Explore

Is creativity dead?

Creators no longer need to be creative. AI tools can help everyone make all the content you need. A website? You're done. An article? You're done. A video? You're done. A song? You're done. If creativity is coming to an end, what will make us different? AI just remixes content that is already out there. There's nothing original or new. That's really not good, because we are human and we should be curious by nature. Nobody knows what will happen in the long term because of using AI.

I'm so sad for Lindsey... 😞 “Legendary American skier Lindsey Vonn crashes while competing with torn ACL in women's downhill”

JANB

This is JANB (Just Another New Blog), a website with a fancy name and a cute logo. I have no expectations for this project, and that's OK. Blogging, like our lives, is full of ups and downs. You're free to follow this blog or forget about it — there's no pressure. 🙃 Note for readers: This is a human-curated blog; there is no AI behind the scenes.

Raindrop.io Gets a Significant New Feature

I've used the bookmark service Raindrop.io (and its apps for macOS and iOS as well as the Safari extension) the last three years, and it's a subscription I don't hesitate to renew. It has a deep feature set, and today it added something genuinely interesting for Pro users: a beta version of a private LLM assistant called Stella. Stella is designed for people with large, messy bookmark libraries. Instead of manually cleaning and reorganizing, you can just ask for help in plain language. Examples the system already understands: • Organize my unsorted bookmarks into collections • Suggest a better structure for my library • Find articles about Formula 1 and tag them by team • Find everything about Japan and move it to Travel • Clean up my tags--merge duplicates like "recipe" and "recipes" • Find broken links • Show duplicate bookmarks The key detail I appreciate: Stella only suggests...

• 🐛 Fixed an issue with auto-save creating drafts of the post you just published.

It's February. 2026 can now commence!

Hello, and apologies for the lack of new content recently. After a rather hectic but thoroughly enjoyable year, I took 6 weeks off from potting, and doing anything remotely ceramics orientated. Now, refreshed and full of ideas, I'm back in the ex-dining room I rather grandly call my studio. It may be small, but it's warm, light, and perfect for all things clay... and as my first job was a bit of a tidy up of the tools, materials and abandoned projects of last year, there is actually some space for me to work in there again now! 2026 Schedule - so far.I'm getting about a bit this year with some cracking fairs and exhibitions already lined up. These include: • Delamore Arts Kiln Rooms exhibition, for the whole of May, with the launch and preview date set as Sunday 26th April 12pm to 5pm. • Toby's Garden Festival at...

One Year Into Switching to an EU Cloud Storage Provider

It's a given that we all need a safe place to store or back up our digital lives--somewhere our data will survive if a laptop gets stolen or a house burns down. Beyond simple protection, there's the everyday convenience of being able to reach your files from any device, anywhere with an internet connection. For most of us, that means choosing a cloud service that fits our needs. The usual suspects are U.S.-based: iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, and plenty of others. In 2025, I decided to rethink that default. For privacy reasons, I wanted to reduce my reliance on U.S.-based cloud providers and move toward services located in countries with stronger data-protection laws. One of the companies I landed on was Koofr, which is based in Slovenia and operates under EU privacy regulations. After more than a decade of paying monthly fees to Google and Dropbox, I found a lifetime...

• ✨ You now create a new category straight form the new post editor. Just click on the "new" button, add a name, create —> and then select it. Easy. If you don't yet have the new editor enabled (enabled by default for new accounts), you can do so from your account settings page. • ✌️ Added some random quotes on Explore. Keep you motivated. • ... of note — if you are still using the original editor, I will be switching over to the new one come end of February.

• 🐛 Fixed an issue that would prevent you from publishing when auto save failed. Sorry about that.

