Category: living

Apple has really put the “Pro” back in MacBook Pro. Ars Technica says “Yep, it’s what you’ve been waiting for”. That looks to be true.

I guess some might say I’m an Apple fanboy. I have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, etc. Now that I’m so deep in the ecosystem it just makes sense to stick with it.

I bought 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro a year ago when they were announced. I was immediately impressed. It’s the fastest computer I’ve ever owned, the battery lasts all day, and it seems like the fan never even turns on.

There are a few things I’m not crazy about. I never use the touch bar. I don’t look at the keyboard while I type, so I don’t even think about it. I would like a little more screen real estate. The M1 is still plenty fast, but faster is always better.

The lack of ports doesn’t bother me. I rarely plug in anything other than the charging cable. On my old MacBook Pro I did occasionally use the SD Card reader, and I’ve even used HDMI to connect to TV.

So of course I ordered a 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro. The good news is I can get $880 for my 1-year-old 13-inch M1. Combine that with 3% cash back on the Apple Card (of course) and the price tag doesn’t look so bad.

I won’t receive it until end of November, early December. Once it arrives I’ll post more details about how it compares to the M1. And decide if it was really worth it or I just like having the latest and greatest.

I’m really enjoying the new Foundation series on Apple TV+. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it.

I read the books years ago and listened to the audiobook of Foundation earlier this year. As I started watching the series I found myself trying to compare it to the book which was a mistake.

The series is based on the books, but differs in some pretty significant ways. For one thing, the future that Asimov’s books describe seems to be made up entirely of white males. In the series both Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin are played by young black women. A much needed change.

The special effects are very well done. I don’t remember especially vivid descriptions of space travel in the books, but the series does a great job. I also like the fact that space travel takes time. The ships look amazing, but they aren’t magical.

Readers of the books know that just as you get comfortable with a set of characters the story jumps forward and introduces a new cast. This happens between episodes 2 and 3 of the new series and it was a little jarring.

Some are already calling this the next Game of Thrones, but I don’t think that will be the case. I hope it makes it to eight seasons, but it seems like things come and go quickly in the streaming world.

It’s a smart series, very well done, and updated for modern times. I’m looking forward to future episodes.

Of course I updated to iPadOS 15 as soon as I could. I don’t run beta versions anymore, but since I don’t use my iPad for anything critical, I’m not afraid of release day updates.

The way multitasking works now is great. Discovering and remembering the multitasking gestures before was next to impossible. I can’t believe it took this long to add a tiny menu to the top of every app.

It’s nice having the App Library on iPad now. I only use a handful of apps on a daily basis. It’s nice having all of the infrequently used apps available, but out of the way. This should also help make room for the new widgets.

Speaking of widgets, I’m not currently using any. I’m not sure I really see the point. Maybe they just don’t fit my iPad usage patterns. I spend most of my time catching up on news, reading books, writing a bit, and playing casual games. I’m not sure where widgets fit into that.

I’m still getting used to the changes to Safari. The new extensions UI is great. I was able to install 1Password with just a few taps. The new rounded tabs are growing on me, but I still think they look more like buttons than tabs.

The best new features, in my opinion, are additional privacy protections in Safari and Mail. It seems like Apple is continuing to focus on online privacy. Anything that keeps advertisers from tracking me across the web makes me happy. I understand that content creators want to get paid, but you can still show ads without tracking.

Oh my god. I realize this is two Matrix posts in a row, but this trailer looks amazing!

In theaters and HBO Max on December 22. That makes me even happier. I really want to see this, but I’m still not ready to step back into a theater. I honestly may never be.

When I was a younger there was a phone number you could call where a recording would tell you the current time and temperature. I never really thought too much about that. It was obviously an early computer generated voice filling in the time and temperature.

Now, there’s a website for the upcoming Matrix movie that incorporates your local time the right way.

The Choice Is Yours

Thanks to a post on Reddit, you can see how it was done. There are 1,440 copies of each trailer, one for each minute of the day. A bit of clever code picks the correct video to play based on the local time in your browser.

Not rocket science, but it did get people talking.

If you can make it past the over abundance of ads (Reader View is your friend), this is an interesting article about the Internet days of old.

