Tonic

Ugh. Facebook.

There's a lot of us out there. Those strange, backward people who refuse to use Facebook or Instagram. Ads? algorithms? influencers!? ick!

Unfortunately, those of us who prefer to stay signed-out of such social media platforms often find ourselves attempting to access a business Facebook page, or some Instagram post that a well-intentioned friend found amusing. In such cases, we're bombarded by nagging login prompts, blocking the content and barring our way.

As it says in the scriptures:

Better to dwell in the wilderness than with a quarrelsome and nagging website.
— Broverbs 21:19
A nagging app is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm.
— Broverbs 27:15

So, I built a free Safari extension to help Facebook and Instagram find some chill.

Tonic hides all login popups and nags from Facebook and Instagram. It let's you see the content, without the pestering attempts to produce a new account sign-up.

Tonic is MacOS only for now. It's mostly working on iOS too (there's some lingering difficulty with getting Instagram to play nicely), so let me know if that would be useful to you.

If you find Tonic helpful, please share it on, and leave an App Store review.

Download Tonic free on the Mac App Store

Prompt

I believe AI is a multiplier. AI tools multiply:

  • The quality of the work
  • The speed at which the work can be done
  • The competency of the operator

But! You can only pick two.


Speed + Quality

If you are already very competent at producing the work on your own, you can leverage AI to increase the speed of your work while maintaining a high standard of quality. It won't make you any better at what you do, but it will reduce the time you spend doing it.

Speed + Competency

You can use AI to quickly spin up a prototype version of the work. The results will be messy, but if you pay attention you might just pick up a thing or two about how the work gets done.

Quality + Competency

You can add AI steps to your workflow that will increase the quality of your work. You can learn from what the AI produces so that, in time, you'll get better at producing the work yourself.


Your choice will be reflected in your prompt.

For Speed + Quality use "for me" language. Command an action, usually a starting point request. This sounds like:

Scaffold a [work].
Suggest an outline for [work].
Setup a boilerplate [work].

For Speed + Competency use "together" language. Ask for a complete solution, along with the explanation. This sounds like:

Let's create a [work] together, step by step.
How can we fix [work]?
What's the best way for us to create a [work]?

For Quality + Competency use "my" language. Ask for suggested edits or changes, explicitly requesting them as dot points. This sounds like:

Does my [work] match the requirements?
Suggest changes to my [work].
How could I improve my [work]?

Consider carefully the kind of work you're creating, and why you're creating it. Are you trying to become a better writer? coder? thinker? Maybe you're just trying to quickly prove an idea, or hoping to get the work done faster. Once you know, choose an approach, and prompt accordingly.

Non-Standard

Pursuant to my previous post regarding the en dash (wherein I beseech readers to consider British style selections for the dash parenthetical), I further propose the adoption of a little non-standard grammar to more plainly distinguish human writing from that which was contrived by large language models.

I'm not suggesting we simply make up new rules! However, we might consider leaning a little on historical precedent.

I've been reading Sense and Sensibility, where I've become smitten by Austen's use of run-on sentences which employ a lowercase letter after a terminal punctuation mark. You'll often find this follows a mid-sentence interrogative. "Would it be distracting? or merely a charming affectation?" Sometimes, after a mid-sentence exclamation. "Distracting? certainly not! if anything, it's more conversational."

Please don't mistake this as a step in the direction of sam altman's all-lowercase tweet style. Nor need we go so far as Laurence Sterne's exhausting run-on sentences ; full of spaced semicolons ; like an ADHD child with a sugar high talking about dinosaurs ; have you ever heard of a Megalodon?

This 19th century callback might just serve as a quiet reminder that there are still pockets of the internet which are written by real people. Who doesn't love a little "non-standard" literary disobedience, anyway? nothing wrong with bending a few rules.

En Dash

Very important announcement.

I've been using the em dash wrong. On this blog, ranges will now be correctly represented by an en dash. 0–9, 1987–2025, א–ת.

Additionally, I'd like to invite readers to join me in adopting the Guardian / Economist style of using spaced en dashes for asides – just like this.

