Over the last couple years, my music listening habits have changed (among so many other things). I started wanting something different than algorithmic suggestions that my music subscription provides. I wanted something that felt more (a)live. I missed feeling like I was participating in something that was bi-directional and happening right now.

I realized I missed listening to the radio.

Instead of coming up with a New Year’s Resolution for 2022, I decided to try something a little different. I’ve had pretty mixed results with resolutions in the past, but wanted to make an improvement in my life. So, I’ve decided to focus on an intention instead of a specific behavior.

While I don’t agree with some of the asserted conclusions, the core of this essay is really solid.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen quite a few threads on Twitter from folks trying to solve an ageless challenge: how to back up their personal computer. In a time where personal documents, photos, and other files are increasingly distributed across third-party services in the cloud, finding secure, no-fuss, cost-effective backup solutions is difficult.

Static 2.1 is now available on the App Store. Here’s what’s new.

Back in 2013, I released an app called Static for iOS. It was a basic white noise app, with a few different sound choices. It had a very opinionated interface, complete with an era-appropriate speaker grill artwork.

While setting up Christmas decorations this past weekend, one of the kids^[1] suggested we connect the lights in a set of village buildings to Siri. My instinct was to grab a few more Z-Wave outlet plugs from Amazon, but I remembered having an outlet controller stashed away somewhere that I’d used for a similar purpose a few years back.

HomeKit has seen a slow-but-steady increase in the number of supported accessories since its introduction in 2014. Initially, lights, outlets, and thermostats were the most common. Today locks, fans, garage doors, and cameras are also starting to emerge on the market from reputable manufacturers, along with a slew of sensors.

Over the past couple years, I’ve worked with quite a few third-party frameworks. These experiences have highlighted a significant deficiency common in many frameworks; most frameworks suck at logging. More recently, I’ve had the chance to build a few frameworks from the ground up, so I’ve used those to explore how logging could be done differently.

Before I get started, I need to preface this essay with a few important points:

I really like Swift. I’ve built quite a few apps with it, both at work an on my own. Astra is almost entirely written in Swift, with only a few classes that touch Core Audio written in Objective-C.

My opinions are my own - they don’t reflect those of my employer or my coworkers.