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.

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.

It’s happening more frequently now.

I’ll open up Facebook, that hellscape of a website, just to see if there are any updates from people I used to know.

It’s almost never good.

If I’m lucky it’s a few photos of kids. At the start of the school year I get to see how much they’ve aged. This brings a smile to my face as I see their children starting to look more like the parents I knew. The resemblance as they enter young adulthood becomes uncanny.

But more often it’s condolences. Posts on walls of those no longer with us. Names from classes and yearbook years I thought I forgot.

It’s happening more frequently now. And it’s fucking with my head.