Automate Your Homebrew Backups and Easily Reinstall your Mac Apps

The number of Mac apps you can install through the free package manager Homebrew keeps growing by the day. Tools like Cork, Taphouse, and Updatest can even convert apps you originally installed through other methods into versions that Homebrew can manage and update for you. Homebrew also includes a built-in backup feature that creates what it calls a Brewfile--basically a plain-text script listing everything Homebrew has installed on your system. That file can later be used to reinstall your entire app catalog in one shot, which is incredibly useful if you're setting up a new Mac or rebuilding your current one from scratch. If you're the kind of user who regularly tweaks your setup, experiments with new apps, and keeps everything updated, then your Brewfile needs regular backups to stay relevant. Otherwise, it quickly turns into an outdated snapshot of a system you no longer have. The script below automates that...

Howdy! I made general speed improvements to the platform, especially loading large amount of assets in the admin panel. I've also gave Explore a bit of a speed bump so it's quicker and actually more reliable when data changes like blog icons. — Vincent ✌️❤️

MountMate, the App You Didn't Know You Needed, Gets Updates

One of the things I treasure most about being part of the community that includes independent Mac developers is the opportunity to make feature requests. I never cease to be amazed when an app I use and love gets updated to include an idea I suggested. Yesterday, for the second time, the developer of MountMate (Homie Lab) responded to a feature request within hours. Back in June, he added Intel compatibility, and yesterday he added hotkey support so that MountMate can now be used in automation workflows like Keyboard Maestro, BetterTouchTool, and Apple Shortcuts. Additional new features include: • Dynamic Menu Bar Icon: The menu bar icon now changes to indicate app state: • Shows a clock badge while mounting/unmounting drives • Shows a warning badge if an error occurs • Returns to normal when operations complete • Better Mount/Unmount Icons: Changed mount/unmount button icons from arrows to plus/minus for...

Focus on four

An essentialist approach to work - like choosing just four key things to focus on each day - is powerful because it forces you to spend your limited time, energy, and attention on what actually moves the needle instead of scattering them across dozens of low‑impact tasks. This kind of deliberate focus is one of the most reliable ways to become genuinely productive rather than just endlessly busy.​ https://www.yuzool.com/daily-four.html Why too many priorities kill progressWhen you carry a long list of “priorities,” you constantly switch contexts, react to whatever feels most urgent, and rarely finish what matters most. As the essentialist idea puts it, if you have more than three or four priorities, you effectively have none, because your effort gets diluted until everything is done halfway and nothing feels truly meaningful.​ The power of a daily blank canvasStarting each day with a cleared list - a blank canvas -...

Cuppa blog

I've been playing with TinyDot, a new app by Anton. It's a handy little app that integrates with finder on my Mac. I drop a markdown file in the folder and it just turns it into a webpage. As much as I love tinkering with applications and tested Hugo and 11ty. But I just don't have the time or energy at the moment to really get those setup how I need/want them. I haven't flexed my programming muscles in a long time, but will again eventually. For now, I'm playing with TinyDot. I've moved my coffeeshop log into there and threw the domain name cuppa.blog on it. I've been tracking new coffeeshops that I visit since 2022. I think I've missed a few here and there, and there are some that I'd visited before I started tracking that I went back to, but it's still a fun little project.

Share a blog with family and friends

Howdy! Big update today: you can now share your blog (and your subscription) with family, friends, or collaborators so multiple people can write together — no extra payments needed. Whether it’s a family memory blog, a shared travel journal, or just you and a friend co-writing, this makes it super easy for everyone to contribute using the same Scribbles subscription. It's super easy to get started: Head over to your blog settings → Family & Collaborators. Enter their email address and hit “Create invite”. By default, Scribbles sends them a nice email with a special invite link. Or you can copy the link yourself and send it however you like (whatever works). If they don’t have a Scribbles account yet, they’ll be invited to sign up right there. All they need to do is verify their email (just like normal), and once they’re in they’re automatically added to your blog....

