Firmin DeBrabander: ‘The Freedom of an Armed Society’

But furthermore, guns pose a monumental challenge to freedom, and particular, the liberty that is the hallmark of any democracy worthy of the name — that is, freedom of speech. Guns do communicate, after all, but in a way that is contrary to free speech aspirations: for, guns chasten speech.

This becomes clear if only you pry a little more deeply into the N.R.A.’s logic behind an armed society. An armed society is polite, by their thinking, precisely because guns would compel everyone to tamp down eccentric behavior, and refrain from actions that might seem threatening. The suggestion is that guns liberally interspersed throughout society would cause us all to walk gingerly — not make any sudden, unexpected moves — and watch what we say, how we act, whom we might offend.

This is how I’ve felt for a long time. Guns = fear. And fear does not promote healthy conversation, debate, or civility. The freedom of speech and expression can only go so far when you know someone who doesn’t like what you’re saying can extinguish you with the pull of a trigger.

(Via Jason Kottke in a post I recommend you read in full.)

Om Malik, in an old post, on a massive transition that I hadn’t ever considered:

These days, we want to carry the contents of our homes with us wherever we go. Photos, once housed in beautiful frames and curated in albums, are now stuffed into our iPhones, and our relationships are nurtured on social networks via electronic address books from anywhere on the planet. I know Coltrane, Miles, Dizzy, Ella and Thievery all come for a walk with me whenever I pull the door behind me. Thanks to the rise of place-shifting and devices such as Sling Media’s SlingBox, even my television travels with me.

Jan-Lukas Else, jlelse.blog:

Aren’t starter packs also just a new form of blogrolls?

Hmmm. Yeah, I suppose they are! Maybe more like public Twitter lists (RIP) or an OPML file you can subscribe to. But a good observation.

Saranac Lake Turkey Trot! It was magical with our fresh layer of snow. ❄️🏃‍♂️🏁

Ivan Penn: ‘Vermont Utility Plans to End Outages by Giving Customers Batteries’

Many electric utilities are putting up lots of new power lines as they rely more on renewable energy and try to make grids more resilient in bad weather. But a Vermont utility is proposing a very different approach: It wants to install batteries at most homes to make sure its customers never go without electricity. […]

“Call us the un-utility,” Mari McClure, Green Mountain’s chief executive, said in an interview before the company’s filing. “We’re completely flipping the model, decentralizing it.”

Makes sense!

Chance Miller, on the Channels app’s whimsical new Theater Mode:

Finally, this month’s Channels update also adds a brand new Theater Mode feature. When enabled, Theater Mode will “play multiple trailers and a feature presentation pre-roll before starting your movie.” It’s basically a way to replicate more of the movie theater experience without leaving the comfort of your own house.

Unnecessary, and not for everyone, but fun nonetheless!

Nicolas Magand, thejollyteapot.com:

What I like about my blog is that it feels like home, while social platforms are more like a bar or a restaurant. You go there to get a drink or to have dinner, you have a good time, you socialise, you meet friends and feel energised by the crowd around you, you eventually pay the bill, and then you go home.

Once at home you can finally relax and be more like yourself, the real you. For instance, you can wear whatever you want, do whatever you feel like doing, the way you like doing it, without worrying of what a stranger […] might think.

Finished reading: Endurance by Alfred Lansing 📚

What an absolutely riveting tale of human survival. Wow. 🥶😮

One day later and now AirPods Pro 2 are even cheaper than AirPods 4 with ANC! $154 vs $169 🤯

www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1XD…

I really like the sound improvements, addition of ANC, and other little upgrades of my AirPods 4. But, after several months of use, I have to conclude that the AirPods 1 (& 2) design still fits my ears best.

David Sparks is frustrated by the slow adoption of passkeys. Me too. And he pointed out why sites hedging their bets and letting you set up both a password and passkey can be dangerous, which I hadn’t considered:

When a site offers both options, it creates a tempting target for bad actors. Imagine this: You try to log in with your shiny new passkey, and a fake prompt tells you it failed. Next thing you know, you’re asked to log in with your password instead. Guess what? You just handed over your credentials to the bad guys.

It works directly against the promise that passkeys are unphishable.

After handling a friend’s 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro this weekend, I’m settled on holding out for an M4 MacBook Air. It was just beyond the size and weight that I’d want for a “take everywhere” computer. 🤞 for a nano-texture option and not too long of a wait!

