Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been cooking far more than I did before. I enjoy cooking as creative work that also has the practical side effect of providing sustenance for life. Trying new techniques, wanting to make specific dishes, and just being more interested in the process and results, I also spend a lot more time reading cooking material on the web.

One site that I keep coming back to is the indispensable Smitten Kitchen. Deb Perelman has been blogging recipes regularly for more than 16 years and written three cookbooks, all from a Manhattan apartment kitchen. but what makes Smitten Kitchen stand out in the world of recipe blogs fighting for SEO and food TikTok trends, are good taste and continuous improvement.

In many ways, reading recipes is a lot like reading film or theatre criticism. All critics have biases, preferences, and tastes. There is no empirically correct way to judge art. So, when reading reviews, it is important to know the critic, know where they are coming from, and understand whether a rave means that you are likely to love or hate a particular work. Without a critical read on criticism, it’s hard to get value out of them. Cooking is similar. Some people prefer sweeter, saltier, spicier, or blander food than you do. And there’s nothing wrong with different tastes. And even if there is objective good and bad, sometimes it’s not about the best, but about connecting with memories of a particular experience. While some things may be objectively better than others, sometimes best isn’t the goal. No one in their right mind would argue that a Budweiser is the best beer in the world, but for the right situation, there can be nothing better. So understanding the preferences of a critic or recipe writer are necessary to be an informed reader.

Simply, Perelman’s preferences tend to be similar to mine – or at least coming from the same frame of reference, so I find them very easy to place.

But what I find most impressive about Smitten Kitchen is Perelman’s consistent commitment to keeping the site up to date. The more that you cook a recipe, the more you will find how subtle tweaks can improve a recipe (or make it worse). When she revisits recipes and concepts, she also links old posts back to the new ones and keep the site coherent and consistently evolving.

Smitten Kitchen is an invaluable resource, so go buy Deb’s books so that she can continue to publish vast amounts of great recipes and ideas for free.

Previously: Appreciating the Indie Web Appreciating the Indie Web: DC Rainmaker Appreciating the Indie Web: ATP Appreciating the Indie Web: Kottke.org Appreciating the Indie Web: Lift Blog

As we get into Apple product launch season, I should share my thoughts on the Apple Watch Ultra, now that it is no longer new.

I have never liked wearing watches. But I also like data and convenience, and so wear an Apple watch. Before the Ultra, I wore the Apple Watch Series 5 (44mm) for everyday use, but mainly the a Garmin Forerunner 935 for sporting activities (running, hiking, skiing, and sometimes biking). The Ultra is a more capable watch than the Series 5, but certainly not a perfect device.

Apple Watch is a very impressive platform. If nothing else, a quick glance to notifications and quick access to data is often useful. The quality of taps from the Taptic Engine quality is elegant but effective. The notifications on the Apple Watch are subtler, more polite, and just more elegant – but no less effective – than the vibrations on my Garmin watch. Fitness tracking is effective. But the killer app for Apple Watch is authentication. Using Apple Watch to unlock my Mac is faster than entering a password. It feels like at least half of my work is just authenticating into applications and responding to two-factor authentication requests.

However, Apple Watch Ultra is a chonky chonkster. The Ultra dwarfs the 44-45 mm Apple Watch Series. But, compared with the Aluminum or Stainless steel Series, the Titanium Ultra is surprisingly light. When first wearing it, I was very pleasantly surprised that the Ultra doesn’t feel as heavy as its looks would suggest. But compared with the 36.5g of the aluminum Series 5, the 61g of the Ultra is significantly heavier. This is not very noticeable during normal wear. The trail loop band is a significant improvement on the sport loop, which has been my preferred Apple watch band. But the weight of the Ultra is noticeable enough that I can’t wear it comfortably to sleep every day. With the Series 5, I used the watch for sleep tracking more often for comfort. But battery life was a significant challenge with the Series 5, making it difficult to use for sleep tracking. The Ultra has the battery life for it, but it’s just too big to wear comfortably to sleep.

The size of the Ultra is also noticeable with shirt and jacket sleeves. Where the rounded edges and thin profile of the Apple Watch Series allows it to sit comfortably under any sleeve, the bulk and straight edges of the Ultra gets caught up far more often. The design of the buttons, with the crown guard supposedly protecting the digital crown and menu button on one side and then the action button on the left, results in random button pushes from unintentional interaction with sleeves and gloves far more often than the sleeker and thinner Apple Watch Series.

But, the reason why the Ultra is so much larger than the other Apple watches is it’s best feature – battery life. The Apple Watch is a highly power-constrained product. Under normal usage, the Apple Watch Series lasts a full day, with little margin to spare. As it closed in on its third service anniversary, my Series 5 was barely lasting through a full day. Doing any exercise activity that used the GPS would run through enough battery that it required multiple charges per day. The battery life, more than any other factor, was my main reason for upgrading last year.