Sal Buscema

When I started reading comics (again) in 1993 on Amazing Spider-Man, in Italy, they were printing the arc drawn by Sal Buscema, with the Vulture and Harry Osborne as the Green Goblin. Also Vermin was an enemy of our hero. Sal was very different from his brother in terms of style and page layout. But still he was able to capture feelings, powers, and energy of each character on the page. Maybe he won't be remembered as one of the greatest. But for me he will always be a good storyteller, and I'll miss him. R.I.P. Sal…

• ✨ For new blogs that have registered, or for blogs that have not yet blogged or set up their blog, there is now a nice simple onboarding view to help you get started. You can always skip it if it's not for you. • ❤️ New blogs now have nicer "slugs"/urls — no more random letters and numbers. Just words. Much nicer. • 🔐 If you were logged out recently, that was on purpose. I've removed some code, rewrote auth with the inbuilt Rails best practices (huh?). Small thing that I wanted to do. Happy! That means new account pages also and general flow, which you shouldn't notice. • 💅 Various visual improvements and betterment across different UI elements, like the account page and other areas. • 💵 ... I changed payment provider for new accounts and for accounts that don't have a subscription. Happy days. The general checkout...

The Prompt I Use to Generate an Obsidian Friendly Log With Backlinks, Tags and Tasks

Every night, shortly before 12:00 AM, an automation I set up on my Mac opens the ChatGPT app and send this prompt: Generate my Obsidian AI Daily Log for the last 24 hours. Requirements: - Sort everything in true chronological order with timestamps. - Use one-line summaries for each discussion. - Structure it as a technical journal, not a chat summary. - Include these sections:   1) Timeline   2) Signals & Insights (what I learned or realized)   3) Friction & Problems (what broke, confused, or slowed things down)   4) Decisions (explicit or implicit choices made)   5) Open Questions (unresolved issues)   6) Next Actions (concrete follow-ups)   7) Backlinks (Obsidian-style [[topics]])   8) Tags (#macos #automation #clawdbot #health etc.) - Use Obsidian-friendly Markdown. - “At the end, include the full log again inside a plain-text block between ===BEGIN OBSIDIAN DAILY LOG=== and ===END OBSIDIAN DAILY LOG===...

• 💅 Added the ability to tweak some of your theme settings under Appearance in your blog settings. This works for the new default theme only. You can also quickly select some pre-made default styles to get quickly started or reset back to default. I'll expand this as I go. • ✨ The new editor, which you can enable in the account settings, now has some upgrades: You can now add alt tags to images and also add styled code blocks. Code blocks have a new dropdown that allows you to set a language of your choosing — and this is correctly displayed on your blog when you're using the new default theme. • 😏 And back to the new editor, you can also now trigger a pop up whilst typing to get to the shortcuts menu. Just type / and you're good to go whilst writing. Easy. • 👾...

The Weekly Review 05-26

The Weekly Scribble ““Sticking to good habits can be hard work, and mistakes are part of the progress. Don’t declare failure simply because you messed up or because you’re having trouble reaching your goals. Instead, use your mistakes as opportunities to grow stronger and become better.” - Amy Morin” The theme this week is mostly around habits and setting goals. It is not about ‘new year, new me’ but a reflection on approaching habits differently. I’m the worst for maintaining intentions. However, keeping it simple this year gives me great optimism.  Alas! Bear for blogging I've recently transitioned to using the Bear Notes app for my blogging and it's been a game changer. As a markdown editor, Bear Notes offers excellent export features which allow me to write in markdown within focus mode, add links and then effortlessly copy the content as rich text into my blog on Scribbles. This...

Few personal notes from the "How AI Impacts Skill Formation" from Anthropic

Anthropic published a study called "How AI Impacts Skill Formation" exploring how AI assistance affects both productivity and learning when developers work with new concepts. They also published an article exploring some results from the study: "How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills" Here are some notes about things I found interesting: Study DesignThe researchers recruited 52 software engineers who were familiar with Python and had experience using AI coding assistance tools. The task involved learning Python asyncio, a library most participants hadn't used before. One interesting detail: the article describes participants as "mostly junior" engineers, but when you look at the data, 55.8% have 7+ years of coding experience and 36.5% have 4-6 years. This matters because the findings apply more to experienced developers learning new concepts than to absolute beginners. ChatGPT agrees with me:  The Core Finding: AI Doesn't Automatically Help LearningDevelopers who completed tasks without...

