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Until his dying day
Bastian Allgeier: My Grandpa Was a Nazi
I wondered for many years, how all of this could have happened. How people like my grandpa turned into monsters and people around him watched or turned into monsters with him. The last years made this very clear.
Sometimes you see a blog post and think to yourself
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Here’s to another 40 🎂
Dan Moren: After 40 Years, the Mac Is Immortal
Forty years. In the world of technology, where many devices seem
Concepts
Concept: a new Mastodon UX for asking questions
So you know how sometimes you can't figure something out so you ask a question on social media
How I built my Ghost membership and what it costs to operate
This isn't going to be a full tutorial, but yesterday I started a paid tier for Birchtree (sign
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I’d like to return your product, it reminds me too much of a xenomorph
Andy Nicolaides: If VR Is the Future, I’m Screwed
Using a Quest 3, for me, is liking shipping in a Face Hugger from Alien and treating it to a candlelit meal before inviting it home to latch onto your face for some intrusive chest impregnatation.
This was too vivid not to link to 😂
Members
Boys and girls and video games (members post)
This inaugural More Birchtree post delves into what we want to get out of video game representation, a shout out to my favorite current writer, one of my all-time favorite apps, and a few cool goodies like the Wii Shop music on Amazon.
Introducing More Birchtree
More details below, but brass tacks, More Birchtree is a way to get more Birchtree writing, ad-free browsing, and
Apple
I need the meat and potatoes
At the end of 2023 I wrote this about what I expected to see from Apple before they announced the
Apple
Vision Pro and the adoption curve
Above is a deranged version of the innovation curve that is often brought out when thinking about products (often tech
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In which I get loud about Avatar out of nowhere
Robin Rendle: Be Loud About the Things You Love
A writing tip for myself in the future, if I may
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Apple will let US merchants link to payments on the web, but Apple will still take their cut
You should read Chance Miller’s whole article on 9to5Mac, but I wanted to share my immediate thoughts after seeing this.
Apple is updating its App Store guidelines to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods, provided that the app also offer purchases through Apple’s own In-App Purchase system.
First off, this
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News app Artifact is shutting down next month
Kevin Systrom: Shutting Down Artifact
We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.
It’s a shame this app didn’t make it. I liked it in theory, and I know a few
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Probably my last Substack post for a while (Platformer joins the Ghost club)
Casey Newton: Why Platformer Is Leaving Substack
After much consideration, we have decided to move Platformer off of Substack. Over the next few days, the publication will migrate to a new website powered by the nonprofit, open-source publishing platform Ghost. If you already subscribe to Platformer and wish to continue receiving it, you don’
Getting in my own way
It felt really good to post 2 videos this week on A Better Computer. The first was a planned video about Up Ahead, an app I love, and the second was a surprise one about BBEdit since they added an interesting new feature. I'm proud of both videos, and I think the second
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I don’t have strong opinions about a product I haven’t used
Joe Rossignol for MacRumors: iPhone Was Missing These 10 Essential Features When Unveiled in 2007
Today marks the 17th anniversary of the late Steve Jobs unveiling the original iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. While the device was significantly more advanced than any other smartphone on the market at the time, the iPhone
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Who’s ready for Walmart to decide what food you buy?
David Pierce for The Verge: Walmart’s AI Search Makes Shopping Faster, and Its AI Delivery Makes It Invisible
The future of grocery shopping is no grocery shopping at all. It’s your fridge just being full, always, automatically.
A couple things on this one…
First, for many people, you don’t buy as much
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Substack wants to have its cake and eat it too
Casey Newton: Substack Says It Will Remove Nazi Publications From the Platform
over the past couple years Substack has come to more closely resemble the social networks it often criticizes. Each week, Substack sends users a personalized, algorithmically ranked digest of posts from writers they don’t yet follow — a feature that can help fringe
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How we can maybe explain the rumored upcoming very expensive iPads
Tim Hardwick: OLED iPad Pro Prices to Start From $1,500, Rising to as Much as $2,000
Apple's upcoming OLED iPad Pro will start at $1,500, rising to between $1,800 and $2,000 depending on size and configuration, representing a major increase in prices compared to Apple's current