Since mid-July, my M4 Mac mini has been my primary workstation, with one monitor, an Apple Studio Display. To work, I have to sit at my desk in an ergonomic position, in my office. Since I no longer have the MBA display to the right, I have placed my macOS dock on the right. The goal is more vertical screen space. For 99.9% the past nearly 25 years, my dock has been on the bottom. It’s been a difficult adjustment! I’ve also been using a traditional mouse instead of my Magic Trackpad II, so I don’t have gestures, such as swiping through Spaces. I will end the mouse experiment today because I miss the gestures too much. Couldn’t adjust to Control+ (right/left-arrow) to swap them.

Who knew James Dyson was also a farmer, and one of the largest landowners in the UK?

I love this video that shows all the innovations he’s implementing with the mind of a designer. Many similar ideas have failed that went super high-tech from the start. Dyson seems to be following an iterative approach, bringing tech in but by bit for specific needs, while also focusing on the full energy and nutrient lifecycle.

It’s no surprise that Anil Dash is one of the best thinkers in tech, but he put out back to back posts recently that are just very on-point.

I’ve been thinking that we are near the zenith of a new gilded age. And what comes after such an age is the next progressive era. The billionaires will get their comeuppance. Then the rest of us will create our new deal. But we need to plan now for what that is. Greg Storey seems to think similarly.

Second piece is beginning to separate itself.

Is it a good sign when you’re unpacking a very large lithium battery and the lyrics in the music you’re listening to say “…start a fire”🔥?

I think of all the Apple apps, the one with the least Apple-design is the Reminders app for Mac. It’s a pretty great iOS app, but on Mac, if you need anything but titles and checking off to-dos, the interaction design is deeply frustrating.

Why is a designer’s own portfolio the hardest project to work on? You couldn’t know the topic any better… and yet.

Took the family for an afternoon in Rockport, and a little hike along The Atlantic Path.

Been running the iPadOS public beta on an older iPad for 24hrs. Enjoyed using Preview for something I would have needed a Mac for. Its UI is… interesting. iPadOS’s multitasking changes get a big thumbs up so far, though there’s some awkwardness still. Haven’t seen too much unusable Liquid Glass.

The cool web you remember from the past is sill around, you just have to go looking for it. Congrats to Manuel Moreale on his 100th interview for People and Blogs.

Really neat thing, the Internet Archive has become a Federal Depository Library… which is not something I was familiar with before reading about this.

A family friend was in town yesterday so we all headed into Boston for an afternoon of walking around, and got a late lunch/ early dinner in the North End. A bit hot but otherwise a really lovely day.

Wired article claiming startups are asking employees to embrace 9am-9pm, 6 days a week. That is counterproductive, as studies show that at best you’ve got 4 hours of quality in a knowledge worker. This is the reddest of red flags.

I’ve really enjoyed the seeing the Stars and Stripes national champion jersey of Quinn Simmons so often at the front of the peloton Le Tour de France this year. #tdf #tdf2025

If you own a Kobo e-reader like me, and miss the Pocket integration we lost earlier this month, I bring good news: Instapaper is taking over the Pocket integration and you can import all your stuff starting today. Implementation on your Kobo by “end of summer”.

As a fan of public radio, I was devastated to see the CPB get their funding yanked from under them. The government no longer funds public radio. A former NPR staffer has an interesting approach to helping the stations most at risk.

I’ve loved watching Le Tour de France since I was a kid in the 90s. In addition to the racing, I love the aerial video of the France. These days I can use map apps to look closer myself, and I just had Gemini identify the town of Revel by my description which has a neat covered market in its center.

This is literally terrifying. Front page, NYT: “People across the U.S. have endured rushed or premature attempts to remove their organs” in hospitals _while they were showing signs of life. _

Genuinely one of the best things I’ve read about why no CEOs or companies should be cozying up to crony-authoritarians: that never ends well for anyone.

I find myself thinking “both things can be true” over and over these days. Today it’s regarding “everyone’s worried and anxious and upset about the state of the country/world for legitimate reasons” and “social media makes people anxious and upset”.

If you like Trader Joe’s sweet pickled jalapeños, today I put them on my eggs for breakfast and they were awesome. I’ve long loved hot sauce on eggs, but never tried sweet and spicy on eggs for breakfast. (Disclaimer: I routinely eat raw sauerkraut or kimchi with my eggs, so our tastes may differ.)

Al Gore: Still revved up! (And rightfully so…)

So is someone coming to the rescue of Pocket? Or is Tuesday it for me, and I’ll have lost half the utility of my Kobo reader?

People are posting this article from The Verge in observance of the 4th of July. It’s paywalled, but also available from Apple News+. Worth your time.