KIND SIR: THESE WOODS

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost....
Not till we are lost... do we begin to find ourselves. –Thoreau, Walden

Kind Sir: This is an old game
that we played when we were eight and ten.
Sometimes on The Island, in down Maine,
in late August, when the cold fog blew in
off the ocean, the forest between Dingley Dell
and grandfather’s cottage grew white and strange.
It was as if every pine tree were a brown pole
we did not know; as if day had rearranged
into night and bats flew in sun. It was a trick
to turn around once and know you were lost;
knowing the crow’s horn was crying in the dark,
knowing that supper would never come, that the coast’s
cry of doom from that far away bell buoy’s bell
said your nursemaid is gone. O Mademoiselle,
the row boat rocked over. Then you were dead.
Turn around once, eyes tight, the thought in your head.

]]> Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:43:35 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/directory#Check-out-your-mind

“Notice Me” (Live) by Anya Marina @ YouTube.com ]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 01:31:57 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/26/masha ]]> Sun, 15 Feb 2026 23:23:55 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/apple#feb-5 With System Settings → Displays → “Larger text,” Apple e-mails sometimes have horizontal scrolling on desktop, despite fitting on iPhone.

If I’ve received horizontal scroll mail from anyone else, I don’t recall it.

With “Larger text” on my laptop, iMovie won’t fit.

With “Larger text” on my laptop, some settings and alerts won’t fit (and can’t be scrolled).

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:17:23 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/the-web#update-feb-4 Updated

In CSS, you can’t have multiple borders.

[Update: multiple borders is under active development by the CSS Working Group.] @ Front-End.social

[Discussion @ GitHub.com]

So you can either do something like:

<a><span><span><span></span></span></span></a>

Or an inset box-shadow, but if you want border radii, it has to be a pseudo element.

[Update: I was wrong, an inset box-shadow doesn’t have to be pseudo for multi-border radii. I was trying to use a border and inset box-shadow at the same time.]

Both require manual pixel math, and their radii don’t match perfectly (if you make a multi-border with one method, you can’t perfectly recreate it with the other method) [Update: the difference is small; I recommend using inset box-shadow.]

Sites where “Scroll to Text Fragment” should work but doesn’t.

For example, @ PoetryFoundation.com (but I think their sticky header may be worse).

[Update: “StopTheMadness” can “stop scroll to top” to fix the Poetry Foundation link @ UnderpassApp.com]

Update Feb ’26

On Apple devices, Firefox differently renders the default Times font, so you don’t get the same box size as Safari/Chrome.

/example

I don’t know whose Times is better, but I don’t want to have to declare a font. ]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:01:45 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/directory#the-worst-is-over “A Gentleman Caller” (Live) by Cursive @ YouTube.com ]]> Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:36:11 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/26/v/organ.mp4 ]]> Sun, 01 Feb 2026 20:16:28 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/26/comm.-jet

“Comm. Jet (Creepy Kid Remix)” by Single Frame @ YouTube.com

A broken-down TV-set and a cable that won’t work, and I am a jerk with a northstar-gun.

Well, we could have fun. Just the two of us could play⁠ ⁠—

Another day.

It’s been vinyl from tip to top, and just to wait for something to happen.

A case in learning from the shores of a color-jet where you haven’t seen anything yet. No, you haven’t seen⁠ ⁠—

That’s not life.

Can’t you feel it slowly draining out of you? Draining the seconds away, day-by-day?

Can anyone say that tech has gone way too far? And realize that we’re locked in a jar without an outside world?

Well, what is life if it’s not a cyber-com communication-jet?

Well wait, I haven’t got my facts yet, and, uh, well… the telephone… it just went out, and so I’m all alone. My pager’s gone, and there’s no batteries, no mows to lawn; (there’s no) mows to lawn.

Well, we’re nothing without a keyboard, an alarm clock, a Cracker Jack box, maybe a trumpet; a distortion pedal that’s orange, not white. So get up from your desk and join the rest; electrical tape five inches from your left arm…

So get up from your desk and join the rest; electrical tape five inches from your left arm when you’re with us now. ]]> Sat, 31 Jan 2026 23:41:45 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/meta#A-dark-mode-for-Sepia Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:30:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/directory#American-Made

You can’t write <fc> for <figcaption>. (Or <caption>.)

You can’t write <a=""> for <a href="">.

You can’t write <img=""> for <img src="">.

You can’t write <source=""> for <source src="">.

You can’t write <c> for <code>.

You can’t write <l> for <br>.

Because there’s no one-letter equivalent of <br>, a <br> and a <p> don’t align:

<p>Stanza
<br>Line

<p>Stanza
<l>Line

<p>
Stanza<br>
Line

<p>
Stanza
<l>
Line

<p>
Stanza
<br>
Line

You can use <pre></pre> instead, but the result mayn’t be what you want in RSS readers and reader modes. (In RSS readers, some inline styles may work.)

But I think I want a <pl> that is just like <p>, except with a starting style of white-space: pre-line.

<dl> has <dt>, <table> has <th>, but there’s no <lt> for <ul> and <ol>.

(There was <lh>, but it got removed.) @ StackOverflow.com

So you’re supposed to do something like:

<h4>Title</h4>
<ul>
<li>Item
</ul>

And <li> and <dd> aren’t interchangeable.

I think it may be bet if there was <ll>, a list-list:

<ll>
<lh>Title
<li>Item
</ll>

So if you want bullets or numbers, you change one letter: <ll> to <ul> or <ol>. (</ll> would close all three.)

<xmp> (“example”) sort of works but is “deprecated.”

“I Want XMP but Can’t Have It” @ JeffTK.com

There’s &lt;this&gt; and &amp;lt;this&amp;gt; instead.

(&lt;this> and &amp;lt;this> may be fewer bad.)

