18 Feb 2026: Spotlight has recently become terrible for launching apps after being so good for years. Now when I …
29 Dec 2025: Karbon Based, And Stay Out: I sometimes think about what we lost along the way as Apple chased …
25 Feb 2025: I’ve been doing some C programming lately — not NetNewsWire, don’t worry! (it’s a personal project) …
17 Feb 2025: Just today I learned about Codeberg, “a non-profit, community-led effort that provides Git hosting …
10 Feb 2025: I hadn’t looked at my Safari Privacy Report in a while. Wow Google! Holding the top five spots. …
07 Jan 2025: Engineers — new rule — pay attention: whenever you hear or read the word learnings, as said or …
18 Dec 2024: This has been the greatest long-term technical challenge of my life, off and on for years — but I …
06 Dec 2024: I get that “stop doing Combine!” sounds like an old guy thing to say — but I’m in on Swift …
06 Dec 2024: I keep telling the younger developers “stop doing Combine!” and… they keep doing Combine. To be …
21 Nov 2024: It’s Seattle Xcoders night! Standard place and time — 7 pm at Bale Breaker in Ballard. We’re usually …
31 Jan 2024: Pretty stoked about the Seahawks hiring Mike Macdonald. SAVIOR OF BOOM!
26 Jan 2023: Note to Mastodon users — if you’re following this account (@brentsimmons@micro.inessential.com), you …
24 Jan 2023: Enjoying some photos from an old family photo album.
20 Jan 2023: It is shocking how many episodes of “Little House on the Prairie” are rated 13+ these days.
19 Jan 2023: Wondering how long before Twitter will stop letting RSS readers use the Twitter API.
18 Jan 2023: When Apple gives a customer a refund, does all the money come from the developer, or does Apple …
15 Jan 2023: Craig Hockenberry writes, in The Shit Show, that “It feels like the time is right for a truly …
14 Jan 2023: On the NetNewsWire blog — How to Subscribe to a Twitter List in NetNewsWire.
13 Jan 2023: Here’s the help page on subscribing to Twitter feeds in NetNewsWire for Mac. Instructions are …
13 Jan 2023: Reminder — if you still want to read Twitter, but don’t otherwise need to engage, you can switch to …
13 Jan 2023: 49ers fans should be nervous.
13 Jan 2023: I don’t know enough about these things to agree or disagree with any of the article — but I find it …
12 Jan 2023: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the very definition of working …
12 Jan 2023: Every day Touch ID seems to work less and less well for me. But, as annoying as that is, there’s a …
08 Jan 2023: I’m so glad to see that, at least so far, this year’s covid winter surge in the U.S. is so small …
07 Jan 2023: For some unknown reason, Swift protocol names ending in “ing” are like nails on chalkboard to me. I …
07 Jan 2023: One of my many favorite Bowie recordings is his cover of Scott Walker’s Nite Flights. Here’s the …
07 Jan 2023: DJ Jake Rudh is doing a Remembering David Bowie event on Twitch tonight — a “5+ hour program of …
04 Jan 2023: Kevin McCarthy thought that all the soul-destroying things he’s done over the years would all be …
01 Jan 2023: Make this the year you stop using comma splices.
31 Dec 2022: Back to the Double R on Angelo Badalamenti.
30 Dec 2022: Sheila and I tested positive again. Rebound. Family Christmas further postponed. Pissed off at this …
26 Dec 2022: After one week, I finally tested negative for covid. Whew! I feel fine now, and really wanted the …
23 Dec 2022: Though I can’t know for sure, I credit Paxlovid with pulling me out of the worst of it.
23 Dec 2022: Recovering from covid. I’ve never had a cold before that would attack in multiple places, move on, …
18 Dec 2022: I’ve stopped clicking on Twitter links. Starve the site of attention.
16 Dec 2022: Since pretty early days in OS X, I’ve always held down the option key when resizing my Dock so that …
13 Dec 2022: I miss the old days when people would get really mad if an app phoned home.
12 Dec 2022: Twitter is, like Gab, Parler, and Truth Social, a right wing social network.
09 Dec 2022: “As I mentioned earlier” is Chatbot’s version of Siri’s exasperated “proceed to the route.”
06 Dec 2022: Every layer of abstraction you add translates to lost productivity in the future.
04 Dec 2022: The genius of Swift structured concurrency isn’t async/await — it’s @MainActor.
04 Dec 2022: The easiest code to read, debug, maintain, and extend is synchronous code that runs on the main …
28 Nov 2022: Another sign that the web heals as Twitter gets sicker — ooh.directory is a new collection of “blogs …
26 Nov 2022: Correct me if I’m wrong — but I’ve long thought that variables names like postId and sanitizeHtml …
25 Nov 2022: John Scalzi, How to Weave the Artisan Web: Wouldn’t it be nice to have a site that’s not run by an …
24 Nov 2022: Blogs are social media. These days people seem to think social media is just social networking — …
23 Nov 2022: MarsEdit 5 Public Beta includes a “New ‘Micropost’ interface for streamlined publishing of …
