Microsoft:

Today, we are bringing the power of next-generation AI to work. Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot — your copilot for work. It combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. Source: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – your copilot for work - The Official Microsoft Blog

It’s funny how great some of Microsoft’s promotional videos are in regards to Office and Windows user interface. But why, in actual usage, does Microsoft products’ UI suck anyway? We never seem to get the UI that Microsoft is presenting in their videos. Office doesn’t look like that at all. Windows doesn’t either.

Any Capacities users here? Is it me, or it looks more and more like another Notion? This small team is on fire with meaningful additions in each monthly release, but each of them seems designed to make Capacities a clone of Notion. Your thoughts? Am I mistaken?

Spending Most of Your Life Running a Blog

Kottke.org turns 25. It’s quite a remarkable journey. I didn’t know about this website until recently. I’m not a frequent reader of it, although I spent quite some time today on it to better get the gist of it. Yet, I’m barely sure how to pronounce it. But I’m quite impressed to see someone’s life spent running a blog and getting paid for it.

I’ve been into computer tech since I was a teenager. I’m 55 now. I learned quite a lot from writing software, doing digital photography, followed Apple’s story with avid attention. My creativity is at its best with computers. I even found my career by simply being exposed to computers.

For some reason, I didn’t know much about website hosting back then, even less about blogs. I didn’t pay attention, I guess. It’s like being a writer who didn’t know we could write books. This sounds strange.

I wish I had a blog for this long. It’s not the first time that I have written this thought. But Kottke.org turning 25 reminds me that I wish I were this guy. Can you imagine having written 40 000 posts? I don’t know if we can still read them all (it appears we can). You won’t find all my posted content since I first wrote my first post. And I keep deleting stuff while moving from one place to another because I think it makes no sense to keep all that.

Bravo to Kottke.org.

For those who watched the Severance series on Apple TV+: sometimes I feel like those guys staring at their screen trying to manipulate numbers… don’t you have this feeling too, that our job is a string of numbers manipulation all day long?

Rant on. I love Apple’s Safari browser, but the lack of Safari Extensions support by many developers is starting to make me reconsider my love either of Safari or of Apple’s strict App Store policies. That is why, starting now, I’m switching to Firefox exclusively when I’m using Inoreader. Rant off.

Good morning! The third video in the series “Understanding Micro.blog” is out! It is about understanding the cross-posting feature of Micro.blog. This is something people are struggling with at first when they come to MB. I hope some of you will find it useful.

Another big update to my complete toolset website: a new dedicated section for my current projects. Use the newly added table of content to navigate to the new section. Now you know more about how and why I’m spending my personal time.

Weekly Posts Digest from Numeric Citizen Microblog

Spent part of the morning trying to do some automation using Hazel and Shortcuts. What a time-consuming task. I’m wondering if I’m not wasting any future productivity gains here. 🤔🤨
2023-03-04

🎦 Smile, guys; you’re on camera! 😃 I’m getting myself ready to record th first video in the “Understanding Micro.blog” video series. This blog post on blog.numericcitizen.me will appear in the video while I’m giving a quick tour of a typical website hosted on Micro.blog.

2023-03-04

“Social networks can be a great way to connect with friends and family, but they can also be toxic. Unfortunately, these networks can lead to cyberbullying, trolling, and other forms of online harassment. People can be cruel and insensitive in their comments, even if they don’t mean to be. Additionally, social networks can lead to feelings of envy and inadequacy, as users compare their lives to those they see on their timeline. It is important to remember to take a break from social media and step away whenever necessary to protect your mental health.” — ChapGPT

This text was used for the purpose of demonstrating the posting feature of Micro.blog. Please consider replying to this post so I can show how replies work. Thanks.

2023-03-05

[@numericcitizen](https://micro.blog/numericcitizen) It's a good formal summary of the pros and cons of social networks, written by a textual robot capable of being unintentionally harassing itself...
So this is how the replies appear on micro.blog, a brilliant platform designed by [@manton](https://micro.blog/manton), both uncluttered and optimized for blogging, which seeks through a constrained design to avoid as best as possible the flaws mentioned by ChatGPT.

<script src="https://micro.blog/quoteback.js"></script> I couldn't agree more with this take too. In fact, I prefer this take to ChatGPT's.

2023-03-05

Gurman said it is “plausible” that at least the next 13-inch MacBook Air will be equipped with the as-yet-unannounced M3 chip, which will reportedly be manufactured based on TSMC’s latest 3nm process for improved performance. The current 13-inch model was released in July 2022 and is powered by the M2 chip, which is based on a 5nm process. Source: Gurman: New 13-Inch and 15-Inch MacBook Airs Likely to Launch by Summer - MacRumors

I would be really surprised to see the updated MacBook Air product line introduce the new M3 so soon. Why? The MacBook Pro is based on the M2. Even if people buy computers, not chips, it would send a weird signal to have an M3 product at the entry level while the Pro machines are using M2. The 3 nanometer process will probably help reduce heat dissipation, but the last time I checked, the M2 in the 13-inch MacBook Air doesn’t exhibit any problems, even when the machine is running at full processing power.

