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Tag: Apps

  • Week 35.24

    Week 35.24

    First, an update on last week’s air conditioning saga. During another service visit, the professionals confirmed what my online research had suggested: a malfunctioning thermistor was the reason for inconsistent cooling. To test it out, they swapped sensors between two indoor units, and now that the cause has been confirmed after a couple of days, they have to come back yet again to replace the broken one (S$161).

    Shortly after, I was coincidentally served this cocky tweet about how “reasonably smart” people with internet access can now challenge an expert about their specific problems, because 1) the information is out there, and 2) the customer has more invested in the outcome than the vendor. For the record I tried hard not to preemptively suggest it to the experts, but when they diagnosed a ‘thermistor problem,’ I wasn’t the least bit surprised.

    New house problem: We found a dead cockroach and it’s been bugging me. I made a poll on Instagram Stories and asked how many people have seen a roach in their homes in the past year, and was surprised the results were pretty much 50-50 (n=29). It might be down to how many people have apartments with integrated rubbish chutes or face open-air corridors. In any case, there’s always something wrong and I need the universe to give me a break or better mental health.

    ===

    I joined my first-ever book club after hearing about it from some folks I met in inSpaze. They meet in the app for an hour every week, and have what I assume is a typical book club discussion if not for the fact that (nearly) everyone is in a Vision Pro.

    They’ve just started on a new book, Guy Immega’s Super-Earth Mother, which I couldn’t find in the library’s catalog and had to buy off the Kobo store. The title is my least favorite part, as it could turn some readers off. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but I ended up finishing it in just a couple of days. I was later chastised for this, as we’re supposed to be reading it together over three weeks.

    It’s about a billionaire’s mission to send an ark of human DNA across the universe in the care of an AI (Mother-9), and how its efforts to colonize other planets goes. That premise immediately reminded me of the back-half of Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, but this is a very different effort. I think I described it in my Goodreads review as “a compact and accessible space epic”.

    What’s making this extra special is that one participant is a friend of the author’s, and they’ve been filling us in on little Easter eggs and references to real-life experiences. There’s also a chance that Mr. Immega might join us for a short Q&A in a later session.

    This external push to read broke my summer reading block. I had stalled on Neal Stephenson’s Interface for months, but after finishing Super-Earth Mother, I breezed through another hundred pages and am enjoying it immensely.

    Kim’s pretty old Kindle Paperwhite finally died, and I got her a new Kobo Clara BW (she declined the Color model, which I still think was an extra $30 worth spending), which is a very nice and slender reader in person. I am now envious of its USB-C charging and Dark Mode support, and am trying to stop myself from buying a Libra Color to replace my first-gen Libra. At over S$300 dollars, even if I’ve read 100 free books on mine so far (I haven’t), I’d still have paid $3/book for the sheer utility of an e-ink screen, which seems silly to me because one can read perfectly well on an iPhone. Or a Vision Pro, even.

    I tried that, btw. Having giant floating pages in front of you is actually not terrible. And in doing so I hit upon another realization about the Vision Pro. Photographers are always saying that you should print your photos to appreciate them, at as large a size as you can, but how many of us really do? Most photos end up being seen on phones, and maybe laptop-sized screens. But now there’s a way to view our favorite shots at wall size and have a gallery-scale experience at home. And, I suspect, discover more flaws and limitations that will push us towards buying better gear. It’s tragic how much of the last decade we documented in piddly 12mp photos because iPhones were more convenient than dedicated cameras. Ugh!

    ===

    Media activity

    • We caught up on Sunny. This is a show that, on paper, seemed designed to light up my neurons. Robotics, AI, a Japanese setting, a “darkly comedic” mystery, a story about clashing cultures, an A24 production. But it’s not for me at all. I came across the above clip on how causality, consequence, and coherence (my terms) are essential in telling a story people can care about, and sadly Sunny fails to adhere to those rules.
    • But also on Apple TV+ is Pachinko, which has just returned for its second season, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes out now. I understand that it’s one of the most popular shows on the service, and I hope it finds an even wider audience.
    • The consensus online seems to be that Apple TV+ is full of great shows that people just aren’t discovering, and Bad Monkey is one of them. Again, I think the show’s title is the weakest link here, and you should be giving it a chance. Vince Vaughn does his thing, the dialogue crackles, and things move with causality, consequence, and coherence. It also kicks off with the discovery of a severed body part.
    • We rewatched Twister (1996) and then saw Twisters (2024). The original is an actual classic, directed by Jan de Bont (who also did Speed), and features a team of tornado chasers with actual, palpable camaraderie. You feel like you’re going along on an adventure with them, and part of that happens because the script bakes in ample downtime where they strategize, tell war stories while eating steak and eggs, and hang out in motels overnight. The sequel is almost embarrassing in how it tries to check a series of “mirror the original” boxes — there’s the in-over-their-head outsider whose terror is played for comedy, the traumatic past weighing on the female lead’s motivations, her magical gut feel that can predict weather better than the science-dependent nerds. But despite all that, it can’t reproduce the magic. Still, as a standalone movie, Twisters is not all bad, and Glen Powell is definitely becoming one of the most likable and bankable men in Hollywood. 4 and 3.5 stars respectively.
    • We also watched Office Space (1999), which I realize I’ve never really seen properly at all. It’s an anti-work masterpiece, with many themes and grievances that seem to be reemerging today. Sure, it came out around the time of The Matrix, when rebellion against cubicle offices was at its peak, but I can’t recall many films in the past ten years that have so strongly espoused quitting your dumb job, burning your workplace to the ground, and finding purpose somewhere else. 4 stars.
    • Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin (2004) was leaving MUBI, so I decided I’d better see it. Boy, what a downer. I looked at reviews on Letterboxd and here are some excerpts from the positive ones: “This is a flawless film, but don’t watch it.” “This is not a movie I should’ve watched.” “I will never recover from this.” “What if I just walked into oncoming traffic”. 4 stars from me, but I tried not to think about it too hard. It might be a 4.5.
    • Also leaving MUBI was the French film Summer Hours by Olivier Assayas. It’s a quiet and beautiful story about the familial unraveling that happens when a parent dies and there is ‘bric-a-brac’ to be split up and hard discussions to be had. Sad subject matter, but nowhere approaching the rock buttom of Mysterious Skin’s tragedy. Also 4 stars.
    • I tried again to start watching Assayas’s Irma Vep TV series, but various interruptions have stopped me from finishing the first episode. I know it’s not a straightforward remake of the original film, but Alicia Vikander’s character is so different from Maggie Cheung’s that I’m intrigued to see what he’s trying to say about her/them/filmmaking with this new take.

    Featured photo (top): A superb dinner we had at Beyond The Dough on Arab Street. It’s one of those places that brings obsessive Japanese craft to traditional pizza. They are amusingly two doors down from a Domino’s outlet.

  • Week 33.24: A close call

    Week 33.24: A close call

    The last update almost became my final one, because I nearly died this week!

    We got the tragic news that a good friend’s dad had passed away (there have been so many cases of this lately), and as Kim is out of town, I was about to go down to the funeral wake for the both of us. I booked a Grab (local Uber-like) ride around a quarter-to-six, and headed down to meet him when it looked like he was close enough.

    As I approached the pick-up point, I saw the car approaching and waved at him, walking continuously down the stairs to the road as I watched him do a three-point turnaround to come at me from the right direction. But suddenly, instead of slowing down for me to get in, the car suddenly lurched forward at full speed. At this point, I was maybe at the very last step down, and the car was coming directly towards me instead of parallel, like you would when picking a passenger up.

