.

Email

Now, as opposed to with RSS, there’s not many good email clients… But the same principles apply!

I host my email with Fastmail 🖇️, and I’m very pleased with it.¹ But if I still want to switch later, I don’t use an @fastmail.com address. Instead, I use my own domain, hosted on Hover 🖇️ – so I don’t have to change address if I change hosting. I can also change where I have my domain without having to change anything regarding my email.

Now, I don’t like the default Fastmail client – but email being email, I can use a client I dislike less instead!

Browser

Most browsers are very “helpful”, in offering to store things like your passwords and bookmarks. However, I’d regard this as a trap, as it locks you in. So I use third-party services for both passwords and bookmarks. Not only does this make it a breeze to switch browsers – it also makes it unproblematic to use different browsers on different devices. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I realised I don’t have to use the same browser on mobile and desktop. Turns out I (almost) never need tab syncing, as my web use is so different on different platforms – and duplicating things like Favourites doesn’t take a long time.

I try to stay away from Chromium browsers – and my current favourites are the WebKit browser SigmaOS 🖇️ and the Firefox fork Zen.

I love that I can use whichever desktop app I prefer, without having to worry about whether I also like the mobile counterpart. This is especially important in the Apple ecosystem, as Apple refusing third-party browsers extensions severely nerfs these browsers on iOS and iPadOS. So I, begrudgingly, use Safari on the latter – and swap between it and Quiche Browser on iOS.

I use 1Password for passwords (and much more). I like it – but here is the fact that it’s cross-platform significant. The reason is that I have my family members on the plan, and I would rather not force them onto specific devices. For a free alternative, I’d go for something like Bitwarden over the built-in OS or browser features.

For bookmarks, I use Anybox, and I really like it! I love that it’s not a read-later app. It’s specifically built for getting anything in and out of a box – and not for consuming it in-app. Goodlinks and Raindrop are other alternatives.

Markdown

When you write in Markdown format, instead of editors like Word og Pages, your text is all about content – rather than both content and styling/layout. The words and meaning matter, and whether the text is regular paragraph text, or things like bold, italic, headers, links, footnotes, etc. So you do get formatting – but not styling.

This provides two main benefits:

1) Portability and clarity

You know that you can copy text from one Markdown source into another, and all the formatting will transfer, without any unwanted styling or issues with file formats. It’s also clear exactly which text has which formatting. For instance, in the screenshot below, I know that when I continue to write, it won’t be in bold.

This screenshot is from Paper – and only Bear is its equal when it comes to handling of combinations of bold and italics in Markdown.

2) Access

If you’re in a file-based Markdown setting, you can also do what I’ve pointed to in the other main examples: Access the same information from different clients.

I have all my notes, tasks, and blog posts in NotePlan. But as it saves everything as (accessible) Markdown files, I’ll often use other apps to access the same information:

Occasionally, I’ll use TaskPaper, when working on larger projects,
I prefer to write in Paper (both blog posts, notes, and things like email drafts),
and I use Ulysses to publish (and edit) blog posts.

And when I make changes in one app, it still only edits a single file – so it then (of course) propagates everywhere.

The data is also much easier to manipulate with automation and the like. Compared to data saved in Obsidian (which is just a folder of Markdown files), data saved in apps like Notion and Apple Notes is much more locked down and inaccessible.

To sum it up, this is my advice

Be weary of time and money investments in systems you can’t easily move out of.
Try to avoid attaching one choice to another. For instance, your choice of password manager shouldn’t dictate your choice of browser, or your email address your choice of email services.
Stick to open systems, files, and protocols.
Find tools that gives you joy to use. It will make everything you do, especially work, a better experience.

Now, I know that some of my choices are a bit technical, and that not everything is possible for everyone. I’m not saying these are things everyone has to do – and my approach is far from perfect. But I do think these principles are something everyone could benefit from striving towards.

More on why here. ↩︎

Please Stop Saying "Telegram Isn't Encrypted"

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 21:33:23 +0100

You’re not helping - draft 2

Telegram is back in focus these days – and, as usual, not for good reasons. I will write more on this later, as I will have to figure out how to deal with the very real concerns I have with the chat app I use the most. But now I wanted to focus on one thing that’s annoying me a lot, for instance in the latest Vergecast episode.

Another annoying thing in that episode, is that they all say they've (more or less) never used it, while still saying it's a bad app. The reason I think it's hard to know what to do with Telegram, is that it's simultaneously problematic, and objectively a great app for regular chatting. It's significantly better than the alternatives (I go into why here) – so it shows when people talk about it without having used it. But I won't go into my qualms around it in this post.

Why it’s a bad idea to say things that aren’t true

I think it’s crucial to get the word out, that Telegram isn’t as safe as Signal¹ – and I applaud those who want to shine a light on that fact. The problem is, that many of them (like Nilay Patel) do it by saying that “Telegram isn’t encrypted”. But what happens if someone has heard that phrase, and then later learns the fact: That Telegram is encrypted.² They will then perhaps disregard the entire notion, and maybe assume that Telegram is as secure as Signal after all.

My issue with that phrase is that it erases the essential distinction between just “encryption” (or “server encryption”) and “end-to-end-encryption”.

Here’s the difference:

Simply put, encryption means that something is “locked”. But the distinction, is: Who has the key?

We can take iMessage/SMS as an example

If you send an SMS, it’s unencrypted – so “open”.

While if you use iMessage, the message gets encrypted – so “locked”.

However, I assume most people have iCloud backups turned on when they use iMessage. And unless all users of the chat have turned on the special Advanced Data Protection, or has iCloud backups turned off, Apple holds the key. Now, to me, that’s a good thing. I don’t mind that they hold it, as they can then help me with the backup. But the downside, is that American law-enforcement can force Apple to give it the key. So while all iMessage communication is encrypted, most of it is probably not end-to-end-encrypted. Because that means that only the chat participants, and not Apple, holds the key.

Something like Signal is always end-to-end-encrypted.

Telegram uses the same approach as regular iMessage: It is encrypted, but not end-to-end. An important distinction in my mind – because occasionally that’s absolutely not enough. And it also gives Telegram a much greater ability to moderate the content on their platform, which I absolutely think they should do. A comment, I got on the first draft of this post, said that this is as bad as plain-text/no encryption. But if this was the case, I don’t think Telegram would be in as much trouble with law-enforcement as they are!

A parallell:

There’s no denying that driving with a seat belt and helmet is more secure than driving with just a seat belt. There’s a reason race car drivers wear helmets! But it doesn’t make sense to say that driving with “just” a seat belt is as bad as driving without one. There are shades between “no security” and “the best security”. If anything, I fear a message like that could lead to people thinking that if they don’t wear a helmet (if they find it cumbersome), they might as well not bother with a seat belt either – as both are “equally insecure”.

I get that I’m trying to thread a tight needle… What I’m trying to say is that both of these two statements are wrong and counter-productive, if the goal is to increase the security awarded to the average consumer:

It’s not more secure to drive with a helmet in addition to seat belt. (“Telegram/iMessage is as secure as Signal.")
If you don’t wear a helmet, you don’t have to bother with a seat belt. (“Telegram/iMessage is as bad as no encryption.")

Now, security minded people have little trouble distinguishing between all matters of nuance in terms of security – and I agree that we should simplify while communicating these things. But I don’t think a binary understanding, where things are either “secure” or “insecure”, is the right level – as we’ll get lots of over and under estimations. Either we lump Telegram/iMessage in with Signal, or with SMS – and both are wrong. I think we can manage three (broad) categories – that there’s room for something between “No security” and “The best security”.

(Hot Take: I like that Telegram and iMessage mostly isn’t end-to-end-encrypted! But that’s a discussion for another day.)

#Technology #Musings #English

Which I’ll use as a stand-in for end-to-end-encrypted messaging services. ↩︎
Just not end-to-end-encrypted — which is important! ↩︎

A Good Conversation About Apple and APIs

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 16:00:42 +0100

When comments helps you grow

A couple of days ago, I hastily wrote a quite spicy blog post, about the removal of a good Spotify feature on iPhone. I got some pushback from Jason, and it led to a conversation I liked.

Me and Jason often disagree on stuff – but I always find his comments fair, interesting, and leading to me adjusting my opinions. One important takeaway in this for me, was whether or not this was just a case of someone whining, and putting a spin on, an API getting deprecated. Which is something that sometimes has to happen, but will still often lead to complaints which I often disagree with.

His first comment

I mean, it also could be there was an old way of accessing volume controls, Apple built a new way to work with HomePods, AppleTV, and likely Matter devices. They then deprecated the old API in favor of the new one to maintain one pathway, that yes, means access to its products comes along, but also means one, more modern, more standards compliant API to control devices.

I don’t trust Spotify comms for shit, and don’t know that’s what Apple did, but that story is equally like Apple– get rid of an old API for a new one that does more stuff, misses some functions but adds a lot more, etc. It would also line up with Matter and the addition of these devices that didn’t exist when the original implementation was done.

And for what it’s worth, the bugs that Spotify mention are present with the volume rocker over AirPlay. So, I’m not sure it’s not just Apple’s shit not being as good as it should be, period, versus disadvantaging someone.

My first reply:

The thing is, you can point to a million small examples where Apple makes (decently rational) choices that just so happens benefit themselves at the expense of others. Many of them are of the type “We made this choice, because privacy. That it hampers our competitors, is just a coincidence. So is the fact that we didn’t do this other thing which also would’ve been good for user-privacy, but would hurt us.” If you only look at each thing individually, Apple’s behaviour can often be defended – but you have to look at the larger patterns. Hehe, I agree that it’s a good idea to be skeptical of comms – but I don’t trust “Spotify + Sonos combined” less than Apple, I think. And Apple could’ve decided to comment, but has chosen not to.

And for what it’s worth, the bugs that Spotify mention are present with the volume rocker over AirPlay. So, I’m not sure it’s not just Apple’s shit not being as good as it should be, period, versus disadvantaging someone.

This is a good point! 👆🏻 But I still stand by my stance that these things would be better if the behemoths didn’t insist on competing in more and more markets. (I wrote more about this here.) We would have much cleaner incentive structures, if Apple’s “only” focus was on making their platforms (and hardware) as good as they could make them. (And “competition” would be an important ingredient here.)

His second comment:

I am deeply skeptical and in deep disagreement that a company cannot change APIs. And a load of comments about what Apple should do with it’s platform from a practical and technical standpoint amounts to “never break backwards compatibility; never test a new way of doing things before giving it to third-parties” under the idea that it’s anti-competitive. And I just think that’s total nonsense and nearly entirely orthogonal to meaningful anti-trust or anti-competitive behavior.

I don’t think Apple’s pattern is “harm competitors and advantage us”. I think Apple’s pattern is mostly “do the best thing for us, then figure out what we can make work for others on the platform.”

There are absolutely areas where I don’t agree with their actions, but 95% of the time someone complains about API changes or API deprecation, they seem totally wrong. The exception being when the changes happen without sufficient documentation– but that’s a rollout, relationship, and release management issue, not an indictment of the change itself.

My second reply:

I was a bit unclear: I’m not saying that Apple necessarily sets out to harm others. But, to me, it’s clear that where they fall on a bunch of decisions, is affected by the complicated incentive structures they’ve constructed. And that includes API decisions.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that because I can disagree on parts of an API change, I «don’t think companies can change APIs»… But yeah, I also often think complaints about API changes are overblown! And perhaps I’m guilty of the same in this case. 🙂

However, we can take another (pretty) recent API change as an example: When Apple updated the cloud storage APIs for the Mac, don’t you think it was easier to decide not to include support for external storage, when they know it remove a reason to choose Dropbox over iCloud Drive, and to not buy more internal storage on Macs? There are absolutely good parts of the new API! But if, say, Apple’s only incentive was to make macOS be better than Windows in handling of cloud storage, I feel like they would’ve tried harder…

Re: «never test a new way of doing things before giving it to third-parties" under the idea that it’s anti-competitive.»: I know that Apple likes to not communicate — but it would be so much easier to trust them, if they said things like «We’re working this private API accessible to third-parties in a privacy minded way», etc.

His third comment:

but it would be so much easier to trust them, if they said things like «We’re working this private API accessible to third-parties in a privacy minded way», etc.
I don't really agree. Because they have a decades long track record of doing just this-- starting with a small first party feature, then expanding that feature alongside public APIs within a few years. In fact, I'm 98% sure that Craig Federighi and/or Greg Jozwiak have said as much in interviews-- that once they make an API public they have to support it for a long time (though not forever), so they often want to use it first internally before it's locked down enough (not privacy locked down, but functionally) before exposing it. I think their track record on that is great. As for Dropbox and external drives... well without getting into a massive thing, let's just say I do not agree with that assessment at all and I think that may be an even worse example to look at given how truly deep into the system Dropbox was getting. This is a case where the API wasn't really there at all, and I don't think Apple would have built _anything_ if Dropbox didn't already exist. Dropbox was hooking deep into the bowels of the system in more and more complex ways. I don't think Apple doesn't have this working on external drives to make Dropbox less appealing-- Apple would prefer to be able to support that feature themselves and compete on it. With all of these things, I think there's a lot of attribution to malice or competitive analysis that really comes down to time, difficulty, cost, and value to users. And in my opinion, if the result is fully rational before ascribing anything to some sinister anti-competitive incentive, it's silly to think the anti-competitive incentive is a driving force.

My last reply:

Hmm, interesting – I don’t think Apple’s track record (and things that has been revealed in court cases) gives them the benefit of the doubt, heh. 😅 But I wouldn’t mind examples that could convince me otherwise! (However, it’s important to keep in mind when discussing this: Even though I’m skeptical towards Apple on a bunch of things, I vastly prefer them to most of the other large tech companies, heh.)

I think their behaviour surrounding the App Store, locking down of the NFC chip, sudden “militarisation” of App notarisation, only Safari being allowed extensions, and other decisions, big and small, is pretty telling. Now, this year’s changes in iOS 18 actually addresses some of my complaints, specifically with the framework for Control Center + Lock Screen buttons. But while I have plenty of things I don’t like about the DMA, some of the good changes would never have happened without it.

(How good these are, are of course speculative. And I also think it will take quite a long time to shake out. I’m annoyed when people say “Huh, alternative app stores haven’t taken off”. Like, give it a couple of years, and we’ll see – _if_ it isn’t allowed to be nerfed into oblivion by Apple.)

One example which I have hopes will be a good example of you being right, is the journal entry API. I really liked that they made it accessible to third-party journaling apps from the get-go. But I was equally disappointed that third-party apps wasn’t allowed to provide fodder for it – so it would pick up something from the Podcasts app, but not Overcast. However, there’s absolutely a good chance this will be added later, and be a good example of your point. But it would be better if they said as much, as it could suddenly take 10 years as well. 😛 (BTW, That they’ve started to monetise the Podcast app as well, is also something that worries me. It creates yet an incentive for them to get users to choose their app over others. And I just don’t see how you can be so sure that they’re impervious to these incentives!)

As for Dropbox and external drives…

I think Dropbox pushing the boundaries to create a good product for customers is a good thing. And if it pushes Apple to create APIs they would’ve have created otherwise, that’s also good. A bit like Rogue Amoeba! I’m not saying Apple shouldn’t’ve made a new API. And I’m not saying Apple didn’t add support for external drives specifically to make Dropbox worse. I’m saying Apple’s incentives affects where they land, and prioritise, on these edge cases – in a way that makes things worse than they could be, for customers and smaller companies (which I value highly).

With all of these things, I think there’s a lot of attribution to malice or competitive analysis that really comes down to time, difficulty, cost, and value to users. I’m saying that Apple has put themselves in a position where “competitive analysis” is allowed to seep in and affect the choices regarding “time, difficulty, cost”, and in a way, “value to users”. But those things are, of course, also important factors.

I’d love more of this – even though the conversations don’t have to become this long, hehe.

How to use your market dominance

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 16:19:26 +0100

What do you do if you’re dominant in some markets, but wished you were more dominant in others?

If this isn’t one of the clearest examples of the problems with too much bundling and integration, I don’t know what is.

So, Apple (the phone maker) is artificially nerfing the competition of Apple (the music streaming service), unless they agree to build stronger integration with Apple (the smart speaker maker).

At imaginary HomePod meeting:

Some guy: “Our speaker would benefit from Spotify integration, but they would rather not build it for free. Should we pay them, like how we demand payment for integration with our stuff?”

Another guy: “No, I have a better Idea: What if we called Federighi, and threatened them instead? We could remove a useful feature that Apple Music (their main competitor) has, unless they agree to our demands.”

Some guy: “Oh, yeah – that’s way better!”

Now, I’m not saying it went down just like that. But it is awfully “convenient”, isn’t it?

So, to be clear, this is the situation:

As I’ve mentioned previously, I moved from Spotify to Tidal this year, due to artist payments. (Now, I’m not sure whether I got that right – but that’s another case.) And the main thing I’m missing from Spotify, is the excellent Spotify Connect. This is both a way of streaming music to different speakers and devices, and a way to control the Spotify playback from any device. For instance, let’s say I start the playback on my iPad, connected to a speaker via a mini-jack. If I then open Spotify on my phone, the playback controls are “live”, like if I streamed from my phone. I can also say “Nah, move the playback to my Sonos speaker instead”.

What Apple has done, is removing the ability to use the phone’s physical volume buttons to control the Spotify Connect volume. So if you listen to Spotify on your phone, with AirPods, clicking the buttons adjusts the volume. But if you then move it to your Sonos speakers, it suddenly doesn’t – it only adjusts the phone’s notification volume. I really don’t like this disconnect.¹

Apple is saying that Spotify users can get the feature back if Spotify agrees to integrate with the HomePod – and that’s very problematic.

Imagine me, happy as a clam: I had bought a phone that I liked, and was using a streaming service I liked – party due to how well it worked with my smart speakers, which I also like. And now Apple is jumping in, and making the latter two worse, just because Spotify won’t support a speaker I don’t have.

The use of dominance

Under most antitrust laws, the illegal part isn’t having market dominance – it’s using the market dominance to maintain it, or prop up your position in other markets. Here Apple is using their mobile (hardware and OS) muscles, to better their position in the music streaming and smart speaker markets.

Apple wins either way:

The way things are now, they’ve made Apple Music’s competitors² worse – and to some extent, the HomePod’s competitors as well.
And if Spotify (and others) cave, they will have improved the Homepod’s chances in the market, by getting more supported services.

This shows why we need more unbundling and smaller markets.

Now, some people are saying:

“But why should Apple help its competitors, by making APIs and stuff?”

Here’s the thing – the mobile market has this critical combination:

It’s extremely large, important, and intertwined with other markets.
It has a very low degree of competition.

So some behaviour can be OK in other situations, while not being OK by companies with critical market dominance.

If Apple wants to be a part of numerous markets connected to their main businesses …

They have to choose:

Either provide sufficient API access to its competitors in these markets,
or at least allow them to do the work themselves.

Me: “Ugh, why do I have to do the dishes?”

My wife: “OK, I can do them.”

Me: “No, I won’t let you!”

Me: “Ugh, why do I have to do the dishes?”

We can use earbuds as an example, to shine a light on an important differentiation in this case: It’s great that Apple has made AirPods work well with the iPhone – but the problematic part is when they both refuse Jabra access to what they built and don’t allow them to do the work themselves.

But again – I’m only saying this because of the specifics of the mobile market. And that’s why “But what about this market?” doesn’t necessarily make sense.

Now, some people might want that last behaviour. (“Now the music is playing on my speaker, and not my phone, so if I press the volume buttons on my phone, it’s to change its volume.") So it’s absolutely possible to argue that it should be user-selectable! ↩︎
Because this clause affects all third-party developers. ↩︎

The Everyday Watch

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 13:32:36 +0100

Writing about watches, yesterday, made me think of a type of watch I just can’t seem to find: The watch equivalent of the classic white T-shirt. I also recently read about an interesting pair of typefaces – and put together I got the inspiration to try my best at designing the watch I just can’t seem to find.

Untitled Sans/Serif

These typefaces are made with the expressed goal of not getting recognised or noticed. The creator, Kris Sowersby, quotes from the book Super Normal, by Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa:

There are better ways to design than putting a lot of effort into making something look special. Special is generally less useful than normal, and less rewarding in the long term. Special things demand attention for the wrong reasons, interrupting potentially good atmosphere with their awkward presence. — Morrison

Designers generally do not think to design the “ordinary”. If anything, they live in fear of people saying their designs are “nothing special.” Of course, undeniably, people do have an unconscious everyday sense of “normal,” but rather than try to blend in, the tendency for designers is to try to create “statement” or “stimulation.” So “Normal” has come to mean “unstimulating” or “boring” design. — Fukasawa

Some quotes from Sowersby himself:

Most new typefaces are imbued with layers of history, aesthetic associations and cultural signifiers. (…) To lend a new typeface prestige, these blurbs reveal the old specimens that influenced it, and name-drop typographers and foundries long dead. They detail the “engineering challenges” the typeface has heroically overcome — usually small printing sizes, low pixel resolution or limited horizontal/vertical space. Contemporary typefaces are touted as the complete aesthetic and technical package.

But what if you don’t have any special technical requirements, or you want to avoid specific historical connotations? What if you just need to set text with something… utterly normal?

I wanted the details to be exactly normal, without exaggeration. I made a typeface that a designer can use without worrying whether the French Renaissance is an appropriate cultural reference, or if it’s OK to use Bodoni for text. I made all Untitled Serif design decisions while reading. After each round of changes, I embedded the updated fonts into an ePub of Orwell’s 1984 and read several chapters. If a detail stood out, I removed it in the next round of changes. I kept doing this until it was totally comfortable to read.

In general, I absolutely prefer opinionated design – but I do find this approach refreshing. And it fits well with my recent search for a really nice white T-shirt. (I ended up buying this, from Warehouse.)

The missing watch

Most watches fall under some more or less strict categories – like dive, tool, field, dress, or sports watch. And I love, and own, a couple from these categories! But what I feel is missing, both from my collection and the watch world, is a mechanical casual watch. A neutral watch that would fit perfectly with a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

Some contenders

If you have a recommendation here, I’d love to hear about it! Here are some that are close to what I’d want.

Nomos Club

The round edges and typeface gives it the friendly look that I want – but every variant of it has (at least) one too many things that stick out: Either a blend of roman numerals, or contrasting colours I don’t want. But this one (apart from it being too expensive for me) would be pretty perfect if they just come out with a more basic one.

Kuoe Old Smith / 90-002

This one has the sizes I want, and the generally friendly look. My main issue, though, is the beige dial and yellowed, faux patina, lume. I’d rather see it with a white dial and proper lume (and rather use one that ages). The numbers could also be less bold.

Hamilton Khaki Field

Field watches are pretty close as well – but they often have yellowed lume as well, and are a bit too tool-y.

Junghans Form A

There are plenty of minimalistic Bauhaus watches, like the Form A. Another favourite of mine, is the Stowa Antea KS. (The image below is from this review of it.)

And I’d love to have one someday! But they’re a bit too angular and strict for what I look for. More black turtleneck than white T-shirt.

Timex Weekender

This watch is what spurred this whole search. I just love the super casual look of this – but I just wish it was a slightly better watch! (Like £200 for instance.) My dream is that Timex will someday come out with a mechanical version (the current version only comes with a quite noisy quarts movement), no red seconds hand, and with 50 meters water resistance. Add a date complication, and I think you’d have the perfect everyday watch.

An homage

When people make homage watches (a nice word for copies), it’s usually for things like Rolexes. But I dream of making a homage of a €50 watch!

I have of course never designed something like this – and I know it’ll never come of anything. But it was still fun!

And in the honour of the Weekender, I’ve named my design the …

Everyday watch

I want it to be mechanical, and preferably automatic – as you could then wear it every day and never have to wind it. However, the cheaper automatics are typically thicker (and the watch would have to be cheap) – so I fear it would have to be hand-wound as to not be too bulbous.

I’d like it to have a date complication, as that’s the most useful one day-to-day. And I also imagine it having 50 ATM – just enough so you don’t have to worry about water damage, and can even take it for a swim.

I’ve set the numbers with Untitled Sans, and the logo is in Untitled Serif.¹

I couldn’t decide, so I made two main versions: One with the logo above the center and crown at three o’clock, and one with the logo below and crown at four o’clock (to balance out the heavier numbers 10-12). I think I prefer the calendar complication at 6 o’clock.

Compared to the Weekender, the lugs are a bit less straight – and I envision it at 38 mm.

Two of the hands have lume in the middle, and so has part of the rail around the numbers (with the indices applied on top of the lume). So it could look something like this:

I also toyed with the idea of adding the extra row of numbers from 13-24 that most Weekender models have. What I ended up with, was to try to add every other number with lume:

So, what do you think? Which version do you prefer?

Did I make it normal enough?

Do you have any advice on models that already do what I want?

Which I of course would have to license! ↩︎

✉️ Advice for Cheap Watches

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 14:34:00 +0100

This post is an answer to a part of the latest Comfort Zone podcast episode, where they talked about considering a non-smart watch. In the episode, Matt Birchler said he had considered going back to using a non-smart watch – but that when he asked for advice, people usually said he had to spend around €1.000 to get something good. He ended up saying why he probably didn’t want one anyway, but I wanted to give some advice “just in case”! And also to others who might come by this.

I do love more expensive watches¹ – but I also have a soft spot for cheap ones. And my watch collection consists of only sub-€100 watches! So here are my tips: (Click here for the TL;DR.)

1) Look past the strap

Especially when looking at cheaper watches, the strap that comes with the watch might not be great – in terms of comfort and/or looks. So I typically focus on the dial and case. Many watches also come with a metal bracelet, which I, personally, don’t love, so I usually switch to a third-party NATO strap or a nice leather strap. I’ve had luck with leather straps from Etsy, combined with a butterfly clasp from Ebay. Those clasps make it so you don’t have to add strain to the leather every time you put it on and off, increasing its longevity.

You just have to figure out the width of the watch lugs² (often 18-22 mm) and, if you’re going for a butterfly clasp, how much the strap tapers. Because, usually, a 20 mm leather strap might only be 18 mm at the other end – so you’ll need an 18 mm butterfly clasp. Also, try to match the hardware metal of the strap with the watch itself.

Most nice watches work great with different straps – so I’d rather buy fewer watches and more straps, and vary from day to day!

The original bracelet of this nice watch (I'll come back to later) on the left. I don't think the original bracelet is too bad, but giving it a NATO strap gives it a more casual, and wholly different, look.

2) Mechanical watches 🫶🏻

In the episode, I think they conflated “mechanical” and “analog” watches. The latter is watches that aren’t digital – that they show the time with hands and stuff. The first is about how the watch gets its power. Most cheaper watches have battery-driven quarts movements, and aren’t considered “mechanical”.

The rational choice is to go for a quarts watch: It’s more accurate, you don’t have to wind it, and it’s easier to make slim. And there are plenty of great quarts watches.

**But I still love mechanical ones… **For some reason, I just love the idea of it running just with cogs, springs, and whatnot. And it’s neat that you never have to change the battery. You can also get a smooth sweeping seconds hand – instead of it ticking every second.

The main types of mechanical watches are hand-wound and automatic ones. With the first type, you’ll probably want to wind for a couple of seconds every morning. The latter will wind itself with the movement of your arm – so if you wear it at least every 2–3 days, you’ll never have to wind it!³ But hand-wound ones are usually slimmer.

Many mechanical watches sport "display case-backs", showing off the movement. This is my wife's hand-wound Nomos Tangente.

3) Consider the complications

The most common complications are calendar ones, like day, date, and month. If you’re thinking about a watch you’ll wear every day, I’d probably go for an automatic one with some calendar complications.

This Vaer has a neat calendar window. It also has a display casebook, showing the automatic movement. The 'half-circle' on the back is the thing that winds the watch with your arm movement.

4) Don’t buy it too large

Now, this is very subjective, and something I’m very opinionated on. But I think many people buy way too large watches. If you have slender wrists (like many women do), I’d go 32-36 mm, and people with extra wide wrists will look good with watches up to 44 mm. But for most people, I’d go for 35-40 mm.

If Muhammad Ali can rock a Cartier, you're man enough to not wear a wall clock on your wrist. 😉 Image from this GQ article.

5) Some brands to look at

Many fashion watches are overpriced. They might have a decent design – but are very cheaply made quarts watches with a brand slapped on them. I’m not saying no one will be happy with a watch like this, but you could get more for your money. I’d also stay away from most micro-brands that run a lot of crowdfunding with large words about “cutting out the middle-man”⁴ – even though there’s absolutely some good micro-brands out there.⁵

But I like to focus on Good Stuff on this blog, so I mostly want to discuss brands I recommend!

Seiko is really solid, and their 5 line is a great value. The latest versions have “sadly” become better, and thus also a bit pricier. But they’re still not overpriced – and you can still get the older versions used for a great price.

This one, from previously, is from the newer series. Here's a link to a Hodinkee review of its diver cousin.

An older Seiko 5 version, next to a Vostok Amphibia. The Seiko is much sleeker, but has worse specs.

Orient is another really solid brand, with several styles.

The Bambino is the staple in their collection. I like it – but I really wish they would remove the top part of their logo…

The American brand Timex has been around for a long time, and still makes nice budget options. I really wish they made a mechanical version of the Weekender!

Timex has plenty of Peanuts watches that are fun!

Casio is a really well-known budget brand, and is well worth the (little amount) of money. They make some decent analog watches as well, but I’d go for a classic digital one from them. And the, by far (in my opinion), coolest of them is the World Timer A500WGA.

Image from this Hodinkee review.

A good place to look for cheap, mechanical watches is Russia/the USSR (vintage). But I haven’t felt like buying any of them since the attack on Ukraine – so I’m not sure if I can recommend it. At least buying new! My go-to used to be buying Vostok (especially Amphibia – 420 is the prettiest version IMO) directly from Meranom. They don’t look great on that site, but you can buy custom bezels and more, and have them put it on before shipping it. Combine it with a custom strap, and you get a fantastic dive watch for the price. I’ve also had good luck with buying old Poljot watches on Ebay.

The "Scuba Dude" is one of the most well-known Amphibia designs.

Steve Zissou wears an Amphibia! He wears a blue version of the black one I showed together with the Seiko 5 watch above.

My wife's Poljot De Luxe.

This is just some brands I remembered off the top of my head. There are also lots of good individual deals, like the Sea-Gull 1963, all over the place, and lots of other good budget brands.

And the best thing is, of course, to do your own research, and maybe check out some Watch (not Fashion) YouTubers. Here are three decent videos to start with.

But if you would rather not spend a lot of time …

These are the main things I want you to take away from this:

Beware of overpriced fashion and micro brands.
Consider a mechanical (not quarts) watch.
Be open to strap changes – both because your next favourite watch might not come on a strap you like, and to get more out of every watch by being able to change the look.
Unlike smartwatches, mechanical watches lasts a lifetime – and smaller watches are more timeless.

Some brands I like, are Nomos and Junghans. ↩︎
If the watch has an integrated bracelet, it might not take straps as well. Casio digital watches are a good example of this. ↩︎
And never have to change the battery! ↩︎
Like Filippo Loreti. ↩︎
Like the stuff from Time Factors. ↩︎

Making Something Bad Easier to Do, Isn’t Good

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 22:02:03 +0100

Should Be Obvious…

Speaking of bad arguments… This, from The Verge and this from Dan More (good posts!) got me thinking of another terrible take I see way too often:

«People have always done Bad Thing (at great expense of some kind), so Company X making it super-accessible isn’t critique worthy at all, actually.»

Edit 27/8-24:

The Verge posted a good, and very linkable, article called Hello, you’re here because you said AI image editing was just like Photoshop. And the comment section is full of the argument above, and also its sibling:

«We’ve always has to contend with Bad Thing – so drastically increasing the amount of it, is of no consequence, actually.»

"It's a Company" Isn't an Excuse

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 10:37:04 +0100

You’ll often hear people say (as excuses to negative conduct) something like: “It’s a company, of course they’re only worried about profits." Or something like: “It’s publicly traded – they have an obligation to work towards growth."

And I simply don’t accept that. I don’t mind companies trying to be profitable – but how you do it matters. The consequences matters. And if a company is already immensely profitable (and already provides lots of value to its shareholders) it’s toxic, on so many levels, to squeeze at all cost.

We need more unbundling, and smaller markets

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 13:28:54 +0100

On separation of clients and services

People stream movies and TV in many ways. (And few do it in only one way.) You can do it through your phone, tablet or laptop, of course – but I think we’ll find the greatest variety when it comes to other forms: Many people have a TV set in addition to these other devices. But the size of your living area and wallet (or simply prioritisation) influences where you are on the scale of “Small and/or cheap TV that does the job” and “High-end OLED beast with Hi-Fi attached”.

But it’s not only about “More money = Better” – people value different things! For some, a VR headset would be a fantastic upgrade — while if you mainly watch TV as a social activity, it’ll defeat the purpose. And some would never swap their 43" Frame TV for a 77" black rectangle on their wall — no matter how much better the picture is. (Or what about a briefcase TV?)

To some, looking like this while off is more important than anything it can do while on.

Both through “privilege” and “prioritisation”, we have widely differing budgets — and also different needs and tastes. That’s why it’s so great, that we don’t have to use Netflix through only stuff that they have made!

Imagine if we could only use their service on Netflix TVs, or while sitting on Netflix couches. While there is a connection, making “a service”, and “the ways to interact with the service”, are two different things – that often require different skillsets. Now, you could say the difference here is hardware/software, and that you do have to watch Netflix through their app… I’m not saying either the situation or the analogy is perfect! However, while your brand of TV might also make great speakers, it’s still nice that you can choose your sound experience separately from your visual one. And I also think it would be better if you could also watch Netflix through other apps as well.

Over two years ago, John Siracusa wrote the article “An Unsolicited Stream App Spec”.

I subscribe to a lot of streaming video services, and that means I use a lot of streaming video apps. Most of them fall short of my expectations. Here, then, is a simple specification for a streaming video app. Follow it, and your app will be well on its way to not sucking.

This spec includes only the basics. It leaves plenty of room for apps to differentiate themselves by surprising and delighting their users with clever features not listed here. But to all the streaming app developers out there, please consider covering these fundamentals before working on your Unique Selling Proposition.

Obviously, a list of even the most rudimentary features can’t help but also be opinionated. Though my tastes have surely influenced this list, I really do think that any streaming app that fails to implement nearly all of these features is failing its users. Again, these are not frills. These are the bare-bones basics.

I think it’s fair to say that, two years on, most streaming services don’t have these “bare-bones basics”…

I won’t claim to have robust…

Definitions of “clients” and “services”

But in general, I consider clients to be ways to interact with a service. And I don’t mind this sometimes spanning both hardware and software, and there being several layers of clients – like how it could go:

Netflix content -> Netflix app -> Apple TV box -> Samsung TV + Sonos soundbar -> IKEA couch

I’m just brainstorming around a general idea here, and a watertight definition isn’t needed, I think.¹

This is not analysis

Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, has a lot of great writing about Bundling and Unbundling. But, I’m not trying to analyse what has happened or what I think will happen. I’m talking about what I think would be beneficial – both to users, and small and medium-sized businesses.²

Thompson talks about “The Great Rebundling”, which is happening. And as you might’ve guessed, I’m not a fan. I want even less bundling!

Because bundling leads to companies competing on larger and larger entities

We can take Apple as an example here. By bundling more-and-more together into their ecosystem, they no longer compete on the individual “parts” — like phone, computer, tablet, smartwatch, earbuds, smart speaker, music and TV streaming, cloud storage, digital wallet, software store, AI assistant, browser, etc. Instead, all of these are bundled together into one entity, and they only compete on “ecosystem that encompasses almost every part of your digital life”. The problem is, that if you can’t compete on this one giant entity, what you do within the parts of it (like make “a better AI assistant”), doesn’t really matter. Jason Snell touched on this in the article “Can Anyone but a Tech Giant Build the Next Big Thing?”.³

Some nuance:

I get that too much fraction, user-choice and complexity has bad side effects. And I’m not saying I think Apple has to open up their phones for third-party camera hardware modules,⁴ or that every button in a calculator app needs to be an API. And it’s not like there’s zero competition within the smaller parts! What I am saying is that we are, and are moving, way too far in the other direction.

When discussing things like antitrust, it’s very relevant to discuss the absolute size of the market/company, as well as the general health of that specific market. So in this case, it’s very relevant that the smartphone OS market is:

huge (in terms of absolute market cap),
intertwined in countless other markets,
something every adult “has” to take part it,
and a duopoly.

For instance, neither of these are true in the gaming market, which some people compare to the smartphone market.⁵

What I would like to see

I've written a more specific idea for how this could work with music streaming. Click here to check it out.

