Numeric Citizen Blog Posts Monthly Digest
Numeric Citizen Blog
Here are the posts for June 2023. Thanks for subscribing.
Getting ready for WWDC keynote. This WWDC23 button on my Stream Deck mini triggers a screenshot of my Mac screen using Cleanshot X. Each file will be saved automatically and later processed by Hazel rules and moved to my Synology Photos library for future reference and use. 😎
My morning so far. Just finished and shared my thoughts on iA Presenter. Got myself ready to watch the WWDC 23 keynote using this handy shortcut. I tried to set up a mail address for numericcitizen.me (something like hello@numericcitizen.me) using iCloud+ Mail custom domain feature. Sadly, I won’t be able to do so as my numericcitizen.me root domain needs to be aliasing Ghost hosting website for my blog to work. This is conflicting with iCloud+ Mail custom domain requirements. Oh well, nobody use emails these days, right, right? Any suggestion on this if you are reading this? Finally, updated my Ubiquity DreamMachine to the latest release of UniFi OS.
2023-06-03 ∞And just like that, I discovered that my original Mastodon account is enabled and active. I didn't know my account was finally made active after I submitted my request in Dec, 2019. Now I'm up to three Mastodon addresses. I wonder if I could drop my account at techhub.social and switch to the official Mastodon instance? And how should I do that, actually?🤔
What would you do?
2023-06-03 ∞From the release notes of the May 30th version of Hazel:
Added missing arm64 support for certain auxiliary binaries. Not having these meant that certain specialized functions were being run using Rosetta on Apple Silicon Macs.
That is something so important on an 8GB MacBook Air like mine. The less memory consumed by system services like Rosetta, the better. And I applaud the developer for mentioning it in the release notes.
2023-06-03 ∞365 Days Later
A year ago, I shared my first YouTube video on my YouTube channel. My initial goal was to share videos about using Craft, but later came videos about using Micro.blog. Here are some notable facts:
- 52 videos about Craft were produced;
- 5 videos about Micro.blog were produced;
- All videos totalling more than 13.5 hours of watch time;
- My YouTube channel has 813 subscribers as of now;
- Two subscribers gave me money as a sign of appreciation.
I feel I’m now on par with all the things I wanted to talk about regarding Craft. Future Craft videos will touch on new features and tweaked workflow. I still have much work to do for Micro.blog video series, though.
At the initial pace of new subscribers, I set the goal of hitting a thousand subscribers in the first year, but I’m sad to report that I won’t make it. The pace of new subscribers has slowed quite a bit.
This video production journey is full of learning and lessons. Over time, I settled on a production style I’m happy with. I finally found a way to get better sound quality. I recently added iA Presenter to get cue cards showing on my screen while recording (read “iA Presenter — A Different & Clever Take at Presentation Software”). My workflow is stable now and is supported by this Craft template (you can download and use it if you are a Craft user, BTW). Finally, I started using Play.app to gather all my video links in one place. This provides a quick way to refer to past videos whenever needed.
I also produced videos about other apps like Capacities, Inoreader and Anybox. Some of these videos take the form of a 60 minutes session with the app as a first-time user. It’s fun as there is no script supporting those experiences.
Today, I will record a video about the WWDC 23 conference. The video will complement my recently published article on the same subject. It will be my first foray into tech news and commentary. I’m not planning to do many of these, but WWDC is significant and needs some of my production time attention.
2023-06-04 ∞Getting ready for my trip to north west Africa. Halide FTW!
Reflecting on My Photo Processing Strategy
For my next trip, I will bring my Nikon D750 and my iPhone 13 Pro (of course!), and my 2018 11-inch iPad Pro. How am I going to process my images? Will I continue using Lightroom for images from my Nikon? I usually use the iPad to import my photos into the Lightroom catalogue. What about pictures on my iPhone, which should be mostly in RAW format and shot with Halide? I like Photomator a lot; it is nicer than Lr and more approachable too. However, using Photomator to process images from my Nikon poses a challenge in file management. I’ll need to import the .NEF files from my SD card into my iPad in an iCloud Drive folder so I can work on imported files from any device (iPad, MacBook Air or iPhone). I prefer using iCloud Photos Library instead of managing files manually. I guess this will be this combo: Photomator + Halide for my “shot on iPhone” images!
Just writing this blog post made things a little bit less fuzzy. I’ll take any suggestions!
2023-06-04 ∞Here’s a short “life at the office” story. Our VP of sales never stops bragging about how ChatGPT is cool and how it works for him for many use cases. I’m uncomfortable with his stance on ChatGPT & generative AI in general. I think about it each time he sends an email that was obviously created with ChatGPT.
Why is it a problem for me? Who am I to judge him and his “new way of working”? I think I have found the root cause.
First, it’s not the results of his work. It’s the work of something else. He takes something “as is” without adding any value, any personal opinion, or a personal twist. Second, the fundamental problem is that he works in IT but is not a tech guy. He is a salesperson. He’s the type of guy who surfs on buzzwords a lot. Using ChatGPT makes him circumvent his lack of confidence because of a lack of IT knowledge and culture. He probably feels better and more “into the game” like most of my other colleagues, who studied computer science before getting to work in IT.
