Today, Relay FM wrapped up their annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with the event raising $706,397.10 for the lifesaving work being done at this magnificent Memphis mainstay. I'm also blown away by the support my sub-campaign received, raising well-over my initial $5,000 goal and ending the month with $7,554.20 contributed to the Relay community's total. Thank you to everyone who donated to my campaign (even if you voted "Save"...), and to anyone and everyone who kicked in to any of the 255 wonderful community fundraisers who joined the effort this year. It always feels good to do good, but there's something special about doing so with such a generous and engaged community of nerds rallying together behind a great cause.
Below (as promised in my campaign rewards) I am going to list the names of folks who requested acknowledgement in my "Thank You post" for their contribution to my campaign, but I want to thank a few people specifically:
First and foremost, thanks to Stephen and Myke for all of the work they've done over the years to make the Podcastathon the momentous annual occasion it has become — you've made a world of difference in the lives of so many patients and families at St. Jude through your efforts. Thank you both also for embracing the shenanigans and chaos that stemmed from enabling community campaigns, and especially for inviting me to join the Closing Ceremonies to smash the Flower Power iMac on stream with you both — it was a blast. (If you missed it, you can find the VOD over on Myke's Twitch channel).
What remains of the Flower Power iMac.
Second, I want to call out The Lovely Developers for the Herculean effort they put forth to entirely remake their Relay FM for St. Jude app — enabling everyone to discover community campaigns and track all of the fundraisers' progress throughout September. I think the fundraiser would not have been the same with out this app surfacing campaigns and generating sharable screenshots of everyone's progress. It seems a small thing, an app that puts a progress bar on one's home screen; but I think it makes a world of difference. I want to especially call out Ben, Tony, Matt C, and Kate (QA lead!) — who really spearheaded the app's re-development this year (a process which Ben wrote about this week on his blog; give it a read).
Finally, to all of the folks who donated to my campaign, thanks you so much for the difference you've made in the lives of children battling cancer, and their family members battling right alongside them. Donors who requested a thank-you are listed below, in random order:
Every year, Relay FM and its surrounding community raises money to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in their mission to cure childhood cancer all while charging patients and their families zero dollars for their care. This year, Relay and the St. Jude folks have deployed what I refer to as "sub-campaigns" for the overarching Relay/St. Jude fundraiser — individuals can set their own goals, milestones, and incentives all while contributing their funds raised to the amount Relay has collectively raised as a community. You can find out more about creating your own sub-campaign at stjude.org/relay, but first I want to tell you about the chaos I've prepared for my sub-campaign: MVO Woodworks for St. Jude.
I Hope You're Happy, Stephen
A few weeks ago on an episode of Spotlight (a members-only Q&A show), Stephen Hackett refused to answer which Macintosh in his collection he would choose if forced to destroy one (like he did a IBM PC Junior during last year's Podcastathon). I could not abide this act of cowardice, and so that day I decided to make that choice for him and find out what Macs were available at my local Goodwill for me to smash. And as luck would have it, there was one Mac in stock: a Flower Power iMac G3 in working condition.
The fate of this iMac G3 is in your hands, dear reader. Your donation is your vote — give now!
I decided to acquire that iMac and exact my revenge on Stephen by...raising money for the charity closest to his heart. I've spent the intervening week and a half preparing what I think is a truly chaotic bounty of fundraising milestones, donor incentives, and a campaign-long donation poll to determine the fate of the Flower Power iMac G3. Throughout the month of September, I will be streaming from my garage woodshop at mvo.live doing shop infrastructure projects, making cutting boards, and effecting unspeakable horrors on Apple products spanning decades. I've gathered old tech from my own drawers and from various friends and acquaintances to create a menu of mutilation milestones so troubling that some may wish to avert there eyes:
Milestone
Amount Raised
Turning a 1st Gen Apple Pencil into a 2nd Gen
$500
Mouse Dissection
$1,000
Making a Foldable iPhone SE
$1,500
Adding a Hole Punch Display to an iPhone 7
$2,000
50% Speedrun of Zelda II: Adventures of Link
$2,500
Stream of Adding an SSD to an Old All-in-One
$3,000
Permanently Uninstalling Flappy Bird off iPhone 4
$3,500
Apple M0110A Keyboard 100% > 75% > 67% > 40% mod
$4,000
The Fate of the iMac G3 is Determined
$5,000
Milestones are likely to change or be added throughout the month, and not all of them will involve technological violence. That said, I'm looking forward to destroying some devices on stream for your enjoyment and for the kids (though, if you are aghast at the idea of one of these devices coming to harm, read on to learn about the "Spare n' Save" donor incentive below!).
