My Dream Minimalist Setup
As is pretty apparent, I’ve been thinking a lot about digitmal minimalism here lately.1 This morning on my walk, I pondered a little what my perfect device setup would be, and I think I’ve got it. Here’s what I want. An iPad mini with the Daylight DC1’s screen. An iPhone mini with the same screen, no app store (only Safari, iMessage, Apply Pay, Wallet, Mail, Calendar), and a single small camera. Read more...
The Fallen Apple
Over the last two years, I’ve completely rethought my use of technology and done a lot of work to simplify my life and avoid distractions and unnecessary stress. A major component of this change has been rethinking how my iPhone is configured. As it stands today, I’ve deleted all social media apps1, disabled all notifications, switched the phone permanently to silent, disabled the web browser, removed badges from app icons, and uninstalled Slack. Read more...
1200 Miles in a Tesla
A few weeks back I had the opportunity to drive a Tesla Model 3 for 1200 miles roundtrip from Nashville to western Pennsylvania. It was a great trip and gave me some clarity around electric cars and what the future might hold. So, continue below and I’ll give you the good, the bad, and my thoughts on what the future of the American road trip might be.
Read more...Take a Walk: 20 Year Review
This morning while I was listening to my top Spotify listens for 2022, Judah & the Lion’s song Take a Walk hit me in a special way. In the chorus it says: Let’s go take a walk downtown/ and act like we’re the heroes/ that we dreamed we’d be when we were young/ we can be the giants/ in the streets we learned to drive in/ and we’ll ride away into the sun Read more...
Serverless on LocalStack
I’ve recently had occasion to start writing a series of services on the AWS stack using the Serverless Framework. Serverless is a great framework, but I really don’t like having to deploy stuff to AWS to test DynamoboDB streams, SQS queues, etc. That’s where LocalStack comes in. LocalStack lets you host an entire AWS ecosystem locally so you can test “all the things” without actually deploying anything. LocalStack works great, but I discovered there are a few undocumented things that you’ll need to know to get your stuff working correctly locally. Read more...
Twitter Mute Filters
Without explanation, above are the keywords, hashtags, and clients I’m blocking on Twitter. If a topic doesn’t apply to you and/or does nothing but make you anxious, stressed, and/or angry you can block it. If Twitter isn’t bringing you joy or edifying you, it ain’t worth it. No one deserves a space on your timeline!
Z Shell One-Year Update
I’ve been using Z Shell for over a year now and I’ve been very pleased with it. Honestly, I should have moved off macOS’s antiquated default Bash ages ago. Below is an update on where my .zshrc is sitting a while down the road. Oh My ZSH Plug-ins I keep the Oh My ZSH plug-ins pretty light. Partially because I want to keep startup times low and partially because I can’t remember the commands anyways. Read more...
Simple Keyboard KVM Switch
I recently replaced my iMac with an M1 Mac mini and did an entire rework of my desk setup. With the iMac gone, I was finally able to buy a proper 4k montior to share between my work laptop and my personal workstation. I was also able to upgrade my keyboard to a Varmilo Miya Pro and get a new mouse. Since I would be switching between my work and personal machines several times a day, I wanted a simple and reliable system to share external devices between my systems. Read more...
Christians & the 2020 Presidential Election
There is no Christian candidate in this presidential election. Though I personally cannot look past his poor moral character and inappropriate use of Holy Scripture and the Church, many faithful Christians will vote for Trump. Many faithful Christians will vote for Biden. Other faithful Christians will vote for the Solidarity Party or for other political parties. The &Campaign points a way forward for faithful Christian political engagement in all areas of the political landscape. Read more...
Drafts 5 Sermon Prep with LectServe
Drafts 5 for Mac recently introduced the ability to do some basic scripting in JavaScript as an action in the application. Each time I prepare a sermon, the first step for me is to lookup the readings for the week on LectServe and then paste the readings into Drafts where I can start doing sermon preparation and, eventually, write my sermon. As soon as I saw actions and scripting introduced for Drafts, I knew I’d have to automate my sermon prep process. Read more...
The Toddler Evening Office
We started a pattern of family prayer back in Advent. Each night after dinner, I’d lead the family in prayer. Oliver (23 months) would listen(-ish) and join in the amens and Rosemary (~4) would chime in with the responses — “Hear our Prayer” — and lead the Lord’s Prayer. Having established a habit of prayer after dinner, I wanted to keep it moving forward even after the Advent calendars were empty and the wreath was put away. Read more...
Review: Basis Bibel Auslese
Back in October I launched a German-language worship service in Nashville, Tennessee. In the lead-up to launching St. Mang, I knew I’d need to focus on my German to get back to the point where I could write a sermon in German each month. I immediately switched to German for my morning prayers using the 1984 Luther translation. Though there is a lot I like about Luther’s translation in German, it is not a great entry point into theological/ecclesial German. Read more...
Advent: Always be Ready
In my home it is no secret that I am no fan of secular Christmas. I was raised outside the Church. When I was a kid, I loved Christmas. The music. The beautiful colors. Nostalgia for a “better time.” The idea of joy, family, and peace. And, naturally, presents. But, then, I answered the call of Jesus. Christmas, I came to understand, was not just a remembrance of a nice man that gave out pretty sayings and showed an examplary way of life. Read more...
Advent Family Prayer
For the last several years, I’ve been trying to find a short and simple Advent liturgy to do each night around the advent-wreath. The family form of Evening Prayer from the 2019 Prayer Book is good, but it is still a little long for my very young children and still requires me to find short readings for each night. I wanted a resource that was short and simple for my young family, but still retained the character of the daily offices. Read more...
Use Localtime in Debian Slim
Sometimes you need to run cron or other applications in your Debian container that rely on the system running in localtime. In Debian 9, switching to localtime wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. With Debian 10, however, you can switch your container to another timezone with just a few commands. First you need to install tzdata. RUN apt-get install tzdata -y Then you need to make a link between the timezone you want to move to in /usr/share/zoneinfo and /etc/localtime. Read more...
