What caught my attention in week twenty-six, 2023
In continuation to week twenty-five, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in week twenty-six, 2023:
- 🎸 At the beginning of the week I was with my wife in Mannheim (Germany) at a concert of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had given the tickets to my wife for her birthday. Neither of us are fanatical fans, but the band has certainly been with us for over thirty years. I thought it would be one of the rare opportunities to see them live, and it was the only concert in Germany for this tour. Neither of us had been to such a big open-air concert of a single band before. It was quite impressive, even though I would say that we both still prefer smaller concerts. It was also nice that, among several thousand people, we met two friends at the entrance who we didn't know would be there. The next surprise was that Iggy Pop was on stage as the opening act. Really impressive what he still does on stage at his age. The journey home was very chaotic thanks to Deutsche Bahn. We ended up stranded in Frankfurt at 1 a.m. because of a delayed train and then had to take a cab 70 km home (not cheap!). Getting up early the next day with the kids and going to work was then less fun, but also not that bad.
- 💍 At the end of the week we were invited to a wedding party of a very good friend from my childhood. My wife and I took the train to Hamburg on Saturday.1 It's always nice to go back to the city where I was born and met my wife. The party was in St. Pauli, very close to the Reeperbahn. I used to go there very often in my youth, meanwhile I am actually too old for that. The party was very nice, even though we knew very few people. The next day we went to the Landungsbrücken, looked at the Elbe, listened to the screaming of the seagulls and enjoyed the wind, before we went home again.
- 🚶♂️ Besides that, I went cycling once (58 km) and walked a total of 65 km, 12 km of which I walked with the dog.
- 🏳️🌈 The ACAC is slowly but steadily gaining more and more members. It now has 25, even (Adam) joined this week! 🥳 Also, some background images have changed, because the Pride-Month has come to an end.
- 📄 On the software side, I ran across Paste. The clipboard manager has been released in version 4. You can try the new version via Setapp. But I still stick with the one integrated in Launchbar (alternative: Raycast or Alfred). Additionally I love to use Dropover (alternative: Yoink). If you don't need a launcher and for whom Paste is visually too bloated, you could also take a look at CopyLess 2.
- 🔋 Speaking of alternatives. I personally use AlDente (yep, also available on Setapp) but if you are looking for something similar, you might wann to look into BatFi: BatFi helps you optimize your macOS battery performance by managing charging levels intelligently, yet giving you full control.
- ⌨️ I've been totally happy all week that I finally started using Hyperkey. The app is so useful! 🥰
- 🔑 Apropops useful, Matt Birchler asked the other day which one third party app would you keep. I have to think about it some more, but I know that 1Password would definitely not be one of them (half a year ago, I would have mentioned it without hesitation). Of course, I could list many of my candidates now, but that would contradict the idea. So, CleanShot X would at least be a hot candidate and I was happy to see the other day in the release notes a feature I suggested some time ago: "Improved interaction with Annotate window by making it draggable from the bottom bar". BTW CleanShot X is well complemented by Xnapper. Both are also available on - I think you know ... 😎
- 📈 Feditrends seems to be quite nice. Have already discovered a few nice news and posts through it.
- 👽 Alexandra has posted her Top Fav SciFi Movies. Many, very good movies on the list. Made me want to watch some of them again. If only I had more time.
- 📱 Robb Knight posted a link to the Mobile Phone Museum. What a great collection! Unfortunately, I don't really remember my first model. But it was one that looked very similar to the Sony CMD-C1.
- 🟨 For my train trip to Hamburg I bought Spike II: The great emu war for the Playdate.
- 📺 No TV and no movies for me this week.
- 🎙 Podcasts this week:
- Accidental Tech Podcast: 541: Make a Little Maze
- AppStories: Do Wishes Come True? (Part 1)
- Clockwise: 508: Text Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
- Core Intuition: Episode 562: AppKit Is Dying
- Hemispheric Views: 088: I Don’t Like The Residue!
- The Talk Show With John Gruber: 380: ‘The M Is for Magnificent’, With Matthew Panzarino
- Upgrade: 465: No Dark Modes, Only Dark Rooms
- So we have covered over half of the north-south span of Germany this week 😎↩︎