Some Additional Thoughts on Using the OG iPad Pro… still.

I was a guest on Tim Chatan’s iPad Pros Podcast last year, talking about still using the 2015 iPad Pro in 2021. Well, it’s 2022 and I am still using the thing.

I’ve mentioned enjoying Patrick Rhone’s enough, and have said for a while the OG iPad Pro is still enough. It’s still enough for me, barely, and on a frugal technicality.

The battery is completely and totally trashed. I might get like 3 hours battery life, and it drains quite a but sleeping. A few years ago, before the pandemic, my battery was just hovering above the 80% health cutoff for Apple to do a $99 repair. Now, it has probably passed that, but I don’t want to spend the money to replace the battery in a 7-year-old device.

Apparently, I don’t want to spend any money to fix the problem. Which has me to contemplating the iPad’s role in my in life these days.

The iPad is mainly the bed time computer for me. It’s what I read Twitter on, RSS, surf web, etc. It’s a complete consumption device for me. Almost any sort of creative work I have moved to my MacBook Air. .

If my iPad died, I’d probably replace it, but I’m not sure with what, and it’s why I keep the kicking the can down the road. With the new iPads, I’d also want a new Apple Pencil so that adds $130 to every price. Matt Birchler’s USB-C is one of the best quality-of-life changes in tech in the past decade prompted me to think about this in greater detail.

I am trying to move everything that has a cable or charger to USB-C. I got the new Kindle Paperwhite mainly for the USB-C cable. I have a charging hub next to the bed, and now it just has Lightning and USB-C.

I likely should just get the iPad Air with USB-C, but until Apple removes the Lightning connector, I am always going to have that cable at hand. Frankly, the base $329 iPad is what I would probably get. I can still use my 1st Generation Pencil.

What I have given a lot of thought to, though, the iPad Mini. The price — including the $130 for the new Pencil — is less than the cost of just the Air. It has the new design, and the USB-C chip. Lee Patterson had some good observations about the Mini. Hopefully, I can continue kicking this can down the road long enough for the M1 chip to migrate to the Mini.

I need to actually spend some time with one in an Apple Store, though. I am concerned going from the 12.9” screen to the 8.7” might be a little too harsh. I’d certainly welcome the lighter weight, though.

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A Few Random Thoughts on Intentional Computing

I am not a huge fan of the notion of digital minimalism, or minimalism in general. The slippery slope for either of those ends in a sort of ascetic lifestyle. Especially in digital minimalism, there seems to be a prevailing theory of there must be only work.

That said, I have worked on adopting Intentional Computing. The basis for this is you sit down at the computer and focus on the activity you want. This can be productive or just playing a game.

Shortcuts

Like everyone who tries to be intentional about their computers, I fail a lot. I will look up a reference video and end up watching a video about muskrats or something. To help with this, I have a brute force Shortcut — Apps — I use to help me focus. This shortcut allows me to choose from a list:

  • Quit All Apps: This is a complete system reset and, well, quits every open app. I use this a lot to clear out clutter of open apps and resets my view to allow me to begin an activity I want to focus on. I also use this as part of my nightly shut down routine so I have a clear pallate in the morning.
  • Work Start: This launches the apps I need for the day job: Things, our VDI application, Teams, Webex, and OneNote. It also quits all running applications at the start.
  • Work Quit: This shuts down the work-specific apps. Things will stay open for personal stuff, but the jobby job stuff gets quit.
  • Work Refocus: This to help me recenter if I feel I am drifting to far away from work. Like, if I take a break and Discord and Tweetbot are still running. This one quits all non-work apps except Overcast stays running since I will listen to a podcast while working.

A few Thoughts on Gaming

I likely spend too much non-work time playing games. Some of this related to what Greg Morris wrote about “Making Friends as an Adult Sucks”. My main time wasters are online games like Final Fantasy XIV. A large amount of my friends aren’t physical friends but people I know in these games. Especially during the pandemic when we were really in a lockdown, these relationships were a lifeline. Virtual Worlds let me leave the house when I am unable, or unwilling.

I do often think of just uninstalling all the games, especially online games1, and really having that ascetic, there is nothing but productivity lifestyle. This is fool’s errand. The reasons I’m not creating, and this is the first blog post in over a year, have nothing to do with gaming and more about my own headspace at the time. You could lock me in a cabin in the woods and if I don’t want to create, I won’t.

The thing that does work, and I need to go back to, is the notion of using my leisure activities as more of a reward for good behavior. Did I create something that day? By all means, play a game. Did I bust my ass during the day job and have earned a mental break? Play the game. Creating does a lot of heavy work in that requirement. Working on a model for my model trains for a little bit counts.

  1. I am not even going to mention how often I have uninstalled and reinstalled World of Warcraft this week. ↩

The M1 Air

The M1 Air

Ended, my ‘Using the iPad as a Main Computer’ phase has. 

Using my iPad as a main computer was always a lofty, if unrealistic goal. The closest I came was the betas for iOS 13. I could set an iCloud folder to always reside on the device1. However, over time I started doing more data analysis work with Tableau and drawing in AutoCAD. Neither of them work at all on the iPad. If can’t do something on the iPad, it’s not a wall I graze against, it’s one I slam into.