    In that moment, my first thought was “is he trying to scare me, as some sort of joke?” This was followed by alarm as he was clearly not slowing down, and then a last-minute instinct to back away. The next thing I saw was the car slamming into the short wall beside the step I was just on, as I fell back on my ass. And then I was covered in debris, missing both shoes, and feeling pain beginning to spread through my legs as shock began setting in.

    I’m quite sure I was hit in the right knee at some point — there’s silver car paint on my jeans to prove it. I recall feeling my left foot being squeezed inside my shoe for just a fraction of a second before it slipped out, as my weight shifted backwards as I fell. Both shoes were later recovered underneath either side of the car. I was there at the point of impact, and then I wasn’t.

    Afterwards, an alternate memory emerged: the car may have hit the wall on the other side first, changing its trajectory towards me, but this initial impact would have dampened its speed. Perhaps my knee was only clipped by a part that was already damaged, explaining how I got a paint transfer without a broken kneecap.

    I remember people nearby running over after hearing the crash, yelling for an ambulance and the police to be called, telling me to stop trying to get up (I backed away from the car on my hands and tried to see if my legs were still unbroken), and to wait for help to arrive. A very kind man took off and came back with a cold can of Pocari Sweat for me; a neighbor I know came and kept me calm by talking things through; and the driver called for help.

    After trying unsuccessfully to call Kim, I took some photos and figured out that my legs were still attached, although moving my left ankle and right knee hurt. The police and paramedics arrived in about 10 minutes and checked me out. I was still shaking from the adrenaline and giving them too much detail, like apologizing that my feet were very sweaty right now as they peeled my socks off. They decided that I might have some fractures and would need to go to the hospital for scans as this was going to be in a police accident report.

    Side note: I don’t really know what happened yet. The driver claims he was trying to brake but the car didn’t respond. I overheard the police interviewing him and asking if there was any chance he mistook the pedals and accelerated instead. I suppose there will be an investigation.

    As I was being loaded into the ambulance, I heard the ominous approach of cars and imagined them crashing into us, and realized that this episode might end with a lasting, debilitating fear of going outside after I’d recovered. I anticipated PTSD, nightmares, and other new items to put in my therapy cart.

    What followed was a couple of hours waiting in the A&E/ER department of a general hospital, trying to joke with the orderlies, and getting x-rayed by about five young people at once who might have never done it before? But no complaints for me, everyone was incredibly nice and got me through it. The verdict, no major fractures (time will tell if there are hairline fractures, specifically two weeks of observation time), and I was lucky to get away with bruises and sprained ligaments.

    A tale of two ankles

    Amusingly, this care even extended to a small nick on my right ankle that was noted by the doctors. Although the pain was concentrated elsewhere, they promised they’d clean that “wound” and dress it for me before leaving. They did so fastidiously, washing it in antiseptic fluid and applying an antibiotic gel and bandage. Then I was also given a supply of said antiseptics and antibiotics to care for it at home. The bandage fell off after my shower and, despite being a delicate hypochondriac, I was happy to just slap a band-aid on it.

    The whole time, from when I was in the ambulance (intrusive thoughts wanting to say “amberlamps” out loud), until the next day, I kept hearing Kanye’s “Through The Wire” in my head, specifically the line “Look at how death missed his ass / Unbreakable, what you thought they’d call me Mr. Glass?” I really want to see M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap (2024), by the way.

    Forty-eight hours later, the reality that I almost didn’t make it still feels surreal. I joked around a bit on Instagram and repeated the story to people who asked, but I don’t know what it means yet. The only nightmare I’ve had was about my malfunctioning air-conditioning unit at home—a small-potato problem in comparison. Part of me expected to emerge like Jeff Bridges in Fearless (1993), recklessly putting myself in risky situations with a newfound sense of invincibility. But then I remembered Final Destination (2000), where death stalks its survivors, biding its time for another strike. That thought put me off from celebrating my good fortune, and I’ve just been sitting on these thoughts since.

    I know that if I had arrived downstairs just a couple of seconds earlier, I would have made it down to the road level and been directly in the car’s path, with no wall beside me to stop it. All I had to do was take another step forward, and both legs and my pelvis would have been crushed between the car and the wall (which stands unscathed today). Bones would have shattered beyond repair, blood would be everywhere, everyone nearby would have passed out from the gore. If I survived that at all, the next few years would still be passed in immeasurable pain and I doubt I’d have the strength or will to keep going.

    What does it really mean to miss that outcome by half a meter? Probably nothing, right? Because we’re surrounded by chaos and death is always just a coin toss away? So I guess it might be back to normal life for me, sans new epiphanies. At least I hope, but when my foot feels better and I finally leave the house, I might find myself paralyzed with fear just trying to cross the street. I guess we’ll see.

    But I have come out of this with some practical advice, which I will now share with you.

    1. Always carry a power bank: When they said I’d have to go to the hospital and might only be discharged the next day, I wasn’t worried because I had my phone and enough power to get through a whole day. I used my phone for so much during this time: updating people, notifying Grab about the accident (1 star), paying the bill. You don’t want to worry about battery life. Bring a power bank with you everywhere. This tiny Anker one has an integrated USB-C port, supports fast charging, and a 5,000mAh capacity.
    2. Wear your shoes loose: It might not help if you’re hanging upside down by your sneakers, but my loose laces might have saved at least one foot from being crushed in the moment. I hope to one day see the dash cam footage of the crash, because how I ended up jumping back and leaving both shoes behind is a bit of a mystery.
    3. Play more video games: Let your kids play them too, because everyone should train their reflexes. When the moment comes, you don’t want to be the person who freezes up. You want jumping, running, dodging, and picking up gold coins to be second nature. Somebody asked me, “Why not sports instead of video games?” Hey, I’m trying to be inclusive here. Not everyone likes sports!
    4. Take more photos: Another thing you want to come naturally at moments like these is taking photos. As evidence, for later reference, or just for sharing a story. You can’t tell yourself to remember this only when something big happens. Just train the muscle so you’re always capturing.
    5. Don’t assume anything about cars: I really got complacent around cars, and you don’t appreciate how heavy and powerful and dangerous they are until one comes at you fast. I’m never jaywalking again with a car “safely in the distance”. Be alert more. You don’t need music in your ears all the time, either.

    ===

    I had some other stuff I wanted to talk about before this happened, but they seem small now so I’ll just mention two things.

    The Halide iPhone camera app got an update that shoots photos without any AI-ish processing. They call it “Process Zero“. The resulting aesthetic is much more in line with regular cameras, and how iPhone photos used to look years ago. We’ve flown too close to the sun now, and everything is too bright, so this nostalgic return to the limits of physical lenses and sensors comes with a welcome, natural look. The above and this post’s Featured Image at the top were taken with this mode, plus editing of the underlying RAW file.

    Our home internet speed was suffering, so I did some troubleshooting and discovered the thin fiber optic cable between modem and wall access point had been coiled too tightly, and was even bent in one spot. After straightening it out, speed tests jumped noticeably. I even got a full gigabit up and down to my iPhone on WiFi 6, not even 6E.

    Stay safe out there. With any luck, I’ll see you next week!

  • Week 32.24

    Week 32.24

    It was Kim’s birthday and to celebrate, we went out for some great yakiniku at a place called Yakiniquest (the name gets points for trying, I guess) where the service was great but the food was incredible. It was probably one of my Top 3 wagyu experiences, along with Matsusaka beef in Kyoto (we walked into an acclaimed, booked-out restaurant and were given a table that had just no-showed), and of course, Kobe beef in the delightful, jazz-adopting city of the same name.

