Short posts, links, photos, and working notes.

TIL The Apple News app has a setting to only show stories from channels I’m subscribed to. I wish I had known this sooner!

This morning I strolled into the darkroom fully planning to mix a fresh batch of color film chemistry to develop some film tomorrow. I was certain I had at least one fresh pack. I’m all out! And, most places I purchase chemistry is out of stock. I guess I’ll use tomorrow to make more new images. Not a bad problem to have.

The pro move when updating to a new Mac (or, new iPhone, iPad or updating to a new OS version) is to leave the device plugged in for nearly an entire day while all of the indexes are being rebuilt. This may be especially true now with Apple Intelligence.

I’ve spent just a few hours migrating to the M4 Pro MacBook Pro today. This included using Migration Assistant which was fast with a Thunderbolt cable, reinstalling some packages via Homebrew (because I switched from Intel), and logging into a bunch of things. Overall, switching computers is easier than ever.

Wow, is this computer fast. Running Llama locally feels instantaneous. Looking forward to really trying to break this thing.

This morning YouTube suggested Austin Ha’s review of the new ultrawide display option in Apple Vision Pro. His video shows a dream of mine; to have any sized screen with me anywhere I want. I really hope the AVP continues to improve.

At 44 years old I now find myself needing to use reader glasses (1.25x) in the evenings. I have 3 pair of inexpensive readers that I picked up in various pharmacies and discount stores; but I’m wondering if there are any nicer brands out there? Affordable yet quality? Or, should I keep picking up inexpensive pairs because I’m likely to lose and break them?

I have a few images I need to create for an upcoming Hubbub presentation and I used it as an opportunity to trial Pixelmator, which was recently acquired by Apple, for the first time. It is very good. Very Apple-like. Even some of my Photoshop muscle memory translated.

As I predicted in February 2023, I’m upgrading to the M4. I went with a Space Black 14″ MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro (14 CPU cores 20 GPU cores, 16 Neural Engine cores), 48GB memory, 2TB hard drive. The cost of which was a fair bit less than my previous laptop. I’ll explain my choices in an upcoming blog post. Oh, and as far as I can remember, this was likely my first ever preorder. (see also)

As I mentioned in Diversions #5, I bought a pair of Crocs. It wasn’t long after purchasing that first pair that I bought a second pair to wear more casually in the garden, on the beach, or in mud – keeping the first pair nice for special occasions. Now I’m shopping for a third pair to wear around the house with alpaca socks.

I pushed an update to Stupid today that features a theme inspired by Jacques Monneraud‘s ceramic work. Best if viewed on a phone.

I’m experimenting with the ActivityPub plugin a bit. I’ve always wanted separate fediverse accounts for my personal projects such as Stupid, Good Migrations, etc. but the thought of managing those didn’t seem fun. The plugin allows each author to have their own account; so I’ve added one for @stupid@cdevroe.com to play with and customized its author page. Still more to learn.

iOS 18.0 is very nice even on my limited iPhone 12 Pro Max. The Passwords app, Transcripts, Home Screen customizations, Hiking Routes, Safari highlights, Call recording, Notes updates, Math in Notes, Messages updates, Lock Screen customizations…

People are saying that this is a lackluster update? Far from it. I think this update is fantastic.

My coffee game has been on point recently; I’m grinding beans to just larger grain than espresso, brewing in a pre-warmed moka pot, keeping the brew warm in a pre-warmed 18oz Yeti water bottle, and pouring as-needed into a (you guessed it) pre-warmed ceramic mug. ☕

I’m attending FediForum! I’m looking forward to seeing the progress the community is making on expanding the fediverse. All of us at NerdPress / Hubbub are happy to be supporting the event.

A fair number of suggestions to my computing setup post came pouring in. Thank you! The more rumors I read or watch seem to indicate there will not be a Mac Studio this year with an M4. So if I’m to make this purchase I may not have that as an option.

I think I’ll be able to make a decision by the end of October.

I’m drafting a post about my next computing setup in hopes that it helps clarify my own thinking and true needs. In short, I’m having trouble deciding when to upgrade, what to purchase, and how much to spend. Hopefully it becomes more clear before the year ends.

I have been really putting my computer through a lot over the last year or so. Multithreaded processes that I’ve handbuilt, encoding video, running LLMs locally. My Mac is starting to shut off fairly regularly right in the middle of a task. When is Apple going to announce the M4?!

WordPress 6.6 had broken dark mode here on my site. I’m probably “doing it wrong” and I should take the time to research what the preferred way is these days. But, for now, it is fixed. Sorry dark moders.

The quality of Threads’ For You feed has plummeted for me over the last several months. During its first few weeks, it was an excellent way to expand my network. Today, it seems to surface the most banal content on the platform.

Going to be near Astoria, Oregon in late Summer? Keith Taylor, who I had a chat with back in April, will have a piece in this year’s Analog Forever exhibit at Lightbox Gallery. Looks like a lovely show.

Here is my profile on RsS iS dEaD LOL. Try it yourself. By @paulcuth.

I’m trying Safari for the rest of this week in place of Arc. I’m not revolting against them, I just feel as though our values are no longer aligned. They’ve shifted from trying to build a really great web browser (which they’ve already done, imo) to chasing AI venture dollars. I don’t blame them. I’m sure their overhead would make me sweat.

So far I’ve been able to replicate some of the features that made me so productive in Arc. I can sort of make vertical tabs and their grouping work similarly by adding two tab groups to each of my Safari Profiles: Favorites and Today. What I haven’t been able to replicate is Little Arc (and its ability to send a link to a specific Space/Profile) and the ability to quickly move a tab from one Space/Profile to another (though, dragging works for Safari).

I will say I’m a bit surprised at the bugginess of Safari. I was an avid Safari on Desktop user for many years and I can’t remember a time it has ever been so buggy. I’ll give you one example; Safari has an option to always open pages (or, links you’ve clicked from other apps like Mail or Ivory) in a tab rather than in a new window. This simply does not work consistently. Because it is so easily replicated I’m going to submit a Feedback (though we all know how those go).

Update March 20: Meet Switcheroo!

I’m excited to finally share a portrait I made of S. Robert Powell Ph.D., the President of the Carbondale Historical Society, back in April 2023. I’m donating the prints and images to the society for their archives.