21 Nov 2022: This being your periodic reminder that macopenweb.com is a good list of apps.
19 Nov 2022: I found this nice page of mostly-text-only websites.
18 Nov 2022: Added to my RSS reader — twitterisgoinggreat.com/feed.xml (Via Daring Fireball.)
18 Nov 2022: One time I overheard this bit of conversation on a bus: “Who works at Facebook?” “Nobody. It’s just …
16 Nov 2022: I’m at the age where Touch ID works only about a third of the time.
14 Nov 2022: Saw this cat yesterday.
12 Nov 2022: Since micro.blog integrates with Mastodon, you can now follow me on Mastodon — I’m …
12 Nov 2022: I tried a few Git clients for Mac today, and I couldn’t find one that prioritizes the part that …
01 Nov 2022: You have an unhealthy relationship with multithreading.
31 Oct 2022: Life lesson it took me a long time to learn — that whenever you tell a busy and overwhelmed person …
29 Oct 2022: Go Phillies! The hopes and dreams of all of America are on your shoulders.
28 Oct 2022: Prediction: Phillies win by two runs today. Verlander completes fewer than six innings.
29 Apr 2022: Took my first ever at-home covid test yesterday (negative; just allergies) — and I was surprised how …
15 Apr 2021: Note to people who work for corporations: “lessons” is a perfectly good and useful word. We don’t …
14 Apr 2021: I realized the other day that I’m the age Hemingway was when he published “The Old Man and the Sea.” …
06 Mar 2021: Pioneer Press: She didn’t have a prom date and wound up on a talk show at 16. Her story will be …
03 Mar 2021: We’ve got sea lions in my neighborhood! www.myballard.com/2021/03/0…
17 Feb 2021: Stop consuming content.
16 Feb 2021: SwiftUI LazyVStack in a ScrollView. Animation set to default. Add some pinned views — they skate …
16 Feb 2021: How does one account for the sometimes large difference between crash log counts coming from …
15 May 2020: Another reason our pandemic may be forgotten is highlighted by Doc Searls’s post Will our digital …
25 Apr 2020: I keep thinking how the 1918 pandemic was followed by the Roaring Twenties.
13 Apr 2020: It’s all I can do to stop myself from going through all of Crafting Interpreters in one sitting.
04 Apr 2020: Today I ran across this blog post I wrote in 2015, and it might be the post that sums up my coding …
04 Apr 2020: Dear extroverts, we love you, but me and my fellow introverts are not going to be able to save you.
17 Mar 2020: I keep remembering that a vaccine is a year-and-a-half away, and so there’s every reason to think …
17 Mar 2020: I hate to say this, but — if your face itches due to facial hair, and you keep touching your face, …
13 Mar 2020: “Don’t multiply entities” is not just a great razor — it’s also words to live by when designing an …
11 Mar 2020: I watch TV now just for the scenes of people in restaurants, so I can remember what it was like.
11 Mar 2020: Please join me in calling it the “Trump virus” from now on.
10 Mar 2020: In honor of tonight’s WA state primary, we’re making sloppy joes for dinner.
19 Feb 2020: Me DuckDuckGo-ing: when’s lunch is anyone else hungry could we have lunch now please what about …
17 Feb 2020: Why do AppStoreConnect and Xcode Organizer show different crash logs for a given TestFlight build?
08 Feb 2020: This is your periodic reminder that macopenweb.com has some pretty good lists.
29 Jan 2020: You know that “this milk has gone sour, taste it” thing? In that spirit, have a taste of …
28 Jan 2020: Is there no way, on iOS, to specify the default RSS reader — that is, specify the app that handles …
27 Jan 2020: I just renewed therecord.co for three years (the max it would let me). It gives me great pleasure to …
20 Jan 2020: When we released NetNewsWire for iOS build 28, we were down to 16 bugs. Now, with build 29, we’re …
15 Jan 2020: Slack is the Emacs of today.
14 Jan 2020: A pet peeve is when politicians or pundits say “we have a president” or “we have an administration” …
14 Jan 2020: I wish those filthy cheaters the Houston Asterisks would go back to the National League where they …
31 Dec 2019: People on the NetNewsWire Slack are suddenly talking about a Mac app called Hammerspoon, which I’d …
28 Dec 2019: Sometimes I think that if web browsers were written entirely for the benefit of the people who use …
27 Dec 2019: Laptop Capri steals content from Six Colors and, I presume, other places. It’s weird because it …
25 Dec 2019: In a dream last night, I’m back in high school, and it’s a Kafkan nightmare. Utterly realistic. But …
25 Dec 2019: It occurs to me that not everybody around the world knows the alternate lyrics. Jingle bells Batman …
23 Dec 2019: The Seahawks have lost their top three running backs to season-ending injuries — and this team …
19 Dec 2019: The impeachment and upcoming trial in the Senate is not so much a test of Trump but of Republicans …
19 Dec 2019: Jeff Huang writes This Page is Designed to Last.
18 Dec 2019: Let’s call him #3 instead of #45.
18 Dec 2019: This is a serious and somber day, and I feel like dancing. I won‘t apologize for this — whenever …
