For the PenPals project this month, I’m corresponding with Robert Silvernail. You can follow along with our conversation here and check out his site at ultrasexybeast.net.

Here’s a teaser of our first exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

Robert expresses surprise and flattery at being invited to participate in the project. He shares a glimpse of his background, including growing up in Michigan, working in technology, and returning to the education sector as a Technology Coordinator. Robert details his recent volunteer work for the Free Fair Association, managing wireless networks and playing a crucial role in the “World’s Largest Free Fair.” He includes images of the fair and signs off with a reference to his adventures in education and carnivals. In Jarrod’s response, he acknowledges the unusual dynamic of writing letters to a longtime friend and reminisces about their shared history. He expresses gratitude for Robert’s role in encouraging his interest in technology and reflects on their early communication methods. Jarrod discusses Robert’s inclination toward both big and small projects, seeking insights into the conscious or unconscious decision-making behind these choices. He shares his thoughts on potential volunteer work, mentioning interest in becoming a Climbing Merit Badge counselor and exploring opportunities with local organizations. Jarrod encourages Robert to share more Free Fair escapades, memorable experiences, and future goals in subsequent letters.

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

Back in July for the PenPals project, I was corresponding with Jason Becker, the instigator of this whole series of letters sent around the web. He sent me a reply months ago to round out our conversation. It was profound and has taken me a while to digest and find worthwhile words to respond. Here’s a breif summary of our final exchange by ChatGPT:

In Jason’s third letter, he responds to Jarrod’s suggestion of making his writing more personal and reflective, drawing parallels between writing and personal flourishing. Jason shares insights into his career journey from chemistry to policy to leading a development team at a software startup, relating it to finding his own patch of land. He acknowledges the challenge of balancing risk-taking in both short-term and long-term planning, expressing concerns about discovering and living the life he wants. Jason reflects on the difficulty of breaking routine and embracing new experiences due to a base level of complacency. In Jarrod’s reply, he commends Jason’s poetic expression and resonates with the fear of complacency. Jarrod discusses his own fears, emphasizing the importance of using fear as a tool for positive action rather than letting it lead to inaction. He shares insights from rock climbing experiences, emphasizing the need to move through fear and take action to become more powerful and capable. Jarrod concludes by expressing gratitude for the conversation.

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

I’m having a hard time reconciling this assertion by Jay Peters for The Verge that Google didn’t build any safeguards into their new AI camera features…

There’s nothing inherently wrong with manipulating your own photos. People have done it for a very long time. But Google’s tools put powerful photo manipulation features — the kinds of edits that were previously only available with some Photoshop knowledge and hours of work — into everyone’s hands and encourage them to be used on a wide scale, without any particular guardrails or consideration for what that might mean. Suddenly, almost any photo you take can be instantly turned into a fake.

…with these, well, safeguards described just a few paragraphs later:

Using Best Take does not add metadata to photos, Marconi says, but there are some restrictions on the feature that could prevent it from being used nefariously. Best Take does not generate new facial expressions, and it “uses an on-device face detection algorithm to match up a face across six photos taken within seconds of each other,” according to Marconi. It also can’t pull expressions from photos outside that timeframe; Marconi says the source images for Best Take “requires metadata that shows they were taken within a 10-second window.”

I’m as wary as the next person about this acceleration into AI-manipulated content — okay, I’m probably a little less wary than the next person as I think that the bumpy road will smooth out and people will adapt — but it feels a bit unfair to characterize Google as having given no forethought to the potential downsides of their technology. Their direct quotes demonstrate otherwise.

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Related: This discussion between David Pierce and Allison Johnson on The Vergecast about how making these kinds of AI edits on your own photos will make you‌ feel has stuck with me:

Continue listening to hear more about the guardrails that Google has put into its new Magic Editor.

Linked

I’ve seen a number of posts from folks who, 8 years after its features were essentially duplicated by Apple Music, are still paying $25 a year for iTunes Match and wondering what would happen if they stopped. Would they lose cloud streaming access to all their locally ripped and matched tracks? Would it all continue to work seamlessly just through Apple Music? It’s never been quite clear.

Well, here’s Matthew Panzarino (outgoing Editor in Chief of TechCrunch and someone who would know the right people to ask) on Threads with the most helpful answer I’ve seen to date:

I have a definitive answer on what would happen - straight from, uh sources. Match features are included in Apple Music. There is a slight difference in that with Match the files you can re-download are DRM free. With Apple Music they have DRM. So, after your Apple Music sub ends the downloads would no longer be playable. If you had Match your downloads would live on. But if you never end your AM subscription then there is no difference in features.

If, of course, you have a huge local library backed up or whatever then none of it matters. It’s only ‘cloud first’ folks that have deleted locally that might end up with issues cancelling. Or oddities like Match having replaced one track with another.