    As an extra surprise, I orchestrated Cameo shoutouts from celebrities on two of the reality shows we unapologetically enjoy bingeing together: Below Deck Down Under, and Gogglebox. I put them on our media server and turned the TV on in the morning, telling her new special episodes had just dropped overnight. She bought it, and it was a fun moment.

    The rest of the week was spent in the tight embrace of the Apple Vision Pro’s dual loop band. One of the things I hoped to get out of being an early adopter of the AVP (both the product and the platform) was a closeness to this new spatial computing form as it germinates, to have a sense of “spatial nativeness” develop in my brain. A sense of its conventions and limits that would help me intuit how to navigate and create new experiences for it, should I ever want to. Which means always being on the lookout for new apps (both programs and applications) and trying them out.

    This week I spent time in a social app called inSpaze, built exclusively for the Vision Pro. As a result of that positioning, and the lack of current competition on the App Store, it’s become the de facto place to hang out and meet other Vision Pro owners to swap stories and recommendations. Try to imagine a cuter, visual Clubhouse, where you spend time in virtual living rooms you can decorate and personalize. In addition to chatting, you can look at photos and 3D models together, listen to music, and play card/board games.

    It’s worth pointing out that you don’t get a normal webcam view of each person, because you’re all wearing Vision Pros. So like all videoconferencing apps on the system, it uses Apple’s Personas: photorealistic avatars based on face scans you do when setting up your Vision Pro, that use its many sensors and cameras to mirror what your real eyes and face are doing.

    If joining a roomful of random strangers from around the world and jumping into whatever conversations they’ve got going on sounds like an introvert’s worst nightmare, that’s because it probably is. I did it anyway, and found it slightly thrilling but also chiller than expected. For one, the use of Personas creates psychological distance; it’s you, but it’s also more a puppet that looks like you. I commented on this and others agreed it made them feel safer.

    What struck me most, though, was how nice and welcoming the community feels, because we’re all early adopter nerds enthused to be sharing this novel experience. It reminds me of the internet when I was a teenager, where the thrill of meeting someone from across the world was pure and untainted by the danger and cynicism that later crept into online spaces. And of course, there’s the fact that a community gated behind a S$5,299 purchase is more likely to be well behaved.

    One nice touch that allows truly cross-border communications is the real-time translation that puts subtitles under each person speaking. In the daytime here, I’ve met a lot of Chinese speakers, and this feature has helped me to follow some conversations I otherwise wouldn’t have.

    It was during one of these afternoon sessions that I met one of the key people behind the app, and we got to talking about their opportunity, business model, and product that got me thinking more about the challenges that smaller developers are facing with this new platform. It’s a well-reported fact by now that AVP sales are low by Apple’s standards. While that’s easily explained by the steep entry price and the challenge of defining a new product category, it still poses a chicken/egg dilemma for creators.

    Solo developers and very small teams doing this on the side can probably justify toying with small apps and selling them for a few dollars, but anyone building something ambitious on the level of a social network or massively multiplayer game, for a total addressable market in the low six-figures — AND having to bankroll it for the next couple of years while Apple works on the cheaper model and second generation Pro — is being asked to take on more risk.

    I have no doubt that Apple will persevere and iterate until this category succeeds, like they always do, so it’s not a question of whether Apple Vision has a future. It just needs to convince developers and their investors to stay faithful, and seed the demand. It’s going to be tricky, and I’d like to see Apple advertising hard for the next 18 months to keep spatial computing visible and galvanize the ecosystem. Even if people can’t find the means to buy the product, they should want to.

    As further proof of the magical, early-internet vibe, I logged into inSpaze early one morning and met a varied group of American users, including a hospital administrator and VR-obsessed truck driver. After many in the room logged off, I found myself speaking with a Canadian man who casually mentioned working with tech podcasting luminary Leo Laporte over a decade ago. As he continued, it dawned on me that he was Ray Maxwell, an 80-year-old polymath whose name I would often hear on Leo’s This Week in Tech (TWiT) network, where he once had his own podcast about aviation and various science topics.

    As a one-time avid listener of TWiT, I can’t overstate how starstruck I felt as Ray told me stories from his expansive career: time spent at McDonnell Aircraft in the 60s, adjacent to where the Gemini space capsules were being built; color science engineering at a company later acquired by Kodak, recommending SF stories by his friend (two-time Hugo award-winning author!?!?) Spider Robinson; and how he’s recently been into capturing spatial video for the Vision Pro.

    I recognize that the early days of any new frontier, team, or relationship are a special thrill that can’t be expected to last, so it’s up to us to maximize and enjoy every moment. Feel free to reach out if you’re getting into spatial computing and want to swap notes!

    ===

    Music

    It must be the peak of the summer release schedule, because so much new music has come out this week.

    The new Glass Animals album is one of those that starts with a banger and keeps the energy going until you’re five songs in and picking up your phone to check the tracklist in disbelief. It’s called I Love You So F*ing Much and it’s soaked through with space beats, vocoders, and addictive melodies.

    I knew they had a cult following before 2020’s Dreamland introduced them to everyone, but I foolishly never got deep into it because the phenomenally successful Heat Waves overshadowed every other song. On hindsight, that tune would have done the same on 99% of albums — it’s the longest charting song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Now I’m excited to soon experience their two older albums for the first time, ZABA and How to Be a Human Being.

    ROLE MODEL is back and he’s shed his hipster-emo guise for a cowboy hat after breaking up with Emma Chamberlain (I just found out). Kansas Anymore is filled with the same lite and lovable pop earworms that I enjoyed on his last album, just a lil’ bit twangier.

    beabadoobee’s This Is How Tomorrow Moves is finally out, and I’ll admit that while I’ve liked all her past releases, none of them have ever made it into heavy rotation for me. I think this will be the one that does it. Early singles Ever Seen and Take A Bite were strong songs in her usual nostalgic 90s alt-rock style (with charming videos by her boyfriend, Jake Erland), but the newest one Beaches is perfect! In any of the last three decades, Beaches would have been an instant classic. She made it while working with Rick Rubin at his ‘Shangri-La’ studio in Malibu.

    Rick Rubin continues to fascinate me as a kind of guru or shaman of the music industry, somehow wielding enormous influence without any formal musical ability himself. He’s somehow able to hypnotize or imbue artists with the confidence to create their best work, just by sitting with them and giving feedback. He wrote a book about his creative process that some reviews call an essential bible, while others say it’s a collection of trite cliches. I suppose I’ll have to read it for myself soon.

    I also found myself enthusiastically nodding along to Killer Mike’s new album, entitled Songs For Sinners And Saints by “Michael & The Mighty Midnight Revival”. It’s loaded with funky beats, soulful playing, gospel choirs, and some very sharp rapping.

    It’s safe to come out now. The Smashing Pumpkins have finished releasing their three-part concept rock opera, whatever it was called. They’re now back with a proper album that promises the good old guitar-driven songs they were loved for back in the day. It’s called… er, Aghori Mhori Mei, a title that doesn’t inspire any confidence that Billy Corgan is back on his meds. My god, the edgelordism is only accelerating with age! Here are some lyrics chosen at random: “Milk such blood / To fare thee lost from all but way / And awaken the sea I light / Our slumbers save the sleep / Wherefore we climb…” Kerrang has given it 4/5, at least. I kinda enjoyed it on a musical level but wasn’t listening closely. I’ll keep trying.

