Hi! I'm Jack 👋

Gruber writes about a small macOS utility that I'd forgotten about called HazeOver, the "Distraction Dimmer™ for Mac". I'm happy to have been reminded of it, because it really does help distinguish active windows, which has become increasingly difficult in recent years.

Of course on Linux, KDE has this built in.

I had the bright idea this morning to start this Tinderbox-generated blog from scratch. The current document is littered with loose ends, copy/paste markup, outdated code, markup, etc.

4 hours later and I've bailed on that for now. There's a lot going on here that would be difficult to recreate. Maybe I'll try cleaning up this version instead.

I can't imagine having a blog without daily notes. (Like this one). I've tried all sorts of ways of doing them. My favorites were Fargo (when it existed), TiddlyWiki (before I took it down), and now, Tinderbox. I like the one daily note container, with multiple individual notes within it..each with its own URL. It doesn't hurt that the blog generated using Tinderbox is fully static. Anyway, you may have noticed this site is back to being generated using Tinderbox.

My views have never totally aligned with Ben Thompson's, and his latest Stratechery piece reinforced that. Gruber asks:

Who sets our defense policies? Our democratically elected leaders, or the CEOs of corporate defense contractors?

Normally, I'd acknowledge that it should of course be the former, but lately, not so much. Is there a third option? I hate that I think like this, now. Thompson's hypothetical is dumb, anyway.

All forms of cultural activity have collapsed into a single, overriding imperative: "getting attention."

Pluralistic: Deplatform yourself

Private Speech Transcription for Macs. Transcribe any speech on your Mac completely privately. Free - no cloud, accounts, or internet required.

Moonshine Note Taker

But something else was true too. When you were using the software, you were alone with it.

Backseat Software – Mike Swanson's Blog

This is Linux's biggest draw for me. I feel like it's just me and my operating system.

Someone wrote, "AI will not be the next big thing." as if AI isn't already the next big thing.

The older I get, the more I feel like not having things is even better than having them.

I seem to be all-in with macOS-only apps so far this year. Tinderbox, BBEdit, DEVONthink, OmniFocus. It feels good in a way that discovering new stuff for Linux didn't.

I knew Tinderbox and I went way back, but I didn't know how far, so I asked. I licensed Tinderbox for the first time December 10, 2004. Tinderbox 2.3. It's been a spell, eh?