Of course, I'm predisposed to a more British format. But the reason you should consider switching styles is because the un-spaced em dash aside has become a classic telltale marker of AI generated writing.

Standout from the crowd! Make a political statement! Support human creativity! Use an en dash!

While we're on the topic of punctuation, I'm very excited about 2026 being the year of the ellipsis! The unicode character "U+2026" is the Horizontal Ellipsis, and it's one of my favourite characters. This will replace the pitiful U+2025 incumbent – the so-called "two dot leader" (‥).

Did you know that you can type an ellipsis using the Option+; shortcut? Try it out! No more three-character "dot dot dot". Just think of the storage efficiency!

Multiplier

I've been trying to reconcile the way I feel about AI. (It's been a hot topic on Async recently.)

On the one hand, I see so much shitty code submitted to the WordPress plugin repo. It's easy to see how AI is making things way worse for the web – in terms of security, homogenisation, and long-term maintainability. There are legitimate concerns about loss of craft, content scraping, and enshittification.

On the other hand, I use AI for help every time I write code! It's a far cry from vIbE cOdInG, but it's unlocked possibilities in ways I never thought possible. ChatGPT has, undoubtedly, made me a better developer! Writers like Joshua Wold use AI to line-edit finished pieces, and learn a lot about writing better prose in the process. I even use AI writing this blog for things like "what's that word…?" and rubber ducking.

I've got the ChatGPT shortcut under my fingers, and I often find myself instinctively invoking it. I worry about the long-term effects that might have on my brain, as I reflexively hand off hard thinking. I worry about the long-term effects that might have on all our brains.

My current mental model is that AI is a sliding scale multiplier. The slider shifts based on the operator's effort.

              Operator Effort
<------ low  ------ mid  ------ high ------>
<------ 0.5x ------ 0.9x ------ 3.0x ------>
                 AI Impact

AI will impact the quality of our work, our working knowledge, and our skill. If I allow AI to complete tasks without any struggle or oversight, the result will be worse, and over time, my skill will degrade.

But if I employ AI as a true "copilot" – an assistant who can step in to help when I really need it – I unlock opportunities to improve, and to try new things I wouldn't otherwise have the confidence to attempt.

Teachers talk endlessly about "Digital Literacy" and "21st Century" competencies. That was important 20 years ago, but is no longer relevant. Today's school students have been "native digital citizens" since before their fifth birthday. It's time for a change. We're in dire need of understanding how AI influences thinking and learning, so that we can embed AI Literacy in our curricula.

It's been a busy May

I started out the year (or rather, finished last year) with the goal of writing, and publishing, regularly.

I have been writing. A lot! Publishing, less so.

I've recently dropped some big commitments that will allow me a little more time to write and reflect on this blog a little more often.

I'm going to experiment with taking a break from adding audio episodes to each post. You can continue to catch me on Async, Crossword, and Pirate School.

Port Said

Listen to this post

I have a deeply personal post I need to write, but it won't make sense without the context. So I'm going to break it up into multiple parts. They might seem disconnected to begin with.

This is part two. Part one is here.

On the 22nd of September, 1949, Ronaldo Fabri got on a boat, leaving behind a country on the brink of revolution.

Egypt in 1949 was a country with a long history and fresh wounds. The second World War had ended just four years earlier. One year ago, Egypt and her allies had lost an all-out war against Israel in a humiliating defeat. The Muslim Brotherhood had grown into a powerful political force. Anti-British sentiment was surging.

By this time, Egypt had undergone many waves of colonisation. The native people of Egypt, the Copts, had been ruled by invaders from Meshwesh, Nubia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Arabia, Turkey, and Britain. Now, it seemed, the Arab colonisers wanted Egypt back.

But Ron wasn't thinking about any of that as he watched the busy streets of Cairo drift into the distance. It was a perfect day– 74° and clear, open skies.1 Sunlight reflected off the Mediterranean, interrupted by the fishing dive of a Caspian Tern. The warm, salty air was filled with the splash of oars, circling gulls, and the huffs of the Arab man hired to row their small wooden boat. Ron was with his father, and their luggage was weighing them worryingly down. They had just said a final goodbye to the wooden quay of Port Said, and the country they had called home for generations.

