Posts

I went with a large group to the Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco to see a pre-release screening of Barbie. It was an official event complete with props and an opening presenter who shared their adoration for the famous doll. There was a palpable buzz among the groups of people dressed up, an excitement that was joyful with no undertone of negative tension that goes along with, say, a screening of a new Star Wars movie.1 At the end of the movie, I was excited to see it again with Erin. ...

I’ve finally decided to go back to using iA Writer on my iPad. This has several knock-on effects, with the most notable being that my drafts will all be synced via iCloud. I say “drafts” because my plan is still to use Dropbox as long-term storage. I now have a monthly reminder to copy completed blog posts over to the proper spot in Dropbox1 and will only use iCloud for in-progress work. ...

An uncle on my dad’s side has been a guitarist on the side for years. We don’t talk about it too often, but now that he’s getting older and preferring instruments with better ergonomics, he offered me a Stratocaster that he really enjoyed but wasn’t playing anymore. I happily took him up on the offer. It plays beautifully, with a well-maintained neck that feels comfortable and fast. However, some of the metal hardware has begun rusting.1 My plan is to use this as a first step in understanding how to maintain my guitars. Until now, I’ve changed the strings and left further setup to professionals. They do an exceptional job, but you pay for it. Considering this guitar was free, it seems appropriate to determine what I can learn to do for free. ...

I’ve listened to Matt Whitman’s Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast since it began in October 2019. The premise of the show is straightforward: Discuss the Bible every weekday for about 10 minutes. However, this show is rather special in its approach and is worth your time to check out. ...

Last week I released Episode 257 of Comical Start, Pockets of Conversation. Its publish date is just a few days after the 5th year anniversary of our first episode, Multiverse. Grant was unable to record with me, so here is a lightly-edited transcript1 of the 25 minute monologue that I did off the dome. ...

iA Writer has previously been established as my writing app of choice. There is something about both the visual design and snappy interface the team at iA created that is just right for me. When I learned they were making a presentation editor the same week I needed to create some slides, I had to give it a try. ...

I’ve had a strong interest in consumer technology for years at this point, though it mostly falls into a category of entertainment via YouTube videos and podcasts. I’m not critic, and tend not to spend much time writing about the latest and greatest in the spaces I follow. But Apple’s new Vision Pro headset is difficult to ignore. ...

I find music scores to be absolutely beautiful documents. In middle school I was engrossed by creating my own music and, more importantly, writing it down. There’s video evidence of me being jazzed about receiving a “Lyricist’s Notebook” for Christmas around that time. I also recall purchasing a journal of staff paper for ambitious ideas I had. Yet turning musical ideas into something that can be shared, let alone something that would look good, felt out of reach. When the itch to create music struck me again last week I remembered a new-to-me program, MuseScore, that changed everything. ...

I’ve slowly formed my thoughts on the language model tools that have stormed into the foreground of technology over the last few months. My initial utter skepticism, largely founded on people’s misunderstanding of how these tools are designed, has morphed into an appreciation of their specific utility as a thesaurus for any kind of text available on the internet. ...

This is a refrain in disc golf describing the approach to properly development throwing form. It’s typically attributed to Philo Brathwaite, a particularly smooth player out of northern California. It feels self-evident in the world of disc golf mechanics1 as you watch different players, but its applicability beyond this origin knows no bounds. ...