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  • It’s been a wild and eventful week for me, which has involved a late night trip the emergency vet, and many trips to the regular one. Thankfully everyone is feeling better and things are finally back to normal.

    → 1:03 AM, Dec 29
  • Ever since NetNewsWire started putting out usable builds several months ago, my RSS reader has moved from the category of things where I try new ones all the time to being a solved problem. It’s just exactly what I want.

    → 11:34 PM, Dec 18
  • Every time I read an article about Drafts, I think I need to figure out how to use it more.

    Drafts for Mac: It’s Action Time

    → 11:50 AM, Dec 10
  • Started playing City: Skylines on console and am already obsessed. Never realized how much I was missing out on only ever getting to play Sim City occasionally in computer class in junior high.

    → 4:54 PM, Nov 27
  • A not unexpected – based on the people I’ve met at work – but still delightful thing to happen is going into some code which was written months ago by someone else and see it’s already fantastically factored and understandable.

    → 6:39 PM, Nov 20
  • I really enjoy using fish as my shell, however, the little bits of incompatibility or things are pretty annoying. Going to try to get zsh set up in a reasonable way and see if I can stick with that for a while.

    → 1:05 PM, Nov 19
  • I had one of those nights last night where I woke up at 5 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time. I eventually woke up way later than I have been and didn’t get out of the house at a very reasonable time. Bummer.

    → 1:37 PM, Nov 15
  • Pilot Vanishing Point 2019 Limited Edition

    I love the Pilot Vanishing Point. Depending on which day you asked, I’d more often than not say it’s my favorite pen[1]. It’s a (relatively) affordable fountain pen with an incredibly smooth 18k gold nib, and a novel retraction mechanism — an unusual feature in fountain pens. In a slightly uncharacteristic move for me, when I saw the 2019 Limited Edition, I ordered it immediately.

    The finish is called “Tropical Turquoise.” I like turquoise and thought the blue with black swirl finish looked good in photos. In person, however, it’s much nicer. The finish sparkles in a way that didn’t come across in the pictures. Pilot has made 2019 of these pens, of which mine is #949. And while it’s not technically an anniversary edition[2], this year marks Pilot’s one-hundredth anniversary, which made it feel a little more special.

    The only nib size available with this edition is medium, which can be a bit of a mixed bag depending on which paper you use it with. On high-quality paper like Rhodia or Midori, it’s excellent, and I appreciate the smoothness of the broader nib. On Leuchtturm, it’s acceptable, but your lines will come across a bit thick, and on something like a Baron Fig, it tends to bleed a bit depending on the ink. Since I keep a fine nib in my other Vanishing Point, this was preferable for me, but it’s something to keep in mind. I really wish Pilot made a Medium/Fine nib because the jump is so significant between the two sizes.

    If the medium is too thick for you, however, a great feature of the Vanishing Point is that Pilot makes extra nib units available at reasonable prices. And once you have multiple, they can be swapped in around four seconds. Effectively, it lets you own a variety of gold nib pens in different sizes at a discounted price.

    I tested using the included cartridge of turquoise ink, and the writing experience was (expectedly) very smooth. If you’ve used steel nib pens and are looking for your first gold nib pen, one of the regular Vanishing Points is hard to beat on value.

    Overall, I’m entirely happy with my purchase. It’s just what I expected, was not outrageously priced for a limited edition, and looks even better in person. If you’re on the fence and can find one available, go for it.


    1. Other days, I might say it was the LAMY 2000.  ↩

    2. $4800 is a bit out of my price range.  ↩

    → 2:20 PM, Nov 14
  • I moved all of my old blog content from Wordpress to Micro.blog, and can recommend it as a host if you want something simple. Migration was a one button import that grabbed images, set up redirects, etc.

    → 5:54 PM, Nov 12
  • The booting sounds of that Mac SE actually appeared on a recording I did as a sort of backing track a long time ago (which I still think sounded pretty cool) and traveled with me to shows for a while. Will be a fun endeavor to restore it to its full system 6 glory.

