Aaron is off to Rutgers for his second year of college. We rode up with him while I was on vacation to help get his apartment set up, and we briefly considered driving up with him yesterday for the same reason, but he was able to get everything in his car, and seemed confident that he’d be fine making the trip solo. So we white knuckled our Saturday afternoon while he made the journey, and then relaxed at Bellview for some wine and snacks. You never know when you’re doing too much, too little, or just enough. But we are definitely missing him today.
Bellview Winery’s Mixtape Blanc
Bellview’s Mixtape Blanc
I stopped by Bellview Winery Thursday after work to fill up a growler with their Gemini blend, which I’ve been enjoying very much. Sadly, they were out, and there was no other dry white on tap. One of the staff members suggested that I try their Mixtape blend, which is blended using their Gruner, Traminette, and Viognier grapes. It’s soft and fruity, perfectly dry. We had a bottle yesterday, too. I grabbed a bottle of their Leo, too, which we had last year at their 25th anniversary party. It’s more tart than the Mixtape, redolent with grapefruit flavors.
Clues by Sam
Clues by Sam
The New York Times’ Melissa Kirsch recently shared an online game, Clues by Sam. It’s a grid-based puzzle game where you have to identify the criminals in the array based on clues provided. It’s pretty challenging, but you can take your time with it.
Andreas Gohr’s love letter to blogging isn’t a post about blogging; instead, it’s a service that connects you to a random post at a personal blog. It’s a great alternative to doom scrolling social media, and is a guaranteed way to find something interesting to read. The site even reminds you of the last six posts you’ve seen, with links to their Mastodon and RSS feeds.
The IndieWeb works the same way. Nobody’s waiting for permission to have a website. You don’t need a “content strategy.” You don’t need a niche. You need a place that’s yours, and the nerve to hit publish.
I’m coming off of a week-long vacation, or staycation, if you will: we didn’t go anywhere in particular, save for the overnight in New Brunswick. I just made salads and boiled eggs for the week ahead. Of course there’s some Sunday scaries, but not too bad.
We did a lot of floating in the pool during the day. I’d usually have something for breakfast and then skip lunch, and then we’d have some cured meats and cheese and other pickings (peanuts, pipits) phon the deck or in the house while we cooked.
Meats and Cheeses!Meats and Cheeses!
I follow Ina Garten’s hummus recipe, which I often make when we get together with friends. This is exactly what I did Wednesday after we got home from New Brunswick before meeting some friends at the Blue Rascal for drinks. I made a second batch on Thursday because it was so good, and we finished that one off by the pool yesterday while enjoying some spritzes. Rhonda’s at the store now getting some more ingredients so I can make another batch. It really comes out creamy and smooth. I’ve read that you have to remove the chick peas from their shell or skin, but this recipe doesn’t call for doing so, and everyone seems to like it.
Hummus
Game On
Vacation is a good time to play a game or two; the work week doesn’t leave a lot of time for that, although I did enjoy Dredge earlier in the summer. I’ve been meaning to play Icewind Dale on the iPad for a while now, but I never end up getting around to it.
I’ve been gaming on an Apple computer for many years. We had the original Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple II, and a few other games to boot: Dig Dug, Sea Wolf, and many others.
My first Mac was Color Classic, and I enjoyed the hell out of playing Prince of Persia, Spectre, and Wolfenstein 3D. I eventually played through the original Doom and Doom 2, but my all-time favorite franchise is the Marathon series. I still have them installed on my Mac. Halo was a worthy successor, but Marathon always brings me back to my youth as a college student. We’d sneak into the bio lab on campus and install the demo on the networked PowerPCs on the lab tables and have a frag fest. What a blast.
There are lots of games over the years that I’ve sunk many hours into, not just on the Mac. I could never name them all, here’s a list of some notables:
Legend of Zelda (NES)
Metal Gear (NES)
Marathon (Mac)
Oni (Mac)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (Mac)
Metal Gear Solid (PSP)
Ocarina of Time (N64)
Halo (Mac)
Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Breath of the Wild (Switch)
I’m forgetting a ton of games for sure. I played a lot of Quake and Unreal Tournament on the Mac. Giants:Citizen Kabuto was a strange and wild standout. I’ve played through Max Payne a bunch of times, and the first-person shooter Star Wars games, especially Jedi Knight II, many times as well.
I have a nice little library of Steam games that I can play on the Mac. I watch for sales on wishlist items and buy them when they come up at an irresistible price. Outside of Metro Exodus and Firewatch (a game I’ve played through several times), most of them as started but unfinished, or not played at all. I likewise have been meaning to play Warcraft 3 for about 24 years now. It’s installed and ready to go. I purchased it on CD back in 2002 at the Marlton Apple Store, and I still have it installed via Battle.net. I really need to play it.
There are a couple of reasons for this, but primarily it’s because I don’t want to sit in front of my computer at night after we’ve cleaned up from dinner. That’s our chance to watch a little TV and maybe fart around with my iPad. Plugging into a game for real is more of a vacation thing.
Which happened to be this past week!
Control
I purchased Control on Steam a while back, but didn’t get far at all. I decided to pick it up for iOS yesterday, as it was only five bucks. I’ve played a couple of hours on the iPad and have been really enjoying it, except for that I think there was a bug that caused me to start the game over from the beginning. I wasn’t too far in to make that a big deal.