You can’t write &rt; for &gt; (I often try to write “left right” instead of “less great”).

<xmp> defaults to “white-space: pre,” but unlike <pre>, if your text doesn’t start on the same line as <xmp>, you get an extra line break.

So:

<pre>
&lt;example&gt;
</pre>

Is equal to:

<xmp><example>
</xmp>

If you switch to “white-space: normal” you can:

<xmp>
<example>
</xmp>

But since Safari’s Reader renders its defaults you still get the extra white space there.

(XMP’s other defaults are “display: block” and “font-family: monospace.”)

In Firefox’s reader, you get the extra line break on top, but not the normal line break on bottom; it’s serif, but &lt; &gt;

Vivaldi’s (and Chrome’s) won’t render it at all.

(Brave’s is like Safari’s.)

&lt;Edge’s&gt; and removes “margin-top” from <hr>.

(Firefox’s also has “opinionated” <hr> margins.)

Chrome’s reader removes <audio> and <video>; Edge’s and Brave’s show the player, but won’t play; Firefox’s and Vivaldi’s play, but only with absolute URLs and if there’s “fallback” text.

Safari’s reader isn’t “available” on pages (like this one) with “too many” <hr>.

A quirk of <xmp> with “display: inline” is it can’t be inline inside a <p>: the first <xmp> after <p> always makes a new block.

And you can’t render </xmp> within <xmp></xmp>.

(With display inline you can with <xmp><</xmp>/xmp>.)

I think I want <ex></ex> with starting styles of display: block and pre-wrap (without line break quirks).

And <\/ex> (to render </ex> within <ex></ex>).

And <x></x> with a starting styles of display: inline and normal white space.

And <\/x>.

(To fix and replace <xmp>.)

There’s no spaced horizontal ellipsis (. . .) character.

You have to make your own with no-break spaces.

(So either something like .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. or something with invisibles.)

There’s no <sc> for small caps.

(You have to CSS <span>.)

<center> works but is “deprecated,” yet there’s no tag for “dinkus” (* * *).

<div style="text-align: center;">* * * works in RSS readers, but not Reader modes.

<div><center>* * *</center> works in both.

(Your pseudo *** won’t work in Reader modes, and you can’t “pseudo” a horizontal rule with inline CSS, so you can’t * * * an <hr> in most RSS readers.)

But I have seen left-aligned “dinkus” in the wild of the normal web.

<!doctype html> is required or you get “quirks mode.”

(Boilerplate.)

<html> is optional, but <html lang=""> is “recommended.”

(Maybe not boilerplate, but I want to reduce <!doctype html> <html lang=""> to <!doctype html lang="">.

<meta charset="utf-8"> is required or you may get “’.” (“Mojibake.”)

You can use an HTTP header for UTF-8 instead (Cloudflare Pages [what I’m using] appears to by default), but I don’t have it locally, yet.

(Boilerplate for me still, but maybe not for you.)

<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1"> is required or you get desktop scaling on a phone.

“lapcat” @ news.YCombinator.com

You can’t use HTTP.

(Boilerplate.)

“break-word” isn’t default. (And so it’s boilerplate for me.)

(I don’t how much “Zoom” someone may use.)

HTML’s not “valid” without a <title>.

Even if <title> is the same as <h1> #1.

(Boilerplate for me more often than not.)

In HTML, you can’t use <i> or <em> in <title>.

(<title> works like <textarea> since entities work, unlike <xmp>.)

I think I want a new doctype, like <!doctype html v="6">, that gets rid of some boilerplate.

With </a>, if you write:

<a href="example.com"> 
Link text</a>
Text

You get a space after </a>, which is good.

But if you write:

<a href="example.com"> 
Link text
</a>
Text

You get a space before </a>, which is bad.

I “get it,” but I don’t want it to do that. I don’t want it to dictate how I make HTML.

It looks right with “text-decoration: none,” but won’t, for example, in NetNewsWire, Firefox’s reader, Vivaldi’s Reader, or “Instapaper on Kobo” since they use “text-decoration: underline”; or with no CSS since “underline” is the default.

(I like to think of page source like the “cabinet back.”)

Fifty years later the fence still surrounds the back and side yards of the house in Mountain View. As Jobs showed it off to me, he caressed the stockade panels and recalled a lesson that his father implanted deeply in him. It was important, his father said, to craft the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden. “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.”

No one’s implemented the proposal for a CSS Overflow “continue” property with a “paginate” value.

“Paginated Overflow” @ W3.org

(In 2011, Opera implemented pagination using CSS Paged Media.)

“Opera Reader” @ YouTube.com

(From 2013–2017, Apple supported CSS Regions.)

“Hey browser, this content can go into any of these boxes. Fill them up!” @ RachelAndrew.co.uk

After thirty-five years, the web’s still like a retrograde civilization that never invented bookbinding.

No browser can open e-pubs without an extension. (Edge could pre-Chromium.)

It’s a different type of pagination, but I’ve never seen a reverse–chronological web log with descending numbers.

It’s <img src>, but while <audio src> and <video src> sort of work, they’re really <audio> <source src> </audio> and <video> <source src> </video>, yet there’s no <image> <source src> </image>.

<picture> <source src> </picture> could’ve played that role, I think.

An <img> without alt works, but the W3C validator flags it as an “error.”

It seems to be unique in HTML.

<video> nothing. <audio> nothing.

Closest appears to be <html lang>. If you don’t have one, you get a “warning.”

An “orphan” <label> without for gets nothing.

I think a “warning” flag may be okay, but “error” mixes “concerns” too much.

An empty alt is supposed to mean “decorative,” but instead may mean “validates.”

(My understanding: if there’s no alt, a screen reader reads the file name; if alt is there but empty, a screen reader reads nothing.)