16 Dec 2019: Baby Vodka
12 Dec 2019: Cyclops Christmas tree ornament made by Carmen. Ornament is sitting on a lemur who’s holding a sonic …
12 Dec 2019: Family member, notorious for using iPhone dictation, sends text re medical status of another family …
12 Dec 2019: My New Year’s resolution is probably gonna be to get a hearing aid. Fuck.
12 Dec 2019: It’s 12/12 — and I always remember that Q Branch was officially founded 12/12/12. We shipped Vesper …
10 Dec 2019: Anil Dash, “Link In Bio” is a slow knife: And the ultimate triumph of being anti-web is to make …
10 Dec 2019: I’m the guy who gets Thanos and Theranos mixed-up.
10 Dec 2019: The House of Representatives published articles of impeachment today I KNOW BUT GET A LOAD OF THIS …
10 Dec 2019: I like to make band names from Swift programming terms. Static Void would be a great punk rock band. …
09 Dec 2019: Please stop using the word “consume” when you mean read, watch, or listen to. It makes us sound like …
09 Dec 2019: I take a bus to work — but maybe in the future I’ll be able to take a water taxi. I would love that.
03 Dec 2019: My favorite line of my code in my app — which appears in multiple places — is …
03 Dec 2019: I would try using Smart Speed®, but I do all my podcast listening on a Mac. Waiting patiently for …
03 Dec 2019: I listen to all my podcasts — no exceptions — at 1x. AMA.
02 Dec 2019: What’s the best Geiger counter under $100?
02 Dec 2019: Missing Cyberian Outpost today.
20 Nov 2019: Jim Willis writes about the Free Internet vs. Internet of Free Stuff.
20 Nov 2019: Joe Heck has an update to Using Combine. I expect to rely heavily on his book as I’m learning …
18 Nov 2019: This article from 2014 — about why Webster’s 1913 dictionary is amazing, and how you can import it …
17 Nov 2019: Mail on Macs and on iOS should have a next-unread command.
15 Nov 2019: The impeachment hearings today with Marie Yovanovitch reminded me of my blog post from July 4, 2017, …
15 Nov 2019: I’ve said before, and I’ll repeat: I want to see Trump, his family, and his enablers all come to see …
13 Nov 2019: Sometimes I long for the simplicity of Objective-C.
08 Nov 2019: One great benefit to having a free app: I never have to go to App Store Connect to generate IAP …
04 Nov 2019: RSS.app is a web service that makes feeds from web pages. (Via John Brayton.)
04 Nov 2019: On my blog, Dec. 11, 2015: The Nightmare Scenario.
04 Nov 2019: Every cat everywhere dreams of the hot sands of Egypt.
31 Oct 2019: With NNW for iOS, we’re finding that, in 13.2, it goes like this: App goes to background. Has 20 …
31 Oct 2019: Just for the day: typealias WicKedWebView = WKWebView
31 Oct 2019: Baseball, it is often said, is a game of failure. This makes the Mariners the greatest baseball team …
31 Oct 2019: Now that the Nationals have won the World Series, it’s tempting for this Mariners fan to think that …
30 Oct 2019: There has been some discussion about Apple’s developer documentation being less-than-complete, and …
29 Oct 2019: I learned today that not everybody’s aware of my personal favorite new feature in iOS 13: context …
24 Oct 2019: On Catalina, setting NSSavePanel’s nameFieldStringValue works on the first call but not on …
23 Oct 2019: This is the post-to-Twitter sheet from NetNewsWire 1.0 for iPad in 2010. Crazy how we used to do …
22 Oct 2019: Here’s what my blog inessential.com looks like in the Finder. Its 20th birthday is coming up in a …
20 Oct 2019: Nobody talks about it, seems like, but I’ve noticed this for years — the Seahawks lose if it’s …
18 Oct 2019: In NetNewsWire, I use JavaScript evaluation with a WKWebView to get the current scroll position. It …
18 Oct 2019: We had a bug in NetNewsWire for iOS where it couldn’t clean up Siri Shortcuts — and then Maurice …
16 Oct 2019: Fact of life: it always looks like things come easier for other people. Sometimes it’s true, but …
15 Oct 2019: I’m not going to change my display name for the Halloween season — but, if I were going to change …
15 Oct 2019: Fact of life: no matter if you’re a software company, open source app, user group, or just a person, …
15 Oct 2019: If our various Xcoders and CocoaHeads and NSCoder Night groups leave Meetup, what should we do about …
10 Oct 2019: Just me? Whenever I see a wapo.st URL, I hear it in my head as “Wah Poe Street.”
10 Oct 2019: I love that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were nabbed at the airport.
10 Oct 2019: I just remembered what I was reading while at that math camp in 1981, when I was 13 — Stranger in a …
10 Oct 2019: I’ve posted this before, but I love this picture. Me in 1981 at a summer math camp at St. Mary‘s …
10 Oct 2019: It’s been the work of a lifetime for me to stop believing that Jim Morrison isn’t really dead and is …
10 Oct 2019: Last reminder — tonight is the Xcoders 15th anniversary! It’ll be fun! We’ll even have some …
09 Oct 2019: I’m inside one of those moments where everything turned quiet. No noise at work. Hardly any emails …
