What Comes After Missiles and Fighter Jets?

I walked today with my dear wife and quickly chatted about the Ukraine war. My wife asked me a question I didn’t expect: what if Western countries who had already sent armaments to Ukraine were sending soldiers with a promise not to attack Russia on their territory? Is this what should happen after sending fighter jets if we ever get there? I don’t recall Zelensky asking for boots on the ground. Will he eventually get there? How is this going to be perceived by the clowns in the Kremlin?

I’m still pondering about cross-posting everything from MB to my @numericcitizen@techhub.social mastodon account. Why should I, why shouldn’t I?

Hint: I don’t want to de-focus from Micro.blog as my hub for feeling part of the larger fediverse microcosm.

I don’t know if it is a popular opinion or not, but Telegram is such a well-designed messaging app. It looks cool, and it has the right amount of gamification. Telegram.app feels native on all Apple platforms.

I use Telegram passively to subscribe to channels that publish news and information about the war in Ukraine essentially. Many of the publishers were on Twitter too, but I left this shitty platform. I don’t use Telegram for chatting with others.

I’m pondering about subscribing. there are things that I don’t like about Telegram (like insisting on getting access to my contacts and being owned by Pavel Durov). I don’t like the owner’s attitude toward Apple’s App store rules in general. He’s Russian with Ukrainian origins. Thankfully, is fled Moscow a long time ago to live in Dubai, a safe haven for many Russians these days. The fun fact is that Telegram is hugely popular in Ukraine and serves both sides in good and bad ways.

Are there any Telegram users here? Do you share my sentiment? Are you subscribing to the Premium tier?

I rarely post my photography work here on Micro.blog, as I prefer to focus on dedicated photo-sharing services like Glass. But tonight, while doing some cleanup on my WordPress website, I stumbled on this post, “Confinement – A Visual Essay”, published on April 13th, 2020, in the early months of COVID-19. I almost instantly remembered and felt what it was like during these dire moments of confinement.

If pictures can trigger memories of challenging moments, I think they are good enough. This is why I am sharing this montage here tonight. Look carefully at each of them, they each contain a specific message.

Weekly Posts Digest from Numeric Citizen Microblog


Are there any Inoreader subscribers here? How do you take advantage of the service’s features? Do you use the Broadcast feature? How about tags and annotation features?
2023-02-12


The rumoured launch of a 15-inch MacBook Air this early Spring brings me joy and excitement. As an M1-MacBook Air owner, I understand the actual value of a lightweight and mighty Mac. I’m not looking for a much more powerful machine, but a bigger screen in a still-light package is something that I’m looking for. One of the reasons, you might be surprised, is the notch presence which removes some real space in the menubar to display menubar icons. Even with Bartender, a bigger screen could help reduce competition for the menubar on the left portion of the screen. That’s a small detail but an important one for me. I still have over a year of active Apple Care coverage, which should help resell my Mac.

Now, about the possible pricing. After spending some time on the Apple website looking at the current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro offerings, I expect the new 15-inch MacBook Air to be priced at around $1499..$1699 for an 8 GB of RAM, 8 cores CPU, 10 cores GPU and 256 GB SSD. So the starting price would represent a $300-$500 difference.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 13-inch MacBook Pro to be dropped from the product line too.

Spring can’t come soon enough.

2023-02-14


🤔👀👇🏻

Apple is exploring a stand-alone device that combines an iPad with a speaker hub. The idea is to offer something that users can place on a kitchen counter, in the living room or on their nightstand. But Apple also has worked on an iPad docking accessory that it could sell separately and would accomplish much of the same thing. Source: Apple Working on Whole New Way to Use iPad at Home - MacRumors

Nearly every day, I use my iPad in the kitchen while preparing food to listen to the news or to YouTube videos. I can imagine the iPad UI to be something like CarPlay UI (or HomeKit UI?) with tiles where I could see a video source, some HomeKit controls, the weather, etc.
2023-02-14


👨🏻‍💻I’ve spent quite some time recently on Inoreader, and I must say that I like it a lot. I’m on their generous three-month subscription. I can test everything without worrying too much about hitting the paywall. I must say that I’m more of an RSS-type-of-guy which fits Inoreader’s mission perfectly. I’m seeing fewer and fewer reasons to consider Matter or Readwise’s Reader… who knew.
2023-02-15


🤔 @help @manton could look into this error message that I’ve been getting on my timeline for a few days now? Thanks a lot! Love ya! Sorry for the interruption. Returning to normal programming.

2023-02-15

Mailbrew still works but sadly feels increasingly abandoned by its founders fooling around with TypeFully, a writing tool for Twitter. Now Twitter is dead. TypeFully too. And Mailbrew is dying too. How sad this story is.

2023-02-15

Better late than never. As a content creator, these are goals for 2023. More in my Digital Garden.

