• Miniature Mac

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    Last week my new M6 Mac Mini arrived! It’s mostly a straightforward upgrade of my roughly 5.5-year-old M1 iMac that was running out of space even with Synology offloading and was struggling to play games like Big Walk.

    I opted for a slightly upgraded configuration:

    • Apple M6 chip with 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, Dual 16‑core Neural Engine
    • 32GB unified memory
    • 2TB storage
    A small black and tan Yorkshire terrier sits expectantly on a light beige living room rug next to a nearly cube shaped Mac Mini box. The box is kinda upside down and at an angle so the Apple logo on top of the Mini photo is upside down and the sides read "mini" and "Mac"
    Pike for scale

    It certainly cost more than I’d like to pay with current supply chain impacts, but in the grand scheme of Macs I’ve purchased over the years it remains historically cheap for the power you get, when adjusting for inflation. In fact only my current iMac was cheaper! I did not opt for something that could run local AI models; that’s not a use case I’m interested in.

    I believe the kids love this ASMR

    For unboxing and transfer purposes, and with the lack of a monitor at home, I set it up hooked up to the living room TV for now. I have a cheap COVID WFH monitor I’ll probably use at least until the resolution annoys me.

    Close up of a Mac mini box on the floor, showing the "mini" and "Mac" sides
    Pike, a small black and tan Yorkshire terrier, stands in front of a bookshelf and behind a low Mac mini box
    A man's bony hands peel back the paper seal on the bottom of a flipped computer box on a living room rug
    A man, his denim leg visible in frame, removes the paper wrap from the edge of a small rounded rectangular aluminum Mac mini computer
    A small black and tan Yorkshire terrier looks expectantly at the camera while standing next to an unboxed Mac mini sitting on the floor. A child sits cross legged out of frame behind him. A man's legs and hands are visible to the left of frame.
    Nick, a white man with glasses wearing a black shirt and jeans, holds up a Mac mini and smiles. Pike, a small black and tan Yorkshire terrier, looks at the camera wondering what the fuss is about.
    Nick pretends to take a bite out of the corner of the Mac mini while sitting in front of a TV stand with off TV, Switch 2, and soundbar, plus a few books.
    A TV displays a sunset photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge with Liquid Glass script "hello" text and a prompt to connect a wireless mouse.
    A purple small iMac sits on the floor in front of a TV. They are each displaying opposite ends of Migration Assistant process. On the TV the iMac shows up as Holodeck and a Time Machine network drive shows up as Replicator.

    I’d say it weighs just under half a Pike. (Who thought the package, given our excitement, must contain treats.)

    Due to a busy work schedule and some family events I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and play with it! I got all the data transferred from the old iMac (which took a bit over 5 hours because I didn’t have a fast enough Thunderbolt cable handy) and ran Geekbench, which shows it to be 2-3x faster than the M1 on tests.

    Screenshot of Geekbench result page that reads: Mac18,5 3969 Single-Core Score 21369 Multi-Core Score Geekbench 7.0.0 for macOS AArch64

    Looking forward to putting it through its paces! And making sure that everything transferred over before I ship off the iMac for trade-in.

  • Save Video Frame as Photo

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    As I mentioned in my WWDC post this summer, Apple added the ability to save a single frame out of a video. I had reason to do it for the first time today with some kid birthday videos, but had forgotten about it being added to iOS 27.

    When you’re paused on a video, it’s in the … menu:

    A slightly cropped iOS screenshot of a video of some pink object being 3D printed. The object is obscured by a Liquid Glass menu showing buttons for Copy, Duplicate, Hide plus menu items for Show in All Photos and Start Slideshow, submenus for Add To, Move To, and Adjust Info, and finally highlighted in a red round text, Save Video Frame as Photo
    Yes, this is an in progress Jimothy

    For a HEIC video you end up with a correctly timestamped HEIF image… but as I complained about in my original workaround post from 2024, three iOS versions ago, I would like all of the metadata. At least the time and location are kept, but for some reason the camera and lens information are not preserved:

    A screen shot from iOS Photos showing image metadata: Monday • Oct 5, 2026 • 9:16 PM IMG_5064_still No camera information No lens information 8 MP • 2160 × 3840 • 632 KB

    This means that the search autocomplete tags like “Apple iPhone 17 Pro” that match the video don’t match this, and there’s no larger category for stills extracted from video.

    Definitely a welcome improvement but some weird limitations yet. And to whoever at Apple fought to get this added: thank you!

  • Birthday Brownies

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    For kid’s bowling birthday party today we made to-go brownie packs using the Fudgy Brownie recipe on page 278 of Vegan for Everybody.

    A metal whisk stirs flour and other dry ingredients in a large stainless steel bowl
    A bunch of bakers chocolate roughly diced on a brown laminate cutting board
    A small stainless steel mixing bowl with pieces of chocolate melting into a larger liquid chocolate mix
    A metal whisk sitting in fully stirred chocolate in a small stainless steel mixing bowl on a white counter with a lot of chocolate powder mess around it
    A folded brownie batter in a large stainless steel bowl
    The brownie mix in a large parchment paper lined ceramic baking dish, now with chocolate chips mixed in
    A smaller square ceramic baking dish with fully baked brownies inside, a bit of parchment paper harness sticking up around the edges.
    Two sets of uncut brownies rest on parchment paper on metal cooling racks. Viewed up close at an oblique angle
    A large knife slicing the brownies into smaller pieces
    Cut brownies resting on a folded metal cooling rack inside a refrigerator, viewed edge on showing fudge texture
    A loose grid of small plastic bags filled with two brownies each and having a small party hat 3D sticker sits on a glass table by a pink ceramic dish with miniature disco balls on it.