I think <figure> <img src= alt=> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> is a lot (for one image). (“Verbose.”)

And <figure> <a href=> <img src= alt=> </a> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> is more.

<figcaption> <img>A caption</figcaption> works, but is “invalid.”

I may want <image a=""> <caption> </image> for an image that’s a link and <image=""> <caption> </image> for an image that’s not.

(A <table> <caption> </table> doesn’t need </caption>.)

<figure> has a default inline margin of 80px. (The same as <blockquote>.)

So on a page with no CSS, you’re supposed to decide if adding a caption to an <img> is worth having a 96px margin (the <body> default is 16).

Which is not great on a phone.

But you can still use something like:

<table>
<caption align="bottom">
<div align="left">
&nbsp;Caption text
</div>
<tr>
<td>
<img src="example.img" width="100%">
</table>

But it won’t validate.

(I think the argument for separation of style and “structure” [and/or “semantics”] would make more sense if the default was good. If no CSS was a legit option.)

HTML images aren’t “fluid” by default. (I sometimes get responsive and fluid confused.)

You can use <img width="100%"> and they’ll be as fluid as text (fluid inline, but not fluid block).

But % width is “obsolete” and won’t validate.

“Separation of concerns,” yet “theme-color” (of all things) is HTML, not CSS.

“Theme Color in CSS” @ Jim-Nielsen.com

The rationale seems to be “perfomance,” but if you don’t have a theme-color, Safari will use CSS “background-color.” (If it’s light mode; in dark mode it has to be “dark enough”: for example, #888 works, #999 doesn’t).

But it seems to me using background-color works, and so I think a CSS theme-color would too.

But regardless, I want to decide.

There’s no <meta name="theme-color" content="light-dark( )">.

(So if you want light and dark, you need two tags.)

You can’t offload a website’s navigation menu to the browser.

(I think I like the idea of separating the “concerns” of <body> and <nav>.)

The default look of <hr> isn’t the same across browsers.

I think I may want a “universal reader mode” opt in, like <meta name="standard" v="1">.

(To invoke a common style, not each browser’s house style.)

In CSS, you can’t have multiple borders.

So you can either do something like:

<a><span><span><span></span></span></span></a>

Or an inset box-shadow, but if you want border radii, it has to be a pseudo element.

(Both require manual pixel math, and their radii don’t match perfectly [if you make a multi-border with one method, you can’t perfectly recreate it with the other method].)

There isn’t something between inline and inline-block: for a box with a border that can invert its bottom-right corner (its block-end, inline-end corner) when it wraps a line.

Where an unfilled wrapped line would create a hexagonal shape. (Creating room for text outside the border to sit on the same line.)

“display: run-in” may’ve been a similar concept.

(I thought I wanted something like this for my index.html [to “run in” titles (with borders) next to dates (without borders)], but it appears to be impossible. I have “slice” boxes; I don’t want “clone” boxes. “corner-shape” is decoration, not layout.)

Inline-block starts off inline, but then makes a “hard” switch to block when it needs to wrap.

“Something between inline and inline-block” would make either the start-start or end-end corner form a block, but keep it’s opposite corner in “inverted line mode” so long as all the space on the top or bottom line isn’t filled.

If the start-start corner is the block corner, then the bottom line’s inline-end is the line corner.

If the end-end corner is the block corner, then the top line’s inline-start is the line corner.

In CSS, a block border can’t follow “the rag” of “start-aligned” text.

(You can fake a ragged block with cloned line boxes, but the CSS border isn’t ragged, and it can’t be a different color than its box without revealing “the trick.”)

You can’t really customize or style the native HTML media players, there’s no common player, and I don’t like the look of Chrome’s audio player, in particular.

You have to build your own JavaScript player.

(“appearance: base” may represent hope for future media player customization.)

If it’s not full screen, I want to decide if the controls are under or on top of my video.

I want to decide if a play symbol is put on its “poster” or not.

There’s no <sh> for “subheading,” but <hgroup> is back (some people were using <header> before):

<hgroup>
<h1>
Heading
</h1>
<p>
Subheading
</hgroup>

But:

<h1>
Heading
<sh>
Subheading
</h1>

CSS doesn’t have a syntax highlighter. (Not even for HTML, CSS & JavaScript, despite browsers already having it for their dev tools.)

(But CSS has a “Custom Highlight API” for JavaScript highlighters now, which is good.)

(I think a JavaScript highlighter is like a Google Font.)

I may wish Adobe Caslon, American Garamond, Iowan Old Style, and Lyon (Instapaper) were “web safe.”

In HTML/CSS, “replaced” things like <img> are “physical,” not “logical” (inline is always left and right, and block is always top and bottom), so there’s no way to always keep things like <img> inside the viewport in both horizontal and vertical writing mode. (You have to use JavaScript.)

But CSS “if()” may represent hope.

Like:

img{
if(writing-mode: vertical): max-width: 80vw;)
}

There’s no <n> for “note” (or <fn> for “footnote”).

According to the W3C, you’re only supposed to use <small> inline (it’s “phrasing,” not “flow”). So while <small> <ol> <li> <li> </ol> </small> works (in practice, it’s “transparent” like <a>), it’s an “error.”

You can write <ol style="font-size: smaller">, but even if inline styles worked “wherever you get your text,” I think tags like <small> can be intuitive and fun.

Chrome desktop recently added HLS (with no fanfare); assuming Vivaldi gets it, then Firefox desktop will be the only browser without native .m3u8 playback.

“HTTP Live Streaming” @ CanIuse.com

(“Can I use” says Edge doesn’t have it, but it works in Edge and Brave.)

In RSS 2.0, <pubDate> is hyper-specific, like “Sun, 28 Dec 2025 19:22:00 -0600.”

