Google’s New Home Gadget Refresh Gets a Thumbs Up From Me

Speaking of home gadgets, I just watched Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge run through Google’s home products announcements. There’s a lot that I like with what they’ve done on this go. I’m not going to recap everything from their video, I just want to share my favorite bits … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

Two New Home Gadgets

My wife has been back in Michigan to visit her parents for the past few days and the buddy who was supposed to come visit me wasn’t able to make it, so I’ve had a little extra time on my hands. You know what that means: catching up on home chores! I’ve cleaned out the fridge, put … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

Crashing Clockwise #566: ‘That’s My Shredder Sound’

The tech podcast where we’re finally reunited and, boy, does it feel so good! Mikah Sargent: What is a gadget or other piece of tech that everyone should own? I’m sure there are many things I could answer for this topic, but I’m going to go with the one that immediately jumped to … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

You (And I) Can Do Hard Things

The next time you find yourself about to phone it in on a goal, shirk a commitment you made, or just plain give up, ask yourself something: Are you the kind of person who only does easy things? Or are you a person who can do hard things? I spent a couple of days this week doing s … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

I was wrong about the AirPods Max Smart Case

Here I am at 10:38 PM, having only gotten home a short while ago and scrambling to find something that I can write about quickly for Blaugust today, but something still worthwhile. I don’t want to just phone it in. So I went scrolling through my many many many items in Drafts tha … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

Crashing Clockwise #565: ‘Friendship Dots’

The tech podcast that always has jet lag. Dan Moren: Do you Find My in its various incarnations for people, items, etc., and do you find it a creepy technology, useful, or both? While I’m not a big user of Find My, when I do use it, I’m a big fan. The only person I share my locat … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

7 Things This Week [#149]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ You might have noticed another blogging community event, Blaugust, kicking off. I’ve written three posts for it so far (this will be the fourth), so…so far so good? I’ … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

Belatedly Grading My Predictions for Apple’s May ‘Let Loose’ iPad Event

I know this old news by this point, but I hate leaving things unfinished. Therefore, over two months after the fact, I’m back grading the predictions I made prior to Apple’s ‘Let Loose’ event, in wish they debuted the thinnest Apple product ever, got crushed by their own ad, and … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

Overcast’s 10th Anniversary Update

First things first, a massive congratulations are in order for Marco Arment, developer of Overcast, for shipping the huge rewrite to his podcast app. It’s pretty cool that he was able to get it out on the 10th anniversary of app’s debut. Hitting those kinds of milestones isn’t im … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

The Waterhole

There’s a bar here in town called the Waterhole that is cash-only. When we first moved here, I thought that policy was an inconvenience. I don’t tend to carry cash anymore and wondered why they didn’t “get with the times” and accept credit cards. Each Thursday night, I needed to … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 3 months ago

7 Things This Week [#148]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays Wednesday this week. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ Parker Ortolani shared two music apps that you can still get today that showcase previous iOS designs in case you liked the old Music apps better. … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 4 months ago

Summer PenPals with Justin and Steve

I’ve not been keeping up very well on noting here when there are new penpal entries, so I’m fixing that now! I’ve had the pleasure of writing back and forth with Justin Wong and Steve Ledlow over the past few months. Justin and I wrapped up our extended month talking about summer … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 4 months ago

Jeff Perry: ‘It is time to slow down’

Jeff Perry, writing for Clicked: The attempted assassination of Donald Trump this weekend triggered a predictable firestorm online. As someone who’s spent over half my life in the broadcasting industry, I know firsthand how overwhelming these news cycles can be. From being a byst … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 4 months ago

7 Things This Week [#147]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays (but sometimes Mondays). Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ These crowdsourced captions for the Eddy Cue/Sam Altman photo op are quite humorous. 🤭 [🔗 @gruber // mastodon.social] 2️⃣ Micro … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 4 months ago

Crashing Clockwise #560: ‘I Don’t Like It When I’m Disappointed’

Jumping into Clockwise, “the tech podcast that uses half an hourglass for timekeeping”, with my own answers and opinions that no one asked for. Mikah Sargent: Assuming that you use a voice-based virtual assistant, what are the one or two features that you know you can rely on? De … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 5 months ago

7 Things This Week [#146]

And now for something new! I’ve been on something of a… let’s call it a “summer break” from blogging, so Robert offered to pick up the slack for 7 Things this week. I don’t really do guest posts here on HeyDingus, but I love linking out to other sites. And since Robert has his ow … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 5 months ago

