NL26 - Spectacular Solar Punk

Sajal Choudhary -

Hello from my home in Matinkyla! This is NordLetter #26, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

Previous editions can be found here. You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Threads.

I have changed how I write NordLetter. Instead of writing directly in the Ghost editor, copying things I found over the week from Obsidian. I have moved this to its own note in Obsidian. I add interesting things directly to it now. And come Sunday, I will edit this lightly and hit publish.

I wrote about typography.

I am listening to How I write podcast. It mostly features non-fiction writers. But writers are writers. And it feels good listening to writers talk about writing. Of course, it’s not actual writing.

I watched a couple of videos on video game console makers and the business of video games.

  1. About Xbox and how and why it is changing the business
  2. How Nintendo competes differently than Sony or Microsoft

/techStuff

  1. Review for the AirPods 4 - The Verge. They seem like a good purchase. ANC seems to work, not as good as the Pro of course.
  2. PSA - iOS18 was released on Monday with these features. My thoughts on the release here.
  3. I was not there when Jobs was at the helm for Apple. I have seen little videos of Jobs introducing the iPhone and the MacBook Air from the manilla envelope. Hence I would not understand, Gruber’s post about the Glowtime event. But I do understand. The iPhone line and the other products announced last week are mature product lines and there’s not much to do. It is human to expect something new but I feel like the pocketable computer is the ultimate form factor and it will remain for eternity. They just have to make it last a lifetime. Upgrade things as needed. That’s more sci-fi at this point, but one can hope.
  4. Read/watch Austin Mann’s review of the iPhone 16 pro cameras
  5. Gruber’s iPhone 16 review It’s long. But I enjoyed reading it.
  6. The iPhone camera is more confusing than ever About the new photographic styles feature in iPhone. And how that might be the correct approach. Giving people control over how they want their photos to look.
  7. Qualcomm might be acquiring Intel. Intel used to be so dominant while we were growing up. I don’t think this will go through. But the fact that this is even a possibility, just shows that one can not rest on their laurels.

/reading

  1. I finished reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built this week. I was looking for a solarpunk novel to read and this was both highly rated and available in the library. Solarpunk when compared to cyberpunk is a hopeful version of the future, with nature at the centre. When compared against cyberpunk which is more man merged with machine. It is a beautiful book and inspired me to write about the joys of reading.
  2. I have started reading the sequel to this, in A prayer for the Crown-Shy.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.