And you can’t use <date>, it has to be <pubDate>.

But RSS doesn’t require a date; Atom requires two dates.

In RSS, you can’t use <i> or <em> in an item’s <title>.

(In NetNewsWire, it will italicize, but there’s a bug where italics get turned the same color as links.)

(In Atom, escaped HTML in an entry’s <title> appears to work no better [I’ve come across the claim it did], but I haven’t tested a bunch of clients.)

@ YCombinator.com

(But regardless, RSS doesn’t require <title>, but I think you can leave Atom’s empty.)

I don’t think RSS has a channel-level equivalent of Atom’s <author>.

So you’re supposed to add the “dublin core” namespace (Dublin, Ohio) and use <dc:creator> on <item>.

(RSS has channel-level <managingEditor> and item-level <author>, but they combine e-mail and name.)

I don’t think there’s an RSS <item> equivalent to the combination of <published> and <updated> for an Atom <entry>.

In principle, it lets you to send clients updates to existing entries, but I haven’t tested it, whereas you update RSS by making new items.

But I think I prefer updates to be new items that link to id attributes with # fragments.

My first JavaScript complaint: it’s document.documentElement and can’t be document.htmlElement or document.rootElement.

JavaScript can’t directly output RFC 2822 dates in the right format for RSS 2.0’s <pubDate>.

(Technically, it can since it outputs RFC 1123 correctly, and RFC 1123 dates are also RFC 2822 dates, but I want my local time, and RFC 1123 is GMT only.)

(Technically, RSS 2.0 is “frozen” with RFC 822, not 2822.)

(There may be a library, Luxon, that can directly output RFC 2822, but I’m not there yet.)

feeds://justin-reeves.net/rss.xml

Firefox doesn’t recognize the “content-type: application/rss+xml” header. (The default for WordPress feeds, for example.)

(And by default they autodownload the file.)

Safari has the opposite problem. Without an app header, it “renders” the XML.

“My brain is hanging upside down” @ YouTube.com

“HTML is for humans, and XML is for machines.”

Neither is for humans (HTML isn’t typically consumed raw), but XSLT transforms XML into HTML, so if HTML is for humans, killing XSLT makes the web less human.

1) If a third–party browser extension requires any “scary” permissions, I think it’s unreasonable to expect any mainstream user to install it.

2) Even if it’s reasonable, I think it’s “collective action chicken and egg.”

So I think the default should be good.

I want browsers to have default themes for feeds (and sitemaps).

(Like a reader mode for a site, not a page.)

I want browsers to have first-party detectors (buttons) for feeds (and sitemaps).

The only RSS reader that can paginate documents is Readwise Reader (and it’s $13/month).

(Atom’s “feed paging” is a different type of pagination.)

I think $13/month ($156/year) is a lot for pagination; for comparison, a Kobo Libra is around $260 ($52/year if it lasts 5 years).

Wikipedia finally stopped serving its mobile site to people on desktop.

“Unifying our mobile and desktop domains” @ news.YCombinator.com

But there’s no serif option in its appearance menu.

But Wikipedia prints in serif @ XCancel.com

Sites where “Scroll to Text Fragment” should work but doesn’t.

For example, @ PoetryFoundation.com (but I think their sticky header may be worse).

“StopTheMadness” can stop scroll to text fragment, but can’t “start it” @ UnderpassApp.com

“Where Have All the Rudeboys Gone?” @ YouTube.com

“Text Fragments” @ developer.Mozilla.org

You can’t stop a YouTube playlist from autoplaying (without an extension).

There’s no <md></md> for Markdown.

(If I was Firefox, I think I’d render Markdown in <md>.)

“The Underdog” @ YouTube.com

I intend to write more, but it may take me a while.

“Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” @ YouTube.com

“Anarchy of Dirt” @ YouTube.com

Jan 2026

Comments / Letters ]]> Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:57:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/directory#Does-it-all-make-sense-now? “Lopsided” by At the Drive-In @ YouTube.com ]]> Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:24:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/ohog New Year, Old Head of Government

Khamenei (86)
Putin (73)
Xi (72)

Late Dec 2025

Khamenei (85)
Putin (72)
Xi (71)

Late Dec 2024

Comments / Letters ]]> Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:26:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/hey-you Don’t hey me. Hay is for horses.

No, it’s horses for courses.

What?

There’s hay,
usually spelled H-A-Y
to eat,
and there’s hey,
usually spelled H-E-Y,
to greet.

Horses for courses is an Anglo idiom,
a British term,
that means
some things
may serve
some purposes
better than
other
things:

You can’t feed a horse the word hey a word.

But you can usually, maybe not in this case, but usually, usually, you can greet a human with one it.

You don’t know horses for courses,
but do you know pearls before swine?

No, you may not think you’re a phony. Right? It doesn’t mean you’re not one, but are you a philistine?

I don’t know if a rose is a rose:
I don’t know from roses.


But if you wanna know the difference between
gold
and sparkle,
wine may be wine,
but whiskey’s not vodka.

“Five, Eight, and Ten” by Mineral @ YouTube.com ]]> Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:57:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/meta#update-dec-18 5) You can turn off “Create new Untitled documents automatically,” but it still creates them. It won’t if you quit and re-open it, but it will if it’s already open, has no windows, and you click its dock icon. You can avoid it if you use the Command-Tab switcher, but I mostly only use Command-Tab to switch to the most recent app, and often open unwanted new documents. ]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:50:03 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/apple#update-dec-18 You can’t export Photos app photos as AVIF.

TextEdit can’t “show invisibles”; Pages can’t show “word joiner.”

Character Viewer often won’t input characters the first time it’s opened. If you close and re-open it, it reliably works.

(Annoying, but even worse with zero-width invisibles like “word joiner.”)

