I continue to enjoy these posts on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. This one starts a new series on iron and steel production.
Using Shortcuts automation to automatically switch my watch faces has really helped enforce the work/personal transition. A simple, yet effective trick
Supporting my favourite apps with App Store reviews 🎖
I’ve been negligent in supporting some of my favourite apps on the App Store. In many cases, I reviewed the app a few years ago and then never refreshed my ratings. So, I’m making a new commitment to updating my reviews for apps by picking at least one each month to refresh. First up is Fantastical. This one took a real hit when they switched to a subscription pricing model. I get the controversy with subscriptions in general.
Optimizing urban mobility by shifting from prediction to adaptation is a good example of how complexity theory can help solve practical problems
My current theme song: Everyday is exactly the same. Just the chorus though, some of the verses are pretty bleak!
We enjoyed playing Letter Jam. A nice mix of strategy, cooperation, and language
We really enjoyed our time at Bass Lake Provincial Park. Fresh air, campfire pizza, and a hike along the lake were a great escape 🏕
The widgets in the new Fantastical 3.2 are great. Having my calendar events and scheduled tasks in the same widget is really helpful
The toddler discovered Lucy’s tail. He’s amused, she is not 😀
Trying out a new iPhone Home Screen 📱
With the release of iOS 7, I’m reconsidering my earlier approach to the Home Screen. So far I’m trying out a fully automated first screen that uses the Smart Stack, Siri Suggestions, and Shortcut widgets. These are all automatically populated, based on anticipated use and have been quite prescient. My second screen is all widgets with views from apps that I want to have always available. Although the dynamic content on the first screen has been really good, I do want some certainty about accessing specific content.
Back to school
There’s a good distinction made in Is Your Chart a Detective Story? Or a Police Report? between visualization as explorations of data and communication of insights. Often these two purposes are in conflict with each other.
Evidently I haven’t been in the office for a while! Should take me a full day just to catch up on Dilbert.
In defence of “poisonous" models ☠️🧮
Skipping past the unnecessarily dramatic title, The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation does make some useful points. As seems typical though these days, the good points are likely not the ones a quick reader would take away. My guess is most people see the headline and think that transportation demand models (TDMs) are inherently broken. Despite my biases, I don’t think this is actually true. For me, the most important point is about a third of the way through:
I enjoyed The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington. A reasonably complex plot with mystery and adventure, along with some good characters. The word building has lots of potential and the rules for the magic make sense. I was a bit intimidated by the length, given it is part one of a trilogy, but it is nice to get immersed in a good, long book. 📚🧙♂️
Owen is excited to get the Nintendo Switch Ring Adventure. Staying active during COVID-19 has been difficult and this should help 🏃♂️🎮
My favourite part of the run along the Grand river 🏃♂️
Catastrophe drives evolution. But life resides in the pauses | Aeon Essays is a good overview of why the pace of evolution ebbs and flows over time
Fascinating:
They found that for individual cells, this power minimum hovers around a zeptowatt, or 10−21 watts. That is roughly the power required to lift one-thousandth of a grain of salt one nanometer once a day.
I miss this view already