Ron had been born 17 years earlier, in Alexandria. It was a bustling, cosmopolitan port city, full of Greeks, Italians, French, Jews, Armenians, Syrians, British, and Arab Egyptians. The city’s architecture reflected this mix: grand Belle Époque mansions, colonial clubs, Ottoman villas, and dusty souks sat together along the boulevards. At home, Ron's family spoke their native Italian, and he went to a French school, where he learned to speak fluent English.

The small wooden launch carrying Ron and his father now bumped gently against the gangway ramp of the Continental, a grand passenger ship anchored offshore. The two men climbed aboard, leaving their luggage to be winched up after them. Three passenger decks and a huge smokestack towered above.2

Intellectually, Ron knew that it was far too dangerous to stay in Egypt. Arab sentiment towards Europeans and Jews had taken a sharp turn. Revolution seemed inevitable. Ron's mother had already departed for England with his older brother, Edwin. Ron had different plans. He was to seek work in the farthest corner of the world: Australia. Should things work out well, he would send word to the Italian consulate in London, where Edwin would regularly visit in hope of news from Down Under.

The Continental would arrive in Sydney one month later. Ron would be offered a job the moment he stepped off the boat. He would soon send word to Edwin. Eight years later the Fabri family was reunited. They settled in Melbourne.

In 1958, a year after his mother and brother's arrival in Australia, Ron would marry Giuseppina Di Stefano (Pina for short). They moved to a small house in Caulfield, and in 1960, welcomed their first child into the world. They wanted to name her Maria-Louisa, but the priest deemed that name too foreign, so they chose Marie-Louise Victoria Fabri instead.

Marie-Louise, or Marlou for short, is my mother.

Why I believe in ghosts

Listen to this post

I have a deeply personal post I need to write, but it won't make sense without the context. So I'm going to break it up into multiple parts. They might seem disconnected to begin with.

This is part one.

In 2009, Talia and I went on a Contiki tour of Europe. Despite being the only married couple (we were only 22!) on a Contiki tour, we managed to have a great time touring Europe without getting too sloshed along the way. I even set the Contiki record for the number of double-scoop gelati eaten in a single, beautiful, Venetian day.

One of our stops was a little more sombre. Mauthausen.

Mauthausen was one of the cruelest of the Nazi concentration camps. Operating from 1938 to 1945 (when it was liberated by the Americans), the camp was notorious for its harsh living conditions, brutal treatment of prisoners, and the sadistic "Arrow Cross" guards. After about 2 hours drive north from Vienna, our tour group was expecting a sombre day. The group arrived, and lead by a tour guide, surveyed the camp learning about its various functions. Everyone was appropriately gloomy.

But something different happened for me.

The moment I walked into the camp, before even seeing a single plaque, room, or photograph, a heavy presence settled over me. I began crying uncontrollably. For the entire tour, I followed behind the group at a distance, barely hearing a word from our guide, just sobbing. It's hard to describe the sensation. It was like a weight was hooked to my soul. It was a sudden-onset desperate grief.

The moment I left the camp, the depression lifted. I stopped crying almost as suddenly as I started. I was on the bus again, confused, trying to describe the experience to Talia. What just happened? Was that normal? I wouldn't stop thinking about it for days.

But eventually, of course, I did. The whole incident became a wasn't that strange? story which we recalled a few times over the years. Almost forgotten.

Until last week.

Mullumbimby

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We're spending the last days of pesach in Mullumbimby. There's an amazing Jewish community here, full of young families and friendly faces. The Rabbi was kind enough to let us park our caravan in the yard of the shul, so we'll be very close to services over the next two days.

This morning I was up early with Zohar and we went for a 6am walk down Burringbar Street, which is the main street of the town.

