UPDATED: I have updated my amazing predictions, post-event.
Actually, I don’t have any. But I am amused at how pretty much everything gets leaked ahead of time and yet Apple still clings tenaciously to its super-high levels of secrecy, as if they are unaware of the entire rest of the world existing around them (Steve Jobs snarkily acknowledged this in his keynotes, at least).
Apple is big, conservative, and evil, but in a banal sort of way. They are also becoming victims of their own hubris, thinking their Apple Poo™ smells better than other poo. It does not, it just costs more.
Okay, here are some predictions:
New iPhone models
New Watch models
Updated AirPods Pro, with updated (higher) price
Previews of Apple TV+ shows that no one will care about (even if they end up watching some of the shows)
Tim Cook will tap dance in the opening segment. Okay, he’ll actually just recite corporate boilerplate in that supremely bland way of his, but I would buy a new iPhone if he tap danced instead. UPDATE: No tap dancing, but he did kind of shimmy in place a bit, with lots of hand gestures, which could be interpreted as “white guy dancing”.
DISCLAIMER: Technically, I am talking about personal knowledge management (PKM) tools, which act like your own little personal Wikipedias, and not just plain note-taking apps. My main purpose for using a PKM is note-taking, though, and I make the rules here! Am I using a hammer instead of a screwdriver? Probably. Read on, anyway!
I love fiddling around with new stuff. It’s why I have three mice sitting on my desk (computer mice, not the living kind) and a bunch more stored away. It’s why I have more keyboards than I could ever need in five lifetimes, stuffed into drawers and scattered about my place.
And it’s why I’m a sucker for a shiny piece of new software, which leads to this post’s topic: note-taking apps.
Even if you have absolutely no interesting in note-taking apps, you probably still have one, anyway, whether it’s Notepad on Windows, the Notes app on Macs, or some built-in app on your iPhone (Notes again) or Android device. They are ubiquitous. And now, with the whole second brain1Go ahead, try looking up what a “second brain” is. Your actual brain will explode. thing being the new hotness, note-taking apps have started popping up like bunnies. Note-taking bunnies.
I noticed that after expressing some interest in technology on Medium (via my preferences), it started offering me stories on note-taking apps. I believe there are roughly a trillion of these articles on Medium, which nearly matches the number of note-taking apps themselves.
I thought to myself, “Self, you need to be more organized, somehow. For some reason. You need a note-taking app that will let you consolidate all your notes in one place, so you never need to figure out where your notes are. This future of unparalleled organization will be awesome.”
It’s a good theory. My notes were previously scattered all over. I used:
Paper. Actual paper, like cave people used to do
Drafts. An app on my iPhone that can send to other apps.
OneNote. I kind of stopped using it a few years ago and I’m not sure why.
Microsoft Word. Because I had it, so why not?
Apple’s Notes app on various Apple platforms. Because it’s there.
iA Writer. Not really built for notes, but…
Ulysses. See above, plus a subscription. Ew.
There’s more I’m forgetting, and this was all before the current explosion of note-taking apps. Since then I’ve tried:
Craft
Notion
Obsidian
And contemplated a million others, while absolutely only positively ruling out a few, like Evernote, usually due to what I deem excessive pricing.
For a time I thought I had settled on Obsidian. It supports markdown, is free, can work between Mac, PC and (somewhat) with iOS (it really wants you to use iCloud for your “vault”). On (virtual) paper, it provides everything I’d need in a note-taking app and also has all the second brain stuff, like backlinks and things.
I feel like I’m grossly under-utilizing it by not making proper use of links (back, forward or any other direction), tags and other means of keeping things organized. I mean, look at this guy wax poetic about how useful Obsidian is. It makes me want to install it again right now!
While I’m clearly not tapping into Obsidian’s potential, I am big on bullet lists, because I love lists. So now, as I think about whether to stick with Obsidian or not, I wonder: Why do I take notes? The answer is in a list. Right below!
Track ideas. These can be ideas for:
stories
blog posts
game design
comics
drawings
General reminders (I have moved these to actual to-do apps)
WIP stuff on my newsletter (five issues so far, published very intermittently)
Book and movie reviews (that get posted to my blog, Goodreads or elsewhere)
Random tips and tricks, usually associated with tech
Everything that doesn’t fit into the above
And Obsidian has worked reasonably well here. I’ve added plugins to expand on what it can do. Look how organized everything appears to be (I have redacted a few items, but it’s nothing scandalous, like panda porn or something, just stuff regarding the condo or other personal yet banal items):
And yet I feel like:
I am underutilizing Obsidian to the point where I probably could just use Notepad, for all the difference it would make
Maybe I don’t have the kind of personality to connect the dots, or in this case, the notes?
Maybe I actually don’t have a compelling reason to use backlinks and I’m overthinking things, as is my way
But it all seems so useful. There are so many articles! I want to do more! Yet I am not feeling there is a yawning chasm in my life because I have only clicked a backlink maybe once in Obsidian, and that was just to see if it worked (it did).
Anyway, have a look, there’s plenty to choose from!
My first rule of running on statutory holidays is: Never run on statutory holidays. Today is Labour Day, which is a stat holiday. But it’s also a regular run day for me, the conditions looked surprisingly pleasant, and I didn’t want to reschedule, so off I went for a mid-morning start.
Today’s predicted high/low of 23/12 actually matches the average high/low for this day and indeed, it was an entirely pleasant 17C when I started the run, with humidity probably somewhere in the low 70s (and falling to 68%), and the temperature rising to a still modest 19C by the end.
The lower temperature, combined with a light breeze and partly sunny skies, meant the dreaded H+H combo (heat and humidity) did not manifest. It felt like the first time in a long while when I was running against my own limits, not those imposed by the weather conditions. It was very nice! Even my left hip kept pretty quiet.
