This application requires you…
It’s happened! My phone – an iPhone 7 bought in 2016 – is now supposedly too old to update to iOS 16 and, consequently, won’t install newer apps. The phone is perfectly good. It’s in great condition, continues to work really well and seems fast enough to do everything I want. I don’t need a faster processor for games or a better camera lense. Enforced upgrading!
Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales Vol. 1
Got this for £5. Have been after a reasonably-prices copy for at least 5 years.
New Year’s Day
To see in the new year we went for a walk in Hayle Park Nature Reserve and then down into part of the lower Loose Valley. Enjoyable wander.
Obsidian Canvas Tool
Obsidian’s latest update, 1.1.8, introduces canvas, a type of infinite note that encourages visual note-taking. Although it’s only currently available on desktop, it brings much of the functionality of OneNote. Once on mobile/tablet, all that’s needed is a stylus/handwriting plug-in (which, undoubtedly a developer in the Obsidian community will be working on). Fantastic step forward for the app.
iFixed iPod
Frankensteined a classic iPod out of two broken ones today. I continue to like the idea of a dedicated music player rather than using a phone. It could be familarity and nostalgia that puts me off the current (terribly-designed) mp3 players. At some point I’ll swap out the hard drive for a larger sd card and add a new battery.
It’s all so quiet
Looks like the country has taken a day off. No one is out and nothing is moving.
Suddenly it’s snowed!
Just looked outside and it’s snowed! It’s been cold over the past couple of days here in South-east Albion but I wasn’t expecting such heavy snow. Such a peaceful evening.
The villain is… the English teacher
Pat Mills is someone I have incredible respect for as both a writer and advocate of creativity. His Substack is required reading for me. For Mills, the villain in his creative life is the presence of his English teacher: “My teacher’s deliberate sabotaging of my creative endeavours – for a number of personal reasons I’ll get into later – actually forced me to find my own unique writing path. His negativity undoubtedly made me the writer I am today and I can see his influence in every single one of my stories… He is lurking in the shadows of all of them..” (Pat Mills’ Iconoblast)
Graduation Day
My eldest son, Lysander, graduated today with his first class degree in film-making. It was great to see him receive his degree – especially as his time at university during the pandemic was hard for him and, at times, he felt like giving up. It was heart-warming to hear how highly other graduates spoke about Lysander and the regard they held him for his skills and technical knowledge.
What a Draft idea!
Trying to save money has meant ending small subscriptions for services I’ve enjoyed using for years. I’ve just cancelled Drafts, the text capture app that I’ve used as a starting point for all my notes and writing. As much as I find Drafts an excellent app, I don’t use the actions – which are really its killer feature – nearly enough to warrant a monthly subscription. I use Drafts to keep notes and write longer pieces that I then move into other apps like Obsidian and IA Writer. It’s possible to do that using 1Writer, an app I already own on iOS, and Sublime Text on Mac and keeping them in shared folders accessed by the other apps. I’m going to see whether this works over the next month before deciding whether or not this will be permanent. After that, I’m looking to end my reliance on Microsoft (for OneNote) and – less so – Apple (for iCloud).
Paying Attention
Every time I think I have how Mastodon works in my head, I find a feature that is so unexpected and welcome. My natural inclination is towards organisation (eg. tying in my blog posts to Mastodon so they become a natural part of the conversation rather than forcing links to be clicked etc.) but it might do some good to be a little chaotic with this.
Walk in King’s Wood
Postponed from earlier in the week, we went for a walk in King’s Wood this morning. So quiet! So many mushrooms!