vanderwal.net

Weeknote - 15 March 2026

I thought this week was going to fully turn the corner on a cycle of sinus tears, light infection, better, and then start it over again. It has been messing with sleep and having a clear head. I’m hoping thing are sorted.

Am I back posting weeknotes regularly? I love reading other people’s weeknotes and have a handful of favorites. I also miss getting things of interest shared out somewhat regularly.

Watched

Mission Impossible is Sort of Wachable

The tail end of last week I watched what I thought was the last (latest) installment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One - Wikipedia. I started watching late and I hadn’t looked at the length before I started. It was decent and enjoyable. I found it to be one of the better of the Mission Impossible series. I really liked the first movie and some along the way I have found to be decent, but some are a slog. I enjoy the travel and some of the film production, but the scripts are think and acting meh (I really am not a fan of Tom Cruise). But this 7th in the series was decent entertainment. As it ended I realized there was the actual “final” installment and given I thought the 7th was enjoyable there may be hope. I was not right, it was a slog with story segments far too long and with that there were logical gaps.

Seven Dials is Rewachable

Later in the week there was a quiet evening and I needed a break and opted for Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials - Wikipedia on Watch Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials | Netflix Official Site. I wasn’t expecting much as one of the Agatha Christie shows that Netflix had done in the last few years was not really watchable. Seven Dials was more than watchable, I found it to be quite good and a good interpretation. The Seven Dials is a Agatha Christie mystery that leans into a serious nod to P. G. Wodehouse, which I found to be well done (as well is something I was in need of). The main characters were really enjoyable.

Work

Search Me

I did a little tweaking around blog search for here, but not fully pulled it into this blog. It is sitting the Search from the Lab for vanderwal.net. I updated the database engine and switched to InnoDB to get search for 3 letter words and larger working.

I then had the issue of old blog entries where I didn’t have a title and the title is what I make linkable from search. I thought I only had a few handfuls of posts that lacked titles, but it was a few hundred. While adding titles is a good background repetitive task, I moved to adding a permalink under the body of the post snippet in the search results, but also added the post ID as a proxy header to give some consistency.

Category Tweaking

Through searching my posts across 25 years I would click to read a post and go to click a category that I believed would take me to other related content, I found I had categories missing. I added in about 5 or 6 categories and went back and searched and added the categories to posts.

Personal InfoCloud Posts

I have a few posts for the Personal InfoCloud site brewing. There are many things I have thought I have posted there over the years that are just written out in my notes and not edited nor posted. I have one I’m reworking a little.

I have also been going back through many Model of Attraction focussed posts and ones around the InfoClouds (Personal, Local, Global, and External) and sorting out what is posted and not. Related is sorting out what posts I have relate to the roughly 100 Complexity Lenses (at the top level - has also used Social Lenses as its main label in the past, but there is so much more in there than social) and the more than 1,500 nodes in all.

I also have a few posts around software development and product development around subjects that people, teams, and organizations seem to be continually missing or tripped up by.

General Posts

I posted the other day about Adding a Museum Category - Off the Top - vanderwal.net in relation to the IndieWeb Carnival - IndieWeb that James is running this month on museum memories - IndieWeb Carnival March 2026: Museum memories | James’ Coffee Blog. When James mentioned this a while back I was thinking I had a couple or small few museum memories I could post, but started a short list. That list turned into more than 30. There may be more than one post for sure. It may be a series or collection (hence added the category). But, I also have some broader theme posts that are growing on the subject.

My blogfodder list is rather long. But, modifications I’ve made to my workflow and blog management process in Obsidian
(I’ve been using it to sit over my nearly 30 years of text and markdown notes for the last 6 years and finding it really valuable) are making it better to get notes moved to blogfodder, and honed enough to post.