I think competition can lead to great innovation – but we have to make companies compete on the right stuff. Bundling leads to less competition, and situations where you can’t pick-and-choose the best parts. You have to choose the entire Package A or the entire Package B. So here are some loose ideas on what I’d like to see:

1) Service providers mostly compete on their core

Some things I think it would be good if Netflix were to compete on (not saying none of these apply today):

Content
Price
APIs (how well it works with other video players)
Video player

Even in a world where protocols allowed you to stream content in the clients you wanted, it would still be beneficial for Netflix to make a great client. User-choice always brings complexity, and many just stay on the defaults anyway. So if the default was bad, many would bounce off the service. Furthermore, if Netflix had the best client (which you got for free by subscribing — but perhaps could pay for otherwise as well), it could be used for streaming other companies' content. Unlike some other types of services, streaming isn’t exclusive.

This also ties into the idea of “building protocols, not platforms”, as I would want the defaults to mainly (only?) be built on public APIs.

The Tesla charging network could be a parallel: Here in Norway, Tesla has always used (the slightly better European version of) CCS chargers. The charging network is great — and you get “free” access to it if you own a Tesla. However, other car owners can also get access to it, but for an extra fee. Other charger providers can also freely create their own stations that can charge Teslas.

2) Expand the open protocol instead of creating proprietary APIs

The IMAP protocol, which by far is the most common open standard for email, is old and pretty basic. When Google wanted to expand on this, for Gmail, they created their own proprietary API. So while someone can create a client that uses that API (like Mimestream is doing), a different email provider can’t provide the same API.

Fastmail 🖇️ did what I want to see:

They, instead, spearheaded a new open protocol, called JMAP. This has many of the same improvements as the Gmail API, but it’s open for anyone to use and contribute to.

Now, being “locked” to using open protocols could make adapting new features slower. But I absolutely think it would be worth it, among other things because I think the increased competition would lead to more total innovation.

There is one important question, though (which I don’t claim to hold the answers to), which touches on both of these two points: Which elements of the service are the parts they should compete on, and which parts should be common between competitors? What I’m trying to get at, is that some things should just be “part of the plumbing” so to speak.

3) Anyone can make clients for anything

So, I strongly believe in the separation of clients and services. In addition to streaming, this also applies to social media, blogging/newsletter platforms, messaging services, and more.

Mastodon is a great example here, where the default web client and apps are OK, while there are numerous great options around, depending on your budget, preferences, and devices. This has resulted in a situation where literally the entire “Top 5 social media apps I’ve used” list is Mastodon clients.

I just don’t think things like “Which platform has the strongest social lock-in”, or “Which platform is allowed the best inter-operability with a totally separate product” are things that should be competed on. Instead, it should be “The best one, according to your preferences, that suits your budget”. And different people on the same service should be able to choose their own experience.

Moreover, if an app you use makes changes you don’t like, you’re not locked-in in the same way.

Ah, a man can dream…

More examples later, though! ↩︎
I strongly believe in the societal benefits having a healthy eco-system of these businesses – and not just a few giants controlling everything. ↩︎
An example of how things changes the second protocols enter the mix, is that Sonos supporting AirPlay 2 makes it way easier to not have HomePods. ↩︎
Even though that would be kind of sick! ↩︎
“Why shouldn’t I be able to install what I want on my Playstation if Apple has to allow it on the iPhone?” ↩︎

Non-Reversible USB-C

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 13:19:54 +0100

What???

I’m a big proponent of the USB-C Lifestyle™️. All my chargers are USB-C, and so are my electric razor, dremel and screwdrivers. So I, of course, sneer at savages with their USB-A ports, where they have to guess which way is the correct one (and always choose the wrong one first, of course). But this summer, while helping some young family members with their pedalboards, I encountered something that shocked me to the core:

A USB-C usage where you had to put it in the right way for it to work. 🤯

The boys working. I wanted them to make it themselves so that they knew all about it.

A great power supply for the price

If you’re searching for budget options for power supply for guitar pedals, I’d really take a look at what Thomann offers in their Harley Benton line. Some better options, are

this one, with an integrated power brick (like all of these options) and 10 isolated ports,
this one, with 12 ports and power-thru,
and this or this for a some quick expansion, with very flexible voltages.

But the one I went for to the boys, was this neat one: 👇🏻

It has 9 isolated ports (one of them with adjustable voltage), and is battery powered and chargeable via USB-C. Not only can you play without plugging into the wall, you can also use it to charge your phone or whatever. So it’s actually a power bank! Really cool.

Providing access

I prefer building boards from Temple Audio, so that’s what we built. We fastened the power bank under the board, but in a way so that the On button was accessible through one of the larger holes:

I helped him put together a decent starting board – with some very cheap (and some gifted) pedals.

However, I also wanted the USB-C port to be accessible, so I bought this thing from Redco:

The idea was to mount this on the side of the board, so they could just plug into that to charge (with) the power bank. So the chain is like this:

USB-C wall charger
USB-C to USB-C cable 1
Panel mounted passthrough (Redco)
USB-C to USB-C cable 2
Powerbank

However, it first didn’t work (even though we used the original USB-C cable), so I thought maybe the passthrough didn’t pass enough power through. But then I saw this on the Redco website:

Be advised, certain USB-C cables require specific positioning to allow data and/or power to flow through. If you are not getting the expected connection, rotate cabling on rear or front and check again to correct the issue.

What!?

Since when was that a thing?

And guess what: Flipping either USB-C cable 1 or USB-C cable 2 made it work. So everything kind of works as expected – but only one way! The USB-C cables have to be the same orientation… It’s just like USB-A, but worse because it can actually plug in the wrong way. 🤷🏻‍♂️

How did we let it come to this?

Do I have to re-evaluate my entire lifestyle?

Second Sunrise: a World-Class Clothing Store in Stockholm

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 10:01:52 +0100

Truly High-Quality Garments

My wife and I recently had a couple of days in Stockholm.¹ And as someone who loves well-made stuff (especially clothes), I searched for good stores for that. I didn’t find many, but the only one I found beforehand, was well worth it.

Other recommendations:

L'usine Bleue was a really cool little store, with only French workwear.

6/5/4 was also pretty cool.

World-Class

To put it into perspective, I went looking for stores at this level in Now York a couple of years ago — and that city only had two stores on this level: Self Edge and Blue in Green.² Other stores I know about, are Standard & Strange, Göteborg Manufaktur, Blue Caviar (DK), Brund (DK), Redcast Heritage and Tate & Yoko. But they are really rare — so if you’re close to one, and get to try stuff in-store, you should really go for it.

What’s so special about stores like Second Sunrise?

Usually, when clothes are expensive, it’s due to the brand; You pay more just because the T-shirt says “Supreme”, or whatever. Or, not just: Name-brand stuff typically has a bit higher quality than fast-fashion.³ But the stuff you find at stores like this, is something entirely different. The items are absolutely costly — but not necessarily expensive. They cost what they cost because they are expensive to produce, the materials, construction, and cost of labour in the countries they’re made.

Now, I’m not claiming they aren’t overpriced at all — and it’s hard to say if it’s “worth it”. The items last longer, but does an €80 T-shirt last eight times as long as a €10 one? However, buying one T-shirt instead of eight, is more sustainable — and you’ll end up loving your garments more if you live by Standard & Strange’s motto: “Own fewer, better things.” The items will conform to your body, and you’ll want to repair them when they break.

Some things to look for:

Denim

Jeans like this usually only comes in one length: Long. So it's a good thing that they offer free hemming while you wait!

A good place to start, would be to look at jeans, for instance from Sugar Cane. In this context, they’re on the more affordable side — and they simply make jeans like how Levi’s used to make them.

The thing about denim, like this, is that it’s at its worst while brand new. This is in opposition to jeans that are “pre-worn”⁴ and stretchy, which might look and feel great in the store. However, after you’ve purchased a regular pair, it’s all downhill — while higher-quality denim only gets more and more comfortable and good-looking. And I absolutely know which trajectory I prefer… But it absolutely makes it a harder sell, when the jeans might not be very comfortable in the store, if you haven’t experienced how nice they become. But personally, I really like it when clothes feel substantial.

This jacket, from Sugar Cane, was totally uniform in colour when I got it — but now it has quite a lot of "fades", as it's called. I really like that they appear where "they should" due to my body movement.

Most of this kind of denim is made in Japan, and on vintage looms that create a cool selvedge line if you cuff them. The denim doesn’t get better because they’re selvedge — but it is a sign of the denim being good.

The jeans on the left are not selvedge, while those on the right are. I think the white line looks handsome!

So, buying high-quality jeans like this, will give you the following:

Jeans that might be stiff in the beginning, but will end up feeling like they were tailor-made for you.
They’ll also look better and better with wear, and will patina really nicely.
You’ll know that they’re made more ethically than most denim.
And they’ll last for a long time, and feel really solid every time you put them on.

Basics

Another good value brand, is Whitesville. They make basics, like T-shirts and sweatshirts, that are really nice. Some of these are loopwheeled, which is another old-timey way to make clothes that is often used for great pieces.

These don’t look that special — but if you feel them, you’ll notice that they’re special. And they’ll stay nice for a long time.

From the Second Sunrise web store. I think I would've purchased this if they had it in my size!

Notebooks

They also stock some really nice stuff from Traveler’s Notebook. Here’s a nice video on them!

But everything in the store is just really nice

… and this includes the service!

They also have some really nice shoes, shirts, and more. If you have the opportunity, and funds, I strongly recommend going to a store like this, and maybe making a purchase. And if you’re like me, you’ll only be able to afford one item.⁵ But that’s OK, as I think it would be something you’d really love, and can keep on loving for a long time.

A smooth train ride from Oslo. 👌🏻 ↩︎
That was the only stores I found, and they only knew about each other. ↩︎
I want to write more on what things should cost later. ↩︎
/pre-destroyed ↩︎
I’ll write about that later! ↩︎

Have We Been Evaluating Music Streaming Payments The Wrong Way?

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:16:37 +0100

One question that ofter comes up when discussing music streaming services, is: “How much are they paying artists per stream?" And there are many blog posts, like this one, that have tried to figure it out. It quotes some numbers, that I’ve seen several places, for Average Payout per 1000 Streams:

Tidal: €11.64
Apple Music: €7.25
Spotify: €2.88

And this was the number that made me change from Spotify to Tidal last year — even though I don’t care about the increased audio quality, and I like Spotify’s app better. Comment sections are also often filled with things like “Spotify don’t pay artists”, etc.

But we might be thinking about it all wrong because here’s the thing: No¹ streaming services actually pay per stream. Instead, all the major ones pile up the revenue, and then divide it to artists² based on the percentage of total streams. So, even if I only listen to Blur, that doesn’t mean my payments only go to that artist.³

An interesting side effect of this is that, if every user streamed the same artists next month, but doubled their streaming amount, the payouts would be the same. But the blog posts above would have to halve the estimate for Payout per Stream.

So while it’s not totally irrelevant, I simply think payout per stream is the wrong number to look at. The more relevant number, is:

The percentage of revenue that goes to artists.

Allow me to explain:

To keep it simple, let’s assume all regular streaming plans are €10/Month. But, when I switched to Tidal, I went for the Hi-Fi plan, which was, let’s say, €20/Month. However, this March, they actually removed this distinction, and are now instead giving everyone Hi-Fi and the €10 price! 🙌🏻

This is of course great for me — but it got me thinking:

How much of the fact that Tidal pays artists more, was due to the generosity of their heart, and better deals for artists? How much was simply the fact that the average Tidal user incurred more revenue than the cheaper competition?
And how will this new, reduced price affect the artist payments?

Tidal pays⁴ about 50% more per stream than Apple Music. But if Tidal users, on average, generate 50% more revenue, is Tidal really more generous than Apple? Because how does this impact the number of users who pay every month?

This is especially relevant when it comes to Spotify

Because Spotify has something few others have: A free, ad-supported, tier. These users generate far less money than premium users — so their streams give less money per stream. And I think this is what really hurts Spotify’s position when it comes to this metric.

But how much blame should Spotify get for this?
Would artists get more money, in total, if they shut down that plan, and do like all the others?

I’m not so sure — because I absolutely don’t think all of them would turn around and sign up for a paid plan… Like, I could turn it around and say, which is true, that “Spotify pays the best” because my band gets more money from them than all the other services combined. To me, that’s almost as unfair, though.

About 75% of Spotify’s revenue goes to artists — and I think that’s the number they really should be judged by.

It’s easier to understand, and much more realistic and relevant to how the model actually works, compared to payments per stream. And if Spotify wants to waste chunks of their 25% of Joe Rogan, that’s annoying — but it affects artists less.⁵ It also sheds light on the fact that artists and Spotify are aligned when it comes to whether having a free tier is worth it.

Is Spotify really more stingy towards artists, or is their “problem” simply that their service, on average, is much cheaper for consumers than the others?
If so, is Tidal’s price-drop “hostile to artists”? Would a price-hike be equally generous to artists?

I don’t know the numbers for Tidal, Apple Music, or the others (would love to know, though!) — but if someone wants to claim that they pay more, I’d say the number they have to beat is not $3.18 per 1000 streams — but €7.5 per €10 in revenue.⁶

Like did it matter much that I switched from a €10 plan on Spotify to a €10 plan on Tidal, if about €7.5 goes to artists anyway?

Let me be clear, I’m not absolving Spotify from the fact that they should pay artists more. And I’m not saying that Tidal and Apple Music isn’t actually paying better - but I am saying that I would like to see a different metric to be totally convinced of it.

As always, when I feel like the whole world is seeing something differently than me, I feel like I must be missing something… Do you agree, or not? Do you know of others who’s tried to champion this as the more important metric?

Except a few niche ones, I won’t go into here. ↩︎
Or, technically, “rights holders”. But I’ll say “artists” to keep it simple. ↩︎
Many think this is the wrong approach, and that the payments should be listener based. I’ve chosen not to go into this specific issue in this post, but I touched on it here. ↩︎
…or at least “paid” ↩︎
Even though I’d rather see that money spent on improving the app… ↩︎
And as a bonus, we could then have a discussion about Apple’s cut of revenue for subs through the App Store. Instead of taking 30% of the total €10, they could take 30% of the app’s cut (€2.5). ↩︎

✉️ Learn from my mistakes: Buy Larger Shoes

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:30:30 +0100

I love getting email etc. from readers (hint, hint), and recently, I got an email regarding an older blog post about a great pair of sneakers from Crown Northampton.

My sneakers, in black kudu leather.

In the original blog post, I said I first bought them too small — but it took me a year to realise it. I bit the bullet, and bought another pair (of the quite expensive shoes), and I hope that’s a testament to how much I like them.

Here’s the email I got:

Hello there!

I just got these babies. I do have a question for you. I know you’ve said that it took you a year to admit they were too small. I think, I’m having the same problem. They’re a bit tight on the toe box.

I just tried to go for a walk (first wear since I received them), and I already have blisters on my ankles.

Should I re-send them to get the wider option? I just don’t feel like paying $160 to send them back and wait another 4 weeks.

My dilemma is whether I should be patient and try breaking them in a little more instead of getting the wider option. What would be your advice? I’m disappointed that a shoe this expensive is not as comfortable out of the box.

I look forward to your reply!

Best,

Luis ¹

And here’s my first reply:

Hi!

And how cool that you’re contacting me. 🙂

They look great! 👌🏻 But sadly, I think you should return them…

Here’s the thing:

Many low-quality items are at their most comfortable, and look their best, brand new, and then only get worse. While many high-quality items aren’t quite as comfortable brand new, but only get more comfortable, and look better, with wear.

For instance, shoes with lots of foam in the soles will be really soft when new, but will wear out rather quickly. And jeans with 100% cotton will be less comfortable than someone with stretch while brand new, but will shape to your body with wear. The same is true for leather shoes.

This makes some high-quality items a hard sell (literally), as they aren’t as nice when people try them in stores, etc. But patience will be rewarded! ☺️

However (and here’s the most relevant bit for you), while the leather of the upper will stretch a bit, your toes rest in the area below the upper — in the area between the rubber. (If you know what I mean.) So that won’t get better with time. 😔

Furthermore, too many people (myself included) has taken the fact that leather (and denim) stretches and conforms, and ended up buying things too small. But most of these items should fit well while new. Shoes can feel like “a firm handshake” around your foot while new, but they must be long enough, and must have enough width for your toes.

Blisters on your ankles are a different story, though. My wife got that as well while they were new, but now she loves them to death. 😊 I had the same with my Rancourt moccasins.

My advice there, is the following:

When you know you have the right size, wear them with pre-emptive blister band-aids in the beginning. After a couple of wears, try without, but bring band-aids with you. If you notice discomfort, put them on before your skin gets pierced.

I know it’s rough to pay for the extra shipping… (And having to wait!) But you waste more money if these don’t become your favourite shoes ever! (Also, I get that you might be a bit annoyed at no “free shipping and returns” at this moment. But know that the alternative is that they bake that cost into every item, even if you don’t use it! I prefer this, more honest, pricing.)

Don’t be like me… I got some bad advice while buying some Wolverine 1000 Mile boots; not only did I buy those too small, the next years I bought several pairs of shoes too small, including the Crown Northamptons.

Whatever you do, I hope you’ll end up loving the sneakers! And if you haven’t already, I’d contact Crown directly for advice as well. They were very helpful with me.

-Erlend

Here’s the reply I got:

Hello Erlend!

Thank you for your quick response!

I thought it was better to get my skin pierced 🤦‍♂️ And I went through the pain of it; my left heel skin pierced, but it is now healing. Lesson learned if you will!

On the toe box side on top of my big toe, I just got a little blister, which tells me there’s somewhat of friction there. As you’ve mentioned, lesson learned: I am going to be wearing some band-aids next time I wear them.

On second thought, I don’t think the shoes are that bad. For instance, the left once isn’t as tie on the toe box side. Keep in mind, I didn’t tie the laces as tight; as I don’t need to. That seemed to have helped.

The right one still feels a little tight. I think, as you said, just like a baseball leather glove, you gotta break them in.

I’m going to give them a few more days, before I decide on getting a wider replacement. I also feel that CN should come with a more efficient way of talking/showing how to size your shoes. But that’s another topic on its own.

If you have any other thoughts, feel free to let me know.

Best,

Luis

And my last reply:

Lesson learned indeed! The reasoning is that the shoe will adapt at the same rate with or without the band-aids on. So the only difference is the amount of pain, hehe.

Regarding the sizing, I think it’s a good sign that the blisters are on the top of the toe - as that area will stretch more than the rubber part. And adapting the laces is absolutely a good idea.

If you look at this image, of my wife’s Crown Northamptons, and compare it to your image, the portion below the laces is pretty straight on her shoes, while on yours it’s more triangular. Hers are more worn in, of course - but that could give an indication that yours could benefit from being the wider model. But if you loosen the laces a bit (also all the way down), and wear them in, it’s absolutely possible that they’ll turn out great! Especially as you say that they aren’t too bad.

My best attempt at a similar image. I usually wear them with socks, though. (But in general, they work great bare feet!)

Mine are also a bit more “straight” - but again, they are worn in. And it’s obviously impossible for me to judge from a single image! Your feet knows best, heh.

Keep me updated about what you’ll end up doing, and how they’ll turn out! I hope they become your favourite shoes, whether it’s in this size or in a larger one.

-Erlend

Luis also replied with a great thread by “Derek Guy / @dieworkwear on X” about shoe sizing:
(A great follow, that I’d love to see on an ActivityPub platform!)

HOW TO FIND SHOES THAT FIT

In the spirit of @lingerie\_addict, who has said on many occasions that there's no shame in not knowing something, as everyone learns for the first time, here is a thread on how to find shoes that fit 🧵 https://t.co/ty4qadFrqm
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) June 18, 2023

That’s not his name, but he preferred to remain anonymous. ↩︎

🌱 Coffee: Max Good, Min Effort

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 11:37:33 +0100

My Coffee Setup

My wife and I love coffee — and we drink a lot of it. So we want it to be good, while still not being too much of a hassle to make every day. And this post is me highlighting the equipment we use, and the process.

This post isn't about how to make the _absolute_ best cup of coffee - but rather which steps you can take to make it pretty great, without adding _too_ much complexity.

What does a great cup of coffee taste like?

If you only want one-ish cup (and why I don’t like capsule machines)

When I say that we drink a lot of coffee, I mean that we drink coffee made of 0.75-1 litres of water/45-60 grams of beans. So it’s pretty obvious why something like a Nespresso capsule machine isn’t a viable option.

But other reasons I don’t like it, is that the coffee tastes much, much worse than alternatives, it can get expensive, and how much waste it creates. (For some info on environmental impact, check this video and this video.) In my book, capsules are Min Good, Min Effort.

I think capsule machines can be a viable option if you personally don’t drink coffee, but you want to have something to serve guests now and then (and you have room in your kitchen). But if you only want about one or two great cups of coffee for yourself, I’d either go for the quite quick AeroPress, or a more ritualistic pour-over, like a V60.

Video from AeroPress.

V60 (pour-over).

We sometimes make a pour-over — but most of the time, we use a (pretty) regular coffee-maker. ¹ But they’re not all created equal.

What you need to make great coffee

0) Good water

I almost forgot this because in Norway, we are very lucky to have great water on tap. But depending on where you live, this might be an issue.

1) Coffee (duh)

Nothing matters more than the coffee you buy. As you’ve probably guessed, as I’ve linked to three of his videos already, I like James Hoffmann. So I’ll let him explain how to pick out good coffee.

But what’s relevant here, is that you “need” to buy fresh, whole beans.

2) A good place to store them

As you’re dealing with fresh produce (kind of), you require a good place to store them. Many bags are good at this, as long as you can get them tight, but there are also plenty of canisters available. ²

I use the Fellow Atoms 🖇️. Coffee doesn’t love sunlight, so it’s not optimal — but I just love the look of coffee! I like to put the label on it as well, to remember what we have at the moment.

3) Scales

You also need to know how much of it to use. Some people seem to have the impression that weighing coffee is complicated — but I vehemently disagree. The coffee-makers I’m going to recommend have water containers like this:

Please ignore the temporary bubbles!

OK, so when I have this much water, I need 45 grams of coffee beans. That’s just so much simpler than the guesswork involved with spoons (of different sizes).

I’m pleased with my Timemore scale 🖇️ (I have the 1.0, though). It’s accurate to .1 grams, has a timer function, and charges via USB-C. But a regular kitchen scale (even if it’s only accurate to 1 gram) is perfectly fine.

Image from Timemore.

4) Grinder

The obvious downside of buying whole beans, is that you have to grind them yourself. However, a good thing about this (in addition to whole beans not going stale, like pre-ground ones), is that you can adapt the coarseness to preference. For my coffee-maker, you should always use 45 grams of coffee to 0.75 litres of water. But if you want it a bit stronger, you can just grind it a bit finer.

So you want a grinder where you can change the grind setting. A great starting-point, is the Wilfa Smart.

We had that previously — but for our wedding we got an upgrade, with the Fellow Ode Gen 2 🖇️.

Photo from Fellow.

But this is where I’d love some feedback from any coffee nerds out there: Because every review of the Ode Gen 2 I’ve read, has praised it for not producing much static when you grind. However, I think it does produce quite a lot of static — and I don’t think it grinds that uniformly… What gives?

So, while I’m not totally happy with my Ode grinder, it does have great reviews (from reputable reviewers).

4.5) A tiny spray-bottle

One thing that helps with the static (that almost all grinders produce), is to give the beans a tiny spray of water before you grind them. And to make that easier, you can buy a little bottle to keep on your counter.

5) Coffee-maker

There are a couple of reasons why Wilfa is a great brand to look at for a coffee-maker.

Good temperature control

The Norwegian brand, Wilfa, has co-operated with the (also Norwegian) coffee guru Tim Wendelboe when designing their coffee-makers. So it’s not surprising that they do the basics well.

Removable water tank

Most people use the carafe (the coffee gets brewed into) to fill up the water tank — but there are some good reasons for this not being the best design:

The tank is usually the place where the measurement lines are — so if you bring that to the sink, instead of the carafe, you don’t have to go back with the excess water.
The carafe gets dirty — and you don’t want the clean water to become less clean.

Variable drip size

Ideally, you’d want a different size of drip for different amounts of coffee — and most Wilfa models have this option.

Image from Wilfa.

So this one you just set to the amount of water you’ve used. (However, because of space constraints, we recently moved from a Wilfa Svart Precision to a Wilfa Performance Compact, which has an automatic drip stop (with only one size) instead of.)

Looks good

This is subjective, of course!

There are other coffee-makers that fit these criteria, of course. (For instance, Fellow is making one that looks interesting.) But Wilfa is a good place to start!

6) Thermal carafe

Coffee being very hot makes it taste less. If you’re drinking bad coffee (like the one from a gas station machine), this is very beneficial: When the coffee gets told, it becomes a bitter nightmare. However, if the coffee is good, it still tastes good when colder. This coffee might actually taste too little while at its hottest — so many prefer it to cool down a bit before drinking.

So the optimal thing, if you’re drinking as much coffee as we do, would be to make several batches, and have them cool down to the perfect temperature every time. But if you can’t be bothered with that, here’s my advice:

If you want your coffee to preserve its heat (even though the coffee snobs are right in that pursuit not being optimal), putting it into a thermal container is better than keeping it on a hot-plate.
Furthermore, use small cups. That way you can pour a cup, and be able to drink it at your preferred temperature. With larger cups, I usually find that the first sips are too hot and the latest too cold.

I actually prefer even smaller cups than this.

We have this carafe from Hario. I like it because you can brew V60 into it, it looks good, and is great to pour from. However, it’s not the best at keeping the heat. So when we need more heat-retention, we use a Hydro Flask.

Some coffee-makers come with a thermal carafe. This can be practical if you always use one — but you get less choice in looks and size, and you can’t not use one as easily.

Our process

1) Weigh the coffee

I check how much I needed on the water tank if I don't remember. (The standard is 6g per 0,1 litre.)

2) Give the coffee a spray

One press is enough. Where you do it depends on the grinder and container. (I'm not sure where it's best on my current setup.)

3) Grind the coffee

You'll have to find your preferred setting, with some experimentation. There's usually an optimal time the brew should take — and if it takes too long, you should grind coarser (and the other way around).

(Oops, not sure what happened to the focus here! Got to take another image of this…)

4) Fill the water tank

5) Rinse the filter paper

This is supposed to remove the paper-taste. The white papers are also supposed to be better than the tan ones.

6) Pour in the coffee

I’m not sure if this is poor uniformity from the Ode of not…

7) Brew (and wait)

8) Pour the coffee on a thermal carafe

9) Put some water in the coffee-maker’s carafe

Leaving it with a bit of water is supposed to give less coffee residue in the carafe over time.

To sum it up:

Buy good beans,
that you grind at home
(perhaps with a spray of water)
after you’ve weighed them out.
Use a good coffee-maker
with a removable water tank,
that you rinse the filter of,
and leave a bit of water in after use.

And if you want to drink your coffee over a period of time,

put the coffee in a thermal carafe (instead of leaving it on a hot-plate),
and use small cups to get a larger portion of your total coffee drinking at your preferred temperature.

The entire coffee setup (and part of the board game collection), including some pour-over stuff not touched on in this article.

I personally don’t like French Press - but if you do, this guide is supposed to be good. ↩︎
James Hoffmann, of course, has a video on this as well. ↩︎

🌱 My Watch Collection (Of Only Sub $100 Watches)

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 15:21:40 +0100

And my wife’s way nicer collection

Even though I like tech, and Apple gear, I don’t have smart watch. And the main reason I that I like (mostly mechanical) watches too much. But even though my dream watch is an old Explorer with faded Tritium, I only own very cheap, oddball watches. And I’ve greatly enjoyed finding bargains that still looks good and works well - several of them from Russia/USSR.¹

Casio A500WGA-9DF

Every watch collection, no matter the budget, needs a digital Casio. And to me, this (and its silver sister) is, by far, the coolest.

Raketa Copernicus (35 mm)

This hand-wound beauty has some really unique hands, and a pleasing dial. And it comes in several (more or less original) dial and colour variations. As will become apparent, I really like smaller watches like this!

I also bought it in black, back in the day. But it was dead-on-arrival - which I guess is part of the joy of ordering old, cheap watches on EBay.

Poljot De Luxe (36 mm)

Another hand-wound watch Made in USSR. After about a year, I usually swap the straps on these two!

The watches are bought on Ebay. The butterfly clasps are the best ones I've found on AliExpress, and the straps are high-quality ones from Etsy. Still a very affordable package!

Vostok Amphibia x2 (38 mm)

If you’ve ever seen the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, this quirky Russian watch is the one worn by the main character. And actually with this specific dial as well!

I think he might have the blue version of the dial, though.

These automatic watches are very fun, cost “nothing”, and loves to be modded. And it can still go diving, if need be - even though the bezel is pretty shabby.

My first Vostok was the one on the right — but I found the cushion case too large, so bought the one on the left, and sold the first one. It bums me out that I don’t want to order from the factory anymore - because you could pick-and-choose the bezel, hands, crown, etc. on their site, and they would put it on before shipping! Because the stock options don’t look too great…

I don't have a current picture of this, as I'm trying to get the bezel repaired.

I currently have this leather strap on it!

My wife’s (way nicer) collection

As she’s a teacher, she also wears a watch every day. And while she doesn’t care as much as me about watches, she still has an opinion of what she wears. So these are some gifts and some “guide purchases”.²

Apple Watch Series 9 (41 mm)

She prefers the analog watches - so this is mostly used for sleep tracking and workouts at the moment. She has a Solo Loop, and a more dressy leather strap.

Poljot De Luxe (36 mm)

Of course she also has a Russian watch…

Marathon General Purpose Mechanical (34 mm)

She likes to hike (often spending the night in the forest alone), and then this 34 mm army watch, is her companion. Enough water resistance for swimming, tritium lume, and small and light. 👌🏻

Nomos Tangente 33 (mm)

When I wanted to ask her to marry me, I didn’t like the idea of spending tons of money on a diamond ring (for several reasons). So instead, I bought a vintage emerald ring and a really nice watch she could use every day. I also got in engraved with “for eternity”, which in Norwegian is a pun, as eternity directly translates to “eternal time”. 🤓

I’m still a bit torn between wanting a smart watch, and still rocking the analog watches… But at least I hope my collection can show that you can get pretty nice stuff very cheaply!

I’m not blaming the Russian watch makers for the war — but I still don’t want any more of my money to go in that direction, sadly. ↩︎
She really didn’t want to model the watches — but she did it when I asked her nicely. So when I saw, just now, that the focus aren’t the best on the images, I didn’t want to ask again. So sorry about that! ↩︎

Please Don't Kill The "Today View"

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 14:09:04 +0100

The boys over at the Connected podcast have discussed the Today View (specifically on iPhone) the last few episodes. And late to the party, here’s my short take.

The Today View is the screen of widgets you get to when you scroll left on your Lock Screen or first Home Screen. And they were speculating that it might get removed in time, as it doesn’t get much love from Apple. They didn’t say that they wanted it to go away — but it was also clear that they wouldn’t really mind.

I would.

Because I think it serves a very specific purpose, and fits very well with my use of Home Screens.

Because I’m a One Home Screen Kinda Guy, which I change with Focus Modes. This also makes me a heavy user of the App Library and Spotlight for launching apps and shortcuts. But to me, the Today View is a perfect spot for something I have no other place for: Widgets I always want quick access to, but that I still don’t use so often that it gets a spot on my one Home Screen.

My current default Home Screen:

My alternate Home Screens are variants of this. I really like those eight icon slots for one-hand use — which actually is possible on my lovely 13 Mini. (Speaking of things that don't get love from Apple…)

And my Today View looks like this:

1) A more detailed weather forecast

For when the little widget on the Home Screen, or the Lock Screen widget, isn’t quite enough.

2) Battery information

3) The (great) commuter app here in Oslo

This is also a stack with some QR codes for memberships.

4) The controls for my car

(Please don’t steal it, even though it’s unlocked and air-conditioned.)

5) Vipps, the “Norwegian Venmo”

“Send”, “Ask for” and “Scan”.

6) 2FA codes

This is an old-style widget — and I think those are getting removed in iOS 18. I’ve moved most of my 2FA over to 1Password, though, so I don’t need a widget as much as before. But I’d still like to see a 1Password widget in the future!

The single feature I’m most excited about in iOS 18, is the improvements to Control Center. And I get that that will replace several use-cases for the Today View. But I hope they keep it (and maybe add the ability to have it change with the Focus Mode), as I really like using one Home Screen — and that makes widget real estate really premium. So I like to have a place to shove some that I want easy access to (and often from the Lock Screen)!

However, I also agree with what I think Federico Viticci said: I don’t use widgets quite as much as I thought I would.

Similar Apps to Bear and Things 3

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:03:28 +0100

I saw a simple question on Reddit today, and it sparked an answer.

Any other apps similar to Bear and Things 3?

Looking for similar apps to these two that perfectly balances minimalism, functionality, and UI/aesthetics.

I interpreted this as not being about the specific functionalities, and the types of apps (note-taker and task-manager), but the way those apps feel. Because, if you haven’t used them, you really should. They are truly special pieces of software. I will write more about some of these apps later, but …

Here’s my answer:

Oooh, I like this question!

I’m the kind of person who really values how a piece of software feels (in addition to looks and works.). But I 100% get that I might seem like an idiot for using pricier, and maybe less powerful, software, just because I think it’s nice, heh.

I really like both Bear and Things, but I’ve gone for a workflow where I mostly use plaintext/.md files, which I then access from different apps. The files are located in the folder for NotePlan, which I use it because it has good task and calendar support, so it fills the function of both Bear and Things. And compared to Obsidian and Logseq, it’s closer to Bear in terms of nice-ness — though not quite at that level.

Here are som apps I’d say are on that level, though:

These are apps that (mostly) adhere to principles of Fast Software, the Best Software, and are filled with details you might not appreciate at first glance.

Paper

Severely overpriced, but very nice, files-based Markdown editor. The “preview mode” is also a great rich text editor that still outputs Markdown.

Bike

A brilliant, but simple, outliner. Not expensive! Also files based — which I don’t prefer, but I still use these two apps because they’re such a joy to use. The way it handles rich text should be copied by all. So clever! And 2.0 looks very promising as well.

TaskPaper

Plain-text task manager, by the same developer as Bike. Almost as pleasant to use, which still makes it nicer than most apps. Lightning fast, and plays quite nice with NotePlan — so I can use both apps, with the same files.

Ivory

A great Mastodon client, with a remarkable feel. They’ve made a custom scrolling engine, which is just so delightful! It’s not my favourite, though, because Mona is almost as nice, but has several features I really like. I’ve written a bit about it here.

I’m not vouching for its security or the owners — but as a simple chat app with friends and family, which is my use case, it’s head and shoulders above the rest. Especially compared to the other three I’ve used the most: iMessage, Messenger and Signal (though I still recommend Signal if you want more security — and they deserve the support). I’ve given examples of why here.

Nova

Just a really nice code editor, with a good business model, and some noob-friendly options I like, like rainbow brackets and code structure headings. A Mac-assed Mac app if there ever was one.

Honourable mentions:

Ulysses

Before I used Paper, I would’ve put this on the list! Still really nice.

iA Writer

Very opinionated, and I don’t agree with the opinions. Still nice, though!

Reeder and Mela

RSS reader and recipe manager, made by the same developer. He’s also working on the next version of Reeder now, and while the TestFlight is pretty bare-bones, it feels outstanding. To be frank, these might deserve a spot on the other list — but when the new version of Reeder drops, it’s a shoo-in. It also supports more than text! However, just like with Mastodon, my favourite client is almost as nice, but has a killer feature: I use Lire because it caches full articles from truncated RSS feeds.

Arc

I really like the attention to detail here. I’ve personally decided not to use it due to the combination of Chromium and questionable AI shenanigans, but it’s still the best browser IMO.

Mimestream

The same hippie stuff that makes me not want to use Chromium also keeps me away from Gmail, so I can’t use this app. Hopefully, they’ll support JMAP (here’s why I use Fastmail) in the future because it looks really, really good!

Raycast 🖇️

Just feels modern and fast, while managing to do many different things without being too busy.

Zed

Another code editor. Less noob-friendly and featureful than Nova, as it’s still a bit early for this. But oh-boy, it’s fast!

Tot

A neat little note-taker of the “Post-it” variety. Free on the Mac, and the iOS version is currently 50% off until 8th of July 2024!

My shoes broke, so I did something radical

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 15:16:01 +0100

… but it shouldn’t be!

Sometimes, the best units of clothing are those you’ve had for a while. It’s been worn in, and seems to have moulded to your body. However, that makes it even sadder when it gets a hole or something — and I assume many of you have kept using an item way longer than you should. It’s just so damn comfortable, so you don’t care that your nipple is poking out of your sweatshirt, The People Eater style.

Recently, I had this happen to a pair of shoes — and that’s when I did something that shouldn’t be as radical as it is.

Blown out heel, tired leather, and worn down sole.

The regular thing would either be to buy a new pair, or just keep wearing them until things got even worse.