Usually, you only gotta press Globe once for Character Viewer, but sometimes it’ll suggest emoji, so you gotta press twice, and you can’t turn “suggest emoji” off.

(But the emoji problem may solve the input problem.)

Emoji can be avoided using the menu bar, either Edit → Emoji & Symbols or with System Settings → Keyboard → Edit Input Sources → “Show Input Menu in menu bar.” It’ll be two clicks, but the added precision may be worth it, but since it doesn’t fix the input problem, it’ll often be six clicks.

(Input Menu → Show Emoji & Symbols is the top item, whereas Edit → Emoji & Symbols is the bottom item.)

Character Viewer won’t rememeber your spot in it across apps, and won’t remember your spot at all unless you close it with its red button.

Leaving Character Viewer open in apps often results in “beach balls” when switching apps.

You gotta double-click to input a character, even if you’ve already selected it.

Viewer’s picker renders invisibles invisibly, “logically,” not friendly.

“searching for ‘joiner’ ” @ MJTsai.com

(I think “monograms” in picker boxes like “HS” for “hair space,” “WJ” → “word joiner,” “NBS” → “no-break space,” and “ZWJ” for Wierschin & Tsai’s “zero width joiner,” may be better.)

“Logical” by Olivia Rodrigo @ YouTube.com ]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:49:51 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/meta#update-dec-2025 I tried out BBEdit, but:

1) Text doesn’t scroll smoothly with a trackpad.

2) “Preview in BBEdit” always opens a new window, but I hide “Page Guide” and want Preview in its spot.

3) Preview auto-update isn’t included in “Free Mode,” and I already have it in Whisk.

(TextMate and Microsoft’s VS Code have it too. Both are free, but TextMate may be abandoned, and I think I’d prefer not to have to use VS Code.)

4) BBEdit has autosave, but requires confirming save before closing a file; you mayn’t want what may’ve changed, but there’s no “always save” setting.

5) There’s options for “Show invisible characters”; but while you can turn “spaces” off and see no-break space, you can’t see thin space and hair space.

(But it’s difficult to see its indicator for no-break space with spaces on, so it’s still useful to turn off and on.)

(TextEdit can’t show invisibles; Whisk has “Show invisible characters,” but no options, and only shows ordinary spaces, tabs, and line breaks; Pages can’t show “word joiner.”)

(But I can see everything @ InvisibleCharacterViewer.com)

6) It has pinch-to-zoom, but “Actual Size” is in a menu-bar submenu, View → Text Display → Actual Size, so it’s harder to get to than I would like. (You can adjust it from its status bar item, but I think I prefer no status bar.)

7) I don’t think the “Insertion point line highlight” and “Selected text” color contrast is quite right in “BBEdit Dark” (and definitely not right in “Toothpaste”); you can change the colors, but it’s too fiddly for me to want to mess with.

8) “BBEdit User Manual” is (ironically) only available in 452-page PDF.

I liked BBEdit’s “Shift-Delete for forward delete” shortcut, but despite Whisk’s crashing problem (and other shortcomings), I’ll probably stay with Whisk.

Comments / Letters ]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:33:47 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/apple You can’t backup your Mac settings to iCloud.

I don’t think most Apple devices feel good to touch. They may feel “premium,” but I don’t think they feel good.

For example, Apple aluminum. (But I don’t think I like handling metal.)

(I think metal=premium may be a “supernormal stimulus” response.)

Plastic and/or silicone tends to feel better to me.

For example, my Kobo Libra 2.

Or this Samsung remote @ […].jpg

(I like silicone pot and pan handles @ […].jpg)

So I don’t understand not using a silicone iPhone case (leather is better than metal, but I don’t think it feels good, and a phone case’s lip gives edge swipes a target to hit.)

(My Kobo sleep cover has “vegan leather” on its outside but microfiber on its inside. So when reading, I feel plastic and microfiber. The fake leather feels okay, but I only have to handle it briefly.)

(And the Libra 2 has a grooved edge that I think feels good @ […].jpg)

(But some criticize Kobo for not making “premium” devices.)

(For example @ The-eBook-Reader.com)

(I hope they don’t listen.)

MacBook Pro’s vents make it difficult to comfortably pick up.

MacBook Pro’s “mouth” (where you lift the lid) ends in two “sharp” points.

The squared edges on the top edge of MacBook Pro’s base don’t feel great.

(MacBook Pro may be “brutalist.”)

(Siri Remote has similar squared edges.)

(The Framework 12 has a plastic shell. If it had a full-sized keyboard and OLED screen or was dirt cheap, I think I might want one, but it’s $800, and I want to move on from LCD.)

While Apple trackpads work well, their haptic clicks often don’t quite feel “right” to me. (I press and get clicked.)

(Click → Light; Look up & data detectors → Tap with Three Fingers; Tap to click → Off.)

(And since I don’t think I really like touching its glass, I may get a plastic cover and see if it benefits me.)

“Magic Mouse.”

(I want a third-party mouse with scrolling that “just works”; I don’t want Logi Options+.)

Safari’s Reader can’t paginate documents.

And it’s happy to render vertical images (or videos) at sizes larger than the viewport.

The Apple News app can’t paginate documents.

And while you can “share” an Apple News article with Instapaper, you can’t print it on paper.

In Safari, Page Down can’t paginate documents: It’ll put the end of one “page” on top the next, so you have to keep finding your spot.

And it’s happy to scroll just an image top or image bottom (or video top or video bottom) into view.

(And I don’t think text cut off the top or bottom edge of a viewport is great, beautiful, or wonderful typography.)

“great typography”; “beautiful typography”; “wonderful typography” @ Stanford.edu

(But regardless, I can’t comfortably rest a thumb on an Apple Space bar like the next page button on my Kobo.)

There’s no “Send to Books” equivalent of “Send to Kindle.”

