The Art Of Not Asking Why

Commander Keen is on Steam, and I didn’t know?! Hold my beer! Backlog shmaglog, this is one classic sonofamitch that needs replaying.

store.steampowered.com/app/9180/…

I know I have only myself to blame: I spent 20 minutes writing a post in the web-ui, and I clicked the timeline button by mistake. Poof, the post is gone. No draft, not nothing. Is auto-save really that hard to implement?

I’ve added two notes to my stash: Micro.blog blogrolls and my manual of style.

Micro.blog’s blogrolls are already documented in the official help documentation, but I wanted to add my own experience and design aspect to that. Having a blogroll is a nice idea, and I’m thinking about my “rules” for those. For now, the blogroll is part of my Archive page, but I’m probably going to move it out of there.

The manual of style is something I have started to take more seriously for work and am now trying to implement across my notes on Gitlab as well. It is mostly based on the Microsoft Manual of Style, but there are some elements I have to come up with myself. It’s a constant work in progress that I will keep adding to.

Good morning..! I’ve been playing around with blogrolls on Micro.blog and learning how to customize those. Currently working on documenting that and adding to my notes, which I feel I neglected the last couple of months.

I’m trying out Carrot. While I like the idea and the details, it comes with a learning curve. For now I’m trying to figure out why it seems cursing is blocked on the phone even with personality turned to overkill. I’m grumpy and I need a grumpy app.

iPhone gurus:

Do you know if there’s a way to view the “Significant Locations” list on a phone with SDP (Stolen Device Protection) turned on? I can see that there are 18 locations, but I see only the last one below. The only option I have is to clear this list and start again.

One major attraction of Arc is its Spaces. Having more than one profile in a browser is not new (Chrome has implemented that for the last decade or so), but Arc offers more flexibility by not forcing you to sign into another account. In other words, a Space on Arc can be connected to a different user profile, but it doesn’t have to: you can have two visually different browser instances (Spaces) while still using the same Google account in the background.

I like the idea of having different environments for work and personal stuff, but for me, this always came to be also separate browsers: Microsoft Edge for work, Safari (or Brave on Linux/Windows) for personal things, and then I use LibreWolf for privacy, mostly around searches and social networks like Reddit, where I have several profiles.

This morning, I sat down to revisit the idea of launching specific browsers for specific URLs. It turns out there are good solutions when working on a Mac. I wrote about initial configurations in my notes, and I’m sure there will be more as I explore Velja more.

public/20240419T085958--automatically-choose-browser__macos.org · master · JTR / Taonah · GitLab gitlab.com

Reader: gitlab.com

As more opinion pieces about the new Fallout show pop up, the more I want to watch it. I resist it because I’m already watching too many good shows. 📺

My current quick break show: Delicious in Dungeon:

Recommended by Nat, this is a weird but fun one. It combines two excellent things for a quick break: Dungeons and Dragons, and food. The episodes are short (around 20 minutes each), so this is good for a quick “mental snack” (sometimes combined with an actual one too).

My current sit-down-and-enjoy show: The Mandalorian:

This one’s not new, but somehow I haven’t heard about it until recently. I finished watching the first season, and I’m ready to start the second. This is the way.

Date night with NK show: X-Files:

This show needs little introduction. We started watching it together about two years ago, and we’re in season 6, after the movie. The show is great to re-appriciate; the complicated connection between Mulder and Sculley makes me appreciate the show today in a different way than I did when I watched it back in the day.

Vent & talk with Nat show: Blue Eye Samurai:

Unlike the obvious choice of X-files with NK, this one was more of a “let’s take our chances” show with Nat, as our Venn Diagram in terms of shows is a bit narrow. There’s much to like here: action, depth, violence, sex, friendship, and an interesting plot.

Hangout with Nyx show: Black Books:

The only show that makes me laugh harder than Black Books is The IT Crowd, which you probably heard of (and if you liked that one, I recommend Black Books). It’s beautifully sarcastic, takes place in a bookshop, with plenty of mentions of alcohol and cigarettes. Can’t go wrong there!

