onfocus

There's a lot to unpack here. First, catch up on all 11 years of Uses This if you haven't been reading it. Twice a week people describe the tools they use to get work done and it's always fascinating.

Here's how it usually works. Uses This proprietor, Daniel Bogan, sends an email interview with a few questions and interviewees can answer at their leisure. I know because I was happy to participate in 2014 when I worked at MetaFilter: Uses This: Paul Bausch. He sent me the interview in November, I responded in a couple days, and promptly forgot about it. Then I got a note from Bogan that my answers were on the site in January, hooray!

In this case, Bogan sent the interview questions to Ford in 2011 and I'm guessing they've been sitting in one of his Emacs to-do lists until yesterday: ...I finally finished my Uses This interview.... This is great because Ford is very thoughtful about how we all use technology and you can tell through this article that stems from his thoughtfulness about how he personally uses technology. Letting these questions marinate for nine years has also given this article the long view. (Unlike my short view of what was interesting to me at that time.) He talks about what hasn't changed in his toolbox and his relationship between personal and work technology.

I'm very curious about who else Bogan is waiting to hear from.

Om Malik tapped into a current of mistrust around smart device features sponsored by the big services after he wrote about his hesitation: Hello HomePod. So Long Sonos & Bose. Even my first generation Sonos speakers attempt to phone home frequently (for use stats?) and I block that with pi-hole. When I wanted to add a speaker recently I purchased a used first gen on eBay because I don’t want yet another always-on microphone in my home. I mean, have you seen the headlines?

Field Notes really knocked this National Parks edition out of the, um, recreation enclosure. If you don't already have stacks of these nicely designed notebooks this edition would be a good place to start.