The Garmin 935, in contrast, is a battery champ. Under similar use, it could run for days without a charge. For GPS fitness tracking, it comfortably lasts long enough that I can go for a weekend full of activities without worrying about recharging.

For sports usage, the Ultra has some advantages, but still lags behind Garmin. The Ultra is much faster at acquiring GPS signal (which, to be fair, may also be improved on newer Garmin watches). It may be that the Apple Watch is no faster at acquiring the signal, but it just starts recording a workout immediately and uses motion data to work backwards from signal acquisition. The Ultra supports running power natively. My no-longer new 935 only supports running power with a Connect IQ app and external hardware. More recent Garmin watches (including the 255/265, 955/965, epix 2, and Fenix 7) now offer native running power with or without external hardware. App Store apps are generally much better than Connect IQ apps.

Otherwise, the Ultra is fine on its own, but a significant step back from Garmin’s state of the art of 2017.

And while the breadth and quality of the third-party software for the Apple watch vastly outstrips what is available in Connect IQ apps, the Garmin ecosystem integrates the ridiculous number of battery-powered connected devices that cyclists may use. Garmin watches can send heart rate data to an Edge cycling computer or the Edge can act as an external display for watch data, such as during the bike leg of a triathlon. In addition, a power meter is a highly useful data sensor. Real-time power and heart rate data is very useful for more effective training and racing. This year, I’ve been cycling more than anything else. And, like every hobby of mine, there are more and more gadgets A typical ride involves connecting heart rate, power meter, radar, and electronic shifting to a Garmin GPS computer. While a Garmin watches or a dedicated Bluetooth or ANT+ heart rate monitor can send heart rate data to the head unit, the Apple Watch can’t broadcast heart rate data.

Not connecting this specialized device ecosystem makes the Apple watch feel like it is stuck in a silo (not like the Apple TV+ show, Silo) instead of part of a community of sensors. Fortunately, this is set to start changing in watchOS 10, where the Apple watch will be able to connect to bluetooth power meters, including for Fitness+ workouts.

The most annoying omission is gloves. The Garmin Forerunner 935 has no touchscreen. That’s a huge advantage for the Garmin. While I have some touch-screen compatible gloves, I do enough outdoor activities in cold weather and have various gloves and mittens that are not touchscreen compatible. While the Garmin watch can do everything with its buttons and doesn’t require touch, the Ultra can’t even select and start a workout without touching the screen. That’s absolutely ridiculous. After all, the Ultra has the same number of physical controls. Garmin watches generally have 5 buttons (on the 935, Light, Up Down, Start-Stop, Back). The Ultra also has 5 physical controls (Action button, side button, Digital Crown press, Digital Crown scroll up, Digital Crown scroll down). Yet, without turning on optional accessibility settings, there is no way to select a workout to start without taking a glove off, letting a hand get cold, and touching the watch screen.

However, Apple has demonstrated meaningful commitment to accessibility. After running through the Settings menu, there is a feature called Assistive Touch that allows for a number of watch controls to be done by using gestures on the watch-wearing hand that are recognized. It does work even with bulky gloves on. So it is possible to use Apple watch without touching the screen. It is not as intuitive as touching the screen, which is why Garmin is also adding touch screens to its newer, fancier GPS watches.

Thinking about the various things that I use Apple Watch to do: Respond to 2FA codes, see notifications, control smart home devices, track general activity, track sleep, track workouts and activities, most of these are done equally well or better on the Apple Watch Series as on the Ultra. And for tracking workouts and outdoor activities, the Ultra’s battery life makes it viable. I have confidence that the Ultra will last throughout a multi-hour day of biking or skiing without thinking about it. I wouldn’t try running an ultra-marathon with the Ultra, though. While the battery life is a factor it’s mainly because I wouldn’t try running an ultra-marathon for any reason. That’s far more hardcore than I am.

So what I would like to see in future watchOS software updates is support for broadcasting heart rate over Bluetooth and continued improvement non-touchscreen navigation. For hardware, a titanium-cased watch in a size between the svelte 45 mm Watch Series and the chonky 49 mm Ultra would be ideal. The Ultra doesn’t look too large on my wrist, but I would love a battery/size compromise somewhere between these two – especially if the rumored process improvement for the Watch SOC makes it more power efficient.

Ultimately, the largest limitation on these tiny computers is power. Apple tries to balance responsiveness, computing power, features, sensors, and size and weight against battery capacity. And Apple has tried to offer just enough battery capacity to power an Apple watch through an average day of use for most users. Expanding that power envelope is the best feature of the Ultra, even if the rest of its capabilities have yet to catch up.