• 🚀 Made the new editor the default for new accounts — it's pretty solid. • ✨ Changed the url structure when logged into Scribbles — you'll now see "/admin" for any admin related pages. • ❤️ Tweaked the invite screen for non logged in users to allow you to add an invite code if you have one. • 😏 During sign up it will now check if your email is flagged for spam or will have problems being delivered to — if so, use another email address. • 🐛 Fixed an issue where the auto-save icon would show before it would trigger the first auto-save. • 🧹 Reworded "Crossposting" to "Feed URL" in blog settings to avoid confusion. Tweaked the layout slightly also. • 🧹 Other tweaks here and there. • 📺 Added underlying platform updates.

Keyboard Maestro, The App That Makes Everything Better - Tips for the Automation Curious

When Keyboard Maestro went on sale during the Black Friday season last year, I was surprised by the number of people who purchased the app and then found themselves at a loss for use cases. The community forum run by Peter Lewis, the developer, has a good reputation for being helpful, but in my experience it's full of complex solutions to problems I don't have. My intention has never been to use Keyboard Maestro as a software development platform. It's always been about this simple question: how can I turn 10 clicks into 1 click--or better yet, how can I not have to click at all? TriggersHere's a list of some recent macOS automation patterns I've introduced into the way I use my Mac. I've been inspired by the introduction of the Extra Bar to make nested menus of related macros, and I've stopped relying on trying to remember so...

Designing a Personal Operating System

Productivity often breaks down not because of effort, but because of ambiguity. Too many tools. Too many priorities. Too many open loops. One effective response is designing a personal operating system — a simple framework that defines how work, focus, and decisions are handled. Not software. Not an app. A system. What Is a Personal Operating System?A personal OS is a lightweight reference that answers: • What deserves attention right now? • What rules reduce friction? • What does “enough” look like? • How do I reset when things feel scattered? It exists to reduce decision fatigue, not increase structure. Core Components of a Personal OS1. Current Focus A short statement of priority prevents drift and overcommitment. 2. Operating Principles Constraints remove unnecessary choices and protect energy. 3. Definition of Enough Clear limits prevent endless optimization and scope creep. 4. System Overview A minimal map of where ideas, tasks, and...

SnapsofApps Has New, Powerful Features

Ryan Dekker, the developer of SnapsOfApps, a robust and full-featured window management app, just released an update that adds a bevy of new features aimed at more complex setups involving multiple monitors and spaces. He tackled thorny problems like managing how macOS identifies identical display models and how using a MacBook in clamshell mode affects window management. In under 10 minutes, I was able to install and configure the app to use two displays and eight spaces, launch a dozen apps with individual windows, and have every single aspect of the setup work correctly the first time from a simple hotkey command. All of this comes from an app that costs only $6.99 and includes a seven-day free trial. It also offers a full suite of window positioning tools that rival what the big guns (e.g., Moom and Rectangle Pro) in the field can deliver. BackgroundLagging well behind Microsoft Windows,...

Ruby Content and AI in the newsletter

Every week I curate what the Ruby community shares online and publish it in Short Ruby Newsletter.  In the last few months, I noticed a pattern that looks a lot like what happened with TDD in the early days. The Ruby community is experimenting again. Or at least this is how it feels to me. As a curator, I spend time every week looking at what the Ruby community shares and talks about.  Let me share here few points I see:  • Ruby code samples shared on social media are trending down. Posts about using AI and LLMs with Ruby are trending up. • Article about Ruby and Ruby content seems not to be so much affected by this. There is an increase in articles about using AI and Ruby but there are still good technical articles published.  • A vocal part of the Ruby community is embracing AI and...

