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Did you know I’m writing a newsletter named “Friday Notes” on Ghost? It’s free and probably more personal than what I’m writing here. Here’s the link. I also publish a monthly newsletter called “Numeric Citizen Introspection”, but that one takes longer to produce, so It’s not exactly on a monthly basis. Here’s the link. Of course, if RSS is your thing, both are available too. Shameless plug /end.
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Arstechnica’s Jackqui Cheng:
“One way to look at the MacBook Air is as the largest and most capable iPod in Apple’s line—think of it as an iPod touch Extreme with a built-in keyboard.” “I found the Air’s size and weight to be nothing less than absolutely delightful.” “Despite all of the Air’s (sometimes glaring) flaws, I plan to keep it and use it as my notebook from here on out (maybe with a hard drive upgrade in the near future, and definitely with a battery upgrade when they become available).” Source: MacBook Air: The past, the present, and the future
The M1 MacBook Air is, I think, the culmination of the original Air design with a definitive fix for performance and battery life. I’m grateful for owning one.
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There’s no sense in clinging to the personal whims of a clown leading a shit show. Especially when his circus will end up being a $44 billion version of MySpace. Source: The Shit Show • furbo.org
Priceless.
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Up until now, the Mastodon ecosystem felt like some sort of black magic to me. Today I spent a few minutes explaining to my wife what Mastodon is. As someone who already knows about Twitter and its subtleties, she got it pretty quickly. I couldn’t have done it a few weeks ago, but now, I could. I always thought that when you can explain something to someone, it is probably because you know enough about the subject. I think my explanation made sense to her, and for me! It was only then that the magic and the profound nature of the social and decentralized network became so clear to me. It was an enlightening moment, for sure. Better late than never. I instantly felt convinced that my awakening to the open web and Mastodon, a form of open web instantiation, would be a game-changer for me.
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This is a fucking blog, and it’s wonderful. It’s perfect. It allows you to share your words, in your own voice, with no corporate fuckery to fuck it up for you.
Source: Start a Fucking Blog
I’m still fucking laughing!
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Today, for some reason, I decided to delve into the Write.as “ecosystem”. I’ve been subscribing to this writing service for nearly a year, I post from time to time like I did yesterday. I’m not so sure to grasp all of it. To get started, I went into Craft, and through the Craft Assistant, I asked a few questions (since ChatGPT seems overloaded). I got surprisingly good results, enough to get some context around the write.freely project. Then, I started a diagram illustrating all the components of the platform. This will become a blog post for sure. Today, I have a better understanding of this project.
What I want to emphasize here is the help that a service like ChatGPT (through an app) can bring to kick-start a small project like this. I’m blown away. But I’m staying critical too. More on that eventually.
This blog post was written by me.
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Here's What I Would Do After Winning $1.35 Billion Jackpot
After I told my wife that the second-biggest jackpot had been won, she asked me what I would do with all that money. So here’s what I would do. First, after the usual and probably mandatory press conference, I would get home and patiently wait for the deposit. Once received, I would call my bank to set aside a few million for my personal needs (and for my immediate family, of course). Continue reading →
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I just finished recording my MacBook Air screen with my face using Screenflow & iPhone 13 Pro as the webcam, thanks to macOS Ventura and Continuity. The end results are pretty good. I didn’t expect it to work. For Screenflow, the iPhone is just like a plugged-in standard webcam. No lag whatsoever. Consider me impressed.
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🇺🇦 There is one thing that I’m finding hard to replace from Twitter: all Twitter accounts I was following reporting about the war in Ukraine, from people on the front or close to it. This is critical information that goes beyond what the general media is saying. But things are starting to move in the right direction, as I have found many tweeps who are now on Mastodon. Yeah! 🙂
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I just updated my Numeric Citizen I/O website to summarize the last few weeks of change to my blogging setup if you are curious to know more.
