The Luxury of Time

In Winter - Matt Gemmell

As I reach the depth of my sleep, in that period from around 3AM to 4AM, I see some awful things. I couldn’t begin to count the number of mornings where I’ve sat on the side of the bed, feet gratefully on the floor, shivering in the dark (and hoping I haven’t woken my wife). I’ve watched 5AM arrive on the bedside alarm clock so many times that it’s become seasonally normal. I always get back to sleep afterwards, at least, which is a mixed blessing.

...

I return to bed, and watch the clock, and eventually I sleep again - with more strange surroundings, uncertain motives, and unfamiliar landscapes. When dawn creeps under the curtains and I wake up, I’m profoundly grateful for the daylight. I get up, and for the first half an hour or so my emotions are uncomfortably close to the surface.

Only Matt could write about nightmares and still make it a beautiful piece of prose.

I suspect more people than we imagine do the waking bolt upright at 4.00am thing - following an unpleasant or terrifying dream.

I do it. I used to do it a lot. It happens a lot less now and seems to have improved through two things I do. These work for me. I have no idea whether they would help others similarly.

1) I restrict myself to two cups of coffee a day, (whether caffeinated or not) one when I rise and one no later than midday and normally earlier. No tea. When everyone else is drinking tea and coffee, I default to hot water.

2) I have turned the context around about waking in the night (or finding it hard to get off to sleep). I have convinced myself about a truth. The truth is; I don't have enough time in my life. I don't have enough time to read all the books I want to read or listen to all the podcasts I want to hear or a million other things.

So, I have genuinely changed my attitude to being awake from - 'what a pain, I should be asleep' to 'OK, good, an opportunity to listen to an other hour of....'

I keep an old iPad by my bed, with a very comfortable, soft, tiny in ear headphone and when I wake at 4.00am, I don't dwell on the dream, I don't wonder about how long it will take me to get back to sleep, I listen to Siracusa arguing with Gruber about file systems or the Football Weekly crew arguing about whether Spurs are any good. I enjoy the time rather than regret it.

Obviously, no Twitter clients, email or any sort of reading or notifications. And, with all due respect to the podcasts mentioned above - the more banal - the better. This is not intense time. This is my luxury time. This is my luxury time to spend on gentle, frivolous, insignificant but interesting things.

I can chose to think about what ever I wish and at four am I chose frippery.

Christmas List

The Christmas Catalog — Tools and Toys

The holidays cannot — and should not — be defined by the height of our Christmas tree nor the depth of presents at its base. My wife and I have been married nearly 10 years and we have two beautiful and rowdy boys. For me, the things I want most are the things I cannot buy: time, health, memories, deep conversations, roaring laughter, rest, and the opportunity to serve others.

With this in mind, our 2014 holiday gift guide is a bit different. We have done our best to avoid listing out a vast array of crap that has found the inferior sweet spot between impractical, unaffordable, and meaningless.

Love this.

The restorative power of moving coils and valves

After a long week, when you are home on Friday evening for the first time since 6.00 am on Monday. After a few too many meetings, a few too many business dinners, too many KPI reports, too many plane journeys, too many train departures, too many 'I need to just catch you before' and one or two 'let's see if we can squeeze in a conference call at 6.00 your time to touch base on...

My recommendation for total restoration is a glass or two of Sancere, a complete play through of this:

On this:

Through this:

Total restoration of the soul. 

They're Back

BONANZA! - Relay FM

1: Arkansas Chuggabug

November 4th, 2014 · 59 minutes Matt and Myke are back together. They start off BONANZA by welcoming listeners new and old and coining a name for the audience listening live, before going on to explore their new venture—International Fun-Run Relay Racing.

They're back. Baby.

Taylor Swift Removes Entire Catalog from Spotify

Taylor Swift removes music from Spotify - FT.com

Taylor Swift’s record label has removed her entire catalogue of music from Spotify, betting that the star can make more money from conventional record sales than through streaming. Spotify responded to the move on Monday by publishing a blog post calling on the artist and her label, Big Machine, to change their minds and rejoin the service.

Apparently Ms Swift said, "We are never, ever, getting back together."

Retina IMac - short test drive

I’ve been stuck in the wilds of Scotland for the last week so haven’t had chance to play with a new iMac Retina, until today, when I stole 30 minutes between meetings to nip into Regent Street and barge some tourists out of the way in the Apple store to get hands on.

As a purchaser of one of the first 13” Retina MBP’s, I am a bit cynical about the compromises required to deliver Retina displays. I switched back from the 13” R MBP to an 11” Air this summer, driven by the excessive fan noise, weight and battery life of the former. I was pleased to hear from many reviews that fan noise wasn’t a big deal for the iMac.

