Using Cheap Notebooks

Tiramisu, on ティラミス:

Rather than beckoning me to write, the perfection of fancy notebooks serves as a source of constant anxiety.

I know they are right, but how I love a BaronFig Confidant notebook. Still, over the past few years I’ve compromised and usually get a Maruman MNEMOSYNE, which is usually less than $10.

I always find myself drawn to the cheapest notebooks I can find, spiral and composition ones that you can get at Staples for a quarter during back to school sales.

I can relate. Around 2014-2015, a time I did some of my most intense work, I mostly used small yellow legal pads that were available in the office. I didn’t have time for anything fancy.

Recent tidbits

• Departing Earth: free iOS app to track space launches.

• Klack: really fun keystroke sound app for Mac. Works great when away from your mechanical keyboard and need the soothing rhythm for writing.

• Little Snitch Mini: Excellent option if you want better control of your Mac network traffic.

• Fileside: very interesting file manager with tiling pages for Mac and Windows. Seriously considering buying it.

• Folders File Manager: Mac file manager for PC refugees. Not my thing, but nice design if you miss tree-style layout.

• Chatterbox: ChatGPT wrapper on Mac with easy screenshots. Purchased it.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin

Beautiful book about friendship and creative collaboration. The context is gaming, but it could be replaced with anything. This is one of those books in which the characters stories are stored alongside real people in my brain. Can’t recommended it enough.

Pebble Small Android Phone

Mitchell Clark, on The Verge:

Now that Apple has stopped making new small phones, Migicovsky’s Small Android Phone petition has evolved into a “community-based project” — where that community includes a team working to design and produce the phone that Migicovsky and apparently quite a few Verge readers want.

Not sure if this will work — but the idea is sound. The whole things feels more like a hobby project, which is fine.

The team also hasn’t decided on a name for the phone, though its internal codename is “Marvin.”

Not sure if it’s related to the Paranoid Android in H2G2, but fitting codename.

Another option was perhaps too similar to the iPhone Mini’s 5.4-inch display, with a very familiar notch cut out at the top. “I would like something a little more Android-y,” Bryant tells me.

Understand the reasoning for not using the same screen as the iPhone mini, but it’s a missed opportunity. An android phone with the same screen as the iPhone mini is a very simple concept to explain to non-techies.

Microsoft Notion Loop Available

Tom Warren, on The Verge:

Microsoft is now letting anyone preview Microsoft Loop, a collaborative hub offering a new way of working across Office apps and managing tasks and projects.

Looks very cool. It’s not enabled on my work accounts, so waiting for IT to enable it. But I will give it a serious try for document/content collaboration.

Boox Leaf 2 eInk Reader Review

Jason Snell, on Six Colors:

[…] I’ve been using a $200 Boox Leaf 2 e-reader on and off for the past few months. It’s a 7-inch reader that’s sized and priced more like a standard Kindle or Kobo. I’m happy to report that in the intervening months, the Boox software experience has improved—but a device like this is still probably not a good idea unless you are comfortable tinkering with Android apps and utilities.

I’m seriously considering the Book Leaf. I bought a Kindle Paperwhite 6.8in, when it came out and it has been… meh. I thought the bigger screen would be an upgrade over the Eight months with the Kindle Voyager, which I still keep in my bag. Every time I read for a while on the Voyager and return to the bigger Kindle, it feels too big and I miss the buttons. Both hardware issues the Leaf 2 addresses.

I’m a bit weary of moving away of the Amazon ecosystem, mostly for sync. I like picking up a book on my iPhone and iPad. Also having all highlights flowing to Readwise. However, there’s the Android application option on Boox:

The Kindle app on Android is actually pretty good, and works well with the Leaf 2 once you get it up and running. But if you use the page turn buttons too soon after you launch it, the Boox software won’t have kicked in yet and you’ll get a volume prompt instead of a page turn. And don’t swipe or tap to turn the page, or you’ll get a page-turn animation that can’t be turned off or properly rendered by the E-Ink screen.