Control on iPadOS
Just for kicks, I started it up on my Mac on Sunday through Steam. The graphics look a bit more detailed on the Mac, and as I expected, I love the keyboard and mouse compared to the touchscreen on the iPad.
It’s a third-person shooter, with a theme involving a government agency that’s investigating a mysterious power that possesses people. You play as Jesse Faden, whose brother’s disappearance is linked to the agency. It puts me in mind of Max Payne, where it’s a shooter, but the additional combat feature opens up heroine Jesse’s ability to pick up and throw objects. It makes for a cool 1-2 punch feature, a la Booker’s Vigors in Bioshock Infinite.
So I’m playing it simultaneously on the iPad and the Mac in such a way that progress on one device has no bearing on the other. I could download Control from the App Store onto an external hard drive (which is where I have my Steam library), but I would need to make some room on the drive. Or… get another drive. Hmmm.
One discovery I made is that Apple’s newish Games app shows not just your installed games from the App Store, but your Steam and Blizzard games, too. Pretty cool.
One thing about gaming on a computer is my mousing situation. I’m a left by birth, but I mouse right handed due to some RSI that I was developing years ago. Despite this, I can’t WASD+mouse with my right hand; I have switch back to left-handed mousing.
A lot of mice are designed to be ambidextrous, with sides that are symmetrical. My preferred mouse of choice, however, is the Logitech MX Master, which is made for right-handed users.
MX Master
To this end, I not only have to swap my mouse to the left of the keyboard, I have to swap the mouse itself. I have a Logitech G300 for gaming. It’s cheap but it works.
Logitech G300
SteelSeries Nimbus+
I am largely sports-avoidant: I just don’t watch them. I have, however, enjoyed a handful of sports games over the years, most of which I have never played the analog version of. NHL ’93 and ’94, a basketball game called Hoops on the Nintendo, and even a baseball game on the Sony PSP. I recently saw Madden 27 pop up for Apple Arcade, and I figured that, too, might be a fun game for a sport I don’t watch.
I suspected that Madden might be more of a controller based game than a touchscreen game. I’ve been thinking about getting a controller after trying one of the boys’ older Playstation controllers to play some games, like Gear Club:Stradale on the Mac (another sport, car racing, that I don’t watch but enjoy video games of). I had the original Nimbus controller for our Apple TV, and while it still pairs with my Mac, it’s definitely missing some features that make me think it’s outdated.
I found a refurbished Nimbus+ on Amazon for $35 bucks.
Last week, I mentioned that I had been wrestling with our lawn tractor. It’s a Husqvarna from the mid-2000s—it’s been in service for a long time. I’ve changed the belts, the blades, the oil, and filters to keep it running. The deck (the metal shell that houses the blades) has taken a beating over the years, and a bracket that holds the belt pulleys had broken free from the shell. Rhonda and I combined forces on Tuesday afternoon after our getaway to Philly, and completed what I learned is called a “field repair.” It seems to be working now!
Aaron Riding the Husqvarna 12 Years Ago
After thinking I’d fixed it several times before Tuesday (Wednesday actually), this repair reminds me that success and failure are often within a few inches of each other. Every win starts off as a potential loss. It’s an argument for adversity maybe: too many serial wins can lead to feeling a failure as catastrophic.
Television Time
I’ve been using an app called Sofa for a while now to track television shows and movies that I might like to watch. It’s a great iPhone and iPad app, and it runs on the Mac as well. It has evolved to include books, podcasts, restaurants, and video games. I like it a lot, but it has lacked a central function that I wanted in such an application: moving a show to an “actively watching” list or state. (I’ve never used it for books, which is a topic for another post.) Version 5.2 of Sofa now lets you track shows, generating a list of episodes and providing the user a way of checking off episodes.
Television Time
Jason Snell recently highlighted Television Time on an episode of MacBreak Weekly, and after a few years of trying the free version of Sofa (I find the subscription a little pricey for my needs), and also trying Casey Liss’s Callsheet for the same purpose, I decided to give Television Time a spin.
Television Time is TV-specific; you can’t add movies or any other kind of media. This is a good thing. You can research shows, and add them to your “To Watch” list when you’re ready. There’s no intermediate resting place for a show, though, which I would like. Television time includes notifications for upcoming episodes, and a wealth of data about an episode, including original air date. It will also monitor the time you spent watching TV if you check off what you’ve been watching. And like Sofa, Television Time shows you where you can watch a show.
I’ve written a fair bit about my TT Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO Lens here on Uncorrected. It’s primary appeal to me when I found it was both its tiny size and its low price, and while both of those remain attractions, it’s not a lens that I’d recommend for someone outside of understanding what a strange thing it is.
Shortly after I purchased the lens, I started seeing adds for repurposed disposable film camera lenses, one of which is the Retropia. I thought it might be duplicative at least, or less functional, than the TT Artisans, so I bought one for Aaron to use with his Nikon D3100. It turns out that he also purchased one, so I’m going to return the one I bought for him.
Nikon D3100 with the Retrotopia Lens
It’s a tiny lens that weighs almost nothing. It’s more of a lens cap than a lens. It makes the TT Artisans feel heavy.
Nikon D3100 with Retrotopia Lens
You have to fire the camera in manual mode to use the Retrotopia; it doesn’t support any kind of autofocus or aperture priority. With a fixed aperture of f/11, it needs plenty of light to work. I would normally avoid taking pictures in the midday sun, but the Retrotopia is perfect for such shooting.