The people here are so friendly. Every person I passed, without exception, said good morning. Most stopped to chat a little longer. The street was full of smiles and people going about their morning routines in a relaxed manner. We saw people stopping in the street for a hug, cars stop in the middle of the road to wave to friends, and a busker with bunny-ears improvising a song about the easter bunny. A dog-walker saw Zohar waving to his puppies, so he crossed the street to say hello (and let Zohar have a little pat). We talked for a good five minutes about how great dogs are at helping children process complex emotions.

Mullumbimby is also a very difficult place for me to be.

Not only does Mullumbimby have a huge Jewish and Israeli population (we even encountered a couple chatting in Hebrew at 6:30), but it's also a very hippy town. Posters are plastered on muralled walls for Grief Dancing, Integrative Healing, Zenthai Bodywork, Face Yoga, Soul Healers, and Transpersonal Reiki. The streets are full of loose clothing, beaded jewellery, dreadlocks, and dream catchers.

A couple of years ago, this would really have been my speed. But since the conflict in Gaza, the progressive narrative has been infected with a pro-terror mind virus that you just can't escape. The Australian Greens are actively hostile toward the Jewish Community. And here in Mullumbimby, I can't help but wonder whether people would be so friendly if I took my cap off to reveal my kippah. How many Mullum hippies harbour resentment toward the native homeland of the Jews? How many have chanted "from the river to the sea"?

At the community Passover seder (back home on the Sunshine Coast), I was chatting with a woman who has close ties to the Liberal party (Australia's mainstream conservative party). We've debated progressive vs. conservative policies before, with me always on the progressive side. But seeing her at Passover, I told her that even though deep down in my heart I'm still a progressive, there's no way I could vote for anyone but the Liberals this year.

The Farmer's Markets we attended this morning had a strong Greens party representation, and even a "Friends of Palestine" booth. But the one thing stood really shocked and angered me was a man wearing a dual-flag badge: the Aboriginal flag alongside the Palestinian flag. I consider myself a supporter of Indigenous issues and Aboriginal ownership of our lands. I teach my children that we live in Gubbi Gubbi country. I feel like Jews and Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander people share a spiritual connection to their homelands. That we understand each other in that small way. Why does that have to be linked to the Pro-Palestinian movement, politically tearing support away from Jews?

I have Jewish family in Mullumbimby. They said that the antisemitic ones are only a loud minority. Most people are supportive of the Israeli's living here, if not of Israel directly. There's been a lot of quiet words of acknowledgement and support. I hope that's true.

I guess we'll find out at the Federal Election in a few weeks. Labour and the Greens have moved radically to the left. Has the rest of the population gone along with them?

Offline

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When was the last time you were offline?

Like, really offline. Not just signed out of Slack. Not Do Not Disturb. Not even airplane mode. I'm talking phone entirely off for a good 24 hours. Stay at home, with no internet, and no screens.

It's a forcing function for your mental health.

I challenge you to try it. Once a week, or once a month, or once a year. Some sort of schedule helps set the right expectations with friends and family.

Just think of all the things you could do with 24 hours of screen-free time.

  • Write a letter
  • Read a book
  • Take a nap
  • Play some music
  • Write a song
  • Do yoga
  • Write a poem
  • Memorise something
  • Take a nap
  • Draw a bath
  • Make a cocktail
  • Think deeply
  • Journal
  • Go for a walk
  • Talk to your neighbours
  • Bake a cake
  • Light a candle
  • Meditate
  • Take a nap
  • Play some boardgames
  • Be intimate with your partner
  • Paint
  • Savour the flavour in a glass of wine
  • Play hide and seek with your kids
  • Spend time in the garden
  • Take a nap
  • Birdwatch
  • Listen to a record all the way through
  • Stargaze
  • Sketch
  • Swim
  • Stretch!
  • Cook a fancy date-night dinner
  • Totem tennis
  • Origami
  • Practice a magic trick
  • Sew
  • Upcycle (DI-Why?)
  • Roast marshmallows over a fire
  • Dream up some travel plans
  • Go backyard camping
  • Take a nap

No news. No plans. No chores. Just time at home, dedicated especially to you.