Dang, I’ve been using the ‘Speak Screen’ accessibility option as my ad-hoc (and free) narrated article feature for two years now! I use it every day and highly recommend this method.
Rewatched: Agatha All Along Season 1 📺
Even better the second time through, as I was able to keep up with the twists and turns and weirdness. And catch all the foreshadowing. Worth a rewatch! 👍
The boys are back in town! Brandon, Kevin, Shane, and Brian all came upstate for a weekend of camaraderie and adventure — and they sure got it! We spent yesterday rock climbing and doing a rappelling clinic at King Philip Spring Wall, and then this evening the main event: a stunning sunset rappel down Roaring Brook Falls. It was so great to hang out with these guys and swap stories. Their firefighter training gave them all a great base for learning technical systems, so moving into the rock world was a logical step. Can’t wait to have them back!
Message us with your grand idea, and we’ll do everything we can to bring your adventure to life.
A Very Good Tweet™
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the cable bundle.
Nick Heer does the work regarding that MacBook charger brouhaha:
It is not just countries that use the Euro receiving cuts. In Norway, the new MacBook Pro starts at 2,000 krone less than the one it replaces, and a charger is 849 krone. In Hungary, it is 50,000 forint less, with a charger costing about 30,000 forint. There are some exceptions, too. In Switzerland, the new models are 50 franc less, but a charger is 59 franc.
Rumors of the charging-brick-less-yet-more-expensive MacBooks have been greatly exaggerated.
I so appreciate this note at the bottom of an email from Upgraded:
And hey, if you don’t need a new device, don’t get one. We’re just having fun in this email. Never over extend yourself financially for something you don’t need. 👊
Marketing, but with humanity. More of this, please!
A better way to pull your rap cord
One helpful tip I’ve learned from painful experience over the years is how valuable it is to bring a hand ascender whenever I do long rappels with a pull/rap cord. Instead of wrapping the cord around your hand, suffering through rope burn, or messing with a wrapped carabiner, the ascender is worth its weight in gold for efficiency and comfort in getting your rope down. It firmly grabs the rope and gives you a nice big handle to pull down more ergonomically.
Plus, you’ll start to identify other great uses for the ascender, like more easily pulling slack or giving yourself some mechanical advantage with a GriGri when belaying from the bottom.
Oh, and don’t forget your gloves!
The Imperfectionist: ‘How to forget what you’ve read’
The second reason – a universal law of personal productivity – is that the more effort a technique requires, the more likely you’ll be to engage in self-defeating avoidance instead. If your system requires you to take detailed notes on everything you read… then you won’t.
This is a lesson that is easy to understand while the habit is devilishly difficult to break.
Not gonna lie, the back display on the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max does look pretty sweet. Marques Brownlee is right, looks like they took the iPhone 17 Pro series and just basically tried to one-up every spec they could.
Watched: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 🍿
My wife and I enjoyed disussing the benefits and detriments of having a whole book/series as source material when making a movie. But we agreed that they did a great job playing to the book fans on this one. I give it a 👍
That’s so kind of you to say, Dan! It was a joy to get out climbing with you. And yes — can’t wait to show you the ropes on ice! 🙌
I work very hard to make sure my clients have a great experience. From first contact through hugs and high fives goodbye, you’re due the best. 😁
Ratika Deshpande shared some of her rules for writing today. This one resonated with me:
4. Focus on what is beautiful in this world.
There’s a lot of ugliness in the world. It’s easy and feels perversely good to share. But sharing what’s awesome, uplifting, beautiful, kind, or curious — the world needs more of those things.
Ryan Christoffel: ‘Apple explains why iPhone 17’s selfie camera changed so much’
Nash also highlights how the final product will be better than ever, not just the process of taking the photo.
For example, she mentions how keeping the iPhone in portrait orientation means subjects’ eyes will always be looking in the right place. With landscape selfies, that’s often not the case.
This is a really good point that I hadn’t considered. Landscape selfies do often have the group looking awkwardly off to the side.
Sarah Cascone: ‘Humans of New York’ Transforms Grand Central Into a Monumental Photo Show
For the first time possibly ever, there is not a single ad to be seen in Grand Central Terminal. “Humans of New York,” Brandon Stanton‘s popular social media art series of photographs of people he’s interviewed on the city’s streets, has taken over each and every one of the 150 video billboards in the grand concourse, as well as the subway ads below in Grand Central Station for “Dear New York.”
This is so very cool!
I scored 10/21 on e-mail.wtf and all I got was this lousy text to share on social media.
I love this business card design, and appreciate its simplicity every time it makes the rounds on social media. It highlights the importance of consistent branding. Email, website, and social handles — all in sync.
The madness just got madder. 'Apple TV+' is now just 'Apple TV'.
Ratika Deshpande: ‘Write it right now.’
And don’t worry about hoarding ideas. Don’t save the precious idea that you think you will tackle later in a separate piece–you’ll never do it. Write it right now. You won’t one day suddenly stop having thoughts and ideas and opinions. New ones (to you) will keep cropping up. And they will be built upon the ideas you think about right now by writing about them.
If you know, you know. 😜
Love this! 🤣
I love my local vidya-games store 😅
🫣 Feeling a bit called out by Annie Mueller in her post, ‘Encourage Meaningful Friction’:
For example, having a frictionless to-do app means I end up with too many fucking tasks. Some things need to be unsaved, neglected, forgotten, ignored, left undone so better things can be done. Or so I can spend more delightful moments at ease, not doing but being.
Manu Moreale: ‘My issue with the two sides’
The problem I see with this, though, is that the internet is a weird place. A lot of people aren’t vocal. Most of them are just lurking around, absorbing content and forming ideas in their head and maybe discussing things in person with close friends and family. And amongst them, there probably are a lot of people who would be more than happy to support and join the good one of the two sides, but are probably kept at a distance because of the insanity they see unfolding.
Been noodling on this. What we see of each other online is not our whole selves.
“Relationships, like plants, need fresh water to grow.”
— Oak Jones in Family Ties, The Dirtbag Diaries
I’m learning about too many bad things on the internet. Three strikes and you’re out. I should take a break.
Yours truly, back in December 2023: ‘I Made a Bookmarklet That Runs a Shortcut on a URL’
Holy smokes, I can’t believe I never thought about doing this before. Probably because I never thought I would know how to write a bookmarklet. To be fair, I still don’t, but ChatGPT does!
🤣 I totally bought a janky app on the App Store recently to run a specific shortcut on the active webpage, and I wasted a ton of time trying to get it to work right. It never did. I just rediscovered this post that I wrote, and it works perfectly. Brains are funny.