What these rebellious programmers are building goes by many names—indieweb, yesterweb, folk internet—and relies on simple design choices, often borrowing elements from the 1980s and 1990s.

Tech Workers Rebel Against A Lame-Ass Internet By Bringing Back ‘Geocities-Style’ WebRings

I don’t think this is exactly the modern definition of indieweb. See IndieWeb.org for more info. But I guess this is close. I like the terms yesterweb and folk Internet for this style of website.

I had a webring on one of my old web pages, and I had a Geocities site back in the day, but I don’t see myself jumping on Neocities any time soon. I understand the nostalgia, for sure. I guess I could create a page with a few of those “under construction” gifs and call it done.

Remember the time before content was served via algorithms designed to exchange attention for dollars? At the end of the day, this is just another example of a group of old folks like me longing for the web that was.

I never actually read any of The Wheel Of Time, but this trailer looks interesting. Maybe I’ll give the books a shot after I finish up my infinite backlog of other books to read.

This is probably the least-crazy conspiracy theory I’ve read about lately. In some ways i guess it’s true. The “real” Internet is definitely not what it once was.

Let me explain. Dead-internet theory suggests that the internet has been almost entirely taken over by artificial intelligence. Like lots of other online conspiracy theories, the audience for this one is growing because of discussion led by a mix of true believers, sarcastic trolls, and idly curious lovers of chitchat.

Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago

Most people think of social networks when they think of “The Internet.” It’s well known that much of what ones sees there is created by only a few people and served to the masses via a clever algorithm.

Want everyone to see your content? Trick the algorithm into thinking your latest work is very engaging. All it takes is one “influencer,” a few hundred bots, or a paid promotion and the world will know your name.

Of course this conspiracy theory goes one step further. (Don’t they always?) It claims that most of the content you see online is actually created by an artificial intelligence before being propagated by bots.

More great writing from The Atlantic.

Happy New Year! So much has changed for me over the past few months, I’m really not sure where to start.

Last year I wrote a series of blog posts about landing a new job as a programmer. I covered setting up your LinkedIn and Github profiles, updating your resume, writing portfolio code, etc. I even interviewed a few friends about their experiences. I had plans to turn this into a book. (I still think this will happen.) This series of posts should have made it obvious to anyone what was on my mind.

I’ve never really been a fan of online advertising (is anyone really?), but around the beginning of last year I had grown completely disillusioned with it. I read so many articles and listened to so many podcasts about just how bad things were getting. As a result of this, I was honestly doing a terrible job at work. I kept telling myself that it was just a job. The people were great, the pay was good. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it.

I signed up for a couple of the tech job matching services and things basically exploded. I interviewed with around 25 different companies. I started with a single idea: I want to work on a product that people pay for with money, not attention or engagement. As I talked to more companies, another idea started to seem possible: I want to work full-time remote. Those two requests narrowed the field and in the end I accepted a position as a Software Engineer at Braintree.

The new job is great. I’m back to writing code every day. I’m part of a smart, helpful team. I’m learning new things all the time. I pair program every day. I’m doing more backend / infrastructure work than ever before. In addition to Ruby, I’m also writing Java (and actually enjoying it) and working with things like Docker, Puppet, and Kubernetes. And the best part is, my commute has gone from around 2 hours per day round trip to however long it takes me to walk from the bedroom to the office.

It seems like I’m always looking for new creative outlets, but rarely finding them. There are plenty of things I want to do — working on one of my writing projects, coding creative programs, etc. But it seems like I never have the time.

I know that lack of time isn’t really the problem. I just haven’t prioritized creative outlets and developed a habit. A great way to build a habit is to try to do something for an extended period of time and make yourself publicity accountable.

With that in mind, I was happy to come across the fifth annual The 100 Day Project, a “free, global art project that anyone can participate in.” Starting April 3rd, create something every day and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #The100DayProject.

I have a few ideas of things I want to work on, but no where near one hundred. They say “It’s okay if you miss a day! Keep going.” So that’s what I’ll do. Most of my “art” is writing, and I’m not really sure how that’s going to translate to Instagram, but it should be fun.

I hope to keep up around weekly blog posts here and work on some unannounced projects, too. Who knows, maybe in a hundred days I’ll be able to announce something new?