Nick Heer: ‘How Sports Betting Has Changed the U.S. – Pixel Envy’

It is strange to me how the world of sports gambling is now just an open business like any other. It makes sense to me that it is legal, but to integrate it so tightly with every aspect of athletics is something I admit to being confused about and a little troubled by.

I was at a friend’s house this weekend and his whole family, it seemed, had taken up making a bunch of small (~$10) bets on a variety of games. Sounded like they had good fun with it, but it was novel dinner conversation to me.

Wes Davis: ‘Meta’s mixed-reality attempt at a Wii Sports knockoff is coming’

Like Nintendo’s simplistic motion control-based sports series, Home Sports offers several games: hockey, badminton, pickleball, mini-golf, and bowling. It’s playable solo and multiplayer, where your Meta avatar represents you in a match. Meta says the game can adapt to your play space, but it also uses the Quest boundaryless mode for those with access to wide-open spaces.

They couldn’t have changed the logo to at least hide their shame?

David Sparks is calling his Black Friday sale a “Gratitude Sale” and I really like it. Especially as these things have trended toward a week or more of discounts, “Black Friday sale” doesn’t really make much sense anymore. But “holiday sale” or “gratitude sale”, those sound better.

You learn something new every day! Today it was all the ways your phone is significantly more secure before its first unlock after a reboot.

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#159]

A good quote, a Lego reenactment, a tool for alt text, an awesome Action Button shortcut, a feel-good climbing film, a fully monospaced website, and a new (short) podcast.

Here’s your periodic reminder that, with just a simple automation in Shortcuts, you too can have Taylor Swift welcome you back to New York as you cross the border. It’s delightful. 😁

Turns out you cannot use Type to Siri when connected to CarPlay. Good idea if you’re the driver, but a little annoying if you’re the passenger.

Wow. Both are great.

AirPods Pro 2 are $1 more than AirPods 4 ANC right now on Amazon...just $170!

AirPods Pro 2: https://geni.us/R8s79dB

AirPods 4 ANC: https://geni.us/AikMWPo

(Affiliate links)

Matt Birchler: ‘More Birchtree is on sale this week’

Just a quick post today to say that I am running what I expect to be my only sale of the year on More Birchtree. If you sign up for a year from now through Friday November 29, you can get a yearly for $35. […]

Click here to sign up and thank you for supporting the site!

Heck of a deal! Good writing, great guy.

I enjoyed this article by itseieio, ‘Measuring something changes it - and sometimes that’s enough’, and see a lot of it in myself:

So instead of force of will I turned to measurement. I made a simple Google Form with a few questions:

• When did I go to bed?
• When did I wake up?
• Was I tired when I woke up?
• When was I ready to do something (write code, see friends, etc)
• Did I play piano / exercise before starting to do something else?

I committed to non-judgmentally filling this form out every morning. And I waited.

And my behavior began to change! Some of these changes were relatively intuitive to me. I was more conscious of my bedtime and found myself saying “it’s past 1:00 AM, I’m not doing anything worthwhile, and my data will look better if I go to bed.”

But some of my behavior changes surprised me. I was more conscious of how I spent time in the morning, but also conscious of how I’m often not ready to do “hard” things immediately after waking up. Historically I’ve dealt with this by wasting time mindlessly browsing the internet which ~never makes me feel good. But quantifying how much time I’d spent on this each week pushed me to replace that time with something I enjoyed more. Often that was playing a game! Which isn’t a particularly productive activity - but swapping out “mindless browsing” for “playing a fun game” has consistently made my days more enjoyable.

It all makes sense. It’s easy to convince yourself that things aren’t as bad as you might think, but very hard to ignore hard data. Maybe I need to start observing and measuring more of my behavior to get better in control and able to make changes.

No-Shave November check in, day 24

Michael Burkhardt: ‘Indie App Spotlight: ‘Pestle’ is the ultimate recipe manager, and it just got a big update - 9to5Mac'

Pestle 2.0 adds two big features – TikTok support, and support for recipe notes.

Using an on device AI model, Pestle is now able to save recipes from TikTok by transcribing the captions and processing it on device, and its able to do all of that in under a second. If you happen to see a cool recipe on TikTok, Pestle will now be able to save it fast and privately.

Clever clever.