Chris Brandrick

I've been playing this little geography-meets-history quiz for about six months now, and it's become a part of my daily routine I guess. 

If you're not familiar, it's kinda like Geoguessr (yes, another name taking part in the vowel dropping trend that feels rather passé now) in that you have to locate where you are on a world map. However, Timeguessr adds in another fun wrinkle — you also have to figure out when the image you see was taken.

I've just recorded me playing my latest session (there's a daily challenge). I'm not amazing at it, but I found it fun to talk through my thought process as I go. 

Here it is:

If you want to give it a go you can play here: Timeguessr.

Hugo Barra (a former Head at Oculus) shares his nuanced thoughts on Apple's Vision Pro. 

It's a superb read if, like me, you're curious about the device (I've yet to try it). 

He rightly notes that the Vision Pro is something of a Northstar for the VR industry now — setting new standards. But also highlights how this first stab at things is very much a devkit of sorts (my rule of never buying a gen 1 Apple product strikes again). The novel positioning of the product, the real lack of focus on traditional VR stuff from Apple, and the "disheartening" software story is also explored.

A really solid, well informed overview of this new 'spatial computer' thing.

Ryan Broderick, in talking about the subscription 'death cycle', highlighted how there are probably three different models to such recurring income businesses: binge, access, and parasocial.

As someone exploring around the edges of subscription models (primarily as a way to support ongoing content creation) this framing was particularly interesting to me. If you're a creator trying to navigate this space I recommend you giving it a read to.

..and this is a great run through as to why:

On a much older version of this blog that's been lost to time, I shared a seemingly little-known tip for how to get the degrees (°) symbol quickly when using an iPhone keyboard. 

As it's currently been rather cold here in the UK, I've been using it more than normal, and was reminded of this old iPhone tip — as such, I figured it may be worth sharing again. 

To insert the degrees symbol on an iPhone, you just need to hold down on the 0 (zero) key on the iOS keyboard. Once you hold on the zero key you should see a pop-up option for the degrees symbol — move to select it, and you're good. Handy, whether you use the ever sensible celsius or baffling fahrenheit. 😉

For what it's worth, the day started at a chilly 2°C.