The items gathered here are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice….for the kids!
Donor "Incentives"
The iMac isn't the only purchase I made for my sub-campaign — I also order 600 stickers featuring the wonderful Justin Hamilton's parody fair-use artist rendition of the cuboid image and likeness of Jony Ive (henceforth referred to as the Jonycube). What am I going to do with 600 of these extremely cursed stickers, you ask? Easy: for every cumulative $10 donated to my sub-campaign, I will be affixing one (1) Jonycube sticker to my jointer — a woodworking tool that exists solely to create exact right angles...or cubes, if you will. Soon, my jointer will look all too similar to Myke Hurley's desk or Stephen Hackett's Kallax shelves. If I hit my goal of $5,000 raised for St. Jude, that will be 500 Jonycubes on my jointer for the rest of its useful life. And the remaining 100 stickers? Well, one of those rectilinear horrors can be yours, dear reader, for a donation of at least $25 to my sub-campaign! That incentive and more are listed below:
$1 — Your name in a "Thank you" blog post on Peer Reviewed at the end of the campaign
$25 — One (1) Jonycube sticker, shipped directly to you (or a recipient of your choice) [Limit 100]
$300 — You may choose one of the items I plan to destroy (Except the iMac!) and it will instead be spared and shipped to you. [Limit subject to change]
$500 — You will receive one one (1) bespoke MVO Woodworks cutting board in return for your extreme generosity. [Limit five (5)]
Do note that the incentives for my campaign are cumulative; meaning, a $500 donation makes you eligible for all other incentives in my sub-campaign. You can also opt to claim the delightful Relay FM cause incentives instead, but unfortunately you'll need to make two separate donations to get both my incentives and theirs. Make sure you select your desired incentive when you make your donation (and don't forget to vote on the fate of the iMac G3!).
For a donation of only $25, you could have your very own Jonycube sticker.
Sawdust and Chicanery, for the Kids
This September is going to be full of wild and wacky activities hosted both by Relay FM itself and by members of its community — all to raise money for the admirable mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I hope you tune in to one of my woodshop streams this month (I don't have a schedule, consider following me on Twitch — I'll be working on a lot of shop infrastructure projects since we only recently moved into this house! Also, please kick in a donation to my sub-campaign and maybe get a delightfully devilish incentive — and make sure to vote with your dollar to determine the fate of the Flower Power iMac G3.
Oh, and of course: mark your calendars for Friday, September 16th from 11a-7p Central for Relay's annual Podcastathon live stream over on their Twitch channel.
Last week’s district court ruling ending the federal transportation mask mandate has some folks tweeting celebrations and confetti emojis for their new-found facial freedom. But as we continue to hurtle uncontrollably towards “normalcy”, the only things I can think about are my mom’s first chemotherapy appointment on Tuesday, my extremely at-risk brother, and wondering to myself why we take such joy from the “normalcy” of making the vulnerable less safe?
The removal of public health measures due to unpopularity shouldn’t be celebrated but rather mourned as the moral failures that they are. Our societal inability to adhere to a simple and effective way to protect ourselves and our neighbors should be a generational stain on our reputation, a Mark of Cain perpetually reminding us of our collective folly. We should be collectively ashamed of the uncaring intransigence of few ruining things for everyone else — and ashamed of ourselves for continually equivocating their discomfort with the vastly-greater pain prevented by universal masking.