So it sounds like if you download a local copy of your music first, then you would have a DRM-free library just in case and could safely cancel iTunes Match. And you can still sign up for iTunes Match today — a fact I only just learned — if you change your mind.

Personally, I left iTunes Match behind long ago. I think even knowingly deleted the local copies of my ripped music. I could, even now, still download local DRM-free copies of my music purchased from the iTunes Store. But I decided that I didn’t want the mental overhead of managing an offline music library. I did the same with the movies I once spent hours ripping and converting. I grew tired of trying to make home media servers like iTunes Home Sharing or Plex work. I’m happy to rent access to the world’s music and media.

Here’s Apple’s support document on iTunes Match.

(Via the conversation on Manton Reece’s post.)

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Update 2023-10-29: According to John Siracusa on ATP, via an article on iMore, you can download your matched and uploaded music DRM-free without being subscribed to iTunes Match. Apple Music-proper has allowed that since 2017. Another reason to save yourself $25 per year on that overlapping service.

Linked

Mark Gurman, in his latest Power On newsletter:

Apple is planning a new system for its retail stores that will update the software on iPhones prior to sale. The company has developed a proprietary pad-like device that the store can place boxes of iPhones on top of. That system can then wirelessly turn on the iPhone, update its software and then power it back down — all without the phone’s packaging ever being opened. The company aims to begin rolling this out to its stores before the end of the year.

That would be super nice for customers to avoid dealing with a software update as their first experience with an exciting new gadget. But I can also see it being a huge headache for Backstage employees to pull all the inventory of unopened phones off the shelves, wait for them to finish their updating deal on that pad, and then restock them all. Especially with how frequent minor updates and security patches get rolled out these days, that’s a massive amount of new labor to add onto already-busy retail employees.

I’ll be interested to hear if Apple’s worked out a nifty system to streamline it all.

Linked

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

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1️⃣ I’m all for this idea of being able to snapshot the current status of a smart home to easily recreate that same scene later. [🔗 Ben Lovejoy // 9to5mac.com]

2️⃣ A $17 movie night either 10 short films, fun dip, and popcorn flavoring? And you get to vote for the winning film to earn a $100,000 grand prize? Sounds like fun! [🔗 cahfest.com]

3️⃣ This is a weird one. Apple shared an hour-and-a-half-long video of a guided study session for you to work with using the Pomodoro technique. The videography is, as you can imagine, impeccable. [⏯️ Apple // youtube.com]

4️⃣ This would have been so novel to see at home as the news station switched from black and white to a color broadcast. [⏯️ Back to the Past // youtube.com] (Via Jason Kottke)

5️⃣ Oh my god, you’ve got to check out this ice climbing shoe. It’s wild-looking on its own, but the hilarious reviews really seal the deal. 😂 [🔗 Mega Ice Evo // lasportivausa.com]

6️⃣ The UI for reading/listening to a voice note on Threads is pretty slick. [🔗 @jaypetersplus // threads.net]

7️⃣ You like squircles? We got squircles. I like this idea that the closer to the human something is, the rounder the design should be. [🔗 Arun Venkatesan // arun.is]

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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.

7 Things

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

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1️⃣ Would you enjoy being greeted by Tim Cook with a heartfelt “Good Morning!” upon opening your door? Cause now I kinda do. [🔗 The Studio // youtube.com]

2️⃣ Uh oh. This doesn’t bode well for my hopes of an iPhone mini-sized SE. [🔗 Marko Zivkovic // macrumors.com]

3️⃣ This is an e-ink…phone? But without the phone part I think. 🤔 [🔗 shop.boox.com]

4️⃣ BasicAppleGuy created a stunning Apple logo design to celebrate the season. [🔗 @BasicAppleGuy // mastodon.social]

5️⃣ It’s a bit of a bummer, but I thought this NYT article’s comparison of Elon Musk’s handling of antisemitism on X to what it would be like for the mayor of a town to handle the expression of Nazis is a physical town in the same way was apt. [🔗 David French // nytimes.com]

6️⃣ I haven’t tried it out yet, but this new StreetPass Mac app by Tyler Deitz looks so good for collecting the social accounts to follow of cool sites you stumble across on the web. [🔗 apps.apple.com] (Via Andrew Canion)

7️⃣ I don’t have a laptop, but if you do and need to clean the keyboard from time to time, then this latest app from Gui Rambo will come in handy. [🔗 cleanupbuddy.app]

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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.

7 Things

Sean Hollister, writing for The Verge about Google supposed 7-year guaranteed updates for the Pixel 8 lineup:

[A Google spokesperson] also wrote that “not every update is available for every phone due to various limitations,” without describing those limitations. What could they possibly be? The Pro does have 12GB of RAM vs. 8GB on the non-Pro, but it’s hard to imagine that being the blocker on something as simple as camera controls — or, for that matter, features that don’t even run on your device but rather in the cloud. 