My MX-5 Miata taken with the Retrotopia
I took this picture of my Miata with the Retrotopia. It has that greasy, smeary look that you might get from a cheap disposable camera. I don’t love it, but it’s kinda fun. The TT Artisans takes much sharper pictures, and that’s not saying much for the UFO.
MX-5 Miata taken with the TT Artisans Lens
PowerMate Agent
I still have an ancient Griffin PowerMate around that I haven’t used in forever. I stumbled upon the PowerMate Agent application recently, which revives the peripheral. It scrolls and mutes! Pretty cool.
I’ve spilled plenty of pixels here on Uncorrected about outliner applications. I’m a big user of OmniOutliner and Bike, and OmniFocus certainly has its roots in the former application. But there are many more, and even a website dedicated to outliner software. Enjoy!
Kosshi Outliner
macosxguru featured Kosshi on Bicycle for Your Mindrecently, so I downloaded the trial. Kosshi reminds me of Workflowy, but Mac-native without the need to constantly log in. (Speaking of Workflowy, I just logged in again recently and was met with a lengthy captcha ordeal that reminded me at least partly why I stopped using Workflowy).
Unlike Bike and OmniOutliner, Kosshi’s back end is a database rather than individual files. There are positives and negative to this approach; database apps allow for some neat features, including linking to your own notes and content in the app. Drafts, Ulysses, and Apple Notes are all examples of this approach, well-implemented.
Kosshi supports Markdown; imbedding images, videos, and PDFs; @ and # tags; internal linking; and bookmarking. It’s fast and stable in my testing as well. Some Workflowy features that I would miss would be duplicating and mirroring items, and there’s now way to grab a link to an item or note in Kosshi so that you can reference it from another application. No support for Hookmark, at least not yet, either.
There are a number of pre-programmed keyboard shortcuts that allow you to move items within the app, which is a great way to keep you hands on the keyboard while you’re working.
Outliner Software (website)
From the Bicycle for Your Mind post on Kosshi Outliner I referenced above, I learned about the existence of the Outliner Software website. It’s a forum for outliner and note-taking application nerds. Discussions about Drafts, Ulysses, Bike, and other writing apps abound.
MojoPad is not strictly an outliner, but it’s a modern recreating of Gus Meuller’s VoodooPad. I used the lite version of VoodooPad a while back, and have, from time to time, found myself searching to see if the app was still available (and it is!).
MojoPad, like Kosshi, keeps its data in a database, and uses the concept of a wiki for its pages. CamelCasing words creates links, so you can keep adding information to your pages and linking (and creating) as you go. It supports rich text, plain text, and Markdown.
MojoPad is a great-looking app, and retains the spirit of VoodooPad. No iOS support, though.
Mind maps are a thing… just not really my thing. I’ve used MindNode for a while now, at first mostly to try to understand mind maps and mapping, and to create a few flowcharts when I needed them.
MindNode has a toggle to switch between mind map and outline views, and this feature cleanly illustrates the indelible relationship between mind maps and outliners. The first time I tried the toggle, it was like a facepalm moment: Mind maps are outlines, and outlines are mind maps.
MindNode Next represents an evolution from the original MindNode. One very notable change is Next’s internal database structure, whereas the original MindNode stored its data in individual files. Next’s database structure allows for linking between maps, which can be helpful.
Even if you don’t use mind maps, MindNode is a fantastic outliner. It’s quite possibly the prettiest outliner I’ve used.
Happy Fourth of July! We celebrated the holiday with a barbecue at our house; I smoked both spareribs and baby back ribs. My parents came over, as did Joe’s girlfriend, and even Teri, my former boss from Vineland, joined us. We all drank a bunch of white wine too. I didn’t get any good pictures of the ribs, because I was hustling to get them done, but Aaron and I nipped out to get some red, white, and blue pictures of our stable of cars. I was hoping to get out there for these shots closer to the golden hour, but it was a bit later than I wanted. Red, White, and Blue Cars
Mister Plimsoll
Longtime Apple tech writer Glen Fleishman recently launched a utility for the Mac called Mister Plimsoll. It’s a free utility that will alert you to when a drive on your Mac is about to run out of space, name for the Plimsoll line on a ship’s hull1. I’ve struggled with my Mac Studio running dangerously low on space, and my attempts to understand why, exactly, have found me staring at DaisyDisk and noticing that my Time Machine snapshots are growing out of control. Mister Plimsol doesn’t help you deal with storage issues, but it its helpful in updating you that things are getting tight. I missed two Arq backups because of Time Machine snapshot hoarding last week. I set up Mister Plimsol to send me a text message when my Mac’s free space dips below 10% of the drive’s capacity.
Mister Plimsoll
Indirectly related, I found that my Spotlight index was larger than it should be, so I rebuilt that using a strategy that Kagi Assistant recommended (removing the boot drive from indexing in System Settings, and then adding it back after a pause). I used DaisyDisk to delete some of the Time Machine snapshots, which were taking up over 70 GB of space.
