Somebody tell my Summer flowers that it’s Fall now…
Getting a bit tired of apps/services that promise me I can export my data then come to find the export doesn’t include ALL of my data (usually binary files).
Anybox users beware…data loss…
Just a public service announcement to anyone using Anybox. Don’t believe the dialog that pops up when you go to delete a source that says no documents will be deleted. Not only are they deleted but they don’t even go to the trash. Glad I had everything in Raindrop.io still…
Welcome to a new week everyone! May everyone’s various Apple OS updates go well 😂
Back to work tomorrow after a week off. Should have taken two as I hardly ever take vacation. Was nice to have the time off regardless. Didn’t do a damn thing.
Trip to Chicago Botanic Garden
Instead of feeling like I’m poking myself in the eye reading social media I almost literally went to touch grass in Glencoe, IL. Beautiful weather here in Chicagoland today and my wife and I took advantage of it and got some walking time in at a beautiful place. Only several photos as I was more interested in just walking and spending time with my wife.
These water lilies are near the entrance as part of some fountains they have. Loved the way the sunlight/shadow was working for this first one.
Some wonderful color here. Hard to believe we’re at that time of year when it will be disappearing for awhile.
This photo was actually just a reminder for an idea for our own house for next year. This is in their “Enabling Garden” which has many examples of ways to garden in raised beds, containers, etc. so everyone can enjoy the experience.
Perspective. I need some.
Blocked my first person here tonight. I have no energy for zealots. Its so absolutely fucking exhausting. Someone so zealous that they’re willing to link someone who wasn’t happy with Apple’s environmental messaging during their iPhone event to bodies washing up on the beaches of Libya after flooding there. Absolutely disgusting behavior that is explained away with their zealotry. Dude needs to really take a step back and get some perspective.
So do I because I’m apparently too fucking stupid to stay away from stuff like that. Moth meet Flame. And worse I should have known better. I really, really should have known better. So maybe I’ll find something worth writing and posting but won’t be interacting for awhile until I can get a grip myself. This is so absolutely exhausting. It really is.
😴
Really enjoying social media less and less. Stopped using Twitter again and not missing it. Threads is doing nothing for me. Nothing wrong with it but find there is little reason to be there. Checking in once a day elsewhere feels like enough right now. Is that weird? 😂
Thinking the Twitter/X experiment might be ending soon.
One thing I do not like about the Tiny Theme (making the assumption it’s the theme anyhow) for micro.blog is how it handles pictures. Everything is 100% width. Really need to look into changing that.
Starbucks Reserve - Damn Good Coffee
Starbucks gets a bad rap sometimes for tasting “too burnt”. I hear this to this day even though they’ve had a nice range of roasts, even light (they call “blonde”), for years. I’ve been buying and drinking their Reserve beans for about 5 years now. These are usually single origin and priced to match. These are absolutely delicious coffees. I just finished up bags of Malawi and Vietnam Da Lat that were released on 8/24 along with their Fall menu (it’s PSL time baby!).
If you like coffee and you have a store near you that’s selling Reserve beans splurge on a bag of Malawi or Vietnam Da Lat. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
I have to say though that, as is so typical with large corporations, Starbucks has really managed to screw up the whole Reserve brand. Every bag comes with a card that talks about the coffee with beautiful artwork on the front. For the first few years the art was always different, even on releases of the same coffee year over year. I collected these cards because I loved the artwork. I was not the only one. Now they have “refocused” the brand to only be brewed at their Reserve Roasteries and stopped using unique artwork on the cards, recycling it every year instead.
The number of unique coffees has also stopped and they are now on a cadence of the same releases year after year. They truly took a unique thing and have really watered it down (pun intended). I suspect it is not a money-maker for them and they’ve acted in a very corporate manner.
That said they have at least made the major releases available at normal stores whereas in the past you’d have to go one of the few Reserve stores to get the beans. There is at least a ray of light there.
Went outside this morning to see my Swamp Milkweed infested with these Oleander Aphids. The problem was neutralized…
Morning in the late summer garden
A visitor…
There are several things I really love about Tot from Icon Factory but the abysmal handling of indents is not one of them. It would seem in their zeal to keep things simple they forgot people might want to indent list items.
A COVID testing refresher
With cases on the rise, and colder weather and more time indoors coming soon, a timely refresher on when we should all be testing ourselves with some updates from the NYT: https://archive.ph/Tl6kM
Created my first Shortcut on iOS in years today. Nice way to get interstitial journals entries into Tot.
Arguing with the developer of Anybox that it should have a KeepIt-like Finder integration feature. His argument for closing the request was “it’s not a file-based app”. The problem with that is any file can be dragged in it. He markets it as a “bookmarking” and “read later” app which is fine but not all things users want to read comes from the web. Also, since it doesn’t work with paywalled content, it’s a multi-step process to get PDFs of that content into Anybox to read later. All of this would be fixed if he added the ability to save directly into it from any app, easily accomplished via Finder integration ala KeepIt v2.
Weekly Recap - 8/26/2023
Another back to school week, this time my daughter going back for her 3rd year of college. My son and I are home for two weeks on our own. The house is very quiet during the day when I’m here by myself and he’s at school all day.
For the last four years my family as been going to the Tchaikovsky Spectacular concert at Ravinia. This year it happened to be on my daughter’s 20th birthday so it was a fun evening out.
This year the cannons they shoot off during the end of the 1812 Overture were back with the addition of a balloon drop. Last year they were silenced in respect to the community and the people who lost their lives in the July 4th mass shooting that happened in Highland Park.
The funny motto this year from the conductor was “We came for the cannons and stayed for the Tchaikovsky”. People really love the show and this year they turned out in droves. It was a packed house!. There is a couple there that has been going for 39 years in a row that we have seen every year. Hard to miss them, they have a sign!
I wrote last week about my social media use. That has turned out to be a bit of a problem this week. Finding out that it’s very easy to get carried away and spend far too much time. It has affected almost everything else I did this week. That is an area of concern and something I need to address ASAP.
I’m still experimenting with some new tools this month to try and find some local-only, privacy-friendly replacement for other tools I’m using right now. I’m planning on writing up some posts about that in the near future as mentioned last week.
I went back to Fastmail this week after a short (1 week maybe?) time away. The intent was to save $50 a year and use a combination of Gmail, iCloud, ProtonMail/SimpleLogin, and the Thunderbird email client as a replacement. That would have worked but still left me wanting over a solution that has all of the features those services provide in one package. So I contacted support and had them restore my account. It took a couple of days but I consolidated all of my email back in Fastmail, got my contacts in shape, and am back in business.
What I wrote
Unfortunately a repeat of last week: not much this week other than micro posts. A couple of reasons for that, mostly my usage of social media.
What I read
Nothing of note this week. Read quite a bit but it felt a lot more like snacking than getting a good meal and nothing was memorable enough to write about here.
Threads is live on the web.