iPhone prices on Apple.no (including 25% VAT, rounded up), that are not “fixed” are as follows: This is what Apple has intended. 17 Pro: 16,000 NOK (€1,430) Air: 15,000 NOK (€1,340) 17: 12,000 NOK (€1,072) But prices from the “ premium partner ” (that runs physical “Apple stores” in Norway) has a different tiering: 17 Pro: 16,000 NOK (€1,430) 17: 12,000 NOK (€1,072) Air: 10,500 NOK (€938) Now the…
Like bread, tools, and clothes My backpack is really, really nice. I do like the size, the rooms and pockets it has, etc. But the main thing is the way it looks and, perhaps most importantly, the way it feels . The zip is super satisfying to use, and every piece of material just feels solid. Just interacting with it brings me joy. Every day. If you want a proper review of the backpack, I liked…
Last week, there was a news story about how someone has been putting rat poison in jars of baby food. On Saturday, HiPP recalled its entire range of jarred purées sold in Spar supermarkets in Austria, saying consuming them may be potentially “life-threatening”. (…) The jar had apparently been tampered with, police said. Authorities believe at least one more poisoned jar is in…
Some people will look you dead in the eye, and say that “ this video of a veteran Disney animator, sketching out what the Beast could look like in the style of Studio Ghibli ” is exactly the same as “AI companies taking Miyazaki ’s work and feeding it to their models”.
iPadOS 26 was a popular release, as Apple solved* several of the iPad’s most glaring issues. However, the launch of the MacBook Neo has resurfaced various iPad frustrations — and reminded me of a thought I never got around to write about last summer: The one in the title. For a long time, people had hoped for better window management on the iPad. And they had to wait because it couldn’t be…
Ubiquiti’s UniFi series is getting a lot of (deserved) hype these days. However, as the system is meant to scale all the way from a regular home to huge enterprise settings, the purchasing process can be perplexing. Recently, this got mentioned in one of my favourite podcasts, Hemispheric Views , where Andrew Canion said he didn’t even know how to buy it, let alone use it . 1 One of…
Icon buffering The lack of polish in the latest macOS version is just insane — from cut corners , to text going over other pieces of text, and weird HIG decisions . But I wanted to point to a piece of terrible piece optimisation I haven’t seen mentioned (even though it probably has been) : Where's my icons?? This is on an M1 Pro — but it’s the same on my M4 Mac mini. Is it a big deal?…
The New Smart Home Line From Ikea I’ve always quite liked Ikea ’s smart home gear, as they’ve felt like good value for the price. However, with their latest batch of products, which are in stores now, it seems like they’re moving up to becoming the first thing I’ll recommend to most people! You know, if they actually work as advertised — which I haven’t got the…
Part 1 I’ve recently noticed how most of my favourite pieces of software have one thing in common: I can customise them — not only to be needs, but to my preferences. And I really think this should, and could, be more widespread. And I know that some iPhone users, when they hear customisable UI, might think: “Pff, why would I want a million ways to make my UI ugly, like an Android…
Not too long ago, I saw a thread over at r/BuyItForLife about winter boots. And as someone who likes the (even though often unrealistic) ethos behind that subreddit that’s also a Norwegian, I obviously have thoughts. How cold is cold? To be clear: Even though I live in Norway, I don’t live in the coldest parts. I also don’t stay outside for days at a time! If you’re working…
(Oops, I forgot to hit publish on this one last week..!) A detail about the new MacBook Pro in the EU (and also here in Norway, the UK, and Switzerland, even though we’re not in the EU) is that the laptop doesn’t come with a charger by default. The reason is a regulation that’s coming that says that companies like Apple need to provide users with the option not to get a charger .…
In general, I have to say that the tech on this year’s iPhones seem pretty good! But I’m a little bummed out by the fact that it seems like they’ve given up on making them look nice . Are they just thinking, “People will throw these in cases anyway — who cares?" 1 ? Previous iterations of Apple have also missed the balance between design and functionality — but in the other…
And a Dream of Opening a Store I just love good stuff . And I especially love the best 1 version of completely ordinary things. (Today I’m talking about clothes — but this could be about most goods.) The thing is, there are things that are luxuries, and made from luxury brands. But while these things are better than your ordinary wares, they’re not honest . Especially in women’s…
