Natalie Wynn pointing out how incels say they want a return to traditional roles, but actually wish to be the “beloved” rather than the “lover”— to feel desired, in a way that is often ascribed and allowable to the feminine— is a banger real late in her newest video.

Not a new observation, but damn, The Stranger is a hell of an album.

Holy shit, I’m watching the latest video from Natalie Wynn finally and she literally has footage walking to my local Royal Farms. So weird to be like, “Wait, is that… is that the Keswick Royal Farms?”

“I was surprised that they pretty much all agreed on a definition that romance was for good girls, and erotica is for sluts. Pornography, of course, is for men.”

– Natalie Wynn on the definition of romance v. erotica

I’ve mentioned the rotating home screen images as a killer iOS feature, but I think I’ve undersold Focus Modes.

Aggressively automating the quieting of my phone has eliminated pretty much any negative feeling I have toward phones.

LED light bulbs are like every conservative outrage— once the fight against them is won, we all move on and just live in a better world.

Something is really fucked with my blog. Missing pages, a major post flipped to draft then republished… I’ll have to poke more when I properly wake up.

A couple of days ago marked ten years since I met Jess at SXSWEdu.

She wrote this reflection on LinkedIn. My own reflections are below that.

10 years ago today I tapped Jason Becker on the shoulder at a conference between taco breaks and the rest, as they say, is history.

Casual observers think Jason and I agree on everything. This has become a running inside joke because the truth is that we have frequent, vehement disagreements in the same direction. We argue intensely with-and-not-against each other about problems and solutions. If we’re accused of sharing a brain, we must each have complementary halves because we often approach problems from polar opposite perspectives– but we know two heads (and at least one whole brain, on a good day) are better than one. And because we trust that the other has thought deeply about their perspective, we work hard to understand each other’s position. Together, we end up with a more complete understanding of a problem and get aligned on a path forward.

For two people who love numbers, we never keep score; we’re playing an infinite game.

If you love your work, I hope you’re lucky enough to find someone (not Jason, sorry, find your own co-conspirator) who puts up a good fight; this kind of creative tension is how good ideas become great and bad ideas end up in their rightful place in the discard pile.

Jason, thank you for being my best sparring partner and the one who showed me the value of a great editor and co-creator. You’re the five to my three. I’m glad I tricked you into working for Allovue all those years ago.

🥂 Cheers to making things together, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

(These are the only two occasions Jason has worn a tie in the past 10 years– April 2014 and December 2023. Yes, Jason’s first official day of work ended up in a cannabis grow facility. We might make a guest appearance in a documentary about it. It’s been a JOURNEY, ok?)

My thoughts:

Spending ten years pursuing the same vision at the same company takes passion, determination, and belief. I have only been able to have all three because something more precious came along with it– partnership and friendship that always challenges me and that refuses to accept the bar I set for myself.

The first time Jess Gartner and I met, we spoke for about five minutes. I remember telling Elsa I just met someone with a great idea. And this may be apocryphal, but I remember also telling Elsa it was a great example of why I was never an entrepreneur myself. For all my love of strategy and problem solving, I never seemed to think of an idea that was worth doing. I know for sure I thought, “She found something worth doing.”

The second time Jess and I met, she flew to Providence to have coffee with me. In a classic Jess Gartner move, she claimed she had to “be there anyway” (bullshit). She told me that day that she saw “C-level potential in me” before I knew what that meant.

So much of my own success of the last ten years comes from Jess seeing things in me I didn’t know were options. And then she makes them happen before I even catch on to her plans. I like to think I do a bit of the same when it comes to ensuring our company and product deliver on her, and now our, vision.

Thank you.

I thought Netflix’s live action Avatar: The Last Airbender was good, and I’m glad they’ll do all three seasons.

The best thing ever happened today. A very good volleyball player on my team recommended they all just “walk off the court” because I found my serve for a bit and briefly became unstoppable.

As I transition to stricter separation between business and personal, is there a good modern KVM? I would like to easily swap between my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. I’m using a Studio Display and pretty much all USB-C. I realize the answer may be, “USB-C dock, and plug and unplug”.

A compassionate vet who genuinely cares and is on your loved one’s side is worth the world.

Life has gotten too busy to have much “fun” computer time. Even when I want to have fun on a computer, I find that the “fun” I want to do is deep, concentrated work on my day job that I don’t get to do during the normal working day. Sometimes, that’s how it goes.

The answer to “how different is Micro.blog versus Hugo?” is almost nothing. The major exceptions are custom front matter and post types. Otherwise, Micro.blog themes are “just” Hugo, plus adding some important data to your head so that you can use indieauth and micropub etc.

It’s probably just my Long Island showing, but Billy Joel has got to have one of the all time great rock voices and we don’t talk about that enough.

Time to see the film.

Film was seen. Short thoughts: with all the Dune we now have, I could watch 10 more hours of Dune easily.

First half was better as a stand alone, but the two parts make a brilliant whole.

Describing something as “slow, sad sci-fi” absolutely guarantees I will watch it. I stopped reading after the title.

• I write the things I feel like writing
• in a place that feels easy to write
• with posts available in places that make it as easy for others to read my posts as I want it to be to write them
• and create a website experience that reflects who I am, which I’d like if it was someone else’s.

That’s what I think personal blogging should be like.

Has anyone else found the Files changed tab in Github has gone to absolute shit in the last month or so?

New Contrapoints and it’s almost three hours long! Who knew I’d be watching that and (hopefully) Dune 2 in the same weekend?

I’ve been super busy with my two dogs being sick this week (both seemingly on the mend, for now). It was fun to see two separate people cite work I did on my blog in two separate conversations today.

Almost every comparison of two technologies that nominally solve the same problem falls into the same fallacy. We judge one technology on the design goals of the other and then claim supremacy because of intentional differences in trade-offs made to achieve different ends.

Gracie kept me up all night last night sick. We’ve been tending to her all day. I thought it was the end, but maybe she seems a bit better now. But she’s already gotten me up once tonight and it’s only 1:30 AM.

My ass is going to be dragging at work all week.

Gracie has pancreatitis. We’re hoping she can pull through with aggressive treatment for the two days. But we’re on tough journey again that’s going to end soon. Just hoping this is not it.