08 Oct 2019: Sometimes I miss focus rings on the Mac. Sure, they were visual clutter, but they solved a real …
07 Oct 2019: The section on pricing in the Fiery Feeds for Mac announcement is interesting. While you can write …
03 Oct 2019: I think I suffer from gesture overload. I can’t remember all of them, and there are new ones every …
03 Oct 2019: I’m 51 years old, and I use computers and iOS devices all day, and I admit that I find them more …
03 Oct 2019: Yesterday I made a Shared Album in Photos on Mac (Mojave). I dragged 179 photos to it, then switched …
03 Oct 2019: Last night I learned that you can turn off live photos. I thought they were all just live these …
26 Sep 2019: Random sunset-over-the-Olympics pic taken in my neighborhood. Probably from June.
26 Sep 2019: I assume Maelstrom is a 32-bit app and won’t run on Catalina. I may need to keep a 10.14 partition …
26 Sep 2019: TIL: you can find out if you System Integrity Protection (SIP) enabled by running, on the command …
26 Sep 2019: Reminder: it’s Seattle Xcoders unofficial night at Cyclops around 6:30 pm. I’ll be there. 🐣🎩
26 Sep 2019: Lots of people call it “Eggplant Wasteland” but its real name is “Baba Ghanouj.”
25 Sep 2019: Oldie-but-goodie, from 2013: Brian’s Stupid Feed Tricks
24 Sep 2019: We can’t keep using the death of Google Reader as an excuse to give up on the open web.
17 Sep 2019: Sometimes I hear it as “Gothic of interest” instead of “conflict of interest,” and I like it my way …
17 Sep 2019: That coked-up piano line in the theme music to Succession.
16 Sep 2019: The only people burned by the switch from CRT to LCD monitors were cats.
16 Sep 2019: Sure, it looks like a piece of junk — but on this Apple Extended Keyboard II I’ve written …
16 Sep 2019: If you live in the Seattle area, and you’re looking for a quilting guild to join, take a look at …
14 Sep 2019: Is there an iOS 13 bug with deleting NSUserActivity? Or are we doing something wrong? Help! See …
13 Sep 2019: I was quite convinced that “thunderbolt” isn’t even a real word. But my Webster’s has it: “A shaft …
13 Sep 2019: Well I just realized — it took me this long — that the name “Thunderbolt” makes no sense. Thunder …
11 Sep 2019: Don’t hate me for this.
10 Sep 2019: This being Seattle, Eddie Vedder jumped up on stage to help sing “Devil Doll.” So cool.
10 Sep 2019: In the past two days I’ve seen The English Beat, X, and Squeeze. AMA.
04 Sep 2019: In the latest Xcoders podcast, Liz Marley and Jared Sorge talk with fellow Xcoder Aleen Simms about …
01 Sep 2019: For people who listen to The Talk Show — I happened to be on the phone with Jim Dalrymple after …
29 Aug 2019: My favorite part of the (well-done) review of NetNewsWire on The Sweet Setup: “Everything about NNW …
22 Aug 2019: Theory: the people you pay attention to have blogs and/or podcasts. Rarely are they Twitter-only …
22 Aug 2019: The clouds have burned off, and it will be a beautiful night on the Rob Roy patio. Old Fashioned for …
22 Aug 2019: I’ll be at the unofficial Xcoders thing tonight — probably get there around 6:30. At the Cyclops in …
16 Aug 2019: Ballard, Meghan Walker: Woman attempts to steal fishing vessel from Ballard shipyard
15 Aug 2019: One thing I haven’t said enough… I’m doing my best to make NetNewsWire a great app and I want it to …
14 Aug 2019: I’m sick of Republican presidents making me lose money. (I’m way more sick of the racism and cruelty …
13 Aug 2019: Bring. Technorati. Back. (Or something like it but modern, of course.)
12 Aug 2019: WordPress, it should be noted, is not evil. Which is refreshing and awesome and still a surprise, …
09 Aug 2019: When I’m doing web work, I have two goals: Make the content interesting enough that people will …
09 Aug 2019: These junior raccoons are sleeping on the roof of my garage. There’s an apple tree behind them — I …
06 Aug 2019: I’ll never understand the lessons of Star Wars. If you’re emotional about your friends and family, …
06 Aug 2019: If 9/11 had happened in 1941, then the current year would be 1959.
29 Jul 2019: Windmill for iPhone, which helps provide continuous delivery for developers (which sounds like a …
29 Jul 2019: 90% of life is just throwing up.
25 Jul 2019: For the last few days I’ve been getting some kind of knock-knock-knock sound periodically on my Mac. …
25 Jul 2019: If I wrote, in some marketing copy, the phrase “ready for the hot new coolness in iOS 13” — would …
23 Jul 2019: If I had time, I would write The AppKit Book. But I don’t. I wish someone else would.
11 Jul 2019: Random memory — in the code base I worked on in the late ’90s, we referred to 255-character Pascal …
11 Jul 2019: One question I keep asking myself every day these last few years is “Where are the Christians?”
11 Jul 2019: Social media is a virus from outer space.
09 Jul 2019: Main Thread Model, Serial Queue Database Is there a name for this particular pattern? This is how I do things in NetNewsWire — it’s a pattern …
