Tired of French bread slices not fitting the toaster, I went big, too big. I thought a larger toaster would be 50 percent longer, not 100 percent. My wife asked why I didn’t look at the specifications before ordering. That is a question best left to the philosophers, I think.

Appalled to find my wife listening to audio for a video through her MacBook Pro speakers, I was then disappointed but not surprised the work Mac disallowed AirPlay, so I mounted a shelf and soundbar atop the monitor and used the audio jack. Old analog tech trumps new IT policy every time.

Tired of trying to grow grass on a rain runoff slope, I’m thinking of planting a large shrub in this space. The Emerald Green arborvitae is boring, but they grow big and fast and stay are green all year.

Satechi announced their Mac Mini M4 Stand & Hub to increase connectivity and storage for the base M4 Mac mini. It will cost me a Thunderbolt port, but I’ll take Satechi reliability over whatever rando OEMs and Kickstarter projects pop up in coming months.

#Macmini

Since Apple egregiously upsold me to the glorious nano-texture M4 iPad Pro, I’ve paired it with an M4 Mac mini. A KU XIU magnetic wireless charging stand and Luna Display adapter/app transform the iPad into a 13-inch XDR Display mini. It’s the best “Mac” I’ve ever owned.

#Apple #Macmini

If you want to use an M4 Mac mini with a Touch ID keyboard, bad touching on the bottom is required! Someone at Apple needs to watch some industrial design or maybe HR videos on do’s and don’ts in the workplace.

#Apple #Macmini

Surprised FedEx has fallen behind UPS and Amazon(!) in tracking packages and estimating delivery, I wouldn’t care if my signature wasn’t required and my delivery “window” was until midnight. FedEx: like the Post Office but more expensive.

Sometimes—not all the time—you have to zoom in to a universe of one and ask yourself, “how does this thing effect me right now?” If it doesn’t, stop thinking about it, at least until you are able to not think about it all the time.

Preordered! Moving from an M1 iMac to an M4 Mac mini-me and a 13-inch Apple XDR mini Display (M4 iPad Pro). I briefly considered upgrading to the M4 iMac with a nano-texture display, but since I already have one I’ll try trading screen quantity for quality.

#Apple #MacMini

Not buying it.

Trader Joe’s comes through big this week with the snall bouquet of flowers.

More than half of North Carolina has voted, including us. The wait was about 30 minutes, longish for a recent cancer patient. If she had to, my wife would have died standing in the unseasonal heat on hard concrete, but a kind poll worker took her to a chair in the shade near the door.

#Vote

In our neighborhood, this was a kind of stop-motion installation over a few weeks. It started out as a construction site, then a hand appeared “emerging” from the black box, followed by head, torso, full figure, all the while the crew moved around. You have to admire the dedication.

Nothing quite like Wendy’s fries and Goodberry’s Nutella custard for dinner. So heavy in salt, fat, sugar, and flavor, I’ll be surprised if a gastronomical anomaly does not form in my stomach. Worth it.

A Northern Flicker woodpecker is apparently large enough to activate the security camera. This is a first, and I’ve now seen five of the seven woodpecker species in North Carolina: Red-Bellied, Hairy, Pileated, and Downy, and Northern.

In this likely tiny interval of calm between personal disasters, we are going to retile the kitchen floor. My wife and I agree on rust for color, likely dark gray for grout, but we disagree on size. I want 8” tiles and she wants 12” tiles, so 12” tiles then.

Happy #iPadmini Day! My wife will happily be choosing among the colors of the new mini and folio cover at the Apple Store, while enthusiasts will be complaining about the A17 Pro and tech specs on social media. Everybody wins!

Walking along a paved path next to a busy road bisecting a wooded housing development, I was disappointed to see it disappear in the distance, not uncommon in North Carolina where sidewalks seem a luxury. Closer, a sharp dip revealed a pedestrian tunnel instead, how surprising and delightful!

Bird boned and tiny wristed or not, #AppleWatch 10 big screen allure was irresistible, also Best Buy Total Upsell Membership stacks rewards and adds AppleCare! If, like me, you are consumering the planet’s future today, you can’t go wrong. As long as you die before the Ecopocalypse, of course.

Little Ernie and Big Ernie (my wife thinks raccoon faces are shaped like Ernie and possum faces like Burt) snuffling around the deck for spilled seed last night. I have to take the bird feeder in every night to keep them from knocking it off the pole.

Carolina mantis enjoying a longer, warmer, wetter summer into fall, not so much the biped who took the picture, one of many responsible for accelerated climate change.

Tinting to the tone of Frank Lloyd Wright wallpaper with iOS 18 looks nice but feels unfinished as a feature. It doesn’t adjust for day and night, no accommodation for badges fading into the background, and Calendar doesn’t change the date—dealbreaker!

Evolutionary tradition has the first Camellia bloom signaling the beginning of Autumn. Unfortunately, evolution didn’t get the memo regarding climate change, at least in my front yard, where it will be 85°F/29.4°C today. Still, pretty though.

As of WatchOS 11, the Siri face is no more. No doubt its many fans–all five or so of us–will be disappointed. It has been replaced by Smart Stack, but this is a feature, not a face, requiring action beyond a glance. Perhaps Apple Intelligence will bring a smarter Siri back next year.

From Hell to Purgatory

Jean-Paul Sartre troubleshoots my printing problem.