Dang– I have a big post I want to write up using Monodraw ASCII-style diagrams. The problem is that my blog width isn’t sufficient for showing these correctly in pre/code blocks. And Monodraw doesn’t have a dark mode export to PNG. I might have to do screenshots.

Shit hit post when I was trying to preview. Still messing with how SVGs work.

I can’t help it. Every time I am reading about Aaron Taylor-Johnson my brain swaps his name with Anya Taylor-Joy.

I actually think Apple loves that you can use a Mac and iPhone this long and still be happy. It’s probably about the edge, because in today’s world security patching alone puts a huge burden at some point. But I think Apple wants its products to last and loves having users talk about their 8 year old Mac.

How many 8 year old Windows laptops exist?

How many people can talk fondly about even a four year old non-Mac laptop? Very few. Meanwhile, excluding the bad keyboard era blip, keeping a Mac for four years has been an easy choice since the SSD switch. Even 6 years is pretty easy for anyone who is just a bit careful with their laptop to ensure longevity.

I buy a new machine roughly every 2.5-3.5 years. I find this is the sweet spot for residual trade in value and meaningful upgrades. But it’s been a long time since I’ve felt a need to do that. Part of my loyalty to Apple products is precisely because they last. I think Apple knows this.

Just spent a bit over 3 hours playing guitar with some other folks for the first time in years and it was a blast.

The Holdovers is definitely my kind of movie.

The reach of social networks now means everyone compares themselves against the absolute best creators and then stop making things themselves. We don’t talk, we broadcast. So we get quiet and passive again.

The winners are broadcast platforms, not interactive conversations.

Unsurprisingly, Jason Snell has a measured take on the Department of Justice lawsuit against Apple. Mostly my feelings are “some things are probably about to get better, but a lot of things are probably about to get a lot worse for me as a user.”

A dear friend just shared this apparently classic rant on programming and it’s perfect.

The first generation AirPod Max was not for me. I’ve been holding on to a pair of Sony WH1000XM2 thinking the next version of AirPod Max might be for me. Yet, as Sony kept iterating (and not always to my liking), Apple hasn’t released anything. Maybe I should stop waiting.

I cannot adequately express how utterly broken Microsoft Outlook is compared to Google Calendar. It has been a daily annoyance across my team as calendar invites just don’t show up, disappear, fail to notify of RSVPs, and regularly just doesn’t work in ways that Google has never been a problem.

Is it possible to be an adult in the US without the constant barrage of shitty mail?

All I can think about watching John’s windowing is how powerful spaces are and how it drives me nuts that people don’t use them more.

Also, please bring back spatial spaces. I’m glad to not be stuck with 2x2 grids, but I loved 3x3.

Quick breakfast while waiting for my haircut.

Is it any surprise that I seriously considered (finally?) checking out TikTok and now it’s declining among teens? You decide.

This post on how Phoenix is not your app really resonates with me. In fact, something that drives me nuts is when I see logic leak into a LiveView. That said, moving code and accessing our own code is so easy, it’s not tough to refactor.

I’ve been increasingly turning to Firefox over Safari. I like it a lot more than Chrome so far.

Gracie is still with us, though her decline continues. Multiple times I’ve thought, “If this is not one day, but two days like this in a row, it’s time.” Holding the power to decide when life ends and death begins for someone you love who cannot express themselves is challenging. We are playing a mix between dog nurse, dog psychologist, and dog priest. This kind of extended end time takes its toll– I don’t sleep well because every movement she makes at night means she could be getting ready to vomit or need to go for a walk to avoid an accident. That’s not literally true six of seven nights a week, but it only takes one night to set my nervous system on high alert.

She has had quality visits from my sister and my parents. We brought Elsa’s mom home a bit early– she’s arriving today– so that she can have quality time with her as well. When we made that decision, I was certain Monday or Tuesday would be the day, but now I’m less sure.

The big news is that Allovue was acquired by PowerSchool in January. This marks a transition after almost exactly ten years working on the same project with the same people. In a lot of ways, the work isn’t different– we’re aligned on mission and vision, especially in the near-ish term, and I’m working with the same team. But in other ways, everything is different. I’m going from being a clear leader at small company where every bit of history and every decision was one I witnessed or partook in to being a middle manager in a very large company. I remain optimistic and I am continuing to adjust. Being in management in general is kind of tough here, because I’m trying to help people navigate the change while going through it myself.

I have continued to deepen my Elixir knowledge, bit by bit, and it remains a language that makes me feel happy. The speed with which I can move from idea to prototype is great. It’s easy to look at complex code and consider how to pull it a part and make it better (almost too easy to spend all of my time tweaking and refactoring). It’s a pleasure to read. You can write garbage just like any other language, but the underlying elegance and expressiveness is impressive. You can go very far only understanding basic data structures and using Ecto. That’s the way I think it should be – for me, programming has always been about shuffling data around and Elixir jives with that, so it jives with me.

I’ve been sitting on a partial redesign of this site for quite some time. I became so annoyed with myself for having not completed it that I went ahead and applied the new (darker) color scheme a couple of months ago just to feel like I made some progress. Maybe it’ll actually roll out in 2024.

One thing that’s changed definitively is I now use Nova for almost all of my non-R code. I was much more heavily using neovim before, and I still do whenever I’m already in terminal land. I’ve just found it really hard to get things working how I like in neovim for a few key features. Nova’s vim binding support is terrible, and I still find that very frustrating, but the rest of the app sits much better with me than VS Code has, even if I’m missing out on the extension library.

We’ve got some upcoming trips to Chicago, Providence, and Nashville I’m looking forward to. The plan is still to go to London in July, although it appears we’ve chosen the absolute peak of the peak of travel season so I’m starting to second guess myself on that one.

Lately, I’ve had a hard time with consistency. My diet has been inconsistent. Getting to the gym and volleyball has been inconsistent. Reading has been inconsistent. Writing on my blog has been inconsistent. I’m hoping I can start to find some kind of groove again in the next few months.

Natalie Wynn pointing out how incels say they want a return to traditional roles, but actually wish to be the “beloved” rather than the “lover”— to feel desired, in a way that is often ascribed and allowable to the feminine— is a banger real late in her newest video.

Not a new observation, but damn, The Stranger is a hell of an album.

Holy shit, I’m watching the latest video from Natalie Wynn finally and she literally has footage walking to my local Royal Farms. So weird to be like, “Wait, is that… is that the Keswick Royal Farms?”

“I was surprised that they pretty much all agreed on a definition that romance was for good girls, and erotica is for sluts. Pornography, of course, is for men.”

– Natalie Wynn on the definition of romance v. erotica

I’ve mentioned the rotating home screen images as a killer iOS feature, but I think I’ve undersold Focus Modes.

Aggressively automating the quieting of my phone has eliminated pretty much any negative feeling I have toward phones.

LED light bulbs are like every conservative outrage— once the fight against them is won, we all move on and just live in a better world.

Something is really fucked with my blog. Missing pages, a major post flipped to draft then republished… I’ll have to poke more when I properly wake up.