DaisyDisk
As I mentioned above, DaisyDisk is a great tool for visualizing your Mac’s storage. It helped me narrow down what was taking up the most space on my Mac, especially when I compared the internal storage to that of my MacBook Air. That was the first clue that something was up with my Mac Studio’s Spotlight Index: the Air had almost no data in its Spotlight Index, according to DaisyDisk, while the Studio was taking up gigabytes of space. I knew that I was using a fair amount of disk space for both MailMaven and MailMate, because I’m not content to use Gmail’s web interface, but DaisyDisk helped me see beyond what I already knew.
I’ve been using tmutil via the Terminal for years to manage my Time Machine snapshots when things got out of hand, but those instances were few and far between. Something with the Studio is amiss, though, and it accumulates a large collection snapshots.
If you purchased DaisyDisk on the Mac App Store, you can swap your license for a standalone license which enables you to delete snapshots. Probably worth it.
Kagi Assistant
Central to solving the Spotlight Index and the Time Machine snapshot problems I was trying to solve was Kagi Assistant. Sure, I’ve used ChatGPT and Claude, and I use (weirdly enough) Microsoft’s Copilot a lot, but Kagi comes bundled with Kagi Search, which is why I initially signed up for a subscription. I’ve come to rely upon Assistant as my go-to chatbot.
The Plimsoll line is the point to which the vessel can be legally and safely submerged in water under various conditions. ↩
The makers of the excellent Bear note-taking app for macOS have released a new app called Lettera. Check out that domain name! It’s a fork of Panda, which was their text engine for Bear, and which they released some time ago as a beta.
Lettera is Bear minus the database for note storage; its a markdown editor that uses standalone markdown files. This is hot if you like individual, portable documents, and even more so if you’re fiddling with your system by having an AI assist you.
Bear has always looked great and has been awesome to use; Panda, for me, was a great alternative once I’d given up on Bear as the best note-taking app for my usage. It’s at once nerdy and elegant; straightforward and stylish.
I’m happy to see that Panda has borne fruit (bamboo?) in the form of Lettera. I’m hoping that we’ll see an iPadOS version too.
Another Father’s Day! Joe got me this cute little He-Man minifig at a nearby toy show.
Happy Father’s Day He-Man!
We’re not really doing much since Aaron has to work and won’t be home until close to seven tonight. The pool and some spritzes beckon, though. I cooked a nice picanha roast last night for our dinner after he got home after a lengthy soak in the sous vide tank.
macOS 27 “Golden Gate” Developer Beta
iPad is usually where I’m OK installing a beta OS: I need my Mac to do work, and I need my phone because it’s my phone. iPads are ancillary (which doesn’t mean I don’t love using them for everything), but they are a third category and a third rung on the needs vs wants list.
But I have an older M1 MacBook Pro from work, and while it has taught me that a Mac can, in the era of Apple Silicon, last you a long time, it’s not my main machine, and is ripe for usage as a beta testing machine.
I have modest needs as a computer user, but the things that I was excited to see in Golden Gate are the visual tweaks to Liquid Glass. First up: the layered side panels. Here’s notes in Tahoe:
Notes Sidebar in macOS 26 Tahoe
And then Notes in Golden Gate:
Notes Sidebar in Golden Gate
Golden Gate fixes the unnecessary side panel crowding in Notes (and other apps).
Things are still a bit crowded, even on the generous display on this MacBook Pro. Liquid Glass looks a lot less horsey on a 32” display, but this isn’t a setup for most MacBook owners; the OS should look tighter and smaller than it does now. Even in Golden Gate, I find application toolbars ugly. Going text only (where available) looks weird, contrary to macOS pre-Tahoe.
Safari Toolbar in Golden Gate
I’m still on the waiting list for the new Siri. Everything I’ve heard sounds great, and I’m looking forward to something more intelligent. If it can see OmniFocus, Notes, and Fantastical, as well as files on my Mac, I think Siri AI will be very interesting.
Theming OmniOutliner
I’ve been using OmniOutliner since it was bundled with my PowerBook G4 in the early 2000s. There’s a lot to love about OmniOutliner, if you love (or even just like) outliners. (I find it funny to this day that when teachers suggested that outlining was a good way to start a paper, and required the class to create outlines, I would absolutely bristle). These days, I almost think in outlines; I reach for Bike or OmniOutliner the moment something comes up and I need to take notes. And if I’m writing, as I often do, in Notes, I follow a loose outline style/format.
I’ve never found theming to be terribly accessible in OmniOutliner, though, and my earliest forays into crafting my own were fraught with difficulty, such that I never really made any. I was farting around with version six and was delighted that the small bit of experience I’ve gained with styles allows me to facilely create some nice-looking outline templates.
One of the Drafts styles I like is called “Six Colors,” referencing of course the original Apple logo, and Jason Snell’s post-MacWorld website and sundry digital goods. I thought that something like the Six Colors theme would make for a nice OmniOutliner template.
My Six Colors OmniOutliner Template
I started off with a blank white canvas and added text color stylings, but then I thought it might be fun to create a theme where the rows are colored, too.
After that, it was off to the races! I found a website, Figma , with 100 thoughtfully crafted four-color designs, and started cobbling together some more templates. Happily, OmniFocus stores themes in iCloud if you’re using it, so they sync across devices.