Jason Snell reported:

Now about that fan. I am not among the most sound-sensitive people around, since I’m often working with music playing or headphones in. However, even I notice when I’m recording a podcast and my MacBook Air’s fans are loudly blowing because some runaway app is using way too much processor power. When I ran stress-testing processor and GPU-based tests on the iMac, the fan would definitely come on, and in a quiet room it was audible. It was also, to my mind, vastly quieter than the fan in my MacBook Air. The iMac’s not going to match the Mac Pro for quiet fan blowing, but neither is it going to beat out any Mac laptops in a contest to see who can make the most noise.

On my 13” R MBP I set the screen size to the highest resolution (No point in having all of those pixels if you don’t use the real estate) and this allowed me to have Mail App, Calendar and Evernote adjacent and viewable simultaneously. Great for productive work flows but soon the fan would be spinning at medium. Switch to watching a full screen video on BBC iPlayer and the fans would be so loud you’d have to set the volume to max to hear the audio.

So the first thing I did with the Retina iMac was set scaling to max to see how much real estate I could get. Good, but not as much as my present dual 27” cinema displays - Can’t give myself an excuse to purchase one based on that then.

I then opened 5 tabs in Safari, opened Keynote, Numbers, Garage band and iMovie where I set the pre-loaded beautiful people movie running in the preview screen. I then started to resize and move the Garage band window and it was bad.

Not a bit bad but very, very bad. I could move the cursor half way across the screen and one or maybe two seconds would elapse before the window resized. When I started to drag the window around the screen the stutter was palpable.

I restarted the machine and tried it again just in case something was amiss but got the same result. My test drive was halted very prematurely. With a lot of action on screen, the UI felt more like treacle than butter with a distinct disconnect between user action and response.

I realise the immense engineering capability that goes into a 5k display and take no pleasure through being able to glibly catch it out. In fact, it left me a little sad. No excuse at the moment for me to buy one of these machines.

It left me wondering if I just had a rogue machine (it was base spec) but it was the only one in the store so I couldn’t try an alternative. I also wonder if being on max resolution makes a big difference that might not be making it into the reviews generally.

I’ll try another machine when I see one but, for now, for me, it’s in the wait until it’s in the fabulous third generation bucket.

Dr. Drang low post

Low post - All this

The north (near) side of the plug was put in tension by the wind. The crack started there and progressed rapidly over the cross section until the fracture was complete. Do you see the small cracked piece near the south (far) edge? That’s what’s called a compression chip and is commonly found on the compression side of brittle materials that fail in bending. Even if the post had been taken away, leaving only the piece in the ground, the compression chip would have told me which way the pole fell.

There are some other interesting things we can see in this failure. First, the concrete looks to be pretty strong. The clue to this is in the broken aggregate. Weak concrete tends to break around the aggregate; strong concrete tends to break through it. Of course, if the aggregate itself is weak—and there’s always some weak aggregate in concrete—this can be a false clue. In this case, though, aggregate of various colors and types are broken, and that’s a pretty good indication that the stronger aggregates as well as the weaker ones have failed.

Alternatively, Dr. Drang, you could have just painted the post.

The future of computing

“San Francisco Treasure” Jony Ive Talks Apple Watch at SFMOMA Gala | Re/code

“Obviously, you’re not going to read ‘War and Peace’ on your wrist. But for lightweight interactions, for casual glancing, it’s absolutely fabulous,” he said. “And I think this is the beginning of a very important category. With every bone in my body I know this is an important category, and this is the right place to wear it.”

The future is a big ass phone in your pocket (bag) and a 'watch' on your wrist for all the trivial / instantaneous interactions.

Nothing else required.

iMac Retina

A Week With the Retina iMac — Shawn Blanc

From all I’ve read about this iMac, combined with all I’ve experienced, this is the real deal. There is no disadvantage to being an early adopter here and there is no major tradeoff. I am so happy this computer exists. This is the dream. This is Retina Desktop Without Compromise. And it is wonderful.

I hope Shawn is right. The only question mark I can foresee is the one around long term reliability & longevity. My 2007 dual screen Mac Pro is still going strong and hasn't missed a beat for seven years.

I wonder if the iMacs, with more consumer grade parts, will endure similarly.

Drafts 4

Drafts 4 Review – MacStories

With a refreshed UI that irons out many of the kinks that had manifested in earlier versions, a newer and more accessible interface for creating powerful chained workflows, an amazingly useful Share extension, and impressive advanced automation techniques such as JavaScript support, an enhanced URL scheme, and a custom extended keyboard, Drafts 4 is an amazing update to a classic app. Drafts 4 shows us all that it’s ready for the future, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Got time this evening to get under the skin of the new Drafts app update and get it installed on my 6+. Two observations:

1) For the first time time it has completely blown Editorial out of my workflow. I'm a bit sad about that but there's competition.

