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FEATURES, BLOGS, & REVIEWS
Optimizing Ourselves to Death
Perell highlights the fatal flaw of optimization—what’s it all for? What’s the point of better health if you have no one to spend it with? What’s the point of being sexy if you aren’t having sex? What’s the point of living forever if you have nothing to live for? We need a push toward “unoptimization” as Tim Denning calls it, to solve this. Because we aren’t machines. We aren’t pins in a pin factory. We are people. And people don’t need optimization. If you’re a manufacturer trying to make millions of products or a search engine trying to answer billions of queries, you need optimization. But if you’re an individual trying to live a good life, you don’t. What you need is purpose, fulfillment, and connection. Yes, you also need good health, a good career, and good prioritization of your time. But these pursuits shouldn’t consume your every waking hour.
I think I needed to read this right now.
Another month comes to an end. And, I suppose it’s fitting that it’s raining. October is here.
September went by in a blur. We celebrated the first year in our new home, we joined a Fantasy Football league with friends, we had good food, good drinks, and I listened to so much good music. This streak of Motion City Soundtrack, to The Starting Line, to Thrice, AFI, and then Yellowcard is pretty ridiculous. We’re spoiled and we deserve it given the state of everything else in the world right now.
September 2025
Not including new bands, which have also had a nice run, this streak of Motion City Soundtrack, to The Starting Line, to Thrice, AFI, and then Yellowcard is pretty ridiculous. We’re spoiled and we deserve it given the state of everything else in the world right now.
This week’s wall picks. My current AOTY came! Plus, the perfect leading into October album, a new addition, and The Format.
Recommendation: Cheap Charts
Over the years I’ve been slowly adding to my digital movie collection. For films I love, I like to have them in 4K as part of my collection for easy rewatching. I’ve maintained a Plex server for years, but there are certain movies where I want the best quality, best sound, and don’t want to store them on a hard drive. (And yes, I know buying physical media would do this too, but Hannah may kill me if I buy more stuff to collect, she already puts up with my vinyl.) Like, I’ve seen Jaws so many times having it in 4K is just a no-brainer. However, who wants to spend more than they have to on this stuff? In this economy? Not me.
CheapCharts is an app I’ve been using for a while that helps. (App Store link.)
You go through, favorite the movies you want to watch, and it’ll let you know when the price drops. I’ve regularly found movies that were $19.99 go on sale for $4.99 and a few days later jump back to the regular price. I am not sure why, but I don’t really care.
Every few months I scroll through Merlin’s “wisdom” project and smile: http://wisdom.limo/
The Starting Line are back! Just typing those words brings me such joy. And their new album does not disappoint. They've also sponsored the website this week and are only the second band ever to get a special theme.
Listen: https://chorus.fm/share/alb...
Some Apple Related First Impressions
Quick first impressions of some Apple related things:
- The cameras on the 17 Pro are fantastic, especially the selfie camera. Coming from the iPhone 14 Pro this was a massive jump up in quality and worth the upgrade alone. I like the Camera Control button.
- My first phone with an Action Button. I currently have it set to my custom settings Shortcut.1 That frees up a spot on my home screen and so far it’s working for me.
- I decided to try a TechWoven case and I love how it feels in hand. This has been the surprise win for me.
- iOS 26 has some issues, sure, but I do not hate it as much as I was worried I would. I’m getting used to it. Background images in Messages is fun. I’ve had more “oh that’s cool” moments than I have “I hate this.” I did have to change Safari tab bar back, the compact version sucked.
- The entire look of iOS 26 made me feel like my entire “aesthetic” of my phone layout was old. Which, to be fair, it was. I have kept it pretty similar since around iOS 14 and the main screen was almost always very monochrome. But iOS 26 just screams for color and I was ready for some more color in my life. I’m still playing around with how I want it to look, but my first pass is leaning in the right direction.
- I also upgraded my watch from the Series 6, after five years the battery was really showing its age, and I really love how the natural titanium looks. The finger tap/wrist flick gestures are more convenient than I expected.
- I do not plan to upgrade my Mac to Tahoe for a bit. Everything I’ve seen leads me to believe it’s very much not ready.
The Shortcut described and shown in the third image.↩
Last.fm Top 9 Shell Script
I’ve been posting up my “Top 9” (a grid of my most played albums of the week) to my blog, in the forums, and on Instagram for a very long time now. It’s a fun weekly tradition that I (and others in the forum) participate in to share the music that’s been prominent in our weeks. The quick easy way to make a grid is using something like TapMusic.
However, I finally wrote a simple shell script that uses the Last.fm API to do this as well. Now I can just run the script, and it will create the graphic, save it to my Desktop, calculate the “stats” for the last week, and copy those to my clipboard.
Automation is fun.
Great day for pop-punk fans. The Paradox have released their new EP and this is absolutely a band to keep an eye on.
Listen: https://chorus.fm/share/alb...
An all-time classic given a fresh new feel with new guest vocals. I was not sure how I'd feel about this one but have found myself coming back to it all week. Love it. Powerful production, incredible songs -- just invigorating all around.
Listen: https://chorus.fm/share/alb...