The iPad, though, became my main secondary device. If I went out for some light writing (remember coffee shops?) and didn’t want to drag my 15” MacBook Pro with me I’d bring the iPad in its keyboard case.

I bought the 15” because I wanted the dGPU as well as trying the minimalist just a laptop and an empty desk routine. I got neck pains from just using the MacBook, so I ended up with monitors on the desk again. The dGPU helped a little, but 4 years later it is barely more effective than an integrated chip. Large laptops aren’t very portable, obviously, and I’d run into issues using it on the train (remember trips to Boston?).

My favorite laptop, though, was my old 11” Air. Even recently, I used it frequently during times I needed macOS but didn’t want to move the 15”. There exists a parallel universe where instead of getting the 11”, I got the Retina 13” Pro, thus negating getting the 15” with the Retina screen.

When the M1 Macs were announced, my plan was to wait until the first of the 4-port Macs were announced and get the 13” (or 14”) version. My feeling was the M1 Macs now were the slowest we’d see, and the true Pro machines would be fucking amazing.

But, I kept going back to the idea of the 11” Air and how I dragged that thing around with me constantly. Super light; super portable. The 15” became more of a conscious choice: do I need the big laptop?

All that said, while I hated the keyboard on the 2016, I still overall liked it. I wasn’t a fan of the TouchBar, but I could deal with it. It was decently fast and I could play my games for the most part fine. Back in November, it popped the alert that the battery requiring servicing. The 15s aren’t known for their amazing battery life anyway, and and with a crippled battery it was horrible battery life.

When I looked at replacing the battery, I thought I’d rather put the money to a new laptop. This was a good time to downsize to a portable machine. Even though mobile for me now means changing rooms.

Which lead me to taking a longer look at the M1 Macs out now. We had passed the period where the early reviews are the usual amazing, and also now could get some real-world usage over a few months2. If there was one tipping point, it was Marco Arment mentioning on ATP that he was very happy not using his iMac Pro and using the Air as his main computer. Marco, to put it politely, is fussy about his computer setups. If the Air, the lowly Air, was enough power for someone who sweats the small stuff on this, it was likely good enough for me. Looking at Geekbench scores, I was going to gain 1k on single-threaded, and 5k on multithreaded. The M1s are basically very close to iMac Pro performance. In a MacBook Air. An iMac Pro is already more power than I need, so waiting for an even faster version of a computer seemed superfluous.

Which lead to a lot of internal debate over a Pro or Air. The Pro has active cooling and better battery life. The Air, though, is a style I love with the wedge shape. I could also get it in gold. As with waiting for a faster Pro, a few more hours of battery life — on a device that also about quadruples my battery life from the 15” — again was superfluous.

Another data point was ArenaNet completely dropping Mac support, and Bethesda saying they would not support M1s. Neither of these are games I play, but did prove a suspicion I had: Apple Silicon will likely force a lot of the game developers for games I do like to either have to go all-in on Mac support, or cut their losses. It is likely around the time Apple ends Rosetta 2 support I will need a gaming PC to keep playing some of my games.

So, you may be asking, that the heck does this have to do with iPads? A valid question.

As mentioned in my piece, Life with a Series 0 Watch, Older Tech, and COVID-19, I have a Quixotic quest to try and get down to just one damn device and an iPhone. For years, I wanted this device to be an iPad. I will admit, the ascetic lifestyle of a digital hermitage on just an iPad appeals to me. Folks like Chris Lawley, who performs almost all his life on an iPad, are fascinating.

The M1 Air, though, pretty much does give me that one device. The main uses for my iPad are News, Instapaper, and Overcast. News and Instapaper have Mac-native apps, and I can use the iPad version of Overcast on my M1. The M1 wakes from sleep and is usable as quickly as my iPad.

I’ve had the M1 for about a month, and I feel like I have a fast, retina version of my beloved 11” Air.

  1. This feature never made it out of beta. ↩︎
  2. If there is one thing reviewing MMOs back in the day taught me: There is a significant difference between my feelings at publication date, and my feeling 2-3 months later. ↩︎

Life with a Series 0 Watch, Older Tech, and COVID-19

I have mentioned this before, but I am a huge fan of Patrick Rhone’s enough, and Minimal Mac. Patrick is probably the closest I have to a minimalist sensei.

Patrick still uses his older 11” MacBook Air as his daily driver. Back in 2014 he wrote an excellent post: Not for Me. The thesis was that he decided the products Apple released are not worth reaching for his wallet, and his existing tech still worked for him.

I still use my Apple Watch Series 0. It’s five years old, and every year I think the newer Apple Watches will finally get me to reach for my wallet. This year, like other years, I decided my Series 0 is still, well, enough for me. It’s not that I think the new Watches suck. It’s that they don’t solve $400 worth of problems for me. The only thing that makes me think of getting a new watch is the EKG sensors.

Likewise, my iPad is a 2015 12.9” iPad Pro. The battery on it is kind of shot and doesn’t yet register under 80% health for a cheap battery replacement. This is probably the longest I have kept an iPad. My iPhone 8+ still trucks along just fine and I don’t see a burning need to replace it as well.