My Own Cobalt Theme for OmniOutliner
Mazda MX-5 Miata ND3
My mind is not to be trusted. I wrote about some test drives I’d done when thinking about trading in my 2013 Mustang GT last week. I had notionally settled on keeping the mustang and repairing the things that ailed it; meanwhile, I found myself continually researching cars, car prices, and engaging Copilot in a lengthy discussion about my “perfect” car. (The answer was the BMW 2 Series, more specifically the 230, which confusingly sits price wise and procedurally above the BMW 228. The 228, I learned, is actually a Mini Cooper, and sold as a 1 series in Europe. Copilot did not recommend the 228 for me, although it does have the JCW engine in it. It seems to be a car reviled by BMW purists, but for a person for whom the JCW seems like a great car, I was kinda into the idea. But: no manual.
My 2026 Mazda MX-5 Miata ND3
You can now very easily draw a small circle around the new cars you’d buy if you just factor in two data points: cost and transmission. Do you want a car that costs around 40k and has a manual transmission? Your options get narrow fast. You can cast a wider net by ignoring price constraints, but if price is your cardinal factor, then it gets pretty easy. For me, it was WRX, BRZ/G86, Miata, or something used.
I had conceded to myself that I was going to have to consider non-manual options if I were in fact to purchase a BMW 230, but the prices are so high that I abandoned the idea.
I have loved the MX-5 Miata since it came out. My Dad, an inveterate namer of four-wheeled things whilst driving, always exclaimed “Miata!” back in the late 80s and early 90s when we’d see one on the road. I remember thinking that if he was enthusiastic about something, it was suggestion that he’d buy one. Once, we went to a Nissan dealership where his college roommate worked, and checked out a moon glow yellow Nissan 300 Z. I was sure we were there to buy one. We were not. But that car changed my opinion about yellow cars, and made me want a Z to this day.
Anyway, the decision to buy a new car vs repair the Mustang was complicated for me. There are a couple of truths about the Mustang: I never considered one in any previous car-buying situation; the platonic ideal that the mustang is chasing is not a part of my lexicon. When last I shopped for a car, in 2015, I had narrowed my search down to a Ford Focus RS, Subaru WRX, or a GTI. The AWD in the WRX was the final selling point.
That I got to drive a GT for the last 10 years was a gift, though, materially and spiritually. Just because you wouldn’t normally consider something doesn’t mean you wouldn’t end up enjoying it. And the experience of the GT was an eye-opener. Yes, it was big and heavy, but it was fast and stable at highway speeds. The aftermarket exhaust sounded like a dream, and the car was a heard turner on noise alone. I loved that car, and I can now say that I absolutely enjoy a big American muscle car, borne from a decade of experience.
Farewell, Old Friend
But we all have preferences and notions. If I had to plant my flag, I’d want this car:
2-dour coupe or roadster
Naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine
Manual transmission
Low body weight
That car doesn’t actually exist anymore outside of the Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxter, which Porsche isn’t taking orders for anymore.
The Miata is pretty close, though, looking at that list. It’s only strike is the four-cylinder engine. Yet, after the first test drive, I thought, “I can’t daily this car.”
But as I continued to research, Copilot did make one comment that resonated with me: You’ll think it’s too small for a week. And that was my experience with the Toyota MR2 Spyder that I bought back in 2003 and drove for about four years before having to trade it in on a more practical family car, as we had two small children. I was driving the Spyder home on the day of the purchase, barreling down route 55 with the top up, all the crap that I’d been carting around in my more capacious Ford Contour that I’d just traded in for pennies piled up on the seat beside me, the front end bouncing up and down like an exuberant kangaroo, and I thought: what did I just get myself into? It was so small, so light, and utterly unfamiliar to me.
But the next day, the car unburdened by the weight of my hoardings, zipping up to the dealership to drop off my old car’s title, top down, I realized that I was having a blast–an experience in a car I’d never had before.
The Spyder only had 138 horsepower. It was not a fast car, but any metric. But it was a true mid-engine runabout, with variable valve timing that kicked in pretty high up in the rev range. I remember one time Dad and I went out for a drive in his new 5-liter Pontiac GTO, and he let me take the wheel. After a long cruise in rural south Jersey and a couple of beers at a friend’s house, I got back into the Spyder and drove it back home. The contrast was striking–the Spyder felt like the tiny toy car that it was. That did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the car, but it did put its proper place in the pantheon of cars I’ve driven.
In time, I came to see the Spyder as a kind of automotive albatross, uniquely ill-suited to my current needs as a family man. I replaced it with a Subaru Legacy with a manual five-speed. It was fine. It was what I needed at the time.
But I always missed the Spyder, and serially lined up replacements in my mind, should the time ever come when I might want something like that again.
That time has come, and the Miata fits the bill. Like a glove.
The last couple of weeks before the end of the school year are always hectic. Joey and Sorayah went on a business trip to Kentucky for her work, and are back now. We’re celebrating my Mom’s birthday this weekend, and Father’s Day a week early, with some BBQ chicken thighs and sides.
Test Driving Cars
I test drove a couple of cars this week before dropping the Mustang off for service; I wanted to feel out if I would rather have a new car or keep the GT, anticipating some costly repairs. I drove a yellow Subaru BRZ, and a Mazda MX-5 Sport (a Miata, of course).
Subaru BRZ
I loved the BRZ; it wasn’t loud in the way the Mustang is, but it’s small and quick and tight. I don’t think the four-banger would ever knock my socks off, but it was a great ride. I think I could live with one of these.
MX-5 Miata
The Miata was a lot of fun, too, but it immediately sounded like a toy when the salesman started it up, and it did nothing on the test drive to make me think it wasn’t. Fun to drive? Absolutely. A daily driver? Not for me.