Sounds okish, but not great. Specially when I think of the main reading app I’d like other than Kindle, Reader. Which according to reddit posts, is functional, but not great:

I’ve been using Reader on my Boox Leaf 2, it works surprisingly well considering its not optimised for e-readers yet. If you’re launching the app from cold it can take 20 - 30 secs to load but you would typically be loading from memory so that’s no big deal

I’ve been down this Summer of the Mini Tablets, so not sure where if I’ll really make the jump. But it’s fun to window shop a reading devices¹.

Tim Cook AR Headset and His Legacy

Tim Bradshaw, Patrick McGee, on Financial Times:

After seven years in development — twice as long as the iPhone — the tech giant is widely expected to unveil a headset featuring both virtual and augmented reality as soon as June.

But Apple’s famed industrial design team had cautioned patience, wanting to delay until a more lightweight version of AR glasses became technically feasible. Most in the tech industry expect that to take several more years.

John Gruber already wrote about this, and I absolutely agree with his gist:

But more importantly, the FT’s reporting makes it sound as though this decision was solely between the industrial design team and Jeff Williams’s operations team. That’s not how Apple works.

The narrative that certain areas of Apple don’t have as much power as they did before misses the point. I believe Tim Cook has tried to keep a balance between functions. It used to be that with Steve Jobs would out-weight everyone, so you needed a powerful counterweight in Johnny Ive and others, even Tim Cook.

But now, weight is more distributed between groups, leading to more varied opinions and winners when deciding a course of action.

Chernobyl Fungus Could Shield Astronauts From Cosmic Radiation

Stephen Johnson, on Freethink Media:

A recent experiment aboard the International Space Station suggests a surprising solution: a radiation-eating fungus, which could be used as a self-replicating shield against gamma radiation in space.

The fungus is called Cladosporium sphaerospermum, an extremophile species that thrives in high-radiation areas like the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

The Last of Us withstanding, this is fascinating. Not only the angle of the solution, but also huge space travel problem it would solve.

Extrapolating these results, the researchers estimated that a roughly 8-inch layer of C. sphaerospermum “could largely negate the annual dose-equivalent of the radiation environment on the surface of Mars.”

Huge. I would also guess that it implies the fungus can be grown on Mars, reducing critical weight.

Camo 2 Launched

Aidan Fitzpatrick, on Reincubate:

Camo 2 takes all the magic of Camo, improves on it, and brings it to any webcam, built-in camera, connected pro camera or action camera to give them next-gen capabilities. These include beautiful bokeh “portrait” mode, spotlight, natural privacy blur, background replacement, auto-framing face tracking, and cinematic “LUT” filters.

I used the previous version during the pandemic. Seeing good comments on mastodon, will give it a try with my Studio Display camera and office crappy logitech.

Mermaid Flow Visual Editor

mermaidflow.app:

This app makes it easy to create Mermaid JS diagrams with its Visual and Interactive editor, so you get the stability of version controlled diagrams with the simplicity of drawing.

Very useful for Mermaid Diagrams. Specially for making quick drafts during calls, and having this as base for whatever next steps. Will be using it during the next few days.

Remarkable2 Type Folio Keyboard Case Introduced

From remarkable.com:

The new Type Folio brings physical keyboard support to reMarkable 2 for the first time. It provides a great typing experience when you need it, and smart, sturdy protection when you don’t.

It’s slim, with a reMarkable — The paper tablet for people who prefer paper. footprint that could easily be mistaken for a protective folio. It’s comfortable, with a keyboard that features full-size letter keys and 1.3 mm of key travel — more than many popular laptops. And it’s simple. It connects automatically to reMarkable 2 with magnets, requiring no additional pairing, charging, or updating.

Well, this throws a wrench into my Freewrite Alpha window shopping. In a good way, mind you, if you Changes to reMarkable Connect. The videos on the product page, and on reviews make it look very well-designed. Which is on-brand for Remarkable.

Reviewers seem to really like the hardware, even if the $200 price is high.

Raymond Wong, on inverse.com

It’s a little pricey at $199, but if you are as fond of the distraction-free E Ink tablet for notetaking as I am, the Type Folio might be a worthwhile investment, though it does have quirks. If

Alex Cranz, on theverge.com:

Devices like the Freewrite are very cool in practice but simply too finicky for me to use as anything more than a gimmick. So I am frankly shocked by how much I like Remarkable’s new keyboard case, the $199 Type Folio.

