Beautiful weather for my first time at Perth’s new stadium. This place is magnificent.

Discovering the thrill of books.

How Differential Gears Work

Watching things like this remind how little I know.

Drafts for Link Posts

canion.me

I’ve been noodling around trying to figure out the most effective way to write and publish onto this Blot-powered page, especially from iOS, but also recognising that I do also use macOS.

The answer is always Drafts, isn’t it? That app that I keep trying to incorporate into my workflow, and then keep forgetting about.

Thanks to @vasta and galexa I should be able to develop a better/faster/more efficient process.

In fact, this post has been written in Drafts, utilising its share sheet extension as suggested.

Link Posts and Blot

I’ve been noodling around trying to figure out the most effective way to write and publish onto this Blot-powered page, especially from iOS, but also recognising that I do also use macOS.

This is theoretically easy, since Blot just needs a file to exist in a Dropbox folder. Where I’ve found some problems, though, is in the production of link blog posts. Recent experimentation on my other blog using MarsEdit and its lovely Safari extension for the creation of link posts has made me more frustrated with my current workflow for link posts here on Blot.

While a work in progress, this is the process I have developed to ‘simplify’ publishing a link post:

  1. Write the file in Notebooks app. Invoke a TextExpander .link shortcut to prepare the file metadata and paste the contents of a clipboard (that would contain the URL of the page to be shared) into a prepared Markdownified URL.
  2. Rename the automatically generated filename to one suitable name for Dropbox. Consider use of TextExpander .ds shortcut.
  3. Copy and paste/drag and drop quoted content from original webpage.
  4. Add additional commentary.
  5. Invoke the share sheet and select a Siri Shortcut.
  6. Choose the Blot Post shortcut.
  7. Select where within my Dropbox Blot structure to save the file.

Not as seamless as a Safari extension, but probably easier than what I’ve been doing to date. If anybody can suggest improvements, I’m all ears.

The Steep Drop in Britain’s Coal Usage

The Steep Drop in Britain’s Coal Usage:

In Britain, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, no coal has been used to produce power for the last 11 days.

Coal is on the decline. This is market forces at work, not simply ideology.

Seven West Media Buys Remaining Stake in Community Newspaper Group in Wa ➜

Print and television giant Seven West Media has taken control of Community Newspaper Group in a deal that gives the company increased control over the West Australian media landscape, but has brought fears more jobs could be lost.

The deal brings several of Perth’s major suburban newspapers under the same company that owns The West Australian and Sunday Times newspapers, and top-rating TV news destination Seven News.

Well, this is depressing. As if our local media scene was not already enough of a monoculture.

I’ve spent the last few days in Albany, in the southwest of Western Australia. I haven’t been here for years. I had a memory of loving it, and I can confirm I do love it.

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction:

Horizontal reading rules the day. What I do when I look at Twitter is less akin to reading a book than to the encounter I have with a recipe’s instructions or the fine print of a receipt: I’m taking in information, not enlightenment. It’s a way to pass the time, not to live in it. Reading—real reading, the kind Birkerts makes his impassioned case for—draws on our vertical sensibility, however latent, and “where it does not assume depth, it creates it.”

This article provides an interesting insight into the value that reading can offer the mind; how it can engage in a way that the shallows of the internet’s social platforms cannot (and will not, because they’re optimised for engagement, not consideration).

Misanthropic Me

How can so many watch and enjoy inane, superficial television shows? Why does the population focus more on sporting events than geopolitical disasters? Why is consumerism celebrated and the rise of social media ‘influencers’ followed with such passion?

I feel as though our civilisation is being incessantly dumbed down. Our attention is the commodity that every company, every ‘influencer’, every entertainment option wants to attract, and competition is fierce. Rather than recognise the value of our attention, we seem willing to give it away for little to nothing in return. I would like for us elevate ourselves and dedicate our focus and attention on things of genuine importance. Yet we prefer being closeted by the warm embrace of ignorance, simplification and superficiality.

It’s tempting to resign myself as a misfit within our society. To disconnect from others. To adopt a misanthropic view of the world. To think about ways in which I might step out of the society in which I find myself.

This, however, would be the choice of weakness on my behalf. Instead, I need to dig in and find ways to stay interested in the world. I need to find others who are similarly frustrated by the banality of everyday life and engage intelligently with them. I need to find outlets of interest that will help me cope with the frustration of being part of a society, swathes of which I don’t identify with nor understand.

I’m enjoying having MarsEdit available on Setapp.

Keyboard Maestro Field Guide

Keyboard Maestro Field Guide | MacSparky Field Guides:

With Keyboard Maestro, you can automate just about anything. In addition to teaching you all of the mechanics of Keyboard Maestro, this course includes a number of walkthroughs of automation workflows you can use, download, or alter to automate your own Mac.

Keyboard Maestro is one of the Mac apps, alongside other automation tools Hazel and Textexpander, that ensure I get 40 hours of work done each week with about 30 hours of effort.

MarsEdit on Setapp

I have previously written about trialling MarsEdit but ultimately the app didn’t stick.

Now MarsEdit has been made available as part of my Setapp subscription, so I’m able to give it another go, this time as a paying customer. This post is being written and published using MarsEdit.

It will be interesting to see if the software establishes itself as a consistent part of my blogging workflow. The big challenge is that there are so many great writing apps on macOS (and iOS), so competition is intense.

Monthly Review April 2019

What Went Well at Home?

What Went Well at Work?

Highlights

My Media Diet

My Passion Project

Zelda Breath of the Wild is addictive!

I met some new people today who were just brilliant folk. Hit it off with them immediately. It’s not often that you get to make ‘new friends' through random chance.

My Easter bunny related news: I finished Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. What a great game.

Easter treats.

My Apple Store visit was a huge success today. My capable Genius confirmed my iPad discolouration patch, and replaced the iPad with a new one on the spot. Best part about that is I get a new battery!

Adobe Rush for iOS is good. Some bugs in places, but it’s helping me to edit together video successfully.