Paul Williams
@paulw
Paul Williams
@paulw
@skoobz Yeah, it'll be good seeing how people react and use it moving forward. I feel the same way — I imported all my feeds, but turned off several (like Political Wire) that update dozens of time per day, and it's been a more sane way of triaging articles. Might be nice to pair the new Reeder with something like NetNewsWire, the latter being better for managing heavily-updated daily blogs.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Paul Williams
@paulw
I’ve been the same exact way Nick Heer does about a number of small iPhone interactions lately (mostly stemming from the Dynamic Island and dimmed always-on screen). Worth a read if you feel the little pains, too.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@metalslimes.bsky.social Hadn’t thought of the “Saturday morning cartoon” angle, but I like it. Very on point with its light-heartedness, learn-a-lesson episodic pacing.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@jacks It’s from the Steam Deck. I played DQ XI when it was released on PS4 years ago, but recently got a Deck and craved getting back into it with the updated release. Wish they’d do a remake for VIII — loved that one.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Playing a Dragon Quest game immediately lightens the mood and lifts the soul. I’d credit the culmination of its color palette, the boisterous soundtrack filling every scene, and the whimsical designs and dialogue. Perfection. Dragon Quest is comfort gaming at its finest.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Agree with the take here (we need an “iTunes for streaming TV”), but doubt it’ll ever happen — though it seems like YouTube TV is the closest to achieving this. One of the biggest hurdles for getting eyeballs in this major transition isn’t paying for streaming, it’s the friction between everything.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@sod Ended up seeing it — I agree. The sets, mood, dread (and the ship heading towards the planetary ring) were all well-keyed in by its production. While I liked the corner of the universe it was trying to build up from a story perspective, the characters were forgettable and it was trying to retread too many tropes from the originals. Left me thinking what was the point (Alien doesn't need a reboot — Ridley already was exploring deeper ideas around the franchise with Prometheus and Covenant, why not keep the horror going with expansions in that direction).
Paul Williams
@paulw
@otaviocc Speaking my language! You aren't alone. Aggregated RSS is the best feed you could ever have.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Fun piece from the ‘rebooted’ Minnesota Star Tribune on the state’s long-standing lake party franchise, Zorbaz. We bumped into one of these unintentionally on a winter retreat to Nisswa last year, and now feel like we need to visit a few of these in the summer. It’s a… curious place.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Six Colors' Interview with Zach Gage on Puzzmo and specifically, Pile-up Poker. He’s got an agreeable rationale for why it’s limited to five hands per day, something I’d been curious about since it was launched.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Ingenuity in ’re-agriculture' has led to successfully transitioning out of factory farming into medicinal tinctures, mushroom coffee blends, and solar panel surplus energy. “If all goes well, the profits from mushrooms could exceed what the farm was generating from hogs during the best of times.”
Paul Williams
@paulw
The most magical restaurant on the North Shore has, and always will be, New Scenic Cafe.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Watched the Olympic Men’s Basketball game at Roscoe’s in Duluth. Dive bar with the sound on was the chef’s kiss of vibes to enjoy the USA win in.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Looking up at the St Paul Cathedral after dinner around the corner on Selby Ave. The architecture is a major landmark of the neighborhood, and the reverse view from its summit perch oversees Saint Paul’s downtown.
Paul Williams
@paulw
A lot of eyes on Minnesota over the past few days, and I’ve enjoyed seeing the country awash in midwestern banter. Also proud to see a representative from our state on the presidential ticket — Tim Walz is a tremendous, well-engineered asset and temperament on the national stage.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@crossingthethreshold Confirming I’ve been receiving them as well, and it’s definitely escalated in frequency the last several months. Not sure what catalyzed it, but worried we’re stuck in some horrible data leak.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Great new video from coffee guru James Hoffmann covering celebrity coffee products. Few have captured the egotistical rationale (me = “founder”) and business machinations (scaled but mid production) driving this celebrity trend than he does. It’s still all about merchandising recurring revenues.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Kudos to Matt Birchler’s simple declaration about the AeroPress making a phenomenal cup of coffee. I agree that regardless of how skilled you think you are with pour overs or other methods, the AeroPress delivers an impressively consistent cup without much room for error.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Say what you will about the Mall of America, but the architects and teams running it have designed and deployed some great sustainability measures throughout, including balancing the plant ecosystem with ladybugs to combat the aphids during hatching season. (Via @rationaldoge@hachyderm.io)
Paul Williams
@paulw
A sad reality for the book industry… via No one buys books - by Elle Griffin:
in 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That’s still the vibe.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario requires constant reading breaks in order to stomach the existential and horrifying material, but it stands as one of the most important politically speculative books of our time. 📚
Paul Williams
@paulw
Paul Williams
@paulw
@KimberlyHirsh Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the genre, hope you enjoyed the original’s remake! Excited for you to eventually get to Super Metroid. It has remained my favorite game experience for decades.