*Taps the Sign (Again) Today I saw this video , that has a premise I really like: A tier list of different music streaming services, mostly based on ethics. However, this reinvigorated my annoyance with the over-reliance on the payment per stream metric. Check out my grand idea for music streaming here . And also check out what I've written about streaming payment previously here . The most…
Modern Retro Gaming Masterpiece Imagine if someone, especially someone who likes retro gaming, told you: «What’s the NES ? I’ve never heard of it, or played any of the games.» And then imagine you could tell them they could buy the 50 best games for just €25. What a treat they’d be in store for! Dusting off old classics, and exploring a treasure trove of retro gaming they…
On the side, I do a bit of pedalboard building. And finally, I’m done with my own board — so I wanted to present it here! I’ll also go into all the pedals and why I chose them. Board and I/O The board itself is the smallest size made by Temple Audio . On the right side of the board, I can plug in power for all the pedals and Input A and B. I play with two basses live: My 1961 Fender P-Bass…
And Other Major Life Changes The last few months have been pretty wild… In April, my wife and I moved out of our tiny Oslo flat (41 m²) into her childhood home. This is a large (for us) 290 m² house in a smaller town. On the first night in the new house, with things pretty up in the air, our first baby decided he wanted to be born 3.5 weeks ahead of schedule. He’s a lovely guy! But it’s fair to…
One of my favourite apps to use, is Bike Outliner by Jesse Grosjean / Hogbay Software . It’s simply delightful through-and-through. He’s hard at work on a really promising 2.0, and I wanted to play with Apple’s new Icon Composer . So I wanted to see if I could contribute and adapt Bike’s icon to the new style. The original/current icon. Not optimal The original Bike icon…
When Blizzard Was the Best in the Business Growing up, I played a lot of the original StarCraft . (Even more than Broodwar .) So I was obviously hyped when StarCraft 2 launched 12 years later, in 2010. This was back when Blizzard Entertainment only made great games (even though I’ve never been into Word of Warcraft), and hadn’t discovered microtransactions and undercooked remasters . I…
Episode 137 Is the Perfect Place to Get Into the Most Charming Tech Podcast Some reasons why Hemispheric Views is one of my favourite tech podcasts: Three sympathetic hosts, with great chemistry. Some Australian perspective in my life. The goal of the episodes being “a tight 45” (minutes). Great bits and running jokes. (For instance, their member program is called One Prime Plus . 😁)…
The CEO of The Browser Company, the company behind the Arc browser, recently posted a lengthy Reddit post . He explained why they’ve abandoned Arc, and discussed a bit about their plans going forward. They’ve made a huge pivot to an upcoming AI browser they’re calling Dia. But I just wanted to comment on this, very stupid, approach, from the portion about what makes an “AI…
One Simple Rule I know that creating laws is very hard — especially at a global scale. 1 And figuring out what to do about the rise of AI is the same. But I have an idea about where I’d start, that I would love to spitball. My opinion regarding generative AI is currently something like this: It’s not as useful and amazing as the salesmen claim it is. And overestimating it has its…
I use several Apple devices. This is partly because I like them, and partly because I think they’re more worthy of my support than (for instance) Microsoft and Google. However, Apple is doing their best to invalidate that second point. I’d also love to be able to support cool companies, like Framework and Fairphone . So, I want to examine: How locked-in would I rate myself? Starting…
Just a Really Cool Woman In this instalment of Quick Remmondations , I’m going to recommend a person in general ! While listening to the last few episodes of one of my favourite tech podcasts, Comfort Zone , a thought has been growing in me: “ I think Niléane might be one of my favourite people online! ” (I do like both Matt and Chris as well, to be clear. 🫶🏻) She’s…
A Companion to My Favourite Mac Launcher Raycast 🖇️ is one of my favourite parts about using a Mac. It’s a great launcher, that I also use for snippets, window management, searching, setting a bunch of hotkeys (like for shortcuts), and more. It’s also my main window to AI tools, and the only AI subscription I have. I’m working on a full post on how I use Raycast – but now I just…
