Lifelong Learning, Elevated Reality, and GitHub Stuff
Thoughts on Late Bloomers, The Photography of Alex Pragger, Ren Faire Doc Series, Overcast Shortcuts Support and Plans for Projects
Hey guys. Let me share with you some of the things that stood out the most from my previous week.
On Late Bloomers
This past week, I read this article about how people some people only find success later in life. It challenges the idea that “young is always better.” The article highlights how wisdom and experience often take time to develop. What’s most important is being consistent, always learning, growing, and allowing time to work its magic. It’s an encouraging and insightful read if you feel like the years are flying by without reaching your goals.
Some of my highlights:
Successful late bloomers combine this high need for cognition with a seemingly contradictory trait: epistemic humility. They are aggressive about wanting to acquire knowledge and learn—but they are also modest, possessing an accurate sense of how much they don’t know. This mentality combines high self-belief (I can figure this out on my own; I know my standards are right and the world’s standards are wrong) with high self-doubt (There’s a lot I don’t know, and I am falling short in many ways).The combination of a high need for cognition and epistemic humility is a recipe for lifelong learning.
The best moments of life can be found within the lifelong learning or quest itself. It’s doing something so fulfilling that the work is its own reward. “Effort is the one thing that gives meaning to life,” the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck once wrote. “Effort means you care about something.”
On Photography
I watched THIS INTERVIEW with photographer Alex Prager where she shares her journey, work philosophy, and inspiration. Even though this video it’s a decade old, I found it really refreshing. Alex talks about how she got into photography while “looking for something that would make her feel alive in some way.” An exhibition of Eggleston inspired her to teach herself photography. I find it fascinating how she discovered her artistic voice while drawing inspiration from filmmaking, painting, music, and more. I really love her work; it reminds me a bit of Greg Crewdson because they both create staged photos that feel like an elevated version of reality. Prager’s style feels like a blend of fashion, street photography, and cinema with strong storytelling elements. I actually found out about Alex Prager because her wedding was photographed by Daniel Arnold, another huge inspiration for me. You can see some wedding photos here by the way, as a wedding photographer also these were very inspiring.
On Documentary Cinema
I recently finished watching the TV series Ren Faire by Lance Oppenheim. I personally think he’s one of the most interesting modern filmmakers in the documentary arena. I’ve seen most of his films, and I’m always amazed at how he captures real stories with real people in such a unique and fresh way. It feels like his stories and characters are always quite fantastic yet still honest and vulnerable.
After watching the show, I read some reviews that weren’t very positive but were still intriguing. Many viewers didn’t see it as a documentary; they thought it felt more like a fiction film. To me, that’s one of the biggest compliments you can give to a documentary. As Chantal Akerman said, there’s really no difference between fiction and documentary. Every fictional work has elements of reality, while every attempt to capture reality includes some fiction. In my view, the main difference between cinema like this and reality television lies in the creator’s intent. It doesn’t matter if something is labeled as fiction or documentary if its goal is to reveal a deeper truth . We see this idea reflected in photography too, by the way.
While photographs seems like reality, they are actually more like paintings: they don’t reflect reality, they reflect the “real”, or the interpretation of reality that their photographer has shaped and captured.
Susan Sontag
On Updates
This past week there were three updates that I was excited about:
Overcast, the fantastic podcast player, received an update which allows my audio highlighting Shortcut to work again. Phew! With the previous update this was broken for a few days but I am happy to see the developer fixed it so quickly.
Llama 3.1, an open-source LLM from Meta, just came out. This is exciting news for the open-source LLM community. The new 405B model looks like it can compete with big closed-source models like GPT-4o and Sonnet 3.5. I haven’t done a lot of heavy testing yet, but from a cost perspective (running it with Kiki from OpenRouter), it is a great option to have. I’ve tested the updated Llama 3.1 8B model more thoroughly, which I can run locally with LM Studio, and it’s definitely the best model I can use without Internet access.
