Tech | Mitch Wagner

Feb 2, 2024 ∞

What if you had a universal app to access every social media platform in one screen?

I think I now get the point of what Iconfactory wants to build with the Tapestry project.

Jan 22, 2024 ∞

A tale of two cities: one real, one virtual.

Digital city-building has become a legitimate part of urban planning, helping to mirror the present — and map the future.

“Digital twins” are transforming urban planning in Barcelona, Ukraine(!), Helsinki, and Singapore and advancing archeology in Pompeii.

A digital twin is a digital model of a real-world object, using sensors to measure changes in real time. Used in urban planning, a digital twin of the city can predict how changes will affect the city over time: For example, how adding a traffic signal would affect traffic patterns.

The goal is “‘to build an oracle,’ says Jordi Cirera Gonzalez, director of the Knowledge Society at Barcelona City Council, and a man not short on ambition. ‘Like the ancient Greeks’: a place where you can ask anything you can imagine and it’s possible to find some answer.’”

Barcelona’s digital twin project “lives within the deconsecrated Torre Girona chapel, on the campus of the Barcelona Polytechnic. Where once one might have prayed to God for an answer, now one goes to a computer.”

I wrote about digital twins for cities for Oracle in 2021: The smart city gets even smarter

Dec 22, 2023 ∞

How to draw irregularly shaped polygons, such as L-shaped boxes, using Excalidraw

This was a pain for me to figure out but once I got it figured it, it was simple. Use the line tool. Instead of clicking and then dragging—which will draw a single line—click at the start of your shape, then click on the next corner, and then the next corner, and so on until you’re done. To close the shape, your final click should be on the starting point. You can customize with the fill tool—if you do, then when you close the shape, you’ll automatically get a color fill.

Dec 22, 2023 ∞

Yet another example why YouTube instruction videos for software are evil and you should use written documentation instead

I needed to draw an L-shaped box for a diagram. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to draw it using Excalidraw. I found this YouTube video. I then had to figure out why the audio wouldn’t play. I had this problem yesterday and thought I had resolved it but I guess not. After ten minutes of that, I tried a different video and the audio played just fine.

Sep 19, 2023 ∞

I have discovered Excalidraw and achieved nerdvana.

I, a complete design illiterate, was able to create a simple networking diagram for a marketing document in 25 minutes, having never used the tool before. Later, the client will be able to use Excalidraw’s built-in collaboration tools to make changes, and then hand off to a designer to polish.

Aug 2, 2023 ∞

My essential and useful Obsidian plugins

A friend is getting started with Obsidian, making the switch from Evernote, and he asked me for recommendations on plugins—which ones I, personally, find most useful. Here’s my list: Essential Command Palette This is the main way I invoke commands in Obsidian. You type a keyboard shortcut (Command-P on my Mac) and a little text popup comes up. You start typing and Obsidian auto-suggests possible commands, until you quickly narrow down to what you’re looking for.

May 22, 2023 ∞

Mimestream is a Mac Gmail client that’s worth paying for

Mimestream is a native Mac app for accessing Gmail. It gives you Gmail’s advanced capabilities, including Priority Inbox, categories, and labels, in an app that looks and works like a native Mac app. The alternatives to Mimestream are Gmail’s web interface, which I find cluttered, or native Mac mail apps, which look and work like Mac apps should but don’t give you all of Gmail’s capabilities. Mimestream has been in beta and free to use for years.

May 4, 2023 ∞

I used ChatGPT to do background research for an article

I’ve got an interview with a VP at a major vendor that I followed closely while at Light Reading but haven’t paid much attention to since. It’s for an article I’m doing on that company’s overall strategy. I’m diving into some background to prepare for the interview, and I decided to start my research with ChatGPT. I asked: “What are some questions I can ask COMPANY-NAME about its overall strategy.” (I used the company name, which I’m redacting here.

Apr 18, 2023 ∞

I wonder whether the 12.9” iPad has a future.

Seems like almost anybody thinking about buying one of the big iPads would be better off with a MacBook Air. For most people, the 12.9” iPad is an ungainly platypus, neither mammal nor bird. The only people who seem like they’d want the 12.9” iPad would be graphic artists and other people who really, really need that big display and touchscreen and Pencil support. The 12.9” iPad is too big and heavy to be as portable as the smaller iPads.

Mar 24, 2023 ∞

I tried Grammarly yesterday and I like it a lot

I published two posts here yesterday and noticed copyediting errors after publication. This troubled me partly because I had a whitepaper due later that day, and I was concerned about sloppy mistakes in paying copy. So I decided, “I’ve heard good things about Grammarly. I’ll give that a try.” Holy cow! It’s fantastic! Also, humbling. Grammarly flagged 95 suggestions in a 2,200-word whitepaper. It suggested replacing the first three words of the whitepaper with a single word.

Mar 23, 2023 ∞

Logseq vs. Obsidian: First impressions

I played with Logseq a bit as an alternative to Obsidian, or complement for it. Logseq seems like a simplified version of Obsidian that does less. For many people that will be a plus. Fewer options equals fewer things to fiddle with and potentially break. Logseq is an extreme outliner. It wants everything you do to be an outline. Obsidian supports outlining, but Logseq is more opinionated and more powerful as an outliner.

Sep 8, 2020 ∞

What is a “digital garden?”

I encountered the idea of a “digital garden” Friday and was instantly enthusiastic and spent some time this weekend nerding out about it. Here is the result – the beginning of my digital garden: mitchwagner.com. A digital garden is a personal website curated by its author, with essays and information about the subject or subjects they’re excited about. Some are wide-ranging and complex and cover a variety of subjects, while others cover a single subject, such as neurology or books,

Jul 12, 2020 ∞

I am continuing to fiddle with handwriting recognition (aka Scribble) on the iPad. I’m getting better at it but I don’t know if it will ever replace the onscreen keyboard.

I read multiple reviews that say Scribble is amazing even with the reviewers' awful handwriting. My awful handwriting is Scribble’s Waterloo.

Jul 9, 2020 ∞

I installed the new iPad beta and I think I like the scribbling feature it takes getting Used to. I don’t handwrite anything anymore