It’s a glorious morning with hardly a cloud in the sky. Sitting on the train I watched a couple of small clouds dissipate and fade to nothing, no doubt as the air warmed. It got me thinking about impermanence and change; nothing specific – I wanted to note it, perhaps for later.
Looking back through my site history there have been different occasions where I’ve compromised and let an external service determine what I did with the blog?
It is interesting, therefore, to see Jack wrestle with the same thing: does he follow his gut and give microposts titles or does he hold off because doing so may damage engagement on micro.blog.
Drafts says I’m 3383 words into my blog’s change history with 8 months still to go. This is getting bigger than I expected.
I’ve not played World of Warcraft since November and been unsubbed for quite a while. As a tank (Protection Paladin) I started getting fed up with the attitudes of people in Raid Finder so switched to DPS (Retribution Paladin) for Legion.
I love this follow up to Om from Brent Simmons:
“to read a good blog is to watch a writer get a little bit better, day after day, at writing the truth.”
Liked:
You know that thing called blogging – Om on Tech …
“What people don’t realize about blogs is that they are never a complete story. They are incomplete and by nature more mysterious, more episodic, and thus more interesting. Blogs are meant not to leave you with everything. The whole idea is to think to deliberate, and to come back again and again, to finish what was started a long time ago. But there is no end, just a pause, for a voice to start, talking again.”
I feel social media tricks us into believing the hype.
Because we can connect on a global level we are lead to believe we can do so on a global scale, over-stretching ourselves to the point of the inconsequential action.
I caught the last half hour of Bladerunner on TV last night. It’s one of those films that, no matter how far through, if I see it I have to watch. It’s still probably my favourite film of all time because of what it invokes in me, there’s just a rawness to it that speaks to the soul.
It’s funny how things go.
In one of my (many) changes in blogging direction I said that I wanted to focus on something bigger, I wanted some kind of goal and that the blog wasn’t “all about me.”
I’m around 2000 words into my “history of the blog” over the past couple of years and still got 11 months to cover. It’s going to be bigger than I thought and I still haven’t finalised how I want to present it.
Liked: How Siri Shortcuts can revolutionise iOS automation | MacSparky …
“Looking at some of the screenshots of the new Siri Shortcuts app, it becomes clear that this is the successor to the Workflow application. It appears to work exactly the same, with stackable actions, a library of existing workflows, and even the ability to look up and pass data between steps as the automation proceeds.”
While the /colophon Page gives an overview of how the blog works right now I thought it might be interesting to examine how it has evolved over the past couple of years.
My wife has been feverishly beavering away and now officially launched our gaming channel called XP to Level. A full site and blog is on the way eventually accompanied by live streaming on Twitch. Keep an eye open if you’re into gaming.
Liked: Drafts 5.2 – The Navigation Update – nahumck.me…
The pace at which Greg Pierce is able to iterate on Drafts 5 is proof that the subscription model works when used correctly.
I’ve also now created a Drafts action and Alfred workflow to insert the [code] shortcode with the specified language type into whatever I’m writing. Just like the actual WordPress.com shortcode, if no language is entered they default to txt.
I’m starting to build a little library of Alfred workflows from around the web. Nothing amazing but just a few little things to make life easier such as:
- mark all as read in mail.app
Although WordPress fully supports Markdown via the JetPack plugin and Markdown supports code blocks there are occasions where the encoding gets thrown off on posting and has to be edited before making a post live.
I’m honoured to be included in Frank’s current 5 Favourite blogs but I certainly wouldn’t call myself “One of the forerunners and bridge builders on the Indieweb.” (According to Google Translate)
Following up on Shortcuts and Workflow it appears that you can set up voice shortcuts for your workflows so the two will be working hand in hand. Interesting.
This is why I love having an “On this day” feature – I forgot I had written this after last year’s WWDC keynote:
We’re probably looking at iOS 12 before the Workflow acquisition starts to bear any native fruit…
Apple won’t have acquired the app without having a plan for it or its developers, and some form of native automation seems almost inevitable, although most likely in the context of Siri and AI rather than in Workflow’s current remit.