Klack, one of my favorite and most unique apps, just got an update! Klack mimics mechanical keyboard sounds with almost no lag and even though there’s alternatives, Klacks the best in its game. The developer has added a cardboard keyboard sound in this update.
On Github
I found a GitHub repository that has something similar to Klack. There’s also this video where the developer explains the project and how it works. One thing that’s available there but missing in Klack is mouse clicking sounds. I hope Klack can add some good mouse sounds in the future, but for now, I think this is a great alternative! It just took me a bit of diving into this project, I recorded some my mouse clicks for myself and it’s all working pretty good!
This past week I decided to learn a bit more about how GitHub works, so I took this introductory course on Skillshare. Discovering Kando a few weeks ago, fixing some bugs, and then creating pull requests to help with the project really made me interested in learning more about the possibilities that GitHub offers for collaboration and version control, so I want to make more use of this in the future.
On Plans
After taking the Github class, I’ve been trying to organize some of the projects I’ve shared before. One of the things related to Alfred workflows, their creation and sharing on Github has to do with using symlinks. I found THIS CODE that was really helpful, along with THIS THREAD in the Alfred forums that explains everything. Most of this is still a bit over my head, but here’s what allows me to do and some things I plan:
My local setup for Kiki lets me update it more often. Now, every time I improve the workflow, those updates go straight to GitHub. This past week, I’ve been cleaning up Kiki and simplifying some features. I’m planning to reorganize the documentation into sections (like a wiki) and create a series of videos to help users understand it better. I use Kiki every day and think it’s really powerful, but right now its documentation can be overwhelming for someone just wanting quick tasks with Chat GPT or other LLMs. If I make these videos, I am thinking that more people might learn about LLMs and automation through this workflow. I don’t consider myself an expert in the field, but I think it can be useful. Are you using Kiki? Did you find it too complicated? I’d love your thoughts or feedback!
Just like with Kiki, I’ve made my up-to-date configuration files for Karabiner and Yabai available for anyone who wants to check them out (here’s the link). I had shared a version of this before, but just now I learned that I can symlink stuff around so this new repository should be easier to maintain with every change. Maybe one day I’ll have enough motivation to record a course on these apps because they’re two of the most amazing pieces of software in my system and still can’t believe they are are free.
As I’m organizing my GitHub projects better so others can access what I’ve shared before, I’m also thinking about updating some stuff:
My Clop workflow definitely needs an update. I know how to make better use of Alfred workflow creation tools and action blocks.
For my Bear Capture workflow and Shortcut, I’m torn about simplifying it since there are many features I don’t use anymore. The plan is to remove some capture sources and simplify how users interact with it through Alfred—maybe making each new capture go into a separate note tagged
#inbox. I may also remove most of the options available with modifiers. I’m not sure. Do you use this workflow? How do you use it? Is there anything you’d hate to see removed?Lastly, I’d like to create another Shortcut similar to ToolVox AI. I’ve received messages from people that are excited to use it but find it extremely complicated. I’ plan to make something much more simple by removing plugin integrations (no web search or Dall-e), cutting down input types (no PDFs or Safari shares), dropping integration with Alfred tools (since Kiki handles that), and focusing only on iOS usage with different LLM providers for quick chats or user-created presets instead of trying too hard as an all-in-one tool. There’s some great apps already that were not available when ToolVox AI was first released, so I’d like to focus on the flexibility that the Shortcuts app is meant to provide.
On Cinema
Ren Faire (2024). As I mentioned above, a fantastic documentary short series. Synopsis: When the ailing king of America’s largest renaissance festival declares his retirement, an epic power struggle ensues between an actor, a former elephant trainer, and a kettle-corn kingpin to claim his throne.
Kill (2024). If you like the John Wick kind of films. Synopsis: The story centres on three brothers and their violent father who live in a remote forest. The brothers attempt to kill their father while on a hunting expedition but this instead begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
Thelma (2024). I simple, nice, be-happy kind of film. Synopsis: When 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her.
Muriel’s Wedding (1994). An old classic that—while at times silly—still holds a lot of truth. Synopsis: A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love.
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