Will you look at that! Stephen Millard generously created and shared a Keyboard Maestro plugin for Shortcuts on macOS. This looks like a great bridge to Shortcuts, which is still the best way to work with Apple Calendar data.

One major shortcoming of Obsidian is that it does not integrate well with macOS or iOS so there are no conveniences for capturing text into an Obsidian note. I decided to learn a bit about the Obsidian URL scheme (which works on macOS and iOS) and create some Shortcuts to fill in the gap. New Obsidian Note This is a simple Shortcut that has one purpose: Give me a simple and convenient window to create a new Obsidian note on macOS and iOS.

This list over at Dynomight.net is maybe the lowest possible bar for being thankful but I still love it. That hokey unfashionable techniques like practicing gratitude turn out to have strong scientific evidence behind them, and several countries happen to have a preexisting holiday that’s already, at least in theory, dedicated to this practice.

Like millions of other people I’m a huge fan of Kurzgesagt. I’ve “supported” them over the years by buying their posters and other doodads, so of course I immediately pre-ordered the new book by their founder Philipp Dettmer. For $22 it seemed like a good purchase. After reading it for the past month I can whole heartedly recommend this book as a way to learn about how the immune system works.

Ever have a situation where someone contacts you by email about a thing and when you respond there’s no answer? Twice. What’s the etiquette when you suspect the sender has too many layers of email filters to start a relationship? I should ask Merlin about this. Anyway, good episode.

Here’s a twofer. Not only does this article describe a bunch of cool office tools I like but it’s a good affiliate-linked holiday shopping list for you. Hey, I’m like the Wirecutter but without a paywall and I actually use the stuff. The Desk I got an Uplift desk. Well, I got two. I got a convertible standing desk with the “Commercial frame” for my Mac and various peripherals. I also purchased a fixed height desk to hold all of the Windows computers I have to use throughout the day.

Apparently Warhammer 40K had to explain why hate groups aren’t part of their real-life culture. For clarity: satire is the use of humour, irony, or exaggeration, displaying people’s vices or a system’s flaws for scorn, derision, and ridicule. Something doesn’t have to be wacky or laugh-out-loud funny to be satire. The derision is in the setting’s amplification of a tyrannical, genocidal regime, turned up to 11. The Imperium is not an aspirational state, outside of the in-universe perspectives of those who are slaves to its systems.

macOS Monterey comes with some new window management tricks but they feel incomplete and a little frustrating. I have one suggestion for the Apple team that works on Spaces and window management: Get a big ass monitor. I did. It’s a gorgeous 38" display that makes me feel like I’m working on a space ship. It was surprisingly hard to adapt to so many pixels but I’m loving almost everything about it.

Thank you Aaron Randall, for this fun solution to something I still think about. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have the Adventure Time comic he is referencing. I’m also not ashamed to admit that I was not clever enough to solve the cipher. At least Aaron proves that those two things aren’t related.

Did you see this?. You probably should. It’s like a list of ingredients for a good life.