    Vultures 2 came out and I didn’t even know. I think I tapped through to Kanye’s artist page in Apple Music just on a whim and was surprised to see it at the top. Nobody wants to support him anymore with all the shit he pulls, but he’s probably better off with no one knowing about this album, if my two playthroughs so far are any indication. It’s a shoddy mess, with some songs having the seeds of greatness in them, but just withered and stunted on the vine. North West features on one song again: the awful “Bomb”, which has her repeating level 1 Duolingo Japanese phrases like “ohaiyo gozaimasu, konnichiwa” over a truly busted beat. According to one recent IG post, he’s still ‘updating it daily’ on streaming platforms so maybe check back in a few months to hear the album’s final form. Or don’t.

  • Week 28.24

    Week 28.24

    My weekly ‘Going to the Apple Store’ streak continued on Monday when I accompanied my dad for his demo of the Vision Pro. Rather than use my unit with an imprecise fit, I thought it’d be better for him to get the proper experience, and sure enough, he had completely different strap and light seal sizes from mine. He’s had some experience with immersive headsets, mainly from flying his FPV drone and other vehicles, but in terms of interacting with spatial UIs and XR objects this was a first. He came away very impressed, apart from the usual complaints (weight, price). He wasn’t planning to buy one going in, but I wonder if he’s thinking about it now.

    Aside: One hobby I’ve been meaning to play around with in the Vision Pro is sculpture, which is much more intuitive (read: idiot friendly) to do in 3D space with your hands than on an iPad with a Pencil. There’s just not a great app for it that I’ve found yet, although it’s possible at a blobby sort of level in AirDraw — Finger Paint, so I’m starting there.

    If Apple still made their AirPort wireless networking hubs (many smart people still say to this day that discontinuing them was a strategic error), I might have had cause to visit a store again next week. Since they don’t, I bought a set of TP-Link WiFi mesh routers instead and set them up over the weekend. One of the power adapters was faulty out of the box, but fortunately our old system’s were compatible, so that’s sorted.

    Aside: There was a tense moment on Friday night when a ‘pop’ was heard just before the power cut out in one section of the home. It turned out a wall-connected USB charging hub had burnt out, fortunately without damaging anything. It was a Lencent brand 65W GaN thing that I bought off Amazon Prime last October, with a 4.6-star rating. I was complacent to attribute trust based on its Amazon profile rather than my own knowledge — I’d never heard of Lencent and haven’t since — and won’t be making that mistake again. It’s only slightly more reputable Chinese brands from here on out!

    FWIW I’ve had mixed experiences with Anker, but they’re probably the best/safest from a brand equity perspective. I’ve also seen a lot of people using Ugreen products. I have a charger and a couple of cables from them, but their website has typos like you’d find in a phishing email.

    Our old pre-COVID system was WiFi 5, and we had nearly 30 internet-enabled devices on it, which I think might have contributed to recent connectivity issues. I have bored Kim to tears with explanations and theories all week, so I’ll spare you. In short, I spent $400 I hadn’t budgeted for to upgrade us to a WiFi 6E mesh that claims to have self-learning AI and support for 200 devices. The app is miles better than our old Netgear Orbi’s, letting you configure nearly everything from your phone — it’s bizarro world over at TP-Link because the web-based admin panel has nearly no settings. Anyway, we’re future ready and could move up to 2Gbps internet when our current contract expires.

    ===

    • 🎮 I’m still checking into Zenless Zone Zero daily to claim log-in rewards and farm materials. I’m observing that this routine is actually a barrier to getting more stuck into proper games. Devious.
    • 🎮 Nevertheless, started on a charming and well-written visual novel about the afterlife called Ghostpia: Season 1, on the Nintendo Switch. I saw launch ads for it during our last trip to Japan and bought the global release late last year, but I’m only starting it now. I think it’s pronounced Ghost-o-pia in Japan, and the name implies “ghost town”, like the Latin topos for place, as in utopia. It’s the rare visual novel that doesn’t ever feel like it’s wasting time or insulting your intelligence.
    • 📺 Started watching Sunny, Apple TV+’s new show starring Rashida Jones and a robot that kinda looks like a Pepper 2.0. It’s an A24 production, set in a surreal other-universe Japan that feels like a variant of the world in Severance. Such an odd vibe, which I suppose adds to the “nothing is what it seems” mystery here. She’s an American expat whose Japanese engineer husband and son supposedly died in an accident, leaving her an advanced AI robot to figure things out with.
    • 📺 Absolutely thrilled that Jinny’s Kitchen has returned for a second season on Amazon Prime Video, sending Korean celebrities to run a restaurant in Iceland this time. Like before, each episode is essentially a two-hour movie, and there’s something about this formula that makes even the most mundane moments (restocking a fridge, taking orders, dicing vegetables) so watchable. Other reality shows can only dream of including this much detail on a weekly basis without losing an audience.
    • 🎬 Saw In the Realm of the Senses (1976) on MUBI despite warnings from Nic not to watch it. Is it uncomfortably, unbelievably graphic? Yes. It’s also a very powerful and competently made film based on a bananas true story. 3.5 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Heroes of the East (1978) next, a classic Shaw Brothers kungfu flick by Lau Kar-Leung starring Gordon Liu, both in top form. It’s actually a cross-cultural martial arts romcom, with action scenes so good I don’t think we know how to do them anymore. One of the best I’ve seen, up there with Dirty Ho (1979). 4.5 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Friends and Strangers (2021), a very enjoyable indie Australian film. Gorgeous photography, care evident in every shot. The story meanders and discharges detail wherever it feels like it, leaving so much off screen, and the result is “dreamy”? Aside from the Australian identity crises, I was surprised it felt a bit like Singapore, where everyone knows someone you know, and nobody has figured out what life’s about. I much preferred the first half with Emma Diaz in it; the second felt like a portrait of bumbling male incompetence that no one needs to see more of, really. 4 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) and wasn’t as disappointed as I expected to be! It took a little warming up to, but Eddie Murphy looks like he’s having fun again and that’s enough for me. 3 stars.
    • 🎬 If you’re in the mood for a mellow drama shot entirely on an actual luxury cruise ship on an actual voyage, Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk (2020) has got you. Meryl Streep, Gemma Chan, Candice Bergen! Oh it’s about a writer trying to write a sequel to her best work, and catching up with two old friends she hasn’t seen in decades. 3.5 stars.
    • 🎬 I also really enjoyed Upgraded (2024), an Amazon Prime Video original romcom about the art world starring Camila Mendes, Marisa Tomei, and Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Anthony Head). It’s derivative AND fun! 3.5 stars.
    • 🎧 Tons of new music this week but I haven’t had time to hear Eminem, Cigarettes After Sex, Tori Amos, or Travis yet. I’ve heard Griff’s debut album, Vertigo (polished pop from Sigrid’s side of the aisle), and Clairo’s Charm (a lush, beautiful vintage sound).
  • Week 26.24

    Week 26.24

    The week seemed to slip by with not too much to show for it until Friday, as I waited for the delivery of my Apple Vision Pro. I watched a couple of films, subscribed to the New York Times again, and made some plans for a personal creative project.

    In the meantime, I also made some memes for Instagram.

    I also resumed wearing contact lenses daily after years of relying on glasses, because I didn’t want the Zeiss lens inserts for Vison Pro. It will take a little adjustment; I definitely don’t miss the end-of-day dryness and irritation.

    Okay, so!

    The unboxing experience for this high-end device is suitably premium, despite being made from predominantly recyclable paper materials. You lift the cover — it releases with the usual deliberate, satisfying motion — and there it is, positioned as if on display in a museum, supported by a molded rest. All the accessories are neatly organized in a compartment underneath. There is an indulgent amount of unused space in this box; no squashing of the Vision Pro into egg carton cutouts like with some Sony products!

