I use the app! I will glance at Notes. I saw some antivaxxers and other awful people early on so I am a little scared of it. But I will try to find you which means yes, toggling over to following. But all of this can be done on a computer so people don’t have to use an app.
This community is great so we should definitely find ways to hang out from time to time!
I dabbled in Notes for a bit, I think even longer than you did, Tim.
My feeling was, meh.
Part of it is that I don't really like the app and using it feels too Twitter, er, X-like for my comfort.
I proudly interact with The Bastard Machine on one of my laptops (whichever one happens to be closest) and I love that experience, probably because I actually comment — and I 'effing hate typing long text on my phone. Another big advantage is that images and video look like a zillion percent better on either one of my new Mac laptop screens (and even better on my 32" 4K monitor that is usually plugged into the MacBook Pro). I don't know if that makes me a luddite or it just means I want to see your beautiful content at it's absolute best...
Mini looks very sweet, she would've loved to have my my, (or rather Uther the Bulldog's) tuxedo cat, Miss Samantha Underfoot. Sadly Sammy and Uther are curled up together in four-legged heaven. How do Mini and Pepper get along?
I really hate having to type comments on a phone as well. Maybe not hate since that's strong, but very much dislike and prefer a real keyboard. Your set up sounds great but that's not surprising. And I really love the name Miss Samantha Underfoot. So many great cat names like that in the world!
Trust me, Sammy earned that name almost immediately.
She had mad skilz, she used to ride around on my shoulder while I was doing things like, cooking. That got pretty challenging with a cat on my shoulder and a bulldog chin rested against the back of my knee while I was trying to, oh I dunno, risotto and stuff. The Love Sausage would LOVE to ride on my shoulder but I've had to explained to him that a Dachshund is engineered I a manner that makes that impractical.
That's sad. The ridiculous over the top cuteness of the 68lb Bulldog and the petite Tuxedo girl cat all cuddled up was literally vomit inducing. When he passed at 14, she only lasted about 4 months longer, devastated that her friend wasn't there anymore.
There being no peace between them leads me to believe that Mini usually comes out on top — no cat worth her catnip isn't capable of putting a dog in his place. A single prong to the nose is usually sufficient!
Mini is insanely photogenic. That photo didn't do her famous mustache any justice, but yeah, she's got great eyes. I chose that particular one at like 1:15 a.m. because not surprisingly I was wide awake and writing.
I'm going to try HOTD again and I'm sure my partner's nerdiness will win out there, BUT if it doesn't move me I think I could dump Max for a bit.
Just reading through the other comments here, I get the feeling that many of us are older or old-fashioned in that we prefer using the larger screen for things like substack. I don't do email on my phone, and the only apps I install there are ones that I might need or want while I'm mobile--away from the laptop. I do read your posts on the website rather than in email, because I've learned that's the best way.
I didn't respond to any of the polls because you didn't give me any options that I could answer truthfully. For example, all I know about Harry Potter is what I've learned from doing crossword puzzles, and I read LOTR fifty years ago; the one movie I saw was a little boring and definitely too long. Just call me cranky...
I never say old or old fashioned. I just say analog. It's very handy and short. "Did you look at..."/"Nope. Analog."
And cranky is a thing. Hell, all my early career was made on the back of being very, very cranky. Crankypants, in fact, were involved.
I read the Harry Potter books along with my kids (although my daughter basically came out of the womb reading dozens and dozens of books so pretty soon she was way ahead of me -- plus I'm an infamously slow reader.
I actually liked the Harry Potter movies, even though that's not really traditionally my thing. Neither is LOTR, I guess, but I LOVED THOSE MOVIES.
Dang I completely forgot about Crankypants! I think that's why I originally liked you way back when. I was born cranky, as my mother loved to remind me over and over.
I just don't find fantasy all that interesting, but I LOVE scifi, which is why it makes me VERY CRANKY that SF/F is considered one genre in so many places. Faeries and magic, no thanks. Aliens and warp drive, oh yeah.
I will try to think of myself as analog, rather than old. Thank you!
yes, even I, not a great fan of either (but love when both do entertaining work), know that science fiction and fantasy are definitely different genres. I do lean sci-fi way more.
