Chris J Wilson

In praise of Garageband - Austin Kleon

Garageband turned 15 yesterday. It was introduced at Macworld by Steve Jobs in January 2004. It’s so accessible and ubiquitous now, it’s easy to take for granted just how amazing a piece of software it really is.

I recently read an article critiquing Apple’s current price. One of the central causes of frustration for the author was the presence of GarageBand for free. He claimed it was used as a justification for the price of Apple hardware and no one used it anyway. He used it once and the song he made sucked so it sucks.

I love the surprise that a writer could have to the fact that he tried something once and wasn’t good at it. You’d think a writer should know that any creative craft requires persistence.

Anyway, I actually find myself somewhere between Austin and the unnamed tech writers article. I’ve used GarageBand for many projects over time, podcasts mainly. I’ve also been frustrated at that great idea for a song taking me five hours to work on and still not being any good at the end. I’m grateful GarageBand is in the Mac and iOS and long may that continue.

100 things that made my year (2018)

A pretty amazing list of personal pleasures from Austin. Not a bad idea of a list to make.

Having the best mattress, suitcase, and vitamins nearly broke me - Vox

I would try them all at once, in the service of a single question: Would they actually improve my life?

The short answer is yes. Of course they did! As a shock to probably nobody, the direct-to-consumer mattress was indeed far superior to my regular mattress, which is actually my old roommate’s mattress, which before that was probably somebody else’s too…

But the long answer is more complicated.

I love serendipity and this article was a great one for me. I had become more aware of the toxic marketing idea that “you need, no deserve, the best,". In truth, I had been greatly affected by it and spent money appeasing that inner voice. But now I wonder, as I type on my “best smartphone” (an iPhone XS) if this really was worth it.

Would it really be so bad to choose the average or mediocre option?

One of the versions of “minimalism” that you can come across is “I have less, but I have the best”. If minimalism is about less than I guess it works, but if it’s about being detached from possessions (as Christian minimalism should) then this is a failure in a different form.

Book Summaries: Popular Book Summaries in 3 Sentences or Less

This page shares a full list of book summaries I have compiled during my reading and research. I have tried to summarize each book on this page in just three sentences, which I think is a fun way to distill the main ideas of the book.

I love this idea from James Clear. I might have to steal it!

How I Quit Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon - Motherboard

By now, it’s common knowledge that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are harvesting as much of our personal data as they can get their hands on to feed us targeted ads, train artificial intelligence, and sell us things before we know we need them…

With the exception of Microsoft and Apple, these fortunes were not built by selling wildly popular products, but by collecting massive amounts of user data in order to more effectively sell us stuff. At the same time, this data has also been abused to swing elections and abet state surveillance. For most of us, giving away our data was seen as the price of convenience—Google and Facebook are “free” to use, after all.

https://brooksreview.net/2018/11/building-technology-for-good/

I’m not sure there is a clear answer, however my gut says that Facebook is more net negative than iPhone. I wonder how much of that could have been avoided if more consideration was given while building out the Facebook, as was given when Apple built iPhone.

This is an interesting link and comment by @ben and I wanted to continue that thought by suggesting the opposite of Facebook’s approach. Move slow and Mend things. Take your time, consider the impact of your actions and the unintended negative side effects.

I wonder what this would also look like in my personal life. If I didn’t jump on the latest hype train but waited to let other -suckers- people test them out first and find the issues. If I were more critical of what I let impact my life than I currently am?

The Digital Divide is Being Flipped - Seths Blog

Today, as digital tools get cheaper and more widespread, a new gap is appearing:

If a parent uses a tablet or a smartphone as a babysitter, it’s a lot easier to get a kid to sit still. As a result, parents who are busy, distracted or can’t afford to spend as much 1:1 time as they’d like are unknowingly encouraging their kids to become digital zombies, with a constant need for stimulation, who are being manipulated by digital overlords to click and click some more.

In the past in Europe, pale skin was seen as attractive, as people who were suntanned worked in the fields. Now, the reverse is true as it is a sign of not working to have travel abroad and obtained your tan. This digital situation reminds me of getting tanned, the element which distinguished you in the past was access to the internet, now it is being able to disconnect.

Also see Deep Work by Cal Newport (affiliate link)

Daring Fireball: Dan Frakes Goes to Apple as Mac App Store Editor

Cross linking between blogs has nearly dried up. It’s almost impossible to find new opinions because everyone links to the same three websites, like I’m doing now.

A lot of voices have moved on to podcasting. Frankly, as someone that also podcasts, it’s easier and there’s less accountability than with blogging. Today, I also see a lot of thoughtful people writing on Discord groups. There’s little value in blogging unless you just like to practice writing in public.