7 Things This Week [#145]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ Such an elegantly made video. It doesn’t matter that I have no interest in coffee or how it tastes, but I appreciate great storytelling and this is excellent. (The beh … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 5 months ago

My WWDC24 Wish List

A Siri that doesn’t suck.® (Lol, there’s actually a bunch more that I’d like to see Apple improve and introduce, but this would be a great start.) HeyDingus is a blog by Jarrod Blundy about technology, the great outdoors, and other musings. If you like what you see — the blog pos … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 5 months ago

7 Things This Week [#144]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ You can do some wild stuff with scroll-based animations just with CSS. [🔗 scroll-driven-animations.style] 2️⃣ Robin Rendle has a new blog for sharing things ab … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 6 months ago

Starting up PenPals with Justin Wong

I’m a bit delayed on my end, but I’ve started emailing with Justin Wong this month. Justin is a software developer who has an awesome website, wonger.dev., and is a Florida enthusiast (which you’ll see below 😉): We have a lot of sprawling oak trees covered with hanging mo … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 6 months ago

Wrapping up being PenPals with Ratika

Writing with Ratika this month stretched my skills in interesting ways. Her style encouraged me to get more creative with my descriptions and share more about what’s happening around me, not just within me. We got pretty meta though, discussing routines, the benefits and detrimen … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 6 months ago

10 Last-Minute Predictions for Apple’s ‘Let Loose’ Event

I’ve been mostly offline for the last week, camping with my wife and dog, and taking a couple of trainings (Wilderness First Aid and AMGA Single Pitch Instructor, if you’re interested), so no big thinkpiece from me regarding Apple’s (presumed) iPad event tomorrow today. Also, I’l … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 6 months ago

7 Things This Week [#143]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ Good tip on sharing a specific quote from a webpage via iMessage. [🔗 Tim Hardwick // macrumors.com] 2️⃣ This use of a cross-section helps show how we perceive … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 6 months ago

‘Climbing Is Inherently Dangerous’

As I become more cemented in the climbing community, meeting new people and expanding my “network” of fellow climber friends and acquaintances, its inevitable that I’ll know more people who will get hurt and die from our sport. Just this weekend, I learned of two falls of people … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

7 Things This Week [#142]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ Rachel’s put together a list of blog posts from folks’ personal websites that praise the small web. I see some familiar names there! [🔗 Rachel // projects.kwon … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Crashing Clockwise #551: ‘Clippy Vibes’

The tech podcast where every day is Earth Day, except for that time we recorded on Mars. ⏱️⏱️⏱️ Dan Moren: Meta has rolled out its new AI Assistant in several places, including its smart glasses collaboration with Ray-Ban. Does this feel like the second coming of Google Glass, or … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Apple Watch + Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses make the perfect running combo, and more on why I love these glasses

As far as I’m concerned, this 8-minute YouTube video by Becca Farcace at The Verge is required viewing for anyone interested in the Meta Ray-Bans and will give you valuable context for this blog post. I didn’t see it until after I already had my Ray-Bans, but Farcace does an exce … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

ChatGPT Makes a Good Teacher & Quizmaster

Speaking of drafts you discover and then decide to publish, this was from last week. So I just used ChatGPT to learn about some CSS selector concepts I was confused by and, on a whim, asked it to quiz me to make sure that I understood everything. It was a very good experience tha … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

My Favorite Alpine Draw Slings

Speaking of cool climbing gear, if you’re getting any traditional slings for alpine draws, general extensions, or building anchors, it’s hard to beat Mammut’s Contact Slings. They’re made of dyneema, so they’re super strong and slippery, but that’s not why I like them so much. Th … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

7 Things This Week [#141]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ This roundup of 20 years of Google searches really brought me back. [🔗 Carmen Ang // visualcapitalist.com] 2️⃣ You’ve probably heard about MKBHD’s review of th … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Crashing Clockwise #550: ‘Strap In and Forget My Email’

The tech podcast that just had its gears oiled! Audio narration generated using Shortcuts. ⏱️⏱️⏱️ Mikah Sargent: What is one of the first delightful things you remember doing on the World Wide Web? Tinkering with, breaking, and eventually fixing my iServ webmail. Turns out email … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

PenPal with Ratika: Sleep, Routines, and Short Stories

From my latest exchange with Ratika Deshpande: The sky is a color that refuses to be named; it is at once peach and grey and beige and white. I can’t think of anything to compare it to. In On Writing, Stephen King says that while people can go, “It was so beautiful I couldn’t des … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

