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  • Having fun playing with my Ember mug today. I feel like I would have made fun of this until trying it and now I think it’s great.

    β†’ 3:31 PM, Dec 26
  • I need to make a point to check out Script Debugger. I write a ton of AppleScript and the ability to set breakpoints and do real debugging would probably make it a lot easier.

    β†’ 1:40 PM, Dec 22
  • It feels nice to be going into a break having gotten everything I needed to before done πŸ’ͺ

    β†’ 6:21 PM, Dec 21
  • If you’re an experienced Mac/iOS developer and want to work with me and a team of highly skilled developers on Reminders for in Cupertino, we’re hiring! Read the listing and send me a message if interested. jobs.apple.com/en-us/det…

    β†’ 12:16 PM, Dec 20
  • If you’re an experienced Mac/iOS developer and want to work with me and a team of highly skilled developers on Reminders for in Cupertino, we’re hiring! Read the listing and send me a message if interested. jobs.apple.com/en-us/det…

    β†’ 12:16 PM, Dec 20
  • Tempted to drop the $199 on the entire objc.io book series. They all look real good.

    β†’ 11:05 AM, Dec 13
  • Just finished Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda. Really fantastic. If you’re interested in making products, Apple, or both, definitely read it. Ken narrates the audiobook himself and it’s does a great job. itunes.apple.com/us/book/c…

    β†’ 6:03 PM, Dec 12
  • Why you should have Practice Hours as a developer – freeCodeCamp.org

    β†’ 12:24 PM, Dec 10
  • I’m programming in my free time more since I got the iPad Pro than I have in a long time. Each day I take a chapter from the algorithms book I’m working on, load Books and Swift Playgrounds in split screen, and implement what I’m learning while sitting on the couch.

    β†’ 5:49 PM, Dec 8
  • I’ve had trouble meditating in half lotus without my legs falling asleep, so I decided to try sitting seiza with a meditation bench. I bought two of these (office and home) and they’ve been great. www.amazon.com/gp/produc…

    β†’ 10:43 AM, Dec 3
  • While still having a lot to figure out about my sleep, the one thing I’ve figured out is that however many hours I want, I need to add at least 90 minutes before that to get in bed. Waking up at 8 means being in bed by 10:30.

    β†’ 10:43 AM, Nov 30
  • I’m still alive and I made it to California. Things are going great!

    β†’ 2:19 PM, Nov 28
  • The fourteen months or so have been pretty crazy, but good, and I think it’s ending up in a place better than I could have imagined.

    β†’ 1:29 PM, Nov 21
  • Where’s my Let’s Go Bulbasaur game? The fact him he’s PokΓ©mon 001 just shows me sometimes you get it right the first time. Catching em all is cool, but really I’m mostly content after I get a Bulbasaur.

    β†’ 11:15 AM, Nov 21
  • Last day in Seattle. Movers come tomorrow morning. Spending it in my pajamas watching YouTube reviews of Nickelodeon’s Doug.

    β†’ 12:12 PM, Nov 20
  • Just signed the paperwork and made it official. As of the end of this month I will be moving to Cupertino to join the Reminders team at Apple!

    β†’ 5:39 PM, Nov 9
  • I’m really trying to get my head around any explanation, even if it’s just pretense, against the idea that counting all of the votes as accurately as possible is what we would want to do in all cases. It makes no sense to me.

    β†’ 7:47 PM, Nov 8
  • This is what my inbox in Mail looks like most of the time. I get visibly uncomfortable when I see an β€œ8739” badge on someone else’s Mail icon.

    β†’ 3:41 PM, Nov 8
  • Today has been a very tiring day, but it ended well ☺️

    β†’ 7:35 PM, Nov 1
  • Twenty-four hours in I’m still loving the 40mm Watch size, but you definitely notice the battery life hit.

    β†’ 3:34 PM, Nov 1
  • If you go to the help menu, PCalc comes with an ePub book explaining the app.

    β†’ 11:58 AM, Oct 30
  • PCalc makes me want to get a lot better at math and also makes me think I need to read a tutorial on how to use it.

    β†’ 11:51 AM, Oct 30
  • My meditation/shrine area has moved up to my office. Currently having a disagreement with Link on whether the cushion is for practicing zazen or is the best dog bed in the house. I guess it could be both?

    β†’ 4:32 PM, Oct 29
  • Oak may be my new recommendation for a meditation app. It’s free, has nice guided options, doesn’t bury unguided, and I like the bells. I recommend β€œtriple bronze bowl” to start and β€œbronze bowl” to end. itunes.apple.com/us/app/oa…

    β†’ 5:46 PM, Oct 25
  • I’ve been extremely pumped to vote in the Nov 6 election for almost two years, and now it’s done. So that’s a thing.

    β†’ 2:03 PM, Oct 23
  • Kind of thinking of getting another mechanical watch instead of a new Apple Watch. The health stuff is great, but I don’t love any of the faces, and it’s very costly for something that needs to be updated so often.

    β†’ 1:42 PM, Oct 22
  • At the vet with Link to get a hurt toe checked out. Poor little guy.

    β†’ 12:12 PM, Oct 22
  • Survived the one day retreat today with my Zen sangha. Legs and back are a little sore but otherwise it was a great experience.

    β†’ 6:45 PM, Oct 20
  • Got up for my second week volunteering with the food bank. Going a lot faster this week (or at least it feels that way).

    β†’ 9:43 AM, Oct 18
  • “What Buddhism Teachers of Self and No-Self”

    The idea of non-self is sort of a hard concept at first, but makes a lot of sense the more you consider it.

    www.thoughtco.com/what-is-t…

    β†’ 10:31 AM, Oct 17
  • I wrote a Shortcut that downloads the gravatar image for all of your contacts that have an email but no photo (and have a Gravatar). I feel like a genius.

    β†’ 9:33 PM, Oct 16
  • Based on this PEW poll, it seems like the only thing Republican voters really get fired up about is immigration. Which would explain a lot. apple.news/Ae5yJxfSU…

    β†’ 12:36 PM, Oct 15
  • When I first started looking at the Shortcuts app I couldn’t really think of much I wanted to do with it, and now I have four or five that I use all the time.

    β†’ 10:40 AM, Oct 15
  • Feeling quite anxious today and not sure why. Maybe a walk would do me good.

    β†’ 3:41 PM, Oct 14
  • Volunteered driving around, picking up donated groceries and lifting heavy boxes for the first time today at the Queen Anne Food Bank. It feels good to do something helpful to other people without being rewarded for it.

    β†’ 11:41 AM, Oct 11
  • Oh I thought of a second thing. It’s a crime that you can’t trigger a Shortcut based using automation in the Home app.

    β†’ 10:56 AM, Oct 8
  • The only thing I would like (and I’m really surprised is missing) is to be able to also say to AirPlay the podcast to one of my HomePods instead of having it play through my phone.

    β†’ 10:54 AM, Oct 8
  • My favorite Shortcut I’ve made so far is called “I’m up.” It turns on all my lights, marks my “up by 8:30” habit complete in Productive (if it’s early enough), and starts playing the Up First podcast by NPR.

    β†’ 10:53 AM, Oct 8
  • I need to declare Finder Tags bankruptcy, delete all the ones I have and figure out if there’s a system that can actually make them useful.

    β†’ 1:05 PM, Oct 3
  • The biggest thing I’ve noticed from intentionally eating significantly less sugar is that I don’t get hungry so much, so I end up eating less overall. Most days I’m eating some version of rice with a vegetables and tofu with a little reduced-sodium soy sauce.

    β†’ 12:58 PM, Oct 3
  • Purchased a new kapok meditation cushion and matching zabuton from DharmaCrafts that I’m really liking. Considering a bamboo mat to cover the floor and maybe replacing my little bookshelf eventually.

    Meditation area

    β†’ 11:54 AM, Oct 2
  • The community aspect of Insight Timer is nice, but them seeming fairly uninterested in an API/Siri Shorcuts/something makes me want to make my own meditation timer.

    β†’ 10:55 AM, Sep 25
  • I am on a quest to use all of my Imperfect Produce box this week. So far it’s going pretty well.

    β†’ 4:41 PM, Sep 20
  • Leaning towards the 40mm Apple Watch Series 4. I think as a man with non-massive wrists I could probably go either way and be okay and be fine.

    β†’ 12:49 PM, Sep 20
  • Finding the Field Notes reporters notebook β€” paired with a Palomino Blackwing 602 β€” to be the perfect size for my running list of things I’m thinking/working on I keep on my desk.

    β†’ 11:44 AM, Sep 20
  • I’ve been thinking about what I eat and how to be more mindful of it. I think I’d like to cut the amount of added sugar I eat way down, and replace any meals that come out of a microwave with more things like rice and vegetables.

    β†’ 1:45 PM, Sep 18
  • Looking for a recommendation for code snippet tool which integrates well with Xcode. I’m aware of Xcode and Dash, but maybe there’s others that do this better?

    β†’ 12:02 PM, Sep 13
  • The Palomino Blackwing 602s are pretty expensive for pencils, but also seemingly last forever, so are probably worth it.

    β†’ 11:46 AM, Sep 13
  • I’ve started using the Timing app to track my workday, and am seeing a nice improvement in my productivity over the last few days.

    β†’ 11:13 AM, Sep 13
  • “Blow away.”

    β†’ 10:47 AM, Sep 12
  • Everything with the Apple Watch is like “here’s something kind of cool we only didn’t take all the way.”

    β†’ 10:16 AM, Sep 12
  • I’m not ruling out that I’ll get a new iPad, but I’m not really planning on it. The Air 2 is still fine for testing, and I’ve just never found my use to be enough to justify the $800+ a new one will costing.

    β†’ 10:12 AM, Sep 10
  • I think today is a write everything I need to do out on a piece of paper sort of day. Maybe that should just be every day.

    β†’ 10:07 AM, Sep 10
  • I really want to embrace tags in OmniFocus 3, but I think I’ve really programmed myself for contexts.

    β†’ 10:56 AM, Sep 7
  • Went a Mariner’s game and had a blast. Apparently you can sit like 12 feet from the field here for $40? Nuts.

    β†’ 9:49 AM, Sep 7
  • Maybe I could make some kind of a reading list app that can connect to Goodreads and output a JSON/RSS feed so you could when you start/finish books through Micro.blog?

    β†’ 9:41 AM, Sep 6
  • After getting Visual Studio Code all set up, it’s so fun I really want to do some kind of a little tiny web project, but back to that no ideas problem :-|

    β†’ 9:21 AM, Sep 6
  • Switched from Adderall to Vyvanse to help manage my ADD. So far I’ve noticed less trouble waking up in the morning and less random jittery-anxious feelings. Seems like a win.

    β†’ 9:15 AM, Sep 6
  • Wow, the debugging support in VS Code is kind of great. I can see why people like it so much.

