Experimenting with ways to live a low impact life in a tiny house in the woods. Graphic and web design at Beardy Guy Creative . I often write about the Climate Emergency, Apple and the iPad. Living on the traditional territory of: O-ga-xpa Ma-zhoⁿ (O-ga-xpa) (Quapaw), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo)
Another shooting followed by frustration and anger being written on keyboards, displayed on screens.
We must show our outrage.
But give it a day or two. That’s right. Take a deep breath. Go ahead, treat yourself to that episode of Ted Lasso. Mmmm, feel better?
Settle back in. Sure you’re still angry and frustrated but just save that for the next shooting. Your next post will be even more expressive of your severe disapproval. Get to bed, you’ve got work tomorrow.
It’s going to be okay. Surely with so many people in agreement, THIS time will be different. We can rest easy knowing that THIS time lawmakers will have a moment and fix this problem.
You’ve shared you post and even a few links. You’ve done your part. Nothing else you can do but wait.
Just wait, they’ll fix this.
Whether the problem is gun violence, the climate emergency, denial of healthcare and access to abortion, attacks on the LGBT community or any of the other crises we are facing, the majority of citizens in the US refuse to leave their homes to protest or strike. We’ll go out to shop, watch a ball game, work or any number of things. But most still refuse protest.
If you’re angry and frustrated with things as they are ask yourself, with the evidence of dysfunctional government in front of you, really, how much do you care? What would it take for you to help organize or, at the very least, join, repeatedly, in organized protests for social change?
Lots of Mayapples on the trail as well as Andersonglossum, wild comfry which has simple, five petaled flowers. Very pretty evening bird song including: summer tanager, northern parula, and red-eyed vireo.
Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use.
Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia.
4 weather stations in Myanmar matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet reaching the highest, at 43C (109.4F). Bago, north-east of Yangon, reached 42.2C, matching the record previously set in May 2020 and April 2019.
Chapter 20 of the Ministry for the Future begins with a description of the Gini coefficient.
From Wikipedia:
In economics, the Gini coefficient, also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality or the wealth inequality or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.
In 2021, net electricity consumption worldwide amounted to over 25,000 terawatt-hours, an increase of more than 30 percent in comparison to a decade earlier. When compared to 1980, global electricity consumption more than tripled. On the generation side, the world is still strongly dependent on fossil fuels. Despite the world's renewable energy capacity quintupling in the last decade, coal and gas combined still accounted for almost 60 percent of global electricity generation in 2021.
I'm thinking about per capita electricity consumption this morning. According to Statista, the US is 12,314 kWh. A nice chart at the link below. I've not compared to other sources. But
As is common with many Apple nerds, I like to play with text apps. My primary purpose is blogging which has also served as a journal of sorts.
For quite a long time I used ByWord for this. Then Ulysses then iA Writer. iA Writer stuck longer than almost anything else. Then a brief dalliance with Obsidan, Taio, and Notebooks. I’ve spent the past few months with Notebooks which has served pretty well. Review here. The only problem there is that it continues to be somewhat wonky. It’s a great app but often feels buggy. So I’ve been using it as a partner with iA Writer. Where Notebooks shines is in adding images for blog posts. I can copy a single or multiple images from Photos then insert into a Notebooks draft. Not only does the app downsize from full quality but inserts each as a Markdown link. If I move the file to a folder it also moves the images to a corresponding sub folder. It works fantastically.
So, why mess with it if it’s working? Yesterday in the Mac Break Weekly podcast Andy Ihnatko recommended Day One for journaling. I’d never tried it. There’s a free option so I downloaded it. My thought being, hmm, perhaps I could have a private journal in addition to blogging? Okay, will try it. Then thought, hmmm, I could also use this for blogging. I always gravitate to blogging.
I spent an hour with it and loved it. All except for the fact that using the arrow keys while writing/editing text does not move the cursor up or down, left or right, but navigates the files. Ugh. Well, that’s a show stopper. No setting I could find to change it. But so much to like about the app other than that. Edit to add that upon trying this again today, well, it works as expected. Unless it was something wonky with my keyboard I’ll have to say it was user error. 😬
The free version does have other limitations such as no sync between devices, only one image per post, only one journal. So, with these things in mind I started thinking again about Apple’s Notes app.
In the past I’d thought to try to make Notes work as a part of my blogging process. It didn’t quite take. So, this morning, I’ve spent a couple hours tinkering. I whipped up a Shortcut to create a new note with a template similar to the default Day One posts. Basically, just the date, weather and a default Journal hashtag. Also spent more time really looking at the organizing possibilities of Notes. It’s not that complicated but I’ve never given it a proper go.
Step two, then, was to set up some proper organization in Notes. A mix of folders and smart folders. I’d already tried tags which works well. So, I’ve added a few. I’d like to try the journaling thing as a sort of foundation or addition to the longstanding practice of blogging. In theory, I’d like the journal to contain everything the blogs have with additional private text. So, a dedicated Journal folder. Going forward most new notes will get tagged as Journal. For text that I intend to post to one of my two blogs, those will get additional tags appropriate to the blog. Initially I think everything will go into the Journal folder. If I want to see the blog posts on their own I’ll use a Smart Folder based on the tag. I can always move these later into actual folders if that’s the choice.