The fight over masks is all but over, as much as it pains me (save for hospitals and other healthcare settings). Congratulations, you did it: you may now peruse Whole Foods with unfogged glasses and fly economy (mouth unshackled) to Daytona Beach . But as you rip off your mask in glee while I do my mother’s grocery shopping and drive her to chemotherapy for the next six months, do me a favor and don’t fucking dance.
Last week's Vanity Fair first look at Amazon's forthcoming Lord of the Rings series The Rings of Power and yesterday's release of the show's first trailer during the Super Bowl have set the Tolkien fandom abuzz with much commentary and some apprehension (as all re-imaginations of well-loved worlds tend to). As something of a Tolkien nerd myself, I'm also a bit anxious about whether or not Amazon's original Second Age storyline can live up to the lofty expectations set by Jackson's imitable theatrical trilogy and, of course, the original Tolkien tomes so dear to my heart. Ever since Amazon acquired the rights to certain aspects of the Tolkien legendarium back in 2017, I've tried to stay optimistic about my favorite fantasy setting getting a big-budget streaming production — even through peak-pessimism in the aftermath of Game of Thrones' fatal finale. Every time the show has come up, I've repeated a simple prayer (maybe to old Númenor or Eru Ilúvatar himself, but mostly to Jeff Bezos and the Amazon production crew): "Please be good." I want so badly for Amazon to produce a series that meets all of my preconceived expectations of what makes for a "good" Tolkien adaptation, and spark joy in me like the books and Jackson's theatrical trilogy did and do — but we're all too accustomed to being let down by the content we're excited for, having been burned so many times before.
We're in a media landscape where massive companies are accumulating as much IP as possible to bolster their respective streaming platforms — "peak content", as it were, where a plethora of "pluses" constantly battle for my eyeballs and a spot on my monthly credit card bill. Worse still, our "collective trauma" (if you'll allow me the hyperbole) after failed renditions or reimaginings of treasured works by towering media conglomerates (Star Wars 7-9, The Hobbit films, etc) poisons the well for any similar attempts at a theatrical or streaming hit. The Smaugian hoard of funds at these companies' disposal (the Netflixes, the Disneys, the Amazons) should mean they can produce good original stories in pre-existing worlds (Q.E.D: The Mandalorian) instead of squandering fiduciary advantage and underlying world-building to deliver a disappointing dud (a la Game of Thrones S8) — but is it really fair of me to feel so concerned based on nothing else but marketing photos and 10 seconds of trailer CGI?
As I was scrolling through Reddit this week, I came across this striking post on r/LOTR, in which u/paradiddleotamus turned my apprehension (towards a show that isn't even out yet) on its head. Although u/paradiddleotamus's post is largely addressing the handful of racist chuds winging about inclusive casting decisions, I think the underlying point is well-applied to other preemptive criticisms of the show. The entire post is worth a read, but some particularly apt excerpts:
I don't care if the Amazon series sucks. I don't care if it comes to light that the show runners are actually fully illiterate. Whatever godawful heretical adaptation they might spew out: I don't care. I'll continue to enjoy my December reread and life will go on.
These books aren't a cudgel to beat people with, as some of you seem to think. Nor are they some pristine artifact that will be damaged by fingerprints or the glow of a spotlight. Let other people be inspired and explore in that world; and be content with the thought that, though you might not love what they create, they aren't altering the original that I'm certain all of you have on your bookshelves.