Me in the droptop
I was surprised by my impression of the Miata: I once owned a Toyota MR2 Spyder, which was a mid-engine roadster and a Miata competitor. I know what these little cars feel like.
Andy Inhatko’s “Loitering at tech’s intersections”
Andy is a self-described “beloved tech pundit” who wrote for MacUser and MacWorld, and is a regular contributor to MacBreak Weekly. It’s great that he’s launched a new website, and I’m looking forward to reading more of his writing. Andy knows a lot about tech, photography, and cinema.
Hector Simpson’s Wavēy and XIV Cosmos and Horizon Wallpapers
Most days, I fire up the Dizzypaper app and select a wallpaper that suits my mood. I added Hector’s Wavēy and XIV Cosmos and Horizon wallpapers to my collection this weekend, because the collections are beautiful and fit my preferenceph for wallpapers: vector graphics, tasteful colors, and clever masking.
It’s a hot Sunday here in South Jersey. We were going to steam some crabs, but they’re still pricey this early in the season, so it’s chicken thighs on the grill with rice and broccoli any minute now.
Joey and Sorayah are going on a trip to Kentucky for her work, so we’ll be a three-person household for the week. I am thinking about using Joe’s car to get around while I get some necessary repairs done on the Mustang. I was sorely tempted to test drive both a Subaru BRZ and a Mazda MX-5 Miata, as the old girl is not only getting up there in years, and requires some maintenance. But I don’t think I want to part with the Mustang, and a comparable replacement would be a tad rich. But then he slashed his own tire driving today, so I’ll have to get that replaced, too. Sheesh.
Designed in California: An Apple History Podcast
Jason Snell and Myke Hurley launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a podcast covering Apple’s history:
The two of us, Myke Hurley and Jason Snell, have been discussing Apple in depth every week for more than a decade on the Upgrade podcast. We want to go further, creating a podcast series that’s dedicated to telling stories from across all five decades of Apple history.
Jason has done some amazing work since leaving MacWorld; his “20 Macs for 2020” series was a blast, and I’ve been a longtime listener and subscriber of his Six Colors newsletter and podcast. He’s a great voice on MacBreak Weekly, too, which I’ve been listening to since its inception.
One of the things I appreciate about his coverage of Apple is that his Mac usage has traverses the same trajectory as mine: he’s been using a Mac since the early days, and has seen the evolution of the Mac from the classic OS through the transition to Mac OS X, and then the move from PowerPC to Intel, to the introduction of the iPhone, and more. He’s an enthusiast but to a fanboy..
There’s every reason to expect that Designed in California is going to be great.
More BetterTouchTool
I mentioned BetterTouchTool in my last Sunday Serial, and I’ve been using it since to learn more about it. I set up a couple of actions:
– Toggle Mission Control: command-option-mouse wheel scroll up/down
– Two-finger rotate right/left: adjust volume
BetterTouchTool Action
I had always looked at BetterTouchTool as a way to hack the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, and also a way to add gestures to the Magic Trackpad. I don’t generally use a trackpad with my Mac at home or in the office, because I plug into a Thunderbolt dock at both locations and use an external display, keyboard, and mouse. (I do like using it instead of a mouse with my iPad, though.) If I’m at home, I don’t use my laptop that much after dinner, which is more iPad time. And I am a Logi MX Master mouse user.
The announcement of the new launcher feature, a la Apple’s Spotlight, was a nice surprise and made me peek at this tool again. I realized how many features are included, and how it’s a competitor to another deep and complex utility, Keyboard Maestro. BTT can do everything BetterSnapTool can do, and then adds a ton of customization options. You can effectively replace text expansion utilities like TextExpander with BTT–as you can (and I have) with Keyboard Maestro.
Bellview Winery’s Gemini Blend
Described on their site as “a light dry white blend of Caygua, Gruner and Traminette.” It’s bright and crisp, less velvety than the outgoing Viognier we’ve been drinking. Perfect on a hot summer day.
What a beautiful weekend! Saturday and Sunday were chilly in morning, sunny, and then exemplars of a warm, dry May weather. You could do worse than have a glorious, full-throated, naturally aspirated American V8 engine in your car on a day like today.
Bellview Winery was an obvious choice for our Saturday, considering the weather, but they had a ticketed event, so we stayed home and had cheese and salami and raided our cellar (which is on the second floor in a cheap fridge). Joe was working, but Rhonda, Aaron, and I nipped out for dinner at the Turkish joint around the corner. It’s really good!
It occurred to me that the genesis of Sunday Serial was to recommend things to my readers. I haven’t invoked the mission in writing for a while, so here it goes:
Here are a few things to check out!
BetterTouchTool
I’ve been using BetterSnapTool for over a decade to manage the windows on my Mac. It originally was one of the few utilities to add Windows Snap-style functionality to the Mac. Apple did eventually add a similar feature to Sequoia, but there are still advantages to third-party utilities, such as programmable keyboard shortcuts..
BetterTouchTool has long offered the same features, in addition to giving users a path to creating custom mouse and touchpad gestures. In a recent blog post, the developer described a new beta feature: a Spotlight-like Launcher. His hopes were high that Apple would eventually add third-party support to Spotlight, and while the latest version of Spotlight that ships with Tahoe brings some feature enhancements, it was not what he was looking for. With that, BetterTouchTool joined the crowded field of excellent third-party launcher utilities.