2023-02-15


OK, I’m excited. According to recent leaks, the iPhone 15 Pro could be ultra interesting (puns intended). I’m ok with USB-C; the time has come for standardization. The thing that gets me excited is the softer, slightly rounder hedges. I like the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro flat edges, but they are too rough for my taste. So flat edges with a softer corner radius will be a welcomed tweak.

Next, still about the edge, is the titanium brushed finish, similar to the titanium Apple Watch finish. I Digg this choice if that’s the case. I don’t like the Pro line’s current flashy chrome finish.

This leak of the possible iPhone 15 Pro also reminds me of the iPhone 4, which was a great design, BTW.

Oh, and the black bezels are becoming even thinner, which is also cool. Sure, some Android phones go way further than that, but on the iPhone, it’s a mandatory evolution, in my opinion.

For someone like me who takes his iPhone as a camera, these design changes could make a real difference in holding the iPhone like a camera. I’m really looking forward to this iPhone.

2023-02-17


Micro.blog things I like:

  • No ads
  • No likes
  • No brands
  • No metrics
  • No algorithms
  • No influencers
  • No follower count
  • No suggested/sponsored posts
  • Reverse chrono social timeline
  • Bookshelves feature
  • Simple, clean, UI
  • Customizability
  • Photos feature
  • Friendly folks
  • Blog hosting
  • iPhone app
<script src="https://micro.blog/quoteback.js"></script> Nothing more to add. 2023-02-17

😕 Installing iPadOS 16.4 beta1 on my iPad Pro. This cannot be worst than anything since iPadOS 16.
2023-02-17


The Computer is Wrong — Stay Critical & Curious

This evening, using an Apple Shortcut called Clips, I imported the « Apple in 2022 The Six Colors report card » by Six Colors into Craft. It’s a 25 000 article that I started reading on my iPad, within Craft. Then, fifteen minutes into my reading, I asked Craft assistant to summarize the Mac section. It came out with this summary:

« In 2022, Apple released the M2 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Studio Display. The hardware in the Mac lineup is powerful and impressive, and the M2 MacBook Air has become a favorite of Mac users due to its light weight, zero noise, and long battery life, as well as its ability to handle workloads that used to require a pro-level desktop. macOS Ventura has some great features, but there is still backsliding represented by bugs that have gone unfixed and apps that don’t work well. While many users are disappointed that an expected Mac Pro did not arrive, Apple is still praised for their strong hardware lineup and the Mac Studio, which might be a success except for the long shipping delays. »

Because I’m an Apple pundit; I read a lot about Apple in general, I find this summary « plausible », but also because I read the entire Mac section of the Six Colors report. Otherwise, I could I really know? This is where this article ChatGPT from Matt Birchler comes into view « The Computer is Wrong »: it’s fun to play with ChatGPT or any derivative services but staying critical, curious is still a mandatory thing to be these days.

2023-02-18

The Computer is Wrong — Stay Critical & Curious

This evening, using an Apple Shortcut called Clips, I imported the « Apple in 2022 The Six Colors report card » by Six Colors into Craft. It’s a 25 000 article that I started reading on my iPad, within Craft. Then, fifteen minutes into my reading, I asked Craft assistant to summarize the Mac section. It came out with this summary:

« In 2022, Apple released the M2 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Studio Display. The hardware in the Mac lineup is powerful and impressive, and the M2 MacBook Air has become a favorite of Mac users due to its light weight, zero noise, and long battery life, as well as its ability to handle workloads that used to require a pro-level desktop. macOS Ventura has some great features, but there is still backsliding represented by bugs that have gone unfixed and apps that don’t work well. While many users are disappointed that an expected Mac Pro did not arrive, Apple is still praised for their strong hardware lineup and the Mac Studio, which might be a success except for the long shipping delays. »

Because I’m an Apple pundit; I read a lot about Apple in general, I find this summary « plausible », but also because I read the entire Mac section of the Six Colors report. Otherwise, I could I really know? This is where this article ChatGPT from Matt Birchler comes into view « The Computer is Wrong »: it’s fun to play with ChatGPT or any derivative services but staying critical, curious is still a mandatory thing to be these days.

OK, I’m excited. According to recent leaks, the iPhone 15 Pro could be ultra interesting (puns intended). I’m ok with USB-C; the time has come for standardization. The thing that gets me excited is the softer, slightly rounder hedges. I like the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro flat edges, but they are too rough for my taste. So flat edges with a softer corner radius will be a welcomed tweak.

Next, still about the edge, is the titanium brushed finish, similar to the titanium Apple Watch finish. I Digg this choice if that’s the case. I don’t like the Pro line’s current flashy chrome finish.

This leak of the possible iPhone 15 Pro also reminds me of the iPhone 4, which was a great design, BTW.

Oh, and the black bezels are becoming even thinner, which is also cool. Sure, some Android phones go way further than that, but on the iPhone, it’s a mandatory evolution, in my opinion.

For someone like me who takes his iPhone as a camera, these design changes could make a real difference in holding the iPhone like a camera. I’m really looking forward to this iPhone.