Even Jason Hiner, on zdnet.com, appreciates the hardware:

The hardware is as stunning and well-designed as you’d expect from ReMarkable, yet the software — which requires an upgrade to version 3.2 to support the new keyboard — is not quite as intuitive or polished yet.

The software thought, doesn’t get as much praise. Which is my experience with the Remarkable2. It’s basically in the sour spot between extremely simple, and missing features like creating links to specific pages. Personally, I’ve struggling with the new disable continuous pages feature.

Still, better have great hardware, and continued improving software — than the other way around

Keychron S1 Very First Impressions

First Impressions of the Keychron S1:

• Love the heavy weight.
• Brown switches feel and sounds are a different level from the K3.
• Keycaps shape are nice.
• Not crazy about the keys font.

Keychron S1 below, K3

Haven’t played with the remapping. But since I already use Karabiner, only thinking about remapping the screenshot button.

Overall very happy.

Tidbits for 2023 Week 8

• The Magic Highlighter: Safari Extension for iOS and Mac that highlights search terms on the web pages. Purchased.

• Zenitizer: minimal meditation timer for iOS and Apple Watch with Health, Widgets and Shortcuts support. In beta.

• MacWhisper: macOS interface to transcribe audio files into text with OpenAI’s Whisper. Paid version includes largers models ($12)

• Transkript: Another macOS interface to transcribe audio files into text with OpenAI’s Whisper. A lot more feature in paid version, but way more expensive.

An Eventual Apple Fan

25 years ago I was a very different Apple fan¹. I was a Newton fan.

Before the PowerBook G3, iBook, iMac, OSX, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. Apple was, well, boring. The one thing that was cool for me, was the Newton MessagePad and the eMate. I wrote about my love for Newton, about a decade ago. And when I update my list of top Apple products, my Newton MessagePad 2100 will still be among the top products.

Going back to February 1998, I was a high-school senior then. The Matrix movie was still a year away from release, but already tech geeks had become a peculiar class in the social structure, specially in an all-male school like mine. I was the only one in my cohort, which made me extra peculiar. All this preface is to try to understand how I survived using an Apple Newton as my notebook in 1998.

Just like fans of Game of Thrones Books would find themselves alone without a tribe after reading about the Red Wedding in 2002, I was hurt when I read the news about Newton’s demise. And nobody — other than my Dad — could even make sense of my grief.

How could an amazing device such my Newton MessagePad 2100 be condemned to such a fate? Who the hell did Steve Jobs thought he was?

I now believe that by removing Newton as a distraction, the Apple resurgence was made possible. Which led to many other products I love. But none like that original love.

Wildebeest: A Cloudflare ActivityPub Server

From blog.cloudflare.com:

Today we’re introducing Wildebeest, an open-source, easy-to-deploy ActivityPub and Mastodon-compatible server built entirely on top of Cloudflare’s Supercloud. If you want to run your own spot in the Fediverse you can now do it entirely on Cloudflare.

I trust Cloudflare — at least more than other actors nowadays. This is a great announcement for me. But unlike last year, I’m in no hurry to host my own Mastodon instance. But if I needed to, this would be a strong contender.

Opera Adds ChatGPT Sidebar

Julia Szyndzielorz, on blogs.opera.com:

Opera is planning to add popular AI-generated content services to the browser sidebar. On top of that, the company is also working on augmenting the browsing experience with new features that will interact with these new generative-AI-powered capabilities. Among the first features to be tested is a new “Shorten” button in the address bar that will be able to use AI to generate short summaries of any webpage or article.

Of course they did. Opera has been trying to find smaller market segments for some time, with a crypto version and gaming version, among others. Which makes sense for them as they try get gain share from smaller pockets.

Mildly related, not a fan of Opera blog now being PR post. Of course I’m biased, but doesn’t make it less truth.

On Atomic Habits Not Working

Krishna Bharadwaj, on krishnabharadwaj.info:

I want to do well in these areas on a daily basis: Sleep, Meditation, Exercise, 16 hour IF, Journaling, Deep Work, Hobby, Reading. Over the past several years, I have figured out that these few things (80:20) work well for me, and I am not on the lookout for new habits or ideas to improve.