2) It is so good - it has crossed a very important line. It's made it quicker (with less clicks & better automation) to post from an iOS device than on a Mac. Didn't think that would happen for some considerable time to come.

Owning an iOS device and not running Drafts 4 is like owning a horse without a saddle.

Why Retailers are skeptical over Apple pay

John Gruber is half right when he says..

And the reason they don’t want to allow Apple Pay is because Apple Pay doesn’t give them any personal information about the customer. It’s not about security — Apple Pay is far more secure than any credit/debit card system in the U.S. It’s not about money — Apple’s tiny slice of the transaction comes from the banks, not the merchants. It’s about data.

Data is part of it - It's not unreasonable for retailers to act to avoid others trying to muscle in on their customers and create a point of disintermediation but it's more than that. It also about fees.

Credit card interchange fees are substantial and if retailers can remove them from the value chain it will prove much better value for customers.

Unfortunately it looks like Apple Pay helps embed credit card fees and the 2 to 3 % they add to the cost of stuff, rather than help eradicate them.

iOS 8.1 issues

Everyone is raving about iOS 8.1 and iCloud issues. 

Federico Viticci:

For the past week, apps like MindNode, Twitterrific, Pixelmator, and (before the latest update) Drafts have been hanging or crashing at launch on my devices, forcing me to force-quit them, reboot (with a hard reset), or manually copy data because iCloud wasn't syncing. Each app was tested with existing document libraries as well as an empty database.

Stephen Hackett:

In short, apps using iCloud data will freeze or just crash at launch for many users. I'm seeing it all over the place in my iPhone 6, and like Fraser Speirs, can't use apps like Keynote. Infuriating and pathetic.

I wondered why I had no empathy or similar experiences. All the other stuff from the ridiculous iTunes 12 UI to 8.0.1 - all had created pain that I shared, but not this one.

Then I remembered that I don't have anything that uses iCloud. Dropbox worked before and still does.

From Text Expander to 1Password, my apps sync with Dropbox. When I go to my iCloud picker, it's empty.

Might be time for some to return to old faithful.

I don't know Marco Arment

Marco Arment:

Very few general-purpose retailers aren’t run by terrible people.

Really?

I have never met Marco. I don't know him, but I enjoy and respect his work. I read his blog, love his podcast and think he offers reliable and consistently smart insight into a whole spectrum across the world of tech. More than that, I think Marco is a bit cool, he carries a tiny degree of arrogance that makes me smile - it's apparent that he enjoys taking the role of being the one that has to deliver occasional, uncomfortable truths. I respect someone that is prepared to trade being a little unpopular for standing up for what's right. I even recently bought Overcast (in app purchase to be precise - some might say a bit like selling the high margin USB cable that you need for the printer after you have sold the printer at cost) even though I have no intention of using it - just because I'm a fan.

I don't know Marco but I do know that if I did, I'd like him.

It's in that context that I respectfully offer the following feedback on the sentence above:

That is the one of the stupidest things ever written.

Whilst I don't know Marco, I do know many people that run general purpose retailers and most of them are not terrible people. To say so is wrong and a tad insulting.

I have worked at the highest level, board level, for more years than I'd care to recall in retail and most of the CEO's and Executive Directors I meet are hard working, often humble, good people who get up every day and sweat on making decisions and setting direction that is trying to improve the lot of customers and normally tens of thousands of employees. Most believe that doing stuff better for customers (not screwing them) is the route to success but they have to navigate that route through an incredibly tough landscape.

Sure the business is tough and cut throat - it's a fact of life that all business is. And, sure there is the odd asshole at each and every level but no more than any other industry or sector.

A few of the people that run general purpose retailers are terrible people. Most though are actually decent people, whom if you knew, I think you would like.

The best RSS reader for iPad

Shawn Blanc on the best RSS reader:

There are three top shelf RSS apps for the iPad: Reeder, Mr. Reader, and Unread. All three are excellent — each in their own way — and I’ve used all three extensively over the years.

In our latest app review for The Sweet Setup, Robert McGinley Myers compares these three apps, hits on each one’s pros and cons, and lays out our reasoning for why we think Unread is the best of the bunch for most people.

I have the Reeder icon and the Unread icon adjacent to each other on page 1 of my home screen.

Can't decide between them.

I prefer the design and layout of Unread but always have to switch to Reeder when I want to edit or add to my RSS feed.

Unread feels unfinished without this feature (actually, not feature, ability) and the recent announcement from Jared Sincair that further development of Unread has ceased means that Reeder is likely to win out in the longer term.

A bit like giving up your pretty girlfriend for a more practical one.

Enabling Fresh Air

Many millions of words have been written on how mobile technology is enslaving modern society. Your boss knows that your iPhone and by extension, you - are available 24/7, at the tap of a send key. You are never off duty, blah, blah etc. 

