| me@linktree | https://linktr.ee/tawalkermusic |
ā27 November: A call from [BBC] Radio 4 for my views on assisted dying. Answer: too near to the unassisted type to be keen on it.ā
In these uncertain and unsettling days (and outside of them, for that matter): Alan Bennett is truly a British national treasure.
I used to join in with the jokes about how the deaths of David Bowie and Leonard Cohen in 2016, broke two of the major āthreadsā holding the universe togetherā¦ and how everything was being kept from collapsing into the screaming void, only as long as Tom Lehrer remained alive.
š³š§š±
I use both Apple devices (iPad, iPhone, Mac) and a Chromebook, and whilst there are plenty of areas where I feel they're pretty evenly-matched for usability, one area IMO sees Apple way out in front:
Entering accented characters.
Chromebook: Type Ctrl-Shift-U, then the Unicode code for the character (because I always have that table at hand).
Apple: Hold down the basic character (a, e, etc) to get the popup list, then type the number next to the accent you want.
Must try harder, Google?
Iām still āpaddling in the shallowsā with Obsidian, but there are quite a few features I really like already. One is how Obsidian brings in some capabilities from wikis: most notably, how you can link to other notes, which really helps with organisation and navigation. You can basically create a wiki of your Obsidian notes.
One more for now: Iāve actually paid for a year of Obsidian Sync, as it backs up my āvaultā and keeps the contents updated between my Apple devices and Chromebook.
Oddly (esp. as it was only in the last week!), I canāt quite remember how I heard about @obsidian, but when I read up on it, I felt āI think Iāve found my Markdown/note-taking homeā.
Put *very* simply: Obsidian is a free app (with some paid-for services) for creating/editing notes and documents in Markdown and organising them. Itās actually a lot more complex and powerful than that, and I may take a while to exploreā¦ but Obsidian is cross-platform and allows sync and backup. š§µ 3/
Iāve been using StackEdit as a Markdown-writing editor/repository for a decade or so. Itās Web-based and can be installed as a PWA, so I can use it on my iPad, Mac and Chromebook. It also stores its āvaultā on my Google Drive, so itās backed up and synced to all my devices.
Howeverā¦ SE seems no longer under active development (?), and ultimately it runs on a Web server. If SE just vanishes one day, Iāve probably lost access to my MD filesā¦ so Iāve been seeking an alternative. š§µ 2/
I write quite a bit, but almost exclusively for myself: my own reference, reminding, or simply for the enjoyment of it.
My jottings are strewn across multiple receptacles: mostly Apple Notes and Google Docs/Keepā¦ but for some years Iāve kept #Markdown files in Byword (iPhone/iPad) and StackEdit (Web/PWA).
Lately, Iāve been looking for a cross-platform, Markdown-friendly note-management app (largely to replace StackEdit/Byword)ā¦ and by chance, I think Iāve stumbled on it:
@obsidian. š§µ1/
I mentioned the Majority Fitzwilliam 2, bought in 2019, which has ārejoinedā my restored hi-fi system. Itās a really versatile unit, combining a DAB/FM tuner, a Bluetooth audio source, a local USB music player, and assorted network player options (Internet radio, DLNA, Spotify Connect), all as a hi-fi āseparateā. https://majorityaudio.com/products/fitzwilliam/
What blows my mind: I bought mine from Amazon UK for Ā£62, with a Ā£10 discount *and* a gift cardā¦ so just under Ā£40. Today: Ā£107 with a voucher (silver finish).
POSTSCRIPT: When I first powered up the CD player for the first time in a good couple of years, and opened the disc trayā¦ inside was my copy of āHeartleapā by Vashti Bunyan.
No idea how long it was sleeping in there? The next step will be trying to track down the slip-caseā¦
So yesā¦ the simple serendipitous act of finding a pair of decent hi-fi speakers for a knockdown price in a charity shop, has led to me reviving my venerable audio system for my home-office.
Canāt think why I never thought of this earlierā¦ oh right: my old speakers (Wharfedale) are massive, and would never fit in the room!
(Now Iāve got a hi-fi with a working CD player, maybe Iāll dig out some discs and give streaming a restā¦)
š§µ/ends