    A nice Quick Start book instead of the leaflet you get with iPhones

    Side note: I think I may have gotten measured for the wrong size of light seal (21W) as the sides feel narrower and less comfortable than 33W for me. I have an appointment at the Apple Store next week to hopefully get it swapped.

    First encounters

    I’ve already mentioned the magical and immersive experience of using it. Knowing that, it was still a shock when I ran the pre-installed Encounter Dinosaurs app (directed by Jon Favreau) for the first time.

    Some U.S. reviewers reported actually feeling the virtual butterfly land on their outstretched fingers at the start of the experience, to which I thought, “no way”. And yet when it happened to me, I swear I felt four distinct little pricks on my skin as its little legs shifted. That unfortunately primed me to feel what happened next even more acutely. The dinosaurs appeared on screen, with a fluidity and resolution that was greater than I expected, making the PS5 look like “video games”. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say they were lifelike.

    You are warned at the start that the animals can “see you” and will react to your actions. As the largest dinosaur stepped out of its frame and stalked towards me, towered over my seated body, then stared me in the face while exhaling through its nostrils, I felt my body go into a fight-or-flight mode. No joke. I started to sweat. I avoided making eye contact, and turned my head away hoping it would back off. The presence you feel is unbelievably tangible, and I know I will NOT be attempting any horror games in the future.

    Art of the future

    A much calmer experience I can recommend is Museas, which is a completely free journey through art history made by a single person (Miguel Garcia Gonzalez, who calls himself “a supply chain professional by day and spatial computing engineer by night”). You can see landmark artworks at phenomenal scale right in your home, or in “immersive environments”. These suddenly float your body in massive virtual spaces, surrounded by complementary imagery, with the original artwork in front of you. Think of them as frames, just 360º ones. For example, when viewing Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, you see a florid Japanese garden scene all around, while a narrator explains the artwork.

    I suspect they’ve used generative AI to create these descriptions of the artworks’ history and meaning, the voice that reads them (it sounds to me like the actor Jared Harris, who plays Hari Seldon in Foundation), as well as the 360º immersive scenes. If so, the technology has clearly allowed a single person to achieve something that feels professional beyond their means. The voice is natural and doesn’t feel off to me at all. The immersive environments aren’t perfect, but they’re for your peripheral vision — you’re meant to focus on the original art. The wall text is accurate as far as I can tell. Was this labor that could have paid the salaries of a few more people? In theory, but it’s more likely this project wouldn’t have gotten made at all without AI.

    When I think about you I shush myself

    Apart from these new experiences that weren’t possible before, I think the primary application of the Vision Pro for me will be a personal cinema hall. I sat down with the Theater app to watch Adam Lisagor’s 3D recording of John Gruber interviewing Apple executives Joz, Craig, and J.G. at WWDC (regular 2D recording here), and for nearly two hours I was immersed and focused in its virtual space, surrounded by faintly illuminated empty seats and aisles. I felt notifications come in on my wrist, my phone was across the room, and I ignored all of it the same way I would watching a film in a real theater.

    I think the Vision Pro is the antidote to the iPhone that some thought the Apple Watch would be. Turns out the answer to destroyed attention spans, multi-screening, and screen addiction wasn’t to make it easier to leave your phone in your pocket by redirecting things to a watch, it was the skeuomorphic recreation of a giant screen in a dark room. I think this is the ideal way to watch Important Films. And as nice as our new TV is, I don’t think it compares in visceral terms. Tradeoff: focus and immersion vs. comfort and the ability to drink beverages.

    Media activity

    • Finished watching Constellations starring Noomi Rapace on Apple TV+. Mild spoiler: I complained on Threads about the way it handled a plot device thusly: “Sci-fi shows where science-literate people find themselves trapped in parallel universes, and literally don’t know the words “parallel universe” to explain to other people what’s happening, please gtfo”
    • Season 3 of The Bear is out this weekend and like most people (I did a poll on Instagram), we’re getting through it. That first episode? Wow, really special television.
    • Saw Aloners (2021), a film that tackles modern nowhere lives built around go-nowhere jobs, where even if you meet people worth connecting with, your social muscles may already have atrophied too far. Starts strong but doesn’t land the character development at the end for me. Also: is this a chaotic opposite world version of Perfect Days? I said on Letterboxd: “Say less” is the unofficial motto of Korean arthouse cinema. 3/5 stars.
    • Saw Zero Fucks Given (2021). It follows a young woman escaping grief and complexity by going headfirst into the soul-sucking worker bee life of a budget airline attendant, taking each day as it comes, never looking a day ahead as much as she can help it. Lovely work, and Adele Exarchopoulos is a talent. 3.5 stars.
    • Saw Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Oast Lives (2010) through MUBI’s visionOS app, and I chose to watch it on the dark side of the moon. It was incredible to look up and see stars, look around and see a desolate rocky surface, and then at a giant floating screen ahead of me. The movie was also strange, unreal, and disorienting like being on the moon — it won a Palme d’Or when it came out, cynically I think because a Thai film like this was exotique. I enjoyed its atmosphere and ideas a lot, just not the stilted acting. 3.5 stars.
    • I don’t know where else to mention that I fulfilled a personal goal by minting a McDonalds Singapore NFT after Jose alerted me (with two hours to spare) that they were releasing a new Chicken McNuggets series. Their first release last year was of Grimace, and holders enjoy a stream of special perks. Interestingly, they are ‘soulbound’ NFTs, meaning they cannot be sold or transferred from the initial wallet that received them. Don’t ask me why McDonald’s Singapore is doing this (I doubt they do either), but I want it and I got it.
    • I’ve been long Camila Cabello since 2019 when I called her “possibly the most competent pop star and the new Rihanna”, but I have to admit I was nervous about her new album C,XOXO after recent racism accusations and piggybacking on Charli XCX’s party girl image and Brat aesthetic on social media. Thankfully, I’m on my third listen and it’s an enjoyable record apart from Drake appearing on two tracks (putting on his Jamaican accent, for chrissakes). She’s a big Drake defender, but even if she wanted to cut him after recent events, the album is only 32 minutes long and wouldn’t have survived it.
  • Week 24.24

    Week 24.24

    ✅ Saw Seinfeld live

    His 2024 tour had just one Asian stop, here, before heading to several Australian cities. We decided to splurge on S$300 tickets late last year for the one-night-only show on June 14. After all, when are you ever going to see Jerry Seinfeld again? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list opportunity.

    And he was pretty good! I can’t believe he’s 70 and still working the circuit. Although the face says he’s aged, the material suggests he’s still the same unserious, childish complainer we love. Some bits on modern subjects like AI and smartphone addiction screamed ‘boomer!’, but his timeless takes on marriage, the lack of innovation at the Sun-Maid Raisin Company, and putting old dish sponges out of their misery, were solid gold.

    ===

    I attended an inspiring memorial service for my uncle, who passed away a few weeks ago. It was a large and well-attended affair, on account of him having been a prominent member of the local medical community.

    Relatives are usually these distant figures we only see during Chinese New Year reunions. But under the surface, there’s a lifetime of stories we never hear, and it’s a pity. If not for the history lesson and stories that his son shared, I would never have known about how he was born in China 90 years ago, arrived in Singapore at the age of 10, suffered tragedy at the hands of the Japanese, and became an award-winning multihyphenate equally accomplished in matters of art and science. That generation really was built different; the risks they took seem unreal when compared to our modern lives (but tbh they couldn’t handle a zillion social notifications destroying their mental health either).

