Started reading: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson ๐Ÿ“š on February 21st already. It’s a bit slow to get into it. A relaxed read so far as I am not super hyped how it continues so I feel like I can take my time with it.

I have a set of questions I ask in some variation at the end of my 1:1s.

I really liked these suggestions by Cate. I don’t lead 1:1s right now, but can see the value in answering them. And maybe I’ll lead 1:1s again at some point?

A thing about Raycast that I immediately like: It helps you uninstall apps from your system and deletes all belonging files. Neat! ๐Ÿ‘

Adam posted about Mikkel today. That let me to learn about his apps, specifically Leader Key.

This app will replace some automations that I’ve used Alfred for as well as make my app-starting shortcuts in BettTouchTool redundant and add more options. And it made me switch Alfred for Raycast.

Had to move my birthday celebrations two weeks into the future because there’s still flu going round in my family and I don’t want anyone else to catch it. Damn! Was really looking forward to tomorrow. But hey, it’s only postponed.

Finished reading: What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie ๐Ÿ“š

Oddly gripping. I am torn about this book. Couldnโ€™t abandon it but also am not super hyped I read it. ๐Ÿ˜…

Keep your hope

Despite feeling overwhelmed by global crises, it’s important to recognize that we still have the power to take meaningful action within our own sphere of control.

Heute morgen wieder die Kinder zur Schule gebracht. Dabei gesehen, dass auch Tramfahrer nur Menschen sind, manchmal zu schnell fahren und dann nicht mehr rechtzeitig bremsen kรถnnen. Glรผcklicherweise nur Blechschaden bei dem Auto, wo die Tram hinten drauf fuhr. Dass so etwas vor der Schule meiner Kinder passiert macht mich etwas nervรถs.

Finished reading: Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb ๐Ÿ“š

Cried for the last 400 pages. What a book. What an ending. Intensive feelings as these is what books can give. More so than movies. I know these characters. They are my friends.

I recently started using a Bookwyrm instance (bookrastinating.com) to manage my book reading. They support ActivityPub and offer some more functionality regarding reading goals and book reviews. Is there anything planned on integrating with Bookwyrm @manton?

I started reading this a few days ago as a loan from the lib: What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie ๐Ÿ“š

Very fun and just my kind of humor:

I rolled my eyes, closed the window and went back to bed. As I fell asleep, I remembered to practise gratitude. I was immensely grateful that despite the gruesome way my husband died, he’d done it with his clothes on, and not, like Jane Borrall’s husband, naked but for a latex trench coat.

The ugly American.

dgardner.substack.com/p/the-ugl…

Found through @Buddenbohm@fnordon.de

(if only so many good ppl wouldnโ€™t share on Substack ๐Ÿ˜ญ)

Finished reading The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson ๐Ÿ“š yesterday evening. Stayed up until after 11pm to finish the book. My regular bed time would have been at around 9.30pm ๐Ÿซฃ

I liked the trilogy very much. The ending has a believable, moving conclusion. I was captivated by the series. ๐Ÿซถ

More on AI. And fun with Jenny Lawson.

I just read an article from Jenny Lawson about how using AI is going very strong for her: No, I do not want AI to โ€œpolishโ€ me.

But after I added the update gmail was like, โ€œYOUโ€™RE STILL DOING IT WRONG, IDIOT?โ€ and the polish thing came up again and I was like, โ€œAre you trying to AI fix a paragraph where I say how much I donโ€™t want AI to fix shit?โ€ And turns out, yeah, that exactly what it meant because it gave me this

I will not (hopefully!) write that much about AI in the future but yeah. It was too good to not share with you. Also: I mentioned recently how I sometimes use AI but didn’t give an example. So here is one. I like to use LLMs to rewrite my English sentences in a more idiomatic way. I use this mostly for writing where it’s important for me the reader has little option to mis-interpret my words. Because they might be bad English.

Found via @manton: www.manton.org/2025/01/2…

nmn.gl/blog/ai-i…

It crept up on me subtly.

First, I stopped reading documentation. Why bother when AI could explain things instantly?

