Out of my Comfort Zone
This year has been one of significant change.
A big positive change I’ve experienced, but haven’t talked—or blogged—about is my new relationship.
Lisa, my partner, is an impressive woman who has made her way in life with strength and conviction. Her life has had challenges and events that have shaped her, and those events could easily have destroyed her if not for her own strength of character. Through it all, Lisa has navigated a path that has ensured she is a bright, happy and joyful person. She is raising two kids and both of them are absolute delights. They are a credit to her as a mother.
In episode 101 of Hemispheric Views I talk about how I’ve become a beach guy. For whatever reason, I didn’t explain how or why I’ve become a beach guy.
I’m into going to the beach now because Lisa introduced me to it. It was her that taught me the 20 minute splash. It’s her smarts that brought forth the “get in, swim, get out, wash feet” process. I should have given Lisa credit in that episode, but I didn’t. When I’m with Lisa, there’s another bonus that may occur, and that’s a coffee after the swim. Even my coffee order has been changed by Lisa. My flat white is now made with almond milk. My guts thank me, and I in turn thank Lisa for pulling me out of my coffee ordering comfort zone, even though it caused stomach discomfort.
My comfort zone. That’s where I feel safe and tend to return all too often. I am naturally risk and conflict averse. Lisa has a way of extracting me from that zone, and challenging me to grow and change. When I leave my comfort zone I’m a better person. Lisa makes me a better person through her encouragement and support.
Yet it’s my comfort zone that has prevented me from coming out and saying these things. From speaking openly about now being in a new and special relationship. It was my fear of judgment from others, of having to explain and answer questions, that has prevented me from being upfront about the fact that I am in a positive and wonderful relationship, and that it makes me feel happy and valued.
Lisa’s presence in my life makes me a better person. She makes my life better. This past year has been a doozy in so many ways, but upon reflection, I am not sure where I’d be if I hadn’t benefited from the steadfast care, attention, and honest love that Lisa has bestowed upon me.
There’s been enough of me prevaricating about how to express my relationship situation. It is thus. I am in a relationship. I am in love. I love Lisa.
I’m excited to head into 2024 with this clarity of thought. I’m excited to share the news with whomever might read my blog.
I’m a beach guy, and I am that because Lisa made it so.
I’m a better person, because Lisa inspires me to be my best self.
I love Lisa.
Remember that time I live-streamed going to Officeworks to buy an SD card as part of the @HemisphericViews live event? 😂
Amazon - and Prime Video Ads - in Australia
Jason Snell writes about the consideration given to Amazon Prime:
Shocked—shocked!—to find that Amazon is putting ads in Prime Video – Six Colors:
when my wife and I were auditing our streaming subscriptions the other week, Prime was one of the ones that will basically never get cut, because free two-day delivery saves us money in the long run.
When Amazon Prime was a USA only thing, I lusted for it. Finally, Prime came to Australia and I jumped onboard at their low introductory price. Amazon sucked for the first year, with low availability and high prices. Over the past 18 months it has improved.
Even with their improvement, though, when it came time to review my annual subscription, it didn’t make the cut. I’m intentionally buying less and not having ready access to free shipping was almost a blessing. If I really want something, there are plenty of other Australian retailers that will take my money.
I’ve gone from being sad that Amazon is not in Australia, to extremely happy it hasn’t achieved total market dominance.
As for Prime Video? If I hadn’t already cancelled my subscription, adding adds to my paid video service would incentivise me to ditch them even more. The quest from all these services to squeeze more blood from the stone is simply going to steer me back towards Usenet.
Currently reading: From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks 📚Time to start thinking about Act II (or is it III?) 🤷♂️
I did an end of year review today. Interesting to look back on all that has happened over the course of 12 months. (tldr, a lot!)
In my on-going Pokemon-style quest to catch all the note-taking apps, I’ve bought Notebooks by Alfons Schmid.