I rarely read Substacks in email. One of my favorite Substacks frequently uses footnotes to make little funny or informational asides, and the only way you can read 'em is if you're using a web browser. Plus I like reading the comments on posts, which requires either the web browser or app.
Glad to hear that, Sue! Browser are app are best. As the Apple ad once said, "Gold. Gold is best."
I'm even getting used to commenting via the app on the phone, but it does challenge my typing skills and I often just wait until I'm home to respond other than with a heart.
I had a hard time choosing because of that reason, but I ultimately voted LOTR because I just visited Hobbitton in New Zealand a couple weeks ago. So there!
I will say that the Hobbitton tour was very cool and it did inspire a bit of interest in watching them. Plus my Tolkein fanatic friend who can't believe I've not seen them all several times! 🤣
I just click through from the email if there's a poll or a video I want to watch and it just opens a new browser tab. I am not "on my phone" as people are these days. I use a tablet for home or a computer at work. Bigger screens and bigger letters :-)
Big fan of bigger letters! I feel no shame in that (mostly because otherwise I lean forward and mess up my neck more, as I wrote in another response). But I'm glad you click through because others seem not to, choosing to avoid the active elements like videos, etc. Shame, really. But if you're on the site then you see everything so that's great, plus you can click Notes and (I believe) it's just me. And as I get better and more focused on the content there, I think it'll be worth it. Dunno, but I'm going to play around and give it a shot. I kind of miss more interaction with a community I like and this is one way to do it., beyond just comments.
My issue with notes is it forces me travel from our glorious private self self sustaining bastards utopian community to the big bad ugly world of “every other a$$hole on Substack”…
Last time I messed around with “notes” I was on there for like two seconds before I blocked a total stranger cuz I decided from one of their posts they were a horrible human…
I prefer to stay away from all that and just interact with my fellow bastards…❤️
I feel you on the larger crowd issue but I think that is partly what I'm talking about when I say switch the button from "explore" (oh, god no, thanks anyway!) to "following" (assuming you're not following any assholes). I think it's automatic on the desktop (meaning it doesn't put you in explore mode by default). But yeah, there is a running joke between me and my partner that I only see the posts of like three people because THOSE three people are prolific posters and reposters/restackers of their content and everyone's response to that content (instead of just liking their nice comments). It is VERY egregious with two of them, perhaps because they are popular.
But anyway, I do think there's an easy workaround but also totally get non participation!
This has been my experience as well. The app steals focus from what I clicked on to somewhere else frequently, or I'm too lazy to try to figure out what happened. I also have app fatigue. I'm sick of learning new apps.
App fatigue is real. My old phone died just recently and after replacing it my reaction was basically "what the fuck is with all these apps I have?" so did a big purge. As with Patrick above, I noted there's a pretty easy workaround with the explore (no bruno) and " following." But I also understand app fatigue. Maybe I'll eventually get you to do it if the content rises to the occasion.
I've watched the full season of house of dragon!!! Can't name one character! I think I consume too much tv to remember these days... Doctor Who, wait no, Matt Smith, no that's the actor not the character. The girl from Upright with Tim Minchin, If you haven't seen it you should. I mainly open it on a webpage when I get the email. Everything seems to work fine.
I think this one is on them, not you! I mean, it's pretty ridiculous on both spelling and phonetics. It helps with subtitles which I use for everything, but even then it's still annoying. And yeah, I'm glad you open it on the web page to access whatever "dynamic" elements there are (dynamic! pew-pew-pew). But it seems like a section of people who just open the email skip the, ahem, dynamic elements if they are there (polls, videos, sound) and just choose to not participate (maybe because it takes them to a new page...not sure).
Perhaps showing my age, but my primary Internet use comes via an actual desktop computer. I don't use a laptop, use a tablet (Kindle) only for reading books, use my phone only when I'm not by my desktop. So I don't often use my phone Substack app, I usually read Substack via the web browser on my desktop computer.
