Mark Allen

Mark Allen

@markallen.io

Making software that helps people be healthier. Looking forward to getting back to riding my bike stupid long distances once I finish treatment for cancer this year.🤞Based in Toronto. https://markallen.io

131 followers149 following564 posts

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Watching this in 1993 was a foundational moment for me. Also Neil was the coolest old person I had ever seen. I just checked and I am the same age he was in this video. ☠️ youtu.be/kQlTPXvOtoE?...

youtu.bePEARL JAM and NEIL YOUNG "Rockin' In The Free World" live at MTV 1993YouTube video by Calle Underground
billboard@billboard.com

Neil Young Hits Trump With $10M Lawsuit for Playing ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at Rally — Again

bit.lyNeil Young Hits Trump With $10M Lawsuit for Playing ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at Rally — AgainNeil Young is suing Donald Trump for playing his song “Rockin’ in the Free World’ without a license at a recent rally for the midterm elections.
Mark Allen
@markallen.io

All my preferred candidates in the Toronto elections won, and all the candidates of my 75 year old neighbourhood nemesis lost. It's a good night.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

If I can vent for just a moment: It's infuriating to do everything you can to push through 12 rounds of chemo over 6 months to prep for surgery to remove your cancer, then be told that they'd like to do some more scans and will call you WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH to schedule them.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

In the meantime, you get more rounds of chemo as a treat. I've been very patient and optimistic up until now, but I'm so ready to be done with this. (I'm mostly posting this to give the universe an opportunity to make a fool of me by having the office call tomorrow and schedule everything.)

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

While I'm complaining about cancer stuff, let me also express thanks that voice dictation software and agentic computer operation have gotten good enough to rely on them as chemo-induced neuropathy in my hands reduces my typing speed and accuracy. If only AI could do something about the hair loss…

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Working with Claude Code while any Star Trek TNG episode I want plays in the background on a giant TV honestly feels like everything I wanted the future to be when I was a kid.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I propose a wealth tax on one specific individual, which keeps rising every day until he moves out of the city.

Shawn Micallef@shawnmicallef.bsky.social

I see the Shopify guy has ginned up some homo-hate on the other site w his post about a a Toronto safe streets ad that used w two ostensibly gay dads walking their child. What a fucking hateful destructive menace. Just enjoy your money asshole.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Don’t want to spoil anything, but if you’ve always wanted three hours of tight shots of Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes’s pores, you are in for a treat.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Rewatched the gas station episode of Nathan For You after watching You Can See Everything, I'd love to hear Elizabeth Holmes's commentary of that episode.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

First, I'm proof that you can ride over 10,000 km/year and not know anything about urban planning. Second, how on earth is a series of disconnected trails that run through predominantly north-south ravines supposed to replace the east-west bike lanes being removed? Third, Bradford can kick rocks.

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com

"Look, nobody rides more bikes than I do. I rode 10,000 kilometres last year," brags Bradford. He says he's "the only candidate that has a plan to build new cycling infrastructure — we're just going to do it in our ravine network."

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

This post really reinforces how much the AI Haters block list improves the Bluesky experience. I'm not a fan of blocking people, but the anti-AI people are so miserable and generally uninformed that they ruin the ability to even have a conversation about AI here.

Internet Archive@archive.org

An update from Brewster Kahle on today's outage.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Canceling my Stratechery subscription, probably my oldest written word subscription. The Stripe ads aren’t the deal breaker, but it made me realize it’s been years since I got value from Ben’s content. Also the last thing I need is more Andrew Sharp not understanding anything about technology.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Awesome, very much looking forward to looking out for cars killing me from above instead of the old boring ways like plowing into me from behind, sideswiping me, or just crashing into me head on.

Yahoo Finance@yahoofinance.com

"Flying cars are real!" 🚀 Elon Musk and Tesla showcase the new Roadster.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Also just to be clear, in no way do I believe this feature will ever exist in a Tesla consumers can buy. This is just another PT Barnum-style trick to get attention for a flailing car company.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

One surprising takeaway for me from the book Apple in China were the concepts of “rule of law” vs “rule by law.”

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social

BREAKING WaPo: Trump officials scrutinized Rep. Ilhan Omar in 2019. They didn't find citizenship issues. 
The earlier review of Omar's immigration records looked at many of the same issues being investigated now.

washingtonpost.comTrump officials scrutinized Omar in 2019. They didn’t find citizenship issues.The earlier review of Omar’s immigration records looked at many of the same issues being investigated now.
Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Under rule of law, the law constrains the government, protecting citizens from arbitrary power. Under rule by law, the government uses the law as an instrument of power, without necessarily being bound by it.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

The US and other western democracies have traditionally been “rule of law” countries, while China and authoritarian states are “rule by law.” The US is obviously sliding into a “rule by law” country, which seems like a hard thing to reverse even when the political party in power changes.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Every waiting room I have been in the past year has had a boomer watching Facebook videos with the sound all the way up. It’s a plague on society.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

As a software maker, it was humbling to watch a team of three nurses try to show a fourth how a screen in Epic had a new “select all” button for a table and what a time saver it was going to be. This conversation lasted several minutes, and I’m pretty sure the nurse will not find that button again.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

In the last week I've voted for the mayor of Toronto and a senator for Texas. I think more countries should give me voting rights, I'm very good at it.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

This is the same guy who, when Louis CK was trying to rehab his image with a self-released standup special, spent more time writing about how the video supported AirPlay than asking if we should be giving Louis attention. A strong moral compass was never part of the Daring Fireball brand.

