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

---

1️⃣ Whoa. [Link - @kevinbparry // twitter.com]

2️⃣ A clever solution for a problem. It’s silly that there isn’t a preference for disabling Universal Links per app or in general. [Link - Jeff Johnson // lapcatsoftware.com]

3️⃣ You can hear Matt Herbst talk with Mark Gurman about the possibility of unions at Apple Retail. It’s kinda surreal that after two decades of Apple employees being relatively absent from the public discussion, Matt, who trained me at the Apple Store, has broken that barrier. [Link - Mark Gurman & Matt Herbst // twitter.com]

4️⃣ An incredibly savvy marketing campaign for refurbished devices using AirDrop at Apple Stores. [Link - Sami Fathi // macrumors.com]

5️⃣ I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this book. [Link - José Adorno // 9to5mac.com]

6️⃣ I’ve been having a ton of fun trying Knotwords, a new crossword-like word game. [Link - John Voorhees // macstories.net]

7️⃣ I’ve listened in on a few Twitter Spaces, and I guess I like them for small conversations. I actually didn’t mind Fleets either. But I’m not sold on Twitter Communities. I just can’t get over the core principle that tweets are meant to be for anyone to see. [Link - Greg Morris // gregmorris.co.uk]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things

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

---

1️⃣ Clove Hitch. Fantastic for securing the rope to a fixed point, and extra handy because it’s easily adjusted. A must-know for anchoring yourself, but also handy in day-to-day life. I use it to secure my dog with his leash. [Link - animatedknots.com]

2️⃣ Bowline. Ostensibly for boating, as the name might tell you, but good anytime you need a fixed loop at the end of a rope. I used to practice tying this one-handed in Boy Scouts and now use it for building climbing anchors. [Link - animatedknots.com]

3️⃣ Alpine Butterfly Loop. I think this knot is so neat because it lets you put a loop anywhere you want in a line of rope without disrupting its integrity or direction. [Link - animatedknots.com]

4️⃣ Munter Mule Overhand. You’ll probably only ever use this as a backup or an emergency while climbing, but it’s pretty handy to know. You can replicate a belay/rappel device using this knot, and even lock it off in case you need to perform a rescue. [Link - animatedknots.com]

5️⃣ Figure 8 Follow Through. The classic. Easy to tie and untie, and it creates a fixed loop. Most often used for tying directly into a climbing rope. [Link - animatedknots.com]

6️⃣ Klemheist. My favorite friction hitch because it’s so easy to arrange, and works almost as well as Prusik in most situations. If you need a mobile grab point in the rope, this is a good one to learn. [Link - animatedknots.com]

7️⃣ Double Alpine Butterfly Loop. I actually just found this knot tonight, but it looks handy for hooking into two anchors from one knot. And I’m a sucker for Alpine Butterflies. [Link - animatedknots.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things

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

---

1️⃣ This teacher stopped using grades to evaluate their students’ work and instead gave expanded feedback and the opportunity to revise. Their university-mandated grade comes from a portfolio of their revised work at the end of the semester. I think this is so smart. If the goal of a class is to have a student learn and master the material, Insee the advantage for their grade to reflect where they ended the journey, and not an average from each of the assignments. [Link - Elisabeth Gruner // theconversation.com]

2️⃣ Netflix switched to using the latest version of the standard video player on tvOS. More of this, please! [Link - José Adorno // 9to5mac.com]

3️⃣ I lost a good 45 minutes re-learning things from this Wikipedia page of common misconceptions. One of many things I learned: “Coffee, tea, diet cola, and other drinks containing caffeine are not dehydrating, and in fact have hydration profiles indistinguishable from that of water.” [Link - wikipedia.com]

---

I’ve been studying up on rope management for rock climbing in anticipation of climbs drying out here soon. So here are a few things I’ve found helpful.

4️⃣ I’m a little over halfway through The Trad Climber’s Bible by John Long and Peter Croft. They use an interesting way of conveying tips and best practices through anecdotes of when these two old school climbers had to learn them for themselves back when they were pioneering great climbs in North America. [Link - John Long, Peter Croft // goodreads.com]

5️⃣ This is a good primer on building anchors for multi-pitch trad climbing. I geek out on this stuff and can recommend the whole series of videos. [Link - Climbing Tech Tips // youtube.com]

6️⃣ Here’s an efficient method for setting and using rappel anchors on a multi-pitch climb. [Link - Chillino Rock Climbing // youtube.com]

7️⃣ And a good tutorial on how to pass a knot when rappeling if there’s a bad section in your rope or you’ve tied multiple ropes together to extend their reach down the rock. [Link - Ryan Tilley // youtube.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things

A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays.¹ Sometimes themed, often not.