For my writing I use a laptop hooked up to a larger monitor and just take the laptop between places (I have a duplicate set up on Portland -- same desk, even. I like to read stories and look at architecture on my iPad. I was using my phone way too much and have really put in the effort not to doom scroll or fuck up my neck (for home viewing on the iPad I bought a metal floor stand with bendable neck. Love it. In fact, duplicated that in Portland as well. My neck was (and is) a mess from bad posture and tech neck.
Yes, my wife doesn't know why I don't get a laptop that hooks up to monitors and other peripherals. Too set in my ways, I guess ... had a home computer for 40+ years now, it's what I'm used to.
I use a couple of laptops, an overpowered, loaded to the gills MacBook Pro that I have plugged into a big high res monitor (and sits up on a stand so that I have two monitors, emails and TXTs are on the laptop screen usually), a wireless keyboard and mouse. It's basically a desktop and more powerful than most desktops. Then I also have a new MacBook Air for when I'm lazing on the couch, watching TV or need to do something offsite (that doesn't require the more powerful computer).
An example of what the Macbook Air is good for is that I just signed a lease on a new apartment that's a couple of hours away from here and where I'm in the process of moving. I was up there last night with the MacBook Air (and The Love Sausage, of course) and I was able to use Illustrator to draw a complete, to scale floor plan add in scale representations of furniture and basically design where everything is going to go when the movers come before anything other than small valuables/fragile things that I'm slowly bringing up on road trips. Never would've been able to do that if I still only had a desktop.
I used to insist on big, powerful desktops (I work with very large graphics files) but when the laptops finally came down to near parity in terms of power to $$s a few years ago, I decided I'd never get another desktop computer. The flexibility is just too great...
As someone who, as you know, has moved a LOT recently, the fact that you did the new layout on your laptop before things arrived is very chef's kiss impressive. Well done! (Of course, I move stuff around in rooms all the time, usually no longer than 6 months, so I'm used to doing the layout in my head.
Oh, I'm one of those freaks with an almost preternatural ability to walk into an empty room and see exactly where everything would fit (used to drive my ex-wife insane because she would insist that I was wrong about everything and we'd end up with everything exactly where I said it should go after a couple of weeks). Designer, intuitive sense of spatial relationships, etc.
Being rather good at Adobe Illustrator makes it pretty easy for me to do stuff like scale floor plans and it's useful to have available to show movers where things should go (and easier on my own back). Oddly enough, this morning I went in and flipped the furniture/rug arrangement in both the bedroom and the living room of the new place because, my initial instinct didn't take windows properly into account...
...and I also didn't take into account things like ethernet cable runs (because as great as WiFi is and I have superfast WiFi, it's not as fast and secure as a wired network connection).
As for my actual desk, I know you love your super moderne furniture but my 100+ year old Craftsman desk has proved to be the ultimate desk for me and the best I've ever had. How did those crazy Arts & Crafts furniture designers know that the 4' x' 3' top would be perfect for a dual monitor set up with space for a slick charging cable set up — and that the shelf down below the desk would be perfect for multiple large archive drives and a ridiculous amount of networking equipment? I think they were all witches.
Hey maybe a good use for video embeds is a version of that scene exploration thing you did (it's Friday before coffee and I forget what you called it).
Yes, exactly what I was thinking! Also thanks for liking them. But yeah, seems like they would fit on there well and concise -- I mean, allegedly there's a five minute limit. Plenty of time to make a point o two. I'm also going to use it for writing about being other places than, say, in front of my desk.
I use the app! I will glance at Notes. I saw some antivaxxers and other awful people early on so I am a little scared of it. But I will try to find you which means yes, toggling over to following. But all of this can be done on a computer so people don’t have to use an app.
This community is great so we should definitely find ways to hang out from time to time!
Yay, and totally agree. I'm thinking some escape from the coming madness of the year would be nice for the mentals.
I dabbled in Notes for a bit, I think even longer than you did, Tim.
My feeling was, meh.
Part of it is that I don't really like the app and using it feels too Twitter, er, X-like for my comfort.
I proudly interact with The Bastard Machine on one of my laptops (whichever one happens to be closest) and I love that experience, probably because I actually comment — and I 'effing hate typing long text on my phone. Another big advantage is that images and video look like a zillion percent better on either one of my new Mac laptop screens (and even better on my 32" 4K monitor that is usually plugged into the MacBook Pro). I don't know if that makes me a luddite or it just means I want to see your beautiful content at it's absolute best...