    Unfortunately they were a little too fudgy in the middle despite coming out clean with a toothpick; I think our ceramic baking dishes change the cooking a bit too much, with crispy edges and underdone middle. Still tasty though.

  • Sleeping Gryphon

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    Was in Lincoln Park today and appreciated this old gryphon sculpture.

    A worn metallic gryphon, seemingly tired and resting its head to the right, sits amid green trees and bushes on dirt in a park. The upraised wings and much of the long tail are covered in blue red and yellow paint dots.

    Sadly I can’t find any information about the artist online… so I submitted a question to the library.

    A Washington State Ferry (Issaquah class) in the distance past a stony beach with afternoon sun shining in from the left. It is there power towards Vashon Island in the distance, where there is another ferry docked, and even further at the horizon of tree covered hills is a ferry leaving the Southworth terminal. There a few clouds in the distance for an otherwise bright blue sky.

  • Turn

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    Our neighbor’s Japanese maple that’s right outside our biggest window is starting to turn red as we get into fall.

    A japanese maple (which has smaller more delicate and pointy leaves) framed against a clear blue sky. The leaves near the bottom are mostly still green but it's tingeing yellow and then orange up near the topmost branches.

  • Silent Seattle

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    A large but empty multi level playground structure disappears into the fog with some barely visible trees behind.

  • Tofu Chorizo Crunchwraps

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    Got a new cookbook last week, PlantYou Quickies, and yesterday had most of the components to make vegan crunchwraps from pages 214-216.

    It was nowhere close to a quick meal, between pressing, seasoning, and baking the tofu as well as building and grilling the wraps… but definitely very tasty! More heat than our usual tofu chorizo recipe from Sam.

    We skipped the shredded lettuce for obvious reasons and opted not to sweeten the sauce because that’s not usually our jam. The vegan yogurt based sauce functioning as a sour cream was really nice. (We used Kite Hill Greek which is often a breakfast component.) We added our favorite vegan cheddar shreds as the last layer before closing and grilling.

    We didn’t have huge tortillas, which definitely caused some structural issues when forming the wraps using some old taco shells we had, lightly toasted. I had to underfill them to just make it work; for seconds we all just did grilled burritos. Next time need the big ones.

    A baking sheet on an oven rack full of seasoned brownish crumbled tofu.
    A taco sized tortilla on a white plate with a bit of baked tofu and a white drizzle sauce. Just at the edge of the frame you can see the package of tortillas and a small white bowl of more sauce.
    Two roughly hexagonal crunchwraps grilling in a cast iron skillet. The one to the right has been flipped showing a nice browning on one side.
    A slightly overdone and oddly pentagonal crunchwrap on a white plate on a white countertop. It is folded side up and pretty dark, almost overdone
    Side view of a partially eaten Crunchwrap held in a bony man's hand above a white plate, showing the layers of hard corn shell and tofu and melted cheez

  • Jimoth3D

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    Andrle decided to print a little guy. With pink filament, of course.

    A small pink 3d printed model of Jimothy the Raccoon, viewed from the side on a placemat on a dining table, the kitchen blurred in the background. His front left paw is raised and he seems to be smirking. The lighting has a few reflective lines off the print layer pattern on the arc of his shortened spine.

  • Curled

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    Me too Pike, me too.

    A small black and tan Yorkshire terrier lies on his side in the sun in a small dog bed, his front legs stretched forward. He tan hair looks reddish in the sunlight. The dog bed has a progress pride rainbow edge and is on top of a round magenta collusion in front of a teal couch.

  • Andrle’s Birthday

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    Thursday was Andrle’s 43rd birthday so we celebrated with an outing to Din Tai Fung. The vegan spicy wontons are so good!

    A smiling couple seated at a restaurant with their child standing tall between them, his face obscured by a laughing emoji. Nick, a white man in glasses, is on the left in a beige denim jacket and dark patterned shirt; Andrle, a white woman in glasses with long brown hair, is on the right in a pink cardigan and a black shirt. The tween is wearing a sea otters Monterey Bay Aquarium tee shirt.
    The same family at a restaurant table, this time the kid is seated on the right with his arm up in the air pointing at the birthday girl. Nick is sticking his tongue out.

    After we got home I baked vanilla cupcakes.

    A few golden brown baked cupcakes on a cooling rack in their gold foil cups.
    Three frosted cupcakes sit on a small white plate on a white countertop

    She then opened her cards and presents, including this auspiciously timed art piece we found at PAX.

    A small square signed artist print of Captain Picard, eyes cut off, as if on a Polaroid in the style of the 1989 album cover. The bottom edge has handwritten "J.L.P. 2364"
    Print by Dianne Vaznelis aka Diha

    We closed the evening by listening to her “gift” from Taylor: four new songs!