English
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
My shoes broke, so I did something radical
… 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.
Two (Ultra-Cheap) DI Boxes From China
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!
🌱 What Makes Telegram Great
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
This is not an endorsement of Telegram, nor the people behind it, though.
(By the way, click here to skip the preamble.)
Things I've Enjoyed Recently #2
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.)
When Was the Last Time You Heard Someone Discuss the "Quality" of a Chat App?
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):
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”
🌱 Some Scripts for Native Tagging of Markdown Files
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.
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:
Does Apple "Care" About Our Privacy?
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:
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
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
An Introduction to Mad Max
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!
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
Things I Enjoyed Recently #1
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.
Micro.blog's Amazing New Reply Feature
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.
🌱 Why I Use Fastmail
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. 🙏🏻
Lovely Attention to Detail
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.
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
On “Usefulness” and “Harmfulness”
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.
A Simple Embroidery Design
There’s a first time for everything
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
Yes, the iPad Pros Needed to Be Thinner
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…
Game Changing CSS Trick (for Noobs Like Me)
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:
Make a Click Wheel Mode for the Apple TV Already!
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.
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.
What if the Floorp Icon Actually Looked Like Piano Keys?
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:
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?
🌱 Why Smart Bulbs > Smart Switches
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?
To me, there are three main reasons (in no particular order):