Mini looks very sweet, she would've loved to have my my, (or rather Uther the Bulldog's) tuxedo cat, Miss Samantha Underfoot. Sadly Sammy and Uther are curled up together in four-legged heaven. How do Mini and Pepper get along?
I really hate having to type comments on a phone as well. Maybe not hate since that's strong, but very much dislike and prefer a real keyboard. Your set up sounds great but that's not surprising. And I really love the name Miss Samantha Underfoot. So many great cat names like that in the world!
Trust me, Sammy earned that name almost immediately.
She had mad skilz, she used to ride around on my shoulder while I was doing things like, cooking. That got pretty challenging with a cat on my shoulder and a bulldog chin rested against the back of my knee while I was trying to, oh I dunno, risotto and stuff. The Love Sausage would LOVE to ride on my shoulder but I've had to explained to him that a Dachshund is engineered I a manner that makes that impractical.
Animals just make the world better.
There is no peace between Pepper and Mini.
That's sad. The ridiculous over the top cuteness of the 68lb Bulldog and the petite Tuxedo girl cat all cuddled up was literally vomit inducing. When he passed at 14, she only lasted about 4 months longer, devastated that her friend wasn't there anymore.
There being no peace between them leads me to believe that Mini usually comes out on top — no cat worth her catnip isn't capable of putting a dog in his place. A single prong to the nose is usually sufficient!
She just hasn’t figured out yet that she has the upper hand/paw. Her first birthday is next week. She’ll get there soon! 😉
Great photo of Mini. Love those eyes. Haven't looked at Dragon S2 yet, will check it out.
Mini is insanely photogenic. That photo didn't do her famous mustache any justice, but yeah, she's got great eyes. I chose that particular one at like 1:15 a.m. because not surprisingly I was wide awake and writing.
I'm going to try HOTD again and I'm sure my partner's nerdiness will win out there, BUT if it doesn't move me I think I could dump Max for a bit.
Before you leave Max, check out the Stax: Soulsville USA documentary. It’s good but the music is <chef’s kiss>!
Will do. I think there's good music docs on HBO so that's a thing I would miss if cancel. Love me some music docs.
Just reading through the other comments here, I get the feeling that many of us are older or old-fashioned in that we prefer using the larger screen for things like substack. I don't do email on my phone, and the only apps I install there are ones that I might need or want while I'm mobile--away from the laptop. I do read your posts on the website rather than in email, because I've learned that's the best way.
I didn't respond to any of the polls because you didn't give me any options that I could answer truthfully. For example, all I know about Harry Potter is what I've learned from doing crossword puzzles, and I read LOTR fifty years ago; the one movie I saw was a little boring and definitely too long. Just call me cranky...
I never say old or old fashioned. I just say analog. It's very handy and short. "Did you look at..."/"Nope. Analog."
And cranky is a thing. Hell, all my early career was made on the back of being very, very cranky. Crankypants, in fact, were involved.
I read the Harry Potter books along with my kids (although my daughter basically came out of the womb reading dozens and dozens of books so pretty soon she was way ahead of me -- plus I'm an infamously slow reader.
I actually liked the Harry Potter movies, even though that's not really traditionally my thing. Neither is LOTR, I guess, but I LOVED THOSE MOVIES.
Definitely Team LOTR.
A proper website reading experience is endorsed!
Dang I completely forgot about Crankypants! I think that's why I originally liked you way back when. I was born cranky, as my mother loved to remind me over and over.
I just don't find fantasy all that interesting, but I LOVE scifi, which is why it makes me VERY CRANKY that SF/F is considered one genre in so many places. Faeries and magic, no thanks. Aliens and warp drive, oh yeah.
I will try to think of myself as analog, rather than old. Thank you!
yes, even I, not a great fan of either (but love when both do entertaining work), know that science fiction and fantasy are definitely different genres. I do lean sci-fi way more.
