A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
1ļøā£ I found this guide to writing image descriptions immensely helpful. I like to work within frameworks, so the Object-Action-Context idea gives me a structure to go off of. [š Alex Chen // uxdesign.cc]
2ļøā£ Scotty Jackson makes a great point about AI in this post. It reminds me of the Ted Lasso quote, āBe curious, not judgmental.ā [š HeyScottyJ // heyscottyj.com]
3ļøā£The Climb on HBO Max isā¦interesting. Itās almost like watching a satire of rock climbing but knowing that itās trying to be serious. I canāt fully recommend it, but Iām going to keep watching. [šŗThe Climb // hbmomax.com]
5ļøā£ Matt Birchler had the most accurate headline about Twitterās third-party API demise this past week. [š Matt Birchler // birchtree.me]
6ļøā£ The news that AmazonSmile is shutting down was a huge bummer to me, too. Iāve made a point to always use AmazonSmile because every little bit helps. The Verge had a great postmortem and an even better suggestion to Amazon on how it could have more transparently broken the news. [š Barbara Kransoff // theverge.com]
You know how email is this cool thing that mostly just works. You can have anĀ @gmail.comĀ address and send a message to someone with anĀ @hey.comĀ address and vice versa.
Someone else can run the email server on your behalf, or you can run one yourself in a closet from home. You can have one email address, two or five, or how many you want.
Also, you can use whatever client you want. Gmailās web-based client, a fancy app on your phone, or a text-based one in a terminal. They might have different features and user experiences, but they all āspeak email.ā
I think a lightbulb flashed on in many peopleās minds from this reply. Itās hard to imagine a more cogent and accessible explanation of Mastodon/Fediverse/ActivtyPub than this. The usernames might look weird right now, but I think itās something that will pass with time. Iām sure email addresses used to look silly when they were new, too.
I gotta say, one of my favorite features to come out of iPadOS 16 this year has been the increased screen density that comes with the āMore Spaceā option in Display Zoom. For years, Iāve longed to get the benefit of two full-sized apps side-by-side like youāve always gotten with the 12.9-inch iPad. But Iāve never wanted to carry around that lunch tray of a tablet. So I suffered the inefficiencies of being limited to compact views when using two apps at a time and given too much jealous side-eye to those larger iPads with their gloriously unconstrained screens.
But no more! If you havenāt yet tried it out yet, fire up your iPad Air (5th gen or later) or 11-inch iPad Pro and head to Settings ā Display & Brightness ā Display Zoom and choose āMore Spaceā. Everything will scale down a little smaller, providing just enough room that you can use two apps in their 50% mode without them converting to a compact layout.
I find the full-size layouts most helpful when taking notes whiles browsing in apps like Safari. I can switch between notes and tabs all the extra clicks. ā
While text and UI elements are a bit smaller, I still find them completely usable. Certainly no smaller than on the iPad mini. Your mileage may vary based on your eyesight, but I think itās the best way to use the roughly 11-inch iPads.
In fact, itās almost like getting a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but without the added bulk and weight. So, thanks, I guess, goes to Stage Manager, which brought about the necessity of this feature. The apps themselves needed to be able to scale down to show the rest of the Stageās UI. So even though Iām not rocking Stage Manager day-to-day, Iām pleased itās given me this treat.
I thought the Mac mini and MacBooks Pro announcement would be the only new products we saw from Apple for a while, but theyāve gone and done a double-hitter! Maybe, if weāre lucky, weāll get a longer run of press release announcements like the that week back in March 2019, which was like a clearing of the decks before a full-on keynote later that month.
As it is, I got a shock of excitement when a buddy texted this morning, āNEWHOMEPODS!!!!!ā Like in the days of old, I rushed to apple.com to check out the newest goodies with all the thrill of Christmas morning. It was fun to be surprised by Apple once again.
As for the second-generation HomePod itself, there seem to be relatively few new whizz-bang features since the original (temperature and humidity sensor, S7 chip, Thread radio, and Ultra Wideband chip) — and a few regressions (fewer tweeters, fewer microphones). That being said, Iām still delighted that it exists. I havenāt had any of the failures that have plagued other first-generation HomePod owners, but if I did, I wouldnāt hesitate to replace it with the new one. The impeccable room-filling sound quality and convenience of Siri as a hands-free kitchen assistant have been firmly planted in our home. I wasnāt looking forward to trying to slot something else in its place if and when the original dies.
However, I did do a double-take at the new HomePodās price: $299. Thatās the same price that the original sold at when it departed for the big orchard in the sky. I would have bet that Apple would shy away from that high of a price, considering that they struggled to sell even the first batch they manufactured.
I just donāt understand why people think Ā£250 for Airpods Pro - single user devices, with a lifespan of a few years - is fine, but Ā£299 for a HomePod, a whole household device that will last half a decade or more, is not.
