Simply THE Best

Just spent 10 minutes on Glass, just browsing and glancing at other people’s work, and I was blown away by the quality of photos that you can find there. I discovered many great photographers this morning that will brighten my view of the world. I would argue that Glass is probably THE best and most successful photo-sharing service of all that I experienced in my life.

My Current Incomplete and Troubled Bucket List

While revisiting my writing projects pipeline, I found this unfinished blog post. It’s a bucket list. It was inspired by Manton Reece’s Revisiting 43 Things blog post. Recent comments in italic.

  1. Rent a country house for the whole summer, outside Canada — I would have been in the US, but this plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
  2. Get my house renovated — Completed!
  3. Do another trip with my two sons — TBD.
  4. Return to California to see the new Apple headquarters — This plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
  5. Visit Chicago — This plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
  6. See the launch of a rocket from Space X — Fuck Elon Musk.
  7. Return to Iceland — Most probable.

Given the current political environment, I must carefully reconsider each item on this list and remove the ones that will not happen.

Dear ChatGPT, Describe Me Based on All Our Chats

“👋 I’m a tech veteran by trade, creative by heart. With 30+ years in IT — from data centers to cloud, storage, and security — I help businesses build smarter, more resilient infrastructures. But when the day job ends, my creative side kicks in.

I’m a lifelong Apple fan, blogger, photographer, and content creator who loves blending tech with design. Whether I’m exploring the latest in cybersecurity, testing new apps, or writing about digital privacy, I bring a thoughtful eye and a creative edge.

I believe staying curious — and staying creative — is the best way to thrive in a tech-driven world.”

Not bad.

Must Have Features in a Read Later Service

Read later service for me should have these features and attributes.

  1. Be cloud-based to enable access and syncing across different devices and platforms.
  2. Support metadata (tags, folders & description).
  3. Offer a well-designed share sheet implementation on iOS and iPadOS.
  4. Offer a great browser extension.
  5. Offer a native mobile application.
  6. It should work well with my go-to RSS reader, Inoreader.
  7. Be good at data mobility. In other words, it offers a data export option.
  8. Support article summarization with generative AI.
  9. Should be free if possible.
  10. It must support all Apple platforms.

Inoreader check them all.

Can you say Chaps?

Intriguing new product coming from the makers of Craft: Chaps. It seems to be a conversational service where users can build their own AI-based agents. Not integrated with Craft in any way, at least for now. The demonstrated UI seems polished as we can expect from them, but sadly we don’t get to see how those agents are built. I think “Ch_apps_” would have been a better name than “Chaps”, though. I hope they don’t get too much distracted from Craft because it still needs a lot of work and long-lasting issues are yet to be addressed.

That Question That Keeps Coming Back

For some time now, I’ve had a question that keeps coming back to my mind because I often use Bluesky to express my distress or frustration against Trump, Musk, and the entire little clique of authoritarians at the head of the United States. If, in the near future, the situation in the U.S. deteriorates to the point where government groups start hunting down activists like me, who openly denounce Trump’s authoritarian policies and his inner circle, should I censor myself to avoid any form of persecution when I decide to return to the United States?

I fear the day when bloggers will be hunted down to silence them—or worse, to have them arrested in the name of disrespecting the American presidency. Is it precisely the presidency’s game to instill fear so they can continue their authoritarian actions by manipulating people like me?

Questioning Apple Intelligence Improvements

Here is an observation about Apple Intelligence (yet another one you might say?): Image Playground was announced at WWDC2024. It finally made its debut with iOS 18.2, in December 2024. Since then, we got iOS 18.3, now iOS 18.4 is in beta. Did Image Playground improved? A new image style was introduced, in 18.3, I think. Does it provide better results? Not really. Is it easier to use? Nope. On this subject, I must confess that I personally find Image Playground not to be the best UX Apple ever created. I find it clunky and not always intuitive to use. After two releases, Image Playground is basically the same. Isn’t it surprising, coming from a company who’s playing catch up in AI space? The same questions could apply to Writing Tools. I didn’t test text proofing with each release of Apple Intelligence, but I would bet that it didn’t really improve. Strange.

What Are They Gonna Do Now? What a Waste!

One quick question tonight: those people who worked for a government agency in the US and got laid-off by DOGE or anyone close to them or because of them, what are they doing now? Where will they find their purpose? I’m thinking about the scientists, social workers, phycologists, Are they going to work for the private sector or simply increase the unemployment rate? I mean, there are so many human dramas unfolding right now.