In 2016, I bought a new 15” MacBook Pro. This device is the likely upgrade candidate with the new M1 Macs. There are times I feel like I am pushing the power constraints on it, and, yeah, that damn keyboard. When balancing out power vs portability, my old 2014 11” MacBook Air still wins some usability battles1. This makes me think that maybe I will get a 4-port, 13” Pro when they come out.

I have a strong aversion to getting rid of tech that still satisfies a use case. The likely catalyst to buying a new iPad will be when a new version of iOS stops supporting my iPad. My relationship with my tech is dichotomous: I want to use the best tool for the job; but I also Quixotically continue to bang away at a One Device to Rule Them All2 mentality. Even with my 11” Air and my daily driver 15” Pro, maintaining both computers has a mental overhead. If I don’t use my Air for a bit, the first use is a miasma of app updates and iCloud syncing. As Matt Gemmell said, devices have “a weight that’s not from its mass.” The ascetic lifestyle of iPad-only lifestyle appeals to me, but these days so much of my social interactions are online games and weekly Skype gaming sessions with my friends, the monastic lifestyle of only having an iPad would be unpleasant. When I periodically purge my space of cruft that builds up, the stereotypical empty room with just a desk and a laptop appeals to me. This tends to be an overreaction for when I realize I have 3 computers going, with two games running as a switch between them like a dog chasing a flock of squirrels.

We don’t live in a non-COVID world, as much as some people would like to pretend we don’t. I don’t really leave the house these days. Gone are the days of working for a few hours in a coffee shop. I made an appearance in the office thrice since March. Mobile these days means I might go down to the family room, or the patio, and do some work. Since the big issue with my iPad is battery life, and I am rarely away from a power outlet, resolving that issue isn’t a high priority.

This current-state isn’t going away any time soon. When I look ahead to 2021, every instance I think of where I’d need a more mobile solution isn’t going to happen. My big gaming convention I spend 4 days in a hotel geeking out? They already announced it will be virtual next year. I love going into Boston for the day, wandering around and getting some good food. The idea of getting onto public transportation and doing all that seems so foreign to me.

  1. There exists a scenario where I upgrade the 256gb SSD in the 11” to a larger drive. ↩
  2. The scales continue to shift to the Mac. Instapaper now has a version that runs on even Intel-based Macs. ↩

Friday Night Gaming, the Corona Virus, and Well, Everything

I have known my friend Dave for almost 50 years. I think about that often. Fifty fucking years. We met on the first day of kindergarten. We haven’t stayed in touch all those years. There is a period of time, like most friends, we lost touch. But, up through college at least, we had a regular gaming group: Dave, Mike, Paul, Kenny, and sometimes Kenny’s brother. We were fast as thieves. It was rare to see one of us and not the others.

Usually Kenny’s messy bedroom, or Dave’s dining room table, was our congregational point. Kenny’s was fun because you could drop a die on the floor and come up with 5 bucks in loose change and your wayward d20. We played a ton of D&D, Traveller, Axis and Allies, and the old Avalon Hill board games. The Losers Club from IT? That was us, man, with our own version of the Barrens.

After high school I went off to college, Dave joined the Marines. Mike joined the Guard and did a tour in the first Iraq war. I lost touch with them and missed them. Then, life took a weird turn. My wife at the time was petsitting for a woman who lived in a duplex. The next door couple also needed a petsitter and during the initial talk my now-ex is asked, “Hey, any chance you are related to Mark Crump from Natick?” It turns out it was Dave’s brother. Dave was getting married in a few weeks. The bachelor party was at a paintball place and I was invited. Dave and Mike still got together on Fridays to game. After that, I also joined in.

This was about fifteen years ago. Life is full of chance moments. I mean, what are the odds that my wife’s petsitting business would hook me back up with my high school gaming group? It’s one of those plot points a reader would roll their eyes at and mutter, “yeah, right” under their breath. The wife is gone; the friends remain.

Since then, most Fridays we still get together. The congregational point has changed. Instead of Dave’s, it’s Mike’s. We still act like it’s the high-school D&D group. It is not a time for deep, reflective conversation about the plight of the common man. Instead, it’s a lot of, “that’s what she said.” It’s the escape from life that we need.

For a few years we’d also try to have a computer game night mixed in there. Sometimes it was playing D&D on Roll20 or whatever MMO we wanted to try. We had a few board games on Steam, but board games were usually reserved for Fridays, in person, moving physical pieces around while Mike and I kept an eye on Dave because Dave is cheating bastard. Some Fridays we would play online — usually when a blizzard hit. The preference, though, was in person.

The virus changed, well, everything.

Now the congregational point is Skype. Instead of a table, we use Steam. We don’t need to police Dave since cheating in an online game is functionally impossible. We don’t wonder who shuffled this fucking deck when five red cards come out in a row in Ticket to Ride. It’s not the same, but, yet it is. We don’t move physical pieces around. Our game options are smaller. We tend to stick to a few board game equivalents on Steam since playing an MMO has a lot of waiting for someone to catch up, or doing a quest twice because someone forgot to grab the fucking quest. There is still a lot of “that’s what she said.”

The virus changed, well, everything.