Worth a read, but what I enjoyed the most was the concise areas/habits he tries to keep in mind on a daily basis.

Prefix Dates of our Lives

For two years I used Julian date format (2023d53) for my notes — both physical and digital. Last week I switched to what I call bizformat (23.02.22).

On this blog, I still use ISO 8601 (2023-02-22) as a prefix for all markdown files. In part because it’s what blot uses, but mostly because for over 15 years of posts, it has proven the easiest way to maintain them. Even after a couple of migrations.

While the day of year format worked really well most of that time, over the past month I’ve gotten lost translating between the formats. My thinking is that current projects have bigger external dependencies, and dates have become more important.

I may add a day of week going forward (23.02.22 Wed), but for now the new format is working pretty well.

Microsoft Teams “Big” Update Coming

Tom Warren, on theverge.com:

Known as Microsoft Teams 2.0 or 2.1 internally, Microsoft has been working on this new Teams client for years. The app should use 50 percent less memory, tax the CPU less, and result in better battery life on laptops.

Praise the lords of kobol. I suffer through Teams at work. I tried, really tried to like it and use its features… but it’s soooo slooooooow.

Hope this is a significant upgrade, and I it includes the Mac version.

Look Back and Laugh

Today feels like the start of a new era in my work life. As with all geological eras, the exact date they change is debatable. While I’m jotting down today as the end of the previous era — the one I’ve lived in for the past 5 years — it was almost an average day.

A short announcement in a call with just a few people is the inflection point. Far from the moment the meteor crashes, but for me, when we discover it’s heading towards earth.

Change brings opportunity, nothing is permanent except change, we were happy and didn’t know it. All these cliches are applicable and there’s no need for drama. Nothing is happening yet. And nothing will suddenly happen. Small change upon small change will occur and, since we live through it, it’ll appear normal at the other end. I’ll look back and laugh at it all.

But if my future and today self exchange glances for a moment — without all the intermediaries — both will pause, and sigh.

Appreciation of a Craft

The intersection of interests and abilities is a strange place. My natural inclination would be that it takes a certain level of personal craft, to better appreciate others. But looking at sport fans, I sense a fallacy. Many, with extreme appreciation to the craft of the sport, have limited practice on the sport itself.

A closer personal example would be handwriting. For some reason, I can appreciate beautiful calligraphy, however my own handwriting has been accurately described as hieroglyphs.

What does it mean when you recognize a craft? Does it say anything about your own level of expertise? As I consider areas in which I (think) recognize a craft, the difference between my competence and the one I admire varies:

• Well-designed app.
• Good writing.
• Swimming style.

There’s something here tied to consumption and creation, but I’m not ready to unpack it. I’ll chew on it for a few more days.

Wildebeest: A Cloudflare ActivityPub Server

From blog.cloudflare.com:

Today we’re introducing Wildebeest, an open-source, easy-to-deploy ActivityPub and Mastodon-compatible server built entirely on top of Cloudflare’s Supercloud. If you want to run your own spot in the Fediverse you can now do it entirely on Cloudflare.

I trust Cloudflare — at least more than other actors nowadays. It’s compatible with the fediverse and open-source, best of all worlds. So this is a great announcement for me. Unlike last year, I’m in no hurry to host my own Mastodon instance. But if I needed to, this would be a strong contender¹.

Day One on the Web Public Beta Available

dayoneapp.com:

Start journaling in Day One from any device with a web browser, including Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

Happy to have the option, but not rushing-in to test it. Browsers are are a weak link (extensions, etc). Will give some time while others kick the tires, or I find an use-case.

Llueve Sobre Mojado

The Spanish expression llueve sobre mojado — also a great song — means something along the lines of raining over already wet. And while this works as a title for many productivity topics, my alternative title for this post: My Damp Damn Life, should indicate this a real #FirstWorldProblem rant about… humidity.

Costa Rica is humid. It’s famous for its rainforest, so that’s no surprise. Still, the daily rains for over three quarters of the year are sometimes challenging. But we manage. Swimming pools, tennis courts, and small football fields usually have a roof. The marketing machine that brought you eco-tourism, calls these 8 months the… wait for it… green season. Because, yes it rains, but everything also turns green. Brilliant.