You Know, Those Who Need USB-A on the Other End I just listened to the latest episode of the Upgrade podcast. It was Myke Hurley ’s first episode after his parental leave – and as someone who got my first child less than a week ago, the episode obviously resonated with me. I intend to write a bit about some baby tech – but here I just wanted to throw out a quick recommendation for an…
Not More Dumb There are numerous reviews of the new Light Phone III going around – and this has invigorated discussions about having a dumber phone. There are also Android e-ink devices going around, with 🖇️ or without 🖇️ a SIM slot, which are cool. A friend of mine is considering how far he can get with the combination of an Apple Watch with a SIM and a Boox Palma. 👌🏻 I’m 100% in the…
I first wrote about this Mac and its setup here — and then I have an update here . However, quite quickly, I learned that the 2 TB of storage I had purchased wasn’t enough. The main culprit is Time Machine — and while I could probably do something to minimise the usage, backing up my wife’s MacBook Air (512 GB) and my MacBook Pro (512 GB) currently takes up about 1.1 TB. I was…
A friend of mine, Simen (who has a nice, Norwegian blog ), asked me about Micro.blog . That’s where this blog is hosted, and is also a social medium of sorts. His questions First, I want to give quick answers to the questions he had – and then go into more detail on how I’ve set things up. 1) “Which tier do you use, and why?" Micro.blog has several tiers : When I signed up, they…
Drifting Anime, That Drips With Style I’m not the biggest car-guy, even though I do enjoy a bit of car-YouTube from time to time. 1 But I just love the anime Initial D . The cars they drive remind me of my first real racing game: Gran Turismo on the first Playstation. And it has cemented owning a car with pop-up headlights on my bucket list. The show has lots of intense racing scenes, backed…
And a Guide to Pronunciation of My Name One of my favourite tech podcasts, is Comfort Zone . It’s hosted by Christopher Lawley , Niléane Dorffer , and Matt Birchler , and is simply a pretty chill time with neat people. Last week they asked for listener input, so I sent them a relevant blog post – and I got a little shoutout. ☺️ I’m thoroughly in the writing into the void phase of…
A Simple Story About iPhones and Perplexity A couple of mates and I have a little (private) Telegram group called The Nerd Garden (in Norwegian). And, among other things, we talk about technical equipment there. Recently, a friend asked for advice on buying a used iPhone. He said he was considering the 15 Pro vs. regular 16, and shared a link to Perplexity. 1 Part of the answer he got there, was…
I Want Your Opinion! I like custom keyboards, and a couple of years ago, I made my own: It's a Laneware L-67 and Macro-1 , with Less But Better keycaps. However, three things made this process harder/more expensive (at least at the time) : I wanted a Mac layout, while most keyboards are made for Windows, I needed the ISO layout , while most keyboards has the ANSI layout, and the Norwegian layout…
Do you, like me, get warm and fuzzy feelings from this sound ? My Heroes of Might and Magic journey started with HOMM 2 🖇️ – but I’ve probably spent the most time with HOMM 3 🖇️ . I still play it from time-to-time, but I’m also always interested in modern takes on the formula. One I like, is Hero’s Hour 🖇️ (currently 55% off!). Here the world map portion is very similar to…
Last night I came across a guy, who had been mugged, stabbed, and was bleeding out. He desperately needed me to drive him to the hospital. First I said: “Well, you shouldn’t have started it, when you allowed yourself to be attacked!” Secondly, I said I could help him if he promised me 50% of his income, for the rest of his life. And then, for some reason, he got mad?? I said to…
Imagine talking to a medieval farmer, about the concept of excercise . Giving yourself “useless” physical strain, to improve your health? Let’s call this idea artifical physical excercise . That wouldn’t make any sense to someone who would get more than enough strain through just living their life. And while it will vary greatly, from person to person, how much artificial…
I like the Apple TV (box). It’s the only way I watch TV! I like that it’s a competent and fast piece of hardware, without ads*, that gives me easy access to all the streaming I want. That it’s an app platform, makes it easy for even my niche Norwegian services to be a part of the platform. It can also have things like the excellent Infuse media player (for local files and…
