Day of the Doug: The Songs of Doug Sahm
Should be lots of happy people in Minneapolis the next few days
Now that the WWDC news has faded (and resurrected again today with the new beta releases and SDK), I’ve started to think about what my next purchases will be. I’m super fortunate to have great working gear right now, so there is no big rush on anything. Apple hardware just lasts such a long time: my home office iMac is from 2017 and my Apple Watch is a Series 5, which was released in 2019. I use both daily and they still work great.
My laptop, tablet and phone are all newer and also get heavy daily use. Thanks to the iPhone Upgrade Program, I do tend to turn in phones every year for the newest model. My only decision this year will be if I want to move back up to the larger screen or not. If the best camera ends up being exclusive to the Max, I’ll probably do a 256GB Pro Max.
If I were to order a new work laptop today, I’d go with the new 15-inch MacBook Air. $1499 for the base 8/512 model is a great value. A fully loaded 24/2TB model goes for $2499, which is what I’d get for a personal use laptop. My 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro will likely last a long, long time, though. I mainly use my iPad Pro for watching video on the treadmill, so I don’t see needing a new tablet anytime soon either (same goes for our AppleTV units).
I’ll reserve all opinions on the Vision Pro until the developers go wild and I get a chance to see if my specific optical prescription will even work with the custom inserts. My initial reaction was overall positive (and much different than I expected from the rumors), but also that I probably wouldn’t want one right away. The reality is that I’ve thought that about most of the recent platform additions, but ended up buying all of them in the end (most on launch day too).
Outside of the next phone, though, here are my top 3 wish list purchases: 1) Apple Watch Ultra with Black/Gray Trail Loop, 2) the next version of the AirPods Max and 3) the next version of the iMac…
macOS Ventura 13.4.1 ✅, iOS 16.5.1 ✅, iPadOS 16.5.1 ✅, watchOS 9.5.1 ✅ (no tvOS update so far)
Wow – Apple Music just played a Tom Petty song I don’t think I’ve ever heard before…
Are you trying to tell me that there’s a party in your pants and that I’m invited?
— Veronica Corningstone
Just a lovely, warm summer afternoon with the Nive Man in Northfield
Remembered I forgot to post this pic on Sunday (after reading the story about Bethesda Hospital being torn down)
One from the list with Keri and Scott. Solid food, but the way they handled the happy hour cutoff with long ordering lines means we will probably go elsewhere for more BBQ…
Can’t believe this is the same building – new Centro/Everywhen Burger Bar in Highland Park
Super nice job by the Mill City crew on the new Saint Paul location – grabbed a new hat and sticker too #WaveRider27
We must develop earlier in life an avocation, to maintain our interest in life. Such outside lines of thought and diversion are the more successful when they bring us in contact with nature, birds, gardens, geology, and the like.
— Dr. Charles Mayo
After reading a blog post called “Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?” by Bloonface, I thought, “what kind of name is Bloonface?” Then I thought, I should write an update to my April Mastodon post. So here we are.
To be honest, I haven’t been following user numbers like I did at the beginning, so I can’t verify the “active user numbers have dropped off a cliff” statement. All I know is that a few friends who joined don’t post much and none of my family have created accounts, but WWDC week on Mastodon for me was as busy as any on Twitter. I’m now following 307 accounts and easily see similar daily traffic on Ivory as I did on Tweetbot.
I only have 34 followers, so I’ve never really been exposed to trolls or gatekeepers. As a white male, I also don’t get any of the crap that women and people of color often experience on social media platforms. And since I’m on mastodon.social, I’ve never had any issues with the moderators or their policies and I think the only service issue was spam-related (and addressed quickly).
For me, going back to Twitter is a non-starter. I don’t really care all that much about decentralization or that the platform runs on open source tools, but I do love that my Ivory timeline is just the people I follow, in chronological order, with no ads. Still waiting for my Bluesky invite to do a trial there, but I don’t see that ever being like the Tweetbot/Ivory experience. And what a hype machine they have – all that press and buzz for 100K accounts?
Running an instance is too expensive and has too many issues (in my opinion), so just like with email servers, I’ve decided I will pass on that indefinitely. I don’t currently pay for mastodon.social, but I would (and probably will eventually). Mastodon is my only social media (outside of LinkedIn), so I guess that makes me “weird relative to the rest of the Internet.”
Stay weird, Mastodon, stay weird…
As I’ve been watching the U.S. Open today at Los Angeles Country Club, it reminded me of the latest Golf Digest rankings that I linked to recently. LACC’s North course is ranked #16 and hasn’t really been seen by many people until this week. Turns out it was just a few blocks away from my last visit to L.A. and I didn’t even know it.
Going back to the rankings (Top 100 and Next 100), I went through again and found the ones I’ve played:
- #84 Interlachen (pictured)
- #96 Pasatiempo
- #127 Streamsong Red
- #138 Hazeltine
- #148 Atlanta Athletic Club Highlands
- #151 Streamsong Blue
Six out of 200 isn’t a very good ratio, but I don’t really see it changing much anytime soon. Cypress Point Club (#3) is my biggest dream course, but Southern Highlands (#161) and Streamsong Black (#178) probably have the highest likelihood of happening. Oh, would still like to hit Shadow Creek (#27) too…
Full album now available – presale for the October shows with the Minnesota Orchestra start July 31