09 Jul 2019: I would like it if Mac laptops came with a no-camera option. I never use it. It’s just a privacy and …
09 Jul 2019: My calendar hack is that I add two alerts for each thing. One ten minutes before, so I have plenty …
04 Jul 2019: I just spent a few weeks writing code to make async database fetches for the timeline work in …
04 Jul 2019: I’m not going to watch this shit live on TV. But I’ll certainly watch, and enjoy, any funny and …
03 Jul 2019: The screenshot in this article exists because I actually do have a repeating (Monday-Friday) action …
02 Jul 2019: Volunteers needed for Ballard SeafoodFest
28 Jun 2019: I saw Howard Jones at the Moore last night. He was magnificent. I loved it! And I quite like his new …
27 Jun 2019: Remember that Jony Ive is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors.
27 Jun 2019: Ivexit. Jonexit? Aluminiexit? Trying. I got nothing.
27 Jun 2019: Ive leaving. Commence Kremlinology.
26 Jun 2019: Many people today have reminded me that installing scripting runtimes via Homebrew is pretty darn …
26 Jun 2019: Having to install Python/Ruby/etc. manually is gate-keeping. It might be easy for pros, but it’s not …
26 Jun 2019: I need a maxed-out Mac Pro just so I can run all these Electron apps.
25 Jun 2019: What are the iPad productivity apps that you hope come to the Mac (via Catalyst or other means)?
24 Jun 2019: Because macOS 10.15 won’t run 32-bit apps, it won’t run Userland Frontier. It’s amazing that this …
24 Jun 2019: Seattle Times: Apple will announce Seattle expansion today. This is just seven blocks from Omni’s …
24 Jun 2019: Public betas of macOS and iOS mean a whole bunch of work for app developers — everybody will have …
21 Jun 2019: View from the floor at the Live Near WWDC rehearsal and soundcheck.
21 Jun 2019: Sometimes it seems like half our sentences, spoken and written, would have been utter gibberish 20 …
20 Jun 2019: View from the stage during rehearsal and sound check for Live Near WWDC.
20 Jun 2019: The video you didn’t know you needed today is Frankie Valli singing “Grease” with the Commodores in …
19 Jun 2019: It has never, ever bothered me that people often abbreviate NetNewsWire as NNW. I do it too. But let …
18 Jun 2019: At work listening to disco while lounging on my beanbag. Free-range ’70s kid forever.
18 Jun 2019: It’s been more than a week since the last crash log for NetNewsWire has come in. Feeling pretty good …
17 Jun 2019: John Brayton just announced a business model change for Unread 2. This stuff is still very difficult …
17 Jun 2019: Hypothesis: almost all the problems in tech are problems of economics.
17 Jun 2019: Me in 2016 comparing reactive and traditional code.
12 Jun 2019: Apple should make Interface Builder a separate app, just for the people who still need it. (Now that …
11 Jun 2019: I need SwiftUI for outline views. Need need need.
11 Jun 2019: Oh hell yes look at this SwiftUI code in NetNewsWire for iOS.
11 Jun 2019: Now and again, maybe once a year, I remember how we all got CueCats for free in the mail.
11 Jun 2019: My friends at Fair Isle Brewing are hiring a taproom manager and an assistant brewer. Maybe you?
09 Jun 2019: How can I symbolicate a crash log for a Mac app? I have the archive in Xcode’s Organizer. This is …
09 Jun 2019: The web is a conversation. Blog posts can be questions.
08 Jun 2019: The future of computing is not the iPad. It’s not iOS or touch interfaces. It’s those things and …
08 Jun 2019: With SwiftUI, the Kit is now an implementation detail, subject to change at any time — and it might …
07 Jun 2019: My friend Allen Pike had an idea while in San Jose: how about we offer money for things like food …
07 Jun 2019: Though I had a lovely time seeing friends and making new friends in San Jose, I was so happy when I …
01 Jun 2019: Just playing piano today — getting ready to play a few songs for the Live Near WWDC show. My main …
01 Jun 2019: I learned about git tagging today, in order to tag the 5.0a1 changeset and push the tag to the …
31 May 2019: My Bendii Syndrome worsens by the day.
24 May 2019: On seeing Playdate, I realized the question we should ask ourselves is: are we working on our own …
23 May 2019: I’m sure I took this screenshot because it reminded me of that mug by Steven Frank. But look how …
23 May 2019: When you’re throwing a milkshake, do you leave the lid on, hoping it comes off at impact? Or do you …
23 May 2019: Thing I miss from WWDC in SF.
23 May 2019: June 6, 2013.
22 May 2019: Screenshot from 2011.
22 May 2019: Adirondack chair protector cat.
22 May 2019: Old disks.
22 May 2019: I don’t know how I remember, but somehow I do, that the first graphical web browser I ever used was …
22 May 2019: After every single Mac system upgrade, on every single machine I own, my text replacements stop …
22 May 2019: Detail from an old T-shirt.
21 May 2019: Things photographed in 2007 before being disposed of.
21 May 2019: A random picture of my Dock in 2007.
21 May 2019: Fence cat.
17 May 2019: One thing I’ll be watching for at WWDC: how much will UIKit change due to the needs of Marzipan?
17 May 2019: A little rain won’t stop our parade.
16 May 2019: Due to extreme lactose intolerance, I have never had a Seattle Dog. Nonstop crying dot gif.
15 May 2019: Get your official Ballard name in time for Syttende Mai.
14 May 2019: Me: Let’s do everything on the main thread. Also me: No! Not those things! Obviously not those …
14 May 2019: With the property up for sale, my bet is that the Waterwheel will be shutting down. I’ve seen more …
13 May 2019: Further proof that the internet has collapsed all of space and time: I use YouTube to listen to …
13 May 2019: There are two stages to getting older. Stage 1: “Can you believe how long it’s been since [popular …
13 May 2019: One of my neighborhood’s cool traditions is the yearly Syttende Mai parade. It’s happening this …
13 May 2019: Two random but related Mac System Preferences tips: View > Organize Alphabetically and View > …
