🆕📝 Letters Project Becomes the PenPals Project

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#127]

Must be Sunday! Includes #2/52 of my 52 Albums Project.

🔗 The Automattic Creed

I will never stop learning. […] I know there’s no such thing as a status quo. […] I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. […] I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable.

🆕📝 The Best Top Rope Setup Video I’ve Ever Found (And Why I Think It Makes an Superb Example of an Instructional Video in General)

🧗 This is the one I keep coming back to, for good reason!

Possibly my new favorite meme! 🤣 (I love that you can see Chris Pratt almost break into a smile.)

Deciding how to spend my money: 🥽

It’s not my primary method of reading my timeline, but going through it via RSS instead of the app has advantages beyond knowing that you’ve seen everything and it won’t lose your place, such as long-press for link previews!

🆕📝 Artifact Shuts Down Just as I Was Getting Into It

The world isn’t big enough for the [many] of us [Twitter replacements].

I just updated my ‘Generate Alt Text with OpenAI Vision’ shortcut to version 1.1:

  • Added an option to show the generated description at the end — a “test mode”, if you will.
  • Added a step to convert .heic images to .jpeg before uploading them since the Vision API doesn’t support those.

Get it here from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.

Hmm. Micro posts? Microposts? Micro-posts? And what’s its mirror?! Macro-posts? Essays? Stories? Long posts?

I’m a guy who likes a style guide, and I can’t decide. Send help!

TV Forecast is stepping it up to vie for all my TV/movie tracking. It’s got After Credits and where-to-watch info front-and-center, inline trailers, and cast info that rivals Callsheet — all in such a clean design. I’ve been doing reviews with Quick Reviews, so I’m wondering why I need Letterboxd.

A smartphone screen displays a TV Forecast’s listing for “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3” with a colorful group of characters, and details about the film below including the release date, rating, and viewing platforms.

She asked if I liked Friends, I guess that that was the test

I said, “Hell yeah, and Phoebe’s the fuckin' best”

🎵 I’ve heard this song god knows how many times and only just now did these lyrics click. I snorted loud enough to wake my sleeping wife. 🤣

🎵 “Baby, don’t run me ‘round and ‘round”

‘Mean It’ by Lauv & LANY

The Rabbit r1 is intriguing.

your pocket companion

Haven’t quite wrapped my head around it yet, but the teachable “large action model” feels like a solid step forward. I don’t really want another gadget to carry around in my pocket though. It’s the sort of thing that embodies “you’re a feature, not a product” and it’s gotta be coming to smartphones soon enough.

I’m all for constraints — I think they’re where creativity sparks — but so often I’m slamming against the 300 character limit on microposts that feel appropriate for the Micro.blog timeline. They’re hard to edit without losing context. A 500 character limit, consistent with Mastodon, is so enticing.

Thanks @imyke@myke.social for giving me fresh perspective on Frozen 2, which I did not originally enjoy, but now have a new appreciation for.

overcast.fm/+DAvKuT9G…

🔗 Curb Cuts // Steven Aquino

As to what a “curb cut” is, it’s the cut-out in sidewalks so wheelchair users can cross the street. Colloquially, the so-called “curb cut effect” references how accessibility aids like curb cuts not only help disabled people, but they also help an abled person more easily push a stroller across the street.

For me and my reporting, the “curb cuts” phrase is meant to show people that covering accessibility and assistive technologies deserves a permanent and utterly relevant place in mainstream tech news coverage.

Blogging is a lifeline, a connection to people and a world that might not be possible offline because of the reticence to interact and the fear doing so generates. I can’t think of a better reason to do it.

@colinwalker // colinwalker.blog

⛷️ Got Jo out on her skis in all this beautiful new snowfall. So fun! Then spent the day de-Christmas treeing the house and getting the place back in order after the holidays. 📷

A person is cross-country skiing on snow-covered ground, flanked by snow-laden evergreen trees. They are dressed in winter gear, including a blue jacket and red pants. A person cross-country skiing on a snowy track with trees and overcast sky in the background. A person cross-country skiing on a snow-covered trail flanked by snow-laden evergreen trees. They’re dressed warmly in a blue jacket and red pants.

🔗 Inside Apple’s Massive Push to Transform the Mac Into a Gaming Paradise — inverse.com // Raymond Wong

From what I can tell, the company does seem genuinely serious this time about getting new games simultaneously (or very shortly after launch date) released on Mac alongside PC and consoles.

“We’re innovating at this tremendous pace,” says Martin. “When you look at this from a macro level, it becomes much easier to see how all these pieces are coming together in a way that hasn’t happened before.”

I wish them the best of luck.

I s’pose now is as good a time as any to remind you that if you’ve been enjoying my shortcuts and want one built specifically to solve one of your own tech annoyances, I’d love to help! I do commissions for custom shortcuts. (You can find an example on my Library page)

I’ve been thrilled with the response to my two latest shortcuts. Seems like everyone’s pretty jazzed to get help with crafting alt text (🥳 for a more accessible web), and Micro.bloggers really like new ways to get their images on the web in Markdown. It’s a joy to build tools for this community. 😁

I think I really missed the mark on my Vision Pro launch predictions. I now presume, since nothing was mentioned in today’s press release, there won’t be another preview “event” prior to pre-orders at all. I expect units are now in the hands of reviewers and we’ll see embargoes lift early next week.

I’ve been doing a lot more writing than reading lately, which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but it does leave me feeling a bit… lacking? I love reading my favorite writers, and I’ve just left them behind.

🔗 This Philips door lock turns your palm into a key - The Verge // Emma Roth

Philips created a new smart lock that doesn’t require a key or a code — all you need is your hand. The company showed off its new $359.99 Wi-Fi Palm Recognition Smart Deadbolt during CES 2024, which comes with a built-in palm scanner that unlocks your door when it detects your unique palm print.

Interesting…but not a super helpful feature for places like here where we wear gloves outdoors for like 5 months of the year.

🔗 Basecamp Resubmits Its Calendar App, Includes Dates in Apple History to Get Past App Review – 512 Pixels // Stephen Hackett

It’s a real bummer to feel like I’ve been ripped off by a much bigger company, seeing them pitch something I’ve worked hard on as a free feature in their app. There’s some irony there.

Yeah, Basecamp certainly could have done this without making it look like you’re getting such a deal compared to Stephen’s physical calendar. Unfortunate framing, I’d say. (His 2024 retail calendar is great once again, btw.)