But instead, I got them repaired. 😲

Most shoes aren’t made to be repaired, though

Imagine you’ve bought a new car: And after a while, you have to buy some new tires, as they, obviously, wear out quicker than the car itself. But then the people at the tire shop say: “Sorry, you can’t change the tires on this car — so you have to buy a whole car.” This is how most shoes work today. Soles wear out way quicker than uppers, but most shoes today are constructed in a way that they’re impossible to repair. This is usually because everything is (only) glued in place, instead of also being based on stitches.

However, if you look at the underside of my worn out sole, you can see that these are stitched together.

Be aware: Sometimes glue will do all the work, and brands just add some stitches to make the shoes appear repairable.

Constructions you can look for, are Goodyear welted, Blake stitch and Stitchdown construction — but there are more.

Image from White's: A brand that makes ultra-high quality boots, often with hand-sewn stitchdown construction, in the US.

Both me and my wife have (highly recommended!) sneakers from Crown Northampton. I'm not sure what this construction is called — but they are repairable.

Sadly, it’s a bit costly

I wish I could say that buying repairable shoes, and getting them repaired instead of buying all-new shoes, saves you money — but it often doesn’t. The repair cost me US$80 — which is more than many shoes.

The shoes themselves are usually more expensive as well, as making them repairable makes them take longer to make, and often require more expensive components. Furthermore, only brands that are slightly more high-end, even bother.

And when you get them repaired, you have to pay for the labour — and this labour usually happens somewhere with higher labour costs than in a south-east asian sweatshop…

However, depending on which shoes you compare, there is some truth to the Sam Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

There are still (at least) these benefits:

It’s obviously more environmentally friendly, as your old shoes don’t end in a land-fill, and a whole new pair isn’t being made.
You’ll also probably end up supporting local businesses, and/or shoemakers with better working conditions than the norm.
Shoes where you can keep your upper for years and years, making it more and more comfortable, and with good quality soles (not made with foam that wears out in a couple of months), will give you very comfortable shoes.
The shoes you’ll end up using, will generally be of great quality, both in terms of looks and function.
And lastly: This might be a bit esoteric, but when you have to save up to buy shoes, and you know you’ll have them for a long time, you’ll think thoroughly about every purchase. And when you know they’re expensive, you’ll want to take care of them (including repairs). Simply put, the Own fewer, better things mentality, makes you love your stuff more!

But how did my shoes end up?

I sadly didn’t take a photo of the entire shoe before sending them in — but compare how they look now (I’ve worn them a bit after the repair), to the images I posted above:

As you can see, they don't look brand new — but they still look great, in my opinion. Another neat thing, is that I could choose to get a different type of sole, to vary the look a bit.

They also added a brand-new part of the insole!

These are my Alden Indy Boots. The upper is amazing (both for my wide feet, and in terms of looks), but the soles they come with are pretty slippery. So when they need re-soling, I intend to get a more rugged sole. Another benefit of re-sole-able shoes!

Some brands to check out, if you want good, repairable shoes

Lastly, I just want to fire off a few recommendations, if you want shoes that can be repaired. This is absolutely not a complete list — and they are not all amazing. There are many resources out there — among them, r/goodyearwelt and Stridewise.

In general, go for shoes made with natural materials (both in the upper and the sole), and ones that are constructed for repairability. The trap is that shoes that are super-comfortable brand-new will often become less comfortable with wear, and in general wear quickly. While some shoes from these brands, aren’t as comfortable when brand new, but they will only get better with age. Makes it a harder sell, but a better buy.

See if you can find a local shoe store that carries good quality shoes. It might not be the biggest chain-stores. Also consider buying online. It’s far from optimal — but it might be the only way to find good purchases. Contact them beforehand, and discuss sizing, and expect that you might have to send them back.

These are in random order, and are just some that I thought of at the moment. Please comment with other suggestions, and I’ll update the list!

Some images, from Oak Street Bootmakers and Crown Northampton, showing some of what to expect.

Rancourt & Co: The shoes I got repaired, are Ranger-Mocs from this brand. Made in Maine, U.S.A., and great quality. I’d recommend signing up for their newsletter because occasionally, they run “crowdfunding batches” of shoes. So if you can wait a couple of months, you get them at a great price. The brand also offers wide sizes, which is important to me. Their Read Boat Shoes are a great alternative to the lower quality Sebagos.
Oak Street Bootmakers: Similar brand to Rancourt.
Crown Northampton: Amazing minimalistic sneakers, and a few more models. About the same price as Common Projects, but higher quality. Made in England.
Koio: Sneakers at around the quality of Common Projects, but cheaper.
Thursday Boots: Makes both boots and sneakers. Not as high quality as others on this list — but as the price also reflects this fairly, I don’t mind at all.
Red Wing: A staple in American boots. The Iron Rangers are a classic.
Grant Stone: A brand that single-handedly proofs that “Made in China” doesn’t mean low quality. Amazing footwear for a very fair price.
White’s: Top-notch rugged boots.
Nicks: See: White’s
Alden: I love my Indy boots — but to be honest, this brand is a bit over-priced. Doesn’t change the fact that they make great shoes.
Loake: British, mostly dress shoes, at a good price.
Paraboot: A French brand with several legendary models.
Heschung: Paraboot’s sister brand, also making great quality footwear with iconic designs.
Skomaker Dagestad: The best shoe store in Oslo, Norway, which also makes their own shoes in Portugal.
Carmina: Really nice Spanish shoes — mostly on the dressier side.
Meermin: Carmina’s lower-cost sister brand.
Beckett Simonon: They take orders in bulk — so if you’re willing to wait, you’ll get good shoes for a good price.

Two (Ultra-Cheap) DI Boxes From China

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:14:46 +0100

One good, one terrible

Recently, I bought a couple of very cheap guitar pedals from China (through AliExpress). I’m working on making some pedalboards for some young family members, and I want to see how cheap I can get it without it being terrible.

My cousin plays the bass (like myself), so I would like to incorporate a DI box in his setup — so I ordered two different ones.

This Rowin DI (€20),
and this Dolamo DI (£16).

And the difference was huge!

Noble knobs were otherwise engaged when the photo was taken.

I got them today — and to test them, I did the following:

I recorded my 1961 P-bass into my Volt 2 interface. In logic, on a completely flat track (without EQ or effects). I did five recordings:

Jack straight from the bass to the interface.
Through my great DI (Noble Preamp)
Through the Rowin DI
Through the Rowin DI with its Cab Simulator on.
Through the Dolamo DI

Listen for yourself!

The recordings are in the order above. All of them through the XLR, and I did a bit of gain to try to make them about the same level. I kind of wish I had a more basic DI to test with as well — but I guess the jack recording should cover that OK.

Let’s ignore the Noble (which was far and away the best — even more pronounced than the clip above gives the impression of). What I found most astounding, was that while the Rowin was perfectly fine, and not something I would be afraid to put in a pedal board, the Dolamo simply massacred the signal. I don’t even think it can be salvaged by EQ.

It also has two jack outputs, I don’t really know the specifics of: One labelled Line Out, and another Parallet (sic) Out, The first one also destroyed the signal, while the last only did it a bit. On the Rowin, the jack signal was fine. When you add that, it also has

ground lift,
pad (-20dB, 0, +20dB),
cab simulator (of sorts),
and a smaller footprint,

this was a knock-out. The Dolamo I’d stay away from at all cost — while the Rowin is a little gem in my opinion!

Now, guess which one I bought one of, and which one I, gambled a bit more, and bought three of…

This is inside the Dolamo. Very few components — but I don't know which are responsible for making the sound terrible.

The ground lift button made it difficult to really see inside this one — but there are at least way more components! Not the "more" has to be better, but getting it into this package might speak of a more thoughtful design.

My crummy old bass, in my messy shop. If you want to hear it in a nicer context, you can check out my band's song Feet in the Water.

And my pedalboard — which I didn't use for the recordings. See if you can spot the Noble (and get why the knobs were off on the other image ☺️).

🌱 What Makes Telegram Great

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 16:12:34 +0100

Chat apps: Part 2

People, myself included, will endlessly discuss the features and details of their favourite apps for email, calendar, task management and note-taking. But “no one” talks about chat apps — even though many people probably use this type of app even more. I recently wrote about this here, and that I think it’s a bummer that chat apps mostly rely on one of two things: Military-grade security, and lazy lock-in.

I, of course, get why it is like this: Network effects, and switching costs, are of course much higher with chat apps than other apps. A less reported on part of the EU’s Digital Market’s Act (DMA) is actually trying to do something about this, with the demand for chat interoperability! Matrix is also working on this.

However, as someone who’s used plenty of chat apps, one really stands out, in terms of quality and features — and that’s Telegram. I also regularly use iMessage and Messenger (in addition to a bit of Signal and WhatsApp) — and those feel like such a let-down by comparison. This post is me giving concrete examples of why. ¹

Telegram does have a bunch of "social media features", like channels (one-to-many communication), huge groups (up to 200k), etc. - but I've never really used these. So I'm looking at it simply as a chat app, for individuals and smallish groups.

This is not an endorsement of Telegram, nor the people behind it, though.

(By the way, click here to skip the preamble.)

I started to move to Telegram (from Meta’s Messenger) 5 years ago — primarily to battle Meta’s monopoly and hold on my digital life. The secondary reason, was that I don’t want to support the people behind Meta more than necessary. Let’s say we give “The People Behind” a score of -1 in Meta’s case.

I was considering Telegram vs. Signal, and at the time I gave “The People Behind” scores of 0 (Telegram) and 1 (Signal). However, I really wanted to get my friends and family (who care less about this stuff, and just want to use their apps in peace) on-board with the switch. So I went with Telegram, simply because the app was better and easier to use and get into.

Now, in the intervening years, I think I’ve reduced my view of “The people behind” Telegram to -1. ² But even though they’re only on-par with Meta here, I’d still rather use Telegram than Meta’s services because I want to spread out power in tech. ³

I’m also not saying Telegram’s as secure as things like Signal.

Personally, I only need my chat app to be “pretty secure”. I don’t mind higher security, of course — but, for me, it’s not worth sacrificing a lot of usability to get it. What is important for me, is privacy: I don’t want ads, and I especially don’t want my personal information (and the information of those I’ve dragged onto the platform) to be used for it.

The two reasons I still want to give Telegram a lot of praise:

While Telegram is the chat app I use the most today, I kind of hope the answer will be Signal or Matrix in a couple of years. So the first reason, is that I hope this can serve as inspiration.

The second reason is more personal, and a bit hard to explain. Like, I have zero problems with someone thinking iMessage is fine — just like Reminders.app, Calendar.app or Podcasts.app is fine. But if someone were to say the latter three are “just as good” as Things, Fantastical and Overcast, I hope some fellow app nerds would react. I just have this need to say:

Why Telegram’s great

These aren’t qualities and features Telegram is alone in having, necessarily! But I think Telegram is alone in having them all. Furthermore, even though most apps has a slower update cycle than Telegram, they do update. So, maybe some of these have been addressed by the time you read this?

#1) Choice of encryption

I’ll just get the most controversial out-of-the-way first:

The number one criticism of Telegram, is that they don’t end-to-end encrypt (E2EE) text chats by default. Instead, they encrypt on server, so on-par with what you get on iMessage if one of the participants has regular iCloud backups turned on. You can start “Secret Chats”, which are E2EE, though — and calls are always E2EE.

To some, this is a deal-breaker — but, and I get that this is a hot take, to me, it’s a big plus. If you have a specific threat model, I’d absolutely go for something E2EE. But let me compare Telegram and Signal in a couple of instances, to show why I think E2EE comes with a cost that might not always be worth it:

On Signal, you can send images up to 8 MB and videos up to 100 MB. On Telegram, you can send files up to 2 GB (4 GB with Premium).
When you log into a new device on Signal, you don’t get your chat logs — while Telegram instantly syncs everywhere.
Things being on server on Telegram, makes it possible to have it take up way less storage on your device. (Especially nice if you’ve sent some 2 GB files!)

Server encryption is also simpler and more user-friendly, ⁴ and (in my experience) more stable than E2EE. ⁵ This makes it easier to get people on the service, and away from something that’s might be way less private and secure.

Again, if you need, or just want, E2EE, go for it. But it’s not like there are no benefits of server encryption.

In addition to respecting a lack of storage on your device, they also have features for battery saving:

#2) Great apps everywhere

iMessage is pretty good for sharing photos and videos — but it’s not cross-platform. And, at least previously (I think they just improved it a bit), Messenger just massacres photos. So sharing things with a family that don’t all use Apple stuff is harder than it should be. But with Telegram, it’s easy to send stuff uncompressed, and also the compression is much less harsh.

And not only is it available everywhere — it’s good everywhere. The apps are native (and open source), and they’re quick to support new OS APIs. It also has a pretty good web app.

For instance, they were the first third-party app to support contacts showing up in the iOS Share Sheet.

While I like it on Mac and iPad, it’s literally one of my favourite apps, of any type, on my iPhone. They also update, and add new features, often (check out their blog to get a view of how often).

#3) Pretty good business model

Signal (and some others) kind of wins here, of course. They rely solely on donations, and give everything away for free. But while I hope it works out for them (and I have donated), I think it’s fair to not think every service should have to follow this model. So what’s the alternative?

Snapchat and Meta rely on surveillance capitalism — and is something I try to avoid. The point of iMessage is to get you, and the people around you, to keep buying Apple products — and is also something I don’t love.

Tracking-based ad in Meta's Messenger.

Telegram’s business model:

The main way they earn money, is through Telegram Premium — which primarily does three things:

Increase already large caps (like max file size from 2 GB to 4 GB),
visual flair, like animated emoji and profile picture, profile backgrounds, more app icons etc.,
and extra powerful organisation features. (I’ll touch on these later.)

Telegram does run ads as well, though — but they’re only in the large channels (I’ve never seen one), and they’re not tracking-based. Premium removes these. And you also get some AI features, like real-time translation and transcription of voice messages.

Example of a premium feature I don't mind.

However, there are some things I don’t like:

One is that, while the free version of Telegram is unequivocally better than probably all other chat apps, you do get some “Premium nagging”.

The second is that they hide some privacy features behind the pay wall, like being able to see “Last Seen” and “Read” times of others without sharing yours, and hiding the fact that you’ve viewed other’s stories.

But in general, I do think a freemium model is of the better business models for a chat app: I’m a power-user, so don’t mind paying for it. And I can get my family on it for free, without me then making them get tracked.

#4) Brilliant basic chat experience

This is the most important part of an app like this — and it permeates into every other piece of the app. And Telegram does it so well. There’s just so many both fun and useful features sprinkled around the experience.

Sending options

Long-pressing the send button gives some good examples.

While iMessage insists on there only being six tap-backs, Telegram both has tons of them and the ability to send messages with them attached (and custom animations). Not useful, but absolutely fun! But the other options I always miss while using other services. I’m often awake when others are asleep — and every so often I’ll think “Oh, I should send this text on Monday”, but I need to get it out of my ADHD head. So I find them very useful!

Formatting

You can format your messages with bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, as code, as block quotes, with spoilers (hold to reveal) and with hyperlinks. Telegram also has great, and customisable, link previews and replying/quoting. These animations show off some of what I’m talking about:

What’s important to say, is that even though Telegram does have some powerful features, they don’t go in the way and make the app hard to use! But it’s there if you want it.

#5) Good voice and video messages

While in a Telegram chat, you can lift your phone up to your ear, and talk into it to record a voice message. You can also pause these and add to them if you like. If you receive one, you can lift it up to your ear to have it play through the earpiece. You can also get a transcript if you want to read it instead.

Video messages are cute little round clips. Both of them, and images, can also be sent to be viewed only once. However, one of the things I’d like to see improved in Telegram, is the following: It should be faster and easier (require fewer taps) to send images that won’t get saved on the sender’s device and are only viewable once. In other words, to mimic Snapchat’s basic mode.

Some notes on these videos: They are promo videos taken from the Telegram blog - and not only do they have pretty gaudy use of AI generated images, they're also unrealistically fast and smooth. However, the UX animations and features are real.

#6) Good video and voice calls

I haven’t really used the more powerful features of this — so can’t truly comment on it. (More info here and here.) But I do like that it’s a nice way to call (with or without video) across both borders and platforms.

#7) Powerful group chats

Subjects in group chats, is one of my favourite features of Telegram. You can hide, or just temporarily mute, the subjects you’re less interested in, have different pinned messages in the different subjects, and more. Admins can also create stories from groups.

#8) Stories

This is a feature that obviously is everywhere. But just like with video and voice calls, I do like that it’s also on Telegram. And I’ve been pleased with the implementation for my very basic usage.

One improvement I'd like to see here, is the option to create custom lists, and then select several of them.

#9) Details and finesse

It’s hard to show what I mean about this — but Telegram just looks and feels really nice. And I constantly discover neat little details. Some of the videos have already shown off some animations — but they’re all over the UX, without making things feel slow or complicated.

Useful? No. Neat? Yes. And when they're all over the app, things just feels great.

They will also often do that little bit extra to make a feature more useful: OK, so you can share your location, and you can choose to just send where you are now, somewhere else static, or your live location for a set amount of time. But the “extra bit” is that you can also get notified when the other person gets close to you — and pick how close they should get before you’re notified!

As you can see here, you can set profile pictures on your contacts, and either suggest it as a new one for them, or just set it for yourself.

For yourself, you can also set one profile picture that your contacts see, and another for people not in your contact list.

Lastly, if a person in a group chat has written something long (or several messages in a row), their picture will scroll so you always see who has written something:

OK, I just had to show one more. 👆🏻 Sure, why not make you able to decide if the caption is above or below the image!?

Now, I’m not saying other apps don’t have nice features. But Telegram just has the most of them, and frequently gets new ones. So going from it to other apps, feels like going back in time.

#10) Pretty fine-grained privacy features

I like that you don’t have to share your phone number with other users. People can start talking to you by clicking a link, or by scanning a QR code.

I also like that you can tailor what you share with whom. In addition to being able to set a separate profile picture for people not in your contact list, you can also finesse things like birthday, description, “last seen”, what happens if someone forwards a message from you, etc.

#11) Great organisation — chats, contacts, and messages

You can sort your different chats into folders. A chat can be in multiple folders, and you can set different pinned chats in each. I just use them for things like “Family”, “Favourites”, “Group chats”, etc. — but these folders can also be shared, if you have groups and channels you want to recommend to others.

I also really like how easy it is to find stuff in your chats — both via a very robust search feature, and sorting when you go into a contact. One thing that’s not viewable in the image above, is that you can also see the groups you’re in together.

You also get this experience while scrolling through shared media.

You can also pin messages within chats — and Telegram also has a pretty bonkers system for your own Saved Messages. Within Telegram, you can save whatever by forwarding it to your “Saved chats”.

You can also use the Share Sheet, or just type whatever like you would in a normal chat.

You can then simply view all saved messages, in chronological order. But if you have many of them, you’ll be glad to learn that you can also view them by type (media, link, etc.), or sorted by where you saved it from.

As you can see, I'm not the heaviest user of this feature. But I can see it being very useful if you need cross-platform sharing of links, for instance.

You can also tag saved messages!

#12) Bots

Speaking of features I don’t use to its fullest, Telegram has support for making and speaking to bots.

I haven’t used anything like the ad above — but I have created a couple I like related to a Discourse forum I run:

I’ve set up channels where bots will post new topics from the forum.
And I have a “conversation” with a bot that gives me notifications when someone replies to things I’ve written.

Microsoft also has a Copilot bot you can talk to, and I know there’s plenty of stuff out there!

#13) Polls

Messenger used to have this, and then they just removed it, for some reason. It never returned - but Telegram has a pretty good implementation.

#14) Fun stuff and customisation

Let me just say that I get that these are things some might hate — and you’ll be glad to know that it can be turned off. But I like that Telegram has several customisation and theming options, and animations and effects — and this is my last section.

Everything backgrounds, colours, emoji, stickers, GIFs, and more, have robust support.

Now, remember why I wrote this post

As mentioned, I get why some might not want to use Telegram — either because it’s not secure enough, or because you would rather not support the people behind it. But I hope this way too long post has shown why I think the app is so good - even though things, of course, aren’t quite as smooth as in the promo videos. And I’d love it if other services steals as much as possible from this list!

My impression is that WhatsApp is pretty close. But as that’s also owned by Meta, I haven’t been interested in investing in it. ↩︎
Won’t go into it here, as it’s not the point of the article. ↩︎
In addition to it being way better, of course. ↩︎
No codes to save! And no chance of losing all your logs, etc. ↩︎
Me and a couple of friends tried Matrix early 2023 - and after daily decryption errors and missed notifications, they rioted… Matrix 2.0 looks like it’ll improve this greatly, though! So I’m paying attention there. ↩︎

Things I've Enjoyed Recently #2

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:58:06 +0100

Here are some of the things I enjoyed this week. (I hope this can be a recurring thing!)

I’m in the fortunate position of having watched very few films. So now I’m trying to go back and view a bunch of stuff I haven’t watched, but really should watch. My wife has seen way fewer films than even me, though — and she will join me for some of it!

This week I’ve really liked Django Unchained, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (the best Indiana Jones movie in my opinion), Kong: Skull Island (the best I’ve seen in the Monsterverse) and Good Will Hunting.

I also can’t recommend Caravan of Garbage on YouTube enough. Top-tier Australian movie banter! Like I mentioned in my Mad Max post, I like to watch the Caravan of Garbage episode after I’ve watched a movie (any movie).

How It Feels to Get an AI Email From a Friend, is a beautifully written post, and a great read. By Neven Mrgan who works for the excellent Panic.

I also really liked the post Consumption-to-Creation Ratio by Manuel Moreale! Made me want to keep up. 💪🏻 (But in a good and chill way.)

Lastly, I tried the game Kingdom Two Crowns. (I played it on Apple Arcade, on an iPad, but it’s available everywhere.) Seems interesting - it’s a side-scrolling strategy game(!). And it has a way of not really telling what everything does, and a really sparse UI — so it gives me vibes of being a kid and just poking around a game to see what things do.

When Was the Last Time You Heard Someone Discuss the "Quality" of a Chat App?

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 18:26:31 +0100

Chat apps: Part 1

What constitutes a “good” car? (Yes, “car” — I’ll get to chat apps, I promise!) If I were to answer for myself, I’d split it up into three factors (with one added as a bonus):

Security
- This is important, both for the people inside and outside the car!
- … but it’s not the only factor, of course.
Features
- Size, range, etc. — things you can do with it.
Comfort, and sense of quality
- This isn’t about what you can do with it, but how it feels to do them. In a car, this could be sound (or lack thereof), looks, driving experience, how it feels to open and close the doors, and other small, and large, things.
Price
- Maybe this shouldn’t be here — but when picking a car, it’s often about getting the most features, comfort, and security for the price.
- (“Quality” can also be interpreted as how fast it breaks, which could also be included in the cost of owning the vehicle.)

Luckily, the car market is pretty competitive — so there are plenty of options. And you don’t have to buy the same brand as your friends and family! But I want to compare it a bit to chat apps, and both the market and discussions surrounding them. Because even though most of us use chat apps numerous times every day, I’d argue both the market and discussions are lacking.

To me, it seems like most apps only have one of two value propositions —

even though I’d say all the factors from above applies to chat apps as well: Security (and, the connected, but separate, Privacy), Features, Comfort and sense of Quality, and Price. (The way we pay for chat apps is often with “personal data” and “viewing adds”.)

The first proposition is good ol' “Lock-in”

The “default” chap app varies from country to country — and here in Norway, we’ve made the worst “choice” of them all: Meta’s Messenger. It’s just a very poor product. If we look at the factors, Meta’s ad-tracking business affects its score when it comes to both Security/Privacy and Price. And it’s also severely lacking in both features and general quality and polish. It simply oozes that the responsible company doesn’t feel any pressure to make the product as good as they can. ¹

The same can be said about iMessage, which is “the default” in the US, and another service I have quite a lot of experience with. It’s not bad, but compared to the best experiences, it’s thoroughly mediocre. Even though Apple is a giant company, with infinite resources, they only manage to give it slight improvements year-over-year.

The security and privacy is good — even though I wonder what the ratio of end-to-end-encrypted conversations really are, seeing as it’s only that if none of the participants use regular iCloud backups. But personally I don’t really care about that - it’s more than good enough for me!

The quality is also good, but the features are lacking. I’d also say the price is pretty high, as you have to buy Apple products to use it. ²

Am I the only one who’s never heard any good arguments for why people are using these, apart from “it’s what everyone else uses”? I get that the network effect is huge when it comes to chat apps — but still!

The second proposition is “Security!!!”

I assume most people reading this agree that you should always wear a seatbelt while driving — even though it’s a slight inconvenience. However, I also assume most of you don’t wear a helmet during your daily commute. Why not, though? It’s more secure, right? The answer is simple: Because we constantly balance security and comfort/convenience in our daily choices. However, there are plenty of instances where wearing a helmet while driving is a good idea — like if you’re Lewis Hamilton.

I think it’s great that chat services like Signal, Threema, Session and Matrix exist — which have “security” as their first, second and third priority. ³ I have users on several of them, and have zero issues with people needing, or just wanting, to use them! ⁴ What I do have a slight issue with, is people claiming the increased security makes them inherently “better” than the alternatives. Better for what? In what context? Is it “better” to drive with a helmet just because it’s more secure?

Let me try to be precise: It’s crucial to know how secure the different services are — especially if you have a certain threat model. I also think it’s fine to just find comfort in extra security! I just think we should be honest about the cost, and that it’s OK to look at other factors as long as something’s “secure enough” (whatever that means for you).

I guess I’m a bit annoyed that the only time people actually discuss and compare chat apps, “security” is the only factor discussed… I just wish more apps had “being nice to use when chatting with your friends and family” higher on their lists. Beeper is saying they want to be “the best chat app” - but to them, that just means connecting services.

Am I really alone here? Have you ever heard “features and quality” being discussed? What are the factors of a good chat app in your mind? And which app/service do you think is the best?

I have my own thoughts on this, which will be Part 2!

I’ve only use WhatsApp a little bit - but it seems to be less bad, even though it also coasts on lock-in. ↩︎
Not just because of the price of these, but the “price” of not choosing your devices freely. ↩︎
I mean, just look at their websites! ↩︎
Many of them also seems like great organisations doing good stuff and deserving support. ↩︎

🌱 Some Scripts for Native Tagging of Markdown Files

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 18:35:30 +0100

One thing I like about Markdown is the way the files are just plain-text files, that can be opened and read in different programs and contexts. As much as I can, I try not to lock down my content, or workflows, into specific apps. But I still want to use nice apps! So sometimes I have to jump through a few hoops to make things interoperate. I’ll go into more detail on my workflows later — but I thought I’d share some scripts I use in one piece of the puzzle.

Here's the link to the scripts. I started with a script from this repo, which I then spent a good amount of time editing (with the help of an LLM). So feel free to come with suggestions for how they can be improved!

First, here’s what they do:

What I want is to be able to tag things in the different programs I use, and then automatically apply native Finder/Files tags to the files themselves. If I want to make three tags called “Bass guitar”, “Music” and “Effect pedals”, I would write #Bass guitar# #Music #Effect pedals#. (Notice how the multi-word ones also end with a #.)

The scripts come in three different flavours:

front_matter-tags.rb: This only is meant to only capture tags added in the front matter. It looks for the first line that starts with “tags:”, and then it adds the #tags in #that line#. This one also works in Bike documents!
ulysses-keywords.rb: When you add a keyword in Ulysses, it simply adds them as hashtags on the last line of the document. ¹ This script adds them, and just them, as native tags.
md-tags.rb: This scans the entire file and adds every tag!

If I want to tag a Bike document, I'll just add a 'comment' line like this at the top.

And here's some front matter in NotePlan.

And these are the keywords in Ulysses. And all of these gets added as native tags!

How I run them

The original repo created some sort of launch agent to run the scripts — but I never got that to work. So I use Hazel. Whenever a file is added or modified in a folder, I run a script like this:

/usr/bin/env ruby /path/to/scripts/ulysses_keywords.rb

So, it's "Kind is Document" and "Date Created/Date Last Modified is after Date Last Matched", and then "Run schell script" and then the script above.

All the scripts start with “sleep 5”, which is a five-second wait. I found that this increased the reliability with Hazel — but it might not be necessary in all contexts. Also, I think it will read over every file every time it runs! (For better or for worse.)

Hopefully, someone else might find this useful. It should be pretty easy to adapt them to your needs, and also improve them!

I use Ulysses with native .md files through external folders. ↩︎

Does Apple "Care" About Our Privacy?

Fri, 31 May 2024 13:59:18 +0100

This post was originally a Mac Power Users thread.

One of the questions that started a discussion, was (paraphrased) whether Apple “cares about the privacy of its users”.

I think these are some important nuances to Apple’s decisions surrounding privacy:

Sometimes Apple will make something more private because they hope it will be a selling point. I don’t mind that at all! That’s “just as nefarious” as them making something good because it will sell.
Other times, Apple will make something more private that just so happens to benefit Apple and harm their competitors. A good example here, is them locking down the NFC chip on iPhones. (Here’s a good post discussing this.)
And sometimes they’ll do something that benefits them even though it’s bad for their users' privacy. For instance, they don’t mind tracking us to serve us ads, as long as they’re the ones doing it.

And the billions they accept from Google, to make their search the default in Safari, is another example of the latter.

If Apple really cared about our privacy, they would, of course, choose a default that doesn’t track us — like DuckDuckGo. And it feels a bit hollow when they’re like “Yeah, we care about your privacy — but not like not-accept-$20-billion-for-free-care, you know!"

So, while I do think “privacy” is an argument for choosing Apple products, I think they’ve proven that they don’t care about our privacy. Whether that matters, is a different question! ☺️

(This discussion also spurred me to write about my search engine of choice, Kagi.)

🌱 My Search Engine Is Perhaps My Favourite Tech Service

Fri, 31 May 2024 13:20:44 +0100

There’s a lot of talk about Google Search these days — and how AI is affecting the search quality. Parts of the algorithm even leaked recently, showing that they’ve actively lied to the public. And the general discussions surrounding whether Google is getting worse, has been going on for way longer. But I’ve sidestepped this whole thing…

A while ago, in my quest to use less stuff from the largest tech companies (and due to privacy concerns), I used DuckDuckGo for over a year. But while I liked the design, I found myself having to type !g, and go to Google, to find what I was looking for.

Then I tried Neeva (RIP). And I liked that I didn’t have to scroll past ads, but the Norwegian results were terrible.

However, for the last two years, I’ve used Kagi Search — and ever since, it’s been one of my absolute favourite tech products. And yesterday they published a blog post called What is next for Kagi?, which I liked, and that spurred this post.

I like being the customer

Kagi costs money: $5/month for 300 searches, and $10/month for unlimited. (And with both a Duo and Family plan available.) I know that many will think, “Paying for a search engine??” — but in my opinion, paying makes perfect sense. I love simple incentive structures — and with Kagi, it’s as uncomplicated as: They have to give me results that are so good that I’ll keep paying for them.

They don’t have to also keep advertisers or publishers happy — only me. The two most important consequences of this:

There are no ads, and no tracking.
I’m in control of my search experience. If I want to, I can Block, Lower, Raise or Pin websites, to alter my search results. ¹ There’s also different Lenses that can be used to temporarily alter them (you can also make your own), and there’s also a bunch of customisability in the settings.

Contrary to when I used DDG, I almost always find what I’m looking for — and if I don’t, I don’t find it on Google either.

Other things I like

A small player

From their About page:

Kagi has been bootstrapped by the founder from 2018 to 2023. In 2023, Kagi raised $670K from Kagi users in its first external fundraise, followed by $1.88M raised in 2024, again from our users, bringing the number of users-investors to 93.

(…)

In the early 2024, Kagi became a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC).

And in general, I like that they’re trying something that challenges ad-tech’s stranglehold on the web and tech behemoths. They also have a cool Small Web initiative. ²

Works everywhere

It’s straightforward to set Kagi as the default search engine in most browsers — either natively, or through the Kagi extension. However, in Safari, your only choices are Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia. ³ And on top of this, they make it hard (but not impossible) for other engines to make it happen through extensions. For the two years I’ve used Kagi, Safari has been my default browser on iOS for most of it, and on Mac for some of it.

The Safari experience is like this:

The engine you set as your default in the settings (DuckDuckGo in my case) is the one powering the search suggestions you get while you type. But when you hit Search, you automatically (and quickly) get re-directed to the result on Kagi.

So, even though Safari is your default, that’s not a reason not to give Kagi a try — even though it’s slightly more seamless in other browsers. The team behind Kagi also makes a WebKit browser themselves, called Orion, which I can recommend trying out!

The extensions in other browsers also have some extra features — which brings me to my next point:

Measured take on AI

Many more details in their blog post Kagi’s Approach to AI in Search, and also here — but as a user (who’s sceptical to several aspects of AI), I like that it’s not a big part of their selling point, and that it’s not in-your-face. The Firefox and Chrome extension has some summarising features, and it does have a “Quick Answer” feature in the search results. By default, this is just a tiny button — and if you’d like to, you can turn on an option that will expand it if you end your search term with a question mark.

But everything is easy to ignore and/or turn off. However, I do get that, to some, having anything to do with AI is a deal-breaker.

Customisability

Kagi uses DuckDuckGo’s search bangs — so if you type Beatenberg !yt it searches for that term on YouTube. However, you can also add your own, and designate some bangs where you don’t need the exclamation mark. So for me, searching Oslo w or Oslo wn searches for Oslo on the English or Norwegian Wikipedia. This also syncs to wherever you’re searching, be it kagi.com or the address bar on your phone.

I’ve already mentioned lenses and page ranks — but:

Here are some more ways you can customise your results:

The number of details in your search suggestions, or if you want to turn them off.
The snippet length under the results.
Which of the following you want included:
- Quick Answer (the aforementioned AI feature)
- Inline Images
- Inline Videos
- Inline News
- Inline Maps
- Inline Discussions
- Public Records
- Summary Box
- Related Searches
- “Interesting Finds” (whatever that is 🤷🏻‍♂️)
- Listicles widget
- Shopping widget
- Podcasts widget
- Quick Peek widget
- Wikipedia widget
You can also change the entire CSS!

Try it yourself!

I strongly recommend giving it a go. And here’s where I perhaps would give an affiliate link — but Kagi doesn’t believe in those, as they want every recommendation of their service to be “pure”. So here’s a regular link!

I think it’s well worth the money — both for the service itself, and to support a company that seems to want something good for the web for a change…

An Introduction to Mad Max

Fri, 24 May 2024 12:04:40 +0100

I recently saw a film poster to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - so I thought I’d might watch Mad Max: Fury Road again. I think I remembered it being pretty good - but after rewatching it, I thought: “Uhm, I think this is the best film I’ve ever seen??"

So I’ve spent some time the last two weeks getting into the Mad Max Franchise. I’ve always known about it, but never really had a relationship to it. But now I’m a fan!

This post is a part of a sort-of series I'm calling "Noob teaching noobs". So I absolutely don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to Mad Max, or films in general!

I’m not going into why Fury Road is so amazing here. Instead I’m going to give some pointers on how to get into the series.

Worth your time

There are many famous franchises out there - but most of them take a little lifetime to get into. There’s so much Star Wars/Trek, Game of Thrones or Marvel stuff out there. But Mad Max is much more manageable, and the high notes are so great, that it’s absolutely worth your time.

You can absolutely just watch Fury Road, without doing anything else before it. If you’re going that route, you can read this little footnote for a tiny bit of background. 👉🏻 ¹

I watched Fury Road blind, and then went back to the three old ones - but it could also be fun to simply watch them in chronological order!

Mini reviews of the first three

Mad Max

This one is made with about AU$0 in budget, and with a bunch of amateurs (who absolutely didn’t get permits to do all of these stunts on Australian public roads!). So it’s a bit slow and weird, and campy as føck, but still worth your time I’d say! Especially as that time is about 90 minutes - the film length God intended. Some cool chases, weird bad-guys, and interesting world building. (And it’s fun to see a 21 year-old Mel Gibson being 21 year old.)

Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior)

For over 20 years, the first film held the world record for the most profitable film ever made. So with the second one, George Miller could afford to do the things he wanted to do in the first. And the result is amazing. It’s hard to overstate the influence this movie has had on everything post-apocalyptic, and the stunts and action sequences are very impressive, and still entertaining. I mean, as it is a 43 year old film, there’s plenty of questionable hair-cuts and costumes. But this is a great watch both as a piece of film history and as simply a great movie.

Mad Max (3) Beyond Thunderdome

This is pretty good, even though I don’t like it quite as much as the last one. For some reason, this has Tina Turner - and she’s pretty good! I also think it “suffers” from that a couple of things it does (like the Thunderdome itself) has become clichés after-the-fact, and that the last one was so ground-breaking. Still, it has a bunch of great actions sequences and characters, and it carries more emotional weight. Not bad!

The ultimate YouTube partner

During my little adventure, I’ve also stumbled upon a top-tier YouTube channel called Mr. Sunday Movies. And their series Caravan of Garbage (two dudes bantering) is the perfect companion, and something I love to watch after I’ve seen the films they cover. With this specific series, it’s also a bonus that they (just like Mad Max) are very Australian.