Anyways, we manage. You do outside stuff in the morning, never leave car windows open, and you get some sort of roof leak every year. It’s fine. But, my biggest complaint is: damp towels.

Our first house bathroom didn’t have a window. I always attributed most of the dampness to that design detail. And after four years, when we moved to a slightly bigger place, my big priority was a bathroom window.

Well, here we are. Middle of dry season. Bathroom with a window and a damp towel. Here’s where I’d make up some anecdata and try to compare drying with cellphone or sleeping mattress. Did you know you spend more time drying yourself than brushing your teeth? Probably not. But people still spend more on toothpaste and toothbrushes than on towels, that’s for sure.

It has come down to this. As modern person, I’m going to buy myself out of a problem. I literally still have 30 more years to pay for this house, so we need a more targeted and cost-effective solution.

According to a few British websites, they know a few things about dampness over there, my options are either a heated towel rack or a dehumidifier. And as soon as I’m able to dry off, I’m getting both.

Google Bard AI in Search

Sundar Pichai, on blog.google:

Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner. These new AI features will begin rolling out on Google Search soon.

I’m sure that Google has something that will blow our minds, but this announcement is corporate lorem ipsum placeholder. Something is far from ready and there’s nothing to show yet.

My bet? Google’s problem is how not to cannibalize its Ad business. And they haven’t figured it out yet.

5 Products I’m Looking Forward To

I usually leave items in the cart — or in my Things wishlist — for some time before pulling the trigger, but these I’m planning to buy as soon as they’re available.

• Ivory for Mac Mastodon client.
  Been using the iOS version, and it made Mastodon my happy place to visit. Testers are loving it, and hopefully a public version will come out by March.

• NanoFoamer Pro milk foam maker.
  I backed the original handheld NanoFoamer and upgraded to the NanoFoamer Lithium when it came out. Have used one of them every day for the past two years. Will likely buy this new version as soon as it comes out.

• Shift Happens book about keyboards.
  Looks like an amazing book, with beautiful photos and a great editor. Of course, the topic is something I love learning about. Will instaback soon.

• Wyze Cam OG Wireless Security Cameras.
  I have a love/disappointment relationship with Wyze Cams, but these OG cameras seem to go back-to-basics in just the right ways. Already purchase two, but need to pick them up when I visit the US.

• Fellow Opus Coffee Grinder.
  Been on the fence with their Ode Grinder for a long time, but I could never justify the pricing/size. The Opus hits the right combination for me, will also order it as soon I figure out how to bring it to Costa Rica.

Back-Journaling or How Cheating Helps Maintain Streaks

I have a 1696 day streak on Day One. It’s clearly a habit because I find it uncomfortable when I don’t do it daily. Still, I fall off the wagon a lot. And then, I cheat. I go back to those empty days and write its journal entry.

Adding photos helps me remember the details. I also take screenshots throughout the day on the Mac, which are great way to remember work details. Sometimes I take notes with the Apple Pencil and add that as a reminder prompt, which I then go back to fill in with text.

Matt Gemmell and Writing Less

mattgemmell.scot:

Write less, and be at peace with it. It’s your site, and your rules. Blogs were originally a kind of diary, and they were mostly repositories of short pieces, not huge articles. It’s an absolute fallacy that longer works are better, or more valuable; indeed, shorter pieces are more likely to be read and digested, which intrinsically increases their value.

Fewer words are fine. Social-length posts are fine. Link blogs are fine. You get to keep your own output, where you want it, and the form it takes is entirely up to you.

Other day of the spectrum. Useful to hear since after two days into my February write everyday challenge, I already missed almost two days.

Github Adds Mastodon Social Link and Verification

Derek Prior, on Mastodon:

You can now add up to four social account links to your GitHub profile which render with a sprinkling of formatting support for our most popular platforms. Yes, the resulting links links will satisfy Mastodon verification requirements when rendered.

Just did it, no issues. Great way to verify accounts for geeks.

Loud Enough so Everyone can Read Me

I can never make dictation work for writing. Since iOS 15 the technology is good enough that blaming errors is a cheap excuse. it’s great for sending messages and such. I even manage to write a couple of Day One entries a week with it. But as a way to create a good first shitty draft… I constantly fail.