BetterTouchTool’s Launcher
You can use BTT’s launcher to fire off custom actions, launch apps, see running apps, create and use widgets, search for files, use Soulver to make back-of-the-napkin calculations, and lots more. I’m excited to finally create some custom gestures with my trackpad, and avail myself of BTT’s ability to manage windows.
I had to return some pants Rhonda got for Aaron at Staples today, and I browsed the pen aisle to see what they had; Staples has always been an OK spot for Fisher Space pens and more. I spied a Lamy Safari Ballpoint in bespoke packaging on one peg, and gave it a quick ogle. I didn’t take me long to decide to purchase one.
Lamy Rollerball
It’s preloaded with a black ink cartridge, but I’ll order a refill in the near future and make it blue. It’s got that great thick barrel that I love from my Safari fountain pen, as well as the rounded wire clip. I was hoping for a gel pen, but this does write nicely.
Lamy Safari Clipped to my Field Notes Notebook
Shoreline Vintage & Toy Show 2026
Joey and Aaron clued me in to Shoreline Vintage’s show this weekend; since adding Farpoint IIto their collection of vendors, they’ve been throwing great shows every summer, usually around Memorial Day. We got up early because Joe had to work and headed over for a bit of shopping.
Shoreline Vintage and Toy Show
Toy Shows are always an eclectic gathering of enthusiasts. There were people in costumes, some cross dressing, and plenty of eagle-eyed shoppers. Joe and Aaron split off and browsed the tables. It was, as usual, a great show with lots to see.
Shoreline Vintage Vendor Table
I’m excited that Aaron’s eye was bewitched by a used Nikon DSLR. We went back to the table a few times to try to get more info about the camera, and as we walked the grounds, I learned that the Nikon D3500 is not a new camera, but is one of the last in the line of consumer-focused DSLRs and not mirrorless. It was a kit with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.5 lens, probably a standard Nikon kit lens, but also a 70-500mm f/4.5-6.3 zoom lens. That’s pretty close to all you’d need, save for a nice prime lens with an aperture around f/2 or a little lower.
Nikon D3500
I told him we could figure something out if he wanted to buy it without exhausting his budget; my notion was that we’d eventually get him a Panasonic or a Olympus so he could use my lenses, but he seems to be drawn to Canon and Nikon. I’m curious about APS-C and Nikon’s software interface on their cameras, as well as the physical controls, though. I suggested that we could negotiate the price, and Aaron went for it: he suggested a price, and the seller readily agreed. Proud of this guy!
Shoreline Vintage Show Star Wars Game
So yeah: he’s got a Nikon, and there’s an f/1.8 35mm on the way from Ebay.
Cotypist developer Daniel at Accelerated Thoughts GmbH sent beta users an email (“a sale for the people who got here first”) sent an email on May 20th letting early adoptersl know that Cotypist would be on sale starting today, with a generous intro offer for early adopters. I’ve been using it since learning of it on Bundlehunt, and while I’m loathe to add another subscription to support my software habit, the ineluctable sign that I was developing an affinity for the app revealed itself: I was using a Mac without Cotypist, and I was annoyed not see the autocompletion. Launchbar and Alfred users know what I’m talking about.
I like Jason Snell’s angle on AI apps: possibly fruit from a poisoned tree, but more germane to his point is that I don’t generally struggle with writing. Jason’s cultivating the sympathetic view that AI tools can help people for whom writing comes less naturally. (Do they have AI for dynamic problem solving and math? Cause I’d be up for those.) But like anyone, I find myself tired, or uninspired, or just plain stuck with what to say from time to time,and a friendly suggestion from an app that’s paying attention to my writing can be a helpful prompt.
So here’s to the next year of (co)typing. A bicycle, perhaps, for pedaling the cursor from left to right.
It’s a long weekend here in the United States; we are celebrating Memorial Day, which is a holiday to remember those who have died in military service. Like many federal holidays, it has been associated with retail sales, and is the informal kickoff of the summer season. As such, barbecues (lots of outdoor grilling, more accurately) are a feature of the weekend. The boys have been working this weekend, and the weather is crummy, so we’re not doing anything special. I do have a grocery store prime rib in the oven right now, though, so that will be a fun meal later today.
I got home a little early Friday, so I stopped at Bellview to fill up our growlers. We took Aaron out for Indian food Friday night, his first visit since’s he’s been home from college. They had these laminated cards on the tables encouraging diners to try their chicken lollipops, which are frenched drumettes.
Chicken Lollipops
Last night, we tried a new Turkish place, Wandering Rose, that opened up in a spot previously occupied by a diner; we had it delivered via DoorDash. It was really good, and we’re excited to go back.
Steve Jobs in Exile
I preordered Steve Jobs in Exile a while back when I learned about its impending release. I’m perennially curious about how NeXT evolved into Mac OS X. On a recent Upgrade episode,author Geoffrey Cain spoke with Jason Snell about the book. Jason pointed out that Steve Jobs in Exile fills the hole from David Pogue’s recent history of Apple, where Steve Leaves before returning to Apple. As Pogue’s book is about Apple, he doesn’t wander into the NeXT era save for how Apple came to acquire it (also a great story).
