Andrew Canion

Today I restructured my computing setup. For about 2 years I’ve been running a MacBook Air M1 as a satellite device, keeping my 2019 Intel iMac as my centralised ‘home base’. The iMac had a nice screen, 40GB RAM and apart from at boot, never felt slow.

To the iMac were connected a bunch of devices, including a Stream Deck, JBL speakers, an EVO-4 audio interface, and a Time Machine drive.

Today, I got sick of the whole setup. The slow load time and the flakiness it was showing with regard to iCloud Drive sync pushed me over the edge.

I’ve promoted my MacBook Air to ‘home base’ status. I’ve retired the JBL speakers, Stream Deck and Time Machine drive.

For the time being, I have access to a Studio Display, which I’m using as a great monitor. If I lose access to this, I can see myself buying another (perhaps even with nanotexture glass). The MacBook Air feels faster with a bigger screen!

The iMac isn’t entirely retired, although I’ve moved it into a retirement home, setting up a new computer desk in my front ‘library’. Now I can choose my computing location - study or library. It might be nice.

In all the changes, I considered promoting my mac mini to ‘home base’ but the fact that I bought it with only 8 GB RAM, and the noise that its attached 4-bay Thunderbay drive array made meant that idea was short-lived. That machine is back in the closet running as the headless media server once again.

This was bad. What were the contract terms that got Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan on board?

A great reflection on what is truly important in life. Supported by great cinematography and the audio treatment of the dialogue is lovely.

This article was originally written for the June 2022 edition of Hemispheric News, delivered as part of the Hemispheric Views podcast member bonus program, One Prime Plus.

Another WWDC has come and gone, and Apple have released the M2 and a new MacBook Air to go with it. Apple’s hardware continues to be refined and it’s hard to argue that they are not knocking all their new machines out of the park.

The thin and colourful iMac, the Studio with ports on the front, MacBook Pros and now the Air. Add on beautiful iOS devices and every piece of Apple hardware looks (and works) brilliantly.

Apple software, on the other hand, is not going well. I don’t know whether to blame the new design guy that took over from Jony Ive, the business managers who are trying to create consistency across platforms in the name of efficiency, or that SwiftUI seems to be entirely incapable of acting as the supporting infrastructure for feature rich applications (or even utilities).

The latest kerfuffle arrives in the form of the proposed “Setting” application in macOS Ventura. It’s ugly, it’s not optimised for the platform it’s operating on, and it feels like a regression from the “Preferences” panel that came before. Given that the Preferences panel was universally seen as “not great”, it is a sad indictment on Apple’s current ability to build good user-facing software that the rewrite is turning out to be worse.

There are other examples, such as the vertical orientation of notification panels in macOS, the notifications system on all platforms, and even larger software efforts such as GarageBand never embracing podcast editing, Podcasts app continuing to be average, etc.

The strange thing is, Apple is insanely great at developing low-level core frameworks. That they transitioned the entire macOS fleet to APFS without anybody realising is amazing. They built Metal - which goes chronically underused by game developers - but still they did it. Rosetta emulation is a masterpiece to aid the transition from Intel to Apple Silicon.

I suppose no company can ever be perfect. Apple is doing great on the engineering side: highly technical work and manufacturing process management. They are not doing great on the softer design side. I think they need to take a new approach to software design, and that probably starts by changing their vision of what good software looks like. To me, it doesn’t mean everything looks like an iOS element. To me, it means embracing complexity where that complexity is beneficial to the user. There is no point making something look simple, if in using that simple design things get harder.

“So it goes”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

I met Hannah Beazley in 1999.

We married on 19 March 2005.

Innumerable highlights (and lowlights), some of which include:

• Establishment of a business, which together we ran for 5 years, then sold.
• Multiple overseas trips. Vietnam, Hong Kong, Italy, USA, Croatia, Singapore, Bali. Each of these trips with their own massive collection of memories and experiences.
• Hannah’s chronic medical challenges, which resulted in near death, as then virtually unknown hypereosinsophilia ravaged her body.
• Two children, when for the longest time we figured that number would be zero because of the aforementioned medical issues.
• Home ownership.
• Political campaigns, culminating in her becoming the Member for Victoria Park.

18 years of marriage.

Now, that chapter comes to a close.

Life is long. People grow and change. Wants and needs change and morph.

I will never have another marriage, or even relationship, like the one I’ve had with Hannah. My heart sings with happiness about the time we’ve had together. I look forward to continuing to work with Hannah on our shared lifelong project of parenting our two beautiful boys. The time for romantic love, however, has come to an end. In its place is admiration, respect and appreciation for a friend who has been there through the highs and lows, and will continue to be there for our children as they experience the highs and lows of their own lives.

Stoicism has been a helpful support over the past few months. Concerning myself with the controllables, and letting everything else be, has been a great help. I thank my friends and family for their support. Emotions are hard and having shoulders has been a blessing.

Despite the massive change this change of relationship status entails, I feel sanguine. A life is long. I have been rewarded with a successful relationship that lasted 24 years. This is a thing deserving of marvellous celebration. An end is not a failure. Our relationship brought two new incredible people into a world that needs more incredible people in it. Now that relationship closes, and I feel appreciation and kindness towards the one I shared it with. I am so grateful there is no domestic violence, hatred, drug abuse, or other negative elements. The relationship ran its course and ended well. That is a good thing.

Now, Hannah and I both enter new phases of our lives, and we work to ensure our children understand that this can be a good thing for us and them.

For me, it’s an opportunity to once more spread my wings. To try new things, meet new people and explore the world on my own terms. There will be hard, lonely and depressing times. I know this to be true. But there is a chance for a recreation, a rebirth.

I look forward to what comes next as I strive to live my best life.

Watched on Friday March 3, 2023.

I started off writing a comment in reply, but it has grown into a post in its own right, responding to an article by @circustiger.

13 on the prompt list is;

“Write about why you write.”

I have loved words for as long as I can remember being aware of them. Whether it be a long, complex paragraph or a brief sentence; the way you can use letters and spaces to articulate how you’re feeling has always been something that’s enchanted me. … circustiger.micro.blog

One of my fondest memories of an overall negative primary school experience between Years 1 - 4 was being allowed to become a school library volunteer. Basically I was an out-of-place nerd that was rescued from destruction in the playground, and instead put to work sorting and shelving. I loved it. The Dewey Decimal¹ system became my fascination, and using the card catalogue (pre-computer) a tactile, sensory source of joy.

As you mentioned in your piece, the little card contained within a slip inside the jacket, and a sheet which could be satisfying marked with the fun date-stamper was another joy for the senses. The sight of the dates (how long has this book sat on a shelf? When was it first borrowed?), the ASMR satisfaction of the catalogue card sliding into its envelope. Such joy. The final joy was the first borrowing of a new book. A fresh, clean plastic protector over the cover, crisp pages offering the potential of something new, never read before.

The library, for me, was and is, a joyous place. Down with ‘multimedia centres’. Forget the ‘collaboration spaces’. Give me a library, with books, with organisation, with soul. In that place my soul can also rest.

Here is a screenshot of the edit for Hemispheric Views episode 078. Six audio tracks in play. Lots of edits and adjustments. Ferrite by WoojiJuice makes this possible, combined with a couple of years of editing experience and know-how I have built up.

I’m proud that I have the skills to do this. Not something that generally goes on my curriculum vitae, but maybe it should?