10 May 2019: This picture was taken the day of the Final Four games. The stadium reminded me of the Jawa droid …
10 May 2019: When I was at the Final Four semifinals, on the night before we got to go down on the court and …
10 May 2019: Grit is an open source app — currently in alpha state — for writing, editing, and publishing blog …
09 May 2019: File under open web: Skeletron is a Mac app for creating, editing, and generating static sites from …
09 May 2019: If you live in or near St. Paul, go see Live from New York! He’s a Prom Date! this weekend. It’s a …
09 May 2019: Partial view of the Olympics right by my bus stop on the way to work this morning.
08 May 2019: Note to Mac (AppKit) developers — it’s on us to be gracious and helpful to new Mac (Marzipan) …
08 May 2019: I do that Spotlight trick for opening apps, where you hit the keystroke and start typing the name. …
07 May 2019: Kim Philby, in his grave, must be awfully impressed with this Trump/Russia business.
07 May 2019: Here’s what happens. Eventually you lose your sunglasses and never replace them. Because you ain’t …
07 May 2019: When Windows is a Linux distribution, and doesn’t just include a Linux kernel, then I’ll check it …
07 May 2019: Mt. Rainier with clouds, taken a few weeks ago.
06 May 2019: Whenever I get a stuck tooltip — about once a day, usually from Slack, sometimes Mail or other app — …
06 May 2019: You’d have to call the entire band and the album a ’70s glam rock deep cut — but I absolutely love …
06 May 2019: I’m so happy to have found an app that lets me post to Instagram from my Mac.
06 May 2019: If you check out Downlink — a new Mac app that shows real-time satellite imagery on your desktop — …
03 May 2019: Hoping to see MPW for iPad at this year’s WWDC.
03 May 2019: I have only one game on my iPhone — Threes, which I still play and love — because I’m super-wary of …
02 May 2019: Mis-typed “The Omni Show” as “The Omni Shoe” just now, and started to wonder what that could be. It …
02 May 2019: How you can tell I’m a hopeless, stick-in-the-mud Luddite: on my beloved iPhone X I keep Bluetooth …
02 May 2019: TPM: Bill Barr is another Republican guy in his late 60s who’s been living, as Miller puts it, in …
02 May 2019: Mac App Store seems to be back up. 👍
02 May 2019: All green at www.apple.com/support/s… — but it appears the Mac App Store is actually down. (I …
02 May 2019: How can William Barr be obstructing justice? Did you not clearly hear the Attorney General of the …
02 May 2019: When I open the Mac App Store, it goes straight to this. Just me?
29 Apr 2019: The word “consume” cracks me up because I read it as “eat.” As in: “Using an RSS reader is a great …
29 Apr 2019: Consume the Internet!
29 Apr 2019: Imagine building a beautiful house. In one out-of-the-way spot, you used three nails when you were …
29 Apr 2019: 2009: “…you carried out 96 bags of leaves easily and quickly, then realized you can’t get those last …
29 Apr 2019: Maurice Parker just completed support for Dynamic Type in NetNewsWire for iOS. This is hugely …
29 Apr 2019: New RSS reader for iOS: Marc Maset has released NewsWave, a river-of-news style newsreader. I …
29 Apr 2019: People are suggesting I use Tokens. I’d love to — but it doesn’t work with IAP promo codes.
29 Apr 2019: Generating promo codes for IAPs using App Store Connect is a giant pain. So many clicks. Ugh.
25 Apr 2019: I learned how to do Apple events coding from Ultimate Mac Programming by @davemark! After all these …
25 Apr 2019: Daniel’s post about WWDC reminds me of this critical intel: we end up at Cinebar midnight-ish. Seems …
25 Apr 2019: Tonight is the Seattle Xcoders unofficial thing — social-only — at 6:30 pm at the Cyclops. Come hang …
22 Apr 2019: PSA: Never, ever eat sunchokes.
22 Apr 2019: For UIKit to become an app framework for Macs that makes great Mac apps, it will have to become …
22 Apr 2019: Code question: is there a way on iOS to set the default handler for a URL scheme? I’d like to give …
22 Apr 2019: Wouldn’t you want to read what an undead de Tocqueville has to say about America of 2019? I sure …
22 Apr 2019: With my first novel I’ve gotten as far as a title: “Alexis de Tocqueville, Vampire.”
19 Apr 2019: It’s time for Democrats to put country ahead of party. We asked Republicans to do so, and they …
18 Apr 2019: Lunch is among the most elusive of mid-day meals. Where’s lunch.
17 Apr 2019: I love everything about this video, including the sounds of the bugs and the wind in the background. …
17 Apr 2019: Core structuring tip: your under-the-hood code should import Foundation and not AppKit or UIKit. …
17 Apr 2019: Any time someone writes that they “still use an RSS reader,” I think to myself: I still use a web …
16 Apr 2019: Once, when I was about 10 years old, at my great-grandfather’s urging, I hand-fed a squirrel that …
16 Apr 2019: When I was a kid me and my friends would always go through all of our change carefully in hopes of …
16 Apr 2019: If Twitter becomes a place to follow topics rather than people, then the only thing good about it …
16 Apr 2019: Shouldn’t the past tense of gaslight be gaslit, or am I crazy.
16 Apr 2019: I’ve often wished for a mechanism — a kind of mental service — that would allow me to keep things in …
16 Apr 2019: I wish Apple News links were the original links to the website instead of into Apple News. I don’t …
15 Apr 2019: With the Swift proposal on property behaviors, would it be possible to create a …
15 Apr 2019: In case you missed it yesterday: go read Tim Ekl’s Swift Generics proposal explainer. So good.
13 Apr 2019: Rejiggered the NetNewsWire workspace tree to make it easier to work on a cross-platform Mac and iOS …
13 Apr 2019: Whenever I see GoT, I read it as Game of Things, because of IoT. “Game of Things” is, I assume, some …
12 Apr 2019: Just finished mowing. It was awesome. Will follow up with margaritas in celebration.
12 Apr 2019: Lawnmowers I hate shopping. Truly. In person or online. (The one exception is for books, which is why I have …