It remains to be seen — well, heard — if the new HomePodās quality can stand confidently next to the originalās. But I remain hopeful! I do wish, though, that Apple had bitten the bullet and added a physical audio input. That way, if the software ever does crap out, its high-quality hardware could live on. So it goes.
Although for a while there, Apple seemed like the only company rallying against āspeeds and feedsā, theyāve really dived back into them. And even though weāre only a few chips into the Apple silicon translation, already my eyes glaze over and ears muffle up when theyāre blazing through the stats of these, admittedly, incredibly chips.
Day-to-day, the only M2 chip improvement Iād be excited to have is more and faster unified memory. I see the āThis Website Is Using Significant Memoryā message from Safari far too often on my RAM-maxed M1 Max mini.
I had also hoped that when the next Mac mini update materialized, it would bring with it the silver and black āminiā version of the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. But I havenāt heard anything about that particular white (well, black, in this case) whale. And — checks apple.com/store — well, well, wellā¦the plot thickens:
So it looks like the Magic Keyboard (not that Magic Keyboard, this one) did get updated today. Itās got the āNewā badge and a mouthful of a name I donāt think it had before. The go-to keyboard that Apple wants you to buy is now officially known as the āMagic Keyboard with Touch ID for Mac models with Apple siliconā. There is another version known simply as the āMagic Keyboardā which lacks the Touch ID button and is compatible with all Macs — including Intel ones like the lone Mac Pro. Both still charge via Lightning rather than USB-C. And neither comes in that glorious silver frame with black keys. š
Iāll just leave this here:
Release the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID in black/silver without the numeric pad, you cowards!
And finally, I was glad to see some new faces presenting the products today. And, as much as I like Johny Srouji in his lab, Tim Millet, as heard on Upgrade, did a great job introducing the new chips. I could see Tom moving up the chain into Johnyās position down the road.
All-in-all, we got some very welcome — if unsurprising — upgrades today.
2ļøā£ This is a raw, heart-wrenching, yet uplifting story from Alena Smith about going through, well, a lot in the hope of birthing and raising kids and not dying. All while writing and directing the excellent Dickinson. [š Alena Smith // nytimes.com]
3ļøā£ It Seems super unfair that truckers donāt get overtime pay (theyāre typically paid by the mile), so things like delays, cargo loading, and inspections are all basically free labor. [š David Zipper // theverge.com]
4ļøā£ It makes total sense to me that what is essentially a sophisticated predictive text program nailed so many of the ācorrectā responses to these prompts. But itās still pretty wild. [šJONASDEGRAVE // engraved.blog]
5ļøā£ Scruff the dog picked up over a thousand water bottles last year. The Good News Podcast has the details in a tight three minutes. [š thegoodnewspodcast.fm]
6ļøā£ Jacob Collier is officially on my shortlist of performers I want to see live. The guy is supremely talented. Just watch this short of him building a loop with like half a dozen instruments in just 60 seconds. [šŗ Jacob Collier // youtube.com]
One thing Iāve noticed is that everyone is going to great lengths to make something that replaces the clients weāve known for years. Thatās an excellent goal that eases a transition in the short-term, but ignores how aĀ new open standard(ActivityPub) can be leveraged in new and different ways.
Federation exposes a lot of different data sources that youād want to follow. Not all of these sources will beĀ MastodonĀ instances: you may want to stay up-to-date with someoneāsĀ Micro.blog, or maybe another personāsĀ Tumblr, or someone elseāsĀ photo feed. There are manyĀ appsĀ andĀ serversĀ for you to choose from.
It feels like the time is right for a truly universal timeline. That notion excites me like the first time IĀ posted XML status to an endpoint.
I feel that excitement too. Thatās why Iām all in on Micro.blog for my social media, pared with this, my very own old-school blog and website.
Whatās the best system to rate media or products? Grades from F to A? Stars from one to five? A simple thumbs up?
Online catalogs like Goodreads and Letterboxd stand behind their five star standards. Amazon and eBay give percent ratings out of 100. Netflix takes thumbs up and down and converts them to a percentage as well. But faced with adding ratings for books Iāve read to my own short reviews on Micro.blog, Iāve waffled.
At first, I just shifted over my out-of-five book ratings from Goodreads. But too many were the cowardly three stars. Did I like it or not? Even I didnāt know! And donāt get me started on how you can do half-stars, which essentially make them out of ten instead. Too many choices! I briefly courted with ratings out three. Bad/okay/good seemed like it should be enough for anyone. But I quickly saw how any odd numbered rating system has the same fatal flaw: it allows you to sit on the fence between good and bad, deflecting an actual decision.
And so, as you might have guessed from the title, Iāve landed on four-star ratings. Poor/okay/good/great, as it were. Or oof/eh/ooh/wow. Four stars forces a definitive decision, and leaves just enough room for nuance — unlike thumbs up/down. Three stars communicates a positive recommendation and four that it was stand-out, while two or one says that it can probably be skipped or was notably bad.
HeyDingus 