    → 1:55 PM, Nov 11
  • Ordered an improbably long T15 screwdriver (aka a “Mac cracker”) with the intention of replacing the capacitors and installing an CF card reader in the Mac SE I bought for $4 at a thrift store about 14 years ago.

    → 1:52 PM, Nov 11
  • I finished applying for a new apartment this morning in Campbell, so hopefully, that goes through quickly. Cupertino has been a fine place to live, but I’ll be happy to save a little money and have good coffee, bookstores, etc. be a bit more walkable.

    → 1:49 PM, Nov 11
  • The extra wide lens on the iPhone 11 is fantastic. I didn’t realize how much I’d use it, but I have been constantly.

    → 12:13 PM, Nov 11
  • Wasn’t sure if I had work today or not… but the full parking lot when I arrived sort of gave away that I did.

    → 12:10 PM, Nov 11
  • Decided the classic mouse ears are really the only way to go at Disneyland.

    → 6:34 PM, Aug 27
  • Me Feige, I don’t feel so good. I don’t want to go… to Sony.

    → 12:06 PM, Aug 23
  • Air conditioning is out in my office again. I think we have that kind where it only works when it’s below 80º outside?

    → 11:20 AM, Aug 23
  • Weight continues to trend in the right direction and the changes I’ve been making are still feeling maintainable. So that’s cool.

    → 1:56 PM, Aug 20
  • I recorded myself playing ukulele and singing a Mountain Goats song on my bed into GarageBand, and I’m kind of blown away that it sounds as good as it does. soundcloud.com/fisherman…

    → 12:45 PM, Aug 20
  • To quote the poet Fred Durst: it’s just one of those days.

    → 4:40 PM, Aug 19
  • Felt warm in my office yesterday, so I decided to bring in a thermometer to see what was up. It’s currently 82º in here. Ugh.

    → 2:51 PM, Aug 16
  • I don’t know what the consensus is on Automattic acquiring Tumblr, but my take is if you like Tumblr, you should be really happy. Verizon was going to continue ruining it until it died and now it’s owned by people who care about and understand exactly this sort of thing.

    → 12:54 PM, Aug 13
  • I’ve been playing music with a friend from work, and kind of annoyed that there’s already a band called “The Apples in Stereo” because that would have been the perfect name for our thing 😂

    → 12:32 PM, Aug 13
  • My new policy is to default notifications to off for anything that isn’t an actual person trying to get ahold of me (Messages, Slack, etc). It’s working out pretty well so far.

    → 11:50 AM, Aug 12
  • I only just recently found out “git checkout -” will take you back to the previous branch you were on. That’s pretty useful!

    → 1:14 PM, Jul 23
  • Would anyone be interested in starting an online book club with me? Converse over iMessage or email and then group FaceTime every couple weeks or so to discuss what we read? Could be fun?

    → 12:14 PM, Jul 17
  • I’d like to start integrating some of the ideas from the Slow Media Manifesto into the way I consume media. Consuming media and social networks aren’t bad, but they have to be used mindfully. en.slow-media.net/manifesto

    → 11:13 AM, Jul 15
  • Did you know you can do find/find and replace in Xcode using regular expressions? Most developer people probably know this, but the few who don’t should have their minds blown. I use this all the time.

    → 1:44 PM, Jul 13
  • Getting localization right in your app is a surprisingly tricky thing when you take into account RTL languages and regions using that use different number characters. Definitely the worst skill for me to have gotten a lot better at recently.

    → 1:22 PM, Jul 13
  • I am having a very Reginald Barclay kind of day.

    → 4:20 PM, Jul 11
  • I wouldn’t have minded it being a little bit smaller, but this is pretty handsome for a $100 watch.

    → 1:55 PM, Jul 11
  • This probably could have been predicted, but I have learned a lot in my first seven months or so at Apple, specifically with code, but in others ways too. Really pleased I chose to work with the team I did.

