If you’ll allow me a moment of introspection, I’d love to offer my thanks at the end of the year to anyone and everyone reading these words. I’ve been writing here on HeyDingus for three years now, but it’s only been in 2023 that I feel like finally hit my stride. I wrote the most posts yet in a year (by a lot!), and, back in November, I crossed 500 total posts written.

Getting to offload my weird thoughts, opinions, ideas, and creations out to the world is a privilege, and for some reason, many of you decide to read them. So many that I reached a completely arbitrary goal — one I made long ago — at the end of this year: over 10,000 views on my site for each of the last two months! 😮 I don’t write to chase those numbers, but I won’t lie — I think it’s pretty cool to reach so many people. And it feels good to meet that goal and move past it, in every sense of the phrase. 🎉 The best part is Tinylytics tells me that my home page has consistently been a top destination. I love that people still visit home pages to read their sites.

No, the actual best part has been the conversations and connections I’ve been fortunate enough to make through this site. If you’ve ever sent me an email, know that you made my day. If we’ve chatted on Micro.blog or Mastodon (or, yes, even Twitter when it still was), know that you’re part of a community I’ve come to cherish.

Thank you for your service, 2023. And here’s to 2024. May it be our best year yet. 🥳

Blogging

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

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1️⃣ 22

2️⃣ 28

3️⃣ 7

4️⃣ 3

5️⃣ 38 15

6️⃣ 42

7️⃣ 69

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Take a Chance

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Thanks for reading 7 Things. If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please let me know. And remember that you can get more links to internet nuggets that I’m finding every day by following me @jarrod on the social web.

7 Things

Presented without sanitization or explanation.

Adios, 2023! 🎉

Gear

I’m chatting with Austin for the PenPals project this month. Here’s a peak at our final exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

Austin expresses his preference for refraining from online conversations if he doesn’t have something constructive to add, emphasizing the potential implications for employment. He discusses geopolitical developments and advocates for knowledge over impulsive action. Regarding his skills, Austin considers software/business consulting due to his ability to evaluate ideas. He clarifies his stance on the term “enthusiast” and describes his interests as broad but not deeply committed. Reflecting on the cease-and-desist experience, he acknowledges its role in leading him to platforms like Mastodon and Matrix. In his response, Jarrod shares his approach to online interactions and highlights the benefits of Micro.blog’s conversational focus. He appreciates Austin’s understanding of the term “enthusiast” and discusses how challenges, like the C&D from Facebook, can lead to positive outcomes. Jarrod concludes the pen pal exchange, expressing gratitude for the depth of conversation and wishing Austin the best in 2024.

Read the entire conversation →

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If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.

PenPals

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!

---

Update (2024-01-02): Thanks to @zsbenke on the Club MacStories Discord, I’ve got a even better version that skips opening the new tab and just opens the URL directly.

javascript:(function() {
  var currentPage = window.location.href;
  var encodedURL = encodeURIComponent(currentPage);
  var newURL = "shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=[Insert%20Your%20URL%20Encoded%20Shortcut%20Name%20Here]&input=" + encodedURL;
  window.location.href = newURL;
})();

You can copy my version that runs the ‘Save for Later’ shortcut, and I’ve also updated the ‘Get URL to Run Shortcuts’ one that creates a bookmarklet out of one of your own shortcuts.

---

TL;DR

I made a bookmarklet that runs a shortcut and uses the current webpage’s URL as input.

Here it is:

javascript:(function() {
  var currentPage = window.location.href;
  var encodedURL = encodeURIComponent(currentPage);
  var newURL = "shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=[Insert%20Your%20URL%20Encoded%20Shortcut%20Name%20Here]&input=" + encodedURL;
  window.open(newURL);
})();

Here’s a plain text file example with a version that runs my ‘Save for Later’ shortcut.