This show doesn't have to be "good", and certainly not by any particular individual's pedantic definition. It doesn't even have to be for me — where "me" means both myself and the swarms of Tolkien nerds like me who are all-too eager to point out "discrepancies with the lore", whatever that means. A "good" story in the setting of Arda doesn't have to mean "untouched, unchanged, or unimaginative" — Tolkien's collective works, after all, are intrinsically about imagination, creation, new life, and both the challenges and joys that arise from an ever-changing world. There is room aplenty in Middle Earth and beyond for new stories to be told, perhaps for new audiences who may fall in love with Tolkien's world just like I did. Clinging small-mindedly to a foolish literary consistency in every word written or shot framed does nothing but alienate and obstruct those who may otherwise have been enamored and inspired. So, I'll continue repeating my "Please be good" prayer and choose to remain hopeful for what The Rings of Power might be to me, while also being cognizant of what this new story might well become for others.
Every year around this time, I listen to the latest Yearly Themes episode of Cortex, crack open a new Theme System journal, and ponder my goals for the year ahead. I try to think of my yearly theme by considering "where I’ve been, where I’d like to go, and how I’d like to grow on the way” — while reflecting on these questions, the turbulence and pain of recent years combined with the anticipated flux and transition in the years ahead of me stood out the most. I’m in a season of challenge and change, and it’s so often the case that these periods are ripe opportunities for renewal and growth. The imagery this drew to mind was that of a horrible forest fire incidentally clearing the underbrush and fertilizing new life in the flame-hardy giant sequoia trees of eastern California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Sequoia trees grow to towering heights over thousands of years, and evolved during this time to endure extremely harsh environments — including forest fires, which historically benefited sequoia groves, with their fire-resistant bark and heat-triggered pollen cones. The resiliency and longevity of the giant sequoia serve as an apt analogy for my current situation and goals, and helped lead me to my theme this year: The Year of Sequoias. Part of the inspiration also stemmed from my favorite line in one of my favorite poems:
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. - Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, by Wendell Berry
This line (really, the entire poem) captures quite well what I am striving for in the Year of Sequoias — thinking about my choices and priorities on a "millennium" time-scale, improving both my physical and mental resiliency, and forming more meaningful and lasting connections with others. The Year of Sequoias, to me, is an opportunity to grow in that fertile soil of challenge and change into the person I'd like myself to be in the next decade, rather than just the next year. It's a chance to consider carefully how what I do, say, eat, play, and care for impacts others around me...and others a millennium away. After all, planting a sequoia tree means thinking with future generations in mind, and leaving behind gifts instead of curses.
I’ve been using home screen widgets to remind me of the Year of Sequoias and its principle aims.
I’ve made the mistake in previous years by creating too rigid of a rubric for my themes — usually work-related components with specific grading criteria that did not work well for my brain and ultimately left me dissatisfied. I tried something a bit different with the Year of Sequoias by incorporating more “soft” targets and “heart and soul” scoring in lieu of hard-and-fast metrics. I've broken the Year of Sequoias down into three primary components: "Strengthening My Bark", "Deepening my Relational Roots", and "Planting for the Millennium" — I'll expand on each a bit more in the rest of this post, and touch on some of reasons for choosing these specific theme tenets. It'll be a bit personal at times and certainly a bit off-color from what I usually write, but right now getting these thoughts written down and published somewhere feels important to me. Take what you will from it.
Strengthening My Bark
This is the most "ordinary" branch of the Year of Sequoias — resolving to become more physically and mentally fit has been a big priority for me in recent times, and I'm hoping to take that resolve to the next level this year. The biggest change in the Year of Sequoias moving forward is increasing my focus on the physical side of "physical and mental health". I've spent a lot of energy in the last two years trying to stay mentally-resilient and sound (haven't we all?), and I feel I've found stability in my current therapy schedule, various anxiety-taming strategies, and general worldview. Turning my attention towards physical health has meant going on more (and longer) walks with my wife and our dog, and joining her in more Apple Fitness+ workouts (usually pilates). My wife just marked the milestone of closing her rings every day for a year, which is an example I'm hoping to emulate this year (or, at least try to). For now, I'm off to a good start:
I’m hoping to keep this trend going as long as I can.
