Norwegians FTW
Norwegians are the best. Listeners of Hemispheric Views will already know of the esteem in which I hold fĆ¼rstenberg; who is essentially Norwegian me. We have many similarities across our respective histories; itās quite fun!
Now, Iāve got another Norwegian to thank: Erland. I discovered Erland through Mastodon, I think. Although he also has a micro.blog site, so it could have been there. Like myself, Erland also seems to have an interest in notetaking apps, and his favourite is Paper. He wrote a wonderful review of it.
Iāve looked at Paper in the past, but the sheer cost of the app prevented me from trying it. I have so many Markdown notetaking apps, I simply couldnāt justify buying another, no matter how nice it may be.
Now, though, thanks to the kindness of Erland from Norway, I am typing this blog post in Paper, as a way of testing. Iām using the Mac app now, but I also have the iOS version. How? Erland provided me with codes for the apps! This came about as we had a little discussion on Mastodon (still my favourite social network) about our notetaking app preferences. Typewriter mode was one such nicety, and I see that Paper offers that very feature. I have enabled it now, and it is very lovelyāespecially the slightly delayed scroll on each carriage return.
This blog post is the first thing Iāve written in Paper. Iām about to go back and add links and stuff. Iām using my new MacBook Pro which is lovely, but I havenāt yet installed Brett Terpstraās SearchLink tool to automate link insertion, so we will see how Paper handles this next process.
The takeaway from this blog post? Firstly, Paper is a new app Iām trying. The main point though? Norwegians are great! I must visit sometime.
Defaults (2024)
It has been more than a year since Episode 097 of my podcast Hemispheric Views, where we held a Duel of the Defaults! competition.
Others have been updating their lists, one year on.
It seems appropriate that I should do the same.
If there is a change from my list last year, Iāve indicated it with a leading āØ.
| Change? | Category | Default | Comment on Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| āØ | Mail Client | FMail2 & Apple Mail | Back to FMail2 app & no more MailMate |
| Mail Server | Fastmail & Apple Mail | ||
| āØ | Notes | Obsidian for Work; Apple Notes for Home | Different apps for different contexts |
| To-Do | OmniFocus | ||
| iPhone Photo Shooting | Camera.app | ||
| Photo Management | Photos.app | ||
| Calendar | BusyCal (plus Calendar.app) | ||
| Cloud file storage | iCloud (plus OneDrive) | ||
| RSS | Reeder with FreshRSS | ||
| Contacts | Contacts.app | ||
| āØ | Browser | Vivaldi (plus Safari) | Vivaldi is great, and Arc has been deprecated by the developer |
| Chat | Signal | ||
| Bookmarks | GoodLinks | ||
| āØ | Read It Later | GoodLinks | I hardly read later anymore |
| Word Processing | Pages | ||
| Spreadsheets | Numbers (plus Excel) | ||
| Presentations | Keynote | ||
| Shopping Lists | AnyList | ||
| Meal Planning | AnyList | ||
| āØ | Budgeting & Personal Finance | Actual Budget on PikaPods | YNAB became overpriced |
| News | Apple News (plus ABC RSS feed) | ||
| Music | Apple Music (plus Spotify) | I have access to a Spotify account for variety, now | |
| āØ | Podcasts | PocketCasts | I left Overcast after the disastrous rewrite |
Six changes out of 23 categories. 26% of the apps have been changed. Yikes.
I’ve turned on cross-posting from my micro.blog account to my bluesky one. Not sure I’ll keep it, but may as well give it a try.
Notetaking app update: my experiment with Notebooks.app is over and Iām back to DevonThink, and for work, Iāve bought a monthās subscription to Obsidian Sync and will likely get it for a year.
Inside Out 2, 2024 - ā ā ā Ā½
A good rendering of anxiety, especially towards the end. Overall, though, this movie didnāt do it for me like the first.
Over 15,000 steps recorded by my Apple Watch before 2pm today. Well over my normal pace. That’s what gardening and packing a house ready to move will do for you.
Lonely Planet, 2024 - ā
I watched this 48 hours ago and have already forgotten it. Did not enjoy; it felt like a throwaway Hallmark movie.
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interviews with star athletes saying the same predictable bullshit after being asked how it felt to do whatever heroic thing they just did. All of TV and news is like that, none of it is news, all of it is predictable bullshit.
News is no longer news, itās just another form of disposable content.
Itās weird to think that globally there are millions of businesses using Teams. This is the best that the giant Microsoft can build? Is all of corporate society playing a game of āThe Emperor Has No Clothesā? Teams is shit software and we all deserve better.
I borrowed a book using Libby from my local library. On comparing it with the Kindle sample of another book with the same name, itās some kind of scammy AI-rewritten scam book. Fascinating. I think I will just buy the legitimate one.
At work I get barraged with email. I want to be able to compose an email without seeing my inbox. Itās an Outlook on PC situation. Let me guess, this is a whacky idea for normies and thus there is no way to achieve it. Am I correct?
As I recover from pneumonia, I cough, then hear my lungs crackle and pop as the airways pop open. It’s weird but kind of enticing. Like having a built-in bowl of rice bubbles.
Finished reading: The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape šAs a long-term envelope (YNAB/Actual Budget) disciple, I found some of this too non-specific. Although it has some good thoughts on longer-term financial planning.
Finished reading: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami š A slow-moving story that kept me engaged, but Iām not sure what I come away with at the end.
I’ve spent this week watching all the Indiana Jones movies in sequence with my 8-year old kid. A nice way to spend evenings. šæ
Benji solved a Rubikās cube using an app and showed it to me.
I scrambled it.
āWell, that was a cool few seconds,ā he said, as he looked at the messed up toy.
Hemispheric Views E119
Hemispheric Views E119: We kick things off at an odd time for everyone this time. How many Counter Chatsā¢ are allowed in a single episode? Remember Pzizz? How many countries have you listened to the show in? I am Gratitudinal for all the basketballs in the run sheet this week.
At work Iām almost at the point where I couldnāt live without Obsidian. At home I donāt use it because now itās embedded in my brain as āwork softwareā.
I sold my Toyota Camry SL Hybrid 2021 today. It served me well for 40,000km. A lean manufacturing success story!