For Christmas this year I got everybody in my family their own AI-generated Funko Pop likeness. 😃
It was @Ddanielson that made me do it! A throwback to my younger years.
Perth can be alright.
Merry Christmas.
Hello, this is Andrew talking into MurmurType, the recording app that records and then transcribes whatever I have to say. I could use this to write a blog post, I could use this to write an essay. The only problem is, I don’t think as well speaking extemporaneously as I do when I write.
Subscriptions 2023
A few people are blogging about their current subscription software.
Here I am, jumping on the train.
I have a subscriptions grouping in YNAB so I’m referencing that to assist here. In writing this, I’m discovering that there are a few subscriptions without a YNAB category. I will have to fix that!
Even with YNAB, some of the cost estimates are fuzzy because of currency exchange fluctuations.
What might be most noticeable is the paucity of streaming services. I’ve gotten rid of them all recently, as my budget has changed, and their value quotient declined. I now only have Apple TV+ and Fetch (for ESPN) during the Australian NBL basketball season.
| Service | Monthly Cost AUD | Logic |
|---|---|---|
| Apple One | $24.97 | I use enough Apple Services that the full deal is worth it. I share this cost, so only pay 50%. |
| YouTube | $2.00 | I rarely watch YouTube, but my kids love it, and I don’t want constant ads being driven into their brain. |
| NY Times | $2.00 | I subscribed on a sweet deal to play the Crosswords. Now I’m only playing Wordle and Connections, so this will go when the cheap option expires. |
| Xbox Game Pass | $18.95 | This one comes as goes based on the interest of my kids and I. I tend to subscribe for a month, then turn off automatic renewal. When we want it, I turn it back on again. |
| Micro.blog | $15.00 | The price fluctuates because of the currency conversion. Micro.blog is my digital home. It hosts my blog, it hosted my first podcast, and I love it. |
| omg.lol | $2.50 | My second home on Internet, which hosts my profile landing page, but is also my Mastodon instance. Adam is also a friend. |
| shoutouts.lol | $2.00 | Another indie service hosted by a friend, Vincent. It helps me profile things I like on canion.blog. |
| tinylytics.app | $2.00 | Also by Vincent, this service is a nice simple way to get a sense of which pages on my website are interesting to people. |
| Domains | $10.00 | You can’t be on the internet and not have a few domains. Key ones for me include canion.blog, canion.me and andrewcanion.com |
| Day One | $3.00 | I have been journalling in Day One for about a decade, and I enjoy having a private, safe place to put my thoughts. I’ve even used their book printing service. It’s excellent. |
| AnyList | $1.34 | AnyList helps me with my shopping, but also with my recipe management. I use it all the time. |
| Textexpander | $2.17 | I went away from TE for a while, but a friend works there, and I still enjoy the affordances it provides. They really took a lot of heat moving to subscription before most other providers did the same. |
| 1Password | $5.00 | I would be willing to move away from this, but I’m part of a family group and I don’t love the idea of having to deal with transferring other people. |
| Fastmail | $10.00 | I have been this close to leaving Fastmail in favour of iCloud, but I don’t think I have the motivation. My subscription still has about 4 months left, so we will see how I feel then. |
| YNAB | $8.00 | It’s pricing is stupid, a bunch of their features don’t work in the Australian banking sector, and I’ve outgrown all their training. Yet it’s still the only show in town for keeping me on the financial straight and narrow, so it’s not going anywhere. |
| Flickr | $15.00 | I went through the cancellation flow last year, which netted me a big annual discount and kept me onboard. It’s basically a photo backup and not much else. |
| Microsoft 365 | $9.73 | I got a cheap subscription to the Family plan through my previous employer. I honestly don’t know if I even need it now, but am worried that I will cancel, discover I do need it, and then not have access to the discounted rate anymore. |
| Setapp | $15.00 | I’ve gone back and forth on Setapp, but have always kept it around. I have been onboard since launch and am grandfathered into a slightly cheaper plan. |
| Fetch | $6.00 | An Australian TV service that gives me access to enough ESPN to watch Australian NBL basketball. |
So there we have it, my subscriptions as they stand in late 2023.