How many more people lack my colleague do the same, for the same reason?
2023-06-04 ∞😱I just realized that for the first time in quite a while, I'll be following WWDC news outside of Twitter. I'm unsure if I'll go on Mastodon or Bluesky to read the room temperature. I'll see. Maybe I'll just make up my own mind, too, which is a good thing. 🤔💭
2023-06-04 ∞I don't know if it is because I'm getting older, but I have more and more trouble and aversion with high-velocity feeds coming from platforms like Mastodon (when following tags like #WWDC during the dub dub week). I prefer the slowness of Micro.blog's feed or a simple articles reading session.
2023-06-07 ∞Watch Out Reddit
🤨 Because of recent Reddit behaviors towards their API consumption models, seeing Apollo go, just like that, plus similarities of behavior with Twitter, I may drop my cross posting to Reddit as a first step of protests. Then, stop manual posting (in /r/craftdocs for example). Ultimately, closing my account could become a possibility. 🫤
2023-06-08 ∞RSS > Reddit. That is all. Think twice before telling me that I'm wrong. Spoiler alert: contribute to your own destiny instead of other corporations' destiny.
2023-06-08 ∞I'm still slowly digesting Apple news of this week (think of a cow 🐄 in the field 🌿). About macOS Sonoma widgets 🖼️: it's surprising that Apple is showing widgets to be perfectly aligned when they are dropped on the desktop background. According to some YouTuber's early reviews, you can be messy with them and drop them wherever you want. People will get messy, for sure.
There is one thing that I'm really looking forward to on our trip to Morocco🇲🇦. For the first time ever, we will have a private guide for the whole trip. I'm usually the main driver when going on such a vacation. Now, I'll be quietly sitting in the van and be free to take pictures while on the move. 📷
2023-06-09 ∞As much as I'm invested in Craft Docs, I'm not sure I'll use it for my travel notes this time around. It's not very good when working offline. Maybe Apple Notes? Why not Day One? 🤔 The latter could be a fun experiment, and it's easy to export journal entries into Markdown for reuse elsewhere!
2023-06-09 ∞Still working from the coffee shop. 😅 While reading a technical document, I wish I could take notes and keep bookmarks about my readings. I discovered that, as well-thoughtful my personal creative workflow can be, I’m under-equipped for my work life🤦🏻♂️. OneNotes from Microsoft is great but so dull at the same time. This leaves me with Notion and Craft Docs. 🙄🤔 I really have to up my game at work; I’m way too lousy. I should use lessons learned from my blogger life.
2023-06-09 ∞📺 I always keep two Apple TVs: an Apple TV HD for the main bedroom that I gave to my brother-in-law, and an A12-based Apple TV 4K was my main ATV for the living room. Today, I bought the 2022 Apple TV 4K with Ethernet. The older one is now in the bedroom, and the new one is in the living room. Not what I call exciting upgrades. Had to redo all the apps setup. 😒 But it does feel faster in a more compact package.
2023-06-11 ∞In Photography, the iPhone Can Be a Killer
My nephew, a semi-pro photographer, recently sold 90% of his photography gear (Canon). He only kept one body and one 50mm lens. 😱 He upgraded his phone to the iPhone 14 Pro. 😏He couldn't be happier, he told me. Even with the iPhone, he essentially kept his photo-processing workflow as-is (Adobe Lightroom). This makes me pause a bit. Sure, he spends much less time doing professional photography work, but still. I call this the iPhone-photography killer effect.
He got his first exposure (pun intended) to the art of photography with me when he was still a child, more than thirty years ago, when he accompanied me for a short photowalk. He demonstrated that he could be a photographer, even at this young age, just by his numerous questions and suggestions.
I'll bring my small (but heavy) camera gear (Nikon) on my trip to Morocco and when I visit the Canary Islands later this summer. Will these trips be the last ones where I use the big one? 🤔 I know that I'm going to upgrade my iPhone 13 Pro to the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max later this fall. This could trigger a similar fate to my camera bag.
2023-06-12 ∞A day at the office. Today, I had a meeting with my client's external IT resources. One of them had a strange name, hard to pronounce. While waiting for everyone to join the meeting, wanting to fill in the silence, I asked where he was from. He responded, "Russia." I said, "Oh." 😱 This was followed by a big silence while I could see in mack back my Tidbyt display showing a prominent Ukrainian flag. 🇺🇦👊🏻We moved on to the meeting's first subject. 😏😂
A colleague of mine told me after the meeting that not all Russians are ok with this war in Ukraine. Yeah, right. I guess. This is not a valuable excuse in my book. Where are the diaspora demonstrations, in Canada? In the US?
Women in Iran have more courage to defend democratic values than those men in Russia to defend what is blatantly right from what is wrong. This is utterly frustrating.