11 Apr 2019: The blog (and/or RSS) search engines of the past, that I know of: Blogbridge, Blogdigger, …
10 Apr 2019: I’m proud of myself because, without even reading the OmniGraffle manual yet, I was able to make a …
10 Apr 2019: The “Developer Experience” Bait-and-Switch: A decent hedge-fund strategy would be to run a private …
10 Apr 2019: How can there not be a sewing machine emoji?
03 Apr 2019: I also have the “Space Oddity” problem with the English Beat. I love everything they’ve ever done. …
03 Apr 2019: It’s a Bukka White kind of day. Check out that slapping thing he does in Aberdeen Mississippi Blues: …
03 Apr 2019: David Bowie is my favorite rock-and-roller ever, by far — but I can’t hear “Space Oddity” even one …
02 Apr 2019: I read this thing about people making smart mice… www.nytimes.com/2019/04/0… …and all I can …
02 Apr 2019: Don’t forget to celebrate the beauty of April 2nd! It’s the longest period of time before the next …
02 Apr 2019: No combination of clicks will convince iTunes to actually shuffle. It says it’s going to shuffle, …
02 Apr 2019: Something changed in WKWebView in 10.4.4. As I select different articles in NetNewsWire, there’s a …
01 Apr 2019: I’ve just got to white-knuckle it through today. I’ll get my reward tomorrow, as April 2 is one of …
01 Apr 2019: I figured out how to build NetNewsWire without embedding the Swift libraries. App size went from …
27 Mar 2019: I saw “Cats” at the Paramount Theatre last night. I loved it. So great.
26 Mar 2019: It’s worth remembering Leonard Nimoy today on his birthday. (Well, every day, but still.)
26 Mar 2019: Orcas in my neighborhood: www.myballard.com/2019/03/2… Within walking distance, if I could …
26 Mar 2019: Lunch is only 45 minutes away. But I’m super hungry. Tough it out, or eat some potato chips?
25 Mar 2019: The unofficial Seattle Xcoders meeting this week — Thursday, 6:30 pm at Cyclops — is two days after …
25 Mar 2019: Thinking of changing the name of my app to NetNewsWire+.
23 Mar 2019: Sometimes, when I need a pick-me-up, I reread the Urban Dictionary definitions for Cecil County, …
23 Mar 2019: Marcel Weiher notes that Objective-C is climbing in the TIOBE index.
22 Mar 2019: This is not the end of investigations, indictments, and criminal prosecutions related to our corrupt …
20 Mar 2019: This is the time of year when Seattle goes from whatever to the most beautiful city in North …
19 Mar 2019: Somewhere on the web I saw someone call Devin Nunes ([R]ussia), a ding dong, and I can’t get it out …
18 Mar 2019: Couldn’t log in to App Store Connect. Quit and relaunched Safari. Still can’t log in. Switched to …
13 Mar 2019: I just realized that I switched over to marketing at Omni a year ago yesterday. It was the perfect …
07 Mar 2019: I used to watch the Lone Ranger TV show as a kid. I kept calling him the “Lone Stranger,” and my Mom …
28 Feb 2019: Let’s finish off February and never have another one!
25 Feb 2019: App notarization done. All good. Forget I ever complained.
25 Feb 2019: App notarization service is slow for me tonight. Grrr.
22 Feb 2019: Though it’s been 25 years since I worked in a restaurant, I still refer to my chores as my “side …
19 Feb 2019: I like all the Democrats running for nomination.
18 Feb 2019: It’s the saddest holiday in America.
16 Feb 2019: Here’s an explanation of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program: www.seattle.gov/democracy…
16 Feb 2019: Democracy vouchers arrived in the mail today! I love my blue and green city.
13 Feb 2019: My brain is incapable of remembering what monads, functors, and currying are. I also can’t ever seem …
12 Feb 2019: The Big Meltdown brings roofalanches.
08 Feb 2019: I can’t see them, but I can hear AT-ATs slowly crunching in the distance.
08 Feb 2019: Cliff Mass: A Snow Event in Two Acts
08 Feb 2019: The crows are silent now, which is ominous.
08 Feb 2019: Not just flakes anymore. Snowing pretty hard already. Crows are yelling in my backyard.
08 Feb 2019: Snow flakes just started in Ballard.
07 Feb 2019: This reporter works from home Fridays (and Mondays), so I’ll be fine. My hope is that everyone in …
07 Feb 2019: As I was walking to work this morning, two women — cold-braving dog-walkers who appeared to be in …
07 Feb 2019: Cliff Mass has an update on the snowstorm that’s coming. In short: it’s coming. No maybes. …
06 Feb 2019: We’re going to get a crazy amount of snow. cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/02/a…
04 Feb 2019: We don’t get snow every year. Some years we get just a few flakes one day. But today we’ve got …
03 Feb 2019: Like all good Americans, I’ll be rooting for the Rams today. Go Rams!
01 Feb 2019: I had 12 bugs. After working pretty hard and fixing a half-dozen or so bugs, now I have 11 bugs.
31 Jan 2019: I have never taken a selfie.
31 Jan 2019: More of my recent searches: can lunch be had by people did everyone forget lunch did they ban lunch …
30 Jan 2019: My recent DuckDuckGo searches: When’s lunch Seems like lunchtime Is lunch still a thing we do Could …
28 Jan 2019: My brain was originally discovered in a jellyfish.
24 Jan 2019: Listening to Son House today. Just in that particular mood. (If you have Apple Music, look him up.)
22 Jan 2019: Edgar! Number 11! Señor Double!!! www.seattletimes.com/sports/ma…
18 Jan 2019: Earthlings have largely, and unknowingly, accepted me as one of their own, so far. …
17 Jan 2019: 512 Pixels: Twitter is Over
17 Jan 2019: Yes, “Shake Em on Down” has been my obsession for a while. One thing I love about songs like this is …
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by Bill Withers: www.youtube.com/watch
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by All Night Long Blues Band: www.youtube.com/watch
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by Mississippi Fred McDowell: www.youtube.com/watch
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by Samantha Fish on a cigar box guitar: www.youtube.com/watch
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by RL Burnside: www.youtube.com/watch
