-
Me: Still working on Chemistry?
Son: Yes. Had to figure it out because I stopped listening to my teacher.
Me: Why?
Son: He told the class the 2nd law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is wrong, which is like arguing that because of gravity birds can’t exist, and I couldn’t keep listening to him.
Me: Which one is the 2nd law?
Son: Entropy.
Me: That only applies in a closed system, right?
Son: Yes. I mean, left alone, my room can only get more dirty over time, but I can totally come in here with a vacuum and clean it.
Me: So, is he saying that because of entropy, cells could never have organized themselves with some intelligent intervention?
Son: Yes. He teaches AP Biology, Dad. I can’t take AP Biology.
Me: I tend to agree.
(PS - it’s fun watching your kids grow up)
-
I’ve been told in the past I probably should not do my own design work, by people who were not wrong.
But I enjoy doing it, and I’m honestly pretty happy with the branding for the new Drafts and think it looks great up there on the App Store. :-)
-
Drafts 5 has shipped. I started working on parts of this update almost 2 years ago. Excited to get it out there finally.
Now, I just need to find some down time to read the MacStories review of my own app. Which is mind-bogglingly extensive.
-
“Daily”
-
Apple’s asset templates are much better than they used to be. I call this is the “Wishful Thinking” template. ;-)
-
My wife is really great at getting kids excited about science. She has run the Science Fair at our elementary school for years, and did an amazing job with this year’s today. So, if science is still a thing in a couple of decades, she is among the many you should thank.
-
High School started requiring students have IDs on a lanyard. My son forgot his today and fashioned himself a sign to wear around his neck that said “IDs don’t prevent gun violence”.
The ID policy isn’t wrong. But neither is his civil disobedience. One of his teachers asked, “Well, what do you think does prevent gun violence? And don’t say I should have a gun.”
-
The world happens around us.
The shiny bits grab our attention. The bright bits makes us smile. And then there are the dark bits that leave us frustrated, confused…and scared.
The Internet is the aqueduct of all these things. An endless supply of Grade A, Prime bits.
Our future relies on how successfully we become connoisseurs of the bits. Appreciate the delicate kitten without succumbing to the clown in the sewer.
-
Getting ready to kill another app. It’s always hard to do, but it is becoming clear it’s time to end-of-life Interact on iOS. Since day one it’s been plagued by bugs in the underlying Contacts frameworks and almost none of them have been fixed by Apple in the intervening years.
It works great for most people, but for the ones with contact data that does not get along with the Contact framework, it fails in annoying ways. There are likely still places I could improve their experience in Interact, but I’ve burned too much time and effort on those edge cases for it to make sense to keep it going.
The app itself is a bit of an oddity with a confusing UI, which is on me. Had I not struggled with some of the bugs, I might have made it come together and make sense for more people - but that did not happen.
I’m not sad, in that the whole enterprise was a good learning experience. It was the first app I wrote in Swift. The first that I architected around using Operations for everything possible. I think I will be able to repurpose the most useful part of the app - the Scratchpad, which parses contact from plain text - into a component of Drafts 5.
Drafts 5 is my business moving forward though, and I need to remove distractions to make that happen.
-
Drafts 4 will remain available & supported.
Drafts 5 will have a generous free tier and pro subscription, that lets you migrate when and if you feel it’s a value proposition.
I will get 1-star reviews for the wrongs I have done.
I will be rubber. They will be glue.
This is my daily affirmation.
-
I suppose “developer”, “architect” and “engineer” sound good, but when I really breakdown my day, my job is branching logic based on boolean expressions.
Programmers that distinguish themselves are the ones who know which Boolean expressions matter.
-
Sometimes I think I’d really enjoy doing a podcast. Then I realize, honestly, I’d enjoy being on a podcast. Props to all the people who do the hard work t delivery the quality podcasts that show up in my player week after week.
-
Software would be a whole lot easier if it didn’t have user interfaces. 🧐
-
-
Completely redesigning the Drafts action engine enabled all sorts of new, more powerful options in a more sustainable and flexible way.
And made write a migration tool from the old system a real PITA.
Oh, well. Progress.
-
I’m not a terribly sportsy person, but I’m really happy for Philadelphia.
I was lucky enough to move to NYC in the Fall of ‘86, just before the Mets won the World Series for the first time in forever, and the joy on the streets was amazing to experience.
-
This whole beta cycle would be easier if I made a TextExpander snippet that said bug fixes and performance improvements.
-
When I started making mobile apps, it was a breath of fresh air. The simplicity was refreshing after working with large web & enterprise apps for years.
Now I’ve managed to come back around to making the most complex and deep app I’ve ever made, on a mobile platform.
-
I wish there were better ways to soft-launch on the App Store. I’m doing an extended beta, which is easier with high TestFlight limits, but still not quite the the same.
-
I don’t think I have enough beer to watch the State of the Union.
-
I used to do a lot of Rails work, but after several years focused on Obj-C and Swift, it was amazing how clumsy I felt trying to get a new Rails app up and running. It’s coming back quick, but I don’t look forward to the deployment phase.
-
This morning I suggested to the elementary school flag team that the Texas flag should hang below the US flag on the pole as they ran it to the top. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that the Texas flag could fly at the same height because Texas was a country once. Information they clearly gathered from the high school ROTC which trained them in the art of flag raising.
I could only say, “That’s a very Texan thing to say.”
-
For the brave, I’ve opened up the Drafts 5 beta. Apply here.
-
I’m really surprised how much getting a Smart Keyboard cover for my iPad has changed the way I use it. I’ve always been an iPad fan and regular user, and I’ve connected a keyboard to it at the desk, but never had a portable keyboard case attached until a couple of months ago.
Adding one has truly widened the scope of tasks that seem best suited to the iPad. If you have an iPad, and do not have a portable keyboard for it, consider trying it out. I think you’ll be surprised how much more pleasant it is to use for all manner of daily tasks.
-
Dish Network DVR reboots itself every night at 3am. Which is a pragmatic solution to the “did you turn if off and on” problem, I suppose.
What’s odd is that after the reboot, it always tunes itself to the Country Music Television station - which is not a station I get in my package. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
