NL28 - Where are we going

Hello from the Iso Omena Library! Iso means 'big' and Omena means 'apple' from Finnish to English. Go Duo I guess!

This is NordLetter #28, 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 started reading up on Active Directory and modern authentication this week. I watched John Savill's AD Deep Dive video and now after researching a bit, started reading Mastering Active Directory - Third Edition.

There was a section on password-less authentication in there. And so, I enabled passkey support on a few additional services. I have passkeys enabled for 7 services now.

Passkeys allow for password-less logins, which are the best form of authentication available. This website has a list of all the websites that support it. Add passkeys where possible. More services should support Passkeys. Looking at you Meta. WhatsApp has passkeys support, but not Facebook or Instagram or Threads. Or, am I missing something?

An interesting look at how public transit works in Helsinki/Espoo
The orange buses run for longer routes and don’t stop at frequent locations. Blue buses have much shorter routes and more stops. I love public transport here. It is one of the main reasons I don’t own a car yet. And don’t even want to to be honest.

Becca’s video on using the iPod Nano as a camcorder.
I have written about it in the past. About using simpler devices, single purpose devices.
It’s difficult to concentrate on a phone.
This video is good. But I am not going to trade-in m iPhone video for this. But the idea of a light video device is alluring to say the least.

/techStuff

1. Halide makers’ review of the iPhone 16 cameras. It is a beautiful post. The pictures are beautiful. As is the review.
2. Federico chose the 16 plus over the pro max. I can respect this decision. The weight is a big factor. Prerna’s phone is lighter than mine. And every time I pick it, I feel like I chose wrong. Promotion is also something that I can forfeit. But not the cameras. The Pro’s cameras are the best. And I want that.
3. Students use Meta Smart Glasses to dox people in realtime. They used Meta Glasses to stream to Instagram. Then used face recognition and other tools running on their computer to provide a person’s data to the app. They demoed talking to strangers in public, as if they knew them. It was weird, scary even. It feels like we’re barreling toward something from where we will not be able to turn back. I don’t want to live in Night City.
4. I love reading these what’s on your desk things. This one featuring David Pierce was a fun read. I guess with these I’m always thinking what to do I need to do to get to this place. And this one felt reachable.
5. Canvas mode for chatGPT announced. This looks genuinely useful. A new UI for editing changes to the output without giving prompts. It seems especially useful for the coding scenario.
6. Google is testing verified checkmarks in search. This just adds a Twitter style checkmark in front of trusted business. I think things like this will get more important in the age of AI slop.

/reading

I finished reading John Scalzi's 'Starter Villain'. I started the book on 30th September and finished it on the 1st. So that tells you everything you need to know about how much I liked that book. I have started reading Becky Chamber's 'To Be Taught If Fortunate' now. For those keeping count this is Becky's third book I have started reading.

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.