June 26, 2023

Weekender #119: TL;DR and Mac Mini M2 Pro

  • Birb watch: Continuing the drama from last week, poor baby myna is now getting chased away by both Handsome and Matey mynah (its parents). Baby myna is learning to dodge and maneuver in flight really well because of their attacks. I suspect that the baby will be gone by the end of the week since the parents aren’t willing to share any food anymore.

  • I finally got off my butt and turned one of my ideas into reality! I’ve had this idea for a rock and roll-inspired TL;DR logo since about 2012. Now it’s available for sale as a sticker. Check it out here, along with Audra’s stickers too.

  • After 10 years of 24/7 service, I retired my home server, a Mac Mini (Late 2012). It was purchased from Apple as a refurb back in April 2013, and it’s been plugged in and running ever since. From what I can recall, this was the last Mac Mini that was upgradeable, so I beefed up the stock configuration with more RAM and added an internal SSD. While it was still functioning fine and doing all of the duties I needed it to do, it was time for an upgrade, as I couldn’t upgrade macOS any longer.

    • A few weeks ago, Apple began selling refurbished Mac Mini M2 Pros, so I decided that it was time to upgrade. I opted for the M2 Pro over the standard M2, mostly for the additional Thunderbolt 4 ports. It arrived this past week, and I like it. It’s very fast and quiet, and it will run the latest version of macOS for a long time. Although it has a lot of ports, I need a couple more USB-A ports (I’ll dig up an old USB 3 hub for this), and I wish it had an SD card reader. I’m fairly certain the M2 Pro will use less power than the Intel Mac Mini as well.

This week’s Link List

Machine Learning

Design

  • The good line-height is a webpage that will help you calculate the optimum line-height based on the font size and grid of your project.

  • Jacob ‘Kurt’ Groß has a good write-up on the modern way of serving images.

  • I didn’t even know it was possible, but apparently you can style your RSS feed.

  • Free Faces is a curated collection of typefaces that are available under a variety of free licenses.

  • This GitHub repository features a set of dot matrix fonts in the style of TfL’s London Underground arrivals board.

Mastodonish

  • The Reddit debacle continued this week, and it seems like some Redditors are looking for alternatives to Reddit communities. Check out the Reddit Migration Directory and sub.rehab if you’re looking at abandoning Reddit.

Software and hardware

Miscellaneous

  • No Vehicles In The Park is an interesting game/quiz that allows you to compare your results to those of others who have taken the test.

Media consumption

  • Audra and I went to the opening night of the new Wes Anderson film, Asteroid City. I think Wes Anderson out-Wes Anderson’d himself with this film. As always, the cast was packed with great talent and surprises. I loved the colors and cinematography as well as the quirky story that went along with it.

  • Luke’s back with a new album! Steve Lukather’s ninth solo album, Bridges, could pass for a Toto album judging from the credits. Joseph Williams, Simon Philips, and David Paich all contributed to the tracks. Compared to his previous solo album, I Found the Sun Again, from 2021, Bridges takes Luke back to the heavier riffs his solo albums are known for. All eight tracks are amazing! Listen on Bandcamp and Apple Music.

by Scott Yoshinaga

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