We are all in this weird Groundhog Day House Arrest mode. Monday through Friday, I get up, plod down the hall to my home office. Traffic these days is a jackknifed cat in the hallway. I look out the window at the woods and my monitors and, well, work. Weekends…. I get up, plod down the hallway and sit in the same chair looking out the same window at the same backyard at the same woods at the same screens and, well, not work. The only difference is my work laptop is now in my bag instead of on my desk. I will think: I don’t want to fuck up my sleep schedule but why bother? Everything is fucked up. My viewport to the world hasn’t changed in three weeks.

The virus changed, well, everything.

Friday nights, though, while a different congregational point and a different medium, are still a sense of the Before Times. Before the virus. Before I haven’t left the house in three weeks. Before toilet paper of all things became a rare resource. Before sneezing and coughing clear out a room faster than a Taco Bell-infused fart. I miss, well, everything but I can still have what passes for the normalcy of a Friday night gaming session.

That’s what she said.

iPad Life: Additonal Thoughts on the iPad Pro

I am going to largely ignore the hubbub and criticism that surrounded the iPad 10th Anniversary. For the most part my comments in the Almost Four Years retrospective still stand: I remain divided about the iPad and its place in my life. It is both one of my favorite Apple devices, and one of the most frustrating.

I will say I find iPadOS to be a frustrating release. I frequently have to jiggle my smart-connected keyboard to get it to work, often needing to force quit Messages for the keyboard to work again.

The battery life on my first gen 12.9 is horrible. Two visits to the Apple Store in the last 6 months yield a battery that is close to eligibility for the battery replacement. In September I was between 85-87% battery health; on February 10th it was at 82%. The battery drain is worse than 17% loss, and feels more like 50%. In a meeting it dropped from 72 to 52% in about 20 minutes. The trip to Apple prompted a review of background apps. Nothing really stood out, but there were a few interesting data points. Things 3 had 4.5 hours of background refresh over the last 10 days, and Home and Lock Screen was also at 4 hours background over the same period. When I got home I took the drastic step of wiping my iPad, setting it up as new, and turning off almost all background app refresh. The results are slightly better, but it’s too early to say. The battery life in iOS 13 continues to be a hot topic on the MacRumors forums.

However, over the last week or so I’ve started brining my iPad instead of my MacBook Pro when I leave the house. The draw of the iPad is a light I can’t veer away from. In the parlance of Patrick Rhone, it is often enough. While I enjoy using apps like Tableau, which isn’t available on the iPad, a decent amount of my Tableau time is just refreshing data and viewing the results. Publishing the workbooks on Tableau Public with an auto-refresh of Google Sheets data fills that need.

My yearly theme for 2020 is Creativity. I constantly ding myself for not drawing, and this year drawing is one of my creative goals. The iPad is the perfect tool for that. Even AutoCAD, which kinda sucks on the iPad, is enough for me to do some hard-line drawings on the iPad.

The mantra I frequently use is the iPad is the ideal mobile creation tool, and I want to get back into having that focus in my life.

Year of Evaluation in Review

To be honest, I had forgotten my yearly theme was to evaluate my current tech footprint. I was reviewing an old article and found a reference to it:

My theme for 2019 Evaluation. For the record, I’m not looking at making major life changes. I am, however, evaluating the devices, apps, and services I use. For now, it’s a lot of data collection. What do I use my Mac and iPad for? I say I want to use x app more, but over the year I use y app instead. I promised myself it was unlikely I was going to upgrade any of my devices. Some of this is price. The increased price of the new iPad Pro may not have completely turned me away, but also needing to buy a new Smart Keyboard and Pencil (also at a roughly 20% price premium) surely did. The same with my iPhone. I used my 6 for three years, and I expect to get 4-5 out of my 8 Plus. New iPhones are more expensive and my existing one works just fine. For me to upgrade I need to see real-world improvement; not just benchmarked improvement.

The Hardware Situation

After a trip into Boston where I felt I needed a Sherpa, I made a conscious effort to return to a belief I had strayed away from: iPhone +11. That means on most trips out of the house, I will bring my iPhone and one other device. Too often this year I felt I was bringing a MacBook (Pro or Air), iPad, and iPhone. It was too much, and I wasn’t using the devices to justify the load. It is not a hard and fast rule, but for me to bring both I really need to feel that the two devices are needed.

Once I readopted this philosophy, I also found myself leaving the iPad at home. Some of this is the Logitech Slim Combo case bulks the iPad up to where my 11” MacBook Air is lighter, and iPadOS still presenting a few barriers. All that said, most of the time when I leave the house it is to go to work, where I can’t use personal devices as my primary work computer. I do use my own stuff for supplemental tasks like taking notes. All my work notes end up in OneNote, but I am thinking of going back to just using my iPad and Pencil to take handwritten notes.

At the end of the yearly theme, the winners are: MacBook Pro first; iPad second; and MacBook Air is the third choice. The few times I feel I need both, the Air and iPad will be the first choice.

Writing Apps

The main evaluation I wanted to complete in 2019 was a decision on writing apps. All my other apps are situational, and the task at hand will drive the proper app. Writing, however, is pretty much just pushing the cursor to the right.

The winner at the end of the year is Ulysses and IA Writer. Ulysses iI use for about 95% of my writing, and the odd use case it can’t handle, I will use IA Writer. A blog post I am working on uses tables. Ulysses doesn’t support them, so I will use IA writer for that.