This post is required because Craft’s shared documents don’t support RSS feeds, sadly. 😔
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I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When posting content on Micro.blog, sometimes I’ll do it directly from the Micro.blog website, sometimes from the “native” Micro.blog client on the Mac, sometimes using MarsEdit, sometimes using Ulysses. What the hell? Why can't I settle on one way of doing things as simple as posting on Micro.blog? The pattern seems to be that the longer the post is expected, the more sophisticated the tool I select. Sometimes I’ll start on the web, then copy and paste in MarsEdit (rarely on Ulysses).
This blog post was first started on the web, then copy & pasted in MarsEdit. 🤣🤦🏻♂️
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While on Twitter, I was a fan of Tweetbot. Now that I'm on Mastodon (I have an account but don't plan to be very active for now), I feel at home with Ivory, their new client, still in beta. I wish they were doing a Micro.blog client. I would pay more to get it than I paid for Tweetbot.
cc ivory@tapbots.social
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There are a lot of rumours surrounding the upcoming Apple headset. I call them noise at best. I’m afraid Apple is losing focus on other areas, which would require much more attention to benefit this project. Maybe I’ll eat my words when this thing finally comes out. Maybe I’ll say “OMG, now I understand what the fuss it was all about”. In the meantime, this conclusion from John Gruber is pretty much in line with my view: what is the point?
This headset project is very much real and, I believe, very much shipping this year. But the fundamental question remains: What’s the point? Think back to Steve Jobs’s presentation announcing the original iPad — the nut of the whole keynote was Jobs explaining where the iPad might fit between an iPhone and MacBook. If it didn’t serve some tasks not just a little but a lot better than either an iPhone or Mac, there was no point to the iPad. The same is true for this headset. And if it costs $3,000 and/or requires a tethered battery strapped around your waist, the “this better be an awesome experience” bar is raised even higher. Source: Daring Fireball: Knee-Jerk Reactions and Thoughts Regarding The Information’s Latest Report on Apple’s Upcoming Headset
Disclaimer: I’ll never buy such a thing. We’re already too much sucked into tech, I won’t accept putting a headset on my face and pretending that this is cool. It is not.
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Thought of the Saturday morning: I like the principle of logging my digital life activities, especially my actions leading to content publishing. The Logbook in Things 3 and Dayone and IFTTT greatly help here. [Rewind](https://www.rewind.ai) would be fantastic on the Mac, but it is way too expensive.
PS. What you are seeing in the screenshot is my actual logbook in Things 3.
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👉🏻 Well, that was fast: @numericcitizen@techhub.social 😎
Reasons why I joined this Mastodon instance. 1) I like the name “techhub.social”. 2) It’s operated by a Canadian. 3) He speaks french and has a Ukrainian flag on his profile.. 4) I’ll be able to see the interaction between Micro.blog and a Mastodon instance.
Micro.blog will stay my home, but I’ll experiment with Mastodon, even though I said and wrote that I would focus this year. Damn.
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blog.numericcitizen.me should point here on Micro.blog hosted website, while numericcitizen.me should point there to my main website on WordPress.com. I hope I didn’t mess up too many things. 🙃
Please, would you check for me? 🙏🏻
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What's Really Behind a Subscription Fee?
This video from birchtree@mastodon.social resonated greatly with me today. Here’s why. First, someone is finally calling out something about software subscriptions that I always wanted to call out myself. Every developer seems entitled to charge a subscription for whatever reason. Matt brilliantly illustrates that some subscriptions are ok, some are borderline ok, but others are not. For applications like Notion or Craft, developers must pay costs for hosting the backend. For example, Craft’s backend seems to be on the AWS cloud. Continue reading →
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And now Twitter suspends third-party app? Really? Another good reason to GTF of this platform. I’m so happy to be Twitter free now. Even though I find Tapbots a bit lazy in updating its apps (the macOS app hasn’t been updated for quite a while the last time I checked), they are great ones.