(You can “Share” documents with Books, but it doesn’t convert them.)

In Safari on iPad, vertical image files aren’t “responsive.”

In Safari on iPhone, image files aren’t “responsive” in landscape.

And Safari uses a white background for image files (even in Dark Mode).

(Firefox uses a #222 background; Chrome a #0e0e0e background.)

iMac doesn’t have an integrated power supply.

And “retina” iMacs never got “target display mode” (using an iMac as a monitor for another Mac).

No Mac has a 300 ppi screen.

Apple never replaced iWeb.

Apple released “Safari RSS” Apr 2005 and killed it Jul 2012.

(Google released Google Reader Oct 2005 and killed it Jul 2013.)

And there’s no first-party “RSS Button for Safari” in the “Customize Toolbar” options.

(Browser extensions tend to require scary permissions.)

The Apple Newsroom RSS feed doesn’t provide full content.

No “Apple Search.”

No Fitness+ for Mac.

iPhone Air can only play sound from one side.

(iPhones prior to 7 and iPads prior to the 1st Pro could only play sound from one side.)

No serif Notes.

No TextEdit for iPad.

And I think I would remove its rich text mode.

TextEdit can’t “show invisibles”; Pages can’t show “word joiner.”

Character Viewer often won’t input characters the first time it’s opened. If you close and re-open it, it reliably works.

(Annoying, but even worse with zero-width invisibles like “word joiner.”)

Usually, you only gotta press Globe once for Character Viewer, but sometimes it’ll suggest emoji, so you gotta press twice, and you can’t turn “suggest emoji” off.

(But the emoji problem may solve the input problem.)

Emoji can be avoided using the menu bar, either Edit → Emoji & Symbols or with System Settings → Keyboard → Edit Input Sources → “Show Input Menu in menu bar.” It’ll be two clicks, but the added precision may be worth it, but since it doesn’t fix the input problem, it’ll often be six clicks.

(Input Menu → Show Emoji & Symbols is the top item, whereas Edit → Emoji & Symbols is the bottom item.)

Character Viewer won’t rememeber your spot in it across apps, and won’t remember your spot at all unless you close it with its red button.

Leaving Character Viewer open in apps often results in “beach balls” when switching apps.

You gotta double-click to input a character, even if you’ve already selected it.

Viewer’s picker renders invisibles invisibly, “logically,” not friendly.

“searching for ‘joiner’ ” @ MJTsai.com

(I think “monograms” in picker boxes like “HS” for “hair space,” “WJ” → “word joiner,” “NBS” → “no-break space,” and “ZWJ” for Wierschin & Tsai’s “zero width joiner,” may be better.)

“Logical” by Olivia Rodrigo @ YouTube.com

In Safari on Mac, I don’t like the native video player in full screen.

(I don’t want to have to drag the controls to get them out of the way; I want inconspicuous controls that disappear quickly.)

And you can’t “skip 15” in full screen.

In Safari on Mac, I don’t think the native video player is great.

If a video is paused, the controls never go away. (They do in QuickTime Player.)

You can’t “skip 15” with Left Arrow / Right Arrow.

You can’t toggle full screen with F.

You can’t toggle mute with M.

“Safari … darkens videos” @ UnderpassApp.com

If you click play, but the cursor is still touching the controls, they never go away.

If you click play and move the cursor, it takes them about 4s to go away.

(On iPhone, for HTML videos with no “poster,” Safari doesn’t show the first frame.) (It does on iPad/Mac.) (Inconvenient.)

No Apple television set.

I think speaker location makes MacBook Pro worse for consuming video than iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.

(Speakers in the keyboard base vs. speakers next to the screen.)

I don’t care anymore, but Netflix and the Criterion Collection don’t integrate with the TV app/Continue Watching.

On iPhone/iPad, you can reset auto-brightness by turning auto-brightness off and on in settings, but not on Mac.

You can’t subscribe to Apple Events in the TV app.

After deleting them, Mac apps often leave files and background items behind.

Safari makes it difficult to do a Google search of a web address (you can’t without removing “https://”).

Safari makes it difficult to do a Google search of link text.

(You can Control-click → Search Google on link text in Firefox.)

You can’t move Finder in the dock.

You can’t quit Finder, so its indicator dot is always on unless you turn “indicators for open applications” off.

I like the name “Finder” (better than “Files”), but some people really like Finder’s icon (“a perfect mark”). I like the original okay (with its overflowing line) as logo art, but as a dock icon, I sometimes find its always smiling faces a bit much (“toxic positivity”).

Like:

(But I think Finder icon redesign drama might be avoided by Finder icon options.)

“Continue Watching” doesn’t have its own tab in the TV app.

And you can’t manage it through its widget. You gotta go “Home.”

Tab Group Favorites occupies a permanent position at the top of bookmarks, even if you don’t have any. (I don’t think I want any.)

In Safari on Mac, you can’t switch windows from its “Tab Group picker.”

(Switching Windows from menu bar → Window is all the way at the bottom.)

(And I don’t think I want any Tab Groups.)

Any apps you’ve ever connected to the TV app appear in the TV app’s connected apps, even if you disconnect, delete, and hide the apps.

The TV app on Mac doesn’t have connected apps.

Shows from connected apps aren’t shown in your Continue Watching list on Mac.

Any apps unique to Apple TV can’t be hidden.

For example, DirecTV’s defunct NFL Sunday Ticket app.

(But I’ve never had DirecTV or Sunday Ticket.)

You can only hide and unhide TV app purchases on a Mac.

(And the UI is bad.)

If you watch an episode of a show from the TV app’s widget, the TV app will open that episode’s page in the background, which is good, but if you autoplay another episode or choose to watch another episode from the popup, the background page won’t update, which is bad.