Maybe show: Fall of the House of Usher:

I want to like this show, but I can’t follow it enough. There are too many flashy characters with their own stories, a plot with a tricky timeline, and then there are twists and turns. I need to put work into this show (read synopses, write notes) to keep track, and while I’m OK with it sometimes, I don’t feel like it for this one. We shall see.

Looking forward to this one

‘Joker 2’ Trailer: Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix Unleash Bad Romance in Thrilling First Footage variety.com

Reader: variety.com

I am happy to report I just took a very good nap. That is all. Carry on.

Getting used to Edge again means trying to duplicate some of the productivity tricks Arc gave me. Having a collection of work-related tabs in one accent color is nice, and being able to customize their icons and rename them is also important. Here’s what I have so far.

Can someone please explain how Apple can sell close to a grand of a phone AND charge extra for a normal-length cable but still charge me more for a wall charger?! 🤬 Am I missing something here, or is it a “welcome to the club” situation??

Sincerely yours, GBD.

Attempting not to use Arc, take 2. No, it’s not because of the “oh no, they are shady AI company” wagon. It’s more they started the “we might not make it” videos and today when I tried to access my Google timeline, this happened:

Yeah, I think their days are numbered.

Apple Watch newbie question: Do I have to press the side button twice before I pay to go into transit, or is there an option without it? On the iPhone, you can

Last Friday I woke up from a power nap and the first thought that pooped into my mind was, “It’s time to get an Apple Watch.”

I thought about this several times before, especially since I started exercising with Co-Pilot. Over several notes in the journal and Emacs, I convinced myself not to opt for the Apple Watch mostly because of my love-hate relationship with privacy. After all, buying a GPS-tracker-personal-information-sharing-device for your wrist from a company with most of its infrastructure invested in China is not exactly a good pro-privacy argument.

But in the last couple of years, as I slowly started opening up about my lifestyle (here and elsewhere), I stopped giving shit. Privacy at this date and age is impossible, at least with current technologies. In the meantime, what an Apple watch can offer is very appealing.

For one, it puts my exercise routine on another level. It’s one thing to exercise with the iPhone and watch the screen; it’s another to have a watch telling you to slow down or speed up or have it pause and continue sets without me needing to clumsily try to touch the screen while holding a weight is excellent. Then there’s running, which I plan to get back to more seriously again, and I want to track my progress.

The other thing I hope the watch will assist me within the well-being department is meditation. I meditate whenever I finish my exercises, but I need to go longer and deeper. I might consider something like Headspace (if anyone reading this has opinions, please share!), but for now, I’m still getting adjusted. Meanwhile, I appreciate being reminded to meditate (Breath in Apple Health) daily on top of the one at the end of my exercise.

Then there are my sleeping issues, and I want to keep track of those. While it’s pretty easy to know how well I slept (do I feel like a zombie or not?), having a long-term insight into this with all the information the watch provides would be helpful.

Outside of the health department, there are many more implications, like taking notes and reminders consistently, knowing when someone important messages me, the ease of taking the subway and paying without taking out a wallet (especially during the winter), and even taking selfies from a distance with the phone is a plus.

There’s the magic-wow factor (I can’t get over the pinching to open menus on the watch, or just raising it to ask Siri something, and it’s all right there), but that will probably fade away.

It will take the watch a few more days before I get all the data I want to see and a few more days for me to get adjusted anyway. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any useful tricks/routines you use your Apple Watch for or even useful Shortcuts!

Just discovered my old college stopped offering the technical writing program. I understand where they’re coming from (it was always a hard program to market), but at the same time, it sucks. There’s too little understanding of technical writing, especially during the age of AI.

Here’s a crazy NYC fact for you: as it’s getting hotter and more humid toward summer, I find that I’m adjusting to colder temperatures: the indoor temperature is at an average of 74 degrees or so with the heating off. During the winter, I need to adjust to warmer temperatures, as it’s 80 (and beyond) with the heating on.