This is one of those articles that starts discussing one issue, but the commentary actually is far more interesting than the inital discussion (In my opinion at least). I wonder how accurate Gabe’s prognosis is (that new voices are podcasting). While I see truth in this, I also think one of the issues is that online writing has become quite formulaic and people simply copy others ideas without offering something fresh. No one could be a full time blogger in the early days of online writing, now there are a host of them (and companies that employ writers) who’s opinions are well regarded. I’ve started (and stopped) following some new writers as I realised they were just repeating others points. At the same time, I have discovered fresh voices who offer something unique.

• Rose Orchard
• Denny Henke
• Zsolt Benke
• Greg Morris
• Andy Nicolaides Admittedly some of those same voices also use their litteral voices for podcasts too, but that doesn’t stop the fact that they are adding their unique writing voice. Really, it’s not that writing is in decline, it’s that more writers are also professional podcasters.

the new ipad pro for photographers Austin is great to follow for all things Apple and photography and his latest post doesn’t disappoint. He really picks up on the key issues I’ve faced with editing photos on iOS as well as some of the work arounds…which kind of work. I’m going to check out the Gnarbox.

No one makes a living on Patreon

Of those creators, only 1,393 — 2 percent — make the equivalent of federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $1,160 a month, in October 2017. Worse, if we change it to $15 per hour, a minimum wage slowly being adopted by states, that’s only .8 percent of all creators.

Kind of depressing reading as it casts a lot of doubt on pateron and donations as long term viable income streams. At the same time, it’s not the most suprising statistic and seems to refect common distribution curves where the top far out performs the majority.

A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley - The New York Times via @leo

A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.

Interesting article that touches on ideas you’ve probably heard a lot recently. I agree more with the “principled limited” screen usage. There’s an incredible depth of knowledge on the internet including things like YouTube (I don’t think there’s been a better time to learn a musical instrument and I’m brushing up my jazz guitar chops) but YouTube is designed to get you hooked and spend more time there, and often the brain dead stuff is the most addictive. We have to be careful.

Austin Mann’s iPhone Xs camera review 🔗 Surprise Austin takes great pictures with an iPhone again. This weekend I took a photo of a friend on sunny day when he was standing in the shade and it was hot. I suggested moving into the sun for a better picture, but he declined. Smart HDR would have lead to a much better end result. Then there was another moment at home where I suspect Smart HDR would have helped.

This is really making me want a new iPhone.

Should We Stop Listening to Podcasts? — CJ Chilvers

When you mention time and attention theft, most creators think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (which I call Facebook II). They usually don’t think about Youtube or podcasts, which have the same issues: the ad model and all its abuses to the listener, and the lack of quality in favor of burn-out-inducing “consistency” and quantity (something that is also tied to the ad model).

I recently cut the number of podcast I listen to for similar reasons. With exceptions, podcast tend towards entertainment over content. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with that. It’s good to switch off and be entertained from time to time but not all the time. Still greater intentionality is always good, as is protecting your attention.

I’d rather be a blogger

I just think one of the main reasons that the internet took off like it did from the late–90s onward was that people could finally have a voice, regardless of whether or not that voice drove clicks and views. No need to go through gatekeepers like print publications, book publishers, etc… we could just write something and hit publish. Now our voices are collectively passed through the values of content marketing and growth-hacking.

I probably could have linked to Paul’s whole article but what’s the point in that. So instead I quoted the part I found most inspiring. It’s a really great take on the difference between blogging and content marketing. This hit me hard as I’ve done a lot of “contentting” and not that much blogging until I came on Micro.blog…it’s good to be blogging.

Cognitive Dissonance

It has also been observed that if a person finds themselves engaging in activities which are in opposition to what they believe, they will be more willing to change their belief or adopt new beliefs to suit the situation, rather than change their actions.

I’m researching for an article and this statement really struck me. People will change their beliefs to match their actions more than change their actions.

Reading aloud

I find that reading my work aloud makes it weird enough that I can’t scan or gloss over anything. Reading to an audience is best, because you start really judging the thing when you have to project it into a room full of people. Quentin Tarantino says he likes to read his scripts to his friends, not for their feedback, but their presence. “I don’t want input, I don’t want you to tell me if I’m doing anything wrong, heavens forbid,” he says, “But I write a scene, and I think I’ve heard it as much as I can, but then when I read it to you … I hear it through your ears, and it lets me know I’m on the right track.”

I use this trick with proofreading texts. Sometimes I have to look at the same thing that’s been sent back and forth about five times, often with a minor change introduced that is easily missed. Reading aloud is one of the only ways to keep my eyes fresh.