Here’s how to install it:

1. Copy this bookmarklet link.
2. Edit the bookmarklet and replace the [Insert%20Your%20URL%20Encoded%20Shortcut%20Name%20Here] bit with a URL-encoded name for your preferred shortcut. Or, just use this shortcut, freshly updated in my library, to select a shortcut and generate its bookmarklet all in one go.
3. Add the URL as a bookmark in your browser. You might have to bookmark a random webpage, and then go back to edit its address and paste in the bookmarklet link/code that you copied before. That’s what I did. (It’s a real shame that Shortcuts doesn’t have any bookmarking actions.)
4. Optional: Give it a cute floppy disk emoji (💾) for its name, like I did.

NLE;TMM

Not Long Enough; Tell Me More

Three things lined up today to inspire this new creation. First, I read Jonathan Reed’s story for the Club MacStories Weekly newsletter about how he’s created quite advanced Javascripts in full using nothing but ChatGPT. Second, I was changing up a shortcut and wanted to be able to quickly test it as I iterated on it, and I quickly grew wearisome from the multiple clicks or keystrokes it usually takes to launch a shortcut on a Mac. Third, with a cursory search, I couldn’t find an extension for Safari that would allow me to pick a specific shortcut so that I could just have its icon in my Safari toolbar. And that’s when I realized that a bookmarklet would essentially be that.

You see, it’s still far too difficult to run a specific shortcut with a specific Safari URL as its input on a Mac. Apple’s native method, using the share sheet, is to…

1. Click the share button.
2. Select the Shortcuts icon from the (weirdly tiny) list.
3. Scroll down the (much bigger) list of any shortcuts enabled for the share sheet that accept URLs, text, or Safari webpages (for me, a LOT). Or you can start typing the first few letters of a shortcut’s name and it might be highlighted, but there’s no real search function.
4. Select the shortcut you want to run and click ‘Done’ (or double-click the shortcut).

Or, with this bookmarklet saved to your Favorites Bar, you can…

1. Click on the bookmarklet.
2. There is no step 2. It’s already done!

(Granted, you will have to give the webpage permission to run the shortcut the first time, but you can select ‘Always Allow’ so that you’ll not be bothered by the prompt again…for that website at least.)

ChatGPT Makes a Great… Copilot 😏

With confidence inspired by Jonathan Reed’s article, I fired up ChatGPT and made a single request with an example:

Can you write me a bookmarklet that builds a new URL out of the page it’s currently on and then opens it?

For example, if I’m on https://heydingus.net/blog/2023/11/playstation-ethernet-connection and run the bookmarklet I want it to open the URL shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Save%20for%20Later&input=https://heydingus.net/blog/2023/11/playstation-ethernet-connection

These LLMs’ superpower is that you can ask and direct it using the most conversational of language. I didn’t specify what language it needed to use. I didn’t tell it what browser I was using. I see now that I forgot a comma (😱). I included raw URLs in my example with very little explanation.

And, by golly, it nailed it in one:

Certainly! Here’s a bookmarklet that constructs the new URL and opens it:

javascript:(function() {
  var currentPage = window.location.href;
  var encodedURL = encodeURIComponent(currentPage);
  var newURL = "shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Save%20for%20Later&input=" + encodedURL;
  window.open(newURL);
})();

The icing on the cake was that ChatGPT provided me with instructions on how to use it too, even though I hadn’t asked for that:

To use this as a bookmarklet:

1. Copy the entire code block.
2. Create a new bookmark in your browser.
3. Edit the bookmark and paste the code into the URL field.

Now, whenever you’re on a webpage and click this bookmark, it’ll generate a new URL and open it using the shortcuts://run-shortcut scheme.

Color me impressed!

Okay, but why?

For me, there are a few shortcuts that I run on URLs from Safari all the time. My ‘Amazon Affiliate Linker’ shortcut, and my ‘URLs Menu’ shortcut (a catch-all menu for a bunch of link-related shortcuts) to name two. But my favorite is my ‘Save for Later’ shortcut. That one is configured to be a traffic controller of sorts. Based on the type of URL passed into it, it decides whether the link should be saved to Play (YouTube and Vimeo links), MusicBox (Apple Music links), as a Things task (Amazon links), or to my read-later app (anything else, so pretty much articles or other webpages). And because I change read-later apps like other people change their underwear, I can very easily swap in a different Shortcuts action to start saving links to my newest article saver.