For whatever reason, the speed of narration doesn’t work for me. It’s too fast. I need the friction of the keyword.

During the pandemic, I wrote many morning pages on 3x5 blank index cards, which then I would dictate them into Day One. Reading works fine. But coming up with the ideas on-the-fly is were I struggle.

I’ll experiment yet again with dictation this month. At some point I’ll have difficulty finding time for writing, and talking to my phone will seem like the magical solutions. A few different things to test:

• Sending a voice note to myself with the ideas.
• Dictate in Spanish and then translating.
• Writing the outline of the post and then dictating from there.
• The inverse, writing out free flow of thoughts¹, and narrating what I pick of that.

Max Böck on 7 Reasons Why He Doesn’t Write

Max Böck on mxb.dev:

Like many others, “write more” is high up on my imaginary list of life improvements and although I don’t usually do new year’s resolutions, now feels like a good time to re-evaluate what’s stopping me there.

I came up with seven reasons that I use to justify why I’m not writing. In a confusing twist of perspective, I’m also going to try and talk myself out of them by explaining to you, dear Reader, why they are bullshit.

Well, I’m glad last night’s impulse post happened. Reading this now feels like a slap on the back, rather than a smack on the forehead.

Not only does he make excellent points, but also links to other great posts. The icing on the cake for me:

A better plan is to write about what you know and experience in your day-to-day life instead. Authentic posts are always helpful, and you will solidify your own knowledge in the process too.

Sounds like a plan.

Getting Back in the Saddle

Going to do another post every day attempt in February. While I cringe at the quality of some post in November, as I look back at them, I enjoy their tone of voice. It’s my real voice, unlike many of the other longer posts.

Given what happened with Twitter, I’m arriving at the conclusion that this is a weblog. (Please hold your duh’s) This website is a public journal, nothing more. But it has been much less than that, mainly because my weird fixation with other blogs I admire. Nothing wrong with that. But even hobbyist writers must write. Not worry about an audience. Specially if an audience doesn’t exist.

I’m going to assume the reader cares about my rumination’s. If not so much, they’ll skim. If not at all, they’ll just skip.

By the end of this round, I expect to change domains. 5typos.net had a good run. 15 years is not nothing. But I think it’s time to put everything under roberto.mateu.me and just write.

Bye Twitter, Let’s Keep in Touch

I joined Twitter in December 2006, ID number 35403. After a couple of months of looking around, I drank the kool-aid.

Slowly at first, and then quickly, my feed filled with a geeky crowd. It was a similar experience to when I picked up my first Wired magazine a decade earlier: a realization there were others.

While the Facebook feed was an exhausting exercise of faked extroversion, Twitter was real to me. Hitchhiker Guide to the Universe quotes, Apple fans, weird jokes, and Apps… so many Apps.

Just a year ago, being unable to visit Twitter from Tweetbot — or any other client — would have been painful. Even when I took a short Twitter break in 2018 — ironically, in protest of the lack of support of 3rd party APIs — I wrote:

Yet I can’t deny not to miss the water fountain discussion. Reading why my favorite app developers are reading, what people I find interesting find interesting. In a perfect world, we all have a blog and it’s easy to see the streams post and micropost and interact.

At the time, I had hoped Mastodon would be enough of an alternative for a part of the crowd to hang around in. I’m happy to say, less than 5 years later, it has happened.

A series of unfortunate events, all of them caused by Twitter itself, has pushed enough people to the Mastodon/ActivityPub ecosystems to reach critical mass. At least for my use.

Best part was that I didn’t need to struggle with “leaving” Twitter. By cutting off 3rd party access and forcing Tapbots to release Ivory, the table was set. The app ready, the people were there, and Twitter closed the door behind us.

It’s an amicable separation. I’m not really leaving Twitter, just scaling back it use. Just like Instagram, it’s a feed I’ll watch but not engage with.

Until Reeder access is cut, that’ll likely be my main source of checking the feed. Afterward the website on the desktop, with a UI cleanup plugin installed, is the most likely candidate. My beloved App List will be hard to not often visit, but as Apps/Services/Developers establish a presence on the Fediverse, it will lose relevance slowly. Still think Twitter will be an useful contact form to brands for some time, but so is email, we’ll see.