The reason why I didn’t start a blog in the last five years? Simple: I liked to fantasize about starting more than I liked putting in the work. Everytime I daydreamed about writing, I felt great. Staring down the blank page, on the other hand, didn’t feel great. To be honest, deep down, we all know why we don’t start stuff. How many more posts on avoidance and procrastination can we stomach, really?
Here’s something unusual, I think: Trying to break through a blank page to write something worth reading is never a problem I’ve had.
I have effectively endless ideas for the things I want to write about — just never enough time to write them. They each have a title and perhaps a few bullet points of content that I jot down when the idea sparks. Places to start, in other words.
But when a really good idea strikes, I can’t help but write all of it down in one go. This post, for example, was written from the toilet (sorry, if TMI) in a Shortcuts prompt because I just had to get it all out of my head in the moment. But when I don’t have an all-consuming blog post to materialize, I turn to my list containing dozens of fragile ideas to cultivate into something I’m proud to publish.
Wes Davis and Richard Lawler, writing for The Verge about the new 800 tweet per day limit for unverified users (8,000 for paying, verified users):
The limitations are being applied one day after Twitter suddenly started blocking access for anyone who isn’t logged in, which Musk claimed was necessary because “Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience.”
Good to hear that this change is having zero effect on the real experience for Twitter users. Oh, wait…
Can I interest you in a social network that doesn’t limit the number of posts you can read, is third-party developer friendly, and gives you a whole website and blog at your own domain (that can’t be taken from you or turned off) for $1 per month. Or you can read and reply to posts for free.
This is a peak at my final correspondence with Chris V (as summarized by ChatGPT) for the PenPals project this month:
Chris congratulates Jarrod on buying a house and shares his experiences with property ownership in Switzerland. He discusses language learning, revealing his proficiency in Swiss German, Dutch, English, and partial knowledge of French. Chris delves into his journey of writing in English, emphasizing the creative freedom it offers. He explores his love for fiction writing, specifically in the fantasy and science fiction genres, and details his learning process. Chris expresses excitement about his new job in AR, the benefits of working in a startup, and his preference for a less bureaucratic work environment. The conversation also touches on the challenges of maintaining a blog, writing habits, and reflections on life choices. Jarrod responds, acknowledging the challenges of the housing market, expressing admiration for Chris’s multilingual abilities, discussing ASL, and sharing insights into his work schedule. Jarrod expresses optimism for a more open social web, discusses his
job in a gear shop and guiding company, and shares fond memories of camping. He appreciates the exchange of personal stories and looks forward to future interactions.
If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.
I welcome Meta/Instagram to the open social web (Fediverse). There’s a 0% chance I could get my parents, my sisters, or even my wife to sign up for Mastodon or Micro.blog, so they have a far more limited look into my life than when I was posting to Facebook. Even Instagram posts are a rarity from me these days. But I love writing for my blog and microblog, and I wish they could get updates from there alongside the rest of their social media.
If Instagram’s ActivityPub project (Threads?) comes to fruition, that reality would be one step closer. Part of the beauty of the social web is having more personal control over who you do and do not interact with online — control that I’m less than comfortable with the hosting platform using too heavy a hand on.
Preemptively blocking a Meta property from integrating with the open social web is over the line. And I think it would lead toward more of the status quo, rather than a more interoperable web.
A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
I hope you’ll allow me a moment of reflection on this hundredth issue of 7 Things This Week. It’s somewhat cliche to say “It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long”, but it’s also true. I’ve been putting out a 7 Things post every (read: most) Sundays for over two years now. It was one of the first project ideas that I had after starting HeyDingus. I was inspired by Kotkee.org, MacStories Weekly, and other link roundups. Sometimes I have tons to share while other times I’m scrambling to find cool stuff from my YouTube history and read-later archives. But I’ve loved the routine of putting something out each week and sharing little blurbs about what’s caught my interest.
My favorite 7 Things posts, as you can see below, are usually the themed ones and I’m hoping to do more of those this year. Occasionally, they provide me the structure I need to express emotional things that I otherwise struggle with.