Now, being the intrepid web explorer and Mac power user that you (probably) are, you’re sure to be quick to point out that there are many ways to launch a shortcut and give it a specific URL. And you’d be right! In fact, I actively use many of them. For instance…

• I could click on the address bar and select one of the shortcuts I’ve configured into PopClip.
• I could click on a shortcut that I’ve saved to my Dock that looks at the frontmost page in Safari to get the URL it needs.
• I could copy the URL and then use any launcher (built-in keyboard hotkeys, Spotlight, Raycast, Alfred, etc.) to run a shortcut that looks at the clipboard if there’s no input passed into it.
• I could even drag the URL from the address bar in Safari onto a shortcut that I’ve saved to my App Grid in Dropzone.

The options on the Mac are, admittedly, effectively endless.¹

But there are a few advantages to using a bookmarklet as opposed to any of those other options.

1. Once it’s in your bookmarks, it should sync to all your other devices and be able to be used from their browser.
2. One click versus multiple clicks, taps, or keystrokes.
3. Confidence about the URL that’s getting shared into the shortcut. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I’m not sure that I’m getting what I mean to into the shortcut with some of those other methods.

But most of all, it was just fun to create a new thing. And realize that a tool I have in my toolbox, ChatGPT, is way more useful than I initially gave it credit for.

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1. Illustrated by the fact that I’m typing out this whole blog post in Tot’s dropdown from my menu bar instead of using my usual, and vastly more powerful, Drafts or iA Writer. Just because it happened to be the quickest place I could paste the link to my ChatGPT conversation so I wouldn’t lose it and then the words just started tumbling out (before I got distracted).↩︎

Shortcuts Scripts Tips

If you, like me, are considering a switch from 1Password to iCloud Passwords & Keychain, you should definitely check out Indie App Santa right now. Today’s deal (Friday, December 29) is a FREE $80 (see update below) one-time lifetime unlock for the Secrets app. The skinny: Its feature set, which includes shared vaults, usually goes for around $100. Today’s discounted unlock works across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, plus it’s available to the other members of your Family Sharing group, so only one of you needs to go get it and do the in-app “purchase” right now.

You might be asking, “If you’re switching over to iCloud Passwords, why are you recommending that I download a second password manager app?”

Great question! It’s because iCloud Passwords doesn’t allow for website-less logins, or other random sensitive info like bank account numbers, licenses, and other stuff that you probably need easy access to but still want to be secured. For the past few months, I’ve been saving these items to an Apple Note. But there are several downsides to that method:

• No quick-copy function.
• You’ll want to have that note locked for extra security…
• But locking it prevents it from being shared with a spouse or other trusted partner.
• And, more troubling because of recent revelations regarding your iPhone’s passcode, you don’t need biometrics (Face ID or Touch ID) to view the note — your phone’s passcode will unlock it as well.

A Sidebar on Why Having a Biometric Authentication-Only Option Is Crucial These Days

You might not realize it, but your passcode is the primary unlocking mechanism to your phone. Not Face ID or Touch ID, which you use more often, but the 4+ digit passcode (or alphanumerical password if you set that up). It’s required when your phone restarts, for example. And it works as the failsafe when Face or Touch ID doesn’t unlock for some reason. That’s all well and good, but passcodes are easy to steal and fingerprints and 3D scans of your face are not.

If you don’t know why this matters, I encourage you to read Joanna Stern and Nicole Nguyen’s reporting for the Wall Street Journal (News+ link) concerning how bad actors are using social engineering to learn your phone’s passcode before stealing it from you. It’s not as dramatic as an interrogation and a mugging. No, this typically happens at a bar or somewhere they can get buddy-buddy with you and then offer to take your group photo or connect on social media. But — ah shoot — your phone is locked so they can’t get the shot. You willingly offer up your passcode because, hey, you’re never going to see them again so what could it hurt? But then, later on, they pickpocket you and now they have both physical access to your phone and your passcode.

This sounds bad because now they can look at nearly anything on your phone including private photos, passwords, banking apps, peer-to-peer payment apps, and more. But in fact, it’s worse. Because so many people forget their critical Apple ID password, Apple has made it possible for you to reset that password with only your iPhone’s passcode. So an enterprising crook can go in and change that password, effectively stealing not just your physical phone, but everything associated with your Apple ID. Messages gone. Photos gone. iCloud backups gone. Apps and purchased media gone. And no way to get it back.