Then, my debugging skills took the hit. Stack traces now feel unapproachable without AI. I donโ€™t even read error messages anymore, I just copy and paste them.

Iโ€™ve become a human clipboard, a mere intermediary between my code and an LLM.

I sincerely hope you don’t share the author’s experience.

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-pat…

The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, however, surely have that kind of money, yet theyโ€™re prostrating themselves before Trump. They arenโ€™t stupid; they have to know what kind of person Trump is and understand โ€” whether or not they admit it to themselves โ€” the humiliating nature of their behavior. So why do they do it?

My default apps

Inspired by Matt Stein’s post on the same topic: mattstein.com/thoughts/…

๐Ÿ“จ Mail Client: Mail.app, SpamSieve + GPG Suite
๐Ÿ“ฎ Mail Server: iCloud Mail + self-hosted
๐Ÿ“ Notes: Obsidian
โœ… To-Do: I don’t use to-do lists anymore. If I need a reminder, I use Apple reminders
๐Ÿ“ท Photo Shooting: iPhone, Halide + Camera.app
๐ŸŽจ Photo Editing: Darkroom, Pixelmator Pro
๐Ÿ“† Calendar: Fantastical
๐Ÿ“ Cloud File Storage: iCloud
๐Ÿ“– RSS: Reeder
๐Ÿ™๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธ Contacts: Apple Contacts
๐ŸŒ Browser: Vivaldi
๐Ÿ’ฌ Chat: Apple Messages
๐Ÿ”– Bookmarks: I don’t bookmark anymore
๐Ÿ“‘ Read It Later: Readwise
๐Ÿ“œ Word Processing: nothing
๐Ÿ“ˆ Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers
๐Ÿ“Š Presentations: iA Presenter
๐Ÿ›’ Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders
๐Ÿด Meal Planning: nothing
๐Ÿ’ฐ Budgeting and Personal Finance: Apple Numbers
๐Ÿ“ฐ News: Blogs and newsletters
๐ŸŽต Music: Apple Music
๐ŸŽค Podcasts: Overcast
๐Ÿ” Password Management: 1Password
๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป Code Editor: Neovim
โœˆ๏ธ VPN: Proton VPN

Bonus Items

๐Ÿš€ Launcher: Alfred
๐Ÿš Terminal: Ghostty
โ˜‚๏ธ Backup: Used to be Arq + S3 + Cubbit. Currently re-evaluating
๐Ÿšซ Ad Blocking: Relying on Vivaldi
๐Ÿ”Ž Search Engine: Ecosia
๐Ÿ““ Journaling: Obsidian
๐Ÿ—‚๏ธ Version Control: Lazygit, Fork
๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ Screenshots: -
๐Ÿ˜ Mastodon Client: I follow Mastodon people through micro.blog
๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Local Development: -
๐Ÿ—„๏ธ Code Repositories: GitHub
๐Ÿ›Œ Sleep Tracking: Apple Health
๐Ÿ’ฝ Database Manager: -
๐Ÿ“– Reading: Tolino
โœ๏ธ Writing: Obsidian, Scrivener
๐Ÿงพ Invoicing and Time Tracking: -
๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐ŸŽจ Design: -
๐Ÿ•น๏ธ Games: a few but too little time
๐Ÿ“Š Web Analytics: -
๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ Maps + Driving Directions: Apple Maps + CarPlay
๐ŸŽฌ Filmography Reference: Callsheet

Lots of things I do not (need) to use anymore since I gave up being self-employed.

THIS. IS. SO. GOOD!

youtu.be/7a5trrD8E…

How I created a โ€œOn this dayโ€ feature in Obsidian for my journaling

The author describes their process of journaling in Obsidian, including importing past entries from DayOne and creating a dynamic “On This Day” feature using the Dataview plugin.

Just looked at the cookie banner for The Verge (@manton shared a post from them and I wanted to take a look at it).

This is ridiculous. Functional cookies are usable for 810 partners? They transmit 2.6MB of JS for that article. It’s only text with 4 images.