Thanks for reading along each week. And thanks to the folks who have reached out after being featured here, or have just enjoyed the lists. It’s always a thrill to hear from y’all, including Martin Feld, Vincent Ritter, Jose Munoz, and more. 🧡
4️⃣7 Things (Which Are Pics From My ADK Trip) This Week [#29] // This was a photoblog of the trip that ended up sealing the deal for my wife and I moving to the Adirondacks. It was a great trip and moving here has been one of our very best decisions.
5️⃣7 Things (Shared by ChatGPT) This Week [#86] // This was when I saw more potential in ChatGPT for me personally. It nailed listing out cool sites that I could have actually linked to in 7 Things, and it did it in seconds.
6️⃣7 Things (I’m Exploring in Earnest) This Week [#64] 👀 // I don’t do a lot of teases but this was fun because Blot got me excited about writing again and learning some new coding skills. I liked spilling the beans that some big changes were coming to the site.
Congrats, because now we get to do it again. Until today, the explanation was “If you have a Tesla, it’s this. If you don’t, it’s this.” No more.
Not only did I not realize that the UShad standardized around one charger style (save for Tesla), but it sounds like the Combined Charging System (CCS) was well on its way to be the global go-to as well. Improvements could have been made to bring its usability and speed closer to Tesla’s. Plus, I’m more and more loathe to an Elon Musk company gaining more power and influence.
But now that GM, Rivian, and others have adopted the Tesla charger as well, I fear the toothpaste will be very difficult to coax back into the tube.
A few more worthwhile quotes:
Today, I get to dust it off for the rather disheartening news that Ford is, seemingly, abandoning the single biggest global charging standard for its EVs, the standard that already defeated another major charging standard, the standard that finally, after years of confusion, aligned every major global EV manufacturer — well, except for one.
[…]
Ford went through great, great lengths to explain how the F-150 Lightning’s bidirectional Charge Station Pro could not only power your house in an outage, but could even offset your power usage, recharging at night then running your AC unit during the day.
Now, it’s moving to a standard that has no support for bidirectional charging.
Musk did make a vague promise that it’s coming “in the next two years, let’s say,” but I don’t need to tell you how reliable these sorts of timelines tend to be.
It’s been a good week for Tesla’s NACS standard — Texas made a similar announcement on Tuesday, saying it would also start requiring electric vehicle charging companies to use the standard in order to receive federal dollars. The state’s DOT told Reuters via email that “the decision by Ford, GM, and now Rivian to adopt NACS changed requirements for Phase 1” of Texas’ rollout of a federally-funded electrification program.
Also on Tuesday, electric automaker and Tesla competitor Rivian announced its intention to adopt NACS for its future vehicles, which would give those cars access to the already-robust network of Tesla Supercharger stations throughout the country. Hyundai is also considering the standard, though it said it depends on customer interest, as Tesla’s chargers don’t charge at the higher rate supported by its own EV platform. Electric charging company BTC Power, which supplies DC and AC vehicle chargers to convenience stores and fleet operations, also announced its intention to support NACS.
The train has left the station and is gaining speed.
Here’s a look my our second exchange with Chris, as summarized by ChatGPT:
Chris appreciates Jarrod’s letter project for its writing challenges and language practice. He shares mixed emotions about leaving a long-term job for a new role in AR, emphasizing the perks of being the third employee and working remotely. Chris discusses his limited interest in computer games, his morning writing habits, and reflections on app subscriptions. He touches on his prolific fiction writing week and thoughts on WWDC, expressing anticipation for changes with a new work Mac. Jarrod, in response, apologizes for the delay due to personal events, discusses Chris’s language background, and shares excitement about Chris’s new venture. Jarrod praises Chris’s writing habits, inquires about his fiction preferences, and reflects on app pricing complexities. The letter concludes with Jarrod sharing their house-buying journey and expressing enthusiasm for the move.
If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.
A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
I totally mixed up my days and thought today was Sunday. Whoops!