I've never struggled with my weight, but I've certainly never devoted the time and energy to fitness that my body needs. I still don't think I'm disciplined enough in my exercise habits, and I'm hoping that the Year of Sequoias keeps my eyes focused on shoring up my physical health and better preparing my body for the unknowns in life. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that you should never take your good health for granted.
Deepen My Roots
My dad died about a year ago as I write this of liver failure. He struggled with alcoholism for much of his life, and as a result he and I had a strained relationship. In the weeks after his passing, the thing that struck me the hardest was how isolated he was in his final years...and how that extreme isolation was indicative of his lifelong tendency towards solitude — few friends, and fewer still close connections. The context of The Quarantimes only amplified my strong reaction to his bare apartment and lack of connection. We've all probably struggled with unusually potent feelings of loneliness in recent memory, but so often (especially for introverts like myself) we do little to address these feelings, like reaching out to the people in our lives. The Year of Sequoias means actively prioritizing my “root system” — that is, the connections and relationships in my life. Like roots, some connections are small, tendrillous, and fleeting — others are entirely vital and require constant nourishment. Both varieties, however, bring richness and life to the tree (and, in this metaphor: to me) that it cannot go without. I’ve long been someone who has been content with few close friends, and sometimes even cagey with my time and my vulnerability with others — no doubt traits I inherited from my father. In the Year of Sequoias, I aim to fight these habits and actively seek out connection with others — strangers, acquaintances, co-workers, friends, family, and loved ones — to develop deep and lasting roots that (ideally) will be life-giving resources when harsh seasons inevitably come to pass. Every reaching root will look a bit different — it could be a kind message on Discord to a complete stranger, or an extra game night with my circle of friends, or even a week-long escape to Mexico with my wife (COVID-allowing 🤞). Whatever the case, my goal is to remember that each root I form necessarily adds to who I am; I can't pretend that "I don't need very many friends" or "I'm comfortable alone" when I know that's not true! "Deepening My Roots" means prioritizing both passing friendships and life-long bonds so that one day when drought strikes, I'm not starved for water.
Plant for the Millennium
This section of my theme is the "fuzziest", but in many ways is also the most crucial to me. "Planting for the Millennium" to me means adjusting my perspective from "now, this week, or this month" to "this year, this decade, and next generation". It's knowing that even my small decisions can and will impact others around me, perhaps for a lifetime, and acting accordingly. I'm hoping that "millennium thinking" finds its way into every area of my life — in small things like how I behave to strangers on the internet, and in big things like career decisions, life priorities, and what I build and leave behind when I'm gone one day. I mentioned before that I'm in a season of challenge and change; "Planting for the Millennium" feels most relevant to me in the context of the changes going on in my life. Whether it's the hunt for our first house (bad timing, I know), or my imminent transition from PhD student to...something more, or in spending time with my fast-growing nieces (who I swear just yesterday were one and two years old), I've noticed "millennium thinking" creeping more and more to the forefront of my mind. I ponder my career and what actions I can take to lead changes and elevate our lab's work, my wife and I discuss at length our goals and how we choose to serve our community, and I see myself as a role-model to the people around me and try to carry myself as such. This aspect of my theme is entirely about a change in perspective resulting in preferred behaviors and attitudes; I am under no illusions that I am doing or building anything that will truly "matter" in 1000 years — but that doesn't mean I can't think that way in hopes of making better choices and leading a happier life.
Renewing A Theme
Although I am writing and posting this in early 2022, I’ve been living the Year of Sequoias for the better part of the last year as well. I’ve had mixed results, and the theme feels entirely incomplete (perhaps due to its ambitious scope!), so I'm renewing it for the upcoming year and redoubling my efforts in doing so. I think that some themes strike so deeply and fit a season of life so well that the “yearly” in “Yearly Theme” is easily and eagerly discarded in favor of an "extended" theme. I'm hopeful that the Year of Sequoias ends up outlasting it's designated duration and helps me grow into more of who I want to be — after all, surely each of our Yearly Themes (if successful) is anything but "yearly" in their impacts on our lives.