So, I’d watch one film, watch one Caravan of Garbage video, one film, etc. And if you’re unsure, start with Fury Road (the best). If not, it’s fun to start at the beginning.

There’s also a pretty cool comic, that' meant as a prequel to Fury Road, which can be added in-between Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road. What a lovely day!

Max starts out as a pretty regular cop, with a little family. But in the first film, he loses everything, and becomes more … Mad. Then the general vibe, is that he wanders around, trying to mind his own business, but gets caught up in stuff. And he ends up being a bit of a hero, without really wanting to. And Fury Road is another example of a situation he just gets caught up in. ↩︎

Things I Enjoyed Recently #1

Mon, 20 May 2024 18:31:08 +0100

Here are some of the things I enjoyed this week. (I hope this can be a recurring thing!)

This moving Reddit thread

Married men: What, if anything, are you unable or unwilling to share fully openly and honestly about yourself with your spouse?

Some threads are funny, others sad. In general it’s all wholesome, though, with a bunch of dudes being supportive and open with their emotions. Two things men could do more of. ¹

The new Dua Lipa Album

Just a rock solid pop album. Good stuff!

The first Razorlight album

This is such a solid indie pop album, that I had totally forgotten.

This 2 hour long video game video

“The 100 Games That Taught Me Game Design” by Game Maker’s Toolkit is both enlightening and entertaining!

Mad Max

I think I might want to see Furiosa in the cinema - so I rewatched Mad Max: Fury Road. And I think I’ll go as far as saying it’s my favourite movie. I mean, how can you make a better action movie!? I’m not a movie buff, though - so if you have movie tips you think I’ll like if I love this, please come with them!

I’ve also watched, and liked, the first two in the series. The hype for the second one is very warranted! Its influence on everything post-apocalyptic can’t be overstated - and I was very impressed over what they managed to do with the available budget and technology.

I read this thread after my wife had fallen asleep. And after reading it, I had to wake her up just to say that I loved her. ↩︎

Micro.blog's Amazing New Reply Feature

Mon, 20 May 2024 17:00:53 +0100

Both Micro.blog, and the Fediverse at large, sometimes feel like they’re just a few puzzle pieces away from being really great. And recently, Micro.blog added one of those pieces!

Because, you could already follow my blog, via the username @havn@micro.blog, on things like Mastodon. And if you saw one of my posts on your timeline, you could comment on it directly. However, it was a bit difficult to comment on it from the website here. But look at this beautiful piece as the bottom of my posts now:

And when you click through one of the links, you get sent back to the post and can add your comment.

If you comment with Bluesky, the comment won’t be copied and visible over there, but it will be visible on the conversation under the post on Micro.blog. What I don’t know, is if it will be visible under the same post if found via Mastodon or other ActivityPub services.

Oh, and they also added the ability to curate comments under a post. Well done!

The next piece I think is needed, is better linking to a Micro.blog post on Mastodon. Here’s a blog post of mine, viewed via Mastodon:

Hitting the circled button, and replying to that post (still on Mastodon), is a way to comment on the blog post. The thing is, to actually get to that button you have to follow the user and get it on your timeline, or click into the profile and fine the post. There is absolutely not way to link to the “place” where that button is. The reason is that if I share the “post” from the image above, I get the link directly to the blog post, so like https://havn.blog/blog-post. But if you click on that link, you obviously go straight to the web!

So I would think what’s needed is something like having a separate type of link, like https://micro.blog/havn/blog-post-ap, that would be a link to the post in the image. And making this link a Micro.blog URL would maybe make it easier for Mastodon apps (etc.) to recognise that they can open the link. Not sure this is the best solution, but I do think a solution is needed.

🌱 Why I Use Fastmail

Sat, 18 May 2024 18:14:10 +0100

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A couple of months ago, I “recruited” a friend to use the e-mail service Fastmail. And today, in a group chat, I “bragged” about me getting paid a sweet 50 cent (like it’s my birthday) for this! ¹ 🙌🏻

One of my friends, obviously very impressed by my business acumen, asked “Well, what’s your pitch for Fastmail?” — and this post is my answer to him! And if I’m lucky, I’ll get a whole dollar next month. 🙏🏻

Maybe you, the reader of this, want to try Fastmail as well? If you follow this link 🖇️, and end up becoming a customer, I’ll get 50 cent a month. (The service doesn’t get pricier.) Of course, this can colour my presentation — so keep that in mind!

What I don’t use it for

When asking, he specifically said:

“… as someone who’s switched mail app way too often — why should I switch again?”.

So the first thing I wanted to say, is that I don’t use their apps, really. Primarily I use them for hosting and as a backend — so where my emails are actually received and saved, and where I make addresses connected to my domains etc. They do have a decent web app and portal to it as “native” apps for all platforms — but I prefer things like Apple’s Mail.app or Spark.

Fastmail also has some sort of Calendar offering (that looks alright) that I don’t use either.

Then why do I pay them every month?

I get that “paying for email” is a strange thought for many people. I’ll still try to explain why I do it. These are their prices, by the way:

One person: $5/month
Two persons: $8/month
Up to six persons: 11/month

1) They’re not Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

I don’t fully boycott these companies. But as they have more than enough money and power already, I try to get my services from other companies if I can. There are other reasons why I prefer Fastmail of their offerings as well, but this does hold some weight in my calculations.

2) Fastmail has good privacy

A reason not to use Microsoft (Outlook/Hotmail) or Google (Gmail), is about privacy. And you should usually be skeptical when a crucial service like email is free of charge. Fastmail is better here — but I also like that privacy isn’t their main selling point, like with Proton and Tuta. ² Like, we’re still talking about “email” here — so I think trying to make it as secure as Signal is a waste of dev resources. So instead of taking the privacy from “good” to “great”, I’d rather see this time spent making the service better to use.

3) Independent, and the best protocol support

Most email today is delivered through the IMAP protocol, introduced in 1986(!). So it’s not surprising that someone has had modern email ideas that aren’t supported by this. Gmail was one of the first with things like labels instead of folders, for sorting your email. Gmail does have a translation layer to IMAP (so that you can log into Mail.app with your Gmail account, for instance), but they’d rather run on their own, proprietary Gmail API. Apps like Mimestream use this, to access more advanced features. Microsoft also has something similar (their own API + IMAP support). So with these, you can use other apps, that don’t support the specific APIs, but you’ll lose some of the more advanced features.

I’m not sure if Apple (iCloud) has a specific API — but I prefer not to have my email connected to a platform maker like that.

Before Fastmail, I used Hey Email. And I liked it a lot! They have numerous good ideas, and have made a really clever email client. ³ However, not only is it pricier than Fastmail — all the smart stuff is custom, so you can’t use other clients.

Fastmail is both independent of platforms and clients — as they also support IMAP. But they’ve done what I wish Google had done: When building support for advanced features, like labels, instead of making a proprietary API, they contributed to a new, open standard, called JMAP. Like with all new standards, the problem is adoption — and currently, Fastmail is more or less the only service supporting it. ⁴ But I love it when companies try to lift all boats like this, so it’s something I want to support.

4) Good tools for administration of users, aliases, and rules

Fastmail has a very robust system for making rules, that helps you sort your incoming email. And as this isn’t in the client (but on the backend), it propagates to every client you use — so the system’s pretty portable.

It’s also easy to manage domains and aliases. My name is Erlend, and my wife’s name is Kristine — and our emails are erlend@lastname.no and kristine@lastname.no. It was also easy to set up an alias called post@lastname.no that forwards to both of us. Like most sensible people, my wife doesn’t care about here email server. But I like that it was straightforward to set up her account, that I can help her with it, and that I don’t have access to her emails. And she now has a nice address that has worked flawlessly with her client of choice. ⁵

You only pay for the actual amount of email archives (so two in our case), and you can make unlimited amounts of aliases. These can either be @fastmail.com addresses (or one of the many other domains they have access to), or connected to your own domain. You can also register domains through Fastmail! These aliases can both send and receive emails.

They also have a great system for masked emails. This means that you can easily make emails like keen.idea5636@fastmail.com that will forward emails to you. You can also ask for a prefix so that it could be youtube.flower9465@fastmail.com if you prefer. The nice thing about using these, is that if your email leaks, you can just turn off that one. When you create them, you make a little note saying what it’s for, so if you get spam sent to keen.idea, and you know that was for a specific web store, you know where the leak came from as well.

You can create, and manage, these in their clients (and the last version of the iOS app got Shortcuts support!) — but there are other nice options as well (that can be used in parallel):

An app for iPhone and iPad (with Mac support) called Masked Email Manager.
Tailor-made 1Password integration.
A very convenient Raycast extension.

And again, what’s really nice is that you can easily use all of these together, and just create with the most convenient option at the time. Here you can see how easily I made the address raycast.iozau@fastmail.com:

Hitting "Return" at the last image, will copy the new address to my clipboard. 👌🏻

So, to sum it up, these are the reasons I use Fastmail:

I like that it’s not from one of the tech giants. Email is so important (sadly) that I don’t want it connected to specific platforms or devices, but also not to a very small player (which Fastmail isn’t).
I’d also rather pay for email with money than with personal information. I like that their only incentive is to make it so good that I’ll keep on paying for it.
I have free choice of clients. ⁶
They front a modern email standard that I believe in and wish for to succeed.
Great tools for multiple users, domains and aliases.

So, if you want to give it a go yourself — here’s the link 🖇️ (again) that will provide me with a tiny kick-back. ⁷

I think I’ll get it every month for as long as he’s a customer - so it’s not nothing! But kind of funny when it’s only him… ↩︎
These services look alright, though - so I’d check them out as well! ↩︎
If you use email a lot, I can recommend giving it a god. They also recently released a calendar app that looks good as well. ↩︎
But the Mimestream creator shared, on Mac Power Users, that he would love to build support for it. (Some time after iOS support.) ↩︎
And she just has to know that she must go to fastmail.com to access it on an external device. ↩︎
Too bad I don’t really like any of them… But that’s a separate issue. ↩︎
But as mentioned in the article about the ethics behind my blog, I won’t use links like this unless it’s for a service I pay for anyway. These can mess with incentive structures… ↩︎

Lovely Attention to Detail

Fri, 17 May 2024 17:48:08 +0100

I love unnecessary details. I know that, for many people, this has about zero value. But even if it doesn’t serve a function (and there is an argument for the example in the video below having a function), small things like this simply brings joy. For instance, my mom’s car is nicer than mine - and one of the small things, is that the thump you get when you close the door, is so much nicer! And software can give this feeling as well.

Video from Quinn Nelson's (Snazzy Labs) Threads account.

Two quick tips for apps (that I’ll write more about later) that has excellent feel: Bike and Paper

I mean, just look at the way the text moves in Bike! 😍

🌱 Lead Paint Is Amazing

Fri, 17 May 2024 11:34:07 +0100

On “Usefulness” and “Harmfulness”

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Why are people so down on putting lead in paint? I mean, as Wikipedia puts it:

Lead is added to paint to accelerate drying, increase durability, maintain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion. (…)

(…) very popular with artists because of its density and opacity; a small amount could cover a large surface.

And about the alternatives:

Titanium white has far greater opacity and tinting strength than lead white, and it can easily overpower most other pigments if not mixed carefully. Titanium white has been criticised for leading to “chalkiness” in mixtures.

Zinc white dries slowly and creates a relatively inflexible paint film. Critics of the pigment argue that its use leads to excessive cracking and delimitation, even when used sparingly.

Why the hate for the great technology that is lead paint!?

Well, the answer is pretty simple: “Usefulness” and “harmfulness” are completely independent spectres.

I see this conflated a lot in discussions surrounding AI: People who are wary of the harm transformer models can cause, often also call them “useless hallucination machines”. And others, will respond to the claims of harm by pointing to the usefulness.

It’s obvious that the people and companies who’s developed these tools, have spent very little time thinking of the harmful consequences — and have only focused on making them useful. ¹

Perhaps not quite as obvious, is the way some critics hurt the discussion.

I think generative AI can be very useful — even in its current state. For instance, I can’t draw, but frequently think in images — so using image generators would be great for my blog. ²

I would rather not use the tools for writing (or translating) directly — but I do have some commands set up in Raycast to quickly check the spelling of a word, or some general grammar. And as a programming novice, I’ve gotten a lot of help from Raycast’s integrated chat — even though it sometimes does stuff like this:

Me: Do I have to do this to get the negative value?
calc(-1 * var(--my-variable))

Opus: Yes, if you need to use a negative value of a CSS variable, you can use the calc() function to perform the calculation. The syntax you provided is correct and can be used to calculate a negative value based on a CSS variable. (…)

Summary:
Using calc(-var(--my-variable)) allows you to dynamically compute negative values from CSS variables, offering flexibility in responsive or dynamic design scenarios.

Me: Wait, so I don’t need the -1 part? Do I need the calc at all? Can I just do -var(--my-variable to get the negative value of the variable?

Opus: You can indeed simply put a minus sign in front of the CSS variable to negate its value directly. You do not need to use calc() or multiply by -1 for this purpose. Here’s how you can do it: …

Well, that last part is straight up wrong. 😅 And so was the example of calc(-var(--my-variable)). But I’ve also managed to do and learn a lot more than what I would’ve been able to do without this tool. ³

Now, let’s imagine someone named Franz, who finds these tools demonstrably useful — but isn’t mindful of the harmful sides. Then he hears someone say: “Transformer models are problematic in these (*insert thoughtful criticism here*) important ways — and also, they’re completely useless.”

Franz knows the last part isn’t true — so why give any credibility to the first part?

I’m issuing two challenges:

Thanks to regulation (🫶🏻) we’ve mostly managed to ban lead paint. And I’m not bringing it up because I’m arguing that we have to do the same to generative AI. ⁴ I’m bringing it up because I have one challenge for the critics, and one for the advocates:

For the advocates: Not all advancements are worth it. ⁵ And technology isn’t inevitable: Something can both be very useful and so harmful that we shouldn’t do it. So don’t shrug off ethical questions by pointing to general notions of “progress” and potential use-cases. Instead, maybe work on reducing the harm enough so that it is worth it? And then I’m talking about “society at large”, not just your investors. ⁶
For the critics: If someone, arguing for the regulation of lead paint, also refused to acknowledge its usefulness, it would hurt the cause. So while it is very valuable to point towards areas where it’s a terrible idea to use AI tools, don’t let the advocates conflate the “harmfulness” and “usefulness” debates.

If nothing else, useful for their own bottom line. ↩︎
But I’ve landed on those being too harmful for me to want to use them. I’ve written more on that here. ↩︎
The good thing about simple programming, I that it’s low-stakes and easy to verify. This example shows why there’s lots of stuff it’s a very bad idea to use these tools for - especially if you don’t have the expertise to smell when something’s off. And that part of the criticism of their usefulness is very valid. ↩︎
I’m honestly pretty unsure about this. What I’m not unsure of, is that we need new laws to deal with it. More on this here. ↩︎
Ask any chess player. ↩︎
If you’re then forced to say “Well, I think it’s worth it to eat all artists, so that my company can earn more money”, that at least provides some honesty. ↩︎

A Simple Embroidery Design

Wed, 15 May 2024 10:55:06 +0100

There’s a first time for everything

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My wife has received an embroidery book from her grandma, and wanted to give a little gift to her from it. She liked this heart in it - but wanted to make it large enough to be able to write “Mormor” inside of it. ¹

She has a lot on her plate, so I wanted to help. So here’s my scaled up adaptation.

I'm working on adding lazy loading to the images on this site - so I thought a little thing like this would be a nice way to test it. Please let me know if you find some image bugs!

The app and process

I used Affinity Designer 2 for this - and I have to say: It worked pretty well! I did it with “true pixel art”, so that one stitch is actually one pixel - but I don’t think that was necessary.

I started by directly copying the heart, but make each “pixel” nine pixels (3x3). Then I added a bit more detail:

Now I could move the flowers in smaller increments, so I tried to adjust the shape of the heart, to make it more pleasing:

Then I added the letters:

Lastly I added a grid and some numbers, to make it easier to work with:

I’ll see if I can post a picture when it’s done!

Literally “mother mother” - which is a Norwegian word for grandmother on that side of the family. ↩︎

Yes, the iPad Pros Needed to Be Thinner

Tue, 14 May 2024 10:48:22 +0100

I won’t be buying the new iPads, as I’ll keep rocking my 11-inch 2018 (with Magic Keyboard). But one thing has been bugging me about the early coverage of the new models, that I wanted to address. ¹

Because, when I watched the Keynote and saw that the new iPad Pro models were thinner and lighter, I immediately went “Nice!”. But I kept seeing (and hearing) comments like this, here exemplified by David Pierce (whom I really like!) on The Verge: ²

Basically, the point is, “Who asked for this? Why not make it thicker and increase the battery life?” Nilay (Patel) agrees with this — but then, six(!) minutes later, answers the question: ³

So yeah, not a long time between them not understanding why they made it thinner and lighter, and complaining about it being too thick and heavy…

Reason #1: The Magic Keyboard

As you can see, the iPad becomes pretty thick! Furthermore, I personally really like that it’s cantilever instead of using a kickstand (as it uses way less depth) — but then you have to worry about it falling over. This has caused two things in the old Magic Keyboard (MK):

To counterbalance, the keyboard itself has to be heavier.
It still can’t tilt as much, and this contributes to the lack of a function row.

So, as the new iPads are thinner and lighter, they’ve spent some of the gains on making the keyboard lighter as well, and some on adjusting the angle to make room for a function row. Very valuable stuff, in my opinion!

iPad (with Magic Keyboard) vs. MacBook Air

Product	Weight
12.9-inch M2 iPad Pro + MK	1 392 grams
13-inch M4 iPad Pro + MK	1 246 grams
M3 13-inch MacBook Air	1 240 grams

Comparisons, from this article.

Reason #2: Holding it

A friend and I have exchanged iPads temporarily — so currently he has my iPad Pro 11-inch, and I have his iPad Mini. ⁴ The latter is obviously way worse as a semi-laptop — but it’s very nice to hold! Either for reading, watching movies or playing games. But the larger and heavier the iPad is, the more clunky this (traditional tablet usage) is. I’m not saying my 11-inch is terrible at this — but I absolutely think improving it at it is worthwhile. And this is even more true on the 13-inch. Previously, I had a 12.9-inch (with a home button), and I rarely used it in my hands, as it was so clunky.

More batteries come at a cost

If Apple instead shoved more battery life into the iPads, we have to remember that we would have to carry that extra weight, and deal with the extra thickness, every time we use (or just transport) the product! And we would only benefit from the extra battery life those times we’re away from power for more than 10 hours. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to not have to plug it in quite that often, or get away with a smaller power bank on a trip. But I am saying the two reasons above far outweigh (pun intended) this benefit.

So I’m pleased Apple chose to make it thinner and lighter — because it was absolutely needed. And I think I’ll love it, when I buy the 2024 11-inch model second hand in three years!

I wanted to write this post earlier, before the reviews are out - but I still think it’s relevant! ↩︎
Transcript:

David: “But them I’m like, OK if this was was a little thicker, so it didn’t have a camera bump (which is a thing a lot of people pointed out was…). This thing could’ve been the thickness of the camera bump, and would’ve been about the same thickness of the last iPad - which no one was complaining about the thickness of, by the way.”

Nilay: “Yeah.” ↩︎
Transcript:

Nilay: “What I’m really curious about is the keyboard. Because my favourite plane computer of all time, was the 12-inch MacBook, which was super light and thin. I tried to replace it with the previous 11-inch iPad Pro - which turned out to be, like, thick. Like, it was just like a heavy, weird thing… It, like, just wasn’t as good as a laptop in many ways, because of just the way it worked.”

David: “Yeah.”

Nilay: “Is the new keyboard case sort of better at… They announced it as being more like a MacBook than ever, which I thought was really interesting.” ↩︎
Why no love for this, Tim!? ↩︎

Game Changing CSS Trick (for Noobs Like Me)

Thu, 09 May 2024 16:20:05 +0100

OK, I just learned a brilliant CSS technique I wish I knew about much sooner! This is probably old news for most of you wizards out there - but maybe this little post can be useful for some fellow newbies?

This is one of my "Noob teaching noobs" posts. Some experts are excellent teachers - but not all. Hopefully, these posts can be helpful due to their layman nature, but please contact me if I'm misinforming!

Here are some examples of selectors I could see myself using:

h1 {} -> Styling Header 1 (h1) elements.

h1:hover {} -> Style when hovering h1.

h1::after {} -> A pseudo-element (like a line) related to h1.

h1:hover::after {} -> The pseudo-element when I hover over h1.

h1 a {} -> A link (a) within an h1 element.

h1 a:hover {} -> When I hover over one of those links.

.page-content h1:hover {} -> When I hover an h1 that’s within .page-content.

Put into context, I could do:

h1 { color: var(–header-color); }

h1 a {
	color: (--link-color);
}

Having them separate like this isn’t a big deal - but it gets more messy if I want to style all the header levels:

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
	color:black;
}

h1 a,
h2 a,
h3 a,
h4 a,
h5 a,
h6 a {
	color:blue;
}

Now, imagine doing this again for all the variants I showed in the beginning!

I just learned you could instead do this instead:

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
	color:black;
	a {
		color: blue;
		}
}

Nice! Saves some space. But the really useful thing I learned, was that you can use & as a substitute for every element mentioned up top. So we could, for instance, adjust the :hover styling for both the headers themselves and when hovering links within any of the headers:

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
	color: var(--header-color);
	a {
		color: var(--link-color);
		&:hover {
			color: var(--link-hover-color)
			}
		}
	&:hover {
		color: var(--header-hover-color)
		}
}

Notice that the first & is substituting a, and the second is substituting all the headers.

Lastly, I could also do the following, to select “the ::after element for all headers - but only when the heading is inside a .page-content”:

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
	color: var(--heading-color);
	.page-content &::after {
		color: var(--heading-after-color);
		}
}

To be honest, I knew about the nesting previously - but I just didn’t bother, as I didn’t see that much use in it for me. But combined with the &, it’s a game changer for me!

I’ll leave you with a little assignment:

Try to parse this real example from my website’s CSS. 👇🏻 It’s not a sensible way to use this feature - as it doesn’t save any space or make it easier in any way! But it’s what it looks like when someone who just learned something new tries to learn. 😁

a.read-more {
    animation: unset;

    &::after {
      content: none;
    }

    p:has(&) {
      margin-top: var(--padding-block);
    }

    @media (hover: hover) {
      &:hover {
        filter: var(--drop-shadow-icon-hover);
      }
    }
  }

So, there's four different rules. What do they select (and when)?

Make a Click Wheel Mode for the Apple TV Already!

Sat, 04 May 2024 15:00:00 +0100

In this week’s episode of the excellent Hemispheric Views podcast, the hosts discussed features they’d (more or less seriously) like to see make a return in their technology. One of the picks was the Click Wheel, which Apple, in the infamous Apple Watch reveal, mentioned in the same sentence as other great input methods, such as the mouse, multitouch screens and the 💫Digital Crown™️💫.

Still, it’s mostly forgotten since then — but actually almost got some love when they updated the Apple TV remote.

Image by The Verge.

Now, I’m actually one of the dozen of people who didn’t mind the previous Apple TV remote (the one on the left in the image above). Still, I agree that the new one is an improvement. But what’s really bothering me about the new one, is that they’re so close to making it great.

Because, whilst you, with the old one, had to use touch controls (swiping etc.), with the new one, you can choose. You get this option screen:

So, this is about the circle part of the remote, and how you use it to navigate and scrub. Clicking is always on, and to use it, you just press up, down, left or right on the circle. The middle is confirm.

The touch controls, is that you also can swipe, like you could on the old remote. The circle is also a trackpad of sorts. Now, they actually use this is a really clever way — because look at this screenshot:

An aside: The TV show in the image is Physical on Apple TV. I _think_ it's good - but as someone who has lived with someone suffering from an eating disorder, it was way too rough. It captures those thoughts tremendously well! So I've only seen the one episode...

It’s the Click Wheel!

When in this mode, you can jog around the circle to scrub in the video, and it’s wonderful. However, as this feature is tied to the circle also being a trackpad, it’s really clunky to access:

First you must pause the video.
Then you must rest your thumb on the circle for a bit.
Then the icon appears and you’re allowed to jog.

The love I’d give it:

Not that Apple needs anything for free, but here’s an idea: Please make a click wheel mode!

Remove every other touch feature so that it instantly starts to work when the user starts to jog.
However, it doesn’t have to start until you’ve went half a rotation or something, to avoid accidental activations. ¹
Make it also work other places — like for scrolling lists, going through Home Screen apps and typing letters.

Please, and thank you.

Especially if the video is playing. ↩︎

What if the Floorp Icon Actually Looked Like Piano Keys?

Fri, 03 May 2024 14:18:46 +0100

Floorp is an interesting Firefox fork, with a questionable name and logo.

Yesterday, someone on Reddit, posted “Floorp’s logo looks like piano keys”. And here’s the thing: I’ve been thinking the same, but at the same time there was something wrong. I’m not a pianist, but I’ve played with them enough to notice the problem. Let’s rotate the Mac icon, and compare with an actual piano:

Image from takelessons.com.

The “double-sized” black key to the right was the culprit! ¹ However, notice that there sometimes is two white keys next to each other. (This will be important later.)

But this made me think: What if the logo looked like a piano?

My best attempt

In addition to pianist, “designer” is also a thing I’m not. But I think icon design is very fun, so I tried my best to make a variant!

This was my design spec:

Keep the main ingredients of the logo: A white, rotated bestagon on a blue and purple gradient - with an “F” of sorts.
Have the dark, protruding rectangles actually look like piano keys.

I’m not saying these are good ideas!

Mac icons (at least) are square - so why use a rotated hexagon, which are wider than they are tall? And why on earth base a browser logo on a piano at all??

I didn’t have time for any of these questions - as I was busy figuring out:

What’s the ratio of the white and black piano keys?

And how are they placed?

It turns out, there’s no definite ratio. But I gave my black keys 60% of the width of the white ones, and that was within the norm. What was more interesting, is that the black keys don’t sit directly in the middle of the white keys. They’re shifted a bit towards where there’s two white keys in a row.

So, first I made this, as a template for the keys:

Had the app been called something starting with E, I could’ve made the letter with the white keys. But as it’s called Floorp (for some reason), I had to change flip it, compared to the original logo, and use the black keys instead.

Then I remade the parts of the logo on top of the piano template:

So, the top and bottom border is the same thickness as the two lines - and all of these, and the negative space, is aligned like an actual piano. I like that the F key is one of the middle keys!

So then I ended up with this logo and icon pairing:

Now, I’m absolutely not sure if it’s better! I especially don’t love that the side margins, on the Mac icon, are smaller than the top and bottom ones (and squeezing the hexagon looks terrible), and the the F itself is sort of off-screen. But at least I had fun!

What do you think? Anything I should do to improve it? Or how would you solve the stupid problem I gave myself?

Now, Floorp themselves has never claimed that it looks like a piano! ↩︎

🌱 Why Smart Bulbs > Smart Switches

Thu, 02 May 2024 12:21:33 +0100

I really like my smart light setup — and later I will write a guide on how I set it up. (I promise!) But in this post, I want to explain why I think smart light sources are a better option than smart switches (with regular light sources).

(Click here to go to the TL;DR!)

Some notes on costs

Smart lights ain’t cheap. And while I will argue that I don’t think going for smart switches is that much cheaper than smart light sources — my main focus is on what gives the best smart light experience. And then it’s up to each person to evaluate what feels “worth it”, or even possible, to them and their budgets.

I also think the experience is way better if you get the consistency of having (more or less) every light in your home be smart — so keep that in mind as well. I’m not arguing against those who say “Yeah, I only wanted these four lights to be smart, and then it was cheaper to go for a couple of smart switches”. What I am arguing against is those who say going for smart switches is better than smart light sources — and hopefully giving some valuable insights to those who haven’t decided yet.

Why smart lights at all, though?

Image from Philips.

To me, there are three main reasons (in no particular order):

In my apartment, I have some light switches that are in idiotically placed. I also have several lights I wish had more than one switch. So the fact that I can easily place switches wherever I want, by just sticking a little button to the wall (or whatever), is very nice. And so is the fact that it’s trivial to have one switch control several lights, or have several switches controlling one light.
I want nothing to only be controllable by my phone. But I do think it’s nice that I can use it to control my lights — even when I’m not home. I also like that I can create automations, like turning off the lights when I leave.
I really, really like to vary the colour temperature of my lights throughout the day. However, I don’t need colours like in the image above.

The two approaches to smart lights

When you hit a regular light switch, it cuts power to the bulb (or reduces it if it’s a dimmer). And one way to get smart lights, is to replace your regular switches with smart switches, like Caseta by Lutron. These also cut power to the bulbs, but the cutting can be controlled “smartly” — so you can add automation, one switch controlling several lights, etc.

As these switches only work on things that powered through the wall, you probably need some smart plugs as well, like this from Aqara:

The plug is the circle around the lamp's adapter into the wall there.

The other option, is to make the light source itself smart — smart bulbs and the like. You never cut the power to these — but they can, based on wireless signals, turn on/off, dim, change colour, etc. So light switches for these, can just be simple buttons like the ones in the photo up top. I’ll call these smart buttons from now on, to distinguish from smart switches. ¹

So to be clear: When I say “smart switches”, I’m thinking of a setup primarily with regular light sources, but made smart by switches and plugs. And when I say “smart light sources”, I’m talking about a setup where, primarily, the bulbs etc. are smart, and are controlled by smart buttons.

Listening to tech podcasts, it seems like smart switches, is the most popular solution — but I firmly believe it’s not the best solution. However, there are still some good reasons to consider it:

You can use regular, cheaper light bulbs.
The switches are wired into the grid, and the plugs plugged into the wall, so nothing can run out of batteries.
It’s even more fool-proof, as hitting the switch itself doesn’t involve any wireless technology etc.

So it’s absolutely a viable option! You also don’t have to deal with ²

… the dreaded old light switches.

A classic problem if you’re running smart light sources, and not changing the regular switches, is the following: Now you have a bunch of bulbs that you don’t want to cut the power to, while also having your walls littered with switches that do just that!

I think this is the least optimal part of my preferred setup — but it’s far from a deal-breaker in my opinion.

If you want to make it a bit nice,

… you can just replace the seesaw on the switches with covers. Here’s an example from a Norwegian forum:

"Vindu" and "Hjørne" means "Window" and "Corner", and aren't relevant. But "Alltid på!" means "Always on!", hehe.

This is very cheap, and you can just add back the seesaw if you want to dumb it down later! I assume there are similar options for the switches where you live.

You can also place a smart button on top of the cover, if you want to, like here. (The bottom part shows what some Norwegian switches look like in-between seesaw and cover.)

Or, if you’re lazy like me,

… you just add some tape or something. 🤷🏻‍♂️ If I was moving into a new home, I would go the nice route — but here’s an image from my current bedroom:

It's not as pretty, of course - but it works! The square buttons are for the smart blinds, by the way.

So, I’m not saying it’s not an issue. But I don’t think it’s a big issue, and that the positives far outweigh the negatives.

A crucial point regarding any smart home setup:

Be very mindful of those who have to use your smart stuff, that don’t know the ins and outs — be it an overbearing partner, or a visiting family member. I’m not perfect here — but I try my best to design it like this:

Every “feature” you expect from a regular, dumb setup, should be at least as intuitive to find,
and then hide the extra features.

In the image above, the dial controls the Sonos system, and clicking the buttons toggles the corresponding lights on and off. ³ I refuse to accept that this is problematically less intuitive than two blank switches you had to guess the purpose of.

If you go for smart light sources, as opposed to smart switches, you have to think a bit more about how to make it intuitive. But it’s far from impossible — so this shouldn’t be a heavy argument for not going for what I, for the following reasons, think is the best solution.

Why I vastly prefer smart light sources:

I will go way more into my specific setup in a guide later — but a side note: I recommend building the system around a hub that can connect different brands. I used Homey previously, which wasn’t bad, and now I use HomeKit. I could’ve used even more brands, but I now seamlessly mix stuff from Flic, IKEA, Sonos, Aqara and Philips. ⁴

Firstly, smart switches completely eliminate my reason #3 for wanting smart lights in the first place — as you straight up can’t change colour temperature without smart bulbs. So even in the application where smart switches are at their best, they provide a sub-par experience compared to smart light sources. I know this might not be important to everyone, but to me, it’s a big deal. Oh, and smart bulbs can also be bought in RGB if you’re so inclined! (Which you probably shouldn’t be, to be fair.) ⁵

Secondly, replacing the regular switches with smart ones, is a relatively complicated job that, at least in Norway, you are required to hire an electrician to do. This eats up most (if not all) of the savings you get from being able to use regular bulbs. ⁶

Here's an image, from Reddit, of someone installing Lutron Caseta. It's probably not too hard - but we can't discount the cost (in stress, or money to an electrician) when evaluating these options.

Simpler setup and more use cases

The process for finding a solution for a smart light source, is pretty simple:

Pick the light source/bulb you need. (There’s way more stuff available now than previously: decorative bulbs, spots, chains, etc. I’ve never not found what I required. There are also lamps, from Philips, for instance, that are smart in and off itself.)
Pick your preferred button for the specific application, and just stick it wherever.

And then you’re done! And if you later want to change, swap or add something, it’s relatively easy. However, if you don’t want the light source itself to be smart, you have to figure out a way to toggle it remotely.

OK, the smart switches work fine for the ceiling lamp, as it gets power through the walls — but what about the reading light near the couch?
You can go for a smart plug — but the cost of a regular bulb + a smart plug isn’t cheaper than just a smart bulb. And you lose dimming, in addition to the colour temperature you’ve already lost.
And what if you want a switch that’s not the place the people who built the house wanted one? Or not on a wall at all?

No, it’s fine — you just add some smart buttons to control the smart switches! And maybe that one lamp can have a smart bulb… And suddenly, you’re running both systems! ⁷

Running several systems isn’t just about needing more hubs and apps and stuff — it’s also about differing logic. Like, what we want is to control the lights. And to me, at least, doing this through controlling the switch is less intuitive than controlling the light directly.

Neither system works in every situation, and could benefit from using the other to fill in the blanks. But I’d absolutely go for the system with the fewest blanks as the default.

Smart plugs can absolutely be useful in a system based on smart light sources as well! I use them for this globe, in addition to some Christmas lights. But I hope we can all agree that smart bulb + smart button is strictly better than regular bulb + smart plug + smart button. ⁸

More flexibility

Having smart buttons, rather than light switches tethered to the wall, feels like going from wired headphones to wireless earbuds. It’s hard to explain — but harder to go back.

Here are some of the button options from the brands I’m using:

The Philips buttons. You can use the backplate to cover the regular switches if you want, but you don't need them. As they're battery powered, they can be detached!

I mostly have these, the Flic 2.

Flic recently released the Twist, that has a light to show "the amount". You can single and double click the middle portion, and both twist and twist+click.

Somrig from IKEA is a bit larger than the others. But you can program single click, double click and hold for both the top and the bottom, and it takes regular AAA batteries (that can be bought rechargeable!). The last image is of Rodret, which instead turns on at the top, off at the bottom, and dims by holding.

Aqara has options for the simple buttons above - but they also have this cool thing! You can program it to what you want while turning it do the different sides. Oh, the possibilities!

It’s not that there aren’t options for wall-mounted switches — but you kind of have to decide once and for all. And none of them are detachable, or possible to just stick wherever you want. ⁹

Furthermore, both Philips, IKEA and Aqara offer smart plugs — so integrating these in a system based on these systems is trivial. ¹⁰

Some utilisations of this flexibility

In my home office, I have a button for the ceiling lights near the door. But one day I thought: “Hmm, it would’ve been nice to also have a button I can reach from my desk!” I had one lying around, and literally five minutes later I had stuck it on the wall next to me, ready to go.

Another day, I was sitting on the couch, and thought: “Hmm, it would be neat if double-clicking the button for the living room lights toggled the kitchen lights” (which are visible from the couch). And again, five minutes later, it was up and running.

This is my bedside light — and my wife has the same on the other side. It’s a smart bulb toggled by clicking the little black button. (Double-clicking the button toggles the light on the other side, and holding it turns off all lights in the bedroom.) However, the light is also part of my favourite automation:

Hitting the button with the sleeping emoji, turns off all the lights in the apartment (and lowers the blinds if they aren’t lowered already), and then lights my bedside lamp on 1% brightness. Double-clicking the button does the same, but lights the lamp on my wife’s side instead. ¹¹

I hope it’s possible to see how several parts of this would be impossible without smart light sources — and that it has value.

To sum it up…

I’m not saying there aren’t cases where smart switches are the right choice. But personally (!) I think the true value of smart lights reveals itself when all your lights are smart — and in this situation I think smart light sources are superior.

Some negatives of smart light sources:

Might be more expensive.
You should do something about the regular light switches, and be more mindful about making the system intuitive.
The buttons are battery powered — and these needs to be changed. (Might be a reason to go for something rechargeable, like AAA. Having spares lying in a charger, would eliminate much of this annoyance.)

