Monthly Archives: May 2020

Fine-Tune the Calibration of the Pro Display XDR on Mac →

May 30, 2020 · 12:17

Apple Support:

On your Mac, you can fine-tune the current calibration of your Apple Pro Display XDR by adjusting the white point and luminance to more precisely match your own in-house display calibration target.

Meanwhile, Apple still hasn’t fixed automatic contrast adjustment (Ambient Light Compensation), which totally wrecks the calibration of Mac screens, when Displays → Display → Automatically adjust brightness is turned on. I wonder if this also applies to the Pro Display XDR.

Automating iPod Hi-Fi’s Volume Control →

May 29, 2020 · 14:56

Jason Snell, on Six Colours:

Here was the plan: Find a device that could be controlled by my Mac and press the volume-up button on my iPod Hi-Fi every morning when I started up the computer.

I love it when you can get something done by tinkering with various technologies. I don’t love maintaining such designs over longer periods of time though, such as my Homebridge setup.

Apple Working to Replace Messages App on Mac With a Catalyst Version →

May 24, 2020 · 10:38

Filipe Espósito, for 9to5Mac:

[…] we have found evidence that Apple is working to completely replace the Messages app on macOS with a Catalyst version, based on iOS 14 code.

I assume this will mean the end of AppleScript support for Messages. I don’t use it, so I won’t miss it, but a lot of people will be sad to see it gone. I am however hoping that it will still be possible to navigate Messages by using just the keyboard, which I do right now — ⌃⭾ moves me down the list and ⌃⇧⭾ reverses direction. Since the move Catalyst is to get feature parity between platforms, I hope they add keyboard shortcuts for stickers, tapbacks, and other features. Tapbacks are currently possible but require using the trackpad or mouse:

Send a Tapback: Click and hold a message, then choose a Tapback. If your Mac has a Touch Bar, you can also click a message, then tap a Tapback in the Touch Bar.

My Photography (81) — A Pigeon Visiting The Zoo’s Bengal Tiger, Wrocław, Poland, 2003

May 21, 2020 · 09:02

Wrocław’s zoo is one of the most beautiful ones in Europe, assuming you don’t mind seeing animals in captivity. Going there in late Autumn wasn’t a good idea, but I did want to test my new telephoto lens, so naturally, my best shot was of a pigeon, which was there looking for food.

Shot with Canon 300D + EF 70-200 mm f/2.8L IS: 130mm, f/4, 1/250s, ISO 400.

Wrocław’s zoo also has Bengal tigers→

Zork Source Code from 1977 →

May 19, 2020 · 09:15

MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections:

This repository contains the source code for a 1977 version of Zork, an interactive fiction game created at MIT by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling.

SmartyKit — Apple I-Compatible Computer Construction Kit for Geeks to Understand How Computers Work →

May 19, 2020 · 08:12

The Apple I was the original Apple computer built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, so naturally every Apple fanatic has dreamed of playing around with an Apple I or even having their own. But you won’t need to keep dreaming, because you’ll be able to build your own DIY Apple I replica thanks to a new project called SmartyKit.

This looks like a lot of fun.

’Game Changer’ by Banksy Unveiled at Hospital to Thank Doctors and Nurses →

May 18, 2020 · 10:33

Associated Press:

A new work by the elusive street artist Banksy, honoring health workers, has been unveiled at a British hospital.

The framed picture, titled “Game Changer,” depicts a young boy sitting on the floor playing with a nurse superhero toy. Batman and Spiderman action figure toys lie in a wastepaper basket next to the boy.

More photos of Game Changer on Banksy’s Instagram, along with close-ups of the details.

Public Enemy →

May 18, 2020 · 08:25

Ruth Franklin:

From the jury selection process that took place over three days in June for the trial of Martin Shkreli, an investor and hedge fund founder who is facing eight counts of securities and wire fraud. In 2015, when Shkreli was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company raised the price of its drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent. In 2016, Shkreli was widely criticized for defending the 400 percent increase in the price of EpiPen, an emergency allergy injection sold by Mylan. More than two hundred potential jurors were excused from the trial. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto presided. Benjamin Brafman is a lawyer representing Shkreli […]

The court: All right. I’m going to excuse you. Juror Number 59, come on up.

Juror no. 59: Your Honor, totally he is guilty and in no way can I let him slide out of anything because —

The court: Okay. Is that your attitude toward anyone charged with a crime who has not been proven guilty?

Juror no. 59: It’s my attitude toward his entire demeanor, what he has done to people.

The court: All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.

Juror no. 59: And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.

Read the whole thing — it’s amazing.

Lovers in Auschwitz, Reunited 72 Years Later — He Had One Question →

May 16, 2020 · 17:00

By Keren Blankfeld, for The New York Times:

For a few months, they managed to be each other’s escape, but they knew these visits wouldn’t last. Around them, death was everywhere. Still, the lovers planned a life together, a future outside of Auschwitz. They knew they would be separated, but they had a plan, after the fighting was done, to reunite.

It took them 72 years.

I might have teared up a bit.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II →

May 16, 2020 · 16:51

This keyboard design is an extremely cool design, if it had some way to attach an iPad to it. I would prefer mechanical switches but even with the current scissor switches, this would be a perfect lap keyboard for iPad Pros. Though it would need to be programmable, to be truly useful and universal.

My Photography (80) — The Train from Kandy to Ella, Sri Lanka, 2020

May 11, 2020 · 10:06

We took the morning train from Kandy to Ella and it wasn’t an easy journey — the train was full packed with people. I regret that we didn’t take the night train, which arrives in Ella in the morning and is supposedly close to empty. This is the train that I wrote about earlier. If we were to do this route again, I would definitely get on the train in Nanuoya and get off in Ella, to shorten the journey and still get to see all the wonderful views.

Shot with Sony A7R II + FE 28 mm f/2: f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 100.

John Gruber: ‘Who Is the Low-End MacBook Pro For?’ →

May 7, 2020 · 21:45

John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

The high-end 13-inch MacBook Pro is the professional model. Faster and more modern processors, double the ports, up to 32 GB of RAM (and the RAM is faster too). The low-end models are something else altogether. They’re not bad MacBooks by any sense — but I genuinely wonder who they’re for.

I bought a Touch Bar MacBook Pro in 2016 and returned it, because of its poor battery life and because I couldn’t accept the Touch Bar. I promptly ordered the MacBook Pro Escape in January 2017. Turns out I didn’t really need the extra horsepower of the more expensive models and preferred the additional hour of battery life.

But why did I go for it?

  1. It was cheaper and I was glad I could save some money.
  2. I had a mid 2014 MacBook Pro before this one. I upgraded it for the display, which supports the Display P3 colour gamut. This makes it on par with my iPhone and iPad, making it easier to colour-correct photos.
  3. I had a 2013 11” MacBook Air before I upgraded to the 2015 Pro. I upgraded because I needed a bigger screen, but I was completely satisfied with the performance of the Air and its 15W CPUs. The same category which is now in the low-end MacBook Pros.

I would have upgraded my late 2016 MacBook Pro to one of these new low-end models, despite them using 8th gen. Intel chips, if it didn’t have the cursed Touch Bar. It does have a physical Esc key now, so I might still change my mind, but the new MacBook Air is out of the question — the screen is sRGB. If it had a P3 screen, I would strongly consider the Core i5 model.

AR Cut & Paste →

May 4, 2020 · 13:14

Cyril Diagne:

An AR+ML prototype that allows cutting elements from your surroundings and pasting them in an image editing software.

Although only Photoshop is being handled currently, it may handle different outputs in the future.

This is amazing. Cyril’s code is up on Github.