Link Blog, March-April 2022
“Many workers are fed up with work”, writes Black. “In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn’t mean we have to stop doing things,” he continues, but “it does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art”.
By default social media forces you to take whatever is on offer, but Twitter lets you avoid this via the use of lists. You should use them aggressively, whether or not you choose to roll your own. Lists also let you offer those lists to others.
Because this is how I think of my camera: Quiet, a deliberate extension of the eye with a neutral gaze, allowing me to quickly define all aspects of exposure, satisfying to hold and use. A “true” tool that readily bends to the will of the artist/artisan/craftsperson.
They say that the past is a foreign country, and nowhere is this more true than with food…Ingredients were prepared in ways that sound pretty strange to a modern ear. Whole onions were baked in tomato sauce and then eaten for lunch. Whole tomatoes were scalloped on their own.
This is the lesson, over and again. What we learn, what we know, the knowledge we create takes useless matter and turns it into something useful: a resource.
But by the middle of the last decade, every sacrosanct precept started to seem antiquated. If the pervasive deterioration became unmistakable, Coachella began to reflect a societal unmooring. Even though it started to sell out before the lineups were announced, the festival seemed to adopt Jeff Bezos’s overarching philosophy: “All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.”
Sometimes, design provides the perfect analogy. Playdate, on the surface at least, is a deeply nostalgic machine - an oddball handheld made by a team who genuinely understand this crucial thing: that all handhelds are at least a little oddball in the first place.
“People are being driven to work, despite everything that’s going on. Workplace culture removes our ability to link together in our grief and become less lonely. Capitalism is inherently alienating. But there’s also a level of being uncomfortable experiencing other people’s grief if we’re already experiencing our own. We’re trying to cling onto this appearance that we’re all okay: But what’s the prize?” she says. “There isn’t one.”
Which brings us, revoltingly, to me. I visited my doctor, a kind and skilled practitioner on the outside but a vicious crusher of human souls on the inside. We won’t get into the details, but she gave essentially this diagnosis: “What the hell have you been doing to yourself all these years? You think this is a rental car?”
April 25, 2022
Logbook
links
A One-Year Review of my Desktop PC
Buying a Desktop PC is usually about favouring power, speed, and disk space over portability and ease. This is what I heard repeated in my research before purchasing one. After owning one for a year, I can say this is the precise balance decision. Everyone is right about this.
Here’s a quick audit of how I’ve used this PC over the last year.
If you want to know what apps I use all the time, I recently wrote this post: Solid Windows Apps, updated for 2022
Art & Design
- In 2021, I learned how to make pixel, voxel, and 3D art.
- I began using Photoshop again for the first time in many years.
- I began using Bridge and Acrobat more.
- I began learning Adobe XD, which may inform the type of work I do in the future.
Gaming
- I’ve played Death Stranding, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Cyberpunk 2077. I wouldn’t have been able to play any of these on a Surface Pro.
- I’ve created an emulation library for myself, containing digital backups of almost every game and system I own. I’m even in the process of backing up my 3DS, which I thought was impossible until recently.
Video
- I learned how to use Davinci Resolve to edit a ton of video game footage. Also, podcasts, gifs, and tiktoks.
- It’s not a bad Plex setup.
Work
- Most of my work is in Illustrator and InDesign. These aren’t the most intensive Adobe apps, but it’s still been very nice to never feel a slow down.
- I’ve been able to sync more files to my local pc without worrying about running out of space all the time.
Photography
- I’ve finally had the space to locally store every photo file I have, and I’ve begun the work of tagging/rating my collection, something I just haven’t had the bandwidth for in the last decade. Lightroom is awesome at exactly this.
Music
- I was able to rebuilt my local music file collection. Starting with a bunch of FLAC files from vinyl purchases, and moving onto files from an old iPod of mine, I was able to mostly get back what I’d lost nearly a decade ago when I made the move to smaller laptops with less storage.
- I used the old iPod for a while, actually. It was nice! But I found it had syncing issues, and would sometimes appear to glitch out. Time comes for us all.
Phone Backups
- Every now and then, I’ll make an encrypted backup of my phone with iTunes. I know iCloud has largely obviated this, but it’s still nice.
Experiments in Mac and Android Emulation
- I had an itch to see if I could make a “hackintosh” with this machine, and I did. It worked. If I ever feel the need in the future, I can run the experiment again and work as a “Mac” user, with access to most apps (I don’t think it would work with M1-based apps, for obvious reasons).