    ===

    It was WWDC week and while I don’t have to comment on Apple stuff, I kinda always do, so let’s keep traditions alive. They unveiled a slew of software features coming to every platform, and I was most excited to see that Journal, Notes, and Freeform are still being improved and haven’t become forgotten hobbies. As a word-centric computer user, they’re the ones I rely on most — the Math Notes demo on iPad was super cool but I couldn’t begin to use it.

    I’m not convinced the Photos app redesign was necessary or an improvement for most users. Its single-page design seems like a conceptual simplification that might add more complexity in real-life use. I haven’t lived with it yet, so I hope I’m wrong.

    I’m convinced Messages will continue to absorb all popular chat features until it eventually catches up to where Telegram was about four years ago. And that’s all it needs to do, really.

    They announced that Apple Vision Pro will finally be sold outside the US, with Singapore as one of the first countries to get it, alongside Japan and China. Wow, that’s a hell of an upgrade to our starting lineup position. Back in Week 5, I correctly predicted that the global rollout would start in June, but I also said that the product would see annual updates — the consensus on tech Twitter now is that there won’t be a new model until 2026. Which… makes me think that I could get one after all? Getting two years of use out of a S$5,500 device is a lot more palatable than getting just one. Once you add the cost of AppleCare+ (S$749), a travel case (S$299), and prescription inserts/contact lenses though. Hmm.

    On Apple Intelligence: I was happy to see them begin by laying out their design principles (we do this on a lot of my projects, but they are rarely communicated to the public), which are critical for this particularly suspicious and misunderstood technology, for which Apple needs to differentiate their approach and model. Some, like Google, already have access to your data but can’t be trusted not to monetize it with ad targeting. Others, like OpenAI, may only have what data you choose to share but can’t be trusted not to train their models on it. Apple is unique in that it doesn’t seem to want to do either.

    Finally, we’re getting a smarter Siri that’s an actual agent, i.e. able to string together various tasks in pursuit of a goal, and take action on behalf of users. So much for the Rabbit and all that bullshit. Doing as much locally as possible is the only responsible way to do AI agents. And Apple’s private cloud compute solution, which looks to be yet another privacy engineering breakthrough, is probably the second-best way.

    The image generation stuff was probably the most contentious part. I’ve seen upset takes from artists but no one can put this stuff back in the bottle. The only way to stop AI art is a full-scale public revolt, and that requires everyone getting a good look at it first. It’s the four packs of cigarettes your dad forces you to smoke after he catches you sneaking one. When we’re all tired of seeing gross AI styles, human-created art might be appropriately valued.

    But I don’t think Apple is on this exact mission, so I was surprised at the examples they chose to showcase. The Genmoji of a surfing dinosaur looked terribly similar to Meta’s own AI chat stickers in style and quality (cheap). But being able to create Genmojis and illustration-style images for documents all across the OS, for free, is no doubt a big deal. I think many people will generate their first AI images with Apple Intelligence.

    ===

    Media activity:

    • I just finished R.F. Kuang’s Babel and loved every page. If you’re into university-set adventures, deep dives into language and literature, the aftershocks of British colonialism, and tales of the Chinese diaspora, this one’s for you. I had no idea that she also wrote Yellowface, which I’ve heard many people rave about. Props to Kuang, she gets a lot more out of being Chinese than me. 5/5 stars.
    • Bought Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name for S$31 on PlayStation’s summer sale, and immediately started playing it. I thought I’d had enough of this series for awhile, but I’m six hours in and having so much more fun than in the preceding game. Part of it is even set in the same Yokohama map as Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but running around here is so much better without the annoying turn-based combat. Recommended if you like absurd storylines played with the straightest of faces.
    • Started watching Constellations on Apple TV+, which has sadly been canceled after one season. The first two episodes lean into a space horror vibe which had me seriously tense, but it’s lightened up a bit now in episode three. Recommended for fans of Noomi Rapace, Dead Space, sci-fi mysteries.
    • Watched A Quiet Place Part II and was let down because I remember enjoying the first one, but this sequel is a much lesser use of mostly the same ingredients. Plus that annoying post-apocalyptic trope about how the human survivors are worse than the monsters. PUHLEASE. 1.5/5 stars.
    • Watched Hit Man on Netflix, the first Richard Linklater film I’ve caught in years. It kept me guessing (and I had a lot of wrong guesses where it was heading), and has a lot of fun with the concept. Glen Powell is going to be a huge star, isn’t he? 4/5 stars.
    • Alex Garland’s Civil War was like most of his films: plenty to look at, not much to say. It shows what a civil war in the US might look like, but doesn’t care to fill anything in, mirroring the photojournalists it follows. Early on, Kirsten Dunst says “we just shoot the pictures, others can ask why”, or something to that effect. Well, isn’t that convenient for you, Alex Garland. 2.5/5 stars.
    • Discovered the band Fantastic Cat after seeing a vertical video somewhere of them inviting Adam Duritz of Counting Crows to be on their new song. It may have been a clip of the video for the song, actually. Following that I checked out Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat and really enjoy its pre-my-birth country rock sound. A quick internet search revealed that they’re a supergroup of four singer-songwriters that I unfortunately have never heard of.
    • Am listening to Charli XCX’s very popular new album, BRAT, and it might be her best work yet. I’m also listening to A.G. Cook’s new Britpop album and since he produced half of her album, it can get confusing.
    • Have also been following the drama of Taylor Swift allegedly releasing numerous editions of her albums on the eve of other female artists’ album releases to block them from the top spot on charts. She apparently tried it with Billie Eilish’s album, and now she’s done it to Charli with a UK-only release of two new editions of The Tortured Poets Department, each with different demos or live versions tacked on. She’s free to defend the throne but there are apparently 34 different versions of that album out now. Even The Guardian has weighed in and declared Charli the winner on artistic grounds. This releasing of multiple variants to milk fans feels gross to me. Back in my day, musicians just released one version of an album (okay, plus maybe a Japan-only one with bonus tracks) and it had to fend for itself on the charts for years!
  • Week 23.24: Chilling with Sony’s Reon Pocket 5, New Camera Apps, and a Playlist

    Week 23.24: Chilling with Sony’s Reon Pocket 5, New Camera Apps, and a Playlist

    Sony Reon Pocket 5

    I discovered the existence of a cool new device this week when a Sony catalog wound up in my trad-mail inbox. After some online research, I visited the nearest Sony store for a demo of the Reon Pocket 5 device and ended up buying one for S$249. Okay, what is a “Reon Pocket” and why is this the fifth version? The four previous iterations were only sold in Japan, but the tech is now mature enough that Sony is launching it in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand this year.

    It’s best described as a wearable gadget for helping you feel more comfortable by fooling suggesting to your body that the temperature is more bearable than it thinks. It does that by cooling or heating a small metal plate pressed against your skin (in this case, at the base of your neck), which contrasts with the environment and changes your perception of it. Surprisingly, it works with just a difference of a few degrees.

    I first learnt about this effect a decade ago from a Wired article about an MIT prototype and have been eagerly awaiting a commercial product ever since. I had no idea until after buying the Sony version that the researchers mentioned in that article have actually shipped their own wrist-worn product called the Embr Wave. It resembles a smartwatch and is more discreet than the bulkier Reon Pocket 5 which sticks out from beneath your shirt collar like some kind of life support system. However, since I already wear an Apple Watch, I don’t know if I’d wear an Embr Wave too.

    In some ways, I seriously see this device as a “life support” technology. I think I’ve struggled with heat regulation all my life — always feeling warmer and sweatier than everyone else; most days you can hold your hand over my head and feel the heat radiating off it. I read that our bodies’ core temperature doesn’t actually change much (when it does, that’s hypothermia or heatstroke), so how comfortable we feel is all down to skin temperature, which this sort of thing hacks.