---

1️⃣ The Playdate is soon to be in the hands of its first customers, and some media folks got a first look at the innovative handheld console. Panic, the company behind the little device, put together a thread of some of the first looks. Man does it look fun! [Link - @playdate // twitter.com]

2️⃣ The Find My network is making reselling AirPods tricky when the original customer doesn’t remove them from their iCloud account first. [Link - Caroline Haskins // businessinsider.com]

3️⃣ I love seeing outdoor spaces designed with accessibility in mind. The care that goes into creating and servicing a park where anyone — in this case even someone who uses a motorized wheelchair — can have a solo backcountry expertise, warms my heart. [Link - Jason Thurston // adirondackexperience.com]

4️⃣ The Verge scored an interview with a production designer for the show Severance. It’s a fascinating look into the thought behind the weird office the “Innies” live in. [Link - Andrew Webster // theverge.com]

5️⃣ Severance captured my interest like nothing else on television has for some time. It’s utterly fantastic, and so creepy. This interview with director Ben Stiller provides neat insight into the casting and character development. I’ll be thinking about this show for the next year until season two comes out! [Link - Alan Sepinwall // rollingstone.com]

6️⃣ I got a good chuckle out of this intro mashup of The Office and Severance. [Link - Magoob Toys // youtube.com]

7️⃣ And because I guess I’m on a Severance tear, this tweet thread is a neat look at how they pull off the captivating elevator transition with some film magic. [Link - @vashikoo // twitter.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

---

1. Gah! I was out of town this weekend and lost track of the days. Sorry about this one coming out late!↩︎

7 Things

Piper Sandler, Inc.:

• For payment apps, Apple Pay ranked first, partly due to 87% of teens in the survey saying they have an iPhone
• PYPL’s Venmo ranked No. 2 (with the PayPal app No. 4) behind Apple Pay among payment apps used in the last month while SQ’s Cash App ranked No. 3

Teen culture becomes mainstream culture, and this latest survey shows that US teens have flocked to Apple Cash as their peer-to-peer payment method of choice. I was surprised by the news, but shouldn’t have been. A vast majority of teens have iPhones, and Apple Cash is right there in the built-in messaging app. The default is a hell of a thing.

There are lots more interesting findings in the rest of the report.

Go to the linked site (Piper Sandler, Inc. // pipersandler.com) →

Linked

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

---

1️⃣ I was going to do a post like this, checking to see which iOS 15 features were still MIA, but José Adorno beat me to it. It looks like everything announced has shipped! [Link - José Adorno // 9to5mac.com]

2️⃣ A staggering animation by the folks at NASA shows the dramatic increase in temperature on Earth over the last 150 years. [Link - @kirstinferguson // twitter.com]

3️⃣ This older piece by Nilay Patel about giving his parent a Chromebook (rather than an iPad or traditional laptop) got me thinking. Is the future the web, not apps? Which is more beneficial for a non-nerd to learn? [Link - Nilay Patel // theverge.com]

4️⃣ This new iOS app lets you scan and convert braille to text. Or copy and paste the braille itself. Very cool. [Link - @azzoor // twitter.com]

5️⃣ It looks to me as though Apple went all-in on using Shortcuts to build their April Fools’ Day game this year. Michael Potuck has the deets. [Link - Michael Potuck // 9to5mac.com]

6️⃣ I got the “Grace Kelly” song stuck in my head yesterday, so I fell back down the rabbit hole on its TikTok challenge. I could listen to these compilations all day. [Link - youtube.com]

7️⃣ I spent way too much time today reading about The Mighty Mountain Megamarathon, where folks try for the best time in climbing all 55 of the Colorado 14ers. This webpage looks like a time capsule from the year 2000 but is packed with the rules, myths and lore, and stats from its author, Cave Dog. [Link - Cave Dog // thedogteam.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things

I whipped out Pixelmator Pro over the last couple of weeks to make some new shirts that I really like. They’re all Classic Mac-inspired, using the hues from the colorful Apple logo. Those with an eye for typefaces will recognize Chicago used on the ⌘Q and ’84 shirts, and Ted Lasso fans might recall the Believe phrase from the series.

Each is available in a few different colors, and the shirts that Cotton Bureau uses are top-notch. Very soft and fits just right.