    → 2:33 PM, Jul 10
  • I’ve been using these Micron Pigma PN pens lately, and like them a lot. The lines end up being about as thick for me as the Micron 03 for me, are super dark, and waterproof, but feels a lot more durable. www.amazon.com/Sakura-Bl…

    → 11:02 AM, Jul 8
  • I would not have thought this, and sort of think it sounds silly to say aloud, but using the bullet journal kind of religiously for the last couple weeks feels like my mind has room to breathe and focus in a way it didn’t before. Unless that changes, I’m hooked. #bulletjournal

    → 12:58 PM, Jul 3
  • Here’s the key for the new bullet journal I’ll be using at the office. It makes sense for me to have a separate notebook for work and home to separate the two parts of my life, but it’s also 100% necessary so that nothing confidential ever leaves my office. @bulletjournal

    → 1:31 PM, Jun 28
  • I don’t know what it says about our society that “lose 15 pounds” is a perpetual item on everyones goals, but we never seem to get there. We’re all too worried about our body shape? We have terrible eat habits and it’s hard to maintain a healthy weight?

    → 1:22 PM, Jun 28
  • Making myself a “habit scorecard” today by tracking things I do and marking what’s a positive, negative, or neutral habit.

    → 2:12 PM, Jun 17
  • I can’t get what Ezra Klein said in the clip I posted the other day out of my head. The United States isn’t a democracy, or a democratic republic, it’s something else. At least on the national level. Democracy-like? This didn’t start with Trump, but I also don’t know when it did.

    → 12:04 PM, Jun 13
  • There’s a new version of Soulver out! That’s an insta-buy for me. It looks fantastic with some features I will definitely use. Good review on MacStories. www.macstories.net/reviews/s…

    → 11:35 AM, Jun 13
  • A predictable side effect of waking up earlier is that by 6 pm I am already pretty tired 😴

    → 5:37 PM, Jun 12
  • Getting out of bed at 8 am consistently a few days in a row wouldn’t count as an achievement for most people, but it is for me, and I’m pretty proud of myself.

    → 1:08 PM, Jun 11
  • Getting your first PR in before the morning standup is a pretty good feeling 💪

    → 9:52 AM, Jun 7
  • Feeling a bit overwhelmed, so probably not going to make it out tonight. I am going to try to get to the bash tomorrow though!

    → 6:34 PM, Jun 5
  • Ordered one of the new 15” MacBook Pros this week. Went for the 6 core model with a 1TB SSD and 16GB of ram. Feel like that was the right call, but the 32GB option was tempting.

    → 11:16 AM, May 25
  • Are there any good learn to draw apps on iPad that I’m not finding? Preferably something that supports Apple Pencil pressure sensitivity?

    → 10:40 AM, May 25
  • Getting on a plane to Portland for the weekend. Glad I remembered the Netflix download feature exists. Loaded up the AOC documentary on my iPad for the flight.

    → 10:31 AM, May 25
  • If you’re disappointed in Game of Thrones right now and need a new gritty fantasy series to get obsess over, I can highly recommend The Witcher books. They’re fantastic. Hopefully, the show will be good too when it comes out as well.

    → 12:19 PM, May 20
  • Has anyone tried any pet GPS trackers, and if so, have one you can recommend? Preferably one that will work for a small dog.

    → 11:33 AM, May 20
  • Don’t know what changed but Apple Music’s recommendations have gotten really good for me lately.

    → 4:02 PM, May 16
  • Fish is awesome, but mostly I have to share this blog post due to the abundance of puns it contains.

    Fish: the command line shell that’s got me hooked - Backlog

    There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but there aren’t any quite like this one.

    https://backlog.com/blog/fish-command-line-shell-thats-got-hooked/

    → 2:16 PM, May 16
  • Found this tool called BitBar which lets you write shell scripts (in any language, since it’s just based off text output) to put anything you want in your menu bar. It’s amazing. They even have a plugin directory on their website. https://getbitbar.com

    → 1:18 PM, May 16
  • Wow. MarsEdit is on SetApp now? It’s insane how much you get for $10 a month now.

    → 11:52 AM, May 16
  • Speaking of books, I’ve been reading more on Apple Books lately. Next up is Red Shirts by @Scalzi, which neatly was published DRM free on Apple Books.