Boosted! 🩼🦠
My long national nightmare of not being able to swipe to change Apple Watch faces is over. The setting can be changed in Settings > Clock > Swipe to Switch Watch Face. Now can we revert the button functionality, Apple?
I can hardly believe our little Hemispheric Views podcast has inspired 267 blog posts!
I’ve designed a TypeForm survey. So much nicer to use than SurveyMonkey.
My 2023 Mac Apps of the Year
Once again, I’m here to blog about my favourite Mac Apps for the year.
See previously:
The Standard Criteria
For my purposes, to be considered an App of the Year, the software needs to be something I used extensively, value and enjoy. I also must feel I would miss them if they suddenly went away. Of course, it also needs to be a Mac App.
OmniFocus
It’s almost to the point where this app needs to be put into the Hall of Fame, and removed from future consideration. OmniFocus continues to provide structure to my life both at a professional and personal level.
Most of this year has been spent using the beta of OmniFocus 4 in tandem with OmniFocus 3. The new version has come a long way and is closing in on release.
While there are elements that continue to frustrate me (please, can we have natural language entry?) there is still no other task manager that can filter, slice and dice tasks like OmniFocus. And of course, defer dates. No task manager can be serious if it doesn’t have the ability to set a start date for a task into the future.
Obsidian
Notes apps are my playground. I bounce between them continuously. Heck, I’m writing this post in iA Writer! This year, however, has seen me give Obsidian another try - after I stuck with Logseq for some time before it.
There are parts of it that I still don’t like, but it’s now rock solid, and the price cannot be beat. I am even putting aside the fact that it is running in Electron! 😱
I wanted to continue to use Agenda, but it’s simply too fiddly. Plain text entry is so straightforward, it is hard to beat.
Mona
2023 was the downfall of Twitter. In its place stormed Mastodon and I have enjoyed using Mona. While most of the cool kids seemed to gravitate to Ivory, for me Mona ticks all the boxes I need from a Mastodon client.
Reeder
Last year, NetNewsWire took over from Reeder as my RSS app of choice. This year, I’ve flipped back to Reeder across macOS and i(Pad)OS. It’s smooth and gorgeous, and rock solid.
What’s even better is that this year has seen somewhat of a renaissance in blogging, and with the help of the App Defaults craze, launched by our own Hemispheric Views 097, I’ve found a bunch of new voices to add to my feed reader.
Safari
Last year I used Arc. For whatever reason, this year I’ve retreated to the comfort, energy efficiency, and cross-platform syncing offered by Safari. It also makes me feel good that I’m not supporting the Chromium hegemony.
Apps That Fell Off My List From Last Year
- NetNewsWire: As mentioned above, it’s taken a back seat to Reeder.
- Arc: I’ve moved back to the default choice of Safari.
- MarsEdit: I continue to use it, but I could live without it if it went away. Still a great app.
- Launchbar: This year I trialled RayCast, but I’m back on Launchbar. As much as I like it, given there are other alternatives, it didn’t make the cut this year.
- Agenda: As discussed, Obsidian has trumped Agenda for 2023.
🔗
Amazing to see our podcast, Hemispheric Views, and its Duel of the Defaults! mentioned on Connected!
In today’s “I’m an idiot” news, I almost feel victim to a phishing scam. I wasn’t on my A-game and almost got found out. Frightening!
I did it!
Wordle 892 1/6*
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I reintroduced my old Raspberry Pi 3B+ to the home network today, and with it, Pi-Hole! I may elect not to renew my NextDNS subscription as a result.
I’ve been building class timetables. Hyper Plan has been a life-saver. I love this app. Timetables have multiple variables (time, day, teacher, skill level) and Hyper Plan has wrangled it all for me in a way that is so much easier and better than Excel Pivot Tables. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️