And some positives:

The flip side of the buttons being battery powered, is that they’re much more flexible — both for detaching, and general placement.
You can get bulbs that change colour (temperature), and it’s easier to make freestanding lights dimmable.
You don’t have to do (or pay someone else to do) any wiring in the walls. This also makes the whole thing more reversible.
If you’re going for (more or less) “full smart coverage”, and don’t want to litter your home with smart plugs + buttons, you probably can’t avoid some smart light sources anyway. And then it’s just nicer to have everything on the same system, using the same logic.

What have I missed? There should probably be something, as I feel like I’m in the minority! Would love to hear your feedback, or questions/ideas for my guide for setting up a system based on smart light sources.

You could run this without the buttons, and just control the lights from your phone, with your voice etc. But why would anyone do something like that to themselves and those around them? ↩︎
You do with the smart plugs, though! ↩︎
And double clicking toggles a different light - but they don’t need to know that! ↩︎
I don’t mind the “lock-in” by using HomeKit, as every piece of kit can be moves elsewhere if needed. ↩︎
One use I’ve heard, is having a little light near your desk lighting up with the colour of the current Focus Mode! You can also sync it with your Philips Ambilight TV. ↩︎
Also, bulbs lasts for a really long time these days, so you don’t have to buy the “more expensive bulbs” that often. ↩︎
Again, you might be perfectly content with just having a couple of your ceiling lamps smart, and skipping the rest - and that’s fine! ↩︎
About the same price, but more parts and less features. ↩︎
I will go more into the different types, and when to use them, in the guide! ↩︎
Aqara also offers smart switches for the wall! Might be something to look into for that one light. ↩︎
You know, for the two times a year she goes to bed after me. ↩︎

🌱 Some Quick Mastodon Client Reviews

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 17:39:57 +0100

One of my favourite things about Mastodon, is that, as opposed to most other social networks, the service is completely open for other developers to make their own clients. And this has lead to a remarkable ecosystem of third-party options.

Now the official ones, are pretty mediocre (especially the web app, IMO) — but I like this prioritisation. They could’ve sacrificed precious dev time to make their own clients great — but this would have to come at the expense of improving the core service. And the only thing we would gain, is “another great way to use Mastodon”.

“How good are the default apps?” is a far less important question than “How good are the best apps for Mastodon?”. Also, what’s a good app isn’t the same for everyone — so why on earth should there only be one client (like Instagram, Facebook and, now, X)?

If you’re new (or old) to Mastodon — don’t be afraid to test different clients! They can be used in complete parallel — so you could just download a bunch on your phone, and log into each of them with your username. And then you could just “main” one of them for a couple of days (turning on notifications on that one, for instance), and then move to another one.

But let’s get to the main point: Some quick reviews of some of my favourite clients!

Sadly, I don’t have any Android devices, so I can’t review any of the clients there. But here are some I’ve heard good stuff about:

Fedilab
Tusky
Trunks (also web, I think)
Moshidon

Web clients

The two web clients I recommend, are Elk.zone and Phanpy.social. Both of them work excellently in a desktop browser, but also as a web app on a phone home screen!

Elk.zone looks the most like Twitter used to — so will be familiar to some. Generally, a clean interface and snappy performance. Phanpy.social is a bit more opinionated, and also more innovating — constantly trying new, useful features. I just love that there are two great options, that complement each other like this.

Native apps

Two great free options, are Ice Cubes and Mammoth. The former is built on a framework (SwiftUI) that makes the scrolling a bit off (not the devs fault) — if you’re sensitive to that stuff. But it’s open source, beautiful, and with numerous clever features (like a thread mode for posting and AI-generated alt text drafts). Mammoth is also a nice app, but has focused on something none of the others has made their main focus: On-boarding. They give you lots of advice on people to follow, depending on your interests, and provide a bunch of custom feeds as well as a “For You” feed (without the creepy tracking). So this could be a great place to start — and here’s the beauty of open services like this: If you later move to a different client, all the people you follow are of course with you! ¹

The two best apps, in my opinion, are paid — and also complement each other. Ivory is the nicest of them: The icons, haptics, and scrolling feel (yes, that’s a thing) are superb. And the Mac app is also good — with timeline sync with the other platforms! However, it lacks some of the features found in the one I prefer.

Ice Cubes, Mammoth, Ivory, Mona.

But my favourite, is Mona

It looks and works great out-of-the-box — but in addition to this, you can customise every part of the app. Not only with (shareable) custom themes, but also the look of the timeline, which buttons to be displayed under posts and where, the toolbar at the bottom, swiping actions, whether the top and/or bottom bar disappears on scrolling and much more. But let me stress this: That doesn’t mean it’s difficult to use, or that you have to do this stuff. (I just love that it’s possible.) ²

The latest version also got a great auto-threading feature, that makes it so you can just write how long you want, and it will make it into a nice thread. And it doesn’t just cut it at the end — it will balance out the posts, and place the splits on paragraphs! Another smart feature, is that when you hit a link, Mona will still show the timeline while the page is loading, and not send you to the in-app browser before the page has finished loading.

It’s also supposed to have great automation and accessibility features, but I haven’t tested these. Lastly, two things I do appreciate, though:

It (in addition to Ice Cubes) doesn’t have the weird lopsided margins, that steal a lot of space on small phones. ³
It allows you to scroll the correct way. ⁴

Let me explain that last one:

On timelines, going to the newest posts and scrolling down, never made sense to me — as I would then scroll “backwards in time”. If someone is live-tweeting something, you get it in reverse order, and every so often you’d even see replies (or “thread replies”) to a post before the original post itself.

Mona fixes part of this issue, with the following option:

So, with this on, when scrolling "backwards in time", you'd _still_ see the beginning of the threads first. Clever!

However, I still prefer to scroll from older posts towards newer! Most apps don’t load the newest posts immediately — so if you scroll to the top at once when opening the app, it will lazy load like 100 more posts. ⁵My perfect scenario, is being just a bit behind the present, and scroll towards it.

However, here’s the issue with that, in most apps:

Because, you will then scroll up the timeline. This makes it so you see the bottom of posts first. And last time I checked, that’s not where most languages begin! So look at this beautiful option in Mona:

Ah, yes — so in Mona you can not only scroll with full width content, but also get newer content as I scroll down (as God intended). 👨🏻‍🍳👌🏻

My tips for new users:

Don’t bother with the default clients.
For the web, use the one who resonates most with you, out of Elk and Phanpy. This can be your desktop default (as well as mobile, if you prefer), or you check out the desktop apps of the native options below. 👇🏻
For iOS, I’d start with Mammoth for the on-boarding, while also giving Ice Cubes a chance. Then, if you’re a snob (like me), go for Mona or Ivory.

You can create a Mastodon account right within Mammoth - but you get the same great on-boarding if you already have an account! ↩︎
The Mac app has all the great features of the iOS counter-parts - and support timeline sync as well. But it doesn’t feel quite as nice as Ivory’s Mac app. ↩︎
Much more on that here. ↩︎
An objective truth, of course - not just my weird preference! ↩︎
To get this effect, I’ll sometimes open the app, go to the present, and then wait - like with fine wine or french press coffee. And then, when some more has been posted, I’ll start scrolling. ↩︎

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:18:22 +0100

Working on the blog rewrite today! So if anyone happens to visit, you can pretend I’m doing the «Naked CSS Naked Day" thing a bit late. ☺️

Anyone Else Feel Like They Should Use Firefox

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:58:53 +0100

… but Still Struggle With It?

This post was originally (and still is) a forum post on the MPU forums. I have two concrete question blocks I’d love feedback on, which I will present during the post. I would love to hear from you, either over at MPU, as a comment to this post on Micro.blog, via Mastodon, or email. 🙂

I’d like to talk about browsers! And people are of course welcome to comment whatever they want — but some notes on what my intentions for this discussion are:

For reasons, I’ll touch on later, this is mostly about desktop browsers.
In terms of privacy and security, I’m approaching this from a reality where 65% of people use Chrome. So in this context, vastly improving the privacy from that, is more interesting than saying someone is a gullible idiot if they don’t use a Tor browser. 😛 So while I’m not saying those things shouldn’t be part of the discussion at all, I’d like to talk more about user experience and features than hardening if you catch my drift. ¹

OK, let’s go!

Ethics are always difficult to discuss. Because while I think everyone should be mindful of the small things we should do to improve things, people have different priorities and possibilities. And where should we draw the line while consumers in a problematic system? Like, I should probably use a Fairphone over an iPhone even though it’s worse, right? How much worse should I accept? How hard should I pull away from things like Facebook or X?

Still, I’m at least trying to try — and as the browser is perhaps the most used app, the choice of it is among the things I’m thinking about.

And here’s why I feel like I should use Firefox:

I don’t love the amount of power Google has over the web, among other things, through Chromium.
And while Safari is better, simply because WebKit is less popular, in principle I don’t love that situation either. An example is how other WebKit browsers, like SigmaOS and Orion, have to hack support for Chrome extensions to be able to offer extensions at all…

So while I could mention plenty of grievances with Mozilla Corp. as well, I still absolutely feel like using Firefox/a Gecko browser is among the most ethical alternatives. And even though we might only put it above Chrome, Safari and Edge, it would still be in the top 10%.

Question(s) 1:

How much weight does ethics carry when you choose apps, platforms, services, etc.? If no, why not? And do you agree or disagree that there are ethical reasons to use Firefox over Chrome? What about Safari? Or something like Vivaldi?

Some notes on mobile

As, I assume, many on this forum, my mobile devices are iOS/iPadOS. And while I actually think Safari is pretty good on these devices, I think Apple’s stance on browsers here is one of the most blatant anti-competitive ones. I don’t mind the fact that others have to use WebKit, really. But combined with the fact that no one else is allowed to offer extensions, it gets problematic. Now, the EU is forcing them to open up some of this — but like many others, I don’t love the idea of Chromium getting even more dominance… So I kind of wish the EU had said something like “You have to open up — but it’s only mandatory to do it to browser engines with less than 50% market share”, or something. 😛

This stranglehold also contributes to the fact that I find the mobile browser space much less interesting to discuss… ²

Two things that aren’t a problem for me, but might be for others:

The first is that I don’t have a work situation where I have to use a specific browser (engine). For instance, I know that many are dependent on work tools that only work well in Chromium browsers. But this is a good argument for why those of us who can use something else should. That more and more of the web only works in Chromium is a very serious problem.
I’ve always told myself that “Of course I need to use the same browser on desktop and mobile, as I want sync!”. However, as I only take advantage of this like once a year, I’ve finally realised that this just isn’t an issue for me. 😛 I think it’s a good idea to keep bookmarks in a separate app (I use Anybox), and shortcuts, like in the bookmark bar or what it’s called, I feel needs to be adapted to every platform anyway. And while I like that my history is accessible on mobile, I don’t see a need for it to be in my default mobile browser. As I do it so rarely, I don’t mind opening a separate app to search for it.

But my guess is that these might be larger issues for others!

I tried and failed — but now I’m trying again

I tried using Firefox as my default for about a year, around 2022, before giving up. But these are the reasons I’m now trying again:

I think Arc is the best browser. However, after being unsure about using it due to Chromium, their recent change of direction pushed me over the edge — so I stopped using it. And I’m using the opportunity from “not being able” to use the best, to give Firefox another chance. 😛
Firefox on mobile is very uninspired — but, as mentioned, I’m not really concerned about that anymore! (And I can open Safari on my Mac to get my mobile history, and Firefox on mobile to get my desktop history.)
I’ve become much better at programming-adjacent activities since last time, so customising it to my liking is less daunting.

One thing that struck me going back to Firefox, is how it hasn’t improved at all in a year. While Arc and SigmaOS, which I’ve used the last year, get updates all the time — even though the SigmaOS team is like 6 people. But it is what it is…

If someone asks me how good I think macOS is — should I answer how good I think it is out-of-the-box (“State A”), or after I’ve customised it and added a bunch of third-party software (“State B”)? I think State B is the most relevant — but I also think it’s relevant how hard/expensive it is to get it there.

In State A, Firefox is slightly worse than Safari, and much worse than Arc. On the plus side, the other two browsers can’t be improved that much — while Firefox’s State B is a huge improvement. Then I’d say it’s better than Safari and on par with Arc. However, getting it there is far too difficult (but luckily not expensive).

Currently, I’m doing a little project where I do my best to make Firefox the best it can be (at least to me). I know I’m far from the first to embark on this, but I’d still like to make it shareable. In other words, I’m trying to both improve State B of Firefox, while also making it a bit easier to get there. Here’s a teaser screenshot:

I think it's become a much nicer browser after fiddling. But I completely understand that most people don't want to do that, so Mozilla should _really_ improve State A while also making it easier to come to State B.

But meanwhile, as I’m very into obsessing over browser details, I’d love to hear from others:

Question(s) 2:

If you’re not using Firefox, why not? What would make you switch? (Changes in Firefox, or the browser you’re using now.) And what are some of your favourite browser features in general?

My thought process is as follows:

I think the existence of Firefox/Gecko is critical for the future of the web.
I don’t have much power as a just-a-guy from Norway — but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do anything.
So if it is as good as the alternatives, I should absolutely use it.
But here’s the important part, and where I’m currently at: But what about if it’s not as good as the best? (Which it is not…) How large a gap should I accept here? And how small can I make it with the tools available?

What about yours?

However, even though I’m content with “good privacy”, I have zero issues with others wanting “great or better”! ↩︎
I know that Android is more open - but I think there would be way more incentive for interesting initiatives in this space, if the work could be deployed on every mobile device. Especially as iOS users spend way more in average. ↩︎

The Case for Soulver, and an App Between a Calculator and a Spreadsheet

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 13:15:36 +0100

The iOS counterpart of Soulver 3 just released — and is being discussed a bit over at the (excellent) Mac Power Users forum.

This post is (mostly) an answer to the following post there:

Soulver is a fun app to do simple math, but it is no substitute for a spreadsheet. Can it do any of this Numbers - Function list - Apple (AU)?

Can it graph data?

So I would buy it again if it was cheaper, but $35 for the Mac app plus another $34 for the iOS apps is definitely not worth it to me. I’ll keep using my free, constantly improving Numbers app.

Plus it took 5 years to finally recreate the iOS apps? Seriously? Why would I trust this developer after borking a perfectly good iOS app and taking so long to finally add it back to the App Store.

I think you’re misunderstanding

… what Soulver is trying to be,

even though you mention “a fun app to do simple math”.

When discussing solving math problems, different complexity levels make us turn to different tools. I’d say it usually looks something like this:

Very simple → In your head
Simple → A calculator (app)
Medium to complex → A spreadsheet app

Now, you could say “why would anyone use a calculator, when a spreadsheet is so much more powerful??” - but usually using tools that are overkill is less convenient. Soulver isn’t trying to replace spreadsheets in the list above - their theory is that there’s room for a tool between a calculator and a spreadsheet. (Typically for “back of a napkin” maths). So their theory is this:

Very simple → In your head
Simple → A calculator (app)
Medium → Soulver
Complex → A spreadsheet app

Now, people’s breaking points for the different categories are different. ¹ How much we do the different types of maths also varies greatly from person to person. And I assume that you’re very accustomed to Numbers, so firing it up to make a quick-and-dirty spreadsheet probably doesn’t involve much friction. But I think Soulver’s idea here is solid, and a valid idea and market for an app.

As a maths teacher, I, of course, love my spreadsheets - but most people don’t! (Even though I’m doing my best…) For most people, it’s really like this:

Very simple → In your head
Simple → A calculator (app)
Medium to complex → Nah, never mind 🙅🏻‍♂️

And then this would be a nice upgrade:

Very simple → In your head
Simple → A calculator (app)
Medium → Soulver
Complex → Nah, never mind 🙅🏻‍♂️

Re: Pricing

This touches on a different post as well, that was a reply to me saying it was actually a good thing that the new iOS app is a separate purchase. This one:

I guess there’s some flexibility to it being offered separately for each platform, but I prefer to have apps available across all platforms as a single purchase (possibly with a bit of a discount). Not a major obstacle, though, but it still ends up being rather expensive, especially when AI can nowadays answer most of the simple math questions using natural language for free.

This is the cost structure:

Mac: $35
iPad: $20
iPhone $14

I think that is pretty fair, and pretty well-adjusted for how useful it is on the different platforms. You also get all versions with a Setapp sub 🖇️.

So, in total, it’s $69 for a lifetime purchase. I can agree that it would be nice to get a discount if you bought all, say $60. ² But I don’t think “$60 for all as the only option” is better than the current offering - which is the case when only a universal purchase is possible. This would make it a much worse deal if you knew you only want to use it for your Mac, or you simply don’t own an iPad.

Now, you might say “no, I don’t want the only option to be $60 for everything, but $35 for everything!”. But while saying it should be significantly cheaper than what it is today is perfectly valid - it’s not the same as discussing universal purchase. How we pay for something is a (slightly) different discussion than how much we pay.

And also affected by if you’re using the default calculator app or the best one 😎 (PCalc is “only” second best!). ↩︎
But I don’t even know how easy that is to do within the App Store? ↩︎

A Very Good All-Round Game Controller, With One Major Flaw (for Me)

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 20:13:08 +0100

A quick review of the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller

I mostly play boring strategy 🖇️ games that are just as good to play with a trackpad as anything else.

But every so often, I’ll play something that’s best played with a controller. That’s usually on my Switch, where I’ve used the joy-cons with a charging grip — but that’s never been great. Also, my joy-cons have started to drift…

So I wanted to buy a single controller that could fit all my use-cases, and my choice fell on the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller 🖇️. And it’s a great controller, with many smart features. But did you know that a controller can support 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, Switch, PC, Steam Deck, Android, iOS and iPadOS, but not support macOS?? Well, I didn’t.

You can find a better alternative for almost every use-case

When I got the controller, I compared it to the official Switch Pro Controller, the Xbox One Controller, and the 8BitDo Pro 2 Controller 🖇️, and here are my findings:

When playing on the Switch, the official Pro controlled has better rumble, and ergonomics I slightly prefer. Also, it’s nicer that the official controller doesn’t have analog shoulder buttons, as the console doesn’t support that anyway.
- However, you can configure the 8BitDo controller so that the Z buttons fire immediately while connected to a Switch!
I also prefer the ergonomics of the Xbox One controller (and probably the newer ones as well, but I haven’t tried those).
The D-pad on the 8BitDo Pro 2 is in a nicer spot for games that emphasise that over the left analog stick.

The Pro 2 is also a great (perhaps even better) alternative, depending on your layout preferences.

However, it’s a great all-rounder

It looks great, seems well-made, and has a pretty fair price.
The charging dock also looks great, and works well. It also hides the 2.4Ghz dongle in the base — and if you power the dock from your PC, the dongle is automatically connected!
Pretty good software, and support for profiles.
Also has two programable back paddle buttons.
Hall Effect joysticks feel good, and don’t drift.
Great D-pad (even better than Nintendo’s own!) and face buttons.
Support for many platforms. (Just not every platform! 😠)

What I like about it, is that every part of the experience is at least good, whether your playing Switch, PC, 2D or 3D titles.

However, why on earth did they go through all that trouble, and then just not support macOS? It’s especially annoying because the old and cheaper Pro 2 controlled does support every platform the Ultimate supports, and macOS! ¹

The reasons I went for the Ultimate, and not the Pro 2, was the charging dock and that I had a theory that the Pro 2 is more worse for Zelda than the Ultimate is worse for Dead Cells. But if I had known about the lack of macOS support, I think I simply would’ve waited — as 8BitDo comes with updates pretty often.

But, if you don’t need Mac support, I can absolutely recommend the Ultimate controller - but I’d also take a look at the Pro 2. They’ve also just released a version of that with Hall Effect sticks!

The issue is D-input support, and not just X-input. Not that I really know the difference… Also, the Pro 2 doesn’t support 2.4 GHz, and only Bluetooth. But I’m not sure if that’s a significant drawback. ↩︎

A Way To Get a Fancy Link Hover Effect

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 14:24:21 +0100

Jarrod, of (the great blog) HeyDingus.net, wanted to do something about the way his links appear on his website. He asked:

Since the first design of my site, I’ve stuck with blue text for my hyperlinks because that always seemed canonical with the web. Links = blue text, blue underline. But I’ve grown less certain with its readability with all that blue text interspersed. I’m considering a change. What do y’all think?

One thing he didn’t mention there, is that he also has a nice hover effect, that changes the underline to a gradient (that matches his logo and more) on hover.

My first idea for how to solve it sacrificed the gradient — but that just wouldn’t do. But I think I found a pretty good solution in the end!

The solution and how to implement it

Here’s the logic behind it:

We set the gradient as the background image always.
But then we use -webkit-background-clip: text; to make it so that the shape of the background is exactly like the text.
However, as we don’t want the gradient to be visible at all times, we add -webkit-text-fill-color: var(-—offWhite);. This fills normal text colour above our gradient — so now the entire background-image covered and appears invisible.
But then, on :hover, we change the text-fill to -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;, as that will make it so the gradient shines through!
…and we do something similar with the underline — from colour to transparent.

So then we get the following CSS:

a {
  background-image: linear-gradient(
    to right,
    var(--green),
    var(--yellow),
    var(--orange),
    var(--red),
    var(--purple),
    var(--blue)
  );
  
  text-decoration: underline;
  text-decoration-thickness: 1.5px;
  text-decoration-color: var(--blue);
  
  transition: all ease-in-out 0.3s;
}

a:hover {
  -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
  
  text-decoration-color: transparent;
}

Alternative to text-decoration: underline;

An alternative way to create underlines, is by using box-shadow: inset. ¹ Then you can make it shrink down to nothing on hover:

And here’s the CSS:

a {
  background-image: linear-gradient(
    to right,
    var(--green),
    var(--yellow),
    var(--orange),
    var(--red),
    var(--purple),
    var(--blue)
  );
  
  text-decoration: none;
  box-shadow: inset 0 -1.5px 0 var(--blue);
  
  transition: all ease-in-out 0.3s;
}

a:hover {
  -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
  
  box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 var(--blue);
}

Without moving it down, it clips the emoji a bit — so that’s a negative here. Also, the shrinking effect would be cooler if the line were thicker (but I think 1.5px looks nice here!). By the way, I’m using box-shadow on my links here, but on :hover I make the inset shadow cover the entire link and change colour, Instead of disappearing.

And you could move them further down by making some pseudo-elements, but I won’t go Into that here. ↩︎

🌱 Advice for How To Make Sure You Never Create Anything

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 15:21:21 +0100

Lenke til norsk versjon

Are you sometimes at risk of creating? Personally I, from time to time, come very close to writing something, so my advice here is geared towards that. However, it can hopefully be extrapolated to help you if you’re tempted by other creative endeavours as well.

If you get an idea while writing a post, you should always finish this new idea before finishing the original one. This, of course, cascades to new ideas you get while working on the second one, etc.
This also applies to expansions within an idea. You can always increase the scope of a project!
Let every piece of work be your Magnum Opus.
However, if as much as a single piece of your idea doesn’t materialise quite like how you wanted it to, scrap the entire thing. No matter how much work you’ve put into it, and no matter how much value there’s still left.
Don’t post anything, unless you’ve covered every nuance, use case and possible objection. Don’t post ideas or thoughts — post rigorous conclusions.
You can’t mention a concept/item without also explaining everything about it, in case someone isn’t familiar.

Remember that every post needs custom images, screenshots, and illustrations. And these, of course, all need good alt text - even though the post might be about something like the visual differences of screen resolutions. ¹
Every post (and aforementioned alt text) should be translated into at least one additional language. And no, you don’t get any grammar leniency while writing in something that isn’t your primary language.
However, as generative AI tools are problematic, remember that you can’t use tools like that to accomplish any of tasks mentioned above.
If your website’s code requires work, this has to be completely rewritten before you can post anything new. It doesn’t make sense to add new content to an imperfect platform.
Generalise everything. This applies to stuff like (Apple) shortcuts and workflows — but also things like experiences, emotions, etc. Only post about something personal, if it can also be of use to others.

(Thanks to Cole’s post “Blogging is Conversation” for helping me get this draft out of my bulging Ideas folder.)

To be clear: I seriously think every image should have good alt text! ↩︎

🌱 A Shortcut for lite-youtube-embed

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:10:00 +0100

YouTube embeds take up way too much on a site - so luckily someone has made lite-youtube-embed.

“Renders faster than a sneeze.”

Provide videos with a supercharged focus on visual performance. This custom element renders just like the real thing but approximately 224× faster.

First you have to include some CSS and JS on your site. ¹ And then when you want to embed a video, you could just add this piece to your post/page:

<lite-youtube videoid="CItvhGl__Mk" playlabel="Play: Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)"></lite-youtube>

This will embed the video, but over 200x faster - nice!

However, you have to manually add the videoid and the video title.

And they’ve also made a variant named “Pro-usage: load w/ JS deferred (aka progressive enhancement)”, which I think is even more optimised. But then you have to add all of this:

<lite-youtube videoid="CItvhGl__Mk" params="controls=0&rel=0&enablejsapi=1" style="background-image: url('https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CItvhGl__Mk/sddefault.jpg');">
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CItvhGl__Mk" class="lty-playbtn" title="Play Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)">
    <span class="lyt-visually-hidden">Play Video: Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)</span>
  </a>
</lite-youtube>

That’s a lot of manual work for each video!

Links to the shortcuts

Now, I’m sure I’m not the first to have automated this process - but here’s the shortcuts I’ve made, that simply does the following:

Ask for you to paste a YouTube link.
Adds the Progressive enhancement code snippet to your clipboard.

They work with both youtube.com, m.youtube.com and youtu.be links, with or without the ?si= part some links have, and with or without timestamps. ²

Here’s the difference between the three:

Lite version - no API gives you this:

<lite-youtube videoid="CItvhGl__Mk" params="controls=1&rel=0&enablejsapi=0" playlabel="Play: Video"></lite-youtube>

And then it’s nice to swap “Video” with the title.

Lite version - requires API gives you this:

<lite-youtube videoid="CItvhGl__Mk" params="controls=1&rel=0&enablejsapi=0" playlabel="Play: Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)"></lite-youtube>

So, there only difference here, is that the second version also gets the title of the video.

Pro version - requires API gives you this:

~<lite-youtube videoid="CItvhGl__Mk" params="controls=1&rel=0&enablejsapi=0" style="background-image: url('https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CItvhGl__Mk/sddefault.jpg');"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CItvhGl__Mk&t=1s" class="lty-playbtn" title="Play Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)"><span class="lyt-visually-hidden">Play Video: Beatenberg - Wheelbarrow (Official Music Video)</span></a></lite-youtube>~

I'm not pro enough to actually make this last type of embed work as intended - but I think the shortcut itself should be correct!

Personally I’ve edited mine to also wrap the result in ~~, as I need that for Ulysses - and you can of course so something similar if you want.

I hope this can be useful for someone else as well!

Examples

“No API” version:

Regular embed:

Lite embed:

Start at 40 seconds:

With API:

“Pro” version:

OBS: These are the ones that don’t work properly at the moment! But I’ve let them be, so people with more knowledge than me can poke around.

Regular embed:

Lite embed:

Play Video: Beatenberg feat. Msaki - White Shadow (Official Music Video)

Start at 1m 10s:

Play Video: Beatenberg - The Lighthouse of Alexandria (Official Music Video)

I won’t go into this. Check the link above. ↩︎
Catering to different link types are a bit complicated… When making embeds, timestamps are provided in seconds only, and I think youtu.be links always provide this as well. However, sometimes I see timestamps with hours, minutes and seconds! However, since it seems that you mostly get youtu.be links when sharing with timestamps, I’ve chosen to preserve those timestamps and add them to the embed, while just stripping away the others. It’s probably possible to convert the timestamp types, but I didn’t bother. ↩︎

Why I Don’t Love Web Apps

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 18:27:24 +0100

And a call for help

I absolutely get why companies make web apps instead of native apps. Why juggle tons of platforms and languages if you don’t have to? Furthermore, being on the web makes you free from platform gatekeepers!

It can also benefit users, by giving the same experience everywhere, making more software cross-platform and accessible on more niche platforms, and more.

And if a developer has 100 hours to develop a client for their service, the user experience very well might be better if they spent all of it on a web app, instead of spending 25 hours on four different native clients.

There’s also a bunch of terrible native (or “native”) apps. One example is phone apps that simply are terrible web wrappers that just want to be able to track and notify you more than they can in a web browser. ¹

When I say that I prefer native apps, I don’t mean that there are no great web apps (like Figma) or bad native apps. My point is that the ceiling of the latter is higher, and that all the best apps I’ve tried are native.

If you haven’t read Craig Mod’s legendary essay “Fast Software, the Best Software”, I’d recommend you stop reading my piece of crap, and go read that. I also liked the post On Quality Software over at The Jolly Teapot — and I echo this quote:

It was not about convenience or efficiency, really; it was just about the details. Is there something wrong with me? No, I’m just a happy snob, and a proud one.

I’ve written about some of my favourite apps here — and I mostly like to write about stuff I like. But I just have to blow off some steam…

Hi-tech stuff, like right click

A classic example of what you lose on web apps, are right clicks. Maybe because they have to work on mobile, or just because they didn’t bother. But it makes the experience much worse, also because they have to design the UI around this limitation.

And how often have you done something in a text field, then dared to mistakenly go “back” in your browser, and lost all your text?

The app also has to combat the browser’s chrome and hotkeys. (This becomes a bit better if you save it as a “native” app through the browser or something like Unite.)

Speaking of hotkeys…

The real reason I’m writing this post now, is frustration with a specific web app, for working on subtitles. ² And this was even supposed to be one of the good web apps!

I want to tell a bit about my journey with this app, as it highlights why I always look for native apps first.

What’s a “Mac”?

The app has three main elements:

A video player.
A bunch of text boxes, where you write the different subtitle strings.
A timeline, that shows when the different strings are shown.

How do I start playing the video? I hit space, and it plays and pauses. Nice!

But what about when I am in a text field? Then space has a different function, of course. I check the manual, and it says: Cmd + Space I assume most Mac users know why this is an extremely poor choice… ³

So I have to move Raycast to a different hotkey while working — annoying but OK. I do some editing outside the text boxes, and try to start the playback again — but it doesn’t work. Because, it turns out, Cmd + Space only works if you’re in a text box. If you’re outside it, you have to hit only Space! It’s not that Cmd + Space gets another function or anything — it just stops working. 🤷🏻‍♂️

The app also has a function for merging subtitles — and this is great for combining short strings. I check the manual for the hotkey, and it says Cmd + M. I press it, and my window minimises. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Then they made it worse.

After spending many hours with the web app, I actually found a flow that works all right (even though several hotkeys straight up don’t work).

I found out that I can keep my hands on the keyboard, and off the trackpad, by using Tab. When I’m in a subtitle text box, this key takes me to the next one — and it also moves the video playback to the beginning of the subtitle string. Shift + Tab takes me back — so I can do a quick Shift + Tab | Tab to start the same snippet again.

But today, something had changed… ⁴ Here’s what happened:

I’m in a text box, and start the playback with Cmd + Space. (Raycast turned off, like always.)
The playback passes the end point of the subtitle string I was editing.
I try to hit tab, to go to the next string. But when the playback went past, the focus was no longer in the text box. So now, hitting tab just sent me around the web UI!

My one workflow that wasn’t terrible was broken, and my hatred for web apps refuelled.

I just feel so much friction and paper-cuts while working in most web apps… I know that part of it is because I’m a snob — but can someone please help a snob out? Is there an app (paid is OK) for working with subtitles that doesn’t suck? Please… Even though writing this post in Ulysses has soothed my soul a bit.

No ad-blockers for you! ↩︎
I don’t feel the need to name it, as that’s not the point. ↩︎
Because that launches Spotlight/Raycast/Alfred and other launchers. ↩︎
And it’s the same in WebKit, Chromium and Gecko. ↩︎

Chromium and Nested Backdrop-Filters

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 21:49:33 +0100

If you’re like me, you sometimes get these small (often technical) problems, that you work on for so long — and you refuse to surrender.

I had this with CSS a couple of months ago:

I had a menu, that had transparency and blur, and then I also had a submenu that I wanted to have the same. But the submenu just. wouldn’t. blur!

It works perfectly in Gecko and WebKit — but after countless hours, I found the problem: If an element has a backdrop-filter, Chromium won’t let its children have it as well. ¹

I had to design around it, and moved on with my life.

A few moments later…

I recently moved to Micro.blog. And one day I was scrolling down my timeline…

Ooh, look at that nice blur!

Then I opened the submenu:

Motherføcker!

There it was — the same bug! I’m not alone!

The fix

Now, Manton, I don’t know if you guys have battered your heads at this as much as me. Perhaps you don’t use Chromium and didn’t notice? Or maybe you’re just better than me at letting go of insignificant (unsolved) problems?

Well, anyway — as I really struggled to find a solution online, I wanted to share a solution for Micro.blog — and perhaps someone else who stumbles upon this.

It’s not perfect, but:

You have to temporarily remove the blur from the parent

I think the best thing would be to have some javascript change the class of the parent when you click to open the submenu.

And then you turn off the backdrop-filter and change the background-color to something suitable.

Here you can see the fix in action:

Voila!

Now, you do lose the nice blur while the submenu is open — but people will be looking at the submenu at that point!

If you don’t want the user to have to what I did there manually:

I think the best way to fix it, is by using the pseudo-element :focus-within. That could look something like:

header { 
background: rgba (237, 242, 247, .7); 
backdrop-filter: blur(20px) 
}

header:focus-within { 
background: rgb (237, 242, 247); 
backdrop-filter: none; 
}

So when the header, or any of its children, get focus, it would apply the second styling.

If anyone tries this, let me know if it works! I hope my pain can lessen someone elses…

Now, I think I read somewhere that the Chromium people are claiming they’re the ones who interptrets the spec correctly — and that Gecko and WebKit are wrong in having it work. ↩︎

✉️ 🌱 To SigmaOS’ CEO: This Is What I Don’t Like About Arc’s Direction

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 14:55:46 +0100

I really, really like the Arc browser. But as I alluded to in this post, I have some reservations regarding it, and don’t feel like it’s going in a direction that I like. In the post, I said that I might try SigmaOS again — and I am. ¹

I mentioned this in their community Slack, and their CEO, Mahyad, asked me what about Arc’s direction I don’t like. I must say, the dev team seems very active, nice, and open to input! So this post is my reply to his question.

(And here’s a link straight to the TL;DR at the bottom.)

Hi, Mahyad — and thanks for asking! I wrote a blog post called «I Just Want A Nice Browser!», which might give you a hint, heh.

And let me also say that I’m a bit worried about your direction as well — but I’ll come back to that. 😉

Two fundamentals I don’t love, but that I don’t need to go too much into

I don’t love that Arc is built on Chromium — as I think Google has more than enough power over the web as it is.
I’m not against supporting any VC funded company — but in combination with an unclear business model, I become more skeptical and worried if our incentives align. ²

My main issue, though, is regarding AI

3. Focus

From my blog post linked above, in reaction to Arc’s launch of Arc II:

This is the moment I felt the Browser Company and I started to drift apart.

The entire premise of Arc II, is that «browsing the web sucks», so they would like to do it for me. But I don’t agree: I like to browse the web — I just want a nice browser to do it in!

Now, Arc is still a nice browser — and they haven’t stopped shipping new features to make it even nicer. But that direction just isn’t for me. And when dev resources aren’t infinite, focusing on big areas that aren’t for me, is a turn-off. ³

I like small features that enhance the product, like Instant Open. However, and I know I might be in the minority here, I hate Browse for Me. I don’t want the browser to browse for me, pick my sources, and keep me away from what, I think, might be my favourite tech service: Kagi Search. I want a more human web — not less. ⁴

Now, I do think LLMs, and other modes of generative AI, can be immensely useful. But the market is flooded with ways to interact with them. My personal favourite, is Raycast: Hyper + P gives easy access to a chat, regardless of which app I’m in, and I’ve made some small GPTs to help me with repetitive tasks (like checking how a word is spelled).

Sometimes having the AI know more about the context is useful. For instance, the one in Zed knows my code base. But it has to be quite a bit more useful than just using Raycast, for it not to be wasted dev time that could’ve been used to improve the core app instead! ⁵ It looks like you have some neat ideas with Aieris that leverages that it knows the web page — and I’m getting access to Airis today, to check for myself. ⁶ But my fear is that most of the features step so close to Raycast that it, for me, do end up being wasted dev time.

Because while the market for «general access to LLMs» is extremely flooded, the market for «nice web browsers» is far from it. Especially if you, like me, want to stay away from Chromium.

In my mind, there are two different ways companies seem to leverage AI these days:

Trying to be The One Big Portal To Generative AI.
To improve the details of their core product.