One possibility, though, is if the M3 chip really helps make a difference from an end-user perspective enough to entice users to upgrade. We’ll see soon enough. And I can’t wait to get my hands on the 15-inch version of the MacBook Air.
2023-03-05

Daniel Jalkut on AI-based art and “prose”

Like everybody else, I was fascinated by AI art and prose. But I’m bored by it already. Why? Because it’s obviously not human. I like human things. Little quirks that make us laugh and cringe. That’s the beauty of life. AI is amazing, but it’s not human.

I don’t think that I’m bored yet, but I certainly feel the same about human-based creations. I’ll never be bored and always be fascinated by it.
2023-03-06

Mind blown. 🤯

2023-03-06

If Twitter is broken, it might be a fix here and there, actually. Just saying.
2023-03-06

@numericcitizen@me.dm is my new Mastodon address on Medium’s newly launched Mastodon instance. It’s without enthusiasm that I created this address when Medium opened the door to all Medium members today. I left the Paid Partner Program earlier this year. First, because I was no longer publishing articles over there. Second, because I’m not at ease supporting a closed platform like Medium. I’m not sure where I’ll go from here. That being said, I find it interesting that a closed and proprietary platform like Medium opens up to Mastodon, a distributed and open source network. Call it opportunistic, it will be interesting to see where this will lead in the future. I’ll certainly watch from afar.

2023-03-06

If you can talk about it, explain it, even write about it, then I guess you can call yourself knowledgeable about it. Thought of the moment.
2023-03-07

I finally completed and published my article about migrating to Anybox, a bookmarks manager competing with Raindrop.io. I’m not looking back.
2023-03-08

You are out: Newsy out. Newsify out. Raindrop.io out. Matter out. Readwise Reader out. Medium out. News Explorer out (soon). 😅 Substack Reader… jury is still out. 😂

The year 2023 is the year if cleanup for better focus.
2023-03-08

Riccardo Mori wrote an interesting take about the possible future of the Mac with a touch screen Why do you want to touch your Mac screen so badly? | Riccardo Mori:

the people who’d love to have a touchscreen Mac are people who prefer having the iPad and iPhone as primary devices for work and leisure. It’s the iPad-first guys who on the one hand are frustrated by the still mediocre multitasking and still limited functionality Apple is providing on the iPad, and on the other hand realize the sheer versatility and multitasking dexterity the Mac still has in spades despite the general worsening of Mac OS over the past few years. In short, they say they’d love a touchscreen Mac, but what they mean is that they’d love a hybrid iPad/Mac device that could offer the best of both worlds.

Today at work, during a Zoom call, my colleague found out by error that she could touch the screen of her Windows portable to interact with it. She was totally mesmerized. Then she continued with the conversation. I don’t think it will make a big difference in her world. What people want is an iPad when it makes sense, a traditional computer, when it makes sense. Microsoft seems to have found an enduring combo with its Surface.
2023-03-09

21 years ago today, my first blog post. A bunch of promising social networks have come and gone in that time. Often feels like very little is permanent, so make sure to have your own space on the web.

<script src="https://micro.blog/quoteback.js"></script>

I can barely remember what I was doing in 2002. I didn’t have a website. I didn’t know about website hosting. I didn’t really care about blogs, for that matter. I started blogging in 2009 when I started doing iPhone application development. I wanted to share my discoveries while learning Objective-C and publishing apps on the App Store. At some point, writing took more of my time than actually writing lines of Objective-C code.

2023-03-09

Do you know MacUpdater? It’s a paid utility to keep your Mac up-to-date. I use it on my M1 Mac mini, but on my M1 MacBook Air, I use “Latest”. It’s open-source and free and a very well-crafted piece of software. I highlight recommend it. Download it here. You’ll thank me later.

2023-03-10

In May 2019 I published this:

Personally, I think this year is too early for ARM-based Mac. Why? Because, my thinking is that Apple wants iOS on these ARM-Based Macs, not Mac. And they want a lot of ready-to-use, yet well-known apps to be available. For this, they are working on Marzipan (which later became Catalyst) to entice developers to write more powerful apps for iOS, especially the iPad. These are the prime candidates to run on this future ARM-based Mac. We are four weeks away from knowing a bit more about Apple’s strategy. Source: Apple Is Done With Intel - Numeric Citizen Blog

The Apple Silicon was announced more than a year later.
2023-03-10

For the time of my life, I downloaded Obsidian and launched it. Wrote something. Clicked here and there. Then, I closed it. I’m afraid. 🫣

2023-03-10

Obsidian users: what do you use for syncing across devices if you don’t pay any subs to Obsidian? On the Mac, do you put your vaults on iCloud Drive and let the “magic” happen? Asking for a friend. 🤫
2023-03-10

So, in a nutshell: Obsidian is a Markdown text editor on steroids with a fancy plugin ecosystem. Did I miss something?
2023-03-10

Here is something that I really would like to do. Using Apple shortcuts, Charty for Shortcuts and Plausible analytics APIs: create an iPhone and iPad widget to display visitor statistics on my home screen. Another app like Actions would probably be needed too.

2023-03-11