And Thoughts on Alt Text I use many images on my blog. But that’s not because I’m a photo blogger, or use a lot of decorative illustration images – it’s usually because I want to show and/or explain something. I’m pleased with where my flow for uploading these, and adding them to my blog posts. So I would like to show what it looks like, and give thanks to Jarrod Blundy…
Not too long ago, I wrote some feedback to Iconfactory’s latest app, Tapestry . I just got some great feedback on that, from them, so I wanted to provide a response. Here’s what they wrote, on Mastodon : There’s a lot in your post. Thx for such thoughtful feedback, it’s appreciated. Some things like the ability to turn off the service name is coming. The thing to keep in mind is this:…
And Some Very Early Feedback Greg Morris is someone whose blog I’ve followed for a while, but I didn’t know was a developer. But now he has released a third-party iOS client for Micro.blog! As he’s mentioned, it happened “quite accidentally” , and it’s very early days. So this post is just me letting people know it exist , and providing some very early feedback.…
I recently wrote a review of Iconfactory ’s great app, Tot . I like it – but editing text in it does make me miss my favourite places to do this: Paper and Bike . And this process made me realise that the Paper dev has all* the pieces in place to give their take on an app like this. And it makes sense from a business perspective! The reasons I don't just use Paper for this now, is that I…
Original, Tactical, Recreational Last year, Panic published a terrific indie game I’d like to recommend: Arco . I’ve only played the first two acts, but I like it a lot so far. It has great pixel art, music, writing, and story. It also has a genuinely innovative turn-based combat, and guilt system, which makes in-game choices interesting. The launch trailer. It’s available on PC,…
Yesterday , I wrote about Iconfactory ’s newest app, Tapestry . Today, I want to do a little review of another great app of theirs, Tot . “Your tiny text companion” Tot is a scratchpad app, for fleeting notes. It was inspired by Tyke , which explains the need for this well: I made Tyke because when I’m working I often need a little bit of scratch paper to jot something…
The 1.0 of Iconfactory’s latest app, Tapestry , just landed. Like the new Reeder , it’s a “unified timeline app”, that collects feeds from many different sources, like RSS, Reddit, YouTube, Mastodon, and more. Some really like this idea (for instance for collecting Bluesky, Mastodon and Micro.blog in one place), while others don’t. I’m not yet sure where I…
It’s not often I finish video games… One of the reasons, is that I often play games you can’t finish – like Europa Universalis and The Bazaar 🖇️ . But I actually just finished, an r/patientgamers favourite: the Mad Max game , from 2015. And it’s actually at 80% off on GOG at the moment! It’s not a fantastic game – but if you like Mad Max ( like me ), I can recommend it. I…
I have no prior nostalgia for the CRPG series Ultima. I’ve always known about the series, but never played any of the games. Still, I’ve loved a series by the YouTube channel Majuular : Ultima Retrospective The videos are long – but well-made, with a combination of story behind the development and reception, plus a complete run-down of the gameplay and story. It’s also not done,…
And a Message to My Fellow Straight, White, Cis Men It’s been a rough couple of days over at my part of the internett… 1 And this has made me think about something I learned on a teacher seminar once: While dealing with tough student situations, always provide a way for them to come out of the situation with their dignity intact, while still achieving the goal behind the intervention.…
As we’re expecting a child in May, we need a bigger car. And here in Norway ~90% of new cars are EVs, so we’ll obviously buy one of those. If I look at price, range, charging, tech, and practicality, the best choice is the Tesla Model Y. 1 I have to pay significantly more to get something similar, or get something significantly worse. However, I do not want to add that much money to…
The magnificent Markdown editor Paper just became available on Setapp 🖇️ , making it more accessible for more people to try out! I’ve written a thorough review of it previously, but here are the things you need to know: It’s simply the best Markdown editing experience I know of. (And I’ve tried a lot.) Only Bear comes close. And it’s excellent both on Mac, iPad, and…
A More Noob-Friendly Terminal This is the third, and final, part of my terminal guide. The first one was about basic concepts, the second about why you might want to use and become familiar with the terminal, and this is how you can make your terminal more noob-friendly (regardless of what you’ll end up using it for). I’m not saying these things are stuff everyone should do – but they…