Here’s a glimpse of my second exchange with José, as summarized by ChatGPT:
Jarrod expresses gratitude to Jose for participating in their letter exchange project, sharing excitement about the collaboration. José reciprocates birthday wishes and provides insights into his life in Puerto Rico, emphasizing his geekiness and professional journey from Graphic Design to Product Design. The conversation delves into recent trips, with Jarrod discussing his Outer Banks vacation and José mentioning his plan to visit Disneyland for their fifth wedding anniversary. Condolences are extended for the loss of Jarrod’s aunt. The discussion shifts to Ed Sheeran’s new album, and José poses questions about the origin of “HeyDingus” and Jarrod’s daily routine. Jarrod explains the evolution of HeyDingus, its inspirations, and contemplates potential changes. He describes his typical day, incorporating work, outdoor activities, and leisure time. Jarrod closes the letter with questions about board games and non-tech hobbies, expressing excitement for the ongoing
exchange.
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.
1️⃣ I’m a sucker for a good desk setup post, and José Muñoz brought his A-game with this retrospective on a decade of using the Thunderbolt Display. It’s equal parts a love letter to that iconic piece of hardware and a fun progression of how it fit into his ever-evolving desks and office spaces. [🔗 José Muñoz // josemunozmatos.com]
2️⃣ Love this idea. If all the event invitees swipe left to say they don’t want or need the meeting, it’s canceled. [🔗 meetcala.com] (Via Matt Birchler)
4️⃣ One thing that ChatGPT excels at is providing endless options for a themed request. Case in point, this incredible list of letter sign-offs that’s ready for nearly any situation. [🔗 Shaun Usher // news.lettersofnote.com]
5️⃣ It’s absurdly easy to get lost in this delightful list of collective nouns. “A menagerie of animals” and “A parade of penguins” always get me. And for moms this Mother’s Day, I give you “A consternation of mothers” and “A mutter of mothers-in-law”. [🔗 wiktionary.org]
6️⃣ The method and visuals that go along with this music-from-text-prompt-generator tool are more impressive than the actual music it creates, but I still spent quite a bit of time noodling around with it. “Techno DJ and a country fiddle” is pretty good. [🎵 riffusion.com]
7️⃣ Take one minute, really just one, and play this little lovely game. You’ll smile at the end, guaranteed. [🕹️ Nicky Case // ncase.me]
Encrypted DMs currently have a few limitations and a very big flaw. […] Twitter warns that it doesn’t have protections against man-in-the-middle attacks. “As a result, if someone — for example, a malicious insider, or Twitter itself as a result of a compulsory legal process — were to compromise an encrypted conversation, neither the sender or receiver would know,” Twitter says.
I’m no expert, sure, but that… doesn’t sound like end-to-end encryption to me.
UPDATE: It doesn’t sound like E2E encryption because it’s not. I read “encrypted message” and hallucinated “end-to-end encrypted” the whole time, even though The Verge’s article was correct. From Twitter’s support document:
Twitter seeks to be the most trusted platform on the internet, and encrypted Direct Messages are an important part of that. As Elon Musk said, when it comes to Direct Messages, the standard should be, if someone puts a gun to our heads, we still can’t access your messages. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working on it. Until then, here is the Encrypted Direct Message we are releasing - a new way of communicating on Twitter that will appear as separate conversations, alongside your existing Direct Messages in your inbox.
My bad. However, I do wonder how many people will use Encrypted Direct Messages mistakenly assuming it’s E2E, since that’s the gold standard and all the buzz these days. Should Twitter have waited until they could deliver the good stuff?
Final Cut Pro & Logic Pro for iPad look so powerful. It’s a good day for iPad creators and enthusiasts! And it indicates a jam-packed WWDC keynote if even this didn’t make the cut. 👀
Two quick observations:
Looks like third-parties will still be able to make stuff for Final Cut. 🎉
Apple couldn’t be more clear that Logic is for music production, not podcasts. The podcast creation story on iPad remains unfinished. 🎙️
It seems Apple may be swinging toward subscription pricing for some apps. That said, $500 for ten years of active development, updates, and support for a Pro-caliber app is still a steal and it lets creators get in the door for just $5. But now they do have to continue to deliver, or risk losing their customers and revenue. 💰
I’m very curious about how this content will be delivered and integrated on iPad. ⌘
Without multi-app audio streams, Podcasters are still left without a great solution for making their shows on an iPad or iPhone. ⌘
Here’s what others are thinking. I’ll add to this pile of intriguing insights as I see them.