I have never subscribed to this point of view. The responsibility of when and how you interact with others is a responsibility that lays clearly with the individual, not the device. In the pre Blackberry days, if your boss wanted you urgently he/she could phone you at home. If you took that call, uncomplainingly, every night - it would soon turn into a regular, normal occurrence. And so it is with whether you choose to respond to emails sent to you at inconvenient times or if you respond to unreasonable requests rather than ignore them. 

As I have watched mobile technology develop over the last decade or so I have had a growing dream, or more accurately an aspiration, that we would get to a state of advance where mobile tech would enable me to work truly anywhere. I dreamed that with my Apple Newton, my Palm Pilot, my Psion, even my original Sony laptops connected through an IR modem to a clunky Nokia phone. None of these solutions really worked. Almost always they created more work, less productivity, and more hassle than the choice of not using them but I persevered with each of them and many more (I'm looking at you HP pocket PC).

Today, I and my family climbed 2700 metres to here:

 When we got there, whilst they ate their lunch and read their books in the sun, I whipped out my iPad Air from my Grivel Rocksac and knocked off an hours work. 

It weighed nothing, it was perfectly on the network thanks to Swiss Telecoms, and I never gave a second thought to having enough battery. 

The dream has landed. It's empowering, not enslaving to have such tools at our disposal. They free time, rather than steal it - if used in the right way. If that isn't happening then it can only be through a lack of imagination, process or discipline.

Tomorrow we are going to try another ascent of a different peak. I can do it relaxed and focussed in the knowledge that if any thing important happens at work, I can deal with it once I'm on the summit. 

I'm 180 degrees away from thinking that modern devices erode freedom or personal time. At some point in the last couple of years we have crossed a rubicon where we have moved from an age of communal commerce to an age of individual mobility.

If that allows one extra day in a mountain cathedral like this. It can't be a bad thing. 

This weeks award for the best use of an expletive

Marco Arment, PHP Developer Needed in Columbus, OH

Robert Half Technology does everything that gives tech recruiters a bad name, and everything that makes looking for a tech job so incredibly difficult when you’re young and inexperienced. They do the entire industry a great disservice. Nobody who works there should be proud of what their company does, or be under the illusion that they’re helping anyone.

So, Robert Half Technology, kindly fuck off.

This is simply the funniest piece I have read in weeks.

Dr. Cool

Further to the last post on rubbish service I was amazed by the quanity of comments it attracted along the lines of, 'Ryan remained too cool, he should have told them to F*@K Off or threatened retribution'. I'm with Dr. Drang on how best to respond to poor experiences.

.. I don’t feel angry or outraged, nor am I disheartened by the sad state of the world. I’m just happy I planned for these mistakes and for others that didn’t happen. It’s something I wouldn’t have done when I was younger, and I would have ended this day upset. Now I see my interactions with customer service as a sort of strategy game: can I plan my way around the obstacles the game will put in my way? Today I came out on top. Tomorrow is another round.

I always buy some food for my 2+ hour train journeys before I get on the train - so when they tell me that all catering is closed due to staff shortages, I feel a small sense of victory rather than outrage.

I always make those calls to customer service centres, the ones where you know you'll be on hold for 10 to 25 minutes, from my desk where I can switch on the speaker phone, and work away on my Mac with a little background music, rather than suffer a frustrating wait.

I always tell myself that cool is everything and the only way I could be the loser in any outrageous failure of service situation, would be if I lose my temper.

I don't always succeed but I think the good Dr. is very wise - It's a game of chess, you win by being smarter and thinking ahead, not be being more pigheaded than whomever you are facing off against.

Tomorrow is another round. Indeed.

Ryan Block being bullied by Comcast

When customer service gets as bad as this you know that the company is coming to the end of it's useful purpose to society.

We have all experienced this sort of aggravation when we leave a telecoms or service contract (normally after being on hold for 20 minutes) but from now on maybe we should all follow Ryan & Veronica's example and post the call to the web.

Medium custodial sentences to any web based service where you can do everything online - except cancel.

How to create a new contacts group in iOS7

1) Realise after 10 minutes of fiddling about that you can't do this with the iOS contacts app.

2) Research on the web​ and discover that either you use (a)the Mac Contacts app or (b)the iCloud web interface.

3) As you are travelling iPad only, you choose (b)the iCloud web interface and open iCloud in Safari.

4) Find you can't get the iCloud web page in Safari but only this:

5) Download the Chrome Browser onto your iPad but find it's the same - no iCloud home web page.

6) Download the Dolphin Browser onto you iPad

7) Select Desktop mode in settings to emulate a non iPad browser and go to iCloud.com

8) Finally get to this page:

9) After a small celebration, select contacts, select the '+' icon to create a new group only to find it's not working on this web render.

10) Give up. Resolve not to travel without your laptop again.

Shabby Apple, really shabby.