Looking for music we can use!

If you have a band, and the rights, and would feel it is cool if we use your music for Goatmire Elixir, a not-for-profit event, reach out. We can't currently do any compensation but kudos and promotion, as much as we can.

Best fits are roughly in the metal and synth area but really we would have great use for a wild spread as well. Just let me know :)

I don't trust your fuzzy logic

I use Todoist because it is a competent cross-platform todo manager. I just heard Sofia Larsson talk about the useful natural language features it has. I've heard Myke Hurley talk about it for years. My wife uses it. I fight with that feature more than anything.

I use Siri to set a timer hands-free but I watch the screen like a hawk. Or to skip a track while driving, the failure modes are acceptable.

As a programmer and old-time computer user (start in Win 3.11) I am used to exhaustively performing the steps. I don't trust the fuzzy bits and just prefer the straight control. Sofia is also a programmer, she is probably just more sensible than I am. The Todoist feature is straight-forward, quite solid and has existed for years.

This same impulse makes me completely uninterested in having GMail write email for me. I think I'm right about communication mostly. I think I'm a bad tool-user in Todoist.

This whole idea of removing complexity, mobile UI trends, operating by voice, low-touch apps with high-agency, the computer does a lot for you. A lot of people are immensely excited. It makes sense for them. It is what computers are for. We are tool-using monkeys and that is a wild tool.

Fundamentally I think I want to be the decision engine. I didn't mind the arguably cluttered UIs of Windows or older Mac apps and I have a large tolerance for CLI bullshit. Interfaces for exhaustively specifying your needs. I've spent my life clicking Advanced to get to the good stuff. That era in user-facing apps is over but this is the next line to cross.

Delegating figuring out what "monday" means to Todoist is so small and practical. Doing the same for "email my status updates to the client" or "book me a flight" is hilariously far out from there. The spectrum in-between will be interesting. It is increasingly about delegating the non-mechanical decisions and if I wasn't ready to delegate figuring out monday it should be obvious that I won't be excited by the new AI features of an app.

I am tempted by the idea of a machine I control that gets all my data and can make smart things happen for me with it. I have a hard time believing it will happen. We are certainly closer to useful assistance than we've been. I am just aware that I'm not particularly wired to lean into tech with smarts.

Do you use smart features well? You can get to me on the Fediverse where I'm @lawik@fosstodon.org or by responding to this email to lars@underjord.io.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

The Elixir shirt is now shipping on-demand, you can just buy it at oswag.org. Our little shirt operation. Blessed by core teams everywhere.