Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 123, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, which Artemis photo did you make your wallpaper, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about Sam Altman and Satoshi Nakamoto and chess drama and Iranian shitposters, buying the stuff I need to mod an old iPod, making videos with the clever new DualShot Recorder, watching Crime 101 now that it’s streaming, finally getting my Stream Deck Mini to control all my office lights, revisiting the incredible 17776 series from our friends at SB Nation, moving all my cable mess to this new Anker power strip, and finally organizing my new closet. Six months after we moved in.
I also have for you new seasons of a couple of great shows, a deep dive into space photos, a book about our gadget brains, and much more.
Also, I want to try something new here. I get a lot of people pitching stuff they’ve made, and I almost never include it here — I much prefer people talking about stuff they like rather than stuff they’ve made, you know? But for once, and maybe only ever once, I want to do an issue full of ruthless self-promotion. (I’ll still vet everything I include, to the best of my ability.)
So, for the first time ever: Tell me about the thing you made! Apps, games, podcasts, weird tchotchkes, anything you think we in the Installerverse might be into. I’ll check out as many as I can, and feature my favorites in a couple of weeks. And I’ll tell you about the thing I’ve been building, too.
All right, fun week of stuff! Let’s do it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / listening to / piling up on the dining room table this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The Audacity. I fear this show, like Silicon Valley and Mountainhead, might turn out to be so prescient it becomes hard to watch over time. But I love a good tech bro satire, I love this cast, and I find it deeply hilarious that you’ll be able to watch the whole pilot in three-minute increments on TikTok when it drops on Sunday.
- Artemis II Journey to the Moon. I cannot stop staring at the photos coming from the Artemis II crew. The photos of the Earth that show the atmosphere! The eclipse shots! Even the onboard photos of the crew are a blast. For me, though, it’s the dark side of the Moon that’s now permanently my desktop wallpaper.
- Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord. As I type this, this show has a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT score on Rotten Tomatoes. I won’t get my hopes up I won’t get my hopes up I won’t get my hopes up okay fine I cannot wait to dive into this gritty animated universe.
- Pokémon Champions. The rap on this game so far is that it’s very fun but seems thoroughly unfinished. You might want to wait for an update or three before really diving in, but early players seem to already enjoy the basic battle systems here. So I’m optimistic.
- Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness. The D20 crew just never really seems to miss, and this season’s tabletop adventure is as bizarre and fun as ever. If the trailer alone doesn’t convince you to sign up for a Dropout subscription, well, I’ve got nothing for you.
- Transcription. I keep hearing great things about this new novel from Ben Lerner about what’s temporary and what’s permanent, what we record and what we remember, and what screens and devices do to us. I’ve been in kind of a reading rut recently, and I think this’ll get me out of it.
- Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. I find the whole immortality movement among tech people to be mostly pointless and silly, so I’m glad to see Kara Swisher have some fun at its expense — while trying some of the movement’s weirdest ideas on herself. Personally, I’ll stay here eating my Sun Chips, thanks.
- Jackbox Party Essentials on Netflix. There was a period of the pandemic where Jackbox games formed a key part of my social life. (Quiplash FTW!) These onscreen party games make perfect sense for Netflix, too — Jackbox stuff has always been a little expensive, but now it’s free with your subscription. Give a few of the games a whirl.
- Obsidian Reader. I missed this last week, but it’s worth catching up on. It doesn’t even require you to use Obsidian — it’s just the best way I’ve ever encountered to make any website more readable, highlightable, and saveable. Whether you’re taking notes or building a corpus for your OpenClaw, you should use this extension. Often.
Tom Hitchins is one of the few people whose work I can always spot in a second, even in a sea of thumbnails. You might know Tom as the guy behind Byte Review, the rare tech-related YouTube channel that doesn’t shout at you all the time. I’ve always enjoyed Tom’s work, and especially love his aesthetic sensibilities; the guy just knows how to make things look both calm and cool.
