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With the future demise of Vanmoof, I decided to look elsewhere for my ebike. I found it. And bought it. My first new bike in more than thirty years. It’s probably my last one, too. Today, a perfect bike day in Montreal, I ran for more than 28 km for my first test drive. 🚲🚴🏻♂️😎😅😊
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I’m forcing myself to a Midjourney session daily to learn more about this fascinating service. I could spend all day on this thing. What a stimulating environment for a new kind of creative work. A few years from now, we could get an instant response to any requests. There is so much untapped UI addition that could be added to improve the UX, though. One such example would be to have in a palette all styles that can be asked in a prompt, just like filter examples in the Camera app.
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Speak up. When something doesn't work. When someone is being hurt. When you don't agree. Speak up. Someone has to. It's a burden to see more, it's a duty and a privilege. So take care and speak up. You would be surprised how many people think the same and are equally afraid to speak up. Someone has to be the first.
It’s not always easy to speak up, even more, if you’re the first. Good for you if other voices join yours. But if not, that’s ok too, even though some people might not like what you are saying.
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(…) the best way to improve your photography is to focus on your ideas, not your technique or gear Source: About — CJ Chilvers
I couldn’t agree more. To everyone who came up to me and asked what camera they should buy to start their photography journey, my answer always has been this one: Don’t focus on the camera model and let’s start discussing possible photo subjects.
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This 👇🏻
The most prolific thinkers aren’t thinking with external brains. If you’re a photographer, take more pictures. If you’re a writer, produce more text. The tools will work themselves out. Source: RIP: The External 🧠
I don’t really like the idea of a “second brain”. My brain, the only one that I got, already requires all my energy. Why bother creating another “brain”?
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The Beginning of My Journey to Midjourney
“A man sitting in front of a retro computer doing some important work”. 👀
This is my first ever prompt sent to Midjourney. I think this image is an excellent representation of my current state. A guy experimenting with Midjourney in front of my computer. I’m blown away. What a great time to be alive! Discord, as a client of this back-end service, is fascinating. 🤯
I subscribed for one month to the basic plan. I’m not sure how I’ll use the service. One example could be to create illustrations for my blog posts on Numeric Citizen Space. Another use case would be for illustration purposes for my work. I’ll see and continue experimenting. I’ll report back here my discoveries and impressions.
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I was six years old. In my early days with computers, I was exposed to some of that stuff: fast line printers, disk packs, and punch card readers.
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Right from Glass’s highlights website:
We’re wrapping up the final touches on our AI-powered Search beta that we’ll be releasing soon to Early Access. Early Access is an included perk for a new level of Glass membership that we’re announcing soon. Once we’ve tested it thoroughly over the coming months, it’ll be released to everyone. Source: New Member Search in Beta — Glass
In other words, Glass will add another subscription level where you’ll get pre-release features for testing. Subscriptions are not enough. Now we must pay to be beta testers. Great. 🤦🏻♂️
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A new camera app for the iPhone. Photon. 📸 By the makers of Camera+. I’m currently subscribing to Halide since my last trip in late June. I will skip that one, but Photon feels simpler to use yet more powerful. And I like the name.
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One of the reasons I’m leaving Smugmug is the fact that most of their improvements in the last year are geared toward selling your images. I’m not into this business. I tried selling some of my images on Stock a few years back and made a few dollars. I do have some images for sale on Adobe Stock. The revenue I get for selling an image is RIDICULOUS! I’ve sold 12 images, generating more than… 17$ in revenue. Who’s buying images these days? There is so much free content available (looking at you, Unsplash! 👀). Why bother?
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On Articles Size & Twitter
Tweets on Twitter use to be 140 characters max. Later it was increased to 280 characters. Now, apparently, you can post a note with a maximum of 2500 characters.
Now, looking at MacRumors or similar sites, it seems we get shorter and shorter articles, almost the size of a note on Twitter. Isn’t it strange?
People are busy and their attention span has shrunk considerably. Twitter once was very popular and others tried to adjust to its modus operandi. The web is adjusting in unexpected ways.
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I'm Subscribing, Now What?
