I've been working on a small command line tool recently. It's essentially a simple way to write a short post on Micro.blog from the command line, called pst.

It's probably not the typical place people tend to do their microblogging. But I did it for a few reasons:

1. I live in a terminal when I use a computer, so it's easy for me to quickly write a post, or share a link. I don't always have Micro.blog open.
2. There's obviously less distractions when you can just post and carry on with whatever you were doing.
3. It's a simple idea, so it would be perfect to use it as a learning oppurtunity.
4. I don't get many ideas for small projects like this, so I have to run with them. Otherwise I'd never build anything.

So, now you know the reasons, I'll explain a bit more about pst, how to install it, configure your blog, and also how to use it.

First of all, you can install pst from crates.io or homebrew:

crates.io

cargo install pst

homebrew

brew tap chrishannah/pst
brew install pst

To configure pst, all you need to do is to generate an app token from Micro.blog (find that in your Account settings), and then store that in a JSON file under ~/.config/pst/config.json. The specific format is in the README.

Using pst is pretty simple, you have the pst command, followed by the type (post or draft), and then your content. Examples:

pst draft "don't show this to anyone"

pst post "hello, losers!"

After that, you'll see some handy links in the terminal for where you can view, preview, or edit the post on Micro.blog.

I forgot to also say that it's built with Rust! I'd been wanting to write something in Rust for a while, but it was never the right time, and I also didn't have the correct project. Luckily for me, it's a small project, so I decided to use it to learn some Rust.

Obviously I haven't used it for long (or for much), but I've really enjoyed using the language. And especially for these types of tools, I can see myself using Rust even more in the future. (Especially because I have my Neovim config working perfectly with Rust now.)

I can't say I'm completely up to date with Apple's various ongoing issues with various government entities, so I can't exactly offer any well thought out opinions. And I also want to say that I'm not exactly that interested in getting into the weeds of it all.

I'm sure in all cases, Apple are right in some areas, and wrong in others. However, what I'm more intruiged in, is the long-term effect that it will have on Apple as a company, and also on the products it builds.

The changes could be related to hardware, software, how Apple's devices interact with devices of other companies, the restrictions they apply to their stores, or it could even affect the company itself. Either way, I'm sure something will end up changing as a result of these various battles.

I'm no longer a die-hard Apple fan, so I'm not going to get overly caught up on any of the arguments for or against them. But there's a reason people talk about Apple's "walled garden". And rightly or wrongly, it seems that more and more people are starting to want to tear down the wall.

It's been just shy of 2 weeks since I started watching The Walking Dead^[1], and I've just finished off the third season. Which puts me around 20% of the way through all 11 seasons (177 episodes).

I've definitely missed out having only just started the show recently, but at least I'm now able to binge it non-stop. I'm watching it at night, in my lunch break, on my commutes, I literally fill any free time with it right now.

One thing's for sure, the next time a show like this comes out, I'm not waiting over 13 years to give it a try.

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1. It's a bit funny that my last post was me getting excited about starting the fourth episode, and right now I'm about to start the fourth series. ↩︎

I've been following the progress of the upcoming version of System76's Pop!_OS ever since I heard about their idea to write their own desktop environment in Rust. It's going to be a pretty huge update by the looks of it, and it goes by Cosmic.

From what I've read on the blog, and also watched via the episode of Tech Over Tea with YouTuber (Host) Brodie Robertson and System76 founder Carl Richell, I'm 100% going to try it out when it's' available. And I really think there's a chance that if I like it, I could eventually persuade myself into buying a System76 computer in the future.

I just checked out The Iconfactory's Kickstarter for their Project Tapestry project, which in their words will be a "a universal, chronological timeline for iOS for any data that’s publicly available on the Internet".

It's a nice idea. And reminds me of BlackBerry Hub on my old BlackBerry, which used to combine things like Twitter and Facebook, along with your emails, BBM notifications, etc.

As for myself, I don't plan on backing the project. The only "feeds" that I currently use are Mastodon (via Ivory), RSS feeds for various blogs, and Twitter/X for football updates. And none of those really need to be combined together.

That's not to say it's not for you, so if you're interested, check out the Kickstarter.

Seeing as I've just recently switched to Firefox, I think it only makes sense that I try out Pocket at the same time. It's already built into Firefox, and when I've used Pocket in the past I've been impressed by it's suggestions. However, I haven't tried it in a long time, so it will be interesting to see how it compares to something like Readwise.

When I've pictured my "ideal" phone in the past, I've regularly had long battery life as one of the key features. But I've thought about battery life as something that hasn't improved. Because most people have probably been charging their phone every night for quite some time.

However, you could probably argue that battery life has always been increasing. The problem is, so have our demands.

Sure, more powerful chips require more energy to run. So an iPhone 15 will naturally require more resources than an iPhone 5. At the same time, we also weren't expecting an iPhone 15 to record 4K HDR video without affecting the battery life.

It's probably not a big revelation to many. But it's a perspective that might be worth considering when judging the evolution of technology.

I finally watched the Rabbit R1 announcement video earlier, and while I think it's a really raw product and has a lot to prove, I was definitely wowed by it. Maybe it's the hardware design (which was done in partnership with Teenage Engineering), or the idea that this will actually be able to do things for you, rather than just be another conversational AI. Either way, shortly after watching the video, I decided to pre-order an R1.

The relatively low entry price for the R1 at $199/£160 definitely helped. But I also wanted to put my money where my mouth was. Since products like the Rabbit R1 and others like the Human Ai Pin are examples of the direction that I want technology to move towards.

In my ideal world, technology would be used to help us understand, explore, and experience the world around us. Rather than keep us locked away in digital worlds, cut off from people around us. No matter how "connected" it can make us feel when we've got a screen constantly in front of our face.

I'm hopeful that we're moving in the right direction.

I can't believe it took this long, but as of tonight I've finally started watching The Walking Dead. I don't know what I was doing in 2010 when it first started, but somehow I let it completely pass me by.

I'm just about to start the fourth episode, and I'm already hooked. 🧟‍♂️

There's a total of 177 episodes, which seems a lot, but at this rate I'll be getting through them pretty quickly.

DHH:

The App Store dispute can be boiled down to one big question: Is the iPhone a computer or not? If it’s a computer, we ought to have the right to compute. Like consumers have won the right to repair. If it’s a computer, it ought to be yours, and you ought to have the right to install whatever software you should so choose.

I mean, is he wrong?