As I really like Raycast as number 1, personally, I want most other products I use to focus on number 2. Arc Max features that fit the latter, are things like Instant Open, Tidy Tab Titles and Tidy Downloads. ⁷

Some other (number 2) ideas for SigmaOS, from the top of my head:

Automatically sorting tabs as subpages might be a bit too much. But maybe you could have the AI «sense» that a tab might belong under another tab or in another workspace, and then display a button? And if you click it, it sends the tab there (hover would show where).
- There could also be a button next to the tornado, to do it to every tab. (Need undo for this, though!)
Another use for the same feature, could be in the Mini-window: It could suggest a Workspace to open it in, based on the content. (And if it’s too unsure, it would revert to the default.)
Let’s say you have some text on a website, and you want to search for that somewhere else. Maybe you could select it, hit a hotkey, and it would propose (three?) places to search for it. You should be able to say which services you prefer to search on, and perhaps pin some. (I might pin Kagi, so that that’s always suggested.)
- If I select a video game title, it knows that it’s a video game and that I prefer to buy on Humble Bundle or GOG — so it offers to search on Kagi (pinned) and those two.
- Now, some might prefer just asking «is this available on GOG?», but I like to actually go to the websites instead, and that the browser makes that easier. ⁸
A variant could be that when you select text and hit a hotkey, you write something in a text box, and it acts on those two data points. Examples:
- I select «Balatro» and type «Humble» = It searches for Balatro on Humble Bundle.
- I select «Apple’s DMA compliance» and type «John Gruber», and it searcher Kagi for «Apple DMA Daring Fireball» (or something). The challenge here, of course, is knowing when a name is «a site to search on» and not.
- The other way around, would do the same: Selecting «John Gruber» and typing «Apple DMA».
- I select «SigmaOS» and types «YouTube», and it searches for videos there.

Oh, and I looove the Raycast practice of letting everything have an alias (keyword) and/or a hotkey. I want this for SigmaOS’ «send to» feature (as I mostly share via Telegram), and would also like it for the feature above. Either because I want to just type «yt» to search on youtube, or set Meh + K to search for a string on Kagi.

Lastly, yet another variant, could be to use it to enhance the Lazy Search: On Kagi, I can use bangs to search on specific sites, like «yt SigmaOS» searches for SigmaOS on YouTube. ⁹ However, I have to write exactly «yt + string». It would be cool, if all of these, typed in Lazy Search, searched on YouTube «youtube sigmaos», «sigmaos youtube», «sigmaos on youtube», etc.

4. Ethics

Even though I, personally, find generative AI useful, I’m also very skeptical regarding the ethics behind them and if they’re a net good for the web and society. Too many people think that «If you think it’s useful, you must think it’s ethical» or «If you think it’s unethical, you must think it’s useless».

John Voorhees and Robb Knight make some great points in the latest episode of the Ruminate podcast (Full of Spicy Takes), and Matt Birchler also says stuff I agree with here.

These models are worthless without other people’s content and hard work, but become very valuable with it. Then it simply feels wrong that they can take this content without it benefiting the creators. And «no», I don’t care whether it’s technically legal or not.

Personally, I’d love to use image generators for my blog posts — but I’ve landed on that being too unethical for me. But as mentioned, I do use LLMs — but I’m also unsure about that. I do try to be mindful about how I use it, though. ¹⁰ And I want the implementations of tools to be as positive as possible — both for the web and the greater world and people it in. I don’t want them to make it too easy for practices like gunking up search results and platforms, or ruin the livelihood of creators. And I think that Arc (and things like Perplexity) are doing too much of the latter.

Things like Browse for Me, are trying to replace me going to the places where it got the information. And, I mean, you have to be pretty naive to think that this 5-Second Preview feature benefits Our Escape Clause:

I absolutely don’t buy that this would lead to more clicks, because «the preview would make people more intereste». (It's a video, so right click and hit "Play" if it doesn't start.)

On Hard Fork, the CEO of Perplexity said that they were trying to cite more sources, and that if your name often came up as their sources, that would increase your credibility and recognition. How that, in turn, would pay for your mortgage (when Perplexity just gives users all your content), he didn’t mention.

I wholeheartedly belive that stuff like this, if left unchecked, will drive content creators out of business and drive a large portion of the content that’s left behind paywalls. And both will hurt the web.

So, while I disagree with Arc, in that «browsing the web sucks» — their products are starting to do their part to make it more true.

TL;DR:

So, I already didn’t like that Arc was built on Chromium and was VC funded without a business model.

But, from a user perspective, I don’t like that they’re moving the product to focus on stuff I don’t want — and I think that focus has questionable ethics and is hurting the web.

Please don’t do this, Mahyad. 👆🏻 If you’re going to implement AI into SigmaOS, do it in a way that doesn’t remove focus from it being a nice web browser for actually browsing the web. ¹¹ And don’t do it in a way that hurts the real people making content and making the web a great place.

I like it pretty well so far! ↩︎
I would prefer to use a browser that only had one incentive: Being so good that I want to keep paying for it. I hope this can be SigmaOS. ↩︎
As I have the impression that you guys over at SigmaOS are a smaller team than Arc’s, this is extra important. ↩︎
Kagi’s Small Web initative, is a great example of a company that do make AI features also promotes a human web. ↩︎
I actually don’t really use the one in Zed - as there’s value in having muscle memory, that to me, outweights the benefits of Zed’s implementation. ↩︎
Even though I sometimes feel sumarisers can make the web «less human»… ↩︎
```
Which I wouldn’t mind you copying!
```
↩︎
This is also due to the ethics, which, spoiler, is my next big heading. ↩︎
And it also works on mobile and no matter which browser I’m in! I can also make custom ones. ↩︎
For instance, even though I’m not a native English speaker, I don’t use it to auto-translate stuff. ↩︎
Because SigmaOS is one of the nicest out there! ↩︎

The Prettiest Voice Since Allison Krauss

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:09:47 +0100

Lenke til norsk versjon

I’m testing Tidal these days, and wanted to test the audio quality vs. Spotify. I happened to stumble upon a new track by an artist I like during testing, so that was the first track I tested. ¹ And holy føck if this isn’t one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard:

Aoife O’Donovan — All My Friends

The whole album looks to be out on March 22nd. But her last album, Age of Apathy, is also fantastic. 👌🏻

Tidal sounded a bit better - but that’s not the point here. ↩︎

I Just Want a Nice Browser!

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 15:55:44 +0100

Two sad browser stories

I’ve followed the Spicy Takes™️ surrounding the Arc Browser recently, that started in the Ruminate podcast and went on to the MacStories Weekly Issue 408.

And I agree with most of what John Voorhees is saying, and also Matt Birchler, who said: «The Browser Company feels gross to me right now».

Much of it is about ethics and AI. In general I agree with them, but this subject won’t be the focus of this post. (I’ve written more about AI here and here.)

Instead I’ll tell my browser story, and explain why both Arc and Firefox makes me sad.

I’ve been browsing for browsers

I avoided Arc for a long time because I really, really didn’t want to use a Chromium browser.

First, I used Safari for a while, which is fine. Then I used Orion, which was better, but a bit too buggy. ¹ I also tried SigmaOS a bit, but at the time they wouldn’t let you change their hotkeys, and those default ones were terrible for my Norwegian layout.

My Firefox wish

Then, because I really want Mozilla and Gecko to exist, I spent a year trying to like Firefox. But it was very hard, and I failed miserably. It just feels like using a product where no one really cares about the user experience. I mean, which features, aimed at bettering this, have they shipped recently? ²

But I’m not saying that the developers doesn’t care! It just feels like they don’t have time to care — that the leadership hasn’t made it a priority. Mozilla recently downsized, and said that they’re refocusing on Firefox. ³ I hope they reach the conclusion, that the first step to compete, is to be the best browser.

I want to write a separate post, someday, on what I miss about Firefox. ⁴ But I’ll mention some things I like about Arc later, and know that Firefox has more or less nothing of this. Now, I get that The Browser Company is VC funded, and can just build on Chromium — but their team still isn’t that large. So my wish for the new Mozilla CEO, is to create a team and say: «OK, so you don’t have any responsibilities to the Gecko engine or our other services. Just make Firefox a joy to use — on every platform.» ⁵

Corruption Arc

In the podcast linked up top, Voorhees said he didn’t understand the hype around Arc, and that it just had a bunch of «animations that gets in the way». I agree that animations can get in the way — but when they’re well done, they make software a pleasure. For a great example, try to type, and move elements around, in Bike Outliner, by Jesse Grosjean, and tell me that’s not a truly special software experience.

I think Arc screams of being made by someone who cares about browsers and software quality. And I think that’s where they started, before being led astray by the lure of AI. It might not be a bad business move — but it’s not what I want, and the ethics, as both Voorhees and Birchler talk about, are very questionable.

It all started with what The Browser Company calls:

Arc II

And that started with this video:

This is the moment I felt the Browser Company and I started to drift apart.

The entire premise of Arc II, is that «browsing the web sucks», so they would like to do it for me. But I don’t agree — I like to browse the web — I just want a nice browser to do it in!

Now, they haven’t stopped shipping enjoyable features since this ⁶ — and I still think they care about being a nice browser. But I was grossed out enough by using a Chromium browser, and now they’re leaning into something that I’m not interested in and that I question the ethics behind…

I really have to think about if I can keep using the browser… While I do that, let me highlight why I like Arc so much. Maybe it can serve as inspiration to other browser makers?

Being a good browser

Looks and feel

I just think everything in arc looks good — like the border around the window and icons. And there are plenty of whimsical animations, that doesn’t get in the way and often helps in understanding what’s happening. There’s also completely useless stuff, like this:

When adjusting the dials on the theme on a trackpad, you get haptic feedback!

Great shadows on the pop-up, and a cute top-left corner.

I’m a sucker for stuff like this.

The downloads icon animates,
the files come up smoothely
and the blur above the files looks great.

My Number of spaces/Tab bar width ratio is too high for it to show all the icons. They’ve solved this elegantly IMO, and I also like this animation.

Useful utilities

Nice playback controls - for a tab in another space. I can also pop it out in their great picture in picture.

If you hit Cmd + T or Cmd + L (the latter won’t create a new tab), you’ll get this command bar. It’s pretty useful, but also just nice. (Notice the transparency.)

They have an AI feature I like, and that I don’t think The New York Times minds either: If I hit Shift + Enter, it will go straight to the site it thinks you want. And since {my search engine} doesn’t earn money on my data or clicks, _it_ doesn’t mind this feature either!

Hitting Cmd + Shift + C copies the current URL without having to mark it in the address bar. The squares around the box, are more whimsical animations, and the share button opens the share sheet. That last detail is a perfect example of what I mean about _care_.

And yes, it even strips the trackers automatically!

Boosts: A neat little feature, from when the focus whan on making browsing a joy - instead of doing it for me..

Spaces

I love how easy it is to make and move between spaces, and that you can choose which of them share logins and not. Moving tabs between them, is also a breeze, and the haptic dials makes some good-looking themes.

Animation from Arc, showing off space themes.

I like the vertical tabs ⁷ — but I would be fine with just horizontal tabs in a browser if the spaces integration was on this level.

Animation from Arc, showing off changing spaces.

They also have notes and something they call easels — but I don’t use them personally.

Little Arc 🫶🏻

This little guy is my favourite Arc feature! If I hit a link while in another app, it opens a small-ish browser window, called Little Arc. In the example below, I was browsing Mona, and found a link I wanted to check out — and then I got this:

This is to avoid gunking up your current browser window.

Top left you can see that I’m currently on my personal profile (so logins etc. works in these little windows) — and only by hitting Cmd + O, will it be added to my current space («Blogg»). I can also send it to a different space.

My favourite detail here, is that if I do two-finger swipe to «go back», it just closes the window, and sends me back to Mona.

I’ll stop now because this is only making me sad.

Sad, because it seems like Arc is moving away from what I like about it,
and sad because it’s still, by far, the best browser — but I’m not sure I «can» keep using it…

Maybe I’ll give SigmaOS another go, while I hope Firefox becomes nicer? ⁸ It looks like I can change the hotkeys now! 👌🏻

Maybe I’ll try Orion again?

Have you tried SigmaOS or Orion lately?

And are there any other nice browsers out there?

help plz

However, that team also makes Kagi Search, which is amazing. ↩︎
That wasn’t focused on pushing their own services, like Pocket, VPN and spoof emails. ↩︎
And AI. 😔 ↩︎
Come on, at least use the native macOS text engine! ↩︎
Oh, and make it much easier for third parties to build on Gecko - which I’ve heard is a nightmare. ↩︎
And I love how they always highlight the specific engineers who’s worked on a shipped feature! ↩︎
Even though I wouldn’t mind them being in trees. ↩︎
And, unlike Arc, they have a business model. ↩︎

🌱 AI Is Just Different

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 13:04:23 +0100

The discussion around the ethics and legality surrounding AI has been a constant the last year — and it’s culminating in some important trials that’s coming up.

I won’t go into the entire thing here — I just want to focus on a specific argument that I often hear when it comes to the way these large models are trained. It oftes goes something like: «But how is this different from how humans have always been learning and iterating on previous knowledge?» or «The information was available on the open web, so it can be used for anything!».

I think these are terrible arguments.

Humans are allowed into shopping malls.

However, that’s simply not an argument for that cars should be allowed there as well — whether they’re driven by a human or autonomous.

But while it would be «very bad» if someone drove through a mall with their Hummer, it would only be «annoying» if someone did it with their RC car. I’m not saying the opposite (that if humans can do something, machines can’t) — I’m just saying that it’s not an argument, and that we have to evaluate every «machine» for what it is.

Because scale and context matters.

At some point, we decided that cars were a large enough departure from things like bikes or horse and carriage, and that they required their own rules. And today you need a license to drive a car, but not a bike. And while bikes don’t really need speed limits, cars absolutely do because it’s capable of much more. They’re just… different.

I view AI the same way, and that is why I’m a bit annoyed that much of the discussion’s around «ancient» copyright laws written for a different time. I wish we’d just jump straight to what we think is right, and make laws accordingly. ¹

Now, I absolutely have issues with copyright laws and how they’re enforced and who they benefit. But as someone who plays in a small band, I wouldn’t like it if someone took one of our songs and uploaded it to YouTube as their own. At the same time, I wouldn’t mind if a performer learned the song and played it for money on the street — because scale and context matters.

Could we please evaluate it for what it is?

I just want to get pass «But technically, according to these laws written for something completely different, it might be fair use» and «But humans have done something similar, so these machines should be allowed to do the same at a global scale».

AI ≠ Napster

AI ≠ Humans

Could we please talk more about what we think is fair and what we actually want?

Imagine if someone, at the beginning of the last century, said: «You can’t put the genie back in the bottle — these cars are driving all over the place, we can’t start regulating them now»?

ChatGPT 1.0 (or perhaps I’m losing track of my own metaphors).

PS: Let me add, that I think AI tools can be immensely useful. I think too many think you have to choose between

being skeptical of the ethics, and think that they’re useless, hallucinating bullshit machines, or
think that they’re useful, and thus must be ethical and right.

But you can mix and match here, people! 👆🏻

I’m not calling for the removal of all AI tools. ² But we, as a society, can choose which society we want! And if we think these tools are more unethical than useful, we can make them illegal in their current form. And I wish those who argue for why they should be legal would say why, instead of just «Because humans…».

But sadly, even though the problem is global, most of it is decided in a country with about 4% of the world’s population, that doesn’t really seem capable of passing laws at the moment. ↩︎
At least not in this posts! I’m honestly not sure… ↩︎

A Couple of Chill, Mostly New, Indie Games

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 13:59:30 +0100

I love small, chill indie games.

They’re cheap, and the money goes to small developers who needs the support.
Many have short gameplay loops, that make them easy to fit into my schedule.
And many of the ones I like have non-realtime gameplay,
and that, coupled with low hardware demands, makes them well suited for playing on my laptop.

My MacBook isn’t a slouch - but it’s no gaming rig. So I love that I don’t have to worry about performance with these games - and those who don’t have native Mac ports, run perfectly fine through Parallells.

Realtime, but still chilltime

Thronefall

While I mostly play non-realtime games, some realtime titles are still chill, and the minimalistic (kinda) tower defense game, Thronefall (2023) (from the developers of Islanders) is pretty chill.

Platforms:

macOS, Windows

Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors (2022) is a weird game, that has no rights being as fun and satisfying as it is. so buy it where you prefer!

You walk (slowly) around a big field, while your character auto-attacks. You then pick up experience, new items and upgrades. It shouldn’t work, but it does - and this good video essay by Adam Mallard explains why:

Vampire Survivors Only Works Because We’re Stupid

Platforms:

macOS, Windows
Switch
Xbox
Android
iOS

Brotato

Vampire Survivors has spawned tons of knock-offs — not all of them are good. But Brotato (2023) is! I actually prefer it over the OG.

Platforms:

Windows
Playstation, Switch, Xbox
Android, iOS

The slower stuff

Dot age

I love board games, and Dot Age (2023) feels like one. It’s a turn based city builder with roguelike progression, built around worker-placement.

Platforms:

Linux, macOS, Windows 🖇️

Balatro

Balatro (2024) is the thousandth in the line of games that «take something familiar, and turn it into a roguelike where you do runs where you try to break the game with combos». This time: Poker!

While perhaps not «beautiful», it drips with style with its CRT filter and screenshake (both possible to turn off). Very chill - but I hope it comes to iPad at some point!

Platforms:

Linux, macOS, Windows 🖇️

Backpack Battles

With the worst art direction since the amazing Slay The Spire, Backpack Battles (2024) is my last recommendation for the day.

In a combination of Backpack Hero and Super Auto Pets, you arrange items in your backpack to (hopefully) win against other players in some asynchronous chibi on chibi action. It also has a demo playable in a browser!

Platforms:

Linux, Windows

Norwegian games that looks promising (but I haven’t tried)

Seablip (Q2 2024) looks very promising, has a free demo, and is out very soon!

Also, Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (2024)is out, for macOS, Windows and Switch - more aimed at a younger audience. I think it could be something nice for an adult to play together with someone younger - or just for an adult wanting to have a beautiful and chill experiene!

Are you like me, and like chill games with little twitch and «physical» skills needed? I’m thinking, leaned back on the couch, with a tablet or laptop, clicking buttons, making numbers go up… Any other tips? Hit me up!

🌱 An Idea For Better Music Streaming

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 01:33:13 +0100

I sadly don’t have the abilities to live out this idea — at least not alone. So everyone who finds this, is welcome to steal it or riff with me!

I’m currently trying to transfer from Spotify to Tidal. The main reason is that I want to use a service that pays artists better — and it’s a nice bonus that the sound quality is better. However, I prefer Spotify’s app and features. ¹ And this inspired me to write out an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while.

Inspired by Mastodon, Apple’s MusicKit API, Podcasts and PeerTube

Third-party first

The official Mastodon client is perfectly fine — but nothing more. And I’d say the same thing (or less) about the Facebook app. But there’s a major difference: Third parties can make clients for Mastodon, using an open-source API. And not only can — the explicit plan is for the default client to be basic, and then let other people build around and on top of it. So where Facebook users are stuck in mediocrity, Mastodon users have tons of options, so everyone can find something that suits their preferences and budgets. ²

In addition to this, third-party clients push the whole platform forwards, with many great ideas. I’m not joking, when I’m saying that my top 5 social media apps are all Mastodon clients.

Here are some of my favourites:

Apple platforms:

Ice Cubes
Mammoth
Mona
Ivory

Web clients:

Phanpy.social
Elk.zone

Android clients I haven’t tried, but heard good stuff about:

Fedilab
Tusky
Trunks (also web, I think)
Moshidon

Phanpy is always trying out great stuff!

Like Apple, but not

Apple has a pretty cool API, called MusicKit. This allows developers to make third-party music players, while using the Apple Music library. Marvis is one example, and Soor is another.

But what if there was a similar, «complete» music library, that every developer could access for free, through an open-source API? And what if this library was run by a non-profit, who simply gave all the profits directly to the artists? ³

I love this blog post: «Wherever You Get Your Podcasts» Is a Radical Statement» Now, people (with Spotify in front) are trying to attack the open podcast ecosystem. But I wish music could be closer to RSS feeds. Just serving the files themselves shouldn’t be a big business!

Creek Music

OK, so allow me to explain my idea! The working title is Creek Music, as I Iike the idea of sending small streams of music around the world. ⁴ (And when I noticed that creekmusic.org was available, I had to grab it!)

OK, so let’s say we get access to the same 100 million songs that the big streaming services advertises. ⁵ This is gathered into a library, called The Source, which the Creek API ⁶ gives clients (apps) access to. These would be like the third-party Apple Music or Mastodon clients — but ideally, there wouldn’t have to be a first party/default client, so not sure if «third party» is the right term then.

But this is important: Users would subscribe for access to The Source directly — and not through the clients. This is to increase portability, and so that you can log into your library from anywhere. Perhaps you like one client on your phone, but another on your laptop? And if you’re in someone else’s web browser, you prefer a third? ⁷

That there are great free (and even open-source) Mastodon clients, like Ice Cubes, shows that there could be free client options here as well. But I would prefer it if every part of this stays ad and tracking-free — so I don’t think I would allow ad-supported clients. I would assume some of the best would be paid apps. But today’s streaming companies have both music rights and client development baked into their price — so the total cost shouldn’t need to be higher than what it is today. ⁸

What I think the API would need to serve

Access to songs

OK, so remember that I’m just dreaming here, and absolutely don’t know what I’m talking about… But PeerTube has this really cool tech, «powered by WebTorrent, that uses peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers when viewing videos.»!

Lower server costs = More profits for artists, and also less environmental impact. So that’s why I’d love it if something like this could be used when serving the songs themselves to clients.

Resonate (which I don’t think is doing too well), had some really cool ideas — including an interesting stream2own model, which is part of the inspiration for my payment idea. I’ll use myself as an example — and for simplicity, let’s assume $10/month of my payment goes to artists:

In March, I only listened to:
- Fountains of Wayne — Stacy’s Mom: 3 times
- Fountains of Wayne — All Kinds Of Time: 2 times.
Fountains of Wayne would then get my entire $10.
Not only that, we would also register that Stacy’s Mom specifically has earned $6 from me, and All Kinds Of Time $4.

The idea behind the last point, is that I want listeners to eventually have heard a song enough times to then own them. If you’ve listened to an album to death (and then provided income for the artist), it doesn’t seem fair that you lose access to it if you stop your subscription.

Here’s a simple mockup I made, using Tidal as a template:

Wohoo! I’ve listened to Stacy’s Mom and All Kinds Of Time enough so that I know own them! And the others are on the way. ⁹

Let’s say a song having earned $2 is enough to then own it. That would mean a user would «get» 5 songs every month on average, no matter how much they listened. This would remove the incentive to just stream 24/7 to get ownership.
- In the backend, we could convert $1 to 1 million tokens. So a bar takes 2 million tokens to fill up, and at the end of the month, 10 million tokens gets distributed depending on what you listened to.
- (It would be neat if it could fill up during the month as well — but I’m not sure how that would work…)
Users should be able to click on the bar to purchase the song. And if the bar is filled up halfway, it only costs $1, etc.
You could do the same to purchase an album — and I think there could be a way for artists to set their own prices.
We’d probably need some crazy algorithm to factor in song length etc. -but you get the idea!
However, if I in April only listen to Stacy’s Mom and The Shin’s A Comet Appears — do The Shins get all my $10, since I now own Stacy’s Mom? 🤔

So, if a user, through a client, requests to be served a song, we would check if they have access to it — either through the song being owned, or by having an active subscription.

We would also need some sort of offline component. (And it would also be neat if users could upload files somehow.)

Playlists

The API should also have a spec for playlists so that they can be easily shared across different clients and so that it’s portable. It would be great if clients had algorithms to create them — but if you save them to your user, it gets written to your Creek account. This would make it so you automatically have all your playlists if you switch to or log into a different client. It would also make it possible to share playlists with users, regardless of which client they use. You should also be able to subscribe to playlists and have cooperative ones.

Collections

Artists can gather songs in collections — that can be albums, EPs or whatever. It’s just a list of songs, a name for that list, and its own artwork. If a song has several artworks connected to it, I’m thinking users can choose which they like if they have them in a playlist.

Interlude: Portal for everyone!

I play in a band called Klondike, and we’re six members. All our six personal users have access to the band’s page,¹⁰ and here we can upload songs, artwork, collections, etc. But we can also upload songs and set them as private (only accessible by the members of the band, users we’ve approved, or just one person). This can be useful to share demos, or otherwise upload sound files. ¹¹

There should also be some sort of artist verification process…

Connections

I also want artists to be able to post updates to a microblog feed on their artists page. And I want this to use ActivityPub, so that people can follow the artist page from services like Mastodon or Micro.blog. I would rather not create another iTunes Ping — so it’s important that the content get sent out of Creek, while still showing within it.

We could make this more convenient, by allowing cross-posting from other services. ¹²

It would be convenient to be able to sell merch/vinyls within the app — but that does complicate things further. So, might be just as good to use the microblogging feature to link out to stores.

Links

It’s critical that links to songs, playlists, collections, posts, users, artists, etc. are universal, across clients — so that I could share a song with the world, and know that everyone could open it in their clients.

Habits

There should also be some sort of API to (privately) track listening habits, so that clients can use this to create algorithms. But this info must be transferrable!

Sessions

You should be able to have live sessions — either just you and your friends, or public on the web. As a host and admin, I’m thinking you can:

Create a link that let’s people join as listeners.
Create a link that let’s people join as co-hosts.
Choose if listeners can come with suggestions.

DJ component

There should be one…. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Here’s what I’m thinking about the costs:

The cost of hosting and serving the songs would get deducted from the artist’s payment.
If the songs earn less than their cost, the artist would need to pay for the songs to stay up.

I’m interested to hear about what people think about this model! This would do a whole lot of «cutting out the middle man», with the process of «getting a song on Spotify» being pretty complicated. However, it would put some risk on artists — but the costs to host some songs shouldn’t be that bad..? And I think removing the risk from the non-profit is pretty essential.

Some notes on what I would leave to the clients

I want others to create the Music Enjoying Apps, and simply compete on functions and user experience here. The app makers wouldn’t be able to lock you in with network effects ¹³ or that your «collection» is stuck within an app. ¹⁴

And since every service would pay artists well (and equally), being the best place to enjoy music, is the only incentive.

Who has the best apps for the devices you use?
- «Best» differs from person to person. Some might want something simple and sleek, while others want maximum customisability and organisation tools.
- The aforementioned app Marvis has some neat stuff, like smart playlists. I think that if the API provides the folders and the playlists themselves, the apps can be free to write to folders and playlists the way they please.
Who supports the wireless protocols you need?
Who has the best algorithms for creating playlists and finding new music?
Who has the best curated playlists?
Who has the best sharing tools and integrations with other services?

It would be a bit like today, where some use Spotify, some Apple Music and some Tidal, except:

they would be able to share links between each other,
playlists, purchases, habits, etc. would follow the user if you switch clients,
and artists would only need to upload their music, artwork and posts in one place ¹⁵,

A carmaker could also make a client for their infotainment system — and everyone would have their playlists automatically! Stereo, TV, and phone makers could also do the same, of course!

So, what do you think??

As you can see, this is just me spitballing, and dumping all my ideas onto «paper». I might be an «idea guy» and have some web and basic design skills — but I have no idea on how to actually make this thing! There’s guaranteed a thousand technical reasons why this won’t work, and a million reasons why it’s a bad idea in general.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this — and I’m happy if someone steals this idea, and even happier if someone wants to build it with me. Hit me up on Mastodon!

-Erlend

I might write why some other time. ↩︎
I mean, there’s even clients for Apple II, DOS, palmOS, Amigaand Windows 95! ↩︎
When I say «artists», I guess I really mean «rights holders». Because we all know everything doesn’t go to the artists themselves! ↩︎
And the only results I could find with that name, was something that looks like a defunct music label ↩︎
Theoretically we should be able to pay better, as all the profits go to the artists. ↩︎
Which I obviously have no idea on how to build. ↩︎
I wouldn’t mind a client allowing users to sign up through the app - as long as the direct Creek user gets created. Apple would hate this though, so I don’t know. ↩︎
$12/month seems like the base line - so I could imagine a Creek subscription costing $10, and then $2 for a client. ↩︎
But fuck Hayley’s waitress. Not the song, but the person in the song. ↩︎
Reservoir ,is my working title for this. ↩︎
Piracy issues..? ↩︎
But this does create duplicates of posts - so another idea would just be to integrate a Mastodon user directly..? ↩︎
«All my friends use Spotify, and I want to be able to share playlists with them!» ↩︎
«I’ve made so many playlists on Apple Music, and all my purchased songs are there!» ↩︎
You know, since I assume world domination. ✌🏻 ↩︎

🌱 Apple Is Not the Reason I’m Buying Apple Products - These People Are

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 02:34:12 +0100

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In the court cases against Epic, this round of regulatory scrutiny from the EU, and other more, Apple has made their sense of entitlement abundantly clear. Every piece of business that happens on their platforms, is to their credit. And developers are lucky to be able to pay them almost a third of their revenue for the privilege of being on their platforms. If Apple understands that their relationship with developers is reciprocal, they’re hiding it well.

I like all my Apple hardware. Heck, I even love some of it! I also like the operating systems, the general focus on privacy, and the way the different parts of the ecosystem work together. But I think I could enjoy a Framework laptop, Asus phone and some Sony earbuds as well! The things Apple makes and does isn’t the main reason I keep buying Apple products. It’s all the fantastic third-party developers, mostly indie, who make great software for the Apple platforms.

I know that Apple makes some great tools, APIs and frameworks to make this happen — so I’m not saying they shouldn’t get anything for their trouble. But this idea that it’s a one-way street, where only Apple gives other companies business, just feels so wrong to me.

So even though I know neither Tim Apple nor any other Apples, will read this post, I feel the need to shout: Apple, you need to wholeheartedly thank (among others) the following great developers - because they give you a lot of business:

Great third-party software

Most of these apps are what I would call indie apps — but not all of them. ¹ And I think most of them are only available on Apple platforms currently — but they might be available on, or on the way to, other platforms as well. I’ve tried all of them, but don’t necessarily use them regularly — but I do use many of them! ² I’ll also try to give social links to the devs I know — but you are welcome to contact me if some are wrong and you know who I should tag! I’d also love to get more tips to people and apps who should be on this list!

I would never have bought all this stuff without the indie scene on Apple’s platforms

A stock Mac, without utilities like these, feels broken to me:

Answering the question «Is macOS good?» is kind of hard. Because I really don’t like it out-of-the-box — but it’s terrific with third party software…

Bartender, by Surtees Studios, keeps my menu bar tidy and good-looking,
and Default Folder X, by St. Clair Software upgrades my open and save dialogs.
My trackpad becomes much more useful thanks to BetterTouchTool by Andreas Hegenberg of Folivora.ai,
and all my keyboards do the same through Karabiner-Elements by pqrs/Takayama Fumihiko,
and Keyboard Maestro by Stairways Software.
Paste, by a small team based in Denmark, is my favourite clipboard manager,
but Tapbot’s Pastebot, is also great. (Give Paul, Mark and Todd a follow!)
But I would probably be able to live with just using the integrated clipboard manager in Raycast, an outstanding launcher with a rich extension ecosystem.
But Alfred, by Andrew and Vero Pepperrell,
and LaunchBar, by Objective Development is also good!
I do use Raycast for window management, though. However, if I didn’t, I would’ve been well served by things like
- Magnet (Crowd Café),
- Moom (Peter Maurer and Rob Griffiths of Many Tricks),
- Rectangle (Ryan Hanson) ,
- Amethyst (Ian Ynda-Hummel),
- or Yabai (Åsmund Vikane)!
- (And John Siracusa makes some apps for the particular of us.)
Rafael Conde makes some neat little tools (and recently joined the team making Sketch)
Noodlesoft’s Hazel keeps my files tidy,
Anybox holds my bookmarks,
my board game collection is in Classifier by App Deco,
and my digital games are in GameTrack.
Menuwhere (Many Tricks again!) makes sure the top menu is always within reach,
and my screenshots looks great thanks to CleanShot X (and Apple Frames by Federico Viticci)
PopClip by Nick Moore
and SnippetsLab by Renfei Song help me manipulate text,
Photomator manipulates photos,
and what the geniuses over at Rogue Amoeba can do to manipulate sound, is simply remarkable
- (I especially like SoundSource and Audio Hijack!)

Audio Hijack

Some do wood working as a hobby — I do development

And even though I’m very far from being at a professional level, I really like the Zed code editor by the team behind Atom.
Panic also has some great software, in
- Transmit,
- the Nova editor, and the new
- Prompt terminal.
iTerm , by George Nachman is also good,
but my favourite terminal app is Warp.
And if I had coded more on my iPad, I probably would’ve used Runestone, by Simon Støvring,
and Working Copy more!
Oh, and my favourite browser, is Arc by The Browser Company —
- and if I’m there, in Safari or in Firefox, Jeff Johnson helps me StopTheMadness.

Zed

But there’s even more great ways to write notes and other texts

NotePlan, by Eduard Metzger is both my notes app and task manager,
but Agenda seems like a good alternative here,
and I journal in Everlog by Wessley Roche.
But I could very well have taken notes in Bear (Shiny Frog),
Craft,
Bike Outliner (Jesse Grosjean)
or Taio
- (by the developer who also makes MarkEdit)!
(Quick shout-out to Obsidian
and Logseq as well — even though they are cross-platform.)
Text that I won’t save, starts in Drafts by Greg Pierce,
while I write blog posts and more in Ulysses by a team based in Germany.
(But MarsEdit, by Daniel Jalkut also supports Micro.blog!)
And if I feel the need for a post-it note, I might jot something down in Tot, by Iconfactory,
or do some calculations in Soulver by Acqualia Software.
(I’d love to be able to write my emails in Mimestream — but they have got to get on that JMAP support!)

Bear

There are also lots of great calendar apps and task managers

Since I have most my tasks in NotePlan, I don’t use other task managers as much. But I sometimes use GoodTask, as it uses the Reminders.app database, but gives a more powerful interface.
Things 3, by Cultured Code
and Omnifocus by The Omni Group is also great.
If you’re a calendar power user, Fantastical, by Flexibits, is where it’s at.
I’m not, so I really like BusyCal, by Busy Apps, that sits somewhere between Fantastical and Calendar.app.
I also have a soft spot for n.spektor’s Calendar 366.

Calendar 366

Most of these have good mobile clients — but here are some other mobile favourites

Dark Noise, by Charlie Chapman, is a good noisemaker,
and Callsheet by Casey Liss is what IMDB would be if it was made by someone who really cares.
His ATP buddy, Marco Arment, makes the app that’s active the most hours on my phone: Overcast
And I check the IK Start and Arsenal scores with FotMob.
My favourite calculator, is the weirdly named SC-323PU by Thomas Öllinger,
but PCalc by James Thomson is also great.
If I checked the weather in other ways than finding out when I step outside, I could’ve used apps like Carrot Weather by Brian Mueller
or Mercury Weather by Triple Glazed Studios.
(Here’s a pro tip from me: I use the Yr app, which is a weather app paid for by the Norwegian government — and it’s pretty great, and available in English!)
And if I saved recipies, I could use Croutonby Devin Davies
or Mela by Silvio Rizzi.
Silvio has also made a great way to experience RSS, with Reeder.
NetNewsWire by Brent Simmons is another good option,
while my personal favourite is Lire.
iOS also has some fantastic social media apps. I still miss Apollo, by Christian Selig, and Reddit’s policies have made me more or less quit the service. But Narwhal is pretty good if you still use it!
Gluon, by Vincent Ritter is my preferred way to browse Micro.blog.
- (Also check out his Scribbles project!)
For Mastodon, there’s an embarrassment of riches:
- Mona,
- Ivory (Tapbots),
- Mammoth and
- Icecubes (Thomas Ricouard), to name a few!

Mela

When Apple got a fine for unfairly competing with 20 music apps (Spotify being one of them), they wrote a very bitter reply. Here they pointed out that «Spotify pays Apple nothing», ³ even though they have apps on Apple’s platforms. But you can also think of it the other way around: That Spotify is maintaining clients for Apple’s platforms, without Apple having to pay Spotify anything. Because services I use a lot, like Tidal (trying to switch from Spotify), Telegram (the chat app with the best UX by far) and YouTube (Premium is well worth the cost) are obviously available for other platforms as well — so they don’t keep me on Apple’s platforms. But these platforms would be way less attractive for me if these companies didn’t make clients for them! And Apple doesn’t pay them anything for it.

Again, Apple does deserve tons of cash and credit — but not all of it. People like the mentioned developers are the main reason I buy Apple products — and not Apple themselves.

And people’s definition of «indie» varies! ↩︎
Yes, I have a problem. ↩︎
Because they don’t use in-app-purchases. ↩︎

Why I Think Apple’s Fine is Fine

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 17:15:00 +0100

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Today, Apple got hit with a €1.84 billion fine — for anticompetitive behaviour in the music streaming market.