Productivity

Going Back to Bartender for Menu Bar Management for a Bit

I’ve been using Ice for my menu bar management on my MacBook Pro M4 since Bartender was sold and became questionable. Ice has not been updated since macOS 26 has been out (I don’t want anything Liquid Glass added) and with many apps getting a bit unstable on macOS 26 (particularly if they convert to Liquid Glass) and I’m trying to get things sorted.

I saw Bartender 6 had some recent updates and listing of changes and are now being more transparent. I also saw a quite reasonable upgrade price so went for a test of it and did the upgrade. It has been good and not all that different from Ice, but it doesn’t have the small bugs Ice had with the hidden menu bar displaying in odd locations under the menu bar.

Grammar Checking

Trying Harper for Grammar Checking

I stumbled onto and have tried Harper: The Private Grammar Checker, a medium capability grammar checker for English. It has an [[Obsidian plug-in]], which I tried. I realized running a grammar checker on my rough notes isn’t a great match for that part of my workflow. It is easy to flip on an off in Obsidian and often notes turn into something more and that is where Harper may provide assistance. Harper is OpenSource and available on GitHub as well, which means I can run it through DeepWiki to get a decent overview of Harper - Automattic/harper - DeepWiki.

Often my writing and planning starts as rough notes in Obsidian. Since everything is in markdown and markdown is great example of Small Apps Loosely Joined where the file can be picked up in various different applications and use the apps to their best. I pick up the note and initial rough pass in iA Writer to flesh things out more. iA Writer has some light grammar checking and in prep sharing the writing out I use Marked 2, which also has some grammar checking. I’ve been looking for something with a little more assistance. I’m going to try Harper in some other of its options.

In grad school I and for long after I used Grammatik as part of WordPerfect and I really liked both and miss both. Grammarly has never fully been a fit for me and with its recent issues it still isn’t going to be part of my consideration. I’m not a fan of AI involved in my writing process.

I Have Webmentions Working

I have had a partial setup for Webmentions for a few years. I have had getting it properly sorted on my to do list for a few years. In the last week ArtLung ~ Joe Crawford was on a call and started asking questions about it and two or three questions and adding one element to my headers completed the cycle. I now have webmentions enabled, but I receive them in my RSS feeds and am not (likely may not) exposing them.

I Have Webmentions Out Going working with Omnibear

A month or two back I joined a call to look at updates and testing for Omnibear, mostly to learn more about it. But, in about an hour i was running Omnibear as an extension in Firefox and I’m authenticating through my Micro.blog account and site as the foundation for sending replies to others through Webmetions. I really like Omnibear as it shows if a site has enabled to receive a webmention and allows comments, bookmarks, and favorites. Having this in the sidebar (well sidebar in my Zen browser where I use it most) is really nice.

Adding a Museum Category

A couple of things hit a confluence around museums in the past couple weeks. One is I was searching for a post (which I hadn’t written and therefore not posted) about the Musée d’Orsay and one of my favorite set of artworks. I also was searching for Marmottan – Monet Museum — Musée Marmottan Monet on my site to see if I had captured it somewhere (I hadn’t).

IndieWeb Carnival for March is Museums

The other force (it turns out) is the https://indieweb.org/IndieWeb_Carnival for March, that James’ Coffee Blog is running is focused on museums (IndieWeb Carnival March 2026: Museum memories | James’ Coffee Blog). I thought this would be a great way to capture the handful of museums I have strong fond memories of.

It turns out, I think I have strong fond memories or most museums and I have been to quite a few. I thought I may have a quick rundown, but then it turned into a list. If (more like when) I post them it will likely be a series. But, I also realized I don’t have a museum category, so that has been added. Doing a search I’ve added it to older posts where it is appropriate.

Museums are Part of the Social Fabric for Me

When James first mentioned his Carnival subject of museums I really liked it. I was initially only thinking of art museums, but quickly got to all the other museums I’ve gone to and enjoy. Museums are like fully immersive and in person non-fiction books. You can see (sometimes touch) and experience being in the presence with an object, but also find out background and context.

