Calca is one of my favorite calculators for iOS, Mac, and Windows. Calca for iOS just updated with function graphing. Just like the desktop versions (see this link for more info), the graphs on iOS are pretty and functional. Calca is like the Markdown of math. I just type notes, numbers and equations. Calca does the hard stuff. The iOS version is currently free but has a new patronage option through in-app purchase.

Finally, A.I. is doing some real work. Computer science researchers from the University of Rochester have developed an app for health departments that uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to identify food poisoning-related tweets, connect them to restaurants using geotagging and identify likely hot spots. A secondary benefit is that you’ll also know exactly where a Chipotle is without opening Yelp or Foursquare. In all seriousness, I’d love to see either of those services adopt this sort of metric.

From Serenity Caldwell, comes this beautifully drawn review of the Apple Pencil. We have an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil. In my opinion, the best thing about the iPad Pro is the Pencil. It’s a wonderful device for creating art. I love to doodle and fiddle with the Pencil. It’s also where my daughter prefers to practice spelling. Maybe it’s the novelty, but I’m all for any device that makes homework more fun.

Slate has an interesting, if somewhat overly dramatic, take on recent psychology studies about Ego Depletion: But that story is about to change. A paper now in press, and due to publish next month in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, describes a massive effort to reproduce the main effect that underlies this work. Comprising more than 2,000 subjects tested at two-dozen different labs on several continents, the study found exactly nothing.

Kieran Healy created a really interesting analogy to the wealth gap in the US: So, what if the space on the plane was allocated in proportion to the share of total income earned by each class? With a bit of help from the Census Bureau, Emmanuel Saez, and the Federal Aviation Authority, Air Gini is proud to bring you the future of air travel

On my Mac, I’m a pretty big fan of Napkin and Acorn for annotating, cropping, and redacting images. They have all of the tools in one place and they all work well together. Napkin is easy to use but Acorn has real layers and loads more control. While there’s a wealth of options on the Mac for image annotation, there are very few complete options on iOS. PointOut is wonderful for creating magnifier callouts but not much else.

Synology’s DSM 6 has reached “RC” status. Now’s probably an OK time to consider it. Try at your own risk, but I’m envious if you do.

As I balance the black-plague of subscription services I pay for each year, a few things are never a contention. Fastmail is one of the darlings of my subscription services. It’s a solid email provider and it’s constantly being improved. Today Fastmail greatly improved the mail rules for advanced customers. Previously, creating a custom Sieve rule meant permanently abandoning the convenient rule wizard. Now Sieve scripts can sit alongside basic rules.

The next version of Alfred for Mac will expand the options for custom filters and improve the clipboard and snippet manager. Sounds great to me.

A nice little blog by a nice little guy: Soon, I was also adding brief summaries of my days. Then I was capturing ideas and even, perish the thought, writing about my feelings. Without noticing it, I had finally picked up journaling. That describes so many of my habits, including this blog. Start small and build step by step. Don’t make it life commitment, just make it a small habit.