Arhiva completă: engleză

I love my iPad. I have an iPad Pro 10.5, the last one before the new design of the iPad Pro. I didn’t buy the new one since I didn’t feel like I need it, but I have to say the new M1 iPad Pro sounds really, really good.

But the problem I have with my iPad as a pro machine is the same as previously: even if the new iPad Pro has the same M1 processor in the MacBook Air I’m using now to write this article, the app I use to write (MarsEdit) isn’t available for iPad.

And this is a small issue. Apps like Photoshop or similar on iPad don’t have the full set of features the one on the desktop has. My fiancée owns an iPad Pro 12.9″ (the first that came with the new design) and she still needs to use her MacBOok Pro. Will this change with the new M1 iPad?

Is the future of iPad a problem of software and not of hardware anymore?

The difference in hardware between the 2020 iPad Pro and the 2021 iPad Pro isn’t a small jump, it’s a large leap over the chasm between the Mac and the iPad. That said, I can’t help but wonder what about the software?

These latest iPad Pros aren’t looking to be an improvement in the user experience for the next version of iPadOS 14, but instead it is looking at iPadOS 15 and beyond.

It is almost a given that Apple has another trick or two up its sleeve for the iPad this year. They showed their hand for the hardware in the new iPad Pros but they have yet to flourish what iPadOS 15 will bring.

From here: The iPad needs the software to catch up with its hardware – Tablet Habit.

I’ve been adding some design elements to this site and I always forget what they were. I put them here just so I don’t always go back to research.

It’s nothing in particular, just the size of the post title font, the blockquote design and the shadow for the images on the site.

.entry-title {text-transform: none; font-size: 40px;}

blockquote {
margin: 20px;
padding: 20px;
background: #ffeeee;
font-weight: 500;
font-size: medium;
font-family: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
border-left:5px solid red;
}

cite {
font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: small;
}

.post img {
border:2px solid #C0C0C0;
box-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #ccc;
-moz-box-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #ccc;
-webkit-box-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #ccc;
-khtml-box-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #ccc;
}

Featured photo by Pankaj Patel on Unsplash

This hits really close to home, unfortunately.

“It might sound crazy, but I’d rather go to Twitter and check out a few people I trust than take guidance from the CDC, or WHO, or Fauci,” Baca, the Colorado truck driver, told me. Other no-vaxxers offered similar appraisals of various Democrats and liberals, but they were typically less printable.

From here: What Are No-Vaxxers Thinking? – The Atlantic.

And these are the people they follow on Twitter or Facebook:

Berenson’s TV appearances are more misdirection than outright fiction, and his Twitter feed blends internet-y irony and scientific jargon in a way that may obscure what he’s actually saying.
[…]
The current score in the competition between non-senior pandemic deaths and conclusive vaccine deaths is 100,000–0.

One hundred thousand to zero. That might be the most important statistic in this whole mess. Berenson doesn’t tweet blatantly falsifiable statements about the vaccines every day. For the most part, he peddles doubt, laced with confusing and expert-sounding jargon, which may seem compelling at first but can’t survive contact with expert opinion.

From here: Alex Berenson: The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man – The Atlantic.

Featured photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

I was just walking today through Lisbon. I was talking (in Romanian) to my fiancé, when someone stopped next to us and said “Hey, Bobby, is that you?”. In Romanian.

I looked at the guy asking me and it took me about 10 seconds to understand who was looking at me from behind the mask. Not because I didn’t know who he was, but because he wasn’t supposed to be in a random – touristy enough – place in Portugal.

After recognizing him and finding out he just moved here a week before, we took the time to have a drink together.

At some point he asked: “What do you think this serendipitous moment is telling us?”

An interesting question, but such an unexpected meeting nevertheless.

Featured photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

If you’re ever in Lisbon and you want to enjoy a good coffee, in a nice environment, go to Nicolau. We went there at the recommendation of a friend (“good food!”), but also because it is dog friendly, so our Westie was welcome, as well.

And how could it not be, when Nicolau is the dog of the owner apparently, and he has his portrait on the wall in the middle of the café? Even more, he has an entire family: Amélia (his girlfriend/wife) and Basílio (his cousin). Of course, Amélia has a café, Basílio has one as well. And they’re all in walking distance of each other, so you can visit all of them.

If you find yourself at Nicolau, try the Banoffee Lovers Pancakes (see above). You’ll thank me later.

Photos from Nicolau’s website

I had lunch with a good friend today. In an almost full restaurant. It almost felt… “normal”.

It’s a really sunny day, which is amazing, especially since April had been really rainy. As it is usual in Portugal, apparently (“Avril, chuva mil”, they say here).

Our dog was uncharacteristically happy to see us when we picked him am from “dog school”.

