“You’re On Your Own, Kid” has really been speaking to me lately. Midnights has historically not been a favorite of mine, but I’m giving it another shot.
Currently turning off basically all notifications on my Mac. I really only need notifications in one place: my phone. Dunno why it took this long for me to realize.
I hardly ever do titled posts on Micro.blog, so I find myself befuddled on how to add a title to a post that’s fewer than 300 characters long. I surely don’t need to add filler text just to reveal the title field (and then delete the filler), right? cc: @manton
If you’ve got a minute, go check out the app animations at www.apple.com/privacy/ under the ‘Our apps mind their business. Not yours.’ header. They’re fun and clever.
Optimism rules!
So yeah, I’m going to be critical of things Apple does for the rest of my days, but I’m also going to remember that I got into this because it was fun. I strongly believe that the online discourse can make it so people fall into a rut where people get angry all the time about everything. I genuinely love Apple’s products a lot, and this week is like Christmas for me, so I’m going to have fun during WWDC — there are 51 other weeks this year to be salty, so unless WWDC is an absolute dumpster fire, expect to get Glass Half Full Matt this week. ✌️
🔗 #3 - On First Drafts | Kadambari
But here’s the thing: when you finish things, you become more confident, because you understand the most important step of writing: have a first draft. A first draft is messy, but it is complete. Once you have this mess, you can tidy it up. […]
You can’t do anything with an incomplete draft, except complete it. And when you’ve been away from a story for long, when you’ve lost enthusiasm for an idea, finishing drafts is an incredibly difficult thing to do (though it’s not impossible)
There’s so much good advice in this chapter. 📖
🔗
My entire life up until then, I wanted to be a famous author. I loved writing. I loved showing off my writing. I loved being seen in the way that quiet dorks do, the way that gets you sent home with the scarlet letter on your homework. I was such a little slut for school, and I was proud of it.
My entire life up until then, all I craved was to be told I did a good job. Do that and you had me, hook, line, sinker. Reel me in and gut me, you’ll find the glut of old report cards.
I’m so glad that there are writers like Keenan in the world.
🔗 Defensive and Skeptical // david-smith.org
Rather than being “Hungry and Foolish” it was now the prudent course of action to instead be “Defensive and Skeptical”. To be incredibly circumspect of which opportunities are worth the risk. To take actions which provide stability and preserve what you already have. To become comfortable with slow, measured growth.
I have no idea if this is what Steve Jobs meant in his commencement speech. He could have simply meant it in the positive, motivational sense. But increasingly I wonder if he may have also meant it in the cautionary sense as well.
🔗
The app includes logins and passwords for websites, Wi-Fi network passwords, and Passkeys, a feature that uses Face ID or Touch ID to log into websites instead of a password. Data from the app can be automatically inserted into websites and apps when a user logs in.
For the last year, I’ve tried iCloud Keychain instead of 1Password, but I’ve been meaning to switch back. With family on 1P and all the other stuff it syncs, it’s just better for me. But we’ll see what Apple does on Monday! 👀
🔗
The audiobook market in the United States continues steadily growing, with revenue increasing by 9%, to $2 billion, in 2023 […]
The survey also found that 38% of American adults listened to an audiobook in the last year, up from 35% reported in 2023.
Just the other day, I walked by a group of painters all listening to an audiobook together while they worked. Thought it was pretty cool!
🔗
One simple next step would be that, instead of me manually checking that every other light was out, I could simply tell it to switch on low lighting in the bedroom and switch off all other lights – without having to explicitly add them all to the scene.
But a true AI approach would be if I could give HomeKit my intent and have it figure out what is necessary to achieve that.
Yes please!
Finished reading: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 📚
After being in and out of loans for over a year, I finally marathoned my way through 80% of this book in the last few days. And sprinted through hours of reading today, both because the story was compelling and because my loan ended today.
I loved how imaginative this book was while still being (somewhat) rooted in reality — at least scientific constructs. I spotted many holes in the logic, but none were so glaring that they detracted from the overall story of survival, ruthless ingenuity, and friendship. And (spoiler) I appreciate a tale in which alien contact is curious and cooperative, rather than confrontational.
I recommend it!
Today I (re)learned that light’s speed remains constant no matter the velocity of the observer. Wild. Which also means that light “experiences” no time nor distance. Everything that happens along its path of travel, from creation to absorption, light “experiences” instantaneously. Physics is cool. 🧠
I really like my Kobo, but 8 years later and the original Kindle Oasis with the leather battery cover is still the best eReader design I’ve ever used. Flush 6" screen, incredibly light, genius magnetic wraparound battery cover, 300 ppi resolution. It was so good.
🔗
Whoa, Apple’s got a new film coming starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney?! That totally snuck by me.
🔗
For its first task, the new team will “evaluate and further develop OpenAI’s processes and safeguards.” It will then present its findings to OpenAI’s board, which all three of the safety team’s leaders have a seat on. The board will then decide how to implement the safety team’s recommendations.
I don’t know much about the inner workings of OpenAI, but I can say that Altman’s reputation makes this seem like a farce. I literally laughed out loud when I read this headline.
Thanks to @matt@isfeeling.social’s video, I just created a BetterTouchTool sequence that copies the current URL from my Safari window with just a ⇧⌘C keyboard shortcut. And a second one that runs my ‘URLs Menu’ shortcut with ⇧^⌘C. 👍👍
🔗
The Instagram support will allow users to prompt the glasses to post to the app before or after taking a picture. They can say, “Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram” after taking a photo or tell it to “post a photo to Instagram” before taking a new picture.
Ooh, well now that’s interesting.
📺 I finally finished season 4 of For All Mankind and, oh boy, that finale had me sweating. Lots of things are going to be different in season 5, I’m sure. I didn’t connect as much with S4, but still great television. (By the way, watching it on a massive screen with Vision Pro was pretty sweet.)
📺 So happy for the triumphant return of Trying on Apple TV+. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows, and season 4’s opening schtick was superb. Can’t wait to see how the rest of the season goes.
Been in kind of a publishing funk lately. Hoping to find the motivation again soon; maybe it’s been hiding under or behind something.
Finished reading: Down by Andy Kirkpatrick 📚
Getting down from a mountain is often more complicated and riskier than climbing it in the first place. Andy wrote the essential book of techniques to do so safely. I learned more than a few new things, and will review it regularly to stay up to speed.