Cities that have and respect their history are much akin to museums. In Lyon I’d walk up a road most days and touch the stone wall built by the Romans in 300AD. In that quiet walk my mind would wander and think of all of those that had walked that road and touched that stone on their walks over 1700 years prior.

In Oxford a pub I’d occasionally go to to meet friend and have a pint was set up against the city wall built in 1000 to 1100AD. Who else had leaned against that wall while talking with friends and colleagues and what were they talking about.

My son over the past couple years as he has travelled will text and ask, “Dad, what is the oldest thing you’ve touched?” The wall in Lyon was the oldest thing I’ve touched, I would tell him. Then he would tell me a building or wall he touched and how old it was. When he was in Istanbul his first day he took a picture of an obelisk in the middle of a small traffic circle that was quiet when he took the picture. I sorted out where he was and what it was and it was from 3000BCE and originally from Egypt, but he said he didn’t touch it. We chatted about The ruins on the Asian side of Istanbul and many of the very old buildings and artifacts all around him (he was staying pretty much right on the old Hippodrome). But, he popped up with a picture of something from 5000BCE that he touched.

The city and culture cares about its past and broad and mixed past. A city, much like a museum can provide living moments of context and cultural understanding. It shares what a culture and society cares about.

Museums, whether art or artifacts provide a living fabric of what ties and weaves us all together.

Search Updated In vanderwal-net Lab

A while back I started working on adding search here on vanderwal.net. I have had a rough initial draft running in the [Lab - vanderwal.net](https://lab.vanderwal.net/index.html. It needed modifications, the largest was it would only search on terms with four letters or more. The solution to that was to modify the database, which should be easy but the last export I did was a bit odd.

Today I updated the database and now the search works with terms with three letters or more. I am more than fine with that, as I can now search “art” and other words with just three letters.

There are additional changes needed but vanderwal.net Search - In the Lab is something I’m using, but not not quite ready to move to the main blog. Search does cover all of the blog posts, but some older ones from 2001 and 2002 don’t have titles. I am adding titles, but I may also surface the permalink as another option.

B Cawses

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Vanderwal.net Blog Off the Top Turns 25

I didn’t realize that until Phil Gyford dropped a note from his blog tracker, ooh.directory, that my blog (this right here) turned 25 as a note in Mastodon, Phil Gyford: "@vanderwal Happy Blog Birthday…" - Mastodon. Posting has slowed down a bit from the early days, but still going. This last year the underpinnings got a good update to keep the platform running longer.

My first post was December 31, 2000 on Blogger and sent to this site by FTP. But, somewhere along the way that was lost, as is was likely a “hello squirrel” and “this is a test, I don’t know how long I will be doing this” sort of post. But, 25 years later I’m still maintaining the custom platform and adding to it, while also still posting.

In the mid 00s Twitter started eating a lot of things I would have normally posted here. The posts got longer, and more focussed, but also less frequent. Facebook and other online places also ate posts.

In June 2020 I started using Obsidian and my notes what working through ideas, which I once did on my blog were turning out in volume in Obsidian as notes. My aim was to move the link notes and longer teasing out and working through ideas into blog posts. But, that is still a work in progress.

I won’t say here’s to another 25 years as I didn’t do this for longevity I posted to share and find others who had similar interests. This is still somewhat why I still post, but the feedback loops are more odd and weird in their indirect way then they were years back.

I have been working on adding search and have a early version working in my Lab section of the site, Search Page - Lab - vanderwal.net, but it needs a about three more steps (including tweaking the database so it can handle searching for 3 letter words and not just 4 letter words and larger).

In Our Time Loses Melvyn Bragg

I woke a bit early this morning, and as one does when not quite ready to get up and embrace the day, I talked to the lady in the can to play an episode of In Our Time. The episode was preempted with a notification that Melvyn Bragg had retired so there would be an episode from the catalog.