    β†’ 11:26 AM, Sep 5
  • The β€œhey guys” discussion from the other day has made me want to record an episode of Morning Awakening about taking a moment to recognize your possibly defensive feelings and inhabit other peoples point of view before responding that they’re wrong.

    β†’ 9:33 AM, Sep 3
  • Been successfully waking up early the past few days and planning to stick with it. The two things I’ve changed are going to bed earlier, and setting an alarm a little before I want to get up, taking my ADD medication, and going back to bed for a bit until I wake up feeling good.

    β†’ 9:29 AM, Sep 3
  • For Micro Monday I will point you to fellow Seattlite @cheri who not only makes my feed more interesting but is also a wonderful novelist.

    β†’ 9:20 AM, Sep 3
  • Hanging out at Waterwheel Lounge for unofficial Xcoders. Also this place is near my house and has karaoke 5 days a week. Sweet.

    β†’ 6:28 PM, Aug 30
  • I’m going to try to post more mindfulness specific stuff to @awaken in between podcast episodes, so if you want to interact with me about that kind of thing or see what I post there, please do.

    β†’ 2:18 PM, Aug 30
  • Pico: A New Android Client for Micro.blog

    I don’t use Android, but Pico by Belle B. Cooper’s new app Pico looks like a great choice if you do and want to use Micro.blog. It’s also [open source]. Neat.

    I also enjoyed this part of her introduction post:

    More recently I tried out Mastodon. Mastodon feels a lot like Twitter to me in terms of the tone and the content you'll see there. For those who like the idea of Twitter but find it an uncomfortable place to hang out, this is great. Personally, I don't like Twitter at all anymore. I don't like memes, or internet culture, or silly jokes, or random thoughts from random people. That's the stuff that Twitterβ€”and now Mastodonβ€”is great at, but it's not what I want.

    From my limited experience with Mastodon it seems like it wants to be the same kind of thing as Twitter, but less centralized so that if you don’t want to play in the same sandbox with white supremacists (or whatever), you can just not be a part of that instance, stay on instances which disallow them, and it won’t exist for you.

    Micro.blog on the other hand is just a social networking layer built on top of RSS and other web standards. Manton will also let you pay him $5 to host a blog on his server, but you can just hook up your RSS from your own blog for free and get the benefit of a social network. The way I look at it, they’re both more an less ambitious than one and other in different ways, but I really like Micro.blog’s approach, because it will still have value even if it doesn’t get all that big. Also, podcasting with it is awesome, easy, and one of the most affordable ways.

    Belle is also ½ of the fabulous Exist.io, which is a service you try if your doing any kind of health tracking and wanted to actually make sense of it.

    β†’ 2:07 PM, Aug 30
  • Just found a perfect use for Drafts and am unreasonably excited about that. Need to just move it to my dock and just get the habit of going to it whenever I need to start typing anything.

    β†’ 1:40 PM, Aug 30
  • Had a bit of sticker shock when my prescriptions came out to about $200 at the pharmacy with my new insurance until I looked at my card and saw I have a $150 deductible I won’t have to pay again.

    β†’ 1:36 PM, Aug 30
  • Reading With a Pencil

    This makes me feel as though I should be reading more books on paper, or at least have a notebook next to me when I read.

    Reading With a Pencil:

    I believe that the first step towards becoming a writer is becoming a reader, but the next step is becoming a reader with a pencil. When you underline and circle and jot down your questions and argue in the margins, you’re existing in this interesting middle ground between reader and writer.

    (Via @Cheri on Micro.blog)

    β†’ 11:39 AM, Aug 30
  • It’s crazy to me that to this day, NetNewsWire 3 for Mac is still the best an RSS reader ever got for me. Reeder is good on iOS, and NewsBlur is a good web-based option, but I still really miss that app.

    β†’ 12:14 PM, Aug 29
  • I’m kind of surprised that Photos doesn’t convert your JPEGs to HEIC in the background, or at least give you the option to somehow. I’d be wary of letting a third party app do this, but would absolutely enable it in Photos.

    β†’ 12:08 PM, Aug 29
  • You can pick up the puck style Airport Express for $25-$40 used. Thinking it might be worth getting a couple to use as AirPlay 2 receivers.

    β†’ 11:51 AM, Aug 29
  • I’ve come around on the idea that it’s okay to make and share something just because it’s fun and without caring if it ever becomes a big thing, makes money, etc. Maybe I’m becoming more mature.

    β†’ 2:35 PM, Aug 28
  • Short podcast today based on a group meditation prompt last night. Starting to feel comfortable talking into a microphone by myself.

    Overcast: overcast.fm/itunes143…

    iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcas…

    β†’ 12:50 PM, Aug 28
  • I’ve been having so much fun doing my short form meditation podcast, I think I may finally start my podcast about podcasting where I talk about mics, editing, mixing etc.

    β†’ 10:56 AM, Aug 28
  • On the one hand I feel like my dog is smart and empathetic because he seems to pick up on my energy β€” acting crazy when I’m anxious and calm when I’m calm. On the other, he’s taken to chasing and barking at shadows on the wall.

    β†’ 10:55 AM, Aug 28
  • Considering Auphonic (I only use the loudness targeting) and Micro.blog both have APIs… I could pretty easily do something with a shell script + Automator to streamline this whole process.

    β†’ 10:49 AM, Aug 28
  • I never thought “acoustic foam” would be a motif I would like for my office, my podcast recording is sounding pretty good now. Also liking the Heil PR-40 more than the last time I used it, so that’s nice since I don’t feel like I need to go buy a new fancy mic right now.

    β†’ 10:43 AM, Aug 28
  • I know it’s because not many people use these features, and maybe Shortcuts will come to the Mac and fix this, but for now it’s a bummer that so many less apps have any real AppleScript support than used to.

    β†’ 10:29 AM, Aug 28
  • Making a quick podcast outline right now if anyone has any feedback or topics they’re interested in me touching on related to meditation/mindfulness/etc.

    β†’ 2:16 PM, Aug 27
  • Feels like I have the echo situation in my office mostly under control now. Planning to record a new episode of Morning Awakening later today; which is now in Overcast’s search if you want to subscribe.

    β†’ 11:13 AM, Aug 27
  • I think what I’ve discovered is if you want to put a dent in room echo using foam, you need a lot of it. 12 panels was definitely not enough.

    β†’ 5:11 PM, Aug 24
  • Just put up the second episode of my Morning Awakening podcast. If you’re interested in hearing me talk meditation and mindfulness, you can now subscribe in iTunes by searching for “Morning Awakening”, or subscribe directly using feedpress.me/awaken

    β†’ 3:18 PM, Aug 24
  • Man do I ever have a fluffy handsome blonde dachshund.

    β†’ 10:10 PM, Aug 23
  • Trying to set up the room to have a little less echo when podcasting.

    β†’ 3:10 PM, Aug 23
  • I’m liking the wallet/folio case more than I thought I would, but would much prefer one without a magnetic clasp since it catches taking it in and out of my pocket.

    β†’ 2:42 PM, Aug 23
  • I still want it to be fairly extemporaneous, but I think having a general outline to collect my thoughts and remind me of topics I wanted to touch on wouldn’t be the worst thing.

    β†’ 1:59 PM, Aug 23
  • Decided to post the next episode of Morning Awakening tomorrow since I was having trouble collecting my thoughts and got a little frustrated today.

    β†’ 1:57 PM, Aug 23
  • Got my Rickenbacker 360/6 back from the shop. Looking pretty handsome next to my Gibson J-45 (true vintage if you’re interested).

    β†’ 1:40 PM, Aug 23
  • If you’re in Seattle they are doing free automatic car washes at Brown Bear Car Wash today.

    β†’ 1:14 PM, Aug 23
  • I’m trying out one of those wallet folio cases for my iPhone X. I’ve always thought they looked a little dorky, but then also thought “why am I carrying two things.” Will mostly depend on how bulky it feels in my pocket if I stick with it or not.

    β†’ 12:29 PM, Aug 22
  • Morning Awakening Podcast

    I’ve just posted the first episode of a new short-form podcast about mindfulness and meditation called Morning Awakening. It’s me talking about my practice, related topics I’m thinking about, and responding to audience feedback. I’d like to make it something I do on most days, but some of that will depend on how much response I get, so if you have any thoughts or feedback on a related topic, please send it via the contact form or on Micro.blog.

    You can subscribe to the show by entering the URL http://feedpress.me/awaken into your podcast player, or searching in the coming days once it shows up in all the podcast directories.

    β†’ 12:10 PM, Aug 22
  • I’ve just posted the first episode of a new short-form podcast about mindfulness and meditation called Morning Awakening. Please check it out at awaken.waveform.fm and subscribe using feedpress.me/awaken.

    β†’ 11:30 AM, Aug 22
  • Hmm. How do I add a title to my Micro.blog post for my podcast if the description is less than 280 characters? @manton @macgenie?

    β†’ 11:14 AM, Aug 22
  • Pretty enamored with the idea of microcasting. Every podcast doesn’t have to be a whole giant production, it can just be me talking into a microphone for a few minutes about something I want to share. Would like to maybe see options on Micro.blog where it’s possible to get some kind of a discount for hosting multiple shows. $10 for one isn’t too bad, but if I did four, that starts to get a little costly. (cc @manton)

    β†’ 12:47 PM, Aug 21
  • Suprised that Shorcuts doesn’t have a way to get a variable passed in with a Siri command, like “Do thing for X minutes” and get X as a number. Maybe next year?

    β†’ 12:07 PM, Aug 21
  • My idea for doing a show about meditation isn’t to put myself up as an enlightened expert. I’m just a person figuring these things out who has a lot to learn. My hope is that sharing my process will help other people figuring these things out feel less alone on their journey.

    β†’ 10:22 AM, Aug 21
  • I registered @awaken for my new microcast i want to start. Now I need some artwork and to actually record something! Scary. If you have a mindfulness/meditation/Buddhism related topic you’d like discussed, send it to me :) I want as much audience interaction as possible.

    β†’ 10:14 AM, Aug 21
  • Possible title for most-days mindfulness microcast: “Morning Awakening.” Impressions? My thoughts were it says kind of what it is, is a little bit of a pun, references a Buddhist concept, and hints at it being an ongoing process rather than an on/off switch.

    β†’ 3:25 PM, Aug 20
  • There’s so much smoke in the air in Seattle today it looks foggy out. Can’t wait for this to pass.