Glory to Ukraine. 🇺🇦🇺🇦
2023-06-12 ∞Am I the only one who thinks that Adobe is slowly but surely morphine Lightroom Classic into Lightroom? From a distance, I sense that all the cool stuff appears in Lightroom first. The latest example: the capability of exporting a photo-processing session in a video file is available in Lightroom (iPad, iPhone only) but not in Lightroom Classic. 🤔
2023-06-13 ∞On 15-inch MacBook Air: Is It Too Big?
When the 15-inch MacBook Air 💻 was officially announced, I was excited and knew it would replace my M1 MacBook Air. Since then, I read many reviews and watched many unboxing videos. People seem to enjoy the new bigger MBA, and all is good, right? But, is it?
Nobody talks about the device's size when you use it on your lap like I do with my MBA right now as I write this post. It's an important factor to consider for such laptop category which the MBA is targeting. Are 15 inches too wide? Is it still comfortable? For some reason, I have a few doubts. This 15-inch MacBook Air is... big, but is it too big for me? 🤔
When I come back from vacation, a visit to the Apple Store will help me decide once and for all.
Are We Ready for This Dystopian World?
Warning: it's not about the Apple Vision Pro headset, which many people think will bring a touch of a dystopian future to our life. Something else more serious will.
I read this week somewhere that, to get climate back into the normality zone🌪️ to ensure the sustainability of the human race and life in general, everyone on earth would need to live in an oppressive world where everything would be controlled by laws and government all the time and for decades. From buying food to cars to travelling to entertainment services, we would be under constant quotas, which would bring our quality of life much lower than we currently enjoy. In fact, developed countries' quality of life would join the much lower quality of life of the vast majority of the earth's population in less developed countries. This would be the only way to get around this climate crisis. Not convinced? The COVID pandemic brought massive and repetitive confinements that weren't enough to bend many climate change indicators downwards. It lasted two years, more or less. 😱
Oh, and should we talk about forced birth control everywhere? Because we should, even if this is a taboo subject.
Are we ready for this dystopian world? 😷
I can see a great Vision Pro use case right here where people watch daylong movies about what used to be a much more enjoyable world in 3D. 😒
2023-06-14 ∞Day One creator Paul Wayne, on Apple's foray into journaling app:
Rather than seeing this as competition, we embrace Apple’s entry into digital journaling as a testament to its growing importance. This evolution is not just beneficial for Day One, but also for our valued users. Source: Apple's Journal App and Day One's Evolution
I applaud the positive attitude here. There is one thing that is missing from Day One: the capability to share a journal entry as a web page.
2023-06-14 ∞I’m really looking forward for this trip...
Date: June 16, 2023 at 8:05:30 PM EDT
Weather: 20°C Rain
Location: Aéroport International de Montréal-Trudeau, Dorval, QC, Canada From a photography experience perspective... My backpack 🎒 is so heavy with this camera and “only” two lenses. My hope is to use my big camera as much as my iPhone, so that I don’t think that I brought this with me for nothing. 😜
2023-06-16 ∞Leaving Rabat
Date: June 18, 2023 at 7:28:55 AM GMT+1
Weather: 22°C Mostly Cloudy
Location: Rue Jamaa Mourino, Rabat, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, Morocco Great city. Many photo opportunities. Like this wall and door. Unprocessed image.
Using Day One to document my trip in Morocco is so refreshing🥰. This app is so well designed and executed. Strangely enough, I rarely use Day One other than for peeking at past memories of my publications (automatically added through IFTTT automation with RSS feeds). I rarely add to my personal journal. That might change from now on.
2023-06-19 ∞When staying at a five star hotel equipped with a slow internet, you want to… 😡 sync your stuff, share photos but it takes like fovever.. 🤬 well, never mind. I shouldn’t complain. 🤦🏻♂️ But don’t expect any photos soon. Sorry. 🤷🏻♂️
2023-06-20 ∞Long Day Spent Visiting The Big Medina of Fez
Date: June 21, 2023 at 5:54:55 PM GMT+1
Weather: 29°C Mostly Clear
Location: Derb Salaj, Fes, Fès-Meknès, Morocco What a strange, busy, surprising place. Strangely, I didn’t take as many pictures as I could. I guess I was too busy looking around me, up, down, everywhere. 🤯
Visiting this Medina was like reliving the past, like going back in 800. Our guide told us that not that many things has changed since the early years. But man, everything is so coupled with the Islamic religion. I’m not used to that.
The Medina is a city in a city. You’ll find everything from food, clothes, and fake Apple gear (a lot). Oh, and, the young generation of sellers are all tied to their smartphone, all the time. I’m not sure this helps do good business. 🤔
Oh and boy we eat too much in Morocco.
2023-06-21 ∞Thought of the moment: to those who think that AI will cause human extinction, we must fight against it, is the wrong way to tackle the debate. It is borderline demagoguery.
2023-06-25 ∞I’m trying out “Weather on the way” (App Store link) for today’s road. Interesting take on weather forecasts. Carrot Weather should add this feature! We’re leaving Marrakesh one day earlier because of 🥵🥵🥵