PenPal with Valerie: Climbing, Crafts, and Wrap-up

Valerie and I wrapped up our month(+) of email exchanges: And on that note, I suppose we’ll bring this part of our public conversation to a close. I’m so glad that we connected and have been able to share so much with each other. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you Valerie, … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

7 Things This Week [#140]

Slug: /7-things-this-week-140 A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ If Keenan blogs, there’s a good chance I’m going to link to it. This time, they write about their three years working Apple Retail and ho … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Making a dynamic auto-sorting list in Shortcuts to easily deploy memes

So you like memes. (Me too!) And you like Markdown. (Right there with ya, buddy.) And you’re the sort of person who cares about web accessibility, and you do your best to add alt text (image descriptions) to all your images. (Geez, you and me are like peas and carrots!) You’ve go … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Humane pinned their launch date, if not their pin

Say what you will about Humane’s Ai Pin1, I have to give them credit for nailing the timeline they set years ago, perhaps at the very outset of the company. Their whole brand and logo, revealed in 2018 and solidified in 2022 with their “It’s time for change” video, revolves aroun … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Edelrid’s Design Team Is at the Top of Their Game

Edelrid is making some of the coolest, most forward-thinking climbing gear at the moment. My first exposure to their brand was through the Mega Jul, a belay device that offers assistive braking without any moving parts while looking and working (mostly) like a traditional tube-st … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Shortcuts Tips: Size Doesn’t Matter

My latest tiny tool is a three-action shortcut that helped me quickly get all the new descriptions for oneamonth.club formatted correctly. I had emailed all the member creators asking for their one-sentence description, so I had a bunch of messages to work through one at a time. … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

I Didn’t Hate Apple’s Immersive MLS Highlights Reel

I just watched the Apple Immersive Video MLS Highlights reel that been talked about… and I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as I expected based on the rhetoric. Sure, there were too many jump cuts that didn’t let me look long enough at any given thing. But I feel like it did a g … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

CSS Naked Day

I saw this blog post from Dominik Schwind, writing for lostfocus.de, about CSS Naked Day: It’s CSS Naked Day! And if (big if) my if works properly, you should see this website without any CSS on April 9th, 2024 in all timezones. I was intrigued, and, always being game for weird b … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

7 Things This Week [#139]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. 1️⃣ Huh. Third-graders are no longer frightened of quicksand as I was. [🔗 Radiolab // overcast.fm] 2️⃣ Not sure if I’d ever actually use this web tool of pre-writt … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

PenPal with Ratika: What does the sky look like where you are?

For the PenPal Project this month, I’m chatting with Ratika Deshpande, as writer’s writer — in that she’s authoring a book — and boy does it show: What does the sky look like where you are? Pictures are easy to share, but I’ve found great joy in using just words, because they don … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

RE: ‘Goodbye Micro.blog’

Being the Micro.blog advocate that I am (read this whole thing with that grain of salt), I’m always curious about why someone chooses to leave, as Khürt Williams did this morning: In conclusion, there are several factors leading me to withhold a full recommendation for the curren … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Digital Toolmaker

If you’re new around here, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I love building shortcuts. I have 579 of them in my personal library at the moment, and I’d guess that I built or modified about half of those at some point or another. Between my HeyDingus Shortcuts Library and my ol … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

PenPaling With Valerie: Ramadan Updates, Crampons, Photoblogging, and More on Worldly Travel

From my latest exchange with Valerie V.: You said, “posting a photo every day is quite a commitment”. Yes, I used to think of my blog as “posting a picture every day”. But now I think of it as “posting a picture for each day”. There are no consequences if I miss a day, or don’t h … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

7 Things (Which Are My Favorite Routes I Climbed in Red Rocks) This Week [#138]

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not. I was in Las Vegas all week — not to gamble, but to climb in the beautiful Red Rocks Conservation Area. It was an incredible week of climbing and descending very big rocks … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Micro.blog is becoming the fabric of the open social web of your dreams

Manton Reese, creator of Micro.blog, with some pretty momentous news on this Easter Sunday: Some folks on Micro.blog who also actively use Bluesky have noticed something new we’ve been rolling out over the last couple of days: Micro.blog will now look for replies on Bluesky to yo … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 7 months ago

Scott Yu-Jan’s Macintosh Studio

I know I just shared a bunch of links in 7 Things, but then I saw this video from Scott Yu-Jan. WOW! He 3D-printed a case for the Mac Studio in the style of the original Macintosh, with a slot in the front to hold an iPad mini for the screen. As Yu-Jan says in the video, it gives … | Continue reading


@heydingus.net | 8 months ago