I opted to forgo sunblock and that was fine, because the sun was low and not ever-present. I also elected to skip the nipple guards because they’re a nuisance and this was also fine–but only barely. While I sweated far less than on most summer runs, the place where I sweat most is around the chest and both nipples were feeling tingly by the end of the run, but nothing worse happened.
As for the people, the trail was definitely much more crowded than usual, but everyone was aware, courteous and all that. Even the few unleashed dogs (bad dog owners!) were well-behaved and caused no issues.
As for the trees, it looks like the rain that fell yesterday–the first significant precipitation we’ve had in many weeks–was too much for one tree, and it nearly took out one of the markers near the Avalon parking lot at the start of the trail. This is also pretty close to the Jiffy John™ and one can only imagine the horrors if the tree had clobbered that.
Due to its particular position that is in the gap between the parts I run, I didn’t have to negotiate it while jogging, I just stepped over it as I was heading out.
With a relatively blazing pace of 5:53/km–and running the “harder” counter-clockwise route, as well, I am quite pleased with today’s run. Here’s to more comfy weather and complication-free runs.
Oh, and the ex-tree:
If a tree falls on a trail, does anyone hear? (Yes)
Stats:
Run 712Average pace: 5:53/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:30 a.m.
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 59:00
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 17-19ºC
Humidity: 68%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 160
Total distance to date: 5222 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (330 km)
A long time ago I had a dream to become a published author and I read somewhere that the biggest English-speaking book market is the good ol’ U.S. of A (this was before TikTok ruined everyone’s attention span and reading became quaint and/or gauche), so when it came to writing, the advice was to make your work as publication-ready as possible for the U.S. market, in anticipation of possible publication.
This led me to shunning my Canadian spelling heritage and switching the dictionary/language in various applications like Microsoft Word to U.S. English. I felt dirty, but also efficient and professional.
I had one story published in a (Canadian) Moose Lodge newsletter when I was 12. This was an actual newsletter, printed on actual paper. It was pretty thrilling when I was 12. This was the sum of all my publication efforts, and it was because the man who ran the newsletter was nice and wanted to encourage me.
But thanks to inertia and a weird need to be efficient, I have kept using the American spelling of words, even though I had long given up the idea of seeing my work formally published. Heck, I skipped National Novel Writing Month in 2020 and didn’t even feel guilty about it!
I am starting to lean back to switching to Canadian spelling. Sure, “labour” has one more letter than “labor” and with my typing speed, it makes a difference, but “labour” has character and flavor flavour. “Labor” has the blood ruthlessly drained from it.
Perhaps I am overthinking this.
I’ll ponder some more on this Labour Day, then make a decision, because I think that may have been one of my New Year resolutions–to be more decisive. Maybe?
Obviously a Danish noble from that time period would not be black, but I find it pretty easy to Dudley’s my disbelief if the actor is playing the role effectively.
The author of the post replied to indicate autocorrect had changed what should have been “suspend my disbelief” to “Dudley’s my disbelief” which is an amazing turn of phrase, a great example of autocorrect still not really getting language, and an even better expression than “suspend my disbelief.”
The stones outside the living room window were dotted with raindrops when I got up this morning. There are clouds in the sky. The forecast high is in the teens. Scattered showers are predicted. This is all very weird. Could it be summer is going away, and with it the horrible heat and humidity twins of terror and discomfort?
Well, maybe not entirely:
To be clear, this is for September 9 and 10, 2022.
I feel pretty good in predicting no more days of 30C for the rest of 2022, though. If I’m wrong, I will curl up and cry. And sweat. A lot.
We did a triple-header today and saw a bunch of birds. Here are a few, from the super common to one I’ve never seen before.
As the crow flies.Goose, goose, goose, goose.The best shot of a killdeer I’ve gotten yet. They do not actually kill deer.This gull went into full “Look at me!” mode and stayed that way for quite a while.Shine on, you crazy wood duck.And the new bird, a green heron! It acted very heron-like but is much smaller than the blue herons we normally see here.Bonus shot of the green heron.
Today my BA (Bear anxiety) was low, but I was also curiously unmotivated and didn’t actually head out until after 11 a.m. By the time I started my clockwise run, it was already 26C and humidity was still 50%. Who would win, me or humidity?
Okay, I spoiled the answer already, but at the start I felt pretty good and my opening pace was 5:51/km, but by the second km it plunged to 6:13/km after I set a usual pace of 150 BPM. As I continued, the thought of doing 10K dimmed, and ultimately I settled on 5K, with a bit of a boost at the end to lift my overall pace to 6:09/km. After walking for a km, I found some renewed energy along the shady Cottonwood Trail and actually ran the entire 7K stretch, albeit at a more casual pace. The one downside was the industrial stink coming from across the road, probably from one of the constructions sites. It wasn’t fresh asphalt, but it had a similar and horrible chemical odor that pervaded almost the entire length of the trail.
In the end, not a bad result, and I definitely feel better after than I did on Wednesday, but still kind of blah. At times it really felt fine, and at others the air was absolutely stifling. Do not like.
I am very tired of high humidity for runs, though. Fortunately, the weather should start changing in the next few weeks as we move toward fall, then I can start complaining about how cold it is, as nature intended.
Also, I saw a heron right belong Cariboo Dam at the end of my run. Enjoy this blurry, zoomed-in photo from my iPhone:
Stats:
Run 711Average pace: 6:09/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 12:14 p.m.
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 30:54
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 26-27ºC
Humidity: 50%
Wind: nil to light
BPM: 151
Weight: 159.6
Total distance to date: 5212 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (320 km)
