Happy first contact day!
Dear Mac developers of the internet. We have enough clipboard managers. There is literally one clipboard manager for every possible scenario. You can stop developing them now. I use PastePal… but any will do fine. Do not develop more!
Instead of writing, I spent most of yesterday messing with Ollama. I had a good time but today I’m fired up for writing.
DEVONthink 4 is in beta with solid foundation. I’m impressed by external AI tooling integration. Took steps to set up Ollama locally for security. Today’s shaping up well.
Full Keyboard Access? More Like Full Keyboard Chaos!
While Apple Intelligence turned out to be less intelligent than we all hoped, my Magic Keyboard turned out to be more magical than I expected, once I changed a single annoying setting.
If you don’t care about the narrative and just want to know how I made my Magic Keyboard better, I respect that.
Go to: Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard, and turn off Full Keyboard Access. You’re welcome.
Right, back to the narrative…
I’ve spent far too much time procrastinating today, but I must admit, I’ve enjoyed it.
I’m not a skilled artist, but I practice with my own art to improve. When I see Reddit’s /r/ClipStudio/ posts asking, “What brush is this?” I know it’s not the brush that matters. People often thinks the right brush can substitute hours of practice and is likely less experienced than I am.
Art: Sleeping in the garden
Finished reading: Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki 📚
This book was really enjoyable—it shows how an extreme minimalist lifestyle actually works, and the writer maintains a pretty hard-line stance throughout. While I don’t want to go that minimal, I did enjoy it and half-envy the lifestyle. It’s a great read with some genuinely insightful ideas, and it offers a fascinating perspective. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the topic, even if only as an example of how far too far can be
DevonTHINK is fantastic. If you own a Mac and are not using it, then you are actually missing out on something magical.
Scrivener is incredible, but I genuinely wish it had built-in language tooling, like Ulysses does. I don’t think I’d actually leave Scrivener; I’m too invested in it now. And, lets be real here, Ulysses lacks a real offline mode.
I watched ‘Ghosted’ on Apple TV+. It was a mediocre movie. It looked nice, but it didn’t really resonate with me.
Art: The before the last supper.
While i usually post my art on Niceferatu.net (see comic link in title bar) I had a random idea which I decided to draw last night. Please note, this is meant to be taken as a cute (hopefully) lovingly drawn little cartoon, not theology!
I watched Boo, Bitch on Netflix. It was fun! The second half was a bit more predictable than it probably should have been, but overall, I really enjoyed it.
I’ve watched reviews, read reviews, and talked to people I know — and I still don’t care. Electric State was excellent, and I’m ready to die on this hill!
Caroline Forbes is the best character in The Vampire Diaries. I’m prepared to fight anyone who disagrees because this is important—perhaps the most important opinion of all.
Updates from the Creative Trenches.
I think I’ve said before that if asked, I wouldn’t describe myself as a creative person. Which is quite contrary to the truth when I look at the novels I’ve written, the badly drawn comic I work on almost weekly, and the years I spent making YouTube videos. I’ve never understood why I don’t feel like a creative type.
I think it’s because writing novels takes so long that sharing a finished product is infrequent — giving imposter syndrome a long time to settle in.
Despite all that, I thought I’d give my tens of followers a little update on what I’m working on. I’m hoping I can remember to make this a semi-regular thing — maybe every other month, depending on how the projects are going.
Thanks to @MoonPope, I discovered today that Tyromancy is fortune-telling using cheese. This fact has now consumed my creative urges, I must introduce the ‘Cheese Witch’ to Niceferatu (Niceferatru.net)
Not to be dramatic or anything, but with Discord being a bit trash lately (and looking like it’s about to get worse,) I figured it’s time to have an exit plan. So, here’s a link to my Revolt server — everyone’s welcome!
Today, I’ve been writing. Though the words I wrote will likely go through many iterations before you ever read them. When I look back at this post, I probably won’t even remember which words I wrote. How interesting.