Nearly half of streaming subscriptions are for plans with ads — I wonder how many of these ad-supported subscriptions are ones bundled with other services. For example, I get ad-supported Hulu included with my phone plan. I rarely watch anything on Hulu (because of the ads), and if it wasn’t free, then I wouldn’t bother with it at all.
Fortnite is finally back on US iPhones — “If you get the app from the App Store, it will be a small initial download, and after you actually open the app, it will download the rest of the game. For a colleague, that additional download was 12.95GB.” 😳
PlayStation Stars burns out — PlayStation Stars was a frustrating rewards program (as are most rewards programs now). As a casual gamer, every time I would get close to having enough points for the one reward with any value (a $5 gift card), my points would expire. I often feel like it would be better for a company to have no reward program at all than to have one that is frustrating to use.
Mozilla is shutting down Pocket — I’ve used Pocket for years. Last year I shopped around for a new read it later app as I was somewhat unhappy with Pocket. I initially decided on Omnivore before deciding to go back to Pocket. I thought I dodged a bullet as Omnivore shut down a few months later, but it looks like my decision to stick with Pocket finally caught up with me.
How to make a Link Aggregator in Obsidian (Dave Rupert) — I also recently moved from Notion to Obsidian, and I’ve been looking for ways to improve my workflow with saving and sharing links. I might have to adopt a few of Dave’s ideas.
Using Pages CMS for Static Site Content Management (CSS-Tricks) — I’ve been thinking about migrating my blog to a new CMS, and Eleventy would be a much stronger contender if something like this worked well.
A better linter (Go Make Things) — I need to give Biome a try. Setting up ESLint has been difficult. I’m now addicted to auto-formatting, but I don’t agree with some of the opinionated decisions of Prettier (which are impossible to override).
Funsizing (Jason Santa Maria) — “Basically, I’ve always felt best when I was making things, and I miss being more hands-on. But I really miss the flexibility to try different things, work with different people, and learn while I’m doing it.”
No More Ratings (Robb Knight) — “The problem with this system is I mostly don’t watch bad movies. Or a better way to put it is I kinda like bad movies.”
A decade of employment (Blake Watson) — “We can always look for ways to improve our work for the people that use it. I’ll never tire of putting the humanity into my work. And I’ll never lose my wonder for the web.”
Google is killing software support for early Nest Thermostats — You really can’t rely on any Google products sticking around for the long term. I know These thermostats are 11 and 14 years old at this point, but how often do people really want to change their thermostat?
I went to Wichita this past weekend to celebrate the life of my brother Ben, who passed away last month. It was a tough, sad weekend for me and my family. But it was also a really good time to reflect on Ben’s life, listen and share stories about him (many of which I had never heard before), and spend time with friends and family.
One of Ben’s partner’s favorite photos
Memorabilia and photos from Ben’s life
A sticker designed for Ben’s celebration of life
One of Ben’s stickers in the wild, on the sticker wall at Central Standard Brewing in Wichita
The celebration of life felt almost like hitting the reset button on my grief. The preparation leading up to the event was full of stress and anxiety, which I think had been serving as a distraction, but once the event began, all the emotions came flooding back. My brain is still trying to convince me that Ben can’t really be gone, but after this weekend, I know one thing for certain: Ben was loved by everyone who really knew him. ❤️
You can read Ben’s obituary on the Downing & Lahey website. A recording of the celebration of life can be viewed on YouTube.
Framework stops selling some of its cheapest laptops due to Trump tariffs — If I were a company selling products affected by tariffs, I would keep my prices the same and show a separate charge for tariffs during checkout, like sales tax, because these tariffs are really just another tax on consumers.
When will physical video games go away? — I wouldn’t mind going fully digital (as I did on PC) if there was actual competition in digital purchasing. There is only one place to buy digital PS5 games, and the digital version is consistently more expensive than buying a physical copy.