[Stern recently did a follow-up on this report by interviewing a man convicted of this very crime.]

The good news is that Apple is going to introduce a new (optional) feature called Stolen Device Protection with the upcoming iOS 17.3 software release. With Stolen Device Protection turned on, there will be additional safeguards to prevent the passcode from having so much power. Your iCloud Keychain passwords will require Face ID or Touch ID to be viewed — no passcode failsafe. And, crucially, your Apple ID password will also require two biometric unlocks with at least an hour-long buffer between them.

Apple has done a thorough job thinking through the threat models and I think they’ve come up with a reasonable and fairly elegant solution. But I’m left with one particular worry:

Since iCloud Passwords doesn’t offer a way to store non-website credentials, where are people putting their bank account numbers, their license numbers, their Social Security numbers, and their credit card numbers?

My guess? Probably in Apple Notes which, as we have already established, allows for a passcode override if Face/Touch ID doesn’t work. And that’s if the user ever bothered to lock the individual note to begin with!

I don’t believe that iOS 17.3 changes any behavior in Notes, but you can bet that I’ll be checking when that update is released.

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe

All of that is to say, I’m really glad that with the Secrets app, you can require biometric authentication to unlock the app and you don’t have to allow a passcode as a backup.

I’ve happily moved over the data that I was storing in an Apple Note (one that I had titled ’Secrets’, funnily enough) into the Secrets app. Secrets, while not the most polished app, appears to be a solid contender in the password manager space. It at least checks off all the shortcomings of using an Apple Note:

✅ You can quick-copy items from the list view (long press to get a context menu) or in the item view (tap on the field to reveal a ‘Copy’ button).
✅ The app is locked by default, you can choose to have it unlock with biometrics only (or with a passcode or passphrase if you want — but don’t), and how quickly it locks again when you exit the app.
✅ Vaults can be shared (and making changes to a vault’s settings requires an additional unlock) so you can make different buckets to share items with family, friends, colleagues, etc.
✅ And the data you save is all encrypted and synced via iCloud. No third-party syncing system is required. Not that third parties do a bad job as a rule, but I trust Apple to have top-notch resources and engineers to secure my data.

One More Unresolved Threat

There is, unfortunately, at least one more way that criminals could still really screw you over if they have access to your phone and passcode: Too many apps don’t offer any sort of authentication protection, and those that do almost always allow for your passcode to work in place of biometrics. For example, if I cover up my face and open up my bank app, after a few fails it just offers to let me type in my phone’s passcode to open it.

When Face ID fails for PayPal, it lets you log in using the PayPal username and password, which can be accessed with your phone’s passcode right now, but come iOS 17.3, will be fenced off by biometrics specifically. 👍

I’ll give kudos to both the Cash App and Venmo, which allows you to set a separate 4-digit PIN to use in case of biometric failure. So don’t set it the same as your phone’s passcode! I’ve gone ahead and made new ones for them and saved them to — you guessed it — Secrets.

I’m focusing on financial apps here because they are the most obvious way that a criminal is probably going to try to continue to steal from you. They’ll empty your bank account to theirs. They’ll take your account numbers to make purchases. They’ll request money from your friends.

But honestly, I think Apple should cover all their bases here and offer a way to lock access to any app, system-wide, behind discreet authentication. They can even follow Secrets’ lead here by giving users the option to lock an app behind biometrics and/or a passcode/passphrase. And you know what? Build in those same locking delay options we saw above as well.

I should be able to prevent anyone from freely jumping into my photos app, my notes app, SnapChat, Discord, or anything that they could, intentionally or not, do some damage if I hand them my phone. And I shouldn’t have to wait for every app developer to build the feature and then go hunting for it in every app. Having a way to lock the important ones right from the Settings app is the way it should work. And I happen to know such a feature would be a godsend for parents of young children. A few years ago, my sister specifically asked me if I knew how to lock apps because when she handed her phone or iPad over to her kids for a little screen time they were deleting things by mistake or getting into ones that they shouldn’t.

