Here’s my hot take on the employee protests going on at Apple: even people with “great jobs” deserve to be treated fairly, to not be discriminated against, and to have the power to organize collectively. The fight for labor rights is not only about raising the minimum wage.

I thrilled my kids today with my Halloween costume idea: I’m The Mandalorian, and I’ve rigged up a robotic “Baby Yoda” in a stroller, that looks super cute and lets you put candy in its hand so you can watch it eat it. I collect infinite candy from all the kids. GENIUS.

Something surprising happened in macOS Monterey beta: the load time for MediaLibrary API got WAY better, unless that’s a coincidence with something else. Pretty good for a deprecated framework!

I keep hearing there is a big blood shortage and meaning to donate. I finally made an appointment for a couple weeks from now. It will be my first donation because when I was younger the Red Cross was more discriminating about who they accepted. Happy to make a contribution!

Who were the most influential Mac developers/bloggers from the 2000s that you don’t really hear much from anymore? Off the top of my head … Rainer Brockerhoff, Fraser Speirs, Cathy Shive, Scott Stevenson, Mike Abdullah. I know a lot of folks have moved on to new pursuits…

Dear California: You have to keep Gavin Newsom. The immediate alternatives are all part of a hellscape future for the state and for the country. If you’ve been tuned out, no shame, but please tune in and vote against the recall, and for nobody to replace him.

I’ve spent my whole life mostly making software. It’s a great pursuit and I’m happy I’ve done it, but I’m in awe of, and a little jealous of, people who spent their whole life making music.

I used to love the app “True Weight” because it reported a rolling average to normalized the fluctuations. I’m surprised more health apps, including Apple’s, don’t do something like this by default. Are there any great apps that take Apple Health data and map it like this?

Listening to Billy Bragg’s “Don’t Try This at Home.” Hard to believe it’s 30 years old! I’m sure he finds it as hard to believe as anybody. Worth a thousand listens, though…

Just had a breakthrough moment of delight with the Live Text feature in the macOS Monterey beta. Customers often send me screenshots of text instead of, you know, text. I just hovered over an image in an email and copied a bunch of HTML out so I could test with it.

Accidentally stuck my hand up into a ceiling fan spinning at full speed. Well, if my kids were waiting to hear me swear, that might have been their chance.

Grateful that my food habits are bad enough so when I’m “dieting” I get a lot of mileage out of ordering pizza but leaving out the onion rings. Health-conscious!

“No calories after 10pm” means I can’t have another beer, and, well, I guess that’s kind of the point.

4 days or so into calorie-counting, and I’m having a pretty easy time of it. I am blessed with a mindset that accepts adversity fairly easily, and with attention “disorders” that help me focus on things that aren’t food.

Occasionally remark at dinner “hunger is the best sauce.”

About That Lysistrata Post

I posted a quip yesterday about the state of affairs in the US with respect to revoking the rights of women to receive legal abortions. I want to acknowledge I have regrets about posting it.

First, and most important, I had a nagging sense when I posted it that the seriousness of the matter (denial of lawful abortion to women) doesn’t really beg for whimsical remarks from a man.

Second, I received thoughtful feedback (hi @jean!) pointing out that it’s irksome to imply that women should somehow bear the responsibility for fixing this situation. I think women should do all they can to fight back, but so should men. Yet my post put the burden entirely on women.

So in summary: sometimes I make quips in emotional haste, and they’d be better off unsaid. I do think there is some intellectual and comedic value in the original post but I concede they don’t outweigh the problematic aspects. It’s been an educational experience, at least!

One of my weight loss strategies is simply “no calories after 10pm”, and I think it will do wonders for my sleep, as well.

Ladies, it’s time for the Lysistrata solution. No access to abortion? No sex with men. I don’t make the rules.

For the past 12+ years I have received an email every time anybody submits a crash report for any of my apps. This is a strategy for achieving minimally crashing apps.