17 Jan 2019: Shake Em on Down performed by Bukka White: www.youtube.com/watch
15 Jan 2019: I got some new outlets in my very old house, and it’s better than Christmas.
15 Jan 2019: Signal v Noise exits Medium LIKE
15 Jan 2019: Got in to work early today — and now freaking out because it’s not lunch time yet. I’m the Garfield.
15 Jan 2019: Here’s that same sticker but with a cat’s paw, this being the internet and all.
15 Jan 2019: I’ve saved this sticker for more than ten years. I was at some party (probably at WWDC), and Merlin …
14 Jan 2019: In the future, everyone will launch their own streaming service.
08 Jan 2019: To take a screenshot that includes the mouse pointer, I expected the “Show Mouse Pointer” option in …
07 Jan 2019: The web will, eventually, make everyone a crime victim.
07 Jan 2019: When I was a kid, before the web, grifters and con men were exotic. We knew them through TV and …
28 Dec 2018: The Grim Reaper is just a title. His actual name is Centrum Silver.
28 Dec 2018: Nothing has made me feel my mortality more keenly than buying vitamins yesterday. Centrum Silver. If …
21 Dec 2018: FBI Secretly Collected Data on Aaron Swartz Earlier Than We Thought—in a Case Involving Al Qaeda
21 Dec 2018: If the Latest Facebook Revelations Won’t Get You to Delete It, What Will? Facebook’s …
19 Dec 2018: Of course it’s “not my father’s Republican party.” My Dad’s a Democrat. Who watches Rachel Maddow …
19 Dec 2018: Donald Trump’s signature reminds me of the Dow.
19 Dec 2018: My favorite TV show these days is Leah Remini’s show about Scientology.
18 Dec 2018: I wonder how many more times Facebook will apologize most sincerely for terrible things.
18 Dec 2018: Pretty exciting news for our friends at Black Pixel! www.geekwire.com/2018/ai-f… And again …
17 Dec 2018: The only notifications I allow on my iPhone are for text messages. It’s nice not to be bugged all …
17 Dec 2018: Republicans always screw up the stock market. It’s the worst reason that I vote for Democrats — but …
13 Dec 2018: Reminder — no talks at the Xcoders meeting in Seattle tonight. But there’s still a meeting, at the …
11 Dec 2018: I’m up to four Micro.blog accounts now! Love this service. So much thanks go to @manton and …
11 Dec 2018: Part of my maturation process — which I’m undergoing slowly, with great reluctance — is learning to …
06 Dec 2018: We just set up @xcoders, for folks in the Seattle and Vancouver, BC areas who go to Xcoders. It …
05 Dec 2018: In So Basic It’s Not Even Funny I talk about one of the happiest compliments I’ve ever received.
05 Dec 2018: I’m obsessive about turning off notifications on Mac and on iOS. Just about the only thing left is …
05 Dec 2018: I’ve been deleting accounts. StackOverflow and Quora yesterday. I had totally forgotten that I had a …
03 Dec 2018: Why write about lunch? You might wonder why I post what’s for lunch every weekday on the @omni account. Here’s why: If I …
03 Dec 2018: Hey! I’m on the Micro Monday podcast! Thanks, @macgenie! It was so much fun to do. Note to everyone …
30 Nov 2018: I dread this time of year with all its year-end retrospectives. I remember what happened! It was …
29 Nov 2018: Friday thing! If you know Jake Carter, you know he’s leaving Seattle and moving to California. So …
29 Nov 2018: Seattle Xcoders unofficial 5th Thursday is tonight at the Water Wheel in Ballard (not Cyclops!) …
27 Nov 2018: Why is there no emoji for Thor’s hammer! This 🔨 just isn’t enough.
27 Nov 2018: There are still a few days left to invest in Fair Isle Brewing. Here’s a look behind the scenes: …
26 Nov 2018: They always say to follow your passion. If you’re passionate about something, then that’s good, and …
26 Nov 2018: You could argue that app developers boycotting Saudi Arabia isn’t the right thing to do. I get it. …
21 Nov 2018: If I had an app for sale in the App Store, I’d make it unavailable in Saudi Arabia. The private …
15 Nov 2018: The Concourse, David Roth: This Is All Donald Trump Has Left: …living in his America feels like …
15 Nov 2018: There are Facebook offices next door and across the street. I walk by Facebook employees every day …
14 Nov 2018: S.E. Cupp makes a fantastic point — Trump isn’t driven by his ego. He’s driven by his id. And with …
14 Nov 2018: Asha Dornfest: Can blogs rebuild America? I’m not talking about all of us launching political …
12 Nov 2018: My current wish for the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket: Klobuchar/O’Rourke.
09 Nov 2018: Doug Russell explains how React Native Accessibility Is Pretty Bad.
07 Nov 2018: I am quite eager to see Donald Trump, Jr. in prison: nymag.com/intellige…
07 Nov 2018: Here’s the reggae version of Country Roads that’s beautiful and that we all need right now. …
07 Nov 2018: We may be days — or hours, or minutes — from needing to take to the streets. …
07 Nov 2018: In bed. Picked up my iPad to watch some TV before going to sleep. Got a notification about a …
06 Nov 2018: The other page I’m watching is this one, which shows live results: www.vox.com/a/midterm…
06 Nov 2018: Here’s the page I’m watching: fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog… Right now it has a Democratic …
06 Nov 2018: My predictions: Democrats regain the House, Republicans hold the Senate, Gillum wins, Beto loses …
06 Nov 2018: First numbers start coming in in 15 minutes or so as first polls close. Buckle up. Order pizza.
06 Nov 2018: Exit polls are junk. Don’t pay attention. For one thing, exit polls had us convinced in 2004 that …
06 Nov 2018: Guam governor will be a Democrat: www.guampdn.com/story/new…
06 Nov 2018: A Beto victory still seems less-than-likely to me — but I’d sure love to be surprised. Would be …
06 Nov 2018: What do you think? Democrats regain the House? Beto wins or loses? How about Abrams and Gillum?
06 Nov 2018: Vote! And then pray.
05 Nov 2018: HAT RED
02 Nov 2018: It’s Friday, so it’s the age-old question — do you pronounce it T-GIF or T-JIF?
01 Nov 2018: All I want for Christmas is for Nov. 6 to be Halloween for Republican politicians.
01 Nov 2018: The white nationalists running our country — let’s call them WhiNas — are afraid of babies.