MarkEdit is a Markdown editor for the Mac; the developer bills it as TextEdit for Markdown. It has a great set of themes to choose from, including an excellent Cobalt theme, which is usually my favorite for such applications. I used TextMate for a long time with a Cobalt theme, and MarkEdit’s looks even better.
MarkEdit, Cobalt ThemeTextMate, Cobalt Theme
Claude Code for JXA Scripting
I downloaded Claude’s Mac app to try it out; I’ve been using assorted AI tools to help me cobble together AppleScripts for a while now. Since Apple has elevated JavaScript to have first-class support in macOS, and added the ability to write and run JXA in Script Editor, I’ve been asking Claude to build JXA scripts for me.
One simple script grabs both the URL and title of the current tab open in Safari and makes a link for me. Little scripts like this are a great time saver.
I’ve been farting around with ExtraBar since I got it, and I really like the approach. It’s effectively a replacement for your Menu Bar (or more accurately, utilities like Bartender that clean up an overstuffed Menu Bar), but there are a few ways of configuring it to make it, indeed, an extra bar. This is how I’ve set it up; I like having all of my menu bar icons showing when I’m plugged into a larger display.
Show Desktop: activates the function-f12 keystroke
Fill Screen: sets the currently active window to fill the entire screen, but not the single-window mode a la iPad.
Center Window: Centers the currently active window
OmniFocus: open Perspective: “U2”
OmniFocus
Show Safari Sidebar
Safari: multiple controls, including showing the sidebar and search tabs
Home Focus Toggle
Work Focus Toggle
Trigger Macro by Name (search Keyboard Maestro macros)
It’s the top of the summer, and we have a full house once again: Aaron is home from college. He’s got a neat job lined up at the NJ Motorsports Park as a marshall. He’s going to see a lot of cool cars in the next couple of months.
On a related note, Rhonda and I nipped out to Maplewood for diner Friday, as the boys both had plans to go to the food truck festival at their alma mater. I spied a couple of marked up Porsche Caymans in the parking lot, likely having just come from the track.
Porsche Cayman
I keep a list of cars I’d consider buying in the event that I had to replace my beloved Mustang (MX-5, BRZ, Nissan Z, and some others), but the Cayman and 911 sit up there in the “if a pile of money landed in my lap…” fantasy.
I was up near Trenton Wednesday for work, so I lit up to Rutgers after work to pick Aaron up. He finished his final just about when I was pulling into New Brunswick, so we loaded up the Mini and nipped out for some phô, which was what he was craving. I stopped and got us a couple of Tsingtao beers to go with the meal. Asian beers are generally thin, watery affairs, enjoyable with just about anything. If you like juicy beers, Tsingtao is not for you. But it’s a great refreshing beer after five or so trips from the dorm to the car.
Dormitory ElevatorAaron giving his room one last lookTsingtao beers
Bellview Winery’s Argento
Last summer, Rhonda and I enjoyed Bellview’s private party to celebrate their 25th anniversary. We had a great time, and got to try their newly released Argento, which is their take on a Bordeaux. It features their Cab Franc, San Marco, Petit Verdot, Blaufrankisch, and Merlot. It’s a great blend: pronounced berry, with some tannin and pepper on the finish. One of the ladies who works there tempted me with a taste a couple of Saturdays ago when I was filling up the growlers, and yesterday I made good on my resolve to pick up a bottle sooner than later.
Bellview’s Argento
Schwinn 430 Elliptical
I bought an elliptical at our local Sears (remember Sears?) probably 20 years ago; it was on clearance, and I paid maybe $500 bucks for it. It was a nice low impact cardio machine, and I got a lot of miles out of it. Rhonda started using it, too, combining it with some hand weights, and really liked the results.
I’ve gotten into cycling, rowing, lifting weights, and then rowing again in the intervening years, and while I could see the use for an elliptical in our home gym, I didn’t see the need to buy another one. Rhonda, however, has lamented the fact that it doesn’t work anymore (the computer broke, and replacing it would require finding something on eBay; the last few times I looked for one, they were incredibly rare and expensive).
I was circumspect about buying another elliptical, as the second Concept2 rower I bought was originally intended to be hers, but she doesn’t really like rowing. (Not true for me, though: I use it pretty much every day).
Schwinn 430 Elliptical in the upstairs bedroom
I did end up ordering a Schwinn 430 Elliptical from Best Buy for her; it’s a reasonably priced model, and I think will do the trick. I was tempted by a NordicTrack model, which include a more fulsome computer with video workouts, a la Peloton, but I didn’t want to pay the price.
Schwinn 430 Computer
I put the Schwinn together last weekend, and make a few last adjustments this afternoon after hearing some squeaks while I was testing it out. It’s all set and ready for action. Here’s hoping it sees some usage! It’s nice having the upstairs apartment vacant and available for our use. It’s a separate hangout space for the kids, a seasonal closet for our wardrobes, a place for an extra refrigerator, and now a home gym annex.
Kagi Snaps
I tried Kagi search on John Gruber’s recommendation, and recently, he posted an article about their “Snaps” feature, which are similar to their Bangs, which are similar to Duck Duck Go’s bangs. The difference is that they restrict the search to a particular website.
I’ve never actually looked any of these up. I just guessed at the ones I most want to use and they all worked on the first try. @nyt returns results from The New York Times; @wsj is for The Wall Street Journal. Take a guess what @df does.