I’ve seen people saying this doesn’t make sense, as Spotify has a larger market share than Apple Music — but that’s not what the complaint is about. The thing is, that Apple has used their size, ecosystem and general market position to give Apple Music a larger market share than they would’ve gotten if they had to compete fairly. Apple is about 80 times the size of Spotify. To put that into perspective, that’s about the same ratio as a rhino compared to a golden retriever. ¹

The dog might have the Rhino beat on «amount of fur», but that doesn’t make it «more powerful».

Here are some of the smaller things Apple are doing:

When I hit «Play» on my Mac (if nothing is playing), the OS opens Apple Music — even though I’ve never used it.
They throw trials at customers who buy their hardware — and they even put ads for it in the freaking Settings app on my phone!
When I use the song recognition button (Shazam) in Control Center, it only gives me an Apple Music link.

No one else is allowed in Control Center - so Spotify isn’t allowed to make their own tool like this.

But that’s not the main reason for the complaint.

Why Spotify «can’t afford» In-App Purchasing

Let’s do some simple math:

Spotify and Apple Music are each others main rivals, and they both cost about $10 per month and pay about $7 of that to artists. ² This gives each company about $3 in margins, which is the same amount that Apple wants from Spotify! Is it that hard to see how that makes it tough for Spotify to compete?

Now, Spotify could increase the price to still get some margins. This would give the following breakdown:

Spotify’s increased price: $14
- To Apple: $4.2
- To artists: $7
- Spotify’s Margin: $2.8

As you can see, they would pay more to their main competitor than what their own margin is, and they would need to charge way more than that competitor. ³

Try to imagine that situation in whatever business you’re in… Like, if Bob’s Burgers, competing with Jimmy Pesto’s Pizzeria, not only had to pay 30% of their revenue, that the Jimmy Pesto didn’t have to pay — it was to Jimmy Pesto!

What the fine really is about

Apple says «but Spotify doesn’t even pay us anything!» — but that’s not relevant here. ⁴

The last sectioned aimed to explain why Spotify has to operate outside of In-App Purchases — and the fine is about how Apple is making that experience terrible.

For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store. They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules, so today we have fined Apple over €1.8 billion.

Margethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy

Apple saying «but we changed our anti-steering this January, so we shouldn’t get this fine» is as good a defence as someone defending a DUI by telling the judge that their sober now.

And remember, if Spotify provides a link through the new anti-anti-steering API, they still have to pay Apple 27% — and we’re back to Bob’s Burgers.

Apple is also saying «developers compete on a level playing field», which might be true if you’re talking Third-Party Developer vs. Third-Party Developer (they’re at least giving fewer sweetheart deals than Google). But this complaint is about Apple vs. Third-Party Developers — and they don’t make any arguments about that.

I don’t love the DMA.

The fact that even if you’re the most profitable company in the world, you still have a «duty» to not only upheld those profits, but increase them, is one of the worst things about our financial system. This profitmania has led Apple to go in hard for that sweet service revenue. And that has lead to stuff like them going into more markets than they need to, and keeping a 30% cut that was set at a time when the App Store wasn’t even meant to turn a profit.

I believe the best version of iOS, and the App Store, would’ve been one where Apple is a beneficial dictator. One that didn’t feel the need to both take a third of developers revenue, while also competing directly with them. But when they’re just a dictator, I get why regulators are pushing for change.

People keep forgetting scale like this when discussing Xbox (Microsoft) vs. Playstation (Sony) as well. But the overall power a company has, is very relevant when discussing anti-trust, so you shouldn’t be blinded by just looking at a small part of the giant. ↩︎
This is too little, and it’s distributed poorly - but that’s a separate discussion! ↩︎
Heck, Apple could even use some of the payment from Spotify to decrease their price even lower than $10. ↩︎
I think Spotify would’ve loved to be able to use the App Store payment system, if Apple charged a fair commission, had reasonable policies, and didn’t unfairly compete. ↩︎

🌱 A Good Way to Get Home Row Mods on a Mac

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 15:40:58 +0100

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If you already know about Home Row Mods, click here to go straight to my quick method for getting it on your Mac - even on the internal laptop keyboard.

As part of my ergonomics voyage, I’ve been working on getting home row mods on my keyboard. This excellent guide provides tons of info on this, but the short version is this:

To contort your hands less when using modifiers (like shift and control), the letter keys on your home row serves double duty: They’re the letters if you tap them, but modifiers if you hold them.

The home row letters on the right side is usually used as well, mirrored from the left. Image from the guide.

Many users of this completely gets rid of the regular modifier keys. But it can be benefitial as a compliment to those as well, by reducing the amount you use them.

Tapping vs holding

But what’s constitutes a tap and what constitutes a hold? That’s the central question here…

Let’s say I’ve made the A key become Shift when held.

If I’ve decided that I have to hold the key for 500 ms before it counts as a hold, I have to wait 0.5 seconds every time I want to type a capital letter. That can be quite annoying!

OK, so I might say I only have to hold the key for 70 ms for it to register as a hold. But as it turns out, when I type the word «after», I hit the F key before I release the A key - so instead I wrote «Fter» with a capital F !

Finding your sweet spot

A normal place to start is at 200 ms, and then it works like this:

Input: Press down (only) A, and release it before 200 ms.
- Output: «a» (click)
Input: Press down (only) A, and release it after 200 ms.
- Output: shift click (hold)
Input: Press down A, and then click F before 200 ms (even if you keep holding A).
- Output: «af» (click)
  - (But if you kept holding F, it would type out the A, and then transition into an «F hold», which in my case is Command.)
Input: Click A, and then click F before releasing A and after 200 ms.
- Output: «F» (Hold - and the shift modifier continues to be held, so you can write more capital letters.)

Higher treshold:

You have to wait for the modifier function to kick in.
- This can be a bit slow and annoying, and can, lead to things like typing the letters «fa» instead of selecting all with «Command + A».
But typing instead of hitting hotkeys is often less annoying than the other way around.

Lower treshold:

Less waiting time, so feels more like regular modifiers.
But this leads to more misfirings - especially if you type fast and/or hold your keys a bit while typing. (The last thing is called key roll, and I do that quite a lot it turns out.)
- You’ll get less unintended activations if you learn to type with shorter clicks,
- or you have a keyboard with more key travel.

The guide linked above recommends starting quite high, and then work your way down as you become more familiar with the concept. Don’t give up on the ergonomic upsides even though it’s not optimal the first days! It’s also possible to have different tresholds on ondividual keys - but I think it might be easier to get the muscle memory if it’s not too different.

How to activate

There are two main alternatives to get this function:

Via the firmware in external keyboards (like QMK and ZMK).
Via software running in the OS (like KMonad and Karabiner-Elements).

These are some of the things you need to consider when choosing your method:

With firmware, you get access to some more advanced functions, like Permissive Hold and Retro Tapping,
- and you can also map keys to adjust the tresholds on the fly.
- I also think it’s a bit more flexible when transitioning between several modifiers.
If the functions are in the keyboard’s firmware, you also get it when connecting to a different computer.
- But the flip side of this, is that doing it in software makes it accessible regardless of the keyboard you’re using with your computer (like an external keyboard without QMK support, or the internal laptop keyboard.
  - Also, software is quicker and easier to install, so doing it on several computers isn’t that hard.
I found the typing feel way nicer (much less lag) with Karabiner-Element (software) vs QMK (firmware) - but that might be due to my settings.

I don’t mind messing with QMK files, compiling and flashing. But it’s much more complex than adding actions via Karabiner-Elements.

I still adjust the numpad and features I only want on the external keyboard with QMK. And I keep home row mods and other dual layer functions on Karabiner - both because I want it on the internal keyboard, and because I prefer the typing feel.

Karabiner-Elements

If you want to do it via firmware or KMonad, you can follow the guide I linked in the beginning. However, I didn’t manage to get KMonad to work on my Mac, and I haven’t found any guides online for how to activate via Karabiner-Elements - so that’s what I want to provide here.

I made the actions using the excellent Karabiner.ts tool.

1) Install Karabiner-Elements

You can download the app from their website, or if you have Homebrew installed, just type brew install karabiner-elements in the terminal.

You do have to give it bunch of permissions in the OS, though!

2) Add the actions

I have a GitHub repo here, with some variants of the home row mods action (and a couple more). The actions themselves are long .json files, that you copy and paste into Karabiner here:

3) Adjust the tresholds

The default to_if_hold_down_treshold is 500 ms - which is very long. So here’s how you adjust it:

When using multiple modifiers (like Shift + Option ), you press and hold the letter keys simultanously. The simultaneous_threshold_milliseconds is how closely you must press them to be counted as being pressed at once.

**If you first hold A, to activate Shift, and then want to activate Shift + Command, you have to release A and then press A and F together. **This is a limitation I haven’t found a way around yet.

4) Test and adjust

You won’t love it at once! So try to adjust the tresholds, while also consider adjusting how you type a bit. Because there will always be some trade-offs.

While testing, I can recommend using something like Keycastr or Karabiner-Element’s EventViewer, which you’ll find here:

In that image you can also see that Karabiner-Elements can hold different Profiles. This can be useful if you find that you prefer different tresholds for different keyboards, so you might have three profiles named something like:

Laptop
External
Gaming (because gaming with home row mods is A Bad Time™️)

Searching for «home row mods karabiner-elements» has given little useful in the past. Now I hope someone will find this, and find it useful!

🌱 Why do so many apps have weird margins?

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 16:25:42 +0100

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There are tons of services, apps and clients for text based social media. But why are almost all of them wrong about timeline margins?

To show what I’m talking about, here’s Threads as an example:

I get that you want to start the text quite close to the username, and that avatars are taller than usernames on some services. But I still think that left-margin is a sin! It wastes space, and makes the entire screen lopsided.

I went through many apps checking - and many of the apps are good and well-designed in general! Many of them are Mastodon clients, because that service has a fantastic 3rd party ecosystem. Also, they’re all iOS apps, because that’s what I have. Would be interested to hear about the situation on Android!

OK, here are some more offenders:

Bluesky

Mammoth (for Mastodon)

Ivory (for Mastodon)

Toot! (for Mastodon)

Phanpy.social. Great web client for desktop as well! (for Mastodon)

Elk.zone, another web client. Also great! (for Mastodon)

Micro.blog

Icro (for Micro.blog)

X is such a mess, compared to the other apps. One thing is the ads, but look at the bottom bar without blur and the messy transparency around the notch. 🤦🏻‍♂️

So, what do I deem the «correct» solution here?

The offical Mastodon app uses the space more effectively, and feels more balanced. Images also gets tons of space.

Mona (for Mastodon) is another app with good margins - and I prefer that it has given some margins to link previews and images, as opposed to the official client.

Icecubes also has nice margins.

You can be flexible

If you look at these Threads screenshot, you can see that it sometimes uses the left-margin for showing that a post is a reply.

But Mona shows that you can do that, while not reserving the space all the time!

Gluon (for Micro.blog) almost gets it right - but has added this weird margin under the avatar and profile names.

Dealing with avatars and usernames

All apps have three different pieces of user information (more or less) on the timeline:

Avatar
Display name
Username

The avatars usually has a height of about two lines. And most of the apps who’s running large left-margins, either only shows one of the names (Threads, Mammoth, Micro.blog) or shows as much of the two names as they can fit on one line (X, Bluesky, Toot!).

Let’s look at the Bluesky example again:

This shows three different outcomes: Both names fit, only some of the username fits, nothing of the username fits. I get that having them on one line allows the text to start higher up - but more than the little space you save, is then wasted in the left margin. So why not just have the names on two lines, like the aforementioned apps?

If you really want only one line for the name(s), I made this mockup for a cheeky solution where the text wraps around the Avatar: ¹

I can’t be alone in finding the right alternative much more balanced? And I've filled in text to show that there's room for more.

Am I missing something? Why have so many apps landed on having a much larger left-margin than right-margin? Is it just because most people use larger phones, and then the issue isn’t as pronounced?

If a post is just an image, a gap would be made between its top and the name - but I think that’s OK. ↩︎

Today’s Keyboard Maintenance

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 01:46:24 +0100

Today, I finished the first step of my Ergonomics Voyage: Making some modifications to my keyboard.

Key layout

The most important change, was activating home row mods. So I’ve made it so tapping

a s d f works as normal — but if I hold them, they act as

Ctrl Opt Shift Cmd .

And then I’ve mirrored it on the other side, to j k l ø .

Failed at software

I tried for literally 13 hours to make it work in software, through both KMonad and Karabiner-Elements. But the former wouldn’t compile, and the latter just wouldn’t accept any .jsons…

This would be preferable, as that makes it possible to have the same setup on the laptop keyboard — while now it’s only on my external keyboard.

Hardware was easy

However, creating the setup in QMK, was a breeze.

This isn’t meant as a guide, but here’s some of the code I used:

#define CTL_A LCTL_T(KC_A)
#define ALT_S LALT_T(KC_S)
#define SFT_D LSFT_T(KC_D)
#define GUI_F LGUI_T(KC_F)

CTL_A (etc.) is just the name I’ve given the keycode.

The T in the last bit is what makes it the hold-thing, so that last bit means:

Left control when held (but otherwise A)

I’ve done the same thing with my spacebar, to toggle a layer. So for instance, when I holde space i j k l becomes arrow keys.

I’ve been struggeling with // prettier-ignore…

First impressions

It’s really hard to use the modifiers! Especially since I have the normal ones right there. I guess I have to be more strict if it’s to stick. And maybe if I get an ergonomic keyboard later, I will be forced to adopt it.

One negative thing, though, is that there’s a slight lag while typing. It doesn’t have a functional change — it’s just that it staggers a bit when I look at the text I’m typing. This is because it’s waiting a little bit to see if I’m tapping or holding the buttons. I’ve tried to turn down the wait time, but it’s still there.

I’ll probably get used to it — but it’s a bit annoying, and I’m kind of snobbish when it comes to stuff like this…. ¹ But I like the feeling of using them!

A little hardware tweak

My keyboards use Stabies stabilisers, and I’ve actually had some trouble with them because they tend to get stuck. Even though I have quite heavy springs in my switches and I tried it with zero lube, the Enter key would still get stuck. So for over a year, my Enter key has sounded horrible, because I had to loosen the stabiliser screws. So it was rattly and pingy.

Today I finally got it switched out for a Durock stabiliser — and I only had to desolder 12 switches!

I’m currently trying to see if Zed is ready for me to more from Nova to! Just because it’s so blazing fast. ↩︎

🌱 How I Manage Windows

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:21:51 +0100

Lenke til norsk versjon

Rafael Conde, posted on Mastodon today:

We’re sharing how we use the Desktop and how we size/position windows on our Macs on our work Slack and it’s absolute madness.

And, then followed it up with a poll:

Time to fess up, how do you primarily use windows “on your” Mac? Bonus points if you reply with a screenshot 📸
⋅ Wherever the appear, I don’t know
⋅ Centered (think Apple marketing shot)
⋅ Fullscreen (as big as you can make them)
⋅ Tiled (in a grid, like taking up half the screen)

I, as many others, have strong feelings about this. And I’d love for this to become the next «Default apps»! So I’ll start.

I’m a big tiler.

I switch between my MacBooks 14 inch screen, and my Studio Display’s 27-inch screen. But no matter which I’m on, I move my apps around quite a lot, and almost always in

quarters,
halves,
and wholes (not fullscreen mode).

Here are some examples:

Typical half 'n' half.

I use quarters less on my laptop - but I like it with apps (like Telegram) that don't need more. So if I bring it to the front, it doesn't cover the entire browser.

Sometimes I'll tile like this as well - both being full height, but ¼ and ¾ width.

I almost never use one app on the entire screen on the Studio Display (only iMac support in Apple Frames 😔). I shift the dock from «bottom, hidden» to «left, visible» - as I like to see the icons if I have the space.

But equally important, is how I move them.

I don’t really have set workspaces, as I switch apps a lot. So i’ll jump between NotePlan, Ulysses, Nova, Arc, Lire, Telegram, Photomator, etc., and move and resize them quite a lot. I do it through keyboard shortcuts set in Raycast 🖇️, with Caps Lock set as Hyperkey ☆ .

I’ve made a grid under my left hand, so I always can move windows with only that (perhaps while my right hand is on the trackpad):

   ☆+W = Top left ¼  |  ☆+E = Top right ¼
☆+A = Left ½ | ☆+S = Full | ☆+D = Right ½
 ☆+Z = Botm left ¼  |  ☆+X = Botm right ¼

And the left and right halves, cycles the width between ½, ¼ and ¾.

I find that I always want to use the entire screen real estate - whether that’s 14 or 27 inches. So chill setups like Rafa himself posted, feels like a waste to me:

Rafa's posted screenshot.

However, I have indulged myself with an 8px gutter between windows! Oh, and something I have planned for this week, actually, is to set up hotkeys for my most apps - but currently I mostly launch them with Raycast.

What desktop??

I use Yoink to help me move files between apps - so I never (need to) see my own desktop. I can’t remember the last time I used it for anything… I never even check the widgets I’ve placed there. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Looking forward to see more responses in the Mastodon poll - and hopefully some more blog posts as well! Especially John Siracusa, seems to have some wild habits. 👌🏻

🌱 My Tech Setup

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:21:37 +0100

Lenke til norsk versjon

I’ll make separate posts for my software and bass guitar setups, but here’s my current tech hardware setup.

The overview. Details incoming!

MacBook Pro

My Mac is the center of it all — and I’m living (and loving) the laptop-desktop lyfe.

Now, there are many things I like about living in Norway. And one of them, is that we’ve mandated by law that things like computers needs to have a 5-year warranty(ish). And this also applies to second-hand owners! So buying used Apple gear, is great here — and that’s how I bought my MacBook Pro when it was 10 months old.

It’s a 14-inch M1 Pro base model, with 512 GB of storage and 16 GB of RAM.

I would enjoy more storage and memory - but it still works tremendously. I’ve never been this happy with a computer before!

Did you notice the Macbook in the previous image?

Apple Studio Display

Yes, it’s too expensive — but no, it’s not the same as just having a 4k screen. **And look at everything that happens when I connect one Thunderbolt cable to my Mac! **👇🏻

Power to the Mac
Power to the Xiaomi Mi Monitor Light 🖇️ (Website)
Laneware Macro-1
Laneware LW-67 keyboard
- Both with Less but better keycaps and
- Boba U4 switches (U4Ts in the large buttons).
Lightning cable for the Apple Magic Trackpad
Universal Audio Volt 2 🖇️ (Website)
- PreSonus Eris E3.5 🖇️ (Website)
- Grado SR125 (I don’t have X, though) 🖇️ (Website)
Røde NT-USB Mini 🖇️ (Website)

I just love that I can unplug one cable, and just take my laptop home with me.

When I had this at my home office, I also connected ethernet to the spare port, a mouse in the USB-A hub, and some more stuff.

I've tilted the trackpad (and its wrist rest), to improve the ergonomics. I should probably get a split keyboard as well...

Makes it easier to connect both my headphones and speakers to the Mac, and I also use it for bass rehearsel and recording, and for testing pedal boards. Fastened with Dual Lock.

The mic and monitors are fine - nothing more, nothing less. But very practical!

These sound great! Especially for the price, and especially with Crinacle's EQ preset set through SoundSource. Tons of leakage, though.

Desk accessories

The wool desk mat was custom ordered (to me previous, tiny, desk) from this Etsy store. The, equally custom, wrist rests are from this Etsy store.

I almost never need a wallet - so Apple's MagSafe wallet is perfect. The Moleskin notebook is just as under used.

The iPad and headphones stand is Ikea’s (very cheap) Havrehoj. I like it a lot!

The desk shelf is just an Ikea shelf plate and parts of a Kallax I modified bolted together. Even though my monitor isn’t on it (would make it too high), I like that it gives me back the area used by cables, monitor foot and MacBook, while also just decluttering.

iPad

I have the iPad Pro 11-inch from 2018 (the first with the flat sides), with LTE and 256 GB of storage. I also bought this used — in 2019, and it still works well (even though I’m starting to notice that it’s 5.5 years old, with the occasional slowdown). I’m one of those who loves having LTE — as it’s so nice to never having to worry about internet connection. I also used it as my «whiteboard» when I was a teacher — and could just switch to LTE if the school’s network was struggling. ¹

I also have the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard, which I like, but use less than when I was a teacher. Being able to charge the iPad from both sides, is my favourite little bonus of the keyboard.

iPhone

Not in the first image, as it took it.

I’m a noted Mini iPhone enjoyer, and my iPhone 13 Mini (in Midnight) has worked perfectly since the day I got it. It fixed all the issues of the 12 Mini, and is a top-tier iPhone IMO.

Here are some things I’ll say ’til the day I die (and will fight everyone who disagrees with 💪🏻):

The ordinary (potential) Mini buyer is on a long update cycle, and has also bought SE phones. So when the SE got updated half a year before the 12 Mini’s release, many of those had recently bought a phone — and this hurt the sales.
The 15 Plus phone also «flopped», but doesn’t get nearly the same amount of flak!
The lineup with the 13 Mini, 13, 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max was the perfect lineup. Apple should be able to include a mini phone in their trillion dollar pipeline anyway. I don’t have particularly small hands (I just like to be able to use my phone one-handed), but many people do and should be well-served as well.

Here’s to hoping the next SE is a Mini. 🤞🏻 (But I doubt it. And, my next phone is probably a Pro for the cameras anyway…)

I also have the first gen AirPods Pro. I really like them, but I’ve had some troubles with them, and had to return them a couple of times. Luckily, there’s the whole government mandated warranty — so even though I bought them in 2019, I got brand-new ones (for free) as late as the fall of 2023. 🙌🏻

No, it’s far from as nice to just share from your phone. ↩︎

🌱 The Ethics and Principles Behind My Blog

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:57:33 +0100

These are my goals:

Be a pleasent place for people visiting, that respects their privacy.
Be a good citizen of (a lose definition of) the indie/small web.
Even though my impact is small, I can still try to make it positive.

This page (and the actions taken based on it), is under constant evaluation. It’s meant as a living post. 🌱 So feel free to contact me with feedback on this - especially if I fail to meet my goals.

Ads and tracking

The only tracking I’ve (consciously) put on my site, is Tinylytics.

My YouTube embeds are made with lite-youtube-embed, which (among other things) uses youtube-nocookie.com.

I currently don’t run any ads or sponsorships. The only monetisation on this site is tips through ko-fi.com and the occasional affiliate link.

Affiliate links

Probably the most common type of affiliate links are product links to stores (like Amazon), which give the linker a small kickback if the linkee ends up buying the product. It doesn’t cost the user anything extra, but it does interfere with the incentives for, let’s say, a blogger. This is because I only receive my kickback if you purchase it, perhaps incentivising me to praise the product more than I would otherwise.

Perhaps I don’t even have the product, and I’ll just say “I recommend this cool charger!” (just because I think it looks promising, based on the store page) and hope someone will buy it.

So, here’s what I’ve settled on at the moment:

If I recommend a service I pay for regularly (like Fastmail 🖇️ and Setapp 🖇️ ), I think it’s OK to use affiliate links.

And I think it’s OK to use affilite links if it’s to a product that:

I’ve spent (my own) money on,

and

still uses,
used to its end of life,
or has bought as a gift.

For instance, I love these Anker chargers. I use about five of them, and have bought it as a gift to both my wife and other familiy members - so I wouldn’t feel iffy about having affiliate links to them.

However, I’ll still clearly mark every affiliate link. I don’t know if there’s an established standard yet - but I propose the linked paperclips emoji 🖇️ as the official affiliate link emoji. I believe it’s the perfect symbol for “links with attachments”! (So, you can see that the Fastmail and Setapp links are affiliate links, while the Anker link is not. 👆🏻) I’ll also use the full version of the links, to make it clearer that it’s affiliate links.

Also, I want to support smaller stores (and they often don’t have affiliate programs), so we’ll see how this goes…

AI

On my About page, I said that I believe you can buy roses, whilst still accepting that they have thorns. The opposite is also true, you can be against something and still accept it has merits. Too many people, who are principally against generative AI tools, also feel like they have to hold the opinion that they’re useless. I think they can be very useful, if used right - but I still have reservations.

Image generators

I often think and explain in images. So I would really like to use generative AI to create illustrations for my blog posts. However, I just don’t think that would be fair, due to the fact that these models would be useless without the copyrighted materials of artists who haven’t given their consent, nor received compensation or credit.

Perhaps I would be OK to pay for a model that has the three C’s covered, but I haven’t found that currently.

Text generators

I pay for access to ChatGPT-4, through Raycast - and I’ve recieved a lot of help through it while creating this website! As someone who has never really learned how to code, it’s super helpful to ask questions like «How do I do [this]?» «What’s wrong [here]?» «Can you explain [this] line for line?» «What’s the difference between display: block and display: inline-block ?»

However, I don’t use it to create content. And even though I’m not a native English speaker, I don’t use it to translate stuff. I like to write (in both English and Norwegian)! And I want people to know, and feel like, the stuff on this site is written by an (imperfect) human being.

I sometimes do run spelling and grammar checks after the fact, though - and also sometimes use Ulysses’ built in checker.

I’m not sure I’m comfortable with my use, though! Shouldn’t I apply the same principles to text as I do to images? Maybe! But there are some reasons why I currently use text generators:

If I had a blog that could afford to pay for an illustration to a post ¹, doing this with AI would very directly remove a paying job, and I would end up not paying any illustrators. It’s less like this with asking questions about coding and the occasional spellcheck. ²

I don’t use it for anything oppinion/politcal/news based, and still pay for a bunch of content like this.

I don’t use it to pollute the web. ³

I’ve also landed on allowing crawlers on my site. I’ve installed a plugin that can stop it, but then I though «Is it fair of me to use these tools, and then say that it can’t gobble up my stuff?»

I’ll end this section, by saying that I’m not sure about all of this! And I hope we’ll get new laws in place to regulate this…

Other values

I don’t have a mission with this blog. But I’ll still try, with what I choose to write and amplify, to be something positive - and aligned with the values stated in my About page.

That I’m not in that position doesn’t really change this point. ↩︎
But you could say it’s hurting a potential editor and coding schools? ↩︎
If you think my blog is garbage, it’s at least human made litter! ↩︎

My Ergonomics Voyage: Part 1

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 21:20:13 +0100

Prologue, and the first steps

Lenke til norsk versjon

I’ve been a nerd my entire 34-year-long life. So naturally, much of it has been spent in front of computers using keyboards, and I’ve never experienced any discomfort related to this.¹

I don’t know if it’s due to my age, or just the fact that I’ve worked even more than usual on keyboards, but lately, I’ve started to notice discomfort. Especially in my left hand, but a bit in my right as well. Luckily, there’s nothing anywhere else, and it’s not that bad. But I want to take action to try to stay ahead of it.

A bit about my current situation

The last couple of years, I’ve been working mostly in my small home office, which was OK, but not great. Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally got my own (external) office, so the situation has improved. However, I’ve been stupid, and also worked quite a bit on my laptop on our kitchen table lately.

Here’s my current office setup:

Not visible in the photo, is my Herman Miller Aeron chair, foot rest, and standing pad.

Good things about my setup

A standing desk makes it easy to dial in the proper 90° elbow angle.
I can also switch between standing and sitting.
Since my keyboard isn’t as wide as those with a numpad, my trackpad isn’t too far to the right.
The wrist rests are high enough so I don’t tilt my hands up (or down).
The screen can adjust its height and tilting, so I can dial in a good angle.

However, there is a weakness with my beloved custom keyboard

Laneware Macro-1 and LW-67. Boba U4 switches.

Me and some of my friends bought custom keyboards at the same time. They bought split keyboards, like this:

I thought they were cool, but I wanted a keyboard that others could use as well. Furthermore, since I hadn’t had any discomfort, it didn’t feel worth it.

However, there are four main problems with regular keyboards

When you put your index fingers on f and j , your hands are too narrow. Instead of being shoulder width, you have to force them inwards.
Since the keyboards are completely flat, the back of your hand is flat and parallell to the ceiling. To get to that position, you have to twist them a bit inwards - which is suboptimal.
Your strongest fingers (thumbs) are under utilised. Also, since the spacebar is so large, you have to move them pretty far to hit the buttons next to it (cmd for Mac).
The staggered placement of the switches isn’t the best (same with, you know, QWERTY).

Most split keyboards, like the ZSA Moonlander, solves all of these (to an extent).

You can have your hands far enough from each other, it can be tilted to the side, there’s more thumb buttons, and the layout is columnar (👇🏻).

But I don’t want to go there quite yet

They are expensive, and I’ve already spent a lot on my current keyboards (which I love!). But if I have to, I have to… So, Part 1 of this journey, is things I can do that’s not getting a new keyboard.

I asked my split friends — and they actually had some advice that wasn’t «Get a split keyboard!». So some of these ideas are from them!

1) Put tilting legs on my trackpad

Even though my left hand is the one with most pain, I should still see if I can make things better for my right hand. And while I can’t tilt my keyboard like I need to, I can do it with my trackpad.

2) Just be a bit more conscious about how I use my keyboard

I’ve noticed, since I got the pain, that just being a bit more aware also helps. When writing, I twist my hands in a more comfortable degree, and pay more attention when using modifiers. For instance, I’ve started hitting Option + Command with just my left thumb.

But I can up this, with the next step:

3) Program home row modifiers

How often do you hold letters to write many of them? ² Really, the only keys we hold, are the modifier keys. So, some people have taken the genius step of modding the home row ( A S D F — J K L Ø ) ³to be modifier keys if you hold them.

Image from the link above.

So, for instance, you can put Command under f and j .

So if you want to do cmd + c, you can hold f and then click c .

If you would like to do cmd + f, you just hold j and click f .

4) Do specific exercise

There are exercises designed to help with the problems I’m experiencing, that I should do. ⁴ But I should also consider the last idea:

5) Get A Life™

I have plenty of things I like to do, that doesn’t involve typing on keyboards. So I should prioritise those things more. Now that I’m done with the 1.0 of this website, that’ll be easier!

We’ll see if I have to embark on a Part 2. And my friend has been nice enough to allow me to try out his (second) ZSA Moonlander.

ZSA also makes the Voyager, which looks nice.

But I think something like a version of the Lily58 (above) or Boardsource Lulu (below) is most tempting at the moment. I like that they’re small, but with some more thumb buttons, and that they can be made with rotary encoders. Also, I like the DIY!

Do you have any more advice for me? Please comment here (must add link later) or email me.

This is what’s called «foreshadowing». ↩︎
Zzzzzzzz ↩︎
Norwegian layout, baby! ↩︎
Not that I’ve found them yet! ↩︎

Pedal tuners and product design

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 16:10:30 +0100

Firstly, sorry about caring a bit too much about guitar tuners. You see, as a side gig, I help people with their pedalboards (especially people using multiple guitars on stage), and I often recommend that they get a new tuner. But no tuners are exactly like I want!

While this post is mostly hard core nerd out on pedal tuners, there are also some comments on product design in general. Let’s go!

A new product series gives (false) hope

I prefer always-on tuners that you mute elsewhere (volume pedal or otherwise), and this makes foot-switches redundant. That’s why I like the idea behind Boss TU3-S.

The only pedaltuner that can't be muted or turned off?

Shiny!

So, when I saw the new(ish) Korg X tuners, I was stoked – especially for the XS. The pedal to display size ratio is great, the switch design is cool, and I like that it’s more squared off than your typical mini pedal. This allows it to fit into odd slots on pedalboards.

However, contrary to what the product page on Sweetwater says (as of november 2022), there is no way to tune with this brand-new pedal without muting your signal! I got this confirmed by Korg USA, and they said they would inform Sweetwater and make them change their product description.

Sweetwater's product page, desgribing the product I want (but that doesn't exist).

«But why tune without muting? Do you want everyone to hear your off-pitch notes?» I hear you ask. But it’s not that I want to tune with sound. I just don’t want the tuner to be the only way to mute while tuning!

Space is a premium on pedalboards – but so is reachability! If you already have a volume pedal or an AB switch with a mute, these have to be reachable no matter what. Then it’s nice to be able to stick the tuner somewhere that might be hard to reach, but that’s still visible. (Also, if you’re a bassist like me, you could sneak in a little tuning during some long root notes while playing!)

Look how hard it is to step on between all the other pedals. Why wouldn't this have always-on?

I know that the majority of rigs don’t need this function, but I just find it absolutely baffling that they didn’t include this as an option in at least one of the three new pedal tuners they released.

Korg X Mini vs. Polytune Noir 3

(Gallery)

To illustrate that I don’t understand what the Korg product team was thinking with this series, let me compare the brand new X Mini to an established competitor: the Polytune Noir 3.

Buffer: Both have good buffers, but the Noir 3’s can be changed to true bypass (dip-switch on the outside). The X Mini doesn’t have this option at all. A guitar signal that goes through normal instrument jacks over a long distance (like from your guitar, through all your pedals and to an amplifier) will lose tone, if it doesn’t get a push. This is what the buffers do, and you should at least have one close to the beginning of your pedal chain and preferably one at the end. Since some pedals need to be before any buffers, being able to turn it off is a good thing.
Accuracy: X Mini: ± 0,1 cents – Noir 3: ± 0,02 cents
Always-on: The Noir 3 has this on an external dip-switch as well. The X Mini doesn’t have this option.
Special sauce: The Noir 3 has the Polytune Mode, allowing you to check the tuning on all six strings at once.
Other specs: Pedal size, display size and price are about the same (the price is literally the same here in Norway).

Pride and product design

I’m trying to imagine being on the Korg product team…

These tuners are what I would classify as «compact mid-range tuners», and I think the Noir 3 is the most well-rounded option in the market. However, it is more than 3,5 years old. Korg was behind, with their oldPitchblack mini, but now they could get an advantage: They would soon have the newest tuners on the marked, and they knew beforehand exactly what they had to beat.

And then they don’t even try..?

The Polytune Mode is probably mega-patented, so Korg couldn’t do that. But shouldn’t that make them at least match the competition on basic functions? Or maybe try to undercut them on price? Did someone try to tell their manager «Our brand-new tuner is not only missing their signature feature, but it also has fewer functions and less accuracy. And we’re neither cheaper nor more compact!»?

I don’t think I would be as annoyed if the products were plain rubbish. It’s extra infuriating since they’re so close to being great! Korg makes the best-looking tuners, in my opinion, and their build quality is good for the price. And the XS in genuinely pretty innovative. The team behind the foot-switch did an impressive job, but then they got let down by this one omission.

Long-lasting thoughts

I ♥️ details. And sometimes details are expensive. Maybe the good materials cost more, or perhaps a different process makes every unit more costly. This adds up, over the years of a product’s life. If this were a different post, this would be where I’d make a remark about capitalism and the focus on profit over creativity and pride. But while unhinged capitalism usually is the root issue, I don’t think cost-cutting is Korg’s main problem here. Making the buffer switchable and always-on, isn’t expensive to design or produce. They just had to bother. To me, this whole series of tuners reeks of a corporation not making their products as good as they can, but only as good as they have to.

A thing that fascinates me about product design, is that one good thought last for years. It lasts through all the years a product is produced and all the years it’s used. I think this is one of the reasons I love things that are thoroughly considered. Now, I know that real artists ship, and you can’t spend too long designing, revisioning and perfecting.

The famous toaster button

Take a look at the button layout on this Breville toaster:

Cancel, Frozen, and Bagel is all right – but it’s the last one it’s all about. I can’t imagine that specific function increases the production cost that much – it’s just a really good idea. It’s one good thought, that then affects millions of slices of bread.

Korg should’ve thought about their new pedal series a bit more.

Addendum

This post started as a Reddit-comment. In that, I asked (and then answered) two additional tuner questions:

The Peterson Strobostomp HD has everything (almost too much), and is great. If it had an all-screen version without the foot-switch, this would be my go-to.

The Turbo Tuners are nice – especially if you want great accuracy and don’t need a buffer.

The aforementioned Polytune Noir 3 is a great option for the price, especially if you like the Polytune thing.

I just love the way the Boss TU3-W looks! With always-on and a good buffer, the only drawbacks are accuracy and size. I’m not confident that I can rationally recommend this for the price, though – but who chooses gear just based on rationality!?

I know it’s silly, but I would’ve liked the Boss TU3-S a lot more if it had the black TU3-W look. This is still worth checking out, as long as you know about the average buffer and accuracy.

And lastly, a twist recommendation: The Korg XS! I mean, most people probably aren’t concerned with the lacking always-on anyway. So, then this is just a compact, cool looking tuner with a switchable buffer and “good-enough” accuracy. And you could make it “always on” by putting it in a tuner out or a loop of sorts – even though you then waste the buffer, and it’s not always practical.

What would my perfect tuner look like?

“All” display design. Mutability is a «nice to have».
Always-on option (obviously 😛)
A good, but switchable, buffer.
Good enough accuracy, and some calibration options.
Top-mounted jacks.
Power out is nice.
A cool, dark look. 😎

In other words, the Korg XS is really, really close. Always-on, top-mounted jacks (the other two can keep the side-mounted) and maybe a tad more accuracy (I don’t care, but I know some do) and we’re there. In five years, Korg?