Why softness became a default in SaaS

Softness did not appear by accident. It emerged from a set of incentives that made sense at the time. As SaaS moved from technical users to mass markets, products needed to feel safe. Friendly colors. Rounded corners. Smiling illustrations. Gentle microcopy. Everything designed to say: “Don’t worry. You can’t break this.” Softness reduced friction for first-time users. It lowered anxiety. It tested well. Then it spread. Design systems optimized for onboarding became universal. Tools meant for professionals adopted the visual language of consumer apps. Serious workflows were wrapped in pastel gradients and reassuring language. Softness became a proxy for usability. But something was lost in the process. Soft interfaces often hide structure. They blur hierarchy. They trade clarity for comfort. For power users, this creates fatigue. The interface feels polite but imprecise. Friendly but slow. Softness also flattens identity. When everyone uses the same rounded cards, muted palettes, and cheerful...

🕖 Now — Time for a Break

Tomorrow, I’m starting a two-week vacation in the Middle East, so… 1. I'm patiently selecting videos to download on my iPad for some in-flight entertainment. The last time I did that proved to be a waste of time: all my Apple TV videos refused to play because of an unknown error. I was like 😡 . This time, I'm going to test my videos in air plane mode before leaving the house. 2. I'm winding down my work on most of my projects, mostly involving webapp development with Claude Code. I'm done with my photo-sharing website for my family and closed friends. It's super cool 😎 and it is ready for use during my vacation. Of course, I still plan to share my best photos on Glass. 3. This break is a welcomed one. I've been spending a lot of my spare time on AI stuff. I feel a little...

📡✨ Cooked

Tim is facing criticism for his repeated attendance at Trump's events. I'm unsure if [he feels trapped](https://om.co/2026/01/27/a-ceo-captured/). If he strongly disagrees with the current US administration but prioritizes Apple's shareholders' value in his decisions, that is his choice. He could also choose to resign as Apple's CEO, citing a conflict with his values. Yet, he remains in his position.

• 🧹 Fixed an issue where when a page contained a contact form, the main content took up the whole screen before the form was shown.

Invites

Today I added the ability for you to create invite codes that allows fellow friends, family and new bloggers to create an account on Scribbles. Your account needs to be eligible first, before unlocking invite codes. It needs to be older than 6 months and also have an active subscription (or lifetime account). Meeting that criteria, you will see a new section in our account settings screen called "Invites". Just go ahead and you can create your first code. Invite codes can be used 3 times, after which you will have to create a new one. You just go ahead and share the invite link with family and friends. Previously I mentioned that I closed registration because of a lot of spam sign ups and Scribbles being used for things that have no place on the internet (spam & low quality content). This is a step to give trust to...

The forgotten art of building in private

There's a pervasive idea in online business right now: if you're building something, you should broadcast it. Share your progress. Document the journey. Build in public. For some people, this works beautifully. The accountability helps. The feedback sharpens. The audience grows alongside the product. But for others, it's a distraction dressed as best practice. Building in public has real costs that rarely get discussed. The pressure to perform. The urge to pivot based on early reactions. The temptation to optimize for engagement over actual progress. The way every small decision suddenly needs an explanation. The internet doesn't need more half-finished announcements. It needs more finished things. What gets lost in the spotlightWhen you announce a project early, something subtle shifts. The work becomes performance. Progress posts replace actual progress. You start optimizing for the story instead of the product. Early ideas are fragile. They need space to evolve without judgment....

Clawdbot Can Do It

Automating repetitive tasks on my Mac has been an ongoing obsession for years. To me, it's the essence of using a computer as the tool it's meant to be. The less often I have to click the same sequence of buttons I clicked yesterday, the happier I am. To that end, I've long relied on Keyboard Maestro, BetterTouchTool, Hazel, Drafts, Apple Shortcuts, and IFTTT. Two days ago, I read about a new agentic AI app called Clawdbot that runs locally on a Mac and interacts with it in ways previous apps simply couldn't. People have strong feelings about AI. I know I do. I'm not a fan of having my blog posts harvested for their information while never getting the chance to interact with the people who want that information. Nor do I enjoy being flooded with AI-generated content passed off as "real human" effort. But AI agents--tools that let...