Alternatively: Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro will be available on Apple’s XR headset on day one 👀 I wonder how much that plays into this…
Also, can I just say that it’s hilarious but also great that they’ll get an incredible, Grammy-nominated musician like Syd Tha Kid and have her lower third be
Syd beat maker
Not a single marketing shot/screenshot of somebody using Final Cut Pro or Logic in Stage Manager mode… 👀
Final Cut and Logic on iPad isn’t just a win for iPad, it’s a win for the entire Apple app ecosystem.
Developers have proper incentive to make insanely great cross-platform apps now, and the future where you can pick up any device to solve the next step of your workflow is continuing to be built in front of us.
I don’t know if Final Cut has all the features from the Mac version but it sure looks like it has everything I need. https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro-for-ipad/
Rumors of a larger iPad screen size start to make a lot more sense in a world with Stage Manager, Final Cut Pro and Logic, huh?
Back to the topic of M1 requirement again; three of the iPad product lines Apple currently sells on their webstore are unable to run Final Cut Pro. That’s not a great way to do software. You can spend $1100 on a brand new iPad+Pencil+Keyboard combo today that will [presumably] not let you even install the FCP app. The iMovie codebase you can be sure this was forked from supports every iPad on iPadOS 16. Not the choices I would make 🤷♂️
I think I can honestly say I will never travel with a Mac again. The only reason I brought my Mac with me on trips is to edit. I still did my core work from my iPad cause cellular connection is huge. The hotel I’m at wants to charge me $20 a day for WiFi and it’s slower than cellular.
Also only carrying an iPad will make my backpack so much lighter. Between a laptop, iPad with Magic Keyboard, and camera gear that thing is freaking heavy. So I’m looking forward to taking something else out.
Mac users have had years of free updates to Logic and Final Cut Pro after paying once for each app. In fact, Logic Pro X will be a decade old in July, and Final Cut Pro X turns 12 next month. The price of Logic Pro for Mac today ($199.99) is the same as four years of subscribing to Logic Pro for iPad, and Final Cut Pro for Mac ($299.99) will equal six years of paying for the iPad version.
I think it’s possible that Apple could be previewing some of iOS 17’s upcoming pro camera mode features in Final Cut Pro for iPad. I imagine that the default camera app will retain its easy-to-use, simple interface but have the option to switch over to “pro camera mode” for those who desire more fine-grained control over both photo and video capture.
The moment I configured Ferrite to toggle playback on and off by using a two-finger tap gesture, my productivity soared. At an initial glance at video demonstrating these apps, I didn’t see any hint of such gestures. But if users have to reach up to the top left corner of one of these apps every time they want to pause or play a video, it will get old really fast. I hope Apple has embraced multi-touch gestures—and if they haven’t, I hope they get with the program soon.
The compatibility story with Final Cut Pro is less good. You can import Final Cut Pro projects into Final Cut on the Mac in order to take advantage of object tracking and other pro features. That last sentence contained numerous red flags—I hope you caught them.
One of the things that excites me so much about Apple’s Pro Apps on iPad is seeing the screen packed with UI — I am so tired of being given dumbed-down ‘baby’ versions of apps (see also: Photoshop for iPad). I know neither app will be at feature parity with the desktop, but it feels like they’re trying, not just ‘humoring’ iPad users they don’t really understand. iPad users don’t need to be humored, they need to be included. The form factor is scalable, up and down — your software should be too
If it’s any indication as to Apple’s wider thinking, neither brand-new Final Cut Pro nor Logic Pro support Stage Manager’s freeform window resizing, or even splitscreen multitasking, on iPad 👀
Yet even as the developers heroically sprinted to save Yglesias, the service was straining under something that would become known as “the hellthread” — an unending series of stringed replies fueled by auto-replying bot accounts and users who were incredibly amused by the prospect of jumping headfirst into a JSON error.
Participating in the hellthread would sign you up for an unspeakable number of notifications, and attempts to mute the thread for yourself were mostly futile since something about the AI accounts would unmute them anyway. Users tried to bait each other by tagging them in. (This, of course, meant they themselves were now in hell.) Delighted in part by seeing the CEO herself good-naturedly participate before publicly notifying her devs of what kind of bugs she was seeing, others began to post their nudes right into the hellthread until it was nothing but asses and errors.
So many jaw-dropping moments in this piece, you’ve really just got to go read the whole thing. None of it makes me want to set up shop on Bluesky. I’m very happy with my stable, friendly, calm, and also Fediverse-compatible home on Micro.blog, thank you very much.
When things settle down and Bluesky opens up publicly, I may consider cross-posting there if it does indeed reach a critical mass and it’s where non-nerds end up. But it just doesn’t sound very appealing yet, despite their best efforts with the exclusive invitation system.