    After a couple days of testing, I’ve found the Reon Pocket 5 doesn’t perform miracles but offers a different sort of relief than a handheld fan (though one could use both). But it’s like constantly holding a cool can of soda against your neck in hot weather, which is welcome! It’s a glass of ice water for someone in hell. Even when the temperature isn’t that high but it’s stuffy and humid, this takes the edge off. If you’re the sort who’s always feeling cold in Singapore’s air-conditioned spaces, it also heats up and offers the opposite effect.

    There’s a lot I could say about the app, and how it’s another example of Sony’s generally poor UX design, but once you figure out what settings you like, you can lock them in and operate the device without it. It also comes with a separate “tag” that you can attach elsewhere on your body, which monitors the external temperature and humidity so the device can automatically switch modes, but I haven’t bothered to take it out of the box at all. All they needed to do was put a button on the thing to switch between hot and cold, just like the Embr Wave does.

    Building a separate piece of hardware instead… reminds me of how Sony headphones try to “intelligently” adjust noise cancellation levels by guessing whether you’re commuting, or working, or lazing about, by using GPS location and accelerometer data from the smartphone app — an absolutely mental and roundabout solution to replace the user pressing a button. Incidentally, Apple’s Adaptive Audio mode on AirPods Pro is a much better take: they dynamically adjust the balance between noise canceling and transparency based on environmental noise, letting you be aware but not annoyed.

    The battery, if you’re wondering, should last an entire day out. At Level 1 cooling power it’s rated at 17 hours; at Level 3, 10 hours; and at Level 5, 4 hours. Operating on Smart Cool mode, it switches between them as necessary. There’s also a “wave” feature that I recommend turning on, which follows the same core principle as Embr’s device where cooling power fluctuates so you don’t become desensitized to it. If you need even longer performance, you can plug it into a power bank and it will work on direct power without charging. Imagine using it at the same time as Apple Vision Pro, with two power banks in your back pockets. That’s living in the future, baby.

    In conclusion, wearing the Reon Pocket 5 around your neck makes you look dorky or hooked up to some medical device, but when it’s over 30ºC in the shade, who gives a damn?!

    ===

    New camera apps

    I’ve been using two new camera apps: Kino, from Lux Optics who also make the Halide app, and Leica LUX (no relation).

    Kino is a logical move. Halide was a “pro” app focused on bringing intuitive manual controls for still photography. Kino does the same for video. Unlike Halide, it’s a one-time purchase ($20 USD) and a big part of its functionality is the ability to apply different looks (color grading via LUTs). I’ve always wished Halide would do something similar, to help lazy shooters get the most out of RAW captures. I hardly shoot any video but I thought Kino was worth buying, especially since I’ve let my Halide subscription lapse for lack of use.

    One of the best things Kino does is allow the system to shoot in Apple LOG but write the files in HEVC format instead of ProRes, which saves a lot of space but still conveys some of the benefits. You can also shoot in LOG, apply a color grade preset in real time, and save the baked file in HEVC. That’s awesome.

    Leica LUX is not so logical and I’ve been puzzling over why a company with their luxury brand equity would take a risk like this. On the page linked above, they’re saying the app “lets you capture the iconic Leica Look with your iPhone” using their “deep color science” and digital simulations of “legendary lenses”, like the Noctilux-M 50mm f/1.2 ($7,895 USD), and claiming it “reproduces” its “signature aesthetic bokeh”.

    I present two exhibits. The first (below) is what you see when selecting the “Leica Standard” profile: a statement that it handles color the same way as their cameras that cost upwards of $6,000 USD do, using your iPhone’s sensor. Whether it’s true or not is beside the point; Leica is saying you can enter their world with a free app and the phone you already own. To my eyes, it’s not far off from the iPhone’s default color handling, and looks like some gentle H/S/L shifts. The other Leica Looks are a mixed bag: I like the Leica Natural one, but some others are heavy and feel like “filters”. I’d hoped these would be more like Fuji’s in-camera film simulations, which are more like “color profiles”.

    The secret sauce is leaking out!

    The second shows how their implementation of a depth effect is inferior to Apple’s own Portrait Mode, with rough edge artifacts, despite the hyperbolic claims of giving your iPhone the “unique aesthetic of Leica’s legendary M-lenses” with their “distinctive look and beautiful bokeh”. If it did, that dark shot of my Misery Men mug would look like it came from a 28mm Summilux f/1.4 lens, and I can assure you it does not. Moreover, their digital depth effect only adds background blur, not foreground blur, which makes for a less realistic result that Apple’s own Portrait Mode which your iPhone already does for free.

    LUX’s App Store description
    See how the digital replica handles the mug’s edges

    One nice feature is the photo library viewer they’ve built into it, which lets you switch between seeing All photos and Leica photos only, including ones taken with your Leica cameras. And photos taken with this app sit alongside them as equals! In the field where the camera model is specified, it simply shows “Leica LUX”.

    What are they getting out of this brand dilution? Well, the app is subscription-based and asks for S$99.98/yr to unlock more Leica Looks and lenses. They claim new ones will be added monthly. I think perhaps anyone who owns or intends to own a physical Leica camera will not bother with this, and it’s a move to grab all the aspirational customers who want to touch the brand — including a bit of overlap with the market they tried to target with their Huawei and Xiaomi smartphone collaborations. The question is whether this will do any significant reputational damage, and so far all the comments I’ve seen on Leica blogs and communities have been negative. Could they stand to make more on app subscriptions than they’d lose from upset camera buyers? Maybe! Is that capitalization model the right way to run a company? Maybe not?

    I’m still optimistic because I’m not emotionally or financially invested enough in the brand to care how they destroy themselves, and will wait to see if they update the app to improve edge detection and add some better Leica Looks. If it ever gets good enough to be my primary iPhone camera app, a hundred bucks a year is steep but not out of the question.

    Before: iPhone defaults. After: Custom Photographic Style

    Meanwhile, I’ve found the following settings get me calmer and more natural photos out of the default iPhone camera app. First, go to Settings > Camera and make sure you turn on “Exposure Adjustment” under the “Preserve Settings” section. Then in the camera app, set exposure to -0.3ev, and using one of the Photographic Styles as a base, change its values to -20 Tone and +5 Warmth. Note: If you have a 14 Pro, the only way you’re getting less crispy shots is to use an app like Zerocam or Halide and disabling smart processing.