View from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Manhattan, 9/11

Found moments ago over Mastodon this photo is simply amazing. If sums up so many feeling and memories that somewhat is overwhelming to me.

→ Link 🔗 ClawdBot

Ok, this is something interesting. Probably gamechanging, too. I'll set it up on my M4 Mac mini which I don't use much since I switched jobs in mid-2025. Now, I think I have found a new use case for it. [https://clawd.bot/](https://clawd.bot/)

"This is how societies get dumber"

I believe AI is changing how we think. So, it seems, does Shreya Shankar, whose recent post I really enjoyed. Change is often good, but not always. Not all advancement is progress. And when it comes to something as important as thinking, it seems like any changes are worth keeping an eye on. When we look back at AI's impact on our ability to focus, think, and make independent judgements, will we feel good about those changes? If they herald a new dependency, are we prepared to take on that collective responsibility? We've come a long way powered by the steadfast engine of the scientific method. But that engine requires people who think for themselves, take calculated risks, cooperate openly, and engage with problems in good faith. It doesn't run if people stop wanting to verify information, or lose the ability to discern reality from fiction. Where AI worries me...

The Weekly Review 04-26

The Weekly Scribble“Time is a limited commodity. That's why it it so important to make the most of every moment. - Holly Reisem Hanna ” Talking about time. I've had very little of it to sit down and write, hence the late post this week. Even with my best intentions and structured timetable, many additional tasks and deadlines were thrown at me. This week is shorter for this reason. I believe a Sunday post would be more suitable and realistic with the work commitments I have right now.  Finding the right markdown writing app This week, I've been on the quest for the ideal markdown editor and note-taking app that can seamlessly preserve my markdown files and offer robust cross-platform compatibility between Android, iOS, Mac and Linux. My journey led me to several options but finding one that ticks all the boxes has been challenging. I feel like I have wasted...

Currently inked - Jan 24, 2026

I recently celebrated my fifth year at my current employer and they sent me a little gift card! I used some of that money to buy a new ink yesterday at Penny Post; Pilot Iroshizuku’s Sui-Gyoku. I filled it in my TWSBI 580ALR Caribbean purchased earlier this year while on holiday in the UK. I really like Iroshizuku inks and teal colors always rank high to me. So this is clearly going to be a favorite ink.

Four New Free and Affordable Apps I Like from Indi Devs

SmartTrackerSmartTracker is a universal app that syncs across all platforms via iCloud. Using the URL from a vendor's page (Newegg, Amazon, Micro Center, etc.), the app tracks prices in near real time. You can set a target price and receive a notification within minutes of a price drop. Several features stand out: charts, tracking numerical data beyond price, and collections. When I'm shopping for a big-ticket item, I find it useful to create a collection of the same product across multiple vendors. Today I got excited when Micro Center listed Mac minis for $100 less than Amazon--until I noticed the fine print: in-store pickup only, at a single store in Georgia. You can use the free version for up to five items. The full version costs $19.99 in the App Store. The developer, Hugo Price (u/hprione on Reddit), is responsive to support requests, bug reports, and feature suggestions. WithAudioWithAudio is...

100 businesses you could start tomorrow

You don’t need a revolutionary idea. You need movement. Start before you feel ready. Most successful businesses didn’t start as grand visions. They started as useful responses to real problems. Momentum creates clarity - not the other way around. Each idea includes: • Idea • Why it works • Real-world example Digital & Service Businesses1. Newsletter curation - People want filtered insight - Morning Brew 2. Niche job board - Hiring is fragmented - Remote OK 3. Website copywriting - Words sell - Many solo freelancers 4. Landing page audits - Conversion is confusing - Growth agencies 5. No-code website builds - Speed matters - Webflow experts 6. SEO content service - Traffic compounds - Content agencies 7. Podcast editing - Creators hate editing - Podcast editors 8. Short-form video editing - Attention moved - TikTok editors 9. Ghostwriting for founders - Ideas need voice - LinkedIn ghostwriters 10. Email...

Good evening.

There comes a time when the pointing stops and you simply find you are what was pointed to.