The main requirement I walked away from at the year was my writing tools needed to be flexible between macOS and iOS. This is why Scrivener loses out. The iOS version is not as feature-complete as the macOS version and uses a modal Dropbox sync. Scrivener may be the final step for a long-form publication, but I will not be using it as the main writing apps.

Cloud Storage

This was a challenging evaluation. I waffled between all the major players: OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. My goal was to get to one for the main file storage. I would count iCloud+1 if I only used iCloud for apps that wrote to their own folders, but the bulk of my files were in say, Dropbox. At the end of the year, I ended up just using iCloud. I decided that paying for Dropbox was basically leasing a hard drive, so I moved all of my files to iCloud and uninstalled all of the other cloud providers. I am hoping that later versions of iOS will enable the promised iCloud Drive improvements. This does make syncing files between my MacBooks something I need to make sure happens. I keep the Air closed and plugged in, so sync doesn’t happen in the background. Every now and then I make sure everything syncs up ok.

2020’s Yearly Theme

The Year of Evaluation was a bridge year to my planned 2020 theme: Creativity. My desire was by evaluating tools and processes in 2019, I’d just get it out of my system. So far, it is working well. Creativity is a vague theme that is basically fuck off less. Working on my trains, Tableau, photo editing, etc. all count as creativity. The year is just getting going, but I am feeling great about my progress so far.

  1. And, if I am honest, just the iPhone is enough most times. ↩

A Very Geeky Analysis of 8 Months of Data Collection on Running Trains

I rejoined my model railroad club in 2016. Over those 3 years, I had a feeling I ran certain trains and locomotives more than others. Since I work as an analyst, I decided to do some data collection on this. This post is a geeky analysis of how I collected the data, the results, and the plan for this year.

The Collection Goals

My goals for this exercise were simple: how often did I run specific locomotives and specific trains1. For example, how often did I run my Erie Lackawanna SD45s, and how often did I run my coal train?

Collecting the Data:

In the beginning, I just kept a Numbers file with the following information:

Date Reporting Mark Engines Train Name
4/13/19 EL SD45s Freight
4/13/19 UP WideCabs Freight

It was basic information. The date the train ran, the road name of the engines pulling the train, the specific engines that I ran, and a generic name of the train. The challenge of modeling two eras is I do need to be specific on the locomotives and trains. I can’t run my Erie Lackawanna power on a modern train since the railroad ceased to exist in 1976.

By the end of the year, I realized the information was too basic. In the case of the Union Pacific train, generalizing the locomotives made sense since I only had two UP locomotives. By the end of the year, I had four engines that were era-appropriate. I had to get more specific, but not screw up my count. If I ran the coal train with 4 engines, I wanted to count the train running once, and each of the engines running once, but I didn’t want to count the coal train running four times. So, I couldn’t list each of the locomotives as running a coal train since that would inflate the count.

I also didn’t want to track how many laps around the layout each train ran. I thought about it, but decided there were too many variables. A good example is a train I am making adjustments too at the club. I may make 5 laps with it, but I am adjusting problematic cars. Meanwhile, the train that runs fine may only make one lap. I decided I didn’t care about that data. I also didn’t care often a specific locomotive ran a specific train.

In the end, I ended up with a Numbers spreadsheet with the following data:

Date Reporting Mark Engines Train Name Train Class
12/7/2019 UP SD70ACE UPFRT1 Manifest
12/7/2019 UP ES44AC DPU No count
12/7/2019 CSX SD40-2 DPU No count

This is a single entry for one train running: UPFTR1. I got away from generic names, and now most trains have detailed names. What this entry notes is on 12/7/2019 I ran my UP Freight. Pulling the train were 3 engines (two UP and one CSX). DPU is a railroading term for Distributed Power Unit — typically power that runs mid- or end-of-train. I adopted it to mean any additional power that runs on a train. This means that I can get a single count for running the SD70ACE, the ES44AC, and the SD40, but keeping the count for UPFRT1 as one. Train class is a higher-level designation to see how often I ran a manifest, passenger, etc., train2. A No Count entry just means don’t count the two DPU units as Manifest train. It’s just a value to filter out in the report. As with the train name, I only care about one train class per train name. Now, if I run two different manifest trains with the same power on each, then I want two counts. There is also a count for running locomotives during the club’s operating session, but I didn’t need much specificity on the usage.

There is also a worksheet that lists all of my locomotives and rolling stock. The rolling stock also shows what cars the train is currently assigned to.

Analyzing the Data

I was just using a variety of CountIF statements in Numbers. When the data I collected was basic this worked ok. As I wanted to do a deeper analysis on this the limits of CountIFs became a burden. Adjusting each of the CountIFs as I changed the naming was a pain. Numbers doesn’t really support pivot tables, and even then, I wanted a little more flexibility and ease of use.

Enter Tableau.

I use Tableau at work infrequently as a reporting package. I was rusty and wanted to try and keep sharp on using the tool. Tableau doesn’t support Numbers as a data source, so I moved it into Google Sheets.

Tableau made short work of filtering out the data. I could exclude the No Counts, filter out a few other things. Counting operating sessions became more of an aside.

