I recently wrote about the 2019 15" MacBook Pro I bought and how I was finding it. A very high-level summary: the keyboard was okay, I hated the TouchBar, and the bluetooth was awful.

When the 16" MacBook Pro was announced recently, my 15" was less than two months old, so I was able to talk Apple into letting me return it so I could buy the 16". I'm really lucky—lots of people who'd had theirs a little longer than me weren't able to get a return, and after trying the 16" I'm extremely glad I didn't have to …

In 2015 I bought a used, mid-2013, 15" retina MacBook Pro. I was upgrading from a 13" MacBook Air, which was feeling cramped as I was spending more time on development than writing.

My MBP served me well until 2019. Its battery life had declined over time, but a few months ago it started going to sleep when the battery indicator still said 15% or more. I was getting around an hour of battery life out of it, but because the battery indicator wasn't accurate, I had no idea when it would suddenly go to sleep while I was working …

Highlights

• Australian Realness. We always make a point to see new plays by Zoey Dawson, since we've loved all her previous works. This one might be our favourite so far. We both thoroughly enjoyed it.
• Drums! I rented an electronic drum kit to learn on, since buying a kit outright is expensive and I'm not sure if I'll stick with it. So far, so good, though!

September goals

✔️ Publish two blog posts

5/2!

• Monthly Review: August 2019
• My favourite personal blogs: 2019 edition
• Animating completed goals in Exist for iOS
• New in Exist for iOS: More Apple Health attributes …

Although I'd like to get better at this still, I've made some changes over the past year or two to decrease how much waste I create. Mostly this means finding reusable alternatives to disposable items I use often, and avoiding unrecyclable plastic when I can.

In case they inspire you to make a change too, here are some of the things I've changed so far.

Metal straws

I don't use straws too often, but often enough that I had a packet of plastic, disposable straws in the pantry. I replaced those with metal straws that I can wash, and which …

I've been rating my mood in Exist for more than 5 years now. That's a lot of data about how I've been feeling.

I keep saying I'd like to blog more but being out of the habit means I'm lacking ideas. (Having ideas often prompts more of the same.) So, to get back into the habit, I've been browsing my own blog's archives, and writing updated versions of old posts, like my "Stuff I like" posts. This one is a collection of some of my favourite personal blogs. I'm happy to say the current list includes more women than last time (the original list was 100% male).

AnomaLily.net

Like some of my other favourite blogs, I primarily read this one for the …

Highlights

• Come From Away! I'd decided I would probably skip seeing this musical during its Melbourne run because I couldn't afford it, but Josh kindly bought me a ticket, and I'm so glad he did. It was enormously fun and touching. Highly recommended.
• A visit from my sister who lives interstate. It's always nice to break up daily life with a visit from someone I don't see much.
• Augie March and Grand Salvo. We very nearly piked on this show because it was a bit of a hassle to get to and very late for me (I normally go to …

Highlights

• Josh's birthday! We saw a Melbourne Theatre Company play and had dinner from our favourite local burger place.
• Geelong game at the 'G. I was lucky to make it to two live football games this year, but this was the only one I saw with my dad, who got me into football in the first place.

July goals

I didn't set any!

Books and media

TV

(Only seasons I finished this month are included here.)

• 4/5 De Dag
• 4/5 Los Espookys, Season 1
• 4/5 10 Years With Hayao Miyazaki
• 3.5/5 Jim Henson documentary by …

I've written a couple of posts in the past about physical items I enjoy using. Since the last one was in 2016, here's a list of stuff I've been enjoying more recently (no affiliate links):

Brita fill&go Active water bottle

I have very specific tastes when it comes to water bottles. These days the kind with flip tops are all the rage, but I like a pop top that I can open and close with my mouth, so I can drink one-handed. Although pop-top bottles still exist, they often have very sturdy rubber tops that take too much effort …

Discovered today that SwiftUI seems to have a limit to how many views you can compose within a single stack before it just fails to build.