Apple has the opportunity to solve this headache in one fell swoop. Sure, there will be edge cases to work around — like what happens when someone locks themselves out of every app by mistake? — but I believe Apple’s engineers are up for the challenge. They’ve proven with their approach to Stolen Device Protection that they can come up with a solution that balances security and convenience for most people, most of the time. The fact that they addressed passcode theft so head-on gives me hope that attending to these related problems is next on the to-do list.

In the meantime, don’t forget to download and unlock Secrets before the Indie App Santa discount expires in just a few hours. I think you’ll be glad that you did.

---

Update: It appears that the Secrets team changed their discount at some point today. What was a 100% discount on the Editing + Sharing purchase is now a $20 discount, bringing the one-time purchase price down to $80. It could be worth that $80 to pay only once (as opposed to 1Password’s $60 per year for a shared plan), but $80 is steep to jump in on a whim.

Sorry about that. 😕

Apps Tips

1. I’ve got some time, I’ll write up a few of those blog posts on the back burner!
2. [Starts writing and then — bum bum bum — hits a small speed bump in the workflow] I bet I could write a script to make that better real quick.
3. Oh, that was a clever solution! I should share it real quick.
4. Well, in order to use it, you really have to do some customization. I’ll just write out the instructions in a blog post real quick.
5. Oh, but what if you used a shortcut to create the script itself?! I’ll just make that super quick.
6. Hmm…I’ve actually already made a shortcut like this before. Maybe I should just combine them into one real quick — it’ll be more useful to people that way.
7. Shoot, I never moved that shortcut over to my site’s library. I guess I should update it and get it on my site while I’m in here so that it’s all done. Real quick?
8. This little thing is turning into a whole thing. It’s kind of funny how these projects always seem to spiral out of control. It would actually make a pretty funny blog post.
9. [Writes, edits, and publishes this very blog post.]
10. Haha, that was great! Now, uh, what was I doing?

Update: 11. Literally reads through this very blog post to follow the breadcrumbs back and figure out that I left off with… Ah yes, including the newly updated shortcut in the blog post about the script I wrote so that can be published and I can, maybe, if there’s still time tonight, write one of the many blog posts on my to-write list. 😅

Blogging

M.G. Siegler started to raise my hackles when he wrote on his 500ish blog about how Apple’s latest iPhone event cemented his feeling that the pre-recorded keynote video missed the mark — not in content, but in format:

Since the pandemic, I’ve been a fan of Apple’s production of these events. They took their signature staged hoopla started by Steve Jobs and packaged it into something that could be consumed even when people couldn’t crowd around a stage. In some ways, they were better than the events of yore. Certainly more inclusive — in every meaning of that word — and a more fluid way to showcase product progressions. But as I was watching Tim Cook and company on stage — but not actually on stage, mind you — yesterday, I couldn’t help but feeling a little… empty? Everything looked good. But it just didn’t feel right. There was a tangible lack of tangibility. And thus, a lack of excitement.

You see, my initial reaction to this article was that while tech pundits might be getting bored of Apple’s “new” (three years old) keynote style, it’s not their goal to entertain writers and YouTubers — it’s to sell their products. And I have to believe that the slick videos, seamless demos, and tightly-edited scripts are a more efficient way of showing off the new products and their features.

But then Siegler reeled me back in with this observation:

Case in point: after the keynote opened yesterday with a (truly moving) video about how Apple’s devices have literally saved lives, we cut to a pre-recorded video of Cook in the middle of Apple Park. “As we just saw, nothing is more important than helping save lives.” I don’t think Cook is insincere in saying that, but it’s such an awkward, canned delivery that it feels flippant. Because he didn’t just watch the video alongside us, he was in Apple Park a few days or weeks ago, filming his lines. If he were delivering that line on an actual stage, live, he might emote and connect more directly with the audience.

And I think such connections would work for many of the product unveilings too. This was the not-so-secret secret of Jobs’ stage presence in these events. They worked so well because he was clearly excited about the products. And he conveyed that sincerity masterfully, live. It’s human nature that if you’re watching someone show enthusiasm about something, as long as it seems sincere, it’s going to rub off on you.

