The other day a friend pointed out that using ChatGPT (and the like) for automation purposes is making real the original promise of AppleScript — being able to describe automation tasks using natural language. As I wrote long ago, the idea behind AppleScript was noble, but the truth is that it is a programming language, and in practice it has ultimately frustrated everyone. Programmers find it weird and clumsy compared to scripting languages that don’t attempt to hide that they’re programming languages, and non-programmers find it confusing because it doesn’t really parse natural language at all — it only parses a very specific syntax that happens to look like natural language, but isn’t like natural language is used or understood at all.

That's the key with ChatGPT being super successful with non-nerds; it's parsing of natural language.

Like Viticci, I remain largely skeptical and uncomfortable with AI for purposes of generating original new stuff — writing, imagery, whatever. But as an assistive agent, it’s quite remarkable today and improving at a fast clip.

Not only is using Apple Intelligence for automation more accessible (in every sense) than writing a programming script or creating a Shortcut, it’s also something we’re all much more likely to do for a one-time task. I often create scripts, shortcuts, and macros to automate tasks that recur with some frequency; I seldom do for tasks that I’m only going to do once. But why not use Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT to save a few minutes of tedium?

Yep agree with this.

I've recently been playing old man golf.

What I see as old man golf is the following:

• Off the tee pick a club where 90% of the time you're in play, even if you turn a par 4 into a 3 shots to get the green hole that's perfectly fine
• For me that's hitting a lot of 5/6 iron off the tee, a 5 iron hit well for me goes ~180 metres
• A chunked 5 iron that only goes 100 metres but is dead straight is way better than a sliced or hooked driver where you're taking penalty strokes for being out of play, and that's generally what I find when I hit a bad iron vs a bad driver
• Focusing on having a great short game is the key for old man golf, take your time over putts, don't overthink, 2 putts are great, try to limit 3 putts
• This strategy has seen me play some better golf in recent times, I'm down to a 15.8 handicap
• What I'm now thinking of doing is getting fitted for a 3 hybrid or 3/4 iron similar to my current iron set, I want a club that goes ~200 metres and again is 90% of the time in play
• Driver just isn't necessary for me, it goes far but isn't reliable, it's something I obviously need to work on to be a sub 10 handicap but anything 10-15 handicap; this current strategy works really well

This is some very niche Melbourne based history.

It was on 29 June 1959, that our founding fathers met in Reg Buchanan's home in Balwyn, Victoria, where they made the historic decision to form a hardware/building supplier group. Legend has it, that the Mitre 10 name was born out of a subsequent visit to the reknown drinking premise, the Mitre Tavern, but our founding fathers would say it comes from the carpentry term to join two pieces of timber together at a 90 degree angle. By forming Mitre 10, the foundation members etched their names in history as a part of a hardware industry transition from the independent to the group retailer.

The Mitre Tavern is also apparently the oldest building in Melbourne according to this video. Might need to go have a pint of Guinness from there sometime.

When I was wrapping presents yesterday with Emma I had this thought

wrapping presents is just like software development

These are the reasons:

• First thing that comes to mind is the classic iceberg analogy, your users see the top of the iceberg (the frontend) but then there's this whole other thing hidden in the water (the backend)
• A present is similar, the gift receiver sees the top of the gift (the frontend) wrapped all nicely and it looks beautiful, but then flip that present around and you see the guts of how the present was wrapped, the tape, the folding, this is your backend
• This might also be just me in terms of having the bottom of the gifts that I wrap be kind of chaotic, I think the bottom of the gifts that Emma wraps are still very aesthetic
• Going a step further, wrapping a gift requires good planning, where do I place the gift in the paper? how much paper do I need? what shape is the gift?
• Software development requires good planning in terms of picking the right tech stack, picking a good team, creating good team culture
• And then at the end of the day you just need good people to execute the tasks at hand, whether it's a gift wrapper or an engineer

I don't think Mozi has any use case for me but any Evan Williams project is usually an interesting one to follow.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is hands down one of the best games I've ever played. Here's why:

• I love a Metroidvania and this is half the reason why this genre of games exists
• The art style is beautiful, the colours pop, the semi 3D animation is trippy and really unique
• The map has some interesting and diverse areas to explore and get lost in
• The music is exceptional, it's more jazzy that you would think
• The bosses are difficult enough and break the game up really well
• Getting to different areas of the map requires serious thought, the question of where do I go next comes up a lot
• The RPG elements add some flavour compared to a Metroid game, you level up and gain experience unlike in Metroid where you purely just get upgrades
• The amount of weapons and items in this game is insane, your play style can really differ depending on what you want to do
• The story is simple but enough to get you hooked
• You think you're finished with the game and then the whole castle flipping the other way is some amazing game design, it was satisfying as it's a "new" map but you can power through it much quicker

This is some witch craft level of art.

I've followed the artist on Instagram.

This is one of the most insane sporting achievements on 2024. Beating Peter Norman's record which stood for 56 years. At 16 years old. Kid is a freak.

He's better than Usain Bolt at the same age for context.

Hopefully he stays grounded and makes incremental improvements year on year from this point on.