While I cared more about locomotives and trains, the rolling stock sheet also lets me easily print out a grouped list for when I go to the shows. This way I can reduce the likelihood I buy a duplicate car.

Results of the data

Train Class Run Count
Passenger 25
Manifest 20
Unit 12
Operations 7
Local 5
Steam 2
Grand Total 71

I am not going to get into the specific trains run. Instead, I will just talk about the high-level view: the train class.

That passenger trains were around 30% of the total train types run does not surprise me. There are two reasons for this: they are my favorite type of train to run, and they are the easiest to set up and run. Each of my passenger trains can be stored and transported in one storage bin, locomotives included. If I am only going to be at the club for a short time, or just want something easy to set up, the passenger train is my usual choice.

There are only three trains that I classify as Unit trains (Coal, Grain, and Intermodal), so I was a little surprised to see them count as high as they did. Numbers-wise, it’s a wash on them. I ran the Intermodal 5 times, the coal train 4, and the grain 3. The grain train was the last train I put together, so it being low is unsurprising. After thinking about it, I like the look of passenger trains, and unit trains — where all the cars are the same type — have the same look.

Operations is just a catch-all that I ran units 6 times at the club operating sessions. From a data collection standpoint, it is hard to define. For instance, if I loan out a locomotive, how do I count it? For now, I am just noting a train class of Operations for the entire day, and counting which units I ran at each session.

Collecting Data in 2020.

The main item I am looking forward to in 2020 is getting an entire year’s data. I decided to gather the data in July 2019, and only had verifiable data from February onwards3.

I also decided I am going to collect data on the laps run. I don’t know what it will tell me due to a lot of variables that affect running trains: how long am I at the club; how the layout behaving; and how well my train is running4. I decided at least for 2020 I would collect the data to see if there are trains that make more laps than others. It’s easier to collect that from the start of the year.

Another goal that I am carrying over from 2019 is to not cook the books and run a train just to inflate a run count. I do track the last time I ran a train, so I will use that to run a train I haven’t run in a while. There is one train I haven’t run since July, so that is a candidate for running soon.

I am also tracking car usage. Mostly the date the car ran, the train it ran on, and its current assignment. Since the Google Sheets roster is kept up-to-date, it’s a quick cut and paste when I run a train. I can also capture if a car ran on multiple trains on a single visit.

Admittedly, this was a solution in need of a problem. It started with just ticking off a virtual sheet running a train and a locomotive and ended with a 5-tab Google Sheet fed into a Business Intelligence tool. Two goals were met: I have some data on running trains, and I got better at data collection and analysis.

If you are curious about the data, I posted the Viz here. There is a lot in the Viz I didn’t cover in the post, and the average laps data is obviously only going to be accurate for 2020.

  1. I didn’t really care about how often specific locomotives ran specific trains ↩︎
  2. I made a late-year change to make trains that ran cars of the same type (Coal, Grain, etc.) Unit Trains. ↩︎
  3. I’m not sure I am missing much. Grad School meant I didn’t get to the club much. ↩︎
  4. A poorly running train could require a lot of fixing, and thus more laps for testing. ↩︎

iPad Life: (Almost) Four Years of the iPad Pro

Next February will be four years since I bought the first-generation 12.9” iPad Pro. It’s the first iPad I purchased as mainly a creation, not consumption, device. I wrote about my thoughts on the Pro a year in, and this is a follow-up to that article.

A Privileged, Superfluous, Device

The reality of my iPad Pro usage is if the device died1, I wouldn’t replace it — at least not with another Pro. This is also why I have not invested in a new iPad. I still feel this iPad is enough for me. Four years in, my simple conclusion to the iPad Pro is: it proves valuable enough to my general workflows to justify using it, but not indispensable enough to replace or upgrade it. Not upgrading is an easy conclusion. I don’t feel my 12.9″ is slow, nor is the move to USB-C and the slimmer design a stress point. The device works fine, so it doesn’t need to be upgraded.

My reasons for not replacing will come out through this piece, but while the iPad is a joy to use, and I love creating on it, there really isn’t much I do on the iPad I can’t do on a Mac.

An Alternate Universe, In Which I Bought a MacBook, Instead of the 11” Air

In February 2015 I bought my 11” Air. In March, Apple announced the 12” MacBook for an April ship date. If the series of technical failures that resulted in the purchase of the Air occurred 2 months later, I would have bought the 12” instead of the 11”. Mainly, for the retina screen. The reason I got the 11” was for maximum portability, and the 12” would fit that use case.

If that happened, I am not sure I would have bought the iPad Pro, or my 15” Pro. The MacBook would be an ideal mobile creation tool. If I did get the iPad Pro, I doubt I would also have bought the Smart Keyboard, and instead just used the Pencil for note-taking and drawing, and bring the MacBook for writing.

The minimalist in me wants one device to rule them all. Having an iPad and MacBooks Air and Pro is, at times, excessive. I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to mentally resolve this with no real outcome, other than to maintain the status quo.

The Ideal Mobile Creation Device

My main creative output is: writing, editing photos, and light drawing/note taking. My ideal mobile writing tool prior to the iPad Pro (IPP) was my 11″ MacBook Air. That little laptop still kicks ass, and will the subject of a future article. While the IPP is larger (and thicker, when in its keyboard case) than the Air, the spirit of a mobile platform to write on is also present in the iPad. If I want leave the house and just write, most often the iPad will be that device.