Last week I announced a raffle for a lovely black walnut cutting board benefiting Relay FM's St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraiser, coinciding with a restock of cutting boards on this site's store page. Although Relay has extended their fundraiser to October 5th for any last minute donations (which the procrastinators among you should take advantage of now!), the cutting board raffle ended with the month of September. Donation receipts sent to me for the purpose of this raffle totaled just under $1,000 in contributions to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital — that's 10 Red Wagons to help lift the spirits of children being treated at St. Jude. This of course is a tiny sliver of the $680,000 raised by Relay FM and its broader community as of this writing — a staggering figure for such a worthy cause.
I've reached out to the winner of the raffle via email to get their shipping information, as well as all other entrants to thank them for their generous contributions. If you didn't win (or didn't enter): there are still some cutting boards in-stock, if you would like to purchase one the old-fashioned way.
Readers of Peer Reviewed may know that my other hobby is woodworking and that I periodically list items for sale on this site's hidden store page, AKA MVO Woodworks. And as of this post, cutting boards have been restocked — as usual, I made a fairly small batch (ten in total) with a variety of local and domestic hardwoods. I'm pretty happy with how this batch turned out, and if you find one of them appealing I would recommend buying it quickly before they are gone. I also still have some wooden keycap pullers (some of which are eligible for custom laser engraving), as well as a single set of coasters.
In addition, Relay FM is still raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for the rest of September! Their Podcastathon stream was a wild success, and they crushed their goal by raising over $500,000 for the life-saving mission of St. Jude. To help support their fundraiser, I'm raffling off a cutting board to a random person who donates at least $10 to St. Jude after this post goes live. The cutting board in question is a lovely black walnut board with maple accent, and is 16" x 9" x 1" in size with finger holds on either end. As always, my cutting boards are finished with food-grade mineral oil and bee's wax (Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner, to be specific), and are designed to last many years. Here are some photos of the cutting board up for grabs to one lucky donor:
There’s nothing quite like figured black walnut.Another glamour shot.
To enter the raffle for this cutting board, follow these simple steps:
Email your receipt (with a donation dated on or after September 20th at 6PM CDT) to matt@peerreviewed.io
Check your email on October 1st to see if you won the cutting board!
Once a winner has been selected, I'll reach out to get your shipping information and have the board off to you as soon as possible, entirely free of charge! It's the least I can do for a cause as worthy as St. Jude. Go donate now!
On last week’s episode of Connected, Federico Viticci described the way in which he embeds images as he writes in iA Writer and subsequently uploads those images to the MacStories CMS. You can listen to this section of the latest episode, but in short: Federico uses iA Writer’s Content Block feature to insert images and view them right in the editor’s preview window — and then uses Scriptable to upload all of the images one-by-one and replace the Content Block with the actual image embed. I also use iA Writer for all of the posts on Peer Reviewed, but I have a different (and perhaps more efficient) way of handling images as I put together my posts: in-line HTML.
Marking Up Your Markdown
One of the many benefits of writing in Markdown is that most editors natively parse HTML as well, because Markdown and HTML are intended to work seamlessly with each other — as John Gruber himself explains here:
For any markup that is not covered by Markdown’s syntax, you simply use HTML itself. There’s no need to preface it or delimit it to indicate that you’re switching from Markdown to HTML; you just use the tags.
What this means is that iA Writer can natively parse and preview HTML tags inside my Markdown documents — including the figure and figcaption tags. Whenever I want to embed an image in a blog post, I simply paste in a snippet of HTML that points to the permalink of the image, and includes an image caption and alt text. Here’s what it looks like in both the editor window and the preview window in iA Writer:
iA Writer natively parses the HTML on the left to show the image in the preview window on the right.