(Can result in playing the wrong episode.)

To put an iPhone photo on justin-reeves.net, I have to “export” it; remember the difference between “export” and “export unmodified original”; and so forth.

(Or taking a photo, do I want “High Efficiency” or “Most Compatible”?)

You can’t export Photos app photos as AVIF.

Safari won’t show the “document tree” of an RSS feed unless “show features for web developers” is turned on (and so won’t show it at all on iPhone/iPad).

Instead, it will hide XML tags and give you their content (inlcuding any HTML tags) as a wall of unresponsive Times text with an #fff background.

(For JSON feeds, they give you the full document in Courier with responsive styling and a #1e1e1e background dark mode.)

XML

JSON

In Safari on iPhone/iPad, you can’t open HTML files from Files (without a third-party intermediary) like you can on Mac from Finder.

HTML files in Files can no longer be viewed full screen; and media embeds like <img> can’t be viewed.

You need a third-party device and a third-party app to receive local broadcast channels on an Apple TV (like an HDHomeRun with Channels or a Tablo with Tablo).

If I left a book open on my Kobo Libra 2 or left it on “My Books,” it opened where left. (A recent update opened on “Home.”)

I think Apple Books and Apple TV should reliably open where left.

(At least on Mac and iPad, Apple TV may in fact do this now.)

(And third-parties like Netflix don’t remember where one is after their frequent “updates”; they drop you back into their … “home.”)

@ news.YCombinator.com

(And I don’t know if it is still a problem, but a long time ago I tried editing a document in Pages on an iPad, but it wouldn’t autosave my position within the document, so when the app would run out of memory, I’d lose my spot.)

Stage Manager can’t be made to form a boundary (like the dock and menu bar).

The file picker for TextEdit and Pages can’t be maximized like a normal Finder window.

Family Sharing is price discrimination, but regardless, for two adults to share they have to pick one to be charged for the purchases of both.

If you add a page to Safari’s Reading List, it interferes with the functionality of the back button.

(And you can’t turn off Reading List’s “continuous scroll.”)

You can’t open an e-pub in Safari.

Window → Move & Resize → Left

Window → Left

Window → Move & Resize → Right

Window → Right

Can’t select or Command-F text in the Mac App Store.

Using “too many” <hr> on a page blocks Safari from offering its Reader mode (“Reader Available”).

But it works in Firefox and Vivaldi.

(Chrome doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut or menu bar item for “Reading Mode,” and it’s two levels deep under “More Tools” near the bottom of its “Customize and Control” menu.)

You now have to “unlock Apple Sports” (turn “Sync My Sports” on) to “Edit” what you “Follow.”

No Mac has Face ID.

No Lock Screen widgets on Mac.

Maybe not important, but in Safari:

xmp{font-family: serif, sans-serif;}

Gets you Helvetica.

(Yet it’s Times in Whisk’s Safari Web Preview.)

In Safari on Mac, the “go back” shortcut, Command-[, doesn’t work from discussions.Apple.com to Google.

I think fiddly settings should be easy to reset to default. For example, there’re ten trackpad tracking speeds, which is the default?

What’s an iPad?

With a Magic Keyboard, I think it’s a good portable or kitchen-counter TV.

But not much else.

It may fill a niche for some graphic artists, but I think most people who draw or handwrite would be better off, in principle, with an (e-ink) “e-note.”

But if iPad and MacBook do “merge,” and I were them, I think an Apple “e-note” would be part of my exit strategy.

The iPad Pro’s anti-reflective screen could be better.

(Nano-texture is a little fuzzy with lower contrast, so I don’t think it’s worth it for an iPad TV, but my experience with nano-texture is limited to a mini-LED MacBook Pro, so I don’t know how it is with an OLED iPad.)

On iPad, there’re third-parties (for example, Paramount+) that don’t support any keyboard controls.

(If a video is playing I want keyboard controls to “just work” unless an app has a good reason for them not to.)

I was surprised by “Crush” backlash. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t like it because they crushed a CRT. You can buy a brand new piano. You can’t buy a brand new CRT TV — a still great technology that dominated culture for half a century. That is being lost. Human history is being lost.

No “Apple TV” (service) setting for “always skip recaps & repeated intros.”

(But if I was launching a streaming service with all new “originals,” I don’t think I’d include things I thought people might want to skip.)

Pop-up warnings like “TV-MA” & “Contains sequences of flashing lights or patterns” can’t be turned off; and they pop up even if you’re resuming, not starting.

Short intros like Pluribus’ probably don’t need to be skipped, but you can’t stop Apple from intrusively offering.

(And there’s a “After you watch, listen to Pluribus: The Official Podcast on Apple Podcasts” / “Skip” too. Ad is short and relevant, but the number of things to skip is absurd.)

Pluribus has 41 languages in its subtitle menu; your “Primary” language is up top, but I think it should only show your “Preferred Languages.”

I think dubbing credits appended to main credits should do likewise, and only if you had the dub on.

Can’t turn off “credit detection” for purchased videos. (Apple detects you’ve finished a video by percentage watched, not whether the end credits are playing.)

(And I haven’t confirmed it still does it, but if a TV app video is paused when an Apple TV goes to sleep, it autoexits the video. May be to avoid HDMI black screens, but regardless, I want to decide.)

(Autoexit: If you pause near the end, but don’t make it back before it sleeps, it will “mark as watched” and remove from Continue Watching.)

(And I sometimes press the wrong button, or don’t pay attention to how much of something I’ve watched.)

(I don’t think I want to pay attention to it.)

(An Apple Television set wouldn’t have had to depend on HDMI.)

In the TV app on iPad, there’s a few second delay before the keyboard controls work after starting a video.

(I think there’s a conflict between the onscreen controls and keyboard controls.)

