12JAN2025 - A particular brand of nerdery

Happy Sunday, everyone! Hopefully, the new year dust is settling, and everyone is finding their rhythm again as smoothly as possible.

This week, apart from perusing news and previews from CES, I’ve been playing with Minitap, an open-source Chrome browser extension that’s a full-fledged digital sequencer and beatbox, and listening to this gorgeous live Ólafur Arnalds concert filmed in the Icelandic wilderness. I also really enjoyed this great essay drawing storytelling lessons from Tom Stoppard’s revisions to the original draft of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s script—thanks to Phil Gyford for the find. We also found the world’s greatest piggy bank, a major accomplishment.

Lastly, congratulations to Tobías for winning the Wimp Decaf giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered, we'll definitely be doing another giveaway later this Spring 🙏🏽

On to the good stuff!

• ⌨️ AP-1 Keycaps - Well, these photography-themed keycaps are right up my alley. Aperture Priority AP-1 is inspired by the stylish, minimalist markings on classic cameras. Apart from being really good-looking keys, the Akuko Labs website is beautifully designed as well—worth checking out even if you have no intent to buy.

• 🪟 Caseta Smart Shades - I’m still digesting all the wild and often plain silly stuff announced at CES this year, but this smart window shade from Caseta leapt out as something I’ll likely wind up grabbing for myself. I have a bunch of Caseta smart light switches throughout the house, and they’ve worked impeccably with Siri/HomeKit for years. Being able to have Siri or various automations open/close our blinds would be amazing. I also appreciate that they offer custom sizes and blackout options.

• ⚡ Anker 140W USB-C 4-port Charger* - Of course, right after I link to the excellent Anker charger I’ve been using in my 2024 most used gear list, Anker releases a new one that looks even better. This one features three USB-C ports (up from the two on mine) and one USB-A PD3.1 port, and it’s capable of kicking out enough power to charge a 16” MacBook Pro in just 30 minutes. I also appreciate the ports being on the bottom of the charger, which should help reduce the weight of the cables pulling the charger out of the wall. *Amazon Affiliate-link to support my tech habit.

• ✂️ Supercopy - This is a small one but one of those things that can save you a ton of time in the aggregate. As you might guess, I copy and paste a lot of links throughout my day, especially when working on the Report. Having recently switched back to Safari, I’m really appreciating Finn Voorhees’ Supercopy Safari extension. It lets you quickly copy the URL of whatever site you’re looking at with ⌘+⇧+C, rather than having to click or ⌘+L into the menu bar first and then copy it.

• 🎵 ‎Dtd Playlist for iPad - This iPad app is a really fun way to get some chill vibes going when you’re trying to get some work done at your computer or around the house. Similar to the always-excellent Lo-Fi Girl channel, it has several curated playlists of lo-fi hip hop, downtempo cafe music, and more for you to choose from. Each playlist features an animated video loop and a clock that makes for an aesthetic iPad wallpaper/screensaver while it plays tunes to help you either focus or disassociate.

That’s it for this week! Wishing everyone lots of good health, happiness, and peace.

Hey there! How was this issue?

• 👍🏽 Lots of good stuff!
• 🤙🏽 Nothing really new, but it was fun.
• 👎🏽 Not interesting to me.