Some Hard Truths About Human Population Growth

In 1800, the total human population on our planet was only 1 billion people. It took 127 years for that number to double to 2 billion. But then it took only 33 years to add the next billion. Since then, we’ve been adding another billion every 11 - 14 years, and doubling our population about every fifty years. At this point, in 2024, we now have in excess of 8 billion people on our planet – and we’re adding another quarter million every day.

Notenik 14.4.0 Released

Notenik 14.4.0 is out, and is available for free from the Mac App Store. This release includes the following improvements: improved YAML parsing, for greater interoperability with Obsidian; a new option to sort a collection of notes by folder + seq + title; a new field type of page style, that can include special CSS to be applied to the display of a specific note; a new bulk edit option that can be used to modify several notes at once; a couple of bug fixes.

Notenik 14.3.0 is out today in the Mac App Store, including support for sub-folders. Happy for great support from the Notenik Discourse community in beta testing this latest release. More info at notenik.app.

Version 14.2.0 of my open-source app Notenik is now available for free in the Mac App Store, with improved ability to show random, daily quotes from a commonplace book, as well as other improvements.

Details at notenik.app/kb/versio…

#notenik #oss #pkm

Notenik 14.1.0 is out, and available for free from the Mac App Store. This release adds a duration field, and an export to iCal option, both of which are included in the rewrite of the guidance on Using Notenik as a Travel Planner. Notenik might be best described as a Personal Information Utility.

Version 14.0.0 of my Mac app Notenik is out today, and available from the Mac App Store. A Notenik user recently posted a really good description of how Notenik differs from other (generally better-known) tools, and I suggest you read that if you’re wondering what it is that makes Notenik special.

Another new version of Notenik out today: 13.5.0! Free and open-source, available through the Mac App Store.

Also, coincidentally, I received a lovely post this morning on the Notenik Discourse Forum from a user talking about how he was making use of the app, entitled “Thank you for producing great software.”

Doesn’t get much better than this for a software developer!

"Please do not open this door."

This is one of the oddest signs I’ve every seen: “Please do not open this door. Doing so affects the system mechanics.” I can imagine it at the beginning of an indie sci-fi film. It raises all sorts of interesting questions. Why don’t they just lock the door? What system would be affected? How would it be affected? And then there are the design questions. Why design a door that should not be opened? Why design a system whose mechanics would be adversely affected by the casual actions of any random passerby? How complex can the system mechanics associated with a door be? What small but significant percentage of the human population would be motivated by such a sign to go ahead and open the door – whether they wanted to gain entry or not – just to see what happens? One’s mind boggles at the unspoken possibilities.

To honor Robbie Robertson’s life, and to mark his recent demise, I can think of no better words than these, that I wrote some little time ago, and published at the Lexicon of Song.

#RobbieRobertson

Enjoying morning coffee (and new MB Air 15 in Midnight) on a cool Seattle morning, out back with the animals.

I’ve doing a bit of a reboot on my web book The Big Ideas in Software Development, which can be found at SoftDevBigIdeas.com. As I summarize on the site: “52 Big Ideas, drawn from over 40 years of experience, citing relevant wisdom from over 100 different sources, impeccably organized and indexed.”

Another new version of Notenik out today – 11.8.0, available for free from the Mac App Store.

Several improvements, but most notable is the ability to export a web book as an EPUB.

See the Notenik Knowledge Base for full release notes.

Long Time Gone

Big day in the neighborhood: they’re finally hauling off the porta-potty that’s been sitting outside our house for the last six months, while the new house next to us was being constructed. I couldn’t help breaking out into a chorus of David Crosby’s “Long Time Gone” as I watched it being hauled away.

Well, I’m back on Micro.blog again, after a long absence. I’m excited about the new Mastodon integration! Looking forward to being able to combine all of the niceties of Micro.blog with the extended reach of Mastodon!

“Why It’s a Bad Time to be a Conservative” - Favorite comment so far: “This is a good, well-reasoned line of thought and one I haven’t seen expressed quite this way before.” Multiple reading options: <practopian.org/cross-pos…>