    ===

    Media activity

    • Started playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5. It feels just like the first game I played on the PS4 years ago and I can’t say I’m getting next-gen from this, but it’s good fun.
    • Finally got Balatro on the Switch, the highly acclaimed indie poker roguelike game. It reminds me so much of Solitairica, the indie solitaire roguelike game on iOS. That’s a good thing. It’s the kind of game you can play for a few minutes, or hours on end.
    • Started watching season 2 of Link Click, a Chinese-made “anime” series with a cool ‘catch a serial killer through time’ kinda story. I saw season 1 a couple of years ago and was impressed by how well executed it was.
    • Saw Still of the Night (1982), starring a young Meryl Streep and Roy Scheider. It’s a Hitchcock-inspired psychological thriller with Fatal Attraction vibes. 3/5
    • Saw The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a Guy Ritchie WWII joint that feels like if Inglourious Basterds was a Jason Statham vehicle. Except he’s not in this, Henry Cavill is, as well as Alan Ritchson (of Reacher fame) who plays a gay Dane (Swede?) who loves killing Nazis almost a little too much. Quite a bit of fun. 3/5
    • Saw The Fall Guy, a movie I’ve been anticipating for a long time on the strength of its trailer and what little I’d assumed about its story. I didn’t know it was based on an old TV show. But it was a messy, empty disappointment of a blockbuster that even Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt couldn’t save. 2/5
    • Saw Carnival of Souls (1962), a cult classic surrealist quasi-horror film on Kanopy, a video streaming service that’s free if you connect your library account. It’s got Ed Wood B-movie vibes and special effects, a lot of rough edges, but still manages to be a compelling work that I’ll probably remember for a long time. 3.5/5
    • Saw To Have and Have Not (1944) in which Lauren Bacall plays a character who is stated as being 22 years old, to which I thought “she’s gotta be a lot older than that”. I looked it up and she was probably 19 💀. So that’s proof that people really used to look older, and you’d be forgiven for assuming it was the copious smoking (on display in this film). It’s a weird one, almost a musical showcase for Hoagy Carmichael who shows up as the hotel bar’s piano man. Doesn’t quite have that Casablanca magic yet. 3/5
    • Saw Dream Scenario in which Nicolas Cage convincingly plays a loser who suddenly becomes famous due to an unexplained phenomenon (he starts appearing in people’s dreams). Towards the end, it pivots from uneasy mystery to comical cultural commentary. That’s not a complaint though. 3/5

    A playlist for you

    As reward for making it this far, here’s the next installment in my Blixtape playlist series, covering music I listened to from January to May this year. Hope you find something to like.

    Add BLixTape #4 on Apple Music

    The tracklist:

  • Week 20.24

    Week 20.24

    It’s been a full week since I fell ill but this virus seems to have booked a late checkout, so we have no choice but to wait. Once they’re gone, housekeeping can get to clearing out the sinuses and emptying the phlegm bins. Even worse, it’s now Kim’s turn on the back of some work travel to Bangkok, so maybe I’m headed for Round 2. Is/was it Covid? A test said no, but anything’s possible. The news is reporting a doubling of local cases last week, at a rather alarming 26,000 cases.

    Fortunately, I haven’t had much occasion to leave the house. I did go out to the nearby supermarket once to get some supplies, but despite leaving Kim a message that I’d gone grocery shopping, she also dropped by on her own way home and bought some. So now we have about 29 eggs knocking about the house. 😑

    The awards show shortlisting is going well and has become a regular afternoon activity, but there’s so much of it to do. I don’t know how anyone with a full-time job is managing this without giving up a weekend or two. Looking forward to sharing some of the more impressive work I’ve seen when this is over.

    Speaking of the industry, I saw an ad for Merge Mansion (a Candy Crush sorta mobile game) starring Pedro Pascal a few months back and downloaded the game, but forgot all about it without even playing. Well, I did this week and now I’m bloody hooked. It’s monetized on a timer and energy-based system, meaning you run out of moves and have to wait for more (or pay), so I’m constantly hitting that wall and checking the app several times a day to make a little progress. Games like these are cruelly designed to exploit those with a lot of free time throughout the day: children, homemakers, the jobless, me.

    Another gaming loose end is Lost Judgment , which I bought for the PS4 the last time I was on sabbatical but then I ran out of time and never started. The purchase included the PS5 version, so when I got the console last week I decided it would be my first game. After some 20+ hours, I’ve completed the main story and don’t feel excited enough to play through the DLC or remaining side quests. It might be because it repeats much of what was in Judgment, its predecessor, or because I’m anxious to get on with the rest of the ‘Like a Dragon’ series in my backlog (of which the Judgment games are a part).

    For reference, I’m planning to play

    • Yakuza: Like a Dragon (#7)
    • Like a Dragon Ishin! (a spin-off set in about the same era as the recent Shogun TV series)
    • Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (#7.5)
    • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (#8).
    • And that’s skipping Yakuza 0, Yakuza 2 Kiwami, and the remastered fourth and fifth games! Those might have to wait for the next time.

    As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also committed to finishing Astral Chain on the Switch, which plays fine but looks like an Xbox 360 game in visual terms, and really can’t compare to the current generation. I don’t think it maintains 30fps and the characters’ faces don’t even move during in-game cutscenes. I need to play all these ancient action games before I get spoiled by the likes of Stellar Blade on the PS5, where every surface gleams in ray-traced splendor.

    If I had to describe the Switch’s value proposition in light of now owning a PS5, it’s a fantastic portable console better suited for indie games (and Nintendo exclusives, of course), especially 2D platformers and puzzlers. For example Animal Well, which just came out to overwhelmingly positive reviews; and the poker roguelike everyone says is digital crack, Balatro. Oh, and visual novels too. I powered through and finally completed an awful one this week that I’ve been “playing” for the last couple of months, which has prevented me from doing anything else on the Switch. I’m glad it’s finally over, and no, I don’t recommend it (Our World is Ended – 59% on Metacritic).

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    Side note: OpenAI showed off an impressive demo of a new GPT-4 model that is omni-modal, smarter, and works in nearly real time. I’m also pleased that these features will supposedly be coming to free users too, along with the use of custom GPTs like the ones I’ve been making. I recently canceled my ChatGPT Plus subscription since I don’t have any regular jobs for it to do at this time, apart from helping me edit this blog, but now I may even be able to keep doing that.

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    Media Activity:

    • Started on two episodes of Sugar on Apple TV+, and I’m locked into its modern LA noir mystery. There’s something weird going on beneath the surface with its meta-Hollywood thing, but what I immediately loved was how visually fresh and uninhibited it is.
    • After languishing unfinished for what feels like a year, we recently picked up season 1 of Acapulco again and can’t recall why we ever stopped. Just like its setting, it’s sunny, breezy, and takes your mind off everything — perfect end-of-day TV. The best part is there are two more seasons just waiting now.
    • I started watching the anime movie Blue Giant on Saturday and was halfway through before realizing I wasn’t in the right mood and should save it for later in the week. It’s based on a manga about an earnest guy who moves to Tokyo to be a jazz musician, and is just steeped in the jazz culture there with the kissas and live houses. I saw a bunch of promotional art for it in Tower Records a whole year ago when we were there, and I’ve been wanting to watch it since. It’s just that I’d read something about it not having a huge budget, and so wasn’t expecting too much from the animation. But it turned out well and sounds amazing!

    There’s so much new music out this weekend that I have to break the format.

    Let’s start with an album I enjoyed back in the day and have just rediscovered through Michael’s weeknotes, Tourist by St Germain. I didn’t even know it received a digital remastering and Deluxe Version re-release in 2012, but it sure sounds great. This could come out today and make waves, apart from having some light Cafe del Mar vibes.

    Billie Eilish’s new album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is out now. I played it once through in the background and plan to give it some closer listening, but it’s already surpassed my expectations. I was afraid she’d settled into consistently making very samey music, but sonically this sounds fresh and does some interesting things.

    Apple Music is doing a list of their “100 Best Albums” (of all time), and I was happy/disappointed to see Portishead’s Dummy land at #67. There’s no overstating the impact of that band on my tastes, and Beth Gibbons’ voice is a huge part of that. So I’m really afraid to put her new (second) solo album on. Even the title, Lives Outgrown, gives me goosebumps of nervous anticipation.

    There’s also a new Kamasi Washington album, Fearless Movement! A new Andra Day album, CASSANDRA (cherith)! A new A.G. Cook TRIPLE album, Britpop! A new reworking of a 2020 Childish Gambino album that I never heard, Atavista! And a Deluxe version of the last self-titled Bleachers album that I didn’t like that much!