I feel in the flow. Normally this feeling is linked to a particular task, job or project. Yet I’m feeling it broadly across life management and my mental state. I like it. š
Finished reading: From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks šMy takeaway is that I am in a spiral career transition. Plus I now have an excuse as to why my energy levels for work are lower than they used to be.
I simply don’t care about Apple Vision Pro. I have no desire or motivation to watch the 10 minute demo videos. I don’t care about listening to hours of podcast thought pieces. I’m not interested.
I started watching Loudermilk tonight. I like it. Not sure if only because Ron Livingstone basically plays a recovering Peter Gibbon from Office Space, šŗ
Finished reading: Thirst by Scott Harrison šon Headway app (šŖ). Glad I only committed 13 minutes to the book, rather than actually reading it, because it was terrible.
Once a Nerdā¦
I can draw a fairly straight line from my personality as a young fella to who I am today.
I mean, look at this nerd. He’s got a Commodore computer running Workbench 2.04. Dot matrix printer. Stephen Lawhead books on the shelf. A thermometer that read the outside temperature. Basketball trophies. This would be a great submission for one of Hemispheric Views Desk Reviews.
But it doesn’t end there. As listeners of my podcast will know, I maintain a depreciation spreadsheet tracking my major asset purchases. Turns out, this isn’t a new concept for me. Here is the prototype, from 2001:
People may also know me as a prodigious booster of YNAB as a means to manage your personal finances. Before YNAB, there was Quicken. Before Quicken, there was my ledger book.
And before my ledger book, there were my transaction registers!
To give a sense of the timeline, the registers, as the first documents, are dated from 1994. That would put me at 16/17 years old. My memory has me doing these a little younger, but this is the first documented evidence.
I also found a neat record of my automative service history from 2000. This car needed a lot of work!
I’m not sure I’ve changed much in the 30 years since.
Douchebags Galore!
Steven Hackett is being ripped off by douchebaggery from 37signals, as they try to get their HEY! Calendar app approved by the App Store Review Team.
Itās a real bummer to feel like Iāve been ripped off by a much bigger company, seeing them pitch something Iāve worked hard on as a free feature in their app.
I find it fitting that douchebag DHH is promoting his actions on X, a site owned by another douchebag.
I just did an internet quiz like itās 1999. 
What Anime Hair Color Best Suits Your Personality?
Hosted By theOtaku.com: Anime
via Thomas Rigby
In between watching basketball and packing Lego into boxes, I recorded E102 of @HemisphericViews with @Burk and @martinfeld.
Our friend @rknightuk has built a word cloud based on the 320 default blog posts arising from @HemisphericViews Episode 097. His talents are amazing to me.
Year in books for 2023
Here are the books I finished reading in 2023.
This is a terribly short list.
Out of my Comfort Zone
This year has been one of significant change.
A big positive change Iāve experienced, but havenāt talkedāor bloggedāabout 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 Iāve become a beach guy. For whatever reason, I didnāt explain how or why Iāve become a beach guy.
Iām into going to the beach now because Lisa introduced me to it. It was her that taught me the 20 minute splash. Itās her smarts that brought forth the āget in, swim, get out, wash feetā process. I should have given Lisa credit in that episode, but I didnāt. When Iām with Lisa, thereās another bonus that may occur, and thatās 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. Thatās 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 Iām a better person. Lisa makes me a better person through her encouragement and support.
Yet itās 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.
Lisaās 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 Iād be if I hadnāt benefited from the steadfast care, attention, and honest love that Lisa has bestowed upon me.
Thereās 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.
Iām excited to head into 2024 with this clarity of thought. Iām excited to share the news with whomever might read my blog.
Iām a beach guy, and I am that because Lisa made it so.
Iām 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? š
Amazon - and Prime Video Ads - in Australia
Jason Snell writes about the consideration given to Amazon Prime:
Shockedāshocked!āto find that Amazon is putting ads in Prime Video ā 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 šTime to start thinking about Act II (or is it III?) š¤·āāļø
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. š
It was @Ddanielson that made me do it! A throwback to my younger years.
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.