Victoria Song, The Verge: Who is the Apple Watch Ultra really for? “While I’ve loved using the Ultra this past year, I don’t think this is as much a smartwatch for adventurers as it is for… Actually, I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Ray Maker, DC Rainmaker Apple Watch Power Meter Support: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been cooking far more than I did before. I enjoy cooking as creative work that also has the practical side effect of providing sustenance for life. Trying new techniques, wanting to make specific dishes, and just being more interested in the process and results, I also spend a lot more time reading cooking material on the web.

One site that I keep coming back to is the indispensable Smitten Kitchen. Deb Perelman has been blogging recipes regularly for more than 16 years and written three cookbooks, all from a Manhattan apartment kitchen. but what makes Smitten Kitchen stand out in the world of recipe blogs fighting for SEO and food TikTok trends, are good taste and continuous improvement.

In many ways, reading recipes is a lot like reading film or theatre criticism. All critics have biases, preferences, and tastes. There is no empirically correct way to judge art. So, when reading reviews, it is important to know the critic, know where they are coming from, and understand whether a rave means that you are likely to love or hate a particular work. Without a critical read on criticism, it’s hard to get value out of them. Cooking is similar. Some people prefer sweeter, saltier, spicier, or blander food than you do. And there’s nothing wrong with different tastes. And even if there is objective good and bad, sometimes it’s not about thee best, but about connecting with memories of a particular experience. While some things may be objectively better than others, sometimes best isn’t the goal. No one in their right mind would argue that a Budweiser is the best beer in the world, but for the right situation, there can be nothing better. So understanding the preferences of a critic or recipe writer are necessary to be an informed reader.

Simply, Perelman’s preferences tend to be similar to mine – or at least coming from the same frame of reference, so I find them very easy to place.

But what I find most impressive about Smitten Kitchen is Perelman’s consistent commitment to keeping the site up to date. The more that you cook a recipe, the more you will find how subtle tweaks can improve a recipe (or make it worse). When she revisits receips and concepts, she also links old posts back to the new ones and keep the site coherent and consistently evolving.

Smitten Kitchen is an invaluable resource, so go buy Deb’s books so that she can continue to publish vast amounts of great recipes and ideas for free.

Previously: Appreciating the Indie Web Appreciating the Indie Web: DC Rainmaker Appreciating the Indie Web: ATP Appreciating the Indie Web: Kottke.org Appreciating the Indie Web: Lift Blog

Is blogging about blogging the lowest form of the art? While there are some writers who can do it well, this is not so interesting. I’m working on migrating off of Wordpress to something that doesn’t require quite as much attention and maintenance to keep secure. 

So this is a first test of using Hugo as a site generator to publish instead of Wordpress.

While training for my second triathlon, I started to understand the value of data and started to look into getting a GPS watch. And then, being cheap, avoided getting one for a while. But when I was looking into triathlon tech, one site that I kept reading was DC Rainmaker. Ray Maker started DC Rainmaker as an adjunct to his triathlon hobby while having a career in tech. Then, during the next few years, sports technology exploded, thanks to computers getting smaller and cheaper and more connected, while athletes got more competitive and data-driven. 

Maker took DC Rainmaker full-time, and it is an essential resource for anyone interested in sports and technology, particularly people into endurance sports. In addition to comprehensive reviews of individuals products, comparisons of categories, and an expanding YouTube channel, DC Rainmaker is an essential resource. His reviews have guided me in acquiring the various sports tech, including GPS watches, heart rate monitors, power meters, a smart trainer, bike computer and random things. None of these make me faster or better at biking, running, swimming, hiking, and skiing, but at least I can track everything on Strava. 

_Can we talk about power meters for a minute? I’ve heard talk about how useful they are, but I only acquired one this year. And they are, in fact, great and useful. The feel of cycling effort can be deceptive — shallow hills and headwinds are two things that can have a huge impact on the speed resulting from a given effort. A power meter confirms whether you do have that extra spring in your step or just have a fast tailwind. _

DCRainmaker is not merely a data. Maker shares insight into his life as an expat in Amsterdam, schlepping things around the city in cargo bikes (and even racing in a cargo bike criterium!) He goes on ridiculous expeditions to really test the limits of products, like a multi-day expedition in the Alps. He has the time to notice that published specifications may not match the actual dimension measurements of smartwatches with optical heart rate sensors. With press credentials to the Tour de France, Maker used his access to scout out which power meters and bike computers each team was using — and how some riders have different bike computer preferences. And then the same for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Traditional print media couldn’t allow this level of detailed nerdery. Thanks to technology, athletes are more informed about their performance than ever before. Thanks to DC Rainmaker, athletes are more informed about their technology’s performance than ever before. 

Previously: Appreciating the Indie Web

Sure, the Accidental Tech Podcast is another hours-long podcast with three middle-aged white men talking to each other about technology. But it’s also the best example of the genre. 