I had completely missed that Bragg had retired on September 3rd. He was doing a lot of wonderful interviews the last few years that I’ve really enjoyed. As I had read them I was impressed how he just kept going and going with In Our Time. Bragg presided over and lead discussion and inquiry into each week’s subject for more than 1,000 episodes.

I got hooked on Bragg and his good interviewing method on The Southbank Show (it was broadcast on Bravo not long after each episode came out). I was pleased to find he had a radio show (In Our Time) and finally sorted out how to listen somewhere between 2001 and 2003, but listening wasn’t easy to do on a regular nor consistent basis.

In Our Time has been an utter gem of an offering as its half hour to hour of in depth and intelligent conversation around a specific subject. Bragg would bring in three academics (usually) with deep expertise on the subject having solid in depth conversations about the subject, while keeping the depth of the discussion to a level it is accessible to non-academic audiences.

I always learned something from each episode I listened to and they give me a better foothold to learn more. I also often look into who the people were that were part of the discussion for deeper dives into their works.

I feel a great sense of gratitude to Melvyn Bragg for all the enjoyment, discovery, and learning his leading In Our Time has brought me. There have been times where I will listen and have no idea what the subject is nor fits into anything I remotely know and in 30 minutes to an hour I have a relatively decent foothold to explore more, it not a solid understanding. I know of little else out like this.

I hope the BBC keeps In Our Time going as it is a real treasure. It won’t be the same without Melvyn Bragg, but it would a complete shame to lose something of this great quality and capability to provide a wonderful way to learn as a great value to civilization.

If you are new to In Our Time the BBC site is a good place to start, as is Braggoscope by Matt Webb who has built a great way to navigate all the episodes of In Out Time.

Second Person Bird Carnival

Sophia took on the September 2025 IndieWeb Carnival with the topic second person birds. I had some different takes, but settled into one…

Growing up on the US West Coast there were two birds I knew of birds that I had never seen, thanks to sports teams. Cardinals and Orioles are the two that stood out. We had robins, scrub jays, woodpeckers, and a multitude of other birds, but there were no orioles nor cardinals.

Moving east for grad school I saw my first oriole, which I found was more rare than I figured. But, cardinals are more abundant.

A few years back I found the Merlin Bird ID app and its ability to recognize bird songs. I hear many different bird calls and songs regularly. During the pandemic lockdown there became even more birds signing and calling out. Merlin helped me find out what my favorite discernible songs were. One I regularly heard and enjoyed, particularly in the morning on walks is the cardinal.

As we started coming out of lockdown I took my son to a workout with his trainer. The training sessions were outside and to fit in to the outside environment he asked, not what music, but what bird song he should play on the speakers. My son didn’t have any idea and he looked to me and I knew exactly what I would want another (second person) to play, the cardinal bird song (go ahead and go listen).

Getting the summary Complexity Lenses - An Overview Out

I finally got a “simple” overview post out and posted today to my Personal InfoCloud site - Complexity Lenses – An Overview – Personal InfoCloud.

This post isn’t really long. It is a short version of a few elevator pitches about my Complexity Lenses / Social Lenses. Today there are more than 90 Lenses (actually just shy of 100) and each have elements that are beneath them and many elements have components under them. My full outline in Outlining Software For Pros - OmniOutliner - The Omni Group has more than 1,500 nodes between the parents (lenses) and children combined.

Getting this boiled down to a few paragraphs is a bit of a chore, to get at a high level explanation why the Complexity Lenses are used to tease apart complex environments to see more clearly through the fog of complexity (and even help make a dent to find something to hold onto in times of chaos). Every attempt to tease this out and whittle it down turned into something I didn’t like. These also turned into something more dense than I wanted.

Breaking it down to sentences

Today I looked at the task item for the Overview on my list and then clicked to look at the current state of the draft (or more like multiple drafts) and decided to take a different route. I took the core sentences and put them into a box in an Obsidian Canvas and honed each sentence a bit. I had about 10 sentences and moved the boxes around to get an order. I put lines between the sentence boxes that would be a paragraph.