    → 12:29 PM, May 9
  • I finished reading “How Democracies Die” last night. It was a really good book that put some new ideas in my head. Admittedly, it does not get any less terrifying, but I don’t think the goal was ever to make me feel better.

    → 12:13 PM, May 9
  • I’m about halfway through “How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. I suggest reading it if you like being terrified by how fragile democratic systems really are.

    books.apple.com/us/book/h…

    → 11:33 AM, May 7
  • I don’t know how you do this legislatively, but my Presidential platform would definitely include replacing “no problem” with “you’re welcome” and “have a good one” with “have a nice day.”

    → 2:23 PM, May 3
  • So if you’re ever talking to me in person and I touch my ears for no reason, now you know why.

    → 12:45 PM, May 3
  • One of my greatest fears is going to an hour long meeting or lunch with a group of people and not realizing until after I had my AirPods in the entire time.

    → 12:45 PM, May 3
  • Today I learned only 10% of people have pollen allergies. That means 90% of everyone never has to experience what I’m going through. Fuck those people.

    (Not you, of course)

    → 6:37 PM, May 1
  • Trying to get into this whole time tracking thing using @TimingApp. It’s pretty impressive! Watching all of the @MacSparky videos about it helped a lot in getting started.

    → 3:49 PM, May 1
  • Tip: The editing extension from iMovie is insanely useful for quickly removing sound and adding titles to short videos without leaving Photos.

    → 11:41 AM, Apr 25
  • apple.news

    Mayor Pete Is the Democrats’ Folksiest Heartland Hope. Really! - New York Magazine

    → 12:24 AM, Apr 20
  • Starting to feel like soldering things together and just having them not work at all is a critical part of learning electronics.

    → 1:00 PM, Apr 16
  • Ooh. Someone made a Calorie tracking app that looks like some taste went into it. Definitely going to give this a shot. www.macstories.net/reviews/c…

    → 10:05 AM, Apr 12
  • 🎵 Apple Park doo doo doo doo doo doo 🎵

    → 1:03 PM, Apr 4
  • Whenever I read something which talks about how much X has gone up over the last thirty years, or how much more money Y made vs. twenty years ago and they don’t mention inflation one way or another, I assume they’re trying to mislead me.

    → 11:26 AM, Apr 2
  • It’s neat to realize that a lot of stuff you would imagine needing to program a microcontroller for can also be done with a few integrated circuits because, at the lowest level, they’re both just manipulating bits via input/output pins.

    → 10:50 AM, Apr 2
  • Learning electronics has been good for my programming skills in a very general way in that it makes you think at levels which are usually very far away while doing typical app development. Also it’s fun!

    → 4:37 PM, Mar 31
  • Added this little blue smoke monster I got from @Adafruit to my jacket. Hopefully, he won’t scare any children… or adults who have burned out electronic components and met him in real life.

    → 3:22 PM, Mar 31
  • All of the circuit design app options out there are… rough. I’m probably going to end up with OmniGraffle/paper until that becomes unsustainable.

    → 12:25 PM, Mar 31
  • There’s no reason to judge meat eaters if you’re vegan, and if you aren’t, don’t assume that most of us are judgmental or care what you eat. Vegan food is pretty good, and it’s good for the planet too. Just do what feels right to you ethically and for your body and move on.

    → 11:46 AM, Mar 29
  • Four days after surgery for a deviated septum, turbinate reduction, and getting Latera implanted, I am feeling mostly myself again. I made it into the office yesterday but was still too loopy for my brain to cooperate or get much done.

    → 11:29 AM, Mar 29
  • I had no idea how much I would enjoy having “Hey Siri” on my AirPods. The speed and reliability of it is really impressive.

    → 11:19 AM, Mar 29
  • I didn’t expect a mechanical pencil to be my new favorite thing, but there it is.

    → 10:50 AM, Mar 20
  • Honestly, in some ways I probably find vim a little less head scratchy than getting Sublime set up.

    → 11:56 AM, Mar 19
  • It turns out if you’re not afraid of typing you can become kind of passable at using vim in about a day, and it’s actually pretty cool.