I rarely read Substacks in email. One of my favorite Substacks frequently uses footnotes to make little funny or informational asides, and the only way you can read 'em is if you're using a web browser. Plus I like reading the comments on posts, which requires either the web browser or app.
Glad to hear that, Sue! Browser are app are best. As the Apple ad once said, "Gold. Gold is best."
I'm even getting used to commenting via the app on the phone, but it does challenge my typing skills and I often just wait until I'm home to respond other than with a heart.
Don’t make me choose between HP and LOTR, Tim.
Agreed. I clicked LOTR but HP both in book and film form is literally magic.
I second the Knowledgable KB, Tim. That poll was NOT FAIR.
I knew that would be very difficult choice for your nerdy little heart.
Is it bad that I've only seen one movie of each?
I had a hard time choosing because of that reason, but I ultimately voted LOTR because I just visited Hobbitton in New Zealand a couple weeks ago. So there!
Big laugh at "so there!".....and yeah, I think you should watch more of those movies. Both worlds/teams. They are quite entertaining.
I will say that the Hobbitton tour was very cool and it did inspire a bit of interest in watching them. Plus my Tolkein fanatic friend who can't believe I've not seen them all several times! 🤣
I just click through from the email if there's a poll or a video I want to watch and it just opens a new browser tab. I am not "on my phone" as people are these days. I use a tablet for home or a computer at work. Bigger screens and bigger letters :-)
Big fan of bigger letters! I feel no shame in that (mostly because otherwise I lean forward and mess up my neck more, as I wrote in another response). But I'm glad you click through because others seem not to, choosing to avoid the active elements like videos, etc. Shame, really. But if you're on the site then you see everything so that's great, plus you can click Notes and (I believe) it's just me. And as I get better and more focused on the content there, I think it'll be worth it. Dunno, but I'm going to play around and give it a shot. I kind of miss more interaction with a community I like and this is one way to do it., beyond just comments.
My issue with notes is it forces me travel from our glorious private self self sustaining bastards utopian community to the big bad ugly world of “every other a$$hole on Substack”…
Last time I messed around with “notes” I was on there for like two seconds before I blocked a total stranger cuz I decided from one of their posts they were a horrible human…
I prefer to stay away from all that and just interact with my fellow bastards…❤️
Yes. We all must avoid "every other a$$hole on Substack". They're not honorable, forthright and just dang spiffy like our beloved Bastards.
I feel you on the larger crowd issue but I think that is partly what I'm talking about when I say switch the button from "explore" (oh, god no, thanks anyway!) to "following" (assuming you're not following any assholes). I think it's automatic on the desktop (meaning it doesn't put you in explore mode by default). But yeah, there is a running joke between me and my partner that I only see the posts of like three people because THOSE three people are prolific posters and reposters/restackers of their content and everyone's response to that content (instead of just liking their nice comments). It is VERY egregious with two of them, perhaps because they are popular.
But anyway, I do think there's an easy workaround but also totally get non participation!
This has been my experience as well. The app steals focus from what I clicked on to somewhere else frequently, or I'm too lazy to try to figure out what happened. I also have app fatigue. I'm sick of learning new apps.
App fatigue is real. My old phone died just recently and after replacing it my reaction was basically "what the fuck is with all these apps I have?" so did a big purge. As with Patrick above, I noted there's a pretty easy workaround with the explore (no bruno) and " following." But I also understand app fatigue. Maybe I'll eventually get you to do it if the content rises to the occasion.
Maybe "no bruno" but do you get Brüno?
I'll probably experiment with Notes but I get so many emails that I need to cut what I view before adding to the pile.
I've watched the full season of house of dragon!!! Can't name one character! I think I consume too much tv to remember these days... Doctor Who, wait no, Matt Smith, no that's the actor not the character. The girl from Upright with Tim Minchin, If you haven't seen it you should. I mainly open it on a webpage when I get the email. Everything seems to work fine.
I think this one is on them, not you! I mean, it's pretty ridiculous on both spelling and phonetics. It helps with subtitles which I use for everything, but even then it's still annoying. And yeah, I'm glad you open it on the web page to access whatever "dynamic" elements there are (dynamic! pew-pew-pew). But it seems like a section of people who just open the email skip the, ahem, dynamic elements if they are there (polls, videos, sound) and just choose to not participate (maybe because it takes them to a new page...not sure).