John Gruber@gruber.foo

I'm sure this one won't make anyone angry.

daringfireball.netX Once Again Marks the SpotIf you returned from exile on a desert island and took a look at X today for first time in a year, you might reasonably guess that Elon Musk got bored and sold it while you were away.
Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Also his takes outside of the narrowly defined space of Apple products are almost universally bad. His LLM watermarking ones being the most recent example.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Gruber (and all of us) would be well-served by applying Sartre's "eye of the least favoured" test here, at least as a thought exercise. Is X really a better place now for marginalized people than it was pre-Elon? If not, should you be there? bsky.app/profile/mark...

Mark Allen@markallen.io

I learned about this concept in Sarah Bakewell’s excellent book At the Existentialist Café. Her interpretation:

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Add this to the "AI can be good, actually" pile of evidence: My grandfather served in the US Navy during WWII. He never saw combat, but still never talked about the war with his children or grandchildren.

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Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I shared this with my family, and it sparked a day of discussion and remembrance. My siblings and their children had never seen the letters, so it was a great way for them to connect with their grandfather in a new way.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Could I have made this without AI? Sure, but it would have taken enough time that I've literally put it off for a few decades now. The value I got out by investing 10 minutes prompting Claude about what I wanted was off the charts. And there are infinite examples of people doing things like this.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Add this to the "AI can be good, actually" pile of evidence: My grandfather served in the US Navy during WWII. He never saw combat, but still never talked about the war with his children or grandchildren.

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Mark Allen
@markallen.io

These letters and photos are the only record of this part of his life, and helped me understand how he became the person I knew 50 years later. He passed away three years after writing them, and when I shared the letters with my dad and uncle, they were moved by them as well.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Add this to the "AI can be good, actually" pile of evidence: My grandfather served in the US Navy during WWII. He never saw combat, but still never talked about the war with his children or grandchildren.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

In 1997, I spent a few months in Green River, Wyoming. Turns out that my small-town grandfather passed through there on his way to the west coast during his training. He started writing me letters about the 10 hours he spent in Green River, and then started writing about his entire Navy experience.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Last night I woke up at 4:30 and placed four books about transoceanic rowing on hold at the library before going back to sleep. Apparently that’s how bad my adventure wanderlust is getting.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I've watched quite a few YouTube videos about transoceanic rowing this week, and now I can safely say that shit is not for the likes of me. Waaaaaaaaay too dangerous for this landlubber!

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

My wife was the poll worker, I'm honestly kind of jealous that she got a shout-out from my neighbourhood's most prominent bike blogger. Jun has a great choice in candidates as well!

Jun Nogami@jnyyz.bsky.social

Did our civic duty by voting in tandem by tandem. BTW the poll worker said that lots of cyclists are showing up to vote. @dianachanmcnally.bsky.social @mayoroliviachow.ca

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I was annoyed that this week Oura removed the web-based export tool that generated a CSV of your data (an essential piece of my cancer journey tracking), then remembered that it’s never been easier to build CLI utilities. 15 minutes later my data was flowing again. github.com/marktron/our...

github.comGitHub - marktron/oura-sync: Pull your data from Oura's API into a CSV file, similar to the old web export tool.Pull your data from Oura's API into a CSV file, similar to the old web export tool. - marktron/oura-sync
Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I've seen so many people (all boomers) say they are voting for regressive candidates because they are tired of Toronto updating location names to include Indigenous language. "These names are unpronounceable." No, they've been pronounced for centuries, you just don't want to learn a new word.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

@telepath.computer I'm loving Television, it would be great if there was an online collection of what people are doing with it so I can be inspired by creative use cases. (I'm sure this is on the roadmap already).

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Kind of want a social network where my friends just post one interesting thing they saw that day in the real world. No screenshots, no infinite scrolls, just a picture of something that captured their attention. Maybe a BeReal without the time-sensitive notification mechanic?

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Just got out of the voting booth for Toronto's city elections. Voting here is so much easier than the US (Texas still hasn't processed the second voter registration form I sent after they removed the one I sent in the spring).

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Also just occurred to me that every candidate on my ballot that I considered was a woman. That's not even a remarkable thing here, which is awesome.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Caught Larry, the derpiest cat on my block, hanging out with these fake cats. He absolutely thought they were real. I love Larry.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

I don’t know that it’s “hick culture,” but this nails my upbringing. The mentality was drilled into me in a fairly upper middle class, well educated family in the suburbs, and took me over 25 years to realize it wasn’t true.

River_Tam@rivertam.bsky.social

I fully believe that this is Wayne's culture, because it's recognizably lower class white culture of the kind that JD Vance correctly excoriated in Hillbilly Elegy. However, it's not American culture or even PMC white culture. It's just hick culture.

Mark Allen
@markallen.io

Funniest example: I was told as a teen not to bother trying to become a not-awful runner because I had “Stinchcomb knees,” which are a made up family affliction based on an 19th century ancestor who looked a little knock-kneed under his thick wool pants in the only known photo of him.