    → 11:52 AM, Mar 19
  • I’m taking my new Doc Martens out for a walk around my old neighborhood in San Francisco today to take in the weather.

    → 2:04 PM, Mar 17
  • Hello, handsome. My first RPN calculator. Now I need to learn all it can do. I dig the retro 70s vibe.

    → 12:14 PM, Mar 14
  • I am somewhat determined to get good at using an RPN calculator. You know, for fun?

    → 12:38 PM, Mar 13
  • I’ve written a lot of AppleScript in the last decade, but, as far as I know, yesterday is the first time I checked one of those scripts in to share with my team. So — technically — I am now officially writing AppleScript professionally.

    → 12:04 PM, Mar 13
  • Neat. I can now connect through VPN to my home network and ssh into my Raspberry Pi. Now I just need to think of something useful to run on my Pi.

    → 2:21 PM, Mar 10
  • Looking very intently at a crash log, a coworker comes up behind and whispers in my ear “something crashed” — causing me to jump out of my seat 😂

    → 2:32 PM, Mar 7
  • I’m considering trying to find a small thing I could do with a microcontroller in assembly for the learning experience. AVR assembly doesn’t seem too crazy…

    → 12:52 PM, Mar 7
  • Putting together a kit you solder yourself is sort of like lego, but with a useful end result, and with the possibility of serious burns.

    → 12:51 PM, Mar 7
  • I managed to solder this TV No More together without burning myself and it works! I can now turn off any TV, which I will of course only use for good 😈

    → 11:28 PM, Mar 6
  • Got a bit of goodies from @adafruit. Can’t wait to get into and start soldering later!

    → 12:15 PM, Mar 6
  • Got my deviated septum and turbinate reduction surgery scheduled for the end of the month. I’m excited and really hope it helps. The sleep stuff has been really hard the last couple of weeks.

    → 2:53 PM, Mar 5
  • I 👏 wrote 👏 a 👏 script 👏 for 👏 inserting 👏 claps 👏 into 👏 sentences.

    I’m sorry.

    → 2:50 PM, Mar 5
  • Writing really detailed comments around a piece of code that you just came to understand is a really good way to solidify that. I’m getting more into a habit of adding doc comments to most anything where it might be helpful in general as well.

    → 7:20 PM, Mar 4
  • That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Truthfully, I still feel like I’m just starting out and I’m beginning to think that feeling doesn’t go away.

    → 3:33 PM, Mar 1
  • Oh and much less importantly, I guess I’d tell them to get really good at using the command line, learn bash scripting, grep, and another scripting language. And not to take things so seriously you’re not having fun. And don’t yell, even if you’re upset.

    → 3:33 PM, Mar 1
  • After nearly eleven years (!) into my career as a professional software developer, I think the most important thing I can stress to someone starting their journey is: keep a spare deodorant in your desk in case you forget to put some on in the morning.

    → 3:27 PM, Mar 1
  • Last night I made a metronome using an Arduino. That was fun! This morning a person backed into me in my parking garage on my way to work. That was less fun. So, up and down?

    → 12:44 PM, Feb 28
  • If you deal with log files at all and haven’t seen lnav before, do yourself a favor and check it out. I know it looks intimidating to start, but so did git the first time you tried it. It’s life changing good. lnav.org

    → 1:14 PM, Feb 27
  • If you can get by without sync, the current version of NetNewsWire is extremely usable. It has exactly the kind of Mac native UI I wish was more common these days. The guy who made it must have made a Mac app or two before… ranchero.com/netnewswi…

    → 1:12 PM, Feb 27
  • I also don’t understand how sending kids to public school from 5-18 is totally natural, but wanting to provide public education from 4-21 makes you a communist.

    → 12:38 PM, Feb 20
  • I don’t understand why when we’re talking about healthcare or free college, the question is always how we’re going to pay for it, but when we’re giving the military money they said they didn’t need or lowering the corporate tax rate that never seems to come up?

    → 12:36 PM, Feb 20
  • I’ve started keeping journal at work using Notes. Each day I keep a log of the things I do, and summarize them every week and month. By the time I have a review, I’ll be able to look at each month and course of my year. It’s also good for me to know what I’ve been doing.