Paul Williams
@paulw
A list of some lists, from Field Notes. A quintessential kind of post for the notebook brand, really.
Paul Williams
@paulw
July 4 Roadtrip to Michigan
A few photographic impressions from the roadtrip from the Twin Cities to west-side Michigan and back. Our excursion out on a pontoon along the Muskegon harbor of Lake Michigan was a highlight.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@michaelgemar This exactly.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@bjhess This was a good one — agreed! That instrumental rendition of 50 Cent’e song will forever be associated with the scenes in this film.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Paul Williams
@paulw
Caught up on a few posts from The Obsessor, and came across a recommendation for a new camera app called Pure from Trevor Walsh. Reminds me of the early iOS days of experimental apps — no image preview, just tap anywhere on the screen, it captures a photo, and limits you to 12 per day. It’s good.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Is there any other state in the US with such a breadth of grocery store non-dominance as Minnesota? Great piece by Adam Platt at MinnPost on the state of affairs. Big Kowalski’s fan, even if it’s only 2% marketshare.
Paul Williams
@paulw
Paul Williams
@paulw
The people have been talking about Gabriel Smith’s Brat, and after picking it up at a local bookstore on our first day of vacation in Burlington, 30 pages in, I will admit that the people are right — this is a wickedly good new voice in literature. 📚
Paul Williams
@paulw
@Miraz These new ones have magnetic/Qi charging now? That's pretty nice, actually. I keep arguing with myself on whether to get an ereader or stick to physical books. The traveling/minimal bag footprint is the main argument I have for an ereader. Hope you enjoy the new one!
Paul Williams
@paulw
@ayjay also, doesn’t anyone share accounts with their spouse or partner? We do, and it is increasingly impossible to do this. I get everyone should have separate accounts but we use the same stuff (Amazon, delivery apps, streaming, etc.), and it’s annoying to have to ping each other codes or FaceIDs to sign in.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@jtr this is such a disappointing path so many have taken. Especially with journalism, which is already in dire straits. Many already pay them for providing the value we need. Let others read! Or sure, let us read first and then decide three thirds of the way through an article. Anything but the intrusiveness immediately.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@otaviocc Oh I hear you. Always coming across amazing stationary and not having enough to actually put into them once acquired... how do we solve for this conundrum.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@joelhamill I agree with this notion. Keep the good architecture going. We all like it, we use it. Keep Micro.blog light on its feet, keep streamlining it, keep iterating where it makes sense.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@darby3 I had to re-read this twice before it sunk in, but crazy to acknowledge that album is 20 years old. It literally represented my driving soundtrack back in the day (aka, 2 months ago).
Paul Williams
@paulw
@otaviocc This is really nice. I’m still a text guy no matter how many times I get linked to YouTube videos. Would be equally awesome to see this for podcasts.
How do you like Matter? I used it years ago, before trying Omnivore, and stuck with it mostly due to its uncluttered, breezy design.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@brian_wolf Hope you enjoyed!
Paul Williams
@paulw
@mikehaynes 🫡
Paul Williams
@paulw
@pimoore Ha, oh I hope we get to drink both. While we are rarely driven to solve these problems far enough ahead of time, I have hope that under duress, innovation will happen and we’ll ward off coffee and drinking water extinction for at least a hundred more years…
Paul Williams
@paulw
@canion This made me laugh. And also reminded me of the time I wasted watching this a few years ago.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@jacks Looking forward to watching it tonight! Their past series have been good, so fingers crossed they pull it off. Dog fights in the air seem like a sure bet.
Paul Williams
@paulw
@jtr Appreciate the on-the-ground feedback here. I'm in Minneapolis, and while probably not seeing the same price trending you are, it's gotten more expensive to eat out, and we're seeing a major splintering of fine dining and fast-casual happening to just about all restaurants where it's hardly worth it to go to middling restaurants in the middle.
I definitely agree with you on the small print. The type is getting infuriatingly tinier, and given a typically low-lit backdrop in most restaurants (which I tend to prefer), the user experience of the menu is getting far worse. At least the paper menu is finally back. I loathed using QR codes and using my phone at the dinner table. I like eating out to escape the trappings of screen overload and distractions at home.
Ha, at any rate, thanks for your comment -- hope you continue to enjoy eating out!
Paul Williams
@paulw
@mikehaynes This is great! Another good curated directory is ooh.directory. Not quite the emphasis on a search engine for the indie web, like you're suggesting, but it's another good site for discovery.