- When windows 11 came out, it enabled better android app emulation. This also works! It’s a novelty to see something like Apple Music running on Windows. But much like the Mac emulation, I don’t actually have much use for android apps in my routine.
Downsides to a Desktop PC
No Built-in microphone or camera. So the decision is to be made: keep a microphone or webcam always plugged in? Or have some system where you put them away when they’re not in use, so you don’t have to cover your desk with accessories. I’ve been frustrated by this modularity at times.
It’s obvious, but still worth mentioning: I can only really use it while sitting in one place in my apartment. Teamviewer gets around this for the odd thing, as I can sort of peek at it from my phone or my old Surface.
I worry about heat. This is a big, hot machine that can kick up to 70-80 degrees while doing normal stuff. I’m probably going to buy more fans, which will only make it louder.
April 22, 2022
technology
windows
Solid Windows Apps, updated for 2022
I wanted to make a Windows version of Craig Mod’s “well-crafted piece of macOS software” list, but for Windows. Windows has a reputation for having rough software that’s often ridiculed. I stopped using macOS because I fell in love with touch-based Windows PCs this decade, specifically the Surface line. And while it was a rocky transition, I’ve learned to love so many Windows apps. I’m sure some of these are also on the Mac, but here’s a list of what I feel would make any Windows PC sing:
- Calibre, for everything ePub, PDF, CBR, and mobi.
- Advanced Renamer. Just a swiss army knife of batch file renaming. I’ve been using it for years and it’s still teaching me new tricks.
- Affinity Suite. Especially on a Surface, where the pen support is fantastic. They run cooler than equivalent Adobe apps too.
- ScreenToGif - a super easy (and fun?) recorder/gif editor that I use all the time.
- Ditto clipboard manager. I tried a few of these and stuck with this one and I just never thought about it ever again.
- Big Stretch Reminder. A taskbar applet that reminds you to get up, stretch, or whatever you want, when you specify. It’s Apple Watch’s “time to stand” feature but a pop up on the computer you’re actually looking at.
On top of those, I feel like Microsoft themselves have some of Windows’ best apps (I know that sounds obvious, but it just isn’t true on the Mac side anymore).
- OneNote has been my best buddy for almost ten years.
- Visual Studio Code, for when you need more organization and text help than Typora (I use both everyday).
- Photos is underappreciated. It’s ability to just let you point at a folder and work in it for a while is great. The built-in video editor is an excellent fast option.
April 6, 2022
links
windows
Keeping Track of Stuff, Winter 2022
Music
When I’m listening to music, it’s usually on Spotify in a playlist called “Add to Collection?” There’s usually a few hundred songs in there. When I see a new album or a playlist I think is good, I dump it in there. I usually listen to it on shuffle. If I don’t like a song, I remove it from the playlist. If I like the song, I hit the little heart button. If I think the song belongs in one of my theme playlists, I add it. Then, I remove it from the “Add to collection” playlist.
If I really like an album, I’ll buy the vinyl. This usually comes with a little piece of paper that lets me download the highest quality version of the album. I do that. I put it into iTunes. Then I mostly forget that I did that and listen to it on Spotify.
Photos
I take a couple of photos with my iPhone XR every day. Sometimes, I’ll take out my Canon DSLR and “real photos” with RAW that I dump into Photoshop afterwards, but this is rare. These photos upload to OneDrive, and once a month I go in there and delete the ones I don’t want to keep. I make a folder called “February 2022” and put them in my “All Photos” folder in OneDrive.
I’ve been tooling around with Lightroom lately as a way to organize things beyond that.
TV
I recently switched from TV Trakt to Just Watch. Both services do the same thing: let you tick a box next to an episode title to help you keep track of what you’ve seen. TV Trakt was better at letting you rate things and read reviews. Just Watch is better at integrating with your TV and acting as a “home base.”
Movies
Letterboxd is the best website on the internet and I will hear no arguments. When I review a movie, an IFTTT script takes that text and places it in a text file on my dropbox. That’s how I write my “good movies” blog posts.
Health
When I do workout, I’ll track it with my Apple Watch. After that, I put that info into Notion, because it helps me put it somewhere I can see it. I wish the Fitness App on iPhone was better.
Journaling
I’ve been better at writing in my journal lately. I don’t blog much, but I journal a lot. Once a year, I scan my journal and keep it in an archive in OneNote, so I can search through it later.
February 24, 2022
workflows
music
photos
tv
movies
health
bujo