I then looked at what I had and started asking the editor’s questions: “What are the Lenses”; “What is the value to people using them”; and down the line was “What is the background”. I didn’t have the first answer to the first question at the top. This helped change my structure, which helped keep things relatively tight (for me). I then realized I had a gap in the middle around what are traits of people who use the Lenses and have success with them look like, so I pulled that in.

I had a set piece around “seeing through the fog of complexity” that often helps start the Complexity Lens portion of a talk, so I added that in. The final paragraph became a mixture of other summarizations I’ve used across the years and edited that down.

Wrapping it and Posting

With this in Obsidian Canvas I copied each sentence back into my draft and wiped the initial variations of drafts I had been trying to bludgeon for months. I did a quick read through and another light edit. Then I moved it into Personal InfoCloud and posted it.

I’m may tweak it a little in coming weeks. But, this post will likely be pinned to the top on the Personal InfoCloud, so I can regularly refer to it. This referring and pointing capability is something I haven’t been able to do and I’m happy to have it now.

Swan Song's AR Design and Creation

I have a serious soft spot for the movie Swan Song (which stars Mahershala Ali and Glenn Close that is set in the near future in the Pacific Northwest. I was a fan of its soft and deep thought invoking exploration of life and replication, but also its near future view of technology. While others have been excited by the Minority Report’s manic augmented reality (AR) interface, the design and use of near future AR as part of work and personal life was really good. To say I was fascinated, may be putting it lightly. Swan Song (2021 Benjamin Cleary film) - Wikipedia was released in 2021 and Apple had yet to have announce Apple Vision Pro with its visionOS and really good graphics and workable interface. The visual and interaction design of what the main character (Cameron) worked in was incredibly good. Once Apple Vision Pro was out it felt like Cameron’s interfaces and interactions were part of the future road map.

The Design Studio Behind the Digital Interfaces and Interaction Design

Being that Swan Song movie was part of Apple Studios - Wikipedia I was believing Apple had a part in the creation of the user interfaces and interaction design of the AR in the movie. But, poking around in Vimeo I stumbled on the design reel for Swan Song - Territory Studio, so I finally found the studio that created the AR and digital design elements in the film.

Territory Studio’s Design Overview

Territory Studio’s page for the high level design overview of what they created for Swan Song is really good. I had been feeling like Swan Song’s design and AR team were more closely tied to Apple as their AR interaction design is very much like Apple’s sensibilities, with a more muted palette from a calm future. A lot of things that are in Apple Vision Pro’s user interface and interaction design patterns seem to have been hinted at, if not felt like they were previewed in Swan Song. But, I’m not so sure of the connection or how specious it may be.

The Territory Studio page has highlights of their visual / virtual design language, personal UIs, home office AR, AR home gaming, speculative hardware, smart watch UIs, and virtual mimoji. I really would love an even deeper dive, as this is much of the virtual interactive world I’ve been waiting for, and been hoping to see come to life for years prior to the film.

There is a whole lot in Swan Song that I loved from the time it was released, which was a couple years or so ahead of Apple Vision Pro being released. The headset-less AR and interaction design is one piece. But, I also was deeply taken by the whole story, cinematography, and feelings the film evoked, but also the keep thinking and consideration it evoked.

Swan Song Demo Video from Territory Studio

The show real from Territory’s work on Swan Song is in Vimeo: Swan Song Breakdown Reel - Vimeo

James’ Gravity Button

Thinking about James’ gravity button, which I find to be fun.

It was in part was inspired by my gravity story about the time I was working in San Francisco and the bottom of a file box I was carrying gave out. Rather than picking up the files and papers, I turned to my desk and picked up the phone and called the property management office for our office to ask them to, “Turn down the gravity as it seems a bit too strong.” I then went and picked up the files and papers and put them back in the box, which I had reinforced the bottom with packing tape.

Gravity could (/ should?) be a controllable element much like a thermostat does with temperature. Right?