The ugly American.
dgardner.substack.com/p/the-ugl…
Found through @Buddenbohm@fnordon.de
(if only so many good ppl wouldn’t share on Substack 😭)
Finished reading The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson 📚 yesterday evening. Stayed up until after 11pm to finish the book. My regular bed time would have been at around 9.30pm 🫣
I liked the trilogy very much. The ending has a believable, moving conclusion. I was captivated by the series. 🫶
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 “polish” me.
But after I added the update gmail was like, “YOU’RE STILL DOING IT WRONG, IDIOT?” and the polish thing came up again and I was like, “Are you trying to AI fix a paragraph where I say how much I don’t want AI to fix shit?” 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…
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 don’t even read error messages anymore, I just copy and paste them.
I’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 they’re prostrating themselves before Trump. They aren’t stupid; they have to know what kind of person Trump is and understand — whether or not they admit it to themselves — 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/…
📨 Mail Client: Mail.app, SpamSieve + GPG Suite
📮 Mail Server: iCloud Mail + self-hosted
📝 Notes: Obsidian
✅ To-Do: I don’t use to-do lists anymore. If I need a reminder, I use Apple reminders
📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone, Halide + Camera.app
🎨 Photo Editing: Darkroom, Pixelmator Pro
📆 Calendar: Fantastical
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud
📖 RSS: Reeder
🙍🏻♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts
🌐 Browser: Vivaldi
💬 Chat: Apple Messages
🔖 Bookmarks: I don’t bookmark anymore
📑 Read It Later: Readwise
📜 Word Processing: nothing
📈 Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers
📊 Presentations: iA Presenter
🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders
🍴 Meal Planning: nothing
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Apple Numbers
📰 News: Blogs and newsletters
🎵 Music: Apple Music
🎤 Podcasts: Overcast
🔐 Password Management: 1Password
🧑💻 Code Editor: Neovim
✈️ VPN: Proton VPN
Bonus Items
🚀 Launcher: Alfred
🐚 Terminal: Ghostty
☂️ Backup: Used to be Arq + S3 + Cubbit. Currently re-evaluating
🚫 Ad Blocking: Relying on Vivaldi
🔎 Search Engine: Ecosia
📓 Journaling: Obsidian
🗂️ Version Control: Lazygit, Fork
🖼️ Screenshots: -
🐘 Mastodon Client: I follow Mastodon people through micro.blog
👨💻 Local Development: -
🗄️ Code Repositories: GitHub
🛌 Sleep Tracking: Apple Health
💽 Database Manager: -
📖 Reading: Tolino
✍️ Writing: Obsidian, Scrivener
🧾 Invoicing and Time Tracking: -
👨🎨 Design: -
🕹️ Games: a few but too little time
📊 Web Analytics: -
🗺️ Maps + Driving Directions: Apple Maps + CarPlay
🎬 Filmography Reference: Callsheet
Lots of things I do not (need) to use anymore since I gave up being self-employed.
THIS. IS. SO. GOOD!
How I created a “On this day” 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.
Eine typische Siri Situation 🤦
Leonie verlässt das Bad, geht in ihr Zimmer und sagt in ihr Zimmer hinein: „Hey Siri, weiter!“ Daraufhin antwortet Siri im Bad: „Wiedergabe hier fortsetzen oder in Leos Zimmer?“ Ich antworte, im Bad stehend: „In Leos Zimmer“ Darauf Siri: „Ich kann den Lautsprecher nicht finden.“ 🤦