And this one:

“And I’d like to show it to you now,” Cook says at one point leading into an iPhone unveil. But again, he wouldn’t actually like to show it to us now as he speaks those words in real-time, because he wouldn’t be showing us anything for days/weeks yet. It simply cannot be a sincere statement.

So, now I’m all conflicted. On one hand, I like watching the heavily-produced keynotes and do believe that they help Apple tell the story that they want to tell. Which is, objectively, the whole point of them. Plus, they’re technically and visually stunning. But Siegler makes a compelling point that having a live audience adds gravitas to the message being delivered. But it’s not because we need the “will it fail?” tension for demos — that misses the point. No, it’s knowing, even as someone watching the keynote through a screen across space and time, that it was delivered to a live audience. That the presenters were actually presenting to someone that adds that special sauce.

Does that knowledge that the introduction of a product was done live instead of solely in front of a camera compell more people to buy Apple products? I’m not sure. But I do think it leaves a more lasting impression on those in attendance, and those people might then do a better job than they otherwise would have to spread the word and help Apple sell more products.

This may sound like the opposite of what I argued just a few months ago — that Apple should do these videos for every product roll out. But I think that’s still true. I think anything Apple has released that was previously done via press release should get one of these videos now. But for the biggest events — the iPhone event and WWDC, with maybe one more event sprinkled in some years — perhaps a return to the stage, the live stage, is warranted.

Well done, Siegler, I think you’ve pulled me aboard.

Linked

Brent Simmons, writing for inessential.com on the viability of shoehorning his RSS reader app into also being a Mastodon client:

It still seems like RSS and Mastodon could fit in the same app, though! If I were designing it, I’d start with the social media experience: the single timeline of posts. Very simple sidebar. No article view. No read/unread status — just position in the timeline.

You could add RSS feeds, but they’d be treated like Mastodon posts. Any article short enough would appear in full in the timeline, but most would probably have to be truncated. You’d open articles in your browser, just like you do now with social media apps (there’d be no third article pane).

Such an app could be a nice unified experience. Get your Mastodon, Threads, RSS feeds, Micro.blog and, hopefully, other services — anything that supports ActivityPub, RSS, or some other open format or API — all in one place, in a way that’s already familiar to everyone.

Sounds pretty great! But it’s not NetNewsWire.

I think Simmons is right on point when he posits that “social app as RSS reader” would work while “RSS reader as a social app” really would not.

I’ve actually been experimenting with that “RSS reader as social app” idea by following my Micro.blog’s timeline — with all its posts and replies — in Reeder via Sven Dahlstrand’s fantastic feed generator. It’s… okay. But conversations are hard to follow, and it’s not as pleasant or efficient as a native social timeline.

Funnily enough, Micro.blog already offers something like the solution that Simmons recommends. Since you can follow not only other Micro.blog users, but also Mastodon (and other Fediverse) accounts and individual sites just from their URL, you could certainly use Micro.blog as your home base with many windows out to the wider web.

I haven’t tried that yet (mostly because it would be a huge hassle to follow, and potentially unfollow, everyone there from my RSS reader) but I’m considering it as another experiment.

Linked

I very much enjoyed this holiday and year-end-themed episode of Clockwise.

⏱️⏱️⏱️

Mikah Sargent: What was a time that tech made you happy this year?

I know I just talked about my smart home stuff a few weeks ago, but it’s those Lutron Caseta switches that are top of mind for positive tech this year. It brought me lots of joy to be able to tell my wife that she wouldn’t need to worry about Siri not hearing her correctly, or having to go through her phone to operate our lights anymore. She could use the wall switches if she wanted, and I wouldn’t have to worry about her cutting off power to the smart lights for our automations or smart controls. A total win-win.

⏱️⏱️⏱️

Abrar Al-Heeti: What has been the most significant tech advancement or product launch this year?

For the world, I would unequivocally say “AI” in all its nebulous and non-specific glory. But I don’t really use any of the chatbots or image generation tools very often. So for me, I think the rise of ActivityPub and decentralized-yet-interoperable social networking has been the most significant advancement. I use Micro.blog for my primary social networking, and I’m very fond of the community I’ve built there. But Micro.blog also talks with Mastodon and other “Fediverse” instances. And with Threads following suit, I’m terribly excited for the next chapter of microblogging.