Some things I work on are moving along and are looking good.

A good friend of mine just announced some great news.

It’s been a good day. And I felt the need to write this because there were so few of them lately.

8 years ago I was writing something similar, about a completely different situation, though.

The sunset in Nazaré, Portugal, yesterday.

An interesting debate on Marginal Revolution. Of course, the debate is as old as humanity. Still, people in our generation had to really look at the arguments because of how COVID impacted different people based on age.

So the lives of high wealth, low human capital individuals, including older individuals, are overweighted by traditional economic metrics, given that “naive” WTP measures do not adjust for the “wealth transfer upon death” externality. That is some but by no means all of the elderly. Their willingness to pay for risk reduction may be as high as the WTP of the young, but in social terms that does not mean their lives are equally valuable.

From here: Are young or old lives worth more? – Marginal REVOLUTION.

I’ve found myself searching on reddit for links from specific domains lately and I always forget how to do it.

So here it is, in case you ever need it:

https://www.reddit.com/domain/longreads.com/

Of course, change the domain name for whatever you need.

It’s a neat little trick that can help you at some point.

In the last email from IndieHackers I found the story of Carrd, the one-page site builder. The company just hit $1M ARR and the founder talked about his early experience building the product here.

Apparently doing the same two things over and over seriously impacted my ability to come up with “outside the box” ideas, and what few I did come up with were either too boring or just too damn cliché (yes I considered doing a to-do list app 😅).

So, perhaps the solution was to not think too far outside the box, and instead stick to the same general category as all my previous work — that is, web design, and specifically the “do-it-yourself” variety found in site templates.

And that’s when it hit me: how about a site builder?

Not only would this be a fun challenge (and one that would encompass both the frontend and backend), it also felt like the next logical step after years of making increasingly sophisticated site templates that were kind of edging towards proto-site builder territory anyway.

It’s an interesting experience, especially since he mentions in an AMA on the site (IH) that he raised VC money when he was already profitable and it wasn’t for the money only, but mainly for the network and advice.

Guess you could say I was in denial about Carrd’s growth and what it was becoming. I still thought of it as a side project even as recently as a couple of years ago, but a combination of events in 2020 (COVID-19 and protests in the US being the most significant) crazy accelerated growth and made it very, very clear that was no longer the case and I needed to treat Carrd — and, more importantly, the users who relied on it every day — with the importance it deserved.

Which was all well and good, but WTF do I do next? Do I spin up “Carrd Inc”? Do I begin hiring? If so, who do I hire? What sort of business/legal shit do I need to know about given how much user content is being generated literally every second? Questions I was reasonably confident I could figure out in time, but as growth continued to accelerate — we went from adding hundreds of sites a day to literally thousands within the course of just a few months — I realized there was a good chance by the time I did figure it all out, it’d be too little too late.

And that’s where the idea of the raise came in. As something of a solo bootstrapper I’ve always been pretty insistent on doing everything myself so the thought of getting others involved (let alone taking their money) wasn’t exactly appealing especially since we were profitable and didn’t actually need the money. However, I knew from talking to others there was a lot more to VC than just being cut a check, and that the network, expertise, and connections I’d gain would go a long way to address the issues I was facing at that moment as well as better equip us for taking Carrd into the future.

… which I guess is what it comes down to: doing what’s best for the product — even if it does bruise your ego a bit :)

The AMA is here and it’s worth reading all of it.

These days I’m watching Mythic Quest, a TV series about a gaming studio building an MMO. While the series is quite funny and interesting (with the voice actress of Aloy in the cast), something else caught my eye.

The main character of the aforementioned show is Ian, the studio leader. Who is played by Rob McElhenney, also known from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Rob convinced Ryan Reynolds recently to buy a football club in the UK (Wrexham). And the interesting thing? They never met in person before.

The price?

In a pinch-yourself moment for success-starved fans of Welsh club Wrexham, Reynolds and McElhenney completed a $US2.5 million […] takeover of a team that plays in the fifth tier of English football.

From here: Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy Welsh club Wrexham.

I’m jealous. I want a football club as well!

As McElhenney’s ambition took hold, he wondered if he could persuade Reynolds to join in, despite only being acquainted via modern technology.

Although the ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ star recently revealed on a US television show that the pair met last month for the first time to shoot a promo for the football club, prior to their successful bid for Wrexham the pair had never come face to face.

From here: Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds: Stars never met before buying Wrexham – BBC Sport.

Also, here’s a video from the stars:

A message from our owners-elect…

Welcome to Wrexham AFC, @RMcElhenney and @VancityReynolds 🥳

🔴⚪️ #WxmAFC pic.twitter.com/ho1vV8cvry

— Wrexham AFC (@Wrexham_AFC) November 16, 2020

photo from Extra.ie