🌱 Guide to card sleeves

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 15:05:34 +0100

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«Why?»

Card protectors, or sleeves, are perhaps the most common accessory for games. There are two main reasons for sleeving your games:

To protect the cards (kinda says so on the tin)
To increase the sense of quality, much like component upgrades

The protection part is especially important if the cards are of high value and/or gets shuffled a lot. Both are true with most collectable card games (CCGs), like Magic The Gathering – and this is why the sizes used for these games has the best selection. Shuffling with sleeved cards feels a lot better than unsleeved, so that affects both point 1 and 2. You can also get them with matte finish, to reduce glare.

Here’s a guide to how you should proceed if you want to sleeve:

First, figure out what kind of sleeves you need. There is an annoying amount of different sizes, and many of them are very similar. Sleeve Your Games is a great website and service, where you can search for games and find out what size and quantity you require.

Next, you need to decide if you want matte or glossy sleeves. I prefer matte, for readability. However, glossy ones make the colours on the cards pop more!

«What kind of sleeves should I buy?»

To navigate the jungle of different makers and types, I’ve divided the crop into three quality tiers, and I’ll give my recommendations for each tier. When settling on a tier, the amount of protection ain’t that important, as they’re all good enough. (This isn’t the article for someone wondering how to best protect The Power Nine – this is geared towards «normal» board and card games.) So, it’s about how much you care about the sense of quality and how much money you want to spend. Furthermore, I highly recommend you stick to only one or two kinds of sleeves, so you don’t have to keep track of different types and so you always get to use all the sleeves in a package. If you have several types, you’ll end up with 10 sleeves here and 5 sleeves there from packs you didn’t use all the sleeves.

Tier 1: Cheap and fine

A good indicator for the quality of the sleeve is the thickness, often given in microns (µm). The cheapest are usually around 60 µm, like the regular ones from Sleeve Kings, which is my recommendation here. From time to time, they run Kickstarter campaigns where you can get them even cheaper, but they’re always cheap! They cost about 2.25 ¢ per unit ($2-3 for a 110 pack).

Even the product picture looks cheap.

Plus:

Price
Good selection of sizes
Price

Minus:

They feel a bit loose or sloppy around the cards
Not available in matte

Tier 2: Solid

My choice here falls on Gamegenic Prime. They come in at 100 µm, can be found in both matte and glossy and is available in «all» sizes. They cost about 5.5 ¢ per unit ($2.5-4 for a 50 pack).

Plus:

Good middle ground between quality and price
Good selection of sizes

Minus:

A bit slippery

Tier 3: Premium

I do not recommend anyone buying sleeves of this quality and price point for normal games. It’s totally unnecessary, and I love it. «Luckily» for me, the selection in sizes is poor, as these are made for CCGs. So, for me, only one size is relevant: What’s usually referred to as «Standard Card Game». My favourite here is Dragon Shield.

The variant on the left is slightly better.

They cost about 12 ¢ per unit (😬) (€12 for a 100 pack) – but what makes them so good? First of all, they are 120 µm, so nice and thick.

Dragon Shield (L) and Gamegenic (R).

As you can see on the picture, the Dragon Shields are a bit larger, relative to the card, compared to the Gamegenics. This creates a pleasant frame around the card, in my opinion. Moreover, the cards sit more securely and are lovely to shuffle. My favourite detail, however, is that they have a textured back side, which creates a nice feel and also might contribute to the fact that they don’t slide as much when they are stacked. You can get them in both matte and glossy and in a huge number of colours. The last thing might come in handy if you need to change the backside of the cards for some reason. They also come with a box you can use for storing.

Think of Dragon Shields like something you splurge on for your favourite games, like Geek Up bits.

Plus:

Great «hand feel»
Wonderful to shuffle
Textured backside
Good colour reproduction while still stopping glare

Minus:

Price
The size sometimes makes them not fit in inserts
Price

Negatives to sleeving

Well, it cost money – and a lot of it if you’re as stupid as me and get Dragon Shields. Also, it can create troubles for inserts and boxes in general.

The Innovation box used to be the size of the Red7 box, but not after I sleeved...

Arcane Tinmen, Gamegenic, Dragon Shields.

On the picture above, I’m trying to show how much taller the stacks get (it’s about 30 cards). Something I noticed, was that the Gamegenics actually made the stack taller than the Dragon Shields. However, I think this is because the latter had been under pressure in the Innovation box.

When I press down, you can see that the Dragon Shields are thicker.

I don't recommend Arcane Tinmen. More expensive, but worse, compared to Gamegenic.

Here you can see what I had to do to fit the sleeved cards in the Jaipur insert.

But it looks OK with the cards inside!

But the lid doesn't close quite as tight as before - but no rubber band needed.

To be fair, sleeving most games is a bit over the top – especially with anything more expensive than Gamegenics. But if there are some games you play a lot and the cards get shuffled, I think it’s worth it. Personally, I’ve gone for Gamegenics for most games, but buying Dragon Shields for games that uses that size and that «deserve it».

What makes a good cuff?

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 15:42:17 +0200

Ok, so this is by far the most niche thing I’ve ever written. But after getting a great jacket (that I’ll write about some other time!) that only had one problem, I wanted to gather my thoughts on this tiny subject. The “problem” was: It doesn’t cuff perfectly.

What’s the deal with cuffing anyway??

Cuffing is when you fold the sleeves of a shirt, jacket, sweater etc. It’s also commonly used when you do the same to leg opening of pants or shorts. And I’m an avid cuffer! The three reasons are:

I’m 1.75 m tall, and my legs and arms aren’t especially long - so clothes are usually too long.
Related, I like watches, bracelets, shoes and socks - and cuffing shows them off.
I often think it makes the clothes themselves look better.

Here’s some examples of what I mean by nr. 2 and 3:

The cuffed shirt makes the watch more prominent - to myself and others.

The cuffed jacket gives the bracelets more space. A bonus-point, is that it would've shown off my shirt sleeve, had it been long. (Cuffed Mister Freedom shorts as well!)

Making a long-sleeve shirt a short-sleeve - another reason for cuffing!

I think baggy shirt sleeves like this looks better cuffed. (Sorry for the mediocre quality - but I like this picture, because this was just after us being reunited. Vincent had gotten away from us because he tried to look for me when I left that day!

On short sleeves, which I never un-cuff, I like to make 2-4 little cross-stitches like this to keep them cuffed. Contrast stiches is fun.

Showing off the selvedge!

I just like the look of cuffed jeans - especially if they’re selvedge. And it shows of the shoes and socks as well (not that these gray socks are especially interesting).

Now on to some “Cuffing theory”:

(I told you this post was niche!)

Cuffing is a big deal in the “raw/selvedge denim community”. I mean, here’s an article called “How to cuff jeans: The 8 most common ways”! Personally I just use two:

The black jeans above is double cuffed. The jeans on this picture normally has a Japanese cuff - which is why the double cuff is wider (I just cuffed it once more for the picture).

Single or double, full or half

In general, I don’t like single cuffs. That’s because I usually want to hide the edge, and that the cuff doesn’t feel as secure.

A shirt with a single cuff.

One more cuffs make it look much cleaner.

I prefer to either go full og half width, as something in between won’t make it look as clean.

The buttons matter

Take a look at these sleeves:

The right one is wider than the left - and here’s the reason:

Before cuffing, you can either have the last button closed or open. This affects the width and tightness of the cuff.

On some shirts, a double cuff doesn’t sit properly if the button is open.
And on some shirts I can’t get my hand through without having it open.
When turning a long sleeve into a short sleeve, I open the next button as well.

Here’s an exception to my double cuffing:

The jacket is stiff enough, so the cuff feels ok, and it has details that looks cool: Rivets, threads of different colours, chain stitching, etc. The Japanese cuff on jeans is another exception (as it shows the edge as well).

Tips for clothing designers, and the problem with my new jacket

Before looking at the tiny problem with my jacket, let me say: it’s an amazing garment, that gets so much right. So keep that in mind when I bring attention to this tiny detail that’s not perfect:

It doesn’t cuff quite right! 😱

Ok, se here’s the sleeve un-cuffed. It’s a Ventile jacket, so it’s a good thing that it’s a longer sleeve for when it’s raining.

Another good thing, is that I can use the flap and buttons to tighten it.

However, the thing that’s amazing with the jacket being cotton (in addition to being waterproof), is that it breathes. This makes it better to use in warmer weather, and also makes it a jacket I want to use even if it doesn’t rain. This, in addition to the reasons I mentioned at the start of the article, is why I want to be able to cuff it as well.

I start with a single fold. It has to be this wide to get beyond the button. Now, I could stop here - but we all know I prefer a double cuff. (BTW., notice how the fabric on the inside is slightly darker - cool detail that makes for more interesting cuffs!)

But here we can see the reason why I said either full or half width when double cuffing: Due to the button, the fold was more than half the size, and so we get the visible seam.

Going for full width, would make the cuff too large, so then I tried to make the first fold on the other side of the button. That worked better:

But it’s still not perfect, in my opinion:

It’s a bit too narrow for my taste, and it unfolds a bit too easily - like on the picture above.

So, here’s finally my tips for designers, from a cuff addict:

1) Think about the cuffability of your clothes

A great first step, is to at least think about it. Test different ways of cuffing your patterns!

2) What’s on the inside counts (as well)

You can either go subtle, like with the slightly darker shade of blue on the jacket above. Or you can go for something a bit more extra, like this insane jacket my girlfriend has:

Look at the cuffs! (Also, sorry for the bad colours in the store...)

It even has the fabric on the inside of the pocket flaps and the thingys to tighten it on the side!

My black denim, pictured earlied, was black on the inside, while theses are white. Gives a very different look! (Also, notice: No selvedge on these.)

My favourite example ever of “caring about what’s on the inside”, is this Hanami Selvege denim from Naked and Famous:

The jeans is laying on other jeans turned inside out - so that's what they look like on the inside. Bonkers!

So, the tiny selvedge detail you see on the bottom, goes all the way up inside the jeans.

3) Mind the buttons

The buttons on the Ventile jacket created some problems - but shirts also has buttons that need attention.

I like the idea of having the two buttons on the sleeve. But even though my wrists are pretty skinny, I’ve never been able to use the tighter option! (Have you?) Now, It’s most aesthetically pleasing to have it on the widest option (like the picture - then you can see both buttons), so that might be why - but I’d still consider making them functional.

When testing a pattern, I would make sure it can be unbuttoned and cuffed to a short sleeve.
And then I would try to double cuff - both with all the buttons closed and not, and both half and full width.
- Everything doesn’t have to work - but something has to!
The double cuff has to be secure, and the shirt has to be easy to take on and off.

It’s almost scary that these minute thoughts live in my mind all the time…

I mean, who cares this much about cuffs!?

Well, now you know a bit more of what it’s like to walk around with this stupid head of mine. Oh, and about cuffs.

🌱 Wallpapers for Home.app

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 14:19:20 +0100

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Here’s a remake of backgrounds from this thread that I made since the links were dead. These were inspired by u/rzalexander and made with free illustrations from illustrations.co. I’ve tried to adapt the illustrations to iOS 16’s new home app, so that the text and icons are visible.

I’ve also made companion backgrounds for use with iPad and Mac. Since those windows resize all the time, using two tone and illustrations was a no-go. So they are just one colour backgrounds (I have one using the dark colour and one using the light one. I’ve used the latter).

I've made backgrounds for 13 different rooms (3 versions for each room).

Hopefully this can be useful for someone! At least I’ve enjoyed using them myself.

Here’s a Dropbox link to all the backgrounds, if you want to use them!

The World’s Best Sneakers?

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 22:07:34 +0100

Adidas has made their Stan Smiths since the 70s, and you can see them everywhere all summer. They are good-looking shoes, but where the earlier versions were made in France and had high quality, you can’t quite say the same about the newer ones made in India. They can’t be fixed, uses synthetic materials and someone would prefer a bit more modern design.

Common Projects

In later years, Common Projects, with their golden lettering, has taken the sneaker world by storm. With a more modern, minimalistic design, Italian leather and good Margom rubber soles, they aren’t cheap.

But when you pay well over £300 for a pair of Italian designer shoes, you can expect excellent quality, right? Well, it’s superior to the Stan Smiths, but for the price you could do so much better. The YouTube channel Rose Anvil goes into detail in this video, but the short version is that, while the shoes have some premium features, both the material and construction is pretty mediocre. In this article, I’d like to point at a brand that gives you a more premium sneaker, at a (slightly) lower price.

But in the end I will also share why I still understand why someone would opt for the Common Projects!

Crown Northampton – proper stuff

This brand has been making hand made shoes in Northampton, England for over 100 years. All their shoes are mad to order, so there’s no overproduction to speak of. They can also accommodate custom wishes, like making them wider (great for me!) or adding text on the inside.

The materials and construction are also rock solid:

At the bottom you have a great rubber sole, that can be replaced time after time as needed. Inside it there’s a layer of foam that wicks sweat and stops squeaking. On top of this, there’s a thick piece of fibreboard, that’ll adapt to the shape of your footbed. In addition, you’ll get the soles in the picture below and also another layer of foam you can put under it if you want to raise your foot even more.

Both the inside soles and the entire inside of the shoes are covered in comfortable leather. There’s also a clever detail at the heel: They’ve added a second layer of leather, with the rough side out. This increases the longevity and decreases slippage.

The rough-out part of the heel, and the written text you can customise.

They’ve saved the best leather for the uppers. The regular model has full-grain calfskin. I’ve gone for a variant made with kudu leather, which by the way seems like one of the more ethical types of leather. The kudu antilope has never been domesticated, so all the animals are wild. However, South Africa has problems with overpopulation, so the leather comes from the government mandated culling.

Calfskin on the left, kudu leather on the right. Notice the pattern on the kudu leather. I like it, but the calfskin is more minimalistic.

I’m talking about the base model from Crown Northampton, by the way, and they cost £225 (excluding VAT). So, they are cheaper than Common Projects, while maintaining way higher quality. There’s a reason they won «Best Overall Sneaker» when Rose Anvil cut numerous sneakers in half to find out how they really were made.

So to sum it up, what’s so great about these sneakers?

They look good – both as new and with patina
The uppers are made of truly great leather, so they’ll last many years
…which makes it great that they can be resoled when needed
They are very comfortable, especially when broken in – and can also be used barefoot
Ethical production

However, I can think of a few negatives as well.

A thick piece for fibreboard is still fibreboard, and a leather midsole would’ve been better. And while the shoes have their price for a reason (they are never on sale, since they only charge what they need) £270 is a lot to spend on a pair of shoes! Even if you argue they’ll be cheaper than many shoes if you divide the sum with years they’ll last, it’s a big shell initially. Another challenge, is that you have to order them online without the ability to try them on. In my experience, they are very helpful over email and generous with returns to get the right size – but still. Furthermore, you have to be patient when ordering. Since they are made to order, they have to be … well, made. At the time of writing, the wait time is about 45 working days.

But all this points towards why these shoes are the anti-thesis to fast fashion: You can’t get them immediately, so no dopamine hit for you! However, you’ll get a pair of shoes that’ll never go out of style, that’ll last for years and that only cost what they cost based on the production and materials used – without any add-ons due to the brand or hype.

So, why would anyone buy Common Projects when these exist?

First of all, Common Projects are not bad shoes. Also, the design is really good, and they have a sleeker profile than the Crown Northamptons. However, when looking at pictures of my shoes, keep in mind that my feet are tall, wide and short - and this leads to both me not fitting Common Projects at all, and also makes the Crown Northamptons I have look less sleek. If you can find Common Projects on sale (which you often can do, and that says something about the list price, IMO), it’s not neccesarily a bad buy, just know that you’re paying for a specific design.

My girlfriend's white Overstone Derbies looks sleeker than mine. But still not as sleek as Common Projects.

The shoes on the picture below, represents another reason I understand that people buy Common Projects:

The leather has gotten some care after this photo was taken, I promise!

These are a pair of “Indy Boots” from Alden - and I love them. But if you were to evaluate the materials and craftsmanship, it’s impossible to justify the price. However, there’s just something about the design I really like, and they fit my (difficult) feet perfectly.

In the same way, the Common Projects has some neat details and a great silhouette, that I understand that some people love. I just want people to know, like I did with my boots, that they’re not “worth it” - whatever that means.

So, this concludes my most important points – you can stop reading now if you like. However, if you want more details on the sneaker range from Crown Northampton, allow me to elaborate!

Crown Northampton’s selection

The base model comes in a couple of variants:

Overtone Derby is the most basic, while Abington Toe Cap is similar, but with a toe cap. Upton Wholecut uppers made of one piece of leather, so has a different look. Overstone Derby and Upton Wholecut also comes in TL variants, which means less cushioning and thinner leather.

TL vs regular

My story with these shoes are as follows: I bought a pair of regular Overtone Derbies in size 40 (wide). I used them for a year, before I had to confess that they were too small. However, I loved them so much, that I took the L and ordered another pair in 41. I was curious about the TL variant and kudu leather, so I ordered this. Here are some photos of those, compared to my Overtone Derbies with calfskin.

I didn’t like the TLs… It seems like they kept the outer measurements the same, but with less padding, it made them fit a lot looser. While they’d might fit me in a non-wide size, I also didn’t like that the silhouette had a taller ankle height, so I returned them for a regular Overtone Derby, but with the kudu leather.

TL on the right. Here it's easy to see the taller ankle height.

The TLs (again on the right) is very wide, and you can see the lack of padding.

Inside the TL.

The lack of padding made them way too wide.

The regular model in front is used for a year, so you can see what kind of patina to expect. Also, notice the padding on top of the shoe, that the TL lacks.

These are the shoes I went for, a combination of the two from above: Regular Overstone Derbies in kudu leather. Used half a year. I love them!

No. Compromises.

Shell Cordovan. 🤤 Picture from Crown Northampton.

Even though Crown Northampton’s base model are great shoes (and probably the best you can get for £270), they’ve shown they can make even better shoes. You see, they have a series called Harlestone Hand Stitch, that’s just bonkers. They have footbeds cork filled by hand, and sustainable soles from Lactae Hevea. They’re also made with traditional oak bark counter and stiffener, and in general have more hand made touches. The regular version has vegetable tanned calfskin, but if you want to go all the way, you can get them in shell cordovan! Take a look at Rose Anvil tearing a pair of these apart in the video at the bottom – they are simply unbelievable. He also compares a pair of Harstone Hand Stitch to a pair of Common Projects, which cements my point: Even though good quality can be costly, it doesn’t mean everything that’s costly has good quality.

PS: Here’s a decent video showing some alternatives in this space:

Great Baseball Cap From Poten

Mon, 22 May 2023 13:00:00 +0100

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This is my favourite cap (and headgear in general) of all time. And this is also a good example of something I love in general: Simple products, made extremely well.

These caps are made at the same factroy that does caps for the Japanese baseball league. Several brands have tried to get the factory to produce caps from them, but without success. According to Self Edge, Hiro (the man behind Poten, who also has a huge baseball card collection) had to visit the factory several times, over three years, to show them that he cares enough about baseball to have them produce caps for him. Lucky for those of us who don’t play in the NPB! But what’s so good about these caps then?

1) Top notch materials and construction

You can get the caps in different materials. In addition to the more traditional cotton and nylon variants, they can be had in leather, denim, velvet, linen, cord, Ventile, tweed, etc. Common for all of them, is that their rock solid.

Mine’s is in a Japanese canvas called Fujikinbai.

All-in-all, the construction is simple and solid. Other caps I’ve owned, had hidden parts made of foam that wore out after a while. However, this one is made of purely durable materials that can easily be sown again if anything would go wrong.

2) The leather band

The band, made of cow leather, is comfortable. But it also makes it stick to your head! The leather is treated with some stuff to make it sweat resistance, and it’s sown in a way that replacing it should be trivial if ever needed. This is simply the best part about the whole product!

Jeg kan stå i motvind i båt, uten at capsen faller av!

3) Classical look, with no branding

This is of course even more subjective than what I’ve already touched upon – but I just love the way it looks classical and almost “neutral”. It neither “too cool”, “too dad” or “too technical”, in my opinion. It works with everything!

Relaxed look.

I also think it’s kinda cool that Poten (which by the way is the Japanese phrase for «bloop hit») doesn’t feel the need to flash their branding. The only way of telling that it’s a Poten cap is the absurd amount of stitches on the brim and that you can see where they’ve sown on the labels on the inside.

figcaption The label are sown in a way that you can tell where they are from the outside. /figcaption

Room for improvement?

This product is so simple and considered that it’s hard to think of anything that could be better (except the price!). the only thing I can think of, is that the leather strap on the back could be a bit different. If you don’t wear it on the widest setting, it can get a little bend at the end. And someone might find the clasp too easy to open. It could’ve been more like a belt, and/or it could’ve had a “garage” to stick the end in.

«So, where can I buy one?»

I bought mine at Lokk in Oslo (for 1 200 NOK). But it looks like they might’ve stopped selling them! Maybe they can get ahold of them if you ask?

You can find a couple of places to buy them if you search online. I can vouch for Self Edge, and here’s a link to the model I have. And this store looks to have a pretty good selection in the UK.

Happy with the cap! Good stuff. 👌🏻

Machines, AI, and the Most Important Question in the World

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 10:29:00 +0100

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Message from 2024: I wrote this post in the spring of 2023, as AI tools were pretty new. I’ve since landed on the principle of not using AI generated images on my blog. This post has two images like this, but as it’s critical of the models (and explains a bit of why I currently don’t want to use them), I’ve let them be.

First, a very simplified history lesson:

For a large portion of the human existence, technology (often in the shape of machines or tools) has replaced manual labour, and led to increased productivity. The printing press replaced monks writing books by hand, looms evolved to include less and less manual laber per unit of fabric, the telegraph reduced the need for mail carriers, and photography really hurt Big Portrait Painting. Usually, the technology doesn’t completely replace the professions it affects. For instance, you can still get a tailored suit – but it’s a minor part of the clothing industry, and mostly reserved for the wealthy. The old turns into niches, hobbies, crafts and/or art.

Image generated by Dall-E.

Here are some of the positives from this:

1) There are new jobs created within those industries.

People need to build, repair and operate the machines. We lose portrait painters, but gain photographers. However, how meaningful, healthy and fair paying are these jobs?

2) The increased efficiency reduces costs of goods and products, making them accessible to a larger portion of the population.

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X went for $3.995 (equivalent to over $10.000 today) in 1983, while the Google Pixel 6A goes for like $350, and can obviously do a lot more. Progress has not only given us more comfort and entertainment, but also greatly increased life expectancy. (But reduced prices has also increased our consumption to unsustainable levels. This dilemma warrants its own article, that I’ll write later!)

Images from Wikipedia Commons and The Verge.

3) People having more time (and money) on their hands, creates jobs we «didn’t have time for» earlier.

The first example of this, was with the agricultural revolution. Before this, everyone had to be hunters and gatherers, as one person couldn’t create much more food than to feed themselves. When we got farmers, a portion of the population could do other stuff than getting food. This created specialisation and professions, and allowed us the time to create stuff like cities and organised religion. The amount of dog groomers and interior designers correlate with the amount of excess in a society.

The Artificial Revolution, and unintended consequences

Now, I’ve no basis of saying the advent of AI will have the same impact on society as the Agricultural or the Industrial Revolution (perhaps a closer analogy would be the wide adoption of the web). However, there are some lessons to be learned.

AI will become a large part of society – both in our work and personal lives. And just like industry, it brings with it unintended consequences that we need to deal with – even removed from questions about economics and ethics. With industry, one of the most important side effects was the environmental impact. Not only did we fail to anticipate that problem – we are still failing miserably to deal with it properly. Let’s hope we won’t repeat the same mistake with AI, regardless of what problems it’ll bring.

The ethical quirks of generative AI

The creation of AI tools for things like writing and imagery, has something that separates it from most other disruptive technologies: The works and intellectual property of the workers and creators it’s designed to replace, is essential for the technology to work. Microsoft’s new version of Bing is a good example:

The search engine wants to give you answers directly, so you don’t have to visit other sites. **But it wouldn’t be able to give you these answers if it weren’t for the fact that it’s scraped those same sites for information. **

It’s the same with image generators: The only reason I can make Stable Diffusion create an image in the style of an artist, is that the model has been trained on the works of the exact artist I now don’t have to hire. And the artist had no say in this.

Image generated by Dall-E.

The laws of today are relevant to the legal cases that run presently. But it’s not relevant to the ethics, and not to laws adapted to an AI inhabited reality. These laws should say that you can’t use artist’s work to create these tools without the three C’s:

Consent,
Credit and
Compensation.

Consent, Credit and Compensation. If you can’t make the tool work in a way that artists get sufficient credit and compensation, then you probably won’t get their consent. And then the technology simply shouldn’t be available.

So while technology has replacing manual labour countless times, and will continue to do so (also in creative professions), I do think these tools has some special ethical considerations.

We also need to be very vigilante about who gets the benefits of the increased productivity, and who gets left behind

There’s been talk about AI «taking our jobs» for a while – truck drivers are one example. Now, it might take longer than Elon Musk thinks (or at least says), but it’s still understandable that truck drivers are worried about their livelihood. And while technology creates jobs (as well as destroying them), are the new jobs suited for the people it displaced? There are larger changes over fewer generations now, compared to previous revolutions. Technology moves fast, but humans remain pretty sluggish pieces of meat.

Maybe the most important question in the world

The statistics that compare productivity and worker’s compensation in the USA is one of the most revealing statistics I know. The dark line shows the productivity, and the lighter one the typical worker’s compensation. Here’s the graph from 1948 to 1979:

As the amount of value workers generated increased, their pay increased as well. (Keep in mind, the employer increased their profits as well.)

But let’s take a look at the continuation:

At the start of the 1980s, something happened, that made most of the increased profits from higher productivity go elsewhere. (Now, I don’t have a problem with some people getting rich. But I do have a problem with how rich some people get, and how much it is at the expense of the planet and people having less than them.)

Let’s take a look at a development in Norway, the standard workweek.

In 1915, the standard workweek was set to 54 hours. It’s since been decreased several times, the last time in 1986 (to 37.5 hours a week, 7.5 hours a day).

This brings me to the teased question, that I genuinely think is (at least one of) the most important questions in the world:

How do we «spend» the gains of increased productivity?

So while you could say that progress and increased productivity is inevitable, who benefits from it is very much a matter of intentions, power, and politics. A classic argument from people who don’t think we need to do something about the rampant inequality, is that we’ve made great progress in living standard all over the world. And while this is true, the most relevant comparison isn’t 1923 to 2023 – but our 2023 to a theoretical 2023 where we’ve distributed wealth better. The history of the working class in America (and many other places), shows how increased productivity can benefit only a few.

The reason I brought up Norway, is that we’ve shown that it’s possible to convert the increased productivity into something besides wealth: time.

We need to be somewhere in the first quadrant, while still making sure everyone has enough wealth.

The reason this question is so important, is that it touches two of the largest challenges we face: Climate change and inequality. We need to make sure that everyone benefits from the increased productivity, and value, technology provides. But we also need to withdraw this value as time, and not only wealth.

Even though I might sound very negative to both technology and AI, that’s not the case. If we look at the smartphone: That «everyone» has access to communication, information, entertainment, cameras and much more, at all times, is remarkable. And I truly belive that AI can do fantastic stuff for creativity and humanity in general. However, we can’t let this appeal blind us to the ethical problems found in its conception or the way it can further concentrate power and wealth.

The problem with teachers being tired of change

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 16:00:00 +0100

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I’m going to try something that I know is impossible – talking about a profession as one entity. In Norway, there are 77,000 teachers, and of course, all of us are individuals. Still, there are some things I’m pretty sure many teachers agree on: We are tired of people with little expertise telling us how to do our jobs. The pendulum swings from one side to another, so what was in vogue 30 years ago is now considered the newest hotness. Be it politicians, parents, or others – many teachers want to be left alone, and be free to do a job they’ve many years of education and experience in.

But many have written about this before.

I would like to point at a problem this has led to. It has, in my view, created a sort of hardness in the profession that’s made us impervious to change.

I understand why, but we mustn’t fire our clay. By this, I mean that we have to stay like lumps of clay: have some structural integrity while still being shapeable.

Pedagogical science and research is hard.

For instance, when looking at research done in other countries of times than your own, it’s hard to know what’s relevant for your situation. Furthermore, many findings are hard to scale. Science can also be misused and/or misinterpreted. Let me provide an example:
Different research has shown that reducing class sizes doesn’t affect learning outcomes. So, when someone suggests that reducing class sizes would benefit students, it’s easy to refer to this research, and shoot down the suggestion. However, we have to look at some details: Firstly, the research I’ve found only looked at learning outcomes, and not well-being (for students as well as teachers). Secondly, it only says it doesn’t increase learning outcomes if the practise stays the same. A critical point about reducing the number of students per teacher, is that it enables practice we do have research showing increases outcomes. Take a look at Hattie’s effect size list, and see how many of the items becomes more obtainable with more a more manageable number of students.

Even though some research can be taken out of context and/or not be as solid as we’d like, that doesn’t mean we should just stop the research. There’s a lot of good research, and it should have consequences for the way we teach. However, pedagogical science isn’t like some natural sciences, where «A always leads to B». It’s more like «A increases the likelihood of B» – and also C and D might have some effect, but perhaps to as much as B.

So, what’s the solution?

To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe teachers would be more willing to change if we didn’t feel as badly treated, both in terms of salary and the way the profession gets talked about by others. No matter the reasons, we are in a non-desirable situation where the profession doesn’t separate the voices suggesting we change: It doesn’t matter if it’s a politician with no expertise in the field or a solid piece of research. «The problem facing the school system, isn’t that we lack knowledge about how our schools could be better. The issue is that we don’t apply this knowledge», is a passage from the foreword of a book by the Norwegian educational researcher Peder Haug. We must refrain from firing the clay! I know it’s sort of a paradox, but while I agree that it’s unfair how much teachers get asked to «be better», we can’t stop trying to be better either!

🌱 Why 4k ≠ 5k

Sat, 14 May 2022 22:00:00 +0100

And what Apple means when they say «Retina»

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I’m pretty sure the Apple Studio Display is overpriced. Still, the discourse after its announcement has been plagued by people not quite understanding the difference between 4k and 5k on a 27-inch display. It’s just one kay difference — why can’t you just buy a 4k screen that’s cheaper, brighter and/or has a higher refresh rate? Why do some Apple fans crave this extra kay so much??

Marc Edwards, of Bjango, wrote an excellent piece on this, and I especially like the visual examples of 4k vs. 5k on macOS. ** As a maths teacher, I find this problem interesting, and here I will bring some light to this issue the way I would to a high school class.** Perhaps this makes it easier to understand why the issues Edwards highlight appear.

What’s in a kay?

To narrow things down, I’m mostly going to look at 27-inch screens with a 16:9 aspect ratio (so no super-wides here!). Let’s compare the three most normal resolutions at this size: 1440p, 4k and 5k.

Humans are notoriously bad at comparing large numbers. Every day, there’s a new tweet trying to help us understand the difference between a million and a billion, by reminding us that:

One million seconds ≈ 12 days
One billion seconds ≈ 31 years

So, it’s forgiven that people think 4k and 5k are pretty close. However, 5k resolution has _a lot _more pixels:

1440p = 2 560 ⋅ 1 440 ≈ 3.7 million pixels
4k = 3 840 ⋅ 2160 ≈ 8.3 million pixels
5k = 5 120 ⋅ 2 880 ≈ 14.7 million pixels

So, as 5k screens has almost twice the amount of pixels as 4k, I find it weird that people say «pff, just buy a 4k screen - it’s just as good».

This also helps to explain why Apple couldn’t just add high refresh rate (Thunderbolt 4 can’t drive that, I think) or mini-LED (no one produces that panel). Now, everyone is free to wish for, and dream about, a 5k mini-LED screen with ProMotion (Apple definitely wants to make it)! But criticising this year’s $1 600 screen for not being this, is a bit off.

… but let’s move on with the maths lesson!

Scaling

Take a look at these two screens. They have the remarkable resolutions of 6 × 4 pixels (24 pixels in total) and 12 × 8 pixels (96 pixels in total) ✨.

Let’s call them 4p and 8p screens.

Now, the 8p has double the number of pixels in height and width, making the total number of pixels four times higher – that’s the same ratio as 1440p and 5k. Since the screens have the same size, the pixels on the 8p are smaller – in fact, exactly one fourth the size.

Now let’s say we have the following element on the 4p screen:

How should it be drawn on the 8p? One option is to just transfer the same pixel pattern:

*Insert Señor Chang meme here.*

However, this makes the element tiny. This is where scaling comes in: Instead, we can say we want the element to be the same size, and make the 8p «pretend» it’s 4p. We scale it to 4p:

Better.

Here you can see that they look identical, since every pixel on the 4p is four pixels on the 8p. But we can do even better! Since we have more pixels on the 8p, we can fill in some pixels, and make the element smoother/sharper looking:

Same basic element - but smoother!

So, now the 8p screen is scaled to 4p. This is what Apple means by «retina screens»: Instead of making the elements tiny, they «pretend» to be a resolution one fourth the size, but make everything looks sharper and smoother. And this is why 5k is so important to them for 27-inch screens (more on this later).

It’s often called 2x, because it’s twice the height and twice the width (but it’s four times as many pixels, as it’s times 2 two times).

Now, let’s instead compare the 4p screen to one with 9×6 pixels. The 6p screen has 1,5 times the height and width, instead of two times. Why did I pick this example? Because this is the same ratio as 1440p and 4k screens.

Now, how do we draw the same element on the 6p screen? It goes to the top and right edge, while there’s a margin on the left and bottom.

If you have squared paper at hand, please try for yourself: Draw the element on the 9x6 screen.

Again, we could make it tiny — but if we don’t want that, we get into some trouble. If this were a high school class, I would give out hand-outs and let my students try for themselves! But since it’s a blog post, I’ll just show my best try:

Notice that while it’s pretty smooth and sharp, it’s not accurate. The margins are smaller, and the bottom edges are smaller than the top point. While it’s much more pronounced with so few pixels, a 4k screen gets the same problem when trying to scale to 1440p. And these inaccuracies create the issues showed by Edwards.

This is why Mac people have been craving a good 5k screen for years — and why a 4k screen isn’t a great option for many – even though it has enough pixels. Actually, this is also why a lower resolution 1440p screen might be preferable to a 4k screen. I went to my current 4k screen from a 1440p iMac, and now I know why I’ve always been underwhelmed.

A quick note on Mac vs Windows

David Heinemeier Hansson made this post recently:

Here's a good example of the difference between Windows and macOS font rendering. If you can't tell the difference, or it doesn't bother you, I envy you greatly. You should probably buy a PC instead of a Mac next, if you work with web development. pic.twitter.com/r672aEb2ew
— DHH (@dhh) February 25, 2024

Here are the images he posted.

And later he followed up with:

Oh boy. Shit just got real. I hooked the Framework laptop up to my 6K Pro Display, set scaling to an even 200%, and would you look at this. SO. MUCH. BETTER. The severe ugliness was all down to using integer scaling?? Problem, though: 100% too small on laptop, 200% too big? pic.twitter.com/JH4zUHdvRp
— DHH (@dhh) February 26, 2024

Previously I’ve read that Windows scales differently than macOS, so that not running 1x or 2x was as important (but that it never got as good as 2x on macOS). But maybe it’s just that most users just don’t care (re: the first post)?

There’s also a utility called BetterDisplay, that’s supposed to make scaling to sub-optimal resolutions better on MacOS. I haven’t tried it myself, but give it a shot if, for instance, you work on a 4k screen that’s 27 inches or larger!

Pixels per inch

Now, let’s tackle the problem DHH mentioned about too small or too big. Since this post was inspired by the existence of the Studio Display, I’ve been talking about 27-inch screens here. Since scaling to 1440p is a good look on these, you want 2x that, so 5k. What’s important is the number of pixels per inch (PPI). You want either 100-120 PPI (good for non-retina) or twice that, 200-240 PPI (good for retina).

Here’s a simple way of figuring out what you need for «good retina»:

Figure out what screen size you want.
Find the non-retina resolution that gives a UI size you want — like 1080p for 21 inches and 1440p for 27 inches.
Then, to get to the needed resolution, you double the amount of pixels in the width and height (so four times the pixels in total).

Chart from the article my Marc Edwards. Notice that when Apple makes a 24-inch screen it's 4,5k and 32-inch is 6k.

4k also scales nicely — but to 1080p. So, if you have a screen size that fits 1080p, like a laptop or a 21-inch desktop screen, 4k is great. Just not on a 27-inch screen — unless you want the zoomed in look of 1080p.

This is from my band’s demo studio. The screens are 4k 24 inches (LG UltraFine), which could be a bit too low resolution. However, as they're a bit away from the user, running them slightly zoomed in, to 1080p scaling, is perfect.

Now, did I make this post only because it’s an interesting math problem, or as a part of an elaborate plan to justify shelling out for a Studio Display? Impossible to tell — we’ll never know…