Now that I’m a subscriber of Tapbots’ Ivory client for Mastodon, what’s up with the updates? Is it because it’s summertime? Why do I feel that the development of new features and improvements has considerably slowed in recent weeks and months? After all, the roadmap is clear here.
Tweetbot followed the same trend. Not all developers or companies follow the same product releases, but regarding Tapbots, the trend is slowing and is a pattern. Now, look at Mastodon’s official client; there is an update nearly every two weeks or at least monthly. Ok, there are more than 40 contributors to the open source project of r the iOS app while Tapbots is a three-person company.
I’m ok with subscriptions, but just like the subscription itself, the commitment from the developer has to keep up. The subscription model is everywhere and is here to stay. The software and services landscape has changed forever. Expectations from customers like me are changing too. It’s too easy to grab my money regularly without showing up in the App Store “Updates” tab.
I’m watching you, Tapbots. Don’t deceive me again.
Yeah, Tweetbot was a great app, just like Ivory is, but it lacked some love in the last few years before its demise.
Ranting off. Sorry.
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On Clipboard Management & Subscription Model
I’m testing Paste, a clipboard manager software utility for Mac, iOS (link). I kind of like it. It has better management features than Unclutter, which also offers some clipboard management. I’m on a 14-day trial period, but 19 $CAN, a year for a utility without a one-time purchase option, is bugging me. Will see where it goes.
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Poof Vanmoof!
July 17, 2023: “VanMoof was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands on Monday by the Amsterdam District Court, following the company's pandemic-time boom”
Sept 1, 2021: ↓
Read: mastodon.social Too bad for them. It was THE electric bike I was looking for since I heard about them. Sadly, they never expanded in North America. They don’t do business with partners. I always regarded Vanmoof as the Apple of the ebike.
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A new ad by Apple. I never share this but this one made me smile many times. Very entertaining too. Interesting how Apple highlights many features of its products in s single ad.
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I’m excited and upbeat about the upcoming weeks/months. I’ll have a bunch of images to process (from my trips to Morocco & Canary Islands). Plus the migration out of Smugmug to Pixelfed will keep me busy. Finally, the upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro Max(Ultra?) will be an occasion for a few photowalk sessions. All contribute to a more photography-intensive fall. 🏞️🏙️📷
I wrote that for myself. I always like comments! 😊
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I’m a big fan of Inoreader. Make no mistake. But one quick comment. Consider the following screenshot where you can see the article-sharing option. You can see options like Blogger, Evernote, and Twitter. The first two options are dead horses. I mean, Blogger, really? Evernote is the next in line to die. The third is soon to be a dead horse, too. No other options are provided. I’m surprised that we don’t get to send an article by Fax, too.
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Notion Can Be Impressive
I’ve been working hard with Notion at work for a unique project. It’s a 14-database setup containing 18 database relationships, many calculations as well as a place for knowledge management. I think I’m pushing the boundaries of what Notion is all about. It’s still manageable, and Notion still is speedy. I’m really impressed by what this tool can help achieve. 🤩🤯
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On Data Portability in the Modern Digital World
I recently read about the news that Evernote is currently downsizing its operations worldwide, especially in the US. It’s not the first troubling episode for Evernote. I remember when they “redesigned” their app, which created a massive pushback from the community.
I used Evernote in its early days and was appreciative of its capabilities. For some reason, I left for another solution. But for those who built massive data collections inside Evernote, now might be the time to think about going elsewhere. But there is a big gotcha: after searching for a way to export all the data, I discovered that it’s not that easy. And people are angry. This brings me to the data portability of modern software and services. Evernote’s ENEX export format was not a standard the last time I checked. A handful of apps can import ENEX files; Notion is one of them. HTML is also supported but is far from ideal. Options are limited and are seriously hindering the data portability of services like Evernote. Besides content, metadata is also critical (tags, dates, location, backlinks, etc.).
Is Notion suffering from the same potential issues? PDF, CSV, and HTML are the supported formats. 🤔
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When I decided to subscribe to Exposure, it was because I wanted to write short stories using my photos. I did share six of them so far (see my profile page here). Now that I’m on Pixelfed, I find myself writing more with each shared image than I did on Exposure. 🤷🏻♂️