1️⃣ I got a good chuckle out of these eight rules for loving a fulfilling life. Now I want nothing more than to become a Mirror-Person. [🔗 thoughtsbyaashiq.bearblog.dev]
2️⃣ Whoa, I did not expect to get so emotional watching this student pilot land her plane after the front wheel fell off. The professionalism and calm of the team that talked her through it got my eyes a little wet. 🥲 [⏯️ VASAviation - // youtube.com]
3️⃣ A Russian family survived in the Siberian wilderness for over 40 years without seeing another human. [🔗 Mike Dash // smithsonianmag.com]
4️⃣ Looks like we’ll be able to recreate the Home Screen widget column of old when iPadOS 17 drops! [🔗 Chance Miller // 9to5mac.com]
5️⃣ I very much enjoyed this long-winded yet spot-on metaphor of steaming services as wineries by Joe Steel. [🔗 Joe Steel // joe-steel.com]
6️⃣ This story of how Mick Jagger’s daughter got a pre-release original Macintosh has a couple of fun twists and turns. [🔗 folklore.org]
7️⃣ John Gruber hosted a great interview and chat with Christian Selig covering the Reddit fiasco and history of his Apollo app. [🔗 The Talk Show // overcast.fm]
I’ve gotta say, the ease and simplicity of VIP contacts in Apple Mail are working exactly as intended for me. And I don’t even use Apple Mail full-time!
My day-to-day mail client is Spark. Their feature set and design are exactly up my alley, and it’s — dare I say? — a perfect email client. Or at least it was until Spark started introducing features, philosophy, and design that doesn’t jive with me. But — and I commend Sparky highly for this — I can still use their previous macOS client and the latest iOS App Store version without issue. But that’s a story for another time. Today I’m very grateful for Apple Mail’s VIPs.
My wife and I are in the midst of purchasing our first house.1 And, if I have my druthers, our last house. At this point, time efficiency is of the essence.2 We want to be on top of when we need to sign a document or answer a question, which means enabling notifications for emails. But I do not want notifications for every email I receive over the next few weeks. I’ve had email notifications turned off for years, and it’s perhaps the single best piece-of-mind tip I could offer someone. To the rescue comes Apple Mail VIPs.
Enough fodder: VIP contacts give me what I want and need, which is notifications for specific contacts and no one else. Because I remain logged into my email accounts via the system email settings, all my messages are available in Apple Mail despite Spark being my default client on all platforms. With a few taps from Mail into someone’s contact card, I can add them as a VIP which gives them special privileges.
Left: Here’s where you can add a contact as a VIP after delving into their contact card in Apple Mail. Right: In the Settings app, you can enable notifications for just VIP contacts. ⌘
Any email received by a VIP — which, at this point, includes our realtor, loan officer, and lawyer — pops up a notification on my phone. I stay in the loop of everything going on and can keep my wife up-to-date as well. It has significantly cut down on the stress of staying in the know during this email-heavy phase. And once this process is complete (🤞), I can remove those folks from being VIPs just as easily.
So, if you’re in the midst of something time-sensitive and want to stay on top of important messages flying about, I can highly recommend using Mail VIPs even if you don’t use Apple Mail regularly.3
As in, our house inspection starts in a few hours, and contract versions are being bandied around like foam fingers at a baseball game.↩︎
And yet, here I am using valuable time to tell you about this killer feature. I think it’s that good.↩︎
It’s entirely possible that Spark offers similar functionality for per-contact notifications. But I knew Apple Mail did, and haven’t even looked elsewhere.↩︎
I could not have backed Stephen Hackett’s third annual Apple history-themed calendar any faster. Didn’t watch the video, didn’t need to read the details. I just scrolled to find the reward tier that includes the physical calendar and sticker packet and clicked purchase.1
I think that speaks to the quality, value, and trust that Stephen has built over the past three years on Kickstarter (and many years as a good guy on the internet). I’ve loved my last two calendars — the first was hardware-themed, the second was software, and this third one will center on Apple services and retail — and I’m so happy to see them continue.
And I wasn’t the only one. It’s a couple of hours after launch and Stephen has already doubled his project goal of $5,000.↩︎
