🔗 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.

🔗 Apple to Launch Standalone ‘Passwords’ App in iOS 18 and macOS 15 // Juli Clover // macrumors.com

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! 👀

🔗 U.S. Audiobook Sales Hit $2 Billion in 2024 // Ed Nawotka | // publishersweekly.com

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!

🔗 Feature Request: Make HomeKit truly smart, with AI features // 9to5mac.com // Ben Lovejoy

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.

🔗 WOLFS — Official Teaser Apple TV+ // Apple TV // youtube.com

Whoa, Apple’s got a new film coming starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney?! That totally snuck by me.

🔗 OpenAI has a new safety team — it’s run by Sam Altman // Emma Roth // theverge.com

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.

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#144]

After a few weeks off, I'm back with them good links.

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. 👍👍

🔗 Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses will post Instagram stories for you // Emilia David // theverge.com

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.

Finally got @adk_traplordz out on some rock 👊 Regular Route, Chapel Pond Slab 📷

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.

Got a nice hike/run in to clear my head and scout out a new (to me) trail. Super fun route up and over the Pitchoff Ridge and then up Cascade Pass. 🥾 📷

Uh, so I played a few rounds of Cut The Rope on — checks notes — YouTube, of all places, today. Anybody else seeing mini games pop up there yet?

🔗 Samsung mocks Apple’s iPad Pro ad; ‘Creativity cannot be crushed’ // Ben Schoon // 9to5google.com

Now, Samsung has stepped in with an ad of its own, showing a musician walking through the aftermath of Apple’s hydraulic press and picking up a partially destroyed guitar. Then, sitting on an easel, is a Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra with musical notes, and the musician strums along.

I’ll freely admit that Apple’s ad lacked class. But so does piling onto someone when they’ve already apologized.

By the way, for folks using my Generate Alt Text with OpenAI Vision shortcut, you can update it to use the new gpt-4o model super easily by just changing the name of the model in this action:

It’s supposed to be faster and cheaper than the regular GPT-4 model, which is always nice! 🤖

It seems like every presenter thought they would be the one to announce that Gemini is going to 2 million tokens. It’s not as effective after the 4th time… #GoogleIO 🧵

It’s totally not the point, but it’s still exciting to see one of my blog posts on Federico Viticci’s Starred list in his (excellent) not-an-iPad-Pro-review. 👀

‘Next iPad Mini Still Not Expected Before Late 2024 at the Earliest’

I can’t be the only one struggling to parse this MacRumors headline, right? 🙃

Too true.

Which brings me to today. My world is not as exciting as it once was. The technology that I love is now in a very different spot. It no longer sits idle until called upon like any other tool, it muscles its way into every corner of our lives. There is a lot to be excited about, but also a lot to be wary of.