Happy Trails, Dark Sky
Dark Sky has been my default go-to weather app on my phone for just about a decade now. I loved it.
The genius behind it was the realization that weather forecasting is actually very accurate as long as you don’t go too far into the future or cover too large an area. “What’s the temperature going to be next week?” is a hard question and the answer is going to be wrong. “Will it rain at my house in the next hour?” is still a hard question, but you can get the answer dead on.
Dark Sky started as pretty much just answering “do I need to take a rain jacket with me?”. When it worked, it was like sorcery, frequently correctly predicting the time rain would start down to the minute.
They branched out into longer term “traditional” forecasts first as a separate web app at forecast.io, and then folded that into the main Dark Sky App. They also has a spectacular API for getting weather data that I used on a project a couple lifetimes ago.
But, as these things go, Apple bought them out back in 2020, rolled the fundamental functionality into the new-for-iOS 16 weather app, and then today turned off the backend for the Dark Sky App itself.
So, okay. I know nothing about the financial or personal situations of anyone at Dark Sky, but I have no doubts of any kind that accepting a buy out from Apple in the dark days of mid-2020 was the right call. And separate from the back end tech, the new iOS 16 weather app was a triumphant story for other reasons. Happy endings all around!
But.
The new weather app is fine, its FINE, but it’s very Apple-built-in-app-y. The Dark Sky app hd this fantastic unique design. Cool layout, distinctive symbols, subtle animations, a holdover from the days when iOS apps had a little more zip to them than they do now. I’ll miss it.
And, you know, there’s something sad any time a small company that makes one really nicely made valuable thing that people love decide that the right thing to do is take the buy out. I’m sure I’d make the same call in their place, and it’s easy to over-signify one company deciding to cash out, but— I’m still going to miss that app I used every day.,
End of Year Link Clearance
"Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things"
I’m about the same age as Catherynne M. Valente, and while my specific examples are different, I’ve had a similar journey through The Internet over the last few decades. She nicely articulates some things I’ve been feeling but couldn’t get into words.
Branson Reese’s accidentally viral review of Star Trek Into Darkness perfectly sums up both that movie, and so much of, well, everything.
Books I read in 2022, part 2
Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Lifetheft by David Micheline, mark Bagley, and others
This is what I think of as my “default” spider-man; recently married, vaguely 30ish, big eyes on the costume, and no clones in sight. This closes out David Micheline’s run on Amazing Spider-man, which kind of winds down with a wimper. I enjoyed it very much, but I’m not sure how this would play to someone who wasn’t there when it was new.
The Interdependency Series: The Collapsing Empire, The Consuming Fire, The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
Fun, fast paced, pulpy space opera from start to finish. This is Scalzi with the dial set to “Full Scalzi”, and it’s tremendous. You can sort of tell that it was going to be two books originally since the second book just kind of… stops, but I enjoyed every page of it.
Back when I had delusions about being an author, there was a kind of zippy adventure science fiction I wanted to write, but could never make work—or, in the circles I moved in, find good examples of. Scalzi in general, and these books specifically, are exactly the kind of books I wanted to write. I don’t record this out of envy or jealousy—far from it!—it’s something of a relief to see that what I was groping towards al those years ago actually can work.
Dungeons & Dragons: Fizban's treasury of dragons
A surprisingly dull and lifeless collection of material, considering the subject matter. Books all about one kind of monster have always been a mixed bag, and this does not break the streak. The best part of the book was that it didn’t include stats for Dragonlances or Draconians, which essentially confirmed that a full DragonLance book was coming.
Dungeons & Dragons: Mordenkain’s Monsters of the Multiverse
The sort of book you get when an edition is wrapping itself up. Somewhere between a “greatest hits” album and massive errata update, this is a collection of all the non-core books playable species from the 5th Edition line to date, along with the greatest hits of the non-core books monsters. In a lot of ways, this and last year’s Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything are an understated “5th and a half” edition, but even more so this feels like getting the house in order before moving on to “One D&D” next year.
This finishes the job started in Tasha changing “Races” from fixed physical and moral points to, essentially, different cool aliens you can play. Long overdue, very well done. If this in an indicator of how the next version/revision is going to go, I’m looking forward to it.
And, we finally have the Genasi rules somewhere I can find them.
Books I read in 2022, Part 1
A philosophy of software design by John Osterhout
I was in a (semi) mentoring position at the start of the year, and I was looking for something that I could hand a junior level software developer about the craft of well written code. All the books I had read on the subject were 20 years old at this point, and while the basic points were still true, there had to be something new in the last couple of decades, right?
This is a really solid intro to software design philosophy and how to approach putting a medium to large system together.
Managing Humans by Michael Lopp aka Rands
Great stories, well told. I’m not sure it was helpful with the problems I was facing at the time, other than confirming that yeah, sometimes you do just have to walk away from the dumpster fire.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
There’s something really great about watching a really talented writer lean back and say “we’re just gonna have fun with this one, okay?” Entertaining, fast moving, a blast from end to end. And then, while you’re not looking, Scalzi does one of the slickest writing moves I’ve ever seen and makes it look effortless.
Moon Knight Epic Collection 2: Shadows of the moon by Doug Moench et all
Marvel’s epic collections are fun—20-ish issues collected in one softcover, slowly realeasing the entire 20th century back catalog. This is a chunk of Moon Knight’s first solo book from the early 80s. The issues of this I read as a kid seemed very adult and grown up; now they’re very obviously early 80s marvel trying too hard to seem that way to a 10 year old. It was fun to read for the nostalgia, but hard to hand to someone who didn’t read them at the time and explain why you liked Moon Knight as a kid.
Moon Knight by Lumire/Smallwood/Bellaire
This is the stuff! The central gimmick here is an idea so good I can’t believe it took 40 years for someone to do it. Moon Knight has four distinct personalities (or more, depending on how you count.) For this, they change the art style based on which personality is in charge, and the results are spectacular. In addition, each persona has their own stories which run in what seems to be parallel, not immediately connecting. Great use of the concept, moving Moon Knight far past “super hero with more than one secret identity.”
New year, new calendar!
Somewhere along the line I started using calendars with 6 week printed to the page. This started by playing with the early generation of desktop publishing apps in the late 80s, but really gelled up when I was in college a decade later.
At 6 weeks to a page I could fit a whole 16 week semester, plus a week of vacation on either side, on three pages of regular printer paper with no gaps. Months didn’t really matter, really, it was way easier to have the whole semester just flow from week to week and then indicate the month next to the day in the corner of each box.
At 6 weeks to a page, that fits a whole year in nine pages, which I hang up as a 3 by 3 grid. The whole year laid out all visible at once.
This week between christmas and the new years is always a strange liminal space; the old year is effectively over, but the new hasn’t started yet. Perfect time to print out 9 pages and think about whats next.
There’s a trip in august we already planned. Scout meetings. School end, school start.
New year. Blank space.
Potential.
Heading back out of the silos
With the tech world in one of its periodic contractions, and especially with twitter settings itself on fire, it’s time to retrench out in our own personal spaces again.
So. Hello there.