2026-01-08 13:37:01
Pankil Shah writes I replaced WhatsApp, Telegram, and Messenger with this one app. (It’s Beeper.) And Wirecutter picks the 3 best journaling apps of 2026. (It’s Day One.)
2026-01-07 12:30:48
The best part about blogging is the comments, and after I posted “I wish that when you use Find My to find your iPhone, it would also flash the flashlight, which would be great for finding it in a bag or a dark room.” Michael Wender and David Artiss jumped in that it’s already there!
Apple support says if you touch and hold it will flash the light! Now I haven’t been able to get this to work yet, perhaps because when I did, I got a notice that Precision Finding, which uses ultra-wideband (UWB) frequencies to help you find your phone or Airtag, which is magical, isn’t available in all regions. I’m currently stranded in St. Martin because of airspace issues with Venezuela, and apparently, this is one of the countries, like Indonesia, where UWB doesn’t work.
Update: Hours later, the press-and-hold thing now flashes the light, so it must have been a heisenbug.
2026-01-05 13:58:40
I wish that when you use Find My to find your iPhone, it would also flash the flashlight, which would be great for finding it in a bag or a dark room.
2026-01-04 15:26:00
Anything that annoys you is teaching you patience.
Anyone who abandons you is teaching you how to stand up on your own two feet.
Anything that angers you is teaching you forgiveness and compassion.
Anything that has power over you is teaching you how to take your power back.
Anything you hate is teaching you unconditional love.
Anything you fear is teaching you the courage to overcome your fear.
Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.
2026-01-03 11:30:01
They’re both long reads, but worthwhile.
2026-01-02 14:00:07
I rang in the new year with an unexpected trip to St. Barts with friends.
I resolved in 2025 to watch more films. It’s an art form I have many friends in, and when we have hung out, I’ve realized how shallow my understanding of the film canon is. I have a lot of catch-up to do, and it also requires a lifestyle change, as I’m usually at a laptop. Making space to enjoy a film for a few hours was a departure from my regular routines.
I watched 72 movies last year! This definitely came at the cost of books finished, if I look at my stats. But I’ve begun to really appreciate the contours of what I love about a movie now.
This is a long lead to recommend the movie Jay Kelly, which streams on Netflix with George Clooney and Adam Sandler. After seeing many great and terrible movies, old and new, I really appreciated what they did with this film, and it was one of the rare ones I watched entirely or in sections several times, gaining new appreciation for what they pulled off.
It starts with a “One-er,” which is a continuous shot with no cuts that moves between a number of different scenes in a really slick way. (Excellent episode of The Studio about this!) It’s a film way of showing off, as it must be incredibly hard to have hundreds of people all pulling off something flawlessly for a long period of time, not unlike a Broadway show.
Jay Kelly is George Clooney playing himself, which, as he says, is the hardest thing to do. There are meta-levels of reality and fiction, and so many allusions and callbacks, the entire thing is a work of art. You learn to appreciate what actors do and how film is made while watching a film being made in such a nice way.
So that is my recommendation for the year. In older movies, I really enjoyed Kate & Leopold, which also features an amazing Sting song that is impossible to find on streaming services.
