mattgemmell

mattgemmell, 10 months ago to random

Nineteen years and 2 days ago, I met this girl in the Department of Computing Science.

My wife and I today. I’m wearing my Department of Computing Science at Glasgow University t-shirt, which I still have from back then.

mattgemmell, 3 months ago to random

Talking a break after six Bosch books to read someone that a few people have recommended.

mattgemmell, 1 year ago to random

I go to the gym three times a week, and exercise every day, but I’m almost 44 so this morning I tweaked something in my upper back by sneezing.

mattgemmell, 6 months ago to random

Quite enjoying this look.

mattgemmell, 1 month ago to random

The appliances and flooring and worktops and tiles and lighting and cabinetry are pretty and everything, but as a dad this is BY FAR my favourite part of the new kitchen.

mattgemmell, 5 months ago to random

Really enjoying the Kindle Scribe. By far the most affordable e-paper writing tablet, and it does just enough of the stuff I want for a notepad replacement, as well as of course being a huge Kindle. The killer feature is that all your notebooks are visible in any Kindle app or device at any time. You can also export text conversions of notes, and/or PDFS — which are searchable!

iPhone screenshot from Kindle app, showing the same to do list.
Exported pdf from to do list notebook in Safari on an iPad, using the Find function to locate and highlight a handwritten word.

mattgemmell, 4 months ago to random

Remember: iPads are for media consumption, not creation or real work.

mattgemmell, 4 months ago to random

Is there a way to use iOS 17’s Personal Voice feature to read lengthy texts and record the output to an audio file yet? I ask this every couple of months.

mattgemmell, 8 months ago to random

My Rock Paper Pencil from Astropad arrived today. First impressions not great: 16 days (!) to get to Edinburgh from the US, and when it arrived I was sure it had been destroyed in transit.

Side of box, showing clear bend damage
Interior packaging showing diagonal fold mark

mattgemmell, 7 months ago to random

Finally set up the new wifi system at home. We have modest cable into the house, and were using an amplifi hd router before with two meshpoints. New system is the tp-link deco, in its 6e variant, also with three units in total, same positions as before. With the 6GHz band dedicated to backhaul (not wired), my upstairs office furthest from the modem now gets 9x faster downstream, pretty much hitting the up and down rate cap. Amazing.

mattgemmell, 4 months ago to eink

Ten days with his thing, most days light usage but several multi-hour note-taking sessions and a lot of faffing around with settings, and it’s just dropped to 49% battery. It arrived here with 93%, and I’ve never charged it. #eink

mattgemmell, 11 months ago to random

Fort update. I put five hours into it today, and it’s done! Ladder and climbing wall, grab handles, slide, steering wheel and play telescope. No doubt I’ll add bits and pieces to it from time to time. Eleven days in a row. I’m exhausted, but he’s happy.

Fort rear view with climbing wall and ladder.

mattgemmell, 9 months ago to random

Treated myself to a set of Mitutoyo vernier calipers for the workshed.

mattgemmell, 28 days ago to random

After redoing my desk setup the other day, I was reminded of how annoying it is to have my tools on my workbench in the shed, so I spent some time today addressing that.

video/mp4

mattgemmell, 4 days ago to random

Well I’m impressed.

video/mp4

mattgemmell, 4 months ago to random

More e-ink messing around. Here’s a quick vid about the Note Air 3! https://youtu.be/OIVOOFnHrTI?si=1Ra6jGEK3sQ_u3Cz

mattgemmell, 7 months ago to random

If you ever find that I’m zoned out, deep in thought and unresponsive to conventional social overtures, just know that I’m pondering some things.

mattgemmell, 8 months ago to random

One for the very long-time followers, i.e. from back in my old life. Conversation with my wife tonight.

Me: If — and I say if — I were to have a youtube channel about the workshed and my projects there, what-

Her: “The Wood According To Gemmell”.

mattgemmell, 6 months ago to mechanicalkeyboards

More #mechanicalkeyboards content. Feel free to mute that hashtag, which is a thing you can do. Or just enjoy the rainbows.

Left half of keyboard with LEDs animating.

mattgemmell, 5 months ago to random

Watershed parenting moments this weekend. Son, 3, has lately been watching a kids’ entertainer on youtube whose schtick is pretty much scenarios that use what I know to be videogame mechanics. My dad brain thinks, aha, I can use this to get him into games! So I casually mention I have a game where he can also see lava, and things freezing with ice, and monsters, and so on — and I put Tears of the Kingdom on.

mattgemmell, 8 months ago to random

Bit of a new setup.

Angle view of keyboard from top
View from below

mattgemmell, 3 months ago to random

Child, protected by a Proper-Sized Dog.

mattgemmell, 2 months ago to random

I’m pretty sure that Apple forgot to adapt their automatic app updates heuristics to accommodate the new “only charge to 80%” option in iOS 17. My apps never seem to update themselves now, and when I do it manually, there are a dozen or more needing updated.

mattgemmell, 6 months ago to random

I've been trying out Voice Control on iPadOS 17, and honestly, I'm amazed. It's just like the third–party dictation and system control utilities I used to play with on the Mac. It's even useful for writing fiction, complete with punctuation and necessary text styling, all controlled via your voice alone. I wrote this post with it, and it felt natural and not at all burdensome. Incredible work.

mattgemmell, 1 month ago to random

New desk setup ahoy. This is what the previous one looked like. Maybe a little bit cramped, with the keys 🎹 not very comfortable to use — and only 25 of them! Also I had to sacrifice my own books to get some room around the input devices. The wifi thing (white cylinder with black top) took up far too much space.