    → 12:34 PM, Feb 20
  • Does anyone have a badge reel thing that they think is fantastic? I’m looking to upgrade to a third-party model.

    → 1:17 PM, Feb 19
  • What’s the best app for annotating a screenshot in 2019? I’ve used Napkin for a long time, but it’s not on the App Store anymore 😕

    → 12:45 PM, Feb 18
  • My review of ant traps is that Terro are awesome and work and the Raid ones are completely useless.

    → 5:34 PM, Feb 17
  • Finally got to watching The Death of Stalin and enjoyed it. Steve Buscemi and Jason Isaacs have especially great performances.

    → 4:18 PM, Feb 12
  • Went to the doctor this morning to follow-up on the sleep study I did at home last month. It appears that there is a possible surgical fix for me and that I will not need a CPAP. So that’s cool.

    → 12:08 PM, Feb 11
  • Haircut successful! I am no longer a curly poof ball and once again a regular adult looking member of society.

    → 4:21 PM, Feb 9
  • Three weeks in I can say with that the Beddit 3.5 is the best sleep monitor I’ve used for accuracy and not having to fuss with it. All I did was set it on automatic and it’s detected my heart rate, snoring, and wake and sleep times perfectly.

    → 4:11 PM, Feb 7
  • Realized if I don’t feel up to doing a full class on the Peloton, but I want to close my activity rings, I have the option of riding the bike without doing a class. They have rides of different world locations, and putting YouTube or something on makes it go by quickly.

    → 2:12 PM, Feb 4
  • On day three of closing all my rings. Really want to make it the entire month of February.

    → 1:04 PM, Feb 3
  • A lot of people seem to like books more than reading, or think that owning a lot of books is a stand-in for a personality. I read almost entirely on Kindle and get some of my favorites on paper as well because I enjoy having the artifact.

    → 11:46 AM, Jan 23
  • Trying Fish Shell. Need to find a good tutorial on it, but so far I’m digging it. fishshell.com

    → 10:56 AM, Jan 22
  • I got one of the new Beddit 3.5 sleep tracking systems from the Apple Store. The tracking is incredibly better than the old one. I’m going to try just leaving it on automatic and see how it does over a few nights.

    → 7:25 PM, Jan 19
  • BBEdit is a hell of an app. It’s not the tool I want for everything — it generally can’t compete with other tools when it comes to programming tasks — but what it does, it really does well.

    → 12:42 PM, Jan 19
  • Been using Banktivity recently for managing finances. I have a few complaints, but it’s really good once you figure it out a bit.

    → 7:02 PM, Jan 18
  • People always say this about the folks they work with — but holy crap the people on my team are incredibly smart and kind. I feel so privileged to work with each of them. Being here challenges me in precisely the way I need to grow and feel engaged with my work.

    → 12:31 PM, Jan 18
  • Kind of surprised this very popular text editor I just tried that gets updated all the time doesn’t support dark mode yet…

    → 12:53 PM, Jan 14
  • I kind of forgot my birthday was today until, yesterday, but there it is! I am now 34.

    → 11:58 AM, Jan 14
  • Rode my bike to work for the first time this morning, which was awesome. It’s a short ride, but enough for me to feel nice and refreshed when I arrive. Also, because it’s a quick trip, it doesn’t take any longer than driving my car here.

    → 12:10 PM, Jan 7
  • Received my new bike yesterday. For how little you see people cycling here, Cupertino is pretty fantastic for it. Great weather, good roads, mostly flat, and lots of bike lanes.

    → 2:58 PM, Jan 4
  • Has anyone tried one of those home shiatsu neck massagers and have an opinion for or against? I’ve been having a pretty stiff/sore neck and thinking of giving it a shot.

    → 3:31 PM, Jan 3
  • Went to the doctor this morning and found out my sinuses are all messed up and that’s why I don’t sleep well, am tired a lot, and have so much trouble waking up. Apparently I’m 80% blocked on one side due to deviated septum; among other problems constructing my airflow.

    → 3:49 PM, Jan 2
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