My tentative workflow will go something like this. Run a shortcut to start new Journal entries using the template. For blog items, I might just start a new note or, if I’m sharing a link from Safari as I often do I’ll use a Shortcut that converts the article to Markdown and creates a new note. What about blog posts with photos? Well, as it turns out, notes with images can be shared to Notebooks via the share sheet.
Any post, with or without a photo can be easily shared from Notes to Notebooks. So, once I’ve got a post ready for sharing I’ll just send it to Notebooks, hop over to iA Writer which has direct publishing to Micro.blog and Wordpress and which has access to my Notebooks folder. With a tap I’ve got the post open then another tap to publish. So, this workflow starts in Notes, ends in iA Writer and I have a copy in the Notes app as well as a discrete Markdown file in iCloud. Exactly what I want.
Downsides? Notes does not have built-in support of Markdown. Apps that do have that support provide convenient one-click formatting or keyboard shortcuts. But it's not all that hard to type the Markdown code when needed as it's designed to be simple. Notes tries to do fancy preview links which are nice but not what I want. I don't think there's an option to turn that off. But just pasting a urlworks.
Editing to add that after originally posting this to the blog someone on Mastodon chimed in that Everlog is another nice journaling app with Markdown support. I'm trying it out and it is excellent and doesn't have the flaws that Day One has. Now that I've got this handy-dandy Notes based system I'm not sure though that I want to abandon it.
My habit is to use text editors primarily for blogging. So, now I’m thinking about how to use Day One. Probably over thinking it. I’m aware that most of my time writing is about sharing, usually via blog. This app seems geared towards private journaling for the sake of recording life moments. Right off I’m trying to bend it to blogging. And still considering whether or not I could do something like this in Notes.
It’s far too easy to get stuck in a game of app hopping. Comparing Day One to Apple Notes and I like the Day One sidebar. The grouping by day is helpful. I can edit the dates if needed. The app includes weather and other metadata that would be a nice-to-have info when looking back.
BUT, unlike Notes, I can’t view across devices. I’m not used to and don’t like the navigation via the arrow keys. I’m used to using arrow keys for moving the cursor in the text. This seems like a weird choice and there’s no setting to change it. Ugh.
Okay, so, I spent the last 30 minutes in Notes. 🤣
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve played this game. But listen Linda, Linda, Honey, I think I’ve got something. I think perhaps I can make Notes work in more ways than one…
To be continued as follow-up post on my blog at Beardy Guy Creative.
TO CALL WHAT’S happening in the oceans right now an anomaly is a bit of an understatement. Since March, average sea surface temperatures have been climbing to record highs.
Since this record-keeping began in the early 1980s—the other squiggly lines are previous years—the global average for the world’s ocean surfaces has oscillated seasonally between 19.7 and 21 degrees Celsius (67.5 and 69.8 Fahrenheit). Toward the end of March, the average shot above the 21-degree mark and stayed there for a month. (The most recent reading, for April 26, was just a hair under 21 degrees.) This temperature spike is not just unprecedented, but extreme
Took the dogs out and was greeted by the spring peepers singing off in the distance. Closer to the cabin a whippoorwill calling. I do love the simple life in the woods.
Working on getting my blackberries sorted for the summer. Under the layer of grass clippings are layers of all sorts of paper and cardboard and under that are many very happy worms loosening up the soil. Still have a bit of weeding and transplanting to do.
Last year, the United States incurred over $2bn in costs due to 20 climate-related extreme weather events, from Hurricane Ian to heatwaves and drought. Lumber, cotton, tomatoes, wheat and energy – and the products they generate, from denim jeans to your Italian takeout dinner – were all affected by these events and are now more expensive than this time last year. Climate-driven extreme weather and disasters are now more frequently responsible for production shortages, supply chain disruptions...
Madeleine Finlay hears from correspondent Sandra Laville about how plastics are made, the environmental and health impacts of the process and what needs to be done to get a handle on plastic pollution
It’s possible to stop using plastic, but it does require effort and limits choices. I have cut back plastic intake by 95% over the past couple of years. Anyone can make the same choice. If we insist on continuing purchasing products that are packaged in plastic we are a part of the problem.
A brief summary of recent actions and future plans of Extinction Rebellion and other climate activists in the UK. I especially like call for citizens assemblies as a strategy for building longer term community, direct democracy into the movement.
The 2000-watt society is an environmental vision, first introduced in 1998 by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH Zurich), which pictures the average First World citizen reducing their overall average primary energy usage rate to no more than 2,000 watts (i.e. 2 kWh per hour or 48 kWh per day) by the year 20502050, without lowering their standard of living.
The concept addresses not only personal or household energy use, but the total for the whole society, including embodied energy, divided by the population.
Two thousand watts is approximately the current world average rate of total primary energy use. This compared, in 2008, to averages of around 6,000 watts in western Europe, 12,000 watts in the United States, 1,500 watts in China, 1,000 watts in India, 500 watts in South Africa and only 300 watts in Bangladesh. Switzerland itself, then using an average of around 5,000 watts, was last a 2000-watt society in the 1960s.
Cofounder of Greenpeace and writer of the Deep Green column Rex Weyler helps us transcend the idea that we can fix the environment – or anything else – so we can finally learn to participate as members of a living world.
An excellent discussion between Rex Weyler and Douglass Rushkoff on the current episode of the Team Human Podcast.
