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I’m in the middle of the Amazon rainforest with WiFi only via satellite and my phone in airplane mode…and I’m still getting spam calls! 🙄

I set up an On This Day page and a custom images archive page last night. It’s great for these to be on my own site rather than on a content silo.

It’s less than a week since I reduced my podcast consumption and I’ve already finished my first book: Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. I’m excited to keep this going and I’m immediately starting another book. 📚

Last night I reduced the number of podcasts I’m subscribed to from 34 to 15. I’m hoping to replace the repetitive tech discussions with a combination of audiobooks and Pocket’s listen feature.

Pocket Casts adding support for AirPlay 2 is making me consider switching back to using it as my podcast app since I AirPlay to my HomePod all the time. It makes a huge difference not having a streaming delay.

I just packed up my iPhone X to send back to Apple having upgraded to the iPhone XS Max and it already feels small to me. It’s amazing how quickly that happens and I just get used to the larger phone.

I switched my chrispederick.com email from Google’s G Suite to FastMail and now that my personalized spam filter is active on FastMail I couldn’t be happier. Now I’m down to just one personal and one work Google account.

Bought one of the new 13″ MacBook Pros and I love it. I tried using only my Mac Mini and iPad Pro at home, but missed writing code on the couch. I’ve done more development in the past few days than I had in weeks and suspect going forward that my iPad Pro will be used much less.

I finished the new God of War game last night and it was spectacular. The story and setting were so well done that I’d love to read more about Norse mythology. Does anyone have recommendations for books (fiction or non-fiction) or graphic novels that cover the subject? 🎮📚

World Cup predictions: Semi finals lineup of France vs. Brazil and Spain vs. Germany. I originally had Spain beating Brazil in the final, but then Spain fired their manager. So now I’m going with Brazil beating Germany in the final. (England out in the quarter finals.) ⚽️

I’ll be opening Tweetbot today, for the first time since January. I’m loving Micro.blog, but Twitter still cannot be beaten for events like the Apple keynote at WWDC.

Absolutely loving the new Castro 3 podcast app on iOS. The triage system works so well and the design is great. I’ve already put it in my dock, and paying for a year of Castro Plus was a no brainer.

Federico Viticci’s experience with his Synology on the latest episode of Connected matches mine. My volume crashed recently and I just haven’t had the time or inclination to fix it. If the Mac Mini ever gets updated I’ll seriously consider buying one to use as a home server.

I stumbled upon the food and travel show I’ll Have What Phil’s Having on PBS in the last year or two and loved it. So happy to see that he has a new (in name only, the format is identical) show on Netflix that is just as good: Somebody Feed Phil. 📺

After a tough last week personally, watching the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch yesterday was equal parts uplifting and inspiring. Not only was it an incredible achievement, but it was amazing that millions of people could watch it live. 🚀

I’m trying to play more video games with stories this year rather than just lots of FIFA. So far I’ve completed Rise of the Tomb Raider and Horizon: Zero Dawn and really enjoyed both. Next up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 🎮

My work laptop broke today so I can’t work on personal projects tonight. Made me think I need my own computer, but the only Mac I “want” right now is the iMac Pro and I really shouldn’t spend $5k on a computer. Trying to convince myself to wait for Apple to “fix” the MacBook Pro.

Setting up Micro.blog…

True black dark mode is becoming a real selling point for iOS apps now that I have the iPhone X. I’ve already switched to Reeder, Twitterrific and Bear because of it.