Spiritually, ATP is a tech version of Top Gear, whether done by intention or not. After all, ATP started from a car podcast, which became taken over by the tech talk, because software developers Casey Liss, John Siracusa, and Marco Arment know much more about tech than they do about cars. But, like Top Gear, each of the three ATP hosts is a character. John expects perfection, is willing to go to great lengths to find it and get backups. Marco is willing to try to spend his way to solutions, while Casey is willing to accept a level of brokenness in his technology life. Filtering Apple tech stuff through this lens is informative and entertaining. 

ATP is persistently consistent. They publish one episode a week, **every **week. With 517 episodes since episode 1 was posted on February 7, 2013, they are on track to publish 520 episodes by the time of the show’s 10th anniversary. I can not believe that they’ve been doing this for 10 years, which is a theme of this entire Appreciating the Indie Web series (that I’m old). 

Not every segment of every episode of ATP is worth listening to — they can get rambly and long. But the three hosts have thoughtful and informed opinions on tech platforms, and more interestingly, the marketplace and market power of the large tech companies. While I’m sure there are plenty of standout segments, I certainly don’t have any bookmarked (see again, the power of consistency).

One reason that ATP is worthwhile is the host’s willingness to acknowledge their privileges and correct themselves when they are wrong. It is far too common for middle-aged white men to retreat into their own wrongness and dwell there. 

Previously: Appreciating the Indie Web

Jason Kottke is good at the internet. His blog, Kottke.org will turn 25 years old this year. He pioneered many of the features that we take for granted across the internet.  And it continues to be one of the absolute best reads on the internet. (Along with his newsletter). Even more impressively, he took a break. You may be thinking, “what’s the big deal, you’ve taken years off of blogging?” Sure, but unlike me, Kottke is good at it, and he’s a professional. Kottke.org is member-supported (I am a member). So, taking a hiatus from an ember-supported site was a risky move. But this is not just admirable, but should be an example. 

In the US, we don’t respect vacation enough, and we don’t have the social support infrastructure (like public health insurance) to allow people to take meaningful breaks between jobs or any type of sabbatical. Employers rarely support meaningful sabbatical programs, but we should treat that as an essential retention tool. It’s very easy to get burnt out and not have a way to take a pause to be able to come back to do better work. 

Let us all learn from Kottke: not just in terms of interesting links, but in being able to step away for enough time to grow. 

I love skiing, but also while growing up skiing and hanging out around the ski patrol with my dad, who was a volunteer ski patroller,I appreciated the operations of ski areas. Ski lifts are complicated, useful, and cool looking pieces of technology. But I didn’t really have a huge interest in lifts as anything other than a way to easily get uphill to ski down. 

Lift Blog is somehow both a classic independent comprehensive passion project web site, industry news resource, and generally interesting for skiers. It is a project of Peter Landsman, who works in the industry as a lift crew supervisor at Jackson Hole. But what makes Lift Blog special is not just the industry knowledge, but Landsman’s passion about lifts. Last year, he completed personally visiting all 2,381 ski lifts in the United States. The industry had one of the busiest years of capital investment and installed 66 new lifts in North America in 2022 and Landsman will be traveling to photograph each of them. 

While traditional ski media contracting, Lift Blog is a source of ski industry news, skiing news, all filtered through Landsman’s encyclopedic knowledge of lifts. Thanks to Lift Blog, I’ve learned about lifts in places that I didn’t even know had skiable hills. And, as cities around the world invest in ropeways for urban transportation, it’s also about transportation policy. 

Previously: Appreciating the Indie Web

. 

A new year’s resolution, at its best, is a great impetus to convert a goal to a habit, but is likely to fail if its too ambitious or vague. Last year, I set out to achieve a perfect month of closing my rings in Apple Fitness. (As I said, ambition is usually the enemy of success). But I also set that goal knowing that its not sustainable while having a meaningful activity goal – rest is necessary for performance. This year, as we watch a billionaire light money on fire to destroy one of my favorite channels for expressive communication, I, like many others, are interested in reclaiming the use of our own online spaces. 

They heyday of blogging in the 2000s encouraged more types of creative expression than the social media era of the 2010s. As we start to define the internet of the 2020s, I’d like it to include more personal publishing and a step away from centralizing communication within closed platforms. I am very enthusiastic about the Fediverse — at this point, Mastodon with Ivory are meeting a significant enough portion of the value I get from Twitter through Tweetbot. But a vibrant open web is essential for creativity. 

So, I start with this simple goal: write here regularly, defined as a minimum of 5 posts per week for the month of January.  

Since I going to accomplish that? The main way is through Appreciating the Indie Web — things that I like on the web (even if largely, but not entirely, on a platform like YouTube or Substack) that are independent projects. These are all sites that I subscribe to in RSS, including podcast feeds.