All mobile solutions for an iPad need to remember the iPad is first and foremost a touch device that can be used in a multitude of angles and positions. Jamming the tablet into a contraption like the Brydge keyboard gets away from the pure form of the tablet. While a keyboard is essential for quick and accurate typing, I also feel it should take just a quick tug to convert it back to a tablet. I have the Logitech (not-so) Slim Keyboard, and while the back of the tablet is encased in silicon, the smart keyboard is quickly detachable. I prefer the old Smart Keyboard Cover, but Apple doesn’t make them for the original 12.9 any more, and I had reliability problems with them at any rate.

In the extreme digital minimalist situation, my Computer in the Woods would be a device running Procreate, Ulysses, and Affinity Photo. Those three apps are critical to my creative process; everything else is a distraction. I have thought about doing this, too. In fits of pique where I feel I am just not advancing my creative goals, I think of wiping my devices down to those applications. It’s an ascetic form of minimalism, to be sure.

The Pencil, and the Myth of Drawing

In the original review, I commented:

What pushed me over the line was a strong desire to get back into drawing, and rather than spend the cash on a really good drawing tablet, I could get the iPad Pro and a Pencil. There are plenty of apps that let you draw on the iPad. I wanted the freedom of movement the iPad offered.

I haven’t done enough drawing to justify the iPad. I do use the Pencil for taking notes in meetings, but my drawing is limited to just doodling. It is clear to me that over the last four years, my unwillingness to draw overtakes the desire to do anything about it. I have no solutions to this, other than an observation that clearly drawing isn’t the priority I hoped it would be.

iPad Only, and Why I Can’t

Ergonomics, and side issues like needing to work from home via our remote desktop system, I could suffice with the iPad as my only device. It would be a lean existence, with no games I like to play. There are rare times I need to print, and my printer isn’t AirPrint compatible. I do have a Alienware Alpha that is my file and media server. I could offload gaming and printing to that. Right now though, nothing technology-related needs to change, so I am not expending much effort on that.

Edge cases and side issues are only outliers until they become the task you need to do right then. At that point the inability do to those isn’t quaint; it’s a roadblock. The iPad is the least flexible of my devices. Let’s imagine a world in which the iPad is my only non-phone device. If I know in advance I am going to work from home, I can bring my work laptop home2. But, on unplanned days off, the inability to effectively use Horizon View on my iPad is a deal breaker. Sure, there is an app, but tasks like right-clicking are a pain in the ass. I would not want to work a full 8-plus hour day off the iPad app.

Also, no one I know that is “iPad-only” is 100% on the iPad. Federico Viticci still uses a Mac to record podcasts.3 Matt Gemmell uses Scrivener to create the final PDFs for his paperback books. Edge cases, again, until they are needed.

Doing a week to 30-day iPad-only challenge would likely be possible. At the least it would let me assess what is important and what is not.

The Challenges of iPad Productivity

In MacPower Users #512, David Sparks confessed he bought a 16” MacBook Pro. Now, granted, David has pretty much no self-control when it comes to tech, but his reasoning was solid: the iPad is a great laptop-alternative, until it’s not. He was going on a trip he needed to do some heavy Excel work, and the iOS version of Excel was not fit for this purpose.

The iPad has come a long way since its inception in 2010, but not far enough since the release of the Pro. Some of this is to be expected. The initial Pro was a solution in search of a problem. The OS and apps took a while to adjust to the idea of Pro use cases. Ulysses was always a capable iPad app, but apps like Ferrite really showed that you could use an iPad for previously Mac-only tasks, like podcast editing.

iOS now is more capable of heavy tasks. The Files app in iOS 13 is close to a Finder-level app on iOS. We can finally access the On my iPad storage as a local storage device. Previously, that area was hidden away for app usage only. We can connect external storage, and connect to servers. Where it falls apart still is accessing (and editing) Cloud-files when not connected to a network. On the Mac, your Dropbox and iCloud Drive files can be set to keep a local copy. You can’t do that on the iPad. A future release of iOS will let you pin a folder for offline use, but for now you need to make sure files you want to edit are stored offline before hitting the road.

Another challenge is app developers. The developers of Ulysses, Ferrite, and the Affinity apps treat the iPad a first-class citizen. The majority of other apps (Scrivener, Microsoft Office, AutoCad) treat the iPad as secondary device. The unspoken thought is: that iPad is fine for doing some light work and editing, but to do the heavy lifting you will still want to use a Mac.

The Trickle-down Effect of the Pro

One area I think the iPad Pro was successful at is beginning the sea change that iPads are capable creation devices. Now, previously Pro features like the Pencil and Smart Keyboard are available on almost every iPad (the ASK can’t work on the Mini). This means for less than the price of a Pro iPad, you can get a regular-sized iPad, a Pencil, and the Smart Keyboard. A year ago, my iPad Pro dying would likely end up with me abandoning the iPad. Getting a Pro, a new Pencil, and a new Keyboard case would run me more than just getting a MacBook Pro. I wouldn’t replace it as a productivity device. I would just go back to writing on my MacBook Air or Pro. I would feel comfortable spending $1700 on an iPad solution if it could truly become my only device. When it’s a secondary device, not so much. When I priced out a 10.5” Air, with a new Smart Keyboard, it was $800 since I can use my existing Pencil. That is easier to justify, since I do use the Pencil a fair amount.

