iPadOS text selection keyboard shortcuts

iPadOS and MacOS provide all sorts of keyboard shortcuts for text selection. Here’s a list of the built-in ones, all in one place.

“You’ll never have enough technique. Get to work.”

Andrew Batson shares a story from composer Steve Reich’s new book Conversations, about his teacher Hall Overton, who was one of the first musicians to take both jazz European traditions seriously. Reich thought very highly of Overton as a human being and a musician, and Batson was struck by this anecdote about his lessons:

Who needs anonymous exposure notifications?

Nick Heer reminded me that shortly after Apple and Google announced their Exposure Notification System, the Washington Post ran a story criticizing the plan, quoting public health officials concerned that the EN system wouldn’t provide location data and other information that would enable contact tracing.

How to use Jekyll Picture Tag or any Jekyll plugin with GitHub Pages

Host your website with GitHub Pages. Use whatever Jekyll plugins you like — even fancy ones that Pages doesn’t support. The secret: build and deploy your Jekyll website with GitHub Actions. Here’s how.

Turps

I made a ground of Payne’s gray, Vandyke brown, and Naples yellow by squeezing these colors onto my canvases. I then tipped on Sansodor, an odorless paint thinner that I’d begun to use as a replacement for turps. Until a few years ago, when I opened the door to my flat the smell of turps was overpowering. Everyone commented on it. I loved the smell. All my clothes and my hair were saturated with its pungency. I wore the scent with pride, like a saint reveling in her hair shirt. If I lit candles in my front room in the evening, their flames would shoot up toward the ceiling, fueled by the gaseous fumes. But gradually, I found it harder to tolerate and it became difficult to breathe. I had constant sinus pain and headaches. I had to give it up.

— Celia Paul, Against Any Intrusion: Writing to Gwen John

Writing to learn

I came across David Perell’s Ultimate Guide to Writing Online the other day. It’s packed with tips for building readership and connecting with people who share your interests. The way Perell sees it, writing online is a way of thinking out loud, of finding collaborators to that thinking, and of building reputation. What an enticing, paralyzing idea.