    β†’ 3:02 PM, Aug 20
  • I was lucky enough to get to be the guest on @Monday for this weeks episode. If you’re into guinea pigs and wiener dogs, this is probably for you. monday.micro.blog/2018/08/2…

    β†’ 2:41 PM, Aug 20
  • Reversing a Swift String in Place

    One of the interview questions at my old job we’d ask sometimes was to reverse a string in place; usually using C or Java. After conducting an interview one time, I decided to rewrite it in Swift. Here’s what I came up with:

    func reverse(string: inout String) {
        var i = string.startIndex
        var j = string.index(before: string.endIndex)
    
        while i < j {
            let first = string[i]
            let second = string[j]
    
            string.remove(at: i)
            string.insert(second, at: i)
            string.remove(at: j)
            string.insert(first, at: j)
    
            i = string.index(after: i)
            j = string.index(before: j)
        }
    }
    
    var str = "12345"
    reverse(string: &str)
    
    β†’ 1:32 PM, Aug 20
  • For today’s Micro Monday, check out @ablaze and his meditation podcast/blog @grindwell. I just discovered him and his show myself, and am enjoying it very much.

    β†’ 1:20 PM, Aug 20
  • Mastodon and Micro.blog

    Having used Mastodon and Micro.blog now, my feeling is that there’s room for both because they’re trying to do different things. Mastodon wants to be a better, distributed, and more thoughtful version of Twitter. Micro.blog is just blogging with a social layer laid on top of it. It supports using a Micro.blog hosted site as your regular blog, like Wordpress or any other system, and not engaging with the social layer at all. Or, you can put your blog wherever you like, connect it to Micro.blog, and just use it for the social layer. They both want to be more and less ambitious than one and other in entirely different ways. Mastodon wants to be bigger, where Micro.blog could stay relatively small and still be successful as long as people are using it to blog and interact.

    β†’ 1:06 PM, Aug 20
  • Is there something people are using to send their Micro.blog posts to Mastodon?

    β†’ 11:35 AM, Aug 20
  • Link has snapped and gone full on crazy dog doing laps around the house.

    β†’ 11:22 AM, Aug 20
  • Hard to get anything done when you have a dog this cute.

    β†’ 10:30 AM, Aug 19
  • Ohh. Do I start a new a Microcast blog on Micro.blog or upgrade my current account?

    β†’ 10:24 AM, Aug 19
  • Thinking of starting a microcast. Maybe 5 minutes regularly on mindfulness and meditation stuff I’m working on? Don’t know if anyone would listen to that.

    β†’ 12:10 AM, Aug 19
  • My co-worker who’s in town from New York joined me at home today to work together, and Link is not having it. What. A. Brat.

    β†’ 10:33 AM, Aug 17
  • Managed to wake up at a decent time today after my sleep being messed up this week. Hopefully I can make this the new pattern.

    β†’ 10:09 AM, Aug 17
  • Sticking With Tile After Trying Trackr

    I’ve used Tile trackers since they first came out on my keys, wallet, backpack – anything I didn’t want to lose. They’ve always worked well enough, but they were a little big, and I didn’t love that the batteries weren’t replaceable. For those reasons, I decided to give Trackr a shot. It’s way smaller and runs on a watch battery. Those are the good parts. The bad part is, it didn’t work.

    Yesterday I spent 15 minutes tearing apart my house looking for my keys because I could see in iOS settings the Trackr device was connected to bluetooth, it took that long to recognize it in the app. And this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. If the app can’t reliably detect when the device is connected – an issue I’ve never had with Tile – and trigger it to ring, it’s functionally useless to me.

    I ordered a Tile Sport for my keys and will deal with the larger size and non-replaceable battery.

    β†’ 1:46 PM, Aug 16
  • Matias mechanical keyboards feel great, but they really look like something from 2004, which is a look I don’t think a lot of people are begging for. I’m surprised they never made one that looks like it’s from 1994, since that’s a look I think people would go nuts for.

    β†’ 12:49 PM, Aug 16
  • Getting my broken iPhone replaced ended up being fairly painless. Probably would only saved me twenty minutes if I’d waited for my appointment tomorrow versus walking in.

    β†’ 5:37 PM, Aug 15
  • My iPhone fell in water for about half a second and stopped working entirely yesterday. Debating waiting for my genius bar appointment tomorrow or just going and trying to get in.

    β†’ 12:46 PM, Aug 15
  • Could not sleep at all last night. Need to do something different today to not have the same problem.

    β†’ 12:26 PM, Aug 15
  • Sarah Sanders saying she can’t guarantee Trump never said the N-word on tape means he definitely did. If they didn’t think it was coming out she’d be saying “Absolutely not! And honestly, I am OFFENDED that you would even ask. And really, that’s the real racism here.”

    β†’ 1:27 PM, Aug 14
  • I’ve been taking Link out to go potty every ninety minutes and he’s just started poking at me about 2 minutes before the timer goes off. How can this tiny blonde dog tell time better than I can?

    β†’ 1:21 PM, Aug 14
  • Obviously @manton is the hero here, but I did imagine him tenting his fingers like Mr. Burns as he described on the most recent Core Intuition how every mistake Twitter has made has gone exactly as he hoped 😈 coreint.org/2018/08/e…

    β†’ 1:13 PM, Aug 14
  • “We aren’t fancy here. We just call things what they are. It’s a stick. It computes. Deal with it. It has 32 storage. 32 what’s of storage? Fuck you, princess.”

    www.intel.com/content/w…

    β†’ 12:57 PM, Aug 14
  • Is there a stage of moving where you dump out a couple of boxes to find something and then your new place is a complete disaster zone you must rebuild? Also, I need some art and I have no idea where to look.

    β†’ 11:48 AM, Aug 14
  • It’s sort of interesting that I have so many more people following me on Twitter than Micro.blog, but if I post the same thing to both, I get way more responses and discussion on the latter.

    β†’ 11:46 AM, Aug 14
  • What is a fact based right-leaning publication that a liberal like me could read to be aware of what conservatives are thinking without having to parse out coded language and conspiracy theories?

    β†’ 9:27 PM, Aug 13
  • Link (my dachshund) hurt his foot yesterday and had to be rushed to the vet, but he’s looking much better today, thankfully.

    β†’ 8:31 PM, Aug 13
  • Back to work today after a two week break, and getting settled back into what I was working on. Feels nice to be working in my new office, since I haven’t really gotten to much since I moved. Not having my living room double as my office and workout room is a nice improvement.

    β†’ 1:10 PM, Aug 13
  • Set up Tweet Delete to automatically delete anything I post to Twitter after 30 days. Maybe I’ll be sad someday not to be able to look back on what I was saying in 2009, but the direction I’m going is to post to places I control first, so maybe not.

    β†’ 1:09 PM, Aug 13
  • Trying out Icro for Micro.blog. Looks great so far!

    β†’ 10:27 AM, Aug 13
  • Checked out my local Soto Zen group today for morning meditation and dharma talk. Will definitely be going back.

    β†’ 5:27 PM, Aug 12
  • Due to the accusations of sexual assault against the leader of Shambhala – and my centers response to it – I’ve had to drop out of two workshops I was planning on this summer. Sad, but I don’t see how I can financially support a group that has pictures of that person on the wall.

    β†’ 5:54 PM, Aug 11
  • My living room basically looks like an Apple ad now, but stereo HomePods really do sound pretty good (as they should for $700).

    β†’ 11:56 AM, Aug 8
  • Went and used the automatic car wash today and picked up a little friend on the way home. Brown Bear Car Wash was pretty affordable and good for an automatic.

    β†’ 5:13 PM, Aug 5
  • Just finished my first Peloton ride at my new house. Feels good to get my fitness and exercise rings closed by 11am.

    β†’ 11:10 AM, Jul 27
  • Third-party mail apps like Airmail look appealing, but I always end up going back to Apple Mail within a short time. I don’t know if it’s a comfort thing, and I’d eventually feel at home, but nothing else has ever stuck.

    β†’ 11:53 AM, Jul 23
  • Sitting around working while I wait for fiber to get installed at my new place, which is clearly the most important part of moving. If anyone has a recommendation for a good router that works with CenturyLink fiber, let me know.

    β†’ 10:54 AM, Jul 19
  • Having used Perforce for several months at my previous job, I am thrilled to be back on Git. Also, Git Tower is a treasure. I happily signed up for their subscription as soon as the version came out.

    β†’ 12:11 PM, Jul 17
  • The Guest House

    This poem by Rumi was sent to me by one of my meditation teachers, and I liked it so much I wanted to share it.

    This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

    What I take from this is that you shouldn’t judge our feelings or label them good or bad, but instead try to live with, experience, and understand them. If you remain gentle with yourself and really internalize that you are not your feelings, you stop getting swept up and inhabiting whatever emotional weather is passing you by.

    β†’ 12:32 PM, Jul 13
  • The August Smart Lock Pro and Keypad I ordered for my new place showed up this morning. Pretty excited to live in a place that’s a little more smart home conducive than a new apartment building.

    β†’ 11:14 AM, Jul 13
  • Considering I’m typing this on a 2012 pre-Retina iMac, I think I’m allowed to say I really need a new computer… but, wow it does not take much upgrading to get these new MacBook Pros up into the $4000 range.

    β†’ 10:41 AM, Jul 12
  • Be Focused: Pomodoro Timing App

    I don’t know about other people, but for me, if I want to be the most productive, it’s essential to have systems in place to help stay focused and remind me what I should be doing. Lately, I’ve been using an app called Be Focused for that. It’s a fairly basic app for doing Pomodoro style time tracking – although, if the idea of a “system” scares you, the app never calls it Pomodoro. I’ve tried a few of these in the past, and this is probably the best one (and the most maintained).

    You tell if how long you want your interval and break periods to be, and it does what you’d expect by timing and transitioning between those periods. The one more advanced feature is that if you pay for the pro version (or get it on SetApp), there’s an integrated to-do list, which is nice if you want to reminders of what you were actively working on.

    I’ve mostly used the Mac version because that’s where my work happens, but it’s also on iOS, and they do sync. Be Focused is available on the App Store and in SetApp. If you find yourself needing something like this, it’s a good option.

    β†’ 12:58 PM, Jul 11
  • Ordered an August Smart Lock Pro with the keypad for my new place. Excited to try it (assuming the deadbolt is compatible). One thing I found out is that if you have an Apple TV, you don’t need to buy their August Connect hub, which lowers the price by $70.

    β†’ 12:38 PM, Jul 11
  • An Automatic Watch for Under $100

    When I mentioned the other day that I was interested in getting a non-smart watch which wouldn’t be so expensive I’d feel bad for not wearing it every day, I ruled out the idea of an automatic watch of any kind. It turns out I was wrong. There’s a bunch of options under $200. The ones which appealed to me the most were the Seiko brand watches.

    The one I ended up getting was a Seiko 5 Automatic, which you can buy for between $60 and $70, is a real automatic (no batteries!), and looks pretty cool too. For a little more you can upgrade to something like the Seiko SKX007, which is a bit chunkier (being a diver’s watch) and also quite attractive.