 

  1. I dropped it on a hard floor right as I typed that. Sometimes you do tempt fate. ↩
  2. I am NOT dragging that thing home every night. ↩
  3. Federico does have an iPad recording setup, but I don’t know if he uses it all the time. ↩

I Am a Model Railroader, Like My Father Before Me

Kids and trains, man, they’re like kids and dinosaurs.

My father was an avid model railroader and built a sprawling empire in the basement of our home. Trains in some form were a constant in my life as long as I can remember. I have memories of standing by train tracks in all sorts of weather waiting to see one; me running his trains too fast on his home layout. “Faster, Daddy, Faster,” I would shout as a five-year old.

Dad grew up on the Erie Lackawanna main line in New York. He modeled that railroad for nostalgia purposes, I imagine. When I got into the hobby as a young adult, I also favored the Erie Lackawanna. I’m not sure why I did. It would be on brand for me to model the more modern railroads with the wide cab locomotives and double-stack container trains, as well as to buck my dad’s influence. Maybe it was as simple as I liked the paint scheme and wanted to be able to borrow his trains to run with mine. We were both members of the North Shore Model Railroad club, and enjoyed running our trains on the massive layout. Life got in the way and we had to resign our membership 20 years ago.

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009. In 2011 he succumbed.

During the years he was fighting the disease he wanted to build a small switching layout in a spare bedroom. He bought some locomotives and rolling stock, replacing what he didn’t want any more from the earlier layout. I also never got rid of my collection. It sat in Rubbermaid bins for almost 20 years following me from apartment to apartment and to my current house. After he died, his Rubbermaid bins sat next to mine. It was a crowded closet.

Three years ago I was feeling creatively restless. I was still in contact with my friend Jeff and we had tried forming a few bands to keep in music. He was still a member of the North Shore train club and I decided to rejoin the club. I was struggling with writing and drawing as creative outlets. Working on trains felt like a way to be creative but engaging a different part of my brain.

This is when I became thankful that I modeled the same railroad as Dad. It was easy to mix-and-match the trains. At first I tried to keep the collections separate and sometimes just run Dad’s trains. About a year ago, I merged the train collections fully. I store complete trains sets in plastic bins to run at the club. One bin is mostly Dad’s trains with a handful of mine mixed in. It wasn’t intentional; it just worked out that a lot of his cars looked good together. I was up at the club Father’s Day weekend. I didn’t give it much thought as I grabbed “Dad’s Bin” on the way out the door. It was more a case of thinking, I haven’t run those cars in a while. I wonder if everything is adjusted properly? During a pass on the layout it hit me: These are Dad’s cars, and it is Father’s Day. I had a tear in my eye, but a smile on my face. I felt his presence strongly, happy that his trains were being run.

Working with trains still helps me feel close to my Dad. It would be the same even if I modeled a different railroad, or a different era1. I know the reason he wanted to build a model railroad was his way of fighting the disease. He was still active in the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society’s mailing list and would ask questions about the layout he had in mind.

This past weekend, a lot of my feelings about Dad, trains, and his influence on me all came to a head. We held the annual open house for my train club. It is one of the few times a year we are truly open to the public and it’s the model railroader’s version of a fancy dress ball. A lot of members bring out their best trains — the trains that a lot of work and effort went into. I ran a train that had one of Dad’s locomotives and a baggage car he had been working on. My claustrophobia tends to act up during the show when the small aisles of the layout get crowded, so I usually stay in the back working one of the staging yards to help members get trains on, and off, the layout. I was at my post when I saw Dad’s train go by. I mentioned to the gentleman running the train it was mine, and it turns out he had also grown up on the Lackawanna main line. He mentioned the train was getting a lot of nice compliments as he ran it.

On a later pass I mentioned how the engine and the car were Dad’s and how he bought the engine when he was sick hoping he would be able to run it before he died. He never got the chance. My new friend mentioned that he was sure Dad would be smiling right now seeing it run. I told him I knew he was.

On the second day of the show, I brought one of Dad’s favorite engines — a brass Erie Berkshire — with the hopes of running during the open house. Sadly, the steam engine and a key turnout on the layout didn’t get along so I didn’t run it during the event. At the end of the day, when I had the layout to myself, I ran it around the layout with a cut of cars that were all Dad’s. This is the one train I haven’t cross populated with any of my stuff. The label on the bin just says 1950, the name I gave the train, but it’s really Dad’s Train.

I don’t run that train often. The story I was telling myself is the engine is older than I am. That one day it will stop running and why hasten it? But, I can fix it if that happens. Running it this time, I knew why I don’t run that train often: that is the train that Dad should be running. Running his new engine and the baggage car, I can celebrate his spirit and optimism in trying to defeat a terminal illness.

Running the Erie Berkshire, though, I feel his absence.

  1. I also model the modern day Union Pacific, but the bulk of my collection is 1970s-era Erie Lackawanna. ↩