Speaking of that, Google did tell Android Authority why one specific feature is exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro: “the cost of the cloud infrastructure required to run Video Boost processing” is behind the decision to gate it behind the pricier phone for now. Video Boost is in the cloud, so it has nothing to do with the phone’s capabilities and everything to do with economics. 

And frankly, that’s what I’m worried about for the entirety of Google’s seven-year promise.

It has me skeptical too. Apple doesn’t come out and say OS updates are guaranteed for its devices ahead of time. But they’ve shown us over time that they do their best to support a device for as long as possible. Action speaks louder than words, and all that.

Here’s something else to think about. Sure, there are some new OS features that doesn’t get back ported to the oldest devices. But those are the exception, not the rule. Google’s wording makes it seem like they’ll sprinkle features out, but, as Hollister points out, they could never get a full OS upgrade. It might become harder than ever to distinguish what your Pixel can and can’t do.

Linked

I went rock climbing alone tonight. Not the bonkers, ropeless, free solo (yes, that Free Solo) style. I had a rope, and my setup meant that I was arguably safer even than when I climb with a partner. But I was alone, and that’s kind of unusual for me when rock climbing. And in this case, it was pretty great.

I should be clear that one of my favorite parts about climbing is the community. In my experience, climbers have been the most welcoming, supportive, and quietly rad people to be around. Everyone trying their hardest toward an individual, yet still collective, goal: climb amazing rock. And, until recently, I always climbed with a partner because I needed someone to hold the other end of the rope.

But, it’s not always easy to find a climbing partner. Especially after work, in the fall, as light is fading, on a hot day. So what’s a guy to do? For me, I learned how to top rope solo. It’s a technique of setting up your rope so that it’s fixed (secured) at the top of the climb. Then you rappel down to the bottom and hook yourself onto the rope with a couple of ascenders (a primary one and a backup). Those are designed to slide up the rope, but, critically, not back down. For TR soloing, that means I can climb routes that I can set up from above, without fear of falling to the ground. If I need to rest, or if I slip off the holds while climbing, I basically just end up sitting back in my harness with very little slippage or loss of progress up the rock.

But I’m relatively new to TR soloing, and so far it had always been nerve-racking to set up and climb alone. Without the security of someone else to double-check me, it’s all on me to make sure I’m safe. I triple-check everything, but I’ve always been a bit trepidatious that it would all work as intended.

But tonight was different. I felt confident in my systems. I chose a route up the rock that I was already quite familiar with. I reveled in the ability to take as much time on the rock as I wanted. I could explore new movements and inspect minuscule rock features without feeling bad about making my belayer work harder. Without any sort of audience, I never felt self-conscious about my technique. I felt free, in tune with the rock, and at peace.

At one point, I popped in an AirPod and asked Siri to play my personal radio station. Apple Music served up the perfect playlist of relaxed vibe tunes that aided my sublime flow up the rock. At several points, I just stopped and looked in awe at the descending sun poking through the peak autumn leaves.

I climbed into the night and my world shrunk down to the small space around my body where I could just make out the tiny features of the rock to grip or perch on. Those little nubbins were the only important things in the world in those moments.

I think I’ll always prefer climbing with a partner. It’s wonderful to share those experiences, encouraging one another up the rock. But on days where there’s no climbing buddy to be found, or on days where I just need some time to myself to move and think, I’ll gladly grab my soloing setup and just climb by me, with me, for me.

Climbing

I’m delighted to share that I was the most recent guest on Martin Feld’s Really Specific Stories podcast. I’ve mentioned RSS before, but in a nutshell it’s a podcast where Martin asks folks about their relationship to podcasts, and then follows the conversation wherever it leads. It’s also part of his graduate research project!

As a big fan of Martin in general, and RSS specifically, it was quite the thrill to be interviewed by him for that show. We delved into my history with podcasts, the how and why I got into blogging, where my fascination for Apple and tech stems from, my thoughts on Jason Snell’s groundbreaking 20 Macs for 2020 project, I think about accessibility, and so much more along the way. Even my favorite color. 😉

Martin is a supremely talented and curious interviewer, keenly latching onto key bits of the conversation and drawing out connections even I didn’t notice about myself. As I told Martin when he invited me on, I usually feel very self-conscious to talk about myself and am typically a flat storyteller. That, along with this being my very first time on the speaking side of a podcast rather than the listening side, made me quite nervous. But it paradoxically felt both exhilarating and completely comfortable to just chat with Martin as an internet friend. All those hours listening to RSS and another of Martin’s shows, the also-great Hemispheric Views, made it easy to jump into our conversation.

I hope you’ll check out my episode and the rest of the RSS back catalog. Every episode has been great, but Martin really scored a blockbuster guest in the episode before mine — Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. A tough act to follow for sure, but I’ve got to say that it’s surreal to be in the same RSS feed as Gruber and many other of my internet heroes.

Podcasts Elsewhere