In the TV app, if a movie or show has more than one trailer, and you play one, the others autoplay. Even if autoplay is off.

Safari Tabs don’t close in order of last used.

On Mac, when a window is full screen, you have to exit full screen before you can “Move & Resize” it (from the menu bar).

Sometimes you can’t hide iPhone & iPad apps on Mac.

(If you do a clean install, they go away.)

I thought Severance, Season 2 was bad.

I didn’t think it would be able to follow Season 1, but it seemed like it was going be good with three new, well–cast cast members, but that was a fake out.

I think they told their story or only had one idea (and so it should’ve probably been a limited series), and Season 2 was stalling.

I think series tend to benefit from a little formula or structure, and “new season, new co-workers” could’ve been theirs.

(For example, I thought book seven was the worst Harry Potter because it departed from the “new school year, new teacher” formula.)

A couple of longshot requests for “Apple TV” (service):

1. Rescue Thirtysomething, Once and Again, and China Beach from streaming purgatory.

(Once and Again, Season 3 never got a DVD release.)

(China Beach, Episode 1 is a good 90-minute movie with good music.)

2. Try to get the Bedford Falls Company crew (Herskovitz, Zwick, Kramer, Holzman, and so forth) together for one more show before they’re all dead.

(But Holzman is making a show with Claire Danes for HBO, so she might be too busy.)

Why doesn’t Apple make a TV?

One reason may be the continued relevance of game consoles.

In principle, if I want a TV, I want an “all-in-one” with good-enough onboard sound. (Good, not necessarily loud, or full range.)

But otherwise, I’d want a quality dumb screen (with no speakers) that requires zero setup.

(The bigger a TV, the further you sit from it, the louder sound needs to be, all else equal.)

(When watching alone, diminishing returns at greater than about 14-inches, in my opinion. Negative returns at greater than about 60-inches.)

(I think surround sound may make sense for audio, but for video, I don’t. If speakers can project sound like a 3D movie can project video, that’s fine, but most of the time, I think I want the sound to sound like it’s coming from the thing playing the video. I think I want the thing to pull me in, not immerse me.)

(I think Schindler’s List and Private Ryan are great because they pull you into a harrowing experience and then end with a character reflecting on events, which may result in a viewer reflecting on their own life.)

(Six Feet Under opens with you obsevering characters reacting to a death, and ends with a character you’ve gotten to know, and maybe like, dying, which may result in feeling grief. But binging a show can have an addictive quality, so what you may mourn is the end of the show, not the character.)

Dec 2025

Comments / Letters ]]> Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:48:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/for-the-hearts “Robert Pollard Trading Card Collection” by Poppy Robbie lyrics

Robert Pollard back in ’78 threw a no-hitter
Man, it must’ve been great
’83 came and things sort of changed
Traded in the glove for a mic and a stage
I never knew about those other years, but found a trading card where you would appear
Not the star player with the mitt in his hand
It’s the lead singer from the Ohio band
In another dimension, would you still be pitching?

How did you go from that to this?
It’s so strange this elected-ness
Random game of the hit or miss
Is life a highway or just a ditch?

You were wearing a guitar on your trading card …

Dreams don’t matter if you don’t make the time
It is such a grind when you live 9-to-5
No good reason or excuse you could seek when you’re only waiting for two days a week
Never travelled a particular route
Direction doesn’t matter if you just wanted out
No one’s really meant to stay in their place
Still a bunch of kids only dreaming of space

Are we all just wishing for another mission?
Should we just do what we are told?

Autopilot the cruise control?
Are we cast to play in this role?
It’s inevitable, I know

Give up all your hopes and dreams become what you need to be …

In a world of uncertainty, are we satisfied completely?
Who really knows?
But they sure do
I’m resigned to the current truth

Everybody wants to be somebody or wants to do something other than what they’re doing …

Sometimes life don’t work like that … ]]> Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:33:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/naivety-is-key “Naivety Is Key” by Poppy Robbie @ Bandcamp.com

Started picking up a foreign message radiating from the power lines
Fought its way to my stereo system and shot itself inside of my mind
A moment of silence shattered
Searching for a noise to change my life
It’s not safe to look for answers in the misery of pop music 45s

It’s fighting for your attention
The supermodel on the nightly news
A puff piece worth half a mention
There’s nothing much new about the blues
I keep grasping out for something that brings me back into the world I know
The further I’m drifting from it, the less I feel like I’m the one in control

Woah, woah, woah, yeah …

It’s all a mystery to me
A meaning impossible to find
I don’t know much of anything
I guess that’s how I manage to get by

And naivety is key …

Sometimes it’s better not knowing … ]]> Thu, 04 Dec 2025 05:13:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/al-qaeda “We Build al-Qaeda in Washington” by Thorns of Life @ YouTube.com

In the nuclear winter of Senator Hillary Clinton, you were reborn a ruthless Methodist
Just save me from the tech of post-feminine imagination
You have the right to be total assholes just like they ha-have to the other brother
They took back every good thing it said
As hope courses to appeasement, I’ll meet you in the gates and we’ll marvel at the chain

It’ll be a nation’s rain
On this day, we’ll sing again
Morning in America never felt so sad and grey
Four or five detainee fighting for the rights of the other three
Forget the court-martials; we gotta have a hand we can fix
So look back like it was better
As if actually they gave a fuck about anything that it said
And don’t stop forgiving brother Reagan just because you woke up this afternoon

What would you give to effect something real?
Can you get free by enslaving the world?
What if your dream was another person’s nightmare?
Al-Qaida’s in Washington; why aren’t you fighting there? ]]> Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:43:00 -0600 https://justin-reeves.net/directory “This Living” (2024) by Amber Tamblyn The New Yorker @ Archive.is ]]> Tue, 02 Dec 2025 03:45:00 -0600