I noticed this evening while perusing the App Store — yes, some of us still do that from time-to-time; usually after manually initializing app updates, which is also weird, I know — that Warner Bros. Discovery is featured for the pre-order of their upcoming Max app. Using the pre-order mechanism is a smart move to get more word out ahead of the confusing merger/name-change/whatsit. Although, it’s not clear to me why they don’t instead update the existing HBO Max app to whatever new functionality is needed for Max, swap the app name, and call it a day. Seems like that would be more seamless for customers.
How to get it. Pre-order the Max app now to have it download to your device when the app launches May 23. If you already have an HBO Max subscription, it’ll automatically transfer to Max, along with all of your profiles and watch history. No action needed!
I figured it would be table stakes that logging in to the Max app with my HBO Max account would bring along profiles and watch history, but I’m curious about how the subscription transfer will work. I’m subscribed via an in-app subscription to HBO Max, and I wasn’t aware that those subscriptions could be moved or shared between different apps. Is this a special case in which Apple has intervened?
Perhaps it is a standard feature, since I suppose that’s how Microsoft has their Microsoft 365 subscription work between the various Office apps like Word and PowerPoint. And Flexibits allows you to subscribe to Flexibits Premium with an in-app through either Cardhop or Fantastical, unlocking functionality for both apps.
But I still wonder what will happen when I eventually delete the old HBO Max app. Will it offer to cancel the subscription I initiated through it? I know that happens when you delete other apps with an active subscription. Or will it be smart enough to know there’s another app installed that relies on it? And suppose I did cancel the subscription. Will the Max app effectively communicate the problem and provide a resolution itself? Or will I be steered toward Max.com (boy, that must have been an expensive domain!) to subscribe so that Warner Bros. Discovery can avoid Apple’s cut of the in-app purchase?
I have so many questions that I’m giddy about doing some testing on launch day! But the fear of disrupting the flow of entertainment to my household makes a strong counterargument. We’ll see what’s more compelling when it all shakes out come May 23rd.
2️⃣ Jason Snell’s got a good tip for hiding things, like article comments, from webpages if you don’t want to see them. I also loved his cheeky rule for hiding the Yankees logo on Daring Fireball when they’re in the playoffs. 😂 [🔗 Jason Snell // sixcolors.com]
3️⃣ Without the NYT branding, I would have guessed that these promos were for Wikipedia. Engaging ad spots, though. [🔗 kottke.org]
5️⃣ A member of The Decemberists had ChatGPT write a Decemberists song, with chord progressions, and then recorded it. It’s…not half bad, but also not half good. [🔗 Colin Meloy // colinmeloy.substack.com]
6️⃣ Can bad people make good art? This excellent articles helped me consider that perhaps the premise is flawed. [🔗 Charles McGrath // nytimes.com]
7️⃣ It’s been a bit like watching a game of Pong to keep up with Jeff Perry’s internet home saga, but you owe it to yourself to check out his latest site. It’s like playing with a fidget toy to navigate around! (Be quick about it though; I can’t guarantee it won’t change again!) [🔗 jeffperry.me]
We’re now in our fourth year, and we’ve had remarkably little churn — people who subscribe to Dithering tend to stay subscribed, which warms my heart. It’s a fun show and everyone loves the enforced brevity and regularity.
Dithering is one of just three podcasts that are marked as ‘priority’ in my Overcast playlists. Meaning they jump to the top of the queue as soon as they’re published. I do, indeed, love the “enforced brevity and regularity”. Ben and John’s friendly debates often bring a smile to my face.
But what I really wanted to say in response to John’s post tonight is “Wow!” I can’t believe I’ve been listening to the show for four years already. I still think of Dithering as the new podcast on the block.
For the PenPals project this month, I’ll be corresponding with José Muñoz. You’ll be able to follow along with the Letters project here and on his site at josemunozmatos.com
Here’s a brief look at my first letter to José, as summarized by ChatGPT:
Jarrod initiates a letter to José, expressing gratitude for participating in a letter exchange project inspired by Jason Becker. Having exchanged emails briefly in the past, Jarrod is eager to learn more about Jose through these public messages. Jarrod provides a glimpse into his life, describing his transition from Michigan to upstate New York, his role as an outdoor recreation professional, and his blog’s focus on diverse interests. He shares recent events, including a vacation to the Outer Banks and the passing of his aunt, reflecting on life’s poignant moments. Jarrod ends the letter with thoughts on housework and Ed Sheeran’s new album, inviting José to share his own experiences and interests.
If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.
