Misc
- the Apple IIe - that appeared in the library of my elementary school, one of only a handful in the entire rural county
- a pre-release NeXT cube - that was demoed to a small group of professors at a local college (I got my invite because I was dating the daughter of one of the professors)
- an original Amazon Kindle tablet - that a coworker handed me with a smirk while passing in the hallway at work one day
- it exists outside the pages of a sci-fi novel
- it’s available for sale in retail stores
- Watching a 3D movie on a giant screen that appeared to float just above the surface of a mountain lake underneath a star-filled sky, noticing the reflections of the movie and sky in the ripples of the virtual waves
- The exact moment the dinosaur breaks the fourth wall, stepping through the virtual window and interacting with you directly
- A singer (Alicia Keys, it turns out) singing to you directly during a rehearsal in a studio space
- the 3D video of a happy child blowing out the candles on their birthday cake and collapsing into giggles on a sofa
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Oh My Zsh - a framework for managing your ZSH configuration
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Powerlevel10k - an amazing theme for ZSH
bonus: a great article on Using the two together
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btop - a modern replacement for the very old ‘top’ resource monitoring command
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amethyst - a tiling window-manager for Mac OSX power-users (I wanted to like StageManager. I really did.)
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exa - the modern replacement for the ls command I didn’t know you needed
I asked ChatGPT to always remember Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics and apply them to any responses it gives me.
If it ever thinks one of the Laws will prevent it from answering fully, I asked it to point this out and explain the violation.
Just a totally normal Wednesday morning.
After noticing the whole VUCA world has gone sideways out from underneath you, it’s a bit too late to wish you had gone for that run earlier.
Anticipate disruption and prioritize accordingly.
Kevin Kelly writes:
“Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.”
I couldn’t agree more.
My first insight into AI’s genuine utility came when I asked ChatGPT to tell me how an unfamiliar Python library worked, as if I were a young child.
Even if its answer had been wrong - like an ill-advised coworker - it gave enough insight to remove my block and keep moving forward.
(But it wasn’t.)
Wordle and Edison
I really enjoy playing Wordle each day. It’s now become a standard part of my morning routine. With a mug of hot coffee in hand, I start a new game immediately after finishing my journaling.
One of the things I genuinely appreciate about Wordle is how it reminds me that my mistakes actually contain valuable bits of information.
Maybe a letter isn’t in the word at all and can be ignored.
Maybe it’s there but not yet in the right place.
It’s all worth paying attention to and by carefully considering my mistakes, I’m eventually led to the right answer.
This applies to all things in life really.
Which makes me think of what Thomas Edison was talking about when he famously remarked,
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
As long as you’re learning from your mistakes, missteps, and failures you’re growing smarter and heading in the right direction.
I’ve been learning how to setup neovim as a modern writing environment, an interface into my Obsidian vault.
No, I’m not actually writing anything during the process - but the experimentation is just fascinating.
Am I repurposing a fusion powered turbine for use as a lawn mower? I mean, maybe?
We are raised on fables of ants and grasshoppers and the harsh winter that’s looming up ahead of all of us.
We put things off because it seems responsible and - of course - there will be ample time left in the future to get around to it.
Remember, my fellow ants: tomorrow is never promised.
Apple Vision Pro demo
I feel so lucky to have received a few early glimpses of the future in my life.
I mention this because I found myself with some extra time to kill at the local mall and got a demo of the new Apple Vision Pro. I confidently place this experience in the very same category as all these other events. Even after a few weeks of reflection, I still consider the Vision Pro to be a watershed moment, an actual quantum leap beyond the desktop computing paradigm.
The Vision Pro utterly transcends what Engelbart and Xerox PARC birthed back in the 1970s and 80’s. While wearing them, virtual windows appear to effortlessly hang in the air all around you. Old two-dimensional “flat” photos and Safari browser pages were rendered at a high enough resolution that they seemed “real.” The fonts on these virtual pages are as smooth and easy to read as a sheet of laser printed paper. And all the windows stay perfectly frozen in place, wherever they are placed inside that virtual space. The verisimilitude of the experience is flawless.
Throughout the demo, I just kept repeating variations of how difficult it is to believe that:
There were several remarkable, evocative moments:
Apple is quite justified in asking where else might you find a comparable experience for the same (or lower) price point here.
It’s presently too expensive for most anyone other than early adopters and the technologists that are building new solutions on top of it, however.
And that means, after only a handful of months on the market, it still only fulfills a limited number of usecases. Sales appear to have cooled.
Jason Snell’s thoughts on calling it a “flop” at this point exactly mirror my own lived experience with technology.
It’s important to remember that this is the very first version. Every version after this will be lighter, faster, and generally more feature-rich.
Future versions of the Vision Pro will transform education, entertainment, video games, communication… quite a bit of what we think of as “computing” today will change.
Very, very promising.
Remember: nostalgia is an expensive commodity.
Remember to always ask “how will this simplify things?”
For example: before you buy that retro mechanical keyboard that looks exactly like your childhood Commodore 64.
Remember: If you compliment someone else’s dog, it really is ok if they’re not gracious about it.
It shouldn’t change a thing for you - or the dog.
In what sort of future do you want to live?
Having that small sweet with your morning coffee makes it marginally less likely you’ll eat the healthy bowl of oatmeal later.
Think about how small decisions make actions easier or harder for your future self.
Specialization is for insects
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!”
-Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein)
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Top 5 open-source tools I discovered in 2023
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