This strategy for inserting images makes it very clear where in the editor you have images inserted (because the HTML sticks out so plainly), while also allowing you to preview a post as it would appear on the web right inside iA Writer. An added bonus being that your final draft is already 100% ready for the web, since everything you have written is already either Markdown or HTML.
Generating HTML Snippet with Shortcuts
The other advantage of using in-line HTML instead of iA Writer’s Content Block system is the speed with which the appropriate HTML snippet can be generated — with the help of Shortcuts, of course. As a general rule, images in my blog posts are either screenshots from an Apple device, or a photo I’ve taken of a physical product, like a keyboard or a CPU heatsink. As such, I have two Siri Shortcuts I use to generate the HTML snippets for each of these scenarios — framed device screenshots are generated with a modified version of Federico’s own Apple Frames shortcut, and any other images are uploaded via my own Image Uploader shortcut.
Both of these shortcuts effectively do the same thing (after device frames are added to any screenshots):
Upload the image (in my case, to Imgur)
Get the permalink of the image
Ask for descriptive alt text and a caption
Combine the image URL, alt text, and caption in an HTML figure snippet
Copy the snippet to the clipboard and kick me back into iA Writer
An all-in-one shortcut for adding a device frame, uploading, captioning, and generating the final HTML for an image really streamlines the process.
It only takes a few moments for the shortcut to finish running, plus or minus the time it takes for me to come up with a punchy caption for the image I’m uploading. Once it’s finished, all I have to do is paste the HTML where I want the image to appear in my post and iA Writer will natively allow me to preview the image as well as its caption just as it would appear on the web (CSS notwithstanding). And if I decide to reword a caption or change the image I want to use, all I have to do is edit the HTML snippet in the iA Writer document itself — the beauty of an all-text system for composing an article.
</blogpost>
This system for quickly uploading and inserting images while still being able to preview them in iA Writer has worked very well for me. The aspect I like most about this method is how little effort is needed to go from a completed post in iA Writer to publishing it on Peer Reviewed — I literally copy and paste the text and it is ready to publish. I think Federico’s system for uploading to the MacStories CMS and publishing articles to his site might necessarily be a bit more complex than mine, but I have a feeling that this method for handling images might be slightly more streamlined than using Content Blocks and custom Scriptable scripts to swap out file paths with HTML while editing.
I've spent the better part of my life in academia — in fact, only four of my twenty-three years on this earth were spent outside a school of some kind. I got a bachelor's degree, went to medical school for a hot second, and have now switched to pursuing a PhD in clinical research. Throughout all this schooling, I've dedicated an absurd amount of time to finding ways to streamline my workflow, exploring what tools make me the most productive, and looking for other distractions along the way. I'm also a huge nerd (as you might expect of a PhD student), so writing about the intersection between my nerdy interests and my educational aspirations is something that has nagged at me for a while. Enter Peer Reviewed.
What Do I Plan on Writing About?
This blog will probably (hopefully?) be interesting to tech nerds in higher education who are eager to improve their workflow; a better note-taking app, a simpler way to manage email, or a useful web service that you didn't know existed. Other topics will find their way onto the site as well — hot takes on tech news, diatribes about US politics, and Dungeons & Dragons Siri Shortcuts, etc are sure to make an appearance.
I do most of my work on a 2018 11" iPad Pro, my iPhone XS, and a desktop Windows PC for when I need to do "real work". Therefore, most of what I write about will be geared towards these devices, and how I use each to suit my computing needs. That being said, I am interested in how the devices we use (and the companies that make them) impact our lives regardless of what operating system they are running.
Cool. What Do I Do Now?
If you've made it this far, thanks a bunch. "Blogging" and the notion of actually reading someones blog seems so antiquated in 2019, so I appreciate the investment your eyeballs have made just by reading this. If by some miracle you are interested in reading the next post I publish, go ahead and follow @Peer Reviewed_ on Twitter, or subscribe to this sites email newsletter or RSS feed to see each new article as I post them.