I wondered, given the way he thinks about technology, how Tom might set up his phone. (I had a feeling I could guess his wallpaper color.) So I asked him to share! Here’s Tom’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 17 Pro Max.
The wallpaper: One of my own, from the Cascade pack (maybe my favourite we’ve ever made!).
The apps: Calendar, Photos, Clock, Camera, Mail, X, Threads, Craft, YouTube, YouTube Studio, Settings, Gmail, Todoist, Lightroom, Instagram, ChatGPT, Notion, Messages, Phone, Safari, WhatsApp, Spotify.
My app layout has been the same since like the iPhone 6 (yes I know it’s very boring). I tried changing it up a few times but the muscle memory keeps me locked in here!
A couple newish apps for me are:
- Todoist. I switched from Microsoft To Do and while it is better I think the UI is so dull. However, I like the fact you can use natural language to set tasks for “tomorrow” or “this evening” just by typing it — crazy useful.
- Craft is a beautiful writing app I’ve used for about a year for all my YouTube ideas and scripts. Otherwise everything probably speaks for itself. I’m a creator, so YouTube Studio and Instagram get opened way too frequently too ?
I also asked Tom to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
- I just completed Resident Evil Requiem, which was a blast, very much a tale of two games — one very scary and the other very silly and over the top.
- I’m still currently using a FIIO Echo Mini instead of Spotify for all my music when I’m travelling. It helps me stay off my phone and actually be present when listening to an album or podcast. I recently made a video about why that became an issue for me.
- I recently picked up an old iMac G3 in the classic Bondi Blue color, which is just beautiful. I’m hoping to use it in a new YouTube A-roll setup, or just to play some old games on it!
- A creator I’ve been enjoying loads lately is Mike Sunday. He makes funny and insightful commentary on the weirder side of graphic design, anime, gaming, brands, and other internet oddities.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.
“I’m playing the heck out of Timberborn, a city builder set in a post-apocalyptic future where beavers rule the planet. It’s wonderful.” — Joonatan
“I’ve been learning web development from The Odin Project! It’s a completely free and self-directed curriculum that starts with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, then goes into backend technologies like NodeJS or Ruby on Rails. It curates free high-quality resources from around the web as well.” — Evancito
“I re-read Blindsight, by Peter Watts. The part about the ship Rorschach and how intelligence without consciousness seems eerily similar to what AI is currently doing. Worth the re-read.” — Dawit
“Taught Claude Cowork to use NotePlan. It’s creating daily, weekly, and monthly notes. It’s creating notes that act as memories and referencing those notes as I drop in updates throughout the day. It‘s scheduling weekly reviews and prompting me for updates on all of my open projects. All in .md files.” — Christian
“I’m trying an RSS reader for Android named Capy Reader. It works great with Feedbin, which I use most. It’s free, no ads, and no in-app purchases. It does its job.” — Hansoll
“I’ve been playing the TTRPG Daggerheart, from the folks at Critical Role. It has a good digital version, which works well with phones and tablets. Great system if you want more focus on storytelling, less rules and number crunching.” — Bobby
“Born to Bowl on HBO Max. Same narrator as Hard Knocks, which adds an unexpected twist to the awesomeness” — Brandon
“TinyStart. It’s a new launcher for Mac and all it does is the basics. It’s faster than Spotlight and less overwhelming than Raycast. Perfect if all you want to do is search apps and pick emoji.” — Trystan
“With the attention devoted this week to the Artemis II mission, I was reminded of the video, ‘The photography behind Earthrise,’ from two years ago. It’s also a look at early photography by NASA astronauts. It led me down the rabbit hole of learning more about the Earthrise photo and the equally or more famous ‘Blue Marble’ from 1972’s Apollo 17.” — Craig
Taskmaster is back! I am obliged in this space to tell you every time Taskmaster is back, because Taskmaster is amazing and delightful and everyone should be watching it. The new crew of contestants — which includes Kumail Nanjiani, who I will watch in anything — seems perfectly funny and weird, and somehow the show keeps finding sillier things for them to do. I hope this show runs a thousand seasons. I will watch them all.
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