Monthly Archives: January 2019

AMD Announces Radeon VII →

January 10, 2019 · 10:00

Sean Hollister, for The Verge:

AMD has been lagging behind Nvidia for years in the high-end gaming graphics card race, to the point it’s primarily been pushing bang-for-the-buck cards like the RX 580 instead. But now at CES, the company says it has a GPU that’s competitive with Nvidia’s RTX 2080. It’s called the Radeon VII (“Seven”) and it uses the company’s first 7nm graphics chip, one we’d seen teased previously.

It’ll ship February 7th for $699, according to the company. That’s the same price as an standard Nvidia RTX 2080.

Can’t wait for Apple to introduce this card into their line-up in 2022, when it’s obsolete.

Tim Cook Interviewed by Jima Cramer on CNBC →

January 9, 2019 · 15:20

The one quote from Tim that caught my eye was the following:

On services, you will see us announce new services this year. There will more things coming. I don’t want to tell you about what they are—

I’d be willing to bet (not much, mind you) that he’s talking about the Apple TV service (aka Netflix competitor) that has been years in the making.

Federico Viticci Coded a Shortcut to Visualize Your Most Listened to Apple Music Songs, Artists, and Genres of the Year →

January 9, 2019 · 14:28

Federico Viticci, on MacStories:

Apple Music Wrapped generates a personalized music report that, by default, collects your 100 most-played songs added to your library in any given year since Apple Music was launched in 2015, sorting them from largest to smallest play count. The shortcut takes less than 30 seconds to run and the final report is opened in Safari as a custom webpage.

It works perfectly. Turns out I have listened to a lot of film music in 2018. You can find my playlist here (88 songs, 5h45m).

The World’s Oldest Esports Team Is Gaming Their Way to Longer Lives →

January 9, 2019 · 14:21

Samantha Bresnahan, for CNN:

The video game “Counter-Strike” plays out on their monitors as they communicate over headsets, engaged in a fierce competition at Moscow’s IgroMir Expo, Russia’s largest computer and video game convention.

But this is not your average group of gamers. The slogan on their black jackets reads “We’ve got time to kill.”

With an average age of 67, the Silver Snipers from Stockholm, Sweden, are the oldest esports team in the world.

Amazing team and I’d wager they’re much better than I am!

GitHub Free Users Now Get Unlimited Private Repositories →

January 8, 2019 · 14:00

Frederic Lardinois, for TechCrunch:

If you’re a GitHub user, but you don’t pay, this is a good week. Historically, GitHub always offered free accounts but the caveat was that your code had to be public. To get private repositories, you had to pay. Starting tomorrow, that limitation is gone. Free GitHub users now get unlimited private projects with up to three collaborators.

The amount of collaborators is really the only limitation here and there’s no change to how the service handles public repositories, which can still have unlimited collaborators.

Thank you, Microsoft!

Using BBEdit and Excel to Revive a Dead Podcast Feed →

January 8, 2019 · 13:58

Jason Snell, on Six Colours:

When people ask me what features of BBEdit I use, I can mention Markdown tools and syntax support, which I use for writing stories like this one. But the other thing I use BBEdit for is a bit more esoteric and hard to describe—something I call “text munging”, for lack of a better word.

I recently used Excel for a similar purpose and was surprised how much I underutilize it for such tasks. Anyway, Jason’s expedition is a very interesting read, combining BBEdit, regular expressions, and the aforementioned Excel.

Keychron K1 — A Low Profile Mechanical Keyboard for Mac (Or Windows) →

January 7, 2019 · 14:56

I was just about to go ahead and order the Vortex Race 3 when a link to the Keychron K1 flew past me on Twitter, and now I have no idea what to do.

I like low profile keyboards. I like Bluetooth. The Race 3 has neither of those attributes. But it has Cherry MX switches instead of these “blue” switches of unknown origin. The K1 does however feature a full complement of Mac-specific function keys.

Should I just order both?

TJ Luoma’s Review of the Luna Display →

January 2, 2019 · 09:30

TJ Luoma, on Rhymes with Diploma:

Using the Luna Display with my 12.9″ iPad Pro feels almost as if I am using macOS as a native iOS app. The speed and responsiveness are great, and it’s straightforward to use. However, there are some important caveats, especially if you are using a smaller iPad or if you are not using the iPad as a second display for your Mac.

I’m sorely tempted to get one of these, even though I don’t really know what I’d use it for.