Along with these three fresh designs, there is a handful more to see at my storefront. Every purchase helps me out with the cost of keeping this site up, so if you buy one, I thank you for the support! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Merch

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

---

1️⃣ Jason Snell recounts the days of yore when a Macworld cover concept unwittingly previewed an imminent iMac design — and Apple wasn’t happy. [Link - Jason Snell // sixcolors.com]

2️⃣ This pixel art of Apple Park by Basic Apple Guy is stunning and comes in both day and night versions for device wallpapers. [Link - Basic Apple Guy // basicappleguy.com]

3️⃣ Vox explains how more superhero scenes in movies are computer-generated than you’d think. As in completely rendered, without someone in the suit. These “Digi-Doubles” are fascinating and I’m always a sucker for behind-the-scenes and how-it’s-made content. [Link - Vox // youtube.com]

4️⃣ I’m getting serious Black Mirror vibes from this preview of Roar on Apple TV+ — and I’m all in. [Link - Apple TV+ // youtube.com]

5️⃣ My podcast app of choice, Overcast, got Phase One of its long-awaited redesign this week. There are some bits I need to get used to, but I think it’s headed in the right direction! [Link - Marco Arment // marco.org]

6️⃣ Kill the Newsletter by Leandro Facchinetti is an incredible tool for folks like me who like reading email newsletters, but hate getting them via email where my actual correspondence lives. I use Reeder to save articles for later and to read internet stuff via RSS. Kill the Newsletter gives you an email address to use to subscribe to a newsletter and then converts it to a unique RSS feed just for you. Now I can keep receiving and reading everything in Reeder. (Via Club MacStories) [Link - kill-the-newsletter.com]

7️⃣ I’m nervously awaiting an update on this tweet about USPS losing a shipment of 20,000 bees. [Link - @Writing_Abigail // twitter.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things

Learning that the Studio Display not only has an A13 processor but also runs the full version of iOS 15 and has 64 GB of storage has led to a bunch of ideas of how the display could do more than be an external monitor.

Personally, I think the most interesting of them is if the Studio Display could boot into an Apple TV mode running tvOS. It’s got enough storage to run streaming video apps and a couple of games, which either a paired keyboard/mouse or the Remote app on iOS devices could control.

Enabling iPadOS or macOS may be a stretch too far, but this display already has better guts than the Apple TV 4K (running on an A12), and would make for a pleasant personal entertainment center. Throw in the FaceTime app to use its Center Stage camera, and Studio Display makes for an excellent stand-alone video call station, too.

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

---

1️⃣ Go watch Severance on Apple TV+. Its dark and mysterious plot makes it the most compelling new show I’ve seen since The Leftovers. [Link - justwatch.com]

2️⃣ The new iPad Air has so much in common with previous iPads that Jason Snell cleverly reviewed it by piecing together quotes from his old reviews. [Link - Jason Snell // sixcolors.com]

3️⃣ When reading about Ayaka’s digital detox, this part stood out about catching up with others without worrying about who’s updated on what. I’ve noticed it, and it’s refreshing. [Link - Ayaka Nonaka // ayakanonaka.com]

Because I don’t look at or share on Instagram where people post about their adventures and major life events, when I actually catch up with people, there’s a lot to ask and talk about. It’s nice not having to wonder whether someone already knows about everything you’ve been up to, or if they think that you already know what they’ve been up to. We can just catch up on everything with no assumptions.

4️⃣ ScreenTimes has a page outlining each week’s episode releases for Apple TV+ alongside a subscribable calendar. The volume of new episodes every week is starting to pack a punch. [Link - screentimes.net]

5️⃣ Hard research to back up what we already knew: pockets in women’s pants are woefully inadequate. They found that only 10% of women’s pockets will fit an average woman’s hand. This page has tons of great comparisons and visualizations. [Link - Jan Diehm, Amber Thomas // pudding.cool]

6️⃣ I’m a big fan of the MayTree YouTube channel, where the five-person acapella group performs short renditions of popular tunes. You’ve probably seen them. Their latest video showcases their frontwoman’s incredible soprano voice in the Up theme. [Link - MayTree // youtube.com]

7️⃣ A Whiskey Ginger has rapidly become my new favorite cocktail. It’s simple — just equal parts whiskey and ginger ale — and tasty. [Link - allrecipes.com]

---

Trust Click

---

Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links, or have something else neat to share, please hit me up on Twitter or send me an email!

7 Things