Jason Becker
March 17, 2024

Quick breakfast while waiting for my haircut.

A white plate with a yellow edge. On it is a bed of greens and bacon, above which is a slice of toast with avocado and additional greens, topped with an egg sprinkled with paprika and hot sauce. The table is marble, and there’s a glass on the top right with a nitro coffee with foam on top.

February 17, 2024
February 16, 2024
February 11, 2024

Yeah that was a pretty good breakfast.

Poached eggs in a large bowl with a tomato base and melted cheese.

January 14, 2024

Used my sunglassess as a UV filter for this photo.

Sunsetting behind an alleyway with crisscrossing power lines overhead and a park in the distance.

January 8, 2024

Politics at work mean choosing to rip off someone else’s Apple content idea to make a point instead of choosing to highlight people, events, or places of note that are worthy of additional attention.

Think about what Basecamp could have done. They could have included national holidays and religious holidays from around the world. They could have added birthdates of Nobel Prize winners. They could have added events in 37 Signals/Basecamp history. Instead, they ripped off Stephen Hackett.

December 30, 2023

It took quite a while for the sun to break through the clouds, but eventually we had a hell of a view in Philly.

A view of Philadelphia from 53 floors up.

December 29, 2023
December 4, 2023

Every episode of The Gilded Age. Literally the only show on any streaming service on the Apple TV.

A television with old school snow in blues, greens, and purple.

November 30, 2023
November 25, 2023
November 21, 2023

Via @jarrod, originally from Kev Quirk:

🔗 When Was the Last Time Tech Blew Your Mind? // Kev Quirk

The first time I sent an email was really cool. The performance and battery life of my M1 Mac was (is) very impressive; far better than any laptop I’ve ever had before. But I’m not talking about impressive. I’m talking about the kind of impression that makes you say, “holy shit, that’s fucking incredible!”

For me, it was the Vision Pro introduction. The interaction model, the visuals, and the use cases were utterly compelling, and the raw technology necessary left me astonished. Can’t wait.

Kev’s bar is pretty dang high– the first time he saw text messaging? I have had my mind absolutely blown multiple times since then. Off the top of my head:

  1. The iPod Nano (more than the original iPod– I had a Archo Jukebox and knew what carrying a harddrive was like)
  2. The iMac G4
  3. The first time I saw the Compiz rotating cube when switching desktops on Linux
  4. Opening a bash terminal on Mac OS X
  5. Retina displays, but especially when they came to Mac
  6. HDTV, and then again with OLED and 4K.
  7. The iPhone– literally everything about the iPhone through the iPhone 5, and then again around the time of the iPhone Xish when the cameras got truly great. I remember watching cyberpunk anime in the 90s that invisaged things like the iPhone and an always connected internet and thinking that the beige computer in my household den with a dial up modem would never fit in my pocket– not in my lifetime.
  8. TouchID and FaceID
  9. Distributed version control systems

I could go on and on.

A ton has happened in my life time that absolutely blew my mind. Most of the time, I suspect Kev might look at the above and say “something like this could have been imagined before it existed.” That’s true! I did imagine some of this! But also, most of these things executed something I had a fictional version of in my mind that I thought was impossible– and then the real world out did that.

Jarrod, on the other hand, seems to have a bar that’s a bit low for me. I might be blown away by the Vision Pro. I kind of hope I am. But I find it hard to get excited about things I haven’t touched. Maybe that’s because I read far too much Popular Science as a kid and a lot of what I have expected to see in the world never shipped.

But what’s my actual answer?

I had to think for a bit. Funny enough, I think both of the experiences that come to mind are Apple Watch related, even though I think it’s my least important device.

The first was using Apple Pay from my Apple Watch. Double tap, no phone in sight, fastest payment experience I’ve ever had at a store. The second is using my Apple Watch with a Home Key lock. Just raise my wrist, no other input necessary, and my door opens, fast. Small, delightful, fast interactions with the physical world seem to be the technology innovations today that feel the most impressive.

November 10, 2023

This tree has been gorgeously overgrown for quite some time.

A large branch snapped near the trunk of a tree

November 5, 2023

Caught a bit of nature before two straight conference weeks. Two large columns of prism-like stone boulders framing a clear sky and tree tops

October 29, 2023
October 28, 2023

Baltimore, where it’s 80 degrees at the end of October and the trees are doing this.

October 22, 2023

Yesterday was breezy, though you can’t tell from the photo.

A willow tree, shockingly still, in a park.

October 21, 2023
October 18, 2023

Hotels still have 30-pin connectors.

A JBL alarm clock and speaker with an iPod 30-pin connector. It’s circular on a white table with a glossy wood panel in the background.

October 17, 2023

We started the second day of our executive retreat with an hour long walk in Baltimore City where we hung out with these two.

Two deer, one doe and its baby, in the woods that are right off a main road.

October 11, 2023
October 8, 2023

Not at all indicative of what my time in Jamaica was like, but this abandoned hotel (transitioning to office space) was pretty neat.

Green flowering bushes in the foreground in front a of a staircase with winding metal rails and windows with arches in a beige, stone building to the left.

August 21, 2023

I had some heads down time working at a coffee shop this morning. When I came home, Gracie was sleeping on her bed in my office, waiting for me. It has become her favorite day time spot, whereas she used to stay alone on the couch downstairs.

Gracie, my Pomeranian-Beagle mix, sleeping on a large beige bed

August 1, 2023

It didn’t feel disgusting outside today for the first time in a long time.

Close up of a white flower in a tree