Participating is half the fun of the sub stack.
Your darn tootin'!
PREACH!
Perhaps showing my age, but my primary Internet use comes via an actual desktop computer. I don't use a laptop, use a tablet (Kindle) only for reading books, use my phone only when I'm not by my desktop. So I don't often use my phone Substack app, I usually read Substack via the web browser on my desktop computer.
For my writing I use a laptop hooked up to a larger monitor and just take the laptop between places (I have a duplicate set up on Portland -- same desk, even. I like to read stories and look at architecture on my iPad. I was using my phone way too much and have really put in the effort not to doom scroll or fuck up my neck (for home viewing on the iPad I bought a metal floor stand with bendable neck. Love it. In fact, duplicated that in Portland as well. My neck was (and is) a mess from bad posture and tech neck.
Yes, my wife doesn't know why I don't get a laptop that hooks up to monitors and other peripherals. Too set in my ways, I guess ... had a home computer for 40+ years now, it's what I'm used to.
I use a couple of laptops, an overpowered, loaded to the gills MacBook Pro that I have plugged into a big high res monitor (and sits up on a stand so that I have two monitors, emails and TXTs are on the laptop screen usually), a wireless keyboard and mouse. It's basically a desktop and more powerful than most desktops. Then I also have a new MacBook Air for when I'm lazing on the couch, watching TV or need to do something offsite (that doesn't require the more powerful computer).
An example of what the Macbook Air is good for is that I just signed a lease on a new apartment that's a couple of hours away from here and where I'm in the process of moving. I was up there last night with the MacBook Air (and The Love Sausage, of course) and I was able to use Illustrator to draw a complete, to scale floor plan add in scale representations of furniture and basically design where everything is going to go when the movers come before anything other than small valuables/fragile things that I'm slowly bringing up on road trips. Never would've been able to do that if I still only had a desktop.
I used to insist on big, powerful desktops (I work with very large graphics files) but when the laptops finally came down to near parity in terms of power to $$s a few years ago, I decided I'd never get another desktop computer. The flexibility is just too great...
As someone who, as you know, has moved a LOT recently, the fact that you did the new layout on your laptop before things arrived is very chef's kiss impressive. Well done! (Of course, I move stuff around in rooms all the time, usually no longer than 6 months, so I'm used to doing the layout in my head.
Oh, I'm one of those freaks with an almost preternatural ability to walk into an empty room and see exactly where everything would fit (used to drive my ex-wife insane because she would insist that I was wrong about everything and we'd end up with everything exactly where I said it should go after a couple of weeks). Designer, intuitive sense of spatial relationships, etc.
Being rather good at Adobe Illustrator makes it pretty easy for me to do stuff like scale floor plans and it's useful to have available to show movers where things should go (and easier on my own back). Oddly enough, this morning I went in and flipped the furniture/rug arrangement in both the bedroom and the living room of the new place because, my initial instinct didn't take windows properly into account...
...and I also didn't take into account things like ethernet cable runs (because as great as WiFi is and I have superfast WiFi, it's not as fast and secure as a wired network connection).
As for my actual desk, I know you love your super moderne furniture but my 100+ year old Craftsman desk has proved to be the ultimate desk for me and the best I've ever had. How did those crazy Arts & Crafts furniture designers know that the 4' x' 3' top would be perfect for a dual monitor set up with space for a slick charging cable set up — and that the shelf down below the desk would be perfect for multiple large archive drives and a ridiculous amount of networking equipment? I think they were all witches.
Hey maybe a good use for video embeds is a version of that scene exploration thing you did (it's Friday before coffee and I forget what you called it).
Yes, exactly what I was thinking! Also thanks for liking them. But yeah, seems like they would fit on there well and concise -- I mean, allegedly there's a five minute limit. Plenty of time to make a point o two. I'm also going to use it for writing about being other places than, say, in front of my desk.
Your Small Scenes series. But you could call them Micro Scenes. Or Substack Scenes. Or remove some vowels...
ps. I loved those.