    β†’ 3:52 PM, Jul 9
  • I started an Instagram for my dog, so, now he has one, and I don’t. I have to admit, personifying a tiny blonde wiener dog with a bad attitude is pretty fun. instagram.com/heroofwhi…

    β†’ 3:34 PM, Jul 9
  • The Purpose of Meditation

    Something I keep hearing from friends when they find out I meditate is that it’s not for them because they β€œcan’t clear their mind.” The thing is, that’s not really what you’re trying to do. Our brains are machines designed to generate thoughts, there’s no use trying to stop it. The purpose of meditation isn’t to stop thinking; it’s to change the relationship you have with your thoughts and feelings.

    The way you get there is by regularly practicing being present with those thoughts and feelings so that you can learn to let them go when they arise. Most of the time when we encounter feelings we don’t like we want to get away from it as quickly as possible. Someone who is practicing mindfulness might try to stay with that feeling, understand what it is, and then gently let it go. When we haven’t been practicing mindfulness, it appears that emotions are something happening to us that we can’t control. We tend to embody the thing that we’re feeling right now instead of recognizing it for what it is or ever examining it.

    Learning to relate to ourselves in this way isn’t easy, and it isn’t particularly fast either. It does, however, have the chance to make a lasting and positive impact on our personalities and lives. If there are two things I’ve discovered so far that help the most, it’s first to be always gentle with yourself, and second to be consistent in your practice.

    Learning to be gentle with other people is important too, but you have to start with yourself. That means no negative self-talk, and not getting upset with yourself if meditation was hard today or you let yourself get caught up in emotion. The only way to do meditation wrong is not to do it. Any day that you sit is a good day, and if you missed a day, that’s okay too. Start fresh tomorrow. Being hard on yourself is never going to fix what’s already happened, and it’s not going to encourage you to continue either, so don’t do it. Instead, use it as a chance to do better the next time by understanding what happened.

    Remember: this is supposed to be hard. If developing mindfulness were natural, you wouldn’t need to sit, because you’d already have it. Weirdly, you do already have everything you need to be mindful, but getting in touch with that in a different story.

    Being consistent is also incredibly valuable. As best you can, try to sit every day. Meditation has made the most significant impact on me when I’m the most consistent. There are days I’m able to sit for forty minutes, and there are days that I only get ten, but I do make sure that it happens every day. Some days my mind goes crazy, and sometimes I sort of lose awareness and drift off, but I do sit, and over time I’m making progress. That’s all that matters. It’s a lifelong process. What happens one day or the next isn’t what matters. What matters is coming back it over and over again for weeks, months, years, and decades.

    If you want to start meditating, and you’re not sure how, I can tell you what’s been working for me, but please remember I am not an expert by any means. I do have some recommendations:

    Meditation Apps

    You don’t need to pay for a guided meditation app. If you want an app for timing that syncs with Apple Health and tracks your progress, get Insight Timer. It’s free, there are some community features I like, and it works well.

    Reading

    Read some books. Learning about the philosophy behind this stuff helps deepen your practice and keeps you motivated. If you’re looking for a short one to start, try Sit Like a Buddha by Lodro Rinzler. It’s specifically about getting started establishing a meditation practice. I also like Alan Watts quite a bit and think The Wisdom of Insecurity is a great place to start. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind is one that I read a couple of years ago, probably didn’t understand that well, and need to read again.

    Basic Meditation Instructions

    While keeping in mind that you should get your information from someone who’s qualified to teach, here’s the straightforward meditation practice that I do (the same one you’ll learn in Sit Like a Buddha):

    1. Sit crossed legged on the floor using a cushion to elevate your pelvis slightly above your hips. If that's not comfortable, use a chair.
    2. Sit up with your back straight, and tilt your head forward slightly. If it helps, imagine a chain pulling you up from the crown of your head and then releasing you your spine stacks up. If you're in a chair, try not to rest against the back if it.
    3. Gaze a few feet in front of you with your eyes open. The term people use here for your gaze is β€œsoft focus.” You don't want to go cross-eyed, but you're also not boring a hole in the floor. Just be relaxed.
    4. Place the tip of your tongue against your front teeth, and relax your jaw, so your mouth is slightly open.
    5. Rest your hands comfortably on your legs.
    6. Start your timer. Begin by focusing on your breath wherever you feel it -- nostrils, the expansion of your stomach or chest, etc. You want to get into the physical sensation of breathing.
    7. Continue to breathe naturally. Try to stay with that. If you catch yourself following a thought, recognize it, say the word β€œthinking” to yourself in your head, and gently let it go. If it keeps happening, that's okay, don't be hard on yourself. If it helps you, try counting with every out breath up to seven, and then start over.
    8. Continue until the time is up.

    That’s all. It doesn’t need to be complicated; you just have to do it every day. Try to get up to twenty minutes, but if ten is more comfortable to start, do that. If ten is too hard, try five and work your way up. It will get easier.

    β†’ 2:22 PM, Jul 5
  • Considering a non-smart watch for wearing, and especially for outdoor activities when I don’t want screens. Looking for durable and classy. Mechanical is ideal, but I feel like it’s probably above my price range to fulfill what I want. Where’s a good place to start looking?

    β†’ 1:26 PM, Jul 3
  • Discovery Park Hike

    [gallery ids=“2049,2050,2051,2052,2054,2053,2055,2056,2057,2058,2059,2060,2061,2062,2063,2064,” type=“rectangular”]

    Link and I went on a walk with his wiener dog friend Ramen through Discovery Park in Seattle. It’s a really pretty spot right next to the water that’s worth checking out.

    β†’ 3:15 PM, Jul 2
  • Opinel NΒ°8 Knife

    I’m not a β€œknife guy,” but I wanted something to carry around that would be reliable for camping and general cutting things, so I picked up an Opinel NΒ°8 at REI the other day. Works well, classy looking, and only about $15. The one I got is stainless still, but if they’d had it I would have gone with the carbon steel version.

    β†’ 11:30 AM, Jul 2
  • I visited the new Apple Store in Seattle at University Village the other day. It’s right next to where the old small one was, but probably three to four times the size and way nicer.

    β†’ 11:10 AM, Jul 2
  • Getting a coffee and a donut at Mighty O with Link before we go on a little hike today.

    β†’ 12:10 PM, Jun 30
  • View Public Interface for Swift Files in Xcode

    If you miss header files in Swift you can switch between the implementation and public interface for a file in Xcode by typing Command-Control-Up Arrow (βŒƒβŒ˜β†‘).

    β†’ 2:52 PM, Jun 29
  • Thoughts on Apple Rebuilding Maps

    Eddie Cue gave an interview to Matthew Panzarino on TechCrunch where he detailed Apple’s project to rebuild Apple Maps using their data, instead of relying on partners, as they’ve done. Also, it’s launching with the next beta of iOS 12, so that was surprising.

    Since I just started driving a new car with CarPlay, I’ve been using Apple Maps for driving directions almost daily. And it’s been fine. In fact, in the places I’ve lived (Portland, San Francisco, Seattle), it’s pretty much always been fine. For other people who don’t live in major cities on the West Coast, it seems like it’s been less fine, but has improved a lot for everyone since it launched in 20121.

    The thing I don’t think it’s ever been and doesn’t have any indication of becoming with the previous strategy was remotely competitive with the quality of Google Maps.

    When the decision was made to move away from Google, and create their service, my feeling is that it was on a less-than-ideal timeline and they needed to come up with a solution that would get it out the door. Partnering with a bunch of companies to launch who have all the data you need makes a lot of sense when you have no experience or infrastructure to do this, and it’s beginning to look a little embarrassing that the iPhone can’t do turn by turn directions.

    That strategy was the only way Maps could’ve happened in 2012, and after a rough launch, they’ve managed to incrementally get up to the level of “good enough” over the last six years. For it to be great though the incremental improvements and relying on third parties weren’t going to get them where they wanted to be. I don’t know if the new way will fix all of Maps problems at once, but something had to change, and this seems like the way it had to go.


    1. If they've been working on this project since 2014 like the article says, that means Apple Maps has been in the process of being rebuilt for two-thirds​ of the time it's existed. ↩
    β†’ 2:00 PM, Jun 29
  • I do not understand walking dogs off leash in a neighborhood. It’s dangerous for the dog, other animals, and everyone. Leash laws exist for a reason – animals do unpredictable things. We don’t get to decide our dog is unique and the rules don’t apply to them.

    β†’ 11:05 AM, Jun 29
  • I moved Link’s bed next to where I work. All he’s wanted is to do is lay next to me and sleep all day (with only occasional breaks to defend us from/bark at people walking through the alley downstairs).

    β†’ 5:08 PM, Jun 28
  • I wrote a 1500 word blog post on my new car as someone who hasn’t ever owned a decent vehicle before, if you’re into that sort of thing. collindonnell.com/2018/06/2…

    β†’ 3:22 PM, Jun 27
  • My New 2018 Subaru Outback

    In 2014 I bought a 1988 Dolphin RV, which I barely used for two main reasons:

    1. It felt more like a death trap to drive it than I thought it would.
    2. I moved from my house in Portland (which had a driveway) to an apartment in San Francisco (which had none).

    Because of that, I sold it at the beginning of 2018. Other than that I haven’t had a vehicle of my own since 2009. Because the cities I lived in that time were Portland (where it’s not needed), and San Francisco (where it would actively be a burden), owning a car never really seemed worth the cost.

    At the same time, not having the ability to get out of the city I lived in easily, go camping, or get across town without spending an hour or more on public transit or spending $30 on ridesharing to do normal things that adults do was a bummer.

    So mainly my thoughts a few weeks ago landed on: I’m thirty-three, I’ve have made decent money for a decade, and I’d like to know what it’s like to have a car that isn’t wholly terrible. So, I started thinking of what I’d want in a vehicle and what the most sensible way to make that happen was.

    What I Was Looking For

    Thinking about what I wanted to get out of a car, I came up with a few criteria that were important to me:

    Modern Safety Features

    Besides being safe if you got into an accident, my preference was to have features which might help avoid once in the first place. Realistically, I’m an average driver, because most people are average, and would benefit from a little help. So if possible, things like a backup camera, adaptive cruise control, blindspot detection, and automatic emergency braking would be nice to have. That RV felt dangerous every time I drove it on the freeway, and that was not something I wanted to relive.

    CarPlay

    I’m a nerd, and if I was going to get a car in 2018, I wanted it to have CarPlay built in, or at least be able to add in a third-party receiver easily which had it. It turns out there are lots of options for this, so if I bought used adding it in after wouldn’t be such a big deal. Still, I assumed that built-in is best.

    Ability to Go Camping

    Hopefully, this pans out the way I want it to, and I go a lot (I already bought all the gear), but my idea was that I’d like to be able to take whatever I get camping. Car camping, it turns out, requires a surprising amount of stuff. I didn’t want something huge, but big enough to carry the number of things you’d need to for a few days time was important. Also, if I decide to go somewhere more adventurous that involves driving down a long dirt road or up a mountain in the future, it should be able to handle that.

    Buy Used or Lease?

