I’ve gotta get off PocketCasts. I’m no fan of what they’re trying to do to their web-player, such as their push for podcasts “I may like” (even with I have recommendations turned off). Based on what I listen to and what they think I might like, their algorithm has very much miss-categorised me.
Kicking the Tyres of Ollama's Native App
Some thoughts of my experience trying out Ollama’s new native app for the first time, along with my thoughts of some of the available models.
Okay, so it’s going to be one of those days.
Oh, interesting. That’s a good explanation as to why OpenAI et. al. would want to make a browser. And if they do tout it as being “AI powered”, then it kinda makes sense that Google would do likewise, as a defensive move to keep marketshare.
Was given a free coffee this morning by my barista at the station. His opened late yesterday but was around to see me and felt bad for missing me (must’ve seen me make my way to one of the nearby cafes that were opening). Apparently I’m one of his loyal customers. I’m honored and appreciative.
🔗 How we built Bluey’s world: tales from original series art director, Catriona Drummond
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about animation, I found this fascinating. Some nice bits of theory in this, such as the “language” of shapes:
Circles are round, friendly and soft. No hard edges!
Triangles are sharp, aggressive and evoke pain.
Squares are sturdy, steady and firmly planted.
Then on top of that, even directional lines have implicit associations! Horizontals are calm, verticals awake and upright, and diagonals off balanced.
Request for a go linter: something that would warn when an variable with the name err is not of type error:
func Bla() {
err := 123 // 'err' not of type 'error'
}
Would’ve saved me a few hours today trying to test if a Future was not-nil, without actually waiting for the result.
Some follow-up on moving TIL Computer to Quartz. I mentioned that I wanted to eventually set-up a hot-key for activating search. Well, Quartz comes out of the box with that already: press Cmd+K to open the search. Very nice!
Need to learn patience over when to post about an event here. Something’s coming up today, and although I have some thoughts of what will happen, I don’t know for sure. Best to write about it after the event, rather than pepper a post with speculations, like “might this” or “could that”.
Dredging equipment deployed in the Yarra.
Moving TIL Computer To Quartz
Moving TIL Computer from a blog-like technical stack to Quartz 4 to enhance its functionality as a knowledge repository, transitioning from a blog format to a more wiki-like architecture while integrating with Obsidian for content management.
I used to be an AWS Step Function guy. Couldn’t stand the YAML, but the execution model was decent and it was reasonably featureful. But now I’m using Temporal and I’m starting to like it a lot. Provides just enough workflow for those cases where Step Functions is overkill. Plus, no YAML!
Looks like my touch-bar didn’t show up to work today.
🔗 Aresluna: Frame of preference
This walk through the various preference windows of MacOS is amazing. The way they integrate Infinite Mac alongside it: genius. Best explored while listening to ATP Overtime.
Enjoying listening to the latest Talk Show with LMNT (I'm about 67% through it so far). Especially liked this part about Safari, and not just because it validated my feelings about it. 😀
If anyone’s interested in rebooting the Core, here’s your premise: rich tech entrepreneurs are sick of slow terrestrial Internet speeds. One comes up with a solution: instead of laying deep-sea cables around the Earth, why not lay cables through the Earth? A venture is formed and work begins. But uh-oh: they got too greedy and tunneled too deep. Throw in shots of cities getting destroyed, people yelling at each other in offices, a crack team of heroes being assembled for the Virgil II, and boom! You’ve got a disaster movie. I may watch that on a long haul flight.
Pro-tip: install software updates for your tools before you want to use them, not when you want to use them.
There was something about the appearance of iOS 26 Safari WebViews I wasn’t too sure about, and now I know: there’s a material transition between the header and the web-page, but there’s nothing separating the two. No edge, no gradient. This looks unnatural and, dare I say, a little amateur.
“Get out more” goal for July failed. ❌
Not my fault this month: plans fell through. But will attempt to remedy this in August.
TIL that Donaldson’s Dairy from which Hairy Maclary resides is what we call a milk-bar on this side of the Ditch. Growing up and having these stories read to me, I always thought it was like a dairy farm. Odd to think this in retrospect, given that the setting is essentially a suburban street.