As much as it’s been both infuriating and sad to see the demise of Twitter, I’ve come to accept Elon Musk’s takeover there and his retooling the network into X as a healthy thing for the Internet as a whole. More people are more conscious about where they do their microblogging and how it can talk to other networks. Everything is a little less consolidated to one chamber. And although I expect Threads to be the new “place to be”, there were at least be more viable escape pods, and I think it’ll be more friendly to the rest of the web since it’s going to be ActivityPub compatible.

⏱️⏱️⏱️

Dan Moren: Technlogically-speaking, is there something in 2024 that you’re looking forward to?

I haven’t been as excited for a new tech product as I am for the Apple Vision Pro since probably when the Apple Watch came out. I’ve been diligently saving my pennies so that I can order one on launch day (🤞). The product reveal blew me away, and I can’t wait to try it for myself.

We have one main television in our house, and my wife gets primary use of it since she likes play PlayStation games there. But there are a lot of movies and TV shows that I think deserve to be watched in a more cinematic viewing experience than on my computer screen or iPad. So I think I’ll be catching up on a lot of TV with the Vision Pro. Plus, I really want to experience this new computing environment from the start. I think it’s going to make profound leaps during my lifetime, and I want to know every iteration — like folks who were around when the Macintosh was first introduced have gotten to do for the past 40 years.

⏱️⏱️⏱️

Sarah Bickerton: What gift have you bought just for yourself this holiday?

I have a terrible habit of buying things that I want or need for myself year-round, rather than putting them on a wish list. It makes me notoriously difficult to shop for, I’m told, but it’s a hard habit to break. So, yes, I did get a few things leading up to this holiday season.

I’ll mention the Hoto Laser Measuring Tool because I discovered it when ordering gifts of my favorite Hoto Electric Screwdriver. It’s an impossibly small and lightweight “tape” measure that uses a laster pointer to judge exactly how far a distance is. Seems to be quite accurate, and it’s way faster and easier to measure longer distances that unfurling a traditional tape measure and hoping it’ll stick where you hook it. For things like shipping boxes, or more oddly-shaped items, you can bounce the laser off your hand to get its length, width, and height.

It’s currently marked down from $60 to just under $40 when you use a 15% coupon on Amazon.

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Bonus Question: What is the best dish that you, yourself, make?

My cooking skills have really suffered the past few years as my wife’s have soared. She enjoys it, so she does the lion’s share of our cooking. That said, when I have to bring a dish to pass my go-to recipe the past few years has been for Ted Lasso biscuits. You know, the ones that Ted makes for Rebecca every morning that she can’t get enough of. (Yes, they really are that good.)

I found it in The New York Times’ recipes:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ½ cups/340 grams cold unsalted butter (3 sticks), cut into 1/2-inch pieces, plus more for greasing the pan
• 3 cups/385 grams all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
• 1 ¼ teaspoons fine sea salt

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, and line with parchment paper so that there is a 2-inch overhang on the two long sides.

Prepare the shortbread: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or beaters, mix together flour, sugar and salt. Beat in butter on low speed until dough just comes together but is still a little crumbly. (Or pulse together ingredients in a food processor.)

Press dough into prepared pan. Prick dough all over with a fork. Bake until golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from oven.

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My Question: What sticks out to you as a favorite Christmas or holiday memory as a kid?

Our extended family always got together at my grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve. We’d hang out, have a potluck dinner, and then all the grandkids went upstairs with my Grandma to read story books and sing Christmas carols together while Santa arrived downstairs and delivered gifts beneath the tree. When we heard his sleigh bells out in the yard, we knew he had visited and we’d rush downstairs to find bites from platter of milk and cookies we’d left, nibbles out of the reindeer’s carrots, and boot prints out in the snow.

I can’t thank my family enough for those wonderful memories and for making the magic of Christmas come to life for us like that.

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To all who celebrate, I hope you had a happy Christmas with your loved ones. 🎄

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