    I am not a fan of owing money, and I’d like to have the lowest number of large recurring payments I can. Because of this, my first thought was to buy a decent used car in the five to eight thousand dollar range outright. If I kept it for a couple of years and sold it, I could put in about the same amount of money again and upgrade. It probably wouldn’t have all the features I wanted, but maybe it could be close enough. When I started looking, however, this plan had problems.

    The first was that what I could get in that price range was somewhat limited. Also, buying a used car from a private seller sucks. I didn’t want to end up with something that was going to be a maintenance nightmare, and the decent looking vehicles get sold fast. Lastly, I’d pretty much be giving up on getting any modern safety features beyond maybe-not-dying if I got in an actual accident, and those were pretty important to me.

    I also ruled out buying something new. I feel like the technology of cars is moving fast enough right now, that I didn’t want to be stuck paying it off for five years, only to have to sell it at some point. It was also pretty cost prohibitive.

    Although I was initially hesitant to lease, the benefits ended up making sense. I could get something on a lease special which was brand new with all the features I wanted for a lower price, and in three years turn it in and not have to deal with it. Of course, any money I put into it is just, gone, but the way new cars lose value, I wasn’t sure that would end up being much different anyway.

    The Car

    With all of that in mind, I started looking at what had the features I wanted, and what lease specials were available. What I landed on was a 2018 Subaru Outback. I might’ve gone with one of their other models, but the Outback had been updated recently and had the best specials going.

    IMG 1132

    Subaru EyeSight

    For safety features, it’s pretty incredible. It includes the Subaru EyeSight system, which uses cameras and radar to do every safety thing I could imagine. The adaptive cruise control is especially great. It will accelerate up to stay behind the car ahead up to the max speed you set, and take you down to a complete stop if it needs to, does both at least as smoothly as I could, and never gets distracted.

    Lane keep assist is another standout feature for me. If you begin to drift slightly in your lane, it gently nudges you back towards the center. It’s not so much you couldn’t override it you needed to, but it’s a little bit of help.

    The car is in no way driving for you, so you never get to stop steering, but the level of assistance it gives is probably ideal for where the technology is. Versus something like Tesla Autopilot (which I haven’t tried), I’m concerned with a system that presents as self-driving so that you could stop paying attention for long periods of time, but where you need to be ready to take control at any moment.

    Part of me wonders if the technology between what Tesla and Subaru are using is that much different or if Subaru is just a lot more conservative when it comes to letting the car take over.

    The only complaint I would have with EyeSight is that I feel like this car maybe beeps at you slightly more than is helpful. It’s not incredibly annoying, but sometimes I feel like it’s beeping at me just to let me know everything is still okay. The beeping isn’t terrible, but I think it’s right on the line of keeping you alert versus beeping so much you stop paying attention to it. I’ll have to have it longer to know how I feel.

    CarPlay

    I love CarPlay. Being able to talk to Siri to look up directions while driving, play podcasts or Apple music, and respond to text messages without looking at the screen is a huge safety and functionality win. Once or twice the car has failed to detect my iPhone or lagged, but generally, it’s rock solid. The only flaw I’ve seen multiple times is that occasionally the GPS will place me off the road I’m on and get confused. Siri itself has been (surprisingly) great.

    Camping

    Since I live in an apartment, I’m not getting one anytime soon, but I can now see why people have those cargo container things on their roofs. It takes so much stuff to go camping. Thankfully, there was plenty of room. It makes me happy I didn’t go with something a lot smaller though, because it might’ve not worked out so well.

    If I could figure out a better way to organize the stuff I want to take though and I could probably do it without taking down the backseat.

    As far as driving up a mountain road in inclement conditions, I assume the all-wheel drive will be essential, but since I haven’t done it yet, I really can’t say.

    Feelings So Far

    The only other car I’ve ever had from the decade I owned it was an early 2000s Ford Focus with a salvage title that completely broke down within seven or eight months – so I may not be the most qualified to comment on how nice a car is. Still, it feels nice. I wouldn’t mind if it were slightly smaller, but if I had a driveway or garage instead of maneuvering the garage under my apartment building, I don’t think I would care.

    Having a car for sure isn’t the cheapest thing in the world. Spending a lot less on ridesharing does offset it a bit though. Also, it does feel pretty amazing to be able to be able to go somewhere thirty minutes like it’s no big deal.

    β†’ 3:13 PM, Jun 27
  • A fact not found in the MacStories review, however, is that the real best reason to use Drafts isn’t that it’s a powerful and thoughtfully created app for handling text, but that the author(@agiletortoise) – who’s delightful – told me he named his kid after Ash from Evil Dead.

    β†’ 12:53 PM, Jun 27
  • Resource for Learning Drafts

    After I mentioned that I wasn’t sure how to get started with Drafts, Eli on Micro.blog pointed me to this great MacStories article on Drafts 5 by Tim Nahumck. It’s presented a review, but the article walks you through how to use almost every feature of the app, including advanced stuff like scripting.

    I think that the way I’m going to approach Drafts right now is that if all I ever use it for is a place to start writing before I know if I want something to end up in Ulysses, the Micro.blog app, or Day One, that’s useful. As I get more into it, I think opportunities to use things like custom keyboard shortcuts, workspaces, and tagging will become apparent.

    The trick to getting into something that has so much potential depth has to be starting off using it in the simplest way possible and expanding from there. Otherwise, it’s just too overwhelming.

    β†’ 12:23 PM, Jun 27
  • Justice Anthony Kennedy Retiring

    US Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy judge to retire - BBC News:

    The conservative has been a swing vote on many decisions including the 5-4 rulings that decided same-sex marriage and upheld abortion rights.

    I’d like to think that I’m not one to panic, but this seems really bad. Anyone that gets put on the Supreme Court is someone we’re going to be stuck with for decades. The idea that a sad jackass like Donald Trump would get to decide 22% of the people on the Supreme Court for the next few decades is deeply upsetting to me.

    β†’ 11:47 AM, Jun 27
  • Based on the amount of text I deal with, I can tell that Drafts is something I’d really benefit from learning, but I’m honestly just not sure where to start. Open to suggestions.

    β†’ 11:36 AM, Jun 27
  • Saw Incredibles 2 (it was great) at Seattle Cinerama tonight and got some pictures of the Blade Runner costumes on display. Definitely my favorite movie theater. I love that instead of waiters and couches their only gimmick is amazing sound and picture quality.

    β†’ 12:53 AM, Jun 27
  • 2018 Reading Challenge Update

    In a previous post I set a goal for myself to finish fifty books in 2018 – very slightly less than one a week. Since I’m not one of those insanely fast readers, and I’d like actually to remember some of what I read, I realized setting a goal I probably wouldn’t be able to hit wasn’t the best idea. Because of that, I decided to revise that to twenty-four, or, one every two weeks. Twenty-four feels super achievable – I’m already at fifteen – but also just enough that I need to be consistently reading something.

    I am also a big enough person to admit that I counted A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (which took maybe fifteen minutes) as one of the books I read.

    β†’ 2:29 PM, Jun 26
  • Swapping out my Matias Tactile Pro in favor of the WASD Code keyboard to shake things up and get a better feel for what I prefer.

    β†’ 2:12 PM, Jun 26
  • A new Overcast which supports AirPlay 2 can’t come fast enough. I’ve been using the Apple Podcasts app for multi-room audio and it is… subpar. The UI is not bad, but anything to do with sync or keeping track of which episodes you’ve heard works incredibly badly.

    β†’ 1:06 PM, Jun 26
  • Six Figure Salary is β€œLow Income” in San Francisco

    SFGate:

    The high cost of living likely accounts for what some perceive to be a "Bay Area exodus." It's hard to quantify such a trend with limited census data, but multiple reports imply Bay Area residents are at least thinking about leaving.

    For a family of four, $117,400 a year in San Francisco County is considered low income, and I totally believe that. The thing about living in the Bay Area is that it really feels like you just can’t get ahead there. It’s dirty, dangerous, and everyday going downtown you will be witness to the horrific situation the cities most vulnerable (homeless) are in.

    I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear people are leaving because who wants to live in a place like that.

    β†’ 10:19 PM, Jun 25
  • Spending a lot of time at the Seattle Shambhala Center lately and learning a lot. Such a beautiful spot too.

    β†’ 9:39 PM, Jun 25
  • Showing Up Is the Hardest Part

    It’s a total clichΓ©, but the hardest part of anything really is showing up and starting. Whether it’s the gym, meditation cushion, or a class, once I’m there, I might as well have done it already. I’ve been thinking of this since it came up in the meditation class I’ve been taking the last few weeks at my local Shambhala Center, in regard to establishing a daily meditation practice. One of the responses that came out of that was that you just have to do it. You’re supposed to be challenging yourself, so of course, you’ll want to avoid it sometimes.

    There’s a lot of fear and anxiety for people around getting to know your mind and dealing with emotions that come up, but once you’ve made it to the cushion, you’ve already succeeded. I’ve put off meditating lots of times in the past, but I’ve never gone running from the cushion once I’ve started.

    It’s the same with working out or starting a challenging project at work. Once I start, all I have to do is not stop. I’ve heard that as humans we’re so programmed against discomfort that our bodies react with a fear response, like a super low-level version of getting chased by a tiger. Making your body do things it doesn’t want to, or intentionally facing your inner demons definitely quality as “uncomfortable.” The problem for me – as with many things – is that I’m yet to internalize this fully. I know it intellectually, but I still manage to put off working out for a week here and there, even though I always am happy I did it once it’s over.

    The only thing I’ve found that seems to help is to keep going and try to establish what I want to do as a habit. Meditation has started to become that for me. I used to go for a few days, stop and start over, but once I got over the initial few weeks of doing it every day, it became a lot easier. Right now I’m coming up on fifty days straight. Not exactly enlightened yet, but making progress. I need to figure out how to apply this lesson to other parts of my life.

    β†’ 3:37 PM, Jun 25
  • Two thoughts after this weekend: I don’t think you really create more trash when camping, but because you have to always deal with it somewhat immediately, you sure notice it more, and second, it takes a lot more stuff to be semi-comfortable​ than I realized.

    β†’ 1:16 PM, Jun 25
  • Preview of Sunlit 2.2

    Manton just posted a preview of the next version of Sunlit on his blog, and it looks fantastic. I’ve been off of Instagram for a little while, so the new timeline view looks perfect for me.

    I’m still figuring out how to use the app, but I created my Camano Island post with Sunlit, and it worked really well.

    β†’ 11:36 AM, Jun 25
  • I guess I really like text editing and writing apps. Need to spend some time to figure out where text should actually live instead of jumping around all the time.

    Screen Shot 2018 06 22 at 12 11 41 PM

    β†’ 11:30 AM, Jun 25
  • Camping on Camano Island

    First Night

    [gallery ids=“1941,1944,1945,1947,1950,1951,” type=“rectangular”]

    Managed to get the tent up, build a fire, and roast some (vegan) hot dogs.

    Day Two

    [gallery ids=“1943,1942,1946,1948,1949,1952,1953,1954,1956,1955,” type=“rectangular”]

    So beautiful here. Did some hiking down to the beach, built a fire somewhat more successfully, and ate red beans and rice.

    β†’ 9:06 PM, Jun 24
  • Living the Stereo HomePod Lifestyle

    $600-750 (I got one refurbished) for two speakers is a pretty big ask, but my initial feeling is that stereo HomePods sound more than twice as good as one.

    Stereo HomePods

    β†’ 12:07 PM, Jun 22
  • RetroBatch Batch from Flying Meat

    My friend Gus Mueller recently released a new app I heard about from him a couple of weeks ago called RetroBatch for batch image processing. I’ve done this kind of thing before with a shell script or Automator, but this looks way more powerful. If you’re familiar with Audio Hijack, it has a similar interface for setting up chains of processing steps, which seems perfect.

    β†’ 11:29 AM, Jun 22
  • I went from not-too-excited about the HomePod a month ago to my third getting delivered tomorrow. It’s great if you use Apple stuff. Quite expensive, but great.

    β†’ 3:14 PM, Jun 21
  • Trying Something Different

    Thinking that instead of posting to Twitter/Micro.blog, etc., I will try writing everything on my blog and then use Micro.blog to send it about intelligently. Also, I think I finally get Micro.blog.

    β†’ 1:08 PM, Jun 21
  • Equatable Swift (NS)Objects

    How to implement equality with different kinds of Swift objects was pretty obvious once I read the documentation, but the errors I got at first were not entirely clear. If you want to show equality between two objects in Swift, you have to do something different depending on if they subclass NSObject or not.

    In the case of an NSObject subclass, you would override -isEqual::

    override func isEqual(to object: Any?) -> Bool {
        guard let myObject = object as? MyClass else {
            return false
        }
        return uniqueID == myObject.uniqueID 
    }
    

    If it’s a pure Swift object, however, you would implement the Equatable protocol and override ==:

    extension MyClass: Equatable {
        static func ==(lhs: MyClass, rhs: MyClass) -> Bool {
            return lhs.uniqueID == rhs.uniqueID
        }
    }
    

    If you try to implement Equatable on an NSObject subclass, you will either get compiler errors about redundant conformance, or your implementation of == will never be called and you will be confused.

    β†’ 7:42 PM, Jun 20
  • Sea-Tac Airport Today

    Don’t know what’s up today, but this definitely the worst line I’ve ever seen at an airport.

    β†’ 4:47 PM, Jun 19
  • Today at SEATAC is the longest airport line I’ve ever seen.

    β†’ 4:35 PM, Jun 19
  • Summer in Seattle

    Cal Anderson Park

    β†’ 2:01 PM, Jun 19
  • Moving to Managed Wordpress

    Until now I’ve been hosting my blog myself using WebFaction, and it’s worked great. That was until a couple of months ago when I received a notification from my host that they’d detected malware in my Wordpress install and my site would remain deactivated until I fixed it. As far as I could tell I was running the latest version of Wordpress with a secure password. I have no idea what happened, although I’m reasonably sure it was my fault somehow. I decided to look for another host.

    The things that I wanted were to be able to keep using MarsEdit, to have it be secure, not to have to worry if I got a lot of traffic all of a sudden, and for migration (in, and out) to be painless. The obvious choice was to export my blog to Wordpress.com and pay for one of their premium plans.

    If I decide to move back to self-hosting in the future, it won’t be any harder than it was before, and I shouldn’t have to worry about security or any of that going forward. I will try to post in the future about how it’s working out and what the tradeoffs have been.

    β†’ 1:33 PM, Jun 19
  • Migrating my blog over to Wordpress.com. It’s not expensive and then I don’t have to manage any of this stuff.

    β†’ 10:53 AM, Jun 19
  • Ugh. I really need to figure out how I’m going to fix my Wordpress install or move to something else.

    β†’ 3:07 PM, Jun 13
  • The Sunday sit at the Shambhala Center yesterday ended up being about 90 minutes (3x25 with a couple walking periods), so that was a bit intense to make it through.

    β†’ 11:39 AM, Jun 11
  • Before AirPlay 2 I always had the option to send whatever audio my phone was playing wherever I wanted from Control Center, but that’s no longer true.

    β†’ 7:12 PM, Jun 10
  • Is there a way to tell Siri to play to all of my speakers that aren’t my Apple TV in one command?

    β†’ 6:34 PM, Jun 8
  • Celebrity deaths usually don’t bother me so much, but Anthony Bourdain is someone who I’ve read his book, seen all of his shows, went to places on his recommendation, and felt like I knew him a little (in one sided way). He taught me things.

    Depression is a horrible disease.

    β†’ 3:00 PM, Jun 8
  • 🎢 I’ve been standing at the edge of the window, barking at the cat across the alley, never really knowing why. I wish I could be the perfect puppy, but I keep going to the window, no matter how I don’t try. 🎢

    β†’ 1:45 PM, Jun 8
  • 🎢 I’ve been standing at the edge of the window, barking at the cat across the alley, never really knowing why. I wish I could be the perfect puppy, but I keep going to the window, no matter how I don’t try. 🎢

    β†’ 1:45 PM, Jun 8
  • Tempted to install the WatchOS beta just so I can get the yoga workout type.

    β†’ 11:20 AM, Jun 5
  • Oh wow. I guess the cross-platform thing is happening.

    β†’ 12:07 PM, Jun 4
  • My number one Micro.blog feature request is to add the Safari pinned icon image :-D Also, I can’t believe it’s already been over a year.

    β†’ 11:47 AM, May 31
  • Ooh this new meditation cushion set (zafu and zabuton) is much nicer (Link had an accident on my old one when I left it on the floor). I wasn’t sure about the crescent shaped cushion, but I can already tell it’s much more comfortable.

    β†’ 11:46 AM, May 31
  • I really want to be able to go into the Home app and say (for example) “Play ‘The Final Countdown’ when I come home.” giphy.com/gifs/thin…

    β†’ 10:25 AM, May 31
  • It only does about 1/100th as much as the Echo can, but I like HomePod way more than I thought I would. I’d like to see it get more (any) automation abilities and some third-party support, even if it’s just a couple of partners and audio apps only (Audible and Overcast).

    β†’ 10:24 AM, May 31
  • Are Apple Podcasts play locations supposed to sync on HomePod and it just doesn’t work or is that not a feature? If it’s not I can’t see why anyone would use it instead of AirPlay.

    β†’ 12:16 PM, May 30
  • Still sticking with the Peloton and loving it. #peloton #fitness

    β†’ 11:10 AM, May 30
  • Signed up for a seven week meditation course at the local Shambala center. I think getting the Buddhism out of my house and with other people will be good for me.

    β†’ 11:09 AM, May 30
  • Wearing my favorite shirt today.

    β†’ 1:50 PM, May 24
  • Happy Scale is such a great app for getting a picture of the way your weight trends are going instead of having to just focus on the day to day numbers. Happy Scale by Front Pocket Software LLChttps://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happy-scale/id532430574?mt=8

    β†’ 3:20 PM, May 20
  • Man. What am I supposed to do now? I re-watched every episode of Star Trek the last time something like this happened.

    β†’ 3:28 PM, May 17
  • Thanks for all the support everyone. I loved working at Sonos and my team was awesome. Bummed to go but it was a purely corporate decision there’s no point in feeling bad about. I’m sure I’ll find something quickly.

    β†’ 2:25 PM, May 17
  • Because I did not mention in my last tweet I should say that I do iOS and Mac dev primarily for ten years and am immediately available for any full time or contract positions.

    β†’ 12:49 PM, May 17
  • Due to a reorganization my position at Sonos (along with many others) has been eliminated. I’m located in Seattle. I am immediately available to interview for positions or take on any contracting work someone might have for me. Retweet if you love me, please.

    β†’ 12:45 PM, May 17
  • If you’re on Strava you can add me by searching my name or going to my profile here: www.strava.com/athletes/…

    β†’ 6:14 PM, May 16
  • Did my first Peloton ride this morning. It was fun and pretty tiring!

    β†’ 10:24 AM, May 16
  • Hoping that the combination of yoga, spinning, and eating pretty well is enough to be in shape.

    β†’ 12:15 PM, May 15
  • One more day until my Peloton bike (@onepeloton) shows up! Pretty excited. Gotta make room in my apartment tonight. Hope that the accessories arrive in time. Been pretty good about making it to yoga too. Onward to greater fitness!

    β†’ 12:14 PM, May 15
  • Early on in my career I was always using Bonjour/NSStream/sockets and writing things that did things over the local network. Now everything is usually a frontend for a REST API. Kind of miss that. That sort of code is fun to write.

    β†’ 12:11 PM, May 15
  • Don’t know if I know anyone else crazy enough to buy a Peloton bike… but if you did, you can find me on there as FishermansPorch.

    β†’ 3:47 PM, May 14
  • Haven’t written any Bonjour code in a while. This sure brings back memories to working at Avatron on Air Display for Mac.

    β†’ 2:59 PM, May 14
  • Started using the Insight Timer app for meditation. If you’re using it, let me know and I’ll add you as a friend. Otherwise it’s free and has lots of great content plus a good timer function for unguided meditation. insighttimer.com

    β†’ 10:56 AM, May 11
  • Made it to my second yoga class of the week. Going well so far. Pretty convenient having it across the street from my house/work.

    β†’ 2:44 PM, May 9
  • Unfortunately because I am trying to get my financial game in order and it’s not cheap to fly down and stay in San Jose, I don’t see anyway I’m going to be able to make it down to WWDC this year. Total bummer. Have fun everyone!

    β†’ 3:30 PM, May 8
  • Going to quit drinking and start yoga again. There’s a good looking yoga studio across the street from my house, and an alcohol break is good every so often.

    β†’ 12:42 PM, May 7
  • The Fisher Space Pen writes way better with the fine refill. This is the AG-7, which is the original model used in Apollo (the AG stands for anti-gravity).

    β†’ 4:29 PM, May 6
  • Listened to the latest Do By Friday and then wiped down everything on my desk with disinfectant wipes.

    β†’ 2:47 PM, May 4
  • Micro.blog people – do you send your posts to Twitter or do you keep those as two separate things? I am of two minds on this. They serve a lot of the same purpose for me, but a lot of what I say on Micro.blog really could just stay there.

    β†’ 11:59 AM, May 3
  • Me when I splurge and spend the $4.99 for a one hour delivery Prime Now delivery window. giphy.com/gifs/year…

    β†’ 4:34 PM, May 2
  • After spending some time with the Fira-Code font, I’ve found that the ligatures have not impaired my reading of code at all. Really not as big of a deal as I thought it might be.

    β†’ 3:16 PM, May 2
  • Woah. Did Mailbutler completely update itself and become a web service since the last time I checked it out? Does that mean Mail doesn’t need to be running for it to work now? If so I might actually stick with it this time.

    β†’ 1:13 PM, May 2
  • Thinking of trying to consolidate all of my calendars to one service. Maybe FastMail? iCloud sharing is tempting except that I don’t use it.

    β†’ 11:38 AM, May 2
  • No one ever succeeded after being criticized for going too far at a White House Correspondents Dinner. Just ask Stephen Colbert.

    β†’ 11:30 AM, May 1
  • Well, I’ve never implemented NSFastEnumeration before, but this seems like as good a time as any to give it a shot.

    β†’ 4:14 PM, Apr 27
  • What’s the static blogging engine people like right now that has easy import from Wordpress? Don’t need to get to it from iOS.

    β†’ 3:19 PM, Apr 27
  • I love how if I don’t blow ads, but only block tracking, I still get the “Ad Blockers Make Us Sad” full screen overlay from websites. I’ll look at your dumb ads, I just don’t want to be tracked across the web.

    β†’ 2:15 PM, Apr 27
  • If anyone has any good recommendations for a 4k 24” monitor, lemme know. This Dell P2415Q looks good, but interested if there’s anything better out there.

    β†’ 1:51 PM, Apr 27
  • Got the notification I needed to start paying for Micro.blog and gladly did :)

    β†’ 7:46 PM, Apr 26
  • If Apple could just pull off the subset of Gmail features they already have in their apps even 2/3 as well, I really would have no complaints for Apple Mail. My guess is what we will get is them taking two or three more Gmail features this year and having them barely work.

    β†’ 6:33 PM, Apr 26
  • Got all of my personal mail moved over to FastMail and will be using a domain I own going forward. Would be nice if I could get all the features of Gmail, but if I’m being honest I barely use them.

    β†’ 6:29 PM, Apr 26
  • SetApp has really become a great deal. BusyCal just showed up today, which is awesome.

    β†’ 5:33 PM, Apr 26
  • New Hobonichi cover and multi-pen. Digging them so far.

    β†’ 11:14 AM, Apr 26
  • At this point, I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch every day for four years and the only things I think it’s useful for are still health tracking, notifications, and telling the time. And it’s not great at the last one.

    β†’ 3:18 PM, Apr 25
  • I wonder if they’ll release an Apple Watch face this year I won’t hate. The Siri face is almost cool except that it needs to be a lot smarter and talk to third party apps.

    β†’ 3:16 PM, Apr 25
  • Trying out using Sunlit to maybe scratch some of my not-using-Instagram itch. Not exactly sure what to do with it yet, but will give it more time.

    β†’ 1:33 PM, Apr 25
  • I wonder if there’s any reason it would be a bad idea for me to direct all of my e-mail (work, personal, etc) through one account (FastMail or Gmail, most likely). I seem to remember FastMail specifically having pretty good support for this kind of thing.

    β†’ 12:56 PM, Apr 24
  • Going to try just using Better as my only ad blocker. The company who makes it seem like good people and I like that they don’t block non-tracking ads.

    β†’ 12:51 PM, Apr 24
  • The “unsubscribe” feature in Apple Mail on iOS and macOS is unreliable enough I might prefer for it not to be there if this is as well as they could get it working.

    β†’ 12:41 PM, Apr 24
  • Finally saw Black Panther and liked it. I also think Wakanda’s system of government has some serious issues.

    β†’ 3:23 PM, Apr 21
  • My main issue with iTerm is that I don’t need most of is features, and the icon isn’t as good as Terminal.

    β†’ 4:42 PM, Apr 20
  • Informal poll: What monospace font/size are you currently using for programming and terminal?

    β†’ 3:54 PM, Apr 20
  • Installing Fonts Using Homebrew

    I had no idea you could do this, but now that I do, but it turns out you can install fonts from the command line using Homebrew. That means I could write a shell script to install automatically most or all of the fonts I use on new Macs.

    I could even have the script in Dropbox and have it run periodically in the background using a launchd service to keep everything in sync. That is useful.

    All you need to do is this:

    brew tap caskroom/fonts
    brew cask install font-<name-of-font>
    

    It looks like it has all of the major free programming fonts and a bunch of others too. Neat.

    β†’ 3:51 PM, Apr 20
  • Woah. Never noticed this. The default resolution setting on this MacBook Pro is a scaled one. That’s crazy. Why would they do that and not up the resolution of the screen?

    β†’ 3:19 PM, Apr 20
  • I like the idea of “more space” on by using the scaling on my 15” MacBook Pro, but I hate the idea of not using the display at its native resolution. How is 1880x1600 (1440x900 equivalent) still the resolution for this screen?

    β†’ 3:17 PM, Apr 20
  • Are there any Regex tools out there that people really like? Mac is preferred, web is acceptable.

    β†’ 2:17 PM, Apr 18
  • Heard a HomePod the other day for the first time. It was in a Best Buy, so maybe that’s what it was, but was kind of expecting to be blown away and… just thought it sounded like a small speaker.

    β†’ 11:24 AM, Apr 18
  • Just finished the Nanoblocks Saturn V. Slightly smaller than the LEGO one.

    β†’ 7:34 PM, Apr 10
  • I sincerely wish I got better results from DuckDuckGo, but it’s not even remotely close to Google.

    β†’ 2:29 PM, Apr 10
  • Facebook is now deactivated. The only thing keeping me there was that I didn’t want to create a new Spotify account, but that’s not really a big deal.

    β†’ 12:03 PM, Apr 10
  • Finished the LEGO Saturn V. Took a long time but was fun. Thinking of getting a little bookcase for space LEGO/Nanoblock builds.

    β†’ 12:07 PM, Apr 9
  • Trying out using my Hobonichi Techo for my everything/bullet journal. I was missing too many days and I like the size and paper, so why not?

    β†’ 12:05 PM, Apr 9
  • After this week, C++ is starting not to look as crazy as it used to. I’m also beginning to think there might be as much C++ in Swift as there is Objective-C (or more).

    β†’ 4:47 PM, Apr 6
  • The Saturn V LEGO set I’m constructing is halfway complete. For never having built any LEGO before (even as a kid) I feel like I’m doing pretty well. Apparently, this is one of the harder sets, and I haven’t felt more than mildly frustrated at any point, and then only once.

    β†’ 10:54 AM, Apr 3
  • Ever since I heard of the idea of gender quotas in politics, I’ve thought we should implement this in the United States. Maybe make it about 95% women. Men are too emotionally volatile for this kind of work.

    β†’ 10:46 AM, Apr 3
  • I think I may have bit off more than I can chew.

    β†’ 6:04 PM, Apr 1
  • Does anyone have the Beats Studio 3’s and have an opinion on them? I want some wireless noise cancelling headphones for work, can get them for $250 on Amazon, and feel like if I don’t get something with a W1 chip I’ll just fallback to my AirPods.

    β†’ 3:08 PM, Mar 30
  • I would bet that in a world where the only other version control system I’d ever used was Subversion, I’d probably think Perforce was quite cool. Unfortunately, I have used Git, so that is not the case.

    β†’ 12:12 PM, Mar 29
  • I feel like I am reliving something @marcoarment went through several years ago as I hop between several text editors trying to. BBEdit, Sublime Text, Atom, VS Code. Trying AppCode at the same time as well, although that’s a separate issue.

    β†’ 4:12 PM, Mar 28
  • Bought the yearly membership for Grammarly, and I like it quite a bit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on Micro.blog for some reason πŸ˜”

    β†’ 4:44 PM, Mar 27
  • As simple of a tool as it is compared to the competitors, YNAB (You Need a Budget) is insanely effective if you use it. My spending/savings situation has changed dramatically in the last couple of months.

    β†’ 11:04 AM, Mar 26
  • I bought a Waterpik and I have to say… it’s pretty rad. I always thought they were more expensive but the big fancy crazy one is only about $60.

    β†’ 5:35 PM, Mar 25
  • What I really want is a version of Automator where you can create a little form in it and use values you get from it to populate variables. Too bad they’ll never update it again.

    β†’ 10:16 AM, Mar 23
  • If this was 2009 I’d totally be starting a Mac automation podcast right now.

    β†’ 10:14 AM, Mar 23
  • Editing and posting the new episode of The Run Loop tonight! Moving to a bi-weekly schedule after this.

    β†’ 10:09 AM, Mar 23
  • Weirdly I think that being able to write AppleScript (combined with shell scripts) and use Automator has been one of my secret weapons in my career.

    β†’ 10:09 AM, Mar 23
  • Looking for a guest for the next episode of The Run Loop after the one coming out end of this week. Hit me up.

    β†’ 10:49 AM, Mar 20
  • Giving using a Pomodoro timer a shot again to help increase focus. It’s helped in the past, but I’ve just never really stuck with it. I should really see if there’s a good book on the method.

    β†’ 10:49 AM, Mar 20
  • Managed to get Outlook working again! I actually think it was an issue with our SSO provider and not so much Outlook itself.

    β†’ 5:34 PM, Mar 19
  • This is a lovely situation to be in: Outlook for Mac prompts me to log in, and then freezes and crashes everytime I try to. Amazing.

    β†’ 3:27 PM, Mar 19
  • Oh man. Rough day.

    β†’ 7:52 PM, Mar 15
  • Today I have worked with code in: Objective-C, Swift, Kotlin, Java, and I even updated a little bit of a Python script. Oh! I wrote an AppleScript too! Does that count? Big day.

    β†’ 5:24 PM, Mar 14
  • I have a feeling that setting my 401(k) to max out is going to end up being one of the smartest things I could have done. Not the whole plan, but I think it will be a good base.

    β†’ 5:51 PM, Mar 12
  • A bit run down today but still stayed focused and got a lot done. Feeling good about that.

    β†’ 5:46 PM, Mar 12
  • The Run Loop is officially being relaunched and the next episode in a couple weeks is going to be a really exciting one πŸ˜ƒ

    β†’ 4:51 PM, Mar 5
  • After watching Shape of Water and Star Trek: Discovery this year, I think Doug Jones might be my favorite actor.

    Also, people whose performances are CG augmented should be able to be nominated as best actors.

    β†’ 4:47 PM, Mar 5
  • Aw. Just read that Things 3 is a “rewrite”, which means any hope that my code from when I was a little tiny baby dev ten years ago lives on is unlikely.

    β†’ 4:47 PM, Mar 5
  • Really need to figure out how to get my hands on another one of these App Camp for Girls stickers for my luggage.

    β†’ 3:20 PM, Mar 5
  • I do wonder who the people are who look at Trump, his personality, and the things he’s said and think “Absolutely no way he possibly could have done anything illegal or unethical. That guy has straight shooter written all over him.”

    β†’ 3:19 PM, Mar 5
  • On the plane back from Boston. What a week.

    β†’ 6:15 PM, Mar 3
  • I don’t believe that anyone is actually proposing arming teachers as a serious policy proposal. They’re just throwing this crazy shit out so we’ll all get distracted and talk about it instead of the real issues.

    Also, it working.

    β†’ 6:47 PM, Feb 22
  • Mint has no envelope budgeting support, but it’s free and if you’re more interested in see where you’re money went than where it will go, YNAB + Mint gives you most of the features of Banktivity.

    β†’ 4:55 PM, Feb 22
  • The state of envelope budgeting software in 2017: Simple (the bank) works, but you have to set up your categories manually every month. YNAB is best if you only care about budgeting. Banktivity is okay if you want lots of visualizations and envelope budgeting is very secondary.

    β†’ 4:54 PM, Feb 22
  • I really miss MoneyWell back when it could connect to my bank and everything worked. That was by far my favorite app. If anyone has a recommendation for a budgeting app with good envelope budgeting, I’m open to it.

    β†’ 2:36 PM, Feb 22
  • Been trying out different budgeting apps. My feeling is that Banktivity would be cool if the budgeting interface wasn’t so terrible, but that YNAB is probably the way to go for envelope budgeting. I don’t see how anyone could use Banktivity for envelope budgeting and like it.

    β†’ 2:34 PM, Feb 22
  • What a crazy weekend. By which I mean I ate a bunch of food and then fell asleep on my couch with my dog.

    β†’ 2:55 PM, Feb 20
  • My policy on Micro.blog is to follow anyone back who responds to me automatically, because basically being on it means you’re probably pretty cool πŸ‘

    β†’ 2:07 PM, Feb 16
  • Three months in switching to @Simple as my bank has been life changing, and changing banks was easy. It’s the only budgeting tool that’s ever stuck. I’m debt free, accounting for rent and expenses a full pay period ahead of when I need them, and saving money for my future.

    β†’ 2:02 PM, Feb 16
  • An experiment I’m running: Just took the Amazon and Prime Now apps off my phone to see if that saves me money.

    β†’ 7:31 PM, Feb 15
  • Or, for that matter, the number of times professional audio engineers have fooled themselves by thinking they got some settings just right until they realize they forgot to connect/enable their equipment.

    β†’ 5:44 PM, Feb 14
  • If you don’t think that you could be tricked into thinking a speaker is better because you can see it, let me refer you to the trick audio engineers often employ where they give musicians knobs that aren’t hooked up to anything and let them “dial in the sound” themselves.

    β†’ 5:43 PM, Feb 14
  • Sonos One does not mess up your wood furniture, and you can get two (which can be stereo paired for the price of HomePod). Oh and in a blind test a these people thought it sounds better: pogueman.tumblr.com/post/1707…

    β†’ 4:54 PM, Feb 14
  • The main thing I get from looking at retirement calculators is that retirement is really really expensive if you don’t want to be poor.

    β†’ 4:45 PM, Feb 9
  • I will be completely debt free in one week!

    β†’ 12:48 PM, Feb 9
  • Huh. Never thought of a smart power strip, but this is actually pretty neat and not too crazy expensive. www.ilounge.com/index.php…

    β†’ 11:20 AM, Feb 9
  • Would really love a checkbox when writing in Micro.blog to not syndicate a specific post to Twitter or whatever service.

    β†’ 2:13 PM, Feb 8
  • I’m not ruling out the idea that this is just my body rejecting C++.

    β†’ 1:47 PM, Feb 7
  • Been sick for a few days. Back in the office but still feeling a bit run down and might head home early.

    β†’ 1:47 PM, Feb 7
  • I think I just passed the point where this C++ code I’ve been in all week is starts to look normal-ish.

    β†’ 3:19 PM, Feb 2
  • My Pilot Vanishing Point showed up. This is a very sexy looking pen. (AF stands for β€œand fun”, right?)

    β†’ 11:57 AM, Feb 1
  • Micro.blog is really turning into a great community. Meeting lots of interesting people.

    β†’ 3:17 PM, Jan 31
  • I have never coded C++ in my life before yesterday and now it’s a thing I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing but I am making more progress than I might’ve guessed.

    β†’ 11:43 AM, Jan 31
  • Midori MD paper is the bomb dot com. Can’t believe how much better my pens look on it than on Leuchtterm.

    β†’ 11:40 AM, Jan 30
  • Giving this bullet journaling thing a try. Here’s my first attempt at a weekly spread.

    β†’ 8:10 PM, Jan 29
  • I bought these rad Japanese sticky notes that have fountain pen friendly paper and… now I don’t know what people use sticky notes for.

    β†’ 1:56 PM, Jan 29
  • I just deactivated Facebook. I don’t foresee missing it, but curious how many problems I will have logging into things.

    β†’ 4:08 PM, Jan 26
  • You can get a stereo pair of Sonos One’s for about the price of a single HomePod. I feel like it would be more fair to compare the sound quality to that setup. Never mind with Sonos you have way more expansion options with TV audio, option to add a sub etc.

    β†’ 3:24 PM, Jan 26
  • Link has moved to taking up a position next to stationary stuff. d.pr/i/yy4QsK

    β†’ 2:19 PM, Jan 25
  • I can only imagine that if you see the code for the Mac version of Messages your face melts like the Nazi’s at the end of Indiana Jones.

    β†’ 3:09 PM, Jan 24
  • My little baby stationary shelf. Have a feeling ink will need its own shelf soon at this rate.

    β†’ 8:26 PM, Jan 23
  • For a $2 fee and about 90 seconds of your time, you can opt out of seemingly all junk mail. collindonnell.com/2018/01/2…

    β†’ 4:09 PM, Jan 23
  • Opt Out of Junk Mail

    For no reason today I thought to Google “opt out of junk mail”, which lead me to an FTC page which describes how you can do just that. It takes about ninety seconds.

    1. Go to www.optoutprescreen.com to opt out of all credit card offers for five years.
    2. Pay $2 at www.DMAchoice.org and you can opt out of seemingly all other junk mail for ten years.

    We’ll see how it works, but I assume if it’s linked to from the FTC website it’s pretty legit.

    β†’ 4:07 PM, Jan 23
  • I need a new carry-on bag for a trip next month. Has anyone tried the Away Carry-On?

    β†’ 2:44 PM, Jan 23
  • It might make me basic, but Apple Mail is really the only mail app I’ve managed to be into for any extended period of time. Gmail on the web is okay too, but I can’t use a web app as my only interface.

    β†’ 2:38 PM, Jan 23
  • Goal for this week is to get rid of all the clothes I don’t wear or don’t fit me. I think it’s got to be like half of it.

    β†’ 6:10 PM, Jan 22
  • Love these Kokuyo notebook covers. So great for $13 on Amazon.

    β†’ 10:38 PM, Jan 18
  • Got my Code keyboard with MX clears. Don’t know if I like it as much as my Matias Tactile Pro but it’s a lot quieter.

    β†’ 4:45 PM, Jan 18
  • I store everything in OmniFocus, review what’s there in the morning, and then move over what I want to do today into the notebook. If I add new stuff to the list that didn’t get done today, I add those back into OmniFocus to reconsider.

    β†’ 1:35 PM, Jan 18
  • Ended up going with a WASD Code keyboard with MX Clear switches since I need to use it in an office but may return and try something else if it doesn’t speak to me.

    β†’ 1:33 PM, Jan 18
  • My daily plan setup before I’ve put any secret work stuff in it.

    β†’ 1:28 PM, Jan 18
  • Want to get a new mechanical keyboard. Blue or clear switches? Are blue switches too loud for an office?

    β†’ 6:52 PM, Jan 17
  • You know… MPMediaPropertyPredicate is really not the best.

    β†’ 6:06 PM, Jan 17
  • This $13 A6 cover fits my techo perfectly.

    β†’ 11:54 AM, Jan 17
  • Want to find some really good old fashioned looking stamps since apparently a signet ring and a firm handshake are are not valid postage.

    β†’ 11:06 AM, Jan 17
  • Ready to write some letters.

    β†’ 6:01 PM, Jan 16
  • Picked up a Hobonichi A6. Instead of trying to make it my real calendar and todo thing, I’m using it as a daily journal and way to track the shape of my year. Loving it for that.

    β†’ 2:32 PM, Jan 16
  • Thinking I may participate in International Correspondence Writing Month… but I’m about 27 people short on who to write to. Anyone want to receive a letter? incowrimo.org

    β†’ 1:01 PM, Jan 16
  • Oh and it said no caller ID.

    β†’ 5:44 PM, Jan 15
  • A guy with a strong accent just called, asked my name and hung up when I said yes. Sounded like there were kids in the background. Kind of freaking out.

    β†’ 5:44 PM, Jan 15
  • Man birthdays are really the fucking worst.

    β†’ 8:12 PM, Jan 14
  • Had a good birthday breakfast. Now I’m ready for my birthday nap.

    β†’ 2:06 PM, Jan 14
  • The WASD Code keyboard looks cool… but I feel like the command key being in the wrong place might really bother me.

    β†’ 4:12 PM, Jan 12
  • Might start drafting blog posts on paper. You know, because I’m weird.

    β†’ 11:01 AM, Jan 11
  • β€œWhat We Lose With the Decline of Cursive” www.edutopia.org/article/w…

    β†’ 1:25 PM, Jan 9
  • Has anyone I know tried using a Hobonichi planner? How was it?

    β†’ 4:13 PM, Jan 8
  • I think I might have reached the point today where I could start calling this a beard.

    β†’ 12:27 PM, Jan 8
  • Just finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. That is a heck of a good book if you want to do anything creative.

    β†’ 6:17 PM, Jan 7
  • Can’t believe how fast my penmanship is improving after just a couple days of practice. All I did was get a workbook and start tracing letters. Looking forward to learning one of the β€œsystems” next.

    β†’ 3:50 PM, Jan 5
  • Really digging the heck out of the LAMY 2000 I got. Feeling bad for my other pens.

    β†’ 3:41 PM, Jan 5
  • Just finished reading The Handmaids Tale. Holy shit Margaret Atwood can really paint a picture. Also… 1/50 to my goal for the year. Will probably pick something a bit more uplifting next.

    β†’ 5:44 PM, Jan 3
  • We’ve been sent good weather today.

    β†’ 2:55 PM, Jan 3
  • How adorable is this little Japanese notebook? Can’t wait to get through my current Field Notes so I can start using it. Only problem is they’re pretty costly to use these all the time.

    β†’ 5:56 PM, Jan 2
  • Liking the look of my current desk and chair. Need to replace this pre-Retina iMac with a MacBook Pro when I can save up the cash.

    β†’ 5:54 PM, Jan 2
  • I find AirPods to be somewhat weird with every Mac (including the most recent TouchBar ones) I’ve tried them with in general.

    β†’ 5:11 PM, Jan 2
  • The switching between devices on AirPods (iOS to Mac) is better than with